H.M.S. Trusty of 50 guns

The two-decker H.M.S. Trusty was a Fourth Rate of 50 guns built by Hillhouse at Bristol. Ordered in July 1780, her keel was laid exactly a year later and she was launched on 9th October, 1782. Measured by her builder at 1,080 tons, she was 150 feet in length with a 40½ foot beam, and carried a nominal armament of 22-24 pounders, 22-12 pds. and 6-6 pds. mounted on her various decks. With the American War of Independence just ending as she was completed, there was little active service for Trusty until the French Revolutionary War began in 1793 at which point she was in Barbados as flagship to Vice-Admiral Sir John Laforey. As soon as news of the declaration of war reached the West Indies, Laforey mounted an immediate operation to capture the French island of Tobago and this was successfully accomplished on 14th- 15th April. Returning to Home Waters the following summer, she was made Guardship at Weymouth in September 1794 until being put briefly to work as a troopship in August 1799. After service off the Egyptian coast in support of the expeditionary force in 1801, she was then assigned to the squadron off Calais where, in July 1805, she found herself patrolling off the French channel ports as part of the strategy to prevent Napoleon's invasion of England. On 18th July a number of French vessels attempted to escape the blockade and when Trusty, in company with other ships of her flotilla, made to stop them, they were fired on by the heavy gun and mortar batteries on Cape Blanez. Trusty received a serious direct hit and was forced to withdraw from the action in order to save herself from sinking. Possibly due to the damage she sustained on this occasion, she was subsequently hulked and thereafter served as a prison ship at Chatham from May 1809 until she was broken up in April 1815.