HMS Guardian struck an iceberg southeast of the Cape of Good Hope in December 1789 while carrying supplies and convicts to New South Wales. Although many abandoned ship, Lieutenant Edward Riou and a reduced crew kept the badly damaged vessel afloat. Guardian eventually reached Table Bay but could not be restored to service.

Riou's endurance was celebrated by Erasmus Darwin in verse and became part of the period's poetry of courage, providence and navigation. The incident offered poets an unusual counter-image to shipwreck: a vessel apparently doomed but preserved through disciplined collective labour.