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On the left is a 18th century drawing of the 1756 built English ship Rose, which carried 24 guns.  It was a frigate. Notice the three masts, the considerable amount of sail, and the covered gun deck. The Rose was used as a command ship in the Rhode Island area in the pre-revolutionary and early Revolutionary War days.

The Rose has been recreated. A photo of the recreated Rose is on the right.

The Rose continued in the Newport, Rhode Island area, as a principle instrument of the English enforcement of the customs law, and for a base for the seizure of militarily stores in the early days of 1975.  In 1775, the situation was becoming bad enough so that, on 12 June, the General Assembly of the Crown Colony of Rhode Island met at the Kent County Courthouse in East Greenwich and created the very first Navy in the Western Hemisphere.

This Rhode Island Navy consisted of two armed vessels - the sloop Katy, with 12 guns, and the galley Washington, with six guns. The Rhode Island navy was created for the express purpose of opening a way to the ocean through the 24 gun frigate Rose and its auxiliary ships stationed at the three exists out of Narragansett Bay.  This led to the first purely naval engagement of the Revolution, in June of 1775, when the Rhode Island sloop Katy, under Captain Abraham Whipple, engaged the Royal Navy Schooner Diana. The Rhode Island Navy never did accomplish its initial objective of driving off the Rose.  The Rose only met her end in 1779 in Savannah, Georgia, when she was scuttled to avoid capture.