Battles of the War of the Austrian Succession

21–22 November 1739 · Porto Bello, Panama

British victory; Porto Bello taken

Vice-Admiral Edward Vernon had boasted in Parliament that he could take Porto Bello, the Spanish treasure port on the Isthmus of Panama, with six ships, and he did. His squadron sailed straight into the harbour, battered the Iron Castle at its mouth at close range, and landed sailors and marines who climbed into the fort through the embrasures. The town surrendered the next day. The victory was celebrated wildly in Britain; Portobello Road in London is named after it.

13 March – 20 May 1741 · Cartagena de Indias, New Granada

Spanish victory; the British withdrew

The biggest British amphibious expedition of the century, nearly 30 ships of the line and over 180 other ships carrying an army, was sent against Cartagena, the strongest Spanish port on the Main. Vernon forced the Boca Chica entrance to the great harbour, taking its forts, and the Spanish admiral Blas de Lezo, who had lost a leg, an arm and an eye in earlier wars, burned and sank his few ships of the line to block the inner channel. But the army's assault on the fortress of San Felipe de Barajas failed, Vernon and General Wentworth quarrelled, and yellow fever killed thousands of soldiers and sailors. In May the British gave up and sailed back to Jamaica, having lost far more men to disease than to the Spanish.

22 February 1744 · Off Cape Sicié, near Toulon

Indecisive; the British blockade lifted

A Spanish squadron under Admiral Navarro had been blockaded in Toulon for two years by the British Mediterranean fleet. When it came out with a French squadron under La Bruyère de Court, Admiral Thomas Mathews went after them, but his fleet was strung out and his second, Vice-Admiral Richard Lestock, with whom he was not on speaking terms, kept the rear division out of the battle. Mathews hoisted the signal for the line of battle and the signal to engage together, and many captains, confused, did nothing. Mathews and a few ships attacked the Spanish rear; Navarro's flagship Real Felipe was surrounded and badly damaged, and Poder was taken. But the French came back to cover the Spaniards, and the allied fleet got away to Spain. The courts martial that followed dismissed Mathews, acquitted Lestock and cashiered seven captains, and made captains afraid ever after to break the line.

14 May 1747 · Off Cape Finisterre, Spain

British victory; the whole French escort captured

Vice-Admiral George Anson, with Rear-Admiral Peter Warren, caught a French convoy bound for Canada and India, escorted by the Marquis de la Jonquière with a few ships of the line and armed East Indiamen. La Jonquière formed a line to let the convoy escape, but Anson, at Warren's urging, made the signal for a general chase instead of forming his own line, and his faster ships fell on the French one after another. By evening every French warship and armed Indiaman in the line had been taken, and over £300,000 in coin with them. Anson was made a peer.

25 October 1747 · About 300 miles west of Brittany

British victory; six French ships of the line captured

Rear-Admiral Edward Hawke caught a convoy of some 250 merchant ships bound for the West Indies, escorted by eight ships of the line under the Marquis de l'Étenduère. L'Étenduère put his warships between Hawke and the convoy and fought to let it escape. Hawke ordered a general chase and attacked the French line from both sides. The French fought all afternoon; six of the eight ships of the line were taken, but l'Étenduère's battered flagship Tonnant and Intrépide got away, and almost all the merchant ships escaped. With its escorts gone, the French navy could no longer protect its trade, and France made peace the next year.