by Richard Hiscocks | Dec 12, 2024 | 1797
Indefatigable & Amazon v Droits de l’Homme – 13 January 1797 Early in the new year of 1797, the famous Captain Sir Edward Pellew led two frigates in an epic attack on a larger French ship of the line. In appalling weather, the crews of all...
by Richard Hiscocks | Dec 1, 2024 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
1796 Overview The Brest Fleet remained in port under a very loose blockade by the Channel Fleet until December, when it attempted to get to sea to carry out an invasion of Ireland in support of the United Irishmen’s uprising. Due to adverse weather, coupled...
by Richard Hiscocks | Nov 29, 2024 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Minerve vs Santa Sabina – 20 December 1796 Just weeks before his astonishing success at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent in February 1797 which would make him famous with the British public, Commodore Horatio Nelson was to lead a brave and skilful frigate...
by Richard Hiscocks | Nov 16, 2024 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
The Loss of the Courageux – 10 December 1796 On 1 December Admiral Sir John Jervis’ Mediterranean fleet of fifteen ships of the line came to anchor in Gibraltar Bay, having evacuated their previous base in Corsica as a consequence of the threat generated...
by Richard Hiscocks | Nov 6, 2024 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Terpsichore vs. Vestale – 13 December 1796 As dawn broke on 12 December forty miles west of Cadiz, the Terpsichore 32, Captain Richard Bowen, discovered a large frigate about four miles away on her weather quarter. In stormy conditions with a gusting...
by Richard Hiscocks | Oct 23, 2024 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
The French Expedition to Ireland – December 1796 to January 1797 For three weeks at the end of 1796, the fates of Britain and Ireland hung in the balance, as one of the most serious threats ever mounted to British control of that island played out on the...
by Richard Hiscocks | Sep 30, 2024 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Terpsichore v Mahonesa – 13 October 1796 Spain, previously allied to Britain in the First Coalition, declared war on her late ally on 5 October 1796. One week later the Royal Navy captured its first major Spanish warship, the frigate Mahonesa, taken by...
by Richard Hiscocks | Aug 9, 2024 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Rear-Admiral Man ‘deserts’ the Mediterranean Fleet – October On 8 October Spain allied with France and declared war against Britain, and at once the position of Admiral Sir John Jervis’ Mediterranean Fleet became insecure, for being...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jul 28, 2024 | 1784, The Peace of 1784-1792
Captain Mostyn is killed in a duel – 13 February 1784 Amongst the hundreds of officers who made it to post captain rank in the Georgian Navy were a handful of hotheads whose impulsive and injudicious characters propelled them onto the so-called ‘field of...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jul 19, 2024 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Pelican v Medee – 23 September 1796 The sloop Pelican 18, Captain John Clarke Searle, was cruising some twenty miles to the north-west of La Désirade, a French island off the eastern coast of Guadeloupe, when on the break of day on 23 September she found...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jul 4, 2024 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
The Amphion Explodes at Plymouth – 22 September 1796 Heroic, brilliant, and even fortunate though Captain Sir Edward Pellew was, such attributes could not be said to have attended his younger brother, Israel Pellew. Having been posted captain after...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jun 15, 2024 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
The ‘Caneing’ in Conduit Street – 21 September 1796 Although he had only celebrated his 21st birthday in February 1796 and had not yet achieved the rank of lieutenant, the Honourable Thomas Pitt, 2nd Lord Camelford, was no callow youth. A...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jun 14, 2024 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Sercey’s Frigate Squadron v Arrogant & Victorious – 9 September 1796 It had long been the new French Republic’s intention both to attack British commerce in the Indian Ocean and to protect and establish its revolutionary movement on their...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jun 4, 2024 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Admiral Richery attacks Newfoundland and Labrador – August / September 1796 With a Spanish alliance nearing agreement, the French Republic was keen to invoke their southern neighbour’s assistance in springing a squadron of seven sail of the line under the...
by Richard Hiscocks | May 19, 2024 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
The Destruction of the Andromaque – 24 August 1796 Having sailed from Falmouth on 9 August, the crack frigate squadron under the command of Commodore Sir John Borlase Warren with his broad pennant aboard the Pomone 40, and otherwise consisting of the...
by Richard Hiscocks | May 8, 2024 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Dutch Capitulation in Saldanha Bay – 17 August 1796 Having been ordered by the second-in-command of the Mediterranean Fleet, Rear-Admiral Robert Man, to collect two troopships at Gibraltar and escort them to Barbados, Commander Charles Brisbane of the...
by Richard Hiscocks | Apr 24, 2024 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Mermaid v Vengeance – 8 August 1796 On the morning of 8 August, a small squadron of men-of-war led by the second-in-command of the Leeward Islands station, Rear-Admiral Charles Morice Pole, was lying off the Saintes, Guadeloupe, when an unknown sail...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 29, 2024 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Aimable v Pensee 22-23 July 1796 At four o’clock on the afternoon of 22 July, the British frigate Aimable 32, Captain Jemmett Mainwaring, was patrolling to the south of Guadeloupe when she discovered two sail in the north-west. Upon closing to investigate, she...
by Richard Hiscocks | Apr 6, 2024 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Glatton v French Frigate Squadron – 15 July 1796 During the American Revolutionary War, Captain Henry Trollope had provided valuable service in command of the experimental Rainbow 44, a ship carrying a mixture of 68, 42 and 32-pounder carronades, with his...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jan 28, 2024 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Captain Pigot flogs an American Merchant Captain Of all the hundreds of officers who rose to the rank of post captain in the Georgian Navy, without doubt the most tyrannical, sadistic, tormented, ill-tempered, and unsuited to the rank, was Captain Hugh Pigot of...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jan 8, 2024 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Admiral Gardner and the Battle of Westminster – June 1796 In the summer of 1796, the Tory prime minister, William Pitt, faced a General Election, and although the Whig opposition was regarded as posing little threat to his continuance in government, the...
by Richard Hiscocks | Dec 19, 2023 | 1796
The cutting out of the French corvette Utile – 9 June 1796 The British Mediterranean fleet under the command of Admiral Sir John Jervis was cruising off the Hyères Roads at noon on 9 June, when a French cruiser was spotted working its way up amongst the...
by Richard Hiscocks | Nov 19, 2023 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Unicorn, Santa Margarita, Dryad v Tribune, Tamise, Proserpine – June 1796 On 19 May the British frigates Unicorn 32, Captain Thomas Williams, and Santa Margarita 36, Captain Thomas Byam Martin, together with the sloop Hazard under the command of a...
by Richard Hiscocks | Oct 19, 2023 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Phoenix v Argo – 12 May 1796 At dawn on 12 May, Admiral Adam Duncan’s North Sea fleet consisting of nine sail of the line, a 50-gun vessel, and various other men-of-war, was cruising about twenty miles to the south of the Texel when the frigate Pegasus...
by Richard Hiscocks | Aug 2, 2023 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
The Incredible Heroism of Midshipman Patton of the Niger – 27 April 1796 On 27 April, the twelve-pounder frigate Niger 32, Captain Edward Foote, was cruising off the Penmarcks under the orders of Vice-Admiral John Colpoys, with whose squadron she had...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jul 15, 2023 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Indefatigable v Virginie – 20 April 1796 On the morning of 20 April, having detached the Révolutionnaire 38, Captain Francis Cole, and her prize of eight days, the Unité 36, into Falmouth, the frigates Indefatigable 44, Commodore Sir Edward Pellew, Amazon...
by Richard Hiscocks | May 6, 2023 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
The Capture of Captain Sir William Sidney Smith off Le Havre – 19 April 1796 The frigate Diamond 38 arrived on the French Atlantic coast in 1795, whereupon her enigmatic captain, Sir William Sidney Smith, began making so much mischief that he quickly...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 24, 2023 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Revolutionnaire v Unite – 12 April 1796 A squadron of five British frigates under the orders of Commodore Sir Edward Pellew of the Indefatigable 44, and otherwise consisting of the two-decked Argo 44, Captain Richard Rundell Burges, Révolutionnaire 38,...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 10, 2023 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
The Navy in the Leeward Islands Campaign – April to June 1796 During the absence of a substantial British presence following the return home of Vice-Admiral Sir John Jervis and General Sir Charles Grey’s 1794 Leeward Islands expedition, the French under...
by Richard Hiscocks | Feb 17, 2023 | 1796, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
The Disastrous Expedition to Leogane – 21-23 March 1796 In early March 1796, Rear-Admiral William Parker, the commander-in-chief on the Jamaican station, sailed for the island of Hispaniola to undertake further action against the enemy possessions on the...
