Piedmont

The final voyage

Piedmont was one of more than 200 transports carrying some 16,000 troops in Rear-Admiral Sir Hugh Christian's squadron, which sailed from St Helens on 16 November 1795 bound for the West Indies. Caught by a severe gale off Portland the next day, six transports were driven ashore and wrecked on Chesil Beach, with contemporary accounts recording 234 bodies recovered immediately and a toll rising toward 1,600 across the whole disaster by the following week [1](https://heritage.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/Monument/MWX1846).

Of the 157 people recorded aboard Piedmont specifically, only 18 troops and seamen survived; the master and 138 others were lost, with the wreck driven ashore near Chickerell [1](https://heritage.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/Monument/MWX1846). Contemporary reports also describe local Portlanders being more occupied with plundering wreckage than with rescuing the drowning, a detail recorded in a 1796 Weymouth pamphlet on the disaster [2](https://heritage.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/Source/SDO1).

What was aboard

No specie or treasure manifest is documented for this ship. She is known only from documentary sources as a troop transport; this report corrects the description sometimes given of coinage recovered specifically from Piedmont, for which no supporting record was found.

Troops and seamen: 157 people recorded aboard, of whom 18 survived; part of the wider embarkation for Christian's West Indies expedition.

Military stores: Ordinary equipment and provisions of a troop transport bound for Caribbean service, as expected for the expedition, though not itemized in the sources reviewed.

How to collect

Correct the scale of the loss: Any material described as from 'the Piedmont disaster' with a casualty figure near 250 conflates the ship's own toll (139 of 157) with the far larger multi-ship disaster total; verify which figure a claim refers to.

Do not expect specie: No coin cargo is documented for this ship specifically; period coin recovered from Chesil Beach shingle is not automatically attributable to Piedmont among the six wrecked transports.

Check findspot precision: The wreck's location is only approximate in the official record, so precise 'exact wreck site' claims should be treated cautiously.

Corroborate with Dorset Heritage Explorer records: This is the primary institutional source for the ship and should be checked against any dealer narrative.