User:Euryalus/Florida

HMS Florida was a storeship of the Royal Navy, in service in North and South American waters from 1764 to 1767. Initially serving as part of a British flotilla sent to secure a naval presence off Patagonia, she was captured in 1766 by North African pirates and sailed to Algiers. She resumed her Royal Navy duties later that year and was sent to resupply the British settlement on the Falkland Islands. She returned to England in 1772 and was broken up at Deptford Dockyard in July of that year.

Purchase
Florida was purchased by the Royal Navy in 1764 as part of a plan to establish a naval presence off the coast of South America which could supply ships making the voyage round the Cape of Good Hope and into the Pacific. The plan was kept secret, as the coastline in question was held by the Spanish, against whom Britian had recently waged war. In March 1764, Admiralty commissioned Captain John Byron to lead the ships Dolphin and Tamar to the in order to supply ships making the voyage one of thirty cutters purchased by the Royal Navy in a three month period from December 1762 to February 1763, for coastal patrol duties off English ports. The function of these purchased cutters included convoy and patrol, the carrying of messages between Naval vessels in port, and assisting the press gang in the interception of coastal craft.

Admiralty Orders for her purchase were issued on 29 December 1762, and the transaction was completed on 8 February 1763 at a cost of ₤650. She was a small craft, single-masted and with an overall length of 57 ft including bowsprit, a 44 ft keel, and measuring 79 $82⁄94$ tons burthen. Her beam was 18 ft. At the time she was purchased by the Navy, she had been at sea as a merchant vessel for at least fifteen years.

In mid-February 1763 the newly purchased cutter was sailed to Deptford Dockyard for refitting. Works ran for two months until the end of April, at a cost of £817. Prior to purchase she had been fitted for merchant voyaging including eight three-pounder guns. In recognition of her future operations within the safer confines of a major seaport, the Navy reduced the number of cannons to four and supported them with ten $1⁄2$-pounder swivel guns for anti-personnel use.

As rebuilt for Navy service, Cholmondely had a crewing complement of 24 men.

Naval service
War with France ended on 10 February 1763, after Cholmondely's purchase but before completion of her fitout or assembling of her crew. Despite this, commissioning went ahead in April 1763 and the vessel entered the Navy as a coastal cutter for the Port of Liverpool. Her first commander was 26-year-old Lieutenant Skeffington Lutwidge who would later go on to reach the Navy's most senior rank, Admiral of the Red.

In 1766 Lutwidge was replaced as Cholmondely's commander by Lieutenant Robert Edgcombe, who served aboard for two years. In 1769 he was superseded by Lieutenant Hally Borwick, who served for a single year before passing command to Thomas Cunningham. Lieutenant Cunningham remained with Cholmondely until May 1771 when the cutter was retired from sea service and her crew paid off. Surplus to requirements, she was sold to a Plymouth merchant for £225 and removed from Navy service on 20 August 1771.