D'Estaing holds Grenada; Byron charges 25 French ships with 21 and pays in blood
By July 1779, France had entered the American Revolutionary War as an ally, and the fight for the Caribbean's sugar islands had turned into its own theater. Admiral Charles Henri Hector, Count of Estaing, stormed Grenada's defences on 3 July and secured its capitulation on 4 July, then anchored his fleet off St. George's Town. Admiral John Byron arrived two days later believing his 21 ships outmatched the French. He ordered a general chase into 25 French ships of the line, and the disordered British attack left 183 dead and the ship Lion limping to Jamaica.
France's Caribbean campaign drew British ships and troops away from the mainland war precisely when Washington needed that pressure relieved. Estaing's fleet, fresh off Grenada, sailed north that September to join American forces at Savannah. The alliance signed in 1778 was already reshaping where Britain could afford to fight.
QWhat playwright owned a warship in the French line at Grenada?
The Fier Rodrigue, a 50-gun vessel commanded by the Chevalier de Montault, belonged to Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, whose 50-gun Fier Rodrigue sailed as a letter of marque in the French line of battle. The ship carried a young officer named Honore Joseph Antoine Ganteaume, who used the battle as a launching point toward an eventual rank of vice admiral.
QHow badly mismatched were the casualty numbers given that neither side lost a ship?
The French counted 190 killed but 759 wounded, more than double the British wounded total of 346, even though Estaing won the battle outright. The lopsided wounded count came from the close, disordered fighting after Byron's general chase broke apart his own line. Despite the carnage below decks, not a single ship of the line sank or was captured on either side, an unusual outcome for an engagement historian Alfred Thayer Mahan ranked among the Royal Navy's worst defeats in nearly a century.
QWhy did the frigate Lion end up running for Jamaica instead of fighting?
Lion, along with the ship Fame, got cut off from Byron's main fleet once his hasty general chase order fell apart under French fire, and both ships absorbed a mauling meant for the whole squadron. Fame alone suffered four killed and nine wounded before the crews recognized the danger. Lion had no realistic path back to the British line, so she turned and ran downwind, sailing all the way to Jamaica to escape capture rather than risk rejoining a battle already lost.
