HMS Hermione (1782)

HMS Hermione was the lead ship of the Hermione class, a six-ship class of 32-gun fifth-rate frigates of the Royal Navy. She was launched on 9 September 1782 at Bristol. Hermione was commissioned and then paid off a number of times during the 1780s. She underwent repairs between October 1790 and June 1792, followed by a period spent refitting at Chatham Dockyard until January 1793. She was recommissioned in December 1792 before sailing to the Jamaica in March 1793. Hermione served in the West Indies during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars, participating in the British attack on Port-au-Prince, where she led a small squadron that accompanied troop transports.

In February 1797 — the year of the Spithead and Nore mutinies — Captain Hugh Pigot took command of Hermione. She saw action in 1797 under Pigot including leading a squadron that cut out nine ships at the Battle of Jean-Rabel without suffering any casualties. Pigot was a cruel officer who meted out severe and arbitrary punishments to his crew. This treatment of the crew led to the bloodiest mutiny in British naval history in September 1797 which saw Pigot and most of the ship's officers murdered. The mutineers then handed the ship over to the Spanish on 27 September 1797, who renamed her Santa Cecilia. On 25 October 1799, boats from HMS Surprise under Captain Edward Hamilton, cut her out of Puerto Cabello harbour. She was returned to Royal Navy service under the name Retaliation and the British Admiralty later renamed her Retribution on 31 January 1800. She returned to Portsmouth in 1802, and in October 1803 she was fitted for service for Trinity House. She was broken up at Deptford in June 1805.