HMS Captain was a 74-gun third-rate

Third-rate

In the British Royal Navy, a third rate was a ship of the line which from the 1720s mounted between 64 and 80 guns, typically built with two gun decks . Years of experience proved that the third rate ships embodied the best compromise between sailing ability , firepower, and cost...

 ship of the line

Ship of the line

A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th through the mid-19th century to take part in the naval tactic known as the line of battle, in which two columns of opposing warships would manoeuvre to bring the greatest weight of broadside guns to bear...

 of the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

, launched on 26 November 1787 at Limehouse

Limehouse

Limehouse is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is on the northern bank of the River Thames opposite Rotherhithe and between Ratcliff to the west and Millwall to the east....

. She served during the French revolutionary

French Revolutionary Wars

The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...

 and Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

 before being placed in harbour service in 1799. An accident caused her to burn and founder in 1813 later that year she was raised and broken up.

French Revolutionary Wars

At the start of the French Revolutionary War, she was part of the Mediterranean fleet which occupied Toulon

Toulon

Toulon is a town in southern France and a large military harbor on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, Toulon is the capital of the Var department in the former province of Provence....

 at the invitation of the Royalists in 1793 before being driven out by Revolutionary troops in an action where Napoleon Bonaparte made his name. In June 1796, Admiral Sir John Jervis

John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent

Admiral of the Fleet John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent GCB, PC was an admiral in the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom...

 transferred Captain Horatio Nelson from into Captain. Jervis appointed Nelson commodore

Commodore (rank)

Commodore is a military rank used in many navies that is superior to a navy captain, but below a rear admiral. Non-English-speaking nations often use the rank of flotilla admiral or counter admiral as an equivalent .It is often regarded as a one-star rank with a NATO code of OF-6, but is not always...

 of a squadron that was first deployed off Livorno

Livorno

Livorno , traditionally Leghorn , is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of approximately 160,000 residents in 2009.- History :...

 during Napoleon's march through northern Italy. In September Nelson oversaw the British withdrawal from Corsica

Corsica

Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....

.

In February 1797, Nelson had rejoined Jervis's fleet 25 miles west of Cape St. Vincent at the southwest tip of Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

, just before it intercepted a Spanish fleet on 14 February. The Battle of Cape St Vincent

Battle of Cape St. Vincent (1797)

In the Battle of Cape St Vincent a British fleet under Admiral Sir John Jervis defeated a larger Spanish fleet under Admiral Don José de Córdoba near Cape St. Vincent, Portugal.-Origins:...

 made both Jervis's and Nelson's names. Jervis was made Earl St Vincent and Nelson was knighted

Order of the Bath

The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...

 for his initiative and daring.

Nelson had realised that the leading Spanish ships were escaping and wore

Jibe

A jibe or gybe is a sailing maneuver where a sailing vessel turns its stern through the wind, such that the wind direction changes from one side of the boat to the other...

 Captain to break out of the line of battle

Line of battle

In naval warfare, the line of battle is a tactic in which the ships of the fleet form a line end to end. A primitive form had been used by the Portuguese under Vasco Da Gama in 1502 near Malabar against a Muslim fleet.,Maarten Tromp used it in the Action of 18 September 1639 while its first use in...

 to attack the much larger Spanish ships. Captain exchanged fire with the Spanish flagship, Santísima Trinidad

Spanish ship Santísima Trinidad

The Santísima Trinidad was a Spanish first-rate ship of the line of 112 guns, which was increased in 1795–96 to 130 guns by closing in the spar deck between the quarterdeck and...

, which mounted 136 guns on four decks. Later Captain closely engaged the 80-gun San Nicolas, when the Spanish ship was disabled by a broadside from Excellent

HMS Excellent (1787)

HMS Excellent was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched at Harwich on 27 November 1787. She was the captaincy of John Gell before he was appointed an Admiral.Excellent took part in the Battle of Cape St Vincent in 1797....

 and ran into another ship, the San Josef of 112-guns. With Captain hardly manoeuvrable, Nelson ran his ship alongside San Nicolas, which he boarded. Nelson was preparing to order his men to board San Josef next when she signalled her intent to surrender. The boarding of San Nicolas, which resulted in the taking of the two larger ships was later immortalised as 'Nelson's Patent Bridge for capturing first rates.'

Captain was the most severely damaged of the British ships as she was in the thick of the action for longer than any other ship. She returned to service following repairs and on 6 May 1799 sailed for the Mediterranean, where she joined Captain John Markham's squadron.

After the Battle of Alexandria

Battle of Alexandria

The Battle of Alexandria or Battle of Canope, fought on March 21, 1801 between the French army under General Menou and the British expeditionary corps under Sir Ralph Abercrombie, took place near the ruins of Nicopolis, on the narrow spit of land between the sea and Lake Abukir, along which the...

, the squadron under Contre-Admiral Jean-Baptiste Perrée, consisting of the 40-gun Junon, 36-gun Alceste, 32-gun Courageuse, 18-gun Salamine and the brig Alerte

French brig Alerte (1787)

The French brig Alerte was launched in 1787 and captured by the Royal Navy at Toulon in 1793. The British set her on fire when they evacuated Toulon later that year. After the French rebuilt her as Alerte, she served at the Battle of Aboukir Bay. The British recaptured her in 1799 and took her into...

 escaped to Genoa.

On 17 June 1799 the French squadron, still under Perrée, was enroute from Jaffa

Jaffa

Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...

 for Toulon when it encountered the British squadron under Markham in . The British captured the entire French squadron, with Captain capturing Alerte. Markham described Alerte as a brig of 14 guns and 120 men, under the command of Lieutenant Dumay.

Napoleonic Wars

During the Napoleonic Wars, Captain took part in the capture of Martinique

Martinique

Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...

 in 1809.

Fate

Later that year, Captain was put into harbour service. In 1813 she was accidentally burned in Limehouse while undergoing conversion to a sheer hulk. When it was clear that the fire, which had begun in the forecastle, had taken hold, her securing lines were cut and she was towed a safe distance away from the other vessels so that she could burn herself out. Even so, orders were given that she be sunk. Ships' launches with carronade

Carronade

The carronade was a short smoothbore, cast iron cannon, developed for the Royal Navy by the Carron Company, an ironworks in Falkirk, Scotland, UK. It was used from the 1770s to the 1850s. Its main function was to serve as a powerful, short-range anti-ship and anti-crew weapon...

s then commenced a one-hour bombardment. She finally foundered after having burned down to the waterline. Two men died in the accident. The wreck was raised in July and broken up at Plymouth.