Napoleon Surrenders Aboard HMS Bellerophon

Date: July 15, 1815 • Location: Paris, France

Aboard HMS Bellerophon, French emperor Napoleon surrendered to Royal Navy captain Frederick Lewis Maitland, concluding the Napoleonic Wars.

HMS Bellerophon, known to sailors as the "Billy Ruffian", was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. Launched in 1786, Bellerophon served for the entire duration of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, mostly on blockades or convoy escort duties. She fought in three fleet actions: the Glorious First of June (1794), the Battle of the Nile (1798) and the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). While the ship was on blockade duty in 1815, Napoleon boarded Bellerophon so he could surrender to the ship's captain, ending 22 years of almost continuous war between Britain and France.