Battle of Cape St. Vincent (1780) Battle of Cape St. Vincent (1780) The Battle of Cape St. Vincent was a naval battle took place off the southern coast of Portugal on 16 January 1780 during the Anglo-Spanish War. A British fleet under Admiral Sir George Rodney defeated a Spanish squadron under Don Juan de Lángara. The battle is sometimes referred to as the Moonlight Battle because it was unusual for naval battles in the Age of Sail to take place at night. It was also the first major naval victory for the British over their European enemies in the war and proved the value of copper-sheathing
Sagres Point westerly, but because it is further north, and Strabo's map of the Iberian Peninsula is rotated clockwise, bringing the Pyrenees into a north-south line, it could have been taken as further east. The most westerly point of the Iberian peninsula and of the European continent is Cabo da Roca, near Sintra; the southernmost, Punta de Tarifa, in Andalusia. Strabo reports (Book 3.1.4) as follows: No part of Cape St. Vincent fits this description, but on the eastern side of Sagres Point is a harbor, Baleeira, port of the modern town of Sagres, protected by four small islands in a line