Third Rate 64 gun ships of the Royal Navy.

[Bligh]

HMS America (1777)


HMS America was a John Williams designed Intrepid Class, 64 gun third rate ship of the line, built by M/shipwright Adam Hayes at Deptford Dockyard. Ordered on the 18th of June 1771, and laid down in the October of that year, she was launched on the 5th of August, 1777, and completed on the 29th of March 1778.


Plan showing the body, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth proposed for America

History
GREAT BRITAIN
Name:	HMS America
Ordered:	18 June 1771
Builder:	Deptford Dockyard
Launched:	5 August 1777
Fate:	Broken up, 1807
General characteristics
Class and type:	Intrepid Class 64 gun ship of the line
Tons burthen:	1369 (bm)
Length:	159 ft 6 in (48.62 m) (gundeck)
Beam:	44 ft 4 in (13.51 m)
Depth of hold:	19 ft (5.8 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Armament:	64 guns: Gundeck: 26 × 24-pounders Upper gundeck: 26 × 18-pounders Quarterdeck: 10 × 4-pounders Forecastle: 2 × 9-pounders

Service.

HMS America was commissioned in the December of 1777, and refitted and coppered at Portsmouth for a cost of £7,210.17.5d between the February and the March of 1780. Under the command of Captain Samuel Thompson, she took part in the Battle of the Chesapeake on the 5th of September, 1781, suffering no casualties.
On the12th of April, 1782 she saw action in the white squadron as part of the Battle of the Saints against a huge French fleet. She was again lucky in the action losing only 1 killed and 1 wounded.

On her return to England after wartime service she was paid off 1n 1783.

Between the March of 1786 and January of 1787 America underwent a small to middling repair at Portsmouth costing £15,979, and then in the March of 1793 she was fitted out for sea and commissioned under Captain John Rodney who was to command her until 1794 in the Channel.

In 1795 she came under the broad pennant of Captain John Blanket, and sailed for the East Indies on the 12th of March. On route she served with Elphinstone’s squadron at the Cape of Good Hope as as part of the British fleet at the Battle of Muizenberg. This was a small but significant military affair that began in June 1795 and ended three months later with the first British occupation of the Cape. In 1796 America was under Captain Edward Buller at the capture of the Dutch squadron in Saldanha Bay on the 17th of August and then returned to England where she underwent a small repair at Chatham between the March and December of 1797.



She was then recommissioned under Captain John Smith until 1799 and Joined Duncan’s fleet, taking a 14 gun privateer Hussar in the North Sea in the August of 1798.She was with Mitchell’s squadron in the Helder during 1799 where she grounded on the 30th of August in that year. This resulted in her having to return to Chatham, where a small repair was effected between the November of that year and the April of 1800. Whilst undergoing repairs, she was recommissioned under Captain Joseph Bingham in the March of 1800, to serve as the Flagship of Vice Admiral Sir William Parker from the following month. She sailed for Halifax in the month following this. By the13th of December she had sailed south and was off the Azores when she ran herself upon the Formigas Reef and suffered severe damage to her hull. With some difficulty she was refloated with the tide and returned to harbour. On the 27th of December America's captain and senior officers were court martialled aboard the HMS Carnatic, which was anchored off Port Royal, Jamaica. All were acquitted when the court established that the grounding had been caused by errors in the ship's charts, upon which the Reef was marked as being substantially to the south of its actual location.

Fate.

Following the grounding, America was withdrawn from active service and redesignated as a prison ship at Port Royal. In 1804 she was loaned to the Transport Board. Following this she was decommissioned and broken up in 1807.