Q&A ยท 4:02:40-4:06:49

What a British fourth rate looked like around 1815

Around 1815 a fourth rate was broadly a two-deck, fifty- to sixty-gun ship whose category overlapped with the largest frigates in other navies.

Question

What would a British fourth-rate ship of the line look like around 1815?

Short answer

Broadly a two-deck ship of fifty to sixty guns, already losing its place in the battle lines of the major navies.

Notes

A fourth rate around 1815 is described broadly as a ship of fifty to sixty guns. Such ships were approaching the role occupied by large frigates in some navies and no longer had a realistic place in the battle line of the major fleets. Smaller navies still found uses for them, with Sweden and the Baltic offered as an example. The Copenhagen digression concerns captured Danish ships, including 64-gun vessels that the British judged insufficiently useful to take home. The broad rating distinction still placed fourth and third rates on two gun decks, fifth and sixth rates on one, and first and second rates on three.