HMS Curieux (1804)
HMS 'Curieux' Captures 'Dame Ernouf', 8 February 1805, by Francis Sartorius Jr., National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
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| History | |
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 France
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| Name: | Curieux |
| Builder: | Enterprise Ethéart, Saint Malo (Constructeur:François-Timothée Pestel) |
| Laid down: | October 1799 |
| Launched: | 20 September 1800 |
| Captured: | 4 February 1804 |
| History | |
 United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Curieux |
| Acquired: | 4 February 1804 |
| Fate: | Wrecked, 22 September 1809 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Corvette |
| Displacement: | 290 tons (French) |
| Tons burthen: | 329 5⁄94 (bm) |
| Length: | 97 ft 0 in (29.57 m) (overall); 77 ft 3 in (23.55 m) (keel) |
| Beam: | 28 ft 6 in (8.69 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 13 ft 0 in (3.96 m) |
| Complement: |
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| Armament: |
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HMS Curieux was a French corvette launched in September 1800 at Saint Malo to a design by François Pestel, and carrying sixteen 6-pounder guns. She was commissioned under Capitaine de frégate Joseph-Marie-Emmanuel Cordier. The British captured her in 1804 in a cutting-out action at Martinique. In her five-year British career Curieux captured several French privateers and engaged in two notable single-ship actions, also against privateers. In the first she captured Dame Ernouf; in the second, she took heavy casualties in an indecisive action with Revanche. In 1809 Curieux hit a rock; all her crew were saved but they had to set fire to her to prevent her recapture.
Curieux was a prototype, and the only vessel of her class. Construction on the subsequent Curieux-class brigs started in 1803.
On 4 February 1804, HMS Centaur sent four boats and 72 men under Lieutenant Robert Carthew Reynolds to cut her out at Fort Royal harbour, Martinique. The British suffered nine wounded, two of whom, including Reynolds, later died. The French suffered ten dead and 30 wounded, many mortally. Cordier, wounded, fell into a boat and escaped. The British sent Curieux under a flag of truce to Fort Royal to hand the wounded over to their countrymen.
The Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Curieux, a brig-sloop. Reynolds commissioned her but he had been severely wounded in the action and though he lingered for a while, died in September.
Reynold's successor was George Edmund Byron Bettesworth, who had been a lieutenant on Centaur and part of the cutting out expedition. Curieux's first lieutenant was John George Boss who had been a midshipman on Centaur and also in the cutting out expedition.
In June 1804, Curieux recaptured the English brig Albion, which was carrying a cargo of coal. Then, on 15 July, she captured the French privateer schooner Elizabeth of six guns. That same day she captured the schooner Betsey, which was sailing in ballast.
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Wikipedia