Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville was a French admiral and explorer. A contemporary of the British explorer James Cook, he took part in the Seven Years' War in North America and the American Revolutionary War against Britain. Bougainville later gained fame for his expeditions, including a circumnavigation of the globe in a scientific expedition in 1763, the first recorded settlement on the Falkland Islands, and voyages into the Pacific Ocean. Bougainville Island of Papua New Guinea as well as the Bougainvillea flower were named after him.
Claude-Henri Belgrand de Vaubois was a French general during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. He is best known for the surrender of Malta to the British in 1800. On 20 August 1808 he was created Comte de Belgrand de Vaubois. Later, his name was inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
Jean-Baptiste Perrée was a French Navy officer and Rear-admiral.
HMS Captain was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 26 November 1787 at Limehouse. She served during the French revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars before being placed in harbour service in 1799. An accident caused her to burn and founder in 1813. Later that year she was raised and broken up.
Étoile ("Star") was a fluyt of the French Navy. She was originally a merchantman named Placelière and was purchased by the Navy while still on the stocks. She was renamed Étoile in April 1763 and re-classed as a corvette. She is famous for being one of Louis Antoine de Bougainville's ships in his circumnavigation between 1766 and 1769, along with Boudeuse.
The Magicienne class was a class of twelve fifth rate 32-gun frigates of the French Navy, each with a main battery of 26 x 12-pounder long guns, and with 6 x 6-pounder guns on the quarterdeck and forecastle. They were designed by Joseph-Marie-Blaise Coulomb.
Courageuse was a 40-gun Virginie-class frigate of the French Navy, completed in 1794 and renamed Justice in April 1795. The British and Ottomans captured her in 1801 at the siege of Alexandria and she became a prize to the Ottomans.
Sensible was a 32-gun Magicienne-class frigate of the French Navy. The Royal Navy captured her in 1798 off Malta and took into service as HMS Sensible. She was lost in a grounding off Ceylon in 1802.
Sardine was a corvette of the French Navy, launched in 1771. The Royal Navy captured her at the Siege of Toulon but the French retook her when the Anglo-Spanish force retreated. The Royal Navy captured her again in 1796. She then served as HMS Sardine until the Royal Navy sold her in 1806.
The siege of Malta, also known as the siege of Valletta or the French blockade, was a two-year siege and blockade of the French garrison in Valletta and the Three Cities, the largest settlements and main port on the Mediterranean island of Malta, between 1798 and 1800. Malta had been captured by a French expeditionary force during the Mediterranean campaign of 1798, and garrisoned with 3,000 soldiers under the command of Claude-Henri Belgrand de Vaubois. After the British Royal Navy destroyed the French Mediterranean Fleet at the Battle of the Nile on 1 August 1798, the British were able to initiate a blockade of Malta, assisted by an uprising among the native Maltese population against French rule. After its retreat to Valletta, the French garrison faced severe food shortages, exacerbated by the effectiveness of the British blockade. Although small quantities of supplies arrived in early 1799, there was no further traffic until early 1800, by which time starvation and disease was having a disastrous effect on health, morale, and combat capability of the French troops.
Sante Elisabeth was a 32-gun frigate of the Navy of the Order of Saint John of Malta, later brought into French service as the Carthaginoise, captured by the British at the capitulation of Malta in 1800, and subsequently broken up.
Alceste was a Magicienne class frigate of the French Navy, launched in 1780, that the British seized at the Siege of Toulon. They transferred her to the Kingdom of Sardinia, but the French recaptured her a year later in the action of 8 June 1794. The British captured her again at the action of 18 June 1799 and took her into service as HMS Alceste. In 1801 she became a floating battery and she was sold the next year.
The French brig Alerte was launched in April 1787. The Royal Navy captured her at Toulon in August 1793, and renamed her HMS Vigilante. The British set her on fire when they evacuated Toulon in December of that year. After the French rebuilt her as Alerte, she served at the Battle of Aboukir Bay. The British recaptured her in June 1799 and took her into service as HMS Minorca. Minorca was sold in 1802.
Flèche was a French corvette built by Louis-Hilarion Chapelle (cadet) and launched at Toulon in 1768. The British captured her at the Fall of Bastia in May 1794 and commissioned her into the Royal Navy under her existing name. She observed the naval battle of Hyères Islands, but then wrecked in 1795.
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 18 June 1799 was a naval engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars fought off Toulon in the wake of the Mediterranean campaign of 1798. A frigate squadron under Rear-admiral Perrée, returning to Toulon from Syria, met a 30-ship British fleet under Lord Keith. Three ships of the line and two frigates detached from the British squadron, and a 28-hour running battle ensued. When the British ships overhauled them, the French frigates and brigs had no choice but to surrender, given their opponents' overwhelming strength.
HMS Vincejo, was the Spanish naval brig Vencejo, which was built c.1797, probably at Port Mahon, and that the British captured in 1799. The Royal Navy took her into service and she served in the Mediterranean where she captured a privateer and a French naval brig during the French Revolutionary Wars. After the start of the Napoleonic Wars, the French captured Vencejo in Quiberon Bay in 1804. The French Navy took her into service as Victorine, but then sold her in January 1805. She then served as the French privateer Comte de Regnaud until the British recaptured her in 1810. The Royal Navy did not take her back into service.
Matavai Bay is a bay on the north coast of Tahiti, the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia. It is in the commune of Mahina, approximately 8 km east of the capital Pape'ete.
HMS Weazel or Weazle was a 16-gun ship-sloop of the Royal Navy, in active service during the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years' War and the American Revolutionary War. Launched in 1745, she remained in British service until 1779 and captured a total of 11 enemy vessels. She was also present, but not actively engaged, at the Second Battle of Cape Finisterre in 1747.
Martin's cruise of 1794 was the only significant French naval operation of the year in the Mediterranean Sea. In 1793 France had gone to war with Great Britain and a wide coalition of European enemies in the French Revolutionary Wars. Early in the conflict the British had seized the French Mediterranean Fleet and their home port of Toulon, the town enduring a four month siege by French Republican forces in which the fleet was badly damaged. With the town and fleet back in French hands, the French set about effecting repairs as the British attacked the island of Corsica.
France
