HMS Pandora (1779)
| History | |
|---|---|
 Great Britain
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| Name: | HMS Pandora |
| Ordered: | 11 February 1778 |
| Builder: | Adams & Barnard, Grove Street shipyard, Deptford |
| Laid down: | 2 March 1778 |
| Launched: | 17 May 1779 |
| Completed: | 3 July 1779 at Deptford Dockyard |
| Commissioned: | May 1779 |
| Fate: | Wrecked on 28 August 1791 in the Torres Strait. |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | 24-gun Porcupine-class sixth-rate post ship |
| Tons burthen: | 524 (bm) |
| Length: |
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| Beam: | 32 ft 3 in (9.83 m) |
| Draught: |
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| Depth of hold: | 10 ft 3 in (3.12 m) |
| Sail plan: | Full-rigged ship |
| Complement: | 160 (140 by 1815) |
| Armament: |
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HMS Pandora was a 24-gun Porcupine-class sixth-rate post ship of the Royal Navy launched in May 1779. She is best known as the ship sent in 1790 to search for the Bounty and the mutineers who had taken her. She was partially successful by capturing 14 men but was wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef on the return voyage in 1791.
Her first service was in the Channel during the 1779 threatened invasion by the combined fleets of France and Spain. She was deployed in North American waters during the American War Of Independence and saw service as a convoy escort between England and Quebec. On 18 July 1780, while under the command of Captain Anthony Parry, she and Danae captured the American privateer Jack. Then on 2 September, the two British vessels captured the American privateer Terrible. On 14 January Pandora captured the brig Janie. Then on 11 March she captured the ship Mercury. Two days later Pandora and HMS Belisarius were off the Capes of Virginia when they captured the sloop Louis, which had been sailing to Virginia with a cargo of cider and onions. Under Captain John Inglis Pandora captured more merchant vessels. The first was the brig Lively on 24 May 1782. More followed: the ship Mercury and the sloops Port Royal and Superb (22 November 1782), brig Nestor (3 February 1783), and the ship Financier (29 March). At the end of the American war the Admiralty placed Pandora in ordinary (mothballed) in 1783 at Chatham for seven years.
Pandora was ordered to be brought back into service on 30 June 1790 when war between England and Spain seemed likely due to the Nootka Crisis. However, in early August 1790, 5 months after learning of the mutiny on HMS Bounty, the First Lord of the Admiralty, John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, decided to despatch her to recover the Bounty, capture the mutineers, and return them to England for trial. She was refitted, and her 6-pounder guns were reduced to 20, though she gained four 18-pounder carronades.
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Wikipedia