SUFFREN SAINT TROPEZ, PIERRE ANDRE DE (1729-1788), French admiral, was born in the Chateau de Saint Canat (Aix) on July 17, 1729. He entered the Order of Malta and also the close and aristocratic corps of French naval officers as a cadet in October in the "Solide," one of the line of battleships which took part in the confused engagement off Toulon in 1744• He was next in the "Pauline" in the squadron of M. Macnemara on a cruise in the West Indies. In 1746 he went through the duc D'Anville's disastrous expedition to retake Cape Breton, which was ruined by shipwreck and plague. Next year (1747) he was taken prisoner by Hawke in the action with the French convoy in the Bay of Biscay. When peace was made in 1748 he went to Malta to perform the cruises with the galleys of the Order of Malta technically called "caravans," a reminis cence of the days when the knights protected the pilgrims going from Saint Jean d'Acre to Jerusalem. In Suffren's time this service rarely went beyond a peaceful tour among the Greek islands. Suffren was present at the taking of Minorca, but in '757 he was again a prisoner of the English. After the peace, on the French ship "Cameleon," he chased the Barbary pirates, and from 1767 to 1771 he returned to his "caravan," becoming a commander of his Order.
In the years 1778 and 1779 he served with the squadrim of D'Estaing (q.v.) on the coast of North America and in the West Indies. He led the line in the action with Admiral John Byron off Grenada, and his ship, the "Fantasque" (64), lost 62 men. His letters to his admiral show that he strongly disapproved of D'Estaing's half-hearted methods. In 178o he was captain of the "ale" (74), in the combined French and Spanish fleets which captured a great English convoy in the Atlantic. His candour towards his chief had done him no harm in the opinion of D'Estaing. It is said to have been largely by the advice of this admiral that Suffren was chosen to command a squadron of five ships of the line sent out to help the Dutch who had joined France and Spain to defend the Cape against an expected English attack, and then to go on to the East Indies.
He sailed from Brest on March 22 on the cruise which has made him unique among French admirals, and he was by ex perience as well as by temperament impatient with the formal manoeuvring of his colleagues, which aimed at preserving their own ships rather than at taking the English. On April 16, 1781, he found the English expedition on its way to the Cape under the command of George Johnstone (173o-1787), at anchor in Porto Praya, Cape de Verde Islands. Remembering how little respect Boscawen had shown for the neutrality of Portugal at Lagos, he attacked at once. He pushed on to the Cape, which he saved from capture by Johnstone, and then made his way to the Ile de France (Mauritius), then held by the French. D'Orves, his superior
officer, died as the united squadrons, now eleven sail of the line, were on their way to the Bay of Bengal. The campaign, which Suffren now conducted against the English admiral Sir Edward Hughes (172o?-1794), included many severe encounters. Four actions took place in 1782: south of Madras (Feb. 17), near Trincomalee (April 12), off Cuddalore (July 6), and at Trinco malee (Sept. 3). The English lost no ships in these actions; neither did they take any. Suffren attacked with unprecedented vigour on every occasion, but was ill-supported by some of his captains. He maintained his squadron without a port to refit, and anchored at Trincomalee. His activity encouraged Hyder Ali, who was then at war with the Company. He refused to re turn to the islands to escort the troops coming out under com mand of Bussy, maintaining that his proper purpose was to cripple the squadron of Sir Edward Hughes.
During the north-east monsoon he would not go to the islands but refitted in the Malay ports in Sumatra, and returned with the south-west monsoon in 1783. Hyder Ali was dead, but Tippoo Sultan, his son, was still at war with the Company. Bussy arrived and landed. The operations on shore were slackly con ducted by him, and Suffren was much hampered, but when he fought his last battle against Hughes (April 20, 1783), with fourteen ships to eighteen he forced the English admiral to retire to Madras, leaving the army then besieging Cuddalore in a very dangerous position. The arrival of the news that peace had been made in Europe put a stop to hostilities, and Suffren returned to France. While refitting at the Cape on his way home, several of the vessels also returning put in, and the captains waited on him. Suffren said in one of .his letters that their praise gave him more pleasure than any other compliment paid him.
In France he was received with enthusiasm, and an additional office of vice-admiral of France was created for him. He had been promoted bailli in the Order of Malta during his absence. He died on Dec. 8, 1788, when he was about to take command of a fleet collected in Brest. Long afterwards it was stated that he was killed in a duel with the prince de Mirepoix in consequence of a refusal to restore to their naval rank two of his relatives who had been dismissed from the service.
The standard authority for the life of Suffren is the Histoire du Bailli de Suffren by Ch. Cunat (1852). The Journal de Bord du Bailli de Suffren dans l'Inde, edited by M. Mores, was published in i888. There is an appreciative study in Captain Mahan's The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 166o-1783 (I89o).