Battle of Cape St. Vincent (1833) - Background

Background

While serving in the Azores, Napier had come to know members of the exiled Portuguese liberals, who had offered him command of the small fleet serving Dom Pedro, which largely consisted of a few old men-o'-war and some East Indiamen purchased from the British. In February 1833 Napier accepted their proposals, in succession to another British officer, Captain George Rose Sartorius, who was already serving as Admiral of Pedro's navy. Using the name 'Carlos de Ponza' in a transparent attempt to disguise his identity as a British officer to escape penalties under the Foreign Enlistment Act, in June 1833 Napier joined his new command in the Douro River off Oporto. ('Carlos de Ponza' = Charles of Ponza; one of Napier's most daring feats in the Napoleonic War had been the capture of the island of Ponza in the Mediterranean in 1813). Dom Pedro, currently being besieged in Oporto by the forces of Dom Miguel, bestowed on Napier his commission as Vice Admiral, Major General of the Portuguese Navy and Commander in Chief of the fleet. An eccentric but indomitable character, Napier restored the situation in the fleet, which had been close to mutiny because of lack of pay, and proposed a new strategy to break the siege. Flying his flag in the frigate Rainha de Portugal 46, commanded by Captain F.G. MacDonough and with his stepson Charles Elers Napier as Chief of Staff, on 20 June he sailed from Oporto with his small fleet, transporting the Duke of Terceira and half the constitutional army to the Algarve so that they could open a second front in the south of the country and march on Lisbon. After successfully disembarking this force, on the return voyage he encountered the considerably superior fleet of Dom Miguel off Cape St Vincent on 3 July 1833, and after two days of maneuvering in calm and very light winds he brought them to action.