Description

The Battle of Tamatave was fought off Tamatave in the Indian Ocean between British and French frigate squadrons during the Napoleonic Wars. The action was the final engagement of the Mauritius campaign of 1809–1811, and it saw the destruction of the last French attempt to reinforce their garrison on Isle de France. Although the news had not reached Europe by February 1811 when the reinforcement squadron left Brest, a British invasion of Isle de France resulted in the colony falling by December 1810, the French defences hampered by the lack of the supplies and troops carried aboard the frigate squadron under the command of Commodore Dominique Roquebert in Renommée. Roquebert's heavily laden ships reached Isle de France on 6 May and discovered that the island was in British hands the following day, narrowly escaping a trap laid by a squadron of British frigates ordered to hunt and destroy them.