HMS Devastation (1804)
| History | |
|---|---|
 UK
|
|
| Name: | Intrepid |
| Builder: | Simon Temple, South Shields |
| Launched: | 1789 |
| Fate: | Sold to Royal Navy in 1804 |
 UK
|
|
| Name: | HMS Devastation |
| Acquired: | By purchase, October 1804 |
| Fate: | Sold 1816 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Bomb vessel |
| Tons burthen: | 445 65⁄94 (bm) |
| Length: |
|
| Beam: | 31 ft 6 1⁄2 in (9.6 m) |
| Armament: |
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HMS Devastation was an 8-gun British Royal Navy bomb vessel launched in 1789 as the mercantile Intrepid. The Navy purchased her in 1804 and sold her in 1816. She served in the English Channel, the Baltic, off the coast of Spain, and in the United States during the Napoleonic Wars and War of 1812, most notably at the bombardment of Fort McHenry in the Battle of Baltimore in September 1814.
As part of Britain's measures against Napoleon's planned invasion of the United Kingdom Devastation was part of a large squadron, comprising eleven ships, ten brigs, three bomb-vessels, an armed lugger, and a cutter, which on 24 and 25 April 1805, captured eight unarmed and an unarmed transport ship at Boulogne.
In 1808 Devastation was in the squadron under the command of Rear-Admiral Richard Keats operating in the Baltic Sea during the war with Denmark–Norway. When news of the uprising of the Spanish against the French reached Denmark, some 12,000 Spanish troops of the Division of the North stationed there under the command of the Marquis de la Romana decided that they wished to leave French service and return to Spain. The Marquis contacted Rear-Admiral Keats in his flagship Superb, and on 9 August 1808 the Spaniards seized the fort and town of Nyborg. Keats' squadron then took possession of the port and organized the transportation of the Spanish back to their home country.
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Wikipedia