The Royal Navy in River Plate 1806–1807

This collection of documents – official communications from high ranking officers together with extracts from diaries and memoirs of lesser figures – records one of the more bizarre episodes during, but only distantly related to, the Napoleonic wars. In September 1805 Sir Home Popham, he of Popham’s Talking Telegraph, left Cork in command of a squadron of six ships of the line and a number of smaller vessels to convey a 6,000 strong military expedition under Major General Sir David Baird to reta