The Corsican people had risen up against the French garrison of the island in 1793, and sought support from the British Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet under Lord Hood.

Stuart therefore prepared for a long siege, seizing the mountainous heights over the approaches to the town and opening a steady fire, which was vigorously returned.

[3] Britain had recently joined the French Revolutionary Wars, and a large British fleet had arrived in the Mediterranean in the summer of 1793 under the command of Admiral Lord Hood.

[4] Hood was unable to immediately supply reinforcements to Paoli due to an unexpected Royalist uprising in Toulon, the principal French naval base in the Mediterranean.

[5] The ensuing Siege of Toulon consumed most of Hood's attention and resources for several months, although a small squadron was sent to the port of San Fiorenzo in October, but was driven off with heavy casualties.

The most recent replacement was Charles Stuart,[11] whose naval counterpart was Captain Horatio Nelson, as Hood had sailed to Gourjean Bay in pursuit of a French fleet.

[14] Stuart's plan was, as at Bastia, that the British forces would haul artillery up the steep slopes of the mountains which overlooked the town and fire on the forts below with relative impunity.

This was a highly complex operation which required roads to be built to access the mountainsides; Nelson estimated that one 26-pounder cannon had had to be hauled over 80 miles (130 km) of mountainous terrain simply to reach its intended position.

[14] Unloading the supplies at Port-Agra took two days, and on the latter reinforcements arrived, Hood sending a detachment of sailors from his flagship HMS Victory with additional stores under the command of captains Benjamin Hallowell and Walter Serocold.

[15] During this process Nelson and the squadron had to retreat off-shore for five days to allow a gale to pass,[14] but Hood appeared off Port-Agra on 27 June in Victory, and landed additional cannon.

[13] During that evening French work parties sought to repair some of the damage, but were dissuaded by feint attacks on the fort by detachments of Corsican irregulars and troops from the Royal Irish Regiment.

[20] Hood and Stuart agreed that they would not permit Calvi to hold beyond 10 August, but on the evening of 28 July four small vessels carrying supplies slipped through the meagre British blockade, to cheers from the defenders.

On 10 August, after 51 days of siege, Casabianca capitulated as arranged, his men marching from the town and laying their arms down before the commander signed terms with Stuart that guaranteed his repatriation to France with his surviving garrison.

He accused the army commander of "great tenderness", due to his refusal to bombard French hospitals during the siege, opining that this unnecessarily prolonged the operation.

[13] Melpomene, described by Nelson as "the most beautiful frigate I ever saw",[21] was commissioned into the Royal Navy under the same name, but Mignonne was a small warship unfit for service and was laid up at Portoferraio until 1796, when the ship was burned during the British retreat from the Mediterranean.