Battle of The Basque Roads - The Follow-up

The Follow-up

When Cochrane returned to the British fleet, he found that the second attack — 20 fireships — was in complete disarray. Only four of those ships managed to reach the enemy's position, and they did no direct damage. Cochrane was outraged, reckoning that the fireships could have completely destroyed the French squadron in the confusion following the explosion; instead a series of mishaps took place including firing the ships too soon, missing the enemy squadron, with one fireship even grounding itself.

The fireships missed their target, badly; but they still inflicted considerable indirect damage. When the French sighted the fireships taking flame several miles away, they believed they were seeing more explosion-vessels at much closer range, and wreaked much havoc upon themselves in their attempts to escape. Most of the ships either cut their anchor cables and drifted ashore, or else hoisted sail with equally disastrous results.

Cochrane wrote:

"At daylight on the morning of the 12th, not a spar of the boom was anywhere visible, and, with the exception of the Foudroyant and Cassard, the whole of the enemy's vessels were helplessly aground. The flagship, Océan, a 120-gun three-decker, drawing the most water, lay outermost on the north-west edge of the Palles Shoal, nearest the deep water, where she was most exposed to attack; whilst all, by the fall of the tide, were lying on their bilge, with their bottoms completely exposed to shot, and therefore beyond the possibility of resistance."