Three ships of the British Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 have been named HMS Oiseau, after the French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 for bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

:
, a 26 gun sixth rate captured from France on 23 October 1762 by HMS Brune in the Mediterranean., a 32 gun fifth rate captured from France on 31 January 1779 by HMS Apollo and sold on 19 June 1783., a 36 gun fifth rate originally a French ship called Cleopatre but captured by HMS Nymphe on 18 January 1793. The ship was converted to a prison ship

Prison ship

A prison ship, historically sometimes called a prison hulk, is a vessel used as a prison, often to hold convicts awaiting transportation to penal colonies. This practice was popular with the British government in the 18th and 19th centuries....

in 1810 and sold on 18 September 1816.