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CAPTAIN (74) Built in 1787, Limehouse.
Burnt in 1813.

  • 1793 Capt. REEVE.
    During the Revolutionary War she formed part of Lord HOOD's fleet at the occupation of Toulon in August 1793. She was then sent to dismantle the forts and batteries on the Iles d'Hyeres and then accompanied Rear Ad. GELL to Genoa and assisted in the capture of MODESTE (36) and three French gunboats.
    Her first lieutenant, Mr Wilson RATHBORNE, assisted in the weighing of the 40-gun frigate IMPERIEUSE which had been scuttled by the enemy in Port Especia.
  • 1795 Capt. J. S. SMITH.
  • On 11 July 1796 Commodore NELSON transferred his broad pennant from the worn out AGAMEMNON to CAPTAIN, Capt. ANDREWS.
    (For a long time AGAMEMNON's hull had been kept together by cables passed under her bottom.) His officers were Lieuts. DALTON, SPICER, SUMMERS, COMPTON and BERRY.
    The master was Mr Philip THOMAS.
  • NELSON moved to MINERVE in December 1796 leaving Capt. R. W. MILLER in command.
    When he arrived at Gibraltar on 9 February NELSON learned that a Spanish fleet had passed the Rock to the westward and sailed in pursuit on the 11th.
    On the 13th. he shifted his flag back to CAPTAIN and on the 14th. engaged the Spaniards in the Battle of St. Vincent.
    CAPTAIN lost her fore-topmast and had not a sail, shroud or rope standing, and with her wheel shot away, was incapable of service in the line or in chase.
    NELSON ran aboard the SAN NICOLAS and boarded her using the 69th. regiment as marines.
    From her he boarded the SAN JOSEF giving rise to the saying in the fleet that this was "NELSON's patent bridge for boarding First Rates." CAPTAIN lost 7 killed and 10 wounded boarding the SAN NICOLAS, none were lost boarding the SAN JOSEF.
  • 1799 Capt. BOWEN, 01/1799.
  • 1800 Capt. Sir Robert STRACHAN, 02/1799.
    Torbay.
    Used in the blockade of Brest.
    On 30 May 1800 orders came down to Plymouth for CAPTAIN to fit and victual for 6 month's foreign service
  • During the gales on 24 September CAPTAIN, with the inshore flying squadron off Brest took shelter in Douarnenez Bay with CAESAR, POMPEE, MONTAGUE, SIRIUS and MAGAERA where "they lay as snug as in Torbay or Cawsand Bay, without splitting a rope yarn."
  • On 30 September she spoke a large West Indiaman from Jamaica which been taken by the French privateer GRAND MOUCHE and then recaptured by the Guernsey privateers ALARM, DISPATCH and MARQUIS OF TOWNSEND as she was being taken into Bordeaux.
    Seven of the mutineers from DANAE were found in the prize crew which GRAND MOUCHE had put aboard the Indiaman.
    They were immediately put in irons.
    CAPTAIN arrived off the Sound on 8 October, sailed for Torbay then returned to Plymouth on 12 October.
    By the end of the month she was with the flying squadron off the Black Rocks.
  • On 5 November the boats of CAPTAIN pushed through the surf to bring off the officers and crew of MARLBOROUGH which had been wrecked on a ledge of rocks near Isle Grouat during the previous night's gale.
    Lieut. WILLIAMS and 20 men were put on board the Danish brig AMITY which had been detained by CAPTAIN and for 12 days they suffered extreme privation on the open deck in shocking weather before reaching Plymouth.
    At the urging of the broker Mr P. Symons, Ad. Sir Thomas PASLEY ordered two gun boats to be sent off with fresh provisions to relieve them.
  • On 24 November CAPTAIN chased a French 24-gun corvette ashore near the Glenan Isles.
    Lieut. HANNAH and a party of seamen and marines in four boats were towed in by SUWOROW and NILE and LURCHER towed in four more, all manned and armed.
    Although under a tremendous fire of grape, round and musket-balls from a battery high above her, they landed and set her on fire.
    They re-embarked after she blew up with the loss of one man killed by a shot striking the fluke of SUWOROW's anchor through his head and seven men wounded.
  • In January 1801 CAPTAIN struck a rock off Ushant with such force under the step of the main mast that she started making water at almost 3 inches a minute, nearly too much for the pumps to cope with. She came into the Sound on the 11th. attended by FISGARD and the LORD NELSON cutter, the leak increasing all the time. She fired distress guns until she got to the narrows when all the boats from the dock and the fleet came to help her and she was got into the Hamoaze. She went back into Cawsand Bay on 5 May.
  • At the beginning of November CAPTAIN, Capt. BOYLES, GANGES, BRUNSWICK and ELEPHANT were detached from the Channel fleet under Commodore ESSINGTON in GOLIATH with sealed orders for Jamaica.
    Letters from there dated 5 December stated that they had arrived safely and that the squadron was healthy with scarcely a man on the sick list.
    CAPTAIN was paid off at Plymouth on 6 August 1800, her crew were discharged and she was laid up in ordinary.
  • 1805 Plymouth for repair.
  • 1805 Capt. G. H. STEPHENS, Channel fleet.
  • 1807 Capt. George COCKBURNE.
    Capt. Isaac WOLLEY, Plymouth.
  • 1808 Capt. RUSHWORTH, Leeward Is.
  • 1809 Capt. Christopher NESHAM.
    CAPTAIN, being found unfit for further service, was paid off in 1810 and laid up in the Hamoaze.
  • At about 11 o'clock on the night of 22 March 1813 a fire broke out in the small galley under the forecastle of CAPTAIN which had been recently converted to a hulk and moored off the Jettyhead.
    The SAN JOSEF was lashed alongside her to remove stores prior to being docked and if she had not been cut free and towed to a safe distance she to would have gone up in flames.
    By midnight the fire, fanned by a light wind, had spread to most of the upper parts and by two the internal parts were fully ignited.
    Water was poured into her from the shore, the agent of the Dock Water Company having turned off the supply to the town to increase the flow in the yard pipes.
  • More than 200 shots were fired into her between wind and water from dockyard launches to try and sink her before she drifted into other shipping but she was made continually more buoyant by the action of the fire and the shot holes rose above the waterline.
    At about 4 o'clock, after burning to the water's


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