Merchantman
Hudson, Bacon & Co. built Admiral Rainier in Calcutta for their own account and launched her in 1799. The EIC immediately chartered her for a voyage from Calcutta to England. Captain William Lay left Calcutta on 28 December 1799, reached St Helena on 15 June 1800 and Falmouth on 2 September, and arrived at Deptford on 5 October. [2]
Admiral Rainier was admitted to the Registry of Great Britain on 5 January 1801. [6] Lay received a Letter of Marque on 9 January. [5] He then sailed her back to India, apparently not under contract with the EIC.
Lay sailed Admiral Rainier to England for a second time, again under charter to the EIC, leaving Calcutta on 1 January 1803. She passed Kedgeree on 1 February, reached St Helena on 16 July, and arrived at Gravesend on 27 September. [2]
On 30 May 1804 the Admiralty purchased her and renamed her Hindostan. An earlier Hindostan had just been lost in April in a fire at sea.
Naval Service
Captain Mark Robinson commissioned her in July, and then Captain Alexander Fraser took command in August. He sailed her for the East Indies in early 1805. There, together with Tremendous, she fought the inconclusive Action of 21 April 1806 against Canonnière. Tremendous carried the brunt of the action but suffered no casualties. The French lost seven men killed and 25 wounded. [7]
Captain Bendall Littehalles recommissioned Hindostan in December 1806. A year later she was repaired at Woolwich in January 1807. Then in February Captain Thomas Bowen took command. On 28 June she sailed as a convoy escort to the Mediterranean, returning towards the end of the year.
On 11 November, the Admiralty ordered her to be converted to a storeship and her guns were reduced from 54 to 22, primarily by the removal of the guns on her lower deck. Commander Lewis Hole took command in December. In April 1808 her captain was Commander Fitzowen Skinner and she was with a squadron operating off Lisbon.
Australia
In November 1808 Hindostan was recommissioned as a troopship under Commander John Pasco. On 29 March 1809, Hindostan and Dromedary recaptured Gustavus, of Charlestown. [lower-alpha 1]
Pasco sailed Hindostan to New South Wales on 3 May 1809. Hindostan and Dromedary brought with them Governor Lachlan Macquarie and the 1st Battalion of Macquarie's own regiment, the 73rd Regiment of Foot. Macquarie's first task was to restore orderly, lawful government and discipline in the colony following the Rum Rebellion against Governor William Bligh. The 73rd Foot was there to replace the New South Wales Corps. The vessels arrived on 28 December. Hindostan and Dromedary departed from Sydney on 12 May 1810. [9] They took with them a contingent of the 102nd Regiment of Foot (New South Wales Corps), as well as Governor Bligh and his family.
Late career and fate
Hindostan was converted to a storeship in 1811 under Duncan Weir.Hindostan shared with San Juan, Sabine, Lavinia, Hyacinth and Tuscan in the American droits for Phoenix, Margaret, Allegany and Tyger, captured on 8 August 1812 at Gibraltar on the arrival of the news of the outbreak of the War of 1812. [lower-alpha 2]
Hindostan was in the Mediterranean in 1815, and then reverted to being a storeship in Woolwhich. On 22 September 1819 she was renamed Dolphin.
Dolphin was hulked at Woolwich in March 1824 to serve as a prison ship. On 16 October 1829, she sprang a leak and sank at Chatham, Kent, with the loss of three lives, [11] but she was refloated, repaired, and returned to service. She was renamed Justitia in 1831, the Royal Navy having sold an earlier Justitia in 1830. Justitia was finally sold on 24 October 1855.
Numerous Royal Navy vessels have been named HMS Dolphin after the dolphin.
HMS Buffalo was a storeship of the Royal Navy, originally built and launched at Sulkea, opposite Calcutta, in 1813 as the merchant vessel Hindostan. The Admiralty purchased her that year after she arrived in Britain. She later transported convicts and immigrants to Australia, before being wrecked in 1840.
Five ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Hindustan or Hindostan, after the old name for the Indian subcontinent:
HCS Bombay, later HMS Bombay and HMS Ceylon, was a teak-built fifth rate, 38-gun wooden warship built in the Bombay Dockyard for the Honourable East India Company (HEIC) and launched in 1793. The Royal Navy purchased her in 1805 and renamed her HMS Bombay. She served with the Royal Navy under that name until 1 July 1808, when she became HMS Ceylon. She was sold at Malta in 1857 and broken up in 1861.
HMS Hindostan was a 56-gun fourth-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was originally the East Indiaman Hindostan, launched in 1789, that the Admiralty bought in 1795. She is known for two events, her voyage to China between 1792 and 1794 when she carried Lord Macartney on a special embassy to China, and her loss in a fire at sea in 1804.
HMS Calcutta was the East Indiaman Warley, converted to a Royal Navy 56-gun fourth rate. This ship of the line served for a time as an armed transport. She also transported convicts to Australia in a voyage that became a circumnavigation of the world. The French 74-gun Magnanime captured Calcutta in 1805. In 1809, after she ran aground during the Battle of the Basque Roads and her crew had abandoned her, a British boarding party burned her.
Four ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Justitia, after the goddess Justitia, of Roman mythology:
HMS Malabar was a 56-gun fourth rate of the Royal Navy. She had previously been the East Indiaman Cuvera, launched at Calcutta in 1798. She made one voyage to London for the British East India Company and on her return to India served as a transport and troopship to support General Baird's expedition to Egypt to help General Ralph Abercromby expel the French there. The Navy bought her in 1804 and converted her to a storeship in 1806. After being renamed HMS Coromandel she became a convict ship and made a trip carrying convicts to Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales in 1819. She spent the last 25 years of her career as a receiving ship for convicts in Bermuda before being broken up in 1853.
HMS Howe was originally the teak-built Indian mercantile vessel Kaikusroo that Admiral Edward Pellew bought in 1805 to serve as a 40-gun frigate. In 1806 the Admiralty fitted her out as a 24-gun storeship and renamed her HMS Dromedary. She made numerous trips, including one notable one to Australia when she brought out Lachlan Macquarie and his family to replace William Bligh as governor of New South Wales. Later, she became a prison hulk in Bermuda. Her most recent contribution, however, is as the source of a rich archaeological site.
HMS Admiral Rainier was a Dutch 16-gun brig that the British captured on 23 August 1800 at Kuyper's Island, Java. They took her into service and named her after Admiral Peter Rainier, the leader of the British expedition. After the British sold her in 1803 apparently the French captured her in 1804 and sold her to the Dutch colonial government in Batavia for anti-piracy patrol. Her Javanese crew mutinied in 1806 and eventually sailed to Penang where vessels of the British East India Company (EIC) seized the vessel. She returned to British service, only to be captured and recaptured by vessels of the EIC. Her ultimate fate is unknown.
A number of ships have been named Asia, including:
Ceres was an East Indiaman launched in 1787. She made three trips to China for the British East India Company (EIC). After the outbreak of war with France in 1793, the Admiralty, desirous of quickly building up the Royal Navy, purchased a number of commercial vessels, including nine East Indiamen, to meet the need for small two-decker fourth rates to serve as convoy escorts. The Admiralty purchased Ceres in 1795 and renamed her HMS Grampus. In 1797 the Admiralty converted her to a storeship. That year her crew participated in the Spithead and Nore mutinies. Grampus grounded in January 1799 and was destroyed.
HMS Porpoise was the former mercantile quarter-decked sloop Lord Melville, which the Royal Navy purchased in 1804 to use as a store-ship.
Five ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Dromedary, after the dromedary:
Sir Edward Hughes was launched in 1784 as an East Indiaman for the British East India Company (EIC). She spent four years as a country ship, i.e., sailing in the East Indies but without going to Britain. Then between 1788 and 1803 she made eight voyages to India and China for the EIC. In 1804 the EIC sold Sir Edward Hughes to the British Royal Navy, which commissioned her as a 38-gun frigate. The Navy renamed her Tortoise in 1807 and converted her to a storeship in 1808. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars she became variously a coal depot, a hulk, and then a convict transport. In 1844 she became a receiving ship at Ascension Island. She was lost there in 1859, or broken up there in 1860, or 1863.
Lord Keith was launched in 1804 by and for Peter Everitt Mestaer. He chartered her to the East India Company (EIC) for six voyages, and she then went on to make another two voyages for the EIC. On her second voyage, and unusually for an East Indiaman, she participated in the proceeds for the recapture of a former British Royal Navy brig and possibly in a skirmish with a French ship. On her third voyage she participated in a notable action. She was broken up c.1820.
Dover Castle was launched in 1798 as an East Indiaman for the British East India Company (EIC). She made six voyages for the EIC. During the second she transported EIC troops to Macao to augment the Portuguese forces there, but the authorities there refused them permission to land. In 1814 Dover Castle was sold and she served for a half-dozen years as a London-based transport. She was hulked c.1820 and finally broken up in 1826.
Manship was launched in 1785 as an East Indiaman. She made six voyages as a "regular ship" for the British East India Company (EIC). In June 1795 Manship shared with several other Indiamen and the Royal Navy in the capture of eight Dutch East Indiamen off St Helena. Her owners sold her in 1801 and she then made one voyage for the EIC as an "extra ship" on a voyage charter. Her owners sold her to the British government in 1803 for use as a powder hulk.
HMS Camel was launched in 1812 at Calcutta as Severn. She sailed to England where the navy purchased her for use as a troopship and transport. She had an uneventful naval career and the navy sold her in 1831. Her new owner returned her to her name of Severn. She made one voyage to Bengal and back for the British East India Company (EIC). She continued to trade with India but disappeared circa 1841.
Asia was built at Bombay Dockyard in 1797. She made at least two voyages for the British East India Company (EIC) before the British Royal Navy purchased her in 1805 in the East Indies. The Royal Navy renamed her HMS Sir Francis Drake and used her as a frigate. She served in the Java campaign of 1811. When she returned to England in 1813 she was refitted as a storeship. Later, she became the flagship, at Newfoundland, for the governors of Newfoundland. The Admiralty sold her in 1825. New owners renamed her Asia and she sailed between Britain and London until 1831 when Portuguese interests purchased her. She then became the frigate Dona Maria II for the Liberal forces that were attempting to install the rightful queen, Dona Maria II, to the throne of Portugal, and overthrow Dom Miguel, who had usurped the throne. In early 1849 conflict developed between the Portuguese government in Macau and the Chinese government over who could collect taxes and tariffs at Macao. Dona Maria II sailed to Macao as part of a small squadron. An internal explosion destroyed her in the harbour on 29 October.
Great Britain 
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