Writing in his note-book of extreme weather conditions my ancestor Richard comments:

In late November 1790 HMS Elephant narrowly avoided total destruction when lightning struck her whilst she was in Portsmouth harbour. The main topmast exploded but was held in place by a top-rope, which prevented it plunging through the quarterdeck.

HMS Elephant was one of a class of a dozen ships designed by the brilliant naval architect Sir Thomas Slade (he also designed HMS Victory). Plans for the class of third-rate warships

were standardised and distributed to a number of individual boat-builders. In the case of HMS Elephant the builder was George Parsons who operated on the banks of the River Hamble in Hampshire. She was launched on 24 August 1786.

She was not a particularly handy ship – she was slow, she was unresponsive at the helm, but she had qualities which made her invaluable in battle: she could pack a huge punch, and she was built to take a lot of punishment. On the gundeck she sported 28 thirty-two pounders, with the same number of eighteen pounders on the Upper gundeck. On the Quarter deck she could call on 14 nine-pounder guns, plus another four on the foc’sle. Seventy-four guns in all…. a formidable fighting ship.

In addition she had a very shallow draft – an ideal feature when attacking a fleet at anchor.

Small wonder that Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson chose HMS Elephant as his flagship, when he was appointed to lead the main attack on the Norwegian-Danish fleet anchored off Copenhagen in 1801. The squadron was under the overall command of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, and the rival fleets clashed on 2nd April 1801 in what was to become known as the Battle of Copenhagen.

Reportedly, at some stage in the fiercely-fought battle Sir Hyde Parker gave the order to retreat. Nelson acknowledged the order but declined to pass it on or to implement the instructions – he is supposed to have stood on the deck of the Elephant, holding the telescope to his blind eye, and announced that he could see no signal. He stayed in position and led his ships to a great victory, one which many consider to be Nelson’s hardest-fought battle.

HMS Elephant ended up being re-fitted as a 58 gun fourth-rate ship in 1818, and finally ended her days when she was broken up in 1830. Not a bad life for a ship which was so nearly destroyed in that storm which swept Hampshire at the end of November 1790.