Bali Strait Incident

The Bali Strait Incident was an encounter between a powerful French Navy frigate squadron and a convoy of British East India Company East Indiamen merchant ships in the Bali Strait on 28 January 1797. The incident took place admidst the East Indies campaign of the French Revolutionary Wars — repeated French attempts to disrupt the highly valuable British trade routes with British India and Qing Dynasty China. In 1796, a large squadron of French frigates arrived in the Indian Ocean under the command of Contre-amiral Pierre César Charles de Sercey. In July this force sailed on a commerce raiding cruise off British Ceylon, but a subsequent attack into the Straits of Malacca was driven off in an inconclusive engagement with two British ships of the line off Northeastern Sumatra. Forced to make repairs, Sercey took his squadron to the allied Batavian city of Batavia, sheltering there until January 1797.

As Sercey left Batavia, the very valuable annual British trade convoy from Macau (Portuguese treaty port in Southern China} was due to sail. This convoy was worth millions of pounds and its capture would seriously harm the British economy. The British commander in the region, Admiral Peter Rainier split the convoy, taking four ships with a heavy escort through the Straits of Malacca, while the remaining six East Indiamen sailed unescorted through the supposedly safer Bali Strait. On 28 January, at the entrance to the Strait near the coast of Java the convoy was discovered by Sercey's squadron.

The British commander, Charles Lennox, knew that if he fled his ships would be rapidly overwhelmed and instead attempted to bluff Sercey into believing that the convoy was formed not from lightly armed East Indiamen, but from the powerful ships of the line which they resembled. Lennox ordered his ships to advance on the French who retreated, convinced they were facing a superior enemy. Sercey did momentarily reconsider, when the British ships declined to attack the temporarily disabled frigate Forte, but eventually withdrew completely, retiring to his base at Île de France (now Mauritius) where he learned of his error. The China Fleet reached its destination with only one ship lost, wrecked in a storm the day after the encounter.

Background
Trade through the East Indies was a vital component of the economy of Great Britain during the late eighteenth century. This trade was administered by the East India Company, which maintained trading ports throughout the region, most notably in British India at Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. The main bulk of this was carried on large merchant ships known as East Indiamen, which weighed between 500 and 1200 LT and traveled well-armed, carrying up to 36 cannon. Due to their size and weaponry they could be mistaken for ships of the line, standard large warships of the period, a deception usually augmented by paintwork and dummy cannon. Despite their appearance however they could not fight off an enemy frigate or ship of the line as their guns were of inferior design, and their crew smaller and less well trained than those on a naval ship. An important component of the East India trade was an annual trade convoy from Macau, a Portuguese port in Qing Dynasty China. Early in each year, a large convoy of East Indiamen would sail from Macau, through the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic to Britain. The value of the trade carried in this convoy, nicknamed the "China Fleet", was enormous: one convoy in 1804 was reported to be carrying goods worth over £8 million in contemporary values (the equivalent of £0 as of 2024).

By 1797, Britain and the new French Republic had been engaged in the French Revolutionary Wars for nearly four years. Although there had been much fighting in Europe, the East Indies had remained largely under British control. French forces in the region were limited, and apart from a few raiding cruises the French squadron in the region had been under intermittent blockade at Île de France. The Royal Navy, commanded in Eastern waters by Rear-Admiral Peter Rainier had focused on commerce protection and the elimination of the colonies of the French-allied Batavian Republic, capturing Dutch Ceylon, the Dutch Cape Colony and parts of the Dutch East Indies in 1795 and 1796. Rainier had been engaged in pacifying local uprisings around Malacca during the latter part of the campaign, and there had been few forces left in reserve to protect British interests in the Indian Ocean.

In response to British activity in the region and the reluctance of the inhabitants of Île de France to follow orders from the National Convention abolishing slavery, the French dispatched a squadron of frigates to the East Indies early in 1796. This force, led by Contre-amiral Pierre César Charles de Sercey, originally comprised three frigates, subsequently joined by three more vessels, forming a powerful raiding squadron. After resupplying on Île de France in July, Sercey's frigates cruised off the Ceylon coast, dissuaded from attacking the undefended ports of British India by false information fed to his scouts that a British battle squadron was at anchor in Calcutta. Turning eastwards, Sercey hoped to raid George Town at Penang, but was driven off in an inconclusive engagement with a British squadron off Sumatra on 9 September. He spent the winter sheltering in the Batavian harbour of Batavia on Java.

China Fleet
Sercey's presence in the East Indies was known to the East India Company committee at Canton, who requested assistance from Rainier. The British admiral sailed to Macau in his flagship, the 74-gun ship of the line HMS Suffolk with the sloop HMS Swift and on 30 December met with four East Indiamen and two smaller "country ships" used for regional trade. Rainier elected to sail immediately, without waiting for the remainder of the convoy to assemble, escorting the small convoy through the Straits of Malacca during January reaching first Penang and then Madras by 13 February. Malacca was thought to be the most likely point for an ambush by the French squadron, and orders were issued by the committee for the remainder of the convoy, originally commanded by Captain Lestock Wilson and then by Captain Charles Lennox, to sail through either the Sape Strait, the Alas Strait or the Bali Strait, which were thought to be safer than Malacca.

Rainier did not meet Sercey, who had learned of the British plans and altered his own accordingly. Sailing from Batavia on 4 January, he cruised the Java Sea in search of the China convoy, wary that Rainier might be searching for him in turn. On 28 January, as his ships passed through the Bali Strait in bad weather, sails were sighted. Sercey immediately ordered the frigate Cybèle under Captain Pierre Julien Tréhouart to reconnoitre the approaching ships. Lennox had led his convoy directly into the path of the French squadron, whose six frigates were easily more powerful than his own six East Indiamen. The British officer was aware that he could not win a naval engagement with such a force and so instead resolved to bluff the French into thinking his merchant convoy was a squadron of ships of the line. When he saw Cybèle approaching, Lennox brought two ships forward to meet the frigate, gambling that in the low light Tréhouart might mistake the East Indiamen for warships.

Lennox compounded his ruse by raising Rainier's Blue ensign on his flagship Woodford and instructing the rest of the convoy to raise ensigns of their own. The deception was so convincing that Tréhouart turned away well short of the British convoy, signalling to Sercey that "L'ennemi est supérieur aux forces Français" ("The enemy is superior in force to the French"). Sercey turned his squadron away, Cybèle passing close by the flagship Forte, Tréhouart hailing that the British ships comprised a battle squadron of two ships of the line and four frigates. Forte had lost its main topmast in the early stages of the retreat, and Sercey had noted that the British ships were not pursuing with the fervour expected of a superior force encountering a weaker one, but Tréhouart's declaration convinced him he was outnumbered and he ordered his squadron to withdraw.

Aftermath
Lennox turned the convoy westwards, bringing his ships safely into the Indian Ocean. One exception was the East Indiaman Ocean, which was driven onto a reef at Pulau Kalaotoa in the Lesser Sunda Islands during a storm the day after the incident and was wrecked. Three men drowned during the evacuation, and another seven were killed on 15 February during an attack by the local Makassar inhabitants. Eventually the survivors departed on hired proas on 18 February, reaching Amboyna safely on 28 February. Taunton Castle was damaged in the same storm and forced to make repairs at Amboyna, taking survivors from Ocean aboard. Taunton Castle eventually reached Yarmouth in a disabled state some months later. The British commander was given the thanks of the East India Company and awarded 500 guineas.

Sercey retired with his frigates to Île de France, where he learned to his horror of the opportunity he had missed in the Bali Strait. His squadron required extensive repairs, but the Colonial Committee on Île de France remained rebellious over attempts to abolish slavery and denied his ships men and food supplies. Eventually Sercey was forced to disband his squadron, sending four frigates back to France. Seven years after the Bali Strait Incident, early in the Napoleonic Wars a much larger China Fleet was attacked by another strong French naval squadron at the Battle of Pulo Aura. As in 1797, the British commander Nathaniel Dance managed to convince the French admiral that there were warships among his convoy and the French retired after a brief exchange of gunfire.