HMS Lively was a 32-gun fifth-rate Alcmene-class frigate of the British Royal Navy launched on 23 October 1794 at Northam.

[4][a] Captain George Burlton, acting in the absence of Lord Garlies, who was sick on shore, commanded Lively.

She and three other British frigates jointly fired on a Spanish ship of the line that had become separated from the rest,[10] but other than that Lively took no significant part in the combat and suffered no losses.

[3] On 29 May, during the battle for Santa Cruz, Lieutenant Thomas Hardy led a cutting out party using boats from Minerve and Lively to capture the French 16-gun corvette Mutine.

[11] The cutting out party boarded and captured the vessel; they then sailed her out of the port to the British fleet under heavy fire from shore and naval guns.

[12] In 1847 the Admiralty authorized the issuance of the NGSM with clasp "29 May Boat Service 1797" to the three surviving claimants from Lively and Minerve.

[14] On 12 April 1798, Lively was under the command of Captain James Nicoll Morris when she was wrecked on Rota Point off Cádiz.

In the morning of 14 April it became apparent that Spanish gunboats were marshaling, while shore batteries started to fire on the British vessels and the boats transferring the crew to Seahorse.