HMS Elephant (1786)
HMS Elephant was another of the modified Arrogant Class 74-gun, third-rateships of the line. Ordered on the 9th of August, 1781,she was built by George Parsons in Bursledon, Hampshire, and launched on the 24th of August, 1786.
History
GREAT BRITAIN
Name:
HMS Elephant
Ordered:
27 December 1781
Builder:
George Parsons, Bursledon
Laid down:
February 1783 Launched:
24 August 1786
Honours and
awards:
- Participated in:
- Battle of Copenhagen (1801)
Fate:
Broken up, 1830
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
Armament:
Elephant was commissioned the June of 1790 by Captain Charles Thompson for the Spanish Armament.
She sailed from Portsmouth on the third of August of that year. In late November the ship narrowly avoided destruction when lightning struck her after she had returned to Portsmouth harbour. The main topmast exploded but did not plunge through the quarterdeck as it was still held by the top rope.
By the October of 1793 she was back in harbour again and reduced to ordinary needing repairs which may have occupied her for the next few years but this period went unrecorded. She was fitted once again between the August of 1799 and the March of 1800, when she was recommissioned under Captain Thomas Foley as the Flagship of Rear Admiral Sir Charles Cotton.
In 1801 Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson chose Elephant as his flagship during the Battle of Copenhagen due to its suitability for the shallow waters there. It was on this ship that he is said to have put his telescope to his blind eye and claimed not to be able to see a signal ordering him to withdraw.
HMS Monarch in the lead, with Elephant close behind forcing the Passage of the Sound, 30 March 1801, prior to the Battle of Copenhagen.
During the battle Elephant suffered only nine killed, with fifteen wounded.
From the June of 1801 she came under the command of Captain George Dundas and sailed for Jamaica in the October of that year. In mid-1803, the squadron in the West Indies under Captain Henry William Bayntun, consisting of Cumberland, Hercule, Bellerophon, Elephant, and Vanguard captured Poisson Volant and Superieure. The Royal Navy took both into service.
The ship paid off in the January of 1805 for a refit at Chatham.In the May of 1805 still under Dundas she recommissioned for North Sea service, and sailed for the Leeward Islands on the 4th of May.1806.
The ship next participated in the Blockade of Saint-Domingue. The British patrolled off Cap-François. On the 24th of July 1807 the squadron, made up of Bellerophon, Elephant, under temporary Commander George Morris, HMS Theseus, and HMS Vanguard, came across two French 74-gun ships, Duquesne and Duguay-Trouin, and the frigate Guerrière, attempting to escape from Cap-François. The squadron gave chase, and on the 25th overhauled and captured Duquesne after a few shots were fired, while Duguay-Trouin and Guerrière managed to evade their pursuers and escape to France. One man was killed aboard Bellerophon during the pursuit. Elephant remained blockading Cap-François until November, when the French commander of the garrison there, General Rochambeau, was forced to surrender.
To prevent Rochambeau escaping, launches from Bellerophon and Elephant went into the Caracol Passage where they cut out the French schooner Découverte between the 22nd and the 23rd of November. The French formally surrendered on 30th of November.
Between the April of 1809 and the July of 1811 Elephant underwent a series large and middling repairs. recommissioned under Captain Francis Austen, on the 28th of December, 1812 whilst in company with Hermes she took the US 12 gun Privateer Swordfish.
She then returned to Portsmouth where between the February of 1817 and the March of 1818 she was cut down to a 58 gun Fourth Rate frigate.
Drawing showing the inboard profile for Elephant as cut down to a 58-gun ship 1817–1818
Fate.
Never recommissioned she was broken up in the November of1830.
Bookmarks