The Espérance was a Rhône class scow 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...

, later reclassified as a frigate. She earned fame as one of the ships of Bruni d'Entrecasteaux

Bruni d'Entrecasteaux

Antoine Raymond Joseph de Bruni d'Entrecasteaux was a French navigator who explored the Australian coast in 1792 while seeking traces of the lost expedition of La Pérouse....

' expedition, along with Recherche

French ship Recherche (1787)

The Recherche was a 20-gun Marsouin class scow of the French Navy, later reclassified as a 12-gun frigate. She earned fame as one of the ships of Bruni d'Entrecasteaux' expedition, along with Espérance...

. Esperance

Esperance, Western Australia

Esperance is a large town in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, located on the Southern Ocean coastline approximately east-southeast of the state capital, Perth. The shire of Esperance is home to 9,536 people as of the 2006 census, its major industries are tourism, agriculture,...

 was named after her.

Career

The ship was built as Durance and served in de Grasse

François Joseph Paul de Grasse

Lieutenant Général des Armées Navales François-Joseph Paul, marquis de Grasse Tilly, comte de Grasse was a French admiral. He is best known for his command of the French fleet at the Battle of the Chesapeake, which led directly to the British surrender at Yorktown...

's squadron as a troopship.

Along with Recherche

French ship Recherche (1787)

The Recherche was a 20-gun Marsouin class scow of the French Navy, later reclassified as a 12-gun frigate. She earned fame as one of the ships of Bruni d'Entrecasteaux' expedition, along with Espérance...

, she departed from Brest on 29 September 1791 for an exploration mission in search of Lapérouse, sailing to New Caledonia under Captain Huon de Kermadec

Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec

Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec was an 18th century French navigator. In September 1791 he was chosen to command the Espérance on the Bruni d'Entrecasteaux expedition to find the lost expedition of Jean-François de La Pérouse. The expedition explored Australia and the South Pacific...

.

On 28 October 1793, she was captured by the Dutch at Surabaya

Surabaya

Surabaya is Indonesia's second-largest city with a population of over 2.7 million , and the capital of the province of East Java...

, only to be restituted to France in February 1794. In September, she was sold to Holland, and two months later she was sold for scrap.

Sources and references

• Jean-Michel Roche, Dictionnaire de la flotte française de 1671 à nos jours, Tome I, p. 180

See also

• European and American voyages of scientific exploration
  European and American voyages of scientific exploration
  The era of European and American voyages of scientific exploration followed the Age of Discovery and were inspired by a new confidence in science and reason that arose in the Age of Enlightenment...