The Glorious First of June 1794 describes the first great naval engagement of the Great War with France (1793-1815). Participants on both sides considered it the hardest-fought battle between them in the eighteenth century, and both sides felt they attained their objectives: the British captured or sank seven French battleships, and the French saved their big grain convoy from America. In this book, experts explore the naval campaign from both British and French perspectives, setting it in its wider context of the war strategy of the rival powers. The intensity of the encounter is demonstrated through the accounts of eyewitnesses, three of which are here published for the first time, and the impact of the battle on public imagination is traced through plays, prints and paintings, and through the artefacts and memorials by which it was commemorated.

Michael Duffy is Head of History and Director of the Centre for Maritime Historical Studies at the University of Exeter and General Editor of Exeter Maritime Studies. He is the author of The Younger Pitt (Longman, 2000), and editor of Parameters of British Naval Power 1650-1850 (UEP, 1992) and The New Maritime History of Devon (Conway Maritime, 1992). Roger Morriss was a Curator at the National Maritime Museum, London until 1995. He is an Honorary Research Fellow in the University of Exeter Centre for Maritime Studies, and in the History Department, University College London.