The ''Expedition'' was a 30-gun "pinnace" (later defined as an early frigate) in the service of the English Navy Royal. After an initial participation in a punitive attack on Morocco, she spent the majority of her career in Home Waters. During the English Civil War she was employed in the Parliamentary Naval Force. In 1551 she was assigned to the Commonwealth Navy. During the

First Dutch War The First Anglo-Dutch War, or First Dutch War, was a naval conflict between the Commonwealth of England and the Dutch Republic. Largely caused by disputes over trade, it began with English attacks on Dutch merchant shipping, but expanded to vast ...

she took part in the

Battle of Portland The naval Battle of Portland, or Three Days' Battle, took place during 18–20 February 1653 (28 February – 2 March 1653 (Gregorian calendar)), during the First Anglo-Dutch War, when the fleet of the Commonwealth of England under General at ...

, the

Battle of the Gabbard The Battle of the Gabbard, was a naval battle fought from 2 to 3 June 1653 during the First Anglo-Dutch War. It took place near the Gabbard shoal off the coast of Suffolk, England, between fleets of the Commonwealth of England and the Dutch Repu ...

and the

Battle of Scheveningen The Battle of Scheveningen was the final naval battle of the First Anglo-Dutch War. It took place on July 31st 1653 between the fleets of the Commonwealth of England and the Dutch Republic. The Dutch fleet suffered heavy losses. Background A ...

in 1553. During the

Second Dutch War The Second Anglo-Dutch War, began on 4 March 1665, and concluded with the signing of the Treaty of Breda on 31 July 1667. It was one in a series of naval wars between England and the Dutch Republic, driven largely by commercial disputes. Despi ...

she participated in the

Battle of Lowestoft The Battle of Lowestoft took place on during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. A fleet of more than a hundred ships of the Dutch Republic, United Provinces commanded by Lieutenant-Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam, Jacob van Wassenaer, Lord Obdam, at ...

in 1665 and the

Four Days' Battle The Four Days' Battle was a naval engagement fought from 11 to 14 June 1666 (1–4 June O.S.) during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. It began off the Flemish coast and ended near the English coast, and remains one of the longest naval battles in ...

and the

St James' Day Battle The St James' Day Battle took place on 25 July 1666 (4 August 1666 in the Gregorian calendar), during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. It was fought between an English fleet commanded jointly by Prince Rupert of the Rhine and George Monck, and a ...

(Orfordness) in 1666. She was re-classed as a 32-gun ship in 1666, but then again re-rated and converted to a fireship in June 1667, and then sold in October 1667. ''Expedition'' was the second vessel to be given that name in the English Navy Royal, since it had been used for a 20-gun French ship captured in 1618 which remained listed until 1652.

Construction and specifications

She was ordered on 12 December 1636 to be built under contract by Matthew Graves at Bermondsey in London on the River Thames (a sistership, the ''Providence'', was ordered on the same day from another shipbuilder, but was likewise built in Bermondsey). The order specified that each ship should carry 14 pieces of ordnance and have 16 banks of oars. An early scale draught believed to be of the original concept of the ship with the cipher of Charles I shows the sixteen pairs of oars on the lower deck (with 4 men shown in the cross-section for each oar, requiring 128 oarsmen in total!) and ten pairs of broadside gunports on the upper deck (the rearmost two pairs of ports under the quarterdeck lower, with the deck stepped down to provide accommodation at the stern), plus two pairs of smaller gunports on the forecastle and four pairs on the quarterdeck, thereby able to accommodate 32 guns in all, although the last pair of ports on the quarterdeck were not initially assigned any guns, so the assigned total was 30 guns with a complement of 120 officers and men. Interestingly, the bow on the draught shows a beak typical of Tudor galleons and early Stuart warships, rather than the inclined bowsprit which emerged in the 1640s. The draught gives dimensions of 96 ft in keel length and 32 ft in breadth, for a burthen tonnage of 347 tons, although the completed ships had lesser dimensions The ''Expedition'' was launched just 98 days later on 20 March 1637 (the ''Providence'' followed on the next day) and classed as a Fourth Rate (frigate). Her initial dimensions were given as 90 ft keel length and 26 ft in breadth, for a burthen tonnage of 323 tons. A portrait of the ship by

Willem van de Velde the Elder Willem van de Velde the Elder (1610/11 – 13 December 1693) was a Dutch Golden Age seascape painter, who produced many precise drawings of ships and ink paintings of fleets, but later learned to use oil paints like his son. Biography Wi ...

in the early 1660s showed significant changes in the appearance of the ''Expedition''. The ship had been girdled (adding extra layers of timbers along both sides) during the Commonwealth era to improve her stability (the precise date is unrecorded), increasing the beam to , and the oarports had disappeared. The builder's measurement was now 357 tons, and the keel:beam ration had thus fallen from 3.46:1 to 3.29:1, although this ration is still closely comparable to the Fourth Rate frigates of the later 1640s like the ''Constant Warwick''. The main battery of 20 guns (comprising a mixture of

culverin A culverin was initially an ancestor of the hand-held arquebus, but the term was later used to describe a type of medieval and Renaissance cannon. The word is derived from the antiquated "culuering" and the French (from " grass snake", follo ...

sThe culverin was a gun of 4,500 pounds with a 5.5-inch bore firing a 17.5-pound shot with a twelve-pound powder charge. and demi-culverins)The demi-culverin was a gun of 3,400 pounds with a four-inch bore firing a 9.5-pound shot with an eight-pound powder charge. were now on the lower deck, while the forecastle and quarterdeck have now been joined to form a continuous upper deck armed with six pairs of sakers,The sacar or saker was a gun of 1,400 pounds with a 3.5-inch bore firing a 5.5-pound shot with a 5.5-pound powder charge. although the waist portion still lacked any ports for guns. Her manning of 120 officers and men in 1652 was raised to 140 in 1653. Under the 1666 establishment her gun armament consisted of seven culverins and thirteen demi-culverines on the lower deck, with six 6-pounder guns,The 6-pounder was a captured Dutch weapon adopted to replace the saker. and ten sakers on the upper deck, plus two 3-poundersThe 3-pounder was a captured Dutch weapon used as a stop gap in place of the minion or 4-pounder when supplies were low. on the poop deck.

Commissioned service

Service in the English Navy Royal

She was commissioned in the Spring of 1637 under Captain George White and took part (with the ''Providence'' as well as the ''Leopard'' and ''Antelope'') in a successful naval expedition led by Vice-Admiral

William Rainsborough Captain William Rainsborough, usually spelt Rainsborowe (11 June 1587 – 16 February 1642), was an English Captain and Vice-Admiral in the Royal Navy, English ambassador to Morocco and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1 ...

against the

Barbary corsairs The Barbary corsairs, Barbary pirates, Ottoman corsairs, or naval mujahideen (in Muslim sources) were mainly Muslim corsairs and privateers who operated from the largely independent Barbary states. This area was known in Europe as the Barba ...

Salé Salé (, ) is a city in northwestern Morocco, on the right bank of the Bou Regreg river, opposite the national capital Rabat, for which it serves as a commuter town. Along with some smaller nearby towns, Rabat and Salé form together a single m ...

in North West

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

in June 1637. She recommissioned in 1638 under the command of Captain Robert Slingsby who held command into 1639. In 1640 she came under the command of Captain Richard Seaman who held command until 1641.

Service during English Civil War and Commonwealth Navy

In 1642 she was commissioned into the Parliamentary Naval Forces under the command of Captain Baldwin (or Isaac) Wake for service in the English Channel. In 1643 Captain Brooks then later in the year Captain Joseph Jordan for service in Irish Waters until 1646. During the winter of 1646–1647 she was under the command of Sir George Ayscue for service with the Winter Guard. For 1647-48 She was again under Captain Jordan with the Western Guard and in the Irish Sea. In 1650 she was under the command of Captain Abraham Wheeler at the blockade of Lisbon, Portugal. In 1651 she was under the command of Captain Thomas Vallis.

The First Anglo-Dutch War

Expedition was a member of Robert Blake's Fleet at the

from 18 to 20 February 1653. She was present at the

as a member of White Squadron Van Division from s to 3 June 1653. She followed this with the

near Texel on 31 July 1653. She was a member of White Squadron, Van Division. She was at Chatham during the winter of 1653–54. During 1656 thru 1659 she was under the command of Captain Edward Thompson for operations in the Sound.

Service after the Restoration

From 21 November to 2 January 1665 she was under the command of Captain Valentine Piend. From 31 January to 27 February 1665 she was under the command of Captain Captain James Ableson.

Second Anglo-Dutch War

With the start of the Second Anglo-Dutch War Captain Tobias Sackler took command on 10 March 1665 until his death on 30 July 1666. As a member of White Squadron, Van Division, she participated in the

on 3 June 1665. She was part of Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Teddiman's Squadron in the

Battle of Vagen A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force c ...

(at Bergen, Norway). Unfortunately she was unable to enter the harbour and therefore was not engaged in the battle. At the

, she arrived as a member of Van Division in Prince Rupert's Squadron on 4 June 1666 suffering two killed and three wounded. She was also involved in the

St James Day Battle The St James' Day Battle took place on 25 July 1666 (4 August 1666 in the Gregorian calendar), during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. It was fought between an English fleet commanded jointly by Prince Rupert of the Rhine and George Monck, and a ...

as a member of White Squadron, Van Division on 25 July 1666. Captain Denjamin Simmonds took over command on 31 July 1666 after the death of Captain Sackler. Captain Simmonds was followed by Captain John Turner on 6 September 1666 until 19 October 1666. On 27 February 1667, Captain Turner took command again until 23 May.

Disposition

''Expedition'' was converted to a fireship in June 1667, then sold in October 1667.Winfield 8

Notes

Citations

References

* British Warships in the Age of Sail (1603 – 1714), by Rif Winfield, published by Seaforth Publishing, England © Rif Winfield 2009, EPUB # Fleet Actions, 1.5 Battle of Portland # Fleet Actions, 1.7 Battle of the Gabbard # Fleet Actions, 1.8 Battle of Scheveningen # Fleet Actions, 3.1 Battle of Lowestoft # Fleet Actions, 3.2 Battle of Vagen (Bergen, Norway) # Fleet Actions, 3.3 Battle of the Galloper Sand (the Four Days' Battle) # Fleet actions, 3.4 Battle of Orfordness (the St James Day Battle) # Chapter 4, The Fourth Rates - 'Small Ships', Vessels Acquired from 24 March 1603, 1637 Group, Expedition * Ships of the Royal Navy, by J.J. Colledge, revised and updated by Lt-Cdr Ben Warlow and Steve Bush, published by Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley, Great Britain, © the estate of J.J. Colledge, Ben Warlow and Steve Bush 2020, EPUB , Section E (Expedition) * The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War 1600 – 1815, by Brian Lavery, published by US Naval Institute Press © Brian Lavery 1989, , Part V Guns, Type of Guns {{DEFAULTSORT:Expedition (1637) Ships of the Royal Navy 1630s ships Ships of the English navy