HMS Winchelsea (1740)

HMS Winchelsea was a 24-gun sixth-rate launched in 1740. She was captured by the French in 1758, but was retaken two weeks later. She was broken up in 1761.

Career
The ship's barge attempted to impress sailors from the merchant ship Tarleton on the River Mersey off of Liverpool in 1744. The crew of the Tarleton exchanged shots with the Windchelsea press gang and successfully evaded them by docking the ship and dispersing into the town.

The ship was recommissioned at the oubreak of the War of the Austrian Succession in 1745. The Windchelsea took the 26-gun French warship  Subtile on 19 November 1746.

In March 1756, the Winchelsea transported South Carolina's governor Henry William Littleton across the Atlantic from Portsmouth to his colony. The ship finally arrived at Charleston on 1 June. Two years later, on 10 October, the ship was sailing off of Ireland when it was captured by the 60-gun French ship Bizarre and the 28-gun Mignonne. The ship was renamed Winchelsea under the French but was soon retaken on 27 October by the British privateer Duke of Cornwall.