Cornwallis's Retreat

Cornwallis's Retreat was a naval engagement during the French Revolutionary Wars in which a British Royal Navy squadron of five ships of the line and two frigates was attacked by a much larger French Navy fleet of 12 ships of the line and 11 frigates. The action took place in the waters off the west coast of Brittany on 16–17 June 1795 (28–29 Prairial an III of the French Republican Calendar).

A British naval squadron under Vice-Admiral William Cornwallis began operating off Brittany on 7 June; in the following week he attacked a French merchant convoy and captured several ships. In response, Vice-admiral Villaret de Joyeuse led the main French fleet out of port to attack the British, who were spotted on 16 June. Heavily outnumbered, Cornwallis turned away from the French and attempted to escape into open water, with the French fleet in pursuit. After a full day's chase the British squadron lost speed, due to poorly loaded holds on two of their ships, and the French vanguard pulled within range on the morning of 17 June. Unwilling to abandon his rearguard, Cornwallis counter-attacked with the rest of his squadron. A fierce combat developed, culminating in Cornwallis interposing his flagship between the British and French forces.

Cornwallis's determined resistance, and his squadron's signals to a group of unknown ships spotted in the distance, led Villaret de Joyeuse to believe that the main British Channel Fleet was approaching. Villaret therefore broke off the battle on the evening of 17 June and ordered his ships to withdraw. This allowed Cornwallis to escape; he returned to port at Plymouth with his squadron battered but intact. Villaret withdrew to an anchorage off Belle Île, close to the naval base at Brest. The French fleet was discovered there by the main British Channel Fleet on 22 June and defeated at the ensuing Battle of Groix, losing three ships of the line. Villaret was criticised by contemporaries for failing to press the attack on Cornwallis's force, whilst the British admiral was praised and rewarded for his defiance in the face of overwhelming French numerical superiority. The battle has since been considered by British historians to be one of the most influential examples "of united courage and coolness to be found in ritishnaval history".

Background

By the late spring of 1795 Britain and France had been at war for more than two years, with the British Royal Navy's Channel Fleet, known at the time as the "Western Squadron" exerting superiority in the campaign for dominance in the Bay of Biscay and the Western Approaches. The British, led first by Lord Howe and then by Lord Bridport sailing from their bases at Plymouth, Portsmouth and Torbay, maintained an effective distant blockade against the French naval bases on the Atlantic, especially the large harbour of Brest in Brittany.Gardiner, p. 46 Although French squadrons could occasionally put to sea without interception, the main French fleet had suffered a series of setbacks in the preceding two years, most notably at the battle of the Glorious First of June in 1794 at which the fleet lost seven ships of the line and then during the '' Croisière du Grand Hiver'' during the winter of 1794–1795 when five ships of the line were wrecked during a sortie into the Bay of Biscay at the height of the Atlantic winter storm season.Gardiner, p. 16

The damage the French Trans-Atlantic fleet had suffered in the winter operation took months to repair and it was not in a condition to sail again until June 1795, although several squadrons had put to sea in the meanwhile. One such squadron consisted of three ships of the line and a number of frigates under Contre-Amiral Jean Gaspard Vence sent to Bordeaux to escort a merchant convoy up the coast to Brest.Clowes, p. 255 The British Channel Fleet had briefly sortied from Torbay in February in response to the ''Croisière du Grand Hiver'' and subsequently retired to Spithead, from where a squadron of five ships of the line and two frigates were sent on 30 May to patrol the approaches to Brest and to watch the French fleet. The force consisted of the 100-gun first-rate ship of the line HMS ''Royal Sovereign'', the 74-gun ships of the line HMS ''Mars'', HMS ''Triumph'', HMS ''Brunswick'' and HMS ''Bellerophon'', the frigates HMS ''Phaeton'' and HMS ''Pallas'' and the small brig-sloop HMS ''Kingfisher'', under the overall command of Vice-Admiral William Cornwallis in ''Royal Sovereign''.James, p. 237 Cornwallis was a highly experienced naval officer who had been in service with the Navy since 1755 and fought in the Seven Years' War and the American Revolutionary War, including the significant naval victories over the French at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in 1759 and the Battle of the Saintes in 1782.

Operations off Belle Île

Cornwallis led his squadron southwest, rounding Ushant on the night of 7–8 June and cruising southwards down the Breton coast past the Penmarck Rocks. At 10:30 that morning, Captain Sir Erasmus Gower on ''Triumph'' signalled that he could see six sails to the northeast. Cornwallis turned the squadron to investigate, and discovered the small squadron under Vence in command of a large merchant convoy. Vence initially held his course when Cornwallis's squadron appeared, in the belief that they were French. When he realised his mistake at 12:00, he ordered his ships to make all sail towards the anchorage in the shelter of the fortified island of Belle Île.Brenton, p. 229 Vence's squadron made rapid progress towards the anchorage, but Cornwallis had sent his faster ships ahead, ''Phaeton'', ''Kingfisher'' and ''Triumph'' in the lead, while ''Brunswick'', which had been badly loaded when at anchor in Spithead and thus was unable to sail smoothly, fell far behind. The leading British ships were able to fire on Vence's force at a distance, and attacked the trailing merchant ships and their frigate escorts, forcing a French frigate to abandon a merchant ship it had under tow, but could not bring Vence to action without the support of the slower vessels in Cornwallis's squadron.Clowes, p. 256 As a result, all of the French warships and all but eight of the merchant vessels were safely anchored at Belle Île. ''Triumph'' and ''Phaeton'' both advanced on the anchored ships, but came under heavy fire from batteries on the island and found that the water was too shallow and the passage too uncertain to risk their ships. ''Phaeton'' lost one man killed and seven wounded before Cornwallis called off the attack.

Taking his eight prizes laden with wine and brandy, Cornwallis retired to the sheltered anchorage of Palais Road, close to Belle Île, where the squadron remained until 9 June. In the evening, Cornwallis took advantage of a fresh breeze to sail his ships out into the Bay of Biscay and around the Ushant headland, reaching the Scilly Isles on 11 June and sending ''Kingfisher'' back to Spithead with the French prizes and two American merchant ships seized in French waters. Cornwallis then ordered the squadron to turn back to the blockade of Brest in the hope of encountering Vence in more favourable circumstances. At Brest, messages had arrived warning that Vence and the convoy were "blockaded" at Belle Île and the French commander was instructed to rescue him. In fact, as was pointed out by a number of officers in the French fleet including Vice-amiral Kerguelen, the anchorage at Belle Île could never be effectively blockaded as it was too open to block all potential approaches and too close to the major port of Lorient and therefore a rescue was unnecessary.James, p. 238 This advice was ignored, and Vice-amiral Villaret de Joyeuse sailed from Brest on 12 June with the ships that were anchored in Brest Roads ready for sea. Villaret's fleet consisted of nine ships of the line, nine frigates (including two ships of the line razeed into 50-gun frigates) and four corvettes.

On 15 June, the French fleet encountered Vence's squadron sailing off the island of Groix near Lorient, and the two joined, Vence having sent the remainder of his convoy safely to Brest while Villaret was ''en route''. Turning north back towards Brest, the French fleet was off Penmarck Point at 10:30 on 16 June with the wind in the northwest, when sails were spotted to the northwest. This force was Cornwallis's squadron, returning to Belle Île in search of Vence. Sighting his numerically inferior opponent to windward, Villaret immediately ordered his fleet to advance on the British force while Cornwallis, anticipating Vence's merchant convoy and not immediately apprehending the danger his squadron was in, sent ''Phaeton'' to investigate the sails on the horizon.Tracy, p. 121

Retreat

Captain Robert Stopford on ''Phaeton'' signaled to Cornwallis that the French fleet contained 30 vessels, but did not return to join Cornwallis, causing the British admiral to misunderstand the signal to mean that the French ships, while more numerous than his own, were of inferior strength. Under this misapprehension, Cornwallis, who could only see the ship's sails rather than their hulls, ordered his squadron to advance on the French fleet. Stopford subsequently signaled the exact composition of Villaret's fleet at 11:00 and Cornwallis, realising his error, issued urgent orders for his squadron to haul away to the southwest, tacking to starboard in an effort to escape pursuit with ''Brunswick'' leading the line, followed by ''Royal Sovereign'', ''Bellerophon'', ''Triumph'' and ''Mars''.Clowes, p. 257 ''Phaeton'' was sent to scout ahead, while ''Pallas'' was ordered to keep company with ''Royal Sovereign'' in order to relay Cornwallis's signals to the rest of the squadron. Villaret had immediately ordered his fleet to give chase, and the French followed the British south westwards into the Atlantic, taking advantage of the strengthening wind.

At 14:00 Villaret split his forces, one division sailing northwards to take advantage of the breeze coming off the land, while the other maintained passage to the south. Cornwallis tacked his squadron at 06:00 and 17:00, but Villaret de Joyeuse's plan worked well and a shift in the wind at 18:00 allowed the northern squadron to weather and the southern to lay up, the British squadron now lying directly between them about from either French division.James, p. 239 During the night the chase continued into the Atlantic, the British squadron struggling to maintain formation due to the slow speed of two members: ''Brunswick'''s sailing deficiencies had already been noted, but it became clear that ''Bellerophon'' was similarly suffering. In an effort to decrease the weight of the ships and thus increase their speed and allow them to keep pace with the rest of the squadron, captains Lord Charles Fitzgerald and Lord Cranstoun ordered the anchors, boats and much of the provisions and fresh water carried aboard to be thrown over the side: ''Bellerophon'' was sailing so slowly that Cranstoun even ordered four carronades to be jettisoned with a large amount of roundshot.

During the night Villaret had split his forces further, creating a windward division of three ships of the line and five frigates, a centre division of five ships of the line and four frigates and the lee division of four ships of the line, five frigates and three smaller vessels. Of these forces, the weather division was closest to Cornwallis's squadron and at 09:00 the leading French ship '' Zélé'' began to fire on the British rearguard ship, ''Mars'' under Captain Sir Charles Cotton. Cotton returned fire with his stern-chasers, but was unable to prevent the 40-gun frigate ''Virginie'' from approaching his ship's port quarter and firing repeated broadsides at ''Mars''. The rest of the French frigates held station to windward of the British force without approaching within range. Concerned that ''Bellerophon'', which was close to the developing action, might lose a sail, a loss that Cranstoun would be unable to replace, Cornwallis ordered ''Triumph'' and ''Royal Sovereign'' to fall back and allow ''Bellerophon'' to join ''Brunswick'' in the vanguard.James, p. 240

Following the reorganisation, the entire British squadron was now within range of the leading French ships, all firing at Villaret's advancing line. To facilitate the positioning of more cannon in the stern of the vessels, the British captains ordered their men to cut holes in the stern planks: so many were cut that several ships needed extensive repairs in the aftermath of the action and ''Triumph'' especially had much of her stern either cut or shot away.Clowes, p. 258 At 13:30 the British fire achieved some success when ''Zélé'' fell back with damaged rigging, allowing the second French ship to take up the position at the head of the line. This ship, which had been firing distantly on the British force for half an hour, opened a heavy fire on ''Mars'' as did a number of following French ships over the ensuing hours, including ''Droits de l’Homme'', ''Formidable'' and ''Tigre''.Rouvier, p. 207 This combined attack left ''Mars'' badly damaged in the rigging and sails, causing the ship to slow. Cotton's ship now seemed at serious risk of falling into the midst of the French fleet and being overwhelmed, while Captain Gower's ''Triumph'' was also badly damaged by French shot. Seeing the danger his rearguard was in, Cornwallis took decisive action, ordering Cotton to turn away from the French and swinging ''Royal Sovereign'' southwards, he led ''Triumph'' to ''Mars'''s rescue, drawing close alongside and engaging the leading French ships with a series of broadsides from his powerful first rate. The raking fire of ''Royal Sovereign'' caused the four French ships closing on ''Mars'' to retreat, and gradually the entire French fleet fell back, distant firing continuing until 18:10 when the French fell out of range, although they continued in pursuit of the battered and weakened British squadron.

At 18:40, suddenly and for no immediately apparent reason, Villaret ordered his ships to haul their wind and turn back towards the east, breaking off contact. By the time the sun set a few hours later, the French had almost disappeared over the eastern horizon as the British continued westwards.James, p. 241 Although the order to abandon the action has subsequently been much debated, the cause of Villaret's retreat was in fact the actions of the frigate ''Phaeton'', which Cornwallis had sent ahead of the squadron as a scout early on 17 June. After progressing several miles ahead of the British squadron, Stopford had signalled that there were unknown sails to the northwest, followed by signals indicating four ships in sight and then one for a full fleet, highlighted by firing two cannon. Stopford had been careful to ensure that the French ships could see and read his signals, which were in a code that the French were known to have broken, and Villaret knew well that the only French fleet in those waters was the one he led. He therefore assumed that ''Phaeton'' could see the Channel Fleet beyond the northern horizon, a force significantly more powerful than his own. Stopford compounded the ruse at 15:00 by making a string of nonsensical signals to the non-existent fleet before notifying Cornwallis at 16:30, again in plain sight, that the fleet was composed of allied ships of the line. He completed the operation by raising the Dutch flag and signalling for the non-existent fleet to join with Cornwallis. It is not clear to what extent Villaret was taken in by this charade, the French fleet continuing their attack without pause, until at 18:00 when a number of sails appeared on the northwest horizon. At this point ''Phaeton'' wore round to return to Cornwallis, and Villaret, now convinced that the strangers, which were in reality a small convoy of merchant vessels, were the vanguard of the Channel Fleet, abandoned the chase.Woodman, p. 60

Aftermath

With the French fleet out of sight, Cornwallis ordered his squadron north against the northeast wind, returning through the English Channel to Plymouth for repairs. ''Phaeton'' was sent ahead with despatches intended to warn Lord Bridport that the French fleet was at sea and inform him of Cornwallis's safety. However, Bridport had already sailed on 12 June with 15 ships of the line as a cover for a secondary force detailed to land a British and French Royalist army at Quiberon Bay, and the main British fleet was already off Brest when the action between Cornwallis and Villaret de Joyeuse was fought.James, p. 244 The ships of Cornwallis's squadron had all suffered damage, especially ''Triumph'' and ''Mars'': ''Triumph'' had to have extensive repairs to its stern, which had been heavily cut away during the action. Historian Edward Pelham Brenton credits this action with influencing Robert Seppings in his future designs of ships of the line, providing rounded sterns that offered a wider field of fire at pursuing warships. Casualties were light however, with just 12 men wounded on ''Mars'' and no other losses on the remainder of the squadron.

The French fleet was only lightly damaged and had only taken light casualties of 29 men killed and wounded. Villaret continued the fleet's passage eastwards, rounding Penmarck Point and entering Audierne Bay on the passage north towards Brest when the region was hit by a fierce 27-hour gale

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