HMS Victorious (1808)

Victorious was the third ship of her name to serve with the Royal Navy.^[3] The ship was ordered on 7 November 1802 from Henry Adams' sons Balthazar and Edward Adams and was laid down at their shipyard in Bucklers Hard in February 1805. She was launched on 20 October 1808 and completed at Devonport Dockyard between 7 November and 2 March 1809. Victorious was commissioned by Captain George Hamond in December 1808.^[4]

Her first action came the year after her launch, as part of the Baltic Squadron, in which she assisted in the bombardment of the port of Flushing (Vlissingen) in what is now the Netherlands. The naval bombardment was just a part of a much larger operation; the land force consisted of some 30,000 men, and the objectives were simply to assist the Austrians by invading the Low Countries and to destroy the French Fleet at their believed location of Flushing.

The town of Flushing was actually seized, but the whole invasion soon became irrelevant and pointless, for the French Fleet had actually escaped to the port of Antwerp, and the Austrians had been defeated and were negotiating peace with the French. Over 4,000 British soldiers were killed during the expedition, 106 due to combat, the rest because of an illness known as Walcheren Fever.

Her deployment to the Mediterranean saw Victorious engage in her first skirmish against a French warship, on 22 February 1812 in the northern Adriatic Sea during Battle of Pirano, against the French Rivoli, 74, which was eventually defeated with much of her crew being killed and wounded. Rivoli was captured once the skirmish came to an end and she later served in action as a Royal Navy warship against the French. Victorious won the lineage its first battle honour during this engagement.

On 12 October 1812 Victorious, was at 44°33′N 12°10′W / 44.550°N 12.167°W / 44.550; -12.167. She was escorting a 30-vessel West Indies-bound convoy.^[5]

Victorious served as part of Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn's fleet in Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812. She participated in the blockade of the Elizabeth River, keeping USS Constellation at her berth in Norfolk, Virginia, during the conflict.

On 18 September 1813, Victorious arrived at Bermuda.^[6] The warship was decommissioned and placed in ordinary at Portsmouth Dockyard in March 1814. She was returned to service as a receiving ship in 1826, and broken up on 21 December 1861.^[4]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to HMS Victorious (ship, 1808).

• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben & Bush, Steve (2020). Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy from the 15th Century to the Present (5th revised and updated ed.). Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5267-9327-0.
• Lavery, Brian (1984). The Ship of the Line. Vol. 1: The Development of the Battlefleet 1650-1850. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8.
• Winfield, Rif (2008) [2005]. British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates (2nd, revised ed.). Seaforth. ISBN 978-1-84415-717-4.