Battle of Cape St Vincent (1797)

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Battle of Cape St. Vincent
Part of the French Revolutionary Wars
The Battle of Cape St Vincent, 14 February 1797 by Robert Cleveley
Date 14 February 1797 Location Near Cape St. Vincent, Portugal Result British victory
Combatants
Britain	Spain
Commanders
John Jervis	José de Córdoba
Strength
15 ships of the line	24 ships of the line
Casualties
73 dead 327 wounded	4 ships captured 250 dead 550 wounded

The naval Battle of Cape St Vincent took place on 14 February 1797, near Cape St. Vincent, Portugal, between a British fleet and a Spanish fleet and was an important battle during the Wars of the French Revolution.

[edit] Origins

The Spanish declaration of war on Britain and Portugal in October 1796 made the British position in the Mediterranean untenable. The combined Franco-Spanish fleet of 38 of the line heavily outnumbered the British Mediterranean Fleet of 15 of the line, forcing the British to evacuate their positions in first Corsica and then Elba. Early in 1797, the Spanish fleet of 27 ships of the line, which were supposed to join the French fleet at Brest lay at Cartagena, on the Mediterranean Sea, with the intention of sailing to Cádiz as an escort of a 57 merchant convoy, mainly of mercury –necessary to amalgamate gold-, which would eventually enter that Spanish harbour along with war ships Neptuno, Terrible and Bahama, prior to running into the British force.

Don José de Cordóba and the Spanish fleet left Cartagena on February 1 and might have reached Cádiz safely but for a fierce Levanter, the easterly wind, blowing between Gibraltar and Cádiz, which pushed the Spanish fleet further out into the Atlantic than intended. As the winds died down, the fleet began working its way back to Cádiz.

In the meantime, the British Mediterranean Fleet, under Admiral Sir John Jervis, had sailed from the Tagus with 10 ships of the line to try to intercept the Spanish fleet. On February 6, Jervis was joined off Cape St. Vincent by a reinforcement of five ships of the line from the Channel Fleet under Rear-Admiral William Parker.

On 11 February, the British frigate Minerve, under the command of Commodore Horatio Nelson, passed through the Spanish fleet unseen thanks to heavy fog. Nelson reached the British fleet of 15 ships off Spain on February 13, and passed the location of the Spanish fleet to Jervis, commanding the fleet from his flagship Victory. Unaware of the size of his opponent's fleet - in the fog, Nelson had not been able to count them - Jervis's squadron immediately sailed to intercept.

This pushed the Spanish into the Atlantic and by February 13, close to the British fleet. Early on the 14th, Jervis learnt that the Spanish fleet was 35 miles to windward.

[edit] Battle

The Battle of Cape Saint Vicent, Richard Brydges Beechey, 1881

As dawn broke on the 14th, Jervis's ships were in position to engage the Spanish, and vice versa. It was at this point that Jervis discovered that he was outnumbered nearly two-to-one. It would have been difficult to disengage, however, and Jervis also decided that the situation would only get worse were the Spanish fleet to join up with the French, so he decided to continue.

To the British advantage the Spanish fleet was formed into two groups and were unprepared for battle, while the British were already in line. Jervis ordered the British fleet to pass between the two groups, minimizing the fire they could put into him, while letting him fire in both directions simultaneously. Passing through the Spanish, the larger group managed to sail away in almost the opposite direction of the British line, and the smaller group was also in position to do so. Jervis ordered the line to swing around and go after the larger group before it could get away to Cádiz.

Nelson had returned to his own ship Captain, and was now towards the rear of the British line, much closer to the larger group. He came to the conclusion that the manoeuvre could not be completed so as to allow the British to catch them. Disregarding orders that the British line was to turn while engaging the smaller group, he broke formation before reaching that point, which let him turn and catch the larger Spanish group more quickly. This placed him across the front of the Spanish.

Jervis, seeing what had happened with Captain then ordered the last ship in his line, Excellent, to perform essentially the same manoeuvre. In the meantime, the front of the British line had completed its manoeuvre, and were approaching a long cannon shot from the rear of the Spanish.

Nelson receiving the surrender of the San Josef at the Battle of Cape St Vincent, 14 February 1797 by Daniel Orme, painted 1799

The Captain was now under fire from as many as six Spanish ships, of which three were 112-gun three-deckers and a fourth Cordóba’s 130-gun flagship Santísima Trinidad. Captain soon lost so much of her rigging that she was no longer maneuverable. As a result, Nelson moved close enough to the Spanish 80-gun San Nicolás to send out boarders instead. Meanwhile, Captain Collingwood in Excellent had engaged the 112-gun San José (usually, but wrongly, called San Josef in British accounts), which became so tightly entangled with San Nicolás that Nelson was able to order his boarders to cross the first Spanish ship onto the second. Both were successfully captured. This manoeuvre was so unusual and so widely admired in the Royal Navy that using one enemy ship to cross to another became known facetiously as "Nelson's patent bridge for boarding enemy vessels."

The Battle of Cape St Vincent, 14 February 1797 by Robert Cleveley, painted 1798, shows the end of the battle with the captured Spanish ship Salvador del Mundo in the right foreground

By the time Santísima Trinidad had struck her colours to surrender, Pelayo and San Pablo, separated from de Cordoba's group during action, having been dispatched by the commander the day before, sailed in and bore down on Diadem and Excellent. Pelayo´s captain Cayetano Valdés warned Santísima to fly her flag again under threat she would be deemed an enemy ship and raked. The Spanish three-decker raised her flag. She was saved from being captured by the British.

Also Admiral Moreno's squad put together the survivors of Cordoba's group and turned to assist the harassed Spanish sails. Jervis then signalled retreat and he loitered while making sure his ripped ships and prizes were safe away from the just-arrived Spanish ships. The next day both fleets were in sight of each other but none regarded themselves strong enough to resume battle.

The major British accomplishment of this engagement was that the Spanish fleet was forced to stay in port for the next two years, frustrating the French aim to invade England. Rather a discredit for the Spanish navy - most of its crew were non-professional sailors - this British victory was actually achieved over 16 ships of the line, as they concentrated on de Córdoba's group and within this group, only 6 ships were engaged by the British fleet, but never one-to-one, except when Nelson's Captain showed up before de Cordoba's group at the beginning due to Nelson's taking his own initiative and diverging from Jervis´ orders.

Jervis crossed over to Irresistible, to which Nelson had gone - Captain no longer being suitable - and made a show of approving Nelson's "disobeying" of his orders. Had the Spanish fleet been as well-manned and trained as the British, Nelson's action would likely have been suicidal. As it was, his quick thinking was central to the success of the engagement.

[edit] Aftermath

Jervis had given orders to destroy the 4 prizes had the action restarted. Several days later, Santísima Trinidad was spotted, still damaged, making her way back to Spain, and engaged by the frigate Terpsichore (32), which kept always out of range from the stern guns of the ship anytime captain Orozco, now commissioned by de Cordoba who had flown his flag in frigate Diana, commanded to manoeuvre and bear down on the English frigate, which was nonetheless hit twice with those cannons in a sudden move, resulting in several damages in her rigging, masts and sails as well as some impacts on her hull, captain Richard Bowen then ordered to keep the pursuit but from a longer distance until the frigate vanished away.

The British casualties were 73 killed, 227 badly wounded, c. 100 lightly wounded. The Spanish casualties were about 1,000 men killed or wounded.

Jervis was elevated to the peerage as Earl St. Vincent. Nelson was knighted as a member of the Order of the Bath and promoted to Rear-Admiral. Cordóba was dismissed from the Spanish navy and forbidden from appearing at court.

Having demonstrated that the fighting efficiency of the Spanish fleet didn’t match that of his own, Jervis now imposed a close blockade of the Spanish fleet at Cádiz. He sent Nelson to try and capture that Spanish coastal city, but Nelson failed to do so and was repelled heartily by the city batteries. At Cape St. Vincent the British attempted to strike the Spanish navy lethally yet all they did was take four ships (two of them first rates). Their frustration stung them and they sailed for Cadiz in March and then for Sta. Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands) in the summer of that year where their capture expedition was fiercely faced by the Spanish and Nelson lost his arm after being shot elbow high by the famous cannon “El Tigre”.

The continuation of that blockade for most of the following three years, largely curtailed the operations of the Spanish fleet until the Peace of Amiens in 1802.

The containment of the Spanish threat, and the further reinforcement of his command, enabled Jervis to send a squadron under Nelson back into the Mediterranean the following year. That squadron, including Saumarez’s Orion, Troubridge’s Culloden and the Goliath, now under Foley, re-established British command of the Mediterranean at the Battle of the Nile.

[edit] The rival fleets

The British ships are listed in order from van to rear. The Spanish were in no particular order. Many of the British wounded were badly wounded and later died. There were about 100 lightly wounded.

[edit] Britain (Jervis)

Culloden, 74 (Captain Thomas Troubridge) - Damaged, 10 killed, 47 wounded
Blenheim, 90 (Captain Thomas Lenox Frederick) - Damaged, 12 killed, 49 wounded
Prince George (Rear-Admiral William Parker, Captain John Irwin) - 8 killed, 7 wounded
Orion, 74 (Captain James Saumarez) - 9 wounded
Colossus, 74 (Captain George Murray) - 5 wounded
Irresistible, 74 (Captain George Martin) - 5 killed, 14 wounded
Victory, 100 (Admiral Sir John Jervis, Captains Robert Calder and George Grey) - 1 killed, 5 wounded
Egmont, 74 (Captain John Sutton)
Goliath, (Captain Charles H. Knowles) - 8 wounded
Barfleur, 98 (Vice-Admiral William Waldegrave, Captain James Richard Dacres) - 7 wounded
Britannia, 100 (Vice-Admiral Charles Thompson, Captain Thomas Foley) - 1 wounded
Namur, 90 (Captain James Hawkins Whitshed) - 2 killed, 5 wounded
Captain, 74 (Commodore Horatio Nelson, Captain Ralph Willett Miller) - Badly damaged, 24 killed, 56 wounded
Diadem, 64 (Captain George Henry Towry) - 2 wounded
Excellent, (Captain Cuthbert Collingwood) - 11 killed, 12 wounded

Frigates, etc.
Minerve, 38 (Captain George Cockburn)
Lively, 32 (Captain Lord Garlies)
Niger, 32 (Captain Edward James Foote)
Southampton, 32 (Captain James Macnamara)
Bonne-Citoyenne, 20 (Commander Charles Lindsay)
Raven (sloop), 18 (Commander William Prowse)
Fox (cutter), 10 (Lieutenant John Gibson)

[edit] Spain (de Córdoba)

Santísima Trinidad, 130 flag of Admiral José de Córdoba - Badly damaged, 200+ casualties
Purísima Concepción, 112, flag of Admiral Morales de los Ríos
Conde de Regla, 112,
Mexicano, 112, flag of Admiral P. De Cárdenas
Principe de Asturias, 112, flag of Admiral J. Moreno; captain A. De Escaño
Salvador del Mundo, 112, Captain D. A. Yepes - Captured, 42 killed, 124 wounded
San José, 112, flag of Admiral F. J. Winthuysen - Captured, 46 killed, 96 wounded
San Nicolás, 74, Cpt. T. Geraldino - Captured, 144 killed, 59 wounded
Atlante, 74, Cpt. G. Vallejo
Conquistador, 74, Cpt. J. Butler
Firme, 74, Cpt. B. Ayala
Glorioso, 74,
Oriente, 74, Cpt. J. Suárez
Infante Pelayo, 74, Cpt. C. Valdés
San Antonio, 74, Cpt. S. Medina
San Domingo, 74, Cpt. M. De Torres
San Fermín, 74, Cpt. J. De Torres
San Francisco de Paula, 74, Cpt. J. De Guimbarda
San Genaro, 74, Cpt. A. de Villavicencio
San Ildefonso, 74, Cpt. R. Maestre
San Juan Nepomuceno, 74, Cpt. A. Boneo
San Pablo, 74, Cpt. B. de Cisneros
San Isidro, 74, Cpt. T. Argumosa - Captured, 29 killed, 63 wounded
Soberano, 74, Cpt. J. V. Yáñez

Frigates, etc.
Ceres, 34
Atocha, 34
Diana, 34
Matilda, 34
Mercedes, 34
Perla, 34
Santa Brigida, 34