Battle of San Domingo - Background

Background

In late 1805, First Lord of the Admiralty Lord Barham withdrew the Royal Navy blockade of the French Atlantic ports following the Trafalgar campaign, in which the French Navy had lost 14 ships of the line. Barham believed that the French, having suffered such heavy losses, would be unable and unwilling to launch a major offensive in the Atlantic until after the winter. However he had miscalculated the strength of the fleet at Brest, the principal French Atlantic seaport. The Brest fleet had not been engaged in the 1805 campaign and was therefore intact.

Taking advantage of the withdrawal of the British blockade, Emperor Napoleon ordered two squadrons to put to sea with orders to raid the British trade routes that crossed the Atlantic. These forces were to inflict as much economic damage to Britain as possible without engaging an equivalent British naval squadron and risking defeat and capture. The cruise was expected to last as long as 14 months, sustained by captured food supplies from British merchant ships. Sailing unopposed on 13 December 1805, the squadrons separated two days later in pursuit of British merchant convoys, one squadron steering for the South Atlantic under Contre-Admiral Jean-Baptiste Willaumez and the other, under Vice-Admiral Corentin-Urbain Leissègues, sailing for the Caribbean. The Admiralty in London did not discover that the French had sailed until 24 December, and the two squadrons they prepared in pursuit, under Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Strachan and Rear-Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, did not sail until January 1806, by which time the French had disappeared into the Atlantic.

There was however one British squadron that had maintained contact with the French: since the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805, the Admiralty had stationed a squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth off Cadiz to watch the remnants of the combined fleet. In November 1805, reports reached Duckworth of a French squadron operating against British convoys off the Savage Islands between Madeira and the Canary Islands. This squadron, which belonged to Contre-Admiral Zacharie Allemand, had left France in July 1805. Immediately sailing to investigate, Duckworth abandoned Cadiz, leaving just two frigates to watch the Allied fleet at anchor. Passing the Savage and Canary Islands, Duckworth continued to the Cape Verde Islands before conceding that the French had escaped him and turning northwards again. Allemand was already far to the north. He eventually returned to France without incident on 23 December.

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