Princesa and Britain's first design response

The 74-gun design story begins with the Spanish Princesa, captured in 1740 after a six-hour chase by three British 70-gun ships. Although her nominal gun count matched her pursuers, she was longer, heavier, carried more powerful guns, and mounted them higher above the water. The Admiralty treated that superiority as a model worth copying. Its first response was the 100-gun first rate Royal George, built to related lines under the 1719 Establishment, rather than a British 74. The intermediate Princess Amelia and Blenheim carried the experiment into 80- and 90-gun three-deckers at Woolwich, with Sir Thomas Slade involved in their design. Learning from a captured ship first produced costlier escalation before a clearer requirement emerged.