French frigate Caroline (1806)

Caroline was a 40-gun Hortense-class frigate of the French Navy. She was launched in 1806 and sent to the Indian Ocean in 1809. There she was captured by the British during the Napoleonic Wars. The British renamed the ship to HMS Bourbonaise, as the capture was near Île Bourbon during the British campaign to seize that island and Mauritius, and the British had a ship in service named Caroline.

For other ships with the same name, see French ship Caroline and HMS Caroline.

Hortense, sister-ship of Caroline
History
France
Name: Caroline
Namesake: Caroline Bonaparte
Ordered: 24 April 1804
Builder: Antwerp shipyard (Constructeur: Anne-Jean-Louis Leharivel-Durocher) to plans by Sané
Laid down: May 1804
Launched: 15 August 1806
Captured: 21 September 1809
United Kingdom
Name: Bourbonaise[1]
Acquired: 21 September 1809
Fate: Sold in 1817
General characteristics [2][3]
Displacement: 1,390 tons (French)
Tons burthen: 1,078 ​10⁄94 (bm)
Length:
  • 151 ft 6 in (46.18 m) (overall)
  • 127 ft 4 7⁄8 in (38.833 m) (keel)
Beam: 39 ft 10 5⁄8 in (12.157 m)
Depth of hold: 12 ft 2 in (3.71 m)
Complement:
  • French service:360
  • British service: 300 (later 315)
Armament:
  • At capture
  • UD: 28 x long 18-pounder guns
  • Spar deck: 10 x long 8-pounder guns + 8 x 36-pounder carronades
  • British service
  • UD:28 x 18-pounder guns
  • QD: 14 x 32-pounder carronades
  • Fc:2 x 9-pounder guns + 2 x 32-pounder carronades
Armour: Timber

Service history

Actions in 1807

On 30 November 1807 Caroline captured Charlotte, which Caroline set afire and sank. A week later, on 6 December, Caroline captured the privateer Caesar, which she also set on fire and sank. Caesar was a brig of 217 tons (bm), armed with fourteen 6-pounders and two 18-pounder carronades. Her master, Robert Harrison, had received his letter of marque on 1 January 1807.[4]

Indian Ocean mission and capture

On 12 November 1808, the French authorities sent four new 40-gun frigates to the Indian Ocean, one of them Caroline, under the command of Captain Jean-Baptiste Billard. Caroline sailed from Vlissingen in the Netherlands.

Caroline initially patrolled with Manche, Captain Breton, and Iéna, under capitaine de vaisseau Billard. Manche was another of the four; she had sailed from Cherbourg.

Caroline captured several ships, notably two East Indiamen Streatham and Europa on 31 May 1809,[5] before returning to Saint-Paul. A third East Indiaman, Lord Keith, escaped. Prize crews took Streatham and Europa to Réunion, where the British recaptured them on 21 September.[6]

While Billard was suffering from very serious illness, Caroline was under the command of his first mate lieutenant de vaisseau Feretier. He was Caroline's commander on 21 September when HMS Sirius and HMS Raisonnable captured her during the British Raid on Saint-Paul.[6]

HMS Bourbonaise

She was taken into British service as HMS Bourbonaise, there already being a ship named HMS Caroline in service.

Bourbonnaise was commissioned under Captain Robert Corbett shortly after her capture. He sailed her to Plymouth, where she arrived 16 February 1810. The Admiralty paid her off and laid her up in ordinary. She never went to sea again.[3]

The Admiralty attempted to auction Bourbonaise at Plymouth on 18 September 1816 at £2500, but bidding stopped at £2000. She was broken up in April 1817.

gollark: I suppose I could just stick tags in with the content *too*.
gollark: It would be mildly more complex.
gollark: The/an issue is that "revisions" should include stuff like "added/removed tags", which would require also filtering by revision type.
gollark: `created` is just the first revision's timestamp, `updated` is the last.
gollark: Technically, the current design duplicates timestamp data a bit.

References
  1. "Naval Database of 19th Century Naval Vessels: HMS Bourbonaise". P Benyon. Retrieved 7 October 2015.
  2. Winfield, Rif; Stephen S Roberts (2015). French Warships in the Age of Sail 1786 - 1861: Design Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. p. 144. ISBN 978-1848322042.
  3. Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. pp. 180–181. ISBN 1-86176-246-1.
  4. Letter of Marque, p.54 - accessed 25 July 2017.
  5. James, William (2015) [1837]. "Naval History of Great Britain - Vol V: 1809 Light Squadrons and Single Ships". P Benyon. p. 194. Retrieved 7 October 2015.
  6. "No. 16341". The London Gazette. 10 January 1810. pp. 213–219.

Bibliography
  • Roche, Jean-Michel (2005). Dictionnaire des bâtiments de la flotte de guerre française de Colbert à nos jours 1 1671 - 1870. Group Retozel-Maury Millau. ISBN 978-2-9525917-0-6. OCLC 165892922.
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