HMS Astraea (1810)

History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Astrea
Launched:	1810
Honours and awards:	Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Off Tamatave 20 May 1811"
Fate:	Scrapped 1851
General characteristics
Class and type:	Apollo-class frigate
Armament:	36 guns

HMS Astraea (frequently spelled HMS Astrea) was a Royal Navy 36-gun fifth rate Apollo-class frigate, launched- in 1810 at Northam. She participated in the Battle of Tamatave and in an inconclusive single-ship action with the French frigate Etoile. Astrea was broken up in 1851.

Astraea's first deployment was to the Cape of Good Hope under Captain Charles Marsh Schomberg. Shortly after his arrival, Schomberg was ordered to join the squadron of Captain Philip Beaver on the newly captured Mauritius. When Beaver sailed for the Seychelles in March 1811, the command of the naval forces on the island devolved to Schomberg.

On 6 May 1811, a French squadron of frigates under the command of Commodore François Roquebert in Renommée approached Grand Port, not realizing that Isle de France (now Mauritius) had fallen to the British. A squadron under James Hillyar chased them off. They also escaped an encounter with squadron under Captain Schomberg.

Schomberg took command of Hillyar's squadron and pursued the French to Tamatave on Madagascar. Between 7 and 9 May the frigates Galatea and Phoebe, under James Hillyar, and the brig-sloop Racehorse, sighted the French 40-gun frigates Renommée, Clorinde and Néréide off the Isle de France, whilst Astraea was lying in Port Louis.

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