Suffren de Saint Tropez, Pierre André de
Suffren de Saint Tropez, Pierre André de
SUFFREN DE SAINT TROPEZ, PIERRE ANDRÉ DE. (1729–1788). French admiral. Born to a noble family in Provence, he entered the Naval Guards in October 1743 and served the next year off Toulon on the Solide, on which he participated in the Battle of Cape Sicié in February 1744. Next he served in the West Indies and in 1746 took part in the expedition of D'Anville in Acadia. The following year he was captured by the British in the Bay of Biscay. He was promoted to ship's ensign in 1748 and participated in galley duty from 1749 to 1751. He was promoted to ship's lieutenant in 1756, commanded the Singe in Duchaffault's squadron in the Larache affair in 1765, became a frigate captain in 1767, and capitaine de vaisseau in 1772. He became commander of the Fantasque in 1777.
When France declared war on England, Suffren served as commander of the same vessel under Estaing in 1778–1779. On 5 August 1778 he distinguished himself at Newport, where he forced entry into the harbor and hastened the torching of five English vessels. In action against Admiral Byron off Grenada, he held the line despite the loss of sixty-two men aboard his ship. He strongly disapproved of the restrained tactics of Estaing and made this known in official communications to his admiral. The latter nevertheless recommended that Suffren be given command of the Héros and a division of five vessels that the French planned to send to help the Dutch defend their Cape of Good Hope colony against an expected British attack. On 22 March 1781 Suffren sailed from Brest with Grasse to the Azores and went on toward southern Africa. On 16 April he successfully attacked the English expedition under Admiral Johnstone upon finding it anchored off the Cape Verde Islands, technically in the neutral waters of Portugal. After saving the Cape Colony from capture, Suffren continued on to India where, in a series of four savage actions at Sadras, Provedien, Negapatam, and Trincomalé, he fought Sir Edward Hughes to a standstill. He was promoted to lieutenant general in February 1783, returned to Toulon in March 1784, and was promoted to vice admiral in April. As Anglo-French tensions were increasing in 1787, he was given command of the squadron at Brest. He died suddenly at Paris in December 1788.
SEE ALSO Estaing, Charles Hector Théodat, Comte d'; Newport, Rhode Island (29 July-31 August 1778).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cavaliero, Roderick. Admiral Satan: The Life and Campaigns of Suffren. London: I. B. Tauris Publishers, 1994.
Mackesy, Piers. The War for America, 1775–1783. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965.
Moran, Charles. "Suffren, the Apostle of Action." United States Naval Institute Proceedings 64 (1938): 313-325.
Taillemite, Etienne. Dictionnaire des Marins Français. Paris: Editions Maritimes et d'Outre-Mer, 1982.
revised by Robert Rhodes Crout