French frigate Reunion (1786)
La Réunion battles with HMS Crescent off the Cotentin Peninsula, on 20 October 1793
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| History | |
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 France
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| Name: | La Réunion |
| Launched: | 23 February 1786 |
| Captured: | 20 October 1793 |
 Great Britain
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| Name: | HMS Reunion |
| Laid down: | February 1785 |
| Launched: | 23 February 1786 |
| Completed: | January 1787 |
| Fate: | Wrecked |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 1,100 tons (French) |
| Tons burthen: | 951 43⁄94bm |
| Length: | 144 feet (44 m) (gundeck) |
| Beam: | 38 feet 10 1⁄2 inches (11.8 m) |
| Depth: | 12 feet 1 inch (3.7 m) |
| Sail plan: | Full-rigged ship |
| Complement: | French service:267-285 |
| Armament: | |
La Réunion was a 36-gun French warship launched in 1786. During the French Revolutionary War she was stationed at Cherbourg and was successfully employed harassing British merchant shipping in the English Channel until the British captured her off the Cotentin Peninsula during the action of 20 October 1793. Renamed HMS Reunion, she served for three years in the Royal Navy helping to counter the threat from the new Batavian Navy, before she was wrecked in the Thames Estuary in December 1796.
La Réunion was built at Toulon between February 1785 and January 1787. She was one of a further five ships built to Joseph-Marie-Blaise Coulomb's 1777 design for the Magicienne-class frigates. La Réunion was launched on 23 February 1786.
On 20 April 1792 the Legislative Assembly voted for war with Austria thus starting a conflict which would become known as the French Revolutionary War. France declared war on Britain on 1 February 1793 and began to focus heavily on the disruption of British commerce through the deployment of frigates on raiding operations against British commercial shipping. In the English Channel, two of the most successful raiders were the frigates Réunion and Sémillante, both then based in Cherbourg on the Cotentin Peninsula. These frigates would make short cruises, leaving Cherbourg in the early evening and returning in the morning with any prizes they had encountered during the night.
The British response to the French raids was to attempt a blockade of the French coast, and to that end, despatched a number of vessels including the 36-gun frigate HMS Crescent, under Captain James Saumarez. On the morning of 20 October, Réunion, under the command of Captain François Dénian, and a 14-gun cutter, the Espérance, were returning from a cruise when they were spotted by Crescent. A second British frigate, the 28-gun HMS Circe, was becalmed some 9 nautical miles (17 km) away and Espérance fled towards Cherbourg, leaving Réunion to engage Crescent alone. Although Réunion was bigger, 951 long tons (966 t) compared to 888 long tons (902 t), and carried a larger crew; Crescent had a slight advantage in weight of shot, 315 pounds (143 kg) to 310 pounds (141 kg) and was marginally faster.
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