Beaulieu failed to prepare for action; Sybille closed to 25 yards and fired raking broadsides, killing him and overwhelming Forte.

Despite identifying Sybille's sails, Beaulieu gave no orders to prepare for action, apparently mistaking her for an East Indiaman or hoping to lure her close. Around midnight Forte fired a long-range broadside at Sybille's bow, with scattered fire from prize crews, but French shot tore through Sybille's rigging while Cooke closed to 25 yards of Forte's stern at 12:45 and fired a raking broadside, then a second alongside. Beaulieu was killed in the first raking broadside; British merchant prisoners later emerged and Lieutenant Nicholas Manger formally took the French ship's surrender.

Sources

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.