The action of 14 June 1742 was a minor naval battle of the War of the Austrian Succession in which a small British squadron under Captain Richard Norris burned 5 Spanish royal galleys at the French port of Saint Tropez.

[3] Matthews based the British fleet at the Piedmontese port of Villefranche-sur-Mer and at the Hyères islands and dispatched several squadrons to cruise in search of Spanish vessels.

[4] Norris, who had with him, besides his own fourth-rate ship of the line, the 50-gun HMS Oxford, the sloop Spence and the fireship Duke, chased the galleys and drove them into the French port of Saint Tropez.

[2] Norris, arriving off the port, sent a message requesting the governor of Saint Tropez that the Spanish galleys might be denied shelter and sent to the sea.

[2] According to the British historian Edward Cust, "the French flag had so often been allowed to save the Spanish ships that it was thought right to deprive it of all pretext of neutrality".