Confiance (1800 ship)
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Capture of Kent by Confiance. Painting by Ambroise Louis Garneray.
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| History | |
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 France
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| Name: | Confiance |
| Builder: | Bordeaux |
| Launched: | November 1797 |
| Commissioned: | May 1799 |
| Captured: | 4 June 1805 |
| History | |
 United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Confiance |
| Acquired: | 4 June 1805 by capture |
| Honours and awards: |
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| Fate: | Sold in 1810 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Corvette |
| Displacement: |
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| Tons burthen: | 491 59⁄94 (bm) |
| Length: | 35.86 m (117.7 ft) (overall); 30.6 m (100 ft) (keel) |
| Beam: | 9.53 m (31.3 ft) |
| Draught: | 4.3 m (14 ft) |
| Crew: |
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| Armament: |
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Confiance, launched in 1800, was a privateer corvette from Bordeaux, famous for being Robert Surcouf's ship during the capture of the British East India Company's East Indiaman Kent. The British Royal Navy captured Confiance in 1805, took her into service under her existing name, and sold her in 1810. Before she was sold, Confiance took part in two notable actions.
Completed in Bordeaux in November 1797, Confiance capsized at her launch and had to be set straight before being commissioned under Aurnaud Taudin in May 1799.
In May 1800, Confiance was recommissioned in Île de France and her command was awarded to Robert Surcouf, with a complement of 23 officers and 190 men, and an armament of six 8-pounder long guns, sixteen 6-pounders and two 36-pounder obusiers de vaisseau. On 7 October, she encountered the East Indiaman Kent and captured her after a fierce battle; an 81-man prize crew under Joachim Drieux brought Kent to Île de France (Mauritius), where she was sold for 30,900 piastres.
In 1801, Confiance had her crew reduced to 89 men and sailed en aventurier to La Rochelle, loaded with colonial goods for her return to France. On the journey, Surcouf still managed to capture a number of ships, notably the Portuguese Ebre, with eighteen 12-pounder carronades and a 60-man crew; he released her against a ransom of 10,000 piastres and after exchanging her great mast for that of Confiance. After her arrival in France, Confiance was commissioned as a merchantman under Paul Castanet from May 1802.
By late 1803, she served in Muros, Spain, under Captain Roque and later under Papin. On 4 June 1805, HMS Loire attacked the town of Muros, in Spain, and captured Confiance, as well as her consort Bélier. Loire had six men wounded in the landing party that captured a fort, a battery, and the two vessels, and nine men wounded on Loire by fire from the batteries before the British could capture them. The Spaniards lost 12 men killed, including the commander of the fort and Confiance's 2nd captain, and 30 men wounded, including most of Confiance's officers. Captain Frederick Maitland, of Loire, reported that Confiance was a "very fit Ship for His Majesty's Service; is reckoned to sail excessively fast; was to have gone to Sea in a few Days, bound to India, with a Complement of 300 men". Maitland burnt Bélier, which he described as also fitting for sea, "supposed to be destined to cruise to Westward of Cape Clear."
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