HMS Cornwallis was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 12 May 1813 at Bombay.

The crew threw boats, guns and other equipment overboard in order to escape.

[4] After China's defeat in the First Opium War, representatives from the British and Qing Empires negotiated a peace treaty aboard Cornwallis in Nanjing.

On 29 August 1842, British representative Sir Henry Pottinger and Qing representatives, Qiying, Yilibu and Niujian, signed the Treaty of Nanking aboard her.

Cornwallis was fitted with screw propulsion and reduced to 60 guns in 1855,[1] and took part in the Crimean War, where she was commanded by George Wellesley, future admiral and First Sea Lord, and the nephew of the Duke of Wellington.