[1] Expedition was the second vessel to be given that name in the English Navy Royal, since it had been used for a 20-gun French ship captured in 1618 which remained listed until 1652.

Interestingly, the bow on the draught shows a beak typical of Tudor galleons and early Stuart warships, rather than the inclined bowsprit which emerged in the 1640s.

The draught gives dimensions of 96 ft in keel length and 32 ft in breadth, for a burthen tonnage of 347 tons, although the completed ships had lesser dimensions[4] The Expedition was launched just 98 days later on 20 March 1637 (the Providence followed on the next day) and classed as a Fourth Rate (frigate).

A portrait of the ship by Willem van de Velde the Elder in the early 1660s showed significant changes in the appearance of the Expedition.

The ship had been girdled (adding extra layers of timbers along both sides) during the Commonwealth era to improve her stability (the precise date is unrecorded), increasing the beam to 27 feet 4 inches (8.3 metres), and the oarports had disappeared.

She was commissioned in the Spring of 1637 under Captain George White and took part (with the Providence as well as the Leopard and Antelope) in a successful naval expedition led by Vice-Admiral William Rainsborough against the Barbary corsairs of Salé in North West Morocco in June 1637.

[15] In 1642 she was commissioned into the Parliamentary Naval Forces under the command of Captain Baldwin (or Isaac) Wake for service in the English Channel.

[24] At the Four Days' Battle, she arrived as a member of Van Division in Prince Rupert's Squadron on 4 June 1666 suffering two killed and three wounded.

[25] She was also involved in the St James Day Battle as a member of White Squadron, Van Division on 25 July 1666.