In 1603 all English warships with a complement of fewer than 160 men were known as 'small ships'. In 1625/26 to establish pay rates for officers, a six-tier naval ship rating system was introduced. These small ships were divided into three tiers: fourth-, fifth- and sixth-rates. Up to the end of the 17th century, the number of guns and the complement size were adjusted until the rating system was actually clarified. A 'fourth-rate' was nominally a ship of over thirty guns with a complement of 140 men.
The M29 class comprised five monitors of the Royal Navy, all built and launched during 1915.
HMS Orestes was an 18-gun Dutch-built brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was originally built as the privateer Mars, which the British captured in 1781. She went on to serve during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War and the French Revolutionary Wars.
HMS Mars was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 25 October 1794 at Deptford Dockyard.
HMS Rose was a 20-gun Seaford-class post ship of the Royal Navy, built at Blaydes Yard in Hull, England in 1757 and in service until 1779. Her activities in suppressing smuggling in the colony of Rhode Island provoked the formation of what became the Continental Navy, precursor of the modern United States Navy. She was based at the North American station in the West Indies and then used in the American Revolutionary War. A replica was built in 1970, then modified to match HMS Surprise, and used in two films, Master and Commander: Far Side of the World and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
Andrew Lambert is a British naval historian, who since 2001 has been the Laughton Professor of Naval History in the Department of War Studies, King's College London.
The Medea class were a class of destroyers that were being built for the Greek Navy at the outbreak of World War I but were taken over and completed for the Royal Navy for wartime service. All were named after characters from Greek mythology as result of their Greek heritage.
HMS Calypso (D61) was a C class cruiser of the Caledon sub-class of the Royal Navy, launched in 1917 and sunk in 1940 by the Italian submarine Alpino Bagnolini. Calypso was built by Hawthorn Leslie and Company. Her keel was laid down in February 1916 and she was completed in June 1917.
HMS Apollo, the third ship of the Royal Navy to be named for the Greek god Apollo, was a 38-gun Artois-class fifth rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She served during the French Revolutionary Wars, but her career ended after just four years in service when she was wrecked on the Haak sands off the Dutch coast.
HMS Syren was a 32-gun Amazon-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She served during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary, and Napoleonic Wars. Among her more famous midshipmen were the future Rear-Admiral Peter Puget, and John Pasco, Nelson's signal officer at the Battle of Trafalgar.
HMS Zealous was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built by Barnard of Deptford and launched on 25 June 1785.
HMS Zebra was the first ship to bear the name in the British Navy. She was a 14 gun ship sloop of the Swan class, launched on 8 April 1777. She was abandoned and blown up after going aground on 22 October 1778 at Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey, during the American Revolutionary War after only one year in service.
HMS Jason was a 38-gun Artois-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She served during the French Revolutionary Wars, but her career came to an end after just four years in service when she struck an uncharted rock off Brest and sank on 13 October 1798. She had already had an eventful career, and was involved in several engagements with French vessels.
The Battle of the Mona Passage was a naval engagement on 19 April 1782 taking place in the aftermath of the Battle of the Saintes between Britain and France during the American Revolutionary War. A British fleet under Rear-Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, pursued a small French fleet under Georges-François de Framond which had managed to escape the victorious British fleet a week earlier. The two fleets met and engaged at the Mona Passage where the British overtook and captured four French ships, two of which were 64-gun ships of the line.
The Speedy class brigs were a two-ship class of brig built for the Royal Navy during the later years of the American War of Independence. They survived into the French Revolutionary Wars.
HMS Atalanta was a 14 gun ship sloop of the Swan class, launched on 12 August 1775. She served during the American Revolutionary War. On 28 May 1781, Atlanta was engaged by the privateer Alliance, in which 24 crew were killed or wounded. In May 1782, under the command of Brett, she destroyed an American privateer, under then command of Ayret, near Cape d'Or. Privateers from Cumberland were on board. The privateers escaped to the woods leaving their provisions, which Captain Brett took to Cumberland.
HMS Swift was a 14-gun Swan-class ship-sloop, launched on 1 January 1777. She was commissioned that month under Lieutenant George Keppel and sailed for North America on 27 March. Command later passed to Thomas Lennox Frederick, who captained her in operations on the Delaware River. On 22 November 1778, she was in pursuit of an American privateer, Rattlesnake, off Cape Henry in Chesapeake Bay. During the action Swift grounded on Middle Ground and she was burnt by her crew to prevent her from falling into enemy hands. Rattlesnake was wrecked also.
HMS Avenger was a sloop-of-war, previously the civilian vessel Elizabeth, launched in 1801 at Bridlington. The British Royal Navy purchased her in 1803 and commissioned her in October 1803 under Commander Francis Snell. but she foundered in Heligoland Bight, off the Weser, on 5 December 1803; the crew were saved.
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