HMS Roebuck (1690)

Arrival of Roebuck in Shark Bay, from a painting by John Charles Allcot (1925)
History
Name:	HMS Roebuck
Builder:	Snellgrove
Launched:	17 April 1690
Fate:	Sank, February 1701
General characteristics
Class and type:	Fifth-rate
Tons burthen:	292 tons bm
Length:	96 ft (29 m)
Beam:	25 ft 6 in (7.77 m)
Armament:	26 guns
Service record
Commanders:	William Dampier

HMSRoebuck was a fifth-rate warship in the Royal Navy which, under the command of William Dampier, carried the first English scientific expedition to Australia in 1699. The wreck of the ship has since been located by a team from the Western Australian Maritime Museum at a site on the coast of Ascension Island where it foundered more than 300 years ago.

Roebuck was built by Snellgrove at Wapping, East London, and launched on 17 April 1690 during the reign of William and Mary as one of 12 purpose-built fireships. It carried 8 guns, was 292 tons (builder's measure), 96 ft (29 m) long, and 25.5 ft (8 m) wide. In June 1690 Roebuck was present at the Battle of Beachy Head.

Around 1695 the ship was upgraded and listed as a 26-gun fifth-rate. Though plans and models of similar ships survive, being a relatively lowly vessel at its time of construction, no contemporary plans of Roebuck itself have been found. This lack of detail has resulted in considerable disagreement until recently about the vessel's appearance. As a result, only notional images have appeared in artwork and on postage stamps.

After a period of relative obscurity, Roebuck was placed under the command of William Dampier in July 1698. This anomalous appointment of a former buccaneer to the command of one of King William's ships is explained by Dampier’s growing reputation as he travelled widely and exhibited the famous tattooed Prince Jeoly and his mother. Purchased during his first circumnavigation, they had been described in a broadsheet from 1691–1692 as a "just wonder of the age". This popularity translated into greater recognition among academics, seafarers, politicians and royalty following publication of his remarkable travelogue, A New Voyage Round the World, in 1697.