HMS Powerful was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She took part in the defeat of a Dutch fleet in the Battle of Camperdown in 1797, the capture of a French privateer in the action of 9 July 1806, in operations against the Dutch in the East Indies during the raids on Batavia and Griessie in 1806 and 1807, and finally in the Walcheren Campaign during 1809.

The Battle of Camperdown was a major naval action fought on 11 October 1797, between the British North Sea Fleet under Admiral Adam Duncan and a Batavian Navy (Dutch) fleet under Vice-Admiral Jan de Winter. The battle, the most significant action between British and Dutch forces during the French Revolutionary Wars, resulted in a complete victory for the British, who captured eleven Dutch ships without losing any of their own.