HMS Devastation was an 8-gun British Royal Navy bomb vessel launched in 1803 at South Shields as the mercantile Intrepid. The Navy purchased her in 1804. She served in the English Channel, the Baltic, off the coast of Spain, and in the United States during the Napoleonic Wars and War of 1812, most notably at the bombardment of Fort McHenry in the Battle of Baltimore in September 1814. The Navy sold her in 1816. Origins Simon Temple Jnr, of South Shields, launched Intrepid in 1803. Although one highly reputable source gives her launch year as 1789, Intrepid did not appear in Lloyd's Register between 1790 and 1805. She did enter the Register of Shipping (RS) in 1804 with Longridge, master, S.Temple, owner, launch location Jarrow, launch year of 1803, and trade Newcastle–London. The Royal Navy purchased Intrepid in 1804. Naval career Commander Alexander Milner commissioned Devastation in March 1804 for the North Sea. As part of Britain's measures against Napoleon's planned invasion of the United Kingdom Devastation was part of a large squadron, comprising eleven ships, ten brigs, three bomb-vessels, an armed lugger, and a cutter, which on 24 and 25 April 1805, captured eight unarmed schuyts and an unarmed transport ship at Boulogne. Between 1806 and 1807 Devastation was under the command of Commander Matthew Smith. Commander J.Smith recommissioned her in March 1808. In 1808 Devastation was in the squadron under the command of Rear-Admiral Richard Keats operating in the Baltic Sea during the war with Denmark–Norway. When news of the uprising of the Spanish against the French reached Denmark, some 12,000 Spanish troops of the Division of the North stationed there under the command of the Marquis de la Romana decided that they wished to leave French service and return to Spain. The Marquis contacted Rear-Admiral Keats in his flagship , and on 9 August 1808 the Spaniards seized the fort and town of Nyborg. Keats' squadron then took possession of the port and organized the transportation of the Spanish back to their home country. Devastation, Commander John Taylor, took part in the Walcheren Campaign in July and August 1809. He sailed for Cadiz on 8 April 1810. At the end of 1810 Cadiz was being besieged by the French, who had assembled a flotilla of gun-boats to attack the town. On 23 November Devastation, , and , with a number of English and Spanish mortar and gun-boats,