Trapped by a lee shore off Loe Bar, Cornwall, England, she hit the rocks and between 60 and 190 men were killed.

A razee is the cutting down of a larger ship of the line by removing the uppermost deck (and its armament) to produce a large frigate.

The new quarterdeck and forecastle also allowed the armaments stationed there to be substantially strengthened from the original design, including adding carronades.

Anson was thus heavily armed for a frigate, and retained the stronger construction (and ability to absorb damage) of a ship-of-the-line.

[4] Leviathan, Anson, Pompee, Melpomene, and Childers shared in the proceeds of the capture on 10 September 1797 of Tordenskiold.

Daphné was under the command of lieutenant de vaisseau Latreyte and transiting between Lorient and Bordeaux on her way to Guadeloupe when Anson captured her at the mouth of the Gironde.

Two of the passengers were Civil Commissioners Jaiquelin and La Carze, who succeeded in throwing their dispatches for Guadeloupe overboard.

In the aftermath of the original engagement, on 18 October she joined the brig HMS Kangaroo and fought a separate action, capturing the damaged French frigate Loire.

Anson was then under the command of Captain Philip Charles Durham, who struggled to manoeuvre his ship after having lost her mizzen mast, main lower and topsail yards during the earlier pursuit.

Anson sailed from Plymouth on 26 January 1799, and on 2 February, in company with Ethalion, captured the French privateer cutter Boulonaise.

On 10 April 1800, when north-west of the Canary Islands, Anson detained Catherine & Anna bound for Hamburg, Holy Roman Empire, from Batavia with a cargo of coffee.

[10] Two days later, at daybreak, Anson encountered four French privateers: Brave (36 guns), Guepe (18), Hardi (18), and Duide (16).

[11] These included: On 29 June Anson and Constance captured two privateer misticos: Gibraltar and Severo (or Severino).

[12][Note 1] On 30 June Anson cut off two Spanish gun boats that had been annoying the convoy she was escorting.

On 23 August while sailing in company with Captain Charles Brisbane's HMS Arethusa when they came across the 38-gun Spanish frigate Pomona off Havana, guarded by a shore battery and twelve gunboats.

Despite the superiority of his opponent and the nearness of the shore Lydiard attempted to close on the French vessel and opened fire.

[24] Anson came under fire from the fortifications at Morro Castle, while several Spanish ships, including the 74-gun San Lorenzo, came out of Havana to assist the French.

[25] After being unable to manoeuvre into a favourable position and coming under heavy fire, Lydiard hauled away and made his escape.

[27] Both Lydiard and Brisbane then led their forces on shore, and stormed Fort Amsterdam, which was defended by 270 Dutch troops.

[28] The dramatic success of the small British force carrying the heavily defended island was rewarded handsomely.

[30] After a period refitting in Britain Anson was assigned to the Channel Fleet and ordered to support the blockade of Brest by patrolling off Black Rocks.

[31] He made for the Lizard, but in the poor weather, came up on the wrong side and became trapped on a lee shore off Mount's Bay near Penzance, in Cornwall with breakers ahead and insufficient room to sail out to the open seas.

[31] Anson rolled heavily in rough seas, having retained the spars from her days as a 64-gun ship after she had been razeed.

As hundreds of spectators watched from nearby settlements the pounding surf prevented boats from being launched from the ship or the shore, and a number of the crew were swept away.

In those days it was customary to bury drowned seamen unceremoniously, without shroud or coffin in unconsecrated ground, with bodies remaining unburied for long periods of time.

This controversy led to a local solicitor, Thomas Grylls, drafting a new law to provide drowned seamen more decent treatment.

John Hearle Tremayne, Member of Parliament for Cornwall, introduced the bill which was enacted as the Burial of Drowned Persons Act 1808.

A monument to the drowned sailors, and to passing of the Grylls Act, stands at the eastern end of Loe Bar, on the cliff above the beach, about 1.5 miles from Porthleven Harbour[41][42] Henry Trengrouse, a Cornish resident of the area, witnessed Anson's wreck.

[44] Two of her cannon now guard the entrance of Porthleven Harbour; they were recovered in 1961 from the sands at Loe Bar, the site of the wreck.