Capture
On 11 September 1779, whilst the Ariel was cruising off Charles Town, she sighted a strange sail and approached to investigate, unaware that the French fleet under Admiral d'Estaing had entered the theatre. As Mackenzie got closer he realized that the stranger was actually a frigate, accompanied by two brigs and a schooner, and that she was not responding to his signals, he decided to sail for the Georgia shore. The frigate gradually overhauled Ariel and Mackenzie finally decided to stand and fight. The enemy vessel was the 32-gun French Amazone. After a ninety-minute flight in which Ariel lost her mizzen-mast and all her rigging and sustained casualties of four men dead and another 20 wounded, Mackenzie surrendered Ariel. d'Estaing immediately exchanged the crew of Ariel and Experiment, which he had captured the year before, for French prisoners. The crews of these two vessels then went to man a variety of British vessels on the station. The French took the captured ship into service as Ariel.
Ariel underwent repair and refitting at Lorient between March and October 1780. The French lent her to the American Continental Navy in October, where she served briefly as USS Ariel.
Read more about this topic: HMS Ariel (1777)
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