''Pluton'' was 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 ...

French ship of the line built at

Toulon Toulon (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Tolon , , ) is a city on the French Riviera and a large port on the Mediterranean coast, with a major naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, and the Provence province, Toulon is th ...

. She was one of two prototypes for a derivative sub-class of the original design; this sub-class (slightly smaller than the primary design) was specially intended for construction in some of the shipyards in states occupied by the French, where there was less depth of water than in the main French shipyards. Although the ''Pluton'' (and her sister, the ''Borée'') were built at Toulon, all other vessels of this sub-class were built in these overseas yards, notably at Antwerp but also at Genoa, Trieste, Venice, Amsterdam, Flushing and Rotterdam. The ''Pluton'' took part in the

Battle of Trafalgar The Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) was a naval engagement between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition (August–December 1805) of the Napoleonic Wars (180 ...

under Captain

Julien Cosmao Julien Marie Cosmao-Kerjulien (Châteaulin, Finistère, 27 November 1761 – Brest, 17 February 1825) was a French Navy officer, admiral, best remembered for his role in the Battle of Trafalgar. Career Early career Completing his stud ...

-Kerjulien, and escaped to

Cádiz Cádiz (, , ) is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the Province of Cádiz, one of eight that make up the autonomous community of Andalusia. Cádiz, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe, ...

with other ships. Two days later, on 23 October 1805, she was the flagship of the counter-attack from Cádiz, together with , , and . They managed to recapture the and . To prevent their recapture, the British scuttled the and . ''Rayo'' and ''San Francisco de Asis'' were wrecked on their journey back. She was captured by Spain in Cadiz on 14 June 1808 and commissioned in the Spanish Navy as ''Pluton''. She was renamed ''Montañes'' on 20 April 1810, and was eventually broken up in 1816.

References

* * Winfield, Rif & Roberts, Stephen S. ''French Warships in the Age of Sail 1786–1861: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates''. Seaforth Publishing, 2015. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Pluton (1804) Ships of the line of the French Navy Ships built in France Téméraire-class ships of the line 1805 ships

See also

References