On 20 March 1780, Lion fought an action in company with two other ships against a French convoy off Monte Cristi, Dominican Republic, protected by Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte's squadron. The Lion and Cornwallis, then returned Nelson to England. On 20 June, a second action by Cornwallis, took place near Bermuda, when Cornwallis' Lion, accompanied by five other ships of the line, met another French convoy carrying six thousand troops for Rhode Island, and protected by Charles-Henri-Louis d'Arsac de Ternay. The French were too strong for Cornwallis's squadron, but were content to continue with their mission instead of attacking the smaller British force.[3][2]
On their way they stopped at New Amsterdam Island or Île Amsterdam. There they found a gang of seal fur hunters under the command of Pierre François Péron. Later, Lion captured the French ship Emélie, the vessel that had landed the sealers. Deprived of the ship that had landed them, Péron and his men spent some 40 months marooned on the island until Captain Thomas Hadley, in Ceres, rescued them in late 1795 and took them to Port Jackson.[4]
Between 1792 and 1794 she carried Lord George Macartney on a special embassy to China. The embassy proceeded to the Bohai Gulf, off the Hai River. The ambassador and his party were conveyed up river by light craft to Tianjin before proceeding by land to Beijing[5] On reaching Tianjin, Macartney sent orders to Lion to proceed to Japan, but because of sickness among the crew she was unable to do so. The embassy rejoined Lion at Canton in December 1793.[6] The ship's journal from this voyage is in the library of Cornell University.[7]
Capture of the Dorothea, 15 July 1798 (HMS Lion is at centre right), Thomas Whitcombe, 1816
She then took part in the siege of Malta,[8] and with HMS Penelope and HMS Foudroyant captured the French 80-gun ship Guillaume Tell as she tried to escape from the blockade (Guillaume Tell was subsequently bought into the Royal Navy as HMS Malta).
In July 1807 in the Malacca Strait she successfully protected from the French frigate Sémillante, without an engagement, a convoy homeward bound from China.[9]
On 27 December 1807 Lion captured the French privateer luggerReciprocité off Beachy Head. She was from Dieppe, had a crew of 45 men, and was armed with 14 guns. Lion sent her into the Downs.[10]
In 1811, under the command of Captain Henry Heathcote, Lion was one of a large fleet of ships involved in the capture of Java from Dutch forces.[11]
On 26 January 1812 Commander Henderson Bain of Harpy became acting captain of Lion. Bain returned to command of Harpy a few weeks before he received promotion to post captain 6 April 1813.[12]
Lion was converted to a sheer hulk in September 1816, following the end of the Napoleonic wars.
Fate
Lion was sold to be broken up at Chatham on 30 November 1837.[1]
^Parish, Capt. (1858). Extract from Notes upon the Passage up the Peiho with Lord Macartney in 1793. Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London, 2(6), 362–363.
^Staunton, G. (1799). An Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China. Philadelphia (pp. 250–251).
Great Britain
