HMS Auguste was the French 54-gun Auguste built in Brest

Brest, France

Brest is a city in the Finistère department in Brittany in northwestern France. Located in a sheltered position not far from the western tip of the Breton peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after Toulon...

 in 1704 that the British captured in 1705. In her brief French service she captured two major British men of war. She was wrecked in 1716.

French service

Together with the 54-gun Jason (1704), she captured Coventry

HMS Coventry (1695)

HMS Coventry was a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the English Royal Navy, launched at Deptford Dockyard in 1695.The French 54-gun Auguste, together with the 54-gun Jason, captured Coventry in September 1704....

 in September 1704. Then, on 12 November, together with Jason and the 26-gun frigate Valeur (1704), she captured the Third Rate

Third-rate

In the British Royal Navy, a third rate was a ship of the line which from the 1720s mounted between 64 and 80 guns, typically built with two gun decks . Years of experience proved that the third rate ships embodied the best compromise between sailing ability , firepower, and cost...

 Elizabeth

HMS Elizabeth (1679)

HMS Elizabeth was a 70-gun third rate ship of the line of the English Royal Navy, launched at Deptford in 1679.Elizabeth was rebuilt as another 70-gun third rate at Portsmouth Dockyard in 1704, but was captured later that year....

 30 miles south of the Isles of Scilly

Isles of Scilly

The Isles of Scilly form an archipelago off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain. The islands have had a unitary authority council since 1890, and are separate from the Cornwall unitary authority, but some services are combined with Cornwall and the islands are still part...

. In early 1705 she and 44-gun Fourth Rate Thetis were escorting the flutes

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...

 Gloutonne, Elephant and Jean et Jacques when the convoy ran into a squadron under Admiral George Byng

George Byng, 1st Viscount Torrington

Admiral of the Fleet George Byng, 1st Viscount Torrington, KB PC was a British naval officer and statesman of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. His career included service as First Lord of the Admiralty during the reign of King George II.-Naval career:Byng was born at Wrotham, Kent, England...

 at Cape Finisterre

Cape Finisterre

right|thumb|300px|Position of Cape Finisterre on the [[Iberian Peninsula]]Cape Finisterre is a rock-bound peninsula on the west coast of Galicia, Spain....

. Only Auguste escaped.

Chatham

HMS Chatham (1691)

HMS Chatham was a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 20 October 1691 at Chatham Dockyard.In 1705 she captured the French 60-gun Third Rate Auguste built in Brest in 1704. The British took her into service as Auguste.She underwent a rebuild according to the 1719...

, together with Medway

HMS Medway (1693)

HMS Medway was a 60-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched at Sheerness Dockyard on 20 September 1693.Medway, together with Chatam and Triton, captured Auguste on 19 August 1705....

 and Triton, captured her on 19 August 1705.

British service and loss

In 1716, while under the command of Captain Robert Johnson, Auguste was in the Baltic. She had sailed from Nore

Nore

The Nore is a sandbank at the mouth of the Thames Estuary, England. It marks the point where the River Thames meets the North Sea, roughly halfway between Havengore Creek in Essex and Warden Point in Kent....

 on 18 May with a squadron under Sir John Norris to join a combined English-Dutch-Danish-Russian fleet in a demonstration to Sweden that Britain and her allies would resist Swedish interference with trade.
In November she was returning from Copenhagen with a convoy. As the weather worsened, the convoy took shelter on the evening of 9 November at Læsø

Læsø

Læsø is the largest island in the North Sea bay of Kattegat, and is located off the northeast coast of the Jutland Peninsula, the Danish mainland. Læsø is also the name of the municipality on that island...

 island. During the night Augustes cables broke and she sailed out to sea to avoid being driven on shore. On the night of 10 November a gale drove her ashore on the nearby island of Anholt (Denmark)

Anholt (Denmark)

Anholt is a Danish island in the Kattegat, midway between Jutland and Sweden, with 171 permanent residents as of 1 January 2010. It is seven miles long and about four miles wide at its widest and covers an area of 21,75 km². Anholt is part of Norddjurs municipality in Region Midtjylland...

. Most of her people were saved.