page_title: Childers Incident
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Childers Incident / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Title: French batteries firing at the brig 'Childers' off Brest 1793
context_page_description: The Childers Incident of 2 January 1793 marked the opening shots between British and French forces during the French Revolutionary Wars, the first phase of a 23-year-long war between the two countries. Following the French Revolution of 1789, diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the French Republic had steadily deteriorated and France was in political and social turmoil. One of the strongest hotbeds of republican activity was the principal Atlantic naval base of the French Navy at Brest in Brittany, the scene of a significant mutiny in 1790.
  On 2 January a small British warship, the 14-gun brig HMS Childers under Commander Robert Barlow, was ordered to enter the Roadstead of Brest to reconnoitre the state of readiness of the French fleet. As Childers entered the Goulet de Brest, the vessel came under fire from French batteries flying the tricolour. Although Barlow clearly identified his brig as a neutral British vessel the fire continued until he was able to withdraw. Although Childers had been struck by a 48 lb cannonball, none of the crew were wounded.
context_section_description: Having successfully withdrawn Childers from danger, Barlow returned to Britain on 4 January after battling a strong gale in the Channel. Anchoring at the small Cornish port of Fowey, Barlow took an express coach directly to the Admiralty in London, arriving on 11 January carrying the 48 lb (22 kg) cannonball as evidence of the incident and what British historian William James called the "strong spirit of hostility on the part of the new republic". Historian Edward Pelham Brenton, writing in 1825, noted however that French hostility on this occasion was justified, commenting that "in the then troubled state of Europe Childers and her captain had no business to be prying into the equipments at Brest within gunshot of the forts: if we had seen a French vessel of war running from the Needles to St Helens, and making observations, I suspect we should, at such a crisis, have taken the liberty to bring her to action."
  On 24 January the French ambassador was expelled in response to the execution of Louis XVI in Paris on 21 January and on 1 February the National Convention declared war on Great Britain. The naval campaign in the Atlantic began in earnest in March 1793, when a French battle squadron briefly put to sea before a mutiny forced it to return. The war between Britain and France begun in the Goulet on 2 January 1793 was to last, with a 14-month break in 1802–1803, until 1815.
caption: French batteries firing at Childers off Brest 1793; National Maritime Museum
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