Hood diverts a powerful squadron from his…
October 1793 CE
This force is led by Rear-Admiral John Gell in the ninety-eight-gun ship of the line HMS St George and includes the seventy-four-gun HMS Bedford under Captain Robert Mann, and HMS Captain under Captain Samuel Reeve, as well as the French Royalist Scipion.
Smaller warships accompany the larger warships: HMS Mermaid, HMS Tartar, HMS Alerte, HMS Eclair, HMS Vulcan, HMS Conflagration, and HMS Speedy under Commander Charles Cunningham.
This force has been ordered to sail to Genoa and eliminate Modeste, Hood stipulating in his orders that the operation is a warning to Republican sympathizers, "regicides", in Genoa.
The squadron arrives off the port on October 5.
Modeste is clearly visible in the harbor, anchored at the mole near two tartanes (small Mediterranean sailing craft here armed with four guns and carrying crews of around seventy men).
The senior officers of the squadron hold a council to determine the best course of action, and decide that since diplomatic options have failed and the Genoese appear to support the French, the British will resort to a military solution.
On the afternoon of October 5, Bedford is slowly warped into the harbor and alongside Modeste, as Reeve launches the ship's boats from Captain and brings them close to the other side of the French frigate.
The British arrival is reportedly greeted with derision by the French sailors, until a boarding party clambers onto the frigate from Bedford's deck, to be met by resistance from the French crew.
Mann now orders his ship's Royal Marines to fire into the French sailors, killing several and driving many more over the side into the harbor.
This attack breaks their resolve and the French surrender, several leaping into the sea to escape capture, only to be collected by the boats of Captain.
As Modeste is subdued, the boats of Speedy approach the tartanes.
As the boat parties board the small French warships, the crew of one surrenders while the other resists the British boarders.
A short melee breaks out on the deck of the tartane, resulting in the captain and one other French sailor wounded and the tartane firmly in British hands.
The raid completed, the British squadron withdraws from Genoa with their prizes.
British sources report that one French sailor had been killed in the operation and ten wounded, while the British boarding parties had survived unscathed, while French sources claim five killed and thirty wounded or in the most extreme accounts, as many as fifty killed.
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Austria, Archduchy of
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Holy Roman Empire
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Habsburg Monarchy, or Empire
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Spain, Bourbon Kingdom of
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Britain, Kingdom of Great
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Netherlands, Southern (Austrian)
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Sardinia, Kingdom of (Savoy)
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Naples and Sicily, Bourbon Kingdom of
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French First Republic
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