HMS Blanche (1786)
HMS Blanche tows the captured Pique into port, depicted by Robert Dodd
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| History | |
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 Great Britain
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| Name: | HMS Blanche |
| Ordered: | 9 August 1782 |
| Builder: | Thomas Calhoun & John Nowlan, Bursledon |
| Laid down: | July 1783 |
| Launched: | 10 July 1786 |
| Completed: | By 25 April 1789 |
| Honours and awards: |
Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Blanche 4 Jany. 1795" |
| Fate: |
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| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | 32-gun Hermione-class fifth rate |
| Tons burthen: | 722 48⁄94 bm |
| Length: |
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| Beam: | 35 ft 7 1⁄2 in (10.9 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 12 ft 7 in (3.84 m) |
| Propulsion: | Sails |
| Sail plan: | Full rigged ship |
| Complement: | 220 |
| Armament: |
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HMS Blanche was a 32-gun Hermione-class fifth rate of the Royal Navy. She was ordered towards the end of the American War of Independence, but only briefly saw service before the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793. She enjoyed a number of successful cruises against privateers in the West Indies, before coming under the command of Captain Robert Faulknor. He took the Blanche into battle against a superior opponent and after a hard-fought battle, forced the surrender of the French frigate Pique. Faulknor was among those killed on the Blanche. She subsequently served in the Mediterranean, where she had the misfortune of forcing a large Spanish frigate to surrender, but was unable to secure the prize, which then escaped. Returning to British waters she was converted to a storeship and then a troopship, but did not serve for long before being wrecked off the Texel in 1799.
Blanche was ordered from the yards of Thomas Calhoun and John Nowlan, of Bursledon on 9 August 1782 and laid down there in July the following year. She was launched on 10 July 1786 and proceeded to Portsmouth where she was coppered in August. She was then laid up for some time, before commissioning in January 1789. Work to fit her for sea had been completed by 25 April that year.
Blanche's first period of service took her to the Leeward Islands in May 1789, under the command of Captain Robert Murray, but she had returned to Britain by June 1792, when she was paid off. A brief period of refitting at Deptford lasted from July to October, before she returned to the Leeward Islands under the command of Captain Christopher Parker. Parker undertook several successful cruises while in the West Indies in 1793, capturing the 12-gun Vengeur on 1 October, the 20-gun Revolutionnaire on 8 October and the 22-gun Sans Culotte on 30 December. Command of the Blanche passed to Captain Robert Faulknor in 1794, who continued Parker's work by capturing a large schooner at La Désirade on 30 December 1794, with the loss of two killed and four wounded.
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Wikipedia