British Ships Lost in 1780 Hurricanes

In doing research to support Eric Jay Dolin's important essay in this issue, "Did Hurricanes Save America?," we were not able to find any current histories of the period which provided an answer to that question.

We couldn't find a definitive list of British ships lost. In fact, all available lists of the losses in 1780 turned out to be incomplete, so we created one (see below).

The Royal Navy was stretched to the breaking point in the later years of the American Revolution. Few are aware that, at the same time as 13 of Britain's 17 colonies in North America were rebelling, the Crown was waging a worldwide war against the French, Spanish, and Dutch powers. The Royal Navy was called upon to defend the home islands in the English Channel and the North Sea, and to preserve territories of the empire in the Caribbean, India, and elsewhere.

The French blockade of General Cornwallis's army at Yorktown was crucial in the ultimate victory by the Americans and French. That blockade was made possible by the Comte de Grasse's victory in the Battle of the Chesapeake on September 5, 1781, in which the French held off a smaller British fleet trying to rescue Cornwallis' forces.

But surprisingly, historians have not asked a crucial question: Would the outcome of that crucial battle been different if the French had not outnumbered the British by 26 ships to 19?  What if the British had not lost 15 warships a few months earlier in the hurricane season of 1780, the worst in recorded history?

To create a list of lost and seriously damaged British ships, we consulted the original records of losses with Lloyds of London, the British government's Annual Register published in 1781, which features details of naval actions of the previous year, and Ships of the Royal Navy, by J.J. Colledge and Ben Warlow.

15 Royal Navy Ships Lost in 1780 Hurricanes

British losses included the deaths of thousands of officers and crew, including Commodore Robert Boyle-Walsingham (right), a popular member of Parliament, who drowned with 670 others on the HMS Thunderer.

He had distinguished himself in the French & Indian War, and later in the House of Commons, where he warned that ''our present naval force was by no means adequate to the execution of our professed intentions.''

An Additional Nine Royal Navy Ships Badly Damaged in 1780 Hurricanes

In addition to the 15 Royal Navy ships sunk during the hurricanes, at least another nine were severely damaged. Five of these were large, two-deck ships of the line, or battleships, that would have required many months of repairs.