HMS Elephant (1786)

Last updated

Elephant (1786) RMG J2924.jpg
Drawing showing the inboard profile for Elephant as cut down to a 58-gun ship 1817–1818
History
Naval Ensign of Great Britain (1707-1800).svg Great Britain
NameHMS Elephant
Ordered27 December 1781
BuilderGeorge Parsons, Bursledon
Laid downFebruary 1783
Launched24 August 1786
Honours and
awards
FateBroken up, 1830
General characteristics [1]
Class and type Arrogant-class ship of the line
Tons burthen1604 bm
Length168 ft (51 m) (gundeck)
Beam46 ft 9 in (14.25 m)
Depth of hold19 ft 9 in (6.02 m)
PropulsionSails
Sail plan Full-rigged ship
Armament
  • Gundeck: 28 × 32-pounder guns
  • Upper gundeck: 28 × 18-pounder guns
  • QD: 14 × 9-pounder guns
  • Fc: 4 × 9-pounder guns
HMS Monarch in the lead, with Elephant close behind forcing the Passage of the Sound, 30 March 1801, prior to the Battle of Copenhagen Nelson Forcing the Passage of the Sound, 30 March 1801, prior to the Battle of Copenhagen.jpg
HMS Monarch in the lead, with Elephant close behind forcing the Passage of the Sound, 30 March 1801, prior to the Battle of Copenhagen

HMS Elephant was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was built by George Parsons in Bursledon, Hampshire, and launched on 24 August 1786. [1]

Contents

In late November 1790 the ship narrowly avoided destruction when lightning struck her whilst she was in Portsmouth harbour. The main topmast exploded but did not plunge through the quarterdeck as it was still held by the toprope.

In 1801 Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson chose Elephant as his flagship during the Battle of Copenhagen due to its suitability for the shallow waters there. It was on this ship that he is said to have put his telescope to his blind eye and claimed not to be able to see a signal ordering him to withdraw.[ citation needed ] She lost 9 killed and 13 wounded then. [2]

In mid-1803, the squadron under Captain Henry William Bayntun, consisting of Cumberland, Hercule, Bellerophon, Elephant, and Vanguard captured Poisson Volant and Superieure. [3] The Royal Navy took both into service. The ship participated in the blockade of Saint-Domingue in the same year. The British patrolled off Cap-François. On 24 July the squadron, made up of Bellerophon, Elephant, HMS Theseus, and HMS Vanguard, came across two French 74-gun ships, Duquesne and Duguay-Trouin, and the frigate Guerrière, attempting to escape from Cap-François. [4] The squadron gave chase, and on 25 July overhauled and captured Duquesne after a few shots were fired, while Duguay-Trouin and Guerrière managed to evade their pursuers and escape to France. [5] One man was killed aboard Bellerophon during the pursuit. [4] Elephant remained blockading Cap-François until November, when the French commander of the garrison there, General Rochambeau, was forced to surrender.

To prevent Rochambeau escaping, launches from Bellerophon and Elephant went into the Caracol Passage where they cut out the French schooner Découverte on 22–23 November. The French formally surrendered on 30 November.

HMS Elephant, under the command of Francis Austen, captured the United States privateer Swordfish in December 1812 during the War of 1812. [6]

Fate

Elephant was reduced to a 58-gun fourth rate in 1818, and broken up in 1830. [1]

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 3 Lavery, Ships of the Line vol.1, p180.
  2. Gerlach, Krzysztof (2006). "Słoń a sprawa duńska" [The elephant and a matter of Denmark]. Morze, Statki i Okręty. Vol. X, no. 4/2006 (58). Warsaw. p. 73.
  3. "No. 15620". The London Gazette . 13 September 1803. p. 1228.
  4. 1 2 Cordingly. Billy Ruffian. p. 165.
  5. Goodwin. The Ships of Trafalgar. p. 68.
  6. Heathcote (2002), p. 19.

Related Research Articles

HMS Vanguard was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 6 March 1787 at Deptford. She was the sixth vessel to bear the name.

HMS <i>Bellerophon</i> (1786) 74-gun Royal Navy ship of the line

HMS Bellerophon, known to sailors as the "Billy Ruffian", was a ship of the line of the Royal Navy. A third-rate of 74 guns, she was launched in 1786. Bellerophon served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, mostly on blockades or convoy escort duties. She fought in three fleet actions: the Glorious First of June (1794), the Battle of the Nile (1798) and the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). While the ship was on blockade duty in 1815, Napoleon boarded Bellerophon so he could surrender to the ship's captain, ending 22 years of almost continuous war between Britain and France.

HMS <i>Guerriere</i> (1806) Frigate of the French (later British) Navy, in service from 1800 to 1812

Guerrière was a 38-gun frigate of the French Navy, designed by Forfait. The British captured her and recommissioned her as HMS Guerriere. She is most famous for her fight against USS Constitution.

HMS <i>Agamemnon</i> (1781) 1781 ship

HMS Agamemnon was a 64-gun third-rate ship of the line of the British Royal Navy. She saw service in the American Revolutionary War, French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and fought in many of the major naval battles of those conflicts. She is remembered as being Nelson's favourite ship, and was named after the mythical ancient Greek king Agamemnon, being the first ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">René Duguay-Trouin</span> French privateer

René Trouin, Sieur du Gué, also known as René Duguay-Trouin, was a French naval officer, nobleman, slave trader, and privateer best known for his career during the War of the Spanish Succession. He had a brilliant privateering and naval career and eventually became "Lieutenant-General of the Naval Armies of the King", and a Commander in the Order of Saint-Louis. Ten ships of the French Navy have since been named in his honour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle at The Lizard</span>

The naval Battle of the Lizard took place on 21 October 1707 during the War of the Spanish Succession near Lizard Point, Cornwall between two French squadrons under René Duguay-Trouin and Claude de Forbin and an English convoy protected by a squadron under Commodore Richard Edwards.

HMS <i>Implacable</i> (1805) British ship of the line (1805-1949)

HMS Implacable was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was originally the French Navy's Téméraire-class ship of the line Duguay-Trouin, launched in 1800.

French ship <i>Scipion</i> (1801) Ship of the line of the French Navy

Scipion was a 74-gun French ship of the line, built at Lorient to a design by Jacques Noel Sane. She was laid down as Orient in late 1798, and renamed Scipion in 1801. She was first commissioned in 1802 and joined the French Mediterranean fleet based at Toulon, in the squadron of Admiral Leissègues. Consequently, she was one of the ships afloat in that port when war with England reopened in May 1803. She participated in the Battle of Cape Finisterre and the Battle of Trafalgar. The British captured her in the subsequent Battle of Cape Ortegal. In 1810 she participated in the Java campaign, which in 1847 earned her surviving crew the Naval General Service Medal. She participated in the blockade of Toulon in 1813 and was paid off in 1814. She was broken up in 1819.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Slade</span> British naval architect (1703/4–1771)

Sir Thomas Slade was an English naval architect best known for designing the Royal Navy warship HMS Victory, which served as Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Cape Ortegal</span> 1805 Battle during the War of the Third Coalition

The Battle of Cape Ortegal was the final action of the Trafalgar campaign, and was fought between a squadron of the Royal Navy and a remnant of the fleet that had been defeated earlier at the Battle of Trafalgar. It took place on 4 November 1805 off Cape Ortegal, in north-west Spain and saw Captain Sir Richard Strachan defeat and capture a French squadron under Rear-Admiral Pierre Dumanoir le Pelley. It is sometimes referred to as Strachan's Action.

HMS <i>Swiftsure</i> (1787) Ship of the line of the Royal Navy

HMS Swiftsure was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the British Royal Navy. She spent most of her career serving with the British, except for a brief period when she was captured by the French during the Napoleonic Wars in the action of 24 June 1801. She fought in several of the most famous engagements of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, fighting for the British at the Battle of the Nile, and the French at the Battle of Trafalgar.

HMS <i>Northumberland</i> (1798) Ship of the line of the Royal Navy

HMS Northumberland was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at the yards of Barnard, Deptford and launched on 2 February 1798. She carried Napoleon to his final exile on St Helena.

French ship <i>Duquesne</i> (1788) Ship of the line of the French Navy

Duquesne was a Téméraire class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy. She was captured by the British in 1803, and broken up in 1805.

The action of 5 May 1794 was a minor naval engagement fought in the Indian Ocean during the French Revolutionary Wars. A British squadron had been blockading the French island of Isle de France since early in the year, and early on 5 May discovered two ships approaching their position. As the strange vessels came closer, they were recognised as the French frigate Duguay Trouin, which had been captured from the East India Company the year before, and a small brig. Making use of a favourable wind, the British squadron gave chase to the new arrivals, which fled. The chase was short, as Duguay Trouin was a poor sailor with many of the crew sick and unable to report for duty. The British frigate HMS Orpheus was the first to arrive, and soon completely disabled the French frigate, successfully raking the wallowing ship. After an hour and twenty minutes the French captain surrendered, Captain Henry Newcome of Orpheus taking over the captured ship and bringing his prize back to port in India.

HMS Aeolus was a 32-gun Amphion-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1801 and served in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and the War of 1812.

Sir Samuel Warren KCB, KCH was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blockade of Saint-Domingue</span> 1803 naval campaign of the Haitian Revolution

The blockade of Saint-Domingue was a naval campaign fought during the first months of the Napoleonic Wars in which a series of British Royal Navy squadrons blockaded the French-held ports of Cap-Français and Môle-Saint-Nicolas on the northern coast of the French colony of Saint-Domingue, soon to become Haiti, after the conclusion of the Haitian Revolution on 1 January 1804. In the summer of 1803, when war broke out between the United Kingdom and the French Consulate, Saint-Domingue had been almost completely overrun by Haitian Armée Indigène troops led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines. In the north of the country, the French forces were isolated in the two large ports of Cap-Français and Môle-Saint-Nicolas and a few smaller settlements, all supplied by a French naval force based primarily at Cap-Français.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Loring (Royal Navy officer, died 1808)</span>

John Loring was an officer in the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

Pierre-Louis Lhermite was a French sea captain and rear admiral.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Hardy (Royal Navy officer, died 1732)</span>

Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy was a Royal Navy officer of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Having joined the navy sometime before 1688, Hardy's career was supported by Captain George Churchill, whom he served as first lieutenant during the Battle of Barfleur in 1692. Promoted to captain in 1693, Hardy served in the Channel Islands and off the coast of England until 1702 when he was given command of HMS Pembroke off the coast of Spain. He fought at the Battle of Cádiz, and subsequently discovered the location of the Franco-Spanish fleet through the intervention of his chaplain, which resulted in the Battle of Vigo Bay. Hardy was knighted for his services.

References