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The Bali Strait Incident was an encounter between a powerful French Navy frigate squadron and a convoy of British East India Company East Indiamen merchant ships in the Bali Strait on 28 January 1797. The incident took place admidst the East Indies campaign of the French Revolutionary Wars repeated French attempts to disrupt the highly valuable British trade routes with British India and Qing Dynasty China. In 1796, a large squadron of French frigates arrived in the Indian Ocean under the command of Contre-amiral Pierre César Charles de Sercey. In July this force sailed on a commerce raiding cruise off British Ceylon, but a subsequent attack into the Straits of Malacca was driven off in an inconclusive engagement with two British ships of the line off Northeastern Sumatra. Forced to make repairs, Sercey took his squadron to the allied Batavian city of Batavia, sheltering there until January 1797. As Sercey left Batavia, the very valuable annual British trade convoy from Macau (Portuguese treaty port in Southern China) was due to sail. This convoy was worth millions of pounds and its capture would seriously harm the British economy. The British commander in the region, Admiral Peter Rainier split the convoy, taking four ships with a heavy escort through the Straits of Malacca, while the remaining six East Indiamen sailed unescorted through the supposedly safer Bali Strait. On 28 January, at the entrance to the Strait near the coast of Java the convoy was discovered by Sercey's squadron. The British commander, Charles Lennox, knew that if he fled his ships would be rapidly overwhelmed and instead attempted to bluff Sercey into believing that the convoy was formed not from lightly armed East Indiamen, but from the powerful ships of the line which they resembled. Lennox ordered his ships to advance on the French who retreated, convinced they were facing a superior enemy. Sercey did momentarily reconsider, when the British ships declined to attack the temporarily disabled frigate ''Forte'', but eventually withdrew completely, retiring to his base at Île de France (now Mauritius) where he learned of his error. The China Fleet reached its destination with only one ship lost, wrecked in a storm the day after the encounter. ==Background== Trade through the East Indies was a vital component of the economy of Great Britain during the late eighteenth century. This trade was administered by the East India Company, which maintained trading ports throughout the region, most notably in British India at Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. The main bulk of this was carried on large merchant ships known as East Indiamen,〔''The Victory of Seapower'', Gardiner, p.101〕 which weighed between and traveled well-armed, carrying up to 36 cannon. Due to their size and weaponry they could be mistaken for ships of the line, standard large warships of the period, a deception usually augmented by paintwork and dummy cannon.〔Maffeo, p. 190〕 Despite their appearance however they could not fight off an enemy frigate or ship of the line as their guns were of inferior design, and their crew smaller and less well trained than those on a naval ship.〔Clowes, Vol.V, p.337〕 An important component of the East India trade was an annual trade convoy from Macau, a Portuguese port in Qing Dynasty China. Early in each year, a large convoy of East Indiamen would sail from Macau, through the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic to Britain. The value of the trade carried in this convoy, nicknamed the "China Fleet", was enormous: one convoy in 1804 was reported to be carrying goods worth over £8 million in contemporary values (the equivalent of £ as of ).〔''The Victory of Seapower'', Gardiner, p.32〕 By 1797, Britain and the new French Republic had been engaged in the French Revolutionary Wars for nearly four years. Although there had been much fighting in Europe, the East Indies had remained largely under British control. French forces in the region were limited, and apart from a few raiding cruises the French squadron in the region had been under intermittent blockade at Île de France.〔Parkinson, p.84〕 The Royal Navy, commanded in Eastern waters by Rear-Admiral Peter Rainier had focused on commerce protection and the elimination of the colonies of the French-allied Batavian Republic, capturing Dutch Ceylon, the Dutch Cape Colony and parts of the Dutch East Indies in 1795 and 1796.〔''Fleet Battle and Blockade'', Gardiner, p.73〕 Rainier had been engaged in pacifying local uprisings around Malacca during the latter part of the campaign, and there had been few forces left in reserve to protect British interests in the Indian Ocean.〔Parkinson, p.101〕 In response to British activity in the region and the reluctance of the inhabitants of Île de France to follow orders from the National Convention abolishing slavery, the French dispatched a squadron of frigates to the East Indies early in 1796.〔James, Vol.1, p.347〕 This force, led by Contre-amiral Pierre César Charles de Sercey, originally comprised three frigates, subsequently joined by three more vessels, forming a powerful raiding squadron. After resupplying on Île de France in July, Sercey's frigates cruised off the Ceylon coast, dissuaded from attacking the undefended ports of British India by false information fed to his scouts that a British battle squadron was at anchor in Calcutta.〔Parkinson, p.101〕 Turning eastwards, Sercey hoped to raid George Town at Penang, but was driven off in an inconclusive engagement with a British squadron off Sumatra on 9 September. He spent the winter sheltering in the Batavian harbour of Batavia on Java.〔Parkinson, p.104〕 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「Bali Strait Incident」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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