Sir William Rule was a shipbuilder and designer to the Royal Navy who rose to be Surveyor of the Navy.

HMS Leopard was a 50-gun Portland class fourth rate of the Royal Navy. She served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and was notable for the actions of her captain in 1807, which were emblematic of the tensions that later erupted in the War of 1812 between Britain and America. She was wrecked in 1814.