HMS Bellerophon (1786)

HMS Bellerophon (1786)

HMS Bellerophon was a ship of the line of the Royal Navy. A third-rate of 74 guns, she was launched in 1786. She served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. She fought in three fleet actions: the Glorious First of June, the Battle of the Nile and theBattle of Trafalgar. While the ship was on blockade duty in 1815, Napoleon boarded her so he could surrender to the ship’s captain. She was later paid off, converted to another ship, and sold for scrap in 1834.

About HMS Bellerophon (1786) in brief

Summary HMS Bellerophon (1786)HMS Bellerophon was a ship of the line of the Royal Navy. A third-rate of 74 guns, she was launched in 1786. She 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, the Battle of the Nile and theBattle of Trafalgar. While the ship was on blockade duty in 1815, Napoleon boarded her so he could surrender to the ship’s captain, ending 22 years of almost continuous war between Britain and France. She was paid off and converted to a prison ship in 18 15, and was renamed Captivity in 1824 to free the name for another ship. She continued in service until 1834, when the last convicts left. The Admiralty ordered her to be sold in 1836; she was subsequently broken up for scrap. Her long and distinguished career has been recorded in literature and folk songs. The ship was named by the Surveyor of the Navy at least at least April 1782, when it entered into service. She had a beam of 1,612 burthen, and a. beam of ​78 ft 10 in, and mounted 74 guns and 32-eight 32-pounder guns on her lower gundeck. The keel was laid down at Frindsbury, near Rochester in Kent, in May 1782; she measured 168 ft on the keel, and 138 ft on the forecastle. Her armament consisted of twenty-eight 18-eight guns on the upper guindeck, fourteen-pounders on the quarter-deck, and four 9pounder and four-decker guns.

She entered service with the Channel Fleet on the outbreak of theFrench Revolutionary Wars in 1792, and took part in the first major fleet action of the wars in 1794. She returned to England before being sent to the West Indies, where she spent the Peace of Amiens on cruises and convoy escort duty between the Caribbean and North America. In 1809, she plied the waters of the Baltic Sea, making attacks on Russian shipping, and by 1810 was off the French coast again, blockading their ports. After repairs, she went out to North America as a convoy escort between 1813 and 1814, and in 1814 was assigned to blockade the French Atlantic port of Rochefort. In July 1815 Napoleon came aboard \”the ship that had dogged his steps for twenty years\” to finally surrender. It was Bellerophon’s last seagoing service, and she was later paid off, converted to another ship, and sold for scrap in 1834. She was one of ten ships built to the modified Arrogant-class design, originally developed by Sir Thomas Slade in 1758 and used to build two ships, HMS Arrogant and HMS Cornwall. The design was resurrected and slightly altered in 1774, and approved by the Admiralty on 25 August that year.