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Updated: June 9, 2025
Admiral Bompart now changed his course, but at daybreak found himself almost surrounded by the British vessels. Both squadrons waited, but with very different feelings, the order to commence action. The Robust led the way, followed closely by the Magnanime, and was received with a fire from the stern-chasers and the quarter guns of the French frigates Embuscade and Coquille.
The incident has now little importance, except as indicating the general national nervousness, and the difficulty under which he labored through force inadequate to the numerous and exacting duties entailed by constant holding the sea in war. From this point of view it bears upon his conduct. That Bompart was coming proved to be true.
Nevertheless she continued the fight, and at three o’clock the Immortalité, which was in a semi-sinking state, and had lost her captain and first lieutenant, hauled down her colours. Thus seven out of the ten vessels under the command of Commodore Bompart were captured.
Twelve days after the combat at Ballinamuck, while Humbert and his men were on their way through England to France, a new French fleet, under Admiral Bompart, consisting of one 74-gun ship, "the Hoche," eight frigates, and two smaller vessels, sailed from Brest. On board this fleet were embarked 3,000 men under General Hardi, the remnant of the army once menacing England.
The whole were under the command of Sir John Warren. With the hope that he had now shaken off his pursuers, Admiral Bompart bore away for Killala Bay, but as he neared the land his leading frigate signalled the appearance of the British squadron.
Had he taken that step, M. Bompart must either have given him battle, or retired into the Carenage, behind the citadel; in which last case, the English commander might have anchored between Pigeon-Island and Fort-Negro, and thus blocked him up effectually.
The bitterness, the despondency, and desperation which seized on the Irish leaders in France, and on the rank and file of the United Irishmen at home, on receiving this intelligence are sufficiently illustrated in the subsequent attempts under Humbert and Bompart, and the partial, ineffectual risings in Leinster, Ulster, and Connaught, during the summer and autumn of 1798.
He even sent away part of his squadron out of sight of the inhabitants of Dominique, that they might represent to their friends at Martinique his force much inferior to what it really was; but this expedient had no effect upon M. de Bompart, who made the best of his way to Cape François, on the island of Hispaniols.
Here he was discovered by the ship Rippon, whose captain returned immediately to Basseterre, to make the commodore acquainted with this circumstance: but before he could weigh anchor, a frigate arrived with information, that Bompart had quitted Grenada, and was supposed to have directed his course to Hispaniola.
Conflans had sailed the same day that the British last left Torbay, but before his departure Bompart had opportunely arrived, as Hawke had feared. His ships were not able to go at once to sea on so important a mission, but their seasoned crews were a welcome reinforcement and were distributed through the main fleet, which numbered twenty-one ships-of-the-line. Hawke had twenty-three.
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