HMS Alceste (1806)
An Armide-class frigate similar to Alceste, illustrated by François-Geoffroi Roux
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| History | |
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 France
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| Name: | Minerve |
| Builder: | Rochefort |
| Laid down: | May 1804 |
| Launched: | 9 September 1805 |
| Completed: | November 1805 |
| Captured: | By the British on 25 September 1806 |
 United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Alceste |
| Acquired: | Captured on 25 September 1806 |
| Reclassified: | Troopship in 1814 |
| Fate: |
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| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | 38 gun Armide-class frigate; re-rated as 46 guns in 1817 |
| Tons burthen: | 1,097 71⁄94 (bm) |
| Length: |
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| Beam: | 40 ft (12.2 m) |
| Draught: | 12 ft 8 in (3.9 m) |
| Propulsion: | Sails |
| Sail plan: | Full rigged ship |
| Complement: | 284 (later 315) |
| Armament: |
UD: 28 × 18-pounder guns QD: 14 × 32-pounder carronades Fc: 2 × 9-pounder guns and 2 × 32-pounder carronades |
UD: 28 × 18-pounder guns QD: 14 × 32-pounder carronades
HMS Alceste was built at Rochefort in 1804 for the French Navy as Minerve, an Armide-class frigate. In the spring of 1806, prior to her capture, she engaged HMS Pallas, then under Lord Cochrane. During the duel she ran aground but Cochrane had to abort his attack when French reinforcements appeared.
The British seized her in an action on 25 September 1806, and the Royal Navy took Minerve into service as Alceste in March 1807; Alceste then continued to serve throughout the Napoleonic Wars. On 29 November 1811, Alceste led a British squadron that captured a French military convoy carrying more than 200 cannon to Trieste in the Balkans. After this loss, Napoleon changed the direction of his planned eastward expansion in 1812 from the Balkans to Russia. The British historian James Henderson has suggested that the two events were linked, and may have changed the course of the war.
In 1814, Alceste was converted to a troopship and used to transport British soldiers to North America during the War of 1812. Following the Treaty of Paris in 1815, Alceste carried Lord Amherst on his 1816 diplomatic mission to China. On the return journey, she struck a reef in the Java Sea; her wreck was subsequently plundered and burned by Malayan pirates.
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