''Bordelois'' was a 56-gun

ship of the line A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which depended on the two colu ...

of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. She was funded by a

don des vaisseaux The ''don des vaisseaux'' (lit. "gift of ships of the line") was a subscription effort launched by Étienne François de Choiseul, Duke of Choiseul and secretary of State to the Navy in 1761 as an effort to rebuild the French naval power, diminis ...

donation from the city of Bordeaux, and built by engineer

Léon Guignace Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to: Places Europe * León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León * Province of León, Spain * Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again fro ...

on a design by Antoine Groignard. Complete too late to serve in the Seven Years' War, she was razéed into a

frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and ...

and used as an

East Indiaman East Indiaman was a general name for any sailing ship operating under charter or licence to any of the East India trading companies of the major European trading powers of the 17th through the 19th centuries. The term is used to refer to vesse ...

. She was rebuilt into a frigate to serve in the War of American Independence. Captured by HMS ''Romney'', she was brought into British service as HMS ''Artois''.

Career

''Bordelois'' was commissioned in July 1763 under Captain

Charles de Cornick-Duchène Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was " ...

, arriving in Rochefort on 6 September after the end of the Seven Years' War. In 1768, she was

razéed A razee or razée is a sailing ship that has been cut down (''razeed'') to reduce the number of decks. The word is derived from the French ''vaisseau rasé'', meaning a razed (in the sense of shaved down) ship. Seventeenth century During the ...

to a large frigate, while her spare timber was used to rebuild . From 1776 to 1778, ''Bordelois'' was used as an

, after which she became a hulk in Lorient. In 1779, on the background of the

Franco-American alliance The Franco-American alliance was the 1778 alliance between the Kingdom of France and the United States during the American Revolutionary War. Formalized in the 1778 Treaty of Alliance, it was a military pact in which the French provided many su ...

, ''Bordelois'' was sold and razéed into a 40-gun frigate; her refitting having been financed by the States of Artois, she was renamed to ''États d'Artois'' . She entered drydock in June 1779, to be launched in January 1780 and commissioned in May 1780. On 1 July 1780 ''Artois'' was captured by , and brought into British service as HMS ''Artois''. She participated in the Battle of Dogger Bank. "Artois was the finest frigate then known; had 28 18-pounders on her main deck with in addition to her complement of guns, heavy carronades on the quarterdeck and forecastle; Manned by 300 men".

Notes and references

Notes

References

External links

* Ships of the line of the French Navy Frigates of the French Navy 1763 ships Don des vaisseaux Bordelois-class ships of the line {{France-line-ship-stub