Black Prince-class ship of the line

HMS Melville
Class overview
NameBlack Prince
Operators Royal Navy
Preceded byVengeur class
In service24 February 1815 - 1940
Completed4
General characteristics
TypeShip of the line
Length
  • 176 ft (54 m) (gundeck)
  • 144 ft 9+78 in (44.142 m) (keel)
Beam47 ft 6 in (14.48 m)
PropulsionSails
Armament
  • 74 guns:
  • Gundeck: 28 × 32-pounders
  • Upper gundeck: 28 × 18-pounders
  • Quarterdeck: 4 × 12-pounders, 10 × 32-pounder carronades
  • Forecastle: 2 × 12-pounders, 2 × 32-pounder carronades
  • Poop deck: 6 × 18-pounder carronades

The Black Prince-class ships of the line were a class of four 74-gun third rates built for the Royal Navy in the closing years of the Napoleonic War. The draught for this class of ship was essentially a reduced version of the captured Danish ship Christian VII.

Wellesley, while ordered to be built to this design and always officially so classified, was actually built to the design of and used the moulds of Cornwallis, a Vengeur/Armada-class ship previously built at Bombay; this was because the set of plans sent from the Navy Board and intended for the construction of Wellesley were lost en route to India when the ship carrying them was captured and burnt by the Americans. Wellesley later gained the distinction in 1940 of being the only ship of the line to be sunk by air attack.

Hawke was converted to screw propulsion in the 1850s when adapted as a 60-gun "blockship".