In May 1795, with much of the winter's damage repaired, the French commander Vice-amiral Villaret de Joyeuse sent a squadron of three ships of the line and several frigates under Contre-amiral Jean Gaspard Vence to Bordeaux with orders to escort a convoy of merchant ships carrying wine and brandy to Brest. On 8 June, as Vence's convoy passed the fortified island of Belle Île on the southern Breton coast they were discovered by a British battle squadron of five ships of the line and two frigates under Vice-Admiral William Cornwallis. Vence ordered his outnumbered ships to shelter under the batteries of Belle Île, and after a brief skirmish Cornwallis withdrew his forces with eight captured merchant ships. While Cornwallis was escorting his prizes to the mouth of the Channel, Vence sailed out of the Belle Île anchorage and discovered on 15 June that the main force of the Atlantic fleet had sailed to rescue him, a mission ordered by government over the objections of the fleet's officers that Vence would be able to easily extricate himself from the anchorage due to the proximity of the port of Lorient.