Atlantic campaign of 1806
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The Atlantic campaign of 1806 was a complicated series of manoeuveres and counter-manoeuveres conducted by squadrons of the French Navy
and the British Royal Navy
across the Atlantic Ocean during the spring and summer of 1806, as part of the Napoleonic Wars
. The campaign followed directly from the Trafalgar campaign
of the year before, in which the French Mediterranean fleet had crossed the Atlantic, returned to Europe and joined with the Spanish fleet. On 21 October 1805, this combined force was destroyed by a British fleet under Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar
, although the campaign did not end until the Battle of Cape Ortegal
on 4 November 1805. Believing that the French Navy would not be capable of organised resistance at sea during the winter, the First Lord of the Admiralty Lord Barham
withdrew the British blockade squadrons to harbour. Barham had miscalculated – the French Atlantic fleet, based at Brest
, had not been involved in the Trafalgar campaign and was therefore at full strength. Taking advantage of the reduction in the British forces off the port, Napoleon ordered two heavy squadrons to sea, under instructions to raid British trade routes while avoiding contact with equivalent Royal Navy forces.
Departing from Brest on 13 December 1805, it was 12 days before the Admiralty
in London were aware of the French movements, by which time the French squadrons were deep in the Atlantic, one under Vice-Admiral Corentin-Urbain Leissègues intending to cruise in the Caribbean and the other, under Contre-Admiral Jean-Baptiste Willaumez
, sailing for the South Atlantic. Two British squadrons were hastily mustered and dispatched in pursuit, one under the command of Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Strachan and the other under Rear-Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren
. These squadrons were joined by a third under Rear-Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth
, who had deserted his station off Cadiz
when he learned news of a French squadron to his south and subsequently crossed the Atlantic in pursuit of Willaumez. Although Willaumez managed to escape into the South Atlantic, Leissègues was less successful and was discovered and destroyed at the Battle of San Domingo
in February 1806 by a combined force under Duckworth and Rear-Admiral Alexander Cochrane
. Other squadrons already at sea became embroiled in the campaign: a smaller squadron that had been raiding the African coast under Commodore Jean-Marthe-Adrien L'Hermite
since August 1805 provided a diversion to the major campaign but failed to draw off significant British forces, while the remnants of a French squadron under Contre-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Durand Linois that had been operating in the Indian Ocean
since 1803 was intercepted and defeated by Warren in March, after a chance encounter on its journey back to France.
Willaumez achieved minor success in his operations in the South Atlantic and Caribbean, but was caught in a summer hurricane on his return journey and his ships were scattered along the Eastern Seaboard
of North America. One was intercepted and destroyed by British forces and others were so badly damaged in the storm that they were forced to shelter in American ports. The survivors gradually returned to Brest during the autumn, the last arriving in early 1807. The campaign was the last significant operation in the Atlantic for the remainder of the war, and no French squadron of any size left any of the Biscay
ports until 1808. The losses suffered by the Brest fleet weakened it so severely that it would not participate in a major operation until 1809, when an attempt to break out of Brest ended in defeat at the Battle of Basque Roads.
successfully broke out of Toulon
harbour, avoiding the British blockade fleet under Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson and sailing westwards out of the Mediterranean and into the Atlantic, Nelson following several days behind. Villeneuve, joined by a Spanish squadron, crossed the ocean to the Caribbean and anchored at Martinique
, while Nelson arrived at Barbados
on 11 June. Panicked by the British arrival, Villeneuve immediately returned to Europe, with Nelson again close behind. Villeneuve's orders had specified that he sail to Brest
, the French naval port on the Bay of Biscay
, and join there with the fleet under Vice-Admiral Honoré Ganteaume. Together this force would drive the Royal Navy out of the English Channel
in preparation for an invasion of Britain. However, as he passed the Spanish port of Ferrol on 22 July 1805, Villeneuve was intercepted by a British fleet under Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Calder
. At the ensuing Battle of Cape Finisterre
, Calder captured two Spanish ships but failed to inflict a decisive blow on Villeneuve's squadron, which later sailed to Cadiz
, Spain's principal Atlantic seaport. Nelson arrived shortly afterwards and initiated a blockade of the port.
On 21 October 1805, Villeneuve's combined Franco-Spanish fleet sailed from Cadiz and was intercepted by Nelson, resulting in the Battle of Trafalgar
. Although Nelson was killed at the height of the battle, his squadron inflicted a devastating defeat on the combined fleet, capturing or destroying 17 French or Spanish ships, including Villeneuve's flagship. The battered remnants of the French Mediterranean and Spanish Atlantic fleets retreated to Cadiz, although four French ships fled north and were intercepted and captured at the Battle of Cape Ortegal
two weeks later. In total, the campaign cost Napoleon 13 French and 12 Spanish ships, eliminating any possibility of even regional superiority at sea and therefore preventing the planned invasion of Britain, which had already been indefinitely postponed. The elimination of the French and Spanish fleets and the end of the threat of French invasion was widely celebrated in Britain, and seen by First Lord of the Admiralty Lord Barham
, as an opportunity to reduce costs and damage to his ships by withdrawing the Atlantic blockade to Britain during the winter under the assumption that the battered French Navy would be unable and unwilling to operate at sea during the period. He wrote: "It is of little purpose now, to wear out our ships in a fruitless blockade during the winter."
under Contre-Admiral Zacharie Allemand
, which had escaped from Rochefort
on 17 July 1805, caused significant disruption to British trade in the Atlantic and remained at sea off the North African coast. Seeking to repeat these effects, Napoleon sent orders to the commander at Brest, Vice Admiral Honoré Ganteaume
, in November 1805 for two strong squadrons to be prepared for service in the Atlantic. These were to leave Brest under cover of darkness on 13 December, with orders to strike deep into the Atlantic and intercept any merchant convoys that they encountered. Subsequently the squadrons were to separate, one to the South Atlantic and the other to the Caribbean, there to cause as much disruption to British intercontinental trade as possible. The orders encouraged the admirals not to engage any Royal Navy force of equivalent size or larger and thus avoid the risk of being captured or destroyed.
Ganteaume selected 11 ships of the line for the operation, including the 120-gun first rate Impérial
, flagship of Vice Admiral Corentin-Urbain Leissègues, who was to sail to the Caribbean with four other ships of the line, two frigate
s and a corvette
. His squadron carried over 1,000 French soldiers to augment the garrison on Santo Domingo
under General Jean-Louis Ferrand, and was then required to spend two months blockading Jamaica
before cruising along the American Eastern Seaboard to Newfoundland, returning to France when food supplies ran low. The other squadron was given to Contre-Admiral Jean-Baptiste Willaumez in Foudroyant, with orders to cruise the shipping lanes of the South Atlantic before sailing to the Leeward Islands
, communicating with the French colonies of Martinique, Guadeloupe
and Cayenne
and blockading Barbados
. When British opposition became too strong, he was to return to the South Atlantic off Saint Helena
, also returning to France once food supplies ran low. His squadron consisted of six ships of the line, two frigates and two brig
s, and included among its captains Jérôme Bonaparte
, the Emperor's younger brother. Although both squadrons carried six months provisions, they were expected to capture more during their voyages and it was intended that their raiding operations should last as long as 14 months, causing severe indirect damage to the British economy by restricting the movement of trade.
and the remainder driven far offshore by a winter gale, the French squadrons sailed from Brest into the Bay of Biscay
unnoticed. Within two days they had passed nearly 500 nautical miles (926 km) into the Atlantic Ocean and had encountered a British merchant convoy, Willaumez detaching in pursuit. The convoy was sailing to Britain from Gibraltar
, escorted by the 64-gun under Captain Robert Redmill
and the frigate under Captain William Prowse
. Heavily outnumbered, the convoy turned away and ran before the wind, Willaumez in close pursuit. Later in the day a second convoy appeared to the north, of 23 ships sailing from Cork
to the Caribbean escorted by the frigates under Captain Charles Brisbane
, under Captain John Maitland
and the brig . With Willaumez distracted, Leissègues ordered his squadron in pursuit.
Willaumez's ships captured a number of stragglers from Redmill's convoy and managed to isolate Sirius, which only just escaped after narrowly avoiding an unequal encounter with four French ships of the line. With the convoy dispersed, Willaumez gathered his scattered forces and despatched the frigate Volontaire
to the Spanish island of Tenerife
with the prizes, before turning the remainder of his squadron southwards for his designated cruising grounds. To the north, Leissègues gradually approached Brisbane's convoy during the night but did not close with him until the morning of 16 December. In response, Brisbane formed his three warships into a line of battle
, accompanied by three of the larger merchant ships. This force could not hope to resist Leissègues' main force, but would enable the 17 other vessels to escape by blocking the French squadron's frigates from chasing them. Ignoring the escaping convoy, Leissègues formed his own line of battle and continued to close with Brisbane, whose faster ships steadily pulled away from the French throughout the day. As darkness fell, Leissègues abandoned the pursuit and turned to the south and Brisbane immediately despatched Boadicea to Brest and Wasp to the blockade squadrons along the Atlantic Seaboard with urgent warnings of the French operations in the Eastern Atlantic. Brisbane himself remained in distant contact with Leissègues for another day before the French squadron sheered away. Brisbane continued southwards with the remainder of his convoy, seeking the British blockade squadron at Cadiz.
. Allemand's squadron was on its return journey to France when he encountered the convoy, consisting of six merchant ships sailing from Britain to Gorée
under the escort of the brig under Commander Frederick Langford. Langford gave orders for his convoy to scatter as the French approached, Lark turning northwards in search of Rear-Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth
and the Cadiz squadron, reaching it on 26 November. Duckworth immediately sailed in pursuit of Allemand, leaving behind only two frigates to watch Cadiz in his absence.
Sailing south from Cadiz, Duckworth's squadron reached Madeira on 5 December, passing Tenerife ten days later without sighting any French ships. Continuing south to the Cape Verde Islands, Duckworth reluctantly conceded that the French squadron had escaped and he retired northwards until he encountered Brisbane's reduced convoy on 23 December. Tracking the presumed course of Leissègues' ships, Duckworth continued northwards on a course that would intercept the French squadron. At 06:45 on 25 December, at 30°52′N 20°16′W, approximately 200 nautical miles (370.4 km) northwest of the Canary Islands
, lookouts in Duckworth's squadron spotted nine sails in the distance. As Allemand's squadron was estimated to have approximately nine ships, Duckworth initially believed that his enemy was Allemand, possibly accompanied by prizes captured on his cruise. However, as he closed with the French, it became clear that this was a different squadron altogether. In fact his target was Willaumez, and despite the French admiral's efforts, Duckworth was steadily gaining on him, the ships of the line , and outstripping the rest of the British squadron.
By 13:00 on 26 December, the flagship Superb was just 7 nautical miles (13 km) behind the rearmost French ship, with Spencer 4 nautical miles (7.4 km) further back and Agamemnon another 5 nautical miles (9.3 km) distant. The rest of the squadron was more than 22 nautical miles (40.7 km) behind the leaders, almost completely out of sight, with the rearmost ship, , more than 45 nautical miles (83.3 km) behind Superb. The more compact French squadron was therefore at an advantage. The British were too dispersed to be able to bring a powerful enough force to engage the French in equal battle and the distance between the individual British ships was too great to allow them to provide mutual support if Willaumez turned to face them. Therefore, to the fury of his officers, Duckworth called off the pursuit. This decision was heavily criticised, both at the time and subsequently: historian William James
commenting that "had the Superb brought to action, as in the course of a few hours she might, the sternmost French ship . . . the issue, in all reasonable calculation, would have been favourable to the British".
Gathering his scattered squadron, Duckworth despatched the frigate to Britain with the news of the French activity in the Eastern Atlantic, his message suggesting that the French were probably destined for the Dutch East Indies
. He himself turned southwest towards the Leeward Islands
, where he could resupply his ships in preparation for resuming the blockade at Cadiz. On 2 January 1806 he ordered under Captain Robert Plampin
to sail for the Indian Ocean
and reinforce the British squadron there, in case Willaumez's squadron reached Asian waters.
gathered at Spithead
, including the second rate and six other ships of the line. The other formed in Cawsand Bay under Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Strachan and consisted of the second rate and five other ships of the line. Both were ordered to cruise the mid-Atlantic in search of the missing French squadrons, Warren in the vicinity of Madeira and subsequently the West Indies, eventually joining with the squadrons there under Rear-Admiral Alexander Cochrane
and Vice-Admiral James Richard Dacres
. Strachan was to pass Saint Helena and cruise the West African coast to the Cape of Good Hope
, guarding the vital trade route in the Eastern Atlantic that connected Britain with India. If he was unable to discover the French he was instructed to attach his squadron to that under Commodore Home Riggs Popham
that had been sent to invade the Dutch base at the Cape of Good Hope in the autumn of 1805.
, sending to St. Kitts for additional water supplies. On 19 January the whole squadron sailed to Basseterre
at St. Kitts, where they anchored and took on fresh food and water. On 21 January two ships of the West Indian squadron joined them: under Captain John Morrison
and under Captain Samuel Pym
. Northumberland was the flagship of Rear-Admiral Alexander Cochrane
, who met with Duckworth but had no new information about French movements in the region. In fact, Leissègues had arrived in the Caribbean on 20 January, his passage delayed since departing from Brisbane's convoy in December and his ships damaged and dispersed by a series of winter storms off the Azores
. Disembarking the troops at Santo Domingo
, the French admiral made repairs to his ships, awaited the arrival of the missing Alexandre
and Brave
, and took on supplies over the next two weeks in preparation for raiding operations in the West Indies.
On 1 February, the British sloop
arrived at St. Kitts with news that three French ships of the line had been spotted off Santo Domingo. Duckworth immediately weighted anchor and sailed for the port, passing St. Thomas
on 3 February and though the Mona Passage
the following day. On 5 February, the frigate under Captain Adam Mackenzie
joined the squadron, accompanied by a captured Danish schooner that had recently departed Santo Domingo and whose crew were able to give a precise account of the French squadron at anchor in the harbour. Before the Danish ship had left port, a number of French officers had been concerned that the schooner might reveal details of their presence to the British and had demanded that Leissègues seize and burn the vessel, but the admiral had refused.
In the early morning of 6 February 1806, Duckworth's scouting frigates sighted Leissègues' squadron off the port of Santo Domingo. French lookouts reported the British squadron to the admiral, who ordered his ships to sail in a line of battle
westwards along the coast, in the direction of Nizao
. Duckworth closed with Leissègues' leading ships in his flagship Superb, followed by Cochrane in Northumberland and Spencer. The rest of the ships formed a second division led by Rear-Admiral Thomas Louis
in , which rapidly fell behind the leading division. At 10:10, Duckworth opened fire on Alexandre, while Northumberland and Spencer engaged the next two French ships in line, Leissègues' flagship Impérial and Diomède
. Within 15 minutes, Alexandre had fallen out of the line, dragging Spencer with her to the south, while Northumberland had suffered severe damage from Impérial' s heavy gun batteries. At 10:35, Louis' squadron arrived, each ship raking
Alexandre as they passed and leaving her dismasted and shattered. Canopus then passed on towards the melee surrounding Impérial while targeted Brave and attacked Jupiter
, both of which rapidly surrendered, followed shortly afterwards by Alexandre.
With the French rear defeated, the remaining British ships focused their attack on Impérial and Diomède, but the intense smoke blocked the British view and caused Atlas to collide with Canopus, while fire from Impérial disabled Northumberland. At 11:30, surrounded by enemies and with escape impossible, Leissègues' decided to drive his remaining ships on shore rather than surrender. Steering for the beach and closely pursued by Canopus, both Impérial and Diomède were deliberately grounded. With the enemy line destroyed, Duckworth anchored offshore to observe French activity on the grounded ships and conduct hasty repairs. Out of range of British fire, small boats evacuated most of the remaining sailors from Impérial and Diomède, which had lost all their masts and were rapidly filling with water. When Duckworth sent in his frigates on 8 February it was clear that both ships were beyond repair, the British boarding parties removing the remaining 156 crew as prisoners and setting fire to the hulls. British casualties in the engagement had been 74 killed and 264 wounded, while the French total was estimated at 1,510, although accurate counts were not taken in the aftermath of the battle.
With his enemy defeated, Duckworth detached Northumberland and to Barbados and took the rest of the squadron to Jamaica
with the prizes. There he was acclaimed, and his victory was also celebrated in Britain when the news reached Europe in the brig
. Awards were distributed among the officers of the squadron but Duckworth was overlooked: his abandonment of Cadiz and the failure to bring Willaumez to battle in December had earned the enmity of Lord Collingwood, commander in chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, who blocked any awards to his subordinate. Historians William James and William Laird Clowes
have both suggested that if Duckworth had not been victorious at San Domingo then he would probably have faced a court martial.
and passed through the Malacca Straits, across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope and then north through the Atlantic Ocean, arriving in British waters six to eight months after departure. During the passage, the convoy gathered ships from the various British colonies in the Indian Ocean and by the time it passed the southern tip of Africa it often contained dozens of vessels. By combining the heavy armaments of the East Indiamen with a strong Royal Navy escort, the China Fleet became a formidable target for French raiding squadrons: at the Battle of Pulo Aura
in February 1804, an unescorted China Fleet drove off a powerful French squadron under Contre-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Durand Linois after a sharp encounter.
Willaumez had planned to resupply his squadron at the Cape itself before searching for the China Fleet, but the crew of a merchant ship captured in the South Atlantic informed him that the Dutch governors had surrendered on 10 January 1806 to an expeditionary force under General Sir David Baird
and Commodore Popham after five days of fighting. Turning away from the Cape, Willaumez decided to continue operations in the South Atlantic until April, when he put into Salvador
in Brazil
for supplies. Willaumez was fortunate to have collected this information before attempting to anchor in Table Bay
: Popham had ordered all ships and shore facilities to continue to fly the Dutch flag in the hope that enemy ships would be lured within range of the port's gun batteries. On 4 March this ruse worked successfully when the frigate Volontaire, detached from Willaumez's squadron in December, anchored in the midst of Popham's squadron without realising their identity. Hopelessly outnumbered, Captain Bretel had no choice but to surrender, the British boarding party discovering 217 British soldiers in the hold, captured by Willaumez from Redmill's convoy.
While Willaumez operated in the South Atlantic, the British squadrons under Strachan and Warren hunted for him hundreds of miles to the north. Warren's squadron cruised the eastern Atlantic, monitoring the trade routes than ran along the coast of West Africa while Strachan focused on the western Atlantic, particularly the southern approaches to the Caribbean. Although neither was in a position to intercept Willaumez until he began the return journey north, Warren's position afforded him the opportunity to watch for any French or allied vessels returning to Europe from the East. At 03:00 on 16 March 1806, lookouts on reported sails to the northeast and Captain Sir Harry Burrard-Neale ordered his ship in pursuit. Although no other ships in the squadron could see anything, Warren gave the order to follow London in case the sails proved to be French.
The distant ships were in fact the remains of Linois's squadron, which had put to sea on 13 March 1803 and operated in the Indian Ocean ever since
. There Linois conducted a string of commerce raids that achieved minimal success, hampered by both the lack of naval stores at Île de France
and Linois's hesitation in the face of the enemy. The squadron had missed opportunities at Pulo Aura and the Battle of Vizagapatam
in 1804 and against a conovy escorted by Sir Thomas Troubridge
in 1805. Much reduced by detachments and shipwreck, Linois's squadron now consisted only of his ship of the line Marengo
and the frigate Belle Poule. At 03:00 on 13 March, lookouts on Marengo sighted sails to the southwest and despite his officers' misgivings Linois ordered Marengo to investigate, in the hope that he had discovered another merchant convoy.
At 05:30, London and Marengo almost collided in the darkness, Linois recognising the strange ship as a Royal Navy second rate and desperately turning away in an effort to escape. Marengo was too slow and Neale opened fire, rapidly inflicting serious damage to the French flagship. Captain Bruilhac on Belle Poule assisted his admiral for as long as possible, but at 06:15 swung away with British frigate pursuing closely. The fighting continued for another four and a half hours, Linois defending his ship against mounting odds as the rest of Warren's squadron came into range. To the northeast, Amazon succeeded in catching Belle Poule, the British frigate inflicting serious damage on the French ship as she closed. Unable to escape or continue the fight, both Linois and Bruilhac surrendered at 11:00, although by that time the French admiral had been severely wounded and taken below. French losses were 69 killed and 106 wounded to British casualties of 13 killed and 27 wounded. Following the engagement Warren returned to Britain with his prizes, leaving the eastern half of the Atlantic temporarily unguarded.
and was joined by three additional ships of the line and two frigates, all fast ships capable of extended operations. In early May, news reached Britain of Willaumez's stay at Salvador and his subsequent departure in mid-April, and Strachan was again ordered in pursuit, sailing for the West Indies.
On leaving Brazil, Willaumez first steered for the French colony of Cayenne
, were he divided his ships into three squadrons to increase his raiding operations throughout the West Indies. In May he briefly considered an attack on Carlisle Bay, Barbados
, but withdrew claiming that the wind and tide were against him. Cochrane, whose squadron was based at Carlisle Bay, came out in pursuit of the French and almost captured Jérôme Bonaparte in Vétéran
with his flagship Northumberland, forcing the French ship to withdraw to Fort-de-France
on Martinique on 9 June. Cochrane blockaded the port and was joined by under Captain George Dundas and under Captain John Harvey
, but Northumberland was damaged by a storm and the British temporarily withdrew to Saint Lucia
, allowing Éole
and Impétueux
to reach Fort-de-France on 15 June. Over the following week the rest of Willaumez's squadron joined Vétéran, ignoring Cochrane's efforts to intercept his ships as they entered the harbour.
On 1 July Willaumez left Fort-de-France with two ships and sailed to Montserrat
, seizing three merchant ships in the harbour. The British governor on Monserrat sent urgent messages to Nevis
and St. Kitts, where the authorities hastily evacuated a 65-ship convoy anchored at Sandy Point under the meagre protection of the 28-gun frigate . However, 13 ships from other harbours missed the warning and on 3 July four ships that had detached from Willaumez's squadron the day before descended on the islands, seizing four vessels on Nevis and attacking the remaining nine that had gathered under Brimstone Hill
. There gunfire from the Brimstone Hill batteries drove off the attacking French ships. On 4 July Willaumez rejoined the squadron from Montserrat with news that the annual Jamaica convoy, a large collection of merchant ships that sailed each year from the Caribbean to Britain during the summer, was anchored off Tortola
. Cochrane had already recognised the danger to the Jamaica squadron and had overtaken Willaumez while he was at Montserrat, waiting for the French squadron off St. Thomas with four ships of the line and four frigates. On 6 July Willaumez sighted Cochrane south-east of St. Thomas and, heeding his orders from Napoleon not to risk battle, turned away and passed between St. Thomas and the Passage Islands
. With the French driven off, Cochrane sailed to Tortola where nearly 300 ships had gathered to prepare the convoy for the journey to Europe.
Frustrated in his efforts to intercept the convoy at anchor, Willaumez determined to meet it at sea, sailing to the Bahama Banks
. There he waited for the convoy, seizing any ships that came within sight of his squadron, including neutral vessels, in case they revealed his position. For several weeks Willaumez's lookouts saw nothing, the British holding the convoy back until they obtained some information about the location of the French squadron. During the night of 31 July, bored with waiting for the convoy, Captain Jérôme Bonaparte sailed northwards away from the squadron, acting without orders or even notifying his admiral. When dawn broke on 1 August, Willaumez was panicked by the disappearance of Vétéran and, assuming that the ship had somehow been accidentally separated, began to search for the missing vessel and its important commander.
While Willaumez was distracted by his missing ship, Cochrane had finished preparing the convoy. Unable to delay its departure any longer, he sent 109 large merchant ships eastwards under the protection of one small ship of the line, two frigates and two sloops, a significantly inferior force to the one under Willaumez. The convoy passed across Willaumez's cruising ground during August while the French admiral was to the north searching for Vétéran, and by the time the he returned the convoy was far to the east, was well on its journey to Britain. Willaumez's absence also meant that he missed a potential encounter with Admiral Warren, who had returned to the Atlantic in search of Willaumez following his victory over Linois in March. Warren had sailed from Spithead on 4 June and by 12 July had anchored at Barbados. During August he searched for Willaumez in the eastern Bahamas but failed to discover the French squadron, which at that time was still searching for Vétéran far to the north.
, when his squadron was struck by a fierce hurricane. When the storm abated, Willaumez found that his flagship Foudroyant was badly damaged and entirely alone. Rigging jury masts, Foudroyant began slowly limping for the Spanish port of Havana
on Cuba
, where she could make the repairs needed for the journey back to France. For nearly a month Willaumez encountered nothing, but on 15 September, with Havana in sight, the heavy British frigate under Captain Charles Lydiard
appeared. Willaumez sent a boat into Havana for assistance as the frigate approached and at 13:15 Lydiard opened fire. Although Foudroyant was far larger than Anson she was significantly damaged and incapable of rapid manoeuvres, which gave Lydiard some hope of capturing her. However the fire of Willaumez's flagship proved too strong and at 13:45 Anson sheered away with two men killed and eight wounded. Spanish ships, including the ship of the line San Lorenzo came out to assist Foudroyant and within a few hours she was safely anchored in the heavily fortified harbour.
The rest of Willaumez's squadron was less successful in their attempts to reach safety. All were badly damaged and most had been blown north-west towards the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. There they encountered Strachan's squadron, which had passed through the Bahamas while Willaumez searched for Vétéran and been 60 nautical miles (111.1 km) from Willaumez when they were caught in the same hurricane that had dispersed the French squadron. Less damaged than their opponents, Strachan's ships began gathering off Chesapeake Bay
with the intention of continuing their search once temporary repairs had been completed. On 14 September the ships of the line under Captain William Hargood
, under Captain John Erskine Douglas and the frigate under Captain Stephen Poyntz were cruising off Cape Henry
in search of Strachan's flagship when they spotted a ship sailing under jury masts to the southwest. Closing to investigate, they discovered that the stranger was the French ship Impétueux, left in a dismasted and leaking state by the hurricane and desperately attempting to reach a harbour in the United States. Commodore Alain-Joseph Le Veyer-Belair immediately steered Impétueux towards the coast to avoid the unequal combat and drove his ship on shore at 08:15. Although Impétueux was now on United States soil, Melampus opened fire, the attack followed at 10:00 by boats from Belleisle and Bellona. Boarding parties seized Impétueux but the appearance of two sails on the horizon, later discovered to be British, convinced Hargood to abandon the wreck to Melampus. By 20:00 the remaining French crew had been taken aboard the frigate as prisoners and Poyntz gave orders for the wreck to be burnt.
The destruction of Impétueux on United States territory prompted complaints from the French consul at Norfolk, Virginia
and from the captains of Éole
and Patriote
, which had sheltered in Annapolis following the storm. Badly damaged by the high winds, repairs on Patriote took over a year, Commodore Joseph-Hyacinthe-Isidore Khrom waiting until 16 December 1807 to make the journey back to France. He arrived at Ile d'Aix on 17 January 1808, narrowly avoiding the blockade squadron under Strachan that was temporarily out of position to take on fresh supplies. Éole was never repaired: the difficulty in obtaining the required naval stores proved too great and she was broken up at Annapolis in 1811. Another ship that never returned to France was the frigate Valeureuse
, which sheltered in the Delaware River
following the hurricane but was later forced to sail up river to Philadelphia to avoid attacks by British raiding parties. As with Éole, repairs proved too complex and Valeureuse was also broken up some years later. The flagship Foudroyant did succeed in returning to France, sailing from Havana late in 1806 and arriving at Brest in February 1807.
Of the original squadron only two ships returned to France immediately: Vétéran had separated before the storm and Captain Bonaparte, assisted by a specially selected veteran crew, managed to intercept a convoy traveling from Quebec
to Britain escorted only by the 22-gun under Captain Robert Howe Bromley on 10 August. Although Bromley made a desperate attempt to draw off the French ship of the line, Vétéran ignored the small escort ship and seized six merchant vessels, setting them on fire. Champion and the transport Osborne escaped, accompanied by nine other merchant ships. On 26 August, 26 days after he deserted Willaumez's squadron, Bonaparte was nearing the French coast when he was chased by the 80-gun under Captain Willoughby Thomas Lake
and the frigates and under Captains William Robert Broughton
and Thomas Baker
. Closely pursued, the reliable officers placed under Bonaparte abandoned the intended destination of Lorient
and instead used their expert local knowledge to direct Vétéran to the tiny port of Concarneau
, the first time a ship of the line had ever successfully anchored in the harbour. Although another captain might have been court martialed for abandoning his admiral without orders or permission, the Emperor's brother was instead praised for intercepting the Quebec convoy and promoted soon afterwards. The other surviving ship of Willaumez's squadron was Cassard, which passed through the hurricane relatively intact and made its way to Europe alone, arriving at Rochefort several weeks later.
, a expedition to West Africa under Commodore Jean-Marthe-Adrien L'Hermite
that had sailed from Lorient
towards the end of the Trafalgar campaign with orders to attack undefended merchant shipping off West Africa and await reinforcements under Jérôme Bonaparte. Before Bonaparte could sail, the Battle of Trafalgar changed the strategic situation and the reinforcements were never despatched. L'Hermite conducted an effective but minor raiding operation of his own, cruising off West Africa and capturing a number of merchant ships and slave ships, eventually sailing for Cayenne and then back to France in September 1806. A second force was less planned and more opportunistic: Lamellerie's expedition was drawn from frigates that had survived the Battle of Trafalgar and were sheltering in Cadiz. Duckworth withdrew from the blockade of Cadiz in November 1805, and inadequate replacements were provided by Collingwood. In February 1806, a British plan to lure the French squadron out of port by withdrawing all of the available forces except the frigate and a brig backfired when a storm blew Hydra out of position on 26 February 1806 and La Meillerie escaped with four frigates and a brig. Hydra gave chase, and La Meillerie abandoned the slower brig to avoid combat with the British frigate, eventually escaping with his remaining ships. La Meillerie's expedition then visited Senegal
and Cayenne, failing to make any impact on British merchant shipping despite orders to commerce raid when possible. After four months, La Meillerie decided to return to France, reaching the Bay of Biscay on in July 1806.
As well as the squadrons under Warren and Strachan, the British authorities had deployed additional forces in response to the French operations, in particular with the intention of intercepting and capturing Willaumez during his return journey to France. To this end, Rear-Admiral Louis was given a squadron to patrol in the English Channel
and Admiral William Cornwallis
maintained a powerful force off Brest, which was so successful in cutting off the seaport that L'Hermite's Régulus
was the only ship of the line to enter or leave the port during 1806. Other squadrons were stationed off the remaining French Biscay ports, including a force of five ships of the line under Commodore Richard Goodwin Keats
off Rochefort. One of Keats' ships, under Captain Robert Dudley Oliver
was able to intercept La Meillerie's squadron on his return journey and capture the frigate Rhin
on 17 July.
In September, Keats was replaced off Rochefort by Commodore Sir Samuel Hood, who achieved a significant success when he intercepted a French squadron of seven frigates and corvettes under Commodore Eleonore-Jean-Nicolas Soleil
sailing from Rochefort to the French West Indies with supplies and reinforcements at the Action of 25 September 1806
. Hood, commanding six ships of the line, sighted Soleil's force at 01:00 on 25 September, within hours of it leaving Rochefort. Giving chase, conditions suited Hood's larger ships and by 04:00 Soleil recognised that he would be caught by the advancing British and detached three ships southwards and one to the north, retaining three others to delay the approaching British squadron, which had become separated during the pursuit. Engaging the lead ship, under Captain Richard Lee
, Soleil ordered his frigates to target her rigging in the hope of slowing Monarch' s advance and escaping. Monarch was damaged in the battle, but remained in contact with the French long enough that Hood's flagship HMS Centaur and later HMS Mars could come up and join the engagement. In all four of the French frigates were captured, including the vessel sent north, which was caught by Mars. British casualties were nine killed and 29 wounded, the latter including Hood, who lost an arm.
L'Hermite's force had been caught in the same hurricane that had dispersed Willaumez, and as a result his ships were scattered and damaged on 20 August, one frigate joining the remains of Willaumez's squadron in the United States and the others limping back to France. Most succeeded in slipping through the British blockade independently, including Régulus, which arrived at Brest on 5 October, but one ship was less successful: on 27 September 1806 the frigate Président
became the final French casualty of the campaign when it was trapped in the Bay of Biscay by Louis' squadron. Closed in from all sides, the approach of Louis' flagship Canopus convinced Captain Labrosse that continued resistance was impossible and he struck his colours without a fight.
in 1808, and the Brest fleet under Willaumez made a determined if ineffectual effort to break into the Atlantic in early 1809 which ended at the Battle of Basque Roads, there were no other large scale naval campaigns fought in the Atlantic Ocean during the Napoleonic Wars. Minor operations by individual French ships and small squadrons continued, but the losses of 1805 and 1806, combined with the barring of Spanish ports after the Dos de Mayo Uprising
and the seizure of much of the French West Indies in 1809, reduced both the need and the ability of the French to operate on a large scale in the Atlantic: Lord Barham recognised this when he commented on hearing the news of the victory at San Domingo that it " puts us out off all fear from another predatory war in the West Indies".
In Britain the campaign emphasised the important lesson previously demonstrated in the Trafalgar campaign of the year before, that it was immensely difficult in the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean to detect and intercept French squadrons at sea: only off their own harbours and in the confined waters of the Caribbean were they vulnerable to detection and attack by British squadrons. The inadequate size and power of convoy escorts and the expense in resources employed in chasing French squadrons at sea meant that British trade was placed at risk by the depredations of independent French squadrons, and the maintenance of a tight blockade was essential. The British grip on French maritime travel was a constant source of irritation to Napoleon, who instigated a massive shipbuilding program with the intention of breaking the blockade: by 1808 he was able to muster over 80 ships of the line against the British blockade squadrons.
French Navy
The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...
and the British Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
across the Atlantic Ocean during the spring and summer of 1806, as part of the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
. The campaign followed directly from the Trafalgar campaign
Trafalgar Campaign
The Trafalgar Campaign was a long and complicated series of fleet manoeuvres carried out by the combined French and Spanish fleets; and the opposing moves of the Royal Navy during much of 1805. These were the culmination of French plans to force a passage through the English Channel, and so achieve...
of the year before, in which the French Mediterranean fleet had crossed the Atlantic, returned to Europe and joined with the Spanish fleet. On 21 October 1805, this combined force was destroyed by a British fleet under Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar
Battle of Trafalgar
The Battle of Trafalgar was a sea battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French Navy and Spanish Navy, during the War of the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars ....
, although the campaign did not end until the Battle of Cape Ortegal
Battle of Cape Ortegal
The Battle of Cape Ortegal was the final action of the Trafalgar Campaign, and was fought between a squadron of the Royal Navy and a remnant of the fleet that had been destroyed several weeks earlier at the Battle of Trafalgar...
on 4 November 1805. Believing that the French Navy would not be capable of organised resistance at sea during the winter, the First Lord of the Admiralty Lord Barham
Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham
Admiral Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham PC was a British naval officer and politician.He was born at Leith, Midlothian to Robert Middleton, a customs collector of Bo'ness, Linlithgowshire, and Helen, daughter of Charles Dundas.-Naval career:Middleton entered the Royal Navy in 1741 as captain's...
withdrew the British blockade squadrons to harbour. Barham had miscalculated – the French Atlantic fleet, based at Brest
Brest, France
Brest is a city in the Finistère department in Brittany in northwestern France. Located in a sheltered position not far from the western tip of the Breton peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after Toulon...
, had not been involved in the Trafalgar campaign and was therefore at full strength. Taking advantage of the reduction in the British forces off the port, Napoleon ordered two heavy squadrons to sea, under instructions to raid British trade routes while avoiding contact with equivalent Royal Navy forces.
Departing from Brest on 13 December 1805, it was 12 days before the Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
in London were aware of the French movements, by which time the French squadrons were deep in the Atlantic, one under Vice-Admiral Corentin-Urbain Leissègues intending to cruise in the Caribbean and the other, under Contre-Admiral Jean-Baptiste Willaumez
Jean-Baptiste Philibert Willaumez
Jean-Baptiste Philibert Willaumez was a French sailor and admiral of the First French Empire....
, sailing for the South Atlantic. Two British squadrons were hastily mustered and dispatched in pursuit, one under the command of Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Strachan and the other under Rear-Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren
John Borlase Warren
Sir John Borlase Warren, 1st Baronet , was an English admiral, politician and diplomat. Born in Stapleford, Nottinghamshire, he was the son and heir of John Borlase Warren of Stapleford and Little Marlow...
. These squadrons were joined by a third under Rear-Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth
John Thomas Duckworth
Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth, 1st Baronet, GCB was a British naval officer, serving during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, as the Governor of Newfoundland during the War of 1812, and a member of the British House of Commons during his...
, who had deserted his station off Cadiz
Cádiz
Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the homonymous province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia....
when he learned news of a French squadron to his south and subsequently crossed the Atlantic in pursuit of Willaumez. Although Willaumez managed to escape into the South Atlantic, Leissègues was less successful and was discovered and destroyed at the Battle of San Domingo
Battle of San Domingo
The Battle of San Domingo, in 1806, was a naval battle of the Napoleonic Wars. French and British squadrons of ships of the line met off the southern coast of the French-occupied Spanish Colony of Santo Domingo in the Caribbean...
in February 1806 by a combined force under Duckworth and Rear-Admiral Alexander Cochrane
Alexander Cochrane
Admiral Sir Alexander Forrester Inglis Cochrane GCB RN was a senior Royal Navy commander during the Napoleonic Wars.-Naval career:...
. Other squadrons already at sea became embroiled in the campaign: a smaller squadron that had been raiding the African coast under Commodore Jean-Marthe-Adrien L'Hermite
Jean-Marthe-Adrien l'Hermite
Jean-Marthe-Adrien L'Hermitte was a French sea captain and rear admiral, notable for his involvement in the Glorious First of June and various other campaigns.- Early career :L'Hermitte was born to the family of a...
since August 1805 provided a diversion to the major campaign but failed to draw off significant British forces, while the remnants of a French squadron under Contre-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Durand Linois that had been operating in the Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
since 1803 was intercepted and defeated by Warren in March, after a chance encounter on its journey back to France.
Willaumez achieved minor success in his operations in the South Atlantic and Caribbean, but was caught in a summer hurricane on his return journey and his ships were scattered along the Eastern Seaboard
Eastern seaboard
An Eastern seaboard can mean any easternmost part of a continent, or its countries, states and/or cities.Eastern seaboard may also refer to:* East Coast of Australia* East Coast of the United States* Eastern Seaboard of Thailand-See also:...
of North America. One was intercepted and destroyed by British forces and others were so badly damaged in the storm that they were forced to shelter in American ports. The survivors gradually returned to Brest during the autumn, the last arriving in early 1807. The campaign was the last significant operation in the Atlantic for the remainder of the war, and no French squadron of any size left any of the Biscay
Bay of Biscay
The Bay of Biscay is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Brest south to the Spanish border, and the northern coast of Spain west to Cape Ortegal, and is named in English after the province of Biscay, in the Spanish...
ports until 1808. The losses suffered by the Brest fleet weakened it so severely that it would not participate in a major operation until 1809, when an attempt to break out of Brest ended in defeat at the Battle of Basque Roads.
Trafalgar
On 30 March 1805, the French Mediterranean Fleet under Vice-Admiral Pierre-Charles VilleneuvePierre-Charles Villeneuve
Pierre-Charles-Jean-Baptiste-Silvestre de Villeneuve was a French naval officer during the Napoleonic Wars. He was in command of the French and Spanish fleets defeated by Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar....
successfully broke out of Toulon
Toulon
Toulon is a town in southern France and a large military harbor on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, Toulon is the capital of the Var department in the former province of Provence....
harbour, avoiding the British blockade fleet under Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson and sailing westwards out of the Mediterranean and into the Atlantic, Nelson following several days behind. Villeneuve, joined by a Spanish squadron, crossed the ocean to the Caribbean and anchored at Martinique
Martinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
, while Nelson arrived at Barbados
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
on 11 June. Panicked by the British arrival, Villeneuve immediately returned to Europe, with Nelson again close behind. Villeneuve's orders had specified that he sail to Brest
Brest, France
Brest is a city in the Finistère department in Brittany in northwestern France. Located in a sheltered position not far from the western tip of the Breton peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after Toulon...
, the French naval port on the Bay of Biscay
Bay of Biscay
The Bay of Biscay is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Brest south to the Spanish border, and the northern coast of Spain west to Cape Ortegal, and is named in English after the province of Biscay, in the Spanish...
, and join there with the fleet under Vice-Admiral Honoré Ganteaume. Together this force would drive the Royal Navy out of the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
in preparation for an invasion of Britain. However, as he passed the Spanish port of Ferrol on 22 July 1805, Villeneuve was intercepted by a British fleet under Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Calder
Robert Calder
Admiral Sir Robert Calder, 1st Baronet, KCB was a British naval officer who served in the Seven Years' War, the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.-Early life:...
. At the ensuing Battle of Cape Finisterre
Battle of Cape Finisterre (1805)
In the Battle of Cape Finisterre off Galicia, Spain, the British fleet under Admiral Robert Calder fought an indecisive naval battle against the Combined Franco-Spanish fleet which was returning from the West Indies...
, Calder captured two Spanish ships but failed to inflict a decisive blow on Villeneuve's squadron, which later sailed to Cadiz
Cádiz
Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the homonymous province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia....
, Spain's principal Atlantic seaport. Nelson arrived shortly afterwards and initiated a blockade of the port.
On 21 October 1805, Villeneuve's combined Franco-Spanish fleet sailed from Cadiz and was intercepted by Nelson, resulting in the Battle of Trafalgar
Battle of Trafalgar
The Battle of Trafalgar was a sea battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French Navy and Spanish Navy, during the War of the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars ....
. Although Nelson was killed at the height of the battle, his squadron inflicted a devastating defeat on the combined fleet, capturing or destroying 17 French or Spanish ships, including Villeneuve's flagship. The battered remnants of the French Mediterranean and Spanish Atlantic fleets retreated to Cadiz, although four French ships fled north and were intercepted and captured at the Battle of Cape Ortegal
Battle of Cape Ortegal
The Battle of Cape Ortegal was the final action of the Trafalgar Campaign, and was fought between a squadron of the Royal Navy and a remnant of the fleet that had been destroyed several weeks earlier at the Battle of Trafalgar...
two weeks later. In total, the campaign cost Napoleon 13 French and 12 Spanish ships, eliminating any possibility of even regional superiority at sea and therefore preventing the planned invasion of Britain, which had already been indefinitely postponed. The elimination of the French and Spanish fleets and the end of the threat of French invasion was widely celebrated in Britain, and seen by First Lord of the Admiralty Lord Barham
Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham
Admiral Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham PC was a British naval officer and politician.He was born at Leith, Midlothian to Robert Middleton, a customs collector of Bo'ness, Linlithgowshire, and Helen, daughter of Charles Dundas.-Naval career:Middleton entered the Royal Navy in 1741 as captain's...
, as an opportunity to reduce costs and damage to his ships by withdrawing the Atlantic blockade to Britain during the winter under the assumption that the battered French Navy would be unable and unwilling to operate at sea during the period. He wrote: "It is of little purpose now, to wear out our ships in a fruitless blockade during the winter."
French plans
Barham had seriously miscalculated the strength of the Brest fleet, which had been uninvolved in the campaign of 1805 and was therefore at full strength. He also underestimated Napoleon, who had observed that Villeneuve's brief stay in the Caribbean had acted as a major threat to British trade, delaying convoys and causing panic among the West Indian merchants. The French naval authorities were also inspired by the effect of a raiding squadronAllemand's expedition of 1805
Allemand's expedition of 1805, often referred to as the Escadre invisible in French sources, was an important French naval expedition during the Napoleonic Wars, which formed a major diversion to the ongoing Trafalgar campaign in the Atlantic Ocean...
under Contre-Admiral Zacharie Allemand
Zacharie Allemand
Zacharie Jacques Théodore Allemand, was a French admiral.- Early career :Allemand was born to a captain of the East Indian Company. Orphaned at an early age, he started his sailing career at 12 as an apprentice on Superbe, an East Indiaman...
, which had escaped from Rochefort
Rochefort, Charente-Maritime
Rochefort is a commune in southwestern France, a port on the Charente estuary. It is a sub-prefecture of the Charente-Maritime department.-History:...
on 17 July 1805, caused significant disruption to British trade in the Atlantic and remained at sea off the North African coast. Seeking to repeat these effects, Napoleon sent orders to the commander at Brest, Vice Admiral Honoré Ganteaume
Honoré Joseph Antoine Ganteaume
Count Honoré Joseph Antoine Ganteaume was a French admiral.Ganteaume was born to a family of merchant sailors, and sailed on a dozen commercial cruises in his youth...
, in November 1805 for two strong squadrons to be prepared for service in the Atlantic. These were to leave Brest under cover of darkness on 13 December, with orders to strike deep into the Atlantic and intercept any merchant convoys that they encountered. Subsequently the squadrons were to separate, one to the South Atlantic and the other to the Caribbean, there to cause as much disruption to British intercontinental trade as possible. The orders encouraged the admirals not to engage any Royal Navy force of equivalent size or larger and thus avoid the risk of being captured or destroyed.
Ganteaume selected 11 ships of the line for the operation, including the 120-gun first rate Impérial
French ship Impérial
A number of ships of the French Navy have borne the name Impérial:*Impérial was a Dutch-built flûte that the French Navy captured in 1794 ; she was deleted at end 1795....
, flagship of Vice Admiral Corentin-Urbain Leissègues, who was to sail to the Caribbean with four other ships of the line, two frigate
Frigate
A frigate is any of several types of warship, the term having been used for ships of various sizes and roles over the last few centuries.In the 17th century, the term was used for any warship built for speed and maneuverability, the description often used being "frigate-built"...
s and a corvette
Corvette
A corvette is a small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship, originally smaller than a frigate and larger than a coastal patrol craft or fast attack craft , although many recent designs resemble frigates in size and role...
. His squadron carried over 1,000 French soldiers to augment the garrison on Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo, known officially as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic. Its metropolitan population was 2,084,852 in 2003, and estimated at 3,294,385 in 2010. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River...
under General Jean-Louis Ferrand, and was then required to spend two months blockading Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
before cruising along the American Eastern Seaboard to Newfoundland, returning to France when food supplies ran low. The other squadron was given to Contre-Admiral Jean-Baptiste Willaumez in Foudroyant, with orders to cruise the shipping lanes of the South Atlantic before sailing to the Leeward Islands
Leeward Islands
The Leeward Islands are a group of islands in the West Indies. They are the northern islands of the Lesser Antilles chain. As a group they start east of Puerto Rico and reach southward to Dominica. They are situated where the northeastern Caribbean Sea meets the western Atlantic Ocean...
, communicating with the French colonies of Martinique, Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe is an archipelago located in the Leeward Islands, in the Lesser Antilles, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres and a population of 400,000. It is the first overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. As with the other overseas departments, Guadeloupe...
and Cayenne
Cayenne
Cayenne is the capital of French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France located in South America. The city stands on a former island at the mouth of the Cayenne River on the Atlantic coast. The city's motto is "Ferit Aurum Industria" which means "Work brings wealth"...
and blockading Barbados
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
. When British opposition became too strong, he was to return to the South Atlantic off Saint Helena
Saint Helena
Saint Helena , named after St Helena of Constantinople, is an island of volcanic origin in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the British overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha which also includes Ascension Island and the islands of Tristan da Cunha...
, also returning to France once food supplies ran low. His squadron consisted of six ships of the line, two frigates and two brig
Brig
A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and manoeuvrable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries...
s, and included among its captains Jérôme Bonaparte
Jérôme Bonaparte
Jérôme-Napoléon Bonaparte, French Prince, King of Westphalia, 1st Prince of Montfort was the youngest brother of Napoleon, who made him king of Westphalia...
, the Emperor's younger brother. Although both squadrons carried six months provisions, they were expected to capture more during their voyages and it was intended that their raiding operations should last as long as 14 months, causing severe indirect damage to the British economy by restricting the movement of trade.
December 1805
On 13 December 1805, with the majority of the British blockade squadron anchored in Cawsand BayCawsand Bay
Cawsand Bay is a bay on the south-east coast of Cornwall, United Kingdom.The bay takes its name from the village of Cawsand at , to the north-east of the Rame Peninsula...
and the remainder driven far offshore by a winter gale, the French squadrons sailed from Brest into the Bay of Biscay
Bay of Biscay
The Bay of Biscay is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Brest south to the Spanish border, and the northern coast of Spain west to Cape Ortegal, and is named in English after the province of Biscay, in the Spanish...
unnoticed. Within two days they had passed nearly 500 nautical miles (926 km) into the Atlantic Ocean and had encountered a British merchant convoy, Willaumez detaching in pursuit. The convoy was sailing to Britain from Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
, escorted by the 64-gun under Captain Robert Redmill
Robert Redmill
Captain Robert Redmill, CB was a British naval officer during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars who commanded the HMS Polyphemus during the battle of Trafalgar...
and the frigate under Captain William Prowse
William Prowse
William Prowse CB was an officer of the Royal Navy, who saw service during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars...
. Heavily outnumbered, the convoy turned away and ran before the wind, Willaumez in close pursuit. Later in the day a second convoy appeared to the north, of 23 ships sailing from Cork
Cork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
to the Caribbean escorted by the frigates under Captain Charles Brisbane
Charles Brisbane
Sir Charles Brisbane KCB was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence, and with distinction under Lords Hood and Nelson....
, under Captain John Maitland
John Maitland (Royal Navy officer)
John Maitland was an officer of the Royal Navy, who saw service during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, eventually rising to the rank of Rear-Admiral.-Family and early life:...
and the brig . With Willaumez distracted, Leissègues ordered his squadron in pursuit.
Willaumez's ships captured a number of stragglers from Redmill's convoy and managed to isolate Sirius, which only just escaped after narrowly avoiding an unequal encounter with four French ships of the line. With the convoy dispersed, Willaumez gathered his scattered forces and despatched the frigate Volontaire
French frigate Volontaire (1796)
The Volontaire was a 44-gun Virginie class frigate of the French Navy.She took part in the Atlantic campaign of 1806, and was captured by HMS Diadem in March 1806. She was brought into Royal Navy service as HMS Volontaire....
to the Spanish island of Tenerife
Tenerife
Tenerife is the largest and most populous island of the seven Canary Islands, it is also the most populated island of Spain, with a land area of 2,034.38 km² and 906,854 inhabitants, 43% of the total population of the Canary Islands. About five million tourists visit Tenerife each year, the...
with the prizes, before turning the remainder of his squadron southwards for his designated cruising grounds. To the north, Leissègues gradually approached Brisbane's convoy during the night but did not close with him until the morning of 16 December. In response, Brisbane formed his three warships into a line of battle
Line of battle
In naval warfare, the line of battle is a tactic in which the ships of the fleet form a line end to end. A primitive form had been used by the Portuguese under Vasco Da Gama in 1502 near Malabar against a Muslim fleet.,Maarten Tromp used it in the Action of 18 September 1639 while its first use in...
, accompanied by three of the larger merchant ships. This force could not hope to resist Leissègues' main force, but would enable the 17 other vessels to escape by blocking the French squadron's frigates from chasing them. Ignoring the escaping convoy, Leissègues formed his own line of battle and continued to close with Brisbane, whose faster ships steadily pulled away from the French throughout the day. As darkness fell, Leissègues abandoned the pursuit and turned to the south and Brisbane immediately despatched Boadicea to Brest and Wasp to the blockade squadrons along the Atlantic Seaboard with urgent warnings of the French operations in the Eastern Atlantic. Brisbane himself remained in distant contact with Leissègues for another day before the French squadron sheered away. Brisbane continued southwards with the remainder of his convoy, seeking the British blockade squadron at Cadiz.
Duckworth's cruise
On 20 November 1805, the French squadron under Contre-Admiral Allemand encountered a British convoy off the Savage IslandsSavage Islands
The Savage Islands, also referred to as the Salvage Islands or the Selvagens Islands, of Sé. They are designated a Nature Reserve, comprising two areas: one on Selvagem Grande Island and the second on Selvagem Pequena Island.-Geography:...
. Allemand's squadron was on its return journey to France when he encountered the convoy, consisting of six merchant ships sailing from Britain to Gorée
Gorée
Île de Gorée Île de Gorée Île de Gorée (i.e. "Gorée Island"; is one of the 19 communes d'arrondissement (i.e. "commune of arrondissement") of the city of Dakar, Senegal. It is a island located at sea from the main harbor of Dakar ....
under the escort of the brig under Commander Frederick Langford. Langford gave orders for his convoy to scatter as the French approached, Lark turning northwards in search of Rear-Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth
John Thomas Duckworth
Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth, 1st Baronet, GCB was a British naval officer, serving during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, as the Governor of Newfoundland during the War of 1812, and a member of the British House of Commons during his...
and the Cadiz squadron, reaching it on 26 November. Duckworth immediately sailed in pursuit of Allemand, leaving behind only two frigates to watch Cadiz in his absence.
Sailing south from Cadiz, Duckworth's squadron reached Madeira on 5 December, passing Tenerife ten days later without sighting any French ships. Continuing south to the Cape Verde Islands, Duckworth reluctantly conceded that the French squadron had escaped and he retired northwards until he encountered Brisbane's reduced convoy on 23 December. Tracking the presumed course of Leissègues' ships, Duckworth continued northwards on a course that would intercept the French squadron. At 06:45 on 25 December, at 30°52′N 20°16′W, approximately 200 nautical miles (370.4 km) northwest of the Canary Islands
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
, lookouts in Duckworth's squadron spotted nine sails in the distance. As Allemand's squadron was estimated to have approximately nine ships, Duckworth initially believed that his enemy was Allemand, possibly accompanied by prizes captured on his cruise. However, as he closed with the French, it became clear that this was a different squadron altogether. In fact his target was Willaumez, and despite the French admiral's efforts, Duckworth was steadily gaining on him, the ships of the line , and outstripping the rest of the British squadron.
By 13:00 on 26 December, the flagship Superb was just 7 nautical miles (13 km) behind the rearmost French ship, with Spencer 4 nautical miles (7.4 km) further back and Agamemnon another 5 nautical miles (9.3 km) distant. The rest of the squadron was more than 22 nautical miles (40.7 km) behind the leaders, almost completely out of sight, with the rearmost ship, , more than 45 nautical miles (83.3 km) behind Superb. The more compact French squadron was therefore at an advantage. The British were too dispersed to be able to bring a powerful enough force to engage the French in equal battle and the distance between the individual British ships was too great to allow them to provide mutual support if Willaumez turned to face them. Therefore, to the fury of his officers, Duckworth called off the pursuit. This decision was heavily criticised, both at the time and subsequently: historian William James
William James (naval historian)
William M. James was a British lawyer turned naval historian who wrote important naval histories of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1793-1815.-Career:...
commenting that "had the Superb brought to action, as in the course of a few hours she might, the sternmost French ship . . . the issue, in all reasonable calculation, would have been favourable to the British".
Gathering his scattered squadron, Duckworth despatched the frigate to Britain with the news of the French activity in the Eastern Atlantic, his message suggesting that the French were probably destined for the Dutch East Indies
Dutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....
. He himself turned southwest towards the Leeward Islands
Leeward Islands
The Leeward Islands are a group of islands in the West Indies. They are the northern islands of the Lesser Antilles chain. As a group they start east of Puerto Rico and reach southward to Dominica. They are situated where the northeastern Caribbean Sea meets the western Atlantic Ocean...
, where he could resupply his ships in preparation for resuming the blockade at Cadiz. On 2 January 1806 he ordered under Captain Robert Plampin
Robert Plampin
Vice-Admiral Robert Plampin was a British Royal Navy officer during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, serving in the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, but best known for his time as commander of the British colony of Saint Helena...
to sail for the Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
and reinforce the British squadron there, in case Willaumez's squadron reached Asian waters.
British response
Word of the French breakout did not reach Britain until 24 December, when a cartel arrived from Gibraltar with the news. The report understated the size of the French forces, claiming seven rather than eleven ships of the line had broken out, with four frigates. Recognising his error in withdrawing the blockade, Barham immediately ordered two squadrons to prepare for sea: one under Vice-Admiral Sir John Borlase WarrenJohn Borlase Warren
Sir John Borlase Warren, 1st Baronet , was an English admiral, politician and diplomat. Born in Stapleford, Nottinghamshire, he was the son and heir of John Borlase Warren of Stapleford and Little Marlow...
gathered at Spithead
Spithead
Spithead is an area of the Solent and a roadstead off Gilkicker Point in Hampshire, England. It is protected from all winds, except those from the southeast...
, including the second rate and six other ships of the line. The other formed in Cawsand Bay under Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Strachan and consisted of the second rate and five other ships of the line. Both were ordered to cruise the mid-Atlantic in search of the missing French squadrons, Warren in the vicinity of Madeira and subsequently the West Indies, eventually joining with the squadrons there under Rear-Admiral Alexander Cochrane
Alexander Cochrane
Admiral Sir Alexander Forrester Inglis Cochrane GCB RN was a senior Royal Navy commander during the Napoleonic Wars.-Naval career:...
and Vice-Admiral James Richard Dacres
James Richard Dacres (1749–1810)
James Richard Dacres was an officer of the Royal Navy who saw service during the Seven Years' War, the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars...
. Strachan was to pass Saint Helena and cruise the West African coast to the Cape of Good Hope
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...
, guarding the vital trade route in the Eastern Atlantic that connected Britain with India. If he was unable to discover the French he was instructed to attach his squadron to that under Commodore Home Riggs Popham
Home Riggs Popham
Admiral Sir Home Riggs Popham KCB was a British Royal Naval Commander who saw service during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars...
that had been sent to invade the Dutch base at the Cape of Good Hope in the autumn of 1805.
Battle of San Domingo
On 12 January 1806, Duckworth's squadron anchored in Carlisle Bay, BarbadosCarlisle Bay, Barbados
Carlisle Bay is a small natural harbor located in the southwest region of Barbados. The island nation's capital, Bridgetown, is situated on this bay, which has been turned into a marine park. Carlisle Bay's marine park is a popular spot on the island for scuba diving...
, sending to St. Kitts for additional water supplies. On 19 January the whole squadron sailed to Basseterre
Basseterre
Basseterre , estimated population 15,500 in 2000, is the capital of the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis in the West Indies. Geographically, the Basseterre port is located at , on the south western coast of Saint Kitts Island, and it is one of the chief commercial depots of the Leeward Islands...
at St. Kitts, where they anchored and took on fresh food and water. On 21 January two ships of the West Indian squadron joined them: under Captain John Morrison
John Morrison
-In politics:* John Morrison , politician in Manitoba, Canada* John Morrison , Canadian Member of Parliament* John Morrison...
and under Captain Samuel Pym
Samuel Pym
Sir Samuel Pym KCB was a British admiral, brother of Sir William Pym.In June 1788, Pym joined the Royal Navy as captain's servant of the frigate Eurydice...
. Northumberland was the flagship of Rear-Admiral Alexander Cochrane
Alexander Cochrane
Admiral Sir Alexander Forrester Inglis Cochrane GCB RN was a senior Royal Navy commander during the Napoleonic Wars.-Naval career:...
, who met with Duckworth but had no new information about French movements in the region. In fact, Leissègues had arrived in the Caribbean on 20 January, his passage delayed since departing from Brisbane's convoy in December and his ships damaged and dispersed by a series of winter storms off the Azores
Azores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
. Disembarking the troops at Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo, known officially as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic. Its metropolitan population was 2,084,852 in 2003, and estimated at 3,294,385 in 2010. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River...
, the French admiral made repairs to his ships, awaited the arrival of the missing Alexandre
French ship Indivisible (1799)
Indivisible was a Tonnant class 80-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.Originally named the Indivisible in 1793, she was commissioned in Toulon on 23 September 1800. On 5 February 1803, she was renamed Alexandre, and recommissioned in Brest under captain Leveyer.In December, under captain...
and Brave
French ship Cassard (1795)
Cassard was a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy. She was renamed Dix-août in 1798 and subsequently Brave in 1803.On the 27 March 1801, as she sailed with the fleet of Toulon, she collided with the Formidable and had to return to harbour.She was captured by the HMS Donegal on 6 February...
, and took on supplies over the next two weeks in preparation for raiding operations in the West Indies.
On 1 February, the British sloop
Sloop
A sloop is a sail boat with a fore-and-aft rig and a single mast farther forward than the mast of a cutter....
arrived at St. Kitts with news that three French ships of the line had been spotted off Santo Domingo. Duckworth immediately weighted anchor and sailed for the port, passing St. Thomas
Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
Saint Thomas is an island in the Caribbean Sea and with the islands of Saint John, Saint Croix, and Water Island a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands , an unincorporated territory of the United States. Located on the island is the territorial capital and port of...
on 3 February and though the Mona Passage
Mona Passage
The Mona Passage is a strait that separates the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. The Mona Passage connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean Sea, and is an important shipping route between the Atlantic and the Panama Canal....
the following day. On 5 February, the frigate under Captain Adam Mackenzie
Adam Mackenzie
Adam Mackenzie was an officer of the Royal Navy. He was promoted to Lieutenant on 13 March 1790, to Commander on 22 June 1796, and to Captain on 2 September 1799. He died on 13 November 1823.-HMS Pylades:...
joined the squadron, accompanied by a captured Danish schooner that had recently departed Santo Domingo and whose crew were able to give a precise account of the French squadron at anchor in the harbour. Before the Danish ship had left port, a number of French officers had been concerned that the schooner might reveal details of their presence to the British and had demanded that Leissègues seize and burn the vessel, but the admiral had refused.
Line of battle
In naval warfare, the line of battle is a tactic in which the ships of the fleet form a line end to end. A primitive form had been used by the Portuguese under Vasco Da Gama in 1502 near Malabar against a Muslim fleet.,Maarten Tromp used it in the Action of 18 September 1639 while its first use in...
westwards along the coast, in the direction of Nizao
Nizao
-General information:Nizao is a city in the Dominican Republic and capital of the Nizao Municipality. It is the second large municipality of the Peravia Province and is located in southeastern corner of this province, in the angle formed by the estuary of the Nizao River and the Caribbean Sea...
. Duckworth closed with Leissègues' leading ships in his flagship Superb, followed by Cochrane in Northumberland and Spencer. The rest of the ships formed a second division led by Rear-Admiral Thomas Louis
Thomas Louis
Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Louis, 1st Baronet was an officer of the British Royal Navy who served in three wars and saw numerous actions, notably as one of Horatio Nelson's "Band of Brothers" in the Mediterranean in 1798 who commanded ships at the Battle of the Nile...
in , which rapidly fell behind the leading division. At 10:10, Duckworth opened fire on Alexandre, while Northumberland and Spencer engaged the next two French ships in line, Leissègues' flagship Impérial and Diomède
French ship Union (1799)
The Union was a Téméraire class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy. She was renamed Diomède in 1803. She was wrecked and burnt at the Battle of San Domingo....
. Within 15 minutes, Alexandre had fallen out of the line, dragging Spencer with her to the south, while Northumberland had suffered severe damage from Impérial
Raking fire
In naval warfare, raking fire is fire directed parallel to the long axis of an enemy ship. Although each shot is directed against a smaller target profile than by shooting broadside and thus more likely to miss the target ship to one side or the other, an individual cannon shot that hits will pass...
Alexandre as they passed and leaving her dismasted and shattered. Canopus then passed on towards the melee surrounding Impérial while targeted Brave and attacked Jupiter
French ship Viala (1795)
The Viala was a 74-gun of the French Navy launched in 1795. She was captured by the Royal Navy in 1806 and sold in 1814.-French service:...
, both of which rapidly surrendered, followed shortly afterwards by Alexandre.
With the French rear defeated, the remaining British ships focused their attack on Impérial and Diomède, but the intense smoke blocked the British view and caused Atlas to collide with Canopus, while fire from Impérial disabled Northumberland. At 11:30, surrounded by enemies and with escape impossible, Leissègues' decided to drive his remaining ships on shore rather than surrender. Steering for the beach and closely pursued by Canopus, both Impérial and Diomède were deliberately grounded. With the enemy line destroyed, Duckworth anchored offshore to observe French activity on the grounded ships and conduct hasty repairs. Out of range of British fire, small boats evacuated most of the remaining sailors from Impérial and Diomède, which had lost all their masts and were rapidly filling with water. When Duckworth sent in his frigates on 8 February it was clear that both ships were beyond repair, the British boarding parties removing the remaining 156 crew as prisoners and setting fire to the hulls. British casualties in the engagement had been 74 killed and 264 wounded, while the French total was estimated at 1,510, although accurate counts were not taken in the aftermath of the battle.
With his enemy defeated, Duckworth detached Northumberland and to Barbados and took the rest of the squadron to Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
with the prizes. There he was acclaimed, and his victory was also celebrated in Britain when the news reached Europe in the brig
Brig
A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and manoeuvrable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries...
. Awards were distributed among the officers of the squadron but Duckworth was overlooked: his abandonment of Cadiz and the failure to bring Willaumez to battle in December had earned the enmity of Lord Collingwood, commander in chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, who blocked any awards to his subordinate. Historians William James and William Laird Clowes
William Laird Clowes
Sir William Laird Clowes was a British journalist and historian whose principal work was The Royal Navy, A History from the Earliest Times to 1900, a text that is still in print. He also wrote numerous technical pieces on naval technology and strategy and was also noted for his articles concerning...
have both suggested that if Duckworth had not been victorious at San Domingo then he would probably have faced a court martial.
South Atlantic
After outrunning Duckworth on 26 December, Willaumez sailed for the South Atlantic, intending to pass into the Indian Ocean and cruise off the Cape of Good Hope in anticipation of the arrival of the British China Fleet. The China Fleet was a large annual convoy of East Indiamen that originated in CantonGuangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
and passed through the Malacca Straits, across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope and then north through the Atlantic Ocean, arriving in British waters six to eight months after departure. During the passage, the convoy gathered ships from the various British colonies in the Indian Ocean and by the time it passed the southern tip of Africa it often contained dozens of vessels. By combining the heavy armaments of the East Indiamen with a strong Royal Navy escort, the China Fleet became a formidable target for French raiding squadrons: at the Battle of Pulo Aura
Battle of Pulo Aura
The Battle of Pulo Aura was a minor naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars, fought on 14 February 1804, in which a large squadron of Honourable East India Company East Indiamen, powerful and well armed merchant ships, intimidated, drove off and chased a powerful French naval squadron...
in February 1804, an unescorted China Fleet drove off a powerful French squadron under Contre-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Durand Linois after a sharp encounter.
Willaumez had planned to resupply his squadron at the Cape itself before searching for the China Fleet, but the crew of a merchant ship captured in the South Atlantic informed him that the Dutch governors had surrendered on 10 January 1806 to an expeditionary force under General Sir David Baird
David Baird
David Baird may refer to:* Sir David Baird, 1st Baronet, British general* David Baird * David Baird , U.S. Senator from New Jersey* David Baird, Jr. , his son, also a U.S. Senator from New Jersey...
and Commodore Popham after five days of fighting. Turning away from the Cape, Willaumez decided to continue operations in the South Atlantic until April, when he put into Salvador
Salvador, Bahia
Salvador is the largest city on the northeast coast of Brazil and the capital of the Northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia. Salvador is also known as Brazil's capital of happiness due to its easygoing population and countless popular outdoor parties, including its street carnival. The first...
in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
for supplies. Willaumez was fortunate to have collected this information before attempting to anchor in Table Bay
Table Bay
Table Bay is a natural bay on the Atlantic Ocean overlooked by Cape Town and is at the northern end of the Cape Peninsula, which stretches south to the Cape of Good Hope. It was named because it is dominated by the flat-topped Table Mountain.Bartolomeu Dias was the first European to explore this...
: Popham had ordered all ships and shore facilities to continue to fly the Dutch flag in the hope that enemy ships would be lured within range of the port's gun batteries. On 4 March this ruse worked successfully when the frigate Volontaire, detached from Willaumez's squadron in December, anchored in the midst of Popham's squadron without realising their identity. Hopelessly outnumbered, Captain Bretel had no choice but to surrender, the British boarding party discovering 217 British soldiers in the hold, captured by Willaumez from Redmill's convoy.
Destruction of Linois
While Willaumez operated in the South Atlantic, the British squadrons under Strachan and Warren hunted for him hundreds of miles to the north. Warren's squadron cruised the eastern Atlantic, monitoring the trade routes than ran along the coast of West Africa while Strachan focused on the western Atlantic, particularly the southern approaches to the Caribbean. Although neither was in a position to intercept Willaumez until he began the return journey north, Warren's position afforded him the opportunity to watch for any French or allied vessels returning to Europe from the East. At 03:00 on 16 March 1806, lookouts on reported sails to the northeast and Captain Sir Harry Burrard-Neale ordered his ship in pursuit. Although no other ships in the squadron could see anything, Warren gave the order to follow London in case the sails proved to be French.
The distant ships were in fact the remains of Linois's squadron, which had put to sea on 13 March 1803 and operated in the Indian Ocean ever since
Linois's expedition to the Indian Ocean
Linois's expedition to the Indian Ocean was a commerce raiding operation launched by the French Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. Contre-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Durand Linois was ordered to the Indian Ocean in his flagship Marengo in March 1803 accompanied by a squadron of three frigates, shortly...
. There Linois conducted a string of commerce raids that achieved minimal success, hampered by both the lack of naval stores at Île de France
Mauritius
Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...
and Linois's hesitation in the face of the enemy. The squadron had missed opportunities at Pulo Aura and the Battle of Vizagapatam
Battle of Vizagapatam
The Battle of Vizagapatam was a minor naval engagement fought in the approaches to Vizagapatam harbour in the Coastal Andhra region of British India on the Bay of Bengal on 15 September 1804 during the Napoleonic Wars...
in 1804 and against a conovy escorted by Sir Thomas Troubridge
Sir Thomas Troubridge, 1st Baronet
Sir Thomas Troubridge, 1st Baronet was a British naval commander and politician.Troubridge was educated at St Paul's School, London. He entered the Royal Navy in 1773 and, together with Nelson, served in the East Indies in the frigate Seahorse. In 1785 he returned to England in the Sultan as...
in 1805. Much reduced by detachments and shipwreck, Linois's squadron now consisted only of his ship of the line Marengo
French ship Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1795)
The Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Téméraire class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.In October 1796, under captain Racord, she was part of the Villeneuve's squadron that sailed from Toulon to Brest...
and the frigate Belle Poule. At 03:00 on 13 March, lookouts on Marengo sighted sails to the southwest and despite his officers' misgivings Linois ordered Marengo to investigate, in the hope that he had discovered another merchant convoy.
At 05:30, London and Marengo almost collided in the darkness, Linois recognising the strange ship as a Royal Navy second rate and desperately turning away in an effort to escape. Marengo was too slow and Neale opened fire, rapidly inflicting serious damage to the French flagship. Captain Bruilhac on Belle Poule assisted his admiral for as long as possible, but at 06:15 swung away with British frigate pursuing closely. The fighting continued for another four and a half hours, Linois defending his ship against mounting odds as the rest of Warren's squadron came into range. To the northeast, Amazon succeeded in catching Belle Poule, the British frigate inflicting serious damage on the French ship as she closed. Unable to escape or continue the fight, both Linois and Bruilhac surrendered at 11:00, although by that time the French admiral had been severely wounded and taken below. French losses were 69 killed and 106 wounded to British casualties of 13 killed and 27 wounded. Following the engagement Warren returned to Britain with his prizes, leaving the eastern half of the Atlantic temporarily unguarded.
Willaumez in the Caribbean
At the beginning of April 1806, Strachan was the only British admiral still hunting for Willaumez's squadron, following the withdrawal of Duckworth and Warren. Strachan's squadron was hampered in its movements by the presence of the 98-gun , which was much too slow to operate effectively with Strachan's fast response force. Returning to Britain in early April to resupply, Strachan detached St George and (the new flagship of the Rochefort blockade) at PlymouthPlymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
and was joined by three additional ships of the line and two frigates, all fast ships capable of extended operations. In early May, news reached Britain of Willaumez's stay at Salvador and his subsequent departure in mid-April, and Strachan was again ordered in pursuit, sailing for the West Indies.
On leaving Brazil, Willaumez first steered for the French colony of Cayenne
Cayenne
Cayenne is the capital of French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France located in South America. The city stands on a former island at the mouth of the Cayenne River on the Atlantic coast. The city's motto is "Ferit Aurum Industria" which means "Work brings wealth"...
, were he divided his ships into three squadrons to increase his raiding operations throughout the West Indies. In May he briefly considered an attack on Carlisle Bay, Barbados
Carlisle Bay, Barbados
Carlisle Bay is a small natural harbor located in the southwest region of Barbados. The island nation's capital, Bridgetown, is situated on this bay, which has been turned into a marine park. Carlisle Bay's marine park is a popular spot on the island for scuba diving...
, but withdrew claiming that the wind and tide were against him. Cochrane, whose squadron was based at Carlisle Bay, came out in pursuit of the French and almost captured Jérôme Bonaparte in Vétéran
French ship Vétéran (1803)
The Vétéran was a development from the Téméraire class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, one of two ships of a sub-class of which the other vessel was the Cassard...
with his flagship Northumberland, forcing the French ship to withdraw to Fort-de-France
Fort-de-France
Fort-de-France is the capital of France's Caribbean overseas department of Martinique. It is also one of the major cities in the Caribbean. Exports include sugar, rum, tinned fruit, and cacao.-Geography:...
on Martinique on 9 June. Cochrane blockaded the port and was joined by under Captain George Dundas and under Captain John Harvey
John Harvey (Royal Navy admiral)
Admiral Sir John Harvey, KCB was an officer of the British Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars who held numerous commands and served in several actions during his long and distinguished career...
, but Northumberland was damaged by a storm and the British temporarily withdrew to Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia is an island country in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. Part of the Lesser Antilles, it is located north/northeast of the island of Saint Vincent, northwest of Barbados and south of Martinique. It covers a land area of 620 km2 and has an...
, allowing Éole
French ship Éole (1789)
The Éole was a Téméraire class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.Between 1791 and 1793, she was based in Saint-Domingue. She took part in the Glorious First of June, where she and Trajan dismasted HMS Bellerophon....
and Impétueux
French ship Brutus (1798)
The Brutus was a Téméraire class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.She served in the Caribbean under Willaumez during the Atlantic campaign of 1806.On 19 August 1806, she was dismasted in a tempest and drifted until 10 September...
to reach Fort-de-France on 15 June. Over the following week the rest of Willaumez's squadron joined Vétéran, ignoring Cochrane's efforts to intercept his ships as they entered the harbour.
On 1 July Willaumez left Fort-de-France with two ships and sailed to Montserrat
Montserrat
Montserrat is a British overseas territory located in the Leeward Islands, part of the chain of islands called the Lesser Antilles in the West Indies. This island measures approximately long and wide, giving of coastline...
, seizing three merchant ships in the harbour. The British governor on Monserrat sent urgent messages to Nevis
Nevis
Nevis is an island in the Caribbean Sea, located near the northern end of the Lesser Antilles archipelago, about 350 km east-southeast of Puerto Rico and 80 km west of Antigua. The 93 km² island is part of the inner arc of the Leeward Islands chain of the West Indies...
and St. Kitts, where the authorities hastily evacuated a 65-ship convoy anchored at Sandy Point under the meagre protection of the 28-gun frigate . However, 13 ships from other harbours missed the warning and on 3 July four ships that had detached from Willaumez's squadron the day before descended on the islands, seizing four vessels on Nevis and attacking the remaining nine that had gathered under Brimstone Hill
Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park
Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the island of St. Kitts in the Federation of St. Christopher and Nevis in the Eastern Caribbean....
. There gunfire from the Brimstone Hill batteries drove off the attacking French ships. On 4 July Willaumez rejoined the squadron from Montserrat with news that the annual Jamaica convoy, a large collection of merchant ships that sailed each year from the Caribbean to Britain during the summer, was anchored off Tortola
Tortola
Tortola is the largest and most populated of the British Virgin Islands, a group of islands that form part of the archipelago of the Virgin Islands. Local tradition recounts that Christopher Columbus named it Tortola, meaning "land of the Turtle Dove". Columbus named the island Santa Ana...
. Cochrane had already recognised the danger to the Jamaica squadron and had overtaken Willaumez while he was at Montserrat, waiting for the French squadron off St. Thomas with four ships of the line and four frigates. On 6 July Willaumez sighted Cochrane south-east of St. Thomas and, heeding his orders from Napoleon not to risk battle, turned away and passed between St. Thomas and the Passage Islands
Spanish Virgin Islands
The Spanish Virgin Islands, formerly called the Passage Islands and also known as the Puerto Rican Virgin Islands, are part of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, located east of the main island of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rican tourist literature uses the name Spanish Virgin Islands, but most general...
. With the French driven off, Cochrane sailed to Tortola where nearly 300 ships had gathered to prepare the convoy for the journey to Europe.
Frustrated in his efforts to intercept the convoy at anchor, Willaumez determined to meet it at sea, sailing to the Bahama Banks
Bahama Banks
The Bahama Banks are the submerged carbonate platforms that make up much of the Bahama Archipelago. The term is usually applied in referring to either the Great Bahama Bank around Andros Island, or the Little Bahama Bank of Grand Bahama Island and Great Abaco, which are the largest of the...
. There he waited for the convoy, seizing any ships that came within sight of his squadron, including neutral vessels, in case they revealed his position. For several weeks Willaumez's lookouts saw nothing, the British holding the convoy back until they obtained some information about the location of the French squadron. During the night of 31 July, bored with waiting for the convoy, Captain Jérôme Bonaparte sailed northwards away from the squadron, acting without orders or even notifying his admiral. When dawn broke on 1 August, Willaumez was panicked by the disappearance of Vétéran and, assuming that the ship had somehow been accidentally separated, began to search for the missing vessel and its important commander.
While Willaumez was distracted by his missing ship, Cochrane had finished preparing the convoy. Unable to delay its departure any longer, he sent 109 large merchant ships eastwards under the protection of one small ship of the line, two frigates and two sloops, a significantly inferior force to the one under Willaumez. The convoy passed across Willaumez's cruising ground during August while the French admiral was to the north searching for Vétéran, and by the time the he returned the convoy was far to the east, was well on its journey to Britain. Willaumez's absence also meant that he missed a potential encounter with Admiral Warren, who had returned to the Atlantic in search of Willaumez following his victory over Linois in March. Warren had sailed from Spithead on 4 June and by 12 July had anchored at Barbados. During August he searched for Willaumez in the eastern Bahamas but failed to discover the French squadron, which at that time was still searching for Vétéran far to the north.
Hurricane
With his squadron unexpectedly depleted, his principal target escaped and food supplies running low, Willaumez decided to begin the final stage of his cruise and sail for Newfoundland, thereby escaping pursuit from Cochrane and Warren and preying on the convoys and fishing fleets that crossed the area. Turning northwards on 18 August, Willaumez was at 22°N 63°W, 324 nautical miles (600 km) north-east of Puerto RicoPuerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
, when his squadron was struck by a fierce hurricane. When the storm abated, Willaumez found that his flagship Foudroyant was badly damaged and entirely alone. Rigging jury masts, Foudroyant began slowly limping for the Spanish port of Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
on Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, where she could make the repairs needed for the journey back to France. For nearly a month Willaumez encountered nothing, but on 15 September, with Havana in sight, the heavy British frigate under Captain Charles Lydiard
Charles Lydiard
Charles Lydiard was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars....
appeared. Willaumez sent a boat into Havana for assistance as the frigate approached and at 13:15 Lydiard opened fire. Although Foudroyant was far larger than Anson she was significantly damaged and incapable of rapid manoeuvres, which gave Lydiard some hope of capturing her. However the fire of Willaumez's flagship proved too strong and at 13:45 Anson sheered away with two men killed and eight wounded. Spanish ships, including the ship of the line San Lorenzo came out to assist Foudroyant and within a few hours she was safely anchored in the heavily fortified harbour.
The rest of Willaumez's squadron was less successful in their attempts to reach safety. All were badly damaged and most had been blown north-west towards the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. There they encountered Strachan's squadron, which had passed through the Bahamas while Willaumez searched for Vétéran and been 60 nautical miles (111.1 km) from Willaumez when they were caught in the same hurricane that had dispersed the French squadron. Less damaged than their opponents, Strachan's ships began gathering off Chesapeake Bay
Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay's drainage basin covers in the District of Columbia and parts of six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West...
with the intention of continuing their search once temporary repairs had been completed. On 14 September the ships of the line under Captain William Hargood
William Hargood
Admiral Sir William Hargood KCB GCH RN was a British naval officer who served with distinction through the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars, during which he gained an unfortunate reputation for bad luck, which seemed to reverse following his...
, under Captain John Erskine Douglas and the frigate under Captain Stephen Poyntz were cruising off Cape Henry
Cape Henry
Cape Henry is a cape on the Atlantic shore of Virginia north of Virginia Beach. It is the southern boundary of the entrance to Chesapeake Bay.Across the mouth of the bay to the north is Cape Charles...
in search of Strachan's flagship when they spotted a ship sailing under jury masts to the southwest. Closing to investigate, they discovered that the stranger was the French ship Impétueux, left in a dismasted and leaking state by the hurricane and desperately attempting to reach a harbour in the United States. Commodore Alain-Joseph Le Veyer-Belair immediately steered Impétueux towards the coast to avoid the unequal combat and drove his ship on shore at 08:15. Although Impétueux was now on United States soil, Melampus opened fire, the attack followed at 10:00 by boats from Belleisle and Bellona. Boarding parties seized Impétueux but the appearance of two sails on the horizon, later discovered to be British, convinced Hargood to abandon the wreck to Melampus. By 20:00 the remaining French crew had been taken aboard the frigate as prisoners and Poyntz gave orders for the wreck to be burnt.
The destruction of Impétueux on United States territory prompted complaints from the French consul at Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....
and from the captains of Éole
French ship Éole (1789)
The Éole was a Téméraire class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.Between 1791 and 1793, she was based in Saint-Domingue. She took part in the Glorious First of June, where she and Trajan dismasted HMS Bellerophon....
and Patriote
French ship Patriote (1785)
The Patriote was a Téméraire class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.She was one of the French ships which had their hull doubled with copper....
, which had sheltered in Annapolis following the storm. Badly damaged by the high winds, repairs on Patriote took over a year, Commodore Joseph-Hyacinthe-Isidore Khrom waiting until 16 December 1807 to make the journey back to France. He arrived at Ile d'Aix on 17 January 1808, narrowly avoiding the blockade squadron under Strachan that was temporarily out of position to take on fresh supplies. Éole was never repaired: the difficulty in obtaining the required naval stores proved too great and she was broken up at Annapolis in 1811. Another ship that never returned to France was the frigate Valeureuse
French frigate Valeureuse
Valeureuse was a 40-gun of the French Navy.She took part in the Atlantic campaign of 1806 in Willaumez's squadron. In August 1806, she was separated from the fleet by a storm, and took refuge on 31 in Delaware Bay, in such a bad state that she had to be sold.-References:* Dictionnaire de la flotte...
, which sheltered in the Delaware River
Delaware River
The Delaware River is a major river on the Atlantic coast of the United States.A Dutch expedition led by Henry Hudson in 1609 first mapped the river. The river was christened the South River in the New Netherland colony that followed, in contrast to the North River, as the Hudson River was then...
following the hurricane but was later forced to sail up river to Philadelphia to avoid attacks by British raiding parties. As with Éole, repairs proved too complex and Valeureuse was also broken up some years later. The flagship Foudroyant did succeed in returning to France, sailing from Havana late in 1806 and arriving at Brest in February 1807.
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
to Britain escorted only by the 22-gun under Captain Robert Howe Bromley on 10 August. Although Bromley made a desperate attempt to draw off the French ship of the line, Vétéran ignored the small escort ship and seized six merchant vessels, setting them on fire. Champion and the transport Osborne escaped, accompanied by nine other merchant ships. On 26 August, 26 days after he deserted Willaumez's squadron, Bonaparte was nearing the French coast when he was chased by the 80-gun under Captain Willoughby Thomas Lake
Willoughby Thomas Lake
Admiral Sir Willoughby Thomas Lake KCB was a Royal Navy officer who went on to be Commander-in-Chief, North American Station.-Naval career:...
and the frigates and under Captains William Robert Broughton
William Robert Broughton
William Robert Broughton was a British naval officer in the late 18th century. As a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, he commanded HMS Chatham as part of the Vancouver Expedition, a voyage of exploration through the Pacific Ocean led by Captain George Vancouver in the early 1790s.-With Vancouver:In...
and Thomas Baker
Thomas Baker (Royal Navy officer)
Sir Thomas Baker KCB, KWN was an officer of the Royal Navy, who saw service during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars...
. Closely pursued, the reliable officers placed under Bonaparte abandoned the intended destination of Lorient
Lorient
Lorient, or L'Orient, is a commune and a seaport in the Morbihan department in Brittany in north-western France.-History:At the beginning of the 17th century, merchants who were trading with India had established warehouses in Port-Louis...
and instead used their expert local knowledge to direct Vétéran to the tiny port of Concarneau
Concarneau
Concarneau is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in north-western France.The town has two distinct areas: the modern town on the mainland and the medieval Ville Close, a walled town on a long island in the centre of the harbour. Historically, the old town was a centre of shipbuilding...
, the first time a ship of the line had ever successfully anchored in the harbour. Although another captain might have been court martialed for abandoning his admiral without orders or permission, the Emperor's brother was instead praised for intercepting the Quebec convoy and promoted soon afterwards. The other surviving ship of Willaumez's squadron was Cassard, which passed through the hurricane relatively intact and made its way to Europe alone, arriving at Rochefort several weeks later.
Minor operations
In addition to the squadrons of Willaumez, Leissègues and Linois, the French authorities sent several other forces into the Atlantic during the campaign; either separate operations intended to pass unnoticed under the cover of the major campaign or deliberate diversionary expeditions to draw British forces away from the main theatre of operations. The first of these was L'Hermite's expeditionL'Hermite's expedition
L'Hermite's expedition was a French naval operation launched in 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars. The operation was intended as both a commerce raiding operation against the British trading posts of West Africa and as a diversion to the Trafalgar campaign...
, a expedition to West Africa under Commodore Jean-Marthe-Adrien L'Hermite
Jean-Marthe-Adrien l'Hermite
Jean-Marthe-Adrien L'Hermitte was a French sea captain and rear admiral, notable for his involvement in the Glorious First of June and various other campaigns.- Early career :L'Hermitte was born to the family of a...
that had sailed from Lorient
Lorient
Lorient, or L'Orient, is a commune and a seaport in the Morbihan department in Brittany in north-western France.-History:At the beginning of the 17th century, merchants who were trading with India had established warehouses in Port-Louis...
towards the end of the Trafalgar campaign with orders to attack undefended merchant shipping off West Africa and await reinforcements under Jérôme Bonaparte. Before Bonaparte could sail, the Battle of Trafalgar changed the strategic situation and the reinforcements were never despatched. L'Hermite conducted an effective but minor raiding operation of his own, cruising off West Africa and capturing a number of merchant ships and slave ships, eventually sailing for Cayenne and then back to France in September 1806. A second force was less planned and more opportunistic: Lamellerie's expedition was drawn from frigates that had survived the Battle of Trafalgar and were sheltering in Cadiz. Duckworth withdrew from the blockade of Cadiz in November 1805, and inadequate replacements were provided by Collingwood. In February 1806, a British plan to lure the French squadron out of port by withdrawing all of the available forces except the frigate and a brig backfired when a storm blew Hydra out of position on 26 February 1806 and La Meillerie escaped with four frigates and a brig. Hydra gave chase, and La Meillerie abandoned the slower brig to avoid combat with the British frigate, eventually escaping with his remaining ships. La Meillerie's expedition then visited Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
and Cayenne, failing to make any impact on British merchant shipping despite orders to commerce raid when possible. After four months, La Meillerie decided to return to France, reaching the Bay of Biscay on in July 1806.
As well as the squadrons under Warren and Strachan, the British authorities had deployed additional forces in response to the French operations, in particular with the intention of intercepting and capturing Willaumez during his return journey to France. To this end, Rear-Admiral Louis was given a squadron to patrol in the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
and Admiral William Cornwallis
William Cornwallis
Admiral the Honourable Sir William Cornwallis GCB was a Royal Navy officer who fought in the Napoleonic Wars. He was the brother of Charles Cornwallis, the 1st Marquess Cornwallis, governor-general of India...
maintained a powerful force off Brest, which was so successful in cutting off the seaport that L'Hermite's Régulus
French ship Régulus (1805)
The Régulus was a Téméraire class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.From 25 May 1801, her armament was upgraded to sport between 80 and 86 guns....
was the only ship of the line to enter or leave the port during 1806. Other squadrons were stationed off the remaining French Biscay ports, including a force of five ships of the line under Commodore Richard Goodwin Keats
Richard Goodwin Keats
Admiral Sir Richard Goodwin Keats was a British naval officer who fought throughout the American Revolution, French Revolutionary War and Napoleonic War. He retired in 1812 due to ill health and was made Commodore-Governor of Newfoundland from 1813 to 1816. In 1821 he was made Governor of...
off Rochefort. One of Keats' ships, under Captain Robert Dudley Oliver
Robert Dudley Oliver
Admiral Robert Dudley Oliver was a senior officer of the British Royal Navy during the early nineteenth century, who served in the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars with distinction, seeing action several times during his career, particularly with...
was able to intercept La Meillerie's squadron on his return journey and capture the frigate Rhin
French frigate Rhin (1802)
Rhin was a 44-gun Virginie-class frigate of the French Navy launched in 1802. She was present at two major battles while in French service. Then the Royal Navy captured her in 1806. Thereafter Rhin served until 1815 capturing numerous vessels. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars she was laid up...
on 17 July.
In September, Keats was replaced off Rochefort by Commodore Sir Samuel Hood, who achieved a significant success when he intercepted a French squadron of seven frigates and corvettes under Commodore Eleonore-Jean-Nicolas Soleil
Éléonore-Jean-Nicolas Soleil
Éléonore-Jean-Nicolas Soleil was a French Navy officer and captain.- Biography :Born to the family of a surgeon, Soleil started sailing on a merchantman in 1783. In 1785, he served in the French Royal Navy on a fluyt, before returning to merchant shipping.In August 1789, Soleil joined up as a...
sailing from Rochefort to the French West Indies with supplies and reinforcements at the Action of 25 September 1806
Action of 25 September 1806
The Action of 25 September 1806 was a naval battle fought during the Napoleonic Wars off the French Biscay port of Rochefort. A French convoy of five frigates and two corvettes, sailing to the French West Indies with supplies and reinforcements, was intercepted by a British squadron of six ships of...
. Hood, commanding six ships of the line, sighted Soleil's force at 01:00 on 25 September, within hours of it leaving Rochefort. Giving chase, conditions suited Hood's larger ships and by 04:00 Soleil recognised that he would be caught by the advancing British and detached three ships southwards and one to the north, retaining three others to delay the approaching British squadron, which had become separated during the pursuit. Engaging the lead ship, under Captain Richard Lee
Richard Lee (Royal Navy officer)
Admiral Sir Richard Lee KCB KTS was a prominent officer of the British Royal Navy who served in the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars...
, Soleil ordered his frigates to target her rigging in the hope of slowing Monarch
L'Hermite's force had been caught in the same hurricane that had dispersed Willaumez, and as a result his ships were scattered and damaged on 20 August, one frigate joining the remains of Willaumez's squadron in the United States and the others limping back to France. Most succeeded in slipping through the British blockade independently, including Régulus, which arrived at Brest on 5 October, but one ship was less successful: on 27 September 1806 the frigate Président
French frigate Président
The Président was a 40-gun frigate of the Gloire Class in the French Navy, built to a 1802 design by Pierre-Alexandre Forfait. She served with the French Navy from her completion in 1804 until late 1806 when the Royal Navy captured her...
became the final French casualty of the campaign when it was trapped in the Bay of Biscay by Louis' squadron. Closed in from all sides, the approach of Louis' flagship Canopus convinced Captain Labrosse that continued resistance was impossible and he struck his colours without a fight.
Aftermath
Although Allemand led a minor expedition from Brest to ToulonToulon
Toulon is a town in southern France and a large military harbor on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, Toulon is the capital of the Var department in the former province of Provence....
in 1808, and the Brest fleet under Willaumez made a determined if ineffectual effort to break into the Atlantic in early 1809 which ended at the Battle of Basque Roads, there were no other large scale naval campaigns fought in the Atlantic Ocean during the Napoleonic Wars. Minor operations by individual French ships and small squadrons continued, but the losses of 1805 and 1806, combined with the barring of Spanish ports after the Dos de Mayo Uprising
Dos de Mayo Uprising
On the second of May , 1808, the people of Madrid rebelled against the occupation of the city by French troops, provoking a brutal repression by the French Imperial forces and triggering the Peninsular War.-Background:...
and the seizure of much of the French West Indies in 1809, reduced both the need and the ability of the French to operate on a large scale in the Atlantic: Lord Barham recognised this when he commented on hearing the news of the victory at San Domingo that it " puts us out off all fear from another predatory war in the West Indies".
In Britain the campaign emphasised the important lesson previously demonstrated in the Trafalgar campaign of the year before, that it was immensely difficult in the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean to detect and intercept French squadrons at sea: only off their own harbours and in the confined waters of the Caribbean were they vulnerable to detection and attack by British squadrons. The inadequate size and power of convoy escorts and the expense in resources employed in chasing French squadrons at sea meant that British trade was placed at risk by the depredations of independent French squadrons, and the maintenance of a tight blockade was essential. The British grip on French maritime travel was a constant source of irritation to Napoleon, who instigated a massive shipbuilding program with the intention of breaking the blockade: by 1808 he was able to muster over 80 ships of the line against the British blockade squadrons.