Battles of the French Revolutionary Wars

28 May – 1 June 1794 · The Atlantic, about 400 miles west of Ushant

British tactical victory; six French ships taken and one sunk, but the grain convoy reached France

France was close to famine, and a great convoy of grain ships was on its way from America. Villaret de Joyeuse took the Brest fleet out to meet it, with orders to cover it at any cost; Lord Howe sailed from Spithead to find it. The fleets met far out in the Atlantic on 28 May. In two days of skirmishing Howe's ships crippled Révolutionnaire and Indomptable and won the weather gauge. On 1 June, after a pause in the fog, Howe ordered each of his ships to break through the French line and engage from leeward. Only a few managed it, but the fighting was savage at close range. Brunswick and Vengeur du Peuple locked together for three hours; Vengeur sank in the evening, and the Republic made a legend of her crew going down shouting for the Republic. Six French ships were taken, the first fleet victory of the war. But Howe, aged 68 and exhausted, did not pursue, and the convoy arrived safely a few days later, so both sides claimed success.

23 June 1795 · Off the Île de Groix, Brittany

British victory; three French ships taken

A week after Cornwallis had held off Villaret's fleet in his famous retreat, Lord Bridport's Channel Fleet, covering the landing of French royalists at Quiberon, came on Villaret again off Belle Île. The French ran for Lorient, and Bridport made the signal for a general chase. Early on 23 June the fastest British ships caught the stragglers off the Île de Groix. Alexandre, captured from the British the previous winter, was retaken, and Formidable, set on fire, and Tigre struck. Bridport called off the chase within sight of the shore batteries and the rest of the French fleet got into Lorient. The British were criticised for not doing more, but the Brest fleet was badly shaken; several French captains were court-martialled for not supporting the ships that were lost.

14 February 1797 · Off Cape St Vincent, Portugal

British victory; four Spanish ships taken

Spain had joined France, and the British had left the Mediterranean. Admiral Córdoba sailed from Cartagena with 27 ships of the line to escort a convoy to Cádiz, and Sir John Jervis, with 15, found him in the morning mist off Cape St Vincent, his fleet straggling in two groups. 'The die is cast,' Jervis said when he was told how many there were, 'and if there are fifty sail I will go through them.' Troubridge in Culloden led the British line between the two Spanish groups. As the main Spanish body turned north to escape round the rear of the British line, Commodore Nelson wore Captain out of the line without orders and threw her across their path. Collingwood's Excellent and others came to his help; Nelson boarded San Nicolás, then crossed her deck to take San José, which had fouled her, in what the fleet called 'Nelson's patent bridge for boarding first-rates'. Salvador del Mundo and San Isidro also struck. Jervis became Earl St Vincent and Nelson was knighted.

22–25 July 1797 · Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands

Spanish victory; the British landing failed, and Nelson lost his right arm

Rear-Admiral Nelson was sent with a small squadron to seize a Spanish treasure ship believed to be at Santa Cruz. A first landing on the 22nd, meant to take the heights above the town by surprise, was seen and called off. On the night of 24 July Nelson led about a thousand men in the boats straight at the mole. The defenders under General Antonio Gutiérrez were waiting. As Nelson stepped ashore his right elbow was shattered by grapeshot; his stepson Josiah Nisbet got him back to the ships, where the arm was amputated. The cutter Fox was sunk with many of her men. Troubridge got a few hundred men into the town but could not take the citadel, and in the morning he negotiated their return to the ships under arms, after promising that the squadron would not attack the Canaries again. The Spanish gave the British wounded bread and wine. It was Nelson's only defeat, and for a time he thought his career was over.

11 October 1797 · Off Camperduin, North Holland

Decisive British victory; nine Dutch ships of the line taken

All summer Admiral Duncan had kept the Batavian fleet in the Texel, at one point with only two ships while the rest of his fleet was in mutiny at the Nore, signalling to an empty horizon as if to a fleet beyond it. When he went back to Yarmouth to refit in October, Vice-Admiral de Winter came out. Duncan's scouts brought him back in a hurry, and he caught the Dutch close to their own coast. Without waiting to form a line, he attacked in two loose groups, one at the head and one at the rear of the Dutch line, and broke through it in both places. The Dutch fought far harder than the French or Spanish had, and both fleets suffered heavily; the Dutch ships aimed at hulls, not rigging, and British casualties were among the worst of the war. After three hours de Winter's flagship Vrijheid, dismasted, struck, and with her went nine ships of the line. The Batavian navy never recovered.

1–3 August 1798 · Aboukir Bay, Egypt

Decisive British victory; 11 of 13 French ships of the line taken or destroyed

Bonaparte's army had landed in Egypt, and Vice-Admiral Brueys anchored his 13 ships of the line in a long line across Aboukir Bay, protected, he believed, by the shoals at its head. After two months of searching, Nelson found him in the late afternoon of 1 August and attacked at once, though night was falling. Captain Foley in Goliath saw that the French had left room to swing at their anchors, and so there must be water inside them. He led five ships round the head of the French line and anchored on its landward side, where the French guns were not even cleared for action; Nelson in Vanguard and the rest came down the seaward side, catching the French van between two fires. The French rear, downwind, could not help. Ship after ship was battered into surrender. At about ten o'clock Brueys's flagship Orient, already burning, blew up with a roar heard in Alexandria, and both sides stopped firing for some minutes. By the morning of the 2nd only Villeneuve's ships in the rear were left, and he escaped with two ships of the line and two frigates. Bonaparte's army was cut off in Egypt, and Britain's command of the Mediterranean was restored.

12 October 1798 · Off Tory Island, County Donegal, Ireland

British victory; the French squadron destroyed

After the Irish rising of 1798, Commodore Bompart sailed from Brest with Hoche and eight frigates carrying 3,000 troops and Wolfe Tone, to land in Lough Swilly. British frigates shadowed them across the Atlantic, and Sir John Borlase Warren's squadron caught them off Tory Island in a gale. Hoche, her topmasts already gone, was attacked by ship after ship and struck after four hours with her hull shattered. Embuscade, Coquille and Bellone were also taken. Five frigates escaped, but three of them were run down in the next eight days. Wolfe Tone was found among Hoche's prisoners, tried for treason and died in prison. It was the last French attempt to invade Ireland.

2 April 1801 · The King's Deep, Copenhagen, Denmark

British victory; the Danish line destroyed and an armistice agreed

Denmark, Sweden, Prussia and Russia had formed an Armed Neutrality to resist British searches of their merchant ships, which would have shut Britain out of the Baltic and its naval stores. A British fleet under Sir Hyde Parker, with Nelson as second in command, was sent to break it up. The Danes had moored old ships of the line and floating batteries in a line along the King's Deep in front of the city, backed by the Trekroner fort. Nelson took twelve ships of the line through the shoals and attacked the line from the south, while Parker's reserve stayed to the north. Three of Nelson's ships ran aground, and the Danes fought hard, reinforcing their ships with fresh men from the shore. With the battle in the balance, Parker hoisted the signal to break off. Nelson put his telescope to his blind eye and said he could not see it. By mid-afternoon most of the Danish line had been silenced, and Nelson sent a letter ashore offering a truce to save the burning ships. The Danes agreed to an armistice, and news that Tsar Paul had been murdered ended the Armed Neutrality.

6 July 1801 · Algeciras Bay, Spain

French and Spanish victory; one British ship taken

Rear-Admiral Linois, bringing three ships of the line from Toulon to join the Spanish at Cádiz, learned that a British squadron was off Cádiz and put into Algeciras, across the bay from Gibraltar. Sir James Saumarez attacked him there with six ships of the line the next morning. The wind was light and fluky, and the French ships warped close inshore under the Spanish batteries, with gunboats among them. Pompée was badly cut up, and Hannibal, trying to get inside the French line, ran hard aground and was pounded by the ships, the forts and the gunboats until she struck. The British withdrew to Gibraltar with their damaged ships. Linois had driven off a superior squadron.

12–13 July 1801 · The Strait of Gibraltar

British victory; two Spanish first rates blown up and one French ship taken

A Spanish squadron of five ships of the line came from Cádiz to bring Linois's damaged ships home. In six days the Gibraltar dockyard repaired Saumarez's ships, all but Pompée, and on the evening of 12 July, as the combined squadron sailed, his crews were cheered out of the harbour by the garrison. Saumarez sent Captain Keats in Superb, his fastest ship, ahead in the dark. Shortly before midnight she came up with the Spanish three-deckers Real Carlos and San Hermenegildo, fired into Real Carlos and passed on. In the darkness and confusion the two Spanish ships, each taking the other for the enemy, fired into each other, caught fire, fell together and blew up; some 1,700 men were lost. Superb went on to take the French Saint-Antoine. At dawn Venerable caught Formidable but was dismasted and driven ashore, and Formidable got into Cádiz. It was the last fleet action of the war before the Peace of Amiens.