[image error] Michael Fitton managed to start a war thanks to a single eagle-eyed exploit in uncovering a damning secret one morning in September 1780.

Fitton had entered the Royal Navy in June of that year as servant to a family friend, George Keppel, then captain of the 28-gun frigate Vestal. With the American Revolutionary War raging, the vessel was sent to intercept American shipping and so fell in, on Sunday 3 September, with the US privateer and packet Phoenix and its convoy off the Newfoundland bank...