The Royal Navy has used the name Comet no fewer than 18 times:
Seven ships and a shore establishment of the Royal Navy have been called HMS Duke:
HMS Salisbury was a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built by Richard and James Herring at Baileys Hard on the Beaulieu River in Hampshire, England and launched on 18 April 1698.
Eleven ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Firebrand.
HMS Castor was a 32-gun Amazon-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The French briefly captured her during the Atlantic Campaign of May 1794 but she spent just 20 days in French hands as a British ship retook her before her prize crew could reach a French port. Castor eventually saw service in many of the theatres of the wars, spending time in the waters off the British Isles, in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, as well as the Caribbean.
Admiral Sir Lawrence William Halsted GCB was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
HMS Princess was a 70-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She had served for ten years as the Princesa for the Spanish Navy, until her capture off Cape Finisterre in 1740 during the War of the Austrian Succession.
Seven ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Strombolo, or HMS Stromboli, after the volcano Stromboli, in Italy:
The action of 8 April 1740 was a battle between the Spanish third rate Princesa under the command of Don Parlo Augustino de Gera, and a squadron consisting of three British 70-gun third rates; HMS Kent, HMS Lenox and HMS Orford, under the command of Captain Colvill Mayne of Lenox. The Spanish ship was chased down and captured by the three British ships, after which she was acquired for service by the Royal Navy.
The action of 14 June 1742 was a minor naval battle of the War of the Austrian Succession in which a small British squadron under Captain Richard Norris burned 5 Spanish royal galleys at the French port of Saint Tropez. Norris had surprised the galleys near Sainte-Marguerite and had chased and driven them into the French port. The British captain, in spite of alleged French neutrality, followed the Spanish vessels into the port and destroyed them at slight cost.
At least six vessels of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Netley, named for the village of Netley.
Lord George Graham was a Scottish officer of the Royal Navy who saw service during the War of the Austrian Succession. He embarked on a political career, and was a Member of Parliament.
HMS Anne Galley was an 8-gun fire ship of the Royal Navy, launched in 1739 and in active service during the War of the Austrian Succession against Spain and France. Employed against the Spanish Fleet in 1744 off Toulon, she was destroyed while engaging the Spanish flagship Real Felipe.
HMS Rosario, previously the Spanish ship Nuestra Senora Del Rosario, was a brig the British Royal Navy captured off Cadiz in 1797 and took her into service. The British converted her to a fireship and expended her in 1800 in an attack at Dunkirk Roads.
HMS Phosphorus was the Dutch naval brig Haasje that the Royal Navy captured in 1803 and took into service in 1804 as a fireship. She took part in a notable single-ship action in 1806. The Navy sold her in 1810. She then became a merchantman trading with the Mediterranean. She was lost c.1813.
Rear-Admiral George Murray, 6th Lord Elibank was a British naval officer. He joined the Royal Navy in the early 1720s and fought in the Battle of Porto Bello in 1739 as a lieutenant on board the ship of the line HMS Hampton Court. Murray was promoted to commander in 1740 and given command of the sloop HMS Tryall to take part in George Anson's voyage around the world. A series of illnesses and deaths in Anson's squadron meant that by early 1741 Murray had been promoted to post captain and given command of the frigate HMS Pearl. Pearl and another ship lost contact with Anson in April of that year and after taking heavy damage and casualties through storms and sickness, sought safety in Rio de Janeiro before sailing for England.
Captain Sir Richard Hughes, 1st Baronet was a Royal Navy officer of the eighteenth century who served as Resident Commissioner of Portsmouth Dockyard. Hughes joined the navy in 1721 and served on a variety of ships, some commanded by his father Captain Richard Hughes, mostly in the Mediterranean Sea and Baltic Sea, and was also a some-time follower of Admiral Sir John Norris. He was promoted to commander in 1739 and given command of HMS Anne Galley, and was promoted to post-captain in the following year. Having served mostly in command of ships in the Mediterranean Fleet, Hughes was given command of the guardship HMS Fougueux in 1753, from where he was appointed Resident Commissioner of Portsmouth in 1754. He served there until 1773, in which year he was created a baronet and then retired. He died at Southampton, aged 71.
HMS Vesuvius was initially a Steam Vessel second class designed by Sir William Symonds, Surveyor of the Navy, and built at Sheerness. She was commissioned and participated in the bombardment of Acre in 1840, during the Russian War she was in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov in 1855. Her last overseas posting was in the West Indies. She was sold for breaking in June 1865.
HMS Scarborough was a 32-gun fifth rate built under contract by James Parker of Southampton in 1695/96. She served in the trade protection and counter-piracy operations during her service. She was captured by the French, then recaptured by the British and renamed Garland, She was converted to a fireship for the Baltic then the Mediterranean. She was at the Battle of Passero in 1718. She was reduced to a 20-gun sixth rate in 1717. Rebuilt to the 1719 Establishment in 1721, she was finally sold in 1744.
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