21st [July]. - The Leviathan1 storeship joined the fleet; she was fitted with two 32-pounders, three 24-pounders, and eleven 18-pounders for her lower deck, [and] her proper upper-deck guns, and [was] manned with volunteers, the whole number of which that served in the fleet until Lord Howe quitted the command amounted to about 1,000. They were discharged on his lordship’s leaving the country, agreeable to his promise.
“Journals of Henry Duncan," p. 160.
1. Leviathan, Comdr. Joseph Tathwell, commanding, had originally been Northumberland, a ship of war, and therefore by the thickness of its sides was better fitted for this role than an ordinary merchant vessel. Clowes, The Royal Navy, 3: 399–400n; Colledge, Ships of the Royal Navy, p. 245. On the fitting out of Leviathan, see Rear Admiral James Gambier to the Earl of Sandwich, 21 July, above. The “fleet" was Vice Adm. Viscount Howe's fleet, stationed at Sandy Hook, New Jersey.