The action of 13 January 1797 (known by the French as the Naufrage du Droits de l'Homme; "shipwreck [or sinking] of the Droits de l'Homme") was fought between a French ship of the line and two British frigates off the coast of Brittany during the War of the First Coalition. During the action the frigates outmanoeuvred the much larger French vessel and drove it onto shore in heavy seas, resulting in the deaths of between 400 and 1,000 of the 1,300 persons aboard. One of the British frigates was also lost in the engagement with six sailors drowned after running onto a sandbank while failing to escape a lee shore.
The French 74-gun ship Droits de l'Homme had been part of the unsuccessful French expedition to Ireland. During the operation, the French fleet was beset by poor coordination and violent weather, eventually being compelled to return to France without landing a single soldier. Two British frigates, the 44-gun and the 36-gun , had been ordered to patrol the seas off Ushant in an attempt to intercept the returning French force and sighted the Droits de l'Homme on the afternoon of 13 January.
The engagement lasted for more than 15 hours, in an increasing gale and the constant presence of the rocky Breton coast. The seas were so rough that the French ship was unable to open the lower gun ports during the action and as a result could fire only the upper deck guns, significantly reducing the advantage that a ship of the line would normally have over the smaller frigates. The damage the more manoeuvrable British vessels inflicted on the French ship was so severe that as the winds increased, the French crew lost control and the Droits de l'Homme was swept onto a sandbar and destroyed.
Background
In December 1796, during the War of the First Coalition, a French expeditionary force departed from Brest on an expedition to invade Ireland. This army of 18,000 French soldiers was intended to link up with the secret organisation of Irish Republicanism known as the United Irishmen and provoke a widespread uprising throughout the island.Pakenham, p. 24. It was hoped that the resulting war would force Britain to make peace with the French Republic or risk losing control of Ireland altogether. Led by Vice-Admiral Morard de Galles, General Lazare Hoche and leader of the United Irishmen Wolfe Tone, the invasion fleet included 17 ships of the line, 27 smaller warships and transports, and carried extensive field artillery, cavalry and military stores to equip the Irish irregular forces they hoped to raise.James, p. 5.
Departure from Brest Morard de Galles planned to sail his fleet from the French naval fortress of Brest under cover of darkness on the night of 15–16 December.Henderson, p. 21. The British Channel Fleet normally maintained a squadron off Brest to blockade the port, but its commander, Rear-Admiral John Colpoys, had withdrawn his force from its usual station offshore to northwest of Brest because of severe Atlantic winter gales.Woodman, p. 85. The only British ships within sight of Brest were an inshore squadron of frigates under Sir Edward Pellew in , accompanied by , , and the lugger HMS Duke of York. Pellew was already renowned, having been the first British officer of the war to capture a French frigate: the Cléopâtre at the action of 18 June 1793. He later captured the frigates Pomone and Virginie in 1794 and 1796, and saved 500 lives following the shipwreck of the East Indiaman Dutton in January 1796. For these actions he had first been knighted and then raised to a baronetcy. Indefatigable was a razee, one of the largest frigates in the Royal Navy, originally constructed as a 64-gun third rate and cut down to 44 guns in 1795 to make the ship fast and powerful enough to catch and fight the largest of French frigates. Armed with 24-pounder cannon on the main decks and 42-pounder carronades on the quarterdeck, she had a stronger armament than any equivalent French frigate.Woodman, p. 65.
Observing the French fleet's departure from the harbour at dusk, Pellew immediately dispatched Phoebe to Colpoys and Amazon to the main fleet at Portsmouth with warnings, before approaching the entrance to Brest in Indefatigable with the intention of disrupting French movements.Woodman, p. 84. Believing that the frigates in the bay must be the forerunners of a larger British force, de Galles attempted to pass his fleet through the Raz de Sein. This channel was a narrow, rocky and dangerous passage, and de Galles used corvettes as temporary light ships that shone blue lights and fired fireworks to direct his main fleet through the passage. Pellew observed this, and sailed Indefatigable right through the French fleet, launching rockets and shining lights seemingly at random. This succeeded in confusing the French officers, causing the Séduisant to strike the Grand Stevenent rock and sink with the loss of over 680 men from a complement of 1,300.James, p. 6. Séduisant's distress flares added to the confusion and delayed the fleet's passage until dawn. His task of observing the enemy completed, Pellew took his remaining squadron to Falmouth, sent a report to the Admiralty by semaphore telegraph, and refitted his ships.
Failure of the French expedition
During December 1796 and early January 1797, the French army repeatedly attempted to land in Ireland. Early in the voyage, the frigate Fraternité carrying de Galles and Hoche, was separated from the fleet and missed the rendezvous at Mizen Head. Admiral Bouvet and General Grouchy decided to attempt the landing at Bantry Bay without their commanders, but severe weather made any landing impossible.Henderson, p. 22. For more than a week the fleet waited for a break in the storm, until Bouvet abandoned the invasion on 29 December and, after a brief and unsuccessful effort to land at the mouth of the River Shannon, ordered his scattered ships to return to Brest.Regan, p. 89. During the operation and subsequent retreat a further 11 ships were wrecked or captured, with the loss of thousands of soldiers and sailors.James, p. 10.
By 13 January most of the survivors of the fleet had limped back to France in a state of disrepair. One ship of the line that remained at sea, the 74-gun Droits de l'Homme, was commanded by Commodore Jean-Baptiste Raymond de Lacrosse and carried over 1,300 men, 700–800 of them soldiers, including General Jean Humbert.Parkinson, p. 177. Detached from the main body of the fleet during the retreat from Bantry Bay, Lacrosse made his way to the mouth of the Shannon alone. Recognising that the weather was still too violent for a landing to be made, Lacrosse acknowledged the failure of the operation and ordered the ship to return to France, capturing the British privateer Cumberland en route.Woodman, p. 86.
Chase Pellew too was on his way back to Brest in Indefatigable, accompanied by Amazon under the command of Captain Robert Carthew Reynolds. While the rest of the Channel Fleet had been pursuing the French without success, Pellew had had his ships refitted and resupplied at Falmouth so that both frigates were at full complement, well armed and prepared for action. At 13:00 on 13 January, the British ships were approaching the island of Ushant in a heavy fog when they spied another ship through the gloom ahead.James, p. 11. This ship, clearly much larger than either of the British vessels, was the Droits de l'Homme. At the same time, lookouts on the French ship spotted the British, and Lacrosse was faced with the dilemma of whether or not to engage the enemy. He knew that his ship was far larger than either of his opponents, but had earlier spotted sails to westwards he believed to be British and thus considered himself outnumbered and possibly surrounded. British records show that no other British vessels were in the vicinity at the time and it is likely that Lacrosse had seen the French ships Révolution and Fraternité returning to Brest from Bantry Bay. In addition, Lacrosse was concerned by the increasing gale and rocky lee shoreline, which posed a considerable threat to his over-laden vessel, which was already damaged from its winter voyage and carried a demi-brigade of the French Army and Humbert, neither of which could be placed at risk in an inconsequential naval action.Henderson, p. 23.
Determined to avoid battle, Lacrosse turned southeast, hoping to use his wider spread of sail to outrun his opponent in the strong winds. Pellew, however, manoeuvred to cut the Droits de l'Homme off from the French coast, at this stage still unsure of the nature of his opponent. As the chase developed, the weather, which had been violent for the entire preceding month, worsened. An Atlantic gale swept the Ushant headland, driving a blizzard eastwards and whipping the sea into a turbulent state, making steering and aiming more difficult. At 16:15, two of Droits de l'Homme's topmasts broke in the strong winds. This dramatically slowed the French ship, and allowed Pellew, who had recognised his opponent as a French ship of the line, to close with Droits de l'Homme.Woodman, p. 87.
Battle Pellew was aware that his frigate was heavily outclassed by his much larger opponent, and that Amazon, which was distant, was not large enough to redress the balance when it did arrive. He correctly assumed, however, that the ocean was too rough to allow Lacrosse to open his lower gunports without the risk that heavy waves would enter them and cause Droits de l'Homme to founder.Gardiner, p. 159. In fact, the French ship was totally unable to open her lower deck gunports during the action: an unusual design feature had the ports lower than was normal and as a result the sea poured in at any attempt to open them, preventing any gunnery at all from the lower deck and halving the ship's firepower.James, p. 12. Although this reduced the number of available guns on the French vessel, Lacrosse still held the advantage in terms of size, weight of shot and manpower. The French situation was worsened however by the loss of the topmasts: this caused their ship to roll so severely in the high seas that it was far more difficult both to steer the ship and to aim the guns than on the British vessels.
To the surprise of Lacrosse and his officers, Indefatigable did not retreat from the ship of the line, nor did she pass the ship of the line at long-range to leeward as expected. Instead, at 17:30, Pellew closed with the stern of Droits de l'Homme and opened a raking fire. Lacrosse turned to meet the threat and opened fire with the guns on the upper deck accompanied by a heavy volley of musket fire from the soldiers on board. Pellew then attempted to pull ahead of Droits de l'Homme and rake her bow, to which Lacrosse responded by attempting to ram Indefatigable. Neither manoeuvre was successful, as Droits de l'Homme raked the British ship but caused little damage as most of her shot scattered into the ocean.