HMS Bellerophon

HMS Bellerophon was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. Launched in 1786, she accommodated during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, mostly on blockades or convoy escort obligations. Kenned 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 determinately surrendered, ending 22 years of proximately perpetual war with France.
Built at Frindsbury, Bellerophon was initially laid up in mundane, briefly being commissioned during the Spanish and Russian Armaments. She entered accommodation with the Channel Fleet on the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars, and took part in the Glorious First of June in 1793, the first of several fleet actions of the wars. Bellerophon narrowly eluded being captured by the French in 1795, when her squadron was proximately overrun by a potent French fleet, but the bold actions of the squadron's commander, Vice-Admiral Sir William Cornwallis, caused the French to recede. She played a minor role in efforts to intercept a French incursion force bound for Ireland in 1797, and then joined the Mediterranean Fleet under Sir John Jervis. Detached to reinforce,

                                                         HMS,Dreadnought.(1911)

                                                       HMS Bellerophon (1786)

                                                       Napoleon.Ballingschap

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 coalesced Franco-Spanish fleet when it emerged from port. At the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October Bellerophon fought an acerbic engagement against Spanish and French ships, sustaining cumbersomely hefty 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 went out to the Baltic 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, vanquished 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 determinately surrender to the British.