HMS Hydra (1797)

HMS Hydra launched in 1797 was a fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, armed with a main battery of twenty-eight 18-pounder guns.

She was built to the design of the captured French frigate Melpomene (taken in 1794).

French Revolutionary Wars
Hydra was commissioned in April 1797 under Captain Sir Francis Laforey.

At the Action of 30 May 1798, Hydra, in company with the bomb vessel HMS Vesuvius (1776) and the cutter HMS Trial (1790), destroyed the French 36-gun Confiante, and ran aground the Vésuve and an un-named cutter.

Hydra was anchored at the Nore on Sunday 17 May 1801 (as recorded in the journal of Captain Matthew Flinders of HMS Investigator.

Napoleonic Wars
Under the command of Captain George Mundy, for eight years from October 1802 to September 1810, she had an active career in the Napoleonic Wars, including the Blockade of Cadiz (1805-1806).

After Admiral Lord Nelson defeated the French and Spanish fleets at the battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805, four French frigates and the brig Furet took refuge at Cadiz, where they remained into February 1806. To try to lure them out, Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood pulled his ships-of-the-line ten leagues out to sea, leaving only Hydra, under the Captain George Mundy, and the brig-sloop HMS Moselle (1804) in close blockade. On 23 February a strong easterly wind drove the British off their station, which led the French commander, Captain Louis-Charles-Auguste Delamarre de Lamellerie, to seize the opportunity to escape. On the evening of 26 February Hydra and Moselle were three leagues west of the Cadiz lighthouse when they sighted the French vessels. Mundy began firing rockets and alarm guns to alert Collingwood, while sailing parallel to the escaping French squadron. Mundy then sent Carden in Moselle to try locate the British fleet. On the morning of 27 February Moselle reached Collingwood, who despatched three frigates to try to catch the French. In the meantime, Hydra had managed to isolate the French brig from her companions, and after a two-hour chase, captured the Furet. The French frigates did not come to their brig's aid, and after firing a pro forma broadside, Furet surrendered. Furet was armed with eighteen long 9-poundeer guns, and had a crew of 130 men under the command of lieutenant de vaisseau Demay. She was provisioned for a cruise of five months. Under the rules of prize-money, Moselle shared in the proceeds of the capture of Furet. During the next six months, Lamellerie's frigate squadron cruised the Atlantic, visiting Senegal, Cayenne and the West Indies, but failed significantly to disrupt British trade.

Hydra took part in the Peninsular War in 1807, including the bombardment of the defences of the Catalonian port of Bagur (Begu) on 7 August 1807. She was then out of commission for nearly three years.

During a refit at Portsmouth in 1813, she was fitted as a troopship and recommissioned in July 1813 under Captain Joseph Digby. From then until finally paying off in 1817 she was employed as a troopship and, in that capacity, for example, Captain Robert Lawson's Company, 8th Battalion Royal Artillery, left Spain on 22 July 1814, on board HMS Hydra, bound for Plymouth.

Fate
Hydra was sold in 1820.