San Leandro was a 64-gun (Spanish; Castilian: navío) built for the Royal Spanish Navy (Spanish; Castilian: Real Armada) in the 1780s.
San Leandro was 202feet long at the lowest continuous deck and measured 160feet at the keel. She had a beam of 49feet and a depth of hold of 21feet. The ship displaced 2427LT[1] and measured 1,676 tons bm. San Leandros crew numbered 606 officers and men.[2]
She was rated as a 64-gun ship of the line and originally carried twenty-six 24-pounder guns on her lower gun deck, twenty-eight 12-pounders on her upper deck, twelve 8-pounders on her quarter deck and a pair of 8-pounders on her forecastle. In March 1793 her 12-pounders were replaced by 18-pounders and most of her 8-pounder guns had been replaced by Spanish; Castilian: [[carronade|obuses]] by 1805.[3]
The three San Fulgencio-class ships were ordered on 16 May 1786 as smaller versions of the earlier 74-gun . The exact date that San Leandro was laid down at the Royal Dockyard at Ferrol is unknown, but she was launched on 27 November 1787. She arrived at Cádiz on 12 January 1788 and conducted her sea trials from Cartagena as part of a squadron under the command of Rear Admiral (Spanish; Castilian: Jefe de Escuadra) Cordova. The ship was careened and had her bottom coppered in June–July at the Arsenal de la Carraca near Cádiz. San Leandro was intermittently under Cordova's command for the next two years. She helped to transport troops from Cádiz to the North African enclave of Ceuta in August 1790. The ship was careened and recoppered upon her return at the Arsenal de la Carraca. San Leandro was placed in ordinary at Ferrol on 27 December.[3]
The ship was recommissioned on 19 March 1793 and was ordered to patrol the Azores the following month. San Leandro captured the British brig Venus and escorted her prize into La Coruña on 17 April. She escorted merchantmen from Callao, Viceroyalty of Peru, into Cádiz on 7 May. The ship spent the next several months patrolling the Eastern Mediterranean searching for French ships as Spain had declared war on France in April. San Leandro arrived at Cartagena on 12 July and was assigned to the fleet commanded by Vice Admiral (Spanish; Castilian: Teniente General) Juan de Lángara. The fleet sailed for Rosas Bay on 23 July and continued onwards to Toulon where it arrived on 29 August. The ship ferried Spanish troops and French Royalist refugees to Cartagena when the Anglo-Spanish forces at Toulon were forced to evacuate the city on 19 December. San Leandro spent the month of February 1794 patrolling for French ships in the Mediterranean before arriving at Cádiz on 13 March.[4]
The ship was part of a fleet that departed Cádiz on 15 April, bound for Havana, Spanish Cuba, where it arrived two months later. San Leandro served in the Spanish West Indies for the next eight years. When the Spanish were forced to evacuate the Captaincy General of Santo Domingo by the terms of the Peace of Basel in 1795, the Spanish citizens were give a year to evacuate the colony. San Leandro transported some of these refugee families to Havana in July 1796. She was scheduled for careening at Havana in December 1801 and was recommissioned in June 1802. The ship was awaiting timber and supplies to recommission on 23 March 1804 and was able to sail from Havana to Cádiz in June–August. San Leandro was careened and recoppered in February 1805 at the Arsenal de la Carraca.[5]
See main article: Trafalgar campaign.
Having fought the inconclusive Battle of Cape Finisterre on 22 July against a British fleet that attempted to intercept his combined Franco-Spanish fleet returning from the West Indies, Vice Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve decided to disobey his orders to rendezvous with the French ships at Brest[6] because his ships needed repairs and many crewmen were sick. He put into the nearest friendly port, Vigo, Spain. Unhappy with the inability of the Spanish dockyards in Galicia to repair his ships and influenced by the Spanish commander, Admiral Federico Gravina, who had secret orders not to allow his ships to go to Brest, Villaneuve decided to head south to the largest concentration of Spanish ships on the Atlantic coast, and arrived at Cádiz on 20 August.[7]
There he found his situation scarcely better as a shortage of cash initially prevented the French from purchasing food and other supplies, although the Spanish ships transferred some food to his ships until a loan was arranged in September. The French Navy only recruited trained seamen and Villeneuve's ships were short over two thousand men; like the British Royal Navy, the Royal Spanish Navy recruited soldiers and landsmen that required training and time at sea to become competent. Numbers of both exceeded requirements aboard the ships in Cádiz, but the critical shortage lay in insufficient numbers of trained naval artillerymen.[8]
With Villeneuve's ships unavailable to clear the way through the Royal Navy to allow Napoleon's troops in invade Britain, Napoleon decided to take advantage of the Combined Fleet's presence in Cádiz and ordered Villeneuve to enter the Mediterranean, rendezvous with the Spanish ships blockaded in Cartagena and land troops to put an end to the Anglo-Russian occupation of Naples.