HMS Cato (1782)

HMS Cato was launched at Gravesend in 1782. Captain James Clarke commissioned her in May 1782. She sailed on 13 October 1782 for India as the flagship of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker. She left Rio de Janeiro on 12 December 1782 and was never seen again.

History
Great Britain
Ordered:	17 February 1780
Builder:	William Cleverley, Gravesend
Laid down:	June 1780
Launched:	29 May 1782
Fate:	Missing, presumed foundered January 1783
General characteristics [1]
Class and type:	Grampus-class Fourth rate
Tons burthen:	1071​^33⁄94 (bm)
Length:	Overall:147 ft 0 in (44.8 m) Keel:121 ft 5 in (37.0 m)
Beam:	40 ft 8 ^3⁄4 in (12.4 m)
Depth of hold:	17 ft 9 in (5.4 m)
Complement:	350
Armament:	Lower deck: 22 × 24-pounder guns Upper deck:22 × 12-pounder guns QD: 4 × 6-pounder guns Fc: 2 × 6-pounder guns

Stores identified as belonging to Cato were later seen on vessels trading in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea.[2] The English captain of a vessel belonging to Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah, the Nawab of Arcot, reported in 1791 that he had seen stores that had come from Cato on a Malay boat at Mecca. The Malay on the boat stated that a large ship had wrecked some years earlier on the Malabar Coast. The Malay believed that most of those aboard her had gotten safely ashore but that the Malay king there had most of them put to death immediately.[3]

Citations and references

Citations

1. Winfield (2007), p. 160.
2. Hepper (1994), p. 72.
3. Naval Chronicle Vol.3, pp.40–41.

References

• Hepper, David J. (1994). British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650–1859. Rotherfield: Jean Boudriot. ISBN 0-948864-30-3.
• Winfield, Rif (2007). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1714–1792: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 978-1844157006.