French ship Vengeur du Peuple
Model of Vengeur du Peuple as Marseillois, on display at the Musée de la Marine et de l'Économie de Marseille.
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.svg){kind=small}  France
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| Ordered: | 16 January 1762 |
| Builder: | Toulon shipyard, plan by Coulomb and building by Chapelle |
| Laid down: | February 1763 |
| Launched: | 16 July 1766 |
| In service: | November 1767 |
| Fate: | Sunk on 1 June 1794 during the Glorious First of June |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 1550 tonnes |
| Length: | 54.28 metres (178.1 ft) |
| Beam: | 13.98 metres (45.9 ft) |
| Draught: | 6.83 metres (22.4 ft) |
| Sail plan: | Full-rigged ship |
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| Armour: | Timber |
Vengeur du Peuple ("Avenger of the People") was a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy. Funded by a don des vaisseaux donation from the chamber of commerce of Marseille, she was launched in 1762 as Marseillois.
She took part in the naval operations in the American Revolutionary War in Admiral d'Estaing's squadron, duelling Preston in a single-ship action on 11 August 1778, taking part in the Battle of the Chesapeake where she duelled HMS Intrepid, and supporting the flagship Ville de Paris at the Battle of the Saintes. She also took part in the Battle of Saint Kitts.
After the French Revolution, she was renamed Vengeur du Peuple and took part in the Glorious First of June. There, she was disabled after a furious duel with HMS Brunswick and surrendered after losing hope of being rescued by a French ship. After a few hours, as British ships were beginning rescue operations, she listed and foundered, taking almost half her crew with her.
The sinking of Vengeur du Peuple was used as propaganda by the National Convention and Bertrand Barère, who gave birth to the legend that the crew had gone down with the ship fighting, rather than surrender. The Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle repeated the tale in his The French Revolution: A History, yielding a rebuttal by Rear-Admiral John Griffiths, who had witnessed the events. Although discredited in naval history circles, the legend lived on as a folk tale, inspiring numerous representations and a fictional account by Jules Verne in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea.
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