HMS Ethalion in Action with the Spanish Frigate Thetis | Thomas Whitcombe | 1800

HMS Ethalion in action with the Spanish frigate Thetis off Cape Finisterre, 16 October 1799. Painted in 1800 by Thomas Whitcombe (1763–1824).

On 16 October 1799, during the French Revolutionary Wars, the 38-gun Royal Navy frigate HMS Ethalion, under Captain James Young, engaged and captured the Spanish 34-gun frigate Thetis off Cape Finisterre on the northwestern coast of Spain. The action arose when a British squadron, cruising to enforce the blockade of northern Spanish ports, sighted two treasure-laden Spanish frigates returning from Veracruz. Ordered to pursue the faster vessel, Ethalion closed with Thetis by late morning and, after an hour-long running fight marked by stern and broadside gunfire, compelled her surrender with minimal British casualties and one Spanish killed and nine wounded. Thetis, commanded by Don Juan de Mendoza, was carrying valuable cargo that included specie and luxury goods bound for Spain. This engagement formed part of a wider British effort to intercept enemy commerce at sea and resulted in a significant naval prize for Ethalion and her crew. 

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