 She was commissioned on 25 March 1797 under Captain Henry Stanhope , becoming the third ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name Neptune . Her predecessors had been two 90 @-@ gun ships , the first launched in 1683 , renamed HMS Torbay in 1750 and sold in 1784 . The second had been launched in 1757 , was used as a sheer hulk from 1784 , and was broken up in 1816 . Stanhope sailed from Woolwich on 11 June 1797 , flying the broad pendant of Commodore Sir Erasmus Gower , and made for the Nore . 
