Charles Town expedition

Charles Town expedition
Part of Queen Anne's War
Detail from a 1733 map showing the North American coastline between Charles Town and St. Augustine
Date September 1706 Location present-day Charleston, South Carolina Result English victory
Belligerents
Pro-Bourbon Spain  France	England Province of Carolina
Commanders and leaders
Jacques Lefebvre Estevan de Berroa Louis Pasquereau (POW) General Arbousset (POW)	Nathaniel Johnson William Rhett
Strength
six privateers 330 French and Spanish regulars 200 Spanish volunteers 50 Indians	exact number unknown; provincial militia numbered about 900 Several provincial naval forces, including impressed merchant ships
Casualties and losses
one ship captured 42 killed over 350 captured	unknown

England

The Charles Town expedition (September 1706) was a combined French and Spanish attempt under Captain Jacques Lefebvre to capture the capital of the English Province of Carolina, Charles Town, during Queen Anne's War (as the North American theater of the War of the Spanish Succession is sometimes known).

Organized and funded primarily by the French and launched from Havana, Cuba, the expedition reached Charles Town in early September 1706 after stopping at St. Augustine to pick up reinforcements. After a brief encounter with a privateer the Brillant, one of the expedition's six ships, became separated from the rest of the fleet. Troops landed near Charles Town were quickly driven off by militia called out by Governor Nathaniel Johnson when word of the fleet's approach reached the area, and an improvised flotilla commanded by Colonel William Rhett successfully captured the Brillant, which arrived after the other five ships had already sailed away in defeat.

News of the start of the War of the Spanish Succession had come to southeastern North America in mid-1702, and officials of the English Province of Carolina had acted immediately. After failing in December 1702 to capture St. Augustine, the capital of Spanish Florida, they launched a series of destructive raids against the Spanish-Indian settlements of northern Florida. French authorities in the small settlement at Mobile on the Gulf coast were alarmed by these developments, since, as allies of the Spanish, their territory might also come under attack.

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