Battle of the Tagus (1831)

The accession of King Miguel I to the throne of Portugal and abolition of the Constitutional Charter had put the country under the rule of an absolutist monarch. Liberals challenged his rule, and the struggle of the Liberal Wars ensued. The government of Miguel I was hostile to France, and became even more so when the popular insurrection of the July Revolution deposed the absolutist Bourbon King Charles X, and established a constitutional monarchy in which Louis-Philippe had become "King of the French". Miguel refused to recognise the Monarchy of July, while neither the French a claim that French officials dismissed as "they had good reason to believe that many of the statements it comprehends, have no other foundation than the bigotry and malevolence of the Portuguese priesthood". Several other French citizen were similarly detained in what the French government judged to be arbitrary manners. Viscount d'Asseca requested a mediation of the British Foreign minister, Viscount Palmerston, who advised the Portuguese to comply with French demands. A squadron under Captain de Rabaudy, comprising the 60-gun frigate Melpomène They arrived on 16 March 1831. Upon her departure from Brest, Melpomène ran aground on Basse Beuzec, and had to double back, leaving Endymion to continue her route. When Melpomène finally arrived on 16 May 1831, Endymion was already returning to France, with the consul aboard. Rabaudy stated the purpose of his mission to Portuguese authorities and delivered the French ultimatum, demanding: • the release of the two imprisoned Frenchmen and the annulment of their sentence • an indemnity in their favour • destitution of the judges responsible • indemnities for a number of other Frenchmen • that Frenchmen be only arrested with the consent of a French judge, as was their privilege at the time. These demands had to be met 48 hours after reception. Melpomène was soon reinforced by a squadron under Captain Charmasson, of the 52-gun Sirène, escorted by the 18-gun corvettes Diligente and Églé, and the 20-gun brig Hussard. While some of the ships cruised off the mouth of the Tagus, the others were detached to Azores to hunt for a Portuguese Miguelist division that blockaded the Liberal controlled Terceira Island; on 3 June, these ships captured the 24-gun corvette Urania and the 6-gun fluyt Oreste, but they failed to locate the rest of the Miguelist forces, and thus returned to the mouth of Tagus. ==Battle==

, 1840) The mission of Rear-admiral Roussin was to sail to Tagus, with his flag on the 90-gun Suffren, and give the Portuguese authorities an ultimatum that demanded, in addition to that already given by Rabaudy, that the chief of the Portuguese police be dismissed; that all court sentences against French citizens be annulled; and that indemnities be paid to compensate for the costs induced by the expedition. The ultimatum expired 48 hours from reception, at which point the French forces would force the entrance of the Tagus, sail to Lisbon and bombard the city. Departed from Brest, the squadron arrived off the Tagus on 25 June, and stayed there waiting for the division inbound from Toulon, under Rear-admiral Hugon. In addition, all the ships that the Portuguese could muster were much under-crewed. The French bombardment silenced the fort, killing five or six soldiers, and severely wounding thirty. to present a last ultimatum; Dragon also carried letters for the ships of the Tagus and for foreign diplomatic missions in Lisbon, and was under strict orders not to remain at anchor more than 24 hours. The new ultimatum comprised the same condition as the first, but added that the Portuguese government should compensate France for the price of the naval expedition, and threatened of a "de facto war". Dragon returned to the French fleet the next day with a refusal, though Santarem attempted to surrender his French prisoners to the British as a token concession. Captain Vincent Moulac, of Algésiras, advised that the fleet attempt to force the entrance of the river and sail upstream to Lisbon. On 11, the winds had turned, and a North-North-West wind allowed for the expedition upstream. The French squadron manoeuvred to form a line of battle, and at 13:30, it sailed into the Southern pass. The French squadron sailed one by one in front of the forts, delivering broadsides at distances varying from 100 to 1000 metres, and reached Paço de Arcos in good order and with no serious damage. Roussin signaled his ships to sail on, but the two lead ships, Marengo and Algésiras, failed to spot the signals and dropped their anchor, as was initially planned to repair damage sustained during the forcing of the pass; seeing that the flagship Suffren sailed before them without stopping, they promptly put to sail and took a place in the French line, but this mistake put Suffren at the front of the line. , leading French line of battle, exchanges broadsides with Belém Tower moments before breaking into Lisbon. Around 16:00, Suffren opened fire on the Belém Tower at a distance of 100 metres, soon followed by the rest of the squadron, and anchored in front of the Belém Palace while the other ships and frigates sailed on to the anchored Portuguese fleet. When the lead ship, Pallas, opened fire on the Portuguese squadron, all its ships struck, without firing a shot. By 17:00, the entire French squadron was anchored before the docks of Lisbon, and Roussin sent his chief of staff, Lieutenant commander Charles Ollivier, to present the French ultimatum once again with a 2-hour delay. The Portuguese government caved in, and a treaty was signed on 14 July on Suffren by Castello Branco and Roussin, and the sums of money begin paid in cash by the 23. With the ultimatum accepted by the Portuguese, Roussin sent most of the squadron to sea, staying in front of Lisbon with only Suffren, Pallas and Melpomène; the 58-gun frigate Guerrière, under Captain Kerdrain, rejoined him on 29. Squadrons Key • A † symbol indicates that the officer was killed during the action or subsequently died of wounds received. • The ships are ordered in the sequence in which they formed up for battle. ==Aftermath==

The treaty of 14 July specified that the French would return the ships captured before the attack on the Tagus, including the warships Orestes and Urania and the merchantmen with their cargo. After a council of war on Trident, the French decided to also return the captured 74-gun Dom João VI as, being neither armed nor manned during the action, she did not belong to an opposing force. and Roussin proposed that the ships be re-purchased for 1.5 million cruzados, or to return half the captured ships, in exchange for the release of 400 political prisoners. the prizes Diana, Amazone, Don João I and Don Pedro departed with on 12 with a brig, and the next day Perola, Lealdade, Saint Sebastian and Memoria followed. The rest of the fleet eventually departed for Brest on 14 August, where it arrived on 4 September, leaving only Melpomène and Églé. In recognition for the deed, Roussin was promoted to Vice-admiral. The Miguelists would suffer a crushing defeat at the hands of the Liberals at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent two years later, ending the reign of Miguel I. == Notes and references ==

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