Admiral of the Red James Saumarez, 1st Baron de Saumarez, GCB was an admiral of the British Royal Navy, known for his victory at the Second Battle of Algeciras.
HMS Astraea was a 32-gun fifth rate Active-class frigate of the Royal Navy. Fabian at E. Cowes launched her in 1781, and she saw action in the American War of Independence as well as during the Napoleonic Wars. She is best known for her capture of the larger French frigate Gloire in a battle on 10 April 1795, while under the command of Captain Lord Henry Paulet. She was wrecked on 23 March 1808 off the coast of Anegada in the British Virgin Islands.
HMS Magnanime was a 64-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 14 October 1780 at Deptford Dockyard. She belonged to the Intrepid-class designed by Sir John Williams and later was razeed into a 44 gun frigate.
Rear Admiral The Hon. George Heneage Lawrence Dundas CB was a senior officer in the Royal Navy. As a junior officer he came to prominence due to his brave conduct during a fire on the first-rate HMS Queen Charlotte. As a result of this he was appointed to the command of the sixth-rate HMS Calpe in which he took part in the Battle of Algeciras Bay in July 1801 during the French Revolutionary Wars. After serving for four years as Whig Member of Parliament for Richmond, he was given command of the fifth-rate HMS Euryalus and took part in the unsuccessful Walcheren Campaign in July 1809 during the Napoleonic Wars. He transferred to the third-rate HMS Edinburgh and landed troops at Viareggio in Italy in November 1812 later in that War. He went on to be Member of Parliament for Orkney and Shetland and became First Naval Lord in the First Melbourne ministry in August 1834 but died in office just two months later in October 1834.
HMS Spencer was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 10 May 1800 at Bucklers Hard. Her designer was the French émigré shipwright Jean-Louis Barrallier. She served in two major battles, Algeciras Bay and San Domingo, and in a number of other campaigns. She was broken up in 1822.
HMS Thames was a 32-gun Richmond-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy built by Henry Adams and launched at Bucklers Hard in 1758. She served in several wars, including for some four years in French service after her capture. She was recaptured in 1796 and was broken up in 1803.
HMS Eurydice was a 24-gun Porcupine-class post ship of the Royal Navy built in 1781 and broken up in 1834. During her long career she saw service in the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. She captured a number of enemy privateers and served in the East and West Indies, the Mediterranean and British and American waters.
HMS Castor was a 32-gun Amazon-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The French briefly captured her during the Atlantic Campaign of May 1794 but she spent just 20 days in French hands as a British ship retook her before her prize crew could reach a French port. Castor eventually saw service in many of the theatres of the wars, spending time in the waters off the British Isles, in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, as well as the Caribbean.
HMS Dido was one of the twenty-seven Enterprise class of 28-gun sixth-rate frigates in service with the Royal Navy during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Dido was commissioned in September 1787 under the command of Captain Charles Sandys. She participated in a notable action for which her crew would later be awarded the Naval General Service Medal; her participation in a campaign resulted in the award of another. Dido was sold for breaking up in 1817.
HMS Druid was a 32-gun Hermione-class fifth-rate frigate of the British Royal Navy, launched in 1783 at Bristol. She served in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, capturing numerous small prizes. One of her commanders, Captain Philip Broke, described Druid as a "point of honour ship", i.e., a ship too large to run but too small to fight. He and his biographer's view was that it was a disgrace to use a ship like her as a warship. She was broken up in 1813, after a thirty-year career.
HMS Calpe was the former 14-gun polacca San José of the Spanish Navy, originally built in 1796 in Greece. The British captured her in 1800 and commissioned her as a sloop-of-war. She served at the Battle of Algeciras Bay before the Navy sold her in 1802. She underwent repairs and reappeared as a merchantman in the 1805 registers; however, she wrecked at the Dardanelles in 1805.
The Algeciras campaign, or Battles of Algeciras, was a brief naval campaign fought between a combined French and Spanish Navy force and a British Royal Navy force during 4–13 July 1801. A French squadron, seeking to join the Spanish fleet and a number of French ships of the line at the Spanish Atlantic base of Cadiz, sailed from Toulon on 13 June under Contre-amiral Charles Linois. Rounding the British naval base of Gibraltar on the southern coast of Spain on 4 July, Linois learned that a British squadron under Rear-Admiral Sir James Saumarez was on station off Cadiz. Seeking to avoid battle with Saumarez's much larger force, Linois anchored in the Spanish port of Algeciras, close to Gibraltar. Saumarez discovered Linois there on 6 July and attacked at 08:30, his ships hampered by light winds and Linois's strong defensive position.
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.
The First Battle of Algeciras was a naval battle fought on 6 July 1801 between a squadron of British Royal Navy ships of the line and a smaller French Navy squadron at anchor in the fortified Spanish port of Algeciras in the Strait of Gibraltar. The British outnumbered their opponents, but the French position was protected by Spanish gun batteries and the complicated shoals that obscured the entrance to Algeciras Bay. The French squadron, under Contre-Amiral Charles Linois, had stopped at Algeciras en route to the major Spanish naval base at Cadiz, where they were to form a combined French and Spanish fleet for operations against Britain and its allies in the French Revolutionary Wars. The British, under Rear-Admiral Sir James Saumarez, sought to eliminate the French squadron before it could reach Cadiz and form a force powerful enough to overwhelm Saumarez and launch attacks against British forces in the Mediterranean Sea.
Solomon Ferris was an officer in the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
The action of 10 April 1795 was a minor naval engagement during the French Revolutionary Wars in which a squadron of French Navy frigates was intercepted by a British battle squadron under Rear-Admiral John Colpoys which formed part of the blockade of the French naval base of Brest in Brittany. The French squadron split up in the face of superior British numbers, the three vessels seeking to divide and outrun the British pursuit. One frigate, Gloire was followed by the British frigate HMS Astraea and was ultimately brought to battle in a closely fought engagement. Although the ships were roughly equal in size, the British ship was easily able to defeat the French in an engagement lasting just under an hour.
The Second Battle of Algeciras was a naval battle fought on the night of 12 July 1801 between a squadron of British Royal Navy ships of the line and a larger squadron of ships from the Spanish Navy and French Navy in the Gut of Gibraltar.
John Loring was an officer in the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
William Taylor was an officer in the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
HMS Crescent was a 36-gun Flora-class frigate of the British Royal Navy. Launched in 1784, she spent the first years of her service on blockade duty in the English Channel where she single-handedly captured the French frigate, La Reunion. In 1795, Crescent was part of a squadron commanded by George Elphinstone, that forced the surrender of a Batavian Navy squadron at the capitulation of Saldanha Bay. After serving in the West Indies, Crescent returned to home waters and was wrecked off the coast of Jutland on 6 December 1808.
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