Raid on Saint-Paul
Encyclopedia
The Raid on Saint-Paul was an amphibious operation conducted by a combined British Army
, Royal Navy
and Royal Marines
force against the fortified French port of Saint Paul
on Île Bonaparte (now known as Réunion) during the Napoleonic Wars
. The operation was launched on 20 September 1809 as both a precursor to a future full scale invasion of Île Bonaparte and in order to capture the French frigate Caroline and the East Indiamen
she had seized in the Action of 31 May 1809
which were sheltering in the harbour. The operation was a complete success, with British storming parties capturing the batteries overlooking the port, which allowed a naval squadron under Commodore Josias Rowley
to enter the bay and capture the shipping in the harbour.
The French defenders of the town, despite initially resisting the attack, were unable to prevent the seizure of the port's defensive fortifications. The British force later withdrew under pressure from the main garrison of the island, burning warehouses containing over £500,000 worth of silk
captured from British merchant ships. Ultimately the French were unable to effectively oppose the invasion, the island's governor General Des Bruslys
retreating to Saint-Denis
rather than engage the British and later committing suicide. The transportation of forces from the recently captured island of Rodriguez
, the co-ordination of land and naval forces and the failure of the French defenders to co-ordinate an effective response were all features of the subsequent invasion and capture of Île Bonaparte in July 1810.
and Île Bonaparte were heavily fortified island bases from which French frigates were able to launch raids against British trade routes across the Indian Ocean during the Napoleonic Wars. In late 1808, a squadron of four frigates departed France for the region under Commodore Jacques Hamelin with orders to prey on the convoys of East Indiamen that regularly crossed the Indian Ocean. During the late spring of 1809, these frigates dispersed into the Bay of Bengal
, attacking British shipping and coastal harbours around the rim of the Eastern Indian Ocean. The Royal Navy
was also preparing an operation in the region, a staggered campaign intended to blockade, isolate and subsequently capture both Île de France and Île Bonaparte, eliminating the final French territories and bases east of Africa.
To conduct the British operation, Admiral Albemarle Bertie
at the Cape of Good Hope
organised a squadron under Commodore Josias Rowley
to blockade the islands, capture any French shipping that presented itself and begin preparations for the invasions. Rowley was equipped with the antiquated ship of the line
HMS Raisonnable
and a small squadron of frigates and smaller ships, later reinforced with a force of soldiers from Madras in British India, with which he seized the nearby island of Rodriguez
to use as a raiding base.
On 14 August, one of Rowley's ships, the 18-gun sloop
HMS Otter
, attacked a French brig at Rivière Noire
on Île de France. Although the attack was ultimately unsuccessful, Otter' s captain Nesbit Willoughby
and his landing party were able to break into and out of the harbour without severe difficulties. This prompted Rowley to consider a larger scale operation against a more heavily fortified French position. Two months earlier, in the Action of 31 May 1809
, the French frigate Caroline had captured two East Indiamen, the Streatham and Europe in the Bay of Bengal. The French captain, Jean-Baptiste-Henri Feretier, led his prizes back to the French-held islands, arriving off Île de France on 22 July. Feretier was prevented from attempting to reach Port Louis
by Rowley's blockading squadron and instead put his ships into Saint-Paul on Île Bonaparte to unload his captured vessels and replenish his supplies.
on Rodriguez, Rowley determined that Keating's men would land behind the gun batteries that defended the town and storm them. This would allow Rowley to bring his squadron directly into the harbour, capture the shipping anchored there and possibly seize the town as well. Rowley's planning was directly affected by a failed attack on Saint-Paul on 11 November 1806, when HMS Sceptre
and HMS Cornwallis
had attacked the harbour without infantry support. Their target was the frigate Sémillante
, but neither ship had been able to pass the heavy batteries that protected the port and the British ships were forced to withdraw.
On 16 September, the troops were prepared, and 368 British Army
soldiers were embarked on the British frigate HMS Nereide
under Captain Robert Corbett, Willoughby's Otter and the Honourable East India Company schooner Wasp. This troop convoy was joined off Saint-Paul on 18 September by the rest of Rowley's squadron, the flagship Raisonnable and the frigates HMS Sirius
under Captain Samuel Pym
and HMS Boadicea
under Captain John Hatley. These ships mustered an additional 236 seaman volunteers and Royal Marines
who would join the assault. The entire invasion force was then embarked on Nereide, as Corbett had experience with the Île Bonaparte coastline, with the assault designated for the early morning of 21 September.
. The Pointe des Galets was 7 miles (11.3 km) north of Saint-Paul, the distance allowing the force, divided into Keating's soldiers from Rodriguez and the naval force led by Nesbit Willoughby, to approach the heavy gun batteries that guarded the port unobserved. Storming the strongest batteries, Lambousière and la Centière, at 07:00, the British force surprised the garrisons, captured the fortifications and turned their cannon
onto the shipping moored in the harbour, firing grape shot at the decks of the frigate Caroline.
A detachment of the British landing force then separated from the main body and seized a third battery named la Neuf, routing a force of local militia that attempted to block their advance with artillery assistance from the British squadron in the bay. The militia had come down from their garrisons in the surrounding hills and been joined by 110 French soldiers who had disembarked from Caroline, but the small French force was easily brushed aside by the British landing party. Keating and Willoughby then destroyed the guns in the first two captured batteries and stormed the remaining two fortifications, once again capturing them and using their own cannon to fire on the shipping in the harbour.
While the landing force drove off the defenders and captured the fortifications, the naval squadron entered the harbour and opened up an overwhelming fire on the outnumbered Caroline. Shot was also fired at the captured East Indiamen, various other vessels in the harbour and any small batteries or shore positions that remained in French hands. Feretier and the other French naval officers, recognising that their position was hopeless, cut the anchor cables of their ships and allowed them to drift ashore, where they abandoned ship to escape capture. The British squadron then anchored in the harbour as their crews set about refloating the grounded French ships on the beach. In addition to Caroline and the East Indiamen, Rowley's squadron successfully captured a 14-gun privateer
brig
named Grappler and five or six smaller ships. With the harbour and fortifications in British hands, Keating and Willoughby entered the town of Saint-Paul without further combat.
by the island's governor General Des Bruslys
. Rowley and Keating anticipated that this force, which outnumbered their own, would recapture the town on 23 September and accordingly ordered Willoughby to land with his marines and sailors to burn French government property along the waterfront. The most obvious and significant target of Willoughby's force was a warehouse on the docks that was stocked with the captured silk from the East Indiamen captured by Caroline. Willoughby ordered this building to be burned, destroying over £500,000 worth of captured textiles, (the equivalent of £ as of ). Other nearby warehouses were not destroyed as it was not possible to rapidly determine their ownership. Although the French force had reached the outskirts of the town, Willoughby was able to land and rembark his troops without a single shot being fired. On 22 September, Rowley received a petition from a body of slaves in the town who had escaped during the fighting and demanded arms with which to attack the French. They also offered to burn the town to the ground. Rowley, who sought to cultivate good relations with the populace with a view to capturing the island in the near future, refused their demands and had the slaves returned to their owners, where eight were executed for plotting rebellion. There was however a noted example of a slave displaying loyalty to his owner: The painter Jean-Joseph Patu de Rosemont
had served in the militia forces with the journalist Nicole Robinet de La Serve
and was captured when Keating's troops entered Saint-Paul. Taken aboard the British squadron, Rosemont's son Amédée applied to exchange himself for his father as a prisoner but was refused. Shortly before the squadron departed, Rosemont's personal slave Félix swam to the squadron to serve his owner in captivity. For his loyalty, Félix was manumitted
when Rosemont was freed in 1810.
On 23 September, Rowley and Keating planned another landing under cover of the guns of the Nereide to drive off the French reinforcements. On landing, however, it was discovered that the French force had disappeared. Lacking support for a counter attack from the local landowners, who favoured a return to the monarchy, Des Bruslys was unwilling to order an assault which he deemed would have inevitably led to an unnecessary bloodbath. Instead, he ordered his forces to abandon Saint-Paul and retire to Saint-Denis during the night. Without support from his commanding officer, Captain St-Michel, commandant of Saint-Paul, agreed to surrender the town entirely, withdrawing his remaining forces under a flag of truce. The agreed truce lasted five days, during which the British force loaded their ships with French government provisions, equipment, military and naval stores and those cargoes from captured British ships that had not been burnt by Willoughby. The French made no effort to prevent this, Des Bruslys having committed suicide some days before, torn between his refusal to surrender the island to the British and his reluctance to order a bloody battle for what he regarded to be an "open island".
Rowley also seized the East Indiamen Streatham and Europe and restored their previous captains and crews, who had been released as part of the truce. A number of smaller merchant ships were captured and all were refitted for the journey to Britain, to be convoyed there by the newly captured Caroline. This 40-gun frigate, only three years old and very large and powerfully built, was given to Corbett in recognition of his services in the operation and renamed HMS Bourbonaise
, reflecting the British name for Île Bonaparte, Île Bourbon. Willoughby was promoted to post captain and immediately took command of Corbett's former ship Nereide. Late on 28 September, Rowley led his force to sea from Saint-Paul having burnt or seized all government shipping, stores and buildings in the town and surrounding areas.
Caroline was a "tolerably fine frigate" and her capture was a blow to the French squadron based on Île de France under Hamelin. The recapture of the East Indiamen was also an important success, reducing the impact of French operations in the region during 1809. The raid also provided the British forces with vital experience in conducting amphibious landings staged from Rodriguez and gave an indication of the quality of French shore defences and defensive formations throughout the islands, which would have an important effect on future operations, especially the Invasion of Île Bonaparte
in 1810.
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
, Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
and Royal Marines
Royal Marines
The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...
force against the fortified French port of Saint Paul
Saint-Paul, Réunion
Saint-Paul is the second-largest commune in the French overseas department of Réunion. It is located on the extreme west side of the island of Réunion.Until 1999, near Saint Paul there was the 428 metres tall mast OMEGA Chabrier transmitter.- Transport :...
on Île Bonaparte (now known as Réunion) during the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
. The operation was launched on 20 September 1809 as both a precursor to a future full scale invasion of Île Bonaparte and in order to capture the French frigate Caroline and the East Indiamen
East Indiamen
An East Indiaman was a ship operating under charter or license to any of the East India Companies of the major European trading powers of the 17th through the 19th centuries...
she had seized in the Action of 31 May 1809
Action of 31 May 1809
The Action of 31 May 1809 was a naval skirmish in the Bay of Bengal during the Napoleonic Wars. During the action, an Honourable East India Company convoy carrying goods worth over £500,000 was attacked and partially captured by the French frigate Caroline...
which were sheltering in the harbour. The operation was a complete success, with British storming parties capturing the batteries overlooking the port, which allowed a naval squadron under Commodore Josias Rowley
Josias Rowley
Admiral Sir Josias Rowley, 1st Baronet GCB, GCMG , known as "The Sweeper of the Seas", was a naval officer who commanded the campaign that captured the French Indian Ocean islands of Réunion and Mauritius in 1810.-Naval career:...
to enter the bay and capture the shipping in the harbour.
The French defenders of the town, despite initially resisting the attack, were unable to prevent the seizure of the port's defensive fortifications. The British force later withdrew under pressure from the main garrison of the island, burning warehouses containing over £500,000 worth of silk
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...
captured from British merchant ships. Ultimately the French were unable to effectively oppose the invasion, the island's governor General Des Bruslys
Nicolas Ernault de Rignac Des Bruslys
Nicolas Ernault de Rignac Des Bruslys was a French general, later governor of Île Bonaparte .- Early career :...
retreating to Saint-Denis
Saint-Denis, Réunion
Saint-Denis is the préfecture of the French overseas region and department of Réunion, in the Indian Ocean. It is located at the island's northernmost point, close to the mouth of the Rivière Saint-Denis....
rather than engage the British and later committing suicide. The transportation of forces from the recently captured island of Rodriguez
Rodrigues (island)
Rodrigues , sometimes spelled Rodriguez but named after the Portuguese explorer Diogo Rodrigues, is the smallest of the Mascarene Islands and a dependency of Mauritius...
, the co-ordination of land and naval forces and the failure of the French defenders to co-ordinate an effective response were all features of the subsequent invasion and capture of Île Bonaparte in July 1810.
Background
The French Indian Ocean territories of Île de FranceMauritius
Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...
and Île Bonaparte were heavily fortified island bases from which French frigates were able to launch raids against British trade routes across the Indian Ocean during the Napoleonic Wars. In late 1808, a squadron of four frigates departed France for the region under Commodore Jacques Hamelin with orders to prey on the convoys of East Indiamen that regularly crossed the Indian Ocean. During the late spring of 1809, these frigates dispersed into the Bay of Bengal
Bay of Bengal
The Bay of Bengal , the largest bay in the world, forms the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. It resembles a triangle in shape, and is bordered mostly by the Eastern Coast of India, southern coast of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to the west and Burma and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the...
, attacking British shipping and coastal harbours around the rim of the Eastern Indian Ocean. The Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
was also preparing an operation in the region, a staggered campaign intended to blockade, isolate and subsequently capture both Île de France and Île Bonaparte, eliminating the final French territories and bases east of Africa.
To conduct the British operation, Admiral Albemarle Bertie
Sir Albemarle Bertie, 1st Baronet
Admiral Sir Albemarle Bertie, 1st Baronet, KCB, was a long-serving and at time controversial officer of the British Royal Navy who saw extensive service in his career but also courted controversy with several of his actions....
at the Cape of Good Hope
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...
organised a squadron under Commodore Josias Rowley
Josias Rowley
Admiral Sir Josias Rowley, 1st Baronet GCB, GCMG , known as "The Sweeper of the Seas", was a naval officer who commanded the campaign that captured the French Indian Ocean islands of Réunion and Mauritius in 1810.-Naval career:...
to blockade the islands, capture any French shipping that presented itself and begin preparations for the invasions. Rowley was equipped with the antiquated ship of the line
Ship of the line
A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th through the mid-19th century to take part in the naval tactic known as the line of battle, in which two columns of opposing warships would manoeuvre to bring the greatest weight of broadside guns to bear...
HMS Raisonnable
HMS Raisonnable (1768)
HMS Raisonnable was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, named after the ship of the same name captured from the French in 1758. She was built at Chatham Dockyard, launched on 10 December 1768 and commissioned on 17 November 1770 under the command of Captain Maurice Suckling,...
and a small squadron of frigates and smaller ships, later reinforced with a force of soldiers from Madras in British India, with which he seized the nearby island of Rodriguez
Rodrigues (island)
Rodrigues , sometimes spelled Rodriguez but named after the Portuguese explorer Diogo Rodrigues, is the smallest of the Mascarene Islands and a dependency of Mauritius...
to use as a raiding base.
On 14 August, one of Rowley's ships, the 18-gun sloop
Sloop
A sloop is a sail boat with a fore-and-aft rig and a single mast farther forward than the mast of a cutter....
HMS Otter
HMS Otter (1805)
HMS Otter was a Royal Navy 16-gun Merlin-class ship sloop, launched in 1805 at Hull. She participated in two notable actions in the Indian Ocean and was sold in 1828.-Armament:...
, attacked a French brig at Rivière Noire
Black River (district)
Black River is a district of Mauritius on the western side of the island. Famous areas include Tamarin Falls and the Chamarel coloured earth. The district capital is Bambous. Previously it was Tamarin. It is the third largest District of Mauritius in area, but the smallest in terms of population...
on Île de France. Although the attack was ultimately unsuccessful, Otter
Nesbit Willoughby
Sir Nesbit Josiah Willoughby was an officer in the British Royal Navy who was knighted in 1827, and made rear-admiral in 1847. He is related to Sir Hugh Willoughby , who also figures in British naval history....
and his landing party were able to break into and out of the harbour without severe difficulties. This prompted Rowley to consider a larger scale operation against a more heavily fortified French position. Two months earlier, in the Action of 31 May 1809
Action of 31 May 1809
The Action of 31 May 1809 was a naval skirmish in the Bay of Bengal during the Napoleonic Wars. During the action, an Honourable East India Company convoy carrying goods worth over £500,000 was attacked and partially captured by the French frigate Caroline...
, the French frigate Caroline had captured two East Indiamen, the Streatham and Europe in the Bay of Bengal. The French captain, Jean-Baptiste-Henri Feretier, led his prizes back to the French-held islands, arriving off Île de France on 22 July. Feretier was prevented from attempting to reach Port Louis
Port Louis
-Economy:The economy is dominated by its port, which handles Mauritius' international trade. The port was founded by the French who preferred Port Louis as the City is shielded by the Port Louis/Moka mountain range. It is the largest container handling facility in the Indian Ocean and can...
by Rowley's blockading squadron and instead put his ships into Saint-Paul on Île Bonaparte to unload his captured vessels and replenish his supplies.
Preparation
Rowley became aware of Feretier's presence at Saint-Paul during the following month and determined to attack the port and recapture the valuable ships in the harbour. The operation was also to be a prelude to an eventual invasion attempt, giving the squadron experience of an amphibious landing operation. Conferring with Lieutenant Colonel Henry KeatingHenry Sheehy Keating
Lieutenant General Sir Henry Sheehy Keating KCB was born at Bansha, County Tipperary in Ireland and was an officer of the British Army during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars who served in two important operations against French colonies...
on Rodriguez, Rowley determined that Keating's men would land behind the gun batteries that defended the town and storm them. This would allow Rowley to bring his squadron directly into the harbour, capture the shipping anchored there and possibly seize the town as well. Rowley's planning was directly affected by a failed attack on Saint-Paul on 11 November 1806, when HMS Sceptre
HMS Sceptre (1802)
HMS Sceptre was a 74-gun third rate of the Royal Navy, built by Dudman of Deptford after a design by Sir William Rule, and launched in December 1802 at Deptford. She served in the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812 before being broken up in 1821....
and HMS Cornwallis
HMS Cornwallis (1801)
HMS Cornwallis was a Royal Navy 54-gun fourth rate. Jemsatjee Bomanjee built the Marquis Cornwallis of teak for the East India Company. The Company sold her to the Royal Navy in 1801 shortly after she returned from an expedition against the Mahe Islands...
had attacked the harbour without infantry support. Their target was the frigate Sémillante
French frigate Sémillante (1792)
The Sémillante was a 32-gun frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. She was involved in a number of multi-vessel actions against the Royal Navy, particularly in the Indian Ocean. She captured a number of East Indiamen before the she became so damaged that the French disarmed her and...
, but neither ship had been able to pass the heavy batteries that protected the port and the British ships were forced to withdraw.
On 16 September, the troops were prepared, and 368 British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
soldiers were embarked on the British frigate HMS Nereide
French frigate Néréide (1779)
The Néréide was a Sybille class 32-gun, copper-hulled, frigate of the French Navy. On 22 December 1797 HMS Phoebe captured her and she was taken into British service as HMS Nereide. The French recaptured her at the Battle of Grand Port, only to lose her again when the British took Île de France in...
under Captain Robert Corbett, Willoughby's Otter and the Honourable East India Company schooner Wasp. This troop convoy was joined off Saint-Paul on 18 September by the rest of Rowley's squadron, the flagship Raisonnable and the frigates HMS Sirius
HMS Sirius (1797)
HMS Sirius was a 36-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Between 1797 and 1805, the Sirius was engaged in maintaining the blockade of Napoleonic Europe...
under Captain Samuel Pym
Samuel Pym
Sir Samuel Pym KCB was a British admiral, brother of Sir William Pym.In June 1788, Pym joined the Royal Navy as captain's servant of the frigate Eurydice...
and HMS Boadicea
HMS Boadicea (1797)
HMS Boadicea was a frigate of the Royal Navy. She served in the Channel and in the East Indies during which service she captured many prizes. She participated in one action for which the Admiralty would award the Naval General Service Medal...
under Captain John Hatley. These ships mustered an additional 236 seaman volunteers and Royal Marines
Royal Marines
The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...
who would join the assault. The entire invasion force was then embarked on Nereide, as Corbett had experience with the Île Bonaparte coastline, with the assault designated for the early morning of 21 September.
Assault
At 05:00 on 21 September 1809, Nereide entered the bay of Saint-Paul under the cover of darkness and successfully landed the British force, without any sign they had been sighted from the shore, at the Pointe des GaletsPointe des Galets
The Pointe des Galets is a cape in the north-west of the island of Réunion, heading on the Indian Ocean. It is now entirely occupied by the town centre of Le Port, Réunion....
. The Pointe des Galets was 7 miles (11.3 km) north of Saint-Paul, the distance allowing the force, divided into Keating's soldiers from Rodriguez and the naval force led by Nesbit Willoughby, to approach the heavy gun batteries that guarded the port unobserved. Storming the strongest batteries, Lambousière and la Centière, at 07:00, the British force surprised the garrisons, captured the fortifications and turned their cannon
Cannon
A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...
onto the shipping moored in the harbour, firing grape shot at the decks of the frigate Caroline.
A detachment of the British landing force then separated from the main body and seized a third battery named la Neuf, routing a force of local militia that attempted to block their advance with artillery assistance from the British squadron in the bay. The militia had come down from their garrisons in the surrounding hills and been joined by 110 French soldiers who had disembarked from Caroline, but the small French force was easily brushed aside by the British landing party. Keating and Willoughby then destroyed the guns in the first two captured batteries and stormed the remaining two fortifications, once again capturing them and using their own cannon to fire on the shipping in the harbour.
While the landing force drove off the defenders and captured the fortifications, the naval squadron entered the harbour and opened up an overwhelming fire on the outnumbered Caroline. Shot was also fired at the captured East Indiamen, various other vessels in the harbour and any small batteries or shore positions that remained in French hands. Feretier and the other French naval officers, recognising that their position was hopeless, cut the anchor cables of their ships and allowed them to drift ashore, where they abandoned ship to escape capture. The British squadron then anchored in the harbour as their crews set about refloating the grounded French ships on the beach. In addition to Caroline and the East Indiamen, Rowley's squadron successfully captured a 14-gun privateer
Privateer
A privateer is a private person or ship authorized by a government by letters of marque to attack foreign shipping during wartime. Privateering was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers...
brig
Brig
A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and manoeuvrable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries...
named Grappler and five or six smaller ships. With the harbour and fortifications in British hands, Keating and Willoughby entered the town of Saint-Paul without further combat.
Withdrawal
On the night of 21 September, the landing party embarked on the British ships in the bay having destroyed all of the fortified positions that surrounded the harbour. During 22 September, French forces were seen gathering in the hills around the town, brought from outlying garrisons to join the main garrison from the capital Saint-DenisSaint-Denis, Réunion
Saint-Denis is the préfecture of the French overseas region and department of Réunion, in the Indian Ocean. It is located at the island's northernmost point, close to the mouth of the Rivière Saint-Denis....
by the island's governor General Des Bruslys
Nicolas Ernault de Rignac Des Bruslys
Nicolas Ernault de Rignac Des Bruslys was a French general, later governor of Île Bonaparte .- Early career :...
. Rowley and Keating anticipated that this force, which outnumbered their own, would recapture the town on 23 September and accordingly ordered Willoughby to land with his marines and sailors to burn French government property along the waterfront. The most obvious and significant target of Willoughby's force was a warehouse on the docks that was stocked with the captured silk from the East Indiamen captured by Caroline. Willoughby ordered this building to be burned, destroying over £500,000 worth of captured textiles, (the equivalent of £ as of ). Other nearby warehouses were not destroyed as it was not possible to rapidly determine their ownership. Although the French force had reached the outskirts of the town, Willoughby was able to land and rembark his troops without a single shot being fired. On 22 September, Rowley received a petition from a body of slaves in the town who had escaped during the fighting and demanded arms with which to attack the French. They also offered to burn the town to the ground. Rowley, who sought to cultivate good relations with the populace with a view to capturing the island in the near future, refused their demands and had the slaves returned to their owners, where eight were executed for plotting rebellion. There was however a noted example of a slave displaying loyalty to his owner: The painter Jean-Joseph Patu de Rosemont
Jean-Joseph Patu de Rosemont
Jean-Joseph Patu de Rosemont was a French painter. He is mostly known for watercolours depicting landscapes from La Réunion, where he lived from 1788...
had served in the militia forces with the journalist Nicole Robinet de La Serve
Nicole Robinet de La Serve
Jean-Pierre-François Nicole Robinet de La Serve was a French journalist, lawyer and politician.-Biography:...
and was captured when Keating's troops entered Saint-Paul. Taken aboard the British squadron, Rosemont's son Amédée applied to exchange himself for his father as a prisoner but was refused. Shortly before the squadron departed, Rosemont's personal slave Félix swam to the squadron to serve his owner in captivity. For his loyalty, Félix was manumitted
Manumission
Manumission is the act of a slave owner freeing his or her slaves. In the United States before the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished most slavery, this often happened upon the death of the owner, under conditions in his will.-Motivations:The...
when Rosemont was freed in 1810.
On 23 September, Rowley and Keating planned another landing under cover of the guns of the Nereide to drive off the French reinforcements. On landing, however, it was discovered that the French force had disappeared. Lacking support for a counter attack from the local landowners, who favoured a return to the monarchy, Des Bruslys was unwilling to order an assault which he deemed would have inevitably led to an unnecessary bloodbath. Instead, he ordered his forces to abandon Saint-Paul and retire to Saint-Denis during the night. Without support from his commanding officer, Captain St-Michel, commandant of Saint-Paul, agreed to surrender the town entirely, withdrawing his remaining forces under a flag of truce. The agreed truce lasted five days, during which the British force loaded their ships with French government provisions, equipment, military and naval stores and those cargoes from captured British ships that had not been burnt by Willoughby. The French made no effort to prevent this, Des Bruslys having committed suicide some days before, torn between his refusal to surrender the island to the British and his reluctance to order a bloody battle for what he regarded to be an "open island".
Rowley also seized the East Indiamen Streatham and Europe and restored their previous captains and crews, who had been released as part of the truce. A number of smaller merchant ships were captured and all were refitted for the journey to Britain, to be convoyed there by the newly captured Caroline. This 40-gun frigate, only three years old and very large and powerfully built, was given to Corbett in recognition of his services in the operation and renamed HMS Bourbonaise
French frigate Caroline (1806)
The Caroline was a 40-gun Hortense Class frigate of the French Navy.On 12 November 1808, the French authorities sent four new 40 gun frigates to the Indian Ocean...
, reflecting the British name for Île Bonaparte, Île Bourbon. Willoughby was promoted to post captain and immediately took command of Corbett's former ship Nereide. Late on 28 September, Rowley led his force to sea from Saint-Paul having burnt or seized all government shipping, stores and buildings in the town and surrounding areas.
Aftermath
Casualties of the operation were not high on either side. British losses in the landing party amounted to 15 killed and 58 wounded, with an additional three missing. The naval squadron suffered no known casualties in the engagement, principally because they did not come under heavy fire. French losses have not been calculated, but apart from General Des Bruslys were probably a similar figure to the British. In contrast, the damage to the morale of the French defenders of Île Bonaparte was severe: the death of Des Bruslys and the failure to properly defend the town undermined their efforts to such a degree that the eventual invasion of the island in 1810 was carried out without significant fighting or loss. This invasion force was similar in size to the raiding party and was once again led by Rowley and Keating.Caroline was a "tolerably fine frigate" and her capture was a blow to the French squadron based on Île de France under Hamelin. The recapture of the East Indiamen was also an important success, reducing the impact of French operations in the region during 1809. The raid also provided the British forces with vital experience in conducting amphibious landings staged from Rodriguez and gave an indication of the quality of French shore defences and defensive formations throughout the islands, which would have an important effect on future operations, especially the Invasion of Île Bonaparte
Invasion of Île Bonaparte
The Invasion of Île Bonaparte was an amphibious operation in 1810 that formed an important part of the British campaign to blockade and capture the French Indian Ocean territories of Île Bonaparte and Île de France during the Napoleonic Wars...
in 1810.