HMS Bellerophon (1786)

HMS Bellerophon, detail from Scene in Plymouth Sound in August 1815, an 1816 painting by John James Chalon
History
Great Britain
Name	Bellerophon
Ordered	11 January 1782
Builder	Edward Greaves and Co., Frindsbury
Laid down	May 1782
Launched	6 October 1786
Completed	By March 1787
Renamed	Captivity on 5 October 1824
Reclassified	Prison ship from 1815
Nickname(s)	Billy Ruffian
Fate	Broken up in 1836
General characteristics [1]
Class and type	Arrogant-class ship of the line
Tons burthen	1,612 78⁄94 (bm)
Length	168 ft (51.2 m) (gundeck) 138 ft (42.1 m) (keel)
Beam	46 ft 10+1⁄2 in (14.3 m)
Depth of hold	19 ft 9 in (6.0 m)
Sail plan	Full-rigged ship
Complement	590 (Oct 1805 - 566 borne)
Armament	Lower gundeck: 28 × 32-pounder guns Upper gundeck: 28 × 18-pounder guns Quarterdeck: 14 × 9-pounder guns Forecastle: 4 × 9-pounder guns

HMS Bellerophon, known to sailors as the "Billy Ruffian", was a ship of the line of the Royal Navy. A third-rate of 74 guns, she was launched in 1786. Bellerophon served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, mostly on blockades or convoy escort duties. She fought in three fleet actions: the Glorious First of June (1794), the Battle of the Nile (1798) and the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). While the ship was on blockade duty in 1815, Napoleon boarded Bellerophon so he could surrender to the ship's captain, ending 22 years of almost continuous war between Britain and France.

Built at Frindsbury, near Rochester in Kent, Bellerophon was initially laid up in ordinary, briefly being commissioned during the Spanish and Russian Armaments. She entered service with the Channel Fleet on the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1792, and took part in the Glorious First of June in 1794, the first major fleet action of the wars. Bellerophon narrowly escaped being captured by the French in 1795, when her squadron was nearly overrun by a more powerful French fleet at the First Battle of Groix, but the bold actions of the squadron's commander, Vice-Admiral Sir William Cornwallis, caused the French to retreat. She played a minor role in efforts to intercept a French invasion force bound for Ireland in 1797, and then joined the Mediterranean Fleet under Sir John Jervis. Detached to reinforce Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson's fleet in 1798, she took part in the decisive defeat of a French fleet at the Battle of the Nile, where she suffered severe damage and lost several officers while engaging the much larger French flagship Orient. She returned to England before being sent to the West Indies, where she spent the Peace of Amiens (1802–03) on cruises and convoy escort duty between the Caribbean and North America.

Bellerophon returned to European waters with the resumption of the wars with France, joining a fleet under Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood blockading Cadiz. The reinforced fleet, by then commanded by Horatio Nelson, engaged the combined Franco-Spanish fleet when it emerged from port. At the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October Bellerophon fought a bitter engagement against Spanish and French ships, sustaining heavy casualties including the death of her captain, John Cooke. Following the battle, she escorted Nelson's body back to England. After repairs, Bellerophon was employed blockading the enemy fleets in the Channel and the North Sea. She plied the waters of the Baltic Sea in 1809, making attacks on Russian shipping, and by 1810 was off the French coast again, blockading their ports. She went out to North America as a convoy escort between 1813 and 1814, and in 1815 was assigned to blockade the French Atlantic port of Rochefort. In July 1815, defeated at Waterloo and finding escape to North America barred by the blockading Bellerophon, Napoleon came aboard "the ship that had dogged his steps for twenty years" (according to maritime historian David Cordingly) to finally surrender to the British. It was Bellerophon's last seagoing service. She was paid off and converted to a prison ship in 1815, and was renamed Captivity in 1824 to free the name for another ship. Moved to Plymouth in 1826, she continued in service until 1834, when the last convicts left. The Admiralty ordered her to be sold in 1836; she was subsequently broken up for scrap.

Bellerophon's long and distinguished career has been recorded in literature and folk songs.