After a long period of service in which she took part in several notable actions and made many captures, Nymphe was wrecked off the coast of Scotland on 18 December 1810.

[12] She also, in company with Amphion, captured the American privateers Royal Louis, Juno, Molly, Lexington, Racoon, and Lively Buckskin.

When, as expected, the government of revolutionary France declared war on Great Britain on 1 February 1793 Nymphe was still in dock, and not ready for sea until the 6th.

Nymphe finally sailed on the 12th, with barely more than half her complement, which included 32 marines, and 80 Cornish tin-miners, all mere landsmen.

Pellew was obliged to bring his crew up to strength by boarding several of the merchant vessels he was escorting in the Channel and impressing experienced sailors.

After a fight lasting some hours both ships were considerably damaged, and Sémillante returned to Cherbourg, and the Venus limped back to Portsmouth, meeting Nymphe on the 29th.

[15] At daybreak on 18 June 1793, Nymphe was sailing alone off Start Point, Devon, when she sighted the 40-gun Cléopâtre, commanded by Lieutenant de vaisseau Jean Mullon.

[17] The arrival of the ship in Britain was greeted with much rejoicing as the first major French warship captured during the war, and earned Pellew a knighthood.

After a long pursuit, around 06:00 on the morning of the 23rd the fleets met in the Battle of Groix, in which three French ships were captured before action was broken off.

[14] On 9 March 1797 Nymphe and St Fiorenzo, while making a reconnaissance of Brest, sighted two French ships standing in towards the harbour.

After a sharp action lasting no more than 30 minutes they captured both ships, which proved to be the 48-gun frigate Résistance and the 24-gun corvette Constance built in 1794,[22][23] both returning from the failed expedition to Wales.

In 1847 the Admiralty awarded the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Nymphe 8 March 1797" to surviving claimants from the action.

[b] Nymphe was one of the ships involved in the Spithead Mutiny of April and May 1797, when the men of the Channel Fleet struck for improved pay and conditions.

[27] In April 1799 Nymphe was again assigned to a squadron under Lord Bridport's command, which was tasked with blockading the French port of Brest.

To forestall this escape, Lord Bridport instructed Captain Fraser to keep Nymphe close to shore to monitor French movements and report back if any ships set sail.

On the morning of 26 April Nymphe was in the roadstead of Brest in heavy fog when Fraser observed what he took to be a French fleet of eleven ships of the line, sailing west.

Nymphe immediately tacked to get ahead of the enemy, and signal flags were raised to alert Bridport's fleet that the French were on the move.

By midday Nymphe had lost sight of the French and Fraser instead raised new signals incorrectly advising that the enemy had returned to port.

On the morning of 27 April Nymphe returned to her station close to Brest and inaccurately reported that the French fleet was at anchor.

[34] On 24 February, off Bordeaux, they captured the 16-gun French merchant ship La Modeste, nine weeks out of Mauritius, and laden with cotton, coffee, tea, sugar and indigo.

[38] Her next cruise was off Brest and, although news of the preliminary agreement of the Treaty of Amiens reached Plymouth on 4 October, she did not return until 15 November.

[38] Nymphe remained out of commission, maintained "in Ordinary" at Portsmouth[21] until June 1806 when large repairs where undertaken at Deptford Dockyard.

[14] In April 1808 Nymphe was cruising off Lisbon, in company with the 18-gun sloop Blossom, Commander George Pigot, when Captain Shipley learned that the 20-gun brig Gaivota was lying by Belém Castle, making ready to sail.

Unfortunately, a strong ebb tide fed by heavy rains set in, slowing their approach and it was not until 02:30 that the boats of Nymphe reached the brig.

His brother, Charles Shipley, serving as a volunteer, immediately ordered the gig to pick him up, but the boats fell afoul of each other and became entangled with a caulking stage moored astern.

[41] Commander Pigot was appointed by Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, the commander-in-chief on the coast of Portugal, to be Captain Shipley's successor on board Nymphe; and on 17 September he was confirmed in his post-rank.

Captain Clay and his officers were cleared of blame at the subsequent court martial with the exception of Mr G. Scott, the master, and C. Gascoigne, the pilot, who were judged to have mistaken fires from a lime kiln on shore for the light on the Isle of May.

[38] 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.