Groix
Groix (; br, Enez Groe) is an island and a commune in the Morbihan department of the region of Brittany in north-western France.
Groix lies a few kilometres off the coast of Lorient. Several ferries a day run from Lorient to Groix.
There are a ...
when a small French squadron comprising the French frigates and , and the brig ''Mameluck'' returning from a
commerce raiding
Commerce raiding (french: guerre de course, "war of the chase"; german: Handelskrieg, "trade war") is a form of naval warfare used to destroy or disrupt logistics of the enemy on the open sea by attacking its merchant shipping, rather than enga ...
campaign in the Atlantic, met the 74-gun while trying the slip to Lorient through the British blockade.
After a gunnery exchange that left all ships damaged, the frigates attempted to lose ''Northumberland'' by sailing through a shallow pass, but they ran aground. ''Northumberland'', her repairs completed, returned to the scene and bombarded ''Andromaque'' until her rigging caught fire, setting the entire ship ablaze. Unable to refloat herself and trapped by ''Northumberland'', ''Ariane''s crew scuttled her by fire and evacuated on ''Mameluck''.
Captains Jean-Baptiste-Henri Féretier and
Nicolas Morice Nicolas Morice (born 1774) was a French navy officer. He was born Lorient.
Career
Morice became an ensign in 1796 and rose to Lieutenant in 1803. He took part in the Battle of Grand Port
The Battle of Grand Port was a naval battle between squ ...
were found guilty of negligence in the loss of their ships, and forbidden from commanding for three years.Chantier archéologique sous-marin /ref>
Background
By 1812, the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
enjoyed an absolute supremacy on all seas, and even
blockade
A blockade is the act of actively preventing a country or region from receiving or sending out food, supplies, weapons, or communications, and sometimes people, by military force.
A blockade differs from an embargo or sanction, which are le ...
d French harbours, preventing French squadrons from leaving and conducting naval operations of significance. The French Navy was thus forced into
commerce raiding
Commerce raiding (french: guerre de course, "war of the chase"; german: Handelskrieg, "trade war") is a form of naval warfare used to destroy or disrupt logistics of the enemy on the open sea by attacking its merchant shipping, rather than enga ...
: small frigate squadrons (usually just a pair of frigates) would attempt to slip through the blockade and roam the seas, patrolling to capture lightly armed merchantmen. On 9 January 1812, a French frigate squadron left Nantes to attack British and American shipping in the Atlantic, off the
Azores
)
, motto =( en, "Rather die free than subjected in peace")
, anthem= ( en, "Anthem of the Azores")
, image_map=Locator_map_of_Azores_in_EU.svg
, map_alt=Location of the Azores within the European Union
, map_caption=Location of the Azores wi ...
and
Bermuda
)
, anthem = "God Save the King"
, song_type = National song
, song = " Hail to Bermuda"
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, mapsize2 =
, map_caption2 =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name =
, e ...
. The squadron comprised the two
18-pounder
The Ordnance QF 18-pounder,British military traditionally denoted smaller ordnance by the weight of its standard projectile, in this case approximately or simply 18-pounder gun, was the standard British Empire field gun of the First World War ...
Nicolas Morice Nicolas Morice (born 1774) was a French navy officer. He was born Lorient.
Career
Morice became an ensign in 1796 and rose to Lieutenant in 1803. He took part in the Battle of Grand Port
The Battle of Grand Port was a naval battle between squ ...
respectively, and the 16-gun brig ''Mameluck'', under Captain Galabert.Troude, ''op. cit.'', p. 160 Feretier was the commanding officer of the squadron.
In the early afternoon of 15 January, the French cruise met a British squadron comprising the 50-gun and the 40-gun , which mounted 24-pounders.James, ''op. cit.'' p.48 /ref> In the face of overwhelming odds, the French fled and in the evening had successfully outrun their pursuers. The French squadron, free to continue on its mission. reached its patrolling area and started preying on merchant shipping. In the course of four next months, it took 36 prizesJames, ''op. cit.'' /ref> (9 British, 3 Portuguese, 1 Spanish, 1 Swedish and 11 American), and made 217 prisoners. The British, however, were now informed of the presence of a French frigate squadron, and warned the blockade of Brest, under Rear-admiral Sir Harry Neale, to watch for its return.Troude, ''op. cit.'', p. 161 Neale sent ''Northumberland'', under Captain the Honourable
Henry Hotham
Vice-Admiral The Honourable Sir Henry Hotham (19 February 1777 – 19 April 1833) was officer of the British Royal Navy who served during the French Revolutionary, Napoleonic Wars, and the War of 1812, was later a member of the Board of Admiralt ...
, to attempt to intercept the frigates and bring them into action. ''Northumberland'' detached on 19 May and took position off the point of Isle
Groix
Groix (; br, Enez Groe) is an island and a commune in the Morbihan department of the region of Brittany in north-western France.
Groix lies a few kilometres off the coast of Lorient. Several ferries a day run from Lorient to Groix.
There are a ...
. Meanwhile, the French squadron was on its course back to France. Through prisoners and logs of captured ships, Feretier had learned of
Allemand's escape from Lorient
Allemand's escape from Lorient was an episode of the naval operations of the French Navy in 1812. A number of French, warships trapped in Lorient by the British blockade, managed to take to the sea under Zacharie Allemand and sail to Brest. Britis ...
to Brest; he thus expected the British blockading ships to be sailing in pursuit of the French fleet or cruising off Brest, and attempted to seize the opportunity to slip through to Lorient.Report of Captain Le Gouardun /ref>
Action
In the morning of 22 May, the French squadron arrived off the Roches de
Penmarch
Penmarch (, ) is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany, northwestern France.Report of Captain Feretier /ref>Troude reports that Feretier's intention was to temporally renounce returning to Lorient and tack to outrun the British ship of the line. The reports of Feretier and Morice state that his intention was to confront ''Northumberland'' and force the passage. However, Morice signaled that one of his crew, Ensign Legrand, was familiar with the area and thought himself capable of leading the frigates through a shallow pass where they could evade ''Northumberland''.Report of Captain Morice /ref>In 1805, the had escaped a British fleet with a similar tactic, slipping through a narrow passage into Concarneau, deemed too shallow for ships of the line. Feretier decided to take his chance with this idea, and ordered ''Andromaque'' to lead, leaving ''Mameluck'' free to manoeuver at will. Around 15:00, the frigates came within range of ''Northumberland'', which waited near Pointe du Talut. ''Northumberland'' fired a few shots, to which ''Andromaque'', supported by coastal defence batteries, responded with her whole broadside. A full artillery exchange broke out, obscuring the view of the ships with smoke and killing Ensign Legrand on ''Andromaque''. Officer Legros, the only other officer on ''Andromaque'' familiar with these waters, took over the pilotage, but around 17:45, ''Andromaque'' ran aground on the northern part of Basse Grasie reef. ''Ariane'' reacted by turning on her right, but soon also ran aground. Sensing the danger, ''Northumberland'' immediately retreated, and took the opportunity to repair the damage caused to her rigging by the cannonade,James, ''op.cit.'' /ref> particularly her fore topmast.
With ''Mameluck'' the only ship able to manoeuver, Feretier ordered the brig to sail to Lorient and request assistance. ''Mameluck'' attempted to execute the order, but also ran aground, close to ''Ariane''. With the receding tide, the frigates started to list so much that they threw their starboard artillery overboard, emptied their water reserves and removed all unnecessary cargo. Soon afterwards, ''Northumberland'', returned, along with the 12-gun ''Growler'', anchored north of the frigates, and started a two-hour bombardment, to which the frigates were unable to respond, save for a handful of carronades on ''Andromaque''. After the first few shots, at 5:55,James, ''op. cit.'', p. 50 a fire broke out in the fore top of ''Andromaque''; with his fire pump shattered, Morice ordered the mast cut down, but all the men assigned to the task were killed or wounded by British shots, and fire soon engulfed the forecastle. With the water intake well above the sea, it was impossible to flood the powder room. Feretier sent an ensign to ''Andromaque'', who returned to bring the news that the fire was beyond control; he then ordered the 86 sick and the prisoners taken to the boats that had come from Lorient. ''Northumberland'', upon seeing they had been successful in their aims, departed from the action. The
préfet maritime
A maritime prefect ( French: ''Préfet maritime'') is a servant of the French State who exercises authority over the sea in a particular region under French jurisdiction, known as a maritime arrondissement (''Arrondissement maritime''). His admini ...
went to the site of the battle. Feretier reported that the hull of ''Ariane'' was riddled with shot to starboard and filled with water, and that the pilots deemed her impossible to refloat. The préfet then ordered ''Ariane'' abandoned; Feretier had her set afire to prevent her capture. By 8:20, the crew had come ashore and the officers embarked on boats for Lorient; ''Andromaque'' exploded soon afterwards. ''Ariane'' exploded in the night, at 2:30.Report of Captain Galabert /ref> ''Mameluck'' had cut her topmasts and thrown her artillery overboard in fruitless attempts to refloat, and had been abandoned by her crew because a number of the shots below the waterline made her impossible to sail into combat. However, she had not suffered as much as the frigates, and the next day, a party returned to ''Mameluck'' and succeeded in refloating her.James (''op. cit.'', p.51) reports a third explosion after those of ''Andromaque'' and ''Ariane'', which he erroneously attributes to''Mameluck'' meeting the same fate. She reached Lorient on 24, only survivor of the squadron.
Aftermath
The frigates, loaded with the most valuable items captured on their prizes, were particularly low in the water, which contributed to their grounding; moreover, the pass that Legrand, a native of
Ploemeur
Ploemeur (; br, Plañvour), sometimes written instead as Plœmeur, is a commune in the Morbihan department in the region of Brittany in north-western France. It is a western suburb of Lorient.
Population
The inhabitants are called the ''Ploemeur ...
, recalled, could only be used by boats, and would never have accommodated a frigate. James remarks that the grounding of the smaller ''Mameluck'' is a testimony of the hopelessness of the attempt to sail a frigate through the pass. Feretier and Morice were court-martialled, as was customary for the loss of a ship. Captain Le Gouardun blamed them for not having diverted to Brest, Cherbourg or Saint Malo, or even returned to Lorient after a feint to lose the British ship; he furthermore remarked that the frigate squadron could fight the 74-gun only in a melee, and not by forming a
line of battle
The line of battle is a tactic in naval warfare in which a fleet of ships forms a line end to end. The first example of its use as a tactic is disputed—it has been variously claimed for dates ranging from 1502 to 1652. Line-of-battle tacti ...
; he suggested that Feretier could have lacked bravery in following Morice's ''Andromaque'' and leaving her to sustain the brunt of the fight, and that this line was also a navigation error, as it sent ''Ariane'' onto the same rocks as ''Andromaque''. Both captains were declared guilty of incompetence, stripped of rank and forbidden from commanding a ship for three years. However, as the Navy suffered from a lack of personnel, they were quickly appointed as first officers on other ships.
James mentions that a "fine French two-decker, with sails bent and topgallant yards across, in the harbour of Lorient, lay a mortified spectator of this gallant achievement";James, ''op. cit'' p. 51 /ref> the ship in question was the 80-gun ''Diadème'', that could not intervene due to the unfavourable winds. On the British side, Lieutenant Weeks, captain of ''Growler'', and Lieutenant John Banks, first officer of ''Northumberland'', were promoted to Commander for their roles in the battle. In 1986, Jean-Claude Abadie discovered the traces of one of the wrecked frigates at the site of Grasu, off Lorient-Ploemeur. The DRASSM (Département des Recherches Archéologiques Subaquatiques et Sous-marines,
Ministry of Culture Ministry of Culture may refer to:
*Ministry of Tourism, Cultural Affairs, Youth and Sports (Albania)
*Ministry of Culture (Algeria)
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* Minister for the Arts (Australia)
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* Ministry of ...
) confirmed the site. Another wreck was found nearby, although it turned out to be that of a merchantman, of the same era but unrelated to the event. A bronze cannon was found by an amateur diver shortly thereafter.Epaves du Ponant "ARIANE & ANDROMAQUE" Frégates françaises de 40 canons,1807 - 1812 In 1996, an underwater excavation was undertaken to salvage remains of the wreck, with 54 divers searching the area between 1 and 10 metres deep. Another excavation in June 2000 located the second frigate. The fruits of the search were put on display at the
Cité de la Mer
The Cité de la Mer ("city of the sea") is a maritime museum in Cherbourg, France.
The museum is in the cruise terminal of Cherbourg. This monument was built in 1933; it is one of the bigger art-deco monuments of today.
History
The former tr ...