French frigate Magicienne (1778)

The Magicienne was a frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. The British captured her in 1781 and she served with the Royal Navy until her crew burned her in 1810 to prevent her capture after she grounded at Isle de France (now Mauritius). During her service with the Royal Navy she captured several privateers and participated in the Battle of San Domingo.

French service and capture
Magicienne was built to a design by Joseph-Marie-Blaise Coulomb at Toulon. She was the first of 12 vessels built to her design.

She served in Orvilliers' fleet under captain Brun de Boades. HMS Chatham (1758) captured her on 2 September 1781 off Cape Ann. In the action the French lost 60 men killed and 40 wounded; the British lost one man killed and one man wounded. She was described as being of 800 tons, 36 guns and 280 men.

She was subsequently taken to Halifax and recommissioned in the Royal Navy as HMS Magicienne. The British commissioned Magicienne under Thomas Graves, on the North America station. He then sailed her to Jamaica in December.

British service


On 15 July 1782, Magicienne and HMS Prudent (1768) captured three French merchant vessels carrying sugar from Martinique to Europe. These were the ship Tea Bloom, the snow Balmboom, and the brig Juno. Juno was also carrying rum.

On 2 January 1783, Magicienne, met the Sibylle. The ships fought inconclusively, reducing each other to wrecks before parting. In September 1783 Magicienne was paid off and fitted for ordinary at Chatham on 30 October.

French Revolutionary Wars
On 29 April Magicienne was in company with Aquilon, Diamond, Minerva, Syren, Camilla, and Childers, when Acquilon captured the Mary.

On 1 November 1796, Magicienne, under the command of Captain William Henry Ricketts, captured the French corvette Cerf Volant (Enseigne de Vaisseau Camau), off San Domingo. Cerf Volant was flying a flag of truce and had on board a midshipman and several British seamen, prisoners from HMS Hindostan (1794), to give the appearance that she was a cartel. She was carrying delegates from the Southern Department of St. Domingo to the French Legislative Body, and hidden dispatches for the Directory General, that a search the next day uncovered. The hidden dispatches violated the truce flag and made Cerf Volant a legitimate prize. The search also uncovered a box of money.

In early 1797, HMS Magicienne (1781) captured two privateers named Poisson Volant. One was armed with 12 guns and had a crew of 80 men, and the other was armed with five guns and had a crew of 50 men. One was captured on 13 January, and the other on 16 February. Bounty bills (head money) was paid in September 1827. A later account narrates that Poisson Volant was a Dutch privateer, out of Curacao, and that Magicienne sent her into Jamaica to be condemned as a prize.

After the crew of HMS Hermione (1782) mutinied and murdered her captain, Hugh Pigot, Magicienne was involved in the efforts to capture the mutineers and bring them to trial.

On 23 November 1800 Captain Sir Richard Strachan in HMS Captain (1787) chased a French convoy in to the Morbihan where it sheltered under the protection of shore batteries and a 24-gun corvette. Magicienne was able to force the corvette Réolaise onto the shore at Port Navale. The hired armed cutters Suworow, Nile and Lurcher then towed in four boats with a cutting-out party of seamen and marines from Captain and Magicienne. Although the cutting-out party landed under heavy grape and small arms fire, it was able to set the corvette on fire; shortly thereafter Réolaise blew up. Only one British seaman, a crewman from Suworow, was killed. However, Suworow's sails and rigging were so badly cut up that Captain had to tow her.

Napoleonic Wars
On 24 July 1804 HMS Amethyst (1799), while in company with Magicienne, captured the Agnela.

Early in March 1805, Magicienne and HMS Reindeer (1804) sent two boats each, under the command of Lieutenant John Kelly Tudor of Reindeer, to cut out a 4-gun schooner from under a battery in Aguadilla Bay, Puerto Rico.

In 1806, while under the command of Captain Adam Mackenzie, she cruised in the Caribbean. On 25 January 1806, Magicienne was in company with Penguin in the Mona Passage when Magicienne captured the Spanish packet ship Carmen after a chase of 12 hours. Carmen was pierced for 14 guns but carrying only two, and had a crew of 18 men under the command of an officer of the same rank as a commander in the British Navy.

Magicienne joined John Thomas Duckworth's squadron on 5 February, which led to her taking part in the Battle of San Domingo. Duckworth sent Magicienne and HMS Acasta (1797) to reconnoitre, and it was they that signaled that the French were at anchor, but getting under way. Duckworth formed up the smaller ships, Acasta, Magicienne, HMS Kingfisher (1804) and HMS Epervier (1803), windward of the line-of-battle ships to keep them out of the action.

HMS Donegal (1798) forced the surrender of the Brave and directed Acasta to take possession of her, whilst the Donegal moved on to engage the other French ships. Brave was one of the three that the British captured, the other two being the Jupiter and the Alexandre. Their captains drove two French ships, the flagship, Impérial, and the Diomède, on shore between Nizao and Point Catalan, their hulls broadside to the beach and their bottoms stove in by the reefs that lay offshore, to prevent their capture.

On 8 February Duckworth sent boats from Acasta and Magicienne to the wrecks. Boarding unopposed, the boat parties removed the remaining French crewmen as prisoners and set both ships on fire. Lastly, in 1847 the Admiralty awarded the surviving claimants from the action the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "St. Domingo".

In December 1809, Magicienne served in the Indian Ocean. During the Mauritius campaign of 1809–1811, the French Navy captured the East Indiaman Windham in the Action of 18 November 1809 but the newly arrived Magicienne under Captain Lucius Curtis recaptured her on 29 December 1809.

Loss


In March 1810, Magicienne was part of a frigate squadron comprising HMS Iphigenia (1808) and HMS Leopard (1790), later joined by Nereide and HMS Sirius (1797).

The summer of 1810 saw a campaign against the French Indian Ocean possessions; The Île de Bourbon (Réunion) was captured in July. In August, attention was turned to Mauritius, where the British attempted to land troops to destroy coastal batteries and signals around Grand Port; the attempt turned sour, however, when two French forty-gun frigates, Bellone and Minerve, the 18-gun corvette Victor, and two East Indiaman prizes entered the harbour and took up defensive positions at the head of the main entrance channel. The French also moved the channel markers to confuse the British approach.

In the run-up to the battle, Sirius re-captured Windham, which the French had captured a second time in the Action of 3 July 1810. On the 23 August 1810 the British squadron entered the channel at Grand Port. Sirius was the first to run aground, followed by Magicienne and Néréide. Iphigenia prudently anchored in the channel some distance from the action. The French vessels concentrated all their gunfire first against Néréide and then against Magicienne.

The battle continued without interruption all night and on the 24 August the French boarded the defenceless Néréide. Once the French flag was hoisted on what was left of the foremast of the Néréide, Magicienne and the Sirius began an intense cross fire against their enemies. Still, in the evening her crew had to abandon Magicienne, setting her on fire as they left her. Magicienne lost eight men killed and 20 wounded.

The battle cost the British all four frigates, including Ipehinia and Sirius.