HMS Diomede (1798)

HMS Diomede was a Sir John Henslow designed Antelope Class modified to produce the Diomede Class 50 gun fourth rate ship. She was built by M/shipwright Martin Ware until the June of 1795 and completed by Thomas Pollard at Deptford Dockyard. Ordered on the 9th of December 1790, and laid down in the October of 1792, she was launched on the17th of January 1798 and completed on the 11th of May in that year at a cost of £43,804.


History
GREAT BRITAIN
Name: HMS Diomede
Ordered: 9.12.1790
Builder: Ware. Deptford
Launched: 17.1.1798
Fate: BU. 8.1815


General characteristics

Class and type: Diomede Class 50 gun fourth rate ship
Tons burthen: 1,122 52⁄94 (bm)
Length: 151ft 11⁄2 in (gundeck)
Beam: 41ft 13⁄4 in
Depth of hold:
Draught:		 17ft 7in
11ft 9in x 16ft 6in
Propulsion: Sails
Sail plan: Full rigged ship
Armament:
  • Gundeck: 22 × 24 pdr guns
  • Upper gundeck: 22 × 12 pdr guns
  • QD: 4 × 6 pdr guns
  • FC: 2 × 6 pdr guns



Service.

HMS Diomede was commissioned in the March of 1798 under Captain Charles Elphinstone for service in the North Sea. On the 6th of December in that year she departed from Portsmouth bound for the East Indies, escorting a small convoy which included the Indiamen Carnatic and Taunton Castle.
In the August of 1800 she captured the Union and its cargo Cargo.


During the period of July to September 1801, Diomede was cruising off Madagascar in company with the Imperieuse in search of enemy shipping.

By the 19th of October in that year she had returned to the Cape of Good Hope, in company with the Lancaster, Tremendous, Jupiter, Imperieux and Penguin, Brig, from whence on that date the Belliqueux, Adamant and their convoy of HEIC vessels departed for England.
From the 25th of May, 1802, Captain Elphinstone was forced to return to England on account of his ill health, and the command of Diomede passed to Captain Samuel Motley from the December of that year.

On the 15th of October, 1802, salvage money due to Diomede for her capture of the Union in 1800 had become due to be paid at the Cape of Good Hope.

On the 27th of May, 1803 she arrived back at Spithead from the Cape of Good Hope, under the command of Admiral Sir Roger Curtis, together with Jupiter, Hindostan, and Braave, accompanying the two transports Favourite and Suffolk, and a captured valuable French East Indiaman, La Union, of about 800 tons, bound for Flushing, taken by them on the day previous off Dunnose.

Two days after his arrival at Spithead Admiral Sir Roger Curtis struck his flag on Diomede, and on the Thursday following departed the ship.

On the third of June Diomede commenced a small refit for sea under Capt Larcom, and on the 9th was placed under orders to join Sir James Saumarez's squadron off the Channel Isles as soon as she was seaworthy. On the 14th of June she sailed from Spithead to become the Flagship of Rear Admiral Sir James Saumarez's squadron cruising off the Channel Isles, and was to retain this role for the next two years. On the 12th of November in that year she arrived at Spithead from Guernsey and on the 16th of the month a courts martial was assembled for the trial of Boatswain's Mate S Thompson, of the Diomede,

“ For having, on the 17th of October, shoved Richard Wheatland, one of the carpenter's crew, down from the lower deck, into the orlop, in the main hatchway, receiving injuries from which he subsequently died.”

Whilst being acquitted of murder, Thompson was found guilty of having shoved Wheatland down the hatchway. Later that day at the same trybuneral, seamen C F Smedbar, and W Price, also of the Diomede, were found guilty of desertion and awarded 72 lashes each.

On the 26th of Nov Diomede removed to Portsmouth Harbour from Spithead.

In the ships absence on the 23rd of December another courts martial was held, this time on board the Gladiator at Spithead, on Lieutenant R Crawford of the Diomede, for absenting himself without leave. He was sentenced to be admonished and to be more careful in future.

On the 31st of December Diomede returned from Portsmouth to Spithead and on the 7th of January, 1804, Capt Hugh Downman was appointed as the captain of Diomede, and she for Saumarez's squadron at Gurnsey where she remained until returning to Spithead on the 18th of October in that year. By the 8th of November she was on her way back to Guernsey once again.

A change came about in 1805 when she had a spell in the North sea, and then between the 26th of November in that year and the 12th of January 1806, she was fitted for foreign service. In that year she came under Commander Joseph Edmonds as part of the Expedition under the orders of Commodore Sir Home Popham, to take the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch, which involved many of the men working ashore as a part of a marine battalion.

On the 4th of March forming a part of the squadron lying off the Cape of Good Hope she captured the French 40 gun frigate Volontaire, which was later bought in to the Royal Navy under the same name.

In 1807, once more under the command of Captain Downman she took part of an expedition to Monte-Video and Buenos-Ayres. By the June of that year she was back at Portsmouth and paid off for a refit which took place between the September and November of that year, having been recommissioned under Captain Phillip Dumaresque during August.

In 1808, under Captain John Sykes, she became the flagship of Rear admiral Sir Edmund Nagle back at Guernsey yet again.

Then in 1809, now under the command of Captain Hugh Cook until 1811, she sailed on the 22nd of May in that year with a convoy to St. Helena, and thence onward to the East Indies. She departed from Canton on the 22nd of April, with a convoy on the return journey to St. Helena, finally arriving back at Deal in Kent on the 2nd of September of that year, from whence on the 6th she departed on a cruise.
On her return to port at Chatham, between the June and September of 1812 she was fitted as a 26 gun troopship, and on the 29th of September departed from Cawsand Bay for Corunna conveying troops for Corunna, returning to Plymouth on the 21st of October. She was then recommissioned under Captain Charles Fabian, and on the 29th of December arrived off the Tagus to collect a convoy which sailed on the 1st of January, 1813, which arrived at Portsmouth on the14th of that month.

On the14th of September in that year, Diomede, still under Capt. Fabian, arrived at Halifax Nova Scotia, with the rest of the squadron from the Chesapeake, where on the 7th of Oct, Diomede and the Diadem embarked the1st Battalion of the Royal Marines for transportation to Quebec. She returned to Halifax on the 16th of November, accompanied by the Fox and the transport Mariner, the trip having taken 16 days from Quebec.

Diomede returned from Halifax to Portsmouth on the 24th of December 1813 and on the 3rd of January, 1814, she departed with American prisoners of war aboard, destined for Gillingham-reach.

Now under Captain Hugh Pigot, she sailed from Portsmouth on the 10th of May escorting convoys destined for the coast of Africa, Brazil, and the Cape of Good Hope, the East Indies, and British North America, via Cork.

On the 30th of June in that year the Hebrus arrived at Halifax, from Cork, with a small convoy, which had parted a few days previous from the Diomede, Diadem, and, Leopard carrying troops for Quebec.

In the October of 1814 Diomede came under the command of Captain George Kippen and on the 14th of Dec in that year there was a distribution of head-money arising from the capture of American gun-boats and sundry bales of cotton, reported in the London Gazette of the 26th of June, 1821.

She returned to Portsmouth on the 18th of April 1815 and then passed on for the Downs carrying troops returning from America.

Fate.

Diomede was then paid off, and ordered to become a provisions depot at Sheerness on the 7th of July, 1815, but being found to be too decayed even for this duty she was broken up there in the following month.