"The 64-GUN Ship" Topic

"Typical of the last generation of 64s, Lion (as it was usually spelt) was one of many of these small two-deckers built to make up battlefleet numbers during the dangerous days of the American Revolutionary War when Britain faced all the major maritime powers alone. After active service during the American War, mostly in the West Indies, the ship was chosen to carry Lord Macartney's embassy to China in 1792. During the following wars the ship's career was typical of many 64s, serving in secondary theatres like the North Sea in the 1790s and for much of the period after 1801 in the East Indies. Lion was decommissioned in 1814 but survived as a hulk until 1837.

The 64 was an ‘economy' battleship and by the mid-eighteenth century for major navies it was the smallest acceptable unit of the line of battle. The principal weakness of the type was the main battery of 24pdrs, whereas the rest of the line from the largest three-decker to the standard 74 were equipped with 32pdrs in the British fleet and 3 6pdrs in the French. This meant that any 64 would always be a weak link in the battle line and a source of concern to the admiral commanding. This had become recognised during the American Revolutionary War and neither Britain nor France built such ships thereafter. The type remained popular with second-rank navies, like those of the Baltic states and, especially, the Netherlands, and although France built no more of the type for her own navy she acquired others through the shipbuilding activities of her satellite states like Venice and the Netherlands. Therefore British 64s were often concentrated in the squadrons opposing those powers.

Because of a large building programme put in hand during the American War, there were still thirty 64s available in 1793. Natural attrition reduced the numbers gradually during the war, but many were captured – mainly from the Dutch, but three from Denmark and two originally built for the Knights of St John at Malta. But very few of these were acceptable cruisers, and those not hulked were usually reduced to duty as troopships or store vessels. However, such was the rapidly escalating commitments of British fleets that in 1796 five of the largest East Indiamen building on the Thames were purchased and converted into 64-gun ships. They had their ports rearranged to take twenty-six 24pdrs instead of the twenty-eight 18pdrs they were designed for, and unlike the 54/56-gun ships acquired in the previous year, they had a proper quarterdeck and forecastle. They were longer in proportion than purpose-designed 64s, but nevertheless were deemed inadequate warships, being slow and unwieldy, thanks to their capacious mercantile hull form. They were derisively dubbed ‘tea and sugar ships' in the fleet, and when blockading Toulon in 1803 Nelson complained that as ships of the line, ‘Monmouth and Agincourt … were hardly to be reckoned'…"
More here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Armand,

Well done, sir. An informative and interesting article.

B

Happy you enjoyed it my good friend!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand