Scipion was a 74-gun French ship of the line, built at Lorient to a design by Jacques Noel Sane. She was laid down as Orient in late 1798, and renamed Scipion in 1801. She was first commissioned in 1802 and joined the French Mediterranean fleet based at Toulon, in the squadron of Admiral Leissègues. Consequently, she was one of the ships afloat in that port when war with England reopened in May 1803. She participated in the Battle of Cape Finisterre and the Battle of Trafalgar. The British captured her in the subsequent Battle of Cape Ortegal. In 1810 she participated in the Java campaign, which in 1847 earned her surviving crew the Naval General Service Medal. She participated in the blockade of Toulon in 1813 and was paid off in 1814. She was broken up in 1819.
Julien Marie Cosmao-Kerjulien was a French Navy officer, admiral, best remembered for his role in the Battle of Trafalgar.
Robuste was an 80-gun Bucentaure-class 80-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, designed by Jacques-Noël Sané.
Troude's expedition to the Caribbean was a naval operation by a French force under Commodore Amable-Gilles Troude during the Napoleonic Wars. The French squadron departed from Lorient in February 1809 in an attempt to reach and resupply the island colony of Martinique in the Caribbean Sea, then under invasion from a British expeditionary force. The force arrived much too late to affect the outcome of the successful invasion and took shelter from a British squadron in the Îles des Saintes, where they were blockaded by part of the British invasion fleet, led by Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane. Two weeks after the French ships arrived, British troops invaded and captured the Saintes, constructing mortar batteries to bombard the French squadron. With his position unsustainable, Commodore Troude decided to break out.
The Atlantic campaign of 1806 was one of the most important and complex naval campaigns of the post-Trafalgar Napoleonic Wars. Seeking to take advantage of the withdrawal of British forces from the Atlantic in the aftermath of the Battle of Trafalgar, Emperor Napoleon ordered two battle squadrons to sea from the fleet stationed at Brest, during December 1805. Escaping deep into the Atlantic, these squadrons succeeded in disrupting British convoys, evading pursuit by British battle squadrons and reinforcing the French garrison at Santo Domingo. The period of French success was brief: on 6 February 1806 one of the squadrons, under Vice-Admiral Corentin Urbain Leissègues, was intercepted by a British squadron at the Battle of San Domingo and destroyed, losing all five of its ships of the line.
The action of 13 March 1806 was a naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars, fought when a British and a French squadron met unexpectedly in the mid-Atlantic. Neither force was aware of the presence of the other prior to the encounter and were participating in separate campaigns. The British squadron consisted of seven ships of the line accompanied by associated frigates, led by Rear-Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, were tasked with hunting down and destroying the French squadron of Contre-Admiral Jean-Baptiste Willaumez, which had departed Brest for raiding operations in the South Atlantic in December 1805, at the start of the Atlantic campaign of 1806. The French force consisted of one ship of the line and one frigate, all that remained of Contre-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Durand Linois' squadron that had sailed for the Indian Ocean in March 1803 during the Peace of Amiens. Linois raided British shipping lanes and harbours across the region, achieving limited success against undefended merchant ships but repeatedly withdrawing in the face of determined opposition, most notably at the Battle of Pulo Aura in February 1804. With his stores almost exhausted and the French ports east of the Cape of Good Hope that could have offered him replenishment eliminated, Linois decided to return to France in January 1806, and by March was inadvertently sailing across the cruising ground of Warren's squadron.
L'Hermite's expedition was a French naval operation launched in 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars. The operation was intended as both a commerce raiding operation against the British trading posts of West Africa and as a diversion to the Trafalgar campaign. Sailing from Lorient in October 1805 with one ship of the line, two frigates and a corvette, Commodore Jean-Marthe-Adrien L'Hermite was under orders to intercept and destroy British traders and slave ships off the West African coast and await reinforcements under Jérôme Bonaparte which were to be used in the invasion and capture of one of the British trading forts for use as a permanent French naval base from which further raiding operations could be conducted. It was also hoped by the French naval command that L'Hermite might draw some of the large British fleet maintained off Cadiz away from the blockade to allow the French and Spanish allied fleet trapped in the harbour to escape.
The action of 18 October 1806 was a minor naval engagement during the Napoleonic Wars, fought between the British Royal Navy frigate HMS Caroline and a Dutch squadron at the entrance to Batavia harbour on Java in the Dutch East Indies. During the battle the Dutch frigate Maria Riggersbergen was left unsupported by the remainder of the squadron and, isolated, was forced to surrender. Captain Peter Rainier, the British commander, was subsequently free to remove his prize from within sight of the Dutch port when the remainder of the Dutch squadron refused to engage Caroline and their crews deliberately grounded the ships to avoid capture. He also returned many prisoners taken previously in a captured brig.
The action of 26 July 1806 was a minor naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars fought off the southern coast of the island of Celebes in the Dutch East Indies. During the battle, a small British squadron attacked and defeated a Dutch force defending a valuable convoy, which was also captured. The British force—consisting of the frigate HMS Greyhound and brig-sloop HMS Harrier under the command of Captain Edward Elphinstone—was initially wary of the Dutch, mistaking the Dutch East Indiaman merchant ship Victoria for a ship of the line. Closer observation revealed the identity of the Dutch vessels the following day and Elphinstone led his frigate against the leading Dutch warship Pallas while Harrier engaged the merchant vessels and forced them to surrender. Only the corvette William escaped, taking no part in the engagement.
The Java campaign of 1806–1807 was a minor campaign during the Napoleonic Wars by British Royal Navy forces against a naval squadron of the Kingdom of Holland, a client state of the French Empire, based on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies. Seeking to eliminate any threat to valuable British merchant convoys passing through the Malacca Straits, Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Pellew determined in early 1806 that the Dutch naval forces based at Java, which included several ships of the line and three frigates, had to be defeated to ensure British dominance in the region. Lacking the forces to effect an invasion of the Dutch colony, Pellew instead sought to isolate and blockade the Dutch squadron based at Batavia in preparation for raids specifically targeting the Dutch ships with his main force.
The Raid on Griessie was a British attack on the Dutch port of Griessie on Java in the Dutch East Indies in December 1807 during the Napoleonic Wars. The raid was the final action in a series of engagements fought by the British squadron based in the Indian Ocean against the Dutch naval forces in Java. It completed the destruction of the Dutch squadron with the scuttling of three ships of the line, the last Dutch warships in the region. The British squadron—under the command of Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Pellew—sought to eliminate the Dutch to safeguard the trade route with China, which ran through the Straits of Malacca and were in the range of Dutch raiders operating from the principal Javan port of Batavia. In the summer of 1806, British frigates reconnoitred Javan waters and captured two Dutch frigates, encouraging Pellew to lead a major attack on Batavia that destroyed the last Dutch frigate and several smaller warships. Before the Batavia raid, however, Dutch Rear-Admiral Hartsinck had ordered his ships of the line to sail eastwards, where they took shelter at Griessie, near Sourabaya.
Sir George Eyre was an officer of the Royal Navy who saw service during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, eventually rising to the rank of Vice-Admiral of the Red.
Ganteaume's expeditions of 1801 were three connected major French Navy operations of the spring of 1801 during the French Revolutionary Wars. A French naval squadron from Brest under Contre-amiral Honoré Ganteaume, seeking to reinforce the besieged French garrison in Ottoman Egypt, made three separate but futile efforts to reach the Eastern Mediterranean. The French army in Egypt had been trapped there shortly after the start of the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt in 1798, when the French Mediterranean Fleet was destroyed at the Battle of the Nile. Since that defeat, the French Navy had maintained only a minimal presence in the Mediterranean Sea, while the more numerous British and their allies had succeeded in blockading and defeating several French bases almost unopposed.
The action of 24 June 1801 was a minor naval engagement during the French Revolutionary Wars. A British ship of the line, HMS Swiftsure under Captain Benjamin Hallowell was passing westwards through the Southern Mediterranean near Cape Derna when it encountered a much larger French squadron under Contre-Amiral Honoré Ganteaume that was also returning westwards after a failed attempt to reinforce the besieged French garrison in Egypt. Although Hallowell immediately recognised the danger his vessel was in and turned to flee, the French ships were much faster and soon closed with his ship. At 14:00, three French vessels were within long gunshot and Hallowell decided that his only hope of escape lay in disabling the three ships before the rest of the French squadron could join the engagement. Turning towards the enemy, Hallowell found that his sluggish ship was unable to respond rapidly to French manoeuvres and within two hours Swiftsure was surrounded. Threatened with complete destruction and unable to escape, the British captain surrendered.
The Algeciras campaign was an attempt by a French naval squadron from Toulon under Contre-Admiral Charles Linois to join a French and Spanish fleet at Cadiz during June and July 1801 during the French Revolutionary Wars prior to a planned operation against either Egypt or Portugal. To reach Cadiz, the French squadron had to pass the British naval base at Gibraltar, which housed the squadron tasked with blockading Cadiz. The British squadron was commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir James Saumarez. After a successful voyage between Toulon and Gibraltar, in which a number of British vessels were captured, the squadron anchored at Algeciras, a fortified port city within sight of Gibraltar across Gibraltar Bay. On 6 July 1801, Saumarez attacked the anchored squadron, in the First Battle of Algeciras. Although severe damage was inflicted on all three French ships of the line, none could be successfully captured and the British were forced to withdraw without HMS Hannibal, which had grounded and was subsequently seized by the French.
Sir Henry Heathcote was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
The Croisière de Bruix was the principal naval campaign of the year 1799 during the French Revolutionary Wars. The expedition began in April 1799 when the bulk of the French Atlantic Fleet under Vice-Admiral Étienne Eustache Bruix departed the base at Brest, evading the British Channel Fleet which was blockading the port and tricking the commander Admiral Lord Bridport into believing their true destination was Ireland. Passing southwards, the French fleet narrowly missed joining with an allied Spanish Navy squadron at Ferrol and was prevented by an easterly gale from uniting with the main Spanish fleet at Cádiz before entering the Mediterranean Sea. The Mediterranean was under British control following the destruction of the French Mediterranean Fleet at the Battle of the Nile in August 1798, and a British fleet nominally under Admiral Earl St Vincent was stationed there. Due however to St. Vincent's ill-health, operational control rested with Vice-Admiral Lord Keith. As Keith sought to chase down the French, the Spanish fleet followed Bruix into the Mediterranean before being badly damaged in a gale and sheltering in Cartagena.
The action of 27 February 1809 was a minor naval engagement during the French Revolutionary Wars. Two 44-gun frigates, Pénélope and Pauline, sortied from Toulon harbour to chase a British frigate, HMS Proserpine, which was conducting surveillance of French movements. First sneaking undetected and later trying to pass herself as a British frigate coming to relieve Proserpine, Pénélope approached within gun range before being identified. With the help of Pauline, she subdued Proserpine and forced her to surrender after a one-hour fight.
The Mediterranean campaign of 1793–1796 was a major theater of conflict in the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars. Fought during the War of the First Coalition, the campaign was primarily contested in the Western Mediterranean between the French Navy's Mediterranean Fleet, based at Toulon in Southern France, and the British Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet, supported by the Spanish Navy and the smaller navies of several Italian states. Major fighting was concentrated in the Ligurian Sea, and focused on British maintenance of and French resistance to a British close blockade of the French Mediterranean coast. Additional conflict spread along Mediterranean trade routes, contested by individual warships and small squadrons.
Ganteaume's expedition of 1795 was a French naval operation in the Aegean Sea in the autumn of 1795 during the French Revolutionary Wars. Commanded by Commodore Honoré Ganteaume in the ship of the line Républicain, with a squadron of four frigates and two corvettes, the French force was ordered to attack First Coalition shipping in the Aegean Sea. The principal target was the Ottoman city of Smyrna, the most significant trading port of the region, Ganteaume ordered to prey on merchant shipping sailing for European destinations and in particular a large convoy due to sail to Britain.
United Kingdom 
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Edward Pellew 
