Third Rate 64 gun ships of the Royal Navy.

[Bligh]

HMS St Albans (1764)

HMS St Albans was a Thomas Slade designed St Albans Class 64 gun third rate ship of the line, built by John Perry of Perry, Wells & Green at Blackwall Yard. Ordered on the 1st of January 1761 and confirmed on the 20th of that month, she was laid down in the August of that year, and launched on the 12th of September, 1764. She was completed at Deptford Dockyard on the 27th of that month.


St Albans

History
GREAT BRITAIN
Name:	HMS St Albans
Ordered:	1 January 1761
Builder:	Perry. Blackwall yard London.
Launched:	12 September 1764
Fate:	Broken up, 1814
Notes:
Class and type:	St Albans Class 64 gun ship of the line
Tons burthen:	1380 (bm)
Length:	159 ft 3.75 in (48 m) (gundeck)
Beam:	44 ft 6.5 in (13.51 m)
Depth of hold: Draught;	18 ft 10 in (5.74 m) ?
Propulsion:	Sails
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Armament:	64 guns: Gundeck: 26 × 24-pounders Upper gundeck: 26 × 18-pounders QD: 10 × 9-pounders Fc: 2 × 9-pounders +10 x 24-pounder Carronades from 12.1806

Service.

HMS St Albans was commissioned in the January of 1771 as a guardship at Portsmouth, and was recommissioned for sea in the November of 1776 under Captain Richard Onslow who had taken command in the previous month. She escorted a convoy to New York in the April of 1777 and then joined Lord Howe’s fleet in time for the repulse of Comte d’Estang at Sandy Hook on the 22nd July in that year. On the 4th of November, 1778, Onslow sailed for the West Indies in Commodore Hotham’s squadron and took part in the capture of Saint Lucia and its defence against d'Estaing that December at the Cul-de-Sac. In the August of 1779, St Albans escorted a convoy from St Kitts back to England. She was then paid off after wartimer service and underwent a middling repair, and coppering at Chatham between the March and October of that year for the sum of £17,583.16.8d.During her refit she was recommissioned by Captain Charles Inglis

On the 10th of December, St Albans, in company with the Monsieur, Portland, Solebay and Vestal, captured the Comtess de Buzancois.
On the 13th of March, 1781 St Albans sailed with Vice Admiral George Digby’s fleet to the relief of Gibraltar. She was with Admiral Robert Digby’s squadron later that year, before being dispatched to join Sir Samuel Hood’s squadron at Barbados.

She was thus with Hood during the Battle of St. Kitts, when he attempted to relieve the island and on the 25th and 26th of January, 1782, successfully repulsed several attacks by the Comte de Grasse. On the 9th of April in that year, St Albans was in action once more with the French Fleet, when Hood came to blows with de Grasse in the Dominica Channel, and on the 12th of April, when the main British fleet under Inglis' old captain, now Admiral Sir George Rodney, decisively defeated de Grasse at the Battle of the Saints. During the action St Albans suffered only six men wounded.

In late July St Albans sailed to North America with, Admiral Hugh Pigot who had succeeded to the command of the fleet. Having returned to the West Indies by the November of that year, Inglis had been promoted to the command of a squadron of four ships cruising independently. The squadron, consisted of St Albans, the 74 gun Magnificent, the 64 gun Prudent, and the sloop Barbados. On the 12th of February, 1783 they were dispatched from Gros Islet Bay to investigate a report that a French squadron, consisting of Triton, Amphion and several frigates, had sailed from Martinique. On the15th, Captain Robert Linzee’s Magnificent, cruising in company with Prudent and St Albans, sighted a strange sail and gave chase. She was close enough to identify the ship as a frigate by 18:00, and by 20:00 as darkness fell Linzee’s quarry opened fire on Magnificent with her stern chasers. Magnificent closed with the French Frigate at 21:15, and after fifteen minutes bombardment forced her to strike. Magnificent boarded the 36 gun Frigate which turned out to be the Concorde commanded by M. le Chevalier du Clesmaur. Shortly after surrendering, Concorde's main topsail caught fire, requiring her crew to cut away the mainmast in order to extinguish the conflagration. Two hours later the St Albans and Prudent came up, and Magnificent then towed Concorde to St Johns in Antigua.

Returning to England in the July of 1783 St Albans was paid off after wartime service and underwent a Great Repair and refit at Portsmouth between the October of 1790 and the April of 1793.at a cost of £32.201.She was recommissioned in the January of 1793 under Captain James Vashon, and on the 23rd of May she sailed for the Med, and on returning from this cruise, in the April of 1794 she sailed for Jamaica. On the 8th of November in that year St Albans in company with Porcupine shared in the capture of the Brig Molly, and on the 26th, off Bermuda, she rescued the crew of the ex French Gun-Brig HMS Actif which had developed leaks and was foundering.
Returning to England in 1795, she was refitted at Chatham between the April and May of that year for £8,184. and in the August she was recommissioned under Captain Thomas Macnamara Russell. Then in 1796 under Captain William Lechmere as the flagship of Vice Admiral George Vanderput, she sailed for Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the 12th of April in that year.

By the start of 1797 she had returned to Europe and was at Lisbon when, on the 28th of February, she took the Spanish privateer El Atrebedo, alias Le Concepcion. In the August of that year she came under Captain Francis Pender who would command her until 1799.

In the March of that year she sailed once more for Halifax, now under the command of John Oakes Hardy. In the October of 1801 command was passed to Commander Frederick Thesiger, and St Albans returned to England to be placed in ordinary at Chatham in the July of 1802.Here, she was fitted as a floating battery in the September of 1803 and commissioned under Captain john Temple for service in Hosley Roads.

In The June of 1805 St Albans became the Flagship of Admiral Viscount George Keith, and in the December of 1806 was refitted as a 64 gun ship. She was recommissioned in the February of 1807 under Captain Francis Austin who would retain this position until the April of 1810.On the 5th of April ,1809, St Albans sailed for the East Indies and China.

From the November of 1810 she was returned to Chatham for re-fitting under Captain Edward Brace.
From the December of 1810 she was at Spithead then on the Cadiz station until the December of 1812 under Captains Brace, Captain Charles Grant in 1811 and then Captain John. F. Devonshire from the January of 1812.
She was paid off in the November of 1812, taken out of commission and docked in Chatham for a refit between the December of that year and the October of 1813.

Fate.

By the September of that year St Albans was in process of being converted for use as a floating battery once more, but she was broken up less than a year later in the June of 1814.