Staggered in front of ship at the French seaport (6,4)
I believe the answer is:
bowled over
'staggered' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both related to thinking as well as being past participle verbs.
Maybe they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'front of ship at the french seaport' is the wordplay.
'front of ship' becomes 'bow' (term for the front of a ship).
'at' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'the french' becomes 'le' ('the' in French).
'seaport' becomes 'dover' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'bow'+'le'+'dover'='BOWLED OVER'
'in' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for bowled over that I've seen before include "made several deliveries" , "Hit for six" , "Greatly impressed" , "having briefly joined attack" , "Overwhelmed" .)