HMS Argonaut (1782)

The 64-gun Jason was a ship of the line of the French Navy, launched in 1779. The Royal Navy captured Jason on 19 April 1782 at the Battle of the Mona Passage. The Admiralty then commissioned her as the third rate HMS Argonaut. Argonaut served during the French Revolutionary Wars until 1797 when she was put on harbour service. She was not broken up until 1831.

French Revolutionary War
On 8 January 1795, while under the command of Captain Alexander John Ball she captured the French Republican warship Esperance on the North America Station. Esperance was armed with 22 guns (4 and 6-pounders), and had a crew of 130 men. She was under the command of Lieutenant de Vaisseau De St. Laurent and had been out 56 days from Rochfort, bound for the Chesapeake. Argonaut shared the prize money with Captain Robert Murray's HMS Oiseaux.

The French ambassador to the United States registered a complaint with the President of the United States that Argonaut, by entering Lynnhaven bay, either before she captured Esperance or shortly thereafter, had violated a treaty between France and the United States. The French also accused the British of having brought Esperance into Lynnhaven for refitting for a cruise. The President passed the complaint to the Secretary of State, who forwarded the complaint to the Governor of Virginia. The Governor inquired into the matter of the British Consul at Virginia. The British Consul replied that the capture had taken place some 10 leagues off shore. The weather had forced Argonaut and her prize to shelter within the Chesapeake for some days, but that they had left as soon as practicable. Furthermore, Argonaut had paroled her French prisoners when she came into Lynnhaven and if had entered American territorial waters solely to parole her French prisoners no one would have thought that objectionable. The authorities in Virginia took a number of depositions but ultimately nothing further came from the matter.

Because she was captured in good order and sailed well, Rear Admiral George Murray, the British commander in chief of the North American station, put a British crew aboard and sent Esperance out on patrol with Lynx on 31 January.

On 3 August 1795, Argonaut captured the ship Anna.

Fate
Argonaut was placed on harbour service in 1797, and eventually broken up in 1831.