The survivors of the French fleet were scattered across the Mediterranean, several sheltering in neutral Italian harbours, including the frigates Modeste at Genoa and Impérieuse at Leghorn.

The action had strategic consequences: the Republican faction in Genoa was strong and they successfully barred Austrian reinforcements from sailing to join the Allied garrison at the developing siege of Toulon.

[7] In July Modeste and the French corvette Badine had deliberately obstructed the frigate HMS Aigle in the neutral harbour, forcing Captain John Nicholson Inglefield to take evasive action, a calculated insult.

[5] Modeste was clearly visible in the harbour, anchored at the mole near two tartanes (small Mediterranean sailing craft here armed with four guns and carrying crews of around 70 men).

[7] The senior officers of the squadron held a council to determine the best course of action, and decided that since diplomatic options had failed and the Genoese appeared to support the French, the British would resort to a military solution.

On the afternoon of 5 October Bedford was slowly warped into the harbour and alongside Modeste, as Reeve launched the ship's boats from Captain and brought them close to the other side of the French frigate.

Reeve instructed his carpenters to make the frigate seaworthy again, refloating the ship and completing temporary repairs on 13 October before sailing back to Toulon with his prize.

Gell, acting on instructions from Hood, had violated Genoese neutrality in a deliberate attempt to intimidate the pro-Republican faction in the city, but their actions were readily seized upon by French propagandists such as Nicolas Ozanne, who portrayed the raid as a massacre of unarmed sailors in print form.

[13] Drake and all British inhabitants of Genoa were expelled, and Gell initiated a blockade of the city, seizing neutral merchant shipping destined for the port.

On 26 November, Scipion, which was carrying 150 prisoners taken in the raid on Genoa, caught fire, possibly the result of arson, and was destroyed, although other accounts suggest that a barrel of brandy was ignited accidentally by a candle.

[11][14] Without the Austrian reinforcements the defenders of Toulon were outnumbered and outflanked, coming under sustained attack by French troops directed by 24-year-old artillery officer Captain Napoleon Bonaparte.

As Hood's ships removed the garrison and more than 14,000 refugees from the city, boat parties led by Sir Sidney Smith attempted to destroy the French fleet and dockyards with fireships.

[16] These efforts were only partially successful: fifteen ships of the line and five frigates survived the conflagration to form the nucleus of the French Mediterranean Fleet in the war to come.