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The Battle of Grand Port was a naval battle between squadrons of frigates from the French Navy and the British Royal Navy. The battle was fought during 20–27 August 1810 over possession of the harbour of Grand Port on Isle de France (now Mauritius) during the Napoleonic Wars. The British squadron of four frigates sought to blockade the port to prevent its use by the French through the capture of the fortified Île de la Passe at its entrance. This position was seized by a British landing party on 13 August, and when a French squadron under Captain Guy-Victor Duperré approached the bay nine days later the British commander, Captain Samuel Pym, decided to lure them into coastal waters where his superior numbers could be brought to bear against the French ships. Four of the five French ships managed to break past the British blockade, taking shelter in the protected anchorage, which was only accessible through a series of complicated reefs and sandbanks that were impassable without an experienced harbour pilot. When Pym ordered his frigates to attack the anchored French on August 22 and 23, his ships became trapped in the narrow channels of the bay: two were irretrievably grounded; a third, outnumbered by the combined French squadron, was defeated; and a fourth was unable to close to within effective gun range. Although the French ships were also badly damaged, the battle was a disaster for the British: one ship was captured after suffering irreparable damage, the grounded ships were set on fire to prevent their capture by French boarding parties and the remaining vessel was seized as it left the harbour by the main French squadron from Port Napoleon under Commodore Jacques Hamelin. The British defeat was the worst the Royal Navy suffered during the entire war, and it left the Indian Ocean and its vital trade convoys exposed to attack from Hamelin's frigates. In response, the British authorities sought to reinforce the squadron on Île Bourbon under Josias Rowley by ordering all available ships to the region, but this piecemeal reinforcement resulted in a series of desperate actions as individual British ships were attacked by the more powerful and confident French squadron. In December 1810 an adequate reinforcement was collected, with the provision of a strong battle squadron under Admiral Albemarle Bertie, that rapidly invaded and subdued Isle de France. ==Background== During the early nineteenth century, the Indian Ocean formed an essential part of the network of trade routes that connected the British Empire. Heavily laden East Indiamen travelled from British Indian port cities such as Bombay or Calcutta to the United Kingdom carrying millions of pounds worth of goods. From Britain, the ships returned on the same routes, often carrying soldiers for the growing British Indian Army, then under the control of the Honourable East India Company (HEIC).〔Gardiner, p. 92〕 Following the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars in 1803, the British Admiralty had made the security of these routes a priority, and by 1807 the Dutch bases at the Cape of Good Hope and Java had been neutralised by expeditionary forces to prevent their use by enemy raiders. The French Indian Ocean possessions however, principally Île Bonaparte and Isle de France, were a more complicated target, protected from attack not only by the great distances involved in preparing an invasion attempt but also by heavy fortifications and a substantial garrison of French Army soldiers augmented by a large local militia.〔 The French had recognised the importance of these islands as bases for raiding warships during the French Revolutionary Wars (1793–1801), but by late 1807 the only naval resources allocated to the region were a few older frigates and a large number of local privateers.〔Gardiner, p. 83〕 Following the reduction of these remaining naval forces on Isle de France during 1808, by defeat in battle and disarmaments due to age and unseaworthiness, the French naval authorities made a serious attempt to disrupt British trade in the region, ordering five large modern frigates to sail to Isle de France under Commodore Jacques Hamelin.〔Woodman, p. 282〕 Four of these ships broke through the British blockade of the French coast, arriving in the Indian Ocean in the spring of 1809, where Hamelin dispersed them into the Bay of Bengal with orders to intercept, attack and capture or destroy the heavily armed but extremely valuable convoys of East Indiamen. The first French success came at the end of the spring, when the frigate ''Caroline'' successfully attacked a convoy at the Action of 31 May 1809, seizing two heavily laden merchant ships.〔Woodman, p. 283〕 Commodore Josias Rowley was given command of the British response to the French deployment, a hastily assembled force composed mainly of those ships available at the Cape of Good Hope in early 1809. Ordered to stop the French raiders, Rowley was unable to spread his limited squadron wide enough to pursue the roving French frigates, instead using his forces to blockade and raid the French Indian Ocean islands in anticipation of Hamelin's return. In August 1809, ''Caroline'' arrived with her prizes at Saint-Paul on Île Bonaparte and Rowley determined to seize the frigate. He planned a successful invasion of the town, launched on 20 September 1809, which resulted in the capture of the port's defences, ''Caroline'' and the captured East Indiamen. With his objectives complete, Rowley withdrew five days later.〔James, pp. 197–199〕 Almost a year later, Rowley returned with a larger task force and made a second landing around the capital of Île Bonaparte, Saint-Denis. Marching on the seat of government, Rowley's troops rapidly overwhelmed the defences and forced the island's garrison to surrender, renaming the island Île Bourbon and installing a British governor.〔Clowes, p. 458〕 Hamelin had used the British preoccupation with Île Bonaparte to send additional frigates to sea during 1809 and early 1810, including his flagship ''Vénus'', which captured three East Indiamen at the Action of 18 November 1809, and ''Bellone'', which took the Portuguese frigate ''Minerva'' in the Bay of Bengal a few days later.〔James, pp. 201–202〕 ''Minerva'', renamed ''Minerve'' in French hands, was subsequently involved in the Action of 3 July 1810, when a further two East Indiamen were captured. The squadron in the latter action was commanded by Guy-Victor Duperré in ''Bellone'', whose ships were so badly damaged that Duperré was forced to spend nearly a month repairing his vessels in the Comoros Islands before they were ready to return to Isle de France.〔Clowes, p. 457〕 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「Battle of Grand Port」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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