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HMS Sirius (1797)
Encyclopedia
HMS Sirius was a 36-gun fifth-rate
frigate of the Royal Navy
. Between 1797 and 1805, the Sirius was engaged in maintaining the blockade of Napoleonic Europe
. She was lost in 1810 when her crew scuttled her after she grounded during the Battle of Grand Port
.
The Admiralty ordered her construction on 30 April 1795, and the keel
was laid at the Dudman's yard at Deptford Wharf in September of that year. She was launched on 12 April 1797. The Sirius class of 1795 was established following the taking of the San Fiorenzo from the Spanish
in 1794, upon whose lines this frigate was based.
. In this action she took two Dutch
ships, the Waakzaamheid and the Furie
in the Texel
. Waakzaamheid was under the command of Senior Captain Neirrop. She was armed with twenty-four 9-pounder guns on her main deck and two 6-pounders on her forecastle. She had 100 Dutch seamen aboard her, as well as 122 French troops, and was carrying 2000 stands of arms as well as other ordnance stores. Waakzaamheid put up no struggle. The sloop shared in the capture.
Furie was armed with twenty-six 12-pounders on her main deck and ten 6-pounders on her quarter-deck and forecastle. She had a crew of 153 Dutch seamen, augmented with 165 French soldiers. She was carrying 4,000 stands of arms as well as other ordnance stores. Furie did exchange fire with Sirius for about half an hour. Sirius had only one man wounded. Furie had eight men killed and 14 wounded. The hired armed
cutter Diligent shared in the proceeds of the capture.
Sirius was among the vessels that shared in the capture on 25 and 28 November of a French brig and sloop. The British vessels
included , , and , as well as the hired armed
cutters Joseph, Fowey and Dolly.
Then on 6 January 1800 Sirius shared with , , and Stag in the capture of the French brig Ursule.
On 12 June Sirius and captured the French privateer Vengeur. She was armed with six long 4-pounders and ten 18-pounder carronades, and carried a crew of 102 men. She was two days out of Bordeaux and sailing for the coast of Brazil. Vengeur was sailing in company with three letters of marque
- a ship, a brig and a schooner - that were bound for Guadeloupe. On 11 June Vengeur had captured the Jersey-privateer lugger Snake.When the crew of Vengeur came ashore one of the men from Venguer was discovered to have been one of the mutineers on , which Indefatiagble had captured in 1798, and which had suffered a mutiny earlier in 1800. The mutineer was seized, court martialled and hanged.
On 3 July Sirius recaptured the brig Cultivator. Indefatigable and were in company at the time of the capture.
The next day, Sirius and Indefatigable captured the French ship Favori. Eleven days later, captured the French vessel Phoenix. Sirius was among the vessels sharing in the prize money by agreement. Sirius shared in the capture of the French privateer schooner Revanche on 28 July. The actual captor was Uranie. Revanche was armed with fourteen 6-pounder guns and had a crew of 80 men. She was 19 days out of Vigo and had already captured and sent in the English brig Marcus, a Portuguese ship, and a Spanish brig that had been a prize to .
On 11 December Sirius captured the Spanish merchant brig Melchora, some three miles off Sifarga (Illas Sisargas, some 20 miles west of A Coruña
). The brig was 24 hours out of A Coruña on her way to Montevideo when Sirius captured her. Captain King reported the capture in order to draw attention to the fact that she was the only vessel to have left A Coruña since August. shared in the proceeds of the capture.
On 26 January 1801, encountered the French frigate Dédaigneuse
and gave chase. Sirius and Amethyst
joined the next day. On the 28th Oiseau and Sirius effected the capture while unfavorable winds kept Amethyst from joining the action. Dédaigneuse was brought into the Royal Navy as HMS Dedaigneuse. The next day Sirius was in company with Amethyst when they captured the Spanish letter of marque Charlotta of Ferol, 16 hours out of Ferol on her way to Curaçao. The capture took place about six or seven leagues
from Cape Belem in Galicia. The hired armed cutter Earl of St Vincent
shared in the capture.
On 29 January captured and destroyed the Spanish privateer Intrepido Cid. Sirius and Amethyst shared, by agreement, in the bounty-money.
Sirius shared by agreement in the proceeds of the capture of the Temeraire (30 May) and the Bien Aimé (23 July). In July Sirius was under the temporary command of Captain J.B. Edwards.
In August 1802, Captain William Prowse
took command of Sirius. She then took part in the blockade of Brest
.
6200 in prize money. Two days earlier Sirius had captured the Zephyr. Sirius shared with Nemesis the proceeds of the capture of the Trois Freres and the Aigle.
Sirius then was among the vessels sharing in the salvage money from the recapture of the Lord Nelson on 27 August. Similarly, Sirius shared in the salvage money for the Perseverance, recaptured on 28 October. On 25 November, Sirius, and Swiftsure captured the Nemesis.
On 15 February 1805, Sirius recaptured the Spring. On 22 July Sirius participated in Calder's Action (Battle of Cape Finisterre (1805)
). She shared in the prize money for the Spanish ships St. Raphael and Firme, and possibly other vessels as well.
. Entering battle to the north of the weather column, her station placed her only a few cable lengths from HMS Victory
.
Parliament voted a grant of £
300,000 to be distributed in September 1806 among the participants of the battle. Other distributions of prize money followed. In 1847 the Admiralty would issue surviving claimants from the battle the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Trafalgar".
From 1806 to 1808 Sirius served in the Mediterranean. On 17 April 1806 at 2pm Sirius was five or six leagues
off Civitavecchia
when Prowse received intelligence that a French force had sailed that morning for Naples. He immediately set out and succeeded in catching up with them just after sunset two leagues from the mouth of the Tiber River. The force consisted of a ship, three corvettes, and five heavy gun-vessels, and they were deployed in line of battle near a dangerous shoal, awaiting Siriuss attack. The action commenced at 7pm and lasted for two hours before the French ship leading the flotilla struck. The water had been calm so the French had been able to fire well and Sirius herself was too damaged to pursue when the remainder of the French flotilla withdrew; Prowse was also concerned about the risks of pursuit at night in water with shoals.
The captured vessel was the Bergère under the command of Capitaine de frégate Charles-Jacques-César Chaunay-Duclos, commodore of the flotilla and member of the Legion of Honor. She was armed with eighteen 12-pounder guns and one 36-pounder carronade, and had a crew of 189 men. Prowse described her as "remarkably fine Vessel, sails well, and is fit for His Majesty's Service." Prowse omitted mention of French casualties, but Sirius lost nine men killed, including Prowse's nephew, and 20 men wounded, nine dangerously so. This action too qualified the surviving claimants for the Naval General Service Medal, this time with the clasp "Sirius 17 April 1806".
assumed command of Sirius. On 24 February 1809 he sailed for the Cape of Good Hope and the Indian Ocean.
On 2 March 1809 Sirius captured the French schooner Mecontent, and her cargo. In August Sirius joined a squadron under Commodore Josias Rowley and on 21 September participated in an attack on Saint-Paul, Réunion
.
Sirius and HMS Raisonnable
captured the French frigate Caroline
. She was taken into British service as HMS Bourbonaise, there already being an HMS Caroline. The British also recaptured several East Indiamen that Caroline had captured, and the East India Company
's brig Grappler. The land attack succeeded in capturing a number of shore batteries and guns. Sirius suffered the loss of two marines killed, two marines wounded, and one sailor missing.
The summer of 1810 saw a campaign against the French Indian Ocean possessions. The British captured the Île Bourbon (Réunion
) in July. In August, they turned their attention to Mauritius
, where they attempted to land troops to destroy coastal batteries and signals around Grand Port; the attempt turned sour, however, when two French forty-gun frigates, Bellone
and Minerve
, the 18-gun corvette Victor
, and two East Indiaman prizes entered the harbour and took up defensive positions at the head of the main entrance channel. The French also moved the channel markers to confuse the British approach.
On the 23 August 1810 the British squadron entered the channel. Sirius was the first to run aground, followed by Magicienne and Néréide. Iphigenia prudently anchored in the channel some distance from the action. The French vessels concentrated all their gunfire first against Néréide and then against Magicienne.
The battle continued without interruption all night and on the 24 August the French boarded the defenceless Néréide. Once the French flag was hoisted on what was left of the foremast of the Néréide, Magicienne and the Sirius began an intense cross fire against their enemies. Still, in the evening her crew had to abandon Magicienne, setting her on fire as they left her.
Every effort to kedge Sirius off failed; she was firmly aground, making water, and unable to be freed. Pym ordered stores and provisions to be transferred to Iphigenia. When this was complete the men were removed with the last of the crew leaving on the morning of 25 August 1810. As they left they set fire to her; Sirius exploded at about eleven o'clock, with her her hull then briefly drifting off the reef before sinking.
The Battle of Grand Port was an important victory for the French. With two English frigates taken (Iphigenia and Néréide), and two others destroyed (Sirius and Magicienne), as well as 1,600 prisoners taken against 150 French dead or wounded, this battle marks the only French naval victory of the Napoleonic Wars
.
Fifth-rate
In Britain's Royal Navy during the classic age of fighting sail, a fifth rate was the penultimate class of warships in a hierarchal system of six "ratings" based on size and firepower.-Rating:...
frigate of the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
. Between 1797 and 1805, the Sirius was engaged in maintaining the blockade of Napoleonic Europe
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
. She was lost in 1810 when her crew scuttled her after she grounded during the Battle of Grand Port
Battle of Grand Port
The Battle of Grand Port was a naval battle between squadrons of frigates from the French Navy and the British Royal Navy. The battle was fought during 20–27 August 1810 over possession of the harbour of Grand Port on Île de France during the Napoleonic Wars...
.
Design
Keel
In boats and ships, keel can refer to either of two parts: a structural element, or a hydrodynamic element. These parts overlap. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in construction of a ship, in British and American shipbuilding traditions the construction is dated from this event...
was laid at the Dudman's yard at Deptford Wharf in September of that year. She was launched on 12 April 1797. The Sirius class of 1795 was established following the taking of the San Fiorenzo from the Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
in 1794, upon whose lines this frigate was based.
French Revolutionary Wars
In her first action on 24 October 1798 Sirius was under the command of Captain Richard KingSir Richard King, 2nd Baronet
Vice Admiral Sir Richard King, 2nd Baronet KCB was an officer in the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, who fought with distinction at the battle of Trafalgar despite being amongst the youngest captains present.King was the son of Sir Richard King, 1st Baronet, a...
. In this action she took two Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
ships, the Waakzaamheid and the Furie
HMS Wilhelmina (1798)
HMS Wilhelmina was a 32-gun fifth rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was previously a Dutch ship and had been built in 1787 for the Dutch Republic as the Wilhelmina...
in the Texel
Texel
Texel is a municipality and an island in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is the biggest and most populated of the Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea, and also the westernmost of this archipelago, which extends to Denmark...
. Waakzaamheid was under the command of Senior Captain Neirrop. She was armed with twenty-four 9-pounder guns on her main deck and two 6-pounders on her forecastle. She had 100 Dutch seamen aboard her, as well as 122 French troops, and was carrying 2000 stands of arms as well as other ordnance stores. Waakzaamheid put up no struggle. The sloop shared in the capture.
Furie was armed with twenty-six 12-pounders on her main deck and ten 6-pounders on her quarter-deck and forecastle. She had a crew of 153 Dutch seamen, augmented with 165 French soldiers. She was carrying 4,000 stands of arms as well as other ordnance stores. Furie did exchange fire with Sirius for about half an hour. Sirius had only one man wounded. Furie had eight men killed and 14 wounded. The hired armed
Hired armed vessels
right|thumb|250px|Armed cutter, etching in the [[National Maritime Museum]], [[Greenwich]]During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Royal Navy made use of a considerable number of hired armed vessels...
cutter Diligent shared in the proceeds of the capture.
Sirius was among the vessels that shared in the capture on 25 and 28 November of a French brig and sloop. The British vessels
included , , and , as well as the hired armed
Hired armed vessels
right|thumb|250px|Armed cutter, etching in the [[National Maritime Museum]], [[Greenwich]]During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Royal Navy made use of a considerable number of hired armed vessels...
cutters Joseph, Fowey and Dolly.
Then on 6 January 1800 Sirius shared with , , and Stag in the capture of the French brig Ursule.
On 12 June Sirius and captured the French privateer Vengeur. She was armed with six long 4-pounders and ten 18-pounder carronades, and carried a crew of 102 men. She was two days out of Bordeaux and sailing for the coast of Brazil. Vengeur was sailing in company with three letters of marque
Letter of marque
In the days of fighting sail, a Letter of Marque and Reprisal was a government licence authorizing a person to attack and capture enemy vessels, and bring them before admiralty courts for condemnation and sale...
- a ship, a brig and a schooner - that were bound for Guadeloupe. On 11 June Vengeur had captured the Jersey-privateer lugger Snake.When the crew of Vengeur came ashore one of the men from Venguer was discovered to have been one of the mutineers on , which Indefatiagble had captured in 1798, and which had suffered a mutiny earlier in 1800. The mutineer was seized, court martialled and hanged.
On 3 July Sirius recaptured the brig Cultivator. Indefatigable and were in company at the time of the capture.
The next day, Sirius and Indefatigable captured the French ship Favori. Eleven days later, captured the French vessel Phoenix. Sirius was among the vessels sharing in the prize money by agreement. Sirius shared in the capture of the French privateer schooner Revanche on 28 July. The actual captor was Uranie. Revanche was armed with fourteen 6-pounder guns and had a crew of 80 men. She was 19 days out of Vigo and had already captured and sent in the English brig Marcus, a Portuguese ship, and a Spanish brig that had been a prize to .
On 11 December Sirius captured the Spanish merchant brig Melchora, some three miles off Sifarga (Illas Sisargas, some 20 miles west of A Coruña
A Coruña
A Coruña or La Coruña is a city and municipality of Galicia, Spain. It is the second-largest city in the autonomous community and seventeenth overall in the country...
). The brig was 24 hours out of A Coruña on her way to Montevideo when Sirius captured her. Captain King reported the capture in order to draw attention to the fact that she was the only vessel to have left A Coruña since August. shared in the proceeds of the capture.
On 26 January 1801, encountered the French frigate Dédaigneuse
French frigate Dédaigneuse (1799)
The Dédaigneuse was a 40-gun Coquille-class frigate of the French Navy.-French service:On 30 December 1800, as she was taking political prisoners at Cayenne to bring them back to France under Captain Prevost Lacroix, she spotted , but to no avail....
and gave chase. Sirius and Amethyst
HMS Amethyst (1799)
HMS Amethyst was a Royal Navy 36-gun Penelope-class fifth-rate frigate, launched in 1799 at Deptford. Amethyst served in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, capturing several prizes. She also participated in two boat actions and two ship actions that won her crew clasps to the...
joined the next day. On the 28th Oiseau and Sirius effected the capture while unfavorable winds kept Amethyst from joining the action. Dédaigneuse was brought into the Royal Navy as HMS Dedaigneuse. The next day Sirius was in company with Amethyst when they captured the Spanish letter of marque Charlotta of Ferol, 16 hours out of Ferol on her way to Curaçao. The capture took place about six or seven leagues
League (unit)
A league is a unit of length . It was long common in Europe and Latin America, but it is no longer an official unit in any nation. The league originally referred to the distance a person or a horse could walk in an hour...
from Cape Belem in Galicia. The hired armed cutter Earl of St Vincent
Hired armed cutter Earl St Vincent
Two vessels have been named the Hired armed cutter Earl St Vincent.The name Earl St Vincent comes from John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent.-The first Earl St Vincent:...
shared in the capture.
On 29 January captured and destroyed the Spanish privateer Intrepido Cid. Sirius and Amethyst shared, by agreement, in the bounty-money.
Sirius shared by agreement in the proceeds of the capture of the Temeraire (30 May) and the Bien Aimé (23 July). In July Sirius was under the temporary command of Captain J.B. Edwards.
In August 1802, Captain William Prowse
William Prowse
William Prowse CB was an officer of the Royal Navy, who saw service during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars...
took command of Sirius. She then took part in the blockade of 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...
.
Napoleonic Wars
On 18 May 1803, Sirius and captured the Mere de Familie. Ten days later Sirius captured the French ship Achille and then on 8 June the Trois Freres. The capture of the Aigle on 30 May resulted in a preliminary allotment to Siriuss crew of £Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
6200 in prize money. Two days earlier Sirius had captured the Zephyr. Sirius shared with Nemesis the proceeds of the capture of the Trois Freres and the Aigle.
Sirius then was among the vessels sharing in the salvage money from the recapture of the Lord Nelson on 27 August. Similarly, Sirius shared in the salvage money for the Perseverance, recaptured on 28 October. On 25 November, Sirius, and Swiftsure captured the Nemesis.
On 15 February 1805, Sirius recaptured the Spring. On 22 July Sirius participated in Calder's Action (Battle of Cape Finisterre (1805)
Battle of Cape Finisterre (1805)
In the Battle of Cape Finisterre off Galicia, Spain, the British fleet under Admiral Robert Calder fought an indecisive naval battle against the Combined Franco-Spanish fleet which was returning from the West Indies...
). She shared in the prize money for the Spanish ships St. Raphael and Firme, and possibly other vessels as well.
Trafalgar
On 21 October, Sirius joined the British fleet under Vice Admiral Lord Nelson at TrafalgarBattle of Trafalgar
The Battle of Trafalgar was a sea battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French Navy and Spanish Navy, during the War of the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars ....
. Entering battle to the north of the weather column, her station placed her only a few cable lengths from HMS Victory
HMS Victory
HMS Victory is a 104-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, laid down in 1759 and launched in 1765. She is most famous as Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805....
.
Parliament voted a grant of £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
300,000 to be distributed in September 1806 among the participants of the battle. Other distributions of prize money followed. In 1847 the Admiralty would issue surviving claimants from the battle the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Trafalgar".
Sirius vs. Bergère
Sirius, Prince and Swiftsure shared in the proceeds of the capture on 25 November 1805 of the Nemesis.From 1806 to 1808 Sirius served in the Mediterranean. On 17 April 1806 at 2pm Sirius was five or six leagues
League (unit)
A league is a unit of length . It was long common in Europe and Latin America, but it is no longer an official unit in any nation. The league originally referred to the distance a person or a horse could walk in an hour...
off Civitavecchia
Civitavecchia
Civitavecchia is a town and comune of the province of Rome in the central Italian region of Lazio. A sea port on the Tyrrhenian Sea, it is located 80 kilometers west-north-west of Rome, across the Mignone river. The harbor is formed by two piers and a breakwater, on which is a lighthouse...
when Prowse received intelligence that a French force had sailed that morning for Naples. He immediately set out and succeeded in catching up with them just after sunset two leagues from the mouth of the Tiber River. The force consisted of a ship, three corvettes, and five heavy gun-vessels, and they were deployed in line of battle near a dangerous shoal, awaiting Siriuss attack. The action commenced at 7pm and lasted for two hours before the French ship leading the flotilla struck. The water had been calm so the French had been able to fire well and Sirius herself was too damaged to pursue when the remainder of the French flotilla withdrew; Prowse was also concerned about the risks of pursuit at night in water with shoals.
The captured vessel was the Bergère under the command of Capitaine de frégate Charles-Jacques-César Chaunay-Duclos, commodore of the flotilla and member of the Legion of Honor. She was armed with eighteen 12-pounder guns and one 36-pounder carronade, and had a crew of 189 men. Prowse described her as "remarkably fine Vessel, sails well, and is fit for His Majesty's Service." Prowse omitted mention of French casualties, but Sirius lost nine men killed, including Prowse's nephew, and 20 men wounded, nine dangerously so. This action too qualified the surviving claimants for the Naval General Service Medal, this time with the clasp "Sirius 17 April 1806".
Indian Ocean
In November 1808 Captain Samuel PymSamuel Pym
Sir Samuel Pym KCB was a British admiral, brother of Sir William Pym.In June 1788, Pym joined the Royal Navy as captain's servant of the frigate Eurydice...
assumed command of Sirius. On 24 February 1809 he sailed for the Cape of Good Hope and the Indian Ocean.
On 2 March 1809 Sirius captured the French schooner Mecontent, and her cargo. In August Sirius joined a squadron under Commodore Josias Rowley and on 21 September participated in an attack on Saint-Paul, Réunion
Saint-Paul, Réunion
Saint-Paul is the second-largest commune in the French overseas department of Réunion. It is located on the extreme west side of the island of Réunion.Until 1999, near Saint Paul there was the 428 metres tall mast OMEGA Chabrier transmitter.- Transport :...
.
Sirius and HMS Raisonnable
HMS Raisonnable (1768)
HMS Raisonnable was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, named after the ship of the same name captured from the French in 1758. She was built at Chatham Dockyard, launched on 10 December 1768 and commissioned on 17 November 1770 under the command of Captain Maurice Suckling,...
captured the French frigate Caroline
French frigate Caroline (1806)
The Caroline was a 40-gun Hortense Class frigate of the French Navy.On 12 November 1808, the French authorities sent four new 40 gun frigates to the Indian Ocean...
. She was taken into British service as HMS Bourbonaise, there already being an HMS Caroline. The British also recaptured several East Indiamen that Caroline had captured, and the East India Company
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
's brig Grappler. The land attack succeeded in capturing a number of shore batteries and guns. Sirius suffered the loss of two marines killed, two marines wounded, and one sailor missing.
The summer of 1810 saw a campaign against the French Indian Ocean possessions. The British captured the Île Bourbon (Réunion
Réunion
Réunion is a French island with a population of about 800,000 located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, about south west of Mauritius, the nearest island.Administratively, Réunion is one of the overseas departments of France...
) in July. In August, they turned their attention to Mauritius
Mauritius
Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...
, where they attempted to land troops to destroy coastal batteries and signals around Grand Port; the attempt turned sour, however, when two French forty-gun frigates, Bellone
French frigate Bellone (1807)
The Bellone was an 44-gun frigate of the French Navy.She departed Saint-Malo on 18 January 1809, bound for the Indian Ocean, under Guy-Victor Duperré....
and Minerve
French frigate Minerve (1809)
The Minerva was a 48-gun frigate of the Portuguese navy.She was captured on 22 November 1809 by Duperré's Bellone, who gave her command to Pierre Bouvet. She subsequently served in the French Navy as Minerve. The two ships sailed together, capturing the East Indiamen Windham and Ceylan in the...
, the 18-gun corvette Victor
French corvette Revenant
Revenant was a 20-gun privateer corvette designed by Robert Surcouf for commerce raiding. She was later requisitioned for service in the French Navy, and was renamed Iéna, but was subsequently captured by and served in the Royal Navy as HMS Victor...
, and two East Indiaman prizes entered the harbour and took up defensive positions at the head of the main entrance channel. The French also moved the channel markers to confuse the British approach.
On the 23 August 1810 the British squadron entered the channel. Sirius was the first to run aground, followed by Magicienne and Néréide. Iphigenia prudently anchored in the channel some distance from the action. The French vessels concentrated all their gunfire first against Néréide and then against Magicienne.
The battle continued without interruption all night and on the 24 August the French boarded the defenceless Néréide. Once the French flag was hoisted on what was left of the foremast of the Néréide, Magicienne and the Sirius began an intense cross fire against their enemies. Still, in the evening her crew had to abandon Magicienne, setting her on fire as they left her.
Loss
The Battle of Grand Port was an important victory for the French. With two English frigates taken (Iphigenia and Néréide), and two others destroyed (Sirius and Magicienne), as well as 1,600 prisoners taken against 150 French dead or wounded, this battle marks the only French naval victory of the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
.