HMS Glasgow (1757)
| Career (Great Britain) |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | HMS Glasgow |
| Ordered: | 13 April 1756 |
| Builder: | John Reed, Hull |
| Laid down: | 5 June 1756 |
| Launched: | 31 August 1757 |
| Commissioned: | March 1757 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | 20-gun Sixth rate |
| Tons burthen: | 451.3 long tons (458.5 t) |
| Length: | 109 ft 4 in (33.3 m) (gundeck) 91 ft 2 1⁄2 in (27.8 m) (keel) |
| Beam: | 30 ft 6 in (9.3 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 9 ft 7 1⁄2 in (2.9 m) |
| Complement: | 160 officers and men |
| Armament: | 20 × 9-pounder guns |
HMS Glasgow was a 20-gun sixth-rate post ship of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1757 and took part in the American Revolutionary War. She is most famous for her encounter with the maiden voyage of the Continental Navy off Block Island on 6 April 1776.
Captain Tyringham Howe, sailed into the midst of an American squadron under the command of Commodore Esek Hopkins, and composed of the Alfred, 24, Columbus, 20, Andrea Doria, 14, Cabot, 14, and Providence, 12. The British vessel engaged for over two hours with this very superior force, but succeeded in escaping, as the Americans were afraid that the noise of the firing would bring to the rescue a British squadron, which was lying at Newport. The Glasgow lost one killed and three wounded; the Americans, twenty-three or twenty-four killed and wounded.
She later chased two large Continental frigates in the Caribbean before she was accidentally burned in Montego Bay, Jamaica in 1779.[1]
References
- Rif Winfield, British Warships in the Age of Sail 1714-1792: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing, 2007. ISBN 978-1-84415-700-6.
- Wm. Laid Clowes, The Royal Navy, A History from the Earliest Times to the Present, Sampson, Marston and Company Ltd, London 1899.