HMS Goliath

## Ship History

**HMS *Goliath*** was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 19 October 1781 at Deptford Dockyard. She was present at the Battle of the Nile.

She is recorded as entering Portsmouth Harbour on 24 September 1785. She is recorded as at the Tagus on 21 December 1796, when the Mediterranean Fleet arrived there, and sailed from there the following 20 January with a Portuguese convoy. She then, 6 February, was joined off Cape St Vincent by a squadron detached from the Channel Fleet, and was present with it at Jervis's Battle of Cape St Vincent (1797) on 14 February 1797. She was commanded during that action by Captain Charles H. Knowles, and lost only 8 wounded and none killed. However, Jervis called Knowles 'an imbecile, totally incompetent, the Goliath no use whatever under his command' and so after the battle Knowles was ordered to exchange ships with Captain Thomas Foley of HMS Britannia. Foley restored *Goliath* to order whilst *Britannia* slid under Knowles.[1]

She then sailed on 31 March 1797 from Lisbon to blockade (and, on 3rd July, bombard) Cadiz. She sailed from off Cadiz on 24 May 1798 with a squadron of 10 ships of the line to join Lord Horatio Nelson's squadron in the Mediterranean in searching for the French fleet transporting Bonaparate to Egypt, arriving with them 7 June. She was thus present at the Battle of the Nile on 1 August, at which Foley deduced that there was enough room to sail between the shore and the stationary anchored French ships. Four other ships followed the Goliath, and helped to defeat the French forces. After it, on 19 August, she and the HMS Zealous, HMS Swiftsure, HMS Seahorse, HMS Emerald, HMS Alcmène, and HMS Bonne-Citoyenne left Aboukir Bay to cruise off the port of Alexandria. There, six days later, her boats captured the French armed-ketch *Torride* from under the guns of Aboukir Castle, and she remained stationed off Alexandria until at least the end of 1798. William Laurence served aboard the Goliath during that time along with the Bedford, who was later to become captain of the HMS Hibernia, and Cartwright.

On 28 June 1803 she captured the 16-gun corvette *Mignonne*, which was subsequently added to the British navy under her French name. In May 1805 she was in the Channel Fleet, and on 15 August joined HMS Camilla in her pursuit of the French brig-corvette *Faune*, and helped her to capture it, and on the same day was joined by the HMS Raisonnable to chase the French frigate *Topaze* and two ship-corvettes (one of which, the ship-corvette *Torche*, was subsequently captured by the *Goliath*).

In February 1807, Peter Puget became captain of the Goliath.

On 26 July 1807 *Goliath* sailed as a part of a fleet of 38 vessels for Copenhagen and was present from 15 August - 20 October that year for the Battle of Copenhagen and the capture of the Danish Fleet by Admiral James Gambier.

After William Laurence's conviction for treason and the commutation of his death sentence on condition of Temeraire's good behaviour, he was transported from the Sheerness Dockyards on the *Lucinda* to the *Goliath*, which was to serve as a sort of floating oubliette while pursuing her other duties.

The *Goliath* was serving in the Channel blockade at the time Napoleon's armies invaded Britain in December 1807. Dismasted by a double broadside delivered by the *Majestueux* and the *Héros*, she caught fire and sank. Rumours that all hands were lost with her were slightly but not greatly exaggerated. Captain Puget was severely injured and senseless with blood-loss by the time the survivors reached Dover. The rest of the senior officers were all dead except for a 19-year-old lieutenant, Frye.

## References

* Lavery, Brian (2003) *The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850.* Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8.