Jean Baptiste Charles Henri Hector, comte d'Estaing was a French general, and admiral. He began his service as a soldier in the Seven Years War, spending time as a prisoner of war of the British. Following France's entry into the American War of Independence in 1778, he led a fleet to aid the American rebels, but participated in failed Franco-American attacks on Rhode Island and the Siege of Savannah. He returned to France in 1780.