Battle of Syracuse (1710)

The Battle of Syracuse was a naval engagement of the War of the Spanish Succession fought on 9 November 1710, outside the Sicilian port of Syracuse. A French fleet of four ships under the command of Jacques Cassard came to relieve a heavily-laden French merchant fleet that had been blockaded in the Syracuse harbour by a British fleet. Cassard arrived off Syracuse when most of the blockading fleet had left to resupply at Port Mahon; he successfully captured Falcon and Pembroke, the two ships left to maintain the blockade, and escorted the fleet to Marseilles.