In the beginning of April the Rainbow, thus armed, and commanded by Captain (now Admiral Sir) Henry Trollope, who, with Captain Keith Elphinstone (the late Admiral Lord Keith, and the late Rear-admiral Macbride, were among the earliest patrons of the carronade, sailed on a cruise. All the well-known skill and enterprise of her captain failed, however, to bring him within gun-shot of a foe worth contending with, until the 4th of the succeeding September; when, being off Isle de Bas, he came suddenly upon a large French frigate. Owing to the latter's peculiar bearing, one of the Rainbow's forecastle 32-pounders was first discharged at her. Several of the shot fell on board, and discovered their size. The French captain, rationally concluding that, if such large shot came from the forecastle of the enemy's ship, much larger ones would follow from her lower batteries, fired his broadside "pour 1'honneur de pavillon," and surrendered to the Rainbow. Although the capture of the Hébé had afforded no opportunity of trying the experiment contemplated by the Navy Board, and so ardently looked forward to by the officers and crew of the Rainbow, yet did the prize, in the end, prove a most valuable acquisition to the service, there being very few British frigates, even of the present day, which, in size and exterior form, are not copied from the Hébé. She measured 1063 tons, and mounted 40 guns, twenty-eight 18, and twelve 8 pounders.

In the course of 1782 a few of the larger sorts of the carronade were mounted on board some of the receiving ships, in order that the seamen of such vessels as were in port refitting might be exercised at handling and firing this, to them, novel piece of ordnance. As one proof of many, that carronades were gaining ground in the navy, the captains of the few 38 and 36 gun frigates in commission applied for and obtained 24-pounder, carronades, in lieu of the 18s with which their ships had been established. The termination of the war in January, 1783, put a stop to any further experiments with the carronade; but its merits were now too generally acknowledged, to admit a doubt of its becoming a permanent favourite: in the British navy at least, where a short range is ever the chosen distance. The removal of the swivel-stocks invariably accompanied the cutting through of carronade-portholes in the barricades of the quarter-deck and forecastle: and no one, aware of the difference in effect