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Cornwallis's Retreat
Cornwallis's Retreat was a naval engagement during the French Revolutionary Wars in which a British Royal Navy battle squadron of five ships of the line and two frigates was attacked by a French Navy battlefleet of 12 ships of the line and 11 frigates in the waters off the west coast of Brittany on 16–17 June 1795 (28-29 prairial an III of the French Republican Calendar). Hugely outnumbered, the British commander Vice-Admiral William Cornwallis turned away from the French on 16 June and attempted to escape into open water, the French fleet under Admiral Villaret de Joyeuse in close pursuit. After a full day's chase the British squadron had lost speed due to poorly loaded holds on board two ships, and the French vanguard pulled within range on the morning of 17 June. Unwilling to abandon his rearguard, Cornwallis counterattacked with the remainder of his squadron and a fierce combat developed, culminating in Cornwallis interposing his flagship HMS ''Royal Sovereign'' between the British and French forces.
In the face of Cornwallis's determined resistance and fearing that the main British Channel Fleet was in the vicinity, Villaret de Joyeuse broke off the battle on the evening of 17 June and ordered his ships to withdraw, allowing Cornwallis to return to port at Plymouth with his battered but intact squadron. Villaret retired to an anchorage off Belle Île, close to the naval base at Brest and there was discovered by the main British Channel Fleet on 22 June and defeated at the ensuing Battle of Groix, losing three ships of the line. While Villaret was criticised for failing to press the attack on Cornwallis's force, the British admiral was praised and rewarded for his defiance in the face of overwhelming French numerical superiority. The battle has since been considered by British historians to be one of the most influential examples "of united courage and coolness to be found in () naval history".〔
==Background==
By the late spring of 1795 Britain and France had been at war for more than two years, with the British Royal Navy's Channel Fleet, known at the time as the "Western Squadron" exerting superiority in the campaign for dominance in the Bay of Biscay and the Western Approaches.〔 The British, led first by Lord Howe and then by Lord Bridport sailing from their bases at Plymouth, Portsmouth and Torbay, maintained an effective distant blockade against the French naval bases on the Atlantic, especially the large harbour of Brest in Brittany.〔Gardiner, p. 46〕 Although French squadrons could occasionally put to sea without interception, the main French fleet had suffered a series of setbacks in the preceding two years, most notably at the battle of the Glorious First of June in 1794 at which the fleet lost seven ships of the line and then during the ''Croisière du Grand Hiver'' during the winter of 1794–1795 when five ships of the line were wrecked during a sortie into the Bay of Biscay at the height of the Atlantic winter storm season.〔Gardiner, p. 16〕
The damage the French Trans-Atlantic fleet had suffered in the winter operation took months to repair and it was not in a condition to sail again until June 1795, although several squadrons had put to sea in the meanwhile. One such squadron consisted of three ships of the line and a number of frigates under Contre-Amiral Jean Gaspard Vence sent to Bordeaux to escort a merchant convoy up the coast to Brest.〔Clowes, p. 255〕 The British Channel Fleet had briefly sortied from Torbay in February in response to the ''Croisière du Grand Hiver'' and subsequently retired to Spithead, from where a squadron of five ships of the line and two frigates were sent on 30 May to patrol the approaches to Brest and to watch the French fleet. The force consisted of the 100-gun first-rate ship of the line HMS ''Royal Sovereign'', the 74-gun ships of the line HMS ''Mars'', HMS ''Triumph'', HMS ''Brunswick'' and HMS ''Bellerophon'', the frigates HMS ''Phaeton'' and HMS ''Pallas'' and the small brig-sloop HMS ''Kingfisher'', under the overall command of Vice-Admiral William Cornwallis in ''Royal Sovereign''.〔James, p. 237〕 Cornwallis was a highly experienced naval officer who had been in service with the Navy since 1755 and fought in the Seven Years' War and the American Revolutionary War, including the significant naval victories over the French at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in 1759 and the Battle of the Saintes in 1782.〔
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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