HMS Dauntless (1808)

For other ships of the same name, see HMS Dauntless.

Career (United Kingdom)
Name:	HMS Dauntless
Builder:	Deptford Dockyard
Launched:	20 December 1808
Commissioned:	July 1809
Decommissioned:	October 1823
Fate:	Sold 1825
General characteristics
Class and type:	Cormorant-class ship-sloop
Tons burthen:	422 bm
Length:	108 ft 4 in (33.02 m)
Beam:	29 ft 7 in (9.02 m)
Depth of hold:	9 ft (2.7 m)
Sail plan:	Ship
Complement:	121
Armament:	Guns: 16 x 32 lb carronades 8 x 18 lb carronades 2 x 6 lb guns

The second HMS Dauntless was a Cormorant-class ship-sloop of the Royal Navy armed with 24 carronades and two 6-pounder guns.

Construction

Dauntless was built in Deptford Dockyard as a Cormorant-class ship-sloop. She was launched on 20 December 1808 and commissioned in July of 1809.

Operational history

Her first service was in November 1809, when she escorted a convoy to the African coast, returning in early 1810 to cruise against enemy shipping in the North Sea and to escort convoys to North Russia. In the autumn of 1811 she was sent to the Cork Station, and after refitting at Portsmouth in early 1814 she served on the Newfoundland Station. In January 1816, as the Royal Navy contracted after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, she paid off at Portsmouth.

In November 1818, she was recommissioned for service in the East Indies. Over the next five years, Dauntless visited China, New Zealand, South America, the Pacific archipelagos and New South Wales. Her Captain, George Gambier, in company with members of the Philosophical Society of Australasia fixed a suitably engraved bronze tablet on a "beetling rock" on the south head of Botany Bay to commemorate the first landing of Captain James Cook and Sir Joseph Banks in Australia in 1770. The tablet has not been seen for some years. Dauntless sailed through Torres Strait to Trincomalee to rejoin the fleet, and returned to Portsmouth to pay off in October 1823.

Fate

She was sold for breaking in 1825.

Commanding Officers

From	Until	Captain
1809		Lt Whitman RN (died on the African Station)
2 May 1810		Lt Daniel Barber RN
November 1818		Captain Hon. Valentine Gardner RN
June 1821	October 1823	Captain George Cornish Gambier RN

References

• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: the complete record of all fighting ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham. ISBN 9781861762818. OCLC 67375475.