HMS Calcutta (1795)

Calcutta (first from right) at the Battle of the Basque Roads
History
East India CompanyGreat Britain
NameWarley
BuilderPerry & Co., Blackwall
Launched16 October 1788
FateSold to the Royal Navy in 1795
Great Britain
NameHMS Calcutta
Acquired9 March 1795
CommissionedMay 1795
FateCaptured by the French Navy, 26 September 1805
France
NameCalcutta
Captured26 September 1805
FateDestroyed by fire on 12 April 1809 at the Battle of the Basque Roads
General characteristics
Type
Tons burthen1,175, or 1,1757394 (bm)
Length
  • 156 ft 11 in (47.8 m) (overall);
  • 129 ft 7+34 in (39.5 m) (keel)
Beam41 ft 3+12 in (12.6 m)
Draught17 ft 2 in (5.2 m)
Complement
  • East Indiaman: 125
  • Royal Navy: 324; 160 as storeship
Armament
  • East Indiaman: 26 × 9-pounder guns
  • Royal Navy:
  • Lower deck: 28 × 18-pounder guns
  • Upper deck: 26 × 32-pounder cannonades + 2 × 9-pounder guns

HMS Calcutta was a 56-gun fourth-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was launched at Blackwall Yard in 1788 as the East Indiaman Warley, and made two trading voyages to the East Indies for the East India Company between 1789 and 1795. In 1795, the Royal Navy purchased her and renamed her Calcutta, designating the ship as a convoy escort. She also transported convicts to Australia in a voyage that became a circumnavigation of the world. In 1805, the 74-gun ship of the line Magnanime captured her, and the French Navy took the captured ship into service under her existing name. In 1809, Calcutta ran aground during the Battle of the Basque Roads, with her crew abandoning ship before a British boarding party burned the empty vessel.