HMS Magnificent (1767)

Career (UK)
Name:	HMS Magnificent
Ordered:	16 December 1761
Builder:	Deptford Dockyard
Laid down:	15 April 1762
Launched:	20 September 1767
Commissioned:	July 1778
Honours and awards:	Participated in: Battle of Grenada Battle of Martinique Battle of the Saintes
Fate:	Wrecked off Brest, 25 March 1804
General characteristics
Class and type:	Ramillies-class ship of the line
Tons burthen:	1612 tons (1637.9 tonnes)
Length:	168 ft 6 in (51.36 m) (gundeck)
Beam:	46 ft 9 in (14.25 m)
Depth of hold:	19 ft 9 in (6.02 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Armament:	74 guns: Gundeck: 28 × 32 pdrs Upper gundeck: 28 × 18 pdrs Quarterdeck: 14 × 9 pdrs Forecastle: 4 × 9 pdrs

For other ships of the same name, see HMS Magnificent.

HMS Magnificent was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 20 July 1767 at Deptford Dockyard. She was one of the Ramillies-class built to update the Navy and replace ships lost following the Seven Years' War. She served through two wars before her loss during blockade duty off the French coast.^{[citation needed]}

On 21 December 1779, HMS Magnificent with the 74-gun ships HMS Suffolk and HMS Vengeance, and the 64-gun HMS Stirling Castle under Rear-Admiral Joshua Rowley, fell in with the 32-gun French frigates Fortunee and Blanche and the 28-gun Elise, when off Guadeloupe. The French ships were in bad order; their crews were excessively weak; and thus they could not escape the vastly superior British force. The Blanche was overtaken and captured on the evening of the 21st; the Fortunes, by throwing her quarter-deck guns overboard, kept away a little longer, but was captured at last in the early morning of 22 December, an hour before the Elise.

Her war service in the American War of Independence was conducted with Rodney's fleet in the Caribbean, where she served in the battles off Grenada in 1779, Martinique in 1780 and the Saintes in 1782. Her duties during the Napoleonic Wars mainly consisted of blockade duties off the French coast, but between 1798 and 1800, the ship had received a complete overhaul designed to extend her service life and improve her ability at performing the close blockade.^{[citation needed]}

On the morning of the 25 March 1804, during her duties blockading the French port of Brest, she struck an uncharted reef close to the Black Rocks that bordered the port and rapidly began to founder. The remaining ships of the blockading squadron closed in and removed most of the crew, the remainder of whom took to boats as the ship sank at 10.30am, just an hour and a half after she struck the reef. Although all her crew survived, a boat carrying 86 men became diverted from the main group and was washed ashore on the French coast, where the men remained in captivity for ten years. The captain, William Jervis, was later reported to have lost £1500 in lost property on board the wreck.^{[citation needed]}

References

• Grocott, Terence, Shipwrecks of the Revolutionary & Napoleonic Eras, Caxton Editions, Great Britain: 2002. ISBN 1-84067-164-5.
• Lavery, Brian (2003) The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8.
• Lyon, David (1993) The Sailing Navy List. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-617-5.

Royal Navy History