''Seine'' was a 38-gun French ''Seine''-class
frigate that 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 ...
captured in 1798 and commissioned as the
fifth-rate
In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a fifth rate was the second-smallest class of warships in a hierarchical system of six " ratings" based on size and firepower.
Rating
The rating system in the Royal ...
HMS ''Seine''. On 20 August 1800, ''Seine'' captured the French ship in a
single ship action that would win for her crew the Naval General Service Medal. ''Seine's'' career ended in 1803 when she hit a sandbank near
the Texel.
French career
''Seine'' was a 40-gun frigate built between May 1793 and March 1794 at
Le Havre
Le Havre (, ; nrf, Lé Hâvre ) is a port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux, very ...
, having been launched on 19 December 1793. ''Seine''s career with 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 ...
lasted less than five years.
On 14 July 1794 she and captured the 16-gun
sloop-of-war in the Atlantic. In late 1794,
L'Hermitte's squadron sailed for Norway. It comprised the frigates ''Seine'', under L'Hermitte, ''Galathée'', under Labutte, and , under
Le Bozec.
The squadron found itself blocked by cold and damage in a Norwegian harbour during the entire winter of 1794–95, sustaining over 250 dead from illness out of a total complement of 880. In spring, ''Seine'' and ''Galathée'' returned to France, leaving ''Républicaine'' to care for the untransportable sick. They eventually were rescued by the corvette ''Subtile''.
''Seine'' then sailed for
Île de France.
On 15 May 1796 , , ''Seine'', and were cruising between
St Helena and the
Cape of Good Hope hoping to capture British
East Indiamen
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 ...
when they encountered the British
whaler
A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized vessel, designed or adapted for whaling: the catching or processing of whales.
Terminology
The term ''whaler'' is mostly historic. A handful of nations continue with industrial whaling, and one, Japa ...
on her way to
Walvis Bay
Walvis Bay ( en, lit. Whale Bay; af, Walvisbaai; ger, Walfischbucht or Walfischbai) is a city in Namibia and the name of the bay on which it lies. It is the second largest city in Namibia and the largest coastal city in the country. The ci ...
. The French took off her crew, except for two seamen and a boy, and put ''Forte''s fourth officer and 13-man prize crew aboard ''Lord Hawkesbury'' with orders to sail to
Île de France. On her way there one of the British seamen, who was at the helm, succeeded in running her aground on the east coast of Africa a little north of the Cape, wrecking her. There were no casualties, but the prize crew became British prisoners.
''Seine'' reached Île de France where she joined the squadron under
Sercey. She took part in the
action of 8 September 1796
The action of 9 September 1796 was an inconclusive minor naval engagement between small French Navy and British Royal Navy squadrons off northeastern Sumatra, near Banda Aceh, during the French Revolutionary Wars. The French squadron comprised si ...
. In March 1798, she sailed from Île de France and was on her way to
Lorient
Lorient (; ) is a town ('' commune'') and seaport in the Morbihan department of Brittany in western France.
History
Prehistory and classical antiquity
Beginning around 3000 BC, settlements in the area of Lorient are attested by the presen ...
when she encountered a British frigate squadron in the Breton Passage on 30 June 1798.
and chased her down and captured her at the
action of 30 June 1798
The action of 30 June 1798 was a minor naval engagement fought along the Biscay coast of France during the French Revolutionary Wars. The French Navy had been largely driven from the Atlantic Ocean early in the war following heavy losses in a se ...
. ''Seine'' was commanded by Capitaine Bigot and was armed with forty-two 18 and 9-pounder guns. She had a crew of 610 men, including troops.
In the engagement ''Seine'' lost 170 men killed and some 100 men wounded, many mortally. ''Jason'' had seven men killed and 12 wounded. ''Pique'' lost one man killed, six wounded, and one man missing. In the fight ''Jason'', ''Pique'' and ''Seine'' grounded; ''Pique'' was lost, but , which had arrived on the scene, was able to get ''Seine'' off. Although the casualties aboard ''Seine'' had been high she was not badly damaged and Captain
David Milne, who had been captain of ''Pique'', and his crew transferred to her. Her captors sailed her into
Portsmouth
Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council.
Portsmouth is the most dens ...
, arriving there on 18 July; Milne commanded ''Seine'' for the rest of her career.
British career
The Royal Navy took ''Seine'' into service under an
Admiralty
Admiralty most often refers to:
*Admiralty, Hong Kong
*Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964
*The rank of admiral
*Admiralty law
Admiralty can also refer to:
Buildings
* Admiralty, Traf ...
order dated 14 September 1798. She then spent several months fitting out at Portsmouth for the sum of £14,755. She was re-rated as a 38-gun frigate and Milne commissioned her in November.
On 13 February 1799 ''Seine'' captured ''Graff Bernstoff''. Roughly a month later, on 18 March, ''Seine'' and
''Sea Gull'' recaptured ''Industry''. That same day, in a probably related encounter, ''Seine'' was in sight when the
hired armed brig captured the French privateer ''Hirondelle'' in a notable action.
In 1800 ''Seine'' was at West Africa before she sailed for Jamaica in July.
On 20 August 1800 ''Seine'' attacked the French ship, , which had just finished refitting at
Curaçao. The vessels broke off action and ''Seine'' was unable to resume the engagement until 25 August. Then, after an hour and a half of hard fighting, ''Seine'' captured the French frigate. Both ships had sustained heavy casualties; 13 crew were killed aboard the ''Seine'', 29 were wounded, and the ship was cut up.
However, ''Vengeance'' sustained worse; almost cut to pieces, many considered her beyond repair. Nevertheless ''Vengeance'' was repaired in Jamaica and taken into British service under her existing name. In 1847 the Admiralty authorized the issue of the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Seine 20 Augt. 1800" to all surviving claimants from this action.
![HMS Seine and Vengeance](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/HMS_Seine_and_Vengeance.jpg)
The
naval historian William James
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States.
James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...
subsequently exaggerated ''Vengeance''s earlier engagement with in favour of the French. He declared that as ''Seine'' had done what ''Constellation'' could not, British naval forces were "more potent than American thunder".
[James (2004), pp. 32–3.] That said, ''Vengeance'' had been heavily armed with twenty-eight 18-pounder guns (main deck), sixteen 12-pounder guns and eight 42-pounder
carronades (QD and Fc), brass
swivel guns on the gunwales, with shifting guns on the main and quarter decks.
[
By March 1801 ''Seine'' was at ]Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
, as part of the fleet under Lord Hugh Seymour
Vice-Admiral Lord Hugh Seymour (29 April 1759 – 11 September 1801) was a senior British Royal Navy officer of the late 18th century who was the fifth son of Francis Seymour-Conway, 1st Marquess of Hertford, and became known for being both a ...
. She was then paid off in 1802.
Fate
''Seine'' underwent a refit at Chatham Dockyard
Chatham Dockyard was a Royal Navy Dockyard located on the River Medway in Kent. Established in Chatham in the mid-16th century, the dockyard subsequently expanded into neighbouring Gillingham (at its most extensive, in the early 20th century ...
between June and July 1803, with Milne recommissioning her in May for the North Sea. However, shortly after her return to service she grounded on a sandbank to the northward of Terschelling on 21 July 1803. That evening Milne had ordered the pilots to keep her out of shallow water and they had assured him that she was safe; forty minutes later she struck. The crew labored all night and well into the morning, with the assistance of two passing merchant vessels to pull her off and to lighten her, but to no avail. At about 11:30am the crew abandoned ''Seine''; they set fire to her as they left to prevent the French recapturing her.
A court martial on 4 August 1803 honourably acquitted Captain Milne, his officers and crew for the loss of the vessel. However, it found the pilots guilty of ignorance. The court martial sentenced them to be mulcted of all their wages for two years and to be imprisoned in the Marshalsea
The Marshalsea (1373–1842) was a notorious prison in Southwark, just south of the River Thames. Although it housed a variety of prisoners, including men accused of crimes at sea and political figures charged with sedition, it became known, ...
for two years.
Notes, citations, and references
Notes
Citations
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Seine (1798)
Frigates of the Royal Navy
Shipwrecks in the North Sea
1793 ships
Maritime incidents in 1803
Ships built in France
Captured ships