Action of 21 July 1781

"Naval battle off Louisbourg" redirects here. For the siege during the War of the Austrian Succession (King George's War), see Siege of Louisbourg (1745). For the 1758 siege during the French and Indian War, see Siege of Louisbourg (1758).

Action of 21 July 1781
Part of the American Revolutionary War

Naval battle off Louisbourg, 21 July 1781
Auguste-Louis de Rossel de Cercy, 1788
Date21 July 1781
Location
Off Cape Breton Island, Atlantic Ocean
45°54′27″N 59°58′26″W / 45.9075°N 59.9739°W / 45.9075; -59.9739
Result French victory
Belligerents
France Great Britain
Commanders and leaders
Comte de Lapérouse
Latouche Tréville		 Henry Francis Evans †
Rupert George
Richard Tonge (POW)
Strength
2 frigates 1 frigate
2 sloops
1 storeship
1 merchant ship
Casualties and losses
6 killed
34 wounded		 17 killed
48 wounded
1 merchant ship captured

The action of 21 July 1781 (French: Combat naval en vue de Louisbourg, or Combat naval à la hauteur de Louisbourg) was a naval skirmish off the harbour of Spanish River, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia (present-day Sydney, Nova Scotia), during the War of American Independence. Two light frigates of the French Navy, captained by Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse and Louis-René Levassor de Latouche Tréville, engaged a convoy of 18 British ships and their Royal Navy escorts. The French captured one of the British escorts while the remainder of the British convoy escaped.

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