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Updated: June 4, 2025
By this favourable position, which he had thus gallantly obtained, after receiving the more distant fire of several of the enemy's ships, about three o'clock he was able to come up with and closely engage a French seventy-four, and after exchanging broadsides with three others, pushed up to the Ville de Paris, and after raking her, having maintained a position on the lee quarter, poured in a most destructive fire, until the Barfleur, Sir Samuel Hood's flag-ship, came up.
The van ship was anchored about four miles southeast from Basse Terre, so close to the shore that a ship could not pass inside her, nor, with the prevailing wind, even reach her, because of a point and shoal just outside, covering her position. Hood's flag-ship, the "Barfleur," of ninety guns, was at the apex of the salient angle thus formed.
It quickly became known that there was something in the wind, and that the Captain hoped to fall in with another enemy before long. Cape Barfleur, to the westward of Cherbourg, was made during the night. The wind was off shore, and the Ruby was close-hauled on the larboard tack, when, as day dawned, a ship and a cutter were seen from her deck coming in from seaward.
I have the honour to acquaint you, for the information of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, that this morning, being off Cape Barfleur in his Majesty's ship Crescent, under my command, I fell in with a French frigate, which, after a close action of two hours and ten minutes, struck to his Majesty's colours: she proved to be the Réunion, mounting thirty-six guns, and manned with three hundred and twenty men.
By 2.30 P.M. of the day of starting, Rodney's look-outs had sighted the French fleet; and before sundown it could be seen from the mastheads of the main body. At 6 next morning, April 9th, the enemy, both fleet and convoy, was visible from the deck of the Barfleur, the flagship of Hood's division, then in the British van.
When this was accomplished, and MacFee had secured the smuggler's pistols, he said again, "March, Lambton!" Lambton marched through the moonlit night toward the troop of men who had come to set up the flag of order in the plains and hills, and as he went his keen ear heard his own mules galloping away down toward the Barfleur Coulée. His heart thumped in his breast.
Among the British contingent the navy was well represented, the Naval Brigade, under the command of Captain Gallaghan of the Endymion, consisted of 125 bluejackets with four 12-pounders from the Barfleur, Terrible, Endymion, Phoenix, and Algerine, and 278 marines under Major Luke; there were also two more naval 12-pounders manned by Hong-Kong artillery under Major Saint John; there started on the same day the junks which had been captured from the enemy.
The bar of the river is 5 miles off, and is so shoaly that vessels drawing 20 feet have to lie 5 miles off that, that is 10 miles from the forts, and it was at this point that the fleet of the various nations was at this time lying at anchor, the British being Centurion, flagship, Barfleur, Orlando, Endymion, Aurora.
"I was glad to hear Captain Capel had reached England with the accounts of our action, the news of which were received at Portsmouth the day before the Barfleur sailed. "Fortune has, as usual, proved propitious this month. What think you of two vessels, with valuable cargoes from Genoa, which promise to give, at the most moderate computation, at least £10,000 between Captain Miller and myself!
In such a movement, it followed of course that the most crippled ships were left behind, and these were picked up, one by one, by the English, who pursued without any regular order, for which there was no need, as mutual support was assured without it. Shortly after six P.M. De Grasse's flag-ship, the "Ville de Paris," struck her colors to the "Barfleur," carrying the flag of Sir Samuel Hood.
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