 The Action of 9 February 1799 was a minor naval engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars between a British Royal Navy frigate and a French privateer frigate fought 100 nautical miles ( 190 km ) west of the southeastern coast of what is now Natal in South Africa . The 32 @-@ gun French frigate Prudente had since the start of the war been part of a squadron operating from Île de France ( now Mauritius ) . This squadron had dispersed during 1798 , with the ships sent on independent commerce raiding operations across the British trade routes in the Indian Ocean . Prudente had subsequently been seized in the autumn of that year by Anne Joseph Hippolyte de Maurès , Comte de Malartic , the Governor of Île de France , and sold to a private raiding company . 
