[2] After encountering a storm off the Azores in late December 1805,[4][5] Impérial and most of the squadron arrived at French-held Santo Domingo on Hispaniola on 20 January 1806, where Leissègues ordered the ships to be recaulked after their long and difficult transatlantic voyage.

[5][6] On the morning of 6 February 1806, a Royal Navy squadron under the command of Vice-Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth arrived off Santo Domingo to attack Leissègues′s force.

[4] Leissègues was conducting business ashore when the British squadron was sighted, and the French force was delayed in getting underway while it awaited his return to Impérial.

Atlas′s tiller then jammed and she was engaged by Diomède and the damaged Northumberland drifted out of the action, but the rest of the British squadron concentrated its fire on Impérial.

Pursued by the 84-gun third-rate ship of the line HMS Canopus, Impérial ran hard aground parallel to the beach on a coral reef 1 nautical mile (1.9 km; 1.2 mi) off the coast of Hispaniola between Nizao and Point Catalan, suffering severe hull damage and losing all of her masts.