1791 Overview

March Vice-Admiral Lord Hood began to commission a fleet of thirty-six sail of the line when concern over Russia s territorial ambitions threatened to invoke Britain s Triple Alliance with Prussia and the Netherlands. Eventually, opposition to a possible war in government, in parliament and in the newspapers, together with shifting alliances on the continent, led to a calming of the tension, and by September the majority of the fleet had been paid off without putting to sea. In Indian waters relations between France and Britain were so strained over the French support of Tippoo Sahib in the Mysorean Sultan s war with the East India Company that on 19 November two frigates actually fought each other, incurring substantial loss of life.

On 1 April Commander George Vancouver departed England in command of an expedition that was charged with exploring and charting the north-west coast of America, and in August Captain William Bligh set sail for the Pacific Ocean once more to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti and to transport them to the West Indies, this being a reprise of the mission which he had been unable to fulfil two years earlier because of the mutiny on the Bounty.