HMS ''America'' was a 64-gun

third-rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy, a third rate was a ship of the line which from the 1720s mounted between 64 and 80 guns, typically built with two gun decks (thus the related term two-decker). Rating When the rating system was f ...

ship of the line A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactics in the Age of Sail, naval tactic known as the line of battl ...

of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

, designed by John Williams and built by

Adam Hayes Adam Hayes (1710–1785) was an 18th-century shipbuilder to the Royal Navy. A great number of his models survive. He was responsible for the selection of the ship the ''Earl of Pembroke'' and was the wright who converted it into in 1768 fo ...

Deptford Dockyard Deptford Dockyard was an important Royal Navy Dockyard, naval dockyard and base at Deptford on the River Thames, operated by the Royal Navy from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It built and maintained warships for 350 years, and man ...

and was launched on 5 August 1777. The name was a traditional name in the

and continued unabated despite the

American War of Independence The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

in 1776.

Service history

Her first commander was

Lord Longford Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford (5 December 1905 – 3 August 2001), known to his family as Frank Longford and styled Lord Pakenham from 1945 to 1961, was a British politician and social reformer. A member of the Labour Party, ...

, who took ''America'' into the Battle of Ushant as part of the Rear Squadron. ''America'' took part in the

Battle of the Chesapeake The Battle of the Chesapeake, also known as the Battle of the Virginia Capes or simply the Battle of the Capes, was a crucial naval battle in the American Revolutionary War that took place near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay on 5 September 1 ...

on 5 September 1781, and on 12 April 1782 saw action under command of Captain Thompson in the white squadron as part of the

Battle of the Saintes The Battle of the Saintes (known to the French as the Bataille de la Dominique), also known as the Battle of Dominica, was an important naval battle in the Caribbean between the British and the French that took place 9–12 April 1782. The Brit ...

against a French fleet. In 1795 ''America'' was part of the British fleet at the

Battle of Muizenberg The invasion of the Cape Colony, also known as the Battle of Muizenberg (), was a British military expedition launched in 1795 against the Dutch Cape Colony at the Cape of Good Hope. The Dutch colony at the Cape, established and controlled by t ...

. In 1800, the ship was dispatched by Admiral Sir William Parker to sail eastwards. ''America'' was under way off the

Azores The Azores ( , , ; , ), officially the Autonomous Region of the Azores (), is one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal (along with Madeira). It is an archipelago composed of nine volcanic islands in the Macaronesia region of the North Atl ...

on 13 December 1800 when she ran against the Formigas Reef and suffered severe damage to her hull. With some difficulty she was refloated with the tide and returned to harbour. On 27 December ''America''s captain and senior officers were court martialled aboard , which was anchored off Port Royal, Jamaica. All were acquitted when the court established that the grounding had been caused by errors in the ship's charts, upon which the reef was marked as being substantially to the south of its actual location.Grocott 1997, p. 103 Admiral Parker was also acquitted in a court martial for having given her orders to leave his area of responsibility in the Americas. Following the grounding, ''America'' was withdrawn from active service and in 1801 was redesignated as a

prison ship A prison ship, is a current or former seagoing vessel that has been modified to become a place of substantive detention for convicts, prisoner of war, prisoners of war or civilian internees. Some prison ships were hulk (ship type), hulked. W ...

moored off

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

. In 1804 she was loaned to the Transport Board (implying she was still sea-worthy). She was decommissioned and broken up in 1807.

Notable commanders

1777 to 1779 * James Macnamara 1790 * John Blankett 1794 to 1796 * Edward Buller 1796/7 *

Joseph Bingham Joseph Bingham (September 1668 – 17 August 1723) was an English scholar and divine, who wrote on ecclesiastical history. Life He was born at Wakefield in Yorkshire. He was educated at Wakefield Grammar School and University College, Ox ...

1800

Notes

References

* * Ships of the line of the Royal Navy Intrepid-class ships of the line 1777 ships Ships built in England Maritime incidents in 1800 Shipwrecks of the Azores {{UK-line-ship-stub