left port facing attack from squadrons and individual ships patrolling the French and allied coasts. The losses the French Navy suffered as a result of this strategy were high, and the blockade was so effective that even movement between ports along the French coasts was restricted. In the Indian Ocean however the huge distances between the French bases on Réunion and Isle de France and the British bases in India meant that close blockade was an ineffective strategy: the scale of the forces required to maintain an effective constant blockade of both islands, as well as the Dutch ports at the Cape of Good Hope and in the Dutch East Indies were too large to be worth their deployment to such a distant part of the world. As a result, the French raiders operating from the Indian Ocean bases were able to travel with more freedom and less risk of interception than those in the Atlantic or Mediterranean. During 1802, tensions rose again between Britain and France, the latter country now under the rule of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte. Aware that a return to war was almost inevitable, Napoleon ordered the French Navy to prepare a force for extended service in the Indian Ocean, a force that would be capable of inflicting significant losses on the British trade from the region. The flagship of the squadron was to be the fast ship of the line Marengo, a 74-gun vessel commanded by Contre-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Léon Durand Linois. Linois was a highly experienced officer who had been engaged with the British on a number of occasions during the French Revolutionary Wars: in May 1794, he was captured when his frigate Atalante was run down in the mid-Atlantic by . Rapidly exchanged, his next ship Formidable was captured after a fierce defence at the Battle of Groix, and the following year he was captured again in his new frigate Unité and subsequently participated in the disastrous Expédition d'Irlande in the ship of the line Nestor after a third prisoner exchange. His most important battle was in July 1801, when he commanded the French squadron during their victory at the First Battle of Algeciras, where was captured. He was also in partial command at the defeat in the Second Battle of Algeciras four days later, but the action enhanced his reputation within the French Navy as a successful commander. Marengo was accompanied by the