 Linois continued his raiding, achieving some success against individual sailing ships, but failing to press successfully his numerical superiority against British naval forces; most notably at the Battle of Vizagapatam on 15 September 1804 and the Action of 6 August 1805. Ironically, Linois was eventually captured at the Action of 13 March 1806 after mistaking a squadron of British ships of the line for a merchant convoy in the mid-Atlantic. Linois was concerned throughout the engagement for the safety of his ships: with the nearest dockyard over 3,000 nmi (3,500 mi; 5,600 km) away at Île de France, he could not afford to suffer severe damage to his rigging or masts that would leave his squadron crippled. He also sought to defend his behaviour off Pulo Aura with the claim that the British convoy was protected by as many as eight ships of the line, and that he had performed heroically in saving his squadron from this overwhelming force. Subsequent historians have ridiculed this latter statement: William James wryly commented in his account of the action, written in 1827, that "it would be uncharitable to call into question the courage of Rear-admiral Linois" and William Laird Clowes stated in 1900 that "his timidity and want of enterprise threw away a great opportunity". Nicholas Rodger, writing in 2004, was even more critical, insisting that "his [Linois's] officers do not seem to have been fooled, and it is extremely difficult to believe that he was." He goes on to suggest that no experienced seaman could possibly have mistaken a poorly manned and poorly trained merchant crew for the crew of a real Royal Navy ship of the line, concluding that "Linois had thrown away a prize worth at least £ 8 million through mere timidity". The most scathing criticism of Linois's conduct came from Napoleon himself, who wrote to Minister of Marine Denis Decrès on the subject, stating:
