During the battle, a powerful French squadron surprised a valuable British convoy from the Levant off Cape St Vincent on the coast of Portugal.

The annual British Levant convoy was a mercantile operation in which valuable merchant shipping from ports across the Eastern Mediterranean gathered together for security under escort to Britain by Royal Navy warships.

[4] It was then to sail north to attack the important cod fisheries off Newfoundland and Maritime Canada, before returning to France via the Azores to unite with the fleet at Brest.

[3] Martin also knew that the annual British merchant convoy from the Levant was due to pass westwards on its way to the Straits of Gibraltar, and several weeks later sent out a second squadron, under Commodore Honoré Ganteaume, in search of it.

[6] Censeur, under the command of Captain John Gore, was not fit for service; the ship had been a French warship captured off Genoa in March and was still in a poor state of repair, armed en flute and carrying only jury masts.

[7] Issuing hasty orders to his squadron to establish a short line of battle, he formed up with Fortitude in the lead, followed by Bedford and Censeur, supported by Lutine and Tisiphone.

In addition, the damaged Censeur was unable to hold station and at 13:00 the jury top-foremast collapsed over the side forcing Gore to fall back, away from Taylor's other ships.

[9] There he was trapped; Hotham had learned on 22 September that Richery was at sea, and on 5 October had dispatched a squadron of six ships of the line and two frigates in pursuit under Rear-Admiral Robert Mann.

[6] Historian William Laird Clowes laid blame for the destruction of the convoy on Hotham, stating that his behaviour "offers additional proof of that officer's unfitness for the very important command with which he had been entrusted.

[13] As a gesture of good will, the Spanish fleet at Cádiz under Admiral Juan de Lángara agreed to escort Richery out of the harbour with sufficient force to dissuade an attack by Mann.

[13] Lángara sent Richery 300 nautical miles (560 km) westwards with a large escort under Rear-Admiral José Solano y Bote, the French admiral then separating and fulfilling his original mission to attack the fisheries of Maritime Canada.

[14] During September he burned fishing fleets and coastal communities across Newfoundland and Labrador before returning to France unimpeded, having captured or destroyed more than a hundred British merchant ships during his operation.