拍品專文
H.M.S. Vanguard, 1,604 tons, was one of the "Arrogant" class of two-decked 74-gun third rates designed by Sir Thomas Slade in 1758. Although several ships were begun immediately, Vanguard herself was not actually ordered until 1779 and it took a further three years before her keel was laid on 16 October 1782. Finally launched at Deptford on 6 March 1787, she measured 168 feet in length with a 47 foot beam, and was commissioned with a crew of 550 men.
Assigned to the Channel fleet on the outbreak of war with Revolutionary France in 1793, she was soon dispatched to the West Indies where she first distinguished herself on 29 September 1795 by capturing the French 50-gun Superbe off the Leeward Islands. This was clearly a prelude to greater things for when she returned home to refit in late 1797, it was announced that she was to become flagship for Nelson for his forthcoming tour of duty in the Mediterranean. Ready for sea by the end of March, Vanguard sailed from Portsmouth on 10 April 1798 and was nearly lost in a severe storm off Toulon in May. On 1 August - after three months of searching - Nelson at last located the French fleet lying in Aboukir Bay at the mouth of the Nile, and even though it was already six o'clock in the evening, he astonished his own captains as well as the enemy by attacking them immediately. Outgunned and unprepared for an action they believed would not come until the next morning, the French were decisively defeated in a brilliant show of Nelsonian daring. It was a glorious victory and one which brought England's hero to the pinnacle of his fame.
Although Vanguard was to see plenty more action before the Napoleonic Wars were finished, particularly in the West Indies, much of it - even the bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807 - was an anticlimax after the battle of the Nile. Worn out by continuous service at sea for almost twenty years, she was hulked to become a prison ship in December 1812, relegated to a powder store in 1814, and finally broken up at Portsmouth in September 1821.
Assigned to the Channel fleet on the outbreak of war with Revolutionary France in 1793, she was soon dispatched to the West Indies where she first distinguished herself on 29 September 1795 by capturing the French 50-gun Superbe off the Leeward Islands. This was clearly a prelude to greater things for when she returned home to refit in late 1797, it was announced that she was to become flagship for Nelson for his forthcoming tour of duty in the Mediterranean. Ready for sea by the end of March, Vanguard sailed from Portsmouth on 10 April 1798 and was nearly lost in a severe storm off Toulon in May. On 1 August - after three months of searching - Nelson at last located the French fleet lying in Aboukir Bay at the mouth of the Nile, and even though it was already six o'clock in the evening, he astonished his own captains as well as the enemy by attacking them immediately. Outgunned and unprepared for an action they believed would not come until the next morning, the French were decisively defeated in a brilliant show of Nelsonian daring. It was a glorious victory and one which brought England's hero to the pinnacle of his fame.
Although Vanguard was to see plenty more action before the Napoleonic Wars were finished, particularly in the West Indies, much of it - even the bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807 - was an anticlimax after the battle of the Nile. Worn out by continuous service at sea for almost twenty years, she was hulked to become a prison ship in December 1812, relegated to a powder store in 1814, and finally broken up at Portsmouth in September 1821.