HMS Vengeance (1800)
HMS Seine captures Vengeance on 20 August 1800, depicted in a print by Thomas Whitcombe
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| History | |
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 France
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| Name: | Vengeance |
| Builder: | Paimbœuf |
| Laid down: | June 1793 |
| Launched: | 8 November 1794 |
| Completed: | By April 1795 |
| Captured: | 20 August 1800, by the Royal Navy |
 UK
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| Name: | HMS Vengeance |
| Acquired: | 20 August 1800 |
| Fate: |
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| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | 48-gun Vengeance-class frigate |
| Tons burthen: | 1,180 bm |
| Length: |
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| Beam: | 40 ft 6 in (12.3 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 13 ft 3 1⁄2 in (4.1 m) |
| Sail plan: | Full-rigged ship |
| Armament: | 28 x 18-pounder long guns |
Vengeance was a 48-gun frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class, noted for her fight with USS Constellation during the Quasi-War, an inconclusive engagement that left both ships heavily damaged. During the French Revolutionary Wars, HMS Seine hunted Vengeance down and captured her after a sharp action. She was recommissioned in the Royal Navy as the 38-gun fifth rate HMS Vengeance, but the British apparently never returned her to seagoing service. Accounts are divided as to her eventual fate. She may have been broken up in 1803 after grounding in 1801, or continued as a prison ship until 1814.
Vengeance was one of two frigates built to Pierre Degay's design of 1793, initially ordered as Bonne Foi, and launched on 8 November 1794. She was a member of one of the larger classes of frigate, armed with 24-pounders.
On 8 August 1796, off Guadeloupe, Vengeance encountered the 32-gun Mermaid, under the command of Captain Robert Waller Otway. The subsequent action was prolonged but indecisive. When the 40-gun British frigate Beaulieu came up, Vengeance retired to the shelter of the batteries of Basseterre. Mermaid had suffered no casualties; Vengeance had lost 12 killed and 26 wounded.
Within the month, on 25 August, Vengeance again engaged the British when she chased the 26-gun Raison, under Captain John Poo Beresford, to the west of the Gulf of Maine. After the vessels had exchanged fire for two hours, foggy weather helped Raison escape, but not before she had suffered three killed and six wounded. Vengeance suffered six killed and an unknown number of wounded.
On 31 January 1800, during the Quasi-War, Vengeance engaged the USS Constellation. Toll reports that Vengeance had a broadside of 559 pounds compared to the American vessel's 372 pounds.;Troude reports her armament as twenty-six 18-pounders, ten 6-pounders and four 36-pounder carronades (336 pound broadside), compared to Constellation's twenty-eight 18-pounders, ten 12-pounders and one 32-pounder carronade (472 pound broadside).
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Wikipedia