HMS Esperance (1795)

HMS Esperance began her career as the British privateer Ellis. She was captured by the French, then the Spanish. After returning to French ownership, she became the French corvette Esperance. The Royal Navy captured her in 1795 and took her into service as HMS Esperance. Thus, In her brief military career, Esperance had changed hands four times. She was sold in 1798.

Early history
Esperance was originally the British privateer Ellis. A vessel by that name and described as being of 345 tons burthen (bm), with twenty-two 6-pounder guns and a crew of 100 received a warrant on 3 June 1793. Her captain was John Levingston.

The French frigate Gracieuse, under the command of Captain Chevillard, captured Ellis on 22 July 1793. The French took her into service as Elise. Later that summer the Spanish captured her. In November ownership returned to the French who renamed her Esperance.

On 8 June 1794, Esperance arrived in Jacmel, Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), from France with the official proclamation of the abolition of slavery, which Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, as one of the Civil Commissioners of Saint-Domingue, had already unilaterally declared for the French colony the year before amid a slave rebellion and attacks from British and Spanish forces. Ironically, Esperance also brought the news to the Civil Commissioners that the National Convention had impeached them on 16 July 1793 and ordered them to return promptly to France.

Capture
On 8 January 1795, HMS Argonaut, under the command of Captain Alexander John Ball, captured Esperance on the North America Station. Esperence 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 HMS Oiseaux (1793), under Captain Robert Murray.

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 she 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.

Royal Navy service
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, under the command of John Poo Beresford, on 31 January.

On 1 March the two vessels captured the Cocarde Nationale (or National Cockade), a privateer from Charleston, South Carolina, of 14 guns, six swivels and 80 men. Esperance and Lynx recaptured the ship Norfolk, of Belfast, and the brig George, of Workington.

On 20 July, Esperance, in company with the frigates HMS Thetis (1782) and HMS Hussar (1784), intercepted the American vessel Cincinnatus, of Wilmington, sailing from Ireland to Wilmington. They pressed many men on board, narrowly exempting the Irish revolutionary Wolfe Tone, who was going to Philadelphia.

Esperance was formally commissioned into the Royal Navy in August under Commander Jonas Rose.

On 4 May 1796 Esperance was sailing in company with HMS Spencer (1795) and HMS Bonetta (1797) when they sighted a suspicious vessel. Spencer set off in chase while shortly thereafter Esperance saw two vessels, a schooner and a sloop, and she and Bonetta set off after them. Spencer sailed south-southeast and the other two British vessels sailed southwest by west, with the result that they lost sight of each other. Spencer captured the French gun-brig Volcan, while Bonetta and Esperance captured the schooner Poisson Volant.

Poisson Volant was sailing from Aux Cayes to New York and turned out to be the former HMS Flying Fish (1793) that two French privateers had captured in June 1795 while she was on her way to Jamaica. At the time of her recapture she had some eight or ten days earlier met with the French ship Concorde. She was under the command of a sub-lieutenant from Concorde and had a crew of 38 men. Poisson Volant's crew had cut down her gunwales and thrown some of her guns overboard during the chase.

Fate
Esperance arrived at Portsmouth on 3 November 1797 and paid off. On 31 May 1798 the Admiralty listed for sale “the Esperance Sloop, Burthen 325 9/94 tons”. She was sold on 7 June 1798 for £600.