French ship Provence (1763)

For other ships with the same name, see French ship Provence.

History
France
Name	Provence
Namesake	Estates of Provence
Builder	Toulon
Laid down	May 1762
Launched	29 April 1763
In service	June 1763
Out of service	1785
Notes	Offered by the Estates of Provence
General characteristics
Displacement	1150 tonnes
Length	59.7 metres
Beam	13.2 metres
Draught	6.9 metres
Propulsion	Sail, full rigged ship
Complement	556 men
Armament	64 guns
Armour	Timber

The Provence was a 64-gun ship of the line of the French Navy. She was funded by a don des vaisseaux donation from the Estates of Provence.

Ordered as Union in February 1762, the ship was renamed Provence on 17 March, and begun in May on plans by engineer Gauthier.

After an uneventful career, she was decommissioned in February 1769, but reactivated in April of the next year and commissioned under Captain Moriès-Castellet. She was appointed to a three-ship squadron under Captain de Broves and departed Toulon on 16 May, bound for Tunisia, where she blockaded the harbours of Sousse and Bizerte, and took part in the bombardment of the cities in late June.

In 1778, she took part in the naval operations in the American Revolutionary War under Captain Desmichel-Champorcin. She took part in the Battle of Grenada, where Desmichel-Champorcin was killed. In December 1779, she had returned to brest, where she was decommissioned.

Between 1783 and 1785, she sailed as a merchantman for the Compagnie de Chine, before being struck in Rochefort and brocken up in 1786.

External links

• Ships of the line
• Roche, Jean-Michel (2005). Dictionnaire des bâtiments de la flotte de guerre française de Colbert à nos jours, 1671 - 1870. Group Retozel-Maury Millau. p. 365. ISBN 978-2-9525917-0-6. OCLC 165892922.