Third Rate ships of 74 guns.

[Bligh]

HMS Robust.



HMS Robust was a 74-gun Ramillies Class third-rateship of the line ,designed by Sir Thomas Slade, M/shipwright John Barnard and John Turner. She was ordered on the16th of December, 1761 and launched on 25 October 1764 at Harwich. She was the first vessel of the Royal Navy to bear the name.



Plan of Robust

History
GREAT BRITAIN
Name:	HMS Robust
Ordered:	16 December 1761
Builder:	Barnard, Harwich
Launched:	25 October 1764
Fate:	Broken up, 1817
Notes:	Harbour service from 1812
General characteristics
Class and type:		Ramillies-classship of the line
Tons burthen:		1624 bm
Length:		168 ft 6 in (51.36 m) (gundeck)
Beam:		46 ft 11 in (14.30 m)
Depth of hold:		19 ft 9 in (6.02 m)
Propulsion:		Sails
Sail plan:		Full rigged ship
Armament:		·Gundeck: 28 × 32-pounder guns ·Upper gundeck: 28 × 18-pounder guns ·QD: 14 × 9-pounder guns ·Fc: 4 × 9-pounder guns ·

Service.

After undergoing a small repair between the May of 1774 and the January of 1775 Robust was first commissioned in the December of 1777 under Captain Alexander Arthur Hood and fitted at Chatham in the March of 1778.


On the 27^th of July, 1778 she was at the Battle of Ushant in Palliser's division of the fleet. Her captain, Alexander Hood, took Palliser's side in the subsequent court martial known as "the Keppel affair".
She was paid off after wartime service in the September of 1782.Between 1783 and 1784 she underwent repairs at Chatham and was not recommissioned until the October of 1787 under Captain William Cornwallis but paid off in the December of that year. Recommissioned in the July of 1790 under Captain Howland Cotton she again paid off in the September of 1791 without seeing any further distinctive action.


However, when next commissioned in the January of 1793 under Captain George Elphinstone ,Robust sailed to join Lord Hood’s Fleet in the Med on the 22^nd of May in that year.


She was part of the fleet under Hood that occupied Toulon during August . Together with HMS Courageux, Meleager, Tartar and Egmont, on the 27^th of the month she covered the landings of 1500 troops sent to oust the republicans holding the forts including, Fort La Malague on the 28^th of August which guarded the port. Once the forts had fallen, the remainder of Hood's fleet, accompanied by 17 Spanish ships-of-the-line who had just arrived, sailed into the harbour.
Under the temporary command of Captain Benjamin Hallowell she was also involved in the evacuation of the port in the December of the year.
In 1794 she came under the command of Captain Christopher Parker and then Captain Edward Thornbrough with Warren’s squadron in the June of 1795 for the Quiberon operations.


Robust was next in the North Sea in 1796, and then got caught up in the Spithead mutiny of 1797. In the October of that year she refitted at Portsmouth. By the January of 1798 she had made good her defects and by the October of that year she was in action in Sir John Warren’s squadron against Bompart. On the 12^th of October she captured the French ship Hoche.


March 1799 saw her in action under Captain George Countess in an attack on a Spanish squadron sheltering in the Basque Roads.
In 1800 she briefly came under the command of Captain William Brown and later under Captain John Acworth Ommanney.


By the May of 1801 she was under Captain the Hon Henry Curzon, and later in the year, Captain William Ricketts.


On the 21^st of July, the boats of Robust, Beaulieu, Uranie and Doris succeeded in boarding and cutting out the French naval corvette Chevrette, which was armed with 20 guns and had 350 men on board having been placed on board in the expectation of an attack. Also, Chevrette was protected by the batteries of the Bay of Cameret. The hired armedcutterTelemachus placed herself in the Goulet and thereby prevented the French from bringing reinforcements by boat to Chevrette. The action was a sanguinary one. The British lost 11 men killed, 57 wounded, and one missing; Chevrette lost 92 officers, seamen and troops killed, including her first captain, and 62 seamen and troops wounded. In 1847 the Admiralty finally awarded the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "21 July Boat Service 1801" to surviving men who had served in the action.


Fate.


In the April of 1802, still under Ricketts’ command, Robust sailed for Jamaica as the Flagship of Admiral Jervis but by the July of that year she had been paid off and was being fitted as a receiving ship at Portsmouth. From 1807 to 1814 she was placed in ordinary there, and was broken up in the January of 1817.