HMS Malabar was a 56-gun fourth rate of the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

. She had previously been the East Indiaman Cuvera, which the Navy bought in 1804. The Navy converted her to a storeship in 1806. After being renamed HMS Coromandel she became a convict ship

Convict ship

The term convict ship is a colloquial term used to describe any ship engaged on a voyage to carry convicted felons under sentence of penal transportation from their place of conviction to their place of exile.-Colonial practice:...

 and made a trip carrying convicts to New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

 in 1819. She spent the last 25 years of her career as a receiving ship for convicts in Bermuda before being broken up in 1853.

East Indiaman

Malabar was originally built as the East Indiaman Cuvera at Calcutta in 1798. She was a teak-built two-decker. Cuvera made one round trip to England in 1799 under Captain John Lowe. She sailed under a letter of marque

Letter of marque

In the days of fighting sail, a Letter of Marque and Reprisal was a government licence authorizing a person to attack and capture enemy vessels, and bring them before admiralty courts for condemnation and sale...

 dated 6 December 1799. The East India Company

East India Company

The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...

 then chartered her out as a troopship in India in 1801-1802.

Royal Navy

The Admiralty purchased Cuvera from the East India Company on 30 May 1804 and renamed her Malabar.There had been an earlier Malabar, also an East Indiaman, in this case the Royal Charlotte, which had foundered in 1796. 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

George Byng, 6th Viscount Torrington

George Byng, 6th Viscount Torrington was a Vice-Admiral in the Royal Navy. His son, the seventh Viscount, served as Governor of Ceylon between 1847 and 1850....

.

In 1805 she sailed for the West Indies under Captain Robert Hall. On 2 January 1806 she and the brig-sloop , (or Wolfe), Captain George Charles Mackenzie, captured the French privateer schooners Regulateur and Napoleon 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 ships, landed and escaped into the woods. Then Wolfe and Malabar sent in their boats to take possession.

Regulator was armed with a brass 18-pounder and four 6-pounder guns, and had a crew of 80 men. Napoleon was armed with a long 9-pounder gun, two 12-pounder carronade

Carronade

The carronade was a short smoothbore, cast iron cannon, developed for the Royal Navy by the Carron Company, an ironworks in Falkirk, Scotland, UK. It was used from the 1770s to the 1850s. Its main function was to serve as a powerful, short-range anti-ship and anti-crew weapon...

s and two 4-pounder guns, and had a crew of 66 men. The British captured only four men, one of whom was mortally wounded. Malabar lost one man drowned when Regulator sank while being towed out past the reefs; two prisoners also died at this time. Wolf lost two men killed and four wounded. 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

HMS Gladiator (1783)

HMS Gladiator was a 44-gun fifth-rate Roebuck-class ship of the Royal Navy. She was launched on 20 January 1783 by Henry Adams of Bucklers Hard. She spent her entire career on harbour service, never putting to sea. Even so, her crew earned prize money for the seizure of two Russian and five...

 at Portsmouth on 1 June 1807, Lieutenant Pennyman Stevenson of Malabar was found guilty of neglect of duty and dismissed from the Navy. Malabar sailed for the River Plate

Río de la Plata

The Río de la Plata —sometimes rendered River Plate in British English and the Commonwealth, and occasionally rendered [La] Plata River in other English-speaking countries—is the river and estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River on the border between Argentina and...

 later that month.

Malabar was commissioned in May 1808 under J. Henzell (Master). After again fitting out as a storeship in July-August 1808, she was commissioned under F. Bradshaw (master) and served in the Mediterranean from 1809 to 1815.

HMS Coromandel

On 3 July 1815 Malabar was renamed Coromandel. She was again fitted between July and September 1818.

Then between August and October 1819 she was fitted as a convict transport for a voyage to New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

. She arrived in Hobart

Hobart

Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...

 on 12 March 1820 with 300 convicts and guard detachments of the 46th Regiment of Foot

46th (South Devonshire) Regiment of Foot

The 46th Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment of the British Army, created in 1741 and amalgamated into the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry in 1881.-History:...

 and the 84th Regiment of Foot

84th (York and Lancaster) Regiment of Foot

The 84th Regiment of Foot was a regiment in the British Army. In 1881 it was amalgamated with the 65th Regiment of Foot to create the York and Lancaster Regiment, with the 84th becoming the 2nd Battalion....

. She left half of her complement of prisoners and soldier in Hobart Town and the remainder sailed on to Sydney, arriving on 5 April. Coromandel then proceeded to New Zealand to acquire timber spars for the Royal Navy and to undertake coastal survey work.

In New Zealand she gave her name to the town Coromandel

Coromandel, New Zealand

Coromandel is the name of a town and harbour on the western side of the Coromandel Peninsula, which is on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand...

 on the harbour where she stopped to purchase kauri wood for spars and to the Coromandel Peninsula

Coromandel Peninsula

The Coromandel Peninsula lies in the North Island of New Zealand. It is part of the Waikato Region and Thames-Coromandel District and extends 85 kilometres north from the western end of the Bay of Plenty, forming a natural barrier to protect the Hauraki Gulf and the Firth of Thames in the west...

 on which the town sits. Coromandel returned to Sydney in June 1821 and departed again for Britain on 25 July 1821.

Prison hulk

Coromandel was laid up at Portsmouth in December 1821. She was converted to a receiving ship in June-July 1827. Thereafter she served as a prison hulk

Prison ship

A prison ship, historically sometimes called a prison hulk, is a vessel used as a prison, often to hold convicts awaiting transportation to penal colonies. This practice was popular with the British government in the 18th and 19th centuries....

 in Bermuda from 1828 until 1853.Coromandel was anchored near Dromedary

HMS Howe (1805)

HMS Howe was originally a teak-built Indian mercantile vessel, the Kaikusroo, which Admiral Edward Pellew bought in 1805 to serve as a 40-gun frigate. In 1806 the Admiralty fitted her out as a 24-gun storeship and renamed her HMS Dromedary...

, herself also a converted Indiaman. Coromandel was broken up in 1853 by Admiralty Order.