page_title: Action of 13 March 1806
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Action of 13 March 1806 / Background
caption_attribution_description: Sir John Borlase Warren, 1st Baronet (2 September 1753 – 27 February 1822), was an English admiral. Born in Stapleford, w:Nottinghamshire, he was the son and heir of John Borlase Warren (d. 1775) of Stapleford and Little Marlow. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and in 1771 entered the Royal Navy as an able seaman; in 1774 he became member of Parliament for Great Marlow; and in 1775 he was created a baronet, the baronetcy held by his ancestors, the Borlases, having become extinct in 1689.
context_page_description: The Action of 13 March 1806 was a naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars, fought when a British and a French squadron met unexpectedly in the mid-Atlantic. Neither force was aware of the presence of the other prior to the encounter and were participating in separate campaigns. The British squadron consisted of seven ships of the line accompanied by associated frigates, led by Rear-Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, were tasked with hunting down and destroying the French squadron of Contre-Admiral Jean-Baptiste Willaumez, which had departed Brest for raiding operations in the South Atlantic in December 1805, at the start of the Atlantic campaign of 1806. The French force consisted of one ship of the line and one frigate, all that remained of Contre-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Durand Linois' squadron that had sailed for the Indian Ocean in March 1803 during the Peace of Amiens. Linois raided British shipping lanes and harbours across the region, achieving limited success against undefended merchant ships but repeatedly withdrawing in the face of determined opposition, most notably at the Battle of Pulo Aura in February 1804.
context_section_description: By March 1806, the French squadron under Contre-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Durand Linois had been operating against British trade in the Indian Ocean and elsewhere since the start of the Napoleonic Wars in 1803. Despatched to India before war was declared, Linois left Brest in March 1803, sailing to the South China Sea in an effort to intercept the China Fleet, a huge merchant convoy from Canton to Britain via Madras that carried goods worth in excess of £8 million. On 15 February 1804, Linois encountered the China Fleet, which due to delays with the squadron in India had sailed without its Royal Navy escort. The loss of this undefended convoy could have devastated the British economy and been the highlight of Linois's career, but instead the French admiral was fooled by a ruse of the convoy commander, Commodore Nathaniel Dance. Dance pretended that some of his East Indiaman merchant ships were disguised ships of the line and engaged Linois at long range, dissuading the French commander from pressing the attack. Dance's merchant ships even pursued the fleeing French squadron for some distance, before resuming their original course. This affair, known as the Battle of Pulo Aura, was a humiliation for Linois and provoked Napoleon's fury when the Emperor was informed of it by the governor of Île de France, Charles Decaen.
  Six months later, Linois was operating off the Indian port of Vizagapatam when his squadron encountered the British warship HMS Centurion and two merchant ships under her protection. In the ensuing Battle of Vizagapatam, Centurion was badly damaged; one of the merchant ships was captured and the other driven ashore. Rather than ensure the capture or destruction of Centurion, Linois refused further combat for fear of damaging his ships in shallow coastal waters and withdrew, again provoking censure from Napoleon. In August 1805, Linois was engaged with another convoy of East Indiamen in the central Indian Ocean, but on this occasion was confronted by the ship of the line HMS Blenheim under Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Troubridge. After some ineffectual skirmishing, Linois withdrew again, unwilling to risk taking fatal damage to his ships so far from a safe port. Although he had seized five Indiamen and a number of small ships that had been sailing individually during his three-year cruise, he failed to make a significant impact on British trade in the region and ruined his reputation as a successful naval commander. Deciding to switch his operations to the Atlantic after discovering that a squadron under Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Pellew was searching for him, Linois visited the Cape of Good Hope, where one of his frigates was wrecked. He subsequently cruised the coast of West Africa, capturing two small ships but again failing to make a significant impact on British trade in the region. Learning from an American ship that a British expeditionary force had captured Cape Town, Linois decided to return to France with his remaining ships, the 74-gun ship of the line flagship Marengo and the frigate Belle Poule, sailing northwards and crossing the equator on 17 February.
  Unknown to Linois, he was sailing directly into the middle of a complex series of manoeuvres by British and French squadrons known as the Atlantic campaign of 1806. On 13 December, two large French squadrons sailed from Brest under orders to operate against British Atlantic trade. The first, under Vice-Admiral Corentin-Urbain Leissegues, consisting of the 120-gun Impérial, four other ships of the line and three smaller vessels, sailed for the Caribbean. The second under Contre-Admiral Jean-Baptiste Willaumez, who commanded six ships of the line and four smaller vessels, sailed for the South Atlantic. These squadrons were able to escape due to the reduction in the size and diligence of the British continental blockade that had been relaxed in the aftermath of the Trafalgar campaign of 1805, in which 13 French and 12 Spanish ships of the line had been captured or destroyed. These losses significantly reduced the ability of the French and their allies to o
caption: An engraving of Sir John Borlase Warren, by Daniel Orme.
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