HMS Cornwall was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 19 May 1761 at Deptford.

[1] The ship was named in honour of James Cornewall, who had been killed at the battle of Toulon in 1744, and was initially commanded by his cousin Frederick Cornewall who lost an arm in the same engagement.

After service as a guard ship at Plymouth, she was sent to North America to serve in the American Revolutionary War.

[3] She arrived in New York on 30 July 1779 and just ten days later was in a confrontation with the French Navy.

Later that year she was deployed to the West Indies where she was badly damaged in action off Grenada and again off Martinique in 1780.