Naval service
The Admiralty bought Hindostan on 9 March 1795. Barnard fitted her for service with the Royal Navy at a cost of £11,062. In April, Captain Robert Moorsom commissioned her for service in the North Sea. Captain Thomas Bertie took command in November.
On 28 January 1796, a gale of wind at Cork caused Hindostan to run into HMS Santa Margarita (1779), causing Santa Margarita to lose her masts, bowsprit, and rigging.[4] Hindostan nevertheless sailed for Jamaica on 24 February 1796.
In the West Indies she participated in the operations against San Domingo. Captain Francis Collingswood took command in October 1796. She returned to England, arriving at Portsmouth in late May, having convoyed four ships;[5] and was paid off in August 1797. She served for a year until June 1798 as a guardship at Plymouth.
In December Captain Joshua Mulock commissioned her as a 28-gun storeship for Cork. At this time she gave up her lower deck guns.
Hindostan sailed for the Mediterranean on 18 January 1800. On 20 May, she and Pearl captured the Ragusan ship Veloce and her cargo of bale goods and cochineal while Veloce was sailing from Marseilles to Petuan on the Barbary coast.[6] Mustapha Bashaw, Dey of Algiers and named Algerian owners of the ship claimed the vessel and cargo. After the Vice-Admiralty court in Minorca had ruled the vessel and its cargo a prize the case went to appeal in England. In September 1802 the crews of Hindostan and Pearl shared £12,000, representing an advance payment of prize money.[7]
Hindostan refitted at Deptford between November 1800 and January 1801 (for £10,292) before sailing for the Cape of Good Hope in March. By 6 May 1801 she was a storeship again, and under Captain Samuel Mottley.
On 17 September 1801 she arrived at Cape Town from Rio de Janeiro, together with HMS Jupiter (1778) and HMS Euphrosyne (1796), after a voyage of about a month. HMS Lion (1777) had escorted a convoy of East Indiamen bound for China to Rio, together with Hindostan. They had arrived there on 1 August. Captain Losack, of Jupiter, decided to accompany the convoy eastward until they were unlikely to encounter some Spanish and French vessels known to be cruising off Brazil.[8]
In December Lieutenant William Fothergill took command. Although a storeship, Hindostan shared with HMS Diomede (1798), HMS Jupiter (1778) and HMS Braave (1796) in the capture of the Union on 27 May 1803.[9]
Then in 1804 Commander John Le Gros replaced Fothergill. On 12 February 1804 Le Gros sailed Hindostan for the Mediterranean to carry supplies to Horatio Nelson, who was at the time Commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean fleet.
