The only HMS HARRIER I found, and she has noting to do with the Battle of Trafalgar is the HARRIER given below, maybe she visited the islands.
She was one of the Cruiser class and built by Frances Barnard, Sons & Co., Deptford for the Royal Navy.
23 May 1804 ordered.
June 1804 keel laid down.
22 August 1804 launched under the name HMS HARRIER.
Tonnage 383 ton (bm), dim. 77.3 x 30.6 x12.9ft.
Armament 18 - 32 pdr. carronades.
Crew around 120.
Between 03 September and 24 October 1804 fitted out at the Deptford Drydock.
November 1804 commissioned under command of Cmdr. William Woodridge.
On 11 January 1805 alarm was raised in Plymouth by signals from the westward for an enemy fleet off the coast. In the middle of the following night HMS AMPHION and HARRIER lying in the Sound with sailing orders, were sent by Admiral Young to discover the reason. It turned out that a small Russian squadron making for the Straits had not made the proper signals when sighted from the headland and had been taken for the enemy.
24 December 1804 she had all received her sailing orders for the East Indies, but she sailed in January 1805 bound for the East Indies.
In 1805 under command Edward Ratsey she together with HMS PHAETON came in action against the French La SÉMILLANTE, when she on 24 August entered the St Bernadino Strait between Luzon and Samar in the Philippines when a strange frigate was sighted at anchor off St. Jacinte. As HARRIER approached, the frigate hoisted the French colours and moved closer inshore under the protection of a battery and a reef of rocks. The frigate opened fire with her stern guns to which the HARRIER replied with her starboard broadside.
About twenty minutes later PHAETON joined and the two ships engaged the frigate, the battery and a round tower. An hour and a half later red hot shot from the battery set fire to the hammocks in HARRIER’s waist but the fire was soon extinguished.
More seriously the wind now dropped and the brig started to drift on to the rocks so Capt Ratsey had to use his boats to pull her head round and shortly afterwards PHAETON signalled him to break off the action.
Since HARRIER had been closer to the shore she suffered more damage than her consort. Her rigging and sails were badly cut about and all her boats damaged but since the enemy fire, as usual with the French, had been aimed at her rigging, her only casualties were two men wounded. The following day the two ships closed in to reconnoitre and found that the enemy had warped closer to the beach and that another battery of six guns had been erected. On the 4th they continued their passage through the straits.
The French ship had 13 men killed and 36 wounded and the damage to her hull and rigging was such to prevent her sailing to Mexico to load specie.
1806 Under command of Lieut. Edward Thomas Troubridge, the son of Admiral Troubridge
26 July 1806 on a return voyage from the Moluccas the Dutch frigate PALLAS and corvette WILLIAM and two Dutch East India Co. ships the VICTORIA and BATAVIER in Strait Salaya were attacked by the HARRIER and GREYHOUND, after a battle of a half hour in which Capt Aalbers of the PALLAS was killed with 7 men, and 32 wounded she struck her colours, the WILLIAM escaped to Makassar. The two Dutch East India ships were taken as prize. The HARRIER got three men wounded.
12 January 1807 she sailed from Madras together with the HMS BLENHEIM as flagship of Admiral Troubridge, and JAVA the ex Dutch East India company ship MARIA REIJGERSBERGEN what was taken at Batavia by HMS CAROLINE on 18 October 1806.
On 5th February the HARRIER parted company off Rodriguez Island in a very heavy gale in which the BLENHEIM and JAVA (altogether the two ships carried a crew of at least 900 men) were seen making repeated signals of distress. Both ships were never seen again.
The son of Admiral Toubridge as commander of the HARRIER made a search for the two vessels with permission of the French authorities in the various French possessions in that part of the Indian Ocean, but noting was found.
According of a letter of a officer of the HARRIER dated Table Bay 13 March, they lost sight of the BLENHEIM and JAVA in the afternoon of the 1st February, during a hard gale off Mauritius in position 20 21S 64 11E, the night was awful beyond description; it blew a perfect hurricane with a most tremendous sea. The BLENHEIM was in a very decayed state and was particularly bad in her hull.
Later in 1807 under command of Cmdr. William Wilbrahim, then under command of Cmdr. George Pigot in the East Indies.
1808 Under command of Cmdr. Justice Finley stationed at the Cape of Good Hope.
1809 Under command of Cmdr. John James Ridge, she parted from ships in company during a gale, when off the Ile de France (Mauritius) in March 1809, and she was never seen again, nor any trace of her ever found.
With her perished her total crew of 125 men.
British Indian Ocean Territory 2005 34p sg ?, scott?
Source: Geschiedenis van Nederland ter Zee by J.C. Mollema some copied from http://www.cronab.demon.co.uk/H1HTM British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817 by Rif Winfield.
Shipwrecks of the Revolutionary & Napoleonic Eras by T. Grocott.