was disappointed with the outcome, noting in a letter to Admiralty that only twelve among Actaeons two hundred men had sufficient experience to competently handle the sails. Discipline was also an issue; with Clements forced to publicly deny allegations that one of Actaeons marines was visibly drunk on duty. Basque Roads Actaeon finally put to sea in early March 1758, and was assigned to protect a flotilla of British troopships en route to Senegal as part of a British expedition to seize France's African possessions. In late March, she was reassigned to a ten-vessel squadron under Admiral Edward Hawke, which was hunting French merchant convoys near the port of Rochefort. One such convoy was sighted near the Île de Ré on 4 April but escaped before the British could draw near. However, later that day a second convoy was discovered in the nearby Basque Roads, comprising seven French naval vessels and forty merchant craft. Hawke ordered his squadron to engage but the water was too shallow for any of his ships to draw near; for their part the French made sail to flee towards the port of La Rochelle. In their haste, a number of the French vessels ran aground and could only be refloated after their crews had thrown their guns and stores overboard. The French marked the locations of this discarded equipment with buoys, but these were removed by Actaeons crew. Around 80 buoys were destroyed before the ebbing tide forced the British boats away from the shore. The destruction of the buoys represented Actaeons only engagement of the expedition; but the loss of this large quantity of equipment represented a setback to the French war effort. Hawke subsequently returned to England, leaving Actaeon and five other vessels from the squadron to hold position outside the Basque Roads. While on this station, Clements observed that the routine business of cleaning of Actaeons fir-built hull had left the planking "extremely ragged" despite only one year at sea. Blockade duty Actaeon finally departed the Basque Roads in June 1758, joining a squadron of 22 ships of the line, under Admiral George Anson, which was loosely blockading the port of Brest. The French fleet at Brest remained in port, and Acateon was able to roam along the coastline in search of privateers. In mid-July she secured her first enemy capture when, in company with the 64-gun , she forced the surrender