HMS Meleager (1806)

HMS Meleager was a 36-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1806 and wrecked on 30 July 1808 off Jamaica. During her brief career she captured two armed vessels and two merchantmen on the Jamaica station. She was named after Meleager, who could have been a Macedonian officer of distinction in the service of Alexander the Great, or a Meleager a character from Greek mythology.

Active service

In November 1806 Meleager was commissioned under Captain John Broughton for the North Sea. In mid-1807 Meleager accompanied HMS Shannon above 80 degrees latitude in a mission to protect the Greenland whaling fleet. They found neither whalers nor threats and so on 23 August they were back in Leith Roads, seeking replenishment, having spent three months above the Arctic Circle. They then sailed for the Shetland Islands where they cruised for about another month.

Meleager, under Captain J. Broughton, was in company with Quebec, Vestal and Forester when they captured the Fischia on 14 April 1807. Then on 5 September 1807, Meleager captured the Jonge Lars.

HMS Meleager

Two ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Meleager, after Meleager, who could have been a Macedonian officer of distinction in the service of Alexander the Great, or Meleager, a character from Greek mythology.

HMS Meleager (1785)

HMS Meleager was a 32-gun frigate that Greaves and Nickolson built in 1785 at the Quarry House yard in Frindsbury, Kent, England. She served during the French Revolutionary Wars until 1801, when she was wrecked in the Gulf of Mexico.

Career

Admiral Sir Charles Tyler took command of Meleager in 1790.

In 1793 Lieutenant Thomas Masterman Hardy served aboard her. Meleager was among the vessels that shared in the capture, on 5 August 1793, cf the Prince Royal of Sweden. Also, on 16 November she and Romulus captured the French gunboat Ca Ira.

In 1794 Sir George Cockburn commanded her. In early 1794 she was among the British vessels present when Sir David Dundas captured the town of San Fiorenzo (San Fiurenzu) in the Gulf of St. Florent in Corsica. There the British found the French frigate Minerve on 19 February 1794, and were able to refloat her. They then took her into service as a 38-gun frigate under the name St Fiorenzo. Meleager shared in the prize money for both St Fiorenzo and for the naval stores captured in the town.