''Rivoli'' was a of the

French Navy 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 t ...

. ''Rivoli'' was built in the Arsenal of Venice, whose harbour was too shallow for a

74-gun The "seventy-four" was a type of two- decked sailing ship of the line, which nominally carried 74 guns. It was developed by the French navy in the 1740s, replacing earlier classes of 60- and 62-gun ships, as a larger complement to the recently-de ...

to exit. To allow her to depart, she was fitted with

seacamel A ship camel is an external flotation tank that can be fitted to a ship to increase her buoyancy or reduce her draught. Its inner walls may be concave and curve to fit the hull of the ship. The ship camels are partially sunk using water ballast, ...

s.''Rivoli'' and were the only two French ships of the line to use this system. On her maiden journey, under Jean-Baptiste Barré, the British 74-gun

third-rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy, a third rate was a ship of the line which from the 1720s mounted between 64 and 80 guns, typically built with two gun decks (thus the related term two-decker). Years of experience proved that the third r ...

intercepted her on 22 February 1812. Her crew was inexperienced, and in the ensuing

Battle of Pirano The Battle of Pirano (also known as the Battle of Grado) on 22 February 1812 was a minor naval action of the Adriatic campaign of the Napoleonic Wars fought between a British and a French ship of the line in the vicinity of the towns of Piran ...

, the British captured ''Rivoli'' after some 400 men of her crew of over 800 were killed or wounded. The

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

subsequently recommissioned her as HMS ''Rivoli''. On 30 May 1815, under Captain

Edward Stirling Dickson Vice-Admiral Edward Stirling Dickson (1765 – 28 January 1844) was a Royal Navy officer who served in the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolutionary Wars, and the Napoleonic Wars. Early career He joined the Royal Navy in 1772, at the ...

, she captured the frigate off

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

Notes, citations, and references

Notes

Citations

References

HMS ''Rivoli''
*

External links

* Ships of the line of the French Navy Téméraire-class ships of the line 1810 ships Ships built by the Venetian Arsenal Captured ships {{France-line-ship-stub