== re: HMS Lively (1756) == 

 Ah thanks for that. That book is one of the ones on my now stupidly long list of books on the subject to buy... I'm sadly lacking in information on anything much below 50-guns, with the exception of what is in Gardener's book on Napoleonic frigates. I find that website to be a good source of information to help get articles started, but yes you do come across errors occasionally (but of course that applies to everything else!) One thing about that article still seems slightly odd, where it says the French 20-gun corvette was commissioned as a 28-gun 6th rate - I know we tended to over-gun our ships compared to the French but that sounds like a rather large increase...