British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1603–1714: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates

By Rif Winfield

The 1st volume in this comprehensive reference series details the design and employment of British warships in the 17th and early 18th centuries.   
 
During the seventeenth century, Britain transformed from a minor state into a global economic power with the largest navy in the world. The character of this navy was forged by a bloody civil war, three fiercely disputed conflicts with the Dutch, and the first of many wars with the French. In the process, British naval ships evolved from the galleons that had defeated the Spanish Armada to prestige vessels like HMS Sovereign of the Seas, and the lightly built frigates of the Commonwealth era.
 
This detailed and authoritative reference volume outlines the history of every ship built, purchased or captured that saw naval service during this era. Like its companion volumes, the book is organized by Rate, classification and class. The technical and building data of each ship is followed by a concise summary of its career. With its unique depth of information, this is a work of the utmost importance to every naval historian and general reader interested in the navy of the sailing era.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 10, 2010
• ISBN: 9781783469246

Rif Winfield

Rif Winfield has worked in the shipping and computer industries, has been for many years a charity director, has operated his own retail businesses (with his wife Ann), and has been a candidate for elections to Parliament and other levels of government, including serving as an elected Councillor and being appointed to government posts in health and in local government. A life-long researcher into naval history, he lives in Mid Wales and is the author of a number of standard works on the ships of the British Navy.

Book preview

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The Second Rate Barfleur, launched in 1713, and representative ships of the fleet inherited by the new Hanoverian dynasty in 1714 (National Maritime Museum neg. 3026)

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Copyright © Rif Winfield 2009

First published in Great Britain in 2009 by

Seaforth Publishing

An imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street, Barnsley

S Yorkshire S70 2AS

www.seaforthpublishing.com

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP data record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-84832-040-6

EPUB ISBN: 978-1-78346-924-6

PRC ISBN: 978-1-78346-691-7

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,

electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system,

without prior permission in writing of both the copyright owner and the above publisher.

The right of Rif Winfield to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him

in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Typeset and designed by Palindrome

Printed and bound in China

Contents

Series Foreword

Between 1603 and 1817 the wooden warship was the critical technology of the English/British state, whether waging war or maintaining peace. Such ships were used in a series of conflicts, ranging from a Civil War through three uniquely naval struggles for control of oceanic commerce with the Dutch, intermittent imperial struggles that tested the cohesion of the Spanish empire, and five wars with France that secured Britain’s key policy objectives: first, European stability and with the River Scheldt under benign control and, second, a growing global empire of economic opportunity and markets for trade and capital. The last war of the period, an existential total war that tested the sinews of British power as never before, was fought to retain those objects. Britain would fight France, Spain, much of Napoleonic Europe and finally the United States of America between 1793 and 1815. These were the glory days of the sailing navy, when it reached its apogee in size, and power.

This three-volume series assembles and digests the design, construction and service records of all English/British naval vessels ordered, built, captured or hired by the Royal or Commonwealth navies during a 200-year epoch punctuated by numerous large-scale wars. There is no equivalent work dealing with the Royal or any other major navy of the sailing age. While some readers may do no more than dip into the definitive listing of well over 5,000 warships and auxiliaries to solve specific queries, the wealth of detail can be deployed in many more ambitious ways. The development of ship types, officer careers, ship longevity, the role of foreign prizes in the development of British design, the strategy and tactics of cruiser warfare and much more besides, can be illuminated by interrogating this data.

As the most significant moveable artefacts procured by the state, warships reveal much of the policy and strategy that underlay their construction. In the age of the wooden warship every ship was a compromise between size, cost, sailing performance, stability and handiness, with the added complication of choices of armament and rig. The ships that occupy the following pages were ordered for the state by a naval administration that took direction from monarchs and their ministers. While the size of the fleet was a political choice, the design of individual ships was a professional concern, being driven by the Surveyors of the Navy, experienced shipwrights from the Royal Dockyards, and by the eighteenth century the design records of these ships were held centrally as a state record – and are now in the custody of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. In the seventeenth century the designs were still the personal property of the shipwright. Consequently, during the Dutch raid on the Medway in 1667 Commissioner Pett at Chatham was anxious to save his models and draughts, the most important naval architectural archive in the country; and far more important in real terms than the ships that were taken and burnt.

The steady development of English/British naval administration across two centuries reflected the importance of the navy to the security and prosperity of the state. In contrast to Continental rivals for whom the army was the bed-rock of security, Britain, first and foremost a naval power, could not afford to abandon naval construction for long periods, as France did between 1704 and the late 1730s. Similarly, the Royal Navy invariably spent more on infrastructure than Continental fleets. Here the big-budget items included stone dry docks – vital for servicing, repair and even building some key ship types – timber stores, and a significant naval manufacturing base for cordage, biscuit and other vital elements of shipboard life.

A careful analysis of individual ship designs can reveal much about the underlying concerns of state and navy. When read alongside the written records of the Navy, largely held by the National Archives at Kew, and surviving private papers of key policy makers, it is possible to reconstruct major decisions.¹ In this volume the provision of an operational history for each ship bridges the gap between the intent of the designers and the actual use of the ship. As ships frequently outlast the political circumstances in which they were procured, and the strategic programmes they facilitated, the ability of the Navy to employ existing units effectively in changed circumstances was critical.

The Navy in National History

The size and shape of the Royal Navy across two centuries was determined by a complex mix of security needs, financial resources, political programme and trade. By the time the Scottish king ascended the English throne as James I in 1603, his new kingdom had already forged a potent modern identity as a seafaring Protestant nation, carefully contrived to establish the legitimacy of the dynasty and the religious settlement, provide good title to national and imperial boundaries, access to overseas trades and dominion over the adjacent seas. This identity had been validated by the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. While King James was no warrior, quickly bringing the long war with Spain to a close, he recognised the need for naval power to sustain his realm, and his reign. Surrounded by echoes of the naval glory of Elizabethan wars, James refocused the fleet on diplomacy, deterrence and dominion. Sir Walter Ralegh, Sir Francis Bacon and John Selden, among the most acute intellects of the age, developed the modern concept of sea power and argued for the state control of territorial waters, largely to raise revenue. Those policies took imposing shape in the early Stuart prestige flagships Prince Royal and Sovereign of the Seas. In the main the Stuart state used naval power to avoid war, lacking the political cohesion and bureaucratic power needed to raise the necessary funds from parliament. Major operations against Spain and France were anything but glorious, prompting adverse comment about the decline of national power, while the Barbary corsairs proved elusive. Attempts to assert dominion over the adjacent seas, by law or by force, were thwarted by the more astute, and numerous Dutch. Despite the potent symbolism of the prestige flagships, English naval power was at a discount – the glory of 1588 quickly became a threadbare boast.

After the Civil War Cromwell’s Commonwealth government deployed a far larger fleet, and used it to wage war on corsairs, the Dutch and the Spanish in pursuit of increased trade and an overseas empire. Under the Generals-at-Sea English naval power revived; the hitherto dominant Dutch were decisively defeated in the First Anglo-Dutch War 1652–54 by a fleet of big ships that slowly fell into a linear formation, to exploit their main weapons, heavy cannon. The removal of hired merchant ships, and hired merchant captains, from the battle fleet, provided the navy with the discipline and coherence to stand and fight, while military experience provided coherent tactical doctrine. By 1660 the English navy was the most powerful in Europe.

While Charles II’s restored Stuart monarchy inherited a mighty fleet, it came burdened with debt, and a state system that could not fund a major war for more than two years without external aid. This put a premium on deterrence, and limited the political value of striking battle victories over the Dutch in the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 1660s and 1670s. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688 the Anglo-Dutch regime of William III and Mary II oversaw a transformation of the state, introducing the national debt and the Bank of England to harness national wealth, and link the landowning and commercial elite to the state and the dynasty through the political system of parliamentary government. The results were immediate and dramatic. The defeat off Beachy Head in 1690 was reversed at Barfleur in 1692, ending the threat of a Stuart Restoration, and wiping out a large part of the French battlefleet at La Hougue for good measure. Within a year the main English fleet was operating in the Mediterranean. During the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–14) three British First Rates operated in the Mediterranean, leaving neither friend nor foe in any doubt about the power of the English state. Between 1705 and 1707 Britannia, Royal Sovereign and Royal Anne symbolised the strategic reach and power of the English state. That they had all been paid off by 1710 told its own story: there was no need for such mighty vessels when the enemy had given up the contest for sea control. By 1714 Britain was dominant – the French, Spanish and Dutch fleets had all sunk into disrepair under the economic pressures of war. After the war the Royal Navy continued to grow, in power, size and reach – and rival fleets remained moribund for decades.

While fleet battles have dominated naval history the underlying reality of war at sea was very different. Naval battles did not win wars. They could only secure sea control, the basis for effective strategies against the land, either economic blockade or invasion. For the English/British state, lacking a first class army, or the political will to create one, the latter option was restricted to areas outside Europe, insular territories and allied operations. Instead, economic blockade proved to be the characteristic tool of the British state. It was conducted by cruisers, flotilla craft and privateers under the aegis of the battlefleet, slowly throttling the economic life of a hostile state. Rewarding successful naval personnel with prize money acted as an attractive incentive-based payment scheme.

Yet as British trade expanded, the navy that had been used to destroy Dutch shipping in the 1650s became a critical element in the defence of British vessels, closely aligned with the interests of the mercantile community and the insurance market. Nowhere was the symbiosis more obvious than in the early eighteenth-century Convoys and Cruisers Act that obliged the navy to dedicate a large proportion of its ships to trade defence. Despite extensive losses inflicted by French privateers the outcome of an economic war between Britain and France was always going to be positive. Britain could always borrow more money more cheaply than France, which was largely dependant on customs revenues. Obliged to be strong on land and at sea, the autocratic French state lacked the financial resources and political cohesion to fund long conflicts. Intervention in the American war proved disastrous, economic collapse leading to political and change and revolution. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic administrations tried to wage war by plundering their neighbours, only to raise fresh enemies on land, and lose the war at sea.

Well aware that naval power was a fragile instrument, the post-1714 parliaments kept up a heavy programme of new construction, rebuilds and infrastructure development. At the same time the fleet was used to stabilise the politics of southern Europe and the Baltic, defeat Spanish attempts to recover Gibraltar, suppress piracy and impose taxes across a growing empire of trade and settlement. The desire to increase that trade prompted the House of Commons to push for war with Spain in 1739, a conflict that led into the War of the Austrian Succession. Despite a series of embarrassing setbacks the navy quickly recovered the habit of victory under the inspirational leadership of George Anson, who was quick to translate success into political power, and impose his ideas on warship design. Anson’s victory off Cape Finisterre paved the way for the warship designs of Thomas Slade, his favourite surveyor, who created the standard ’4, the single-decked frigate, and the emblematic vessel of Anson’s career, HMS Victory. However, sea power availed the British little in the war of 1740–48. At the peace British statesmen were obliged to barter away their extensive colonial conquests to recover the Austrian Netherlands (modern Belgium) which the French had captured, only to be bankrupted by war and the economic blockade.

The eight-year interval before the next war gave Anson an opportunity to translate lessons into ships and after a hesitant start off Minorca the Seven Years War (1756–63) became a succession of naval and imperial triumphs. The amphibious capture of Louisbourg led on to fleet victories at Lagos and Quiberon, capped off by Quebec, Havana and Manilla. Anson determined the strategy of the war, the doctrine of the fleets, and the design of the ships. In partnership with Slade, Anson transformed the fundamental concept of the British warship from the seventeenth-century concern for fighting power in home waters, sacrificing speed and endurance (because the enemy was close at hand and the basic issues were trade and insular security) into an oceanic navy that had to take the initiative, seek out the enemy and support the ultimate expression of sea control, the projection of power ashore. New 74s and frigates provided the speed, power and endurance required for a truly global war, allowing the basic design parameters to stabilise for the next four decades. This time the French failed to secure any territorial exchanges in Europe, and with their Spanish allies were obliged to submit to the humiliating terms of the Peace of Paris in 1763.

Paris and Madrid were quick to take revenge, and their support for the American rebels proved decisive. The profound shock administered by defeat in the American War of Independence (1776–82) emphasised the need for increased numbers. The defeat was rendered less bitter by stunning battle victories, secured by superior doctrine and technology like copper sheathing and carronades that gave the Royal Navy a useful advantage, enabling Rodney, Howe and Hood to capitalise on opportunities for decisive action. After 1782 the ministry of William Pitt the Younger funded a sustained review of the fleet, largely through the repair and overhaul of ships of the line. This was essential to counter the resurgent Bourbon fleets of France and Spain – a full-scale arms race was under way by the late 1780s. This reconstruction effort enabled the navy to wage an almost continuous world war on the largest scale yet undertaken. Between 1793 and 1815 the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars prompted existential fears for the future of the state, constitution, King and Church; it witnessed the dawning of a new ‘British’ cultural identity, and was funded by unprecedented borrowing and the introduction of income tax. The pre-war reserve of capital ships, supplemented by extensive captures and a restrained policy of new construction sustained the main fleets, but as ever extensive programmes were required to generate the numbers of frigates, sloops and brigs needed to transform command of the sea into strategic effect. Despite lengthening existing designs to improve sailing performance, the constant demand for tonnage forced compromises in materials and build quality that left much of the war-built fleet only fit for scrap in 1815.

Combat experience during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars emphasised increased size and firepower. By 1817 the design concept of the British fleet had been transformed. The only ships on order were very big 120-gun First Rates and 84-gun Second Rates, ships of far greater size and cost than anything envisaged by Anson. Once again their function was to uphold the national interest, preferably in peace. It was a mission that James I would have recognised, but the scale and cost of the naval effort had expanded far beyond anything an early seventeenth-century statesman could have envisaged. Britain entered the nineteenth century as a unique global power, with a chain of bases that stretched from Portsmouth to Sydney, by way of Bermuda, Malta, Corfu, Cape Town and Bombay. These bases allowed British warships to control large areas of the world ocean, to protect commerce and colonies while suppressing piracy and the slave trade. The post-Napoleonic era opened with the punitive Bombardment of Algiers, just in case any one doubted who ruled the seas.

Warships

The navy had been the cornerstone of a complex political, economic, cultural and military process that transformed the weak and vulnerable early Stuart state into a global power. That process was reflected in the increasing number of warships that were built and operated. It was also a factor in the development of ship design. While the evolution of the wooden sailing warship was an international process there was something unique about the English/British contribution. At a simplistic level it could be argued that two centuries of technological stasis allowed the navy to focus on strategy and tactics, to hone the intellectual components of war, without becoming overwhelmed with technical detail. Yet that stability was more apparent than real: throughout the period ships became larger and more sophisticated, in response to operator-driven demand. As admirals and captains learned how to optimise the use of cannon-armed wooden sailing ships as a combat system, they exerted considerable influence over the design process. If the intellectual element of sailing ship warfare reached a cataclysmic finale off Cape Trafalgar on 21 October 1805, the wooden warship as a combat system had along way to go before it was finished. By 1815 Robert Seppings’ diagonal frame, closed bow and round stern allowed ships to grow by 30 per cent and to carry 30 per cent greater weight of metal. The extra weight was deployed in shifting the armament from the cannon and carronade combination used to such deadly effect at Trafalgar to a single-calibre battery of long guns. In truth nothing ever stood still – the stakes were too high – and if the navy was obliged to mass-produce standard designs in wartime, notably the standard classes of 74 and frigate built after Trafalgar, simply to keep pace with rivals, the search for superior alternatives was unending. After 1815 no more 74s were built. Ships larger than the original Sovereign of the Seas were now too small to lay in the line of battle.

Types and roles

While some rivals were free to choose between different strategies, to suit specific circumstances, geography obliged the English/British navy to act as a sea control force. The symbol of that strategy was the battlefleet of two- and three-decked fighting ships, from the mid-seventeenth century called ‘ships of the line’, and varying in armament from 50 to 120 guns. In war their function was to secure effective control of the sea, to facilitate the military and commercial exploitation of selected sea areas for national ends. The number and design of such ships was largely conditioned by the state of rival fleets, with a largely undeclared expectation that the Royal Navy be at least equal to the combined Franco-Spanish fleet from the 1730s. This force was often used to secure vital interests without war, notably in the Baltic expeditions of 1659 and the 1710s. The mobilisation of a significant fleet of such ships, noted in the career details, under the command of a senior admiral, was the clearest signal of intent that the state could issue. Deterrence was a well understood concept long before nuclear weapons. Indeed the Elizabethan state had been an effective practitioner.

In war the main fleets were deployed to safeguard the Channel and Home waters, in the southern North Sea if the Dutch were the enemy, or in the Western Approaches if France was the threat. This main or ‘Grand Fleet’ was supplemented by an increasing number of capital ships deployed in fleets or squadrons to the Mediterranean, the West Indies, the East Indies and North America. In most cases the main force remained close to home, although after 1756 the strategic location out in the Western Approaches was adopted to cover British commerce and blockade the French fleet in Brest. With the danger of invasion ever present the exact balance of effort between this fleet and those elsewhere was a subject of constant concern. In 1756 this balance was unduly weighted toward the Western Approaches, leaving the Mediterranean Fleet both late to assemble and under strength. Concerned that he lacked the strength to meet the enemy, Admiral Sir John Byng went into battle already half beaten, and his subsequent failure to maintain action cost him his life. Throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars the Grand Fleet remained the most powerful, both in numbers of capital ships, and by the concentration of a high proportion of the navy’s three-decked ships. Although the fleet met the enemy in similar strength but once, on the ‘Glorious First of June’ 1794, it remained the pivot of national strategy to the end, much as the Grand Fleet did in the First World War. While temporary detachments were made to meet specific eventualities, permanent reinforcements for distant squadrons were drawn from other sources. The Mediterranean Fleet, usually the second most important, was in the 1690s and 1700s briefly the pivot of English naval power. Elsewhere smaller capital squadrons covered major offensive operations and defended the vital overseas colonies and trades that funded the national war effort. Their success was largely a question of infrastructure and investment. India became British because the English East India Company built a dry dock at Bombay capable of taking a Third Rate ship of the line. Thus, after a succession of savage drawn engagements off the Coromandel Coast the French retreated, but the British held station.

While the ship of the line was primarily a firepower unit in a linear combat formation, the balance between guns, speed and seaworthiness constantly shifted. In the Dutch wars the English could sit in the Channel and block Dutch trade routes; they did not need to chase (they could rely on the enemy coming out to fight), because their defensive tactical position covered an overwhelmingly powerful economic offensive. The French proved more elusive; they rarely felt obliged to fight for trade routes. Only by conquering major colonial territory could the British hope to draw out the enemy. The loss of Canada in 1759 prompted an attempt to invade the British Isles that resulted in two crushing battle victories at Lagos and Quiberon. Similarly between 1798 and 1805 France sought an opening to convert overwhelming military power into a knock-out blow, but each time her fleets were exposed at sea they were caught and destroyed by the British counter-attacks. Because Britain could not hope to defeat France in a total war, she was obliged to rely on a limited war strategy, using economic and colonial success, and allied armies, to bring France to the peace table. As long as the Navy could block an invasion, the French response remained unlimited, and national finances held out, this proved to be a winning formula.

Although ships of the line were detached to operate alone, their raison d’etre was fleet action. Command of the sea was translated into economic warfare by various types of cruiser, initially small two-decked warships with between 40 and 60 guns, miniature battleships. The law and the shipping insurance market determined that most British commerce was convoyed in wartime, with an escort appropriate to the value of the ships, the scale of the risk, and the exigencies of the moment. Obsolescent capital ships, cruisers and lesser craft were deployed for a mission that required little speed, and usually only a modicum of firepower. Operating as convoy escorts or holding key concentration points, small two-decked ships proved effective, compensating for their low speed by obliging the enemy to come to them. However, their obvious limitations, lacking speed and firepower in heavy weather, prompted Anson to adopt the single-decked frigate, a new French model, much as he had for the 74-gun two-decker. Eventually the standard cruiser developed from the single-decked frigate type of the 1750s. Too small and lightly armed for fleet action, but fast, manoeuvrable and capable of extended cruising, frigates captured enemy commerce, whether carried in national or neutral ships, and patrolled the oceans against hostile frigates and privateers. The scale of French and American privateering becomes clear in the cruiser lists of the third volume, where hardly a page passes without several captures. In the 1690s many of the small two-decked ships, 44s, 50s and 60s, accrued long lists of privateer captures; similar lists were racked up by the successors in the later wars, as smaller and older line of battleships were employed on escort duty. Among the frigates the entry for Pomone is exceptional: 17 captures in seven years (1793–1817 vol, p.132). How far such records reflected superior ships, ideal cruising stations, adept officers or an element of luck is unclear, but studies of the strategy of eighteenth-century trade defence will be greatly assisted by these volumes.

Unlike small two-decked ships, frigates were equally effective in fleet scouting and strategic reconnaissance roles. It was the lack of frigates that caused Nelson so much trouble when he set off in pursuit of Napoleon’s invasion fleet in 1798; unwilling to detach capital ships from his line of battle Nelson missed the enemy at sea by the smallest margin. Smaller Sixth Rate frigates, ship sloops and brigs extended the reach of the naval effort, while gun-brigs evolved from oared coastal craft into a patrol type.

The conquest of hostile colonies occupied a critical role in British strategy. Mercantilist thought held that the volume of trade was intimately linked with the scale of colonial territory. Consequently some colonies were desirable acquisitions, either to be held at the war’s end, or to be exchanged for assets that the British government valued. For example, the conquest of Belleisle in 1761 was deliberately undertaken to be exchanged for Minorca, lost in 1756. In 1748 the British returned Louisbourg and French territories in India in exchange for the French evacuation of modern Belgium. British strategy relied on command of the sea to isolate French or Spanish overseas possessions, thereby ensuring that a superior British army could be deployed. The capture of Canada in 1759–60 was a classic example of this approach. Covered against any French attempt to send reinforcements by the Grand Fleet in the Western Approaches, an amphibious task force under joint army-navy command overwhelmed the French defences. Along with ships of the line and cruisers the fleet deployed very large numbers of naval and hired transports (some of the former were old warships), and a large flotilla of coastal craft, brigs, gunboats and landing craft. These last conducted the key operations close to shore, often under oars, landing troops, providing fire support and supplying logistics links with the fleet. Another reason for seizing hostile colonial assets was to close down privateer bases. Between 1793 and 1812 successive campaign in the West Indies, at the Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius and the Netherlands East Indies denied the enemy bases close to vital sea lanes, and swiftly reduced the insurance premiums. The decision to retain Mauritius and Cape Town in the British Empire reflected their strategic value.

Despite their firepower ships of the line possessed only limited value when attacking shore positions. Their deep draught and high sides made them dangerous to operate in shallow water, especially if the wind was fallible. The small number of successful coastal bombardments by ships of the line should not disguise this fact. Instead the French designed the bomb vessel, a heavily built ketch or galliot armed with one or two large calibre mortars, that was used to fire explosive shells or incendiaries into coastal towns and naval fortresses. Nelson’s attack at Copenhagen was designed to secure an anchorage from which his bomb vessels could conduct an effective bombardment of Copenhagen. The Danes recognised the threat, and agreed to negotiate once he had achieved that object.

As with any armed force the need to command, control, supply and inform ensured that naval ship types proliferated, partly by conversion, partly by new construction. The conversion of old battleships and frigates into floating batteries reflected increased fears of invasion; additional fast sailing craft implied an extended range for communications.

Despite apparent technological stasis the design and function of wooden warship was always evolving in response to the experience of war, improved design and construction methods. The growth of basic ship types across two centuries is revealing, the introduction of new concepts, notably the frigate, revealed a growing interest in specialist types. The logic of these changes is best understood at the strategic level, where the needs of the state were constantly shifting, as new enemies replaced the old, and the nature of the threat shifted with the ebb and flow of peace-time alliances and wartime operations. Although naval policy is normally studied as a question of votes and programmes, the most effective indicator of policy has always been the number of seamen borne afloat, and the equally significant details of the design and construction of new ships. For example, the decision to build more three-decked ships in peace time, rather than keeping men afloat, or building other warship classes, would indicate a serious attempt to deter conflict with another naval power through overwhelming strength.

From the outset warships had been intimately linked to the expansion of trade. After 1715 the global role of British naval power expanded, and this can be seen in the development of ship design: indeed one consequence of reading these striking texts is a growing understanding of the wisdom, judgement and efficiency of the naval administration.

Service

Wooden warships were a profoundly perishable investment. The average life expectancy of a ship depended on the quality of timber, the skill of the constructors and the nature of their seagoing service. This was why all First and Second Rate ships were built in the Royal Dockyards, where quality control could be maintained by Navy Board officials, rather than time- and money-conscious commercial shipyards that series-built smaller standard types in peace and war. With over 200 years of hard-won experience the navy’s judgement was clear. After 1815 not a single wooden warship was ordered from a commercial shipyard. The supply of suitable seasoned timber was always problematic, while the need to stop work so the structure could season at various stages of construction, antithetical to the basic methods of commercial shipbuilding, necessitated a major expansion of the dockyards. The bitter experience of the second Queen Charlotte, built of imperfectly seasoned timber, with her hold closed in long before the timber had dried out, was telling. Infested with fungal decay, the ship, a massive investment of time, money, and prestige, had to be ripped apart and rebuilt within a year of completion.

Composed of thousands of relatively small, weak pieces of wood, held together with wooden pins and metal fastenings, the wooden warship was a fragile structure. From the day they were launched, when the hull always broke its sheer, the fixings began to weaken. Sustained hard service would worsen the condition of the hull, and if the material began to decay, loosening the grip of the fastenings on the timbers, the whole structure would degrade. Eventually the ship would be incapable of carrying its guns, or in the worst cases simply remaining afloat. In the seventeenth century larger ships would be taken to pieces, and as much material as possible salvaged for re-use in a new ship, frequently under the same name. Although the size of the ships steadily increased, rebuilding had the bureaucratic advantage of avoiding a new order. As the navy expanded this fiction slowly dropped out of use: even so, the connection between an old ship and its replacement remained close in the largest classes.

Without a detailed analysis of ship longevity, taking into account the frequency of repair and reconstruction work, the extent of active sea time, war service and other variables, it is impossible to determine an average life for a wooden warship, However, it is clear that larger ships, built with more attention to timber quality and seasoning, receiving higher levels of maintenance, and serving in less demanding waters, did last longer. After the industrial revolution Seppings’s attention to detail transformed the art of wooden shipbuilding, with remarkable results. Ships built using his methods lasted far longer than their precursors, without major rebuilds. This mattered in an age of deterrence based on a powerful reserve of capital ships.

The First Rate Ship

Warships have long been recognised as major cultural icons – manifestations of the prestige and power of states and monarchs, used for the conspicuous display of wealth, technology, culture and power in an age before easy travel and broadcast media. Consequently, the most prestigious warships, originally ‘Royal Ships’, but from the 1630s First Rates, were the most important cultural artefacts created by the English/British state between the early modern era and the mid-twentieth century. The ultimate statement of national and dynastic strength rendered in wood, bronze and iron, the First Rate ship of the line, the flagships of the fleet, were iconic vessels. Larger and more heavily armed than other warships these emblems of might and majesty were also the centre of any line of battle, their firepower and commanding height out of the water making them both the rallying point for friends, and the ultimate target for enemies. However, the seventeenth-century First Rates were clumsy tools, limited to summer cruising in the Channel and Home waters, lacking the stowage to feed their crew, and the seaworthiness to face winter gales. Consequently several sat out entire wars when their unique attributes we not required.

Nor was their construction a simple matter: they needed the largest timbers for stern posts, keels and frame; even the knees required to carry a deck of 42-pounder cannon were outsize. Often built, like Thomas Slade’s Victory, in a dry dock, they represented a colossal investment of man-hours, material and infrastructure. Simply maintaining them in reserve was unusually costly, and they were frequently given great rebuilds and major overhauls. The money sunk in these ships was invariably greater than required to maintain an equivalent amount of fighting power in Second or Third Rate ships.

Over time the function of the First Rate changed. In the Dutch wars of the seventeenth century they saw a lot of hard fighting. The Royal Prince and the Royal James were destroyed in battle, and the Royal Charles was captured during the humiliating Medway raid of 1667. They were the last British First Rates to be lost to enemy action. After 1690 the enemy would be France, Royal, Republican or Imperial, and the battles, if less frequent were no less important. After their defeat off Beachy Head in 1690 the Anglo-Dutch fleet won decisively at Barfleur two years later, and followed up their success by burning the pride of Louis XIV’s fleet, his First Rates, at Cherbourg and St Vaast-La Hougue. For the next century First Rates rarely fought, although they were often mobilised in times of crisis as the ultimate deterrent. Because the French and Spanish built very few three-decked warships they were unwilling to come to close action with major British fleets: when they did, at Quiberon in 1759, the firepower of Sir Edward Hawke’s Royal George proved devastating. Deprived of a suitable foe the unwieldy three-deckers were left to secure Home waters while more seaworthy and economical two-deckers waged a world war. When three-deckers were sent to the West Indies they were Second Rates, smaller, less costly, and significantly less prestigious vessels. During the American War of Independence, 1776–82 the safety of the kingdom once again depended on a powerful fleet of three-decked ships in Home waters. While the Bourbon powers deployed numerically larger fleets, they would not risk a full scale fleet action, well aware of the disparity in close-quarters fighting power. This allowed the Channel Fleet to conduct two critical convoy operations to relieve the siege of Gibraltar, on the second occasion brushing aside a superior enemy force.

By 1782 the Bourbon powers, recognising that their naval failure had in large part been a product of a critical weakness in heavy fighting ships, began building a large number of First Rate ships: the Spanish 112-gun class, and the French 118-gun ships of the Commerce de Marseilles class. Both types were significantly larger than existing British 100-gun designs, prompting the development of British no- and 120-gun designs. However, the new British ships were built to the same high standards as their predecessors, taking ten or fifteen years to complete. For the first time since 1692 the British went to war in 1793 facing enemy fleets that contained several heavy three-decked ships. When France and Spain combined outnumbered Britain in First Rates, the dominion of the seas could no longer be taken for granted. The five existing First Rates went to war in 1793, three in the Channel and two in the Mediterranean, and all would see battle within a year and some more than once. Between 1794 and 1798 the superior skill and resolve of the Royal Navy restored the natural order at sea. French and Spanish ships were taken or destroyed, notably at Cape St Vincent where two Spanish 112s fell into British hands, and at the Nile, where a French 118-gun ship was destroyed by two well-handled 74s. The cautious development of a suitable British counter occupied the next two decades, decades in which smaller and older British First Rates like Victory, Royal Sovereign and Britannia upheld the claims of national and royal power that their names so proudly made. At Trafalgar and St Domingo the Royal Navy smashed the last remnants of the mighty pre-war Bourbon three-decker fleets, only to find Napoleon mass producing yet more big First Rates, many as vaingloriously named as those of Louis XIV. To meet the challenge the Royal Navy ordered more ships, and massed the existing First Rates in the main fleets. Lacking the skilled manpower and the confidence to emerge with intent, the new French ships never took part in a major fleet action. Instead the old Royal Sovereign escorted the allied heads of state to Britain in 1814, commanded by the Duke of Clarence, a suitably royal admiral, to celebrate the ultimate victory of British sea power and diplomacy. Despite the emergency of 1806–12 the new First Rates were not rushed into service, the new 120-guns ships taking at least nine years to complete for launching, because they were a long term investment.

By 1815 the British had learnt a very important lesson. The biggest problem of the past two decades had been catching the enemy, not winning battles. As a result the development of the three-decked warship underwent a dramatic shift after Trafalgar. Following the success of the Caledonia, the ideal post-Trafalgar First Rate, large, fast and powerfully armed. all First and Second Rate designs were modified to improve their speed and seaworthiness – largely a question of size and waterline length – and by 1815 the two types had effectively merged, with new Second Rates being built to the lines of the Victory. Ultimately all three-decked ships would be reclassified as First Rates, but all new three-decked ships were built to the largest dimensions, exploiting the structural developments pioneered by Sir Robert Seppings and first employed for the Nelson class ships.

Names

While most English/British warships served out their careers under a single name, First Rates were different. Not only were they the definitive symbols of national and royal power, but there were never more than a handful of them, seven being the average across the period. Consequently, the accession of a new monarch, a change of dynasty or a revolution necessitated significant degree of renaming across the class. The First Rates were more likely to be renamed than any other type of British warship. They carried names of the highest significance, names that could not be allowed to slide into decrepitude. Often a new ship was no more than an order and an expression of intent, but the name was too important to be left off the list. The names selected for these ships were drawn from a narrow range, and were carefully chosen. Over time certain names achieved permanence, while others were added to the list as circumstance dictated.

When Henry VIII wanted to establish the rank and power of his throne he named the flagship Henry Imperial, before reverting to the older form Henri Grace a Dieu. His children all ordered major warships in their own names. Edward VI ordered a ship to replace the Great Harry, but the Edward was completed as the Elizabeth.

After 1660 there was always a First Rate named for the monarch; it proved very convenient that between 1714 and 1830 all four kings were Royal George. The only First Rate built under the Commonwealth, the Naseby, featured a figurehead of Oliver Cromwell, representing his quasi-monarchical regime and his military power. Charles II reflected this reality when he renamed the ultimate expression of regicide rule the Royal Charles in 1660. King James, King William and Queen Anne all had royal ships named in their honour, mostly existing First Rates suitably re-christened, but Queen Mary II was content with the generic Queen. James I named the Royal Anne for his wife, but the next consort to achieve the same honour was Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, who had two ships named for her in quick succession. Another Stuart dynastic tradition to wither under the Hanoverians was that of naming a ship for the heir apparent, the Prince Royal/Royal Prince. Hanoverian Kings invariably hated their sons, and ended this practice as soon as possible. Successive princes were left with a Second Rate at best. Prince of Wales only became a First Rate name in the 18 50s – and was not used at sea until 1900. The Prince Regent reflected the unique political circumstances of 1812, when the Prince of Wales assumed royal power during the derangement of his father. By the time the ship was ready to launch the title had passed, when at the death of George III the Regent became George IV It was, perhaps, a reflection of far larger post-1815 list of First Rates that no thought was given to re-naming the ship at any time in the next forty years to represent a more significant individual or concept.

The second group of names reflected national power and image. Charles I named his prestige ship to represent British dominion over the oceans. The Sovereign of the Seas/Royal Sovereign reflected the Stuart claim to rule the adjacent seas, and tax them, making it the physical embodiment of John Selden’s contemporary legal tract Mare Clausum of 1631, a closely reasoned legal case for the right of states to impose control on adjacent sea areas and tax those who used them. The Commonwealth was quick to reprint Selden’s book, demonstrating that the concept was a national asset rather than a dynastic boast. Having been reduced to the Sovereign under the Commonwealth, the famous old ship was renamed Royal Sovereign on the same day that the Naseby became the Royal Charles, establishing permanent places on the Navy List that endured down to the mid-twentieth century. The first Britannia, ordered in 1677 by Charles II, connected the English state with its Roman heritage, although the model for the figurehead was one of the King’s more alluring mistresses. The name would be another permanent addition to the list. It has been used both by the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, in honour of the last Britannia to be discussed in this series, and a succession of seagoing units, culminating in the last royal yacht. Under the Stuarts London acquired First Rate status, only to be demoted in the mid-eighteenth to a Second Rate. Although Victory was occasionally removed from the list to facilitate a royal renaming, this Elizabethan standard achieved permanence under the Hanoverians. The final HMS Victory added such lustre to the name, commanded by a pantheon of great Admirals, from Keppel, Kempenfelt and Howe to Hood, Jervis, Nelson and Saumarez, that it became the embodiment of the service.

Late in the eighteenth century, as the English navy developed into a British service, with a strong representation of Scots and Irish officers and men, the needs of national unity and the cultural pressures arising out of the French and American revolutions prompted new names. Britannia would be joined by Hibernia, to reflect the Union of Ireland with the British Crown, the absorption of the Irish saltire into the Union Flag and the suppression of the Dublin parliament. The Caledonia followed soon after, leaving the Principality of Wales without a First Rate. Under Charles II St Andrew had represented the Scottish connection, and although Scotland maintained a separate navy until 1707 it did not include First Rates. The most interesting addition to the ranks of British First Rates was the Ville de Paris. It had long been the English tradition to adopt the names of foreign prizes, the proudest symbols of a heroic past. Indeed many of the navy’s finest names were foreign – especially the remarkable strain of proud abstractions, from Renown and Glory to Invincible – but the ultimate prize, a French First Rate flagship, was only taken once. The Ville de Paris, flagship of Admiral De Grasse, surrendered at the Battle of the Saintes on 12 April 1782. Although the prize was lost soon after in a storm, it was quickly replaced with the largest First Rate yet ordered, the ultimate expression of British naval mastery, a ship that would carry the flags of Earl St Vincent and Sir William Cornwallis through the crisis of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.

After 1805 the state turned to new gods and heroes as a new British cultural identity took shape, largely defined in opposition to the rest of Europe. Shortly after Trafalgar a new First Rate was named Nelson, honouring the war god of the British state and the central figure in the new pantheon of immortals. He was the first admiral to have a First Rate named in his honour, but one he soon shared with Howe, the King’s favourite, and ministerial ally St Vincent, then in command afloat. These names provided a potent contemporary reminder why Britannia ruled the waves. At the end of the period the number of First Rate ships expanded to include Nelson’s final battle and Waterloo as the twin icons of national glory.

This oil painting George Chambers of Britannia entering Portsmouth harbour about 1835 might be compared with the younger Van de Velde’s portrait of the Royal Sovereign of 1703 (on page 13). In the century that separates them British First Rates had become more business-like in appearance, but remained the ultimate symbol of the power of a maritime nation. National Maritime Museum BHC3245.

The importance of the First Rate ship as a cultural icon ensured that whenever a ship carrying one of these mighty names became unserviceable it would either be ‘rebuilt’ or exchange names with a newer unit to ensure continuity. Of particular significance was the response to the catastrophic loss of the Royal George in 1782: twelve days later a new ship on order was renamed – the Umpire became the Royal George – lest anyone should think that the end of King George’s American empire and the loss of the flagship that bore his name presaged anything worse. The fiery destruction of the Queen Charlotte in 1800 inspired a similarly swift revival.

Between 1603 and 1817 very few names were used for First Rate warships, and those names were carefully chosen to represent the might and majesty of the English/British state at sea. The combination of power and identity was reinforced by decorative artifice. From the start First Rate ships attracted a remarkable output of decorative and gilded work, and celebratory ship portraits; they were the most glamorous vessels afloat, and the ideal vehicle for the international competitive theatre of power. At this remove we understand these iconic ships largely through the eyes of artists; their elaborate carved work, striking paint schemes and the sheer cost of gilding the ‘gingerbread’ that encrusted their upper works made them stand out from the crowd. The observation that the uniquely rich and flamboyant gilded work on Charles Stuart’s Sovereign of the Seas cost as much as a standard fighting ship, and her bronze cannon four times more, is often delivered with a sense of waste and folly.² Nothing could be further from the truth. In an age of conspicuous display the Sovereign embodied the power of the state, and the strength of the dynasty, in a manner that any number of lesser ships could not. For all their latent power, these prestige ships served the nation best when they preserved the peace, and upheld the proud boast that their names proclaimed. When the new Royal Sovereign appeared in 1701 the decoration was only a little less ornate. First Rates had larger figureheads, and more gilded work, they were shown to visiting princes and ambassadors, and in war they served as floating civil/military headquarters. In an age when warships try to avoid appearing on radar, such vainglory might seem to be at odds with military effectiveness, but in their day First Rates were very deliberately designed to be the most visible of ships.

The obvious attraction of the First Rate as a subject for ship portraits and marine art was matched by the enthusiasm of royal and national patrons to commission such works. As a result they achieved celebrity status, in art, engraving and cheap woodcut, the symbol of the English/British nation in arms. All the great sea painters, from Hendrick Vroom, who painted the Prince Royal, and the Van de Veldes father and son, to Turner, painted these great ships as icons of art and power. A First Rate was the nation and the navy. Willem Van de Velde the Younger’s magnificent Royal Sovereign of 1703 (see page 13) commemorates a specific event, when the Lord High Admiral dined with the Commander-in-Chief on the newly completed flagship at the outbreak of war. The stern and quarter perspective allows the picture to convey both the serried ranks of cannon, and the magnificent stern galleries with their rich and ornate decoration, while the presence of a yacht, various boats and the sailors working aloft emphasise the sheer scale of the ship. The smoke drifting off to the left, the by-product of a 21-gun salute, adds a sign of power to this carefully contrived statement of English/Stuart power at the accession of a new Queen, and the opening of a new war.³ The power of this picture (‘his noblest work’) was such that many reproductions were created by Van de Velde’s studio, both before and after his death in 1707.⁴

At the opposite end of an era George Chambers’s ‘The Britannia entering Portsmouth Harbour’ of 1835 repeats much of the composition, albeit in reverse and without the smoke. Here the great ship is coming home to pay off after five years of active service, latterly in the Mediterranean. Throughout that time her presence and latent power have upheld the peace of Europe, and the interests of the British state, under the direction of several admirals. While Chambers was widely known as a fine ship portraitist, this serene picture has subtly romanticised the scene. The sails, which hang lifeless in his sketch, now billow in the breeze, while the large boat in the foreground separates the great ship from her illustrious predecessor, Nelson’s Victory, now a harbour flagship. Behind the Victory lie the serried ranks of the reserve fleet, the Advanced Ships with their lower masts in place, the latent might of the British state, heroes of a hundred fights, ready to spring into life at the first sign of danger. Their equipment has been laid by in shore-side storehouses, while the men who will give them life can be seen in every corner of the picture. The carefully contrived combination of a calm sea, a slight wind and the setting sun add an elegiac quality to the end of a long commission.⁵ But this remains a picture of peace preserved by power, representing the objects of the British state in the age of the sailing warship. Across two centuries the message had subtly changed: the gilded gorgeousness slowly declining in inverse proportion to the power of the British state. In the 1630s the Stuart kingdom was making a boast it could not uphold, posing as the master of the seas; by 1817 the British were the acknowledged masters of the sea, a status confidently reflected in the quiet, restrained embellishments of the flagship.

For two centuries the ultimate achievement of the English/British state was to turn the money, raw materials and skill of a small offshore island group off the north-western coast of Europe into wooden warships, the basis of a unique global empire. Those ships are the subject of this book and its companions.

Andrew Lambert

London, January 2009

Notes

1 The work of Robert Gardiner on eighteenth-century frigate design is a particular highlight. See Frigates of the Napoleonic Wars, London 2000.

2 B. Lavery, The Ship of the Line, vol. I, London 1983, pp. 16–17.

3 M. S. Robinson, Van De Velde: A Catalogue of the Paintings of the Elder and the Younger Willem Van De Velde, vol. II, Greenwich 1990, pp. 624–30.

4 Robinson, Van De Velde, vol. I, p. xxvi.

5 A. Russett, George Chambers 1803–1840: His Life and Works, Woodbridge 1996, pp. 121–3.

Preface

This book is chronologically the first volume in a series covering the ships and vessels of the English Navy (after 1707, the British Navy) during the Age of Sail; it provides a guide to every vessel which served in or was ordered for the Royal Navy between the death of Queen Elizabeth I in March 1603 and the death of Queen Anne (and the start of the Hanoverian era) in August 1714. Similar volumes covering the periods from 1714 to 1792 and from 1793 to 1817 are already in print, and a fourth volume to cover from 1817 to 1863 is envisaged.

As with the previous volume dealing with the post-1714 fleet, this book gives a summary of the main technical details of each ‘class’ (design) of vessel built for the navy, from the huge three-deckers down to the minute brigs, schooners and gunboats, together with building data for each vessel ordered to those designs, as well as equivalent details of the hundreds of enemy warships and privateers captured and added to the Royal Navy, and large numbers of merchant vessels purchased from civilian sources to augment British naval strength. All vessels already in service in March 1603, and those ordered before 1714 but not completed in time for war service, are also covered. Altogether, some 1,500 individual vessels are separately detailed.

This volume likewise includes – within the constraints of space – fairly detailed notes on service histories for each vessel during the years covered: where available, details of their commanding officers, main deployments, actions in which they were involved (including information on all enemy warships and privateers in whose capture or destruction the British vessel was involved), details and dates of dockyard refits and major repairs – with the expenditure if known, and a variety of other relevant information. Details of the dimensions of every vessel (illustrating divergences from the design data), and of the individual shipbuilders involved – in the Royal Dockyards as well as the commercial contractors – complete this comprehensive single-volume reference source for every vessel.

Acknowledgements

This book, like the other in the series, was made possible by the collective work of a number of individuals, who generously supplied me with the results of their own research, and offered constructive suggestions for improvements and pointed out the errors that inevitable accumulate in a volume of this size. The service histories for individual vessels, in particular, owe a massive debt to the copious archives of the late David Lyon, whose many years at the National Maritime Museum enabled him to compile detailed records on every vessel; I remain most grateful to Leo (Eleanor) Sharpston, for providing me with these archives. I am equally grateful to Andrew Lambert for contributing a comprehensive guide within this volume to the overall strategic development of British naval strength during the age of sail, thereby linking together the volumes which make up this series.

Throughout the preparation of this series, a number of good friends have again provided an amazing amount of material from their own records. I would in particular pay thanks to Fred Dittmar, David Hepper, John Houghton and John Tredrea, who have additionally read through a