HMS Cornwall was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 19 May 1761 at Deptford. She served in the English Channel until the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763. After service as a guard-ship at Plymouth, she was sent to North America to serve in the American Revolutionary War. She arrived in New York on 30 July 1779 and just ten days later was in a confrontation with the French Navy. Later that year she was deployed to the West Indies where she was badly damaged in action off Grenada and again off Martinique in 1780. She was sent to St Lucia for urgent repairs, but her damage was impossible to repair due to it being too extensive.