The action of 15 November 1810 was a minor naval engagement fought during the British Royal Navy blockade of the French Channel ports in the Napoleonic Wars. British dominance at sea, enforced by a strategy of close blockade, made it difficult for the French Navy to operate even in their own territorial waters. In the autumn of 1810, a British squadron assigned to patrol the Baie de la Seine was effectively isolating two French squadrons in the ports of Le Havre and Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. On 12 November, the squadron in Le Havre, consisting of frigates Elisa and Amazone attempted to reach Cherbourg at night in order to united the squadrons. This squadron was spotted in the early hours of 13 November by the patrolling British frigates HMS Diana and HMS Niobe, which gave chase.
The French ships took shelter at the heavily fortified Iles Saint-Marcouf, sailing the following morning for the anchorage at Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue. For two days the British frigates kept watch, until two ships of the line from the blockade of Cherbourg, HMS Donegal and HMS Revenge, arrived. On 15 November, the British squadron attacked the anchored French ships, which were defended by shore batteries at La Hougue and Tatihou. After four attempts to close with the French the British squadron, under heavy fire, withdrew. During the night, the British commander, Captain Pulteney Malcolm, sent his ship's boats close inshore to attack the French ships with Congreve rockets, a newly issued weapon. None are recorded as landing on target, but by morning both frigates had been forced to change position, becoming grounded on the shore. The French ships were later refloated, and Malcolm's squadron maintained the blockade until 27 November when Amazone successfully escaped back to Le Havre. The damaged Elisa remained at anchor until 6 December, when an attack by a British bomb vessel forced the frigate to move further inshore, becoming grounded once more. Elisa remained in this position until 23 December, when the boats of Diana entered the anchorage at night and set the beached ship on fire, destroying her.
Baie de la Seine in 1810
By 1810 the French Navy fleet based in the Atlantic ports had been prevented from launching any major operations for four years, penned into harbour by the British strategy of close blockade. A failed attempt by a French fleet to sail had been defeated at the Battle of Basque Roads in 1809, and the main operations still carried out by the Navy were undertaken by privateers and frigate squadrons operating commerce raiders operating from smaller ports, such as those on the English Channel. In November 1810 squadrons were based at Cherbourg, with two ships of the line and the newly built frigate Iphigénie, and Le Havre, with the frigates Elisa and Amazone, commanded by Captains Louis-Henri Fraycinet-Saulce and Bernard-Louis Rosseau respectively. To blockade these squadrons, the Royal Navy's Channel Fleet had assigned the ships of the line HMS Donegal under Captain Pulteney Malcolm and HMS Revenge under Captain Charles Paget to patrol the entrance to Cherbourg, while frigates HMS Diana under Captain Charles Grant and HMS Niobe under Captain John Wentworth Loring kept watch on Le Havre. The blockade had achieved some minor successes; in October 1810 Revenge had captured the privateer Vengeur from Dieppe, and on 6 November Donegal ran down and seized the privateer Surcouf from Cherbourg.
Pursuit of Amazone and Elisa
At 22:00 on 12 November Amazone and Elisa sailed from Le Havre to unite with the force at Cherbourg, hoping to evade the blockade in the darkness. They successfully passed the patrolling Diana and Niobe but were spotted sailing northwest at 00:30 by the British ships which gave chase, Niobe turning inshore in an attempt to cut off the French line of advance. With the wind in the northeast, the French frigates were unable to pass Cape Barfleur under pursuit, and Rosseau instead turned his squadron towards the Iles Saint-Marcouf at 04:00, using superior local knowledge to bypass the pursuing British ships. The heavily fortified islands had been under British control during the French Revolutionary Wars, but reverted to the French at the Peace of Amiens in 1802. Diana and Niobe attempted to intercept the French frigates before they came under the shelter of the guns, but were only able to fire two long-distance broadsides at the trailing Elisa.