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Action of 31 May 1809
The Action of 31 May 1809 was a naval skirmish in the Bay of Bengal during the Napoleonic Wars. During the action, an Honourable East India Company convoy carrying goods worth over £500,000 was attacked and partially captured by the French frigate ''Caroline''. The three East Indiamen that made up the convoy fought against their opponent with their own batteries of cannon but ultimately were less powerful, less manoeuvrable and less trained than their opponent and were defeated one by one; only the smallest of the three escaped. The action was the first in a string of attacks on important convoys in the Indian Ocean by French cruisers operating from Île de France and Île Bonaparte during a concerted campaign against British shipping in the region.
==Background==
In November 1808, a squadron of powerful French frigates sailed for Île de France under Commodore Jacques Hamelin. This squadron was under orders to attack and capture or destroy British shipping in the Indian Ocean, particularly the heavily armed convoys of East Indiamen that carried millions of pounds worth of trade goods from British India and the Far East to Britain.〔Gardiner, p. 92〕 These convoys were operated by the Honourable East India Company (HEIC), which ran British India and maintained a private army and navy to secure the colony and its trade routes. During the late Napoleonic Wars, French naval strategy focused on the disruption of this trade with the use of fast and well-armed frigates to operate independently along British trade routes and capture British merchant ships. This affected the British economy, which was already severely stretched by the war, and forced the Royal Navy to divert resources to distant parts of the world to protect British trade.〔Gardiner, p. 59〕
During the late spring of 1809, following the end of the Indian Ocean hurricane season, Hamelin ordered his ships to operate in the Bay of Bengal. One of these frigates was the 40-gun ''Caroline'', which was built in Antwerp in 1806 and weighed 1,078 tons. ''Caroline'' was commanded by Jean-Baptiste-Henri Féretier, newly promoted following the sudden death of her previous captain.〔James, p. 199〕 Féretier was the first of Hamelin's captains to find a British convoy, spotting three sails on the horizon on 31 May. These belonged to a Britain-bound convoy of East Indiamen, which had departed the Hooghly River on 2 May. Laden with over £500,000 worth of silk and other trade goods, these ships were an important asset to the HEIC and had originally been part of a larger convoy, guarded by the sloop HMS ''Victor'' and consisting of five Indiamen and several smaller vessels.〔 On 24 May a storm divided the convoy; ''Victor'', the small ships and two of the Indiamen ''Monarch'' and ''Earl Spencer'' were separated from the remainder, the ''Streatham'', ''Europe'' and ''Lord Keith'' after ''Monarch'' sprang a leak.〔Taylor, p. 215〕
The Indiamen were not unprotected: each one was large and powerfully built and carried a number of cannon. ''Streatham'' and ''Europe'' weighed over 800 tons each and carried 30 cannon, whereas the smaller ''Lord Keith'' was 600 tons and carried 12 guns.〔James, p. 193〕 Four years earlier, a convoy of East Indiamen had driven off a French ship of the line and attached frigates under Admiral Linois in similar waters by forming a battle line and firing on their opponents as they closed.〔Adkins, p. 185〕 The crews of these East Indiamen were not of Royal Navy standard, however, with insufficient training and large numbers of Chinese and lascar seamen, who proved unreliable in combat.〔Brenton, p. 398〕
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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