Action of 13 September 1810

The action of 13 September 1810 was an frigate engagement during the Napoleonic Wars between Royal Navy and French Imperial Navy frigates during which a British frigate was defeated by two French vessels near Isle de France (now Mauritius), but British reinforcements were able to recapture the ship before the French could secure her. The British frigate was HMS Africaine, a new arrival to the Indian Ocean. She was under the command of Captain Robert Corbet, who had served there the previous year. Corbet was a notoriously unpopular officer and his death in the battle provoked a storm of controversy in Britain over claims that Corbet had either committed suicide at the shame of losing his ship, been murdered by his disaffected crew, or been abandoned by his men, who were said to have refused to load their guns while he remained in command. Whether any of these rumours were accurate has never been satisfactorily determined, but the issue has been discussed in several prominent naval histories and was the subject of at least one lawsuit.

The action came about as a direct consequence of the Battle of Grand Port three weeks earlier, in which a British squadron had been destroyed in a failed attack on Grand Port harbour on Isle de France. This gave the French forces on the island a significant regional advantage, outnumbering the British frigate on the recently captured Isle Bourbon, commanded by Commodore Josias Rowley, by six to one. British reinforcements were hastily despatched to the area but the French were blockading Isle Bourbon in force and the arriving reinforcements were in constant danger of attack by more powerful French units. Africaine was the first ship to reinforce Rowley's squadron, but within three days of her arrival in the region was engaged by two French ships while attempting to drive them away from Saint Denis on Isle Bourbon. Corbet was severely wounded in the opening exchanges and subsequently died.