HMS Hydra (1797)
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| History | |
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 United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Hydra |
| Operator: | Royal Navy |
| Ordered: | 30 April 1795 |
| Builder: | William Cleverley's yard at Gravesend |
| Laid down: | November 1795 |
| Launched: | 13 March 1797 |
| Commissioned: | 25 June 1797 after fitting out at Woolwich Dockyard |
| In service: | 1797 |
| Out of service: | 1817 |
| Reclassified: | Refitted as a Troop Ship in 1813 |
| Fate: | Laid up 1817. Sold 13 January 1820. |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Frigate (Fifth Rate) / Troop Ship |
| Tons burthen: | 1,024 59⁄94 (bm) |
| Length: | 148 ft 3 in (45.2 m) |
| Beam: | 39 ft 6 1⁄2 in (12.1 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 12 ft 8 in (3.9 m) |
| Propulsion: | Sail |
| Complement: | 284 (raised later to 315) |
| Armament: | |
HMS Hydra launched in 1797 was a fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, armed with a main battery of twenty-eight 18-pounder guns.
She was built to the design of the captured French frigate Melpomene (taken in 1794).
Hydra was commissioned in April 1797 under Captain Sir Francis Laforey.
At the Action of 30 May 1798, Hydra, in company with the bomb vessel HMS Vesuvius and the cutter HMS Trial, ran aground the French corvette Confiante, which was destroyed. The corvette Vésuve and an unnamed cutter also ran ashore, but the British were not able to destroy them.
Hydra was anchored at the Nore on Sunday 17 May 1801 (as recorded in the journal of Captain Matthew Flinders of HMS Investigator).
Under the command of Captain George Mundy, for eight years from October 1802 to September 1810, she had an active career in the Napoleonic Wars, including the Blockade of Cadiz (1805-1806).
On 30 January 1804, Hydra and Tribune, operating independently, encountered a French flotilla of 20 vessels off Cape La Hogue, and captured three gun brigs and a lugger. The gun brigs were of 100 tons burthen and new, having been launched only ten days earlier and having been rigged while still in the stocks. They had troops aboard that had embarked the day after the launch. The vessels were from Saint-Malo, sailing to Cherbourg.
Hydra captured brig No. 51 and lugger no. 411. The brig was armed with three 24-pounder guns and was under the command of a lieutenant de vaisseau. She had 50 men aboard, a lieutenant and 26 of whom were from the 32nd Regiment of the Line. The lugger was armed with one 18-pounder, and had 36 men aboard. A lieutenant and 26 of whom were soldiers from the same regiment.
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