3rd Rate ships of the Royal Navy. 1793 to 1815.

[Bligh]

HMS Victorious (1808)





HMS Victorious.



HMS Victorious was a Swiftsure Class 74-gun third rate ship of the line, designed by Sir John Henslow, and ordered on the 7th of November,1802.She was built by Balthazar and Edward Adams at Buckler’s hard.Her keel was laidin the February of 1805, and she was launched on the 20th of October,1808, just five years after the previous HMS Victorious had been broken up. She was completed and fitted out at Portsmouth between the november of 1808 and the March of 1809.

History
Name:	HMS Victorious
Ordered:	21 December 1803
Builder:	Adams, Bucklers Hard
Laid down:	February 1805
Launched:	20 October 1808
Fate:	Sold, 1862
General characteristics
Class and type:	Swiftsure class 3rd rate ship of the line
Tons burthen:	1724​6⁄94 (bm)
Length:	173 ft (53 m) (gundeck)
Beam:	47 ft 6 in (14.48 m)
Depth of hold:	20 ft 9 in (6.32 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Armament:	·74 guns: ·Gundeck: 28 × 32 pdrs ·Upper gundeck: 28 × 18 pdrs ·Quarterdeck: 4 × 12 pdrs, 10 × 32 pdr carronades ·Forecastle: 2 × 12 pdrs, 2 × 32 pdr carronades ·Poop deck: 6 × 18 pdr carronades

Service.


HMS Victorious was commissioned under Captain George Hammond in the December of 1808.


Her first action came the year after her launch, as part of the Baltic Squadron, in which she assisted in the bombardment of the port of Flushing (Vlissingen) in what is now the Netherlands. The naval bombardment was just a part of a much larger operation; the land force consisted of some 30,000 men, and the objectives were simply to assist the Austrians by invading the Low Countries and to destroy the French Fleet at their believed location of Flushing.


The town of Flushing was actually seized, but the whole invasion soon became irrelevant and pointless, for the French Fleet had actually escaped to the port of Antwerp, and the Austrians had been defeated and were negotiating peace with the French. Over 4,000 British soldiers were killed during the expedition, 106 due to combat, the rest because of an illness known as Walcheren Fever.


From the October of 1809 until 1814 she came under the command of Captain John Talbot and she sailed for the Med on the 20th of November in that year.


Her deployment to the Mediterranean saw Victorious engage in her first skirmish against a French warship. On the 22nd of February,1812, she was in in the northern Adriatic Sea during Battle of Pirano, and came up against the French 74 gun ship Rivoli, which was eventually defeated by her with the aid of Weazel, with many of Rivoli’s crew being killed and wounded. Rivoli was captured once the skirmish came to an end and she later served in action as a Royal Navy warship against her old masters, the French. In the fight Victorious won her first battle honour.





Th e capture of Rivoli, 22 February 1812


Following this battle, in late summer, Victorious sailed for North America and by the 12th of October she was at 44°33′N 12°10′W. escorting a 30-vessel West Indies-bound convoy.
Victorious then served as part of Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn's fleet in Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812. She participated in the blockade of the Elizabeth River, keeping USS Constellation at her berth in Norfolk, Virginia during the conflict.


Fate.

On her return to England Victorious was decommissioned and placed in ordinary at Portsmouth Dockyard on the 3rd of April, 1815. She was returned to service as a receiving ship between the April and May of 1826, and broken up at Portsmouth with its completion being on the 21st of December,1861.