HMS Tartar (1756)

HMS Tartar was a 28-gun sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy.

Naval career
Tartar was designed by Sir Thomas Slade and based on HMS Lyme (1748) of 1748, "with such alterations as may tend to the better stowing of men and carrying for guns."

The ship was first commissioned in March 1756 under Captain John Lockhart, and earned a reputation as a fast sailer during service in the English Channel. She made many captures of French ships during the Seven Years' War, including 4 in 1756 and 7 the following year.

During the peace that followed, the ship sailed to Barbados carrying a timekeeper built by John Harrison, as a part of a series of experiments used to determine longitude at sea. American Revolutionary War:On 9 October, 1776 she was in action on the Hudson River, with HMS Roebuck (1774) and HMS Phoenix (1759), forced her way upstream, whilst engaging, on either side, the two forts of Washington and Lee. The next day she, HMS Roebuck (1774), and HMS Phoenix (1759) captured the abandoned Connecticut Navy galley "Crane" in the Hudson River. She destroyed an American vessel off New Jersey 1 April 1777. and capturing the Spanish Santa Margarita of 28 guns off Cape Finisterre on 11 November 1779.

She went on to see further service during the French Revolutionary War. On 14 December the French frigate FRENCH FRIGATE Minerve captured off the island of Ivica the collier Hannibal, which was sailing from Liverpool to Naples. However, eleven days later, Tartar recaptured Hannibal off Toulon and sent her into Corsica. Tartar was part of the fleet under Lord Hood that occupied Toulon in August 1793. With HMS Courageux (1761), HMS Meleager (1785), HMS Egmont (1768) and Robust, she covered the landing, on 27 August, of 1500 troops sent to remove the republicans occupying the forts guarding the port. Once the forts were secure, the remainder of Hood's fleet, accompanied by 17 Spanish ships-of-the-line which had just arrived, sailed into the harbour. Tartar was wrecked off Saint-Domingue on 1 April 1797.