French Frigate Sibylle (1792)

''Sibylle'' was a 38-gun of the French Navy. She was launched in 1791 at the dockyards in Toulon and placed in service in 1792. After the 50-gun fourth rate captured her in 1794, the British took her into service as HMS ''Sybille''. She served in the Royal Navy until disposed of in 1833. While in British service, ''Sybille'' participated in three notable single-ship actions, in each case capturing a French vessel. On anti-slavery duties off West Africa from July 1827 to June 1830, ''Sybille'' captured many slavers and freed some 3,500 slaves. She was finally sold in 1833 in Portsmouth.

French service

From 23 April 1790 to October–December 1792, ''Sibylle'' escorted a convoy and transferred funds from Toulon to Smyrna, first under Capitaine de vaisseau (CV) Grasse-Briançon and then CV de Venel. From March 1793 to January 1794, under CV Rondeau, she escorted convoys between Toulon and Marseilles and then she moved to the Levant station. She cruised the Aegean Sea, and in June 1794 she was escorting a convoy from Candia to Mykonos.

On 17 June, as ''Sybille'' was anchored in Miconi along with three merchantmen bound for Cadiz, a British convoy escorted by , under Captain Paget, and three frigates appeared. ''Romney'' approached and demanded that ''Sibylle'' hoist a white flag, to which Rondeau retorted that he could not fly another flag than that of the Republic.

''Romney'' opened fire, and after 90 minutes of gunnery exchanges, ''Sibylle'' struck to her much more powerful opponent. Paget took possession of ''Sibylle'' and the merchantmen, but put the crew and Rondeau ashore. ''Sibylle'' was taken into British service as HMS ''Sybille''.

British service in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

In 1798, now named ''Sybille'', the ship served off the Philippines, participating in the bloodless Raid on Manila. In December, she gave chase to the privateer ''Clarisse'', under Robert Surcouf. ''Clarisse'' escaped by throwing eight guns overboard.

In February 1799, while under the command of Captain Edward Cooke, ''Sybille'' patrolled the Indian Ocean in a hunt for the French frigate , under Captain Beaulieu-Leloup. The ships met on 28 February in the Balasore Roads in the Bay of Bengal at the action of 28 February 1799. ''Sybille'' took ''Forte'' by surprise and captured her, as ''Forte''s captain mistook ''Sybille'' for a merchantman. Cooke was wounded in the action and died at Calcutta on 23 May, aged 26. Though his grave is in Calcutta, the East India Company erected a monument to him in Westminster Abbey in appreciation of the benefit to British trade of his capture of ''Forte''. In all, ''Sybille'' lost five dead and 17 wounded. In 1847, the Admiralty authorized the issuance of the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Sybille 28 Feby. 1799" to all remaining survivors of the action.

In June 1799, ''Sybille'' came under the command of Captain Charles Adam. On 23 August 1800, ''Sybille'', with , , and , captured a Dutch brig. The Royal Navy took her into service as . The British ships had entered Batavia Roads and captured five Dutch armed vessels and destroyed 22 other vessels. ''Sybille'' alone apparently captured one brig of six guns, four proas armed with swivels, four proas armed with between three 8-pounder and three 4-pounder guns, and some 21 unarmed proas, of which five were lost. How many of these, if any, are among the vessels reported as being taken in the Batavia Roads is not clear.

On 19–20 August 1801, in the Roads of Mahé, Seychelles, ''Sybille'' captured the French frigate , under the command of Capitaine de Vaisseau Guieyesse. ''Chiffonne'' had captured the Portuguese corvette ''Andorinha'' off the coasts of Brazil on 5 May, and the East Indiaman ''Bellona'' in the Madagascar Channel on 16 June. (Later, from 23 May 1803 to 1805, Charles Adams would command ''Chiffonne''.)

In 1803, the insurance industry in Calcutta presented Captain Charles Adam of ''Sybille'', and Captain Hart, of , and with valuable swords for having captured French warships and privateers.

On 3 May 1807, under Captain Robert Winthrop, ''Sybille'' captured the French 4-gun privateer ''Oiseau'' in the English Channel.

''Sybille'', under the command of Capt. Clotworthy Upton, participated in Battle of Copenhagen in 1807, where she bombarded the city. The battle resulted in the British capturing the Danish Fleet.

On 25 January 1808, while on the Home station, ''Sibylle'' captured the French privateer lugger ''Grand Argus''. ''Grand Argus'' was pierced for 12 guns but carried only four. She and her crew of 41 men were under the command of Michael Daguinet. She was on her first cruise from Granville but had made no captures in the three days she had been out.

Then on 16 August, ''Sybille'' captured the French brig-corvette ''Espiègle'', later recommissioned in the Royal Navy as . ''Espiègle'' arrived in Cork on the evening of 31 August.

In the summer of 1809 ''Sybille'' cruised off the Greenland ice. Her role was to protect the whalers from privateers and then to escort them back to Britain.

In subsequent years she captured several privateers. In October 1810 she captured the French privateer ''Edouard'' off the coast of Ireland. ''Edouard'', under Guillaume Moreau, was armed with 14 guns and had a crew of 90 men. She was eight days out of Abrevarake.

On 28 January 1812 ''Sybille'' was in company with and , when ''Surveillante'' captured the American ship ''Zone''.

On 10 May ''Sybille'' captured the French privateer ''Aigle'' at . ''Aigle'' was the former Weymouth to Guernsey packet ''Chesterfield''. ''Aigle'', of 61 men under the command of Captain Alexander Black, had thrown eight of her 14 guns overboard while trying to escape ''Sybille''. ''Aigle'' was three days out of Bennodet, near Quimper, and had earlier captured the brig ''Alicia'' as ''Alicia'' was sailing from Bristol to Gibraltar. ''Aigle'' had captured , Le Brun, master, at . had recaptured ''Alicia Hill'', which arrived on 19 July at Plymouth. ''Aigle'' arrived at Cork on 15 July.

On 2 August ''Sybille'' detained and sent into Cork ''Perseverance'' of New York.

Lastly, on 5 February 1813 ''Sybille'' captured the French privateer ''Brestois'' at sea. ''Brestois'' was a schooner armed with 14 guns and carrying a crew of 121 men. ''Sybille'' sent her into Cork too.

Post-war service

Captain Sir John Pechell took command of ''Sybille'' on 1 July 1823 and fitted her out for service in the Mediterranean. She sailed in October and proceeded to spend three years protecting the Ionian Islands and suppressing piracy.

A year later, ''Sybille'' enforced an indemnity on the government of the First Hellenic Republic for an attack on a Turkish vessel at Ithaca in December 1823 in violation of the neutrality of the United States of the Ionian Islands. On 5 October 1824, Pechell seized three Greek schooners in the harbour of Nauplia (''Polyxenes'' of eight guns and 69 men; ''San Niccolo'' of 10 guns and 73 men; and ''Bella Poula'' of eight guns and 37 men) as a provision until the indemnity of 40,000 dollars was forthcoming. The ship took the prizes to Zante and the prisoners to Corfu.

In October 1825, boats from ''Sybille'' and , Captain Timothy Curtis, found a Greek pirate mistico and her prize at anchor in a cove at Catacolo. The British handed the Ionian prize over to the authorities in Zante and sent the mistico to Corfu.

''Sybille''s next notable action occurred when she attacked a pirate lair at Kaloi Limenes at the end of June 1826. ''Sybille'' sent in her boats but they were unsuccessful. The British suffered some 13 dead and 31 wounded, five of whom died subsequently. Gunfire from ''Sybille'' killed many pirates until the pirates traded a Royal Marine they had captured from one of the boats for a cease-fire. ''Sybille'' left the island though some time later a Turkish brig chased the pirates' remaining boat ashore in Anatolia, thus ending that threat.

Suppressing the slave trade

In 1822 ''Sybille'' was in the West Indies. That year her tender, the 5-gun schooner , shared with the frigate in the capture of two pirate schooners on 5 November, ''Union'' and ''Constantia'' (alias ''Espereanza''), and in the destruction of ''Hawke'' and ''Paz''.

From 4 December 1826 until 1830, ''Sybille'' was part of the West Africa Squadron, which sought to suppress the slave trade. There she was under the command of Commodore Francis Augustus Collier.

On 6 September 1827, ''Sybille'' captured the Brazilian ship ''Henriqueta'' (also ''Henri Quatre''), with 569 slaves on board, of whom 546 survived to be liberated in Sierra Leone. In December the Admiralty purchased ''Henriquetta'' for £900 as a tender to ''Sybille'' and renamed her . ''Black Joke'' would go on to be one of the most successful anti-slavery vessels in the squadron.

On 14 March 1828 ''Sybille'' was reported to have captured three slave vessels: possibly a Dutch schooner with 272 slaves, a Spanish schooner with 282 slaves, and ''Hope'', former tender to ''Maidstone'', with a cargo on board for the purchase of slaves. When ''Sybille'' arrived at Sierra Leone on 17 May for refitting in preparation for a passage to Ascension Island, she reported that since she arrived on the station in July 1827 she had freed over 1100 slaves.

In 1829, 204 men died on board from yellow fever. To convince the crew of ''Sybille'' that the fever was not contagious, her surgeon, Robert McKinnal, drank a glassful of black vomit from an ailing crew member.

Between February and March 1829 ''Sybille'' captured a Brazilian brig, and her tenders captured the slave schooner ''Donna Barbara''. By 11 April 1829, ''Sybille'' claimed to have released over 3,900 slaves in the previous 22 months. On 29 April she captured a Spanish schooner with 291 slaves on board. Then on 12 May she sent in to the prize court a schooner with 185 slaves on board.

''Sybille'' also seized and condemned a number of vessels for illicitly trafficking in slaves. On 11 October it was the brigantine ''Tentadora'' and on 1 November the brigantine ''Nossa Senhora da Guia'', with 310 slaves, of whom 238 survived. On 30 January 1830 ''Sybille'' seized and condemned a third, unnamed vessel. Then on 15 January she took ''Umbelino'', with 377 slaves of whom only 163 survived, and eight days later, ''Primera Rosalia'', with 282 slaves, of whom 242 survived. She also captured a brigantine from Lagos after a 27-hour chase; the vessel turned out to have 282 slaves on board. Her last capture occurred on 1 April when she captured ''Manzanares''. ''Sybille'' finally returned to Portsmouth from the coast of Africa on 26 June and was paid off.

Fate

Between January 1830 and July 1831 she was fitted as a lazaretto for Dundee, Scotland. She was eventually sold to a Mr. Henry for £2,460 on 7 August 1833.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Sibylle (1792)
Age of Sail frigates of France
Hébé-class frigates
Ships built in France
1791 ships
Ships of the West Africa Squadron
Captured ships
Ships in art
Maritime paintings