HMS Lion (1777)
HMS Lion
| |
History | |
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Great Britain | |
Name | HMS Lion |
Ordered | 12 October 1768 |
Builder | Portsmouth Dockyard |
Laid down | May 1769 |
Launched | 3 September 1777 |
Honours and awards | Participated in: Battle of Grenada |
Fate | Sold for breaking up, 30 November 1837 |
Notes | Sheer hulk from 1816 |
General characteristics [1] | |
Class and type | Worcester-class ship of the line |
Tons burthen | 1378 bm |
Length | 159 ft (48 m) (gundeck) |
Beam | 44 ft 6 in (13.56 m) |
Depth of hold | 19 ft 10 in (6.05 m) |
Propulsion | Sails |
Sail plan | Full-rigged ship |
Armament |
HMS Lion was a 64-gun
Career
American Revolutionary War
She fought at the Battle of Grenada under Captain William Cornwallis on 6 July 1779, where she was badly damaged and forced to run downwind to Jamaica. She remained on the Jamaica station for the next year.[2]
On 20 March 1780, Lion fought an action in company with two other ships against a French convoy off Monte Cristi, Dominican Republic, protected by Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte's squadron. The Lion and Cornwallis, then returned Nelson to England. On 20 June, a second action by Cornwallis, took place near Bermuda, when Cornwallis' Lion, accompanied by five other ships of the line, met another French convoy carrying six thousand troops for Rhode Island, and protected by Charles-Henri-Louis d'Arsac de Ternay. The French were too strong for Cornwallis's squadron, but were content to continue with their mission instead of attacking the smaller British force.[3][2]
French Revolutionary Wars
In late July 1793, under the command of Captain Sir
On their way they stopped at New Amsterdam Island or Île Amsterdam. There they found a gang of seal fur hunters under the command of Pierre François Péron. Later, Lion captured the French ship Emélie, the vessel that had landed the sealers. Deprived of the ship that had landed them, Péron and his men spent some 40 months marooned on the island until Captain Thomas Hadley, in Ceres, rescued them in late 1795 and took them to Port Jackson.[4]
Between 1792 and 1794 she carried Lord George Macartney on a special embassy to China. The embassy proceeded to the
In 1796, she visited
She then took part in the siege of Malta,[8] and with HMS Penelope and HMS Foudroyant captured the French 80-gun ship Guillaume Tell as she tried to escape from the blockade (Guillaume Tell was subsequently bought into the Royal Navy as HMS Malta).
In July 1807 in the
On 27 December 1807 Lion captured the French privateer lugger Reciprocité off Beachy Head. She was from Dieppe, had a crew of 45 men, and was armed with 14 guns. Lion sent her into the Downs.[10]
In 1811, under the command of Captain Henry Heathcote, Lion was one of a large fleet of ships involved in the capture of Java from Dutch forces.[11]
On 26 January 1812 Commander Henderson Bain of
Lion was converted to a sheer
Fate
Lion was sold to be broken up at Chatham on 30 November 1837.[1]
Citations
- ^ a b c Lavery, Ships of the Line vol.1, p181.
- ^ a b Mahan, A.T. (1969). The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence. New York: Greenwood Press. pp. 153–157.
- ISBN 0-224-06097-X.
- ^ Earnshaw (1959), pp. 23–24.
- ^ Parish, Capt. (1858). Extract from Notes upon the Passage up the Peiho with Lord Macartney in 1793. Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London, 2(6), 362–363.
- ^ Staunton, G. (1799). An Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China. Philadelphia (pp. 250–251).
- ^ "Treasures of the Asia Collections".
- ^ Obituary of Admiral Sir Manley Dixon (1837). The Gentleman's Magazine, VIII (New Series), 206–207.
- ^ "L'Amiral Baudin" by Jurien De La Gravière
- ^ Lloyd's List №4217.
- ^ James, W. (1837) Archived 15 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine. Naval History of Great Britain, Vol. 6, p. 33
- ^ O'Byrne (1849), Vol. 1, p. 35.
References
- Earnshaw, John (1959) Thomas Muir Scottish Martyr (NSW:The Stone Copying Company).
- Lavery, Brian (2003) The Ship of the Line – Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650–1850. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8.
External links
- Media related to HMS Lion (ship, 1777) at Wikimedia Commons