HMS Boston (1762)

History
Great Britain
Name:	HMS Boston
Ordered:	24 March 1761
Builder:	Robert Inwood, Rotherhithe
Laid down:	5 May 1761
Launched:	11 May 1762
Completed:	16 July 1762 at Deptford Dockyard
Commissioned:	May 1762
Fate:	Taken to pieces at Plymouth, May 1811
General characteristics
Class & type:	Richmond-class fifth-rate frigate
Tons burthen:	676 ^67⁄94 bm
Length:	127 ft 5 in (38.84 m) (gundeck) 107 ft 8 in (32.82 m) (keel)
Beam:	34 ft 4 ^1⁄2 in (10.478 m)
Depth of hold:	12 ft 0 ^1⁄2 in (3.670 m)
Sail plan:	Full-rigged ship
Complement:	210 officers and men
Armament:	Upperdeck: 26 × 12-pounder guns QD: 4 × 6-pounder guns Fc 2 × 6-pounder chase guns

HMS Boston was a 32-gun Richmond-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1762. She served during the American Revolutionary War and the French Revolutionary War, and was broken up in 1811.

On 16 April 1797, Boston was 18 leagues NNE of Cape Finisterre when after a six-hour chase she captured the French privateer Enfant de la Patrie, of 16 guns and 130 men. Enfant de la Patrie was eight days out of Bordeaux but had not taken anything. The captain of the privateer was drunk, and so decided to resist, firing his guns, small arms, and running his vessel into Boston. His rashness resulted in five of his crew being killed, ten wounded, and he himself drowning.^[1]

Citations and references

Citations

1. The London Gazette: no. 14010. p. 447. 16 May 1797.

References

• Robert Gardiner, The First Frigates, Conway Maritime Press, London 1992. ISBN 0-85177-601-9.
• David Lyon, The Sailing Navy List, Conway Maritime Press, London 1993. ISBN 0-85177-617-5.
• Winfield, Rif (2007). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1714–17927: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 978-1844157006.