Invasion of Jersey | |||||||
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Part of the American Revolutionary War | |||||||
![]() Major Moses Corbet, Lieutenant Governor of Jersey, Phillippe Jean | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Strength | |||||||
78th Regiment Jersey Militia | Several warships | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Unknown wounded | 15-18 drowned 20 captured |
The Invasion of Jersey was a failed French attack on British-held Jersey in 1779, during the American Revolutionary War.
A letter from Major Moses Corbet, Lieutenant Governor of Jersey, reported that on 1 May 1779, a French force attempted a landing at St Ouen's Bay. Early that morning, lookouts sighted five large vessels and a great number of boats some three leagues off the coast, proceeding towards the coast in order by a coup de main to effect a landing. Guns on the cutters, and small craft supporting the landing, fired grapeshot at the defenders on the coast. By fast marching, the 78th Regiment of Foot and Jersey militia had arrived in time to oppose the landing, dragging with them some field artillery through the sand of the beaches. The defenders were able to prevent the landing, suffering only a few men wounded when a cannon burst. [1]
As the tide was ebbing, the French warships could not get close enough to support any landing, and without their support, the captains of the transports were unwilling to bring their vessels inshore. By some reports, the first and only vessel that attempted to land was either struck with a shot or dashed upon a rock. Twenty men got ashore and surrendered, 15 or 18 men drowned, and the rest got off safe. The French vessels held off a league from the coast, but eventually left the area.
On 2 May, a vessel from Jersey fell in with a convoy under Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot that had left Spithead en route to North America. Arbuthnot sent the convoy to Torbay and proceeded to the relief of Jersey with his ships. However, when he arrived, he found that Captain Ford of HMS Unicorn had the situation well in hand. [1] Arbuthnot returned to his convoy, but his deviation resulted in the convoy not clearing the Channel until end of June, with consequent hardship for the troops in North America who were awaiting it. [2]
On 13 May Captain Sir James Wallace captured the French frigate Danae, and a brig and cutter, in Cancale Bay. [3] The squadron had sailed to the relief of Jersey after the failed French invasion.
In 1787 the British placed a battery of three 24-pounder guns on the spot where the Rector of St Ouen, le Sire du Parcq, had placed guns to repulse the French attack. In 1834, the British built a Martello tower there. Known as Lewis Tower (or St Ouen's No. 1), it survives to this day. During the German occupation of the Channel Islands 1940–1945, the Germans built a large bunker next to Lewis Tower; today it houses the Channel Islands Military Museum.
The Sea Fencibles were naval fencible units established to provide a close-in line of defence and obstruct the operation of enemy shipping, principally during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
Admiral of the Red Sir William Cornwallis, was a Royal Navy officer. He was the brother of Charles Cornwallis, the 1st Marquess Cornwallis, British commander at the siege of Yorktown. Cornwallis took part in a number of decisive battles including the siege of Louisbourg in 1758, when he was 14, and the Battle of the Saintes but is best known as a friend of Lord Nelson and as the commander-in-chief of the Channel Fleet during the Napoleonic Wars. He is depicted in the Horatio Hornblower novel, Hornblower and the Hotspur.
The Battle of Jersey took place on 6 January 1781 when French forces during the Anglo-French War (1778–1783) and the American Revolutionary War unsuccessfully invaded the British-ruled island of Jersey to remove the threat it posed to French and American shipping. Jersey provided a base for British privateers.
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HMS Lizard was a 28-gun Coventry-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, in service from 1757 to 1828. Named after the Lizard, a peninsula in southern Cornwall, she was a broad-beamed and sturdy vessel designed for lengthy periods at sea. Her crewing complement was 200 and, when fully equipped, she was armed with 24 nine-pounder cannons, supported by four three-pounders and twelve 1⁄2-pounder swivel guns. Despite her sturdy build, she was plagued with maintenance problems and had to be repeatedly removed from service for repair.
HMS Success was a 32-gun Amazon-class fifth-rate frigate of the British Royal Navy launched in 1781, which served during the American Revolutionary, French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The French captured her in the Mediterranean on 13 February 1801, but she was recaptured by the British on 2 September. She continued to serve in the Mediterranean until 1811, and in North America until hulked in 1814, then serving as a prison ship and powder hulk, before being broken up in 1820.
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HMS Harpy was a Royal Navy Diligence-class brig-sloop, launched in 1796 and sold in 1817. She was the longest lived vessel of her class, and the most widely travelled. She served in both the battle of Copenhagen and the British invasion of Java, took part in several actions, one of which won for her crew a clasp to the Naval General Service Medal, and captured numerous privateers. The Navy sold her in 1817.
HMS Pearl was a fifth-rate, 32-gun British Royal Navy frigate of the Niger-class. Launched at Chatham Dockyard in 1762, she served in British North America until January 1773, when she sailed to England for repairs. Returning to North America in March 1776, to fight in the American Revolutionary War, Pearl escorted the transports which landed troops in Kip's Bay that September. Much of the following year was spent on the Delaware River where she took part in the Battle of Red Bank in October. Towards the end of 1777, Pearl joined Vice-Admiral Richard Howe's fleet in Narragansett Bay and was still there when the French fleet arrived and began an attack on British positions. Both fleets were forced to retire due to bad weather and the action was inconclusive. Pearl was then despatched to keep an eye on the French fleet, which had been driven into Boston.
HMS Roebuck was a fifth-rate ship of the Royal Navy which served in the American and French Revolutionary Wars. Designed in 1769 by Sir Thomas Slade to operate in the shallower waters of North America, she joined Lord Howe's squadron towards the end of 1775 and took part in operations against New York the following year. She engaged the American gun batteries at Red Hook during the Battle of Long Island in August 1776, and forced a passage up the Hudson River in October. On 25 August 1777, Roebuck escorted troopships to Turkey Point, Maryland, where an army was landed for an assault on Philadelphia. She was again called upon to accompany troopships in December 1779, this time for an attack on Charleston. When the ships-of-the-line, which were too large to enter the harbour, were sent back to New York, Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot made Roebuck his flagship. She was, therefore, at the front of the attack, leading the British squadron across the shoal to engage Fort Moultrie and the American ships beyond.
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