Independence adapts the transatlantic 74-gun design tradition

The French 74 supplied the starting point, while British practice widened and provisioned the type for long global deployments. The British interpretation traded some peak speed for stability, stores, and the ability to arrive ready to fight after an ocean passage. Copper sheathing could quickly erase the French type's clean-hull speed advantage during service. The published tonnage is treated as tons burthen, the usual period convention for discussing a sailing warship's size, while a source debate over the measurement remains acknowledged. Independence carried that design lineage into American construction with strong hull lines and a capable full rig. She was an American interpretation of a British adaptation rather than an isolated national invention. The attractive story about using trees previously marked by Admiralty surveyors remains explicitly unverified.