HMS Nassau (1785)

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Ardent class silhouette.png
Silhouette of the ship-of-the-line Nassau
History
Naval Ensign of Great Britain (1707-1800).svg Great Britain
NameHMS Nassau
Ordered14 November 1782
Builder Hilhouse, Bristol
Laid downMarch 1783
Launched28 September 1785
FateWrecked 14 October 1799
General characteristics [1]
Class and type Ardent-class ship of the line
Tons burthen1384 (bm)
Length160 ft (49 m) (gundeck)
Beam44 ft 4 in (13.51 m)
Depth of hold19 ft (5.8 m)
PropulsionSails
Sail plan Full-rigged ship
Armament
  • 64 guns:
  • Gundeck: 26 × 24-pounder guns
  • Upper gundeck: 26 × 18-pounder guns
  • QD: 10 × 4-pounder guns
  • Fc: 2 × 9-pounder guns

HMS Nassau was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 28 September 1785 by Hilhouse in Bristol. [1]

Contents

One of her first ship's surgeons is thought to be John Sylvester Hay. He died young but he was the father of the actress Harriett Litchfield. [2]

During the Nore Mutiny she was commanded by Captain Edward O'Bryen. She was converted for use as a troopship in 1797. [1]

Nassau was wrecked on the Kicks sandbar off Texel, the Netherlands, on 14 October 1799, there being 205 survivors and about 100 lives lost. [3]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Lavery, Ships of the Line vol.1, p181.
  2. K. A. Crouch, ‘Litchfield , Harriett (1777–1854)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 1 Feb 2015
  3. The Reading Mercury and Oxford Gazette, 11 November 1799

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