French frigate Africaine (1798)

French frigate Africaine (1798)

The "Africaine" was a 44-gun "Preneuse" class frigate of the French Navy.

In 1800, she sailed to Saint-Domingue. On 19 February 1801, she was captured by HMS "Phoebe", under Captain Robert Barlow, east of Gibraltar. She was carrying ordnance, stores and 400 soldiers reinforcing Napoleon's army in Egypt. "Africaine" was overtaken by "Phoebe" who had the weather gage, and was taken at close range, despite the support from the soldiers, who supported the frigate's guns with their musket fire. "Phoebe's" guns inflicted more than 340 casualties on the soldiers and seaman of "L'Africaine" and she was taken at 9:30PM and was bought into the Royal Navy [cite web|publisher= [http://www.treeforall.org.uk Phoebe Tree for All] |url=http://www.treeforall.org.uk/trafalgar/TrafalgarWoods/Otherwoods/Phoebe/|title=Phoebe|date=2007-06-20] as HMS "Africaine".

In September 1810, she was captured by "Iphigénie" and "Astrée". Dismasted, she was abandoned and was retaken the next day by HMS "Boadicea".

In May 1815, she was escorting a group of East Indiamen from Ceylon, including the ill-fated Arniston, when that ship was wrecked on the coast of South Africa with the loss of 372 lives. [cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=m18DAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA527&lpg=PA527&dq=arniston+wreck+giels|pages=p527|last=Raikes|first=Henry|publisher=Hatchet & Son|title=Memoir of the Life and Services of Vice-admiral Sir Jahleel Brenton|date=1846]

Also in 1815, James Cooper and three of his shipmates were very publicly court martialed, then hanged on 1 February 1816 following their being found guilty of sodomy onboard the ship. [cite book|title=Boys at Sea: Sodomy, Indecency, and Courts Martial in Nelson's Navy|author=Barry Richard Burg|date=2007|isbn=0230522289|accessdate=2008-02-23|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=mVgSAAAAYAAJ] [cite book|title=Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition: English Sea Rovers in the Seventeenth|author=Barry Richard Burg|date=1995|isbn=0814712363|accessdate=2008-02-23|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=dP0EgSo3sjoC|publisher=NYU Press]

The ship was broken up in 1816.

Further reading

HMS "Africaine" features prominently in The Mauritius Command by Patrick O'Brian.

References


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