[3] She was named after the 80-gun Foudroyant, which Swiftsure and Monmouth, both 70-gun ships, and Hampton Court (64 guns), had captured from the French on 28 February 1758.

Foudroyant was only minimally engaged, though she did suffer nine men wounded, and went off in unsuccessful pursuit of the French frigates that had escaped.

After arriving at Gibraltar, Keith shifted his flag to Barfleur on 31 December, and Captain Elphinstone left the ship the following day.

On 30 March Foudroyant was among the several British warships in sight, and so entitled to share in the prize money, when Alcmene captured Saint Joseph or Hermosa Andalusia, off Cadiz.

[9] On 10 July His Sicilian Majesty arrived in the Bay of Naples and immediately hoisted his standard on board the Foudroyant.

In November, after weathering a storm in Palermo harbour, Foudroyant departed once more, this time with Culloden, and ran aground in the Straits of Messina.

Foudroyant was back at Palermo on 15 January 1800, when Lord Nelson hoisted his flag in her once again, and she sailed on to Livorno, arriving on the 21st.

On 26 January Foudroyant was in company with Minorca and Queen Charlotte when she recaptured the Ragusan polacca Annonciata, Michele Pepi, master.

[12] Sicilian soldiers embarked on 11 February, and Foudroyant sailed the next day for Malta, in company with Alexander, Northumberland (both 74s), and Success (32).

[13][e] It turned out that Rear-Admiral Jean-Baptiste Perrée, the commander-in-chief of the French navy in the Mediterranean, had been aboard Généreux and had been killed at the start of the action.

Their failure to arrive significantly harmed the French hold on Malta and was a testament to the success of the British blockade of the island.

On 29 March, she encountered the sloop Bonne Citoyenne, and from her Berry learned that French ships were expected to leave Valletta that evening.

Foudroyant's log for the action of 31 March 1800 notes that at one point during the battle the French had nailed their colours to the stump of Guillaume Tell's mizzen mast.

[15] On 3 June, the Neapolitan king and queen boarded Foudroyant, accompanied by Sir William Hamilton and his wife Emma.

The royal family departed the ship after their arrival in Livorno on 15 June, and just two weeks later Nelson hauled down his flag and began the journey home to England overland together with the Hamiltons.

Lord Keith raised his flag in Foudroyant for the second time on 15 August, returning the ship to Gibraltar on 13 September.

Captain Philip Beaver took over the command on 17 November and sailed into the Eastern Mediterranean with a fleet of 51 vessels, many armed en flûte and carrying the 16,150 men of General Sir Ralph Abercromby's force, which was intended to drive the French out of Egypt.

[17] On the 13th, the landing party of seamen and marines, under the command of Captain Sir William Sidney Smith, were again in action at Mandora as the British moved towards Alexandria.

A French counter-attack on 21 March by some 20,000 men, although ending in defeat, caused General Abercromby a severe injury; he died aboard Foudroyant a week after the battle.

[19] Because Foudroyant had served in the navy's Egyptian campaign between 8 March 1801 and 2 September, her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal that the Admiralty authorised in 1850 for all surviving claimants.

[f] When the Treaty of Amiens was signed, bringing the war to an end in 1802, Foudroyant was paid off at Plymouth Dock (Devonport) on 26 July.

Her former captain, now Rear Admiral Sir James Richard Dacres, hoisted his flag on the same day, and remained aboard until 28 October.

24 February 1805 saw Captain Edward Kendall take over the command, and in June Foudroyant was flagship of Graves's fleet, consisting of Barfleur, Raisonnable, Repulse, Triumph, Warrior, Windsor Castle, and Egyptienne blockading the French port of Rochefort.

On 13 March 1806, Foudroyant was involved in an action between some ships of the fleet and two French vessels - Marengo of 80 guns, and Belle Poule of 40.

On 24 November Captain Richard Peacock took command of the ship, and Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren hoisted his flag in Foudroyant on 19 December.

[h] On 12 March Foudroyant parted company for South America, arriving in Rio de Janeiro in August.

On 8 June they entered Moldonado Bay at the mouth of the Río de la Plata where Agamemnon struck rocks and was wrecked.

Hancock departed the ship on 30 November, and then Foudroyant lay at her anchor until 26 January 1815, when she was taken into dock for a large repair that lasted 4 years.

Philanthropist G. Wheatly Cobb of Caldicot Castle then bought her to use as a training ship for boys[23] and restored her to her original appearance at a cost of £25,000.