At least six ships of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

, have been named HMS ''Daphne'' after the naiad

Daphne Daphne (; ; , , ), a figure in Greek mythology, is a naiad, a variety of female nymph associated with fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks and other bodies of freshwater. There are several versions of the myth in which she appears, but t ...

: * , was a that the French Navy captured in the Channel in December 1794. recaptured her in December 1797. She was sold in May 1802. * HMS ''Daphne'' was the Dutch , launched in 1786, captured in 1796 at the

capitulation of Saldanha Bay The capitulation of Saldanha Bay was the surrender to the British of a Batavian expeditionary force sent to recapture the Dutch Cape Colony in 1796. In 1795, early in the War of the First Coalition, French troops overran the Dutch Republic wh ...

, and brought into service as a 24-gun post ship. She was converted to a

prison ship A prison ship, is a current or former seagoing vessel that has been modified to become a place of substantive detention for convicts, prisoner of war, prisoners of war or civilian internees. Some prison ships were hulk (ship type), hulked. W ...

in 1798 and renamed HMS ''Laurel''; she was sold in 1821. * was a that served primarily in the Baltic and that the Navy sold in 1816. She then became the mercantile ''Daphne'' and made one voyage transporting convicts to New South Wales and later trading with India; she was last listed in 1823 * , an 18-gun

corvette A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper (or " rated") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the sloo ...

* , an

steam sloop Steam frigates (including screw frigates) and the smaller steam corvettes, steam sloops, steam gunboats and steam schooners, were steam-powered warships that were not meant to stand in the line of battle. The first such ships were paddle steame ...

* , a composite

screw A screw is an externally helical threaded fastener capable of being tightened or released by a twisting force (torque) to the screw head, head. The most common uses of screws are to hold objects together and there are many forms for a variety ...

sloop * , an sweeping sloop

See also