Career
Privateer
Vaillant was commissioned in January 1801.
1st cruise (1801): Captain Alexandre Etienne
2nd cruise (1802): Captain Destebetcho
3rd cruise (August to December 1803): Captain Alexandre Etienne
On 2 December Vaillant encountered the merchant ship Rachael at 49°10′N11°00′W / 49.167°N 11.000°W / 49.167; -11.000 as Rachael was returning to England from Honduras. Vaillant captured Rachael and sent her for Bordeaux. [3] But on 6 December HMS Goliath recaptured Rachael.
Last cruise: Captain Dettebecho (?) the Elder. Lloyd's List (LL) carried a report from the French papers that Vaillant had captured the packet boat Brilliant, from the West Indies. The crew had landed in France. [4]
Capture
HMS Loire encountered Vaillant (Valiant) on 26 June 1805 and gave chase. After 12 hours Vaillant had to surrender when Melampus and Brilliant arrived on the scene and cut her off. Captain Maitland, of Loire, stated that had they not come up the chase would have taken two more hours; she had thrown her six 6-pounder guns overboard during the chase. She had been out for 20 days on a four-month cruise but had only captured the Halifax packet Lord Charles Spencer. Maitland described her as "one of the most complete Ships ever fitted out at Bourdeaux, and is perfectly calculated to be taken into His Majesty's Service; sails incomparably fast...". [5]
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy purchased Vaillant and brought her into the Royal Navy as the 6th-rate HMS Barbette, but never commissioned her or fitted her for sea. The Navy sold her in May 1811 for breaking up.
Révolutionnaire, was a 40-gun Seine-class frigate of the French Navy, launched in May 1794. The British captured her in October 1794 and she went on to serve with the Royal Navy until she was broken up in 1822. During this service Revolutionnaire took part in numerous actions, including three for which the Admiralty would in 1847 award clasps to the Naval General Service Medal, and captured several privateers and merchant vessels.
Loire was a 38-gun frigate of the French Navy. She was captured following the Battle of Tory Island by a Royal Navy frigate squadron and subsequently taken into British service as HMS Loire.
HMS Melampus was a Royal Navy fifth-rate frigate that served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. She captured numerous prizes before the British sold her to the Royal Netherlands Navy in 1815. With the Dutch, she participated in a major action at Algiers and, then, in a number of colonial punitive expeditions in the Dutch East Indies.
HMS Mercury was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was built during the American War of Independence and serving during the later years of that conflict. She continued to serve during the years of peace and had an active career during the French Revolutionary Wars and most of the Napoleonic Wars, until being broken up in 1814.
Égyptienne was a French frigate launched at Toulon in 1799. Her first service was in Napoleon's Egyptian campaign of 1801, in which the British captured her at Alexandria. She famously carried the Rosetta Stone to Woolwich, and then the Admiralty commissioned her into the Royal Navy as the 40-gun fifth-rate frigate HMS Egyptienne. She served in a number of single-ship actions before being reduced to harbour service in 1807, and was sold for breaking in 1817.
HMS Moucheron was a French privateer, built in 1799, that the British captured in 1801 and that the British government purchased in 1802 for the Royal Navy. She foundered in 1807 in the Mediterranean without leaving a trace.
HMS Brilliant was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Brilliant was first commissioned in July 1779 under the command of Captain John Ford.
Several French ships have borne the name Courageux, Courageaux, or Courageuse:
HMS Kangaroo was British Royal Navy 18-gun brig-sloop of the Diligence class, launched in 1795 at Rotherhithe, England. She served in Home Waters and the Mediterranean Sea until she was sold in 1802.
HMS Poulette was the French privateer Foudroyant, built and launched at Bordeaux in 1798. The Royal Navy captured her in 1799. The British did not commission her until 1803. She was laid up in 1805 and finally sold in 1814.
HMS Netley was originally the French privateer brig Déterminé, which the Royal Navy captured in 1807 and took into service. She was lost at sea on the Leeward Islands station in 1808.
Robert was a 16-gun French privateer corvette launched in 1793 at Nantes. The British captured her in 1793 and named her HMS Espion. The French recaptured her in 1794 and took her into service as Espion. The British recaptured her in 1795, but there being another Espion in service by then, the British renamed their capture HMS Spy. She served under that name until the Navy sold her in 1801. Spy then became a slave ship, a merchantman to South America, and privateer again. The French captured her in mid-1805 and sent her into Guadeloupe.
Confiance, launched in 1797, was a privateer corvette from Bordeaux, famous for being Robert Surcouf's ship during the capture of the British East India Company's East Indiaman Kent. The British Royal Navy captured Confiance in 1805, took her into service under her existing name, and sold her in 1810. Before she was sold, Confiance took part in two notable actions.
Blonde was a French 32-gun privateer corvette, built in Bordeaux around 1801 and commissioned in 1803 under François Aregnaudeau. She preyed on British and American commerce, notably destroying the Royal Navy corvette HMS Wolverine, before the frigate HMS Loire captured her on 17 August 1804.
Gloire was a ship launched at Bayonne in 1799 as an armed merchantman. She became a privateer in the Indian Ocean that the British captured in 1801 in a notable single-ship action and named HMS Trincomalee, but then sold in 1803. The French recaptured her in 1803 and recommissioned her as the privateer Émilien, but the British recaptured her in 1807 and recommissioned her as HMS Emilien, before selling her in 1808.
Courageaux was commissioned in Bordeaux in 1798. She made two cruises as a privateer before HMS Alcmene captured her in 1799. The British Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Lutine. She had a brief operational life in the Royal Navy, serving primarily as a prison ship. At the end of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1802 the Royal Navy sold her in the Mediterranean.
Minerva was the French letter of marque Minerve, a former privateer from Bordeaux, that the Royal Navy captured in September 1804. Samuel Enderby & Sons purchased her c.1805 for use as a whaler. She was taken off the coast of Peru circa August 1805 after a crewman had killed her captain and her crew had mutinied.
Rachael was launched in 1795 at Spain and may have been taken in prize in 1799. She entered British records in 1801. In 1803 she suffered a maritime mishap, and later was captured by a French privateer, but recaptured by the British Royal Navy. She was lost at Fayal, Azores in 1810.
HMS Royalist was launched in 1807. She captured many privateers and letters of marque, most French, but also some from Denmark and the United States. Her crew twice were awarded the Naval General Service Medal. She was instrumental in the capture of a French frigate. The Royal Navy sold her in 1819. She then became a whaler, making three complete voyages. She was condemned after a mishap while on her fourth.
HMS Trompeuse was the French privateer brig Coureur that the British Royal Navy captured in 1800. She was sold for breaking up in 1811.
