HMS Eagle was a 58-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Harwich to the dimensions laid down in the 1741 proposals of the 1719 Establishment, and launched on 2 December 1745. She was under the command of George Rodney between 1747 and 1748 during the War of the Austrian Succession. Eagle is also notable as being the ship in which James Cook began his career in the Royal Navy, serving from 1755 to 1757 as Able Seaman and master's mate under Captain Joseph Hamar for his first year aboard, and Captain Hugh Palliser thereafter. Eagle was sold out of the navy in 1767.