Battle of Flamborough Head - The American Squadron

The American Squadron

During September 1779, the four remaining vessels from a seven-strong squadron which had departed from the anchorage at Groix off L’Orient in France on 14 August 1779, nominally under the command of American Continental Navy captain John Paul Jones, voyaged from a brief stop off Ireland, round the north of Scotland, and down the east coast of Britain, creating havoc wherever possible. Although sailing under the American flag, all vessels were loaned or donated by France, with French captains, except the Alliance, which had been built in Amesbury, Massachusetts specifically for the Continental Navy (but still had a French captain, who was disinclined to recognise Jones’s authority). The crews included Americans, French volunteers, British sailors previously captured by the Americans and offered the chance to get out of captivity, and many others seeking glory or loot.

On the evening of 22 September, Jones in the Bonhomme Richard (an armed East India trading vessel he had reluctantly adapted for military use), accompanied by the little brigantine Vengeance, had been off Spurn Head, hoping to catch a few prizes emerging from the Humber estuary, but he decided to head northward during the hours of darkness, and rendezvous with his frigates Alliance and Pallas, which had parted company from him further up the coast. Shortly after midnight, two vessels were seen, so signal lanterns were set- to which the strangers did not give the response that would identify them as members of his squadron. Jones’s crew was called to quarters, but when daylight approached, about 5.30 am, and a chequered flag was hoisted on the mizzen mast, the mystery vessels finally identified themselves as the Alliance and Pallas. Captain Cottineau of the Pallas (in full, Denis Nicolas Cottineau de Kerloguen) later reported that Captain Pierre Landais of the Alliance had advised a rapid retreat if the approaching warship proved to be British- not a reassuring suggestion, given that his frigate, which had been acclaimed as the best warship yet made in America, was by a fair margin the faster and more manoeuvrable of the two.

Early in the afternoon, the reunited squadron sighted a brig in Bridlington Bay, so at about 3.30 pm a small schooner- captured just the previous day- was sent with a 15-man boarding party. There is a discrepancy at this point between Jones’s official report and Bonhomme Richard’s log, but the reason for sending the schooner may have been, not because the brig was in very shallow water, but because the main squadron was on its way to investigate a sighting of a ship further north, near Flamborough Head. Shortly after the schooner was dispatched, Alliance, which had been somewhat ahead of the others, hoisted a signal and set off at speed. At least two large vessels had been sighted in the distance, so the schooner was immediately recalled by firing a signal gun, and the entire squadron headed towards the potentially rich prizes.