"Honour insulted, Disobedience triumphs – Guadeloupe 1759" Topic

#The incident at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 when Nelson put his telescope to his blind eye and stated "I really do not see the signal!" is the most famous case of a Royal Navy officer disobeying orders and thereby achieving victory. A less well-known case occurred some four decades earlier in the West Indies and which involved a captain called Clark Gayton, of whom more in this article.

The Seven Years War of 1756 – 1763 should merit the title of "The First World War," for was the first to be fought on a global scale. It was longer indeed that seven years, for hostilities had opened between Britain and France in North America in 1754, triggered by an incident in Pennsylvania that involved a 22-year old officer called George Washington. Two years later the conflict took on an even wider European dimension. The British-led alliance included Prussia, Portugal and the smaller German states, including Hanover, and was opposed by a French alliance with the Austrian Empire, Spain, Sweden and Saxony. Russia was initially allied with Austria but changed sides halfway through. Vast in geographical scope, it was a war in which, in Thomas Babington Macaulay's phrase, European enmities ensured that "black men fought on the coast of Coromandel and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of North America." 1759 proved to be the "Year of Victories" that firmly established Britain as a global power with battles won and conquests made by land and sea. Most notable was the capture of Quebec (and of French Canada thereafter), the smashing of a French army at Minden, in Central Germany and the two massive naval victories of Lagos and Quiberon Bay. Less well known was the capture of the French island of Guadeloupe, in the West Indies in May 1759 after a four-month naval and land campaign. As a sugar-producer the island was of great economic significance and it also acted as a refuge for French privateers…"

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Amicalement
Armand

Nice. Thanks.

A votre service mon ami!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand