Raid On Saint-Paul - Assault

Assault

At 05:00 on 21 September 1809, Nereide entered the bay of Saint-Paul under the cover of darkness and successfully landed the British force, without any sign they had been sighted from the shore, at the Pointe des Galets. The Pointe des Galets was 7 miles (11 km) north of Saint-Paul, the distance allowing the force, divided into Keating's soldiers from Rodriguez and the naval force led by Nesbit Willoughby, to approach the heavy gun batteries that guarded the port unobserved. Storming the strongest batteries, Lambousière and la Centière, at 07:00, the British force surprised the garrisons, captured the fortifications and turned their cannon onto the shipping moored in the harbour, firing grape shot at the decks of the frigate Caroline.

A detachment of the British landing force then separated from the main body and seized a third battery named la Neuf, routing a force of local militia that attempted to block their advance with artillery assistance from the British squadron in the bay. The militia had come down from their garrisons in the surrounding hills and been joined by 110 French soldiers who had disembarked from Caroline, but the small French force was easily brushed aside by the British landing party. Keating and Willoughby then destroyed the guns in the first two captured batteries and stormed the remaining two fortifications, once again capturing them and using their own cannon to fire on the shipping in the harbour.

While the landing force drove off the defenders and captured the fortifications, the naval squadron entered the harbour and opened up an overwhelming fire on the outnumbered Caroline. Shot was also fired at the captured East Indiamen, various other vessels in the harbour and any small batteries or shore positions that remained in French hands. Feretier and the other French naval officers, recognising that their position was hopeless, cut the anchor cables of their ships and allowed them to drift ashore, where they abandoned ship to escape capture. The British squadron then anchored in the harbour as their crews set about refloating the grounded French ships on the beach. In addition to Caroline and the East Indiamen, Rowley's squadron successfully captured a 14-gun privateer brig named Grappler and five or six smaller ships. With the harbour and fortifications in British hands, Keating and Willoughby entered the town of Saint-Paul without further combat.