St Vincent

Background

The British Mediterranean fleet, under Sir John Jervis, had been forced out of that sea by the Franco- Spanish alliance of 1796, and was based at Lisbon: in February 1797 it was at sea off Cape St Vincent.
The Franco-Spanish fleet under Rear-Admiral Villeneuve had left Toulon in December 1796, and the French had continued on to Brest to prepare for an invasion of Ireland. The Spanish, though also supposed to go to Brest, had in fact remained at Cartagena under Admiral Langara, who was replaced by Admiral de Cordova. De Cordova however also took the fleet no further than Cadiz, sailing there with a small convoy of merchantmen carrying quicksilver. The Spanish fleet was blown off course to the west, and finally headed eastward toward Cadiz.
On 14 January 1797, the two fleets sighted one another in poor visibility. De Cordova had nominally 27 of the line, including the 136-gun Santissima Trinidad, the biggest warship afloat, six first-rates and twenty third-rates, plus twelve frigates and a corvette. However, of the third-rates, three were in dock at Algeciras and five more were escorting the convoy.
De Cordova had been told by an American merchantman that Jervis had nine ships of the line: however he in fact had had ten and had since been reinforced with five more under Rear-Admiral Sir William Parker. The fifteen included two first-rates, one his flagship Victory, four second -rates and nine third-rates, one of them Nelson's Captain.

The battle (14 January 1797)

With the wind from the south-west, the main body of seventeen of the Spanish fleet was sailing, bunched rather than in line, north-eastward. However the Spanish van, also bunched, had already worn and was now to the east, heading south-east, leaving a big gap between the two bodies.
Jervis sailed his fleet in line (and into the wind) into the gap. With the British due east of him, de Cordova started to change course, wearing eastward to pass behind the British line and then come down to rejoin his van.
Jervis ordered his ships to tack in succession (i.e. the leading ship Culloden would first tack, and then each other ship would tack as it came to Culloden's original position) and come up on the Spaniards from the south, but it looked as though de Cordova's leading ships at least would still have time to complete their manoeuvre. Seeing this, Nelson, third from the rear of the line, left his position, ignoring orders not for the last time, wore ship where he was, and headed for the leading Spaniard, Santissima Trinidad, followed by Excellent, another 74.
Nelson's manoeuvre worked; he blocked Santissima Trinidad, boarding both of the ships following her (boarding one across the decks of the other) and taking both, San Nicolas (80) and San Josef (112). Santissima Trinidad was initially taken but later rescued by ships from the original van squadron. The rest of the fleet then had time to come up and engage. Poor seamanship prevented the Spaniards from forming line properly: bunched as they were some even fired into one another - on the other hand shot fired at one Spaniard might easily miss and hit another.
Excellent took San Ysidro (74), and Orion captured Salvador del Mundo (112), as the the battle became general and confused.
Finally, with his ships running out of ammunition, Jervis was forced to collect his fleet together and allow the remaining Spanish ships to escape into Cadiz, where they remained blockaded. Santissima Trinidad was rescued by the ships of the van (and leeward) squadron, which finally managed to beat up into the action just as Jervis was calling it off. Ironically, had she been captured, there was no British dockyard big enough to receive her for repairs: instead she was able to fight again, at Trafalgar.

Aftermath

The Spanish fleet had already shown its unwillingness to venture northward from its own waters: the Battle of St. Vincent made it even more sure they would be unwilling to risk repeating the 1588 story of the Armada. Their morale had been shattered though their fleet remained reasonably intact.
After the way in which they had been forced out of the Mediterranean a few months before, the victory, however insignificant materially, boosted British morale immeasurably. Perhaps even more significantly, the way in which he read the situation and then acted to rectify it gave birth to the Nelson legend, fully as important to the English side in the war as the legend of Napoleon was to be to the French.
Nelson was knighted after the battle; Jervis was made Earl St Vincent, two other admirals were made baronets and one given an Irish peerage. Calder, so unlucky in not dissimilar circumstances eight years later, was also knighted.

Note

In 'Ramage and the Drumbeat', Nelson is assisted by Ramage's action in steering the cutter Kathleen across the bows of the Spanish leader, thus delaying it and giving Nelson time to come up.