Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte
Count Toussaint -Guillaume Picquet, Comte de la Motte ( born 1 November 1720 in Rennes, † June 10, 1791 in Brest) was a French admiral.
Picquet de la Motte entered with 15 years in the French Navy and served in front of Morocco, in the Baltic Sea, the Caribbean and India. In 1762 he was promoted to capitaine de vaisseau and commander of the Diadème and then the La Malicieuse appointed, with whom he fought in 1764 against the corsairs of Salé. In 1772, he took over the Cerf Volant. In 1775 he was summoned to Paris to assist the Navy Secretary Antoine de Sartine in the reorganization of the Navy. After that, he first commanded the Solitaire and then the Robust. On July 27, 1778, he took on the battleship Saint -Esprit at the two naval battles in Ouessant against the Royal Navy's part and then patrolled off the British coast, where he mustered 13 vessels within a month.
During the Revolutionary War he distinguished himself with the l' Annibal under Admiral Charles Henri d' Estaing in June 1779 in Martinique and on July 6, 1779 at the Battle of Grenada, as well as in a vain attempt Franco-American, from September to October 1779 the area occupied by the British in the American city of Savannah, Georgia recapture.
On 18 December 1779 he attacked before Fort Royal (Martinique ) with only three ships, a British squadron of 13 ships under the command of Admiral Hyde Parker, was trying to stop a French convoy. His successful work in this known as a naval battle of Martinique Action impressed Hyde Parker so much that this sent a congratulatory letter to Picquet de la Motte, in which he wrote:
On May 1, 1781 Picquet de la Motte in command of three frigates and six smaller vessels and caught with this a squadron of the British Admiral George Rodney, which was located on the way to the island of Sint Eustatius. 29 British ships were captured. Picquet de la Motte was then appointed in January 1782 to lieutenant general of the Marines.
On 20 October 1782, he commanded on the Invincible (110 guns), the 11 French ships of the line in the battle at Cape Spartel, at the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. In this battle, succeeded in a British fleet under Admiral Richard Howe to force is under the command of the Spanish Admiral Luis de Córdova y Córdova Spanish- French fleet to end the blockade of Gibraltar.
Picquet de la Motte died after 52 years of naval service and six wounded in 1791. The French Navy named in the following four ships after him, including the Aviso Lamotte -Picquet (1859 ), the light cruiser Lamotte -Picquet (1924 ) and the frigate La Motte- Picquet (1985). In Paris, a street and a Metro station named after him.