French ship Héros (1778)
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| History | |
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.svg){kind=small} France
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| Builder: | Toulon arsenal |
| Laid down: | 1778 |
| Fate: | scuttled by fire on 18 December 1793 |
| General characteristics | |
| Length: | 168 ft (51 m) |
| Beam: | 436 ft (133 m) |
| Draught: | 21 ft (6.4 m) |
| Propulsion: | sail |
| Armament: |
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| Armour: | timber |
Héros was a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, known mostly for being the flagship of Pierre André de Suffren de Saint Tropez during the Anglo-French War.
She was built in 1778 at Toulon on a design by Joseph-Marie-Blaise Coulomb.
In 1781 she became part of Suffren's force, consisting of the 16-gun frigate Fortune, five ships of the line, eight troopships and a thousand soldiers, all entrusted with carrying the French war effort into the Indian Ocean. The other warships were one other 74 gun ship (the Annibal) and three 64-gun ships (the Vengeur, the Sphinx and the Artésien). Suffren had been allowed to choose his officers and non-commissioned officers and so these were mainly from Provence, despite the fact that the force set off from Brest. There were around ten men per gun, making a total crew of 712.
On 22 March 1781 the force sailed for the south Atlantic and on 16 April it met a force under commodore George Johnstone waiting off Cape Verde to attack the Cape. Suffren sailed the Héros into the centre of the enemy formation to try to destroy it while it was still at anchor, in what became the battle of Porto Praya. The ship almost fought the battle alone, since the other French ships were not so well commanded or manoeuvred and so engaged the enemy little or not at all. For more than an hour the Héros was under continual fire from the British ships - she fired "as fast as it was possible to load and reload" noted a British report of the battle. The Annibal was completely dismasted and her captain was killed, leaving the Héros to take her in tow after the battle.
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