HMS Manilla (1809)

1803 plan of the Apollo class
History
United Kingdom
Name	Manilla
Namesake	Manila
Ordered	29 December 1806
Builder	Woolwich Dockyard
Laid down	October 1807
Launched	11 September 1809
Completed	18 October 1809
Commissioned	September 1809
Fate	Wrecked, 28 January 1812
General characteristics [1]
Class and type	Fifth-rate Apollo-class frigate
Tons burthen	94720⁄94 (bm)
Length	145 ft (44.2 m) (upper deck) 121 ft 8+1⁄2 in (37.1 m) (keel)
Beam	38 ft 3 in (11.7 m)
Draught	10 ft 3 in (3.1 m) (forward) 14 ft 6 in (4.4 m) (aft)
Depth of hold	13 ft 3 in (4 m)
Propulsion	Sails
Complement	264
Armament	UD: 28 × 18-pounder guns QD: 2 × 9-pounder guns + 10 × 32-pounder carronades Fc: 2 × 9-pounder guns + 4 × 32-pounder carronades

HMS Manilla was a 36-gun fifth-rate Apollo-class frigate of the Royal Navy. Commissioned by Captain George Seymour in September 1809, Manilla's first service was in a squadron operating in the Tagus. She conveyed Lieutenant-General Sir John Sherbrooke to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in late 1811, returning to England with Lieutenant-General Gordon Drummond.

In January 1812 Manilla was sent to the Texel to ascertain the fates of two warships lost there in December. On 28 January a navigational error by one of Manilla's pilots caused the ship to run aground on the Haak Sands, near where Hero had been wrecked. After attempts to dislodge the frigate failed, distress signals were fired and seen from Vice-Admiral Jan Willem de Winter's Dutch squadron in the Texel. After several days of battling against the poor weather, Dutch boats evacuated the 243 survivors from Manilla on 31 January. The ship was left to be destroyed by the sea, and the crew was held as prisoners of war in France for the remainder of the Napoleonic Wars.