Third Rate ships of 74 guns.

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HMS Goliath (1781)

HMS Goliath was a 74-gun Edgar, or modified Arrogant Class, third-rateship of the line, designed by Slade and ordered on the 21st of February 1778 . M/shipwright Adam Hayes.She was launched on the 19th of October, 1781 at Deptford Dockyard.

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History
Great Britain
Name:	HMS Goliath
Ordered:	21 February 1778
Builder:	Deptford Dockyard
Laid down:	10 April 1779
Launched:	19 October 1781
Honours and awards:	Naval General Service Medal with clasps: "St. Vincent "Nile"
Fate:	Broken up, 1815
General characteristics
Class and type:	Arrogant-classship of the line
Tons burthen:	1604 bm
Length:	168 ft (51 m) (gundeck)
Beam:	46 ft 9 in (14.25 m)
Depth of hold:	19 ft 9 in (6.02 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Complement:	584 officers and men
Armament:	Gundeck: 28 × 32-pounder guns Upper gundeck: 28 × 18-pounder guns QD: 14 × 9-pounder guns Fc: 4 × 9-pounder guns

Commissioned in the October of 1781, in the July of 1783 she was fitted as a guardship at Sheerness.

French Revolutionary Wars.

She is recorded as entering Portsmouth Harbour on the 24th of September,1785 where she was re-bolted between the June of 1786 and the September of 1787. Goliath was under the command of Captain Andrew Snape Douglas from 1790. She is also remarked upon as being at the Tagus on the 21st of December, 1796 under Sir Charles Knowles, on the occasion of the Mediterranean Fleets arrival, and then sailing from thence on the following 20th of January with a Portuguese convoy. On the 6th of February, she was joined off Cape St Vincent by a squadron dispatched from the Channel Fleet, and was present with it at Jervis's action against the Spanish on the 14th of February. She was commanded during this action by Captain Knowles, and lost only eight wounded and no one killed. However, Jervis called Knowles 'an imbecile, totally incompetent; the Goliath no use whatever under his command,' and so after the battle Knowles was ordered to exchange ships with Captain Thomas Foley of Britannia. Foley restored Goliath to order whilst Britannia went into decline under Knowles.
She then sailed on the 31st of March,1797 from Lisbon to blockade duties, and on the 3rd of July bombard Cadiz. She left the Cadiz area on the 24th of May,1798 with a squadron of 10 ships of the line to join Nelson's squadron in the Mediterranean. whilst he was searching for the French fleet transporting Bonaparte to Egypt. Goliath arrived with them on the 7th of June, in good time to be present at the Battle of the Nile on the 1st of August, at which juncture Foley deduced that there was enough room to sail between the shore and the stationary anchored French ships. Four other ships followed his lead, and it was this move that can be said to have won the battle for Nelson. Goliath suffered 21 killed and 41 wounded.
Following the battle, on the 19th of August, Goliath and the ships Zealous, Swiftsure, Seahorse, Emerald, Alcmene, and Bonne Citoyenne left Aboukir Bay to cruise off the port of Alexandria. There, on the 25th of August, her boats captured the French armed ketchTorride from under the guns of Abukir Castle. The Royal Navy took Torride into service,and Goliath remained stationed off Alexandria until at least the end of 1798.

Recommissioned in the June of 1801 under Captain William Essington she sailed for Jamaica in the October of that year.
From the July of 1802 she came under the command of Captain Charles Brisbane.

Napoleonic Wars.

Onthe 27th of January, 1803, during the Blockade of Saint-Domingue, Goliath dispatched a boat which captured a small French schooner that had been on her way from Santiago de Cuba to Port-au-Prince, carrying a cargo of sugar and the sum of over £2000 in species. The schooner was armed with three carriage guns and several swivels.
On the following day, Goliath sailed inshore off the Cape Nicholas Mole, Haiti, to try and find two vessels seen earlier. In the Action of the 28th of June , She encountered and, after a few shots, captured the ship-corvetteMignonne, which the British navy took into service under her French name.

In Brisbane's words, "Mignonne was a remarkable fast sailing Ship Corvette". She carried sixteen long 18-pounder guns, six of which she had landed. Her crew, of only 80 men, were under the command of Monsieur J. P. Bargeaud, Capitaine de Fregate, and she was two days out of Les Cayes, sailing to France via the Cape.
Goliath returned to Britain in the August of 1803.On the 6th of December she recaptured the Liverpool ship Rachael. After arbitration her crew had to share the prize money with HMS Defiance.

As the slaverDiamond was returning from Havana on the 9th of August, she encountered the French privateer Bellona, which took her captive. However, Goliath recaptured Diamond on the 12th and sent her into The Downs.

In the May of 1805 Goliath was a member of the Channel Fleet under Captain Robert Barton, when on the15th of August her lookout spotted four vessels, one to the eastward and three to the westward of her position. Goliath sailed eastward and joined the Camilla, which was in pursuit of the French brig-corvette Faune. Goliath then aided Camilla in the capture the French ship.

On the same day Goliath was joined by the HMS Raisonnable and the two set off after the three sails which she had sighted earlier. They turned out to be the French 44-gun frigateTopaze, the corvettes Department-des-Landes and Torche. Goliath subsequently captured Torche, of 18 guns which was under the command of M. Dehen, with a crew of 196 men. She also had on board as prisoners 52 men from the Blanche. The French flotilla had captured Blanche on the 19th of July, some 150 miles north of Puerto Rico. The Royal Navy took Torche, into service as HMS Torch. She was sister-ship to Mignonne, but she was never commissioned into the Royal Navy.

After being recommissioned in the February of 1807 under Captain Peter Paget, on the 26th of July, Goliath sailed as a part of a fleet of 38 vessels for Copenhagen and was present, from the 15th of August to the 20th of October in that year, for the siege and bombardment of Copenhagen, and the capture of the Danish Fleet by Admiral Gambier.

She was active from the May to October of 1808 in the Baltic with a fleet under Vice-Admiral Sir J Saumarez, being chased on the19th of August by the entire Russian fleet in Hango Bay. On the 30th of August she got he revenge when she joined Centaur, Implacable and the Swedish fleet blockading the Russians in the port of Rogerswick.


Laid up at Chatham in the November of 1808 and then at Portsmouth in 1812 she was cut down to a Fourth Rate 58 gun Frigate. Early in 1813 she was recommissioned under Captain Frederick Maitland for service in the West Indies.


Fate.

She then sailed for home, arriving in Portsmouth on the 25th of July, 1813 and departing only 15 days later with another West Indiesconvoy, calling at Falmouth on the 15th of August, and then Cork. She escorted the convoy across the Irish Sea, before heading back to Portsmouth, where she arrived on the 14th of August 1814, the Downs on the day following, and then onto the naval base at Chatham, where, on the 3rd of October she was paid off.
She was broken up there in the June of 1815.

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HMS Hannibal (1786)





HMS Hannibal was a Slade designed modified Culloden Class 74-gun third-rate ship of the line,ordered on the 19^th of June,1782,and built by Perry and Co at Blackwall. She was launched on 15 April 1786, and was named after the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca.

History
Great Britain
Name:	HMS Hannibal
Ordered:	19 June 1782
Builder:	Perry, Blackwall Yard
Laid down:	April 1783
Launched:	15 April 1786
Honours and awards:	Participated in: First Battle of Algeciras
Captured:	6 July 1801 by the French at the First Battle of Algeciras
France
Name:	Annibal
Acquired:	6 July 1801
General characteristics
Class and type:	Culloden-class ship of the line
Tons burthen:	1619​57⁄94 (bm)
Length:	170 ft (51.8 m) (gundeck)
Beam:	47 ft 6 3⁄4 in (14.5 m)
Depth of hold:	20 ft 0 in (6.1 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Armament:	· Gundeck: 28 × 32-pounder guns · Upper gundeck: 28 × 18-pounder guns · QD: 14 × 9-pounder guns · Fc: 4 × 9-pounder guns

Early service.



Fitted out and coppered at Woolwich between the 28^th of April and the August of 1786,Hannibal was commissioned in the August of 1787 under Captain Richard Boger. She was paid off two months later and fitted for service in the Channel at Plymouth.



In the May of 1790 Hannibal was recommissioned under Captain John Colpoys for the Spanish Armament She was recommissioned in the August of 1791 for service as a guardship at Plymouth. When war with France became increasing likely towards end of 1792 the guardships at the three naval seaports were ordered to rendezvous at Spithead. Hannibal and the other Plymouth-based ships left on the 11^th of December and arrived at Spithead on the next day. The guardships from the other ports took longer to arrive.

On the 15^th of February, 1793 she and HMS Hector left on a cruise during which at some point they pursued two French frigates. They captured a French merchant ship, Etoille du Matin, on the 23^rd of February. They were then fitted for service in the West Indies and on the 24^th of March left for the Leeward Islands with the fleet under Rear-Admiral Sir Alan Gardner. Hannibal returned to Britain in early 1794, and underwent fitting at Plymouth from March to December of that year, having been recommissioned by Captain John Markham who took command of her during the August. On the 10^th of April, 1795 Rear-Admiral Colpoys, while cruising with a squadron composed of five ships of the line and three frigates, chased three French frigates. HMS Colossus got within gunshot of one of them and opened fire, at which the frigates took different courses. HMS Robust and Hannibal pursued two; the 32-gun fifth-rate frigate HMS Astraea pursued and captured the 36-gun Gloire after an hour-long fight at the Action of the 10^th of April, 1795. On the following day Hannibal captured the French 36-gun frigate Gentille, but the Fraternité escaped. Gentille lost eight men killed and fifteen wounded; Hannibal had four men wounded. The Royal Navy took Gentille into service. Ten British warships, Hannibal being one of them, shared in the proceeds of the recapture of the Caldicot Castle on the 28^th of March of that year, and the capture on the 30^th of March of the French privateer corvette Jean Bart. The Navy took Jean Bart into service as HMS Arab.

On the 14^th of May, Hannibal sailed for Jamaica where On the 21^st of October, whilst still on the West Indies station, she captured the 8-gun French privateer schooner Grand Voltigeur. Three days later she also captured the 12-gun French privateer Convention. On the 13^th of November she captured the French privateer Petit Tonnerre. Markham left Hannibal in December, and was superseded in January 1796, by Captain T. Lewie.



On 27 January, Hannibal and HMS Sampson captured the privateer Alerte which was armed with 14 guns and Sampson was the actual captor.
After Lewie’s death in Jamaica on the 16^th of July, the command passed to Captain Joseph Bingham. Captain Robert Campbell assumed command in April 1798. Then In September Captain John Elphinstone. Captain E.T. Smith followed him in October, and remained in command until 1800, when Captain John Loring replaced him, only to pay Hannibal off later that year.



Defeat and loss.



Captain Solomon Ferris recommissioned her in March 1801, and under his command she sailed from Spithead on 6 June. She joined Rear-Admiral Sir James Saumarez in Cawsand Bay on the 12^th of June, ready to sail for the Mediterranean.


On the morning of the 6^th of July Saumarez's squadron of six line-of-battle ships attacked the French Admiral Linois's three line-of-battle ships and a frigate in Algeciras Bay. Hannibal was the last in and she anchored ahead of HMS Caesar, Saumarez's flagship. From there she fired broadsides for about an hour. At about 10 o'clock Ferris Saumarez ordered Hannibal to cut her cables and move to support HMS Pompee by engaging Formidable, Linois's flagship. As Hannibal maneuvered, the variable winds pushed her into shoal water and she grounded. Still, from his immobile position, Ferris maintained fire on Formidable with those of his forward guns that could bear on her; the other guns fired at the town, batteries and gunboats. Saumarez sent boats from Caesar and HMS Venerable to assist Hannibal but a shot demolished Caesar's pinnace; Ferris then used one of his own cutters to send them back to Caesar. At about 1:30pm the British ships withdrew to Gibraltar, leaving Hannibal immobile and unsupported.



Ferris consulted with his officers and decided that further resistance was pointless and that the only way to save the lives of the remaining crew was for Hannibal to strike. By this point Hannibal's fire had dwindled to almost nothing so Ferris ordered his men to shelter below decks. He then signaled capitulation by hoisting Hannibal's ensign upside down. The battle had cost Hannibal 75 men killed, 62 wounded and six missing.

Commander George Dundas, deceived by a signal from Hannibal, sent boats from HMS Calpe to save Hannibal's crew. The French detained the boats and their crews, including Calpe's lieutenant, T. Sykes; after firing several broadsides at the enemy's shipping and batteries, Calpe returned to Gibraltar. The French and Spanish were unable to repair Hannibal quickly enough for her to take part in the eventual defeat of the Franco-Spanish squadron at the Second Battle of Algeciras several days later.



Sir James Saumarez then arranged to exchange the men from St Antoine, which the British had captured in the second part of the battle, for the men from Hannibal and Calpe. A court martial on HMS Gladiator in Portsmouth on 1 September honourably acquitted Captain Ferris, his officers and crew for the loss of their ship.

French service.

The French renamed Hannibal Annibal. In November 1801 HMS Racoon convoyed the Straits fleet to Gibraltar, arriving there on the 16^th of November. On the way they encountered dreadful weather in the Bay of Biscay. While Racoon was nearing Brest, she observed Hannibal and Speedy underway. Both former Royal Navy vessels were under jury-masts and French colours. Later, on the 9^th of February,1802, Annibal along with Intrépide and Formidable, sailed from Cadiz for Toulon where she underwent a refit between March and June.



Annibal then served in the French Navy until 1821 (undergoing a further refit at Toulon during 1809). She was partly re-armed in 1806, with one pair of upper deck guns being removed, and sixteen 32-pounder carronades replacing ten of her 9-pounder guns. In the May of 1807, the 38-gun frigate HMS Spartan encountered Annibal, two frigates (Pomone and Incorruptible), and the corvette Victorieuse off Cabrera in the Mediterranean but escaped.

Fate.

In January 1821 Annibal became a hulk at Toulon, and was broken up in 1824.





HMS Hannibal (left foreground) lies aground and dismasted at the First Battle of Algeciras

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HMS Hector (1774)



HMS Hector was a Royal Oak Class 74-gun third rateship of the line designed by Sir John Williams, ordered on the 14^th of January 1771 and built by Henry Adams and John Barnard at Deptford. launched on the 27^th of May, 1774 at Deptford.

History
GREAT BRITAIN
Name:	HMS Hector
Ordered:	14 January 1771
Builder:	Adams, Deptford
Laid down:	April 1771
Launched:	27 May 1774
Honours and awards:	Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Egypt"
Fate:	Broken up, 1816
General characteristics
Class and type:	Royal Oak-classship of the line
Tons burthen:	1622 (bm)
Length:	168 ft 6 in (51.36 m) (gundeck)
Beam:	46 ft 9 in (14.25 m)
Depth of hold:	20 ft (6.1 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Armament:	·Gundeck: 28 × 32-pounder guns ·Upper gundeck: 28 × 18-pounder guns ·QD: 14 × 9-pounder guns ·Fc: 4 × 9-pounder guns

Career.


HMS Hector was commissioned in the November of 1776,coppered and fitted out at Portsmouth in the April of 1779.

During the Hurricane of 1780 she was somewhat damaged.


HMS Hector and Bristol in distress during the Great Hurricane of 1780



Paid off in the September of 1782 after wartime service she underwent some further repairs, and inthe Octber of that year was fitted as a guardship at Portsmouth. Recommissioned in the April of 1783 under Captain Sir John Hamilton she continued in her role as a guardship, and later under Captain Sir George Collier until 1786.
After more repairs in 1787 she was recommissioned in the September of 1790 under Captain George Montagu and sailed for the Leeward Islands on the 24^th of March 1793.


Going aboard Hector in 1791

By the June of that year she was at Martinique and came under the command of Captain Lawrence Halstead, as the Flagship of the now Rear-Admiral Montague in the September of that same year. Hector returned to Portsmouth in December for a much needed refit, and was paid off in the August of 1794, now under Captain Cuthbert Collingwood. Recommissioned in the December of that year under Captain Robert Montagu, she became the Flagship of Rear–Admiral Lord Hugh Seymour until the start of 1796.



In the February of 1796 she underwent the first of two refits until in the October of 1797 she set sail for the Med under Captain Peter Apton. She remained here late into 1799 now under the command of Captain Robert Campbell, and then returned to Portsmouth for another refit.
In the beginning of 1801 she joined Warren’s Squadron under Captain John Elphinstone. On the 9^th of May, Hector, Kent, and Cruelle unsuccessfully chased the French corvette Heliopolis, which eluded them and slipped into Alexandria. Because Hector served in the navy's Egyptian campaign (8 March to 8 September 1801), her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal that the Admiralty authorised in 1850 for all surviving claimants.



Fate.



In 1802, under Captain William Skipsey Hector was paid off and laid up at Plymouth, where she was converted for use as a prison ship under Lt. Edmond Nepean in 1808, and then under Lieutenants. Lighterness and Elers until she was finally broken up in 1816.

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HMS Illustrious (1789)

HMS Illustrious was an Edgar class, (modified Arrogant class) 74-gun third rateship of the line, ordered on the 31st of December 1781, built by Henry Adams, and launched on the 7^th of July, 1789 at Bucklers Hard.

Model of HMS Illustrious at Buckler's Hard Maritime Museum

History
Great Britain
Name:	HMS Illustrious
Ordered:	31 December 1781
Builder:	Adams, Bucklers Hard
Laid down:	September 1784
Launched:	7 July 1789
Fate:	Wrecked, 1795
Notes:	·Participated in: ·Battle of Genoa
General characteristics
Class and type:	Edgar classship of the line
Tons burthen:	1615 ​51⁄94 tonnes burthen
Length:	168 ft 2 in (51.26 m) (gundeck)
Beam:	46 ft 11 in (14.30 m)
Draught:	12 ft 6 in (3.81 m)
Depth of hold:	19 ft 9 in (6.02 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Armament:	·74 guns: ·Gundeck: 28 × 32 pdrs ·Upper gundeck: 28 × 18 pdrs ·Quarterdeck: 14 × 9 pdrs ·Forecastle: 4 × 9 pdrs

Service.

Commissioned in the May of 1790 under Captain Alexander Edgar for the Spanish service, she was recommissioned in the March of 1791 under Captain Captain Charles Pole for the Russian Armament but was again paid off in the September of that year.



Having been refitted at Plymouth in the March of 1793 under Captain Thomas Frederick, she sailed for the Med on the 22^nd of May. Between the 29^th of August and the 19^th of December Illustrious was involved in the Siege of Toulon.


In the action off Genoa on the 13^th of March 1795, she earned a Battle Honour. During the battle, in which Captain Nelson aboard Agamemnon captured Ça Ira. Illustrious was badly damaged in the engagement with the van of the French fleet, having also lost 20 killed and 70 wounded.

Loss.

After the battle, Meleager was towing Illustrious when she broke free of her tow. Then the accidental firing of a lower deck gun damaged the ship so that she took on water. On the 18^th of March, she attempted to anchor in Valence Bay (between Spezia and Leghorn) to ride out the bad weather that had descended upon her. Her cables broke, however, and she struck on rocks and had to be abandoned. Lowestoffe and Tarleton took off her stores, and all her crew were saved. Her abandoned hull was then burnt on the 28^th of March, 1795.

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HMS Invincible (1765)

HMS Invincible was a 74-gun Ramillies class third-rate ship of the line, ordered on the 12^th of October 1761and built by John and William Wells and company at Deptford. She was launched on the 9^th of March,1765.

Ramillies Class /Invincible
History.
GREAT BRITAIN
Name:	HMS Invincible
Ordered:	12th of October 1761
Builder:	Wells, Deptford
Launched:	9 March 1765
Fate:	Wrecked, 16 March 1801
Notes:	Participated in: Battle of Cape St. Vincent Battle of the Chesapeake Battle of St. Kitts Glorious First of June
General characteristics
Class and type:	Ramillies-class ship of the line
Tons burthen:	1630
Length:	168 ft 6 in (51.36 m) (gundeck)
Beam:	47 ft 3 in (14.30 m)
Depth of hold:	19 ft 9 in (6.02 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Armament:	74 guns: Gundeck: 28 × 32 pdrs Upper gundeck: 28 × 18 pdrs Quarterdeck: 14 × 9 pdrs Forecastle: 4 × 9 pdrs

Built during a period of peace to replace ships worn out in the recently concluded Seven Years' War, Invincible was first sent to Sheerness on the 6^th of April 1765, before being commissioned in the November of 1766, under Captain Hyde Parker, and thence to Portsmouth for coppering between the April and May of 1779. Recommissioned under Captain Anthony Parry, she was dispatched to serve in the American War of Independence, under Captain John Laforey, fighting at the battles of Cape St Vincent on the 16^th of January,1780 under Captain S Cornish, with a total of three killed and four wounded.

Richard Bickerton became her captain at the start of 1781, and then under the command of Captain Charles Saxton, the Battles of the Chesapeake on the 5^th of September of that year, with no casualties, Then at the battle of St. Kitts in the January of,1782, still under Saxton she suffered only two wounded.


Battle of St. Kitts 1782

On her return to Plymouth she went into ordinary in the February of 1784. And in the November of 1788 underwent a large repair at Chatham.

She survived the cull of the Navy during the next period of peace, and was recommissioned under Captain Thomas Pakenham in the May of 1793 for service in Howe’s Fleet. She was present, still under Pakenham’s command, at the battle of the Glorious First of June off Ushant on the first of June,1794, where she was badly damaged and lost fourteen men killed and thirty one wounded, and then, under the command of William Cayley, went on to the Invasion of Trinidad in (1797), which resulted in the transfer of Trinidad from Spain to Great Britain.

Shipwreck.



The loss of HMS Invincible

In the February of 1801 she was appointed a new captain, one John Rennie. On the 16^th of March of that year, she was lost in a shipwreck off the coast of Norfolk, England. She had been sailing from Yarmouth under the flag of Rear-Admiral Thomas Totty in an effort to reach the fleet of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker in the Sound preparing for the upcoming attack on the Danish fleet, with approximately 650 people on board. As the ship passed the Norfolk coast, she was caught in heavy wind and stuck on the Hammond Knoll Rock off Happisburgh, where she was pinned for some hours in the afternoon before breaking free but immediately being grounded on a sandbank, where the effect of wind and waves tore down the masts and began to break up the ship. She remained in that position for all of the following day, but late in the evening drifted off the sandbank and sank in deep water.

The admiral and 195 sailors escaped the wreck, either in one of the ship's boats or were picked up by a passing collier and fishing boat, but over 400 of their shipmates drowned in the disaster, most of them once the ship began to sink into the deeper water.
The compulsory court martial investigating the incident, held on Ruby in Sheerness, absolved the admiral and the captain, posthumously, of any culpability in the disaster, blaming the harbour pilot and the ship's master, both of whom had been engaged to steer the ship through the reefs and shoals of the dangerous region, and should have known the location of Hammond Knoll, especially since it was daytime and in sight of land.

The remains of many of her crew were located by chance in a mass grave in Happisburgh churchyard during the digging of a new drainage channel. A memorial stone was erected in 1998 to their memory by the Ship's Company of the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Invincible, and by the Happisburgh parochial church council.

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HMS Irresistible (1782)

HMS Irresistible was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line ordered on the 5^th of July, 1777, built by John Barnard at Harwich who became bankrupt in the March of 1781. The ship was thus completed by his assignees, Wm Barnard and Co., being launched on 6 December 1782.

History
GREAT BRITAIN
Name:	HMS Irresistible
Ordered:	8 July 1778
Builder:	Barnard, Harwich
Laid down:	October 1778
Launched:	6 December 1782
Fate:	Broken up, 1806
Notes:	Participated in: Battle of Groix Battle of Cape St Vincent
General characteristics
Class and type:	Albion-class ship of the line
Tons burthen:	1643 (bm)
Length:	168 ft (51 m) (gundeck)
Depth of hold:	18 ft 10 in (5.74 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Armament:	Gundeck: 28 × 32-pounder guns Upper gundeck: 28 × 18-pounder guns QD: 14 × 9-pounder guns Fc: 4 × 9-pounder guns

Career.

Her first role was as a guardship for Chatham from the September of 1787.
Fitted out at Sheerness in the August of 1793 having been commissioned under Captain John Henry, she sailed for the Leeward Islands on the 24^th of November in that year.

She was at Martinique by the 2^nd of February 1794, and assigned to Ford’s Squadron at Port–au-Prince in the May of that year. Late in the winter under Captain John Leigh Douglas she was paid off. Recommissioned in December under Captain Richard Grindall, Irresistible returned to Plymouth for a refit in the June of 1795.

On the 23^rd of that month she was involved in Bridport’s action, at the Battle of Groix, with 3 killed and 11 wounded including Grindall himself. From that time she came under the command of Captain George Martin and sailed for the Med on the 1st of January 1797.

Irresistible captured the French privateer Quatre frères in the April of that year. (The Royal Navy later took her into service as HMS Transfer.) Irresistible then joined Jervis’s fleet on the 6^th of February, and on the 14^th was involved in the Battle of Cape St Vincent. From the 15^th until mid March she served as the Flagship of Commodore Horatio Nelson.

In concert with HMS Emerald, she and captured the Spanish 34 gun frigate La Ninfa, and destroyed the Santa Elena in an Action on the 26^th of April, 1797.

She came under the command of Captain Robert Pamplin in the March of 1798, and then under Captain William Owen until paid off in the August of that year.

Fate.

After repairs at Chatham, in the April of 1801 she was recommissioned under Captain William Bligh, for service in the North sea, coming under the command of Captain Christopher Parker. Fitted at Chatham in September 1803 for the final time, Irresistible was broken up in the September of 1806.

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HMS Leviathan (1790)



HMS Leviathan was a Carnatic Class, 3rd rate, 74 gun ship of the line of the Common Type, ordered on the 9^th of December 1779, and built in the Royal Dockyard, Chatham, by M/shipwright Nicholas Phillips to the July of 1790 and completed by John Nelson. She was launched there on the 9^th of October of that year.

History
GREAT BRITAIN
Name:	HMS Leviathan
Ordered:	9 December 1779
Builder:	Chatham Dockyard
Laid down:	May 1782
Launched:	9 October 1790
Honours and awards:	·Participated in: ·Battle of Trafalgar
Fate:	Sold and broken up, 1848
General characteristics
Class and type:	Carnatic classship of the line
Tons burthen:	1707​89⁄94 (bm)
Length:	172 ft 3 in (52.50 m) (gundeck)
Beam:	47 ft 10 in (14.55 m)
Depth of hold:	20 ft 9 in (6.3 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Armament:	·74 guns: ·Gundeck: 28 × 32 pdrs ·Upper gundeck: 28 × 18 pdrs ·Quarterdeck: 14 × 9 pdrs ·Forecastle: 4 × 9 pdrs

Career.

HMS Leviathan was commissioned in the January of 1793 under Captain Hugh Conway and fitted at Sheerness until the April of that year. On the 22^nd of May she sailed for the Med and with the aid of HMS Colossus took the French Privateer Le Vrai Patriot in the July of that year. By October she was under the command of Captain Benjamin hallowell at Toulon, and then returned to Portsmouth for a refit in the April of 1794.

Her next action saw her at the Battle of the Glorious First of June, off Ushant under Captain Lord Hugh Seymour, losing ten killed and thirty three wounded.
In 1795 her Captain was Captain John Duckworth under whom she sailed to the Caribbean and Jamaica on the 14^th of May of that year.



In 1796 she was at Leogane on the 23^rd of March, and thence returned to Plymouth for a refit completed in the August of 1797, when she came under the Captaincy of Joseph Bingham on the the Irish station, with Duckworth flying his broad pennant aboard her.

On the 10^th of September in that year, Leviathan, Pompee, Anson, Melpomene, and Childers shared in the proceeds of the capture of the Tordenskiold.



Later whilst under the command of Captain Henry Digby, on the 2^nd of June,1798, she sailed once again for the Med. She was at the capture of Minorca in the November of that year, and in February 1799 was made Flagship of the now Rear Admiral Duckworth, Captain James May. He was superceeded by Captain James Carpenter who commanded her at the blockade of Cadiz, where she took, with the aid of HMS Emerald, the 36 gun ships Carmen and Florentina on the 7^th of April 1800. In June under Commander Edward D King she sailed for the leeward Islands, and then in 1801, sailed firstly under Commander Christopher Cole, and in 1802 Captain Richard Dunn still in the role of Duckworth’s Flagship. She was paid off in the December of 1803 for a much needed refit at Portsmouth, and recommissioned in the January of 1804 under Captain Henry Bayntun.

She sailed for the Med on the 26^th of April in time to take part in the blockade of Toulon, and then in Nelson’s chase of Gantheaume to the West Indies .

At the Battle of Trafalgar still under Henry William Bayntun, she was near the front of the weather column led by Admiral Lord Nelson himself, aboard his flagship, HMS Victory, and captured the Spanish ship San Augustin. During the battle she lost four killed and twenty two wounded. A flag said to have been flown by the Leviathan at Trafalgar was sold at auction by Arthur Cory in March 2016. Bayntun is thought to have given it to his friend the Duke of Clarence (later William IV), who then gave it to Arthur Cory's direct ancestor Nicholas Cory, a senior officer on William's royal yacht HMS Royal Sovereign, in thanks for helping the yacht win a race and a bet.



After repairs at Plymouth n 1808 she was recommissioned under Captain John Harvey and returned to the Med. On the 7^th of February, 1809 Leviathan was serving in Martin’s squadron, and on the 23^rd of October of that year she was in the attack on Baudin’s convoy. On the 25^th the 80 gun Robuste, and 74 gun Le Lion were run ashore and burnt near Frontignan.

In the August of 1811 under Captain Patrick Campbell, Leviathan’s boats attacked shipping near Frejus.


On 27 June 1812, Leviathan, HMS Imperieuse, HMS Curacoa and HMS Eclair attacked an 18-strong French convoy at Laigueglia and Alassio in Liguria, northern Italy.



Attack on convoy of eighteen French merchant ships at Laigrelia, 1812

In 1814 she was again on the Jamaica station under Captain Adam Drummond and in April of that year at Lisbon under Captain Thomas Briggs. Thence back to the Med until 1816 when she was paid off.

Fate.

With the end of the Napoleonic Wars, in the October of 1816 at Portsmouth she was converted into a prison ship, was scuttled there as a target ship in 1846 and in 1848 was sold to a Mr Burns and broken up.