Experimental Squadron (Royal Navy)

Later on the ships had to reinforce a British squadron operating in the Tagus, off Lisbon as constitutionalists and absolutist factions waged a civil war ashore.

[2] The Experimental Squadron under command of Sir Pulteney Malcolm[1]: 265  held trials in July 1832 off the Irish coast, and again on 14 August off the Scilly Islands.

On 15 July the following year, the elderly Rear-Admiral Hyde Parker led the pre-Symonds Trafalgar, St Vincent, Rodney and Canopus, along with Symonds' Queen, Albion, Vanguard and Superb, out of Portsmouth Harbour.

The third and final 1845 cruise lasted 43 days and consisted solely of the two deckers from the previous two (Albion, Vanguard, Superb, Rodney and Canopus), accompanied by a brig from the 1844 squadron, Daring.

It sailed from Plymouth on 21 October, led, not by an admiral (those then available were all very old and infirm, and the Admiralty placed little confidence in them), but by successive captains in the squadron acting as commodore (Moresby in Canopus, and then Willes in Vanguard).