HMS Ambuscade (1773)

Ambuscade fighting Bayonnaise, by Jean-François Hue
History
Great Britain
NameHMS Ambuscade
Ordered25 December 1770
BuilderAdams & Barnard, Deptford
Laid downApril 1771
Launched17 September 1773
CommissionedJanuary 1776
Captured14 December 1798
French Navy EnsignFrance
NameEmbuscade
Acquired14 December 1798
Captured28 May 1803
United Kingdom
NameHMS Ambuscade
Acquired28 May 1803
FateBroken up in 1810
General characteristics as built
Class and type32-gun fifth-rate Amazon-class frigate (1773) frigate
Length
  • 126 ft 3 in (38.48 m) (gundeck)
  • 104 ft 1 in (31.72 m) (keel)
Beam35 ft 1.75 in (10.7125 m)
Draught
  • 8 ft 4 in (2.54 m) (forwards)
  • 13 ft 0 in (3.96 m) (aft)
Depth of hold12 ft 2 in (3.71 m)
Sail planFull-rigged ship
Complement220
Armament
  • Upper deck: 26 × 12-pounder guns
  • QD: 4 × 6-pounder guns + 4 × 18-pounder carronades
  • Fc: 2 × 6-pounder guns + 2 × 18-pounder carronades
Model of Ambuscade, by Joseph Marshall

HMS Ambuscade was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, built in the Grove Street shipyard of Adams & Barnard at Deptford in 1773. The French captured her in 1798 but the British recaptured her in 1803. She was broken up in 1810.

The Adams shipyard from the Isle of Dogs, with His Majesty’s new frigate Ambuscade ‘on the stocks’, dressed with flags and ready for launching in September 1773, John Cleveley the Elder