page_title: Blockade of Saint-Domingue
section_title: Flight of Touffet
hierarchical_section_title: Blockade of Saint-Domingue / The Blockade / Flight of Touffet
caption_attribution_description: English: Capture of French brig Lodi by HMS Racoon, 1803 Pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolour heightened with white and with scratching out, on paper 13¾ x 18 in. (34.9 x 45.8 cm.)
context_page_description: The Blockade of Saint-Domingue was a naval campaign fought during the first months of the Napoleonic Wars in which a series of British Royal Navy squadrons blockaded the French-held ports of Cap Français and Môle-Saint-Nicolas on the borthern coast of the French colony of Saint-Domingue, soon to become Haiti, after the conclusion of the Haitian Revolution on 1 January 1804. In the summer of 1803, when war broke out between the United Kingdom and the French Consulate, Saint-Domingue had been almost completely overrun by Haitian forces commanded by Jean-Jacques Dessalines. In the north of the country, the French forces were isolated in the two large ports of Cap Français and Môle-Saint-Nicolas and a few smaller settlements, all supplied by a French naval force based primarily at Cap Français.
  At the outbreak of war on 18 May 1803, the Royal Navy immediately despatched a squadron under Sir John Duckworth from Jamaica to cruise in the region, seeking to eliminate communication between the French outposts and to capture or destroy the French warships based in the colony.
context_section_description: In the month following the capture of Créole there was little further movement from the French naval forces on the island, the yellow fever raging in the harbours and Loring's blockade squadron at sea constraining operations. The only action of any note during this period was fought off Léogâne in the Gulf of Gonâve on the afternoon of 11 July when the 10-gun French brig Lodi was intercepted by the 18-gun British brig HMS Racoon under Austen Bissell, and forced to surrender after an action lasting 40 minutes in which the British ship had one man wounded and the French one killed and 14 wounded.
  In late July the strategic situation altered when orders arrived from France demanding the return of the French squadron, primarily based at Cap Français under Contre-Admiral Latouche Tréville. Command of the returning squadron was given to Commodore Quérangal in the Duquesne, a 74-gun ship  Consolidating enough healthy sailors to crew three of his ships, Latouche Tréville gave orders for Duquesne, the 74-gun ship Duguay-Trouin under Captain Claude Touffet that following a recent accident only carried 54 guns, and the 40-gun frigate Guerrière under Captain  Louis-Alex Beaudoin to sail from Cap Français when it became possible. On the afternoon of 24 July, a rain squall drove the blockade force away from the post and Quérangal's ships slipped out of the harbour, initially sailing westwards with the prevailing wind. All were in a weakened state, none with full crews and all carrying large numbers of sick passengers aboard.
  The French ships were sighted almost immediately by the frigates of Loring's blockade squadron, which began pursuit. At 21:00, Quérangal took advantage of the darkness to divide his ships, Duguay-Trouin tacking to the east while Duquesne continued following the shoreline to the west. In response, Loring ordered Dundas in Elephant to chase Duguay-Trouin while he remained in pursuit of Duquesne with Aeolus and Tartar. During the night both British pursuits gained significant ground on their targets, Loring joined by Theseus and Vanguard. At 07:00 on 15 July, Quérangal's ship was sighted by a Haitian battery on shore and came under fire, Loring sending Theseus to investigate the gunfire and arriving on the scene himself soon afterwards, Tartar and Vanguard leading the squadron. Perkins was the first to come within range of the French ship, opening fire at 15:30, followed soon afterwards by Walker. Quérangal returned fire briefly, but his ship was too weak to face the British force, having only 275 crewmen aboard of whom only 215 were fit for duty. Duquesne was so poorly-manned that only 12 guns could be crewed at any one time, although one shot did strike Vanguard, killing one man and wounding another. Before the British ships could take up more effective firing positions however, Quérangal surrendered. His ship was taken into the Royal Navy as HMS Duquesne, but was broken up in 1804 following damage in an accident at Morant Cays.
  The second pursuit, that of Dundas in Elephant and Touffet in Duguay-Trouin continued throughout the night, the British ship coming within range of the French at 06:00 on 25 July. Touffet opened fire on Elephant with his stern-mounted guns, striking the British ship several times, although without serious effect. Dundas was able, despite the French fire, to pull up at some distance from the French starboard quarter, firing broadsides although at such long range that they too had little effect. The action was decided soon afterwards by the arrival of two ships, the 18-gun British sloop HMS Snake under Commander William Roberts to the northwest and the absent Guerrière from the opposite direction. Dundas considered that the arrival of the frigate favoured the French too much, and dropped back allowing both ships to combine and escape. This was a serious miscalculation: historian William Laird Clowes notes that the French ships were both desperately under-armed and undermanned and even if they fought alongside one another they would have been unable to match Dundas's weight or rate of shot. By
caption: Capture of French brig Lodi by HMS Racoon on 11 July 1803 off Léogâne
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