Battle of Lagos Update

Date Posted: 10/12/2009

Domick Penrose kindly got in touch with some new information about the Battle of Lagos.

Falmouth Packet Captain Robert Lovell heard the news of the battle when his packet, the Prince Frederick, arrived from Lisbon. He noted:

‘This day the Prince Frederick Packet is arrived express from Lisbon in eleven days with an announcement that Admiral Boscawen had fallen in with part of the Toulon Squadron, had burnt the ocean sunk one taken two drove on shore one, and were in pursuit of the sixth ship of the line, the fleet was intended for Martinico and were parted in the Straits by a fog – tis said the other part of them are got in to some port in Spain – farther particulars we soon expect in the Gazette as a frigate was dispatched from the fleet immediately after the action, which happened sixteen days since.’

 This adds some new information: that the French squadron was indeed heading for the West Indies and not Brest as some historians suspect, and that they lost cohesion because of fog, very common for the Straits in August.

 On another note, Channel 4 will soon be filming a landmark TV series on the construction of the Titanic which will involve the reconstruction of a section of the hull, probably in Bristol.