HMS Assurance (1780)

Assurance's sister ship HMS Argo
History
United Kingdom
Name	Assurance
Ordered	20 May 1778
Builder	Randall & Co, Rotherhithe
Cost	£20,922
Laid down	11 June 1778
Launched	20 April 1780
Completed	15 July 1780
Commissioned	April 1780
Fate	Broken up March 1815
General characteristics [1]
Class and type	Roebuck-class fifth-rate
Tons burthen	898 45⁄94 (bm)
Length	140 ft 4 in (42.8 m) (gundeck) 115 ft 11+1⁄2 in (35.3 m) (keel)
Beam	38 ft 2 in (11.6 m)
Draught	10 ft 3 in (3.1 m) (forward) 14 ft 9 in (4.5 m) (aft)
Depth of hold	16 ft 4+1⁄2 in (5.0 m)
Propulsion	Sails
Complement	280 (300 from 1783)
Armament	1780 Lower deck: 20 × 18-pounder guns Upper deck: 22 × 9-pounder guns Quarterdeck: Nil Forecastle: 2 × 6-pounder guns 1793 Lower deck: 22 × 24-pounder carronades Upper deck: 20 × 12-pounder guns Quarterdeck: 4 × 24-pounder carronades Forecastle: 2 × 24-pounder carronades 1796 Lower deck: Nil Upper deck: 16 × 9-pounder guns Quarterdeck: 4 × 6-pounder guns Forecastle: 2 × 6-pounder guns

HMS Assurance was a 44-gun fifth-rate Roebuck-class ship of the Royal Navy launched in 1780. Commissioned in the same year, the ship served throughout the remainder of the American Revolutionary War on the North America Station. Her service there included capturing the American privateer Rattlesnake on 17 June 1781 and coordinating the evacuation of Savannah, Georgia, in July 1782. Having briefly served as a troop ship during the subsequent peace, Assurance was recommissioned in 1793 for the French Revolutionary Wars. Operating in the West Indies, she served in Sir John Jervis' fleet that captured Martinique, St Lucia, and Guadeloupe in March and April 1794, also playing a part in the capture of the French frigate Bienvenue on 17 March.

Assurance was given over to the Transport Board for use as a troop ship in 1796. With a stripped down armament she served in this capacity at first in the Mediterranean Sea and then returned again to the West Indies. Part of a convoy sailing from Martinique in 1798, Assurance assisted in saving the crew of the storm-stricken store ship HMS Etrusco on 25 August. The ship was then in ordinary at Woolwich Dockyard, serving as a receiving ship, between 1799 and 1815 at which point she was broken up.