 She was commissioned on 25 March 1797 under Captain Henry Stanhope, becoming the third ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name Neptune. Her predecessors had been two 90-gun ships, the first launched in 1683, renamed HMS Torbay in 1750 and sold in 1784. The second had been launched in 1757, was used as a sheer hulk from 1784, and was broken up in 1816. Stanhope sailed from Woolwich on 11 June 1797, flying the broad pendant of Commodore Sir Erasmus Gower, and made for the Nore.
