The H[onourable] C[ompany's] S[hip] Comet was launched in 1798 by the Bombay Dockyard.

She was a brig belonging to the British East India Company's naval arm, the Bombay Marine.

In October 1800 Earl Talbot struck on the Perates, in the South China Sea some 300 miles to the southeast of Hong Kong, during a gale.

In December the EIC sent two vessels, HCS Intrepid, Captain George Roper, and Comet, Lieutenant William Henry, from Bombay to the Paracel Islands to search for the cause of Earl Talbot's loss and to pick up any possible survivors.

[4] In February 1802 reports had reached London that although the two vessels had made many discoveries relating to natural history and geography, and had seen wreckage of other vessels on uninhabited islands, they had found nothing further concerning Lord Eldon.