French frigate Sensible (1787)

Last updated

Lutine1.jpg
History
Flag of France (1814-1830).svg Flag of French-Navy-Revolution.svg Civil and Naval Ensign of France.svg France
NameSensible
NamesakeFrench: "sensitive"
Ordered23 January 1786
BuilderToulon
Laid downFebruary 1786
Launched9 August 1787
In serviceMarch 1788
Captured28 June 1798
Naval Ensign of Great Britain (1707-1800).svgGreat Britain
NameSensible
Acquired28 June 1798 by capture
Honours and
awards		 Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Egypt" [1]
FateWrecked on 2 March 1802
General characteristics [2]
Class and type Magicienne-class frigate
Displacement600 tonnes & c.1100 tonnes fully loaded
Tons burthen94567⁄94 (bm) [3]
Length44.2 m (145 ft 0 in)
Beam11.2 m (36 ft 9 in)
Draught5.2 m (17 ft 1 in)
Sail plan Full-rigged ship
Armament
  • French service:26 × 12-pounder long guns + 6 × 6-pounder long guns
  • British service: No establishment of guns [3]

Sensible was a 32-gun Magicienne-class frigate of the French Navy. The Royal Navy captured her in 1798 off Malta and took into service as HMS Sensible. She was lost in a grounding off Ceylon in 1802.

Contents

French Navy service

From November 1789, she served at Martinique under captaine de vaisseau Durand de Braye (or Durand d'Ubraye). [4] In September 1790, she ferried Joséphine de Beauharnais and her daughter Hortense from Martinique to Toulon.

In 1792, she took part in operations against Sardinia. In 1793, she was equipped as a bomb ship.

On 9 December 1795, Sensible was part of Gantaume's squadron. Sensible, along with the corvettes Sardine and Rossignol, captured the 28-gun Nemesis in the neutral port of Smyrna. [5] The French warships entered the harbour in disregard of its neutrality and forced Nemesis to surrender. Murray Maxwell (then a midshipman) was taken prisoner on this occasion.

Under lieutenant de vaisseau (later capitaine de frégate) Escoffier, in March–April 1795 Sensible crossed the Aegean Sea, stopping at Tunis and Valletta on her way to Toulon. [6] The next year she came under the command of capitaine de frégate Guillaume-François-Joseph Bourdé. [7] He sailed Sensible from Toulon to Trieste via Corfu. She then cruised the Adriatic before returning to Corfu. [8]

Sensible was subsequently armed en flûte and used as a transport in the Mediterranean. In an action on 27 June 1798, the 38-gun HMS Seahorse captured her. Sensible lost 25 men killed and 55 wounded. [2] Seahorse had two men killed and 16 men wounded; the British report is that Sensible lost 18 men killed and 35 wounded, including Bourdé. Captain Edward James Foote of Seahorse further reported that Sensible had recently received copper sheathing and fastening, and a thorough repair at Toulon two months previously. At the time of her capture Sensible was carrying General of Division Baraguey D'Hilliers, with his entourage. They were going to Toulon with a report on the capture of Malta. [9]

The British took her into service as HMS Sensible. [3] The French Navy suspended Captain Bourdé on 31 July on suspicion of not having resisted adequately, and court-martialed him on 20 May 1799 for the loss of his ship. He was acquitted, and reinstated on 21 August. [7]

Royal Navy service

Capture of Sensible on 27 June 1798 by the frigate Seahorse Seahorse & Sensible.jpg
Capture of Sensible on 27 June 1798 by the frigate Seahorse

Sensible was placed under Commander John Baker Hay, who received his promotion to post captain in September. She was named and registered on 13 October. She arrived at Portsmouth on 25 November. There she was fitted as a troopship between June and August 1799. [3] She was commissioned in July under Captain Robert Sauce. Sensible shared with Sheerness and Resource in the proceeds of the recapture, on 11 July 1800, of the Piersons. [10]

On 14 May 1801, Sensible landed troops in Abu Qir Bay. Because Sensible served in the navy's Egyptian campaign (8 March to 2 September 1801), her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal that the Admiralty issued in 1847 to all surviving claimants.

Loss

On 2 March 1802, as she sailed off Ceylon, she grounded, having been unable to turn quickly enough once breakers were sighted. She had to be abandoned as a wreck after 16 hours of efforts to lighten her. She had run into a shoal off Mullaitivu due to negligent navigation. (Earlier Victorious had warned Sauce that his reckoning was off by 40 miles.) The subsequent court martial severely reprimanded Sauce and moved his name to the bottom of the list of commanders. The court martial also dismissed the service the master, James O'Conner. [11]

Citations

  1. ↑ "No. 21077". The London Gazette . 15 March 1850. pp. 791–792.
  2. 1 2 Demerliac (1996), p. 64, no.392.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Winfield (2008), pp. 206–207.
  4. ↑ Fonds, Vol. 1, p. 24.
  5. ↑ "HMS Nemesis at the Naval database". Archived from the original on 7 October 2008. Retrieved 25 October 2009.
  6. ↑ Fonds, Vol. 1, p. 173.
  7. 1 2 Quintin & Quintin (2003), p. 79.
  8. ↑ Fonds, Vol. 1, p. 190.
  9. ↑ "No. 15044". The London Gazette . 24 July 1798. p. 702.
  10. ↑ "No. 15298". The London Gazette . 30 September 1800. p. 1135.
  11. ↑ Hepper (1994), pp. 100–101.

Related Research Articles

HMS Lively was a 32-gun fifth-rate Alcmene-class frigate of the British Royal Navy launched on 23 October 1794 at Northam. She took part in three actions – one a single-ship action, one a major battle, and one a cutting-out boat expedition – that would in 1847 qualify her crews for the issuance of the Naval General Service Medal. Lively was wrecked in 1798.

French frigate <i>Sémillante</i> (1791) French Navy ship

Sémillante was a 32-gun frigate of the French Navy and the lead ship of her class. She was involved in a number of multi-vessel actions against the Royal Navy, particularly in the Indian Ocean. She captured a number of East Indiamen before she became so damaged that the French disarmed her and turned her into a merchant vessel. The British captured her and broke her up in 1809.

Sardine was a corvette of the French Navy, launched in 1771. The Royal Navy captured her at the Siege of Toulon but the French retook her when the Anglo-Spanish force retreated. The Royal Navy captured her again in 1796. She then served as HMS Sardine until the Royal Navy sold her in 1806.

French corvette <i>Sylphe</i> (1804) Abeille-class brig-corvette of the French Navy

Sylphe was an Abeille-class 16-gun brig-corvette of the French Navy. The class was built to a design by François Pestel. The British captured her in 1807 and took her into the Royal Navy as HMS Seagull, but apparently never used her in any capacity. She was sold in 1814.

The French brig Albanaise was launched in 1790. In June 1800, the Royal Navy captured her in the Mediterranean and took her into service as HMS Albanaise. In November 1800, her crew mutinied, took command of the vessel, and sailed her to Malaga where they surrendered her to the Spanish. The Spanish later returned her to the French, who did not return her to service.

Nourrice was the first of two flûtes built to a design by Raymond-Antoine Haran. She was launched on 3 August 1792 at Bayonne and coppered in 1795. She served at Brest and Toulon, until a British squadron cornered her in the Bay of Sagone on Corsica's east coast in 1811 and destroyed her.

Marsouin was a gabarre, the name-ship of her three-vessel class, built to a design by Raymond-Antoine Haran, and launched in 1787 or 1788 at Bayonne. She carried troops, supplies, invalids, etc., across the Atlantic to the Caribbean or back until the British captured her in 1795. Though the Royal Navy nominally took her into service, she was never actually commissioned, and she disappeared from the lists in 1799.

Two vessels of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Fleche, after the French for "arrow":

Perdrix was a corvette of the French Royal Navy, launched in 1784. The British captured her off Antigua in 1795 and she served briefly in the Royal Navy in the West Indies, where she captured a French privateer, before being broken up in 1798.

Flèche was a French corvette built by Louis-Hilarion Chapelle (cadet) and launched at Toulon, France in 1768. The British captured her at the Fall of Bastia in May 1794 and commissioned her into the Royal Navy under her existing name. She observed the naval Battle of Hyères Islands, but then was wrecked in 1795.

Créole was a 40-gun frigate of the French Navy, a one-off design by Jacques-Augustin Lamothe. The French Navy loaned her to a privateer in 1797. Later, she served in the Brest squadron, took part in Ganteaume's expeditions of 1801 to Egypt, and was involved in the French acquisition of Santo Domingo and briefly detained Toussaint Louverture before he was brought to France. The 74-gun ships HMS Vanguard and HMS Cumberland captured her in Santo Domingo on 30 June 1803. The Royal Navy took her into service but she foundered soon afterwards during an attempt to sail to Britain; her crew were rescued.

Poulette was a French Coquette-class corvette built to a design by Joseph-Marie-Blaise Coulomb and launched in March 1781. She served the French navy until 1793 when the British captured her at Toulon in 1793. She served briefly in the Royal Navy, including at the battle of Genoa in 1795, until she was burned in October 1796 to prevent her falling into French hands.

French frigate <i>Proserpine</i> (1809)

HMS Proserpine was a 32-gun Amphion-class frigate built for the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. The French Navy captured her off Toulon about a year after her commissioning and took her into service as Proserpine. She served in various capacities such as a frigate, troopship, hospital ship, and prison hulk until 1865.

<i>Mohawk</i> (1781 ship)

Mohawk was a ship launched at Beverly, Massachusetts in 1781. She became a privateer, making two voyages. In 1782 the Royal Navy captured her and briefly took her into service under her existing name before selling her in 1783. She then became a merchantman until some investors in Bristol bought her in 1796 and turned her into a privateer again. In 1799 she became a letter of marque, but the French Navy captured her in 1801. She then served in the French Navy, capturing a British privateer in 1805, and was sold in 1814.

The French brig Pandour was a brig of the French Navy launched in 1804 that the Royal Navy captured in 1806. In 1807 she became a whaler in the South Seas Fisheries, but was lost in late 1809.

HMS <i>Alert</i> (1793) Sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Alert was launched in 1793 for the Royal Navy. In May 1794 the French Navy captured her and took her into service as Alerte. A few months later the Royal Navy destroyed her.

HMS <i>Barbuda</i> (1780) Sloop of the Royal Navy

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.

Belliquese was a French Navy 12-gun brig launched in 1793 as the name-vessel of her class, and sold in 1797 to serve as a privateer. The British Royal Navy captured her in 1798. Though the Royal Navy named her HMS Bellete and took her measurements, it never actually commissioned her; she was sold in 1801.

Entreprenant was the first of a sequence of three vessels of the French Navy in 1807-1810 under the same name and with the same captain. She was a patamar launched in 1807 at Île de France. She cruised in Indian waters against British shipping. Her captain in 1808 turned her over to her prisoners from a capture. After he left, one set of prisoners captured her from another and she then disappears from further records.

HMS Amethyst was launched in 1790 as the French frigate Perle. The British Royal Navy took possession of her at Toulon in 1793. She was wrecked in 1795 at Alderney.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.