Bali Strait Incident

Bali Strait Incident
Part of the French Revolutionary Wars
Date 28 January 1797 Location Bali Strait, Dutch East Indies Result East India Company victory
Belligerents
East India Company	France
Commanders and leaders
Captain Charles Lennox	Contre-amiral Pierre César Charles de Sercey
Strength
Six East Indiamen	Six frigates
Casualties and losses
None	None

The Bali Strait Incident was an encounter between a powerful French Navy frigate squadron and a convoy of British East India Company East Indiamen merchant ships in the Bali Strait on 28 January 1797. The incident took place admidst the East Indies campaign of the French Revolutionary Wars — repeated French attempts to disrupt the highly valuable British trade routes with British India and Qing Dynasty China. In 1796, a large squadron of French frigates arrived in the Indian Ocean under the command of Contre-amiral Pierre César Charles de Sercey. In July this force sailed on a commerce raiding cruise off British Ceylon, but a subsequent attack into the Straits of Malacca was driven off in an inconclusive engagement with two British ships of the line off Northeastern Sumatra. Forced to make repairs, Sercey took his squadron to the allied Batavian city of Batavia, sheltering there until January 1797.

As Sercey left Batavia, the very valuable annual British trade convoy from Macau (Portuguese treaty port in Southern China) was due to sail. This convoy was worth millions of pounds and its capture would seriously harm the British economy. The British commander in the region, Admiral Peter Rainier split the convoy, taking four ships with a heavy escort through the Straits of Malacca, while the remaining six East Indiamen sailed unescorted through the supposedly safer Bali Strait. On 28 January, at the entrance to the Strait near the coast of Java the convoy was discovered by Sercey's squadron.

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