HMS PEGASUS BOAT - 1793

Description

HMS Pegasus was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth rate. This frigate was launched in 1779 at Deptford and sold in 1816. Pegasus had a relatively uneventful career and is perhaps best known for the fact that her captain from 1786 to 1789 was Prince William Henry, the future King William IV. By 1811 Pegasus was a receiving ship at Chatham; she was sold in 1816. Pegasus was commissioned in May 1779 under Captain John Bazely and attached to George Rodney’s fleet for the relief of the Great Siege of Gibraltar. She therefore was present at both of Rodney’s actions in the campaign to relieve the fortress, participating in the seizure of a Spanish armaments convoy off Cape Finisterre on 8 January 1780 and subsequently fighting at the Battle of Cape St Vincent eight days later.[2] Pegasus continued on with Rodney to Gibraltar and then to the West Indies where she participated in the inconclusive Battle of Martinique in April 1780. Bazely carried the dispatches of the battle back to Britain and was soon given command of Apollo. On 14 July 1793 Pegasus sailed with the Channel fleet from St. Helen’s. On 18 July she was west of the Scilly Isle. On 31 July she briefly sighted but was unable to close the French fleet, so she returned to Torbay on 10 August. Thirteen days later she was with the Channel Fleet, escorting the Newfoundland trade and West Indian convoys while they were in home waters. By 23 October she was sailing in search of the French fleet and squadrons. On 18 November the Fleet in a brief skirmish with a French squadron; by mid-December the fleet had returned to Spithead. In 1800, under Capt. John Pengelly, Pegasus was fitted out as a troopship, armed en flûte. Between 8 March and 2 September 1801 Pegasus participated in the siege of Alexandria. Because Pegasus served in the navy’s Egyptian campaign, her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal that the Admiralty authorised in 1850 to all surviving claimants. In 1803 she was in the Mediterranean. By May 1805 she was a guardship at Harwich. By 1811 Pegasus was a receiving ship at Chatham. (Scale : 1/64e)