Third Rate ships of 74 guns.

[Bligh]

HMS Leviathan (1790)



HMS Leviathan was a Carnatic Class, 3rd rate, 74 gun ship of the line of the Common Type, ordered on the 9^th of December 1779, and built in the Royal Dockyard, Chatham, by M/shipwright Nicholas Phillips to the July of 1790 and completed by John Nelson. She was launched there on the 9^th of October of that year.

History
GREAT BRITAIN
Name:	HMS Leviathan
Ordered:	9 December 1779
Builder:	Chatham Dockyard
Laid down:	May 1782
Launched:	9 October 1790
Honours and awards:	·Participated in: ·Battle of Trafalgar
Fate:	Sold and broken up, 1848
General characteristics
Class and type:	Carnatic classship of the line
Tons burthen:	1707​89⁄94 (bm)
Length:	172 ft 3 in (52.50 m) (gundeck)
Beam:	47 ft 10 in (14.55 m)
Depth of hold:	20 ft 9 in (6.3 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Armament:	·74 guns: ·Gundeck: 28 × 32 pdrs ·Upper gundeck: 28 × 18 pdrs ·Quarterdeck: 14 × 9 pdrs ·Forecastle: 4 × 9 pdrs

Career.

HMS Leviathan was commissioned in the January of 1793 under Captain Hugh Conway and fitted at Sheerness until the April of that year. On the 22^nd of May she sailed for the Med and with the aid of HMS Colossus took the French Privateer Le Vrai Patriot in the July of that year. By October she was under the command of Captain Benjamin hallowell at Toulon, and then returned to Portsmouth for a refit in the April of 1794.

Her next action saw her at the Battle of the Glorious First of June, off Ushant under Captain Lord Hugh Seymour, losing ten killed and thirty three wounded.
In 1795 her Captain was Captain John Duckworth under whom she sailed to the Caribbean and Jamaica on the 14^th of May of that year.



In 1796 she was at Leogane on the 23^rd of March, and thence returned to Plymouth for a refit completed in the August of 1797, when she came under the Captaincy of Joseph Bingham on the the Irish station, with Duckworth flying his broad pennant aboard her.

On the 10^th of September in that year, Leviathan, Pompee, Anson, Melpomene, and Childers shared in the proceeds of the capture of the Tordenskiold.



Later whilst under the command of Captain Henry Digby, on the 2^nd of June,1798, she sailed once again for the Med. She was at the capture of Minorca in the November of that year, and in February 1799 was made Flagship of the now Rear Admiral Duckworth, Captain James May. He was superceeded by Captain James Carpenter who commanded her at the blockade of Cadiz, where she took, with the aid of HMS Emerald, the 36 gun ships Carmen and Florentina on the 7^th of April 1800. In June under Commander Edward D King she sailed for the leeward Islands, and then in 1801, sailed firstly under Commander Christopher Cole, and in 1802 Captain Richard Dunn still in the role of Duckworth’s Flagship. She was paid off in the December of 1803 for a much needed refit at Portsmouth, and recommissioned in the January of 1804 under Captain Henry Bayntun.

She sailed for the Med on the 26^th of April in time to take part in the blockade of Toulon, and then in Nelson’s chase of Gantheaume to the West Indies .

At the Battle of Trafalgar still under Henry William Bayntun, she was near the front of the weather column led by Admiral Lord Nelson himself, aboard his flagship, HMS Victory, and captured the Spanish ship San Augustin. During the battle she lost four killed and twenty two wounded. A flag said to have been flown by the Leviathan at Trafalgar was sold at auction by Arthur Cory in March 2016. Bayntun is thought to have given it to his friend the Duke of Clarence (later William IV), who then gave it to Arthur Cory's direct ancestor Nicholas Cory, a senior officer on William's royal yacht HMS Royal Sovereign, in thanks for helping the yacht win a race and a bet.



After repairs at Plymouth n 1808 she was recommissioned under Captain John Harvey and returned to the Med. On the 7^th of February, 1809 Leviathan was serving in Martin’s squadron, and on the 23^rd of October of that year she was in the attack on Baudin’s convoy. On the 25^th the 80 gun Robuste, and 74 gun Le Lion were run ashore and burnt near Frontignan.

In the August of 1811 under Captain Patrick Campbell, Leviathan’s boats attacked shipping near Frejus.


On 27 June 1812, Leviathan, HMS Imperieuse, HMS Curacoa and HMS Eclair attacked an 18-strong French convoy at Laigueglia and Alassio in Liguria, northern Italy.



Attack on convoy of eighteen French merchant ships at Laigrelia, 1812

In 1814 she was again on the Jamaica station under Captain Adam Drummond and in April of that year at Lisbon under Captain Thomas Briggs. Thence back to the Med until 1816 when she was paid off.

Fate.

With the end of the Napoleonic Wars, in the October of 1816 at Portsmouth she was converted into a prison ship, was scuttled there as a target ship in 1846 and in 1848 was sold to a Mr Burns and broken up.