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DICTATOR. 3rd Rate. Built in 1783 by Mason, Limehouse for the Royal Navy. L 159' B45'. 1.388tn (brm) Armed with 64 guns. Fought at Copenhagen. A troopship in 1798. Floating Battery in 1803. Broken up 1817- Denmark 1974 SG594 (LB 19/38-39)
NOTE: Not possible to say which ship is DICTATOR

HMS Dictator
Ordered: 21 October 1778
Builder: Batson, Limehouse, laid down: May 1780, launched: 6 January 1783
Class & type: Inflexible-class ship of the line
Tons burthen: 1379 (bm)
Length: 159' (48,46 m.) (gundeck) Beam: 44' 4" (13.51 m.) Depth of hold: 18' 10" (5.74 m.)
Sail plan: Full-rigged ship
Armament: Gundeck: 26 × 24-pounder guns
Upper gundeck: 26 × 18-pounder guns
QD: 10 × 4-pounder guns, Fc: 2 × 9-pounder guns
She was converted into a troopship in 1798, and broken up in 1817.
French Revolutionary Wars. At the "Reduction of Trinidad" in 1797 Dictator participated in the later stages, not having arrived until the 18th February, the prize money awarded reflecting this late arrival.
On 8 March 1801, whilst disembarking the army at Aboukir Bay for the Egyptian campaign, one seaman was killed and a midshipman, Edward Robinson, fatally wounded.
Prize money for the capture of enemy ships was usually shared with other warships in the squadron between 1801 and 1806.
Because HMS Dictator served in the navy's Egyptian campaign between 8 March 1801 and 2 September, her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal that the Admiralty issued in 1847 to all surviving claimants.
In the late summer of 1807, HMS Dictator was part of Admiral Gambier's fleet in the Øresund at the Battle of Copenhagen where she shared prize money with some 126 other British naval ships. She was again in Danish Waters the following year, in Admiral Hood's squadron of four ships-of-the-line, together with some smaller vessels, tasked with maintaining the blockade between Jutland and Zealand. Her captain, Donald Campbell, ordered the sloop HMS Falcon to procede on her successful patrols to Samsø, Tunø and Endelave.
In August 1809 HMS Dictator was tasked with the occupation of the Pea Islands to the east of Bornholm but ran aground en route and had to be towed back to Karlskrona for repairs.
In early July 1810, during the Gunboat War with Denmark-Norway, HMS Dictator, in company with Edgar and Alonzo, sighted three Danish gunboats commanded by Lieutenant Peter Nicolay Skibsted, who had captured the Grinder in April of that year. The gunboats (Husaren, Løberen, and Flink) sought refuge in Grenå, on eastern Jutland, where a company of soldiers and their field guns could provide cover. However, the British mounted a cutting out expedition of some 200 men in ten ships’ boats after midnight on 7 July, capturing the three gunboats.
In 1812 HMS Dictator led a small squadron consisting of three brigs, the 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop HMS Calypso, 14-gun brig-sloop HMS Podargus and the 14-gun gun brig HMS Flamer. On 7 July they encountered the Danish-Norwegian vessels Najaden, a frigate finished in 1811 in part with parts salvaged from a ship-of-the-line destroyed in earlier battles, and three brigs, Kiel, Lolland and Samsøe. Najaden was under the command of Danish naval officer Hans Peter Holm (1772–1812) In the subsequent Battle of Lyngør Dictator destroyed Najaden and the British took Laaland and Kiel as prizes but had to abandon them after the two vessels grounded. The action cost HMS Dictator five killed and 24 wounded. In 1847 the surviving British participants were authorized to apply for the clasp "Off Mardoe 6 July 1812" to the Naval General Service Medal.