French frigate Franchise (1798)
| History | |
|---|---|
 France
|
|
| Name: | Franchise ("truthfulness") |
| Builder: | Bayonne |
| Laid down: | August 1794 |
| Launched: | 17 October 1797 |
| In service: | May 1798 |
| Captured: | 28 May 1803 |
 United Kingdom
|
|
| Name: | Franchise |
| Acquired: | 28 May 1803 by capture |
| Fate: | Broken up November 1815 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Coquille-class frigate |
| Tons burthen: | 898 16⁄94 (bm) |
| Length: |
|
| Beam: | 37 ft 6 3⁄4 in (11.4 m) |
| Draught: | 5.3 m (17 ft) |
| Depth of hold: | 11 ft 8 in (3.6 m) |
| Sail plan: | Full-rigged ship |
| Complement: | British service:264 (later 215) |
| Armament: |
|
Franchise was launched in 1798 as a 40-gun Coquille-class frigate of the French Navy. The British captured her in 1803 and took her into the Royal Navy under her existing name. In the war on commerce during the Napoleonic Wars she was more protector than prize-taker, capturing many small privateers but apparently few commercial prizes. She was also at the battle of Copenhagen. She was broken up in 1815.
She was part of a squadron of three frigates, Concorde under Commodore Jean-François Landolphe, Médée under Captain Jean-Daniel Coudin, and Franchise under Captain Pierre Jurien, with Landolphe as the overall commander, that left Rochefort on 6 March 1799. Eluding the British blockade off Rochefort, the squadron sailed southwards until it reached the coast of West Africa. There Landolphe's ships began an extended commerce raiding operation, inflicting severe damage on the West African trade for the rest of the year. During this time, the squadron captured the Portuguese island of Prince (Príncipe). Eventually the strain of serving in tropical waters told on the ships and all three were forced to undergo an extensive refit in the nearest available allied shipyards, which were located in the Spanish-held River Plate in South America. At Montevideo the squadron assisted the French prisoners that had captured and taken into that port the convict transport Lady Shore, which was carrying them to Australia.
Repairs continued for six months, until Landolphe considered the squadron once again ready to sail in the early summer of 1800. The squadron almost immediately captured off the coast of Brazil the American schooner Espérance (Hope), which they used as an aviso and sent to Cayenne with a prize crew under the command of enseigne de vaisseau Hamon. (At the time, France and the United States had been engaged for two years in the Quasi War.)
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Wikipedia