Action of 18 March 1748

Part of the War of Jenkins' Ear

Date	18 March 1748
Location	off Cape St Vincent, Spain
Result	British victory

Belligerents

Great Britain

Spain

Commanders and leaders

Captain Thomas Cotes

Commodore Don Juan de Egues

Strength

6 ships of the line

9 ships of the line & frigates,
17 merchant vessels

Casualties and losses

Light

5 merchant ships captured^[1]

War of the Austrian Succession Sea battles

Toulon 8 May 1744 Anguilla Lorient 1st Finisterre Glorioso campaign 2nd Finisterre 31 January 1748 18 March 1748 Saint-Louis-du-Sud

War of Jenkins' Ear

Americas Portobello Fort Mose St. Augustine Anson expedition Cartagena de Indias 1st Santiago de Cuba Georgia Bloody Marsh Gully Hole Creek La Guaira Puerto Cabello 2nd Santiago de Cuba Havana European Waters 8 April 1740 Cape Sicie Voyage of the Glorioso 18 March 1748

Part of the War of the Austrian Succession

The Action of 18 March 1748 was a naval engagement during the War of Jenkins' Ear in which a fleet of six Royal Naval vessels captured a number of merchantman in a successful engagement against a Spanish convoy escorted by nine ships of the line and frigates.^[2]

Battle

Whilst off Cape St Vincent a small British fleet under Captain Cotes kept watch on his station. The Royal naval vessels consisted from 74 to 54 guns, by HMS Edinburgh, 70 guns, under the command of Captain Thomas Cotes, with the Eagle, Windsor, and Princess Louisa, 60 guns each, and Inverness, 24 guns and the frigate Gax. when he caught eye of a Spanish convoy. He caught up with the tail end of the convoy and an action ensued.^[1]

The escorting Spanish ships of the line were Soberbio (74), Leon (74), Oriente (70), Colorado (70), Brillante (64), Pastora (64), Rosario (60), Xavier (54) and Galga (54). Three register ships, from Cadiz to Vera Cruz, and two others for Carthagena, were intercepted and captured out of a Spanish fleet of 17 merchantmen, under a convoy of nine ships of the line.^[2] The rest of the convoy managed to escape under darkness with their escorting ships.^[1]

References

Notes

1 2 3 Harding p 332
1 2 Keppel, Thomas Robert (1842). The Life of Augustus, Viscount Keppel, Admiral of the White, and First Lord of the Admiralty in 1782-3. H. Colburn. p. 132.

Bibliography

Beatson, Robert (1804). Naval and military memoirs of Great Britain, from 1727 to 1783 1. Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme.
Harding, Richard (2010). The Emergence of Britain's Global Naval Supremacy: The War of 1739-1748. Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 9781843835806.

External links

Soberbio

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