HMS Hazard was a 16-gun Royal Navy Cormorant-class ship-sloop built by Josiah & Thomas Brindley at Frindsbury, Kent, and launched in 1794.

The Hazard was one of the initial batch of six ship-rigged ship sloops that the Admiralty ordered in February 1793, shortly after the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars, to a joint design by Sir John Henslow and William Rule.

[6] Late in March, Vice-Admiral Lord Kingsmill received intelligence that a French cruiser had been seen off the Skellocks on the coast of Ireland.

[9] The new quarry turned out to be the French warship Neptune, with a crew of 53 and 270 soldiers on board, sailing from Île de France to Bordeaux.

[9] In the ensuing two-hour engagement, Neptune fought all ten guns on one side while the soldiers fired their muskets.

[9] As she returned to port with Neptune, Hazard saw a French privateer with an English prize, Britannia, in tow, and directed a British frigate to the scene.

Butterfield was able to bring her into port, thereby saving her cargo of military supplies intended for the British Army serving against the Irish rebels.

Later, Triton's owners, David Scott & Co., of London, presented Butterfield with a piece of plate worth 150 guineas.

On 18 July 1801 a court martial on board Gladiator tried Lieutenant John Alexander Douglas of Hazard for being absent without leave.

[3] On 25 August 1802 Constance and Hazard received orders to collect Dutch troops from Lymington and take them to Cuxhaven.

In 1803, at the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars, Hazard carried despatches for the Channel Fleet and then operated as part of the blockade squadron off Northern Spain.

Hazard was with the fleet under Admiral the Honourable William Cornwallis when Minotaur captured the French frigate Franchise on 28 May 1803.

[24] In the spring of 1804 Hazard was stationed off St Ives, Cornwall to intercept French privateers that would loiter there to prey on vessels seeking shelter in the bay.

In the summer Hazard's boats cut out a French coasting sloop off Quiberon and sent her into Plymouth on 6 August.

[3] Hazard, with Growler, Conflict and the hired armed brig Colpoys, captured nine chasse-marées on 27 June 1807 in the Pertuis Breton.

[28] He appears to have been one of only two naval officers hanged for buggery during the Napoleonic Wars (the other was Captain Henry Allen of the sloop Rattler.

Hazard was initially unable to catch up with Topaze but eventually took part in the action of 22 January 1809 at which Cleopatra, with the assistance of several other vessels, captured the French ship.

In 1847 the Admiralty awarded all surviving claimants from the campaign the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Martinique".

There they were blockaded until 14 April, when a British force under Major-General Frederick Maitland and Captain Philip Beaver in Acasta, invaded and captured the islands.

[c] On 14 April British troops from Martinique under Major General Maitland landed in the Saintes and the French squadron made preparations to sail during the night.

James Robertson, first lieutenant of Hazard, took a rowboat into the harbour during the night and attached a grappling hook to the stern of one of the French vessels.

When the vessel started to sail, Robertson used lights and blue rockets to signal the French squadron's departure.

[34] On 16 October Hazard and Pelorus were in company when they came upon the French privateer schooner Général Ernouf[35] moored under the guns of the battery of St. Marie on the east coast of the southern part of Guadeloupe.

Hazard and Pelorus attempted to send in a cutting out party during the night, but the boats could not find a channel.

[36] Fire from Hazard and Pelorus silenced the batteries but as the British came alongside the French crew, an estimated 80-100 men, fled ashore.

[34][38] Robertson was appointed commander pro tem of Hazard until a successor to Cameron could arrive from Halifax.

The 1847 the action earned the British participants the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Anse la Barque 18 Decr.

[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.