The Devil Himself

The French corvette La Vaillante, built in 1796, was captured and renamed Danae by the British Royal Navy in 1798. Two years later, she was returned to France in an amazing fashion: her British crew mutinied, sailed the Danae to France, and turned her over to the enemy for a cash reward. Accurate, fair, thorough, and lively, this penetrating account of a mutiny and its aftermath is compiled from contemporary British documents and the dusty French naval archives.