HMS Diligence (1756)

History
Diligence was designed to the dimensions and shape of HMY Royal Caroline (depicted, by John Cleveley the Elder, 1750).
Great Britain
Name:	HMS Diligence
Ordered:	23 February 1756
Builder:	William Wells & Company, Deptford
Laid down:	18 March 1756
Launched:	29 July 1756
Completed:	26 September 1756 at Deptford Dockyard
Commissioned:	August 1756
In service:	1756–1780
Renamed:	HMS Comet from 27 August 1779
Fate:	Sold out of service, Sheerness Dockyard, 1780
General characteristics
Class and type:	10-gun Alderney-class sloop
Tons burthen:	236 ⁴⁶⁄₉₄ bm
Length:	88 ft 6 in (27.0 m) (gundeck) 73 ft 1 in (22.3 m) (keel)
Beam:	24 ft 8 in (7.5 m)
Draught:	6 ft 1.5 in (1.9 m)
Depth of hold:	10 ft 10 in (3.3 m)
Sail plan:	ship rig
Complement:	100 personnel, comprising 2 commissioned officers 9 warrant officers 15 petty officers 55 naval ratings 19 servants and other ranks
Armament:	10 × 4-pdrs 12 × ¹⁄₂-pdr swivel guns

HMS Diligence was a 10-gun Alderney-class sloop of the Royal Navy which saw active service during the Seven Years' War and the American Revolutionary War. Launched in 1756, she was a successful privateer hunter off the coast of France before being reassigned to North American waters in 1763. Fifteen years later she was briefly refitted as a receiving ship for press ganged sailors brought into Sheerness Dockyard, before being re-registered in August 1779 as the fireship Comet.

In December 1780 she was sold into private hands at Sheerness Dockyard for £300.

Diligence was one of three vessels built to a 1755 design by Surveyor of the Navy William Bately, and collectively known as Alderney-class sloops in recognition of HMS Alderney which was the first to be formally contracted for construction. This was Bately's first experience with vessel design, for which he substantially borrowed from the shape and dimensions of George II's yacht HMY Royal Caroline, built in 1750 by Master Shipwright John Hollond. Bately then added to Hollond's hull design by lengthening the "fore-rake" – the area of the bow that extended beyond the keel – in order to improve the sloop's stability in heavy swell.

Admiralty Orders of 14 November 1755 indicated that the Alderney-class vessels were to be built at private dockyards, leaving the Royal Dockyards fully engaged in constructing or fitting-out the larger ships of the line. For previous Navy contracts the prices quoted by Thames River shipyards had proved exorbitant, and the Navy Board had evidence that the shipwrights were colluding to fix higher rates for construction work. In consequence only regional shipwrights were invited to bid for Diligence, with the contract awarded on 27 February 1756 to William Wells and Company, a private shipyard in Deptford. Contract terms stipulated that the vessel be completed within six months.

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