HMS ''Lion'' was a 64-gun third-rate ship of the line of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

, of the , launched on 3 September 1777 at Portsmouth Dockyard.

Career

American Revolutionary War

She fought at the Battle of Grenada under Captain

William Cornwallis Admiral of the Red Sir William Cornwallis, (10 February 17445 July 1819) was a Royal Navy officer. He was the brother of Charles Cornwallis, the 1st Marquess Cornwallis, British commander at the siege of Yorktown. Cornwallis took part in a n ...

on 6 July 1779, where she was badly damaged and forced to run downwind to

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

. She remained on the

Jamaica station Jamaica station is a major train station of the Long Island Rail Road located in Jamaica, Queens, New York City. With weekday ridership exceeding 200,000 passengers, it is the largest transit hub on Long Island, the fourth-busiest rail station ...

for the next year. 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 Charles-Henri-Louis d'Arsac, chevalier de Ternay (27 January 1723 – 15 December 1780) was a French naval officer. Most active in the Seven Years' War and the War of American Independence, Ternay was the naval commander of a 1762 expedition ...

. The French were too strong for Cornwallis's squadron, but were content to continue with their mission instead of attacking the smaller British force.

French Revolutionary Wars

In late July 1793, under the command of Captain Sir

Erasmus Gower Admiral Sir Erasmus Gower (3 December 1742 – 21 June 1814) was a Welsh naval officer and colonial governor. Naval career Gower, aged 13, joined the Royal Navy in 1755 under the patronage of his uncle, Captain John Donkley. He was present at ...

, ''Lion'' escorted the East Indiaman , which carried the British ambassador Lord Macartney on his way to visit the Qianlong Emperor of China (the

Macartney embassy The Macartney Embassy (), also called the Macartney Mission, was the first British diplomatic mission to China, which took place in 1793. It is named for its leader, George Macartney, Great Britain's first envoy to China. The goals of the missi ...

). 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 , rescued them in late 1795 and took them to Port Jackson.Earnshaw (1959), pp. 23–24. Between 1792 and 1794 she carried Lord George Macartney on a special embassy to China. The embassy proceeded to the Bohai Gulf, off the

Hai River The Hai River (海河, lit. "Sea River"), also known as the Peiho, ("White River"), or Hai Ho, is a Chinese river connecting Beijing to Tianjin and the Bohai Sea. The Hai River at Tianjin is formed by the confluence of five watercourses: the ...

. The ambassador and his party were conveyed up river by light craft to

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popu ...

before proceeding by land to Beijing On reaching Tianjin, Macartney sent orders to ''Lion'' to proceed to Japan, but because of sickness among the crew she was unable to do so. The embassy rejoined ''Lion'' at Canton in December 1793. The ship's journal from this voyage is in the library of

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

In 1796, she visited

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

; in 1797, her crew were among those who joined the Mutiny at the Nore. In 1798, now under the command of Sir

Manley Dixon Admiral Sir Manley Dixon, KCB (3 January 1757; 8 February 1837) was a prominent Royal Navy officer during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Born into a military family in the late 1750s or early 1760s, Dixon joined the Navy an ...

, ''Lion'' fought a squadron of Spanish frigates at the

action of 15 July 1798 The action of 15 July 1798 was a minor naval battle of the French Revolutionary Wars, fought off the Spanish Mediterranean coast by the Royal Navy ship of the line HMS ''Lion'' under Captain Manley Dixon and a squadron of four Spanish Navy f ...

and captured . She then took part in the siege of

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

, and with and 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 ). In July 1807 in the Malacca Strait she successfully protected from the French frigate , without an engagement, a convoy homeward bound from China. On 27 December 1807 ''Lion'' captured the French privateer

lugger A lugger is a sailing vessel defined by its rig, using the lug sail on all of its one or several masts. They were widely used as working craft, particularly off the coasts of France, England, Ireland and Scotland. Luggers varied extensively ...

''Reciprocité'' off

Beachy Head Beachy Head is a chalk headland in East Sussex, England. It is situated close to Eastbourne, immediately east of the Seven Sisters. Beachy Head is located within the administrative area of Eastbourne Borough Council which owns the land, formi ...

. She was from Dieppe, had a crew of 45 men, and was armed with 14 guns. ''Lion'' sent her into the Downs. 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. On 26 January 1812 Commander Henderson Bain of became acting captain of ''Lion''. Bain returned to command of ''Harpy'' a few weeks before he received promotion to

post captain Post-captain is an obsolete alternative form of the rank of captain in the Royal Navy. The term served to distinguish those who were captains by rank from: * Officers in command of a naval vessel, who were (and still are) addressed as captain ...

6 April 1813.O'Byrne (1849), Vol. 1, p. 35. ''Lion'' was converted to a sheer hulk in September 1816, following the end of the

Napoleonic wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

Fate

''Lion'' was sold to be broken up at Chatham on 30 November 1837.

Citations and references

Citations 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. .

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lion (1777) Ships of the line of the Royal Navy Worcester-class ships of the line 1777 ships