[1] During the Napoleonic Wars, Isle de France became a base from which the French navy, including squadrons under Rear Admiral[2] Linois or Commodore Jacques Hamelin, and corsairs such as Robert Surcouf, organised raids on British merchant ships.

The first British attempt, in August 1810, to attack Grand Port resulted in a French victory, one celebrated on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

The British landed in large numbers in the north of the island and rapidly overpowered the French, who capitulated (see Invasion of Isle de France).

In the Treaty of Paris (1814), the French ceded Isle de France together with its territories including Agaléga, the Cargados Carajos Shoals, the Chagos Archipelago, Rodrigues, Seychelles, and Tromelin Island to the United Kingdom.

[4] Governor Charles Mathieu Isidore Decaen, suspicious of the English ship HMS Cumberland which called in there to effect repairs in 1803, imprisoned its captain Matthew Flinders on the island for several years.

Under his governorship, numerous buildings were built, a number of which are still standing today, these include part of Government House, the Château de Mon Plaisir at SSR Botanical Garden, and the Line Barracks.