The Bellerophon's first major engagement was the Battle of the Glorious First of June, in 1794. Sea battles, as Cordingly makes clear, were brutal, deafeningly noisy and appallingly destructive.

Long ago, in the city state of Corinth, there lived a young man named Bellerophon, son of King Glaucus, though some say Bellerophon's true father was the god of the sea, Poseidon.