 The captured Minerve arrived at Plymouth on 26 October 1806 , and after languishing there for some months , was taken into service as HMS Alceste , and commissioned in March 1807 under Captain Murray Maxwell . She was refitted at Plymouth for British naval service from April to August 1807 , then in December that year she was sent to the Mediterranean . In the Action of 4 April 1808 Alceste , in company with HMS Mercury and HMS Grasshopper attacked a Spanish convoy off Rota , destroying two of the escorts and driving many of the merchants ashore . Seven were subsequently captured and sailed back out to sea by marines and sailors of the British ships . 
