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French frigate Sensible (1788)
Encyclopedia
Sensible was a 32-gun Magicienne-class
Magicienne class frigate
The Magicienne class was a type of twelve 32-gun frigates of the French Navy. They were designed by Joseph-Marie-Blaise Coulomb.* MagicienneThe Magicienne class was a type of twelve 32-gun frigates of the French Navy...
frigate
Frigate
A frigate is any of several types of warship, the term having been used for ships of various sizes and roles over the last few centuries.In the 17th century, the term was used for any warship built for speed and maneuverability, the description often used being "frigate-built"...
of the French Navy
French Navy
The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...
. She was captured by the Royal Navy in 1798 and taken in to service as HMS Sensible. She was lost in a grounding off Ceylon in 1802.
French Navy service
From November 1789, she served at MartiniqueMartinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
under captain Durand de Braye. In September 1790, she ferried Joséphine de Beauharnais
Joséphine de Beauharnais
Joséphine de Beauharnais was the first wife of Napoléon Bonaparte, and thus the first Empress of the French. Her first husband Alexandre de Beauharnais had been guillotined during the Reign of Terror, and she had been imprisoned in the Carmes prison until her release five days after Alexandre's...
and her daughter Hortense
Hortense de Beauharnais
Hortense Eugénie Cécile Bonaparte , Queen Consort of Holland, was the stepdaughter of Emperor Napoleon I, being the daughter of his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais. She later became the wife of the former's brother, Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, and the mother of Napoleon III, Emperor of...
from Martinique to Toulon.
In 1792, she took part in operations against Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...
. In 1793, she was equipped as a bomb ship.
On 9 December 1795, part of Gantaume
Honoré Joseph Antoine Ganteaume
Count Honoré Joseph Antoine Ganteaume was a French admiral.Ganteaume was born to a family of merchant sailors, and sailed on a dozen commercial cruises in his youth...
's squadron, Sensible, along with Sardine
French corvette Sardine (1772)
Sardine was a corvette of the French Navy, designed by Broquier.She served in the Mediterranean during the Ancien Régime. In 1792, she was used as an escort....
, captured the 28-gun HMS Nemesis
HMS Nemesis (1780)
HMS Nemesis was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. The Nemesis was first commissioned in January 1780 under the command of Captain Richard Bligh.- References :...
in the neutral port of Smyrna
Smyrna
Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...
. The French warships entered the harbour in disregard of its neutrality and called on Nemesis to surrender. Murray Maxwell
Murray Maxwell
Captain Sir Murray Maxwell, CB, FRS was a British Royal Navy officer who served with distinction in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, particularly during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars...
(then a midshipman) was taken prisoner on this occasion.
Sensible was subsequently armed en flûte
En flûte
Arming a ship en flûte means removing some or all of the artillery. Since ships have a limited amount of cargo space, they may be armed en flûte to make room for other cargo, such as troops and ammunition...
and used as a transport in the Mediterranean. On 27 June 1798
Action of 27 June 1798
The Action of 27 June 1798 was a minor naval engagement between British and French frigates in the Strait of Sicily in the Mediterranean Sea. The engagement formed part of a wider campaign, in which a major French convoy sailed from Toulon to Alexandria at the start of the Napoleonic campaign in...
, she was captured by the 38-gun HMS Seahorse. She was subsequently brought into British service as HMS Sensible.
