HMS Goliath (1781)

HMS "Goliath" was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 19 October 1781 at Deptford Dockyard. She was present at the Battle of the Nile.

She is recorded as entering Portsmouth Harbour on 24 September 1785. She is recorded as at the Tagus on 21 December 1796, when the Mediterranean Fleet arrived there, and sailed from there the following 20 January with a Portuguese convoy. She then, 6 February, was joined off Cape St Vincent by a squadron detached from the Channel Fleet, and was present with it at Jervis's action against the Spanish there on 14 February 1797. She was commanded during that action by Captain Charles H. Knowles, and lost only 8 wounded and none killed. However, Jervis called Knowles 'an imbecile, totally incompetent, the Goliath no use whatever under his command' and so after the battle Knowles was ordered to exchange ships with Captain Thomas Foley of "Britannia". Foley restored "Goliath" to order whilst "Britannia" slid under Knowles. [http://www.stvincent.ac.uk/Heritage/1797/people/jervis.html]

She then sailed on 31 March 1797 from Lisbon to blockade (and, on 3rd July, bombard) Cadiz. She sailed from off Cadiz on 24 May 1798 with a squadron of 10 ships of the line to join Nelson's squadron in the Mediterranean in searching for the French fleet transporting Bonaparate to Egypt, arriving with them 7 June. She was thus present at the Battle of the Nile on 1 August, at which Foley deduced that there was enough room to sail between the shore and the stationary anchored French ships. Four other ships followed, and it was this move that can be said to have won the battle. After it, on 19 August, she and the "Zealous", "Swiftsure", "Seahorse", "Emerald", "Alcmène", and "Bonne-Citoyenne" left Aboukir Bay to cruise off the port of Alexandria. There, six days later, her boats captured the French armed ketch "Torride" from under the guns of Aboukir Castle, and she remained stationed off Alexandria until at least the end of 1798.

On 28 June 1803 she captured the 16-gun ship-corvette "Mignonne", which was subsequently added to the British navy under her French name. In May 1805 she was in the Channel Fleet, and on 15 August joined HMS "Camilla" in her pursuit of the French brig-corvette "Faune", and helped her to capture it, and on the same day was joined by the HMS "Raisonnable" to chase the French frigate "Topaze" and two ship-corvettes (one of which, the ship-corvette "Torche", was subsequently captured by the "Goliath").

On 26 July 1807 "Goliath" sailed as a part of a fleet of 38 vessels for Copenhagen and was present from 15 August - 20 October that year for the siege and bombardment of Copenhagen and the capture of the Danish Fleet by Admiral Gambier. She then was present on May - Oct 1808 in the Baltic with a fleet under Vice-admiral Sir J Saumarez, being chased on 19 August by the Russian fleet in Hango Bay. On 30 August she joined the "Centaur", "Implacable" and the Swedish fleet blockading the Russians in the port of Rogerswick.

She finally sailed for home, heading for the Downs, arriving in Portsmouth on 25 July 1813 and then departing only 15 days later with the West Indies convoy. Calling at Falmouth on 15 August, and then at Cork, she took the convoy across and then headed back for Portsmouth, arriving 14 August 1814, the Downs a day later, and then the naval base at Chatham, where on 3 October 1814 she was paid off. She was broken up the following year.

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.

External links

*http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/18-1900/G/02017.html