The Royal Navy pursues Admiral d’Orvilliers’s French fleet in the English Channel and catches up with it off the Breton island of Ushant. The battle is fierce, as in many 18th-century sailing battles, and ultimately, as on other occasions, the outcome is inconclusive, with both sides heavily damaged. The French suffer 736 casualties and the British 408, but the British ships are the most damaged: practically immobilized due to their fallen mainmasts. The French, however, postpone the invasion of England for now.
