Action of 31 March 1800

In May 1798, a French fleet under General Napoleon Bonaparte crossed the Mediterranean Sea, sailing for Egypt. Pausing at Malta on 9 June, Bonaparte landed soldiers and seized the island leaving a sizeable French garrison at Valletta under General Claude-Henri Belgrand de Vaubois while the rest of the fleet continued on to Alexandria. After the successful landing in Egypt, Bonaparte marched inland at the head of his army. The fleet anchored in Aboukir Bay to support the troops ashore and was surprised and almost completely destroyed on 1 August by a British fleet under Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson. Only two ships of the line and two frigates escaped the Battle of the Nile from the 17 French ships that participated in the action. Of the survivors, the ship of the line sailed for Corfu while , under Counter-Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, reached Malta with the two frigates. When Villeneuve arrived at Malta in September 1798, the island was already in turmoil: the dissolution of the Roman Catholic Church on the island under French rule had been highly unpopular with the Maltese population, who forced the French garrison to retreat into the fortress of Valletta on 2 September. By the start of October, British and Portuguese troops had supplemented the Maltese irregulars, while a naval squadron watched Valletta harbour, to prevent any French effort to resupply and reinforce the garrison. Although small quantities of material reached Valletta from France in early 1799, by the start of 1800 no ship had arrived for more than seven months, and the garrison was near starvation. In an effort to resupply the garrison, the French sent a convoy from Toulon in February 1800, but the ships were intercepted off Malta by a squadron under Nelson on 17 February and in the ensuing battle its flagship was captured and Counter-Admiral Jean-Baptiste Perrée was killed. Without Perrée's supplies, the garrison faced continued food shortages, and by March Vaubois and Villeneuve decided to send an urgent request for support to France. For this operation they chose the 80-gun Guillaume Tell under Captain Saulnier, partly because the condition and size of the ship enabled Vaubois to embark over 900 men aboard, many of whom were sick or wounded. Counter-Admiral Denis Decrès had command of the ship and Vaubois and Villeneuve confirmed the date of departure for 30 March. While the French prepared this expedition, the British maintained their blockade, although without their commander. Nelson, in defiance of specific orders from his commanding officer Lord Keith, had retired to Palermo on Sicily to be with Emma, Lady Hamilton, the wife of the British ambassador Sir William Hamilton with whom Nelson was conducting an adulterous affair. In his absence, command had passed to Captain Sir Thomas Troubridge on and then to Captain Manley Dixon on . ==Battle==

At 23:00 on 30 March, with a strong wind from the south, Guillaume Tell sailed from Valletta, Decrès hoping to use the cover of darkness to escape the British blockade. Dixon had deployed his ships around the island, with Valletta watched by the frigate under Captain Henry Blackwood. Blackwood also attempted to signal his discovery to his commanding officer as Penelope gave chase. Blackwood rapidly gained on the ship of the line and by 00:30 the frigate was within range, pulling up under the stern of Guillaume Tell and beginning a steady fire to which Decrès could respond with only his stern-chasers, light cannon situated in the stern of the ship. Decrès recognised that if he stopped to engage Penelope then the rest of Berry's squadron, visible on the horizon to the south, would soon overwhelm him. He therefore continued sailing to the northeast, hoping his heavy ship of the line could outrun the light and speedy frigate. However, Penelope was too fast, and Blackwood handled his ship with considerable skill, managing to pass Decrès' stern repeatedly and pour several raking broadsides into the French ship. Blackwood's attack was so successful that by dawn on 31 March Guillaume Tell had lost its main and mizzen topmasts and its main yard, considerably reducing the speed at which Decrès could travel. The French ship had also suffered heavy casualties in the exchange, but Penelope had lost only one man killed and three wounded, and was almost undamaged. By 05:00, Dixon was close enough to engage, passing between Penelope and Guillaume Tell and firing a triple-shotted broadside into the port side of the French ship. Shooting ahead of the now sluggish Guillaume Tell, Lion crossed its opponent's bows and shot away the jib boom, allowing Dixon to maintain a position across the bow, raking the French ship from one end while Penelope did the same to the other. For half an hour, Lion continued to fire into the larger Guillaume Tell, but Dixon was unable to keep his ship completely out of range of the French broadsides and by 05:30 the subsequent damage showed an effect, Lion dropping back and falling behind the French vessel, although remaining within range alongside Penelope. By 06:30 the badly outnumbered French ship had lost both its main and mizen masts, Foudroyant returning to the battle in time to collapse the foremast by 08:00. At 08:20, with no means of making sail and with wreckage obscuring most of his gun decks, Decrès surrendered to spare any further, fruitless, loss of life. His ship was in danger: the lack of masts and strong winds caused it to roll so severely that the lower deck gun ports had to be closed to prevent the ship from foundering. Casualties on the French ship numbered more than 200, from a crew of over 900, British losses were lighter, with eight killed and 64 wounded, including Berry, in Foudroyant, eight killed and 38 wounded in Lion and one killed and three wounded (one fatally) in Penelope. Damage was unevenly spread, Foudroyant suffering most severely, with the hull and all masts damaged, the mizzenmast so badly that it collapsed at approximately 12:00, wounding five more men. Lion was badly hit, although not so severely as Foudroyant while Penelope was only lightly damaged in the masts and rigging. The battle, which had begun within sight of Malta, had concluded roughly south-west of Cape Passaro on Sicily. ==Aftermath==

Both Foudroyant and Lion were too battered to provide an effective tow to the dismasted French ship, and as a result Penelope was left to bring the shattered Guillaume Tell into Syracuse on Sicily. participating at the Battle of Cape Finisterre in 1805. The British officers were praised for the capture of Guillaume Tell, the last surviving French ship of the line to escape the Battle of the Nile: Nelson, who by his absence had "missed what would indeed have been the crowning glory to his Mediterranean career", wrote to Berry that "Your conduct and character in the late glorious occasion stamps your fame beyond the reach of envy." Despite Nelson's praise however, Berry in particular came in for subsequent criticism, especially from the historian William James, who wrote in his 1827 history of the conflict that: James instead attributed most of the praise for the victory to Blackwood and Dixon, whose ships were heavily outmatched by Guillaume Tell, but who successfully pressed their attacks with the intention of delaying the French retreat. He also highly praised Decrès for his conduct in the engagement, stating that "A more heroic defence than that of the Guillaume-Tell is not to be found among the records of naval actions". News of the capture of Guillaume Tell was immediately passed to Vaubois by the British besiegers, along with a demand that he surrender the island. The French general, despite dwindling food supplies, refused, stating "Cette place est en trop bon état, et je suis moi-même trop jaloux de bien servir mon pays et de conserver mon honneur, pour écouter vos propositions." ("This place is in too good a situation, and I am too conscious of the service of my country and my honour, to listen to your proposals"). Despite Vaubois' defiance, the garrison was rapidly starving, and although the French commander resisted until 4 September, he was eventually forced to surrender Valletta and all of its military equipment to the British. ==References==