| Career (France) | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Impérieuse |
| Ordered: | 27 November 1785 |
| Builder: | Toulon |
| Laid down: | February 1786 |
| Launched: | 11 July 1787 |
| Commissioned: | May 1788 |
| Captured: | 11 October 1793 |
| Career (United Kingdom) | |
| Name: | HMS Imperieuse |
| Acquired: | 11 October 1793 |
| Renamed: | HMS Unite on 3 September 1803 |
| Reclassified: | Harbour service from 1832 |
| Fate: | Broken up January 1858 |
| General characteristics | |
| Tons burthen: | 700 ([{Builder's Old Measurement |
| Length: | 46.1 metres |
| Beam: | 11.7 metres |
| Draught: | 5.5 metres |
| Armament: | 44 guns |
The Impérieuse was a 40-gun Minerve class frigate of the French Navy. She later served in the Royal Navy as HMS Imperieuse and HMS Unite.
In 1788, she cruised in the Middle East, and the Aegean Sea the two following years. She performed another cruise off the Middle East before returning to Toulon. On 11 October 1793, Impérieuse was captured off La Spezia by HMS Captain and the Spanish ship of the line Bahama.
She was subsequently recommissioned in the Royal Navy as the fifth rate frigate HMS Imperieuse.
Imperieuse entered service in 1795, and operated in the West Indies off Martinique and Surinam for most of the French Revolutionary Wars, under the command of Captain John Poo Beresford. Returning to Britain at the Peace of Amiens, Imperieuse was renamed Unite and when the Napoleonic Wars began returned to service in the Mediterranean. Under Captain Patrick Campbell Unite was the first frigate to enter the Adriatic Sea in the war and during the spring of 1808 captured a string of French and Italian gunboats and coastal merchant vessels, notably the Jeulie.
On 19 May 1810 Unite captured the French privateer Du Guay Trouin of 10 guns and 116 men.[1]
By 1811 Unite was still operating in the Mediterranean, under Captain Chamberlayne. On 31 March, along with HMS Ajax, Unite helped capture the French supply ship Dromadaire off Corsica, and on 1 May, she blew up the French gunboats Giraffe and Nourrice sheltering near the island at Sagone, with the help of HMS Pomone and HMS Scout.
Through the summer Unite operated off the mouth of the Tiber and in the autumn she was once again sent to the Adriatic, participating in the Action of 29 November 1811 at which she captured the armed storeship Persanne.
By 1815, Unite was back in Britain in reserve at Deptford and she remained there until converted for harbour service in 1832. Between 1841 and 1858, she was used as a prison hulk. The ship was eventually broken up in January 1858 at Chatham Dockyard.