French frigate Corona (1807)

The Corona was a 40-gun Hortense-Class frigate of the French Navy. The French built her in 1807 for the Venetian Navy but took her over in 1810. The British captured Corona at the Battle of Lissa and took her into the Royal Navy as HMS Daedalus. She grounded and sank off Ceylon in 1813 while escorting a convoy.

French Navy
Corona was initially built in Venice for the Venetian Navy but was transferred to the French Navy in April 1810. Under Captain Nicola Pasqualigo (or Pasguilogo) she served as part of the French squadron operating in the Adriatic in 1811 under Commodore Bernard Dubourdieu.

Corona was one of the ships that Dubourdieu lost at Lissa on 13 March 1811 during the battle that resulted in his death. Corona's captain was also killed in the battle and in all she lost some 200 men killed and wounded. Following her capture by HMS Active (1799), a fire destroyed much of Corona's upper works and killed members of her crew and five members of the British prize crew before they could extinguish it. In 1847 the Admiralty authorized the issuance of the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Lissa" to the still living survivors of the battle.

Royal Navy
Her captors took her to Malta and then to Britain where they renamed her Daedalus, HMS Daedalus (1780) having just been broken up, and took her into the Royal Navy. She was laid up for a year while her battle damage was repaired. In October 1812 she was finally readied for sea under Captain Murray Maxwell, fresh from his own victory in the Adriatic.

Daedalus sailed for the East Indies on 29 January 1813. On 1 July 1813 Daedalus was escorting a number of East Indiamen off Ceylon near Pointe de Galle. Maxwell set a course for Madras that was supposed to take her clear of all shoals. When he believed he was some eight miles off shore he changed course. At 8am on 2 July she grounded on a shoal. Although she hit gently, she had irreparably damaged her bottom. Maxwell and his crew attempted numerous remedies but could not save Daedalus and the Indiamen took off her crew. Within five minutes of Maxwell's departure Daedalus sank. The subsequent court martial ruled that the master, Arthur Webster, had failed to exercise due diligence in that he had failed to take constant depth soundings; the court ordered that he be severely reprimanded.