Egypt
Captain James Whitshed had been in charge of the vessel during her later construction stages from January 1798, but she was eventually commissioned in June 1798 under Captain John Holloway, and a month later command passed to Captain John Pakenham, for Channel service. After a brief spell under Captain John Osborn in April 1799, the Ajax was placed in May 1799 under the command of Captain Alexander Cochrane, who was to command her for two years. On 9 January 1800 she captured the French privateer Avantageux in the Channel.
In 1801, Cochrane and Ajax participated in the Egyptian operations. On 31 January Ajax anchored at Marmorice on the coast of Karamania.
On 1 March, some 70 warships, together with transports carrying 16,000 troops, anchored in Aboukir Bay near Alexandria. Bad weather delayed disembarkation by a week, but on the 8th, Cochrane directed a landing by 320 boats, in double line abreast, which brought the troops ashore. French shore batteries opposed the landing, but the British were able to drive them back and by the next day Sir Ralph Abercromby's whole force was ashore. Ajax had two of her seamen killed in the landings.
The naval vessels provided a force of 1,000 seamen to fight alongside the army, with Sir Sidney Smith of the 74-gun HMS Tigre in command. On 13 March, Ajax lost one man killed and two wounded in an action on shore; on 21 March she lost two killed and two wounded.
After the Battle of Alexandria and the subsequent siege, Cochrane in Ajax, with the sixth rate HMS Bonne Citoyenne, sloop HMS Cynthia, the brig-sloops HMS Port Mahon and HMS Victorieuse, and three Turkish corvettes, were the first vessels to enter the harbour. Ajax returned to Plymouth from Egypt on 8 June 1802 after the signing of the Treaty of Amiens.
Read more about this topic: HMS Ajax (1798)
Famous quotes containing the word egypt:
“Go down, Moses
‘Way down in Egypt land,
Tell ole Pharaoh,
To let my people go.”
—Unknown. Go Down, Moses (l. 1–4)