Thank you for this detailed reply and it is good to read that there are references cited for anyone wanting to research the conclusion in more detail.
The fact that the navy ordered 10,000 replacements after the fire is well documented and eventually resulted in the new model 1845 cutlass. The existence of cutlasses made with 1796 heavy cavalry blades as a stopgap supports the claim there was a real shortage. How much of that was a direct result of the fire is now not clear, but as the fleet had shrunk from 840 ships at the height of the Napoleonic wars to around 140 in 1845 the navy should have had large stocks of spare 1804s. So the numbers lost would have had to be high to cause a shortage, unless of course they had previously reduced the total by scrapping some.
There was a shortage of muskets also at this time, the many hundreds of thousands of spare muskets in Store in 1816 was still quite high in 1829 at about 700,000, by 1838 it was so low that measures were taken to provide more flintlock arms until new muskets in percussion were available. From 1829 nearly 500,000 went to foreign allies. It would make sense that other arms were being included in such transfers, perhaps sea service swords also.
The Board ordered what amounted to over 100,000 P/1842 Muskets after the fire, however the pattern was sealed before the fire & parts arrived from contractors so quickly one gets the impression that their manufacture had been underway already. The fire had no bearing upon this yet is often assumed to be the reason for the new musket pattern.
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