San Fiorenzo & Nymphe vs Resistance & Constance – 9 March 1797
In early March, two British frigates fell in with a damaged French frigate and a corvette returning to Brest after landing a rag-bag force in Wales in what has proved to be the last invasion of Britain by an enemy force.. Aware that help could come out from Brest at any time, the frigates rushed in to attack and easily captured their opponents.
Having worked their way into the approaches to Brest at dawn on 9 March in order to ascertain the strength of the French fleet stationed in the outer roads, the frigates San Fiorenzo 36, Captain Sir Harry Neale, and Nymphe 36, Captain John Cooke, went about in order to return to the Channel Fleet. Shortly after rounding Point Saint-Mathieu on the last of the flood tide they spotted two strange sail in the west, standing in for the Iroise.
The strangers would prove to be the French frigate Résistance 48, Captain Jean-Baptiste Montaignes Laroque, and the corvette Constance 22, whose captain was later named as ‘Desauney’ by Captain Neale, but ‘Parchot’ by French sources. They were part of a small squadron (also including the lugger Vautour) under the command of Commodore Jean-Joseph Castagnier of the Vengeance 48 that had been despatched by the French Directory from Brest on 18 February. Castagnier’s orders had been to land fifteen hundred men (cut-throats, ex-galley slaves and vagabonds) under the command of an American mercenary, Colonel William Tate, who were to march on Bristol and sack the city. Instead, bad weather had obliged this force to descend upon the small Welsh port of Fishguard on 22 February. The raiders were soon rounded up and imprisoned at Haverfordwest by the local militia led by Lord Cawdor, without having achieved anything of note.
The capture of the Resistance and Constance
In the meantime, after dispatching the Vautour to Brest with news of the landing, the other three ships had fallen in with a British convoy, sinking fourteen vessels including two armed tenders. With his ships bulging with prisoners and believing that a naval force had left Liverpool in search of him, Castagnier decided to return to Brest. Unfortunately, on 2 March the Résistance had lost her rudder in the heavy storms that had plagued their mission, and so the Constance was ordered to escort her home. Whether the two vessels were then abandoned by Commodore Castagnier, or whether they failed to maintain contact remains unclear, but the Vengeance was alone when she reached Brest. On 9 March the other two vessels sighted Ushant, and shortly afterwards spotted the San Fiorenzo and Nymphe off Point Saint- Mathieu. Apparently, their crews felt little concern at this development, as both frigates were French-built and thus appeared to be friendly.
The San Fiorenzo had indeed originally entered the French service as the Minerve in 1782 but had fallen into the British Navy’s hands at the capture of the town of San Fiorenzo in Corsica in February 1794. She carried twenty-six 18-pounder cannons on her gun deck and six 32-pounder carronades on her quarterdeck in addition to six 6-pounder and two 9-pounder cannons on her quarterdeck and forecastle, giving her a broadside weight of metal of 357 pounds. Her nominal crew was 274 men, and her commander, the 41-year-old Captain Neale, (who had inherited a baronetcy), was a steady if unexceptional post captain of four years seniority.
Her consort, the Nymphe, had been launched in 1777 at Brest and then captured off Ushant by the Flora 36, Captain William Peere Williams, three years later. A long period out of commission during the years of peace had been followed by her capture of the French frigate Cléopâtre 36 in 1793, when commanded by Captain Edward Pellew. Details of her armament at this time vary but she was probably carrying twenty-six 12-pounder cannons on her main deck, twelve 24-pounder carronades on her quarterdeck and forecastle, and two further long nines on her forecastle, equating to a possible broadside of 309 pounds. Her nominal crew was 240 men, and her commander, 35-year-old Captain Cooke, was a post captain of almost three years seniority.
Of their impending opponents, the Résistance, which had been built to a new design, had first been commissioned for the French service in May 1796 – she carried an armament of twenty-eight French 18-pounder cannons on her gundeck, in addition to four French 36-pounder carronades and twelve French 8-pounder cannons on her quarterdeck and forecastle, giving her a broadside weight of metal of 401 pounds. Her crew numbered 345 men. The Constance had been launched in May 1794 and carried a comparatively feeble armament of twenty-four French 8-pounder cannons, giving her a broadside weight of metal equivalent to 108 British pounds. Her crew numbered 189 men.
Aware that a speedy attack was of the essence if they were to make a capture before ships of the Brest fleet could put out to assist the incoming French vessels, the British frigates tacked, and by sailing close to the wind obtained the weather-gage over their enemies. With the spring tide on the ebb it had become impossible for the two French ships to get rapidly into Brest (now in view some eight miles away). Following a thirty-minute chase, the two British frigates opened fire at a distance of forty yards on the leading French vessel, which proved to be the Résistance. She surrendered after a token defence as a consequence of the earlier loss of her rudder, which made manoeuvring impossible. The Constance put up a better fight, but she struck her colours within ten minutes at 9 a.m., following by both her main and fore topmasts toppling over.
The British frigates did not suffer any casualties in the action, and the San Fiorenzo received just two shot in her hull, but French casualties numbered ten men killed and nine wounded on the Résistance (including the first lieutenant), and eight killed and six wounded aboard the Constance. Even so, the action was not without its difficulties for Captain Cooke. Despite the fact many of his men had served under Captain Sir Edward Pellew (including a number of Cornish tin miners), Cooke had found it necessary to ‘start’ (encourage with blows from a rope’s end) some of his crew in order to get them to fight. It was perhaps no surprise that a few weeks later this same crew demanded he be removed from his command during the Spithead mutiny.
After putting prize crews aboard their captures, the British began attempting to tow the prizes out to sea. By one o’clock they had made little progress, and the tide was turning, pushing the vessels back towards Brest. Fortunately, the frigate Triton 28 (Captain John Gore), and the ship of the line Robust 74 (acting Captain George Countess) arrived on the scene, having been despatched to search for the two errant frigates. With their arrival the possibility of a French sortie from Brest to rescue the captured ships ended, and by 7p.m. the prizes had successfully been taken in tow. This was not the end of tribulations for the British however, for bad weather dogged their progress over the next two weeks, and it required serious pumping for the frigates and their prizes to eventually reach Plymouth on 23 March.
With some irony, the Résistance was bought into the navy and re-christened the ‘Fisguard’, being rated at 38 guns. She enjoyed a long and successful career in the British Navy prior to being sold in 1814. The Constance kept her name and was rated as a 22-gun post-command, although on 12 October 1806 she unfortunately fell back into French hands after driving ashore under fire near St. Malo, her commander, Captain Alexander Saunderson Burrowes, being killed in the action.
Captain Neale’s dispatch to the commander-in-chief of the Channel Fleet, Admiral Lord Bridport, was dated on the day of the action. Amongst many commendations, he singled out the first lieutenants, Thomas Philip Durell of the San Fiorenzo and Lawrence Irvine of the Nymphe, for special mention to the Admiralty, presumably in the hope that (as had occurred with other frigate captures) they would be rewarded with a promotion. Initially no advancements were forthcoming, and Durell, a Jerseyman who had first been commissioned lieutenant almost nineteen years previously, must have thought that he would never get his step; however, in June he was at last promoted commander. He was raised to post rank with many other officers at the conclusion of the French Revolutionary War in 1802 and served as a captain in the Sea Fencibles during the Napoleonic Wars that followed. Unfortunately for Lieutenant Irvine, he was overlooked for promotion and died as a lieutenant.
Sir Harry Neale would enjoy a long if unglamorous career in the Navy, but his fellow captain. John Cooke, was not so fortunate, losing his life when commanding the Bellerophon 74 at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.The Nymphe remained in commission until she was lost in the Firth of Forth under the command of Captain Edward Sneyd Clay in December 1810. The San Fiorenzo also enjoyed a long career in the Navy, capturing two enemy frigates in the Indian Ocean: the Psyche 36 off the Malabar Coast in February 1805 when under the command of acting captain, Henry Lambert, and the Piémontaise 44 off Ceylon in March 1808, during which engagement Captain George Hardinge lost his life. She was finally paid off in 1810, becoming a troopship.