HMS Bienfaisant (1758)

Bienfaisant was a Mathurin-Louis Geoffroy designed 64 gun ship of the line of the French Navy, built a Brest between1752 and its launching in 1754.It was completed in the February of 1756.

History
France
Name: Bienfaisant
Launched: 1754
Captured: 25 July 1758, by Royal Navy
Great Britain
Name: HMS Bienfaisant
Acquired: 25 July 1758
Fate: Broken up, 1814
Notes:
  • Participated in:

Battle of Cape St Vincent
General characteristics
Class and type: 64 gun third rate ship of the line
Tons burthen: 1360​7⁄94 (bm)
Length: 153 ft 9 in (46.9 m) (gundeck)
Beam: 44 ft 6 in (13.6 m)
Depth of hold: 19 ft 4 in (5.9 m)
Propulsion: Sails
Sail plan: Full rigged ship
Armament: 64 guns of various weights of shot

Service.

A cutting out expedition on the orders Admiral Edward Boscawen captured her on the night of the 25th of July, 1758 during theseige of Louisbourg Bienfaisant and the 74-gun Prudent were the last remaining ships of the line of the French squadron left in Louisbourg harbour. Prudent had run aground and so her captors set fire to her, but men commanded by Commander George Balfour of the Bomb Ketch HMS Aetna boarded Bienfaisant and brought her out of the harbour. The action provided a decisive moment of the siege as the fortress surrendered on the following day. Bienfaisant was purchased into the Royal Navy on the 10th of April 1759.
She was commissioned as the HMS Bienfaisant and fitted at Portsmouth for £8,645.8.11d between the January and May of 1759.

She was paid off after wartime service in the August of 1763. From the March of 1768 until the June of 1771 she underwent a great repair at Plymouth at a cost of £22,482. Recommissioned in the November of 1776 she served as a guardship until the May of 1777.Then in late 1777 on the North American station Bienfaissant, under Captain McBride, captured the privateer American Tartar, of 24 guns and 200 men. Bienfaissant then accompanied her to St Johns, Newfoundland. During 1779 she wasrefitted and coppered at Plymouth.

She took part in the Battle of St Vincent on the 16th of January,1780, during the encounter she suffered no casualties whatsoever, although damage suffered to her structure has to be repaired between the May and July of that year.

Returning to duty, on the 19th of July, Bienfaisant encountered the French 32-gun frigate Nymphe, returning to Brest from America. Nymphe managed to escape but in the following month Bienfaisant successfully captured The Comte de Artois off Ireland.

Bienfaisant participated, under the command of Captain Braithwaite, in the Battle of Dogger Bank a bloody encounter between a British squadron under Vice Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and a Dutch squadron under Vice Admiral Johan Zoutman, both of which were escorting convoys. With a reduced armament on her lower deck Bienfaisant participated as the last ship in the British line.

She paid off once more after wartime service in the March of 1783 and was fitted for ordinary at Plymouth.

Fate.

Bienfaisant underwent a series of changes in duties over the next few years until 1803 when a series of lieutenants took over her command still residing in Plymouth until she was finally broken up there in the November of 1814.