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HMS ''Eclair'' was a French Navy schooner launched in 1799 and captured in 1801. The British took her into service under her French name and armed her with twelve 12-pounder carronades. In 1804 she engaged in a noteworthy, albeit indecisive single ship action with the 22-gun French privateer ''Grande Decide''. In 1809 she was renamed ''Pickle''. In December 1812 she and three other small British vessels engaged the French 40-gun frigate ''Gloire'' in another noteworthy and indecisive action. She was sold in 1818. ==Capture== ''Éclair'', under the command of ''ensiegne de vaisseau'' Sougé, sailed her from Rochfort to Basse-Terre.〔'"Fonds Marine'', p.259.〕 On 15 January 1801, while the 20-gun post-ship , Captain Richard Matson, 18-gun ship-sloops and , Captains Henry Matson and James Nash, and schooner-tender ''Garland'', were at an anchor in the harbour of the Saintes, they observed a convoy of French coasters, escorted by an armed schooner, sailing towards Vieux-Fort, Guadeloupe. At midnight ''Garland'', accompanied by two boats from each of the three ships, under the command of Lieutenants Kenneth Mackenzie and Francis Peachey, attempted to capture or destroy the convoy. The vessels, however, except one, succeeded in getting under the guns of Basse-terre. One vessel, which had anchored near Vieux-Fort, they boarded and brought off under a heavy but apparently harmless cannonade.〔James (1837), Vol. 3, p.133-4.〕 Two days later, in the afternoon, the British observed the French schooner ''Éclair'', of four long 4-pounders, twenty 1½ pounder brass swivels, and 45 men, the escort of the convoy in question, put into Trois-Rivières, and anchor under the protection of one principal battery and two smaller flanking ones. Lieutenants Mackenzie, of ''Daphne'', and Peachey, of ''Cyane'', volunteered to attempt cutting her out. For this purpose Mackenzie, with 25 seamen and marines, went on board the ''Garland''. The next day, 18 January, which was as early as the breeze would permit, '' Garland'' ran alongside ''Éclair'' and Lieutenants Mackenzie and Peachey, with 30 men, boarded and carried the French schooner in the face of the batteries.〔 The British lost one seaman and one marine killed, and a sergeant of marines and two seamen wounded. ''Éclair'' lost one seaman killed, two drowned, and her captain, first and second lieutenants, and six men wounded.〔 ''Éclair'' carried only four guns but was pierced for 12 and was large enough to carry that many cannon. She was on her way to Pointe Petre to complete her armament of twelve 6-pounders and 20 brass swivels. The British took her into service under her existing name and armed her with twelve 12-pounder carronades.〔Winfield (2008), p.356.〕 Mackenzie became ''Eclair's'' first British commander. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「HMS Eclair (1801)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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