Battle of Santo Domingo | |||||||
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Part of the Napoleonic Wars | |||||||
Duckworth's Action off San Domingo, 6 February 1806. The Impérial being harassed by the much weaker HMS Northumberland before being driven ashore. Nicholas Pocock, 1808, National Maritime Museum |
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Belligerents | |||||||
United Kingdom | France | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Vice-Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth | Contre-Amiral Corentin Urbain Leissègues | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
7 ships of the line 2 frigates 2 brigs |
5 ships of the line 2 frigates 1 corvette |
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Casualties and losses | |||||||
74 killed 264 wounded |
~1,500 killed or wounded 2 ships of the line destroyed 3 ships of the line captured |
Coordinates: 18°18′N 70°03′W / 18.300°N 70.050°W The Battle of San Domingo was a naval battle of the Napoleonic Wars fought on 6 February 1806 between squadrons of French and British ships of the line off the southern coast of the French-occupied Spanish colonial Captaincy General of Santo Domingo (San Domingo in contemporary British English) in the Caribbean. The French squadron, under Vice-Admiral Corentin Urbain Leissègues in the 120-gun Impérial, had sailed from Brest in December 1805, one of two squadrons intending to raid British trade routes as part of the Atlantic campaign of 1806.
Separating from the squadron under Contre-Admiral Jean-Baptiste Willaumez in the mid-Atlantic, Leissègues sailed for the Caribbean. After winter storms near the Azores damaged and scattered his squadron, Leissègues regrouped and repaired his ships at the city of Santo Domingo, where a British squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth discovered them on 6 February 1806. Duckworth had abandoned his assigned station off Cadiz in pursuit of Willaumez during December and traveled so far across the Atlantic in pursuit that he was forced to resupply at St. Kitts in the Leeward Islands, where news had reached him of Leissègues' arrival.