French ship Vestale (1756)
Scale model on display at the Musée de la Marine in Toulon
|
|
| History | |
|---|---|
.svg){kind=small} France
|
|
| Name: | Vestale |
| Namesake: | Vestal Virgin |
| Builder: | Le Havre, plans by Jean-Joseph Ginoux |
| Launched: | 1756 |
| Captured: | by Britain, 8 January 1761 |
 United Kingdom
|
|
| Name: | Flora |
| Acquired: | 1761 |
| Fate: | Scuttled 5 August 1778 |
  France
|
|
| Name: | Flore américaine |
| Acquired: | 1784 by purchase |
| Renamed: | Citoyenne Française (April 1793); Reverted to Flore in the French Navy |
| Captured: | By Britain, 7-8 September 1798 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Blonde class |
| Displacement: | 900 tons (French) |
| Tons burthen: | 411 (French; "of load") |
| Complement: |
|
| Armament: |
|
| Armour: | Timber |
Vestale was a Blonde-class 30-gun frigate of the French Navy. The Royal Navy captured her in 1761, but had to scuttle her in 1778 to avoid having the French recapture her. She was refloated and sold to the French in 1784. She returned to wartime service in 1794 as a privateer. The British recaptured her in 1798 and she was broken up thereafter.
She took part in the Battle of Quiberon Bay (November 1759).
HMS Unicorn captured her on 8 January 1761. Vestale, under the command of M. Boisbertelot, had been part of a squadron of five ships that had left the Vilaine river for Brest under the cover of a heavy fog. When Unicorn encountered Vestale off the Penmarks a two-hour engagement ensued until Vestale struck. Hunt received a wound at the third broadside and died of his injuries an hour after the action ended. The British had five killed and ten wounded, the majority of them dangerously. The French had many killed and wounded, among them Captain Boisbertelot, who lost a leg, and died of his wounds the next day. Lieutenant John Symons, who took command of Unicorn on Hunt's death, described Vestal as having twenty-six 12 and 9-pounder guns on her lower deck, and four 6-pounders on her quarterdeck; she also had a crew of 220 men.
The Royal Navy recommissioned Vestale in July as HMS Flora, under the command of Captain Gamaliel Nightingale, for the channel and The Downs. July 1761 commissioned. She was paid off in 1762 or 1763.
Captain C. Saxton recommissioned her in January 1771 for Channel service.
Captain G. Collier sailed for Cronstadt on 2 June 1772, to deliver the new ambassador.
Captain John Brisbane recommissioned her in December 1775. He then sailed Flora for North America on 29 April 1776.
On 8 July 1777, Flora recaptured the Fox, which the Americans had captured a month earlier.
...
Wikipedia