HMS Malabar
The Admiralty purchased Cuvera from the East India Company on 30 May 1804 for £19,719 and renamed her Malabar. Barnard & Co., of Deptford fitted her out in June to July 1804 before the Deptford Dockyard completed the work in December. She was commissioned in July 1804 under Captain George Byng.
In 1805 she sailed for the West Indies under Captain Robert Hall. On 2 January 1806 she and the brig-sloop HMS Wolf (1804), (or Wolfe), Captain George Charles Mackenzie, captured the French privateer schooners Régulateur and Napoléon in Port Azarades, Cuba. The port was protected by a double reef of rocks so Hall sent the master of Malabar in a boat to find a passage. Once a passage was found, rather than go in to capture the vessels, Wolfe came in, but stopped about a quarter of a mile away. She then engaged the privateers for almost two hours until their crews abandoned their vessels, landed, and escaped into the woods. Then Wolfe and Malabar sent in their boats to take possession.[13]
Régulateur was armed with a brass 18-pounder and four 6-pounder guns, and had a crew of 80 men.[13] Napoléon was armed with a long 9-pounder gun, two 12-pounder carronades and two 4-pounder guns, and had a crew of 66 men.[13] The British captured only four men, one of whom was mortally wounded. Malabar lost one man drowned when Régulateur sank while being towed out past the reefs; two prisoners also died at this time. Wolf lost two men killed and four wounded.[13] Later accounts give the name of the ship that sank as Brutus.
Malabar sailed under Captain George Scott in March 1806 and then James Aycough in July. From November 1806 to January 1807 Malabar was in Woolwich being fitted as a 20-gun storeship. In November 1806 she was commissioned under Captain John Temple, and after fitting out sailed for the North Sea.
At a court martial on board Gladiator at Portsmouth on 1 June 1807, Lieutenant Pennyman Stevenson of Malabar was found guilty of neglect of duty and dismissed from the Navy.[15] Malabar sailed for the River Plate later that month.
Malabar was commissioned in May 1808 under J. Henzell (Master). Lloyd's List reported on 10 May 1808 that the Portuguese brig Legeiro had arrived at Portsmouth. Legeiro, Ramos, master, had been sailing from Bengal to Lisbon when the man-of-war Malabar had detained her.[16]
After again fitting out as a storeship in July–August 1808, Malabar was commissioned under F. Bradshaw (master) and served in the Mediterranean from 1809 to 1815.
Still, on 19 December 1809 she sailed from Portsmouth as one of the escorts to the fleet of merchantmen sailing to the West Indies.[17] On 8 June 1810 she was at sea, serving as one of the escorts to the fleet returning from Jamaica.[18]
