HMS Naiad (1797)
HMS Naiad was a
Royal Navy frigate that served in the
Napoleonic Wars.
She was built by Hall and Co. at
Limehouse on the
Thames, launched in 1797 and commissioned in 1798.
On
15 October 1799 Naiad sighted two Spanish frigates, the
Santa Brigada and
Thetis, which were returning from
Mexico to
Spain with gold worth £600,000. She gave chase with two other British frigates,
HMS Ethalian and
HMS Almene.
Ethalian caught and captured the Thetis, whilst Naiad and
Almene captured the
Santa Brigada.
In 1805
Naiad was part of the squadron of frigates that watched the French and Spanish fleets in Cadiz prior to the
Battle of Trafalgar. Too small to take part in the battle itself, she lay winward of the action. After the battle she towed
HMS Belleisle to
Gibraltar.
Served in many other actions in the Napoleonic Wars, and was finally paid off in
1826.
Naiad was sent to serve as a depot ship, first to
Valparaiso,
Chile in
1846 and then to
Callao,
Peru from
1851 and
1898. Broken up in
1898 Naiad was the longest survivor of any of the British ships at Trafalgar apart from
HMS Victory.
* http://www.treeforall.org.uk/trafalgar/TrafalgarWoods/Otherwoods/Naiad/
