Moctezuma (ship)

The Moctezuma (also Montezuma) was a 200 tons sloop of the First Chilean Navy Squadron of unknown provenience.

A ship under this name is mentioned as a British whaler captured in April by Captain David Porter on board of the USS Essex (1799) during his raid to the South Pacific Ocean in 1813. The Moctezuma, it is believed, was sold at Valpariaso.

The known story begin during the first blockade of Callao by the Chilean Squadron 1819. On 24. March 1819 the warships under the command of Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald captured the Moctezuma. as she, with a US-flag, tried to broke the blockade and deliver weapons to the realists.

She participated in the Capture of Valdivia and in the Freedom Expedition of Perú as Dispatch boat. She was left in Callao, but as Cochrane arrived (1822) to the port, he found the Moctezuma under the flag of the new Peruvian Navy. He seized the ship, again, and put the officers ashore. He didn't know that during his absence Bernardo O'Higgins had given the sloop to San Martin as a personal present.

Later she was commissioned for use of Cochrane, now under the command of Lieutenat John Pascoe Grenfell and 18. January 1823 Cochrane's flag as Vice Admiral of Chile was lowered for the last time from the main mast of the Moctezuma.

She was sold as merchant ship in 1828.