HMS Neptune was a 98-gun second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She served on a number of stations during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and was present at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
HMS Speedy was a 14-gun Speedy-class brig of the British Royal Navy. Built during the last years of the American War of Independence, she served with distinction during the French Revolutionary Wars.
James Bowen was an officer of the Royal Navy.
HMS Anson was a ship of the Royal Navy, launched at Plymouth on 4 September 1781. Originally a 64-gun third rate ship of the line, she fought at the Battle of the Saintes.
Minerve was a 40-gun Minerve-class frigate of the French Navy. The British captured her twice and the French recaptured her once. She therefore served under four names before being broken up in 1814:
Révolutionnaire, was a 40-gun Seine-class frigate of the French Navy, launched in May 1794. The British captured her in October 1794 and she went on to serve with the Royal Navy until she was broken up in 1822. During this service Revolutionnaire took part in numerous actions, including three for which the Admiralty would in 1847 award clasps to the Naval General Service Medal, and captured several privateers and merchant vessels.
William Brown was an officer of the British Royal Navy who served in increasingly senior positions during a long period from the American Revolutionary War, including the French Revolutionary War, and until the Napoleonic Wars. He began his naval career as a servant to Captain Philemon Pownoll in the frigate HMS Apollo and became a midshipman after two years. He then served on HMS Resolution with Lord Robert Manners and came home with him in HMS Andromache. He spent the next five years ashore in peacetime. After a brief time on HMS Bounty he was taken off by the First Lord and moved to HMS Ariel before Bounty sailed. He was then moved to HMS Leander, where he was commissioned by Admiral Peyton in 1788. He later captained a series of ships serving in the Mediterranean Sea, the North Sea, the Channel Fleet and then the Mediterranean, again with Lord St Vincent. He captained HMS Ajax in the Blockade of Brest and the Battle of Cape Finisterre and then at Cadiz at Nelson's personal request. After Trafalgar he had a series of shore postings as Dockyard Commissioner at Malta and Shearness before being made Commander in Chief of the Channel Islands and then Jamaica where he died.
Captain Sir Thomas Staines was an officer in the Royal Navy.
In November 1798 a British expedition captured the island of Menorca from Spain. A large force under General Charles Stuart landed on the island and forced its Spanish garrison to surrender in eight days with only some bloodshed. The British occupied the island for four years, using it as a major naval base, before handing it back to Spain following the Treaty of Amiens.
HMS Argo was a 44-gun fifth-rate Roebuck-class ship of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1781 from Howdon Dock. The French captured her in 1783, but 36 hours later the British recaptured her. She then distinguished herself in the French Revolutionary Wars by capturing several prizes, though she did not participate in any major actions. She also served in the Napoleonic Wars. She was sold in 1816.
The action of 15 July 1798 was a minor naval battle of the French Revolutionary Wars, fought off the Spanish Mediterranean coast by the Royal Navy ship of the line HMS Lion under Captain Manley Dixon and a squadron of four Spanish Navy frigates under Commodore Don Felix O'Neil. Lion was one of several ships sent into the Western Mediterranean by Vice-Admiral Earl St Vincent, commander of the British Mediterranean Fleet based at the Tagus in Portugal during the late spring of 1798. The Spanish squadron was a raiding force that had sailed from Cartagena in Murcia seven days earlier, and was intercepted while returning to its base after an unsuccessful cruise. Although together the Spanish vessels outweighed the British ship, individually they were weaker and Commodore O'Neil failed to ensure that his manoeuvres were co-ordinated. As a result, one of the frigates, Santa Dorotea, fell out of the line of battle and was attacked by Lion.
HMS Santa Dorothea was a Royal Navy 34-gun fifth-rate. This frigate had previously served in the Spanish Navy under the name Santa Dorotea. Built in Spain in 1775, she served during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars until being captured while sailing as part of a squadron off Cartagena. Taken into British service, she spent the rest of the French Revolutionary and most of the Napoleonic Wars under the white ensign until being broken up in 1814.
The action of 19 February 1801 was a minor naval battle fought off Ceuta in Spanish North Africa in February 1801 between frigates of the French and Royal Navies during the French Revolutionary Wars. The engagement formed part of a series of actions fought to prevent the French from resupplying their garrison in Egypt, which had been trapped there without significant reinforcement since the defeat of the French Mediterranean Fleet at the Battle of the Nile two and a half years earlier. The leader of the Egyptian expedition, General Napoleon Bonaparte, had returned to France in 1799 and promised aid to the troops left behind, prompting several expeditions to the region carrying reinforcements.
The action of 7 April 1800 was a minor naval engagement fought between a British squadron blockading the Spanish naval base of Cádiz and a convoy of 13 Spanish merchant vessels escorted by three frigates, bound for the Spanish colonies in the Americas. The blockade squadron consisted of the ships of the line HMS Leviathan and HMS Swiftsure and the frigate HMS Emerald, commanded by Rear-Admiral John Thomas Duckworth on Leviathan. The Spanish convoy sailed from Cádiz on 3 April 1800 and encountered Duckworth's squadron two days later. The Spanish attempted to escape; Emerald succeeded in capturing one ship early on 6 April. The British captured a brig the following morning and the British squadron divided in pursuit of the remainder.
The action of 14 September 1779 was a minor naval engagement that occurred on 14 September 1779, off the Azores between the Royal Navy frigate HMS Pearl under the command of George Montagu and the Spanish Navy frigate Santa Mónica under the command of Miguel de Nunes, with the Pearl capturing the Santa Mónica after a brief engagement. The battle was an episode during the American Revolutionary War, where American rebels under the overall command of George Washington launched a revolution against the British government based on perceived grievances. Spain, having been handed a humiliating defeat during the Seven Years' War by the British, was eager to enter the war on the side of the Americans to regain the territories they had lost, such as Florida, Menorca and Gibraltar. British and Spanish naval forces engaged each other several times during the war, as the conflict spilled over into Europe with the Spanish laying siege to Gibraltar.
HMS Aurora was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, that saw service during the American and French Revolutionary wars, and the Napoleonic Wars. Designed to carry a complement of 200 men, she was armed with a main battery of twenty-four 9-pound guns.
Robert Mann was an officer of the Royal Navy. He served during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars, eventually rising to the rank of admiral of the red.
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 24 June 1795 was a minor naval engagement fought in the Western Basin of the Mediterranean Sea on 24 June 1795 during the French Revolutionary Wars. During 1795 the Royal Navy and French Navy Mediterranean Fleets were vying for supremacy in the region, the French operating from the fortified port of Toulon and the British from the allied Spanish base of Port Mahon on Menorca. A minor British victory at the Battle of Genoa in March had not resolved the conflict, both sides suffering damage. The British, under Admiral William Hotham, subsequently withdrew to Menorca to meet a squadron of reinforcements while the French, under Contre-amiral Pierre Martin at Toulon, suffering from ill-discipline, had also been reinforced. By June, both fleets were ready to return to the Ligurian Sea.
HMS Sylph was a 16-gun Albatross-class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy designed by William Rule and launched in 1795 at Deptford Dockyard. Her namesake was the air spirit sylph. She commissioned in August 1795 under Commander John Chambers White, who would have her until the end of 1799. She was later commanded by Charles Dashwood.
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