The Case of the Two 'Collinas'

I have been busy this week finding out what I can about William Read's Colina. I was surprised to find, when reading Hugh Moffatt's Ships and Shipyards of Ipswich, that he spelt the name of Read's deliberately-sunk ship as 'Collina', not 'Colina' as it appeared in the Nautical Magazine's 1844 account of the trial of William Read and the Colina's master, William Simpson. Hugh Moffat quoted from a number of local Ipswich sources such as the Ipswich Journal, so it seemed likely that his spelling would be right; so how did the High Court and the Nautical Magazine get the spelling wrong?

On-line searches found a brig called the Collina sailing between Canada and Bideford in Devon. At first she seemed, from the dates of her voyages, to be the ship that Read later bought, but further in the records I found this ship sailing the Atlantic when William Read already owned a 'Colina/Collina' at Ipswich. Later, Gary Carroll of Canada pointed out that the Bideford Collina was lost on about the 16th November 1840, sailing from Prince Edward Island to Bideford. It is recorded that she 'drove ashore near London...' and '...the whole of her crew, except two, were drowned.'

As Read's Colina/Collina was lost off Holland in 1841 they must obviously be different ships. At Google Books, a reference to Read's Collina (spelt 'Reed') shows that she was also built at Prince Edward Island, but in 1827. It is interesting, if confusing, that two ships could have been built in close proximity and be given the same name.

The Nautical Magazine's spelling 'Colina' could be explained by them transcribing speech, though they also made a mistake with the name of Read's lawyer, calling him 'Cobbs' rather than Cobbold', but how does this explain the use of 'Colina' in the printed version of William Simpson's indictment in official court records?

See http://www.lostbrig.net/brig_collina_colina.html for more detail.