HMS Ethalion was a 38-gun Artois-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was built by Joseph Graham of Harwich and launched on 14 March 1797. In her brief career before she was wrecked in 1799 on the French coast, she participated in a major battle and in the capture of two privateers and a rich prize.

The Battle of Tory Island was a naval action of the French Revolutionary Wars, fought on 12 October 1798 between French and British squadrons off the northwest coast of County Donegal, then in the Kingdom of Ireland. The last action of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the Battle of Tory Island ended the final attempt by the French Navy to land substantial numbers of soldiers in Ireland during the war.