Third Rate 64 gun ships of the Royal Navy.

[Bligh]

HMS Veteran (1787)

HMS Veteran was a Sir Edward Hunt designed Crown Class 64 gun third rate ship of the line, built by Robert Fabian until his death in 1786, and completed by his son of the same name, at East Cowes. Ordered on the 3rd of September 1780, and laid down in the July of 1781, she was launched on the 14th of August, 1787, and completed between the 15th of that month and the 13th of September of that same year at Portsmouth before going into Ordinary. The final cost being £24,259.12.0d to build, plus £9,695 for fitting and coppering.


Plan of the Orlop deck of Veteran

History
GREAT BRITAIN
Name:	HMS Veteran
Ordered:	3 August 1780
Builder:	Fabian, East Cowes
Laid down:	July 1781
Launched:	14 August 1787
Fate:	Broken up, 1816
Notes:	Participated in: The Battle of Copenhagen
General characteristics
Class and type:	Crown Class, 64 gun third rate ship of the line
Tons burthen:	1,396 ¾ (bm)
Length:	160 ft 4 ½ in (48.9 m) (gundeck)
Beam:	44 ft 8 in (13.6 m)
Depth of hold:	19 ft 5 in (5.9 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Armament:	Gundeck: 26 × 24-pounder guns Upper gundeck: 26 × 18-pounder guns QD: 10 × 4-pounder guns Fc: 2 × 9-pounder guns

Service.

HMS Veteran was commissioned under Captain Charles Nugent for Howe’s fleet in the March of 1793, and sailed for the Leeward Islands on the 26th of November in that year. In 1794 she was under Captain Lewis Robinson and in the March of that year she was at Martinique where Robinson was killed. By June she was at Guadeloupe now under Captain George Bowen, and later Captain Sampson Edwards.

However, in 1795 she was under the command of Captain Hancock Kelly, still stationed at the Leeward Islands. She then returned to England and was paid off in the October of 1796.

Veteran was recommissioned under Captain Abraham Guyot in the May of 1797, and in the August of that same year she came under the command of Captain George Gregory and at the Battle of Camperdown on the 11th of October served in the Lee column, suffering 4 killed and 21 wounded.

At end-February 1798 Veteran and HMS Astraea were responsible for the towing of the General Elliott into Great Yarmouth following her abandonment by the crew. In the following month the command of Veteran was transferred to Captain James Walker, followed by Captain J Moss in the June of that year, when she became the Flagship of Vice Admiral Archibald Dixon.

In the February of 1799 she came under the command of Captain Archibald Collingwood Dixon until 1801, and took part in Mitchell’s operations off the Dutch coast in the August of that year.

Veteran’s next assignment took place in the Baltic in 1801, where she was present at the Battle o Copenhagen, as part of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker’s reserve fleet.

In the January of 1804 Veteran was placed under the command of Captain Richard King who was replaced in the June of that year by Captain James Newman.

In 1805, Veteran was captained by Capt. Andrew Evans in Jamaica. She subsequently served as the Flagship of both Vice-Admiral James Richard Dacres, then second in command on the station, and on his recall, Vice Admiral Bartholomew Rowley in 1808.

Fate.

On her return to England in 1809 Veteran was fitted as a prison ship at Portsmouth in the July of that year, and was commissioned under Lieutenant Henry Marshall until 1811. In 1813 she came under Lieutenant William Henry Boyce, and in 1814 Lieutenant Stephen Donovan. In 1815 she was placed in Ordinary, and broken up at Portsmouth in the June of 1816.