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North Channel Naval Duel
The North Channel naval duel was a single-ship action between the United States Continental Navy sloop of war ''Ranger'' (Captain John Paul Jones) and the British Royal Navy sloop of war ''Drake'' (Captain George Burdon) on the evening of 24 April 1778. Fought in the North Channel, separating Ireland from Scotland, it was the first American defeat of a Royal Navy ship within British home waters, and also very nearly the only American victory over the Royal Navy in the Revolution achieved without an overwhelming superiority of force. The action was one of a series of actions by Jones that brought the American War of Independence to British waters.
In the following account, times are approximate because ships set their own time as they travelled, so different witnesses saw the same events at what to them were different times.
==Background==
Even before the official entry of other nations, the American Revolutionary War was by no means confined to American soil; naval operations, by both the Continental Navy and privateers, ranged right across the Atlantic. In 1777, American captains such as Lambert Wickes, Gustavus Conyngham and William Day〔(William Day's report to Benjamin Franklin of his 1777 cruise in British waters ) franklinpapers.org — Accessed 29 Nov 2007〕 had been making raids into British waters and capturing merchant ships, which they took into French ports, even though France was officially neutral. Captain Day had even been accorded a gun salute by the French admiral at Brest. Encouraged by such successes, and even more by the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga that autumn, France signed two treaties with America in February 1778, but stopped just short of declaring war on Britain. The risk of a French attack forced the Royal Navy to concentrate its forces in the English Channel (La Manche), leaving other areas vulnerable. Wickes and Day had shown that, despite the narrowness of St. George's Channel and the North Channel, it was possible for single ships or very small squadrons to get into the Irish Sea, and create havoc among the many vessels which traded between Great Britain and Ireland. John Paul Jones, on his first return to British waters as an enemy, had a more ambitious plan: to teach the British people that their government's policies in America, such as the burning of ports, could be turned back against them.〔S.E. Morison, "John Paul Jones: A Sailor's Biography" London, Faber (1959) pp. 134-5〕
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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