HMS Sceptre was a 64-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 8 June 1781 at Rotherhithe.

[1] Shortly after completion she was sent out to the Indian Ocean to join Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Hughes's squadron.

[citation needed] In 1794, under the command of Commodore John Ford, Sceptre assisted in the capture of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

[7] Essington prevailed upon Colonel Brooke, the governor of St Helena, to lend him some troops and to put the British East India Company (EIC) vessels there at the time to form a squadron to try and intercept the Dutch.

Providentially, General Goddard, an East Indiaman under the command of Captain William Taylor Money, was resting at St Helena while on her way back to England.

On 10 June the British captured the Dutch Indiaman Hougly, which Swallow escorted into St Helena, before returning to the squadron with additional seamen.

On 1 July, Sceptre, General Goddard and the prizes sailed from St Helena to gather in other returning British East Indiamen.

[9] While under the command of Captain Valentine Edwards,[10][11] Sceptre was caught at anchor in a storm on 5 November 1799 along with seven other ships in Table Bay, near the Cape of Good Hope.

[11] At midday, the ship fired a feu de joie on the occasion of the Gunpowder Plot, suggesting no apparent apprehension about the oncoming storm.

[11] At approximately 7pm, the ship was driven ashore onto a reef at Woodstock Beach at the site of the present-day Royal Cape Yacht Club and battered to pieces.