"Tonnant" was the flagship of Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane during most of the campaign in the Chesapeake Bay during the simultaneous War of 1812 with the United States. On 13–14 September 1814 Francis Scott Key and John Stuart Skinner were dining aboard the ship after negotiations to release some captured prisoners, during the Battle of Baltimore. Key went on to write what later became the words to the American national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner" after watching the British attack on Baltimore's Fort McHenry. "Tonnant" was broken up in 1821.