Battle of Guadeloupe (1779)
| Battle of Guadeloupe | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the American War of Independence | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Great Britain |
 France | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
 Joshua Rowley |
 unknown | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 3 Ships of the line | 3 Frigates | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Light | 3 frigates captured[2] | ||||||
The Battle of Guadeloupe or the Action of 21–22 December 1779 was a naval engagement that took place off the French island of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean during the American War of Independence between three Royal Navy ships and three French Navy frigates.[3] The Royal Navy under Joshua Rowley sighted and promptly chased, caught with all three subsequently captured after a brief fight.[4]
On 21 December 1779, HMS Magnificent with the 74-gun ships of the line HMS Suffolk and HMS Vengeance, and the 64-gun HMS Stirling Castle under Rear-Admiral Joshua Rowley, fell in with the 32-gun French frigates Fortunée and Blanche and the 28-gun Elise, off the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe.[2] The French ships had belonged to the Comte d Estaing's fleet.[5]
The French ships were in bad order; their crews were excessively weak; and thus they could not escape the vastly superior British force.[3] The Blanche was overtaken and captured on the evening of the 21st; the Fortunée, by throwing her quarter-deck guns overboard, kept away a little longer, but was captured at last in the early morning of 22 December, an hour before the Elise had struck.[5]
The Blanche and Fortunée were thus added to the British navy.[5]
Rowley also led his squadron to capture of a large French convoy, from Marseilles, off Martinique.[2]
References
- Citations
- ^ Marley p. 325
- ^ a b c Clarke, James Stanier & McArthur, John, Naval Chronicle Vol. 4 p.186
- ^ a b Clowes p 47
- ^ Naval Chronicle Vol. 21 p.179
- ^ a b c Allen, Joseph (1852). Battles of the British Navy, Volume 1. H.G. Bohn. p. 296.
- Bibliography
- Clowes, William Laird (1996). The Royal Navy: A History from the Earliest Times to 1900. Chatham Publishing. ISBN 9781861760104.
- Lavery, Brian (2003). The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8.
- Marley, David (2008). Wars of the Americas: A Chronology of Armed Conflict in the Western Hemisphere. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1598841008.