Battle of St Vincent 1797

[john sefton]

ST VINCENT 1797. Fought between a British fleet of fifteen ships of the line under Admiral Sir John Jarvis and a Spanish fleet of twenty-seven ships of the line under Admiral Don Jose de Cordova. The Spaniards were sailing from Cartagena to Brest to join the combined fleet of France and Holland. On the morning of 14th February 1797 they were off Cape St Vincent, due to the weather they were in considerable disorder with many ships making their way independently to Cadiz. They therefore lacked all cohesion as a fleet when they were sighted by Jarvis early on that morning, being in two loose, widely separated groups. Jarvis led his fleet in line ahead between the two groups and engaged the lee division of ships. The larger weather division were sailing in roughly parallel but opposite course to the British and would have escaped had not Commodore Nelson on his own initiative worn out of line to cut across the escaping Spaniards. Nelson sailed the CAPTAIN across the bows of the Spanish squadron followed by the EXCELLENT (Collingwood). Badly damaged the CAPTAIN succeeded in coming alongside the 80 gun Spanish SAN NICHOLAS which had fallen foul of the 112 gun SAN JOSEPH. Nelson boarded first the SAN NICHOLAS and then swept on from her deck to take the SAN JOSEPH as well. In the overall battle four Spanish ships of the line were captured and the demoralised remainder made the best way they could to safety. - Guernsey 1986 29p SG362: Upper Volta 1976 200f SG417