During 1794, as the French fleet underwent repairs in Toulon, these frigates remained in operation across the Mediterranean. Once such ship was the newly built 40-gun "Hébé"-class frigate "Sibylle" under Commodore Jacques-Mélanie Rondeau, which was detached to operate independently in the Aegean Sea. With the French fleet inactive, the Royal Navy focused their attention on the capture of Corsica, conducting sieges at Bastia and Calvi, with smaller forces sent out across the Mediterranean to escort convoys of merchant ships and hunt for the missing French frigates. One such force, sent in June 1794 from Naples to the Aegean Sea with a convoy of seven Dutch and one British merchant ships bound for Smyrna, consisted of the 50-gun fourth rate ship HMS "Romney" under Captain William Paget and three frigates HMS "Inconstant", HMS "Leda" and HMS "Tartar".