Action of 18 September 1810

The action of 18 September 1810 was fought between frigates of the British and French navies in the Indian Ocean during the Napoleonic Wars. The engagement was one of several between rival frigate squadrons contesting control of the French colony of Isle de France, from which French frigates had raided British trade routes during the war. The action came in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Grand Port, in which four British frigates had been lost, and just four days after a fifth British frigate had been captured and subsequently recaptured in the action of 13 September 1810.

Due to the heavy losses suffered by the British forces, reinforcements were urgently dispatched to the area but they became individual targets for the larger French squadron blockading the British base at Isle Bourbon. HMS Ceylon had been despatched by the British authorities at Madras after the Battle of Grand Port to reinforce the remains of the squadron under Commodore Josias Rowley on Isle Bourbon. Searching for Rowley off Isle de France, Ceylon was spotted by French Commodore Jacques Félix Emmanuel Hamelin who gave chase in his flagship Vénus, supported by a corvette.

Vénus was faster than Ceylon, and although Captain Charles Gordon almost reached the safety of Isle Bourbon, he was run down and forced to engage the French ship during the night, both frigates inflicting severe damage on one another before the wounded Gordon surrendered to the approaching corvette. As dawn broke, Rowley's flagship HMS Boadicea arrived, recaptured Ceylon, drove off the corvette and forced the battered French flagship to surrender, capturing Hamelin. This was the last ship-to-ship action in the region before the successful invasion of Isle de France in December 1810: without Hamelin the French squadron, short on supplies and low on morale, did not contest British control of the region and failed to even attempt to disrupt the invasion fleet.