HMS Dictator (1783)
HMS Dictator was a John Williams designed Inflexible Class 64 gun third rate ship of the line, built by Robert Batson at Limehouse. Ordered on the 21st of October, 1778, and laid down in the the May of 1780, she was launched on the 6th of January, 1783 and completed on the 30th of May in that year at Woolwich.
A plan, showing the body, sheer lines, with inboard detail, and longitudinal half breadth of HMS Dictator which may represent her as built in 1783.
. History GREAT BRITAIN Name: HMS Dictator Ordered: 21 October 1778 Builder: Batson, Limehouse Laid down: May 1780 Launched: 6 January 1783 Honours and
awards:
- Naval General Service Medal with clasps:
- "Egypt"
- "Off Mardoe 6 July 1812"
Fate: Broken up in 1817
General characteristics
Class and type: Inflexible Class 64 gun ship of the Line Tons burthen: 1387 (bm) Length: 159 ft 4in (48’.01m) (gundeck) Beam: 44 ft 8.5 in (13.52 m) Depth of hold: 18 ft in (5.0 m) Sail plan: Full rigged ship Armament:
- Gundeck: 26 × 24-pounder guns
- Upper gundeck: 26 × 18-pounder guns
- QD: 10 × 9-pdr guns
Fc: 2 × 9-pounder guns
Service.
HMS Dictator was commissioned on the 1st of January 1783 as a Guard ship in the Medway. She was paid off in the March of 1876, had a small repair at Chatham in the summer of 1879 costing £4,000.and was recommissioned under Captain Richard Bligh in the August of 1790 as the Flagship of Rear Admiral Sir Richard King.
She was recommissioned in the April of 1791 under Captain Thomas Tonkin as the Flagship of Rear Admiral John Dalrymple and receiving ship at Blackstakes until paid off n the September of that year.
After being refitted for sea at Chatham in the autumn of 1793 she was recommissioned under Captain Edmund Dod, and on the 5th of March 1794 sailed for the West coast of Africa under Captain Nathan Brunton. She returned home late in that year and was paid off once more. Fitted at Portsmouth between the February and July of 1795 for £ 9,323, in the September she was recommissioned under Captain Thomas Totty and sailed for Jamaica on the 26th of February, 1796.
The French Revolutionary Wars.
In 1797 Dictator first came under the command of Captain Thomas Western and then Captain William Rutherford.
The most important colonial expedition of that year was the one which led to the capture of Trinidad. Being based on the Leeward Islands' station, Rear-Admiral Henry Harvey took command of the invasion Squadron which sailed from Port Royal, Martinique on February the 12th Aboard the ships were a body of troops under Lieut. General Sir Ralph Abercromby. At a rendezvous off Carriacou, on the 14th of the month, they picked up reinforcements, and, on the 16th, arrived at Trinidad, and steered for the Gulf of Paria by way of Boca Grande. At 3.30 P.M., just as the British had cleared the channel, in Shagaramus bay, they discovered a Spanish squadron of four sail of the line and a frigate riding at anchor.
As the entrance to the enemy's anchorage appeared to be well protected by a battery of twenty guns and two mortars posted upon the island of Gaspargrande, and also as the day was already far advanced, Harvey sent his transports, protected by the Arethusa, Thorn, and Zebra, to find a berth about five miles from Port of Spain, and ordered the Alarm, and Victorieuse to keep under sail between the enemy and Port of Spain, whilst, he anchored with his ships of the line within long gunshot of the Spanish ships and batteries The intention being that of preventing the foe from escaping during the night, and on the following morning taking measures for their destruction.
To the surprise of the British, the Spaniards, at about 2 A.M. on the 17th, began to set fire to their ships, and, before dawn, four out of the five were almost totally destroyed. The fifth ship, the San Damaso (74) which was undamaged was brought off without resistance by the boats of the squadron, the Spaniards having evacuated Gaspargrande Island. This was occupied in the early morning by part of the Queen's Regiment, and, in the course of the day. Other troops were landed, without interruption, three miles from Port of Spain, which was quietly entered that evening. On the following day the island of Trinidad peacefully capitulated. The Spaniards, it afterwards appeared, had burnt their ships because they had barely half the officers and men that were required to man them.
Those British ships directly involved were:-
The Prince of Wales 98, Captain John Harvey,
Bellona 74, George Wilson,
Invincible 74, William Cayley,
Vengeance 74, Thomas Macnamara Russell,
Favourite 16, James Athol Wood,
and Terror 8, Dunbar Douglas.
Dictator only participated in the latter stages of the action, not having arrived until the 18th of February and the issue of prize money reflecting this late arrival.
Returning to England, Dictator was fitted as a troopship in the May of 1798 under Captain Byam Martin, and then in 1799 Captain John Oakes Hardy until 1801 firstly in the North Sea and then in the Egyptian operations. On the 8th of March, 1801, whilst disembarking the army at the Battle of Aboukir during the French Egyptian campaign, one of Dictator’s seamen was killed and a midshipman, Edward Robinson, fatally wounded.
Prize money for the capture of enemy ships, was as usual, shared with other warships in the squadron.
Because Dictator had served in the navy's Egyptian campaign, her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal, issued in 1847 to all surviving claimants.
The ship was paid off in the March of 1802, and fitted at Chatham as a floating battery costing £6,888., between the February and May of 1803, for service at Sheerness.
The Napoleonic Wars.
Having been recommissioned by Captain John Newhouse, Dictator was placed under the command of Captain Charles Tinling for use as a guardship in Kings Deep, and later in 1804 this duty devolved onto Captain Richard Hawkins. She was then reinstated as a 64 gun ship by Cox and Co for £26.016. between the October of that year and the May of 1805. She was recommissioned in the following month under Captain James Macnamara for service in the North sea, and then between the June of 1807 and 1808 Captain Donald Campbell took over command.
In the late summer of that year, Dictator was part of Admiral Gambier's fleet in the Øresund at the Battle of Copenhagen where she shared prize money with some 126 other British naval ships. She was again in Danish Waters the following year, in Admiral Hood's squadron of four ships-of-the-line together with some smaller vessels, tasked with maintaining the blockade between Jutland and Zealand. Captain Campbell, ordered the sloop HMS Falcon to proceed on her successful patrols to Samsø, Tunø and Endelave.
In the March of 1809 Dictator came under the command of Captain Richard Pearson and in the August of that year she was tasked with the occupation of the Pea Islands to the east of Bornholm but ran aground en route and had to be towed back to Karlskrona for repairs.
In early July 1810, Dictator came under the command of Captain Robert Williams during the Gunboat war with the coalition of Denmark-Norway. Dictator, in company with the Edgar and Alonzo, sighted three Danish gunboats commanded by Lieutenant Peter Nicolay Skibsted, who had captured the Grinder in the April of that year. The gunboats (Husaren, Løberen, and Flink) sought refuge in Grena, on eastern Jutland, where a company of soldiers and their field guns could provide cover. However, the British mounted a cutting out expedition of some 200 men in ten ships’ boats after midnight on the 7th of July, capturing the three gunboats.
At some time during this period the command of Dictator again changed. Her new captain, James Patterson Stewart was to hold the post until the April of the following year.
Throughout the first half of 1812 , from April onward, Dictator was captained by Alexander Schomberg and led a small squadron consisting of three brigs, the 18-gun Calypso, 14-gun Podargus and the 14-gun Flamer. On the 7th of July they encountered the Danish-Norwegian vessels Najaden, a frigate finished in 1811 in part with parts salvaged from a ship-of-the-line destroyed in earlier battles, and three brigs, Kiel, Lolland and Samsøe. Najaden was under the command of Danish naval officer Hans Peter Holm, and In the ensuing Battle of Lyngor Dictator destroyed Najaden and the British took Laaland and Kiel as prizes, but had to abandon them after the two vessels ran aground. The action cost Dictator five killed and 24 wounded. In 1847 the surviving British participants were authorized to apply for the clasp "Off Mardoe 6 July 1812" to the Naval General Service Medal.
The following month Captain William Hanwell assumed command until the ship was paid off in the November of that year.
The War of 1812.
Dictator was fitted as a troopship at chatham between the June and September of 1813, during which process Captain George Crofton was put in command. In the December of that year command devolved onto the shoulders of Commander Henry Dilks Byng. She then came under Lieutenant James Tattnall who sailed her to North America, and she then came under the command of Commander Henry Montressor in the February of 1815.
Fate.
HMS Dictator was among Admiral Alexander Cochrane's fleet moored off New Orleans at the start of 1815, but by the October of that year she was back in Portsmouth where she was laid up, and broken up there in the April of 1817.
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