HMS Dictator (1783)
| History | |
|---|---|
 UK
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| Name: | HMS Dictator |
| Ordered: | 21 October 1778 |
| Builder: | Batson, Limehouse |
| Laid down: | May 1780 |
| Launched: | 6 January 1783 |
| Honours and awards: |
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| Fate: | Broken up in 1817 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Inflexible-class ship of the line |
| Tons burthen: | 1379 (bm) |
| Length: | 159 ft (48 m) (gundeck) |
| Beam: | 44 ft 4 in (13.51 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 18 ft 10 in (5.74 m) |
| Sail plan: | Full-rigged ship |
| Armament: | |
HMS Dictator was a 64-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 6 January 1783 at Limehouse. She was converted into a troopship in 1798, and broken up in 1817.
At the "Reduction of Trinidad" in 1797 Dictator participated in the later stages, not having arrived until 18 February, the prize money awarded reflecting this late arrival.
On 8 March 1801, whilst disembarking the army at the Battle of Aboukir during the French campaign in Egypt, one seaman was killed and a midshipman, Edward Robinson, fatally wounded.
Prize money for the capture of enemy ships was usually shared with other warships in the squadron between 1801 and 1806.
Because Dictator served in the navy's Egyptian campaign between 8 March 1801 and 2 September, her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal that the Admiralty issued in 1847 to all surviving claimants.
In the late summer of 1807, Dictator was part of Admiral Gambier's fleet in the Øresund at the Battle of Copenhagen where she shared prize money with some 126 other British naval ships. She was again in Danish Waters the following year, in Admiral Hood's squadron of four ships-of-the-line together with some smaller vessels, tasked with maintaining the blockade between Jutland and Zealand. Her captain, Donald Campbell, ordered the sloop HMS Falcon to proceed on her successful patrols to Samsø, Tunø and Endelave.
In August 1809 Dictator was tasked with the occupation of the Pea Islands to the east of Bornholm but ran aground en route and had to be towed back to Karlskrona for repairs.
In early July 1810, during the Gunboat War with Denmark-Norway, Dictator, in company with Edgar and Alonzo, sighted three Danish gunboats commanded by Lieutenant Peter Nicolay Skibsted, who had captured Grinder in April of that year. The gunboats (Husaren, Løberen, and Flink) sought refuge in Grenå, on eastern Jutland, where a company of soldiers and their field guns could provide cover. However, the British mounted a cutting out expedition of some 200 men in ten ships’ boats after midnight on 7 July, capturing the three gunboats.
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Wikipedia