HMS Vigilant was a 64-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 6 October 1774 at Bucklers Hard.^[1]

By 1779 she had been deemed unseaworthy by the navy. She was stripped of her sails and used as a floating battery to support the amphibious landing of British Army troops on Port Royal Island, South Carolina prior to the Battle of Beaufort.^[2] From 1799 she served as a prison ship, and was broken up in 1816.^[1]

• Lavery, Brian (1983) The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8.
• Rowland, Lawrence; Moore, Alexander; Rogers, George (1996). The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina: 1514–1861. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-57003-090-1. OCLC 194626437.

• Media related to HMS Vigilant (ship, 1774) at Wikimedia Commons