HMS Leopard (1790)
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| History | |
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 United Kingdom
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| Name: | Leopard |
| Ordered: |
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| Builder: |
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| Laid down: |
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| Launched: | 24 April 1790 |
| Completed: | By 26 May 1790 |
| Reclassified: | Troopship in 1812 |
| Honours and awards: |
Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Egypt" |
| Fate: | Wrecked on 28 June 1814 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | 50-gun Portland-class fourth rate |
| Tons burthen: | 1,055 75⁄94 (bm) |
| Length: |
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| Beam: | 40 ft 8 in (12.4 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 17 ft 6 in (5.33 m) |
| Propulsion: | Sails |
| Sail plan: | Full rigged ship |
| Complement: | 350 |
| Armament: | |
HMS Leopard was a 50-gun Portland-class fourth rate of the Royal Navy. She served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and was notable for the actions of her captain in 1807, which were emblematic of the tensions that later erupted in the War of 1812 between Britain and America.
She was first ordered on 16 October 1775, named on 13 November 1775 and laid down at Portsmouth Dockyard in January 1776. She was reordered in May 1785, ten years after having first been laid down, and construction began at Sheerness Dockyard on 7 May 1785. Work was at first overseen by Master Shipwright Martin Ware until December 1785, and after that, by John Nelson until March 1786, when William Rule took over. She was launched from Sheerness on 24 April 1790, and was completed by 26 May 1790. She was commissioned for service in June that year under her first commander, Captain John Blankett.
On 24 October 1798, Leopard captured the French privateer vessel Apollon, which was under the command of captain La Vaillant. On 22 August 1800 Leopard captured Clarice.
Because Leopard served in the navy's Egyptian campaign (8 March – 8 September 1801), 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 early 1807, a handful of British sailors—some of American birth—deserted their ships, which were then blockading French ships in Chesapeake Bay, and joined the crew of the USS Chesapeake. In an attempt to recover the British deserters, Captain Salusbury Pryce Humphreys, commanding Leopard, hailed Chesapeake and requested permission to search her. Commodore James Barron of Chesapeake refused and Leopard opened fire. Caught unprepared, Barron surrendered and Humphreys sent boarders to search for the deserters. The boarding party seized four deserters from the Royal Navy–three Americans and one British-born sailor–and took them to Halifax, where the British sailor, Jenkin Ratford, was hanged for desertion. The Americans were initially sentenced to 500 lashes, but had their sentence commuted; Britain also offered to return them to America.
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Wikipedia