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The Action of 31 July 1793 was an inconclusive engagement between a British Royal Navy frigate and French frigate off the New Jersey coastline in the first year of the French Revolutionary Wars. The British captain, George Courtenay of HMS ''Boston'', had arrived off New York City on 28 May and deliberately disguised his ship as a French vessel, fooling a French officer into coming aboard and making him a prisoner of war. Courtenay then sent a message into New York, where he knew a French frigate lay at anchor, challenging the French captain to battle within the next three days. The challenge was accepted and widely disseminated throughout the city, so that when Captain Jean-Baptiste-François Bompart of ''Embuscade'' sailed out to meet Courtenay on the morning of 31 July, the shore was crowded with thousands of sightseers. The engagement between the ships was fiercely contested, but the smaller and more lightly armed ''Boston'' seemed to be taking the more serious damage when at 6:20 Captain Courtenay was thrown to the deck. What happened next has been subject to debate, with the second-in-command, Lieutenant John Edwards claiming that Courtenay had been killed and he was thrown overboard as was the custom at the time. However rumours subsequently circulated that Courtenay had only been knocked unconscious when Edwards gave the order to jettison him, a story that his family credited and was later taken up by the contemporary historian Edward Pelham Brenton, although historian William James subsequently defended Edwards' actions. With Courtenay gone, ''Boston'' continued to suffer severe damage until just after 07:00, when the remaining officers ordered all surviving sails set and the British ship attempted to escape. Although Bompart pursued, by 08:00 the strain had proved too much for his ship and he fell back. After a close encounter with French ships in the Delaware River, ''Boston'' eventually escaped to St John's, Newfoundland while ''Embuscade'' refitted in New York. ==Background== In February 1793 the newly formed French Republic declared war on Great Britain, extending the French Revolutionary Wars that had begun the year before on the continent. The French Navy was in a state of upheaval due to the social consequences of the French Revolution, and as a result found itself at a disadvantage to the Royal Navy, which had been preparing for war since June 1792.〔Woodman, p. 20〕 In response, the French sent several frigate squadrons to sea, including their newest ships and best sailors and officers in an attempt to disrupt British commerce in the early stages of the war. One such squadron was sent in April 1793 to the United States, carrying the French ambassador to the United States, Edmond-Charles Genêt. After the ambassador disembarked, the squadron, under the command of Captain Jean-Baptiste-François Bompart, dispersed to raid British shipping along the coast, capturing or destroying more than 60 merchant vessels before retiring to American ports for repairs.〔Woodman, p. 28〕 The French threat on the American Seaboard was met by Royal Navy frigates operating out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, under orders to watch and blockade French movements in American ports. One such ship was the 32-gun frigate HMS ''Boston'', a small and old vessel under the command of Captain George Courtenay. Courtenay was under orders to watch New York City, where one of the frigates was known to be at anchor.〔Mostert, p. xix〕 On 28 June 1793, ''Boston'' arrived off New York, Courtenay deliberately disguising his ship to resemble a French vessel by having the French-speaking members of his crew talk loudly on the quarterdeck while an American pilot boat was within earshot. The French ship in New York was Bompart's ship ''Embuscade'', a large and powerful vessel that had been built less than three years before and carried a combined broadside weight of , more than that of ''Boston''.〔 Sighting the strange ship off the harbour, Bompart sent a boat with his lieutenant, an American from Boston named Whitynow, and twelve men to investigate. Although he was suspicious of the strange vessel, Whitynow was finally convinced that the ship was a French vessel after conferring with the pilots, and came aboard only to discover his error when Courtenay seized him and his men as prisoners of war.〔Woodman, p. 29〕 Courtenay suggested to his prisoner that he would be keen to meet Bompart in battle, and he agreed to send a message into New York via the pilot boat with a challenge for Bompart to bring ''Embuscade'' out of the neutral harbour and meet ''Boston'' off Sandy Hook.〔 The pilot was initially unable to locate the French captain, and so instead posted the challenge in a coffeehouse in the city, from where the news spread rapidly.〔Clowes, p. 478〕 Bompart came to learn of it, and spent the next two days preparing his warship; historian Edward Pelham Brenton has claimed that Bompart was joined by 100 armed American volunteers, which he calls "a flagrant violation of the law of nations".〔 After a consultation among the French officers ''Embuscade'' sailed from New York on the night of 30 July, although Courtenay was almost forced to miss the rendezvous: on the afternoon of 30 July a large French battle squadron of the ships of the line ''Éole'' and ''Patriote'', four frigates and six smaller vessels passed northwards along the New Jersey coast, heading for New York. In the face of such a powerful force ''Boston'' was temporarily forced to withdraw to open water, but the squadron did not deviate to investigate the frigate and had passed into New York harbour by nightfall, allowing Courtenay to return to his station.〔Woodman, p. 30〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Action of 31 July 1793」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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