Six ships of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

have borne the name HMS ''Cossack'', after the

Cossack The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic Eastern Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borders of Ukraine and Rus ...

people of

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...

, whilst another was begun but was cancelled while building: * was a 22-gun

sixth-rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a sixth-rate was the designation for small warships mounting between 20 and 28 carriage-mounted guns on a single deck, sometimes with smaller guns on the upper works an ...

post-ship Post ship was a designation used in the Royal Navy during the second half of the 18th century and the Napoleonic Wars to describe a sixth-rate ship (see rating system of the Royal Navy) that was smaller than a frigate (in practice, carrying fe ...

, begun under the name ''Pandour'' in 1805, but renamed before being launched in 1806. She was broken up in 1816. * HMS ''Cossack'' was to have been a steam gunvessel, laid down at

Portsmouth Dockyard His Majesty's Naval Base, Portsmouth (HMNB Portsmouth) is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy (the others being HMNB Clyde and HMNB Devonport). Portsmouth Naval Base is part of the city of Portsmouth; it is loc ...

in 1846, but cancelled in May 1849. * was ordered as the Russian ship ''Witjas'', a wood screw corvette building on the Thames at Northfleet, but the British government seized her while she was under construction in 1854; she was sold in 1875. * was an launched in 1886 and sold in 1905. * was a

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...

launched in 1907 and sold in 1919. * was a destroyer launched in 1937 and sunk four days after being torpedoed by the in 1941, when attempts to tow her to safety failed. * was a destroyer launched in 1944 and broken up in 1961.

See also