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} |} HMS ''Bellerophon'' was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. Launched in 1786, she served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, mostly on blockades or convoy escort duties. Known to sailors as the "Billy Ruffian", she fought in three fleet actions, the Glorious First of June, the Battle of the Nile and the Battle of Trafalgar, and was the ship aboard which Napoleon finally surrendered, ending 22 years of nearly continuous war with France. Built at Frindsbury, ''Bellerophon'' was initially laid up in ordinary, briefly being commissioned during the Spanish and Russian Armaments. She entered service with the Channel Fleet on the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars, and took part in the Glorious First of June in 1794, the first of several fleet actions of the wars. ''Bellerophon'' narrowly escaped being captured by the French in 1795, when her squadron was nearly overrun by a powerful French fleet, but the bold actions of the squadron's commander, Vice-Admiral Sir William Cornwallis, caused the French to retreat. She played a minor role in efforts to intercept a French invasion force bound for Ireland in 1797, and then joined the Mediterranean Fleet under Sir John Jervis. Detached to reinforce Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson's fleet in 1798, she took part in the decisive defeat of a French fleet at the Battle of the Nile. She then returned to England and went out to the West Indies, where she spent the Peace of Amiens on cruises and convoy escort duty between the Caribbean and North America. ''Bellerophon'' returned to European waters with the resumption of the wars with France, joining a fleet under Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood blockading Cadiz. The reinforced fleet, by then commanded by Horatio Nelson, engaged the combined Franco-Spanish fleet when it emerged from port. At the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October ''Bellerophon'' fought a bitter engagement against Spanish and French ships, sustaining heavy casualties including the death of her captain, John Cooke. After repairs ''Bellerophon'' was employed blockading the enemy fleets in the Channel and the North Sea. She plied the waters of the Baltic Sea in 1809, making attacks on Russian shipping, and by 1810 was off the French coast again, blockading their ports. She went out to North America as a convoy escort between 1813 and 1814, and in 1815 was assigned to blockade the French Atlantic port of Rochefort. In July 1815, defeated at Waterloo and finding escape to America barred by the blockading ''Bellerophon'', Napoleon came aboard "the ship that had dogged his steps for twenty years" (according to maritime historian David Cordingly) to finally surrender to the British. It was ''Bellerophon''s last seagoing service. She was paid off and converted to a prison ship in 1815, and was renamed ''Captivity'' in 1824 to free the name for another ship. Moved to Plymouth in 1826, she continued in service until 1834, when the last convicts left. The Admiralty ordered her to be sold in 1836, and she was broken up. ''Bellerophon''s long and distinguished career has been recorded in literature and folk songs, commemorating the achievements of the "Billy Ruffian". ==Construction and commissioning== ''Bellerophon'' was ordered from the commercial shipbuilder Edward Greaves and Company, of Frindsbury in Kent, on 11 January 1782 to a modified design originally developed by Surveyor of the Navy Sir Thomas Slade. She was one of ten ships built to the modified ''Arrogant''-class design, originally developed by Slade in 1758 and used to build two ships, and .〔 The design was resurrected and slightly altered in 1774, and approved by the Admiralty on 25 August that year. The keel was laid down at Frindsbury in May 1782. Measuring on the gundeck and on the keel, she had a beam of , measured 1,612 tons burthen and mounted 74 guns. This armament consisted of twenty-eight 32-pounder guns on her lower gundeck, twenty-eight 18-pounder guns on the upper gundeck, fourteen 9-pounder guns on the quarterdeck and four 9-pounder guns on the forecastle.〔 The ship was named ''Bellerophon'', a decision that had been arrived at by at least April 1782, when it was entered into the minutes of the Surveyor's Office.〔 The First Lord of the Admiralty at the time, John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, had apparently selected the name from Lemprière's Classical Dictionary, which he kept on his desk. The recently ordered 74-gun ship was thereafter to be named after the Greek warrior Bellerophon who rode the winged horse Pegasus and slew the monster Chimera. The pronunciation proved difficult for the ordinary sailors of the period, and she was widely known by variants, most commonly "Billy Ruffian" or "Billy Ruff'n", although "Belly Ruff One" appears in a satirical 1810 print by Thomas Rowlandson, and "Bellyruffron" in the novel ''Poor Jack'' by Frederick Marryat. She was decorated with a figurehead of Bellerophon.〔 By the time ''Bellerophon'' was launched, there was no pressing need for new warships. The signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 brought the American War of Independence to an end while ''Bellerophon'' was still under construction. Though Greaves had been contracted to have her ready for launching by April 1784, she spent another two years on the slipway, probably because the Navy Board ordered construction work to be delayed to allow her timber to be seasoned, a luxury available now that there were no pressing military needs. When the launch came, it was delayed several times, finally taking place during a period of heavy autumn storms in October 1786. She was launched with little ceremony on 7 October 1786, by Commissioner Charles Proby, of Chatham Dockyard.〔 She was then towed across the River Medway and anchored off Chatham Dockyard. She was taken into the dry dock there on 7 March 1787, where her hull was fitted with copper sheathing, and she was fitted for the Ordinary.〔 Her final costs came to £30,232.14.4d paid to Greaves for building her, and a further £8,376.15.2d spent on fitting her for service.〔〔 Laid up at Chatham during the years of peace, ''Bellerophon'' was not commissioned until July 1790, when the crisis known as the Spanish Armament broke out. As war with Spain threatened, warships lying in ordinary began to be commissioned and fitted for sea. ''Bellerophon''s first commander, Captain Thomas Pasley, arrived on 19 July and began the process of preparing her for service.〔 After a month spent fitting out the ship with guns, masts, stores and rigging, and recruiting a crew, Pasley gave the orders for his crew to slip the moorings on 16 August, and ''Bellerophon'' made her way down the Medway to the fleet anchorage at the Nore. From the Nore, ''Bellerophon'' proceeded to the Downs and joined the fleet stationed there. She spent three weeks in the roadstead, exercising her guns, before moving to Spithead. The diplomatic crisis with Spain had largely abated by October 1790, and ''Bellerophon'' was sent to Sheerness in late November. She remained in commission, still under Pasley, during the Russian Armament in 1791, but when this period of tension also passed without breaking into open war, ''Bellerophon'' was sent back to Chatham and paid off there on 9 September 1791.〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「HMS Bellerophon (1786)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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