by Richard Hiscocks | Jan 25, 2017 | 1780, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Operating out of the Jamaican station where his badly damaged ship had fled following the Battle of Grenada the previous July, Captain Hon. William Cornwallis of the Lion 64 was cruising in the Windward Passage to the north of Monte Cristi, Haiti, in company...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jan 30, 2017 | 1780, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
The Battle of Martinique -17 April 1780 On 27 March 1780 the new commander-in-chief of the Leeward Islands, Admiral Sir George Rodney, arrived at St Lucia from Europe with reinforcements of four sail of the line to bolster the number of ships under the command...
by Richard Hiscocks | Feb 4, 2017 | 1780, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
In June 1776 Commodore Sir Peter Parker and Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Clinton?s forces had suffered a large number of casualties in failing to capture the port of Charleston in South Carolina. Notwithstanding that disaster, the British government continued...
by Richard Hiscocks | Feb 14, 2017 | 1780, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
The Leeward Islands Campaign – May-July 1780 Following the disappointing Battle of Martinique on 17 April, Admiral Sir George Rodney had remained on patrol off that island for some time to prevent the French fleet, which had put into Basseterre,...
by Richard Hiscocks | Feb 25, 2017 | 1780, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
The Channel fleet?s 1780 campaign could not have got off to a worse start when on 18 May, a day after re-hoisting his flag at Spithead, the commander-in-chief Admiral Sir Charles Hardy died aboard the Victory. He may not have been universally esteemed, but in...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 7, 2017 | 1780, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
The Spanish Fire-Ship Attack on Gibraltar – 7 June 1780 Despite the replenishment of Gibraltar on 19 January by Admiral Sir George Rodney’s fleet and attendant merchant vessels, the Spanish had not let up in their determined campaign to regain the rock...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 14, 2017 | 1780, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Captain Philemon Pownall was regarded by his contemporaries as one of the finest officers in the navy. Aged in his mid-forties, his background as the son of a shipbuilder had given him an excellent technical knowledge, and this advantage supplemented his...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 17, 2017 | 1780, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Almost fifteen years to the day before he affected the famous ‘Cornwallis’ Retreat’ off Brittany, a feat which was to prove the zenith of a most distinguished career, Captain Hon. William Cornwallis brought off another bold defensive strategy...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 19, 2017 | 1780, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Nonsuch v Belle Poule – 16 July 1780 As the American War of Revolution progressed, so the omnipresent Captain Sir James Wallace remained as active as ever. Despite his command, the Experiment 50, having been captured by the French fleet off North America...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 23, 2017 | 1780, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Operating out of Port Mahon on the island of Minorca, the sloop Porcupine 24, Captain Sir Charles Henry Knowles, had already made one, albeit fruitless, cruise in company with the sloop Minorca 18, Commander Hugh Lawson, when she was ordered to undertake...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 23, 2017 | 1780, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
The Loss of Captain Moutray’s Convoy – 9 August 1780 As the war continued, so the French and Spanish allies began to obtain the upper hand at sea by sheer weight of numbers. British resources were soon stretched to the limit, and no more so than in...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 25, 2017 | 1780, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Early in August 1780, one of the first eighteen-pounder frigates to be ordered for the British Navy, the Deptford-built Flora 36, Captain William Peere Williams, sailed from Spithead to link up with Admiral Francis Geary?s Channel Fleet. At 4.30 on the...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 29, 2017 | 1780, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
In early August Captain John MacBride of the Bienfaisant 64 was ordered to take command of a convoy of some hundred vessels that had congregated at Cork, along with its escort otherwise consisting of the Charon 44, Captain Thomas Symonds, Licorne 32, Captain...
by Richard Hiscocks | Apr 3, 2017 | 1780, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Admiral Rodney v Admiral Arbuthnot – September – November 1780 Vice-Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot, the commander-in-chief of the British Navy in North America, was not the easiest of officers to work with, as General Sir Henry Clinton, his equivalent in...
by Richard Hiscocks | Apr 20, 2017 | 1780, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
The ‘Great Hurricanes’ devastate the Caribbean – October 1780 When Admiral Sir George Rodney sailed for North America in the early autumn, he despatched ten sail of the line under Rear-Admiral Joshua Rowley to reinforce Vice-Admiral Sir Peter...
by Richard Hiscocks | May 1, 2017 | 1780, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Isis v Rotterdam – 31 December 1780 With the navy stretched to the limit in Europe and the Americas, there soon arose a shortage of trained seamen to man the ships of the fleet, and one officer who would suffer from the deficit in crew numbers and quality...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 29, 2017 | 1780, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
The Vestal, Henry Laurens, and the Dutch Treaty – 10 September 1780 Throughout 1780 the Netherlands had been wavering over whether to join the League of Armed Neutrality, which had been formed by Russia, Sweden and Denmark in February to protect their...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jan 6, 2017 | Latest News
18.12.2024 To come – a biography of A Ball. an update of J Nott, and an article on the Battle of Cape St. Vincent. 12.12.2024 Onwards with a biography of R Grindall, an attempt at an article on an action between four British frigates and the San Francisco de...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jun 30, 2016 | 1779, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
On 16 June Spain formally entered the war against Great Britain, and concocting a plan with the French to attack either Portsmouth or Plymouth they contributed to a sixty-six strong fleet that assembled off the Lizard prior to entering the Channel under the...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jul 4, 2016 | 1779, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Mutiny on the Prince George – 16 January 1779 One of the consequences of the political conflict that broke out following the Battle of Ushant was the need to appoint acting-captains to those ships whose officers were required to either sit on, or give...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jul 5, 2016 | 1779, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Apollo v Oiseau – 31 January 1779 Few captains in the navy were held in such high esteem as Captain Philemon Pownall of the frigate Apollo 32, and the fact that one of his protégés, Edward Pellew, would become the finest frigate captain of his generation...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jul 7, 2016 | 1779, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
On 4 February the exploratory vessel Resolution, Captain James Cook, in company with the Discovery, Commander Charles Clerke, departed Hawaii to commence their homeward voyage to England. They had left Plymouth over two and a half years earlier, and their...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jul 15, 2016 | 1779, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Battle in Cancale Bay – 13 May 1779 The Experiment 50 should not have been in British waters at all. Her proper station was in North America, but during December 1778 a tremendous offshore gale had blown her all the way back across the Atlantic. This...
by Richard Hiscocks | Oct 16, 2016 | 1779, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Commodore Collier’s North American Campaign – May to August 1779 Upon Rear-Admiral James Gambier returning to England, Commodore Sir George Collier assumed temporary command of the North American station at New York. Two months into his secondment,...
by Richard Hiscocks | Nov 7, 2016 | 1779, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
At 3.30 on the afternoon of 1 June the twenty-two year old sloop Glasgow 20, Commander Thomas Lloyd, dropped anchor in Montego Bay, Jamaica, having arrived with a convoy of four London merchantmen. Aboard the Glasgow, which had left England on 27 March, was a...
by Richard Hiscocks | Nov 9, 2016 | 1779, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
On 6 January 1779 Vice-Admiral Hon. John Byron’s battered fleet of ten sail of the line, a frigate, and a sloop, arrived in the Leeward Islands from North America in pursuit of the dozen ships of the Toulon fleet under the command of Vice-Admiral Charles...
by Richard Hiscocks | Nov 24, 2016 | 1779, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
The Channel Fleet Retreat – August 1779 On 12 April France and Spain signed an alliance and began preparing for an invasion that would bring Britain to her knees and enable the two catholic powers to share in the resulting sequestration of her overseas...
by Richard Hiscocks | Dec 8, 2016 | 1779, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Pearl v Santa Monica – 14 September 1779 Having spent two years aboard the Romney 50 at Newfoundland in the relatively comfortable role of flag-captain to his father, Rear-Admiral John Montagu, twenty-nine year old Captain George Montagu must have...
by Richard Hiscocks | Dec 31, 2016 | 1779, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
The Battle of Flamborough Head – 23 September 1779 As late summer turned to autumn a battle was fought off the north-east coast of England which would be forever celebrated in the annals of the American Navy. The chief protagonists were the Bonhomme...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jan 4, 2017 | 1779, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
On 1 September the French fleet of twenty sail of the line, two 50-gun ships, eleven frigates and ancillary vessels commanded by Vice-Admiral Charles Henri Jean-Baptiste, Comte d?Estaing, arrived off the coast of Georgia having sailed north from the Leeward...
