HMS Dublin was a 74 gun third rate ship of the line built by the Royal Dockyard at Deptford.
She was the lead vessel in a class of 7 and represented the first serious attempt by the Royal Navy to build something to match the (at the time) far superior 74 gun ships the French had been building since the 1730's. Of the seven Dublin Class ships, six were built in Kent shipyards.
In the first half of the 18th century, the Royal Navy was under the control of two organisations. The Navy Board was responsible for the design and construction of warships, the organisation of the Dockyards and, most importantly, the budget. The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty was responsible for the day-to-day operations and deployment of the fleet. The two organisations were often at loggerheads, particularly when it came to the design and ordering of ships.
The Navy Board was, in that time, controlled by conservative men, resistant to change, even when tactical considerations demanded it. They were in favour of standardisation of ship design and for that reason, issued what were called Establishments". An Establishment was a set of detailed specifications within which the Master Shipwright at the building yard was expected to design and build a vessel. The Establishment for the Third Rate ship of the line, forming the backbone of the fleet, called for two types of ship - a ship of 70 guns on two gundecks and a ship of 80 guns with three. Experience during the War of Jenkins Ear, part of the greater War of Austrian Succession (1739 - 1748) had shown that the 70 gun ship was too lightly armed and the 80 gun ship was too cumbersome and only two were ever built. British naval successes in those wars came about as a result of more aggressive tactics and superior weight of numbers. In the 1730's the French had started to build 74 gun two-deckers, which were significantly faster, more manoeuvrable and better armed than the equivalent British ships.
On 14th May 1747, at the First Battle of Cape Finisterre, the British managed to capture one of the finest French 74 gun ships, L'Invincible. On being taken into the Royal Navy, she was found to be significantly superior to any ship of the line in British service. In ideal sailing conditions, the now HMS Invincible could manage up to 16 knots, three knots faster than the best of the 70 gun 3rd rates in service with the Royal Navy at the time. In those conditions, her lee (or downwind) lower deck gunports remained above water. The British 70 gun ships on the other hand, couldn't open the lee lower deck gunports in the same conditions for fear of sinking the ship. The Admiralty realised that they needed a comparable ship and began to pressure the Navy Board to order them. The Navy Board continued to resist change and ordered more 70 gun ships instead. The new ships carried fewer heavy guns and although officially rated as 70 gunners, they actually only carried 68 guns and still had the same problems as before.
In 1755, the last of the old guard, Sir Joseph Allin, was taken ill and became
"disordered in his senses". Surveyors of the Navy worked in pairs, but Allin's collegue, Sir Jacob Ackworth had died in 1749 and had not been replaced. Allin's place as Surveyor of the Navy (Chief Designer) was taken by Thomas Slade, previously Master Shipwright at Chatham and subsequently at Deptford Royal Dockyards. In addition, William Bately was already Assistant Surveyor and was promoted to be Slade's co-Surveyor. On 7th August 1755, both men took up their posts. They were acutely aware of the shortcomings of the 1745 Establishment design for Third rates and were determined to do something about it. They needed to - and in a hurry too. The treaty which ended the War of Austrian Succession in 1748 had left a lot of issues outstanding and by 1755, fighting between British and French forces had already broken out in the Ohio Territory in America, although war had yet to be formally declared, it was only a matter of time before it would be. Three weeks after their appointment, the Navy Board was ordered by the Privvy Council to
"cause two ships each of 70 guns to be set up and built at Deptford". Slade very quickly produced a new design, based on the 1754 Amendment to the 1745 Establishment 70 gun ship. The new design however was 5 ft longer and over 100 tons heavier than the older design. The new ships were not 70 gun ships at all. They were, in fact, pierced for 74 guns, but for the next year or so, were still referred to as 70 gun ships.
HMS Dublin was the first of the new ships and was ordered from the Royal Dockyard at Deptford on Tuesday 25th August 1755. Her keel was laid on Tuesday 18th November 1755 and she was launched into the River Thames on Friday 6th May 1757. Her construction had been overseen by Adam Hayes, who had succeeded Thomas Slade as Master Shipwright in the Deptford Royal Dockyard. While the ship had been on the stocks at Deptford, on 18th May 1756, the threatened war was formally declared and is known today as the Seven Years War. After her launch, she was fitted with her guns, masts and rigging and was declared complete on Friday 1st July 1757.
HMS Dublin was a ship of 1,561 tons. She was 165ft 3in long on her upper gundeck and was 46ft 9in wide across her beam. She was armed with 28 32pdr long guns on the lower gundeck, 28 18pdr long guns on her upper gundeck, 14 9pdr long guns on her quarterdeck and four more such guns on her forecastle. She was manned by a total of 550 officers, men, boys and marines. By the time she was complete, HMS Dublin had cost £36,890,3s,1d.
Dublin Class PlansOrlop Deck plan:
Upper and lower gundeck plans:
Forecastle and quarterdeck plans:
Inboard profile and plan:
Sheer plan and lines:
An unknown Dublin Class ship at sea painted by Charles Brooking. The small vessel stern-on in the foreground to the left is ketch rigged and is more than likely a Bomb Vessel. The ship in the background slightly left of centre may also be a ship of the line, but could equally be an East Indiaman.
In April 1757 whilst approaching completion on the slipway, HMS Dublin received her first commander, Captain George Brydges Rodney. HMS Dublin was to be his last command as Captain before he was promoted to Rear Admiral and his career really took off. His previous command had been the ex-French 74 gun ship HMS Monarque, taken by the Royal Navy at the Second Battle of Cape Finisterre on 14th October 1747.
HMS Dublin was not without her teething problems; on first taking his new ship to sea, Rodney was not entirely happy with her. He complained that the ship was expected to carry too much ballast and that her rudder was too big. The first problem was quickly fixed, Rodney ordered that some of the ballast be dumped overboard while the ship was at sea and nobody from the Dockyard was able to see them do it. The second problem was also fixed when a new rudder was fitted to the ship. Once those problems had been dealt with, Rodney had no further complaints.
On Thursday 16th March 1758, Captain Rodney took his ship to join in the action in North America. The Government of William Pitt the Elder was pursuing a successful policy of preventing the French from engaging the British in home waters by attacking them in their colonies and overseas possessions and forcing the French to defend them. Captain Rodney and his ship and crew were intended to play a part in this. On 21st March, HMS Dublin captured the French privateer Montmartel. After arrival at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Captain Rodney and his ship joined a massive fleet being assembled in order to lay seige to and capture the fortress and town of Louisbourg from the French. This was necessary in order to open the way for the capture of Quebec, which would in turn, force the French to give up the whole of Canada. The whole of May 1758 was spent training with the fleet and on 29th May, the fleet, comprising 40 warships, 150 transport ships containing 14,000 troops and all their equipment left Halifax. The French had planned to defend Louisbourg with a large naval force, but this had been blockaded in Cartagena by the Royal Navy and a relief force sent to break the blockade had been defeated at the Battle of Cartagena on 28th February. This had forced the French to abandon any plans to reinforce Louisbourg from Europe. The vast British armada arrived off Louisbourg on 2nd June but was unable to launch the assault until the 8th due to the weather. By 19th June, the British had established heavy artillery batteries around the fortress and opened fire on the French. The assault continued for weeks. On 21st July, a mortar round struck the French 74 gun ship L'Entreprenant and set her on fire. The stiff breeze then blowing spread the fire to two ships moored near L'Entreprenant, Celebre (64) and Le Capricieux (64), which also caught fire. In the end, L'Entreprenant blew up and the other two ships burned to the waterline. On 23rd July, a heated shot from the British guns hit the Kings Bastion and set it on fire; it burned to the ground. The Kings Bastion at Louisbourg was at the time, the largest building in North America. The final straw for the French came on 25th July, when Admiral Boscawen, commanding the naval force, ordered a cutting out raid to be launched using all the boats from the assembled British warships, including those from HMS Dublin. The British raid succeeded in capturing the French 64 gun ship Bienfaisant and burning the 74 gun ship Prudente.
The capture of the Bienfaisant and the burning of the Prudente during the seige of Louisbourg on 25th July 1758.
These two ships were the remaining two French ships of the line in the harbour and their removal opened the way for the British to enter the harbour, which they did later that day, having been guided in by the Sailing Master of HMS Pembroke (60), Mr James Cook. The French garrison at Louisbourg surrendered the following day.
The fall of Louisbourg opened the way for the British conquest of French Canada which proceeded for the next year or so. HMS Dublin was one of the fleet of ships which passed up the St Lawrence River transporting General Wolfe and his army, but took no part in the actual battle in which the Westerham-born General Wolfe was killed. In the meantime, Captain Rodney was replaced in command of the ship in January 1759 by Captain William Goostrey and at the same time, she became flagship to Rear-Admiral Charles Holmes. He remained in command until February 1760 when Rear-Admiral Holmes left the ship and he was replaced in command by Captain Edward Gascoigne. HMS Dublin was his first appointment as Captain, his previous position had been as Master and Commander in the 18 gun ship-sloop HMS Beaver.
On 26th March 1760, HMS Dublin departed Quebec and sailed for the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean. The reason was that with the French now kicked out of Canada, the Prime Minister, William Pitt the Elder had decided to continue the strategy of taking the war to the enemy in their overseas possessions by taking France's Carribbean colonies. On 1st August 1760, she captured the French privateer La Charlotte and on 23rd the privateer L'Intrepide was captured. While HMS Dublin had been involved in operations in Canada, the British under Lord Amherst had attacked and captured Guadeloupe. The next target in this campaign was to be the French colony at Dominica. On 4th June 1761, HMS Dublin was one of four ships of theline, together with two frigates under Commodore James Douglas which transported a force comprising a detachment of 300 men from Guadeloupe, 400 Highlanders, the 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment of Foot and the 94th (Vaughans) Regiment of Foot to Dominica. The soldiers were under the command of Brigadier-General Andrew, the Lord Rollo. They arrived on 6th June and immediately landed at Roseau, the main town, where they immediately attacked the defences. The French defenders were rapidly driven out and their commanders taken prisoner. The island surrendered to Lord Rollo shortly afterward.
The next target in the British Island Hopping campaign in the Carribean was Martinique. Any British attack on Martinique would be far more difficult. The French had worked out that it was to be the next target and consequently, reinforced the defences. Furthermore, the terrain is mountainous, making it easier to defend. The French defenders comprised 1,700 regular troops, 7,000 local militia and another 4,000 hired mercenaries. The British spent the rest of 1761 gathering their forces in Carlisle Bay, Barbados and HMS Dublin's former commander, now Rear-Admiral Rodney arrived to take command of the naval force tasked with transporting the troops to the island. On 24th December 1761, General Robert Monkton arrived in Carlisle Bay with the main British Army from North America, which comprised of eleven regiments. A further four regiments came from Belle isle, Newfoundland. These were bolstered by a regiment sent from Antigua and a regiment raised locally in Barbados. The whole force was placed under the command of General Monkton and departed Barbados on 5th January 1762. They arrived off Martinique two days later and landed at Case Navire on 16th, to the north of Negro Point which forms the northern headland of the harbour at Fort Royal, the capital. By the 24th, the heavy gun batteries had been set up and the attack began. After a hard-fought seige, Fort Royal surrendered on 3rd February and by 12th, the rest of the island was under British control. Over the course of the next month, General Monkton sent troops to St Lucia, Grenada and St Vincent, all of which surrendered without a fight. In the meantime, in February, Commodore Douglas transferred his command flag to HMS Dublin and she became his flagship for the rest of the war.
Following the capture of Martinique, General Monkton began to make preparations for the invasion of Tobago, but was overruled by the Government who ordered that his troops, numbering some 8,000, were required for an amphibious assault on the Spanish possession of Havana, Cuba. This operation had been in the planning since Spain had joined in the war on the French side in December 1761. On 5th March 1762, a force of seven ships of the line, 54 transport ships and 4,300 men departed from the UK and arrived at Barbados on 20th April. On 25th April, they picked up General Monkton's force of 8,000 men from Fort Royal. By 23rd May, the invasion force comprised 24 ships of the line, 168 transport ships and nearly 13,000 soldiers. On 6th June, the British arrived at Havana and the following day, the army was landed. The Battle of Havana raged until 13th August, with both sides taking heavy losses. The British had lost 2,764 soldiers killed, wounded or dead from disease. Three ships of the line had been lost in the naval actions fought in support of the seige. Spain had lost 3,800 dead, 2000 wounded plus 5,000 captured. Too add to the losses, the British had captured 13 ships of the line and the Spanish had scuttled three more. The British had captured the jewel in the crown of Spanish possessions in the Americas and the Caribbean. It was a huge blow to Spanish prestige. In the meantime, the power of the French Atlantic Fleet had been smashed in their defeat in the Battle of Quiberon Bay back in 1759 and this, coupled with the loss of Canada and possessions in the Caribbean had forced the French to the negotiating table. On 10th February 1763, the warring parties signed the Treaty of Paris and the war ended. In March 1763, HMS Dublin returned to Plymouth and was paid off into the Plymouth Ordinary.
The Seven Years War had been the first world war in the true sense of the phrase. Campaigns had been fought against the French and Spanish in waters from the Phillipines to the French Atlantic coast. A war on such a scale came with a huge cost which needed to be paid. In an effort to pay the huge debts run up during the war, the Government attempted to levy taxes on the American colonies which up to then had enjoyed a status similar to one of todays offshore tax havens.
In the meantime, on 4th November 1763, HMS Dublin was taken into the Royal Dockyard at Plymouth and was surveyed. This survey identified significant wear and tear as well as rot and other deficiencies in her hull and it was decided to have the ship undergo major repairs. The work didn't actually start until October 1765 and was completed two years later at a cost of £24,817,14s,4d. After her major refit, HMS Dublin remained in the Ordinary at Plymouth and underwent further repairs between February and November 1771. The unrest in the American Colonies had escalated from protests and incidents of civil disobedience like the Boston Tea Party in 1773 to open war by 1775. On 4th July 1776, the colonists formally declared themselves to be independant of the British Crown. From early 1776, the old enemy France saw an opportunity to use the growing conflict in America to regain possessions it had lost in the Seven Years War. They did this by secretly supplying the American rebels with arms, what would today be called Military Advisors and French warships operating under rebel colours as privateers. On 6th February 1778, France officially recognised the United States of America and formally signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance. This provoked the British into declaring war on France on March 17th. At last, for the French at least, the pretence could end and they could fight under their own colours. The war escalated further when the French sent an army under the Compte de Rochambeau and a naval fleet under the Compte D'Estaing to America to assist the rebels.
It was against this backgound of an escalating and spreading war that HMS Dublin was taken into the Royal Dockyard at Plymouth and from October 1779 to December, was fitted for sea. The ship commissioned into the Channel Fleet under Captain Samuel Wallis. The Channel Fleet was by now commanded by her former commander, now Vice-Admiral Sir George Rodney, who commanded the fleet from the 90-gun Second Rate ship of the line HMS Sandwich. On 8th January 1780, the Channel Fleet attacked and seized a Spanish convoy in it's entirety in what is known as The Attack on the Caracas Convoy. One of the Spanish warships captured, the 64 gun ship Guipuzcoana was renamed HMS Prince William on Rodney's orders, in honour of Prince William Henry (later King William IV) who participated in the action. Eight days after the Attack on the Caracas Convoy, HMS Dublin participated in the Battle of Cape St Vincent (1780) as part of Rodney's fleet. This battle was unusual because it took place at night and is sometimes known as The Moonlight Battle. It was the first outright victory for the British in a major, set-piece naval battle over their European enemies in the American War of Independance. The battle was also significant because it proved the benefits of the then new British practice of sheathing ships bottoms in copper. It was an overwhelming victory for the British, capturing six Spanish ships and destroying one out of a total Spanish fleet of 13 ships.
The Moonlight Battle of Cape St Vincent.
Three days after that, on 19th January 1780, HMS Dublin was still part of Rodney's Channel Fleet and took part in the First Relief of the Great Seige of Gibraltar. The Great Seige of Gibraltar lasted from 24th June 1779 and lasted until the end of the war in February 1783. It remains the longest seige ever endured by British forces. <br /><br /><br />By September 1782, command of the Channel Fleet had passed to Vice-Admiral Lord Howe, who was commanding the fleet from the 100 gun first rate ship HMS Victory. HMS Dublin had a new commander, Captain Archibald Dickson. She was assigned to the First Division of the Rear, commanded by Vice-Admiral Mark Milbanke in HMS Ocean (90). Howe had been ordered to force a convoy of 100 merchant ships through the Franco-Spanish blockade of Gibraltar. By a stroke of luck, a storm scattered the enemy fleet into the Mediterranean and the convoy made it into Gibraltar without a shot being fired. The same storm however, also forced the British fleet into the Mediterranean and the two fleets came into contact off Cape Spartel, in modern day Morocco. Howe was under orders to avoid a major action against the enemy once the convoy was safely in Gibraltar, but the enemy stood between him and the open Atlantic. The Franco-Spanish fleet had the advantage of having more larger ships in that no less than seven of their ships mounted 100 or more guns. This included the gigantic Spanish ship Santissima Trinidad, mounting 140 guns on 4 gundecks; the largest and most powerful ship in the world at the time. Howe, on the other hand, only had two ships mounting 100 guns, HMS Victory and HMS Britannia. The British ships had the advantage of having their bottoms coppered and this gave them a huge advantage in speed. At 17:45 on 20th October 1782, the enemy opened fire and the British returned fire. The two fleets didn't really get to grips with each other, with the British, in line with their orders, able to overhaul and overtake the Franco-Spanish fleet. HMS Dublin got off lightly in the battle, receiving no damage or casualties.<br /><br /><br />Peace negotiations had started in April 1782 and on 3rd September 1783, the war was officially ended by the Treaty of Paris. The war had been a disaster for the British. The American colonies had been lost and it was only HMS Dublin's former commander Sir George Rodney's victory at the Battle of the Saintes in April 1782 which had prevented them from being driven from the Caribbean as well. From the point at which peace negotiations started, the war at sea, at least in European and American waters began to wind down. HMS Dublin paid off at Plymouth in February 1783. The American War of Independence had seen a huge program of building new ships of the line which were markedly superior to HMS Dublin and her sister ships. By now obsolete and almost 30 years old, HMS Dublin was broken up at Plymouth during the early part of 1784, the process being completed on 13th May.
