French Revolutionary Wars
Ardent was commissioned in May 1796 under the command of Captain Richard Rundle Burges as a part of the fleet of Admiral Adam Duncan.[1] In May 1797 while lying at the Nore she played a minor part in the Great Mutiny, when she was fired upon by the mutineers on HMS Monmouth (1796). She went to sea on 10 June 1797 to join Duncan's fleet.[4]
On 11 October 1797 she took part in the Battle of Camperdown. Ardent was in the Weather column of the fleet, and lost forty-one men killed, including Captain Burges, and 107 wounded.[1][5] Burges was killed only ten minutes after bringing Ardent into the line of battle, with her duel with the larger Dutch ship Vrijheid resulting in higher casualties than any other ship.[6] By the end of the battle, Ardent had ninety-eight cannonballs in her hull, and her masts were so damaged that she could not set sail and had to be towed home by HMS Bedford.[6] The ship's surgeon Robert Young wrote that ninety wounded were brought below such that "the whole cockpit deck, cabins, wing berths and part of the cable tier" were covered with them, and as more arrived they were simply "laid on top of each other at the foot of the ladder where they were brought down." Young noted he was forced to reprimand many of the injured sailors for screaming too loudly while awaiting care, as their noise was disturbing the last moments of the many who were dying.[7]
Burges was replaced by Captain Thomas Bertie, who took Adamant to join the squadron of William Mitchell off the Dutch coast in August 1797.[1] As such, she participated in the Vlieter incident in August 1799, being one of the line of ships that intimidated the Dutch Rear-Admiral Samuel Storij into surrendering his squadron of twelve modern warships, after an Anglo-Russian expedition had occupied Den Helder.[6]
On 8 December 1800 the captain of Ardent's Marines, Captain Hopper, was court martialled after being accused of using 'contemptuous language' in a letter to Captain Bertie, however, it was established that the letter was addressed to a Marine subordinate and not the captain.[6] Ardent temporarily served as the flagship of the commander-in-chief of the Baltic Fleet, Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, in February 1801 before the Battle of Copenhagen.[1] At the battle itself on 2 April, Ardent was a part of Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson's squadron and lost thirty men killed and another sixty-four wounded.[1][8] She was one of the first five ships of the fleet to engage the enemy and during the drawn out battle half of her main deck carronades, with which her battery had been replaced, were put out of action.[9] For the rest of the French Revolutionary Wars Ardent was part of a squadron charged with guarding the Thames estuary.[6]
