Author Topic: HMS Canada (1765 - 1834)  (Read 2269 times)

Offline MartinR

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1558
  • Yorkshire exile, father of two Men of Kent
Re: HMS Canada (1765 - 1834)
« Reply #6 on: November 25, 2020, 08:58:27 AM »
Just in case there are any who are not aware, the "Annus Mirabilis" of  1759 which Stuart refers to in his second paragraph was the "Wonderful year" mentioned in "Heart of Oak", the official march of the Royal Navy.
Quote
Come, cheer up, my lads, 'tis to glory we steer,
 To add something new to this wonderful year;
 To honour we call you, as freemen not slaves,
 For who are so free as the sons of the waves?
Chorus:
 Heart of Oak are our ships,
 Jolly Tars are our men,
 We always are ready: Steady, boys, Steady!
 We'll fight and we'll conquer again and again.

Offline CAT

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 590
Re: HMS Canada (1765 - 1834)
« Reply #5 on: November 25, 2020, 08:33:32 AM »
I think I've answered my own question.


A caption I have found for the cross-section illustration reads 'Comparison of midship sections of 38 gun frigates built in the ordinary British method (left), and one built to the method proposed by Mr. Gabriel Snodgrass before the House of Commons, March 1771. Snodgrass, surveyor to the East India Company, proposed building ships with iron knees and diagonal braces, thus strengthening the hulls while reducing the quantity of timber used. Line engraving, published in the "Naval Chronicle," Vol. V, by Bunney and Gold, London, 1801'.
[/size][/color]
[/size]This suggests they are comparison sections with that to the right being a typical, whilst that to the left being proposed improvements. [/color]

Offline CAT

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 590
Re: HMS Canada (1765 - 1834)
« Reply #4 on: November 25, 2020, 08:28:27 AM »
Is it possible the two sections are through the same ship, just different locations along its length?

Offline stuartwaters

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 887
Re: HMS Canada (1765 - 1834)
« Reply #3 on: November 24, 2020, 06:53:18 PM »
Thanks Stuart for another interesting history lesson. The Navy certainly got their money's worth from this ship! The diagonal bracing appears to have made it rather higher than originally, was that always the case?


That's a very good question Dave. The cross-sections appear to be two different ships. The left hand picture appears to be a cross-section of a two-decked ship of the line and serves to show the system of knees and hanging knees supporting the joints between the beams and frames as originally built. The right hand picture shows a cross-section of a three-decked ship of the line and serves to show how the iron straps reinforcing those joints are fitted, together with the diagonal braces.
"I did not say the French would not come, I said they will not come by sea" - Admiral Sir John Jervis, 1st Earl St Vincent.

Offline Dave Smith

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 366
Re: HMS Canada (1765 - 1834)
« Reply #2 on: November 24, 2020, 05:32:24 PM »
Thanks Stuart for another interesting history lesson. The Navy certainly got their money's worth from this ship! The diagonal bracing appears to have made it rather higher than originally, was that always the case?

Offline stuartwaters

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 887
HMS Canada (1765 - 1834)
« Reply #1 on: November 22, 2020, 09:18:22 PM »

HMS Canada was a 74-gun, Third Rate ship of the line of the Common Type, built at the Woolwich Royal Dockyard. Although originally intended to be a one-off, she came to be the lead ship of a group of four.


The year of 1759, when the Seven Years War had been at it's height had become known as the Annus Mirabilis, the year when the British had won the victories which had decided the outcome of the war. The 74-gun ship was still a relatively new type of ship of the line to the Royal Navy at the time and in 1759, there were only fourteen in service with the fleet. The greatest vindication of the decision to adopt the type came at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in November of that year. Of the twenty-three ships of the line in Admiral Sir Edward Hawke's fleet in that battle, only seven were Seventy-Fours. One, HMS Torbay was an old three-decker cut down to a 74-gun ship. One was an ex-French ship, HMS Magnanime and the other five were of home-grown designs. In the Battle of Quiberon Bay, Le Formidable, a powerful French 80-gun ship had been forced to surrender by a British Seventy-Four, HMS Resolution. The other Seventy-Fours in Hawke's fleet were also to play critical roles in the Battle. The remarkable thing about Hawke's victory was that it was the single most overwhelming victory yet by one sailing battlefleet against another of roughly equal strength and numbers.


The Seventy-Four proved itself in single combat two years later when HMS Bellona, the first of what would become known as the Royal Navy's Common Type ships, took on and defeated the French Seventy-Four Le Courageux in an action lasting only thirty minutes. This was despite the French ship being larger, more powerfully armed and having 150 more men in her crew. In later wars, it would come to be taken for granted that a British Seventy-Four could take on and defeat an enemy warship with up to fifty percent more firepower.


The Seventy-Four had proved itself so convincingly that the Admiralty and the Navy Board decided immediately after the Battle of Quiberon Bay that the time had come to experiment and to try to make them even better. They ordered three ships to be built to new designs. HMS Ramillies by Sir Thomas Slade was a development of his previous Bellona and Arrogant Classes, HMS Albion, also by Slade, was a development of his previous design for HMS Neptune. HMS Canada, designed by Slade's Co-Surveyor William Bately, was based on his previous design for HMS Ajax, but was larger.


HMS Canada was ordered from the Woolwich Royal Dockyard on the 1st December 1759. The first keel section of what was to become HMS Canada was laid at Woolwich on the 1st July 1760 and her construction was to be overseen by Mr Joseph Harris, the Master Shipwright. On the 28th October 1760, orders were received from the Admiralty that the new ship, up to that point just a hull number, was to be called 'Canada'.


The Seven Years War was ended by the Treaty of Paris which was signed on 10th February 1763 and with the signing of the Treaty, the construction of new warships, especially large ones like HMS Canada took on a lower priority. For this reason, the new ship wasn't launched until the 17th September 1765. With the war over, HMS Canada was surplus to requirements. The ship was rigged with a jury rig and was taken to Chatham where she was to be laid up in the Ordinary. At the time of her launch, HMS Canada was the largest Seventy-Four yet built to a wholly home-grown design. Although the Large Type ships HMS Valiant and HMS Triumph were significantly larger than HMS Canada, they were direct copies of an ex-French ship, L'Invincible, now HMS Invincible.


On completion, HMS Canada was a ship of 1,605 tons. She was 170ft long at her upper gundeck and 138ft 1in long at the keel. The ship was 46ft 9in wide across her beams and drew 11ft 9in at the bows and 18ft 3in at the rudder. In common with all Common Type 74-gun ships at the time, she was armed with 28 x 32pdr long guns on the lower gundeck, 28 x 18pdr long guns on the upper gundeck, 4 x 9pdr long guns on the forecastle with 14 more on the quarterdeck. The ship was also fitted with a dozen half-pounder swivel guns fitted to her forecastle and quarterdeck handrails and bulwarks as well as in her fighting tops.


HMS Canada Plans


Orlop Plan:





Lower Gundeck Plan:





Upper Gundeck Plan:





Quarterdeck and Forecastle Plans:





Inboard profile and Plan:





Sheer Plan and Lines:





A model of HMS Majestic. She was a ship launched twenty years after HMS Canada and was built to the same design, so HMS Canada herself would have been identical apart from her figurehead and decorations:





When the ship arrived at Chatham, she became the responsibility of the Master Attendant in the Royal Dockyard. She was to be manned by a skeleton crew comprised of a Boatswain with two servants, Carpenter with two servants, Purser, who was allowed to live ashore within a reasonable distance of the Dockyard, Gunner with two servants and Cook with one. In addition to these Standing Officers, the ship had a crew of 26 men, rated at Able Seaman. Once the ship had been fitted with accomodation for these men, she was secured to a mooring buoy in the River Medway and with her hatches and gunports sealed shut, was to remain there until needed.


The year in which the ship had been launched had also seen the start of the sequence of events which were to lead to the next war. The Seven Years War had started in 1754 as a territorial dispute between French and British settlers in North America, known now as the French and Indian War. In 1756, what is now known as the Seven Years War was declared and it rapidly escalated into an all-out, global war between the superpowers of the day. After an initial defeat in the Battle of Minorca in 1756, the British quickly settled on a strategy of attacking their French and Spanish enemies in their overseas possessions and on the coast of France herself. From then on, for the French at least, defeat had followed defeat and by the time the war ended, France was bankrupt. Things were little better for the Spanish. Their richest overseas possessions, Havana in Cuba and Manila in the Phillipines had fallen to the rampant British. Although many of the territories taken by the British were returned under the Treaty of Paris, the French were forced to permanently cede all the territory in North America between the Appalacian mountains and the Mississippi River as well as all of French Canada. War on such a scale did not come cheap and all the combatant nations had had to borrow massive amounts of money in order to build ships, feed, clothe, arm and pay the huge numbers of soldiers and sailors required to fight the war. Indeed for France, the loss of lucrative overseas possessions and the money they generated from trade had led to a credit crunch, where international bankers had refused to lend the Government of France the money needed to continue the war, forcing them to default on their existing debts.  In order to pay down their enormous debt mountain, the British Government decided that it was going to directly levy taxes on their own lucrative colonies in North America, which at the time, enjoyed a status similar to a modern-day tax haven. The inhabitats of these colonies were to be given no say in how the taxes were to be levied and this caused a storm of protest. Although happy to pay Duties for the regulation of trade and taxes to pay for local colonial governments, the levying of taxes directly from London over which they had no say crossed a line for the colonists. The slogan of "No taxation without representation" became a rallying call for disaffected colonists and as their reluctance to bow to the will of the Government in London became clear, the methods of collecting the taxes became increasingly draconian and heavy-handed. Over the course of the next ten years, what started as political debate and protest grew into rioting and from 1775, armed rebellion. The first shots in what was to become the American War of Independence or the American Revolutionary War were fired in skirmishes at Lexington and Concord, where the part-time soldiers of the Massachusetts Militia drove off the full-time soldiers of the British Army, brought in to subdue the disobedient colonists. Further victories went the way of the Americans with the capture of Boston and the successful defence of Charleston in 1776 and in two battles fought at Saratoga in 1777 and the war developed from there into a stalemate with victories and defeats for both sides. This pursuaded the French to secretly begin supplying the rebels with arms and money. On July 4th 1776, the Americans formally declared themselves to be independent of the British. The war in North America continued to escalate and in 1778, the King of France gambled that with the British distracted by a seemingly unwinnable war in the quagmire of North America, France could openly intervene on the side of the rebels while the British were bogged down and win back the territory and prestige lost in the previous war. The British, fearing this move, established a Commission with the power to negotiate with the Americans and give them what they wanted while keeping North America under British control. The French feared this move and countered by inviting representatives from the newly-founded US Congress to negotiate. On 6th February 1778, those representatives and representatives of the French King signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance. In a nutshell, these Treaties recognised the United States of America as a sovereign nation for the first time and promised unlimited French financial and military assistance in return for a commitment from the Americans to fight for nothing less than total independence from Great Britain. Their confidence boosted by French recognition of their new status as a sovereign nation in their own right, the Americans flatly rejected British attempts to negotiate an end to the war on their terms. In retaliation, on March 17th 1778, Britain declared war on France.


Despite the Declaration of War, it was to be October of 1778 before HMS Canada was taken into the Royal Dockyard at Chatham to be fitted for sea. The reason for the delay was because since the end of the Dutch Wars in 1688, the facilities at the Chatham Royal Dockyard had fallen into a state of serious disrepair and these defects needed to be rectified before large ships like HMS Canada could be prepared for war. The deficiencies at Chatham had been recognised during the Falklands Crisis of 1770 and plans had been laid to completely renovate both the Dockyard and the adjoining Ropeyard, but the work had fallen well behind schedule by the time the war broke out in 1778. In October 1778, HMS Canada was taken into the Dockyard at Chatham and it quickly became apparent that the ship needed repairs. Those repairs took a year and in the meantime, the ship commissioned for the Channel Fleet under Captain Hugh Dalrymple on 22nd February 1779.


Ten months later, HMS Canada paid off for a refit. This refit saw her armament increased. In line with the French practice of carrying 30 x 18 pdr long guns on the upper gundeck rather than the 28 carried by British ships, HMS Canada was fitted with an extra pair of gunports on her upper gundeck. During the work, HMS Canada re-commissioned into the Channel Fleet under Captain Sir George Collier on 28th January 1780. Six months later, the work was declared complete, the ship was re-classed as a 76-gun ship and rejoined the Channel Fleet.


On 15th August 1780, HMS Canada in company with the frigate HMS Ambuscade (12pdr, 32) and the British privateer Lurcher (under Mr William Doyle) captured the French snow Saint Laurent. By agreement between the commanders, the prize money was split between the crews of all three vessels.


On 16th June 1779, Spain had entered the war on the side of the French and the Americans, but given their losses in the Seven Years War, they restricted their primary objective in the war to the recapture of Gibraltar and threw almost everything they had into laying seige to the Rock. The British were equally determined to hold on to it. In December of 1779, a British fleet under Vice-Admiral Sir George Rodney had conducted a successful breach of the Franco-Spanish blockade of Gibraltar and delivered vital supplies and reinforcements to the beseiged garrison.


By the spring of 1781, the Channel Fleet was under the command of Vice-Admiral George Darby. On the 13th March, Vice-Admiral Darby left the great fleet anchorage off St. Helens, Isle of Wight with a fleet of 28 ships of the line including HMS Canada and a large convoy destined for a further relief of Gibraltar. The fleet was joined off Cork by more supply ships and at noon on the 12th April, the whole convoy anchored in the Bay of Gibraltar, while the ships of the line and the frigates cruised in the Gut of Gibraltar. The Second Relief of Gibraltar complete, HMS Canada with the rest of the fleet left Gibraltar and headed back to Portsmouth. On the way back, Vice-Admiral Darby ordered Captain Collier in HMS Canada to keep an eye on the French naval base at Brest. In the morning of 30th April, HMS Canada's lookouts sighted a group of vessels, in Captain Collier's own words in a letter to the Secretary to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty:


"You will be pleased to acquaint their Lordships, that on the 1st Instant, being detached in the Canada from the Fleet under Vice-Admiral Darby, as a Ship of Observation I discovered at Seven A. M. a considerable' number of English Merchant Vessel's, and a Ship and Sloop of War, Which appeared to be Enemies, a little to Windward of them. On our giving Chace, they tacked and brought-to, to reconnoitre us as we passed, and then went off under an easy Sail: The Sloop mounted 22 Guns, and seemed full to Men.


So soon as we could fetch into the Wake of the Ship, we put about, and continued the Chace full Seventy Leagues, till Dawn of Day next Morning. She thought proper to bring-to, and engage us, hoisting Spanish Colours: It fell about this Time almost calm, with a considerable Swell, or the Contest would not have lasted so long, probably as Half an Hour, which it did ; she then submitted to His Majesty's Colours, being a good deal shattered, and having a Number of Men killed and wounded. They dismounted a lower Deck Gun of the Canada, and shot off one of its Trunnions.


We found her to be a very large Frigate belonging to the King of Spain, called the Leocadia, and the only one the Spaniards have coppered. She had been only six Days from Ferrol, and was bound (I have Reason to imagine) to the South Seas Express, but threw all their Papers overboard. She has Ports for Forty Guns, yet carries only Thirty four, they supplying the spare Ports from the opposite Guns.


This Ship was commanded by Don Francisco de Wenthuisen, Knight of the Order of St. Jago, (who had a Commission to command all Frigates he might meet with of his own Nation).


It was with Concern I learnt that this gallant Officer lost his Right Arm in defending his Ship; the second Captain is also wounded:


Two of the Officers are Knights of Malta."



A model of the Leocadia, from the website of Charles Miller Auctioneers:





In the Action of 1st May 1781, HMS Canada suffered ten men wounded. The Leocadia was taken into the Royal Navy under her Spanish name.


On 23rd June 1781, Captain Collier was replaced in command by Captain the Honourable William Cornwallis. He was not to receive another command appointment until after the war when he was appointed to command HMS Hector (74) in February of 1785.


Captain Cornwallis was the younger brother of General Sir Charles Cornwallis, the First Marquess Cornwallis. At the time of his appointment, his brother was at the head of an army successfully campaigning against the Americans and their French allies, driving them south towards Florida. On the 20th July 1781, HMS Canada sailed to join the war in the West Indies.


In September 1781, Captain Cornwallis received orders to take his ship to New York, where ships of the line were desperately needed. The reason was because one of France's best naval commanders, Vice-Admiral Francois Paul Joseph, the Compte de Grasse was active off North America with a fleet. The Compte de Grasse had already driven off an attack by a British squadron under Rear-Admiral Sir Samuel Hood in an action fought off Fort Royal, Martinique during the previous April before he and his fleet were redeployed to North America. In the meantime, Captain Cornwallis' brother's campaign in North America had hit a snag. The army's supply lines from New York had become overstretched and were vulnerable to attack by units of the American Continental Army, French Army units and their respective Native American allies. The Army's Commander-in-Chief in North America, General Clinton, had ordered General Cornwallis to secure a deep-water port in order that he could be resupplied by sea and in accordance with his orders, General Cornwallis had occupied the city of Yorktown, at the head of Chesapeake Bay. Chesapeake Bay has a very narrow entrance and was easily blockaded and both General George Washington commanding the Continental Army and General the Compte de Rochambeau commanding their French allies knew that if the mouth of the bay could be secured, then their encirclement of Yorktown would be complete and a British surrender would only be a matter of time. The Compte de Grasse had succeeded in securing the entrance to the Bay and an attempt by the Royal Navy to force them out had been defeated at the Battle of Chesapeake Bay, fought on the 5th September. HMS Canada had been sent from the Caribbean to reinforce the fleet off North America, led by Vice-Admiral Thomas Graves, but had arrived too late to participate in the Battle. On the 17th October 1781, General Lord Cornwallis surrendered to the beseiging Franco-American forces along with the bulk of the British Army in North America.


After his defeat at the Battle of Chesapeake Bay, Vice-Admiral Graves returned to the UK and left command of the fleet to Hood. With the war ashore in North America now all but over, the Compte de Grasse had plans in the West Indies to fulfil. His intention was nothing less than to drive the British from the Caribbean Sea altogether. In order to achieve this, he had to drive the Royal Navy out of their bases at St Lucia, Barbados and Jamaica.


On the 17th December 1781, the Compte de Grasse and his fleet appeared off St Lucia, but were prevented from closing with the island by the weather. After trying to approach the island for a week, on the 23rd December, they returned to their base at Martinique. On the 28th, they left Martinique for another attempt on St Lucia, but once again were prevented from approaching the island by the weather and returned to Martinique again on the 2nd January 1782. When they left again on the 5th, their target was the islands of St Kitts and Nevis. They arrived off St Kitts on the 11th and landed troops straight away. The garrison at St Kitts retired to Brimstone Hill, a fortress in the North-East of the island, while the rest of the island surrendered. On the 20th, the neighbouring island of Nevis also surrendered to the French. In the meantime, on the 14th January, Hood received intelligence that the French fleet was approaching St Kitts and on the 16th, word reached him of the surrender of that island. On the 21st January, Hood and his fleet including HMS Canada anchored off English Harbour, Antigua to repair and resupply as well as to embark about 1,000 troops to reinforce the 1,400 Marines already aboard his ships.


The islands of St Kitts and Nevis lay less than 50 miles from Antigua and Hood was able to gain valuable information about his opponent and formulate a plan of action. At 09:15 on the 23rd January, Hood called his divisional commanders aboard his flagship HMS Barfleur (98) to brief them about his intentions and at 16:00, his divisional commanders (Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Samuel Drake in the ex-Spanish HMS Princessa of 70 guns and Commodore Edmund Affleck in HMS Bedford of 74 guns) called their respective captains to their flagships. HMS Canada had been assigned to Commodore Affleck's Rear Division. At 17:00, the fleet weighed anchor and headed off to confront the French at St.Kitts.


Map of St Kitts and Nevis:





Hood was aware from his scouting frigates that the French were anchored off Basseterre in a loose line running east to west across Frigate Bay, three or four deep. The Compte de Grasse had some 26 ships of the line available to him and Hood's original plan had been to approach from the south during the night and attack the French line at dawn, pass around the rear of the French line, concentrating his fire on the rear-most of the French ships. Hood knew that this action would force the rest of the French line to cut their anchor cables and be forced out of the Bay as Hood turned his ships and sailed between the French line and the shore. Fate however, decided that it was not to be. Overnight, as the fleet approached St. Kitts, HMS Alfred (74) was in collision with the frigate HMS Nymphe (12pdr, 36) and the need to make repairs delayed the approach. When the sun rose the following day, Hood and his fleet including HMS Canada were still some miles short of their objective and were spotted by the French. The Compte de Grasse assumed that Hood and his fleet were there to relieve the beseiged garrison at Brimstone Hill and decided once again, he would drive the British off in an action fought on the open sea. The French fleet weighed anchor and headed out of Frigate Bay to intercept the oncoming British. At sunset, seeing that the French had put to sea and realising that the game was up, Hood ordered his ships to go about and head southward, pursued by the French.


During the night, Hood ordered several changes of course, so that by sunrise on the 25th January, the fleets were both to the westward of Nevis, with Hood and his ships closer to the land with the French several miles further out to sea. Hood saw his opportunity. Knowing that he could get his ships into Frigate Bay before the French could get there, he could anchor his ships in a defensive position across that Bay and keep the French out. Hood also knew from the charts that the ancorage at Frigate Bay was a narrow ridge and that the ridge dropped almost vertically to very deep water, meaning that if his ships anchored as close as they could to the edge, the French would not be able to use their anchors and would have to remain under way.


At 05:30 on the 25th January 1782, Hood made the signal to form a line of battle on the starboard tack at intervals of one cable (or about 1,200 feet). At 07:00, HMS Canada took her station, fourth from the rear ahead of HMS Prudent (64). At 10:00, the line was formed to Hood's satisfaction with the ships being hove-to (stationary in the water). At 10:45, Hood gave the order to go ahead under topsails and foresails only and at noon, the signal for "prepare to anchor" was hoisted aboard HMS Barfleur. At noon, the British were running under the high land of Nevis, so close in fact that the frigate HMS Solebay (9pdr, 28) ran aground and was wrecked. With Hood's ships under reduced sail, the French were gaining such that by 14:30, the French flagship, the mighty Ville de Paris of 104 guns was able to fire ranging shots at the British rear. Hood, trusting his captains, ignore the threat to his rear from the French and ordered his Vanguard division to crowd on all sail and head to their planned anchorage. As the ships in the front of the line turned and headed towards the shore, they were covered by the ships further back in the line.


The Battle of Frigate Bay - Hood's Fleet turns and anchors while the French pass up the line:





A gap in the British line had opened up between HMS Canada and HMS Prudent due to the slow sailing of the latter ship. It was for this gap that the Compte de Grasse ordered his flagship to head, hoping to break the British line. Captain Cornwallis saw what the French intention was and ordered that HMS Canada's sails be put aback to close the gap and allow the slower Sixty-Four to catch up. This forced the Compte de Grasse to abandon the attempt and continue sailing up the slower British line firing as he went. As the British line continued to advance and then turn, this cleared the way for the ships aready anchored to open fire on the French line. HMS Barfleur anchored at 16:03 and opened fire at 16:40. HMS Canada, being towards the rear of the British line, was one of the ships which endured the French bombardment for the longest.


Hood's manoeuvre is almost complete. HMS Canada anchors at the edge of the 100 fathom line and the French pass and turn south:





By 17:30, the French had completed their pass of the British fleet and were heading away to the south. Hood had done it, he had outmanoeuvred the Compte de Grasse and had established his fleet in an unassailable position in Frigate Bay. Starting at 07:30 the following morning, the British ships adjusted their positions to form a defensive "L" formation across the Bay.


The final positions of the British ships in the Battle of Frigate Bay.





The Battle of Frigate Bay by Dominic Serres:





Over the course of the next day or so, the Compte de Grasse and his ships made several attempts to break the British line, all of which were beaten off with the French suffering more casualties and damage with each attempt. The Compte de Grasse was forced to content himself with cruising off the south of St Kitts, occasionally approaching the British position and firing ineffectually from long range. Hood ignored them, his attention was focussed on the beseiged fortress on Brimstone Hill. He found to his dismay that the 2,400 marines and troops aboard his ships were nowhere near enough to threaten the 6,000 or so French soldiers on the island and that eventually, the garrison would have to surrender. In his haste to take the islands, the Compte de Grasse had failed to provision his ships so that on the 13th February when the garrison on Brimstone Hill finally surrendered, he was forced to anchor his ships off Nevis and provision them. That evening, Hood assembled his captains aboard HMS Barfleur including Captain Cornwallis and outlined his escape plan to them. At 23:00, one by one, the assembled British ships began to cut their anchor cables and leaving marker lights on buoys to deceive the French into thinking that they were still there, left silently. When the Compte de Grasse awoke on the 14th February 1782, he found that the British were gone.


Although he had failed to destroy the British fleet at the Battle of Frigate Bay, also known as the Battle of St Kitts, he had achieved his main objecive of capturing the islands of St Kitts and Nevis. He now set his sights on taking the most important and richest British possession in the Caribbean, Jamaica.


On leaving St Kitts, Hoods intention had been to go to Barbados so his ships could refit and make repairs, but on the way, while passing Antigua, he met with Vice-Admiral Sir George Rodney in HMS Formidable (98) with eleven more ships of the line. Rodney had returned to command in the West Indies after having had to return to the UK due to ill health. Rodney had learned of the Compte de Grasse's intentions and on resuming his command, sent the fleet's frigates to watch the French in Martinique.


On 7th April 1782, de Grasse set out from Martinique with 35 ships of the line with a convoy of 100 transport ships with the intention of meeting up with a Spanish squadron of 12 more ships of the line and 15,000 soldiers and launching the operation against Jamaica.


News of the French departure reached Rodney the following day and the entire British fleet left St Lucia in search of the French. After only a day, the French were sighted. Surprised at the sheer speed of the British fleet, the Compte de Grasse ordered the convoy to head to Guadeloupe while he covered them with his fleet. Hood decided to attack as soon as he could. Commanding the vanguard of Rodney's fleet, Hood and his force of 12 ships of the line fought an inconclusive action against the French in which both sides suffered damage. This encounter saw Captain William Bayne of HMS Alfred (74) killed in action and HMS Royal Oak (74) and HMS Montagu (74) both damaged.


The next two days saw the British follow parallel to the French, but with both sides keeping their distance as they made repairs. On 12th April, Hood's vanguard force was still making its repairs, so Rodney ordered Rear-Admiral Drake and his rearguard force to take the lead. The two fleets were passing through the passage between the Iles des Saintes and the northern end of Dominica. By 07:40, HMS Marlborough of Drake's rearguard was leading the fleet and was approaching the centre of the French line. It looked as though the action was going to be a typical fleet action of the time, with both fleets in lines of battle, sailing in opposite directions along each others lines. At about 8am however, as HMS Formidable was engaging the mighty French flagship, the wind changed, throwing the French into confusion. This confusion enabled Rodney's fleet, starting with HMS Formidable, to sail straight through the French line of battle, raking enemy ships through their bows and sterns and inflicting terrible damage and casualties. By 13:30, HMS Barfleur had come up and had begun a gunnery duel with the French flagship. This went on until about 16:00 when the Ville de Paris, having suffered horrific casualties, struck her colours and surrendered to HMS Barfleur. The French admiral was the only unhurt officer aboard the Ville de Paris, which had had over 400 of her crew killed. In fact, the casualty figures for the Ville de Paris alone were more than those for the entire British fleet. It is estimated that French casualties in the Battle of the Saintes came to more than 3,000 killed or wounded and more than 5,000 captured. The British suffered 243 killed and 816 wounded across the fleet. The British had not lost any ships and had captured four French ships of the line and another, the Cesar of 74 guns had blown up after having caught fire.


The fleets at the Battle of the Saintes:





The moment of victory, the French flagship, Ville de Paris (104) - far right, surrenders to HMS Barfleur (98), centre right.





The remaining French ships withdrew towards Guadeloupe. On 17th, Rodney sent Hood in the Vanguard Division after the retreating French ships and Hood's force caught up with them in the Mona Passage, between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. Hood had been sent after he had criticised Rodney for not having pursued the retreating French immediately after the Battle of the Saintes and completing his rout of the enemy. The only ships of Hood's force to actually engage the enemy at the Battle of Mona Passage were the 74 gun ship HMS Valiant, which vastly outgunned and captured the French 64 gun ships Caton and Jason, while the 74 gun ship HMS Magnificent captured the French frigate Aimable of 32 guns.


On the 25th July 1782, HMS Canada left the West Indies with a convoy and arrived in Portsmouth on the 4th October. On the 28th, Captain Cornwallis paid off his ship and she entered the Portsmouth Ordinary. By this time, the war was all but over anyway and peace talks were under way. The catastrophe at Yorktown had left the British position ashore in North America untenable. Although the war in North America had been lost, the future of British possessions in the Caribbean had been secured by Rodney's victory at the Battle of the Saintes and the British had successfully defended their lucrative colonies in India. Apart from the Americans gaining their independence from Britain, the French King's gamble had been a disastrous and very expensive error of judgement and all told, France had gained nothing from the war.


Once HMS Canada entered the Ordinary at Portsmouth, she was manned by a skeleton crew as before and was ultimately under the control of the Master Attendant at the Royal Dockyard. Her sails, running rigging and yards were removed and her gunports were sealed shut. As for Captain Cornwallis, he went on to have a long career in the Royal Navy. After he paid off HMS Canada, he was appointed to command the ex-French 80-gun two-decker HMS Foudroyant. In later life, he would go on to become Commander-in-Chief, Channel Fleet, the most senior sea-going appointment in the Royal Navy.


As a part of being fitted for the Ordinary, HMS Canada was surveyed and this found her to be in a poor condition. In March of 1783, the ship was taken into the Royal Dockyard to receive a Great Repair. This was a major undertaking. All her copper and hull and deck planking was removed, stripping the ship down to her frame. Any defective timbers in her frame were removed and were replaced with new. Once this was complete, new hull and deck planking was fitted, the ship was re-caulked and fitted with new copper sheathing on her lower hull. The work took a year and cost £26,000 2s 5d and once it was complete, HMS Canada returned to the Portsmouth Ordinary.


While the ship was secured to a mooring buoy off Portsmouth, the rest of the world moved on. Trade flourished between the newly independent United States of America and her former colonial masters and the UK soon recovered from the trauma of losing an expensive war. The situation in France however, was the polar opposite. Already pretty much bankrupt when the American War of Independence had started, the finances of the government of King Louis XVI after the war were fragile to say the least. In the late 1780s, France was overwhelmed by famine which saw men, women and children starving to death in their thousands. Eventually, this would lead to riots and in July 1789, The Bastille, the Paris prison where the French King kept his political opponents was stormed by a mob and the Revolution began. The First Revolution saw the establishment of a Constitutional Monarchy similar to our own where the previously absolute power of the King was limited by an elected assembly. Also during the summer of 1789, British settlers had begun to build a trading post at Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island in defiance of a Spanish territorial claim over the area. This had led to diplomatic tensions with Spain which had escalated to the point where the two sides were drifting towards war. As part of their response to what is now known as the Spanish Armaments Crisis, the British began to mobilise their fleet and on 19th July 1790, HMS Canada recommissioned for the Channel Fleet under Captain the Honourable Hugh Seymour-Conway and was fitted for sea.


Captain Hugh Seymour-Conway was a celebrity in the social circles of the day. Born into a wealthy, titled and priviledged family, he was a close friend of George, Prince of Wales and counted other young, wealthy and famous naval commanders amongst his closest friends. Successful and well-connected military officers, especially naval officers were the rock stars of their day after King George III had sent his third son, the Prince William Henry, Duke of Clarence off to the Royal Navy. Handsome, rich, a distinguished naval commander and well-connected, he had a reputation as a womaniser, gambler and all-round party animal. The fifth son of the Marquess of Hertford, he had married in 1785 at the insistence of his family who feared a scandal was just around the corner and had settled down to a life of domestic bliss with his wife Lady Anne Horatia, daughter of the Earl Waldegrave and the Duchess of Gloucester.


With the crisis seemingly drifting towards war, Admiral Lord Howe was appointed to command the Channel Fleet and hoisted his command flag in the brand-new 100-gun First Rate ship of the line HMS Queen Charlotte. With the Royal Navy now on a war footing, orders came from the Admiralty that shipping in the English Channel should travel in convoy. To that end, Captain Seymour-Conway was ordered to escort a convoy from Spithead to the Downs. Before the ship could weigh anchor however, those orders were cancelled. Captain Seymour-Conway sought and gained permission from Lord Howe to try his ship's sailing and give his crew some experience in handling their ship by sailing to Cowes. Owing to the shallowness of the water however, Captain Seymour-Conway ordered that the depth of the water be sounded continuously and to that end, a leadsman was stationed in the main chains (a platform on the side of the ship adjacent to the main mast). While the leadsman was swinging his lead weight above his head, it caught on a small rope hanging from the main yard, which deflected it. Captain Seymour-Conway was walking the quarterdeck at the time and the lead struck him on the temple. The captain staggered as though stunned but recovered himself enough to reassure the leadsman that he was okay and then retired to his cabin. Some days later though, while HMS Canada was firing a salute to the flagship as she passed, Captain Seymour-Conway collapsed. When he awoke in his quarters, he was unable to bear bright lights or loud noises and was forced to relinquish command and retire to his family estate at Hambledon, some twelve miles from Portsmouth.


It's not known what caused Captain Seymour-Conway to become incapacitated, but he was unable to leave his home until July of 1791. His next command appointment came in 1793, when he was appointed to command the new 74-gun ship of the line HMS Leviathan at Chatham. With Captain Seymour-Conway incapacitated, command of HMS Canada fell to the First Lieutenant, Mr William Browell.


The Spanish Armaments Crisis was resolved peacefully after the new Revolutionary Government in France refused to give Spain a guarantee of assistance should war break out with the British. France was still in a state of near-anarchy and the last thing they needed was an expensive and protracted war against the old enemy across the Channel. With French assistance not forthcoming, Spain was forced to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the dispute at Nootka. With the crisis over, the Channel Fleet was de-mobilised and HMS Canada paid off on 10th December 1790 and returned to the Ordinary at Portsmouth.


Meanwhile, in France, things were going from bad to worse. King Louis XVI was not going to let go of his power without a fight and the country teetered on the brink of civil war. In December 1792, the King and Queen attempted to flee Paris and join Royalist forces fighting on their behalf. They were caught. The Revolutionary Government abolished the French Monarchy altogether and declared a republic. The King and Queen were put on trial for treason and were executed by guillotine in Paris, starting the 'Reign of Terror' in France. In protest, the British expelled the French Ambassador and on 1st  February, France declared war.


On the 8th October 1793, HMS Canada recommissioned for the Channel Fleet under Captain Charles Powell Hamilton and was fitted for sea. With the declaration of war Lord Howe resumed command of the Channel Fleet and once more flew his command flag in HMS Queen Charlotte. The Channel Fleet's main objective of the war thus far was to keep the French Atlantic Fleet contained in it's bases at Brest, Lorient and Rochefort. Lord Howe's preferred method of doing this was to keep his ships of the line ready to go in their bases at Portsmouth and Plymouth and use his frigates and sloops of war to watch the French. This approach had advantages and disadvantages. It kept the ships of the line safe and free from the wear and tear of being at sea in all weathers, but meant that the French were able to exploit windows of opportunity given by periods of bad weather to escape. The entire French Atlantic Fleet had managed to get out in May of 1794 in order to protect a massive famine relief convoy sailing from the USA and Lord Howe had put to sea with most of the Channel Fleet in order to hunt down and destroy the convoy. This had culminated in the Battle of the Glorious First of June, where the French Atlantic Fleet had been defeated with the loss of seven ships of the line including one sunk with many others seriously damaged.


On the 22nd June 1794, HMS Canada's former commander, now Rear-Admiral the Honourable William Cornwallis in HMS Excellent (74) with twelve other ships of the line and three frigates left Plymouth to escort the East India Convoy past the dangers presented by French naval units and privateers. Once the convoy was clear, Rear-Admiral Cornwallis was under orders to cruise the Bay of Biscay looking for targets. On 7th September, Lord Howe himself in HMS Queen Charlotte with no less than thirty-four ships of the line with frigates left Portsmouth to patrol the French coast and escort convoys in the English Channel, the Western Approaches and the Bay of Biscay. Lord Howe and his fleet were forced to seek shelter in Torbay by bad weather. Lord Howe sailed again in November of that year, but was unable to bring the French to action. Meanwhile, in early November 1794, the French Rear-Admiral Joseph-Marie Nielly left Brest with a squadron comprising the ships of the line Marat, Tigre, Droits de L'Homme, Pelletier and Jean Bart (all of 74 guns), the frigates Charente (36), Fraternite, Gentille (both of 32 guns) with the brig-corvette Papillon of 14 guns. His mission was to intercept and destroy the Lisbon convoy. At 14:30 on 6th November 1974, the French ships spotted HMS Canada sailing in company with HMS Alexander (74), which were returning to their base after having escorted an outbound convoy. On realising they were dealing with a superior enemy force, both British seventy-fours headed north-west, pursued by the French. At daybreak on the 7th November, the French were still in sight, so HMS Alexander continued on her course while HMS Canada steered a little more to the north. Rear-Admiral Neilly was having none of this and split his force. He ordered two of his ships of the line and two of his frigates to chase HMS Canada while three ships of the line and the remaining frigate went after HMS Alexander. Seeing that the French had split their force, HMS Canada attempted to rejoin HMS Alexander for mutual support, but with the pursuing French ships between them and their compatriots, she was unable to do so. At some point between 08:00 and 09:00, the pursuing French had got close enough to the British ships to be able to open fire and a running fight began. At about 11:00, the slower sailing HMS Alexander was brought to close action by a French ship of the line, thought to be the Jean Bart. After about half an hour, the Jean Bart was forced to discontinue the action because of damage and casualties. HMS Alexander had shown the French that they would not be able to take her without paying a high price. The Jean Bart's place was taken by the Tigre. Half an hour later, that ship too was forced to retreat after having lost her main topmast, main yard and mizzen topmast. Her place was taken by the French flagship, the Marat. Marat poured in a heavy fire from close range, to which HMS Alexander's gunners replied in kind. Eventually though, the damage received by HMS Alexander began to tell. The ships sent to chase HMS Canada turned and headed to support their admiral. HMS Alexander had had her main yard, all three topgallant yards and her spanker boom shot away. All three of her masts had been shot through in several places, she had a number of fires raging aboard, her hull was badly damaged and her hold was full of water. With more French ships rapidly coming up, Captain Richard Rodney Bligh of HMS Alexander saw no choice but to surrender and at a little after 13:00, HMS Alexander became one of only five British ships of the line in the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars to surrender to the enemy.


The Action of 6th November 1794 by William Shayer. HMS Alexander is in the centre:





In the Action of 6th November 1794, HMS Alexander suffered casualties of 40 men killed and wounded but the price paid for her by the French was far higher. Across the French squadron, over 450 men were killed and wounded during the taking of HMS Alexander. HMS Alexander was repaired and taken into the French Navy as L'Alexandre, but was recaptured at the Battle of Groix a little over six months later. Unable to support HMS Alexander, HMS Canada outsailed her pursuers and suffered no damage or casualties. As for Neilly's force, such was the damage and casualties they suffered taking HMS Alexander that they were forced to return to Brest immediately without having sighted the convoy they had been looking for.


HMS Canada was to remain with the Channel Fleet until 1796, when she was sent to the West Indies. The ship had a quiet time there and returned to the UK in 1797 when she went into the Plymouth Royal Dockyard for repairs. In November of 1797, the ship recommssioned again for the Channel Fleet under the famous Commodore Sir John Borlase Warren. She became Warren's flagship and in addition to HMS Canada, Warren's Squadron also comprised of the 80-gun, two-decked ship of the line HMS Foudroyant, HMS Robust (74), the 24pdr-armed, 44-gun razee Heavy Frigates HMS Anson and HMS Magnanime, with the 18pdr-armed frigates HMS Ethalion, HMS Amelia (both of 38 guns), HMS Melampus and HMS Doris (both of 36 guns), the 12pdr-armed frigate HMS Mermaid (32) and the 32pdr carronade-armed brig-rigged Sloop of War HMS Kangaroo.


On the 22nd March 1798, HMS Canada was patrolling off the Ile D'Aix in company with HMS Anson and HMS Phaeton (18pdr, 38) when they sighted the French frigate La Charente. Warren ordered a chase which continued overnight. In the morning, HMS Phaeton had worked her way close enough to the French frigate to open fire. La Charente turned and made for the Gironde Estuary, exchanging broadside fire with HMS Canada in passing. A little while later, both HMS Canada and La Charente ran aground. The Frenchman escaped by throwing guns overboard and made it into Bordeaux, while HMS Canada was got off later on the rising tide.


Back in December 1796, the French had attempted to send an invasion fleet to Ireland to support a planned uprising organised by the Society of United Irishmen. The invasion had failed when the fleet had been scattered by the worst weather in living memory. The French were encouraged however by the fact that the invasion fleet had managed to break out and make it all the way to Ireland without being spotted or intercepted by the British. Fast-forward to 1798 and trouble had flared up once more in Ireland. The Society of United Irishmen had been planning a further uprising, once again to be supported with French help. In May 1798, an uprising had spread across Ireland and the French sent a small force of 1,150 troops as the advance party of an army to be landed later. French plans had been disrupted by the uprising starting earlier than originally planned. The Society had had to launch it earlier because they had been thoroughly infiltrated by British spies and the majority of their leadership had been arrested. By September however, it was all over. The combined Irish and French force had been defeated at the Battle of Ballinamuck on the 8th September and had surrendered. The French however, were unaware of the defeat and on 16th September 1798 had dispatched a force of 3,000 soldiers in the 74 gun ship of the line Hoche and eight frigates under Commodore Jean-Baptiste-Francois Bompart. The British, having failed to intercept the invasion fleet of 1796, were now more alert and Bompart's force was spotted leaving Brest by Captain Richard Keats in the 18 pounder armed 38 gun frigate HMS Boadicea. Keats also had under his command the 18pdr-armed 38-gun frigate HMS Ethalion and the 32pdr carronade-armed brig-sloop HMS Sylph. He ordered that HMS Ethalion and HMS Sylph shadow the French force while he went to summon help from Admiral Sir Alexander Hood, the Lord Bridport's Channel Fleet.


When the news of Bompart's squadron broke, the squadron was lying at Cawsand Bay off Plymouth. As soon as the intelligence was received about the French force, Commodore Warren's squadron immediately departed to intercept them. On 10th October 1798, when the squadron was about 30 miles off the Donegal coast, they met up with the HMS Melampus and HMS Doris which were already patrolling off the Irish coast. The Commodore sent HMS Doris to warn British garrisons along the Irish coast of the French force.


The British had correctly guessed that Bompart's force was headed for Lough Swilly, based on intelligence gained from their Irish prisoners and Warren took his force there, hoping to intercept the French. Bonpart's force arrived off Tory Island at the mouth of the Lough on 10th October 1798 and anchored for the night, intending to land their troops the following day. They were still unaware that the uprising had been crushed by the British.


On the morning of the 11th October, Bompart awoke to find strange sails on the horizon. To his horror, he realised that he was trapped against the shore and that an overwhelming British force was bearing down on him. Bompart immediately decided to abandon any plans to conduct a landing and decided to head out to open water to escape the British. HMS Magnanime became engaged against the French frigates Embuscade and Coquille, but had to take evasive action to avoid a collision with HMS Robust, which was slugging it out at point blank range with the Hoche. Ranging past HMS Robust's downwind side, HMS Magnanime became exposed to raking fire from the French frigates Loire, Immortalite and Bellone. This was soon silenced when HMS Magnanime returned fire against all three ships, which also received long-range fire from HMS Foudroyant. HMS Magnanime then worked her way across the Hoche's bows and raked her through them. Very quickly, the Hoche found herself surrounded by British ships; HMS Robust alongside, HMS Magnanime across her bows and HMS Amelia across her stern. The French seventy-four was also engaged in passing by HMS Canada and HMS Melampus. At 10:50, her hull riddled with shot-holes, rigging and sails cut to pieces, masts tottering, five feet of water in her hold, 25 of her guns knocked over and most of her crew dead or wounded, the Hoche lowered her colours in surrender. Mr Charles Dashwood, First Lieutenant in HMS Magnanime had the honour of recieving Commodore Bompart's sword in surrender. In the Battle of Tory Island, HMS Magnanime sustained casualties of seven men wounded. On her return to Warren's squadron, HMS Doris's next task was to tow the damaged Hoche back to Lough Swilly, taking over the tow from the damaged HMS Robust. The Hoche was subsequently taken into the Royal Navy and was renamed HMS Donegal.


In the Battle of Tory Island, HMS Canada was only lightly engaged and suffered a single fatality amongst her crew. Amongst the rewards given to the squadron by a grateful nation, Mr William James Turquand, First Lieutenant in HMS Canada was made a Commander.


The Battle of Tory Island by Nicholas Pocock. HMS Canada is the ship in the centre, flying Commodore Warren's command broad pennant from her mainmast:





In April 1799, Commodore Warren left the ship and was replaced in command by Captain the Honouable Michael de Courcy, previously of HMS Magnanime.


On 26th April 1800, Lord Bridport handed command of the Channel Fleet to Admiral Sir John Jervis, the Earl St. Vincent, who hoisted his command flag in HMS Namur (90) and sailed to join the blockading fleet off Brest. On June 1st, Lord St. Vincent ordered Captain Sir Edward Pellew in HMS Impetueux (74) to take a force and provide support to French Royalists who were engaged in an insurrection in the Morbihan region of France. In addition to HMS Impetueux, Pellew's force was comprised of HMS Canada, HMS Ramillies, HMS Ajax, HMS Captain, HMS Fishguard (all of 74 guns) HMS Diadem (64), HMS Europa (50), the frigates HMS Amelia, HMS Diamond (both 18pdr, 38), HMS Doris, HMS Amethyst, HMS Inconstant (all 18pdr, 36), HMS Thames (18pdr, 32) and the 6pdr-armed ship-rigged Sloop of War HMS Cynthia. Attached to Pellew's force were the en-flute armed ships HMS Thisbe and HMS Cyclops carrying men from the 2nd, 20th, 36th, 80th and 92nd Regiments together with 200 artillerymen under Major-General Frederick Maitland. The squadron anchored in Quiberon Bay the following day. On June 4th, HS Thames and HMS Cynthia bombarded and silenced the guns on some forts guarding the shore, which were later completey destroyed by landed troops. On 6th June, more troops operating from a division of boats commanded by Lieutenant John Pinold of HMS Impetueux landed and seized a number of boats, took about 100 prisoners, destroyed more shore batteries. In addition to this, they also boarded and burned the French corvette Insolente of 18 guns. All this was achieved with the loss of one seaman killed. Pellew also intended to attack Belle Isle, but this idea was abandoned after the strength of the garrison there was discovered.


On 3rd October 1800, HMS Canada joined the Flying Squadron operating in Dauarnez Bay off Brest, also comprised of HMS Pompee, HMS Caesar (both two-deckers of 80 guns), HMS Defence, HMS Edgar, HMS Warrior (all of 74 guns) and the armed cutter HMS Nimrod of ten guns. On 20th December, a French sloop with a cargo of wine and brandy arrived in Plymouth under a prize crew from HMS Canada. On 27th December, HMS Canada took the French lugger Maria Anna with a cargo of fish and sent the vessel into Plymouth with a prize crew.


In April 1801, Captain de Courcy was replaced in command by Captain Joseph Sydney Yorke and would remain on blockade duty off the French Biscay coast until the 30th April 1802 when she arrived off Spithead to be paid off. The reason for this was because the war had been ended by the Treaty of Amiens, signed on the 27th March 1802. On being paid off, HMS Canada was to go into the Portsmouth Ordinary.


The Peace of Amiens proved to be somewhat tense, with the French under Napoleon Bonaparte taking the opportunity to send a fleet to the Americas to put down a slave rebellion in their Louisiana colony and in the Caribbean as well as continuing the expansion of their empire. The British press had long lampooned the Emperor and this led to French demands for censorship; something the British refused to do. In addition, a dispute arose whereby the Treaty placed the British under an obligation to withdraw from Malta, which they were not prepared to do. It seemed as though both sides had made promises they had no intention of keeping and in response to French threats and one-sided arguments, the British declared war on France on 18th May 1803, starting what is now known as the Napoleonic War. By the time the war broke out, HMS Canada was almost forty years old and her hull and frames were worn out. For this reason, despite the renewed outbreak of war, HMS Canada was to remain in the Portsmouth Ordinary for another two years, manned by a skeleton crew as before.


With the resumption of war, the Royal Navy faced a major problem in that ships of the line were being taken out of service due to age and decay faster than they were being replaced with new ships. This was because there had been no large-scale program of building ships of the line during the French Revolutionary War. Furthermore, the Navy Board had been bogged down in disputes over pricing with existing commercial ship-builders and the Royal Dockyards were all running flat out with the repair and maintenance of the increasingly aged fleet. This wasn't helped by the fact that Admiral Lord St. Vincent, during his term as First Lord of the Admiralty between 1801 and 1804 had alienated many in the Royal Dockyards with his attempts at stamping out corruption. When Henry Dundas, the First Viscount Melville took over as First Lord in 1804, the situation was getting desperate. There were not enough ships at sea to meet the threats from France and her allies and radical measures were needed to rectify it. Lord Melville had to fix the problems with low morale in the Royal Dockyards and in the Navy Board and repair relations with the commercial shipbuilders. His main priority though was to get ships repaired and back at sea. The problem was that the traditional method of repairing old ships was to replace rotten or worn out timbers with new and this was time-consuming, inefficient and expensive. The solution came from the Honourable East India Company. This huge organisation maintained its own fleet of heavily-armed, very large vessels and their Surveyor, Gabriel Snodgrass had invented a system of extending the lives of old and worn out ships which could be done very quickly and very cheaply. Instead of the traditional method, the East India Company had merely built a new lower hull over the old one (a process called 'Doubling') and had strengthened the frame by using iron straps to reinforce the knees, where the beams meet the frames, bolted through. In addition, internal diagonal bracing was fitted to reinforce the whole frame. Using this method, a ship could be repaired in weeks rather than months. Lord Melville knew that he would face significant resistance from the Royal Dockyards, so sent Sir Andrew Snape Hammond, the Comptroller of the Navy Board and Sir William Rule, the Surveyor, to Portsmouth and Plymouth, with instructions that Portsmouth was to repair eleven ships and Plymouth nine - in a year. The iron straps themselves were to be fabricated at the Woolwich Royal Dockyard and taken by sea to Portsmouth and Plymouth.


In May of 1805, HMS Canada was taken into the Portsmouth Royal Dockyard to be doubled and braced as per the Snodgrass system.


The Snodgrass system of internal diagonal bracing:





In September of 1805, the work was complete and HMS Canada commissioned for the Channel Fleet under Captain John Harvey.




By June of 1806, HMS Canada had been assigned to the Leeward Islands Station under Reaar-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane. In the meantime, a powerful French squadron under Rear-Admiral Jean-Baptiste Willaumez had broken out of Brest and headed for the South Atlantic and was supposed to be based out of the Dutch Cape Colony at Cape Town. Unfortunately, when he and his squadron arrived in South African waters, he learned that the Cape Colony had fallen to the British and that Cape Town was no longer available. He was forced to cruise the waters off South Africa looking for targets until his ships ran low on provisions. When this occurred, the nearest French naval base was at Martinique and so he was forced to make his way there. On 8th June 1806, the French 74 gun ship Veteran arrived at Martinique after having narrowly escaped an encounter with HMS Northumberland. HMS Northumberland had been patrolling off the north-eastern tip of Martinique because Rear-Admiral Cochrane had received intelligence that an enemy ship commanded by none other than Prince Jerome Bonaparte had been seen in that vicinity. On 14th, HMS Northumberland was joined by HMS Elephant (74), which had lost her fore topmast in a gale, and by HMS Canada (74). In the early hours of 15th June, whilst weathering a squall, HMS Northumberland's fore-topmast and fore-yard were carried away. The ship had to be towed to St Lucia by HMS Canada to make her repairs. Later that day, the French ships Eole (74) and Impetueux (74) also arrived at Martinique. On 20th, the French ship Foudroyant (80) made it into Port-Royal, Martinique, despite being chased by Sir Alexander Cochrane's ships. On 24th, the French 74 gun ships Cassard and Patriote were also chased into Port-Royal by Cochrane's ships and during this chase, HMS Northumberland once more suffered a mishap where her fore-yard carried away.


On 1st July, Willaumez and his force left Martinique and headed for Montserrat. Two of his ships appeared off the harbour and took three British merchant vessels which were there. In the meantime, a UK-bound convoy of 65 vessels left St Kitts under the protection of the 9pdr armed 28 gun frigate HMS Carysfort and the armed store ship HMS Dolphin and managed to make off without being seen by the French. A further 9 vessels which had missed the convoy were chased into the harbour at St Kitts where the shore batteries drove off the four French ships of the line chasing them. The French squadron re-formed off Montserrat on 4th July and headed off to Tortola, where they hoped to intercept the British convoy. Also on 4th July, Sir Alexander Cochrane had received intelligence about Willaumez' force, their strength and intentions and had set off in pursuit. Cochrane's squadron by now comprised HMS Northumberland (flagship), HMS Elephant and HMS Canada, all of 74 guns, HMS Agamemnon of 64 guns, the 18pdr armed 38 gun frigate HMS Ethalion, the 18pdr armed 36 gun frigate HMS Galatea, the ex-French 12pdr armed 36 gun frigate HMS Seine and the 12pdr armed 32 gun frigate HMS Circe. Sighting the French force immediately, the British gave chase and the French ran through the channel between the islands of St Thomas and Passage Island. At 2pm, being satisfied that he had driven the enemy away, Cochrane ordered his ships to steer for Drake's Bay, Tortola, where they anchored on the morning of the 8th July. By this time, the convoy had grown to a total of 280 ships.


Rear-Admiral Willaumez eventually returned to France and on the 5th January 1808, HMS Canada arrived at Chatham to be paid off into the Ordinary there. By now, large numbers of new ships of the line were entering service with the Royal Navy and at over forty years old, HMS Canada's fighting days were over.


In November of 1809, HMS Canada was loaned to the Board of Transport, to be used as a hulk housing convicts awaiting transportation to Australia. The ship remained as a prison hulk until September of 1814, when she was converted into a powder hulk, to be moored off Sheerness.


In November of 1834, HMS Canada returned to the Royal Dockyard at Chatham for the last time and was broken up.
"I did not say the French would not come, I said they will not come by sea" - Admiral Sir John Jervis, 1st Earl St Vincent.