HMS Argonaut (1782)

HMS Argonaut was a French built 64-gun third rate ship of the line named Le Jason. She was laid down in the January of 1778, launched on the 13th of February, 1779, and completed in the May of that year in Toulon. She was captured by the British on the 19th of April, 1782 and commissioned by them as HMS Argonaut in the same year.
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History
FRANCE
Name: Jason
Launched: 1779
Captured: 19 April 1782, by Royal Navy
GREAT BRITAIN
Name: HMS Argonaut
Acquired: 19 April 1782
Fate: Broken up, 1831

General characteristics
Class and type: 64 gun third rate ship of the line
Tons burthen: 1451​77⁄94 (bm)
Length: 166 ft 0 in (50.70 m) (gundeck)
Beam: 44 ft 8 1⁄2 in (13.6 m)
Depth of hold: 19 ft 1 in (5.82 m)
Propulsion: Sails
Sail plan: Full rigged
Armament: 64 guns
Lower Deck: 26x24 pdrs
Upper Deck:26x 18 pdrs
QD:10x9 pdrs
Fc: 2x9 pdrs


In French Service.

On the 2nd of May, 1780, Jason departed Brest with 7 ships of the line and 3 frigates under Admiral Ternay, escorting 36 transports carrying troops in support of the Continental Army fighting the British in the American Revolution. The squadron comprised the 80-gun Duc de Bourgogne, under Admiral Ternay d’Arsac, the 74 gun Neptune, and Conquerant, and the 64-gun Provence, Bernard de Marigny, Jason and Eveille, and the frigates Surveillante,Amazone, and Bellone. Amazone, which constituted the vanguard of the fleet, arrived at Boston on the11th of June, 1780.

In British Service.

On the 19th of April 1782 whilst in the Mona passage Jason was taken by the ships of Admiral Rodney’s squadron, and was registered as a British ship with effect from that date. She was commissioned by Admiral Rodney, under Captain John Alymer for passage home and sailed on the 25th of July for England. She arrived at Plymouth on the 19th of October and was renamed Argonaut . She then underwent a small repair for £12,745.7.4d between the February and July of 1783.She was then fitted and coppered for a further £9,513 between the April and September of that year.She was not recommissioned until the January of 1793 and still under Alymer sailed for Nova Scotia on the 18th of May 1794.

In 1795, now under Captain Alexander Ball, on the 8th of January, she captured the French Republican warship Esperance on the North America Station. Esperance was armed with 22 guns of 4 and 6lb calibre, and a crew of 130 men. She was under the command of a Lieutenant de Vaisseau De St. Laurent and 56 days out from Rochfort, bound for the Chesapeake. Argonaut shared the prize money with Captain Robert Murray’s Oiseaux.
The French ambassador to the United States registered a complaint with the American President stating that Argonaut, by entering Lynnhaven bay, either before she captured Esperance or shortly thereafter, had violated a treaty between France and the United States. The French also accused the British of having brought Esperance into Lynnhaven for refitting for a cruise. The President passed the complaint to the Secretary of State, who forwarded the complaint to the Governor of Virginia. The Governor inquired into the matter of the British Consul who replied that the capture had taken place some 10 leagues off shore. The weather had forced Argonaut and her prize to shelter within the Chesapeake for some days, but that they had left as soon as practicable. Furthermore, Argonaut had paroled her French prisoners when she came into Lynnhaven and as she had entered American territorial waters solely to parole her French prisoners no one should have thought that objectionable. The authorities in Virginia took a number of depositions but ultimately nothing further came from the matter.
Because she was captured in good order and sailed well, Rear Admiral George Murray, the British commander in chief on the North American station, put a British crew aboard her and sent Esperance out on patrol with the Lynx on the 31st of January.

On the 3rd of August in that same year, Argonaut captured the ship Anna.

Fate.

On her return to England, Argonaut was paid off at Chatham in the October of 1896, fitted as a Hospital ship and placed on harbour service in 1797 under Lieutenant Philip Hue, then under Lieutenant George Paul in 1799. In 1804 she came under Lieutenant John James until finally paid off in 1828, and then eventually broken up in 1831.