| Battle Of Cape St. Vincent (1797) |
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The naval Battle of Cape St Vincent took place on 14 February , 1797 , near Cape St. Vincent , Portugal, between a British fleet and a Spanish fleet and was an important battle during the Wars Of The French Revolution . ORIGINS The Spanish declaration of war on Britain and Portugal in October 1796 made the British position in the Mediterranean untenable. The combined Franco-Spanish fleet of 38 of the line heavily outnumbered the British Mediterranean Fleet of 15 of the line, forcing the British to evacuate their positions in first Corsica and then Elba . Early in 1797 , the Spanish fleet of 27 ships of the line lay at Cartagena , on the Mediterranean Sea , with the intention of sailing to Cádiz , and then on to join the French fleet at Brest . Don José de Cordóba and the Spanish fleet left Cartagena on February 1 and might have reached Cádiz safely but for a fierce Levanter, the easterly wind, blowing between Gibraltar and Cádiz, which pushed the Spanish fleet further out into the Atlantic than intended. As the winds died down, the fleet began working its way back to Cádiz. In the meantime, the British Mediterranean Fleet, under Admiral Sir John Jervis , had sailed from the Tagus with 10 ships of the line to try to intercept the Spanish fleet. On February 6 , Jervis was joined off Cape St. Vincent by a reinforcement of five ships of the line from the Channel Fleet under Rear-Admiral William Parker. On 11 February , the British frigate ''Minerve'', under the command of Commodore Horatio Nelson , passed through the Spanish fleet unseen thanks to heavy fog. Nelson reached the British fleet of 15 ships off Spain on February 13 , and passed the location of the Spanish fleet to Jervis , commanding the fleet from his flagship ''Victory'' . Unaware of the size of his opponent's fleet - in the fog, Nelson had not been able to count them - Jervis's squadron immediately sailed to intercept. This pushed the Spanish into the Atlantic and by February 13, close to the British fleet. Early on the 14th, Jervis learnt that the Spanish fleet was 35 miles to Windward . BATTLE As dawn broke on the 14th, Jervis's ships were in position to engage the Spanish, and vice versa. It was at this point that Jervis discovered that he was outnumbered nearly two-to-one. It would have been difficult to disengage, however, and Jervis also decided that the situation would only get worse were the Spanish fleet to join up with the French, so he decided to continue. To the British advantage the Spanish fleet was formed into two groups and unprepared for battle, while the British were already in line. Jervis ordered the British fleet to pass between the two groups, minimizing the fire they could put into him, while letting him fire in both directions simultaneously. Passing through the Spanish, the larger group managed to sail away in almost the opposite direction of the British line, and the smaller group was also in position to do so. Jervis ordered the line to swing around and go after the larger group before it could get away to Cádiz. Nelson had returned to his own ship ''Captain'' , and was now towards the rear of the British line, much closer to the fleeing larger group. He came to the conclusion that the manoeuvre could not be completed so as to allow the British to catch them. Disregarding orders that the British line was to turn while engaging the smaller group, he broke formation before reaching that point, which let him turn and catch the larger Spanish group more quickly. This placed him across the front of the Spanish. Jervis, seeing what had happened with ''Captain'' then ordered the last ship in his line, ''Excellent'' , to perform essentially the same manoeuvre. In the meantime, the front of the British line had completed its manoeuvre, and were approaching a long cannon shot from the rear of the Spanish. receiving the surrender of the ''San Josef'' at the Battle of Cape St Vincent, 14 February 1797 '' by Daniel Orme , painted 1799 ]] The ''Captain'' was now under fire from as many as six Spanish ships, of which three were 112-gun three deckers and a fourth Cordóba’s 130-gun flagship ''Santísima Trinidad'' . The ''Captain'' soon lost so much of her rigging that she was no longer manouverable. As a result, Nelson moved close enough to the Spanish 80-gun ''San Nicolás'' to send out boarders instead. Meanwhile, Captain Collingwood in the ''Excellent'' had engaged the 112-gun ''San José'' (usually, but wrongly, called ''San Josef'' in British accounts), which became so tightly entangled with ''San Nicolás'' that Nelson was able to order his boarders to cross the first Spanish ship onto the second. Both were successfully captured. This manoeuvre was so unusual and so widely admired in the Royal Navy that using one enemy ship to cross to another became known facetiously as "Nelson's patent bridge for boarding enemy vessels." 1797 '' by Robert Cleveley , painted 1798 , shows the end of the battle with the captured Spanish ship ''Salvador del Mundo'' in the right foreground]] The Spanish finally managed to disengage after which the battle was over. Jervis crossed over to the ''Irresistible'' - to which Nelson had gone, ''Captain'' no longer being suitable - and made a show of approving Nelson's disobedience of orders. Had the Spanish fleet been as well manned and trained as the British, Nelson’s action would have been suicidal. As it was, his prompt use of the initiative was a nicely judged stroke. AFTERMATH The next day the Spanish were sighted in a line, approaching, but when the British turned they withdrew. If they had continued, Jervis had given orders to destroy the 4 prizes. Several days later, ''Santísima Trinidad'' was spotted, still damaged, making her way back to Spain, and engaged by the frigate ''Terpsichore'' 32, but escaped. The British casualties were 73 killed, 227 badly wounded, c. 100 lightly wounded. The Spanish casualties were about 1,000 men killed or wounded. Jervis was elevated to the peerage as Earl St. Vincent. Nelson was knighted as a member of the Order of the Bath and promoted to Rear-Admiral. Cordóba was dismissed from the Spanish navy and forbidden from appearing at court. Having demonstrated that the fighting efficiency of the Spanish fleet didn’t match that of his own, Jervis now imposed a close blockade of the Spanish fleet at Cádiz. The continuation of that blockade for most of the following three years, largely curtailed the operations of the Spanish fleet until the Peace Of Amiens in 1802. The containment of the Spanish threat, and the further reinforcement of his command, enabled Jervis to send a squadron under Nelson back into the Mediterranean the following year. That squadron, including Saumarez’s ''Orion'' , Troubridge’s ''Culloden'' and the ''Goliath'', now under Foley, re-established British command of the Mediterranean at the Battle Of The Nile . THE RIVAL FLEETS The British ships are listed in order from van to rear. The Spanish were in no particular order. Many of the British wounded were badly wounded and later died. There were about 100 lightly wounded. Britain (Jervis) ''Culloden'', 74 (Captain Thomas Troubridge ) - Damaged, 10 killed, 47 wounded ''Blenheim'', 90 (Captain Thomas Lenox Frederick) - Damaged, 12 killed, 49 wounded ''Prince George'' (Rear-Admiral William Parker, Captain John Irwin) - 8 killed, 7 wounded ''Orion'' , 74 (Captain James Saumarez ) - 9 wounded ''Colossus'' , 74 (Captain George Murray) - 5 wounded ''Irresistible'', 74 (Captain George Martin) - 5 killed, 14 wounded ''Victory'' , 100 (Admiral Sir John Jervis , Captains Robert Calder and George Grey) - 1 killed, 5 wounded ''Egmont'', 74 (Captain John Sutton) ''Goliath'', (Captain Charles H. Knowles) - 8 wounded ''Barfleur'' , 98 (Vice-Admiral William Waldegrave , Captain James Richard Dacres) - 7 wounded ''Britannia'' , 100 (Vice-Admiral Charles Thompson, Captain Thomas Foley) - 1 wounded ''Namur'', 90 (Captain James Hawkins Whitshed) - 2 killed, 5 wounded ''Captain'' , 74 (Commodore Horatio Nelson , Captain Ralph Willett Miller) - Badly damaged, 24 killed, 56 wounded ''Diadem'', 64 (Captain George Henry Towry) - 2 wounded ''Excellent'', (Captain Cuthbert Collingwood ) - 11 killed, 12 wounded Frigates, etc. ''Minerve'', 38 (Captain George Cockburn) ''Lively'', 32 (Captain Lord Garlies) ''Niger'', 32 (Captain Edward James Foote) ''Southampton'', 32 (Captain James Macnamara) ''Bonne-Citoyenne'', 20 (Commander Charles Lindsay) ''Raven'' (sloop), 18 (Commander William Prowse) ''Fox'' (cutter), 10 (Lieutenant John Gibson) Spain (de Cordóba) ''Santísima Trinidad'' , 130 - Badly damaged, 200+ casualties ''Concepción'', 112 ''Conde de Regla'', 112 ''Mexicano'', 112 ''Principe de Asturias'', 112 ''Salvador del Mundo'', 112 - Captured, 42 killed, 124 wounded ''San José'', 112 - Captured, 46 killed, 96 wounded ''Neptuno'' 80 ''San Nicolás'', 80 - Captured, 144 killed, 59 wounded ''Atlante'', 74 ''Bahama'', 74 ''Conquistador'', 74 ''Firme'', 74 ''Glorioso'', 74 ''Oriente'', 74 ''Pelayo'', 74 ''San Antonio'', 74 ''San Domingo'', 74 ''San Fermín'', 74 ''San Francisco de Paula'', 74 ''San Genaro'', 74 ''San Ildefonso'', 74 ''San Juan Nepomuceno'' , 74 ''San Pablo'', 74 ''San Ysidro'', 74 - Captured, 29 killed, 63 wounded ''Soberano'', 74 ''Terrible'', 74 Frigates, etc. ''Ceres'', 34 ''Atocha'', 34 ''Diana'', 34 ''Matilda'', 34 ''Mercedes'', 34 ''Perla'', 34 ''Santa Brigida'', 34 |