On the night of 30 March 1800 the French ship of the line Guillaume Tell slipped out of besieged Valletta in a southerly gale, carrying Rear-Admiral Denis Decrès and about a thousand men. She was the last French ship of the line left from the fleet Nelson had destroyed at the Nile. The British frigate Penelope found her within the hour and harried her until two British ships of the line came up. After a defense that British naval writers themselves called heroic, the dismasted Guillaume Tell surrendered south of Sicily on the morning of 31 March.
A trapped survivor of the Nile
In August 1798 Nelson's fleet destroyed the French squadron in Aboukir Bay. The Guillaume Tell escaped and took shelter in the harbor of Valletta, on Malta. The French garrison there came under siege, and a British squadron blockaded the harbor to stop supplies getting in. By March 1800 the garrison was short of food. In late March the Guillaume Tell tried to run the blockade and reach Marseilles to tell France of the garrison's plight.1
John Marshall's Royal Naval Biography calls her the only ship still afloat of the French fleet that had fought at the Nile. Nelson himself was at Palermo, having sent his flagship Foudroyant to strengthen the blockade, and the squadron off Malta was under Captain Manley Dixon of the Lion.2
The frigate that would not let go
Dixon's report, printed in the London Gazette, says that rockets and gunfire from the British batteries at midnight, a strong southerly wind and the dark after moonset told him the French were trying to break out. The frigate Penelope, under Captain Henry Blackwood, had been posted between the Lion and Valletta to watch the harbor. Blackwood spotted the enemy, sent the brig Minorca to warn Dixon and gave chase.3
The Penelope was much faster than the big two-decker. Blackwood placed her under the French ship's stern, where only a few stern guns could reply, and raked her again and again with full broadsides. By dawn on 31 March the Guillaume Tell had lost her main and mizzen topmasts and her main yard, and could no longer outrun her pursuers.4
Three ships against one
The Lion, a 64, came up first. Marshall describes Dixon firing a broadside with three round shot in each gun and then taking a raking position across the Frenchman's bow. After about half an hour the Lion was too damaged to keep station and fell back. Then Captain Sir Edward Berry arrived in the Foudroyant, Nelson's flagship, hailed the French ship to strike and, on being refused, opened fire.5
The French ship fought on until she had lost every mast. Dixon's letter says she struck after a gallant and obstinate defense of three and a half hours, with Cape Passero, the southeastern tip of Sicily, about seven leagues away. Marshall wrote that a more heroic defense than hers is not to be found among the records of naval actions.6
Counting guns, men and losses
Dixon's letter rates the Guillaume Tell at 86 guns and 1,000 men, while the casualty return in the same Gazette calls her a ship of 84 guns; the Dictionary of National Biography gives 80 guns. The French lost about 200 killed and wounded according to Marshall. British losses differ from list to list. The return signed by Dixon gives 8 killed and 61 wounded in the Foudroyant, 7 killed and 38 wounded in the Lion and 2 killed and 2 wounded in the Penelope. Marshall gives 8 and 69, 8 and 38, and 1 and 3, a total of 17 killed and 110 wounded.7
Even the date is not uniform. Dixon's letter is dated off Cape Passero on 31 March and speaks of the surrender as having happened the previous morning, and the Royal Museums Greenwich title their painting of the action The Capture of the Guillaume Tell, 30 March 1800. Marshall and the Dictionary of National Biography place the breakout on the night of 30 March and the fighting at daybreak on 31 March, and the Dictionary of National Biography dates the capture itself to 31 March.8
The Penelope towed the prize into Syracuse, and the Guillaume Tell went into British service as HMS Malta. Valletta held out until September 1800; Marshall dates its surrender to 5 September. For the admiral whose victory began the story, see our article on Horatio Nelson.9
