English ship Expedition (1637)
The Expedition was a 30-gun "pinnace" in the service of the English Navy Royal. After an initial participation in a punitive attack on Morocco, she spent the majority of her career in Home Waters. During the English Civil War she was employed in the Parliamentary Naval Force. In 1551 she was assigned to the Commonwealth Navy. During the First Dutch War she took part in the Battle of Portland, the Battle of the Gabbard and the Battle of Scheveningen in 1553. During the Second Dutch War she participated in the Battle of Lowestoft in 1665 and the Four Days' Battle and the St James' Day Battle in 1666. She was re-classed as a 32-gun ship in 1666, but then again re-rated and converted to a fireship in June 1667, and then sold in October 1667.
Expedition was the second vessel to be given that name in the English Navy Royal, since it had been used for a 20-gun French ship captured in 1618 which remained listed until 1652.
Construction and specifications
She was ordered on 12 December 1636 to be built under contract by Matthew Graves at Bermondsey in London on the River Thames. The order specified that each ship should carry 14 pieces of ordnance and have 16 banks of oars.An early scale draught believed to be of the original concept of the ship with the cipher of Charles I shows the sixteen pairs of oars on the lower deck and ten pairs of broadside gunports on the upper deck, plus two pairs of smaller gunports on the forecastle and four pairs on the quarterdeck, thereby able to accommodate 32 guns in all, although the last pair of ports on the quarterdeck were not initially assigned any guns, so the assigned total was 30 guns with a complement of 120 officers and men.
Interestingly, the bow on the draught shows a beak typical of Tudor galleons and early Stuart warships, rather than the inclined bowsprit which emerged in the 1640s. The draught gives dimensions of 96 ft in keel length and 32 ft in breadth, for a burthen tonnage of 347 tons, although the completed ships had lesser dimensions
The Expedition was launched just 98 days later on 20 March 1637 and classed as a Fourth Rate. Her initial dimensions were given as 90 ft keel length and 26 ft in breadth, for a burthen tonnage of 323 tons.
A portrait of the ship by Willem van de Velde the Elder in the early 1660s showed significant changes in the appearance of the Expedition. The ship had been girdled during the Commonwealth era to improve her stability, increasing the beam to, and the oarports had disappeared. The builder's measurement was now 357 tons, and the keel:beam ration had thus fallen from 3.46:1 to 3.29:1, although this ration is still closely comparable to the Fourth Rate frigates of the later 1640s like the Constant Warwick. The main battery of 20 guns (comprising a mixture of culverins and demi-culverins) were now on the lower deck, while the forecastle and quarterdeck have now been joined to form a continuous upper deck armed with six pairs of sakers, although the waist portion still lacked any ports for guns. Her manning of 120 officers and men in 1652 was raised to 140 in 1653.
Under the 1666 establishment her gun armament consisted of seven culverins and thirteen demi-culverines on the lower deck, with six 6-pounder guns, and ten sakers on the upper deck, plus two 3-pounders on the poop deck.
Commissioned service
Service in the English Navy Royal
She was commissioned in the Spring of 1637 under Captain George White and took part in a successful naval expedition led by Vice-Admiral William Rainsborough against the Barbary corsairs of Salé in North West Morocco in June 1637. She recommissioned in 1638 under the command of Captain Robert Slingsby who held command into 1639. In 1640 she came under the command of Captain Richard Seaman who held command until 1641.Service during English Civil War and Commonwealth Navy
In 1642 she was commissioned into the Parliamentary Naval Forces under the command of Captain Baldwin Wake for service in the English Channel. In 1643 Captain Brooks then later in the year Captain Joseph Jordan for service in Irish Waters until 1646. During the winter of 1646–1647 she was under the command of Sir George Ayscue for service with the Winter Guard. For 1647-48 She was again under Captain Jordan with the Western Guard and in the Irish Sea. In 1650 she was under the command of Captain Abraham Wheeler at the blockade of Lisbon, Portugal. In 1651 she was under the command of Captain Thomas Vallis.The First Anglo-Dutch War
Expedition was a member of Robert Blake's Fleet at the Battle of Portland from 18 to 20 February 1653. She was present at the Battle of the Gabbard as a member of White Squadron Van Division from s to 3 June 1653. She followed this with the Battle of Scheveningen near Texel on 31 July 1653. She was a member of White Squadron, Van Division. She was at Chatham during the winter of 1653–54.During 1656 thru 1659 she was under the command of Captain Edward Thompson for operations in the Sound.