page_title: Battle of Groix
section_title: Villaret's retreat
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Groix / Engagement off Groix / Villaret's retreat
caption_attribution_description: English: Map with red dot showing the location of the Battle of Groix off the coast of France southeast of Brest.
context_page_description: The Battle of Groix was a large naval engagement which took place near the island of Groix off the Biscay coast of Brittany on 23 June 1795 during the French Revolutionary Wars. The battle was fought between elements of the British Channel Fleet and the French Atlantic Fleet, which were cruising in the region on separate missions. The British fleet, commanded by Admiral Lord Bridport, was covering an invasion convoy carrying a French Royalist army to invade Quiberon, while the French under Vice-admiral Villaret de Joyeuse had sailed a week earlier to rescue a French convoy from attack by a British squadron. The French fleet had driven off the British squadron in a battle on 17 June known as Cornwallis's Retreat, and were attempting to return to their base at Brest when Bridport's force of 14 ships of the line appeared on 22 June.
  Villaret, believing that the stronger British fleet would destroy his own 12 ships of the line, ordered his force to fall back to the inshore anchorage off Groix, hoping to take shelter in protected coastal waters.
context_section_description: It was one of Warren's ships, the frigate HMS Arethusa, which first discovered the French as Villaret led his fleet out from the sheltered anchorage. Lookouts on Arethusa miscounted the French fleet, identifying 16 ships of the line and ten frigates; Warren immediately sent word to Bridport while ordering his convoy to turn away from the French. Villaret did not pursue Warren's force: he may not have gauged its true strength correctly, and his ships were running low on provisions having taken aboard only enough for 15 days in their haste to leave Brest a week earlier. On the morning of 20 June, Warren's force sighted Bridport's fleet to the south-east, the admiral sending orders to Warren to detach his three ships of the line to bolster Bridport's fleet in the face of the supposedly more numerous French force. Without waiting for these reinforcements, Bridport sailed back towards the coast against the wind, seeking to place his fleet between the Quiberon expedition and Villaret's ships.
  The adverse southeasterly winds frustrated both fleets, and it was not until 03:30 on 22 June that lookouts on Bridport's scouting frigates HMS Nymphe and HMS Astrea finally discovered the French in the distance to the southeast, the British approximately 42 nautical miles (78 km) from the French coast. On seeing the larger British fleet, to which Warren's detached ships had still not joined, Villaret ordered his fleet to turn back towards the land and Bridport followed, seeing that the French admiral did not intend to offer battle. To maximise his chances of catching the French, Bridport specifically ordered his "best-sailing" ships HMS Sans Pareil, HMS Orion, HMS Colossus, HMS Irresistible, HMS Valiant and HMS Russell, to break from the formation and lead the pursuit at 06:30. Bridport followed in his 100-gun first rate flagship HMS Royal George, accompanied by the remainder of the fleet, which included another 100-gun ship HMS Queen Charlotte and seven 98-gun second rate ships.
  All day the chase continued: at 12:00 the French fleet were approximately 12 nautical miles (22 km) distant, and all through the afternoon the British ships slowly gained on their opponents, both sides hampered by long periods of calm weather. To ensure that his fleet was in a position to intercept the French whichever tack they took, Bridport split his fleet across a wide front, clustered in two trailing groups. At 19:00, Bridport signaled for his ships to attack the rearmost French vessels, and at 19:25 to attack French ships as and when they overhauled them, taking up mutually supportive positions. At 22:30 a calm fell, arresting both fleets until 03:00 on 23 June, when a light breeze from the south-west was enough to allow Bridport's fleet to push onwards so that as dawn rose the French were dead ahead. The main body of the French fleet was sailing in a loose cluster with three or four ships trailing behind and one ship, Alexandre under Captain François Charles Guillemet far to the rear and only 3 nautical miles (5.6 km) from the British vanguard. Alexandre had been a British ship until November 1794, when she had been captured in a sharp engagement with a French squadron in which the ship had been badly damaged. The ship was a poor sailer, and its position was worsened by poor handling by Guillemet who did not follow Villaret's orders to form a line of battle rapidly enough.
  Against expectation, Bridport's leading ship was Queen Charlotte, which had attained an unusually fast speed for a first rate through the carefully planned sailing of Captain Sir Andrew Snape Douglas. Immediately behind Douglas was Captain Richard Grindall in Irresistible, with Orion, Colossus, Sans Pareil and Russell a short distance behind the leaders and the rest of the fleet substantially to the rear. At 04:00, the island of Groix lay approximately 8 nautical miles (15 km) to the east of Queen Charlotte, the French coastline behind it. It was to this region that Villaret was retreating, hoping Bridport would be reluctant to follow him into the confined waters around the well-fortifi
caption: Villaret retreated to near the island of Groix, indicated by the red dot, off the coast of France southeast of Brest.
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