HMS Captain was a 70-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built according to the 1733 proposals of the 1719 Establishment at Woolwich Dockyard, and launched on 14 April 1743.

[citation needed] On 12 August 1771, the Captain entered Boston Harbor with John Montagu, Rear-Admiral of the Blue Squadron and newly appointed Commander-in-Chief of the North American Station.

[4] The ships were readied for action,[5] and "it was expected that the men of war would have interfered"[6] to prevent the destruction of the tea, but according to Admiral Montagu the civil leadership never called for his assistance.

He claimed that if they had, he could have easily prevented the tea's destruction, "but must have endangered the Lives of many innocent people by firing upon the town", presumably with the guns of the Captain.

[8] Although a storeship, Buffalo shared, with Thetis, and Alarm, in the proceeds from Southampton's capture of the 12-gun French privateer Comte de Maurepas, on 3 August 1780.