Fourth-rate
In the British
Royal Navy, a
fourth-rate was, during the
18th century, a
ship of the line mounting 50-60 guns . Though used largely during the
Seven Years' War, by the time of the
American Revolution and especially the
French Revolutionary and
Napoleonic Wars, the fourth rate was considered too weak to stand in the line of battle. The few that remained were relegated to convoy escort, or as flagships on far-flung stations; a number were also converted to troopships, armed only "
en flûte" (i.e., with most of the guns removed or stored below decks, to make more room for passengers or cargo).
Some fourth rates did remain in active service even during the
Napoleonic Wars, especially in the shallow
North Sea, where the
Royal Navy's main opponents were the Baltic powers and the
Dutch, whose own fleet consisted mainly of 50 and 64 gun ships. However,
HMS Leander, 50 guns, was with
Horatio Nelson at the
Battle of the Nile. As late as 1807, fourth rates were active in combat zones, illustrated by the fatal incident between
HMS Leopard (50 guns), and the US
frigate Chesapeake (38 guns), an incident which nearly led to war.
The US's 44-gun
frigates (such as
Constitution
,
United States and President) in operational use were never armed with fewer than 50 guns including
carronades, and were generally seen as equivalent to 4th rates. The larger British 24-pounder
frigates such as the later 1813
Leander and
Newcastle, of similar firepower to those big American 44s, which were launched (or
razée from existing smaller
3rd Rate 74-gun 2-deckers) during the last years of the
Napoleonic War and the
War of 1812 were in fact classed as 4th-rates in Royal Naval service under the revised rating system, and this convention continued into the 19th Century. Any of these later large 4th-Rate frigates threw a close-range broadside (including from their heavy
carronades) far superior to the earlier 2-decker 50s or even to
3rd Rate 64s.
* Rif Winfield,
The 50-Gun Ship (Chatham Publishing, 1997) ISBN 1-86176-025-6 - A first-rate reference for everything about British fourth-rates.
