On the morning of 7 October, off Cape St Vincent, the British Mediterranean Fleet, which consisted of about thirty merchant ships richly laden sailing to Great Britain and convoyed by the ships of line HMS Censeur, HMS Bedford, HMS Fortitude and four frigates under Commodore Thomas Taylor’s command, fell in with a French fleet led by Rear-Admiral Joseph de Richery consisting of six ships of line and three frigates. This fleet, which was being pursued unsuccessfully since two days before by a squadron of equal force sent by Admiral Hotham, had been dispatched in mid-September by the French Admiralty from Toulon to sail to Newfoundland to attack the British fishing industry, and came across with the British fleet.