Pallas class frigate

The "Pallas" class sailing frigates were a series of three ships built to a 1791 design by John Henslow, which served in the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

The trio were all dockyard-built in order to utilise spare shipbuilding capacity. The orders were originally assigned in December 1790 to the Royal Dockyards at Plymouth and Portsmouth, but in February 1791 the orders were transferred to Chatham and Woolwich Dockyards respectively.

They were the first 32-gun Royal Navy frigates designed to be armed with the eighteen-pounder cannon on their upper deck, the main gun deck of a frigate. Besides their primary battery of twenty-six 18-pounders, they also carried four 6-pounders together with four 32-pounder carronades on the quarter deck, and another two 6-pounders together with two 32-pounder carronades on the forecastle.

Ships in class

*HMS "Stag"
** Builder: Chatham Royal Dockyard
** Ordered: 9 December 1790
** Laid down: March 1792
** Launched: 12 July 1794
** Completed: 5 October 1794
** Fate: Wrecked in a storm in Vigo Bay 6 September 1800, and burnt the next day.

*HMS "Unicorn"
** Builder: Chatham Royal Dockyard
** Ordered: 9 December 1790
** Laid down: March 1792
** Launched: 12 July 1794
** Fate: Broken up March 1815 at Deptford Dockyard.

*HMS "Pallas"
** Builder: Woolwich Royal Dockyard
** Ordered: 9 December 1790
** Laid down: May 1792
** Launched: 19 December 1793
** Completed: 5 March 1794.
** Fate: Wrecked in a storm in Cawsand Bay, Plymouth on 4 April 1798

References

Robert Gardiner, "The Heavy Frigate", Conway Maritime Press, London 1994.

Rif Winfield, "British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1793 to 1817", Chatham Publishing, London 2005.