Albert Bertel Thorvaldsen was a Danish sculptor and medalist of international fame, who spent most of his life (1797–1838) in Italy. Thorvaldsen was born in Copenhagen into a working-class Danish/Icelandic family, and was accepted to the Royal Danish Academy of Art at the age of eleven. Working part-time with his father, who was a wood carver, Thorvaldsen won many honors and medals at the academy. He was awarded a stipend to travel to Rome and continue his education.
William Bainbridge was a commodore in the United States Navy. During his long career in the young American Navy he served under six presidents beginning with John Adams and is notable for his many victories at sea. He commanded several famous naval ships, including USS Constitution, and saw service in the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812. Bainbridge was also in command of USS Philadelphia when she grounded off the shores of Tripoli, Libya in North Africa, resulting in his capture and imprisonment for many months. In the latter part of his career he became the U.S. Naval Commissioner.
USS President was a wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy, nominally rated at 44 guns; she was launched in April 1800 from a shipyard in New York City. President was one of the original six frigates whose construction the Naval Act of 1794 had authorized, and she was the last to be completed. The name "President" was among ten names submitted to President George Washington by Secretary of War Timothy Pickering in March of 1795 for the frigates that were to be constructed. Joshua Humphreys designed these frigates to be the young Navy's capital ships, and so President and her sisters were larger and more heavily armed and built than standard frigates of the period. Forman Cheeseman, and later Christian Bergh were in charge of her construction. Her first duties with the newly formed United States Navy were to provide protection for American merchant shipping during the Quasi War with France and to engage in a punitive expedition against the Barbary pirates in the First Barbary War.
Chesapeake was a 38-gun wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy. She was one of the original six frigates whose construction was authorized by the Naval Act of 1794. Joshua Humphreys designed these frigates to be the young navy's capital ships. Chesapeake was originally designed as a 44-gun frigate, but construction delays, material shortages and budget problems caused builder Josiah Fox to alter his design to 38 guns. Launched at the Gosport Navy Yard on 2 December 1799, Chesapeake began her career during the Quasi-War with France and later saw service in the First Barbary War.
The Action of 16 May 1797 was a naval battle that took place near Tripoli in Ottoman Tripolitania. The Danish squadron was attacked by a Tripolitan squadron that outnumbered them in number of vessels. The result was a strategic victory for Tripoli.
HDMS Najaden was a frigate of the Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy, which she served from 1796 until the British captured her in 1807. While in Dano-Norwegian service she participated in an action at Tripoli, North Africa. She served the Royal Navy as the fifth rate HMS Nyaden from 1808 until 1812 when she was broken up. During her brief British service she participated in some small attacks in the Barents Sea during the Anglo-Russian War.
HMS Melampus was a Royal Navy fifth-rate frigate that served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. She captured numerous prizes before the British sold her to the Royal Netherlands Navy in 1815. With the Dutch, she participated in a major action at Algiers and, then, in a number of colonial punitive expeditions in the Dutch East Indies.
HMS Thetis was a 36-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. After nearly a decade of service with the British, she was transferred to Prussia in exchange for two steam gunboats. She served with the Prussian Navy, the North German Federal Navy and the Imperial German Navy as a training ship until being stricken in 1871. Thetis was subsequently converted into a coal hulk and broken up in 1894–95.
Carl Wilhelm Jessen was a Danish naval officer and Governor of St Thomas in the Danish West Indies.
Lorentz Fisker (1753–1819) was a Danish naval officer who charted the waters of southern Norway and the Kattegat, and organised Norwegian defences against Britain and Sweden.
Quatre frères was either an American or Bermudian-built vessel. She was commissioned in 1796 at Bordeaux as a French privateer. The Royal Navy captured her in April 1797 and took her into service as HMS Transfer. The Royal Navy sold her at Malta in 1802 to Ottoman Tripolitania. The U.S. Navy captured her in 1804 and took her into service as USS Scourge. The U.S. Navy sold her in 1812.
Andreas Lous was a Danish naval officer responsible for early navigational charts of Danish Waters and the dredging of harbours, in addition to sea-time on various Danish warships. He was captain of the ship-of-the-line HDMS Printz Friderich when she ran aground in 1780 near Læsø and was a total loss.
HDMS Galathea was a three-masted corvette of the Royal Danish Navy, constructed at Gammelholm to designs by Andreas Shifter in 1831. She is above all remembered for being the ship that undertook the First Galathea Expedition, 1845–1847. On two occasions, first in 1833 and later in 1839, Galathea was also instrumental in picking some of Bertel Thorvaldsen's artworks up in Rome and bringing them back to Denmark.
Henrik Lorentz Fisker was a successful naval officer in the service of Denmark. He was the son of an attorney at the supreme court, and deputy mayor of Copenhagen. From the age of thirteen as a cadet in the Danish-Norwegian navy, he rose through the ranks to vice admiral in 1775 and full admiral in 1790. He died 20 June 1797 and was buried in the Holmens Kirkegård, the Danish naval cemetery, in Copenhagen.
The family name Stibolt was closely associated with the Danish-Norwegian navy of the 18th century and with the island of Christiansø from the time that Hans Anderson Stibolt was appointed commandant of those most easterly islands of Denmark. His three sons all held naval officer rank, as did many of the subsequent generations, serving with a varied amount of success. Three generations held the post of Commandant on Christiansø.
HDMS Triton was a Danish frigate launched in 1790 which operated in Danish/Norwegian home waters and in the Mediterranean in the protection of Danish merchant ships - not only from Barbary pirates but also from potential British privateers. The period in which it operated was fraught with political and practical difficulties which led to two battles at Copenhagen and other, lesser, actions.
HDMS Justitia was a Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy ship-of-the-line, built to a design by Henrik Gerner. Although launched in 1777, she was not fully commissioned until 1780. The British Royal Navy seized her in 1807, together with the rest of the Danish fleet after the second battle of Copenhagen. The British never commissioned Justitia. A renaming to Orford in 1809 was cancelled. She was broken up in 1817.
El Corso was launched in Spain in 1791 as a naval brig. the British Royal Navy captured her in 1796 and took her into service as HMS Corso. She then served in the Mediterranean where she captured numerous small vessels, the great majority of which were merchant vessels. In 1802 she sailed to England. From July 1802 to her sale in September 1814 she served as a receiving ship.
HDMS Rota was a frigate of the Royal Danish Navy. She is above all remembered for being the ship that, in 1838, picked up the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen and many of his artworks in Livorno and brought them back to Denmark. Hans Dahlerup, her captain, and Alexander Wilde, then a junior lieutenant, have both described the voyage in their memoirs. In 1863, Rota was sold to H. Puggaard & Co. and converted into a civilian merchant ship. She wrecked off the coast of southern Norway in 1892, some ten years after being sold to Paul Larsen, Arendal.
HDMS Thetis was a frigate of the Royal Danish Navy, which she served from 1842 to 1864. She is best known for being one of the ships that picked up some of the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen's artworks and other belongings in Rome, some forty years after another Danish naval vessel by the same name had transported him the other way. In the meantime he had achieved international fame for his Neoclassical sculptures. Thorvaldsen, who had been back in Rome since September 1841, after moving back to Copenhagen in 1838, was also supposed to return with the ship. He did however, miss its departure by one day. The Royal Danish Navy's first music corps played its first performance on board the Thetis in 1857.
Denmark 
