 Since the 1796 French victory in Italy over the Austrians , pressure had been growing in France for direct action against Britain . Command of an army deployed in Northern France and named the Armée d 'Angleterre was initially given to General Napoleon Bonaparte , but later passed to General Kilmaine . Bonaparte , and then Kilmaine , prepared for an invasion of Britain and Captain Muskein , a naval administrator from Antwerp , was instructed to develop a suitable fleet of landing craft to convoy the troops across the English Channel . The French Directory commissioned a Swedish naval architect Fredrik Henrik af Chapman to design the invasion barges and by 1797 ships of his design were under construction along the Northern French coast under Muskein 's supervision : the boats were known to the French soldiers as " bateaux à la Muskein " ( Muskein @-@ type boats ) . 
