Atlantik-Feldzug von 1806

Vorlage:Infobox Military ConflictThe Atlantic campaign of 1806 was a complicated series of manoeuveres and counter-manoeuveres conducted by squadrons of the French Navy and the British Royal Navy across the Atlantic Ocean during the spring of 1806, as part of the Napoleonic Wars. The campaign followed directly from the Trafalgar campaign of the year before, in which the French Mediterranean fleet had crossed the Atlantic, returned to Europe and joined with the Spanish fleet at Cadiz. On 21 October 1805, this combined fleet was destroyed by a British fleet under Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar, although the campaign did not end until the Battle of Cape Ortegal on 4 November 1805. Believing that the French Navy would not be capable of organised resistance at sea during the winter, the First Lord of the Admiralty Lord Barham withdrew the British blockade squadrons to harbour. Barham had miscalculated – the French Atlantic fleet, based at Brest, had not been involved in the Trafalgar campaign and was therefore at full strength. Taking advantage of the reduction in the British forces off the port, Napoleon ordered two heavy squadrons to sea, under instructions to raid British trade routes while avoiding contact with equivalent Royal Navy forces.

Departing from Brest on 15 December 1805, it was nine days before the Admiralty in London were aware of the French movements, by which time the French squadrons were deep in the Atlantic, one under Vice-Admiral Corentin-Urbain Leissegues intending to cruise in the Caribbean and the other, under Contre-Admiral Jean-Baptiste Willaumez, sailing for the South Atlantic. Two British squadrons were hastily mustered and dispatched in pursuit, one under the command of Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Strachan and the other under Rear-Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren. These squadrons were joined by a third under Rear-Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth, who deserted his station off Cadiz when news of the French operations reached him, and crossed the Atlantic in pursuit. Although Willaumez managed to escape Duckworth into the South Atlantic, Leissegues was less successful and was discovered and destroyed at the Battle of San Domingo in February 1806 by a combined force under Duckworth and Rear-Admiral Alexander Cochrane. Other squadrons already at sea became embroiled in the campaign: a smaller squadron that had been raiding the African coast under Commodore Jean-Marthe-Adrien L'Hermitte since August 1805 provided a diversion to the major campaign but failed to draw off the main British squadrons, while the remnants of a French squadron under Contre-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Durand Linois that had been operating in the Indian Ocean since 1803 was intercepted and defeated by Warren in March, after a chance encounter on its journey back to France.

Willaumez achieved minor success in his operations in the South Atlantic, but was caught in a summer hurricane on his return journey and his ships were scattered along the Eastern Seaboard of North America. One was intercepted and destroyed by British forces and others were so badly damaged in the storm that they were forced to shelter in American ports. The survivors gradually returned to Brest during the autumn, the last arriving in early 1807. The campaign was the last significant operation in the Atlantic for the remainder of the war, no French squadron of any size leaving port until 1808. The losses suffered by the Brest fleet weakened it so severely that it would not participated in a major operation until 1809, in which an attempt to break out of Brest ended in defeat at the Battle of Basque Roads.

Background

Trafalgar

On 30 March 1805, the French Mediterranean Fleet under Vice-Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve successfully broke out of Toulon harbour, avoiding the British blockade fleet under Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson and sailing westwards out of the Mediterranean and into the Atlantic with Nelson following several days behind. Villeneuve, joined by a Spanish squadron, crossed the ocean to the Caribbean and anchored at Martinique, while Nelson arrived at Barbados on 11 June. Panicked by the British arrival, Villeneuve immediately returned to Europe, with Nelson again close behind. Villeneuve's orders had specified that he sail to Brest, the French naval port on the Bay of Biscay from which an invasion of Britain would be launched. However, as he passed the Spanish port of Ferrol on 22 July 1805, Villeneuve was intercepted by a British fleet under Vice Admiral Sir Robert Calder. At the ensuing Battle of Cape Finisterre, Calder captured two Spanish ships but failed to inflict a decisive blow on Villeneuve's squadron, which later sailed to Cadiz, Spain's principal Atlantic seaport. Nelson arrived shortly afterwards and initiated a blockade of the port.

On 21 October 1805, Villeneuve's combined Franco-Spanish fleet sailed from Cadiz and was intercepted by Nelson, resulting in the Battle of Trafalgar. Although Nelson was killed at the height of the battle, his squadron inflicted a devastating defeat on the combined fleet, capturing or destroying 17 French or Spanish ships, including Villeneuve's flagship. The battered remnants of the French Mediterranean and Spanish Atlantic fleets retreated to Cadiz, although four French ships fled north and were intercepted and captured at the Battle of Cape Ortegal two weeks later. In total, the campaign cost Napoleon 13 French and 12 Spanish ships, eliminating any possibility of even regional superiority at sea and therefore preventing a planned invasion, which had already been indefinately postponed. The elimination of the French and Spanish fleets and the end of the threat of French invasion was widely celebrated in Britain, and seen by First Lord of the Admiralty Lord Barham, as an opportunity to reduce costs and damage to his ships by withdrawing the Atlantic blockade to Britain during the winter under the assumption that the battered French Navy would be unable and unwilling to operate at sea during the period. He wrote: "It is of little purpose now, to wear out our ships in a fruitless blockade dting the winter."

French plans

Barham had seriously miscalcualted the strength of the Brest fleet, which had been uninvolved in the campaign of 1805 and was therefore at full strength. He also underestimated Napoleon, who had observed that Villeneuve's brief stay in the Caribbean had acted as a major threat to British trade, delaying covoys and causing panic among the West Indian merchants. Seeking to repeat this effect without risking his remaining fleets, Napoleon sent orders to the commander at Brest, Vice Admiral Honoré Ganteaume, in November 1805 for two strong squadrons to be prepared for service in the Atlantic. These were to leave Brest under cover of darkness and stormy weather on 13 December, with orders to strike deep into the Atlantic, intercept any merchant convoys that they encountered and to seperate, one to the South Atlantic and the other to the Caribbean, there to cause as much disruption to British intercontinental trade as possible without engaging any Royal Navy force of eqivalent size or larger and thus running the risk of being captured or destroyed.

Ganteaume selected 11 ships of the line for the operation, including the 120-gun first rate Impérial, flagship of Vice Admiral Corentin-Urbain Leissegues, who was to sail to the Caribbean with four other ships of the line, two frigates and a corvette. His squadron carried over 1,000 French soldiers to augment the garrison on Santo Domingo under General Jean-Louis Ferrand, and was then required to spend two months blockading Jamaica before cruising along the American Eastern Seaboard to Newfoundland before returning to France when food supplies ran low. The other squadron was given to Contre-Admiral Jean-Baptiste Willaumez in Foudroyant, with orders to cruise the shipping lanes of the South Atlantic before sailing to the Leeward Islands, communicating with the French colonies of Martinique, Guadeloupe and Cayenne and blockading Barbados. When British opposition became too strong, he was to return to the South Atlantic off Saint Helena, also returning to France once food supplies ran low. His squadron consisted of six ships of the line, two frigates and two brigs, and included among its captains Jerome Bonaparte, the Emperor's younger brother. Although both squadrons carried six months provisions, they were expected to capture more during their voyages and it was intended that their raiding operations could last as long as 14 months, causing severe indirect damage to the British economy by restricting the movement of trade.

December 1805

On 13 December 1805, with the majority of the British blockade squadron anchored in Cawsand Bay and the remainder driven far offshore by a winter gale, the French squadrons sailed from Brest into the Bay of Biscay unnoticed. Within two days they had passed nearly Vorlage:Convert into the Atlantic Ocean and had encountered a British merchant convoy, Willaumez detaching in pursuit. The convoy was sailing to Britain from Gibraltar, escorted by the 64-gun HMS Polyphemus under Captain Robert Redmill and the frigate HMS Sirius under Captain William Prowse. Heavily outnumbered, the convoy turned away and ran before the wind, Willaumez in close pursuit. Later in the day a second conovy appeared to the north, of 23 ships sailing from Cork to the Caribbean escorted by the frigates HMS Arethusa under Captain Charles Brisbane, HMS Boadicea under Captain John Maitland and the brig HMS Wasp. With Willaumez distracted, Leissegues ordered his squadron in pursuit.

Willaumez's ships captured a number of stragglers from Redmill's convoy and managed to isolate Sirius, which only just escaped after narrowly avoiding an unequal encounter with four French ships of the line. With the convoy dispersed, Willaumez gathered his scattered forces and despatched the frigate Volontaire to the Spanish island of Tenerife with the prizes, before turning the remainder of his squadron southwards for his designsted cruising grounds. To the north, Leissegues gradually approached Brisbane's convoy during the night but did not close with him until the morning of 16 December. In response, Brisbane formed his three warships into a line of battle, accompanied by three of the larger merchant ships. This force could not hope to resist Leissegues' main force, but would enable the 17 other vessels to escape by blocking the French squadron's frigates from chasing them. Ignoring the escaping convoy, Leissegues formed his own line of battle and continued to close with Brisbane, whose faster ships steadily pulled away from the French throughout the day. As darkness fell, Leissegues abandoned the pursuit and turned to the south and Brisbane immediately despatched Boadicea to Brest and Wasp to the blockade squadrons along the Atlantic Seaboard with urgent warnings of the French operations in the Eastern Atlantic. Brisbane himself remained in distant contact with Leissegues for another day before the French squadron sheered away. Brisbane continued southwards with the remainder of his convoy, seeking the British blocakde squadron at Cadiz.

Duckworth's cruise

On 20 November 1805, a French squadron under Contre-Admiral Zacharie Allemand encountered a British convoy off the Savage Islands. Allemand had sailed from Rochefort in July 1805 and raided across the North Atlantic during the autumn. His squadron was on the return journey to France when he encountered the convoy, consisting of six merchant ships sailing from Britain to Gorée under the escort of the brig HMS Lark under Commander Frederick Langford. Langford gave orders for his convoy to scatter as the French approached, Lark turning northwards in search of the Cadiz squadron and reaching it under Rear-Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth on 26 November. The British admiral immediately sailed in pursuit, leaving only two frigates to watch Cadiz in his absence.

Sailing south from Cadiz, Duckworth's squadron reached Madeira on 5 December, passing Tenerife ten days later without sighting any French ships. Continuing south to the Cape Verde Islands, Duckworth reluctantly conceeded that the French squadron had escaped and retired northwards until he encountered Brisbane's reduced convoy on 23 December. Tracking the presumed course of Leissegues' ships, Duckworth continued northwards on a course that would intercept the French squadron. At 06:45 on 25 December, at , approximately Vorlage:Convert northwest of the Canary Islands, lookouts in Duckworth's squadron spotted nine sails in the distance. As Allemand's squadron was estimated to have approximately nine ships, Duckworth initially believed that his enemy was Allemand, possibly accompanied by prizes captured on his cruise, although as he closed with the French it became clear that this was a different squadron altogether. In fact his target was Willaumez, and despite the French admiral's efforts, Duckworth was steadily gaining on him, the ships of the line HMS Superb, HMS Spencer and HMS Agamemnon outstripping the rest of the British squadron.

By 13:00 on 26 December, the flagship Superb was just Vorlage:Convert behind the rearmost French ship, with Spencer Vorlage:Convert further back and Agamemon another Vorlage:Convert distant. The rest of the squadron was more than Vorlage:Convert behind the leaders, almost completely out of sight, with the rearmost ship HMS Donegal more than Vorlage:Convert behind Superb. The more compact French squadron was therefore at an advantage, the British unable to bring a powerful enough force to engage them in battle and the distance between the individual ships of the British squadron far too great to allow them to provide mutual support if Willaumez turned to face them. Therefore, to the fury of his officers, Duckworth called off the pusuit. This decision was heavily criticised, both at the time and subsequently: historian William James commenting that "had the Superb brought to action, as in the course of a few hours she might, the sternmost French ship . . . the issue, in all reasonable calculation, would have been favourable to the British".

Gathering his scattered squadron, Duckworth despatched the frigate HMS Amethyst to Britain with the news of the French activity in the Eastern Atlantic, his message suggesting that the French were probably destined for the Dutch East Indies. He himself turned southwest towards the Leeward Islands, where he could resupply his ships in preparation for resuming the blockade at Cadiz. On 2 January 1806 he ordered HMS Powerful under Captain Robert Plampin to sail for the Indian Ocean and reinforce the British squadron there in case Willaumez's squadron reached Asian waters.

British response

Word of the French breakout did not reach Britain until 24 December, when a cartel arrived from Gibraltar with the news. The report understated the size of the French forces, claiming seven rather than eleven ships of the line had broken out, with four frigates. Recognising his error in withdrawing the blockade, Barham immediately ordered two squadrons to prepare for sea: one under Vice-Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren gathered at Spithead, including the second rate HMS London and six other ships of the line. The other formed in Cawsand Bay under Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Strachan and consisted of the second rate HMS St George and five other ships of the line. Both were ordered to cruise the mid-Atlantic in search of the missing squadron, Warren in the vicinity of Madeira and subsequently the West Indies, eventually joining with the squadrons there under Rear-Admiral Alexander Cochrane and Vice-Admiral James Richard Dacres. Strachan was to pass Saint Helena and cruise the West African coast to the Cape of Good Hope, guarding the vital trade route in the Eastern Atlantic that connected Britain with India. If he was unable to discover the French he was instructed to attach his squadron to that under Commodore Sir Home Riggs Popham that had been sent to invade the Dutch base at the Cape of Good Hope in the autumn of 1805.

Battle of San Domingo

On 12 January 1806, Duckworth's squadron anchored in Carlisle Bay, Barbados, sending HMS Acasta to St. Kitts for additional water supplies. On 19 January the whole squadron sailed to Basseterre at St. Kitts, where they anchored and took on fresh food and water supplies. On 21 January two ships of the West Indian squadron joined them: HMS Northumberland under Captain John Morrison and HMS Atlas under Captain Samuel Pym. Northumberland was the flagship of Rear-Admiral Alexander Cochrane, who met Duckworth but had no new information about French movements in the region. In fact, Leissegues had arrived in the Caribbean on 20 January, his passage delayed and his ships damaged and dispersed by a series of winter storms off the Azores since departing from Brisbane's convoy in December. Disembarking the troops at Santo Domingo, the French admiral made repairs to his ships, awaited the arrival of the missing Alexandre and Brave, and took on supplies over the next two weeks in preparation for raiding operations in the West Indies.

On 1 February, the British sloop HMS Kingfisher arrived at St. Kitts with news that three French ships of the line had been spotted off Santo Domingo. Duckworth immediately weighted anchor and sailed for the port, passing St. Thomas on 3 February and though the Mona Passage the following day. On 5 February, the frigate HMS Magicienne under Captain Adam Mackenzie joined the squadron, accompanied by a captured Danish schooner that had recently departed Santo Domingo and whose crew were able to give a precise account of the French squadron at anchor in the harbour. Before the Danish ship had left port, a number of French officers had been concerned that the schooner might reveal details of their presence to the British and had demanded that Leissegues seize and burn the schooner, but the admiral had refused.

In the early morning of 6 February 1806, Duckworth's scouting frigates sighted Leissegues' squadron off the port of Santo Domingo. French lookouts reported the British squadron to the admiral, who ordered his ships to sail in a line of battle westwards along the coast, in the direction of Nizao. Duckworth closed with Leissegues' leading ships in his flagship Superb, followed by Cochrane in Northumberland and Spencer. The rest of the ships formed a second division led by Rear-Admiral Thomas Louis in HMS Canopus, which rapidly fell behind the leading division. At 10:10, Duckworth opened fire on Alexandre, while Northumberland and Spencer engaged the next two French ships in line, Leissegues' flagship Impérial and Diomède. Within 15 minutes, Alexandre had fallen out of the line and taken Spencer with her, while Northumberland had suffered severe damage from Impérial's heavy gun batteries. At 10:35, Louis' squadron arrived, each ship raking Alexandre as they passed and leaving her dismasted and shattered. Canopus then passed on towards the melee surrounding Impérial while HMS Donegal targeted Brave and HMS Atlas attacked Jupiter, both of which rapidly surrendered, followed by Alexandre.

With the French rear defeated, the remaining British ships focused their attack on Impérial and Diomède, the intense smoke blocked the British view and caused Atlas to collide with Canopus, while fire from Impérial disabled Northumberland. Surrounded by enemies and with escape impossible, Leissegues' decided to drive his remaining ships on shore rather than surrender. Steering for the beach and closely pursued by Canopus, both Impérial and Diomède were deliberately grounded at 11:30. With the enemy line destroyed, Duckworth anchored offshore to observe French activity on the grounded ships and conduct hasty repairs. Out of range of British fire, small boats evacuated most of the remaining sailors from Impérial and Diomède, which had lost all their masts and were rapidly filling with water. When Duckworth sent in his frigates on 8 February it was clear that both ships were beyond repair, the British boarding parties removing the remaining 156 crew as prisoners and setting fire to the hulls. British casualties in the engagement had been 74 killed and 264 wounded, while the French total was estimated as 1,510 although accurate counts were not taken in the aftermath of the battle.

With his enemy defeated, Duckworth detached Northumberland and HMS Agamemnon to Barbados and took the rest of the squadron to Jamaica with the prizes. There he was acclaimed, and his victory was also celebrated in Britain when the news reached Europe in the brig HMS Kingfisher. Awards were distributed among the officers of the squadron but Duckworth was overlooked: his abandonment of Cadiz and the failure to bring Willaumez to battle in December had earned the emnity of Lord Collingwood, commander in chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, who blocked any awards to his subordinate. Historians William James and William Laird Clowes both suggest that if Duckworth had not been victorious at San Domingo then he would probably have faced a court martial.

Willaumez's cruise

South Atlantic

After outrunning Duckworth on 26 December, Willaumez sailed for the South Atlantic, intending to pass into the Indian Ocean and cruise off the Cape of Good Hope in anticipation of the arrival of the British China Fleet. The China Fleet was a large annual convoy of East Indiamen that originated in Canton and passed through the Malacca Straits, across the Indian Ocean, round the Cape of Good Hope and then north through the Atlantic Ocean, arriving in British waters six to eight months after departure. During the passage, the convoy gathered ships from the various British colonies in the Indian Ocean and by the time it passed the southern tip of Africa it often contained dozens of ships. By combining the heavy armaments of the East Indiamen with a strong Royal Navy escort, the China Fleet became a formidable target for French raiding squadrons: at the Battle of Pulo Aura in February 1804, an unescorted China Fleet drove off a powerful French squadron under Contre-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Durand Linois after a sharp encounter.

Willaumez had planned to resupply his squadron at the Cape itself before searching for the China Fleet, but the crew of a merchant ship captured in the South Atlantic informed him that the Dutch governors had surrendered on 10 January 1806 to an expeditionary force under General Sir David Baird and Admiral Popham after five days of fighting. Turning away from the Cape, Willaumez decided to continue operations in the South Atlantic until April, when he put into Salvador in Brazil for supplies. Willaumez was perhaps fortunte to have collected this information before attempting to anchor in Table Bay: Popham had ordered all ships and shore facilities to continue to fly the Dutch flag in the hope that enemy ships would be lured within range of the port's gun batteries. On 4 March this ruse worked successfully when the frigate Volontaire, detached from Willaumez's squadron in December, anchored in the midst of Popham's squadron without realising their identity. Hopelessly outnumbered, Captain Bretel immediately surrendered, the British boarding party discovering 217 British soldiers in the hold, captured by Willaumez from Redmill's convoy in December.

Destruction of Linois

While Willaumez operated in the South Atlantic, the British squadrons under Strachan and Warren hunted for him hundreds of miles to the north. Warren's squadron cruised the eastern Atlantic, monitoring the trade routes than ran along the coast of West Africa while Strachan focused on the western Atlantic, particularly the southern aproaches to the Caribbean. Although neither was in a position to intercept Willaumez until he began the return journey north, Warren's position afforded him the opportunity to watch for any French or allied vessels returning to Europe from the East. On 16 March 1806, at 03:00 lookouts on HMS London reported sails to the northeast and Captain Sir Harry Burrard-Neale ordered his ship in pursuit. Although no other ships in the squadron could see anything, Warren gave the order to follow London in case the sails proved to be French.

The distant ships were in fact the remains of Linois's squadron, which had put to sea on 13 March 1803 and operated in the Indian Ocean ever since, conducting a string of commerce raids that achieved minimal success: hampered by both the lack of naval stores at Île de France and Linois's hesitation in the face of the enemy, the squadron had missed opportunities at Pulo Aura and the Battle of Vizagapatam in 1804 and in 1805 against a conovy escorted by Sir Thomas Troubridge. Much reduced by detachments and shipwreck, Linois's squadron now consisted only of his flagship ship of the line Marengo and the frigate Belle Poule. At 03:00 on 13 March, lookouts on Marengo sighted sails to the southwest and despite his officer's misgivings Linois ordered Marengo to investigate in the hope that he had discovered another merchant convoy.

At 05:30, London and Marengo almost collided in the darkness, Linois recognising the ships as a Royal Navy second rate and desperately turning away in an effort to escape. Marengo was too slow however and Neale opened fire, rapidly inflicting serious damage to the French flagship. Captain Bruilhac on Belle Poule assisted his admiral for as long as possible, but at 06:15 swung away with British frigate HMS Amazon pursuing closely. The fighting continued for another four and a half hours as Linois defended his ship against mounting odds as the rest of Warren's squadron came into range while Amazon succeeded in catching Belle Poule, the British frigate inflicting serious damage on the French ship as she closed. Unable to escape or continue the fight, both Linois and Bruilhac surrendered at 11:00, although the French admiral had been severely wounded and taken below. French losses were 69 killed and 106 wounded to British casualties of 13 killed and 27 wounded, the British making use of their significant advantage in ships and guns to overwhelm the French squadron. Following the engagement Warren returned to Britain with his prizes, leaving the eastern half of the Atlantic temporarily unguarded.

Willaumez in the Caribbean

By the beginning of April 1806, Strachan was the only British admiral still hunting for Willaumez's squadron following the withdrawal of Duckworth and Warren after their victories. Strachan's squadron was hampered in its movements by the presence of the 98-gun HMS St George, which was too slow for operations with a fast response force like Strachan's. Returning to Britain in early April, Strachan detached St George and HMS Centaur (the new flagship of the Rochefort blockade) at Plymouth and was joined by three additional ships of the line and two frigates, all fast ships capable of extended operations. In early May, news reached Britain of Willaumez's stay at Salvador and his subsequent departure in mid-April and Strachan was again ordered in pursuit, sailing for the West Indies.

On leaving Brazil, Willaumez first steered for the French colony of Cayenne, were he divided his ships into three squadrons to increase his raiding operations throughout the West Indies. In May he briefly considered an attack on Carlisle Bay, Barbados, but withdrew claiming that the wind and tide were against him. Cochrane, whose squadron was based at Carlisle Bay came out in pursuit of the French and almost captured Jérôme Bonaparte in Vétéran with his flagship Northumberland, forcing the French ship to withdraw to Fort Royal on Martinique on 9 June. Cochrane blockaded the port and was joined by HMS Elephant under Captain George Dundas and HMS Canada under Captain John Harvey, but Northumberland was damaged by a storm and the British temporarily withdrew to Saint Lucia, allowing Éole and Impétueux to reach Fort Royal on 15 June. Over the following week the rest of Willaumez's squadron joined Vétéran, ignoring Cochrane's efforts to intercept his ships as they entered the harbour.

On 1 July Willaumez left Fort Royal and sailed to Monserrat, seizing three merchant ships in the harbour. Urgent messages were sent by the British governor on Monserrat to Nevis and St. Kitts, the authorities there hastily evacuating a 65-ship convoy anchored at Sandy Point under the meagre protection of the 28-gun frigate HMS Carysfort under Captain Kenneth McKenzie. However, 13 ships from other harbours missed the warning and on 3 July four ships detached from Willaumez's squadron the day before descended on the islands, seizing four vessels on Nevis and then attacking the remaining nine that were gathered under Brimstone Hill. The attacking French ships were driven off by gunfire from the Brimstone Hill batteries and on 4 July Willaumez rejoined the squadron from Monserrat with news that the annual Jamaica convoy, a huge collection of nearly 300 merchant ships that sailed each year from the Caribbean to Britain during the summer, was anchored off Tortola. Cochrane had already recognised the danger to the Jamaica squadron and had overtaken Willaumez while he was at Monserrat, waiting for the French squadron off St. Thomas with four ships of the line and four frigates. On 6 July Willaumez sighted Cochrane south-east of St. Thomas and, heeding his orders from Napoleon not to risk battle, turned away and passed between St. Thomas and the Passage Islands. With the French driven off, Cochrane sailed to Tortola where the convoy was making final preparations for the journey to Europe.

Frustrated in his efforts to intercept the convoy at anchor, Willaumez determined to meet it at sea, sailing to the Bahama Banks. There he waited for the convoy, seizing any ships that came within sight of his squadron, including neutral vessels, in case they revealed his position. For several weeks Willaumez's lookouts saw nothing, the British holding the convoy back until they were certain of the location of the French squadron. During the night of 31 July, bored with waiting for the convoy,