Boudeuse was a 32-gun, 12-pounder-armed sailing frigate named Boudeuse on 6 June 1765. She is most famous for being the exploration ship of Louis Antoine de Bougainville between 1766 and 1769. She also served in the American and French Revolutionary Wars, during which she captured two enemy vessels. She was broken up for firewood at Malta in early 1800. Career First French circumnavigation Boudeuse, under Antoine de Bougainville, departed from Nantes on 15 November 1766 for the first French circumnavigation of the globe, along with the Étoile. On board was the botanist Philibert Commerçon and his valet, later unmasked by the ship's surgeon as Jeanne Baré, Commerçon's mistress; she would become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. The expedition saw islands of the Tuamotu group on the 22 March. On 2 April they saw the peak of Mehetia and famously visited the island of Otaheite shortly after. de Bougainville narrowly missed becoming their discoverer, unaware of a previous visit, and claim, by Samuel Wallis in HMS Dolphin less than a year previously. Bougainville claimed the island for France and named it New Cythera. They left Tahiti, with Ahutoru aboard, and sailed westward to southern Samoa and the New Hebrides, then on sighting Espiritu Santo turned west still looking for the "Southern Continent". On June 4 he almost ran into heavy breakers and had to change course to the north and east. He had almost found the Great Barrier Reef. He sailed through what is now known as the Solomon Islands that, due of the hostility of the people there, he avoided. Bougainville named them Bougainville Island for himself. The expedition was attacked by people from New Ireland so they made for the Moluccas. At Batavia they received news of Wallis and Carteret who had preceded Bougainville. On 16 March 1769 the expedition completed its circumnavigation and arrived at Saint-Malo, with the loss of only seven out of upwards of 200 men, an extremely low level of loss, and a credit to Bougainville's enlightened management of the expedition. In 1775-76 Boudeuse underwent refitting at Brest. American Revolutionary War Boudeuse later took part in the American War of Independence under Lieutenant Grenier. On 13 January 1779, she captured the 16-gun sloop HMS Weazel off Sint Eustatius. The French took Weazel to the Antilles where they disarmed her by taking all her guns for Admiral d'Estaing's squadron. They then sold her at