 In the 1790s the French built a small number of large 24-pounder frigates, such as and "Egyptienne", they also cut-down (reduced the height of the hull to give only one continuous gun deck) a number of older ships-of-the-line (including ) to produce super-heavy frigates, the resulting ship was known as a "rasée".It is not known whether the French were seeking to produce very potent cruisers or merely to address stability problems in old ships.The British, alarmed by the prospect of these powerful heavy frigates, responded by rasée-ing three of the smaller 64-gun battleships, including , which went on to have a very successful career as a frigate.