''Dupleix'' was a steam and sail

corvette A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper (or " rated") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the slo ...

of the built for the French ''

Marine Nationale The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in th ...

''. She was the first French vessel named after the 18th century governor of Pondichéry and ''Gouverneur Général'' of the French possessions in India

Marquess A marquess (; french: marquis ), es, marqués, pt, marquês. is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman wi ...

Joseph François Dupleix Joseph Marquis Dupleix (23 January 1697 – 10 November 1763) was Governor-General of French India and rival of Robert Clive. Biography Dupleix was born in Landrecies, on January 23, 1697. His father, François Dupleix, a wealthy ''fermier gé ...

. After her commissioning, ''Dupleix'' was sent to the Chinese Sea under Vice-Admiral Jaures. She arrived in

Saigon , population_density_km2 = 4,292 , population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2 , population_demonym = Saigonese , blank_name = GRP (Nominal) , blank_info = 2019 , blank1_name = – Total , blank1_ ...

on 25 August 1862, and made short stops in

Ryukyu Islands The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan: the Ōsumi, Tokara, Amami, Okinawa, and Sakishima Islands (further divided into the Miyako and Yaeyama Islands), with Yonaguni ...

and the port of

Hakodate is a city and port located in Oshima Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan. It is the capital city of Oshima Subprefecture. As of July 31, 2011, the city has an estimated population of 279,851 with 143,221 households, and a population density of 412.8 ...

on the island of

Hokkaidō is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The la ...

, before arriving in

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...

Bombardment of Shimonoseki

During the bombardment of Shimonoseki (5 September 1864), ''Dupleix'' was second in the line of corvettes, between the British and the Dutch ''Metallkruz''. She fired 411 shots and received 22 cannonballs (seven in the hull, four under the

waterline The waterline is the line where the hull of a ship meets the surface of the water. Specifically, it is also the name of a special marking, also known as an international load line, Plimsoll line and water line (positioned amidships), that indi ...

, and 11 in the sails). She had two killed and eight wounded. On 28 December 1864, ''Dupleix'' sailed back to France, where she was decommissioned on the 25 June 1865. She was re-commissioned in Cherbourg in 1867, and sent back to serve in the "Far-East Naval Division", under Counter-Admiral

Gustave Ohier Marie Gustave Hector Ohier (5 August 1814 – 30 November 1870) was a French admiral who was Acting Governor of Cochinchina from 1868 to 1869. Early years Marie Gustave Hector Ohier was born in Mondoubleau, Loir-et-Cher, on 5 August 1814. His pa ...

. She arrived in Yokohama in February 1868, and was immediately involved in the events of the Japanese Revolution.

Sakai incident

On 8 March 1868, a

skiff A skiff is any of a variety of essentially unrelated styles of small boats. Traditionally, these are coastal craft or river craft used for leisure, as a utility craft, and for fishing, and have a one-person or small crew. Sailing skiffs have devel ...

sent to

Sakai is a city located in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. It has been one of the largest and most important seaports of Japan since the medieval era. Sakai is known for its keyhole-shaped burial mounds, or kofun, which date from the fifth century and incl ...

was attacked by

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

retainers of the ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and n ...

'' of Tosa; 11 sailors and Midshipman Guillou were killed (a monument in

Kobe Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whic ...

is now erected to their memory). The captain, Abel-Nicolas Bergasse du Petit-Thouars, protested so strongly that the culprits were arrested, and 20 of them were sentenced to death by

seppuku , sometimes referred to as hara-kiri (, , a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour but was also practised by other Japanese people ...

. However, the execution style was so shocking to the French that after 11 were carried out, the French captain requested grace for the survivors. This allowed the French and Japanese parties to reconcile, and is now known as the "

Sakai incident 270px, Monument to the Tosa samurai at Myōkoku-ji in Sakai The was a diplomatic incident that occurred on March 8, 1868, in Bakumatsu period Japan involving the deaths of eleven French sailors from the French corvette ''Dupleix'' in the port o ...

", or ''Sakai Jiken'' (堺事件). On 16 April 1868, ''Dupleix'' was the first Western ship to salute the Emperor at Fort Tempozan. In October of the same year, ''Dupleix'' was sent to Hokkaido. She rescued the British corvette , which was shipwrecked at Romanzoff Bay, in

La Pérouse Strait La Pérouse Strait (russian: пролив Лаперуза), or Sōya Strait, is a strait dividing the southern part of the Russian island of Sakhalin from the northern part of the Japanese island of Hokkaidō, and connecting the Sea of Japan on t ...

Hokkaidō

Relieved by the aviso ''Coëtlogon'', ''Dupleix'' was stationed in the northern port of Hakodate during the Battle of Hakodate, in order to guarantee French interests there. She brought back Captain

Jules Brunet Jules Brunet (2 January 1838 – 12 August 1911) was a French military officer who served the Tokugawa shogunate during the Boshin War in Japan. Originally sent to Japan as an artillery instructor with the French military mission of 1867, he ref ...

and his companions from Hakodate to Yokohama after the fall of the

Republic of Ezo The was a short-lived separatist state established in 1869 on the island of Ezo, now Hokkaido, by a part of the former military of the Tokugawa shogunate at the end of the ''Bakumatsu'' period in Japan. It was the first government to attempt t ...

. From July 1870 to February 1871, ''Dupleix'' blockaded the German frigate in

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...

as part of operations during the Franco-Prussian War. In March, ''Dupleix'' sailed back to

Cherbourg Cherbourg (; , , ), nrf, Chèrbourg, ) is a former commune and subprefecture located at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French department of Manche. It was merged into the commune of Cherbourg-Octeville on 28 Feb ...

to be decommissioned. From 1876 to 1886, ''Dupleix'' was re-armed every year from March to October to monitor fishery operations in

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

. She was struck in 1887. {{DEFAULTSORT:Dupleix (1861) Cosmao-class corvettes Ships built in France 1861 ships Boshin War