HMS Brunswick fighting the Achille and Vengeur du Peuple simultaneously
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History | |
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Great Britain | |
Name | HMS Brunswick |
Ordered | 7 January 1785 |
Builder | Deptford Dockyard |
Laid down | May 1786 |
Launched | 30 April 1790 |
Fate | Broken up, 1826 |
Notes |
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General characteristics [1] | |
Class and type | 74-gun third rate ship of the line |
Tons burthen | 1836 13⁄94 (bm) |
Length | 176 ft 2+1⁄2 in (53.7 m) (gundeck) |
Beam | 48 ft 9 in (14.9 m) |
Depth of hold | 19 ft 6 in (5.9 m) |
Propulsion | Sails |
Sail plan | Full-rigged ship |
Armament |
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HMS Brunswick was a 74-gun third rate ship-of-the-line of the Royal Navy, launched on 30 April 1790 at Deptford. She was first commissioned in the following month under Sir Hyde Parker for the Spanish Armament but was not called into action. When the Russian Armament was resolved without conflict in August 1791, Brunswick took up service as a guardship in Portsmouth Harbour. She joined Richard Howe's Channel Fleet at the outbreak of the French Revolutionary War and was present at the battle on Glorious First of June where she fought a hard action against the French 74-gun Vengeur du Peuple. Brunswick was in a small squadron under William Cornwallis that encountered a large French fleet in June 1795. The British ships successfully retreated into the Atlantic through a combination of good seamanship, good fortune and deceiving the enemy.
After a five-year spell in the West Indies, Brunswick returned home and was refitted at Portsmouth. In 1807, when Denmark was under threat from a French invasion, Brunswick was part of a task force, under overall command of James Gambier, sent to demand the surrender of the Danish fleet. When the Danes refused to comply, Brunswick joined in with an attack on the capital, Copenhagen. She returned to the Baltic some months later, following the Treaty of Tilsit and, while attached to Richard Goodwin Keats' squadron, she helped with the evacuation of 10,000 Spanish troops from the region. From 1812 Brunswick was on harbour service, and in 1826 she was broken up.