HMS Alceste (1806)

From SpottingWorld, the Hub for the SpottingWorld network...
File:La Pomone contre les fregates Alceste et Active.jpg
La Pomone contre les frégates HMS Alceste et Active
Pierre Julien Gilbert
Career (France) 60px
Name: Minerve
Namesake: Minerva
Builder: Rochefort
Laid down: May 1804
Launched: 9 September 1805
Completed: November 1805
Captured: By the British on 25 September 1806
Career (UK) Royal Navy Ensign
Name: HMS Alceste
Acquired: Captured on 25 September 1806
Reclassified: Troopship in 1814
Fate: Wrecked on 18 February 1817,
wreck then burnt on 22 February
General characteristics
Class and type: Armide class
Tons burthen: 1,097 bm
Length: 152 ft 5 in (46.46 m) (overall)
128 ft 8 in (39.22 m) (keel)
Beam: 40 ft (12.2 m)
Draught: 12 ft 8 in (3.86 m)
Propulsion: Sails
Sail plan: Full rigged ship
Complement: 284 (later 315)
Armament:

38 guns (re-rated as 46 guns in 1817)

  • Upper deck: 28 × 18pdr gunnades
  • Quarter deck: 14 x 32pdr carronades
  • Forecastle: 2 x 9pdr and 2 x 32pdr carronades

The Minerve was a 38-gun Armide class frigate of the French Navy, captured by the British in 1806 and brought into Royal Navy service as HMS Alceste. She was wrecked in 1817.

French service

Alceste was built for the French Navy as the Minerve, an Armide Class 18-pounder/40-gun frigate to a design by Pierre Rolland. She was built at Rochefort and launched in 1805.

On 25 September 1806, she and Armide, Gloire and Infatigable were captured by a four-ship squadron under Samuel Hood.

British service

The captured Minerve arrived at Plymouth on 26 October 1806, and after languishing there for some months, was taken into service as HMS Alceste, and commissioned in March 1807 under Captain Murray Maxwell. She was refitted at Plymouth for British naval service from Aporil to August 1807. Maxwell took the Alceste into the Mediterranean to prey upon enemy shipping, and carry out raids along the Spanish, French and Italian coastlines. On 4 April 1808 Alceste, in company with HMS Mercury and HMS Grasshopper attacked a Spanish convoy of Rota, destroying two of the escorts and driving many of the merchants ashore. Seven were subsequently captured and sailed back out to sea by marines and sailors of the British ships. Further raids were carried out that year on Frejus and Corsica and in 1810 two of her officers were imprisoned under a flag of truce while raiding off the Tiber.

In 1811, Alceste entered the Adriatic . On 4–5 May, she participated with Belle Poule in a raid at Parenza (Istria) that destroyed a French man-of-war brig. She raided Ragusa, and at the Action of 29 November 1811, Alceste led the British frigate squadron that outran and defeated a French military convoy carrying cannon. Two French ships were taken. In late 1812, Alceste was decommissioned and placed in Ordinary (Reserve) at Deptford. Between February and July 1814 she was converted at Deptford into a troopship; in this role, she recommissioned in May 1814 under Commander Faniel Lawrence, and sailed with troops to North America.

In 1816 Alceste was recommissioned under Captain Maxwell again, whose previous ship HMS Daedalus had been wrecked in 1813. Maxwell was ordered to the Pacific, sailing for China on 9 February 1814 with Lord Amherst aboard, and passing through the Sunda Strait. Alceste made numerous voyages of exploration in the region, and also operated against a Chinese mandarin who tried to prevent their landing at Canton. On 18 February 1817, Alceste was wrecked on a rock in the Java Sea. The crew came ashore but Malay Dyaks burnt the wreck before they could return. Forced into a stockade by the threatening behaviour of the Dyaks, the survivors were eventually picked up by an East India Company ship.

John McCleod, surgeon on board the Alceste, published in 1818 a book entitled "A narrative of a Voyage to the Yellow Sea", based on his experiences during the ship's last voyage. It is known for containing the first known use of the term "parting shot".

References

External links