"HMS Surprise " Topic

"Unité was a corvette of the French Navy built in 1794, the lead ship of her class. She was captured by the Royal Navy in 1796 and renamed HMS Surprise. In 1799 she famously recaptured HMS Hermione and in 1802 was sold out of the service.
She was designed by Pierre-Alexandre Forfait, who was in charge of her construction at Le Havre. She was launched on 16 January 1794, and was armed with 24 eight-pound and 8 four-pound long guns. Although the French initially rated Unité as a corvette, the ships of her class bridged a gap between smaller warships and frigates, and at various times were rated as frigates.

On 20 March 1794, Lieutenant de Vaisseau Jean le Drézénec, who was 41 years old and had entered the naval service soon after the revolution from a career in the merchant service, arrived to take command of Unité. He supervised the fitting out of the ship, and found the long guns were too large to be easily reloaded, and the lower sails were also too large. He notified the authorities, who urged him to finish fitting out the ship because a major naval operation was imminent. Soon afterwards, Unité took part in the battle of the Glorious First of June by escorting the dismasted Révolutionnaire as she was towed by the Audacieux.
In June 1794 Unité completed repairs of damage sustained in the battle in St. Malo and Brest, and in the following months escorted merchant vessels along the coasts of France. On 28 September, with the corvette Bergere and under the command of Lieutenant de Vaisseau Gouley, the two ships left Brest to sail northwest in between Ireland and the islands of the Hebrides and St Kilda to intercept enemy merchant ships. On 17 October, the ships captured a 200 ton merchant ship Dianne. The next day the weather turned foul and the two ships were separated. Unwilling or unable to continue the mission alone, Unité searched for Bergere fruitlessly for sixteen days before finally returning to Brest on 1 November.
Under Captain Edward Hamilton, the Surprise sailed in the Caribbean for several years, capturing several privateers. HMS Surprise gained fame for the cutting-out expedition in 1799 of HMS Hermione. Hermione's crew had mutinied, and had sailed her into the Spanish possession of Puerto Cabello. Captain Edward Hamilton of Surprise led a boarding party to retake Hermione and, after an exceptionally bloody action, sailed her out of danger under Spanish gunfire. The Spanish casualties included 119 dead; 231 were taken prisoner, while another 15 jumped or fell overboard. Hamilton had 11 injured, four seriously, but none killed.
After the Peace of Amiens, Surprise was sold out of the service at Deptford in February 1802 and broken up…"
From wiki

From here
link

Hope you enjoy!

Amicalement
Armand

Same name used for the frigate in the Jack Aubrey stories.

Yes, if you read the article of the "wiki" text on main page, they mention it.

Amicalement
Armand