French frigate Pomone (1787)

Capture of Pomone, Engageante and Babet
History
France
Name:	Pomone
Namesake:	Pomona
Ordered:	13 April 1782 (named)
Builder:	Rochefort (Builders: Hubert Pennevert & Henri Chevillard)
Laid down:	20 February 1783
Launched:	16 November 1785
In service:	May 1787
Captured:	23 April 1794
United Kingdom
Name:	Pomone
Acquired:	23 April 1794
Fate:	Sold in 1802
General characteristics
Class and type:	40-gun frigate
Displacement:	1400 tons (French)
Tons burthen:	1238  67⁄94
Length:	48.7 m (160 ft);
Beam:	12.2 m (40 ft)
Draught:	5.1 m (17 ft)
Propulsion:	Sail
Complement:	French service:325 British service:300
Armament:	French service: Battery: 26 (later 28) × 18-pounders Battery at capture: 26 × 24-pounder guns Forecastle and quarterdeck: 6 (1794 - 12) × 8-pounder guns and 4 × 36-pounder obusiers British service: Battery: 26 × 24-pounder guns Battery 1799: 26 × 18-pounder guns Fc: 4 × 32-pounders + 2 × 9-pounder guns QD:14 × 32-pounders
Armour:	Timber

Pomone was a 40-gun frigate of the French Navy, launched in 1785. The British captured her off the Île de Batz during in April 1794 and incorporated her into the Royal Navy. Pomone subsequently had a relatively brief but active career in the British Navy off the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of France before suffering sufficient damage from hitting a rock to warrant being taken out of service and then broken up in 1803.

Pomone was built to a one-off design by Baron Charles-Etienne Bombelle. After her capture, her design inspired that of the Royal Navy's Endymion-class frigates.

Between 17 February and 28 August 1793, Pomone was stationed at Rochefort under the command of captain de vaisseau Dumoutier. She cruised along the coasts of the Vendée and then arrived at Brest. Dumoutier continued in command in late September. From 26 February 1794 Pomone was at Cherbourg under the command of lieutenant de vaisseau Étienne Pévrieu. He sailed her from Cancale.

The British captured her, along with Babet and Engageante, off the Île de Batz during the Action of 23 April 1794.

She was recommissioned in the Royal Navy as HMS Pomone. Her design inspired that of the Endymion-class frigates.

On 6 and 17 January 1795, Pomone, under Captain Sir John Borlase Warren, with Arethusa, Concorde, Galatea and Diamond, captured the French vessels David and Ormontaise, and recaptured the Phoenix.