Action of 18 August 1798 Action of 18 August 1798 The Action of 18 August 1798 was a minor naval engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars, fought between the British fourth rate ship HMS "Leander" and the French ship of the line "Généreux". Both ships had been engaged at the Battle of the Nile three weeks earlier, in which a British fleet under Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson had destroyed a French fleet at Aboukir Bay on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt. "Généreux" was one of only four French ships to survive the battle, while "Leander" had been detached from the British fleet by Nelson on
Battle of the Nile drowned. Marching along the coast, the French army stormed Alexandria and captured the city, after which Bonaparte led the main force of his army inland. He instructed his naval commander, Vice-Admiral François-Paul Brueys D'Aigalliers, to anchor in Alexandria harbour, but naval surveyors reported that the channel into the harbour was too shallow and narrow for the larger ships of the French fleet. As a result, the French selected an alternative anchorage at Aboukir Bay, northeast of Alexandria. Nelson's fleet reached Syracuse in Sicily on 19 July and took on essential supplies. There the admiral wrote letters describing the events of