French frigate Aréthuse (1812)
Aréthuse was a 46-gun frigate of the French Navy. She served during the Napoleonic Wars, taking part in a major single-ship action. Much later the vessel took part in the conquest of Algeria, and ended her days as a coal depot in Brest, France. Construction and career Aréthuse was laid down at Paimboeuf near Nantes, France in 1807 and launched on 15 May 1812. The ship was a frigate of the Pallas group, the latest iteration of the French Navy's standard Hébé class designed by Jacques-Noël Sané (also copied by the Royal Navy as the Leda class) and had design dimensions of 144 pieds 6 pouces by 36 pieds 8 pouces (corresponding to by ). Like her sisters, the Aréthuse was designed to carry a broadside of fourteen pairs of 18-pounder long guns on the main gundeck, supported by additional cannon allocated to the open quarterdeck and forecastle, which since 1810 had been standardised at eight pairs of 24-pounder carronades and two 18-pounder chase guns. However, according to her captain Pierre Bouvet, the brackets of the bitts beneath the forecastle blocked the recoil of the two pairs of main-deck 18-pounders nearest the bows, and he had these guns removed into