HMS Placentia explained

Three, and possibly four, vessels of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Placentia, after locations in Newfoundland, including Placentia Bay and the town of Placentia:

• was a 6-gun schooner purchased in 1775 and wrecked, with the loss of two lives, on 14 September 1775.^[1]
• A cutter HMS Placentia apparently served between 1777 and 1779.^[2]
• was a 14-gun sloop, purchased in 1780 and wrecked on 10 September 1782 on Newfoundland with no survivors.^[3] Earlier that year Lieutenant Charles Anderson had captured two American schooners, Lord Sterling and Penguin, each of eight guns.^[4]
• was a minimally armed sloop launched in 1789, name vessel of her two-vessel class, that her crew abandoned in a sinking state on 8 May 1794 off Marticot Island, Newfoundland.^[5]

References

• Book: Hepper, David J.. 1994. British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650-1859. Jean Boudriot. Rotherfield. 0-948864-30-3.

Notes and References

1. Hepper (1994), p.49.
2. Web site: NMM, vessel ID 373438. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110802041552/http://www.nmm.ac.uk/upload/pdf/Warship_Histories_Vessels_iii.pdf. dead. 2 August 2011. Warship Histories, vol iii. National Maritime Museum. 30 July 2011.
3. Hepper (1994), p.70.
4. Political Magazine and Parliamentary, Naval, Military, and Literary Journal (1783), Vol. 6, p.368.
5. Hepper (1994), p.76.