HMS America was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 21 April 1810 at Blackwall Yard. In 1827 America was cut down into a fourth rate. During the rising tensions with the United States of America over the Oregon boundary dispute, HMS America was dispatched to the Pacific Northwest in 1845. Leaving the Straits of Juan de Fuca on 1 October, the vessel sailed for the Kingdom of Hawaii and later the Pacific Station at Valparaíso, in Chile. While at the Pacific Station, Captain John Gordon ordered the valuable cargo of HMS Daphne be moved to his ship and departed to deliver it to the United Kingdom. By removing the second most powerful British vessel on the Pacific coast of the Americas during the Oregon crisis, Gordon was court-martialed and reprimanded.