John Steven Dews b. 1949

On 13 January 1797 the imposing silhouette of the French 74-gun ship of the line Droits de l’Homme was seen from the masthead of Indefatigable, a British frigate on blockade duty in the Bay of Biscay. In normal circumstances Indefatigable—a 64-gun warship which had been cut down to a frigate—would have avoided a confrontation with such a daunting foe, but in the rough waters off Ushant her dashing captain, Edward Pellew, later Viscount Exmouth, spotted a golden opportunity to take an unlikely prize. Exploiting his ship’s manoeuvrability and assisted by Amazon, another minnow-like frigate, Pellew began to relentlessly hound his prey. The churning sea prevented the cumbersome Droits de l’Homme from opening her lower gun ports, allowing the British frigates to snap at her heels for the next eleven hours. Eventually all three ships were forced dangerously close to the Brittany coastline. Displaying stunning seamanship, Pellew guided Indefatigable to safety but Amazon ran ashore and Droits de l’Homme foundered with the loss of upwards of a thousand men. The felling of a ship-of-the-line by a frigate was almost unheard of; his feat earning Pellew the approval of the Admiralty and the awed respect of his peers.