''Monarca'' was a 68-gun

ship of the line A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which depended on the two colu ...

of the

Spanish Navy The Spanish Navy or officially, the Armada, is the maritime branch of the Spanish Armed Forces and one of the oldest active naval forces in the world. The Spanish Navy was responsible for a number of major historic achievements in navigation, ...

, ordered in 1754 to a design by expatriate British ship designer Richard Rooth and launched in 1756. She belonged to the four-ship ''Triunfante'' class. She fought at the Battle of Cape St Vincent in 1780, in which she was captured by the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

and subsequently commissioned as the

third rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy, a third rate was a ship of the line which from the 1720s mounted between 64 and 80 guns, typically built with two gun decks (thus the related term two-decker). Years of experience proved that the third r ...

HMS ''Monarca''. She came under the command of Captain John Gell who was under the orders of

Sir Samuel Hood Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood (12 December 1724 – 27 January 1816) was an admiral in the Royal Navy. As a junior officer he saw action during the War of the Austrian Succession. While in temporary command of , he drove a French ship ashore in ...

to go to the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...

. However, she was dismasted in a storm and obliged to return to Britain for refitting.Hopton Catalogue
Wirksworth.org She fought at the Battle of Cuddalore in 1783 and was sold out of the navy in 1791.

Notes

References

* Lavery, Brian (2003) ''The Ship of the Line – Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650–1850.'' Conway Maritime Press. . *

External links

* Ships of the line of the Spanish Navy Ships of the line of the Royal Navy 1756 ships {{UK-line-ship-stub