Action of 31 March 1800 The Action of 31 March 1800 was a naval engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars fought between a Royal Navy squadron and a French Navy ship of the line off Malta in the Mediterranean Sea . By March 1800 Valletta , the Maltese capital , had been under siege for eighteen months and food supplies were severely depleted , a problem exacerbated by the interception and defeat of a French replenishment convoy in mid - February . In an effort to simultaneously obtain help from France and reduce the number of personnel maintained in the city , the naval commander on the island , Contre - Admiral Pierre - Charles Villeneuve , ordered his subordinate Contre - Admiral Denis Decrès to put to sea with the large ship of the line " Guillaume Tell " , which had arrived in the port shortly before the siege began in September 1798 . Over 900 men were carried aboard the ship , which was to sail for Toulon under cover of darkness on 30 March . The British had maintained a blockade off Malta since the beginning of the siege , ostensibly led by Rear - Admiral Lord Nelson , who by March 1800 was defying a direct order from his superior officer Lord Keith by remaining in Palermo with his lover Emma , Lady Hamilton . In his absence the blockade was under the command of Captain Manley Dixon of HMS " Lion " and Nelson ' s flag captain Sir Edward Berry , who were notified of Decrés ' departure by the patrolling frigate HMS " Penelope " and gave chase . The large ship of the line was initially only attacked by " Penelope " , which manoeuvered around " Guillaume Tell " < nowiki > ' < / nowiki > s stern , causing severe damage and delaying the French ship sufficiently for Berry to bring his squadron into action . Despite being heavily outnumbered , Decrés continued to fight for more than three hours , fighting off two British ships but ultimately unable to resist the combined weight of Berry ' s attacks . Casualties and damage were severe on both sides , and the defiance of the French ship was celebrated in both countries as a brave defence against overwhelming odds . Background . In May 1798 , a French fleet under General Napoleon Bonaparte crossed the Mediterranean Sea , sailing for Egypt . Pausing at Malta on 9 June , Bonaparte landed soldiers and seized the island leaving a sizeable French garrison at Valletta under General Claude - Henri Belgrand de Vaubois while the rest of the fleet continued on to Alexandria . After the successful landing in Egypt , Bonaparte marched inland at the head of his army . The fleet anchored in Aboukir Bay to support the troops ashore and was surprised and almost completely destroyed on 1 August by a British fleet under Rear - Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson . Only two ships of the line and two frigates escaped the Battle of the Nile from the 17 French ships that participated in the action . Of the survivors , the ship of the line " Généreux " sailed for Corfu while " Guillaume Tell " , under Contre - Admiral Pierre - Charles Villeneuve , reached Malta with the two frigates . When Villeneuve arrived at Malta in September 1798 , the island was already in turmoil : the dissolution of the Roman Catholic Church on the island under French rule had been highly unpopular with the Maltese population , who forced the French garrison to retreat into the fortress of Valletta on 2 September . By the start of October , British and Portuguese troops had supplemented the Maltese irregulars , while a naval squadron watched Valletta harbour , to prevent any French effort to resupply and reinforce the garrison . Although small quantities of material reached Valletta from France in early 1799 , by the start of 1800 no ship had arrived for more than seven months , and the garrison was near starvation . In an effort to resupply the garrison , the French sent a convoy from Toulon in February 1800 , but the ships were intercepted off Malta by a squadron under Nelson on 17 February and in the ensuing battle the flagship " Généreux " was captured and Contre - Admiral Jean - Baptiste Perrée was killed . Without Perrée ' s supplies , the garrison faced continued food shortages , and by March Vaubois and Villeneuve decided to send an urgent request for support to France . For this operation they chose the 80 - gun " Guillaume Tell " under Captain Saulnier , partly because the condition and size of the ship enabled Vaubois to embark over 900 men aboard , many of whom were sick or wounded . Contre - Admiral Denis Decrès had command of the ship and Vaubois and Villeneuve confirmed the date of departure for 30 March . While the French prepared this expedition , the British maintained their blockade , although without their commander . Nelson , in defiance of specific orders from his commanding officer Lord Keith , had retired to Palermo on Sicily to be with Emma , Lady Hamilton , the wife of the British ambassador Sir William Hamilton with whom Nelson was conducting an adulterous affair . In his absence , command had passed to Captain Sir Thomas Troubridge on HMS " Culloden " and then to Captain Manley Dixon on HMS " Lion " . Battle . At 23 : 00 on 30 March , with a strong wind from the south , " Guillaume Tell " sailed from Valletta , Decrés hoping to use the cover of darkness to escape the British blockade . Dixon had deployed his ships around the island , with Valletta watched by the frigate HMS " Penelope " under Captain Henry Blackwood . At 23 : 55 , Blackwood ' s lookouts spotted " Guillaume Tell " and the captain gave chase , ordering the brig HMS " Minorca " under Commander George Miller to convey the message to Dixon , whose ships were just visible in the distance . Blackwood also attempted to signal his discovery to his commanding officer as " Penelope " gave chase . Blackwood rapidly gained on the ship of the line and by 00 : 30 the frigate was within range , pulling up under the stern of " Guillaume Tell " and beginning a steady fire to which Decrés could only respond with his stern - chasers , light cannon situated in the stern of the ship . Decrés recognised that if he stopped to engage " Penelope " then the rest of Berry ' s squadron , visible on the horizon to the south , would soon overwhelm him . He therefore continued sailing to the northeast , hoping his heavy ship of the line could outrun the light and speedy frigate . However , " Penelope " was too fast , and Blackwood handled his ship with considerable skill , managing to pass Decrés ' stern repeatedly and pour several raking broadsides into the French ship . Blackwood ' s attack was so successful that by dawn on 31 March " Guillaume Tell " had lost its main and mizen topmasts and its main yard , considerably reducing the speed at which Decrés could travel . The French ship had also suffered heavy casualties in the exchange , but " Penelope " had lost only one man killed and three wounded , and was almost undamaged . British reinforcements were now arriving from the south : the 64 - gun HMS " Lion " under Captain Dixon had received " Minorca " < nowiki > ' < / nowiki > s warning at 01 : 00 and immediately sailed in pursuit , sending the brig on to Captain Sir Edward Berry in HMS " Foudroyant " , who lay some distance to leeward . By 05 : 00 , Dixon was close enough to engage , passing between " Penelope " and " Guillaume Tell " and firing a triple - shotted broadside into the port side of the French ship . Shooting ahead of the now sluggish " Guillaume Tell " , " Lion " crossed its opponent ' s bows and shot away the jib boom , allowing Dixon to maintain a position across the bow , raking the French ship from one end while " Penelope " did the same to the other . During these manoeuvres , Dixon ' s ship had briefly become entangled with " Guillaume Tell " < nowiki > ' < / nowiki > s rigging , and two determined efforts to board the British ship had be driven off as the ships were disentangled . For half an hour , " Lion " continued to fire into the larger " Guillaume Tell " , but Dixon was unable to keep his ship completely out of range of the French broadsides and by 05 : 30 the subsequent damage showed an effect , " Lion " dropping back and falling behind the French vessel , although remaining within range alongside " Penelope " . At 06 : 00 , " Guillaume Tell " came under attack for the third time , when Berry himself caught up with the battling ships in " Foudroyant " and pulled along the starboard broadside of the French ship of the line . Berry hailed Decrés to demand his surrender , and accompanied the demand with a triple - shotted broadside , to which Decrés responded with fire from his own guns . " Foudroyant " was flying a full set of sails and therefore suffered severe damage to its rigging in the opening exchange , the additional speed provided by this rig forcing " Foudroyant " to move ahead of the French vessel . After working back alongside " Guillaume Tell " , Berry recommenced fire that rapidly tore away much of the remaining French rigging , allowing " Lion " and " Penelope " to return to the battle while " Foudroyant " dropped back to make urgent repairs . By 06 : 30 the badly outnumbered French ship had lost both its main and mizen masts , " Foudroyant " returning to the battle in time to collapse the foremast by 08 : 00 . At 08 : 20 , with no means of making sail and with wreckage obscuring most of his gun decks , Decrés surrendered to spare any further , fruitless , loss of life . His ship was in danger : the lack of masts and strong winds caused it to roll so severely that the lower deck gun ports had to be closed to prevent the ship from foundering . Casualties on the French ship numbered more than 200 , from a crew of over 900 , with both Decrés and Saulnier badly wounded . British losses were lighter , with eight killed and 64 wounded , including Berry , in " Foudroyant " , eight killed and 38 wounded in " Lion " and one killed and three wounded ( one fatally ) in " Penelope " . Damage was unevenly spread , " Foudroyant " suffering most severely , with the hull and all masts damaged , the mizzenmast so badly that it collapsed at approximately 12 : 00 , wounding five more men . " Lion " was badly hit , although not so severely as " Foudroyant " while " Penelope " was only lightly damaged in the masts and rigging . The battle , which had begun within sight of Malta , had concluded roughly south - west of Cape Passaro on Sicily . Aftermath . Both " Foudroyant " and " Lion " were too battered to provide an effective tow to the dismasted French ship , and as a result " Penelope " was left to bring the shattered " Guillaume Tell " into Syracuse on Sicily . Eventually the ship was repaired sufficiently for the journey to Britain , and there was added to the Royal Navy under the name HMS " Malta " . " Malta " was , with HMS " Tonnant " captured two years earlier at the Nile , the most powerful third rate in the British fleet , and served for many years , participating at the Battle of Cape Finisterre in 1805 . The British officers were praised for the capture of " Guillaume Tell " , the last surviving French ship of the line to escape the Battle of the Nile : Nelson , who by his absence had " missed what would indeed have been the crowning glory to his Mediterranean career " , wrote to Berry that " Your conduct and character in the late glorious occasion stamps your fame beyond the reach of envy . " Despite Nelson ' s praise however , Berry in particular came in for subsequent criticism , especially from the historian William James , who wrote in his 1827 history of the conflict that : James instead attributed most of the praise for the victory to Blackwood and Dixon , whose ships were heavily outmatched by " Guillaume Tell " , but who successfully pressed their attacks with the intention of delaying the French retreat . He also highly praised Decrés for his conduct in the engagement , stating that " A more heroic defence than that of the Guillaume - Tell is not to be found among the records of naval actions " . First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte reached a similar conclusion , and when Decrés was exchanged soon after the battle he was presented with " armes d ' honneur " , later converted to membership of the " Légion d ' honneur " . He was also given the position of maritime prefect of the Biscay port of Lorient . Aboard " Guillaume Tell " , the British found evidence of the severity of the food shortages in Valletta : " the only thing found in " La Guillaume Tell " was the leg of a mule , hung for safety and his especial use of the admiral ' s stern - galley " . News of the capture of " Guillaume Tell " was immediately passed to Vaubois by the British besiegers , along with a demand that he surrender the island . The French general , despite dwindling food supplies , refused , stating " " Cette place est en trop bon état , et je suis moi - même trop jaloux de bien servir men payset de conserver mon honneur , por écouter vos propositions . " " ( " This place is in too good a situation , and I am too conscious of the service of my country and my honour , to listen to your proposals " ) . Despite Vaubois ' defiance , the garrison was rapidly starving , and although the French commander resisted until 4 September , he was eventually forced to surrender Valletta and all of its military equipment to the British .