The Battle of Cape Spartel was an indecisive naval battle between a Franco-Spanish fleet under Admiral Luis de Córdova y Córdova and a British fleet under Admiral Richard Howe. These forces met on 20 October 1782 after Howe successfully resupplied Gibraltar, then under siege by Bourbon forces during the American Revolutionary War.
Relief of Gibraltar by Earl Howe, 11 October 1782, Richard Paton
Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe
Admiral of the Fleet Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe,, was a British naval officer. After serving throughout the War of the Austrian Succession, he gained a reputation for his role in amphibious operations against the French coast as part of Britain's policy of naval descents during the Seven Years' War. He also took part, as a naval captain, in the decisive British naval victory at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in November 1759.
Richard Howe, painted by John Singleton Copley, 1794
Lord Howe on the Deck of the 'Queen Charlotte', 1 June 1794, by Mather Brown
The Battle of Quiberon Bay by Nicholas Pocock. Howe took part in the battle as a captain. The overwhelming British victory at Quiberon Bay ended the prospect of a French Invasion of Britain or Ireland.
The arrival of British troops in New York in 1776