HMS Roebuck (1774)
Roebuck with Phoenix, Tartar and three smaller vessels passing forts Washington and Lee on the Hudson River
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| History | |
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 Great Britain; United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Roebuck |
| Ordered: | 30 November 1769 |
| Cost: | £18,911.0.6d |
| Laid down: | October 1770 |
| Launched: | 24 April 1774 |
| Completed: | 4 August 1775 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | fifth-rate |
| Tons burthen: | 879 26⁄94 (bm) |
| Length: |
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| Beam: | 37 feet 9 1⁄2 inches (11.5 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 16 feet 4 inches (5.0 m) |
| Propulsion: | Sails |
| Sail plan: | Fully-rigged ship |
| Complement: | 280–300 |
| Armament: |
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HMS Roebuck was a 44-gun, fifth-rate ship of the Royal Navy which served in the American and French Revolutionary Wars. Designed by Sir Thomas Slade in 1769, to operate in the shallower waters of North America, she joined Lord Howe's squadron towards the end of 1775 and took part in operations against New York the following year, engaging the American gun batteries at Red Hook during the Battle of Long Island in August 1776, and forcing a passage up the Hudson River in October. On 25 August 1777, Roebuck escorted troopships to Turkey Point, Maryland, where an army was landed for an assault on Philadelphia. She was again called upon to accompany troopships in December 1779; this time for an attack on Charleston. When the ships-of-the-line, which were too large to enter the harbour, were sent back to New York, Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot made Roebuck his flagship. She was therefore at the front of the attack; leading the British squadron across the bar to engage Fort Moultrie and the American ships beyond.
In October 1783, Roebuck underwent repairs at Sheerness and was refitted as hospital ship. She served in this capacity during the capture of Martinique, Guadeloupe and St Lucia by a British fleet under Vice-Admiral Sir John Jervis in 1794. Recommissioned as a troopship in July 1799, Roebuck was part of the fleet, under the command of Vice-Admiral Sir Andrew Mitchell, to which the Dutch surrendered in the Vlieter Incident, on 30 August. Following the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802, Roebuck was paid off and laid up in ordinary at Woolwich Dockyard. When hostilities resumed in May 1803, she was brought back into service as a guardship at Leith, flying the flags of Vice-Admiral Richard Rodney Bligh then Rear-Admiral James Vashon under whom she later transferred to Great Yarmouth. In March 1806, she became a receiving ship, and from some point in 1810, the flagship of Lord Gardner. Roebuck was broken up at Sheerness in July 1811.
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