HMS Surprise (1796)

Type

Frigate

Period

18th Century

Nation

Great Britain

Overview: HMS Surprise was a Royal Navy sixth-rate frigate that began life as the French Navy corvette Unité, launched in 1794 and captured intact by HMS Inconstant off Bône in April 1796. She is best known today as the historical namesake and inspiration for the fictional frigate commanded by Jack Aubrey in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels. Specifications: As built by the French she measured roughly 126 feet in length with a beam of about 31 feet 8 inches and displaced around 657 tons, mounting 24 eight-pounder and 8 four-pounder long guns. Once taken into British service her armament was reworked, and by 1798 she carried 24 thirty-two-pounder carronades on her upper deck plus a mix of eighteen-pounder and four-pounder carronades and chase guns on the quarterdeck and forecastle. Her unusual armament and origin as a French corvette led the Royal Navy to shuffle her rating between fifth and sixth rate during her career. Service History: Under Captain Edward Hamilton, Surprise served in the Caribbean, taking several privateer schooners and vessels off the Jamaica station. She gained lasting fame in October 1799 for a daring cutting-out expedition in which her boarding party recaptured the mutiny-seized frigate HMS Hermione from under Spanish guns at Puerto Cabello. After the Peace of Amiens she was sold out of the Royal Navy at Deptford in February 1802 and broken up. Notable Facts: A modern museum replica built to the Admiralty plans of HMS Rose was renamed HMS Surprise after being modified for the 2003 film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, and is now preserved at the San Diego Maritime Museum, but this is a separate vessel from the original 1796 ship covered here. The original ship's design and construction were overseen by French naval architect Pierre-Alexandre Forfait at Le Havre.