HMS Temeraire was a second-rate 98-gun ship of the line of the Royal Navy. Launched in 1798, she served in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, mostly on blockades or convoy escort duties. She only fought in one fleet action, the Battle of Trafalgar, but became so well known for that action and the ship's subsequent depictions in art and literature that she has been remembered as The Fighting Temeraire.

Built at Chatham Dockyard, Temeraire began her naval service blockading Brest with the rest of the Channel Fleet. Missions were tedious and seldom relieved by engagements with the French Navy. The first incident of note came when several members of her crew, hearing rumours they were to be sent to the West Indies at a time when peace with France seemed imminent, refused to obey orders. The mutiny eventually failed and a number of mutineers were tried and executed. Laid up after the Peace of Amiens, Temeraire returned to active service following the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars, again serving in the Channel Fleet and participating in Horatio Nelson's blockade of the Franco-Spanish fleet in Cádiz in 1805. At the Battle of Trafalgar, fought on 21 October, the ship went into action immediately astern of Nelson's flagship, . During the battle Temeraire came to the rescue of the beleaguered Victory, and fought and captured two French ships of the line, winning public renown in Britain.

After undergoing substantial repairs, Temeraire participated in blockades of the French navy and supported British operations on the Spanish coast. She went to the Baltic Sea in 1809, defending convoys against attacks by Danish gunboats, and by 1810 was off the Spanish coast again, helping to defend Cádiz against a French siege. Her last action occurred off Toulon, when she came under fire from French shore batteries. Temeraire returned to Britain in 1813 for repairs, but was laid up. She was converted to a prison ship and moored in the River Tamar until 1819. She was subsequently brought to Sheerness and served as a receiving ship, then a depot ship and finally a guard ship. The Admiralty ordered her to be sold in 1838, and she was towed up the Thames to be broken up.

This final voyage was depicted in a 1839 J. M. W. Turner painting titled The Fighting Temeraire, which was greeted with critical acclaim. The painting was voted Britain's favourite painting in a BBC radio poll in 2005 and appeared briefly in the 2012 James Bond movie Skyfall. A reproduction of the painting appears on the back of the Bank of England £20 note issued in 2020.

Construction and commissioning

Temeraire was ordered from Chatham Dockyard on 9 December 1790, to a design developed by Surveyor of the Navy Sir John Henslow. She was one of three ships of the , alongside her sisters and .

She was primarily made from English oak from nearby Hainault Forest.Famous Fighters of the Fleet, Edward Fraser, 1904, p. 217 The keel was laid down at Chatham in July 1793. Her construction was initially overseen by Master Shipwright Thomas Pollard and completed by his successor Edward Sison. Temeraire was launched in the rain on Tuesday 11 September 1798 and the following day was taken into the graving dock to be fitted for sea. Her hull was fitted with copper sheathing, a process that took two weeks to complete. Refloated, she finished fitting out, and received her masts and yards. Her final costs came to £73,241, and included £59,428 spent on the hull, masts and yards, and a further £13,813 on rigging and stores.

She was commissioned on 21 March 1799 under Captain Peter Puget, becoming the second ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name Temeraire. Her predecessor had been the 74-gun third-rate , a former French ship taken as a prize at the Battle of Lagos on 19 August 1759 by a fleet under Admiral Edward Boscawen. Puget was in command only until 26 July 1799, during which time he oversaw the process of fitting the new Temeraire for sea. He was superseded by Captain Thomas Eyles on 27 July 1799, while the vessel was anchored off St Helens, Isle of Wight.

With the Channel Fleet

Under Eyles's command Temeraire finally put to sea at the end of July, flying the flag of Rear Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, and joined the Channel Fleet under the overall command of Admiral Lord Bridport. The Channel Fleet was at that time principally engaged in the blockade of the French port of Brest, and Temeraire spent several long cruises of two or three months at a time patrolling the area. Eyles was superseded during this period by Temeraires former commander, Captain Puget, who resumed command on 14 October 1799, and the following month Temeraire became the flagship of Rear Admiral James Whitshed.

Lord Bridport had been replaced as commander of the Channel Fleet by Admiral Lord St Vincent in mid-1799, and the long blockade cruises were sustained throughout the winter and into the following year. On 20 April 1800 Puget was superseded as commander by Captain Edward Marsh. Marsh commanded Temeraire through the remainder of that year and for the first half of 1801, until his replacement, Captain Thomas Eyles, arrived to resume command on 31 August. Rear Admiral Whitshed had also struck his flag by now, and Temeraire became the flagship of Rear Admiral George Campbell. By this time the Second Coalition against France had collapsed, and negotiations for peace were underway at Amiens. Lord St Vincent had been promoted to First Lord of the Admiralty, and command of the Channel Fleet passed to Admiral Sir William Cornwallis. With the end of the war imminent, Temeraire was taken off blockade duty and sent to Bantry Bay to await the arrival of a convoy, which she would then escort to the West Indies. Many of the crew had been serving continuously in the navy since the start of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793, and had looked forward to returning to England now that peace seemed imminent. On hearing rumours that instead they were to be sent to the West Indies, around a dozen men began to agitate for the rest of the crew to refuse orders to sail for anywhere but England.

Mutiny

On the morning of 3 December, a small group of sailors gathered on the forecastle and, refusing orders to leave, began to argue with the officers. Captain Eyles asked to know their demands, which were an assurance that Temeraire would not go to the West Indies, but instead would return to England. Eventually Rear Admiral Campbell came down to speak to the men, and having informed them that the officers did not know the destination of the ship, he ordered them to disperse. The men went below decks and the incipient mutiny appeared to have been quashed. The ringleaders, numbering around a dozen, remained determined however, and made discreet inquiries among the rest of the crew. Having eventually determined that the majority of the crew would, if not actually support a mutiny, at least not oppose it, and that Temeraires crew would be supported by the ship's marines as well as the crews of some of the other warships in Bantry Bay, they decided to press ahead with their plans. The mutiny began with the crew closing the ship's gunports, effectively barricading themselves below deck. Having done so, they refused orders to open them again, jeered the officers and threatened violence. The crew then came up on deck and once again demanded to know their destination and refused to obey orders to sail for anywhere but England. Having presented their demands they returned below decks and resumed the usual shipboard routine as much as they could.

Alarmed by the actions of Temeraires crew, Campbell met with Vice-Admiral Sir Andrew Mitchell the following day and informed him of the mutineers' demands. Mitchell reported the news to the Admiralty while Campbell returned to Temeraire and summoned the crew on deck once more. He urged them to return to duty, and then dismissed them. Meanwhile, discipline had begun to break down among the mutineers. Several of the crew became drunk, and some of the officers were struck by rowdy seamen. When one of the marines who supported the mutiny was placed in irons for drunken behaviour and insolence, a crowd formed on deck and tried to free him. The officers resisted these attempts and as sailors began to push and threaten them, Campbell gave the order for the marines to arrest those he identified as the ringleaders. The marines hesitated, but then obeyed the order, driving the unruly seamen back and arresting a number of them, who were immediately placed in irons. Campbell ordered the remaining crew to abandon any mutinous actions, and deprived of its leaders, the mutiny collapsed, though the officers were on their guard for several days afterwards and the marines were ordered to carry out continuous patrols.

News of the mutiny created a sensation in England, and the Admiralty ordered Temeraire to sail immediately for Spithead while an investigation was carried out. Vice-Admiral Mitchell was granted extraordinary powers regarding the death sentence and Temeraires complement of marines was hastily augmented for the voyage to England. On the ship's arrival, the 14 imprisoned ringleaders were swiftly court-martialled in Portsmouth aboard , some on 6 January 1802 and the rest on 14 January. After deliberations, twelve were sentenced to be hanged at the yardarm, and the remaining two were to receive two hundred lashes each. Four men were duly hanged aboard Temeraire, and the remainder were hanged aboard several of the ships anchored at Portsmouth, including , , and . A further seven men involved were sent to prison hulks for life.Famous Fighters of the Fleet, Edward Fraser, 1904, p. 219

West Indies and the peace

After the executions, Temeraire was immediately sent to sea, sailing from Portsmouth for the Isle of Wight the day after and beginning preparations for her delayed voyage to the West Indies. She sailed for Barbados, arriving there on 24 February, and remained in the West Indies until the summer. During her time there the Treaty of Amiens was finally signed and ratified, and Temeraire was ordered back to Britain. She arrived at Plymouth on 28 September and Eyles paid her off on 5 October. Because of the drawdown in the size of the active navy as a result of the peace, Temeraire was laid up in the Hamoaze for the next eight months.

Return to service

The peace of Amiens was a brief interlude in the wars with Revolutionary France, and in 1803 the War of the Third Coalition began. Temeraire had deteriorated substantially during her long period spent laid up, and she was taken into dry dock on 22 May to repair and refit, starting with the replacement of her copper sheathing. Work was delayed when a heavy storm hit Plymouth in January 1804, causing appreciable damage to Temeraire, but was finally completed by February 1804, at a cost of £16,898.

Command was assigned to Captain Eliab Harvey, and he arrived to take up his commission on 1 January 1804. The crew were largely from Liverpool. They left Cawsand Bay on 11 March 1804, sailing to join the Channel Fleet off Brest, still under the overall command of Admiral Cornwallis.

As a much forgotten part of history, Napoleon had assembled his Grand Army, 160,000 men, near Boulogne as part of a plan to invade England. The bulk of the French navy: 21 ships of the line, were harboured at Brest but were needed for the invasion plan.Famous Fighters of the Fleet, Edward Fraser, 1904, p. 220