The Battle of Tory Island and Capture of Bompart’s Frigates – October 1798

In October 1798, an attempt by a French squadron to land troops in support of the Irish Rebellion was thwarted by a concentration of Naval forces off Donegal, resulting in the captures of a ship of the line and six frigates.

The Invasion Fleet sets sail for Ireland

On the late evening of 16 September 1798, Commodore Jean Baptiste François Bompart with a squadron consisting of the Hoche 74, Captain Désiré de Maistral, and nine frigates, the Immortalité 40, Romaine 40, Loire 40, Bellone 36, Coquille 36, Embuscade 36, Résolue 36, Biche 36 and Sémillante 36, departed Brest via the Passage Du Raz. With him sailed the leading Irish patriot Wolfe Tone, and 3,000 troops under General of Brigade Jean Hardy. The expedition’s objective was to escape the British patrols off Brest in the dark of night, to sail for Killala Bay, County Mayo, and to land the troops in order to join General Jean Joseph Amable Humbert’s 1,100 men who were supporting an uprising in Ireland, having left Rochefort under the escort of Commodore Daniel Savary’s four frigates on 6 August to land at Killala sixteen days later. However, unbeknown to Commodore Bompart, Humbert had already surrendered to Lieutenant-General Gerard Lake on 8 September.

No sooner was Bompart at sea and steering towards the north-west than at first light on the morning of the 17th, the British frigate Boadicea 38, Captain Richard Keats, which had been patrolling off Brest, discovered the French some fifteen miles away in the south-east. Shortly afterwards, Bompart turned to the south-west. Leaving the frigate Ethalion 36, Captain George Countess, and sloop Sylph 18, Captain John Chambers White, to tail the enemy, Keats parted to take word of the breakout to Vice-Admiral Sir Alan Gardner at Cawsand Bay. On the 18th the Ethalion and Sylph were joined by the Amelia 38, Captain Hon. Charles Herbert, which had sailed through the French fleet in the night. Aware of his pursuers, Bompart feigned to set a course for Lorient, but the British remained in contact, and an attempt to chase them off by the commodore with five of his own frigates proved fruitless. Deciding on another ruse, Bompart changed course to the south as if heading for the West Indies, and he was still maintaining this course when the three British vessels were joined on the 20th off Belle-Isle by the powerful Anson 44, Captain Phillip Durham, which had been returning to her station off France after escorting a recent capture, the privateer Flore 32, into port. On the 23rd the French were found to be steering to the north-west, and believing that their objective was Ireland, the Sylph was detached by Captain Countess the next day to warn the authorities there.

Sir John Borlase Warren

On the same day, 23 September, Commodore Sir John Borlase Warren was despatched from Plymouth in pursuit of the French with his broad pennant aboard the Canada 74, supported by the Foudroyant 80, Captain Sir Thomas Byard, Robust 74, Captain Edward Thornbrough, and Magnanime 44, Captain Hon. Michael de Courcy. On 26 September the Kangaroo 18, Captain Edward Brace, arrived at Plymouth with news that she had seen the French fleet steering for Ireland and had left the Anson and Ethalion watching them. Also on that day, a hundred strong Lisbon and East-India bound merchant convoy under the escort of the Pomone 40, Captain Robert Carthew Reynolds, the Argo 44, Captain James Bowen, and the Cormorant 20, Captain Lord Mark Kerr, had sighted Bompart’s squadron in hazy weather. The larger Indiamen had quickly been formed in line ahead, one of them had raised a rear-admiral’s flag, and under the belief that they had stumbled on a heavy escort, (and no doubt considering the importance of landing his troops paramount), Bompart had refrained from attacking and continued on his course. Yet, he still could not shake off the pursuing British frigates, despite an attempt that day to engage them, nor did he have better luck on the 29th, when after several days of poor weather, he took advantage of clearing conditions to send the Loire, Immortalité and one of their consorts in chase – this sortie failed when the Hoche sprung her main topmast, and all the French vessels were ordered to take in sail. By 1 October, Bompart had assumed a more northerly course, and at last, in thick weather on 4 October, some thirty-odd miles to the south-west of Sligo Bay, he had finally given his pursuers the slip. Continuing to head up the Irish coast, he planned to make a landing in the area of Lough Swilly on the north-western tip of the country.

Back at Plymouth, the Kangaroo had put to sea again on 2 October with orders to seek out Commodore Warren and instruct him to patrol off Achill Head, County Mayo. On 10 October, having sailed up the Irish west coast, Warren was joined by the Melampus 36, Captain Graham Moore, and the Doris 36, Captain Lord Ranelagh, which had sailed around from Lough Swilly in consequence of the intelligence delivered by the Sylph. Warren then despatched the Doris to patrol off Tory Island near the top of the north-west coast. Later that evening the Amelia arrived in company, having parted from the Ethalion and Anson, the latter of which had lost her main topmast and mizzen topgallant mast in the storms of the previous few days. Come the next morning, 11 October, the latter two vessels were also seen, and then towards noon, sails were discovered to windward in the north-west by the Amelia – it was Bompart’s squadron, which had ridden out the night near Tory Island, prior to seeking a suitable landing site for General Hardy’s troops.

Once the French were identified, Warren ordered a general chase, signalling his dispersed ships to form in succession as they arrived up on the enemy. By 6 p.m. the French were still some ten to twelve miles distant in the north-east from the commodore’s ship, and as the informal pursuit continued into the darkness, it was accompanied by wild stormy weather, in the course of which the Anson lost her mizzen mast, main-yard and main topsail yard, whilst the French flagship Hoche 84 was disabled by the loss of her main topmast and her fore and mizzen topgallant masts. At around 8 p.m., the Résolue sprung a leak and her captain, Jean-Pierre Barqueau, was ordered to work inshore and send up rockets to lure the British in after her – her consorts would then use the deception to bear away to the south-west in the hope of getting the troops ashore somewhere. For whatever reason, the plan was not carried out, and at 5.30 on the following morning, 12 October, with the north-westerly wind having greatly subsided, the French found themselves almost pinned in by the scattered British ships, with the only hope of avoiding an engagement being that of maintaining the south-westerly course on which they were already sailing.

Events of 12 October

Over the next ninety minutes, the French formed their line in close order on the starboard tack with five frigates preceding the Hoche and two seconding her – to the contrary, Warren merely sought to bring his strung-out ships into order. Not until 7.00, was the commodore able to signal the Robust, (which with the Magnanime was appreciably closer to the French), to lead the line, and over the succeeding twenty minutes Captain Thornbrough’s ship ranged up on the enemy rear.

The battle began when the two frigates at the rear of the French line, the Embuscade and Coquille, opened fire with their stern chasers on the fast approaching Robust. Captain Thornbrough returned their shot with favour at 7.23, and then passing to leeward of the two frigates, he was able to force the Hoche into an action that saw the two sail of the line yardarm to yardarm from 8.50. At about the same time, the Magnanime fired her starboard battery at the Embuscade and Coquille, inflicting significant damage on the latter, but when she attempted to pass the Robust and Hoche it was only the deterrence of the long-range shooting of the Foudroyant that saved her from receiving a hammering from the Loire, Immortalité and Bellone, which had come out of the line to dispute her advance. Whilst the three French frigates broke off and fled to the south-west, the Magnanime was able to forge ahead of the two embattled ships of the line and rake the Hoche. The Hoche’s situation was then further imperilled when the Amelia fired into her stern and larboard quarter, the Melampus came racing up from leeward to pour in her own accurate shot, and the Canada, which had tacked to the north-east to join the action, sent some long-distant shot from her forward guns into the French ship of the line’s larboard quarter.

Despite the firepower ranged against her the Hoche put up a brave resistance, and it was not until 10.50 that her colours were lowered. Five feet of water in the hold, twenty-five guns dismounted, and casualties numbering 270 men from the 1,230 aboard her bore testimony to the resilience of her defence. Wolf Tone was not amongst the casualties, but he was captured and placed in irons. During the action the Robust had sustained casualties of 10 men killed and 40 wounded, the latter figure including the first lieutenant David Colby who lost an arm (but subsequently enjoyed a promotion to the rank of commander). Such was the damage to the Robust that Captain Thornbrough was obliged to stand off and effect repairs, and it was thus Lieutenant Charles Dashwood of the Magnanime who had the honour of taking possession of the Hoche and receiving Commodore Bompart’s sword

The Battle of Tory Island

Commodore Warren now concentrated the British efforts in attempting to reel in the French frigates, and the Embuscade was the first victim. Battered by the Magnanime and the forward guns of the Foudroyant, she survived her commodore by a mere forty minutes, surrendering to the former vessel at 11.30 with 15 men killed and 26 wounded from the 486 crew and troops aboard her. Whilst Captain de Courcy’s ship licked her own wounds, having incurred much damage to her rigging and sails, the other British vessels took up the pursuit of the remaining French frigates to the south-west.

The next target was the Bellone, Captain Louis Léon Jacob. She was unable to follow her consorts in crossing the bow of the massive Foudroyant, and in hauling to windward she was struck hard by Captain Baird’s broadside, with one shot igniting several hand grenades which had been stored for use in her tops. Even so, she managed to inflict some damage on the Foudroyant with her own broadside, and with her fire aloft successfully extinguished she reached open water. She then survived an attack from the Melampus, which by yawing several times to attempt a raking broadside, and then receiving an effective fire from the Bellone’s stern-chasers in return, dropped away. The Ethalion now took up the chase of the Bellone, and ignoring the Frenchman’s stern chasers, Captain Countess resolutely bore down on his prey to get up with her ninety minutes later, albeit at long range to leeward. The engagement continued in this fashion for some two hours before the Bellone surrendered. with 20 men killed and 45 wounded, and with five feet of water in the hold. When Lieutenant George Sayer went aboard to take possession, some 300 soldiers were found aboard the Bellone in addition to her crew. During this action the Ethalion lost one man killed and four wounded, but her damage was somewhat insignificant.

At about the time when the Ethalion had replaced the Melampus in the chase of the Bellone, the other British vessels had brought the Coquille to action, and after an hour’s game resistance which had seen her incur casualties of 18 men killed and 31 wounded from the 507 crew and troops aboard her, she had struck her colours. Not wishing to waste a moment, Commodore Warren signalled the disabled Magnanime to take possession whilst the Melampus, Foudroyant, Amelia and Canada continued their pursuit of the other French frigates.

Leading her remaining consorts by some distance in the flight to the south-west, the Loire found her progress threatened by the disabled Anson, which at this time was separated by some half a dozen miles from her compatriots. Hoisting British colours above his own, Captain Adrien-Joseph Ségond, a firebrand officer who was so tough on his men that he would later be dismissed the French navy on account of his severity, discovered that his deception was in vain, for the Anson opened fire at around 4 p.m. Returning the fire, the Loire was able to out-manoeuvre her disabled opponent and escape. The Anson then found herself assailed by the other four French frigates over the next two and a half hours as they raced past her, in the course of which skirmishing she managed to inflict some damage on the enemy but received further injury to her masts, yards and bowsprit. Her casualties for the day numbered eight men wounded including the first lieutenant, John Hinton.

For now, the battle (if it can be described as such), was over. A French sail of the line and three frigates had been captured, along with scores of valuable troops, yet six frigates had made good their escape, albeit that one, the leaky Résolue, was barely a threat to British shipping. Such had been the confusion of the day that Commodore Warren, who two and a half years earlier had conspicuously failed to muster his forces in an attack upon four French frigates escorting a convoy, was to face some criticism for failing to concentrate his forces once more. He was perhaps fortunate that the criticism might well have escalated had not the days following the battle yielded three further captures.

The fate of the remaining French frigates.

Over the 24 hours following the battle, the Canada, Foudroyant and Melampus continued their chase of the French frigates whilst the Magnanime, Amelia and Ethalion secured the other frigates captured hitherto, the Robust remained with the Hoche, and the Anson licked her wounds. At 11.30 on the evening of the 13th in rough weather, the Melampus discovered the Immortalité and the leaky, helpless, old Résolue, to windward off St. John’s Point on the Donegal coast. An hour and a half later the Résolue took in sail in order to speak with her consort, giving the Melampus the opportunity to attack. After receiving five broadsides, and with the Immortalité making no attempt to intercede, the Résolue meekly struck her colours inside twenty-five minutes, having suffered 10 men killed and 5 wounded out of the 500 crew and troops aboard her. Taking possession of her proved no easy task due to the heavy winds, and although the Melampus ’second lieutenant, John Price, did manage to get aboard with 21 men, Captain Moore’s frigate lost both her cutters in the operation. Such was the battered Résolue’s condition that with four feet of water in the hold, it would take her ten days to reach the River Clyde.

Further to the south, at 8 a.m. on the 15th, the frigates Revolutionnaire 38, Captain Thomas Twysden, and Mermaid 32, Captain James Newman Newman, in company with the sloop Kangaroo, came across two French frigates to the north of Blacksod Bay. A chase began which lasted throughout the day until the French separated on differing courses, causing the British to split their own force accordingly. By 7 p.m. the gathering gloom and thick weather had obscured friend from foe alike, but although the Revolutionnaire lost her quarry in the night, the Mermaid and Kangaroo found theirs at dawn on the 16th. This frigate was the Loire, one of the finest of her class in the French navy, which, was on her first voyage after being gifted by the city of Nantes. Another long chase in squally weather followed until at 3 p.m. the Kangaroo gamely brought the Loire to action. There followed a running fight lasting ninety minutes before Captain Brace’s unmatched sloop was driven off with the loss of her fore topmast, and much damage from the Loire’s stern-chasers to her foremast sails and rigging.

The Mermaid maintained the chase throughout the rest of the night, with the Loire remaining in sight until dawn on the 17th, when finding that the Kangaroo had become detached, the Frenchman shortened sail to await Captain Newman. By 6.45 the two frigates were in action, steering north-east. An early attempt by the Loire to board her smaller opponent was thwarted, and when the Mermaid manoeuvred across the French frigate’s starboard bow it gave her the opportunity to dictate the contest, despite suffering a discrepancy in broadside weight of metal of 442 to 252 pounds. Over the next couple of hours, the musketry of the many soldiers aboard the Loire was sustained, but her cannon fire began to decrease, and having already lost her fore topmast, the Loire’s main topsail yard came down at 9.15. A victory for the Mermaid now seemed inevitable, but in attempting to manoeuvre into a position from which he could rake the disabled French ship at pistol shot, Captain Newman’s own mizzen mast came down, to be followed by the main topmast. With other substantial damage to deal with aloft, further action was not possible, and whilst the Mermaid’s crew set to repairs, having lost three men killed, the carpenter drowned, and thirteen wounded, the Loire put before the wind and disappeared from sight. The British frigate could at least take immense pride in having almost overcome a superior opponent. and although the casualties amongst the 624 men aboard the Loire could not be ascertained, many bodies had been seen dispatched into the waters from the Frenchman during the engagement. With the weather continuing to be rough, the leaking Mermaid would also lose her wounded foremast before scudding under her main mast alone, she reached Lough Swilly on the 19th.

The battered Loire may have temporarily escaped capture, but at dawn the next day, the 18th, having by now lost her fore and main topmasts, she found herself in the lee of the battered Anson, which had been driven away from the coast. Another sail was seen far out to windward, and this was the Kangaroo, which had joined Captain Durham the previous evening after setting up a new fore topmast, and which had been instructed to remain in company. Bereft of her mizzen mast, main yard and main cross trees, and with a badly damaged bowsprit and foremast, the Anson still managed to get up to the Loire and a well fought engagement between the two disabled vessels began at 10.30 a.m. It was decided when the Kangaroo arrived under the French frigate’s stern at 11.45, and ignoring the shot and musketry, unleashed her own broadside. Soon, the Loire’s mizzenmast went by the board and with it her colours, which she chose not to replace in acknowledgement of a call for her surrender. The Anson was in no position to take possession and so this honour fell to the Kangaroo, which took the Loire in tow. During the action the Anson lost 2 men killed and 13 wounded to add to her casualties on the 12th, whilst the Loire lost 46 men killed and 71 wounded from the 624 crew and troops aboard her to add to the casualties sustained in her previous actions in the battle and then in the engagement with the Mermaid.

The caricaturist, James Gillray, had his take on the affair.

Lastly, it was the turn of the Immortalité to be run down. At 8 a.m. on 20 October, some one hundred miles to west of Brest, the Fisgard 38, Captain Thomas Byam Martin, which carried 284 men, sighted out to the westward the 42-gun French frigate, which had a compliment of 330 men in addition to 250 troops. For the next three hours, the Fisgard chased the Immortalité until shortly after 11 a.m. the latter opened fire with her long stern chasers, to which the Fisgard responded by firing her bow guns from 11.30. An hour later, the two vessels were side by side, but such was the constancy of the Immortalité’s resistance that her opponent was forced to drop off and undergo repairs to her badly mauled running rigging after twenty-five minutes close action. Yet Captain Martin and his crew were formidable opponents, and after rapidly dealing with the damage, the Fisgard was soon in pursuit again, with the captain himself laying her bow-chasers to great effect. At 1.30, having manoeuvred to avoid the effective fire of her enemy’s stern chasers, she came up on the Frenchman’s quarter and battle re-commenced. For over an hour and a half each frigate plied shot into the other, with the Immortalité admirably matching her opponent. It took all of Martin’s considerable seamanship to keep his men out of range of the French soldiers’ musketry, but eventually, and despite being required to pump six feet of water out of the hold, he was able to wear down his opponent. The Immortalité’s commander, Captain Jean Francois Legrand, and his senior lieutenant were killed, as was General Ménage, the second in command of the army of invasion, and the French vessel only surrendered at 3.00. once her mizzenmast had fallen and she was in danger of sinking. The Fisgard’s first lieutenant, John Carden, who had only been appointed to the frigate just a few weeks earlier (and who was later to be defeated by an American frigate when commanding the Macedonian in the War of 1812), was charged with taking possession. The Fisgard had suffered 10 men killed and 26 wounded in the engagement, the Immortalité 44 killed and 61 wounded. Both ships had to be nursed to Plymouth where the Immortalité was bought into the British navy, earning Martin £3,500 in prizemoney. He would also be awarded the freedom of Exeter and Plymouth.

Aftermath

The three remaining French frigates all made their home country, with the Romaine and Biche getting into Brest, and the Sémillante into Lorient. Of the six captured frigates, the Embuscade was bought into the Navy as the Seine, the Loire served under her own name as did the Immortalité, the Coquille unfortunately blew up at Plymouth on 14 December, and the Bellone (renamed the Proserpine), and the old Résolue, although both were purchased, never saw any service.

Whilst the frigate actions had been in progress, Warren had sent the first lieutenant of the Canada, William Turquand, rather than Lieutenant Dashwood or the wounded Colby of the Robust, to take command of the captured yet badly damaged Hoche. When the prize lost her fore and main masts on the 13th and broke adrift of the crippled Robust’s tow, she was only saved by Englishmen and Frenchmen working together and pumping around the clock. Two days later, she was taken in tow by the Doris and she arrived at Lough Swilly on the 30th, the day before a storm that could have sent both her and the Robust to the bottom of the sea. Here the two sail of the line were rigged with jury masts, allowing Captain Thornbrough to carry his prize into Plymouth on 4 December where she was bought into the navy as the Donegal.

On 16 October Warren himself made Lough Swilly where he composed his dispatch to Evan Nepean, the Secretary to the Admiralty, and four days later, Lieutenant John Wilmot Waterhouse arrived in London with the tidings. In due course, gold medals were presented to the victorious British captains, whilst Captain Durham of the Anson was presented with the Duke of Clarence’s sword belt and Lieutenant Carden of the Fisgard was promoted captain. As for Wolfe Tone, he was taken to Dublin and court-martialled. Sentenced to death on 12 November, he slit his throat with a penknife a week later and thus escaped the hangman’s noose.

British ships at the Battle of Tory Island:

Other ships engaged with Commodore Bompart’s force: