HMS Leander at the Nile and in French hands

At the Battle of the Nile, Leander was small enough to exploit a gap in the anchored French line and rake Peuple Souverain and Franklin. She had already accumulated extensive overseas experience in the Caribbean and off the Dutch Gold Coast. While carrying Nelson's dispatches after the battle, she encountered the French 74-gun Généreux and was captured after a hard fight in which Captain Thomas Thompson and Sir Edward Berry were wounded. Russian and Ottoman forces later recovered her during operations at Corfu and returned her to British service. A fourth rate could work among larger ships when agility mattered, but Leander remained badly disadvantaged in a direct encounter with a third rate.