HMS Gorgon was a 44-gun fifth-rate two-decker ship of the Adventure class of 911 tons, launched at Blackwall Yard in 1785 and completed as a troopship.

[2] One year after that, she was fitted for foreign service at an additional cost of £5,200 and recommissioned under Lieutenant William Harvey in October 1789.

She also carried about 30 convicts, and Philip Gidley King, who was returning to the colony to take up the post of lieutenant-governor of Norfolk Island.

The marines leaving included Watkin Tench, Robert Ross, William Dawes, and Ralph Clark.

At the Cape of Good Hope Gorgon took on board William Allen, Samuel Broom, Mary Bryant, her daughter Charlotte, Nathaniel Lillie, and James Martin, the survivors of a party of convicts who absconded from New South Wales in March 1791 and made it all the way to Kupang in West Timor.

Gorgon arrived at Portsmouth on 18 June 1792,[5] discharging her mixed passenger list of marines, escaped convicts, and mutineers.

Hood assigned Gorgon the task of protecting the convoy of transports carrying the troops and horses under the command of Lieutenant-General David Dundas.

They were with the British fleet outside Toulon and were present when Southampton captured the French corvette Utile at Hyères Roads.

[8] In September 1796 Gilbert Elliot, the British viceroy of the Anglo-Corsican Kingdom, decided that it was necessary to clear out Capraja, which belonged to the Genoese and which served as a base for privateers.

He sent Lord Nelson in Captain, together with Gorgon, Vanneau, the cutter Rose, and troops of the 51st Regiment of Foot to accomplish this task in September.

On 13 January 1798 Gorgon was 70 leagues from Cape Finisterre when she caught up with and recaptured the brig Ann, of Dartmouth.

Because Gorgon served in the Egyptian campaign (8 March to 8 September 1801), her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal that the Admiralty issued in 1847 to all surviving claimants.

[2] Lloyd's List reported on 14 February 1806 that Rosina, M'Kinley, master, had foundered on her return journey to England from Surinam.

[2] Bowden then sailed Gorgon to America where she was Cochrane's British fleet's hospital ship, moored off the coast while the Battle of New Orleans was being fought on land.