HMS Amethyst (1799)
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HMS Amethyst was a Royal Navy 36-gun Penelope-class fifth-rate frigate, launched in 1799 at Deptford. Amethyst served in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, capturing several prizes. She also participated in two boat actions and two ship actions that won her crew clasps to the Naval General Service Medal. She was broken up in 1811 after suffering severe damage in a storm.
Capture of the Thétis by HMS Amethyst on 10 November 1808, by Thomas Whitcombe
Sir Michael Seymour, Ist Baronet
Combat de la frégate Niemen contre les frégates Aréthusa et Amethyst, by Jean-Baptiste Henri Durand-Brager
A view of HMS Amethyst capturing the French frigate Niemen in the Cordouan Shoals on 6 April 1809, by Robert Dodd
John Cooke (Royal Navy officer)
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John Cooke was an experienced and highly regarded officer of the Royal Navy during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars and the first years of the Napoleonic Wars. Cooke is best known for his death in hand-to-hand combat with French forces during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. During the action, his ship HMS Bellerophon was badly damaged and boarded by sailors and marines from the French ship of the line Aigle. Cooke was killed in the ensuing melee, but his crew successfully drove off their opponents and ultimately forced the surrender of Aigle.
John Cooke, painted c. 1797–1803 by Lemuel Francis Abbott
Greenwich Hospital, in the painting London from Greenwich Park, in 1809, by William Turner
Engraving of Cooke, by James Fittler, for Cooke's memoir in the Naval Chronicle in 1807
Battle of Trafalgar