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Updated: June 29, 2025
The tenacity and vigor with which he followed this aim, amid great obstacles, joined to the clear-sightedness with which he saw it, are the distinguishing merits of Suffren amid the crowd of French fleet-commanders, his equals in courage, but trammelled by the bonds of a false tradition and the perception of a false objective.
On four or five occasions, including an engagement at the Cape Verde Islands on his way to India, it was only this misconduct that saved the British from the crushing attack that Suffren had planned. Unfortunately for him his victories were barren of result, for the terms of peace gave nothing in India to the French which they had not possessed before.
Gibraltar, closely blockaded by land and sea, was only kept alive in its desperate resistance by the skill of English seamen triumphing over the inaptness and discords of their combined enemies. In the East Indies, Sir Edward Hughes met in Suffren an opponent as superior to him in numbers as was De Grasse to Hood, and of far greater ability.
He fought five battles off the coast of India against the British Vice Admiral Hughes, in only one of which was the latter the assailant, and in all of which Suffren bore off the honors. He was constantly hampered, however, by the inefficiency and insubordination of his captains.
Two days later, on the evening of September 2d, the English fleet was sighted by the French lookout frigates. During the six weeks in which Suffren had been so actively and profitably employed, the English admiral had remained quietly at anchor, repairing and refitting.
Suffren having sighted Hughes's fleet at Madras, February 15, anchored his own four miles to the northward. Considering the enemy's line, supported by the batteries, to be too strong for attack, he again got under way at four P.M., and stood south. This dispersal is said to have been due to the carelessness of the French frigates, which did not keep touch of the English.
The town, being strongly fortified, heavily armed, and having besides had time to prepare for us, made a much tougher defence than Tangier. But we mastered it at last, and the fire from the citadel having been silenced by the guns of the Suffren, Jetnmapes, Triton, and the Belle-Poule frigate, I took the flotilla into the channel, and landed five hundred men on the island which forms the port.
Then at 12.22 the French predreadnoughts Suffren, Gaulois, Charlemagne, and Bouvet approached to about 9000 yards and by 1.25 had for the time being silenced the batteries of the Narrows. In the maneuvering and withdrawal, the Biouvet was sunk by a drifting mine with a loss of over 600 men, and the Gaulois was hit twice under water and had to be beached on an island outside the Straits.
Further, the British opening fire as soon as the leading French were within range, the latter at once hauled up to reply. Suffren, in the centre, wishing closest action, signalled them to keep away again, and himself bore down wrathfully upon Hughes to within pistol-shot; in which he was supported closely by his next ahead and the two next astern.
One Suffren de Baschi tried to slip through to Nancy, to tell the besieged that René was levying troops in Switzerland and would soon be with them. Baschi fell into the duke's hands and was immediately hanged. One story says that Campobasso was among the interceders for his life and received a box on the ear for his pains, an insult that proved the last straw in his allegiance to Charles.
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