Action of 26 April 1797

Cadiz (in red), with the site of the battle marked.

Date	26 April 1797
Location	Conil Bay, Spain
Result	British victory

Belligerents

Great Britain

Spain

Commanders and leaders

George Martin

Strength

ship of the line HMS Irresistible and frigate HMS Emerald

frigates Santa Elena and Ninfa

Casualties and losses

1 killed, 1 wounded

18 killed, 30 wounded. Santa Elena destroyed and Ninfa captured.

The Action of 26 April 1797 was a minor naval engagement during the French Revolutionary Wars in which a Spanish convoy of two frigates was trapped and defeated off the Spanish town of Conil de la Frontera by British ships of the Cadiz blockade. The British vessels, the ship of the line HMS Irresistible and the Fifth-rate frigate HMS Emerald, were significantly more powerful than the Spanish frigates, which were on the last stage of a voyage carrying treasure from Havana, Cuba, to the Spanish fleet base of Cadiz.

The British commander, Captain George Martin, succeeded in chasing the Spanish vessels into the rocky Conil Bay, where they surrendered after a brief engagement in which the Spanish suffered significantly higher casualties than the British. One of the Spanish ships, the Santa Elena, was subsequently wrecked on the shore, while the other, the Ninfa, was captured and later recommissioned into the Royal Navy. The treasure carried on board the frigates, however, had been removed by a Spanish fishing boat before the battle and so did not fall into British hands.

In late 1796, with the French Revolutionary Wars three years old, a major shift occurred in the conflict when the Kingdom of Spain, until that point an enemy of the French Republic, abruptly changed sides following the signing of the Treaty of San Ildefonso. This reversal forced the British Royal Navy to retire from the Mediterranean Sea to preserve its lines of communication, falling back to the mouth of the Tagus River near Lisbon. From the Tagus, pressure was placed on the Spanish Navy by the erstwhile British Mediterranean Fleet under Vice-Admiral Sir John Jervis, who organised a blockade of the main Spanish fleet base at Cádiz on the country's Southern Atlantic coast. This resulted in the Battle of Cape St. Vincent on 14 February 1797, when Jervis inflicted a stinging defeat on the Spanish fleet. The surviving Spanish ships limped back to Cádiz after the battle, and to ensure that they could not sail again without risking a repeat action, Jervis arranged a close blockade of the port so that by April there were 21 British ships of the line and numerous frigates watching the Spanish fleet at anchor.

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Wikipedia