HMS Alceste (1806)

HMS "Alceste" was a fifth rate frigate of the Royal Navy, captured from the French in 1806. She served during the Napoleonic Wars, before being wrecked in 1817.

French service

"Alceste" was built for the French Navy as "La Minerve" to a design by P. Rolland. She was built at Rochefort and launched in 1805, but spent only a year in French service before being captured off Rochefort on 25 September 1806 by a squadron of four British warships under Sir Samuel Hood.

British service

"La Minerve" was taken into service as HMS "Alceste", and was commissioned in 1808 under Captain Murray Maxwell. Maxwell took the "Alceste" into the Mediterranean to prey upon enemy shipping, and carry out raids along the Spanish, French and Italian coastlines. On 4 April 1808 "Alceste", in company with HMS "Mercury" and HMS "Grasshopper" attacked a Spanish convoy of Rota, destroying two of the escorts and driving many of the merchants ashore. Seven were subsequently captured and sailed back out to sea by marines and sailors of the British ships. Further raids were carried out that year on Frejus and Corsica and in 1810 two of her officers were imprisoned under a flag of truce while raiding off the Tiber.

In 1811, "Alceste" entered the Adriatic and raided Parenza and Ragusa at the Action of 29 November 1811, "Alceste" led the British frigate squadron that outran and defeated a French military convoy carrying cannon. Two French ships were taken. In 1814, "Alceste" was decommissioned and converted into a troopship.

In 1816 "Alceste" was recommissioned under Captain Maxwell, whose previous ship HMS "Daedalus" had been wrecked in 1813. Maxwell was ordered to the Pacific, passing through the Sunda Strait. "Alceste" made numerous voyages of exploration in the region, and also operated against a Chinese mandarin who tried to prevent their landing at Canton. On 18 February 1817, "Alceste" was wrecked on a rock in the Java Sea. The crew came ashore but Malay Dyaks burnt the wreck before they could return. Forced into a stockade by the threatening behaviour of the Dyaks, the survivors were eventually picked up by an East India Company ship.

References

*Colledge
*Lyon, David and Winfield, Rif, The Sail and Steam Navy List, All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815-1889, pub Chatham, 2004, ISBN 1-86176-032-9

External links

* [http://www.ageofnelson.org/MichaelPhillips/info.php?ref=0097 Ships of the Old Navy]