Battle of Damietta (1732)

The Order's fleet consisted of up to 8 galleys at a time.[2] The engraving shows a galley of the Order.

After the Knights of the Order of St. John had settled on the islands of Rhodes and later on Malta, they began their naval operations from there. The order built up a small effective fleet of war galleys in the 16th century, with which they successfully plundered the shipping of the Muslim Mediterranean states. The fleet of the Order thus made a significant contribution to financing the expansion of the facilities on the two islands.

Over time, the fleet of the order, named the Order of Malta after the colonization of Malta, was supplemented with some of the emerging galleons in Europe. These were equipped with many cannons and were therefore able to successfully hold their own against several galleys. In the 18th century, ships of the line were added.

In July 1732, Jacques-François de Chambray received the rank of Lieutenant General of the Order of Malta from the Grand Master António Manoel de Vilhena was commissioned to sail towards the south-east to intercept, and capture a convoy of the Ottoman Empire there, reported off the Egyptian coast.

On August 16, 1732, de Chambray and his small formation encountered the Turkish convoy anchored at Damietta, which consisted of 40 merchant ships and was escorted by a 70-gun flagship, Sultana, bearing the flag of rear admiral and led by the Ottoman vice admiral Kali Michamet. De Chambray who had two 60-gun ships of the line,[3] and two tartanes attacked the Sultana with his flagship Saint-Antoine[lower-alpha 1] and the battleship Saint-Georges,[lower-alpha 1] while the two tartanes attacked the anchored convoy.

The Sultana put up a vigorous fight against the two ships of the Order, but could not avoid being dismasted. Despite heavy damage and threats of sinking their crew, Kali Michamat did not surrender his ship as the night fell. However, it was only around 10:00 the next morning that the Ottoman admiral gave the order for the flag to be dropped, after his situation had apparently become hopeless. Although still seaworthy, the Sultana was set on fire by the victorious sailors of Saint-Georges, which greatly angered de Chambray.

The crews of the two tartanes had since discovered that many of the merchant ships they captured were carrying no cargo, so the loot was less than they had hoped. Nevertheless, some cannons, 126 hundred weights of black powder, several spare sails, two cables, 70 baskets of rice, biscuits and other useful materials were taken as booty. In addition, 117 Turkish slaves were taken over and 14 Christians who had previously been taken prisoner by the Turks were freed. The slaves were then taken to Malta and, after a customary quarantine period, were used on the Order's galleys or auctioned off at the slave markets in Valletta.[4][6] The average price for a Turkish slave on the market in Valletta was 200 to 500 écus.[6]

Eventually, a total of eight sailors died on the Order side and twelve were injured, meanwhile nothing had become known about the Turkish losses.[6]

De Chambray was promoted to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Malta by Grand Master António Manoel de Vilhena for the successful mission.[7] The exploits of de Chambray encouraged François Joseph Paul de Grasse's father to send his son to join the Order of Saint John,[8] in which he became a page of the Grand Master.

• Castillo, Dennis (2006). The Maltese Cross: a strategic history of Malta. Library of Congress. ISBN 0-313-32329-1.
• Dreux du Radier, Jean-François (1757). L’Europe illustre, contenant l’histoire abrégée des souverains (in French). Paris.
• Lewis, Charles Lee (1945). Admiral de Grasse and American Independence. United States Naval Institute.
• Moureau, François (2008). Captifs en Méditerranée (XVI–XVIIIe siècles): histoires, récits et légendes (in French). Presses de l’université Paris-Sorbonne.
• Pemsel, Helmut (1995). Seeherrschaft. Eine maritime Weltgeschichte von den Anfängen bis heute [Mastery of the Sea. A Maritime World History from the Beginnings to the Present Day] (in German). Augsburg.
• Quintano, Anton (2003). The Maltese-Hospitaller Sailing Ship Squadron 1701-1798. Publishers Enterprises Group. ISBN 9789990903485.
• Wismayer, Joseph M. (1997). The Fleet of the Orders of St. John 1580–1798. Valletta: Midsea Books. ISBN 99909-75-30-2.

• Galimard de Flavigny, Bertrand (2006). Histoire de l'ordre de Malte [History of the Order of Malta] (in French). Paris: Perrin. ISBN 978-2-262-02115-3.
• Plaisse, André (1991). Le Rouge de Malte, ou, Les curieux mémoires du bailli de Chambray [The Red of Malta, or, The Curious Memoirs of the Bailiff of Chambray] (in French). Ouest-France. ISBN 978-2737307157.