HMS Sheerness (1743)

HMS Sheerness was a 24-gun sixth rate frigate of the Royal Navy launched in 1743. Commanded by Captain O'Brian, she served on patrol duties in the North Sea during the 1745 Jacobite Rising.

Sheerness
History
Great Britain
Name	HMS Sheerness
Ordered	7 January 1743
Builder	John Buxton, Snr, Rotherhithe
Laid down	24 January 1743
Launched	8 October 1743
Completed	By 19 November 1743
Fate	Sold on 26 July 1768
General characteristics
Class and type	24-gun sixth rate frigate
Tons burthen	508 69⁄94 bm
Length	112 ft (34 m) (gundeck) 92 ft 11 in (28.32 m) (keel)
Beam	32 ft 1 in (9.78 m)
Depth of hold	11 ft (3.4 m)
Sail plan	Full-rigged ship
Complement	140 (160 from 1745)
Armament	24 guns Upper deck: 20 × 9-pounder guns c. 1745 added: Lower deck: 2 × 9-pounder guns Quarterdeck: 2 × 3-pounder guns

In November 1745, she captured a French ship carrying supplies to Montrose, along with a number of Jacobite officers. They included Charles Radclyffe, de jure Earl of Derwentwater, who was executed at Tower Hill on 8 December 1746.[1]

In the Skirmish of Tongue on 26 March 1746, Sheerness chased the Jacobite Le Prince Charles, formerly HMS Hazard, into the Kyle of Tongue. Its crew disembarked, taking with them £13,000 in gold intended to help finance the Rising, but were intercepted and forced to surrender by government militia.[2]

In 1752, she was equipped with Hales ventilators, worked by a windmill.[3] During the Seven Years' War, she captured the French merchant-ship Auguste off Spain on 18 August 1756; sold to British merchants and renamed 'Augusta', it was wrecked carrying French passengers returning from Quebec to France in 1761.[4]

She was sold in 1768.