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Thread: 3rd Rate ships of the Royal Navy. 1793 to 1815.

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    Default 3rd Rate ships of the Royal Navy. 1793 to 1815.

    HMS Mars (1794)





    HMS Mars was the name ship of its class. a 74-gun third-rate,designed by Sir John Henslow, and ordered on the17th of January, 1788. Built by M/shipwright Martin Ware at Deptford Dockyard, and launched on the 25th of October. 1794.


    Figurehead of HMS Mars.




    History
    GREAT BRITAIN
    Name:
    HMS Mars
    Ordered: 17 January 1788
    Builder: Deptford Dockyard
    Laid down: 10 October 1789
    Launched: 25 October 1794
    Fate: Broken up, 1823
    Notes: ·Participated in:
    ·
    Battle of Trafalgar
    General characteristics
    Class and type: Mars-class ship of the line
    Tons burthen: ​1,842 2494 bm
    Length: 176 ft (54 m) (gundeck)
    Beam: 49 ft (15 m)
    Depth of hold: 20 ft (6.1 m)
    Sail plan: Full-rigged ship
    Armament: ·74 guns:
    ·Gundeck: 28 × 32 pdrs
    ·Upper gundeck: 30 × 24 pdrs
    ·Quarterdeck: 12 × 9 pdrs
    ·Forecastle: 4 × 9 pdrs


    Career.


    HMS Mars was commissioned in the November of 1794 under Captain Charles Cotton. In the early part of the
    French Revolutionary Wars she was assigned to the Channel Fleet. One of her first encounters was during Cornwallis’s retreat between the 16th and 17th of June 1795.

    In the February of 1797 she came under the command of Captain Alexander Hood and was involved in the Mutiny at Spithead in the April of that year. On the 24th of April 1798 at the
    Battle of the Raz de Sein she fought a famous single-ship duel with the French seventy-four Hercule, in the dusk near the Pointe du Raz on the coast of Brittany. Hercule attempted to escape through the Passage du Raz but the tide was running in the wrong direction and she was forced to anchor, giving Captain Hood the chance to attack at close quarters. The two ships were of equal strength, but Hercule was newly commissioned; after more than an hour and a half of bloody fighting at close quarters she struck her flag, having lost over three hundred men. On Mars 31 men were killed and 60 wounded. Among the dead was Captain Hood himself.



    Fight between Mars and Hercule

    In the April of 1798 Mars came under Captain George Shirley for a few months until command passed to Captain John Manley in the July of that year.
    By the May of 1799 she was under Captain john Monkton as the Flagship of Rear Admiral George Berkely, at the blockade of Rochefort and in the attack on the Spanish squadron in the Aix Roads on the 2nd of July 1799.

    On the 1st of January 1801, she came under the command of Captain Robert Lloyd as the Flagship of Rear Admiral Edward Thornbrough, and was at the blockade of Brest in 1802. From the September of that year until the April of 1803 she was undergoing Middling repairs at Plymouth. Recommissioned in the March of 1803 under Captain John Sutton she returned to the blockade of Brest, and was then temporarily placed under the command Of Captain Samuel Pym. In the May of 1804 the command was taken by Captain George Duff as the Flagship of Rear Admiral Thomas Russell, off Ferrol.

    On the 21st of October 1805 Mars fought in the Lee coloumn at
    Trafalgar, where she was heavily damaged as she took fire from five different French and Spanish seventy-fours. Among the 29 killed and 69 wounded in the action was her captain
    George Duff , who was killed.


    In this painting of the Battle of Trafalgar by Nicholas Pocock, Mars is in the right foreground, just behind the captured Spanish ship Bahama.

    Following the victory Lieutenant William Hannah succeeded to the command. From the December of 1805 under Captain Robert Oliver, Mars took the 40 gun Le Rhin on the18th of July,1806 off Rochefort, and then from the following month until 1810 she was commanded by Captain William Lukin in Hood’s action off Rochfort on the 25th of September, and in Sir Richard Keats’s fleet for the Copenhagen expedition in the August of 1807, spending the rest of 1807 and 1808 in the Baltic.


    Fate.

    In 1810 under Captain John Carden she sailed for Portugal, and by 1812 we find her under Captain Henry Reaper in the Baltic once more.
    She was laid up in the December of 1812 on her return, and fitted as a receiving ship at Portsmouth in 1813. Mars was then placed
    in ordinary and was broken up there in the October of 1823.
    Attached Images Attached Images     
    Last edited by Bligh; 05-31-2020 at 13:37.
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

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