Sixth-rate

The ship also carried the standing warrant officers, the gunner, the bosun and the carpenter, and two master's mates, four midshipmen, an assistant surgeon, and a captain's clerk.

The smaller sixth-rates with between 20 and 24 guns, still all ship-rigged and sometimes flush-decked vessels, were generally designated as post ships.

The Aubrey–Maturin series of novels by Patrick O'Brian features the sixth-rate ship HMS Surprise as the frigate captained by Jack Aubrey.

It is based on the actual historical frigate of the same name, formerly the French ship Unité, which was captured and renamed by the Royal Navy in 1796.

In the novel Mason and Dixon by Thomas Pynchon, the title characters set sail for Sumatra in 1761 to view the Venus transit in the sixth-rate ship HMS Seahorse.