First Battle of Groix - Aftermath

Aftermath

"such a retreat . . . reflects as much honour on the abilities of the man who conducted it, as would the achievement of the most splendid victory."

The Naval Chronicle, Vol. VII, pp. 20–25

With the French fleet out of sight, Cornwallis ordered his squadron north against the northeast wind, returning through the English Channel to Plymouth for repairs. Phaeton was sent ahead with despatches intended to warn Lord Bridport that the French fleet was at sea and inform him of Cornwallis's safety. However, Bridport had already sailed on 12 June with 15 ships of the line as a cover for a secondary force detailed to land a British and French Royalist army at Quiberon Bay, and the main British fleet was already off Brest when the action between Cornwallis and Villaret de Joyeuse was fought. The ships of Cornwallis's squadron had all suffered damage, especially Triumph and Mars: Triumph had to have extensive repairs to its stern, which had been heavily cut away during the action. Historian Edward Pelham Brenton credits this action with influencing Robert Seppings in his future designs of ships of the line, providing rounded sterns that offered a wider field of fire at pursuing warships. Casualties were light however, with just 12 men wounded on Mars and no other losses on the remainder of the squadron.

The French fleet was only lightly damaged and had only taken light casualties of 29 men killed and wounded. Villaret continued the fleets passage eastwards, rounding Penmarck Point and entering Audierne Bay on the passage north towards Brest when the region was hit by a fierce 27-hour gale, dividing the French fleet southwards and dispersing them across the coastline. Over the ensuing days Villaret was able to reconstitute his fleet in the anchorage off Belle Île where Vence had laid up on 8 June. When the fleet was all assembled, Villaret again ordered it to sail north in an effort to regain Brest. His fleet had originally sailed from Brest in such a rush due to the perceived danger to Vence's squadron that it was only carrying 15 days worth of provisions on board and had now been at sea for ten days, making a return to Brest a priority. At 03:30 on 22 June, as the French fleet passed north along the coast, the British Channel Fleet appeared to the northwest, Bridport having discovered the French fleet absent from Brest and cast southwards to protect the Quiberon invasion convoy.

Villaret considered the newly arrived British fleet to be significantly superior to his own and retreated before it, sailing towards the French coast with the intention of sheltering in the protected the coastal waters around the island of Groix and returning to Brest from this position. Bridport instructed his fleet to pursue the French force, and a chase developed lasting the day of 22 June and into the early morning of 23 June, when Bridport's leading ships caught the stragglers at the rear of Villaret's fleet off the island. In a sharp engagement known as the Battle of Groix, three ships were overrun and attacked, suffering heavy damage and casualties before surrendering. Others were damaged, but at 08:37, with most of his fleet still unengaged and the French scattered along the coast, Bridport suddenly called off the action and instructed his ships to gather their prizes and retire, a decision that was greatly criticised by contemporary officers and later historians.

In France, Villaret's failure to press his attack against Cornwallis's squadron was blamed on a number of factors, including accusations that the captains of the French ships leading the attack had deliberately disobeyed orders to engage the British and that they were unable to effectively manoeuvre their vessels. It was also insisted by several of the French officers present that the sails on the northwest horizon really had been Bridport's fleet and that this was the only factor that had induced them to disengage. Villaret placed much of the blame on Captain Jean Magnac of Zélé, whom he accused of withdrawing from the action prematurely and disobeying orders. Magnac was later court-martialed and dismissed from the French Navy. In Britain, the battle was celebrated as one of the most notable actions of the early years of the conflict, an attitude encouraged by the modesty of Cornwallis's despatch to the Admiralty, which when describing how he had faced down an entire French fleet at the climax of the action wrote only that the French had "made a Shew of a more ferious attack upon the Mars . . . and obliged me to bear up for her Support ." He did however subsequently note of his men that

"Indeed I shall ever feel the Impression which the good Conduct of the Captains, Officers, Seamen, Marines and Soldiers in the Squadron has made on my Mind; and it was the greatest Pleasure I ever received to see the Spirit manifested by the Men, who, instead of being cast down at seeing Thirty sail of the Enemy's Ships attacking our little Squadron, were in the highest Spirits imaginable . . . Could common Prudence have allowed me to loose their Valour, I hardly known what might not have been accomplished by such Men." —Vice-Admiral William Cornwallis's official despatch, printed in the London Gazette on 23 June 1795

Cornwallis was given the thanks of both Houses of Parliament, but fell out of favour with the Admiralty in October 1795 in a dispute about naval discipline and was subsequently court-martialed and censured in 1796 for abandoning a convoy to the West Indies due to damage to Royal Sovereign and ill-health. He entered retirement that year, but in 1801 he was given command of the Channel Fleet by Earl St Vincent and for the next five years led the blockade of the French Atlantic Fleet, most notably during the Trafalgar campaign of 1805 when he sent reinforcements to the fleet under Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson at a critical juncture. British historians have highly praised the conduct of Cornwallis and his men at the unequal battle: In 1825 Brenton wrote that Cornwallis's Retreat is "justly considered one of the finest displays of united courage and coolness to be found in our naval history." while in 1827 William James wrote of the "masterly retreat of Vice-admiral Cornwallis" in which "the spirit manifested by the different ships' companies of his little squadron, while pressed upon by a force from its threefold superiority so capable of crushing them, was just as ought always to animate British seamen when in the presence of an enemy." Modern historian Robert Gardiner echoed this sentiment, noting in 1998 that "'Cornwallis's Retreat' became as famous as many of the Royal Navy's real victories."