Action of 6 November 1794 - Aftermath

Aftermath

Consolidating his battered prize, Nielly ordered his squadron to return to Brest without waiting for the British convoys that had been his intended targets: unknown to the French, both the Lisbon and Mediterranean convoys were less than 180 nautical miles (330 km) away from the action. Alexander was in a sinking condition, and it was only with difficulty that the ship was brought back to port afloat. The captured crew were distributed among the French squadron and as a result Bligh was unable to make a full casualty list. He later estimated losses of approximately 40 men killed or wounded aboard Alexander, although French accounts give 28 killed and 30 wounded. British histories reported French casualties in the engagement as the enormous figure of 450 men killed and wounded, although as French historian Charles Rouvier noted in 1868, this is an absurdy inflated figure: Rouvier gave French losses as 10 wounded, all on Marat. Bligh was returned to Brest in the custody of Captain Jean François Renaudin, who had commanded the ship Vengeur du Peuple at the Glorious First of June at which his ship was sunk. Bligh, who had unknown to him been promoted to rear-admiral whilst at sea, later commended Renaudin for his conduct while Bligh was a prisoner and wrote to the Admiralty that he had been treated with "great Kindness and Humanity". However, historian Edward Pelham Brenton reported in 1825 that at Brest:

"the populace insulted the prisoners as they marched to their place of confinement: officers and men shared the same lot; they were denied the commonest rations of provisions, and reduced to starvation. A wretched dog that crept into the cells was killed, and his head alone sold for a dollar, to satisfy the cravings of nature: a prisoner, in a state of delirium, threw himself in the well within the prison walls, and his dead body, after lying some time, was taken out, but no other water was allowed to the people to drink." —"the officers who were present", quoted in Edward Pelham Brenton' The Naval History of Great Britain, Volume 1, 1825,

Bligh was exchanged shortly after the action and returned to Britain. On 27 May 1795 he sat before a court-martial, standard practice when a Royal Navy ship was lost in action, and was honourably acquitted of blame in the loss of Alexander. In France, the National Convention commended Nielly on his victory and the captured ship was repaired and taken into the French Navy, joining the Atlantic Fleet. It was however a poor sailor and in June 1795 was with the French fleet that participated in Cornwallis's Retreat and the Battle of Groix: at the latter action Alexandre was overrun by the British fleet and recaptured, rejoining the Royal Navy. The historical assessment of the capture of Alexander has been summed up by the historian Robert Gardiner, who wrote in 1996 that "The capture of a British 74 was a rare event during these wars – only five were lost . . . However, the one sided nature of the conflict was not apparent in 1794 and what has been called the Royal Navy's 'habit of victory' was not yet established."