On 17 March 1796 the transport ship "Bellisarius" collided with her and sank. A witness on HMS "Mars" wrote in a letter to "The Observer" newspaper that the accident was "occasioned by a dispute between the Master and the second Mate the Bellisarius when wearing ship; by which, not paying proper attention, they fell athwart the "Royal Sovereign", when the Sovereign's gib-boom and bowsprit took their main-mast, and struck her amid ship, by which she almost instantly sunk. To add to the distress of this dreadful scene, an unhappy woman, with her infant in her arms, who stood on the quarter-deck of the Bellisarius, attempted to save the life of her infant by throwing it on board the "Royal Sovereign" at the instant of the two ships meeting, but unfortunately it fell between the two ships sides, and was crushed to atoms before the eyes of its unhappy mother, who, in her distraction of mind, instantly precipitated herself into the sea, and shared the grave of her child."