Villaret, believing that the stronger British fleet would destroy his own 12 ships of the line, ordered his force to fall back to the inshore anchorage off Groix, hoping to take shelter in protected coastal waters.

In this position they were highly vulnerable to continued British attack, but after only a few hours' engagement, concerned that his ships might be wrecked on the rocky coastline, Bridport called off the action and allowed Villaret to regroup inshore and retreat to Lorient.

[4] On 8 June, as Vence's convoy passed the fortified island of Belle Île on the southern Breton coast they were discovered by a British battle squadron of five ships of the line and two frigates under Vice-admiral William Cornwallis.

[8] At the same time, Cornwallis had ordered the frigate HMS Phaeton to range ahead of his squadron making false signals announcing the imminent arrival of a British fleet.

[9] Unbeknownst to either Villaret or Cornwallis, the British Channel Fleet was also at sea, having sailed from Spithead on 12 June with 14 ships of the line and 11 smaller vessels under the command of Admiral Alexander Hood, 1st Viscount Bridport.

Bridport had been tasked with ensuring the safety of a convoy of transports, commanded by Commodore Sir John Borlase Warren, which carried a French Royalist army to Quiberon with the intention of triggering a counter-revolution in Brittany.

What the British admiral did not know was that not only had the French fleet sailed a week earlier, they were still at sea – Villaret's ships having been blown southwards by a severe gale on 18 June and forced to take shelter in the anchorage off Belle Île.

[11] Villaret did not pursue Warren's force: he may not have gauged its true strength correctly, and his ships were running low on provisions having taken aboard only enough for 15 days in their haste to leave Brest a week earlier.

[18] All day the chase continued: at 12:00 the French fleet were approximately 12 nautical miles (22 km) distant, and all through the afternoon the British ships slowly gained on their opponents, both sides hampered by long periods of calm weather.

[21] Against expectation, Bridport's leading ship was Queen Charlotte, which had attained an unusually fast speed for a first rate through the carefully planned sailing of Captain Sir Andrew Snape Douglas.

Immediately behind Douglas was Captain Richard Grindall in Irresistible, with Orion, Colossus, Sans Pareil and Russell a short distance behind the leaders and the rest of the fleet substantially to the rear.

[23] Douglas responded with his bow-chasers, gradually bringing his main battery into range and joined by Captain Sir James Saumarez in Orion, which opened fire shortly after 06:00.

[26] As Sans Pareil passed ahead of the battered ship, the mizzenmast on Formidable collapsed over the side and Linois, seeing the rest of the British fleet rapidly approaching, struck his colours and surrendered.

At 07:14, he drifted past the shattered hull of Alexandre; Captain Guillemet opened fire briefly before surrendering as Douglas returned it with devastating effect.

[31] The French ship had been severely damaged, with 8 feet (2.4 m) of water in the hold, the masts and rigging badly torn and more than 130 men killed or wounded, including Bedout, who had been hit three times.

At 08:15 Bridport signaled Colossus under Captain John Monkton, the leading British ship more than 1.5 nautical miles (2.8 km) ahead of the flagship, to return to the fleet.

He repeated the order to Seymour in Sans Pareil who was almost as far advanced in combat with the retreating Peuple,[31] on which Villaret's flag captain Jacques Angot had been killed in action.

The 68-year-old Bridport was forcibly retired in October after an unrelated argument with First Lord of the Admiralty Earl Spencer, but was reinstated in 1796 and continued to serve in command of the Channel Fleet until 1800.

This scheme was vociferously opposed by Contre-amirals Kerguelen and Étienne Eustache Bruix who argued that in such a position the British would be able to use the weather gage to bombard the French at will and attack them with fireships.

Nos boulets atterissaient dans l'eau, le patriotisme à lui seul ne peut manoeuvrer un navire" ("Be it ignorance, ineptitude or insubordination, in spite of our repeated signals, nothing was done.

The situation was worsened by the Parliament of Great Britain, which voted thanks for the battle but specifically named only Bridport, Lord Hugh Seymour and Vice-Admiral Sir Alan Gardner of Queen.

[44][15] Numerous historians have commented on these unexplained omissions, William James noting that Douglas and Queen Charlotte were particularly unfortunate in this regard as the admiral normally aboard, Rear-Admiral Sir Roger Curtis, was ashore at the court-martial of Captain Anthony Molloy and consequently the ship received no recognition despite being the most heavily engaged of any in the British fleet.

"[35] Twenty-first-century historians Noel Mostert and Richard Woodman have compared Groix with the battles of Genoa and Hyères fought during the year in the Mediterranean, where in similar circumstances another elderly admiral, William Hotham, had also allowed scattered and retreating French fleets to escape when they might have been destroyed.