During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Royal Navy made use of a considerable number of hired armed vessels. These were generally smaller vessels, often cutters and luggers, that the Navy used for duties ranging from carrying despatches and passengers to convoy escort, particularly in British coastal waters, and reconnaissance.

Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Ussher KCH CB was an Anglo-Irish officer of the British Royal Navy who served with distinction during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and who in 1814 conveyed Napoleon Bonaparte into exile in Elba. He was nicknamed Undaunted Ussher.