HMS Blanche was a 36-gun fifth-rate Apollo-class frigate of the Royal Navy. She was commissioned in 1800 by Captain Graham Hamond, under whom on 2 April 1801 Blanche fought as part of the frigate reserve at the Battle of Copenhagen. She spent the remainder of the French Revolutionary Wars serving in the English Channel. When the Napoleonic Wars began in 1803 Blanche was sent to serve in the West Indies under the command of Captain Zachary Mudge. There the frigate participated in the Blockade of Saint-Domingue and an unsuccessful invasion of Curacao, capturing upwards of twenty-four vessels.
1803 plan of the Apollo class
Scene from the Blockade of Saint-Domingue
Blanche battles the French squadron on 19 July 1805
The Battle of Copenhagen
Sir Graham Hamond, 2nd Baronet
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Graham Eden Hamond, 2nd Baronet, was a Royal Navy officer. After seeing action as a junior officer at the Glorious First of June and then at the Battle of Toulon, he commanded the fifth-rate HMS Blanche at the Battle of Copenhagen during the French Revolutionary Wars.
A very young Midshipman Graham Hamond, shown on the extreme right of this painting by Mather Brown holding a trumpet, during the action on the Glorious First of June
The blowing up of the Spanish Frigate Mercedes at the Battle of Cape Santa Maria, 1804, John Thomas Serres
The third-rate HMS Wellesley in which Hamond conveyed the diplomat Lord Stuart de Rothesay to Brazil
Norton Lodge (now known as Norton Grange), Hamond's home on the Isle of Wight
