HMS Indefatigable was one of the Ardent-class 64-gun third-rate ships-of-the-line designed by Sir Thomas Slade in 1761 for the Royal Navy. She was built as a ship-of-the-line, but most of her active service took place after her conversion to a 44-gun razee frigate. She had a long career under several distinguished commanders, serving throughout the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. She took some 27 prizes, alone or in company, and the Admiralty authorised the issue of four clasps to the Naval General Service Medal in 1847 to any surviving members of her crews from the respective actions. She was broken up in 1816.
HMS Hannibal was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 15 April 1786, named after the Carthaginian general Hannibal. She is best known for having taken part in the Algeciras Campaign, and for having run aground during the First Battle of Algeciras on 5 July 1801, which resulted in her capture. She then served in the French Navy until she was broken up in 1824.
Pomone was a 40-gun frigate of the French Navy, launched in 1785. The British captured her off the Île de Batz in April 1794 and incorporated her into the Royal Navy. Pomone subsequently had a relatively brief but active career in the British Navy off the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of France before suffering sufficient damage from hitting a rock. Due to this, the ship was taken out of service and then broken up in 1803.
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.
Bonne Citoyenne was a 20-gun corvette of the French Navy launched in 1794, the name ship of a four-vessel class. She was part of the French fleet active in the Bay of Biscay and English Channel. The Royal Navy captured her in 1796, commissioning her as the sloop-of-war HMS Bonne Citoyenne.
HMS Santa Margarita was a 36-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She had been built for service with the Spanish Navy, but was captured after five years in service, eventually spending nearly 60 years with the British.
HMS Unicorn was a 32-gun fifth-rate Pallas-class frigate of the Royal Navy, launched in 1794 at Chatham. This frigate served in both the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, including a medal action early in her career. She was broken up in 1815.
HMS Alcmene was a 32-gun Alcmene-class fifth rate of the Royal Navy. This frigate served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars under the command of several notable officers. Alcmene was active in several theatres of the war, spending most of her time cruising in search of enemy vessels or privateers, and escorting convoys. She fought at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 and served in the blockade of the French coasts during the later Napoleonic Wars until she was wrecked on the French coast in 1809.
His Majesty's hired armed cutter Penelope served the Royal Navy from 29 January 1794 until the Spanish navy captured her off Gibraltar on 7 July 1799. The Spaniard then employed her as a guarda costa.
HMS Aurora was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, that saw service during the American and French Revolutionary wars, and the Napoleonic Wars. Designed to carry a complement of 200 men, she was armed with a main battery of twenty-four 9-pound guns.
The action of 26 April 1797 was a minor naval engagement during the French Revolutionary Wars in which a Spanish convoy of two frigates was trapped and defeated off the Spanish town of Conil de la Frontera by British ships of the Cadiz blockade. The British vessels, the ship of the line HMS Irresistible and the Fifth-rate frigate HMS Emerald, were significantly more powerful than the Spanish frigates, which were on the last stage of a voyage carrying treasure from Havana, Cuba, to the Spanish fleet base of Cadiz.
The French frigate Aigle was launched in 1780 as a privateer. The French Navy purchased her in 1782, but the British captured her that same year and took her into the Royal Navy as the 38-gun fifth rate HMS Aigle. During the French Revolutionary Wars she served primarily in the Mediterranean, where she was wrecked in 1798.
HMS Vincejo, was the Spanish naval brig Vencejo, which was built c.1797, probably at Port Mahon, and that the British captured in 1799. The Royal Navy took her into service and she served in the Mediterranean where she captured a privateer and a French naval brig during the French Revolutionary Wars. After the start of the Napoleonic Wars, the French captured Vencejo in Quiberon Bay in 1804. The French Navy took her into service as Victorine, but then sold her in January 1805. She then served as the French privateer Comte de Regnaud until the British recaptured her in 1810. The Royal Navy did not take her back into service.
HMSEmerald was a 36-gun Amazon-class fifth rate frigate that Sir William Rule designed in 1794 for the Royal Navy. The Admiralty ordered her construction towards the end of May 1794 and work began the following month at Northfleet dockyard. She was completed on 12 October 1795 and joined Admiral John Jervis's fleet in the Mediterranean.
HMS Romulus was a 36-gun fifth rate frigate of the Flora class, built for the Royal Navy and launched in September 1785. At the outbreak of the French Revolutionary War, Romulus was despatched to the Mediterranean where she joined a fleet under Admiral Lord Hood, initially blockading, and later occupying, the port of Toulon. She played an active role during the withdrawal in December, providing covering fire while HMS Robust and HMS Leviathan removed allied troops from the waterfront.
Velters Cornewall Berkeley (1754–1804) was an officer in the Royal Navy. He served in both the American and French Revolutionary Wars but never rose above the rank of Captain. He died at his home in Oxford in 1804, aged 50.
HMS Experiment was launched in 1793, the only lugger actually designed and built for the British Royal Navy. The Spanish Navy captured her in 1796 near Gibraltar. A British privateer recaptured her in 1806, but the Royal Navy did not take her back into service.
HMS Melpomene was a 38-gun frigate of the Royal Navy. Originally a French vessel, she was captured at Calvi on 10 August 1794 and first saw British service in the English Channel, where she helped to contain enemy privateering. In October 1798, she chased a French frigate squadron sent to find the French fleet under Jean-Baptiste-François Bompart, that was routed at the Battle of Tory Island and in August 1799, she joined Andrew Mitchell's squadron for the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland.
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 Stag was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate built for the Royal Navy. She was ordered in 1790 and work began in March 1792 at Chatham Docks. Completed in August 1794, Stag spent much of her service in home waters, where she worked to protect British shipping from French privateers. In an action on 22 August 1795, Stag engaged, and forced the surrender of, the Dutch frigate Alliante, and took part in the chase that ended with the capture of Bonne Citoyenne by HMS Phaeton on 10 March 1796.
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