Name Caroline Ordered 24 April 1804 Captured 21 September 1809 Launched 15 August 1806 | Namesake Caroline Bonaparte Laid down May 1804 Construction started March 1804 | |
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Builder Antwerp shipyard (Constructeur Anne-Jean-Louis Leharivel-Durocher) to plans by Sané | ||
Caroline was a 40-gun Hortense-class frigate of the French Navy. She was launched in 1806, sent to the Indian Ocean in 1809, where she was captured by the British during the Napoleonic Wars. The British renamed the ship to HMS Bourbonaise, as the capture was near Île Bourbon during the British campaign to seize that island and Mauritius, and the British had a ship in service named Caroline.
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Actions in 1807
On 30 November 1807 Caroline captured Charlotte, which Caroline set afire and sank. A week later, on 6 December, Caroline captured the privateer Caesar, which she also set on fire and sank. Caesar was a brig of 217 tons (bm), armed with fourteen 6-pounders and two 18-pounder carronades. Her master, Robert Harrison, had received his letter of marque on 1 January 1807. Caesar had already captured several vessels.
Indian Ocean mission and capture
On 12 November 1808, the French authorities sent four new 40-gun frigates to the Indian Ocean. One of them was Caroline, under the command of Captain Jean-Baptiste Billard, Caroline sailed from Vlissingen in the Netherlands.
Caroline initially patrolled with Manche and Iéna under capitaine de vaisseau Billard. Manche was under the command of Captain Breton and was another of the four; she had sailed from Cherbourg.
Caroline captured several ships, notably the two 20-gun East Indiamen Streatham and Europa on 3 May 1809, before returning to Saint-Paul. A third East Indiaman, Lord Kieth, escaped. Prize crews took Streatham and Europa to Réunion, where the British recaptured them on 21 September.
Billard suffering from very serious illness, Caroline was under the command of his first mate lieutenant de vaisseau Feretier when, on 21 September, HMS Sirius and HMS Raisonnable captured her during the British Raid on Saint-Paul.
HMS Bourbonaise
She was taken into British service as HMS Bourbonaise, there already being a ship of that name in service.
Bourbonnaise was commissioned under Captain Robert Corbett shortly after her capture. He sailed her to Plymouth, where she arrived 16 February 1810. The Admiralty paid her off and laid her up in ordinary. She never went to sea again.
The Admiralty attempted to auction Bourbonaise at Plymouth on 18 September 1816 at £2500, but bidding stopped at £2000. She was broken up in April 1817.