The French gun-vessel Eclair was one of 20 chasse-marées built in 1785 in southern Brittany for use as service craft in harbour construction at Cherbourg.

Sir Richard Strachan's squadron captured her in 1795 in Cartaret Bay, and the Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Eclair.

[4] Then between 30 January 1795 and 29 April she was in the Cherbourg roads under the command of enseigne de vaisseau non entretenu Duport.

[5] On 9 May 1795 Strachan, in Melampus, was in command of a squadron that attacked and destroyed a French convoy in Cartaret Bay.

The French crews abandoned their vessels at the approach of the British and eventually the shore battery also stopped firing.

The cutting out party retrieved all the vessels, save a small sloop, which was hard ashore and which they burnt.

The Royal Navy commissioned Eclair in July 1795 under the command of Lieutenant Joseth [sic] Withers.

[1] This article includes data released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported UK: England & Wales Licence, by the National Maritime Museum, as part of the Warship Histories project.