A British naval squadron under Vice-Admiral William Cornwallis began operating off Brittany on 7 June; in the following week he attacked a French merchant convoy and captured several ships.

After a full day's chase the British squadron lost speed, due to poorly loaded holds on two of their ships, and the French vanguard pulled within range on the morning of 17 June.

Cornwallis's determined resistance, and his squadron's signals to a group of unknown ships spotted in the distance, led Villaret de Joyeuse to believe that the main British Channel Fleet was approaching.

Villaret was criticised by contemporaries for failing to press the attack on Cornwallis's force, whilst the British admiral was praised and rewarded for his defiance in the face of overwhelming French numerical superiority.

[3] Although French squadrons could occasionally put to sea without interception, the main French fleet had suffered a series of setbacks in the preceding two years, most notably at the battle of the Glorious First of June in 1794 at which the fleet lost seven ships of the line and then during the Croisière du Grand Hiver during the winter of 1794–1795 when five ships of the line were wrecked during a sortie into the Bay of Biscay at the height of the Atlantic winter storm season.

[2] The damage the French Trans-Atlantic fleet had suffered in the winter operation took months to repair and it was not in a condition to sail again until June 1795, although several squadrons had put to sea in the meanwhile.

One such squadron consisted of three ships of the line and a number of frigates under Contre-Amiral Jean Gaspard Vence sent to Bordeaux to escort a merchant convoy up the coast to Brest.

[7] Vence's squadron made rapid progress towards the anchorage, but Cornwallis had sent his faster ships ahead, Phaeton, Kingfisher and Triumph in the lead, while Brunswick, which had been badly loaded when at anchor in Spithead and thus was unable to sail smoothly, fell far behind.

[9] Taking his eight prizes laden with wine and brandy, Cornwallis retired to the sheltered anchorage of Palais Road, close to Belle Île, where the squadron remained until 9 June.

In fact, as was pointed out by a number of officers in the French fleet including Vice-amiral Kerguelen, the anchorage at Belle Île could never be effectively blockaded as it was too open to block all potential approaches and too close to the major port of Lorient and therefore a rescue was unnecessary.

[11] Stopford subsequently signaled the exact composition of Villaret's fleet at 11:00 and Cornwallis, realising his error, issued urgent orders for his squadron to haul away to the southwest, tacking to starboard in an effort to escape pursuit with Brunswick leading the line, followed by Royal Sovereign, Bellerophon, Triumph and Mars.

[13] Villaret had immediately ordered his fleet to give chase, and the French followed the British south westwards into the Atlantic, taking advantage of the strengthening wind.

[14] During the night the chase continued into the Atlantic, the British squadron struggling to maintain formation due to the slow speed of two members: Brunswick's sailing deficiencies had already been noted, but it became clear that Bellerophon was similarly suffering.

In an effort to decrease the weight of the ships and thus increase their speed and allow them to keep pace with the rest of the squadron, captains Lord Charles Fitzgerald and Lord Cranstoun ordered the anchors, boats and much of the provisions and fresh water carried aboard to be thrown over the side: Bellerophon was sailing so slowly that Cranstoun even ordered four carronades to be jettisoned with a large amount of roundshot.

[16] At 13:30 the British fire achieved some success when Zélé fell back with damaged rigging, allowing the second French ship to take up the position at the head of the line.

[6][Note A] At 18:40, suddenly and for no immediately apparent reason, Villaret ordered his ships to haul their wind and turn back towards the east, breaking off contact.

At this point Phaeton wore round to return to Cornwallis, and Villaret, now convinced that the strangers, which were in reality a small convoy of merchant vessels, were the vanguard of the Channel Fleet, abandoned the chase.

Historian Edward Pelham Brenton credits this action with influencing Robert Seppings in his future designs of ships of the line, providing rounded sterns that offered a wider field of fire at pursuing warships.

[25] Villaret considered the newly arrived British fleet to be significantly superior to his own and retreated before it, sailing towards the French coast with the intention of sheltering in the protected coastal waters around the island of Groix and returning to Brest from this position.

[27] Others were damaged, but at 08:37, with most of his fleet still unengaged and the French scattered along the coast, Bridport suddenly called off the action and instructed his ships to gather their prizes and retire, a decision that was greatly criticised by contemporary officers and later historians.

"Cornwallis was given the thanks of both Houses of Parliament, but fell out of favour with the Admiralty in October 1795 in a dispute about naval discipline and was court-martialed and censured in 1796 for abandoning a convoy to the West Indies due to damage to Royal Sovereign and ill-health.

"[1] while in 1827 William James wrote of the "masterly retreat of Vice-admiral Cornwallis" in which "the spirit manifested by the different ships' companies of his little squadron, while pressed upon by a force from its threefold superiority so capable of crushing them, was just as ought always to animate British seamen when in the presence of an enemy.