History | |
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Name | Diane |
Namesake | Diana |
Builder | Toulon |
Laid down | July 1794 |
Launched | 10 February 1796 |
In service | March 1796 |
Captured | 27 August 1800 |
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Name | HMS Niobe |
Namesake | Niobe |
Acquired | 27 August 1800 by capture |
Fate | Broken up in 1816 |
General characteristics [1] | |
Displacement | 1,466 tons (French) |
Tons burthen | 1,14215⁄94 (bm) |
Length | 47.6 m (156 ft) |
Beam | 12 m (39 ft) |
Draught | 5.7 m (19 ft) |
Propulsion | Sail |
Armament | 38 to 44 guns |
Armour | Timber |
Diane was a 38-gun frigate of the French Navy, launched in 1796. She participated in the battle of the Nile, but in August 1800 the Royal Navy captured her. She was taken into British service as HMS Niobe, and broken up in 1816.
She took part in the Battle of the Nile, managing to escape to Malta with Justice. During the battle Rear-Admiral Denis Decrès was on board Diane in his capacity as commander of the frigate squadron. He would go on to become Napoleon's Minister of Marine. [1]
In 1800, as she tried to escape from Malta, HMS Success, HMS Northumberland, and HMS Genereux captured her. At the time she had only 114 men on board, [1] having left the remainder at Malta to assist in its defense. [2]
The Royal Navy commissioned her as HMS Niobe, under the command of Captain John Wentworth Loring, [3] there already being an HMS Diana in service.
On 28 March 1806, [4] [5] Niobe was off Groix when she captured the 16-gun Néarque, which had just separated from Leduc's division.
Niobe, still under Captain Loring, and Argus, Commander James Stuart, captured the Danish ship King of Assianthe on 31 August 1807. [6]
On 13 November 1810, off Le Havre along with Diana, Niobe sighted the 40-gun Amazone and the 44-gun Elisa. HMS Donegal and Revenge joined the chase, attacking the French squadron when it was anchored at Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue at the action of 15 November 1810. Eventually, Elisa was wrecked near La Hougue, while Amazone escaped to Le Havre. Four months later at the action of 24 March 1811, Niobe participated in the destruction of the French frigate Amazone near the Phare de Gatteville lighthouse, Normandy. [7]
On 24 March 1811, she sailed with a squadron comprising HMS Berwick, Amelia, Goshawk, and Hawk, again chased Amazone, which they trapped near Barfleur. Amazone's crew scuttled her to prevent her capture.
HMS Niobe was eventually sold on 31 July 1816. [3]
HMS Revenge was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 13 April 1805. Sir John Henslow designed her as one of the large class 74s; she was the only ship built to her draught. As a large 74, she carried 24-pounder guns on her upper gun deck, rather than the 18-pounder guns found on the middling and common class 74s.
Minerve was a 40-gun Minerve-class frigate of the French Navy. The British captured her twice and the French recaptured her once. She therefore served under four names before being broken up in 1814:
HMS Donegal was launched in 1794 as Barra, a Téméraire class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy. She was renamed Pégase in October 1795, and Hoche in December 1797. The British Royal Navy captured her at the Battle of Tory Island on 12 October 1798 and recommissioned her as HMS Donegal.
D'Hautpoul was a Téméraire class 74-gun French Navy ship of the line launched at Lorient on 2 September 1807. She was previously named Alcide and Courageux.
Uranie was a 44-gun frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her two-vessel class.
Clorinde was a 44-gun Uranie-class frigate of the French Navy. The Royal Navy captured her in 1803 and took her into service as HMS Clorinde. She was sold in 1817.
Infatigable was a 40-gun Valeureuse-class frigate of the French Navy, launched at Le Havre in 1799. She took part in Allemand's expedition of 1805. The British Royal Navy captured her in 1806. She was taken into the Royal Navy but never used and she was broken up in 1811.
HMS Diana was a 38-gun Artois-class fifth rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1794.
Torche was a French naval Etna-class ship-sloop launched in 1795. She participated in the action of 19 July 1805, with the Royal Navy capturing her one-month later, in August. She was taken into service as HMS Torch but never commissioned and was broken up in 1811.
Courageuse was a 12-pounder Concorde class frigate of the French Navy. She was launched in 1778. The British captured her in 1799 and thereafter used her as a receiving ship or prison hulk at Malta before breaking her up in 1802.
Salamine was originally the Spanish Navy's Infante 18-gun brig, built in 1787 at Cadiz. The French Navy captured her at Toulon in December 1793 and recommissioned her; they renamed her on 10 May 1798 as Salamine, for the battle of Salamis. On 18 June 1799, HMS Emerald captured her and she was brought into Royal Navy service as HMS Salamine. She served briefly in the Mediterranean, where she captured two French privateers and several merchant vessels before the Royal Navy sold her at Malta in 1802, after the Treaty of Amiens ended the war with France.
The French brig Néarque was an Abeille-class brig launched at Lorient in 1804. She made a voyage to the Caribbean in 1805. After the frigate HMS Niobe captured her in March 1806, the Royal Navy took her into Plymouth, but laid her up in ordinary. She then disappears from the records until her sale in 1814.
The action of 15 November 1810 was a minor naval engagement fought during the British Royal Navy blockade of the French Channel ports in the Napoleonic Wars. British dominance at sea, enforced by a strategy of close blockade, made it difficult for the French Navy to operate even in their own territorial waters. In the autumn of 1810, a British squadron assigned to patrol the Baie de la Seine was effectively isolating two French squadrons in the ports of Le Havre and Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. On 12 November, the squadron in Le Havre, consisting of frigates Elisa and Amazone attempted to reach Cherbourg at night in order to united the squadrons. This squadron was spotted in the early hours of 13 November by the patrolling British frigates HMS Diana and HMS Niobe, which gave chase.
The action of 24 March 1811 was a minor naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars, fought as part of the Royal Navy blockade of the French English Channel ports. By 1811, Royal Navy control of the French coast was so entrenched that French ships were unable to travel safely even in French territorial waters. In late 1810, French frigates Elisa and Amazone sailed from Le Havre to join with a larger squadron at Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, but were intercepted by a British frigate squadron and forced to shelter at Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue. There they came under sustained attack and Elisa was destroyed, Amazone successfully slipping back to Le Havre under cover of darkness. To prevent Amazone from escaping once more, the British blockade squadron was reinforced.
Teulié was a French Illyrien or Friedland-class brig built at Venice and launched in April 1808. HMS Unite captured her some two months later off Zara. The Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Roman. She served in the Mediterranean. She was sold in 1814.
The French brig Observateur, which was launched in 1800 for the French Navy, was a Vigilant-class 16-gun brig, one of six built to a design by Pierre-Alexandre-Laurent Forfait. The Royal Navy captured her in 1806 and took her into service as HMS Observateur. She participated in two actions, one for the French Navy and one for the Royal Navy, and one campaign before she was laid up in 1810. The Navy did not succeed in selling her until 1814.
HMS Barbuda was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1780 after having briefly served as an American privateer. Barbuda was one of the two sloops that captured Demerara and Essequibo in 1781, but the French Navy captured her there in 1782 and took her into service as Barboude. The French Navy sold her to private owners in 1786, and she served briefly as a privateer in early 1793 before the French Navy purchased her again and named her Légère. She served them until mid-1796 when the Royal Navy captured her and took her into service as HMS Legere. She was wrecked off the coast of Colombia, without loss of life, in February 1801.
The action of 29 July 1782 was a minor naval engagement that took place towards the end of the American War of Independence. The British Royal Navy frigate HMS Santa Margarita captured the 36-gun French frigate Amazone off Cape Henry, but the next day the squadron under Louis-Philippe de Vaudreuil intervened and recaptured the frigate.
HMS Strombolo was launched in 1795 at North Shields as the mercantile Leander. The Royal Navy purchased her in 1797, converted her to a bomb-vessel, and renamed her. She participated in the capture of Malta in 1800. The Navy laid her up in 1802 and had her broken up in 1809.
HMS Requin was the French Navy cutter Requin, launched at Boulogne in 1794. HMS Thalia captured Requin in 1795. Requin captured one small French privateer and participated in the capture of Suriname before wrecking in 1801.