During her career she was commanded by three prominent naval personalities of the Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic period: Henry Blackwood, George Dundas and Charles Napier.

After the end of the Napoleonic Wars she continued on active service for a number of years, before spending more than two decades as a prison hulk.

[3] Her first action occurred on 2 and 3 October 1804 when, captained by Henry Blackwood, she participated in an attack on French vessels off Boulogne pier.

[7] In 1805 she led a squadron of four other frigates in watching Cádiz to report the movements of the combined French and Spanish fleets anchored there.

With battle imminent the following morning, Captain Blackwood suggested that Admiral Horatio Nelson transfer from Victory to the faster Euryalus, the better to observe and control the engagement.

Euryalus - too small to play a major role - stood off until the late afternoon when she took the badly damaged Royal Sovereign in tow and turned her to engage the French ship Formidable.

Blackwood also received the surrender of the Spanish ship Santa Ana, after two raking broadsides to the stern by Royal Sovereign and Belleisle had caused her to strike her colours.

Euryalus again took Royal Sovereign in tow but the two ships collided during a sudden squall, badly damaging the frigate's masts and rigging.

Once repairs were completed, Euryalus went into Cádiz Harbour to allow Blackwood to negotiate an exchange of prisoners and the repatriation of French and Spanish wounded.

In 1847 the Admiralty awarded the Naval General Service Medal (NGSM) with clasp "Trafalgar" to all surviving claimants from the battle.

On 5 February 1806 Blackwood was still in command of Euryalus when the privateer Mayflower, of Guernsey, captured the Spanish vessel San Jose Andrea.

[12] Later that year Dundas sailed to Elbing, a small port in West Prussia about 60 kilometers (37 mi) east of Dantzig.

There he took on board Princess Marie Josephine Louise of Savoy (the consort of Louis XVIII), the Duc du Berry and other members of the French royal family.

[10] Euryalus joined the squadron under Captain Lord William Stuart in Lavinia that on 11 August forced the passage of the Scheldt between the batteries at Flushing and Cadsand.

[13] Although the Walcheren Expedition, which ended on 9 August 1809, was notably unsuccessful, Euryalus was among the myriad vessels sharing in the prize money form the campaign.

The light and variable winds made it impossible for Blackwood to block the French squadron and the frigate and her convoy from joining up.

Early in 1811 Dundas temporarily took command of the 74-gun third rate Achille until relieved by Captain Aiskew Paffard Hollis, who had transferred from Standard.

[22][c] On 23 December Euryalus drove the Var-class flüte Baleine, sailing from Toulon to Ajaccio, ashore near Calvi where she bilged on the rocks.

[24] French records place the capture off Vintimilles, and add that Flèche was escorting the storeships Lybio and Baleine, which were also carrying troops for Ajaccio, Corsica.

[25] On 21 April 1814, in company with Undaunted, under the command of Ussher, Euryalus entered the harbour at Marseilles where they heard the news of Napoleon's defeat.

On 17 August Euryalus, bombs Devastation, Aetna, and Meteor, the rocket ship Erebus, and the dispatch boat Anna-Maria were detached under Captain Gordon of Seahorse to sail up the Potomac River and bombard Fort Washington, about ten or twelve miles below the capital.

Later Euryalus contributed a boat armed with a howitzer to assist Meteor and Fairy in their unsuccessful attempt to stop the Americans from adding guns to a battery that would impede the British withdrawal.

On 25 August a vicious squall hit the whole squadron; it temporarily put Euryalus almost on her beam ends and cost her bowsprit and the heads of all her topmasts.

With the rest of the squadron she then descended the Potomac, running the gauntlet of fire from enemy batteries; in all Euryalus lost three killed and ten wounded.

Following these operations, on 28 January 1815 Napier issued a challenge to the captain of the frigate USS Constellation to meet Euryalus in single-ship combat.

[32] Constellation's captain, Charles Gordon, accepted, but Euryalus was first required for the naval operations preceding the Battle of New Orleans and then peace was signed before the engagement could take place.

[3] This article includes data released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported UK: England & Wales Licence, by the National Maritime Museum, as part of the Warship Histories project.