PHILIP DE CARTERET R.N.

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Born at Trinity Manor, Jersey, in 1733, from his earliest age Philip De Carteret determined on a career in the Royal Navy. He made his first circumnavigation 1764-1766 as First Lieutenant on the Dolphin under the command of Captain John Byron.Within six weeks of their return Carteret was placed in command of the Swallow and Captain Wallis the Dolphin, with instructions from the Admiralty to discover ‘a Place of consequence in the South Seas’.The disparity between the two the copper-bottomed Dolphin and the lumbering and ill-equipped Swallow, described by Carteret as ‘one of the worst, if not the very worst of her kind; in his Majesty’s Navy’ had inevitable consequences and the two ships became separated after leaving the Straits of Magellan.Undeterred, Carteret sailed on into the unknown and discovered and named some twenty islands, an achievement which, according to the The Guinness Book of Maritime Records, should have led him to be ‘ranked as one of the greatest explorers of his yet, unjustly, his name is seldom remembered’.