HMS Albion (1802)

HMS "Albion" was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was launched at Perry's Yard at Blackwall on the Thames on 17 June 1802. She was broken up at Chatham Dockyard in 1836.

In May 1803 she joined Admiral Cornwallis' fleet, which was blockading the vital French naval port of Brest, but was soon detached from the fleet to deploy to the Indian Ocean where she was to remain for several years. In 1814, the year that Napoleon was finally toppled, and after a long period under extensive repair, she became flagship of Rear Admiral George Cockburn, taking part in a war (War of 1812) against the United States — a duty that the first "Albion" had once undertaken. In the summer of 1814, she was involved in the force that harried the coastline of Chesapeake Bay, where she operated all the way up to the Potomac and Patuxent Rivers, destroying large amounts of American shipping, as well as US government property. The operations ended once peace was declared in 1815.

Just a year later, "Albion" was part of a combined British-Dutch fleet taking part in the bombardment of Algiers. In 1827, she was part of a combined British-French-Russian fleet under the command of Admiral Codrington at the Battle of Navarino, where a Turkish-Egyptian fleet was obliterated, securing Greek independence. She was hulked as a quarantine ship in 1831, and finally broken up in 1836.

References

*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.