Napoleonic Wars
Galatea was commissioned in September 1810 under Captain Woodley Losack, who would remain her captain until 1815. He sailed her to the Cape of Good Hope on 31 December 1810.
On 6 May 1811, a French squadron of frigates under the command of Commodore François Roquebert in Renommée approached Grand Port, not realizing that Isle de France (now Mauritius) had fallen to the British. The French squadron escaped an encounter with an equivalent British squadron under Captain Charles Marsh Schomberg of Astraea.
Between 7 and 9 May the frigates Galatea and Phoebe, under James Hillyar, and the brig-sloop Racehorse, sighted the French 40-gun frigates Renommée, Clorinde and Néréide off the Isle de France, whilst Astraea was lying in Port Louis.
On 14 May Astraea, Phoebe, Galatea, and Racehorse sailed from Port Louis for Tamatave, Madagascar and arrived on the 20th. The British squadron sighted the French squadron and made chase. A severe engagement, the Battle of Tamatave, ensued. During the battle, Renommée and Clorinde badly battered Galatea, with the result that she lost 16 men killed and 46 wounded - the largest number of casualties of any vessel in the squadron. In 1847 the Admiralty authorized the award of the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Off Tamatave 20 May 1811" to all surviving claimants from the action.
The British captured Renommée. Roquebert had sacrificed his flagship and ultimately his life to allow the frigates Clorinde and the badly damaged Néréide to escape. Five days later, Schomberg's squadron rediscovered Néréide at Tamatave. The British persuaded the town's commander to surrender the town and Néréide without any further fight.
The British took Néréide as Madagascar and Renommée as Java. The battle was the last action of the Mauritius campaign. Thereafter Galatea served primarily, and relatively uneventfully, as a convoy escort for the rest of war.
Galatea participated in the War of 1812. On 31 October 1812 she escaped from the USS President and the USS Congress. Galatea was in company with Spitfire when they recaptured the brig Fermina on 18 April 1813. On 1 June 1813 she sailed for Lisbon.
Read more about this topic: HMS Galatea (1810)
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