HMS Boston (1762)

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Boston.

Boston
History
Royal Navy EnsignGreat Britain
NameHMS Boston
Ordered24 March 1761
BuilderRobert Inwood, Rotherhithe
Laid down5 May 1761
Launched11 May 1762
Completed16 July 1762 at Deptford Dockyard
CommissionedMay 1762
FateTaken to pieces at Plymouth, May 1811
General characteristics
Class and typeRichmond-class fifth-rate frigate
Tons burthen676 67⁄94 bm
Length
  • 127 ft 5 in (38.84 m) (gundeck)
  • 107 ft 8 in (32.82 m) (keel)
Beam34 ft 4+1⁄2 in (10.478 m)
Depth of hold12 ft 0+1⁄2 in (3.670 m)
Sail planFull-rigged ship
Complement210 officers and men
Armament
  • Upperdeck: 26 × 12-pounder guns
  • QD: 4 × 6-pounder guns
  • Fc 2 × 6-pounder chase guns
L'Embuscade severely damaged Boston in the Port of New York in 1793

HMS Boston was a 32-gun Richmond-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1762. She served during the American Revolutionary War and the French Revolutionary War, and was broken up in 1811.

On 16 April 1797, Boston was 18 leagues (87 km) north north east of Cape Finisterre when after a six-hour chase she captured the French privateer Enfant de la Patrie, of 16 guns and 130 men. Enfant de la Patrie was eight days out of Bordeaux but had not taken anything. The captain of the privateer was drunk, and so decided to resist, firing his guns, small arms, and running his vessel into Boston. His rashness resulted in five of his crew being killed, ten wounded, and he himself drowning.[1]

Sometime shortly before 19 January, 1803 she had her bowsprit replaced at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Norfolk, Virginia.[2]

  1. ^ "No. 14010". The London Gazette. 16 May 1797. p. 447.
  2. ^ Naval Documents related to the United States Wars with the Barbary Powers Volume II Part 2 of 3 January 1802 through August 1803 (PDF). U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 346. Retrieved 11 November 2024 – via Ibiblio.