Career
Gladiator was commissioned in December 1792 under Lieutenant Samuel Hayter as a convalescent ship. Then, still under Hayter, she was recommissioned in February 1794 as a guardship. In December 1795 she was under the command of Lieutenant Stephen Parker, followed by Lieutenant Emanuel Hungerford from September 1799. She was Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Bickerton's flagship from February 1800 to May. Lieutenant Joseph Bromwich then took command of Gladiator, being succeeded in September by Lieutenant John Connolly. From December 1801 she was again a convalescent ship and the flagship for Rear-Admiral Sir John Holloway until to April 1802 when she was paid off.
Gladiator was recommissioned in April 1803 under Lieutenant Thomas Harrison. From May she was again Holloway's flagship until June 1804 when she became Rear-Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin's flagship. In February 1807 she came under the command of Lieutenant John Price as a convalescent ship.
On 26 October 1806, Tsar Alexander I of Russia declared war on Great Britain. The official news did not arrive there until 2 December, at which time the British declared an embargo on all Russian vessels in British ports. Gladiator was one of some 70 vessels that shared in the seizure of the 44-gun Russian frigate Speshnoy (Speshnyy), then in Portsmouth harbour. The British seized the Russian storeship Wilhelmina (Vilghemina) at the same time. The Russian vessels were carrying the payroll for Vice-Admiral Dmitry Senyavin’s squadron in the Mediterranean.
In 1811 Gladiator was under the command of Lieutenant Thomas Dutton and served as flagship for Rear-Admiral William Hargood. Lieutenant-Commander Charles Hewitt took command in July 1812, and Gladiator successively bore the flags of Rear Admirals Hargood, Edward Foote and Peter Halkett.
When news of the outbreak of the War of 1812 reached Britain, the Royal Navy seized all American vessels then in British ports. Gladiator was among the Royal Navy vessels then lying at Spithead or Portsmouth and so entitled to share in the grant for the American ships Belleville, Janus, Aeos, Ganges and Leonidas seized there on 31 July 1812.
Read more about this topic: HMS Gladiator (1783)
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