HMS Amelia (1796)

HMS Amelia Chasing the French frigate Aréthuse. Painted in 1852 by John Christian Schetky
History
France
Name	Proserpine
Builder	Brest, France
Laid down	December 1784[1]
Launched	25 June 1785
Commissioned	August 1785
Fate	Captured by the Royal Navy on 13 June 1796
Great Britain
Acquired	13 June 1796 by capture
Commissioned	August 1797
Renamed	Renamed HMS Amelia on capture
Honors and awards	Naval General Service Medal with clasps: "12th October 1798"[2] "29 Aug. Boat Service 1800"[3]
Fate	Broken up in December 1816
General characteristics [4]
Class and type	Hébé-class frigate
Tons burthen	1,05935⁄94 (bm)
Length	151 ft 4 in (46.1 m) (overall); 126 ft 1+3⁄8 in (38.4 m)
Beam	39 ft 8+7⁄8 in (12.1 m)
Depth of hold	12 ft 6+1⁄2 in (3.8 m)
Sail plan	Full-rigged ship
Complement	French service: 325[1] British service:284 (later 315)
Armament	In French Navy service: 1785–93: 26 × 18-pounder guns + 8 × 8-pounder guns[1] 1793–96: 26 × 18-pounder guns + 12 × 9-pounder guns + 4 × 36-pounder howitzers[1] or 32-pounder carronades (when captured)[5] In Royal Navy service: Upper deck: 28 × 18-pounder guns QD: 8 × 9-pounder guns + 4 × 24-pounder carronades Fc: 9-pounder guns + 2 × 24-pounder carronades (By 1810 the guns had been removed from the quarterdeck and only two 9-pounders remained on the forecastle.)

Proserpine was a 38-gun Hébé-class frigate of the French Navy launched in 1785 that HMS Dryad captured on 13 June 1796. The Admiralty commissioned Proserpine into the Royal Navy as the fifth rate, HMS Amelia. She spent 20 years in the Royal Navy, participating in numerous actions in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, capturing a number of prizes, and serving on anti-smuggling and anti-slavery patrols. Her most notable action was her intense and bloody, but inconclusive, fight in 1813 with the French frigate Aréthuse. Amelia was broken up in December 1816.