Marie Antoinette undermining the First French Republic, Louis XVI was separated from his family and tried in December. He was found guilty by the Convention, led by the Jacobins who rejected the idea of keeping him as a hostage. On 15 January 1793, by a majority of one vote, that of Philippe Égalité, he was condemned to death by guillotine and executed on 21 January 1793. The queen, now called "Widow Capet", plunged into deep mourning. She still hoped her son Louis-Charles, whom the exiled "Comte de Provence", Louis XVI's brother, had recognised as Louis XVI's successor, would one day rule France.
Action of 24 October 1793 counter these operations, the Royal Navy sent their own frigates to sea, sometimes in squadrons and sometimes on single patrols. A French frigate squadron sent to on a cruise in the Northern Bay of Biscay in the early autumn of 1793 was commanded by Captain Zacharie Allemand and consisted of the frigates "Carmagnole", "Résolue", "Sémillante" and "Uranie" with the brig-corvette "Espiègle". On 22 October, the squadron sighted the 16-gun Spanish brig "Alcoudia" and Allemand ordered "Uranie" under Captain Jean-François Tartu to separate from the squadron and pursue the Spaniard. "Uranie" was easily able to capture "Alcoudia", taking the prisoners on