HMS Alceste (1806)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

HMS Alceste was a Royal Navy fifth rate frigate, formerly the French Minerve captured in 1806 by a squadron under Sir Samuel Hood.

Alceste entered service in 1808 under captain Murray Maxwell, raiding French and allied shipping and coastal positions along the Spanish, French and Italian Meditteranean coastlines. In 1808 shore parties raided Rota, Frejus and Corsica and in 1810 two of her officers were imprisoned under a flag of truce while raiding off the Tiber.

In 1811, Alceste entered the Adriatic and raided Parenza and Ragusa at the Action of 29 November 1811, Alceste led the British frigate squadron that outran and defeated a French military convoy carrying cannon. Two French ships were taken. In 1814, Alceste was decommissioned.

In 1816 Alceste was recommissioned under Captain Maxwell, whose previous ship HMS Daedalus had been wrecked in 1813. Maxwell was ordered to the Pacific, passing through the Sunda Strait. Alceste made numerous voyages of exploration in the region, and also operated against a Chinese mandarin who tried to prevent their landing at Canton. On 18 February 1817, Alceste was wrecked on a rock in the Java Sea. The crew came ashore but Malay Dyaks burnt the wreck before they could return. Forced into a stockade by the threatening behaviour of the Dyaks, the survivors were eventually picked up by an East India Company ship.

[edit] Notes

• Ships of the Old Navy