Portrait of HMS Newcastle by Willem van de Velde, 1676 | |
History | |
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England | |
Name | Newcastle |
Namesake | Siege of Newcastle |
Ordered | 17 February 1652 |
Builder | Phineas Pett II, Ratcliffe |
Launched | May 1653 |
Fate | Wrecked, 1703 |
General characteristics [1] | |
Class and type | Fourth-rate frigate |
Tons burthen | 631 |
Length | 108 ft (32.9 m) (keel) |
Beam | 33 ft 1 in (10.1 m) |
Depth of hold | 13 ft 2 in (4.0 m) |
Sail plan | Full-rigged ship |
Armament | 44 guns (1660); 54 guns (1677) |
Newcastle was a 44-gun fourth-rate frigate of the English Royal Navy, originally built for the Commonwealth of England by Phineas Pett the Younger at Ratcliffe, and launched in May 1653. By 1677 her armament had been increased to 54 guns. [1]
Her first action came in 1655 when, along with fourteen other warships, she sailed into Porto Farina in Algiers to engage Barbary Pirates. This action resulted in the destruction of the entire pirate fleet, which won the Newcastle lineage its first battle honour. In 1657 she took part in Admiral Blake's daring attack on Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and in 1665, she fought at the Battle of Lowestoft.
On 14 March 1674, [2] Newcastle, under the command of Sir John Wetwang, captured the Dutch East India ship Wapen van Rotterdam in the Battle of Ronas Voe. [3]
Prior to the November 1688 Glorious Revolution, George Churchill assumed command and Newcastle was assigned to the Channel. Shortly before Plymouth declared for William III on 18 November, Churchill entered the port for repairs but this appears to have been an excuse; Newcastle was the first significant naval defection and the rest of the fleet soon followed. [4]
Newcastle was wrecked at Spithead in the Great Storm of 1703 with the loss of 229 of her crew. [1] [5]
HMS Africa was a 64-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched by William Barnard at Barnard's Thames Yard in Deptford on 11 April 1781.
HMS Thunderer was a ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built in 1783. She carried 74-guns, being classified as a third rate. During her service she took part in several prominent naval battles of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars; including the Glorious First of June, the Battle of Cape Finisterre and the Battle of Trafalgar.
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HMS St Andrew was a 96-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built by Christopher Pett at Woolwich Dockyard under the supervision of Christopher Pett until his death in March 1668, completed by Jonas Shish, and launched in 1670. Commanded by George Churchill, she took part in the 1692 victory over the French navy at Barfleur & La Hogue.
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The frigate Gloucester was a Speaker-class third rate, commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Gloucester after the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660. The ship was ordered in December 1652, built at Limehouse in East London, and launched in 1654. The warship was conveying James Stuart, Duke of York to Scotland, when on 6 May 1682 she struck a sandbank off the Norfolk coast, and quickly sank. The Duke was among those saved, but as many as 250 people drowned, including members of the royal party; it is thought that James's intransigence delayed the evacuation of the passengers and crew.
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The Third Battle of Ushant or the action of 20–21 April 1782 was a naval battle fought during the American Revolutionary War, between a French naval fleet of three ships of the line protecting a convoy and two British Royal naval ships of the line off Ushant, a French island at the mouth of the English Channel off the northwesternmost point of France. This was the third battle that occurred in this region during the course of the war.
The Battle of Ronas Voe was a naval engagement between the English Royal Navy and the Dutch East India ship Wapen van Rotterdam on 14 March 1674 in Ronas Voe, Shetland as part of the Third Anglo-Dutch War. Having occurred 23 days after the signing of the Treaty of Westminster, it is likely to have been the final battle of the Third Anglo-Dutch War.
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