Who won the Second Battle of Cape Finisterre?
The British. On 25 October 1747 (14 October, Old Style) Rear-Admiral Edward Hawke's fourteen ships caught eight French ships of the line escorting a convoy for the West Indies off north-west Spain and captured six of them. The French escort, under the Marquis de l'Estenduère, held Hawke off long enough for much of the convoy to get away, by some accounts.1
The Second Battle of Cape Finisterre was fought far out in the Atlantic, off the north-west corner of Spain, in the War of the Austrian Succession. It was the second battle off that cape in one year: on 14 May 1747 a British fleet had already beaten a French squadron in the same waters. The October battle is remembered for one admiral's aggression and another's stubborn defense.2
Two dates for one battle
Britain still used the Julian, or Old Style, calendar in 1747, while France used the Gregorian calendar. British records therefore date the battle to 14 October and French records to 25 October. The National Archives in London records one of the captured ships as taken on 14/25 October 1747, giving both dates in one line.3
The convoy and its escort
In the autumn of 1747 France sent a large convoy of merchant ships to its colonies in the West Indies. Nicolas Mioque, author of the French naval history blog Trois-Ponts!, puts it at more than 200 sail. Its escort was eight ships of the line under the Marquis de l'Estenduère. Britain wanted to cut the colonies off from their supplies, and a fleet under Rear-Admiral Edward Hawke was sent to intercept it. Hawke had fourteen ships: twelve of the line and two of 50 guns.4 › First Battle of Cape Finisterre, 1747
The battle off Cape Finisterre
When the two forces met, l'Estenduère placed his warships between Hawke and the merchantmen and let the convoy run on. The French ships were larger and more heavily built than many of Hawke's, but they were fewer, and the British crews were better drilled. Hawke's ships caught up with the French line and engaged it.5
One by one the French ships surrendered. Captain Thomas Fox, for example, engaged the Fougueux, which struck to him after about 45 minutes. By the end, six of the eight French ships of the line had been taken. One of the prizes, the Severn, was a 50-gun ship with 340 men aboard, along with two women and a child; she was brought into Portsmouth and condemned as a prize on 20 January 1748.6
Only l'Estenduère's flagship Tonnant and the Intrépide got away. The Rountree Tryon catalogue quotes the naval historian William Laird Clowes: though very badly damaged, the two ships reached Brest. A painting by Dominic Serres shows the Intrépide towing the crippled Tonnant out of the fight, but the same catalogue notes that the sources do not clearly mention a tow, and the scene may owe more to the popular story than to the record.7
What happened to the convoy?
This is the part of the story historians still argue about. Some say the British took almost the whole convoy; others say it escaped with few losses. Mioque judges that it was probably saved for the most part, and stresses that its fate is still debated. If so, l'Estenduère did what an escort exists to do: he lost his squadron, but the convoy reached the Caribbean. Both the French and the English claimed the battle as a victory, the Rountree Tryon catalogue notes.8
Hawke's reward and Fox's court-martial
In Britain there was no doubt who had won. Hawke, still a very junior rear-admiral, was knighted for the victory, as the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich notes. Twelve years later he won his most famous battle, at Quiberon Bay in November 1759.9
Not every captain was rewarded. Hawke judged that Thomas Fox had fought half-heartedly and had him court-martialled for dilatory behavior. According to the Twickenham Museum, the court found partly against Fox when it closed on 21 December 1747, despite conflicting evidence from his fellow officers, and he was dismissed from his command; he was later reinstated and promoted to rear-admiral in 1749.10
Why it mattered
For France the battle showed the price of protecting trade at sea: six of eight ships of the line lost in one battle, for a convoy that, by Mioque's reckoning, largely got through. For Britain it made the name of the admiral who would win at Quiberon Bay, more than half a century before the Royal Navy's best-known victory at Trafalgar.11
