Battle of the Nile

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.