''Providence'' 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, but was wrecked at

Tangier Tangier ( ; , , ) is a city in northwestern Morocco, on the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The city is the capital city, capital of the Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region, as well as the Tangier-Assilah Prefecture of Moroc ...

on 31 October 1667. The ''Providence'' was the first vessel to be given that name in the English and Royal Navies.

Construction and specifications

She was ordered on 12 December 1636 to be built under contract by Robert Tranckmore (a noted shipbuilder with a shipyard at

Shoreham-by-Sea Shoreham-by-Sea (often shortened to Shoreham) is a coastal town and port in the Adur District, Adur district, in the county of West Sussex, England. In 2011 it had a population of 20,547. The town is bordered to its north by the South Downs, to ...

Sussex Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...

) at St Savior's Dock at Bermondsey in London on the River Thames. A sistership (the ''Expedition'') was ordered on the same day from another shipbuilder (Matthew Graves) 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 ''Providence'' was launched just 99 days later on 21 March 1637 (one day after the ''Expedition'') 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 Younger Willem van de Velde the Younger (18 December 1633 (baptised)6 April 1707) was a Dutch marine painter, the son of Willem van de Velde the Elder, who also specialised in maritime art. His brother, Adriaen van de Velde, was a landscape painter. ...

in 1661 showed significant changes in the appearance of the ''Providence''. 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 six

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 fourteen 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; a seventh pair of sakers is fitted in the poop above the quarterdeck. Her manning of 120 officers and men in 1652 was raised to 140 in 1653.

Commissioned service

Service in the English Navy Royal

She was commissioned in 1637 under the command of Captain Edmund Seaman (or Symonds) who held command into 1639. She took part in June 1637 in a successful naval expedition led by

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 ...

(the "Sallee pirates") 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 1640 she came under the command of Captain Richard Hill 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 Strachan for service in the English Channel. In 1643 she was under command of Captain William Brooks then in 1644 Captain Thomas Plunkett (until suspended) for service in Irish Waters. Captain Plunkett was replaced by Captain John Ellison in 1644. From 1645 to 1647 she was under the command of John Stansby. For the winter of 1646–1647 she was with the Winter Guard. In the spring of 1647 she moved to the Downs. Later in summer or fall 1647 she was under Captain John Mildmay in the Irish Sea. She was assigned to Warwick's Fleet at the Downs in September 1648. Captain John Pearce took command in 1649. She was with Robert Blake's Fleet blockading Lisbon in October 1650. She remained with the Fleet when they moved to the Irish Sea in 1651.

Service in the First Anglo-Dutch War

She was temporarily under the command of Captain George Swanley in May 1652. She was part of Robert Blake's Fleet at the

between 18 and 20 February 1653. She was a member of Red Squadron, Van Division that engaged the Dutch at the

on 2–3 June 1653. On 31 July 1653 the fleets engaged again at the

near Texel. During the engagement she was a member of Red Squadron, Van Division. In all three battles she was listed at 33 guns, probably indicating that one of her 34 nominal guns had been lost or rendered unusable. In 1654 she was under command of Captain Thomas Bunn followed by Captain Robert Kirby in 1655. Later in 1656 she was under command of Captain John Littlejohn with Robert Blake's Fleet. In 1658 she was under Captain John Pointz followed by Captain Giles Shelley in 1660, both for service off the coast of Scotland.

Service after the Restoration

On 19 March she was under Captain John Tyrwitt until 2 April 1665.

Second Anglo-Dutch War

On 16 April Captain Richard James took command. She was at the

on 3 June 1665 as a member of Blue Squadron, Rear Division. The following year she was at the

again as a member of Blue Squadron though as a member of the Van Division from 1 to 4 June 1666. She suffered two killed and six wounded. This was followed by the St James Day Battle again as a member of Blue Squadron, Van Division on 25 July 1666. She was converted to a fireship in June 1667 and commissioned under Captain James Cooke on 10 June 1667. On 2 April she received a new commander, Captain Hugh Ridley.

Disposition

''Providence'' was wrecked at Tangier on 31 October 1668 while her captain (Hugh Ridley) was ashore.''Winfield 7''

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, 3.3 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, Providence * 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 P (Providence) * 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:Providence (1637) Ships of the Royal Navy 1600s ships Ships of the English navy