Description

The First Battle of Algeciras was fought on 6 July 1801 between a Royal Navy squadron and a smaller French Navy squadron lying at anchor in the Spanish port of Algeciras during the Algeciras campaign of the War of the Second Coalition. The British outnumbered their opponents, but the French position was protected by Spanish gun batteries and the complicated shoals that obscured the entrance to Algeciras Bay. The French squadron, under Counter-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Léon Durand Linois, had stopped at Algeciras en route to the major Spanish naval base at Cadiz, where they were to form a combined French and Spanish fleet for operations against Britain and its allies in the French Revolutionary Wars. The British, under Rear-Admiral Sir James Saumarez, sought to eliminate the French squadron before it could reach Cadiz and form a force powerful enough to overwhelm Saumarez and launch attacks against British forces in the Mediterranean Sea.