The Royal Navy had enjoyed naval supremacy…
1797 CE
In April 1796 reinforcements had been sent from Rochefort comprising four frigates commanded by Contre-amiral Pierre César Charles de Sercey.
The squadron had avoided the blockade and arrived at Île de France in July and sailed eastwards during the summer, intending to raid British trading ports in the East Indies.
On September 9 the squadron had been intercepted and driven off by a British squadron off the northeastern coast of Sumatra, sheltering in Batavia over the winter.
In January Sercey sails once more, encountering on January 28 in the Bali Strait a fleet of six East Indiamen bound to China from Colombo.
In the ensuing Bali Strait Incident the British commander manages to deceive Sercey into believing that the fleet is made up of warships, the French admiral retreating back to Île de France.
Sercey's flagship during these operations is the forty-gun frigate Forte.
Forte, commanded by the elderly Captain Hubert Le Loup de Beaulieu, had been built in 1794 based on the hull and frame of a ship of the line: the frigate weighs fourteen hundred tons bm, the largest purpose-built frigate at sea.
The main battery of Forte consists of twenty-eight twenty-four-pounder long guns, only the second frigate ever built (after Pomone) that can manage such a heavy armament.
This Is augmented by fourteen eight-pounder long guns on the upper deck and eight thirty-six-pounder carronades on the quarterdeck, totaling fifty-two heavy cannon complemented by eight one-pounder swivel guns.
Uniquely, the sides of the ship are lined with cork matting to prevent splinters while the more common precaution has been taken of stringing netting over the deck to protect the crew from falling debris.
The ship was however weakened by an ill-disciplined crew, and Sercey had expressed doubts about the ability of the aged Beaulieu.
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