HMS Pomone (1811)

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HMS Pomone (1811) was originally the French frigate Astrée, a 44-gun Pallas-class ship built at Cherbourg and launched in 1809. In 1810 she fought in the Indian Ocean, where she captured HMS Africaine. The Royal Navy captured Astrée in December 1810 and kept her name for a short time before renaming her HMS Pomone in October 1811, after the previous Pomone had been wrecked.

Pomone underwent repairs at Portsmouth from late 1811 to early 1812 and was commissioned in February 1812 under Captain Robert Lambert (later commanded by Captain Francis William Fane). She sailed for Newfoundland in May 1812 and on 4 August 1812 recaptured the ship Kitty from an American privateer.

Captain Philip Carteret took command in December 1812. In May 1813 Pomone recaptured two Spanish vessels, El Correv Diligente de Carraccas and Nostra Senora de los Desemperados, sharing salvage with other ships. In October 1813, while in the Bay of Biscay repairing gale damage, Pomone’s actions were part of the ongoing Confederate-like chase of French ships; Carteret was later cleared by a court martial.

Pomone then served in the North Sea and near France before moving to the Atlantic and the United States during the War of 1812. She captured the John and James (the master was Crosby) on 6 December 1813 and also took Grampus, Anne, Primrose, Sally, and Enterprise. With the ship Cydnus she captured the American privateer Bunker's Hill on 4 March 1814. In October 1814 Pomone and Dispatch raided Drown Meadow (Port Jefferson, New York), capturing several merchant sloops—Two Friends, Hope, Herald, Mercantile, and Fair American—and burning the sloop Oneida; the proceeds helped support the blockade.

In January 1815 Pomone helped take the USS President. In 1815 she was paid off at Chatham, and she was broken up at Deptford in June 1816.

Pomone also appears in Patrick O’Brian’s novel The Hundred Days.