French corvette Vénus (1794)

Vénus was a corvette of the French Navy that the British captured in 1800. Renamed HMS Scout, she served briefly in the Channel before being wrecked by accident in 1801, a few days after taking a major prize.

French service
Vénus was begun in Bordeaux in 1793 as a privateer but the French Navy bought her while she was still on the stocks. She was launched in January 1794 as the Vengeance and completed for service in the following April, but was renamed Vénus in May 1795.

The French commissioned her as a corvette and initially armed her with 26 guns: twenty-two 8-pounders on her upper deck and four 4-pounders on her galliards, i.e. her quarterdeck and forecastle. By 1796 she had had 4 obusiers (the French equivalent of the carronade) added on her gaillards, but by July 1798 these had been removed and she carried ten 4-pounders on her galliards.

Vénus took part in the Expédition d'Irlande and under the command of Captain André Senez, was in Commodore Savary's squadron at the Battle of Tory Island.

Capture
On 22 October 1800 HMS Indefatigable (1784) captured Vénus off the Portuguese coast. The Indefatigable had been chasing Venus from the morning when in the afternoon HMS Fisgard (1797) came in sight and forced Vénus to turn. Both British vessels arrived at Vénus at about 7pm. Vénus was armed with 32 guns and had a crew of 200 men. She was sailing from Rochefort to Senegal. Later, Indefatigable and Fisgard shared the prize money with HMS Boadicea (1797), HMS Diamond (1794), HMS Urania (1797) and the hired armed schooner Earl St Vincent.

Fitting for British service
The Royal Navy commissioned Vénus as Scout in November 1800 under Commander George Ormsby. She was fitted out at Plymouth until March 1801. However Ormsby died in January 1801. Ormsby's successor was Commander Henry Duncan.

Vénus was too small and too weak for the Royal Navy (RN) to take her in as a sixth-rate frigate or even a Post-ship. She was designed for short-range privateering in the Channel and the Bay of Biscay, rather than the longer-range escort or patrol work of a naval corvette. Accordingly she couldn't stow as much in the way of stores as the Admiralty needed; reducing her armament, relative to her French establishment, would have permitted her to carry the larger weight of stores she had to carry in RN service.

HMS Scout
In March 1801, Scout was in company with the hired armed vessels Sheerness and the Lady Charlotte when they captured a large Dutch East Indiaman off St Alban's Head. She was the Crown Prince, of 1,400 tons and 28 guns, and had been sailing from China to Copenhagen with a cargo of tea.

Fate
Scout was wrecked on the Shingles, Isle of Wight, on 25 March 1801. The crew attempted to lighten her but all efforts had failed by late afternoon on 27 March. Due to the efforts of HMS Beaver (1795) and the master attendant of the dockyard all the crew were saved.

On 1 April a court martial was held at Portsmouth on HMS Gladiator (1783) for Commander Duncan, his officers and crew for the loss of Scout. The court acquitted Duncan, the pilot the officers and the crew of all blame, ruling that the sinking was due to a strong tide catching Scout when she was vulnerable.

Postscript
Duncan received command of the Premier Consul, which HMS Dryad (1795) had captured on 5 March 1801, and which the Admiralty renamed Scout. Scout foundered with the loss of all hands in 1801 or 1802. Naval opinion was that she went down off Newfoundland.