HMS Discovery
HMS Discovery, a 29 m long, 303-tonne sloop, was built in 1789 at Randall & Brent's in Rotherhithe shipyard.1 Captain Vancouver commanded the Discovery, as well as its armed tender the Chatham, on his 1791-1795 expedition to survey the Pacific Northwest coast, and to wrest control of Nootka Sound from the Spanish.2
The Discovery, which possessed 10 swivel guns, 10 four-pound guns, and a crew of 100 men, spent three years on the Northwest coast before it returned to England.3
The Discovery spent the remainder of its service as a bomb vessel, an army hospital ship, and, finally, as a convict hulk, before it was dismantled in 1834.4
  • 1. Andrew Scott, The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names (Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 2009), 162.
  • 2. Ibid.
  • 3. Ibid.
  • 4. Ibid.
Mentions of this vessel in the documents