Serpente-class corvette

The Serpente class was a class of four 20-gun corvettes for the French Navy, designed by Charles-Henri Tellier as a follow-on to the Etna-class corvettes of the previous year. Four separate commercial shipbuilders were involved in their construction by contract, with three being ordered at Honfleur in 1794 and a fourth at Le Havre across the Seine estuary in 1795. The vessels were flush-decked and designed to carry a battery of twenty 18-pounder guns.

The Royal Navy captured one of the four vessels in the class, and burnt another in action.

Serpente class (4 ships)

 * Serpente
 * Builder: Jean-Louis Pestel, Honfleur
 * Begun: October 1794
 * Launched: 1 September 1795
 * Completed: January 1796
 * Fate: Floating battery 1806, hulked 1807. Condemned to be broken up 1815.


 * Géographe
 * Builder: Louis Deros, later Nicolas Loquet, Honfleur
 * Begun: September 1794
 * Launched: 8 June 1800
 * Completed: September 1800
 * Fate: Employed as survey ship for Australian expedition in 1800. Powder hulk 1807, later barracks ship. Deleted 1819.
 * Notes: Renamed from Uranie in 1797, then from Galatée in June 1800. Loquet took over her building after Deros's early death, but then refused to launch her until he was paid.


 * Bacchante
 * Builder: Fortier Brothers, Honfleur
 * Begun: October 1794
 * Launched: 29 December 1795
 * Completed: January 1796
 * Fate: Broken up in Rochefort August/September 1830
 * Notes: Captured on 25 June 1803 off the Azores by HMS Endymion, and became HMS Bacchante, sold 1809.


 * Confiante
 * Builder: Foouache & Reine, Le Havre
 * Begun: September 1795
 * Launched: 10 May 1797
 * Completed: February 1798
 * Fate: Destroyed on 29 May 1798 in the mouth of the Dives (river) by HMS Hydra.