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On This Day 1/16/1780
1/15/2011 11:21:35 AM

Great Britain demonstrates Naval supremacy in "The Moonlight Battle"

British Admiral Sir George Rodney, with eighteen ships-of-the-line, engages an inferior Spanish squadron of eleven battleships commanded by Don Juan de Langara off the southwestern coast of Portugal at Cape St. Vincent, in what comes to be known as "The Moonlight Battle".

Ships-of-the-line is the Eighteenth Century term for ships substantial enough to be used in a battle line, a tactic of war in which two lines of ships faced off against each other.

The Spanish, who were at war with the British because they had chosen to back the American rebels in the "American Revolution", saw the British fleet in pursuit and attempted to retreat home to the Port of Cadiz. As they fled, Admiral Rodney decided to ignore the accepted rules of Naval engagement, which involved two lines of ships bombarding one another with cannon much like two lines of infantry confronting one another across a battlefield.

Instead, Admiral Rodney decided to attempt to overtake the Spanish ships by giving orders of "general chase", having each British ship chase the Spanish fleet to the best of their ability. The British hounded the Spanish until two in the morning, when theSpaniards finally surrendered.

Four Spanish battleships and two frigates escaped capture, but the British took Spanish Admiral De Langara's flagship and five others before running into shoals and ending the chase.

One Spanish ship with its entire crew was lost in battle. Thirty-two British seamen died, and one hundred two were wounded. Credit for the British victory belongs not only to their greater number of ships and Admiral Rodney's decision to give chase, but also to the British ships barnacle-free copper bottoms, which allowed them to outpace the less technologically advanced Spanish fleet.

The fact that the two fleets engaged in battle overnight was an anomaly in Eighteenth Century sea warfare, and earned the encounter the title "The Moonlight Battle", and a painting by Francis Holman, despite its comparative insignificance in the "American Revolution".

Sir George Rodney British Admiral
Don Juan de Langara Spanish Admiral
Francis Holman Artist

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