HMS Tartar was a 28-gun sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

. The ship was designed by Sir Thomas Slade and based on the Lyme

HMS Lyme (1748)

HMS Lyme was a 28-gun, sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Originally ordered as a 24 gun ship to the draft of the French privateer Tyger. The sixth vessel of the Royal Navy to bear the name, the Lyme, as well as the , which was a near-sister, were the first true frigates built for the Royal Navy...

 of 1748, "with such alterations as may tend to the better stowing of men and carrying for guns."

The ship was first commissioned in March 1756 under Captain John Lockhart, and earned a reputation as a fast sailer during service in the English Channel. She made many captures of French ships during the Seven Years War, including 4 in 1756 and 7 the following year. During the peace that followed, the ship sailed to Barbados

Barbados

Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...

 carrying a timekeeper

Timekeeper

A timekeeper is an instrument or person that measures the passage of time; in the case of the latter, often with the assistance of a clock or stopwatch...

 built by John Harrison

John Harrison

John Harrison was a self-educated English clockmaker. He invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought device in solving the problem of establishing the East-West position or longitude of a ship at sea, thus revolutionising and extending the possibility of safe long distance sea travel in the Age...

, as a part of a series of experiments used to determine longitude

Longitude

Longitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east-west position of a point on the Earth's surface. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees, minutes and seconds, and denoted by the Greek letter lambda ....

 at sea. She also served in the American Revolutionary War

American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...

, capturing the Spanish Santa Margarita

HMS Santa Margarita (1779)

HMS Santa Margarita was a 36-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She had been built for service with the Spanish Navy, but was captured after five years in service, eventually spending nearly 60 years with the British.-Spanish career:...

 of 28 guns off Cape Finisterre

Cape Finisterre

right|thumb|300px|Position of Cape Finisterre on the [[Iberian Peninsula]]Cape Finisterre is a rock-bound peninsula on the west coast of Galicia, Spain....

 on 11 November 1779, and went on to see further service during the French Revolutionary War.

HMS Tartar was eventually wrecked off Saint-Domingue

Saint-Domingue

The labour for these plantations was provided by an estimated 790,000 African slaves . Between 1764 and 1771, the average annual importation of slaves varied between 10,000-15,000; by 1786 it was about 28,000, and from 1787 onward, the colony received more than 40,000 slaves a year...

on 1 April 1797.