HMS Emerald was a 36-gun Amazon-class fifth rate frigate that Sir William Rule (Surveyor of the Navy) designed in 1794 for the Royal Navy. The Admiralty ordered her construction towards the end of May 1794 and work began the following month at Northfleet dockyard. She was completed on 12 October 1795 and joined Admiral John Jervis's fleet in the Mediterranean.
In 1797, Emerald was one of several vessels sent to hunt down and capture the crippled Santisima Trinidad, which had escaped from the British at the Battle of Cape St Vincent. Emerald was supposed to have been present at the Battle of the Nile but in May 1798 a storm separated her from Horatio Nelson's squadron and she arrived in Aboukir Bay nine days too late. She was part of Rear-Admiral John Thomas Duckworth's squadron during the action of 7 April 1800 off Cádiz.
Emerald served in the Caribbean throughout 1803 in Samuel Hood's fleet, then took part in the invasion of St Lucia in July, and of Surinam the following spring. Returning to home waters for repairs in 1806, she served in the Western Approaches before joining a fleet under Admiral James Gambier in 1809, and taking part in the Battle of the Basque Roads. In November 1811 she sailed to Portsmouth where she was laid up in ordinary. Fitted out as a receiving ship in 1822, she was eventually broken up in January 1836.
Construction and armament
Emerald was a 36-gun, 18-pounder, Amazon-class frigate built to William Rule's design. She and her sister ship, , were ordered on 24 May 1794 and were built to the same dimensions: along the gun deck, at the keel, with a beam of and a depth in the hold of . They measured 933 tons burthen.
Completed at Thomas Pitcher's dockyard in Northfleet at a cost of £14,419, Emerald was launched on 31 July 1795, twenty-seven days after Amazon. Her coppering at Woolwich was finished on 12 October 1795, and she was fitted-out at a further cost of £9,390.
Emerald was built to carry a main battery of twenty-six long guns on her gun deck, eight on the quarter deck and two on the forecastle. She additionally carried Eight carronades, six on the quarter deck and two on the forecastle. When fully manned, Amazon-class frigates had a complement of 264.
The Admiralty ordered a second pair of Amazon-class ships on 24 January 1795. They were marginally smaller at 925 tons (bm) and were built from pitch pine.
Service
Mediterranean
Emerald was first commissioned in August 1795, under Captain Velters Cornewall Berkeley and in January 1797, she sailed for the Mediterranean. Spain had become allied to France and declared war on Britain in October 1796. Early in 1797, a Spanish fleet of 27 ships of the line was at Cartagena with orders to join the French fleet at Brest. A storm blew the Spanish fleet off course, enabling Admiral John Jervis's fleet of 15 ships of the line to intercept it off Cape St Vincent on 14 February. Although attached to Jervis' fleet at the time, as a frigate Emerald was too lightly built to take part in the Battle of Cape St Vincent; instead she anchored in nearby Lagos Bay with other vessels.
On 16 February, the victorious British fleet and its prizes entered the bay. Jervis ordered the three frigates—Emerald, and , of 40 and 32 guns, respectively—to search for the disabled flagship, Santisima Trinidad, which had been towed from the battle. Two smaller craft—Bonne-Citoyenne, a corvette of 20 guns, and the 14-gun sloop —joined the frigates. The British squadron on 20 February sighted Santisima Trinidad under tow by a large frigate and in the company of a brig. Berkeley, considering the small squadron under his command insufficient, declined to engage and eventually the Spanish ships sailed from sight.
Action of 26 April 1797
Following the Battle of Cape St Vincent, the British pursued the remainder of the Spanish fleet to Cádiz, where Jervis began a long-running blockade of the port. On 26 April, while cruising in the company of the 74-gun , Emerald helped to capture a 34-gun Spanish ship and to destroy another. The Spanish vessels were close to the coast when Jervis's fleet sighted them. Sent to investigate, Emerald and Irresistible, under Captain George Martin, discovered the ships were the frigates and —the Spanish ships had been carrying silver from Havana to Cádiz, but had transferred their cargo the previous night to a fishing boat that had warned them of the proximity of the British fleet.