every ship was thus raked fore and aft by those of Greig; that after
a lull in the conflict, it was renewed at 8 P.M., when, after another
desperate encounter, the Swedish fleet, with lights at the mast-heads,
bore away for Helsingfors with all sail set, leaving the _Prins
Gustaf_, of seventy guns, lying disabled and without a flag; that many
of the Russian ships were severely mauled, but the Swedes were riddled;
for masts, spars, and even the rudders of some were knocked to pieces,
while most of them had received perilous shots between wind and water.
The _Wadislaw_, which they took, was a copper-bottomed seventy-four,
carrying 32 and 42-pounders, with 738 men. It was ten at night before
the last shot was fired. The Russians remained masters of the channel,
with all their colours flying; but had the officers all done their
duty, the Swedes would not have escaped so easily, if at all. Greig had
6000 troops on board; their presence in close action greatly increased
his list of casualties, for he had 319 killed and 666 wounded, whereas
the Swedes had only eight officers struck, and the number of seamen is
not known.
Admiral Greig was soon after reinforced by four ships of the line; but
as the Duke of Sudermania received six more of seventy guns each, the
fleets remained of nearly equal strength.
Count Wachdmiester had yielded his sword to Greig, who returned it to
him, saying, "I will never be the man to deprive so brave and worthy an
officer of his sword--I beseech you to receive it."
After making a suitable reply, the count sheathed it, and said, "that
neither he nor any other person in Sweden believed that the Russian
fleet was in so admirable a condition as he found it."
The Russian seamen had fought with incredible ardour and bravery;
when the wadding ran short, many of them tore off their clothing
to clean and charge home the cannon; but _all_ the officers were
by no means partners in their glory; for Greig found himself under
the painful necessity of placing under arrest two captains, two
captain-lieutenants, and thirteen other officers, all Russians, and
sending them to St. Petersburg in the frigate _La Kergopolte_, of
twenty-four guns, charged with having "abandoned Rear-Admiral Bergen
when he was surrounded by four Swedish ships, and defending himself
against them for two hours with the greatest bravery, till he was
compelled to strike, when his ship, the _Wadislaw_, was completely
shattered."
Sir Samuel Greig added, that he had repeatedly signalled to those
officers "to advance and support the commander of their division, but
that either from not understanding the said signals, or from some other
reason, they remained where they were, and saw him taken." Concerning
their misconduct, and the battle of the 17th July, the Empress
immediately wrote, with her own hand, the following characteristic
letter to her gallant Admiral:--
"TO THE MOST WORTHY AND BRAVE, &C.
"We should be wanting in that gratitude and politeness which should
ever distinguish sovereigns, did we not with the utmost speed convey
to you our approbation of your exemplary conduct; and the obligations
which we owe you for your intrepid conduct in your engagement with
the fleet of our enemy, the Swedish king. To the constant exertion of
_your abilities_, and _your zeal_ for the glory of the common cause of
ourselves and the whole Russian Empire, may, under God, be attributed
the very signal victory you have gained; and we have not the smallest
doubt, but that every part of our dominions, to which this event shall
be transmitted, will behold it in its proper view. It is with grief we
read the record of these poltroons, who, unable to catch fire from
the spirited exertions of their brother-warriors, have so signalized
themselves in the annals of treasonable cowardice! and to that
cowardice the Swede has to boast that any ship of their fleet escaped
when so encountered.
"It is our pleasure that the delinquents mentioned in your despatch be
immediately brought to Cronstadt, to await our further displeasure. We
sincerely wish _you_, and all with you, health, and the most signal
assistance of the Almighty God, whose aid we have invoked, and of
whose assistance we cannot doubt in a cause so just.
"Your services will live perpetually in our remembrance; and the
annals of our Empire must convey your name to posterity with reverence
and with love!
"So saying, we recommend you to God's keeping ever. Done at St.
Petersburg, the 23rd of July, in the year of grace 1788.
"Catherine."
The punishment of the seventeen unfortunates was peculiarly Russian in
its barbarity; for they were placed in chains, with iron collars around
their necks, and doomed to perpetual slavery in the hulks at Cronstadt,
though many were cadets of the noblest Muscovite families.
In 1789, Professor Schloeger, of Gottingen, published in his political
magazine the orders issued by the Czarina to the admiral before leaving
Cronstadt; and by these it appears, that he "was to attack, and, if
possible, to carry away the Swedish admiral-general, even at the total
loss of the whole fleet of Russia."
For nearly a fortnight Greig busied himself in thoroughly refitting
his fleet; on the 6th of August he signalled to weigh anchor at dawn,
and on the 7th arrived off Sveaborg, where he found four Swedish ships
at anchor in the roads; but they cut their cables, and, under a press
of sail, retired into port in confusion. Greig followed them boldly,
and just as his leading ship came within musket-shot of the sternmost
Swede, the latter struck upon a sunken rock; her mainmast went by
the board, and after maintaining a short cannonade with Admiral
Roslainow, she struck her colours. The other three escaped into shallow
water. Greig's boats took possession of the bilged ship, which proved
to be the _Gustavus Adolphus_, of 64 guns, commanded by _Colonel_
Christierne, who was taken prisoner with thirteen officers and 530 men,
after which Greig ordered her to be blown up. He next seized a ship
laden with cables, sails, medicine, &c., for the Swedish fleet.
Meanwhile the Duke of Sudermania remained a quiet spectator in
Sveaborg, where he was completely blocked up by Greig, although he had
under his command sixteen ships of the line and eight frigates.
Till the 9th Greig remained off Sveaborg, which is strongly fortified
by nature and art, and then, in the hope that the duke would come out,
as the wind was favourable for his doing so, he sailed slowly across
the Gulf of Finland towards the opposite coast of Revel, and on his
approaching the isle of Margen, placed his cruisers towards the west,
so as completely to cut off the Swedish fleet from all succour by way
of Carlscrona, and to prevent them forming a junction with five ships
laden with stores, of which they were in the greatest need.
Here Greig was joined by two 64-gun ships; and on the 14th of August he
was off Revel in Esthonia. Meanwhile the Swedish and Russian troops had
many fierce encounters in Finland; but the former were unsuccessful,
and this expedition ended in defeat and disaster.
The indefatigable Greig continued to cruise in the gulf until the month
of October; and, though suffering from a severe illness, he completely
blocked up the Swedes in Sveaborg, cut them off from succour, and saved
St. Petersburg from alarm.
On the 2nd October, the weather became exceedingly stormy, and the
Russian fleet were all dispersed. Then the Duke of Sudermania thought
he might essay something against Greig; but, though sick and infirm,
the latter soon collected all his ships, and the blockade was resumed
more strictly than ever; but, unhappily, his illness terminated in
a violent fever, and, on the 26th of that month the brave admiral
expired, in the fifty-third year of his age, on board of his flagship
the _Rotislaw_, to the great sorrow of every officer and seaman in
the fleet, where, by his bravery, justice, generosity, and goodness
of heart, he had indeed won for himself the honourable title of the
_Father of the Russian Navy_.
The tidings of his death were the signal for a general mourning at
St. Petersburg; and, while Admiral Spiritoff assumed the command of
the fleet, the Empress ordered the interment of her favourite officer
to be conducted with a pomp, solemnity, and magnificence never before
witnessed in Russia.
The funeral took place on the 5th of December. Some days before it,
the body lay on a state bed in the hall of the Admiralty, which was
hung with black cloth, while the doors were festooned with white crape,
and the vast apartment was lighted by silver lustres. Under a canopy
of crape the body was placed on three small arches, dressed in full
uniform, the head being encircled by a wreath of laurel. At its foot
stood an urn, adorned with silver anchors and streamers, inscribed--
"S.G. nat. d. 30 Nov. 1735--obit d. 15 Oct. 1788."
The coffin stood on six feet of massy silver. It was covered with
black velvet, lined with white satin; the handles and fringes were
of pure silver, and the pillows of blonde lace. On three tabourettes
of crimson and gold lay his five orders of knighthood--one of them,
the St. George's Cross, mutilated by a shot in the Archipelago; and
around were twelve pedestals, covered with crape and flowers, bearing
twelve gigantic candles. At the head of the bed hung all his flags;
and two staff officers and six marine captains were constantly beside
it until the day of interment, when Lieutenant the Baron Vanden Pahlen
pronounced a high eulogy in honour of the brave deceased.
The cannon of the ramparts and fleet fired minute-guns during the
procession from the Admiralty to the Cathedral of St. Catherine,
through streets lined by the troops. The funeral pageant was very
magnificent and impressive.
Swartzenhoup's dragoons, with standards lowered; the grenadiers of the
Empress, with arms reversed; the public schools of the capital; the
clergy of the Greek Church; General Lehman, of the marine artillery,
and two marshals bearing Greig's admiral's staff and five orders of
knighthood; eighteen staff officers, and three bearing naval standards,
preceded the body, which was borne on a bier drawn by six horses, led
by six bombardiers, and attended by twelve captains of ships, followed
by their coxswains. Then came General Wrangel, governor of the city,
with the nobles, citizens, the marshals with their staves, and a
regiment of infantry with arms reversed, and its band playing one of
those grand dead-marches which are peculiar to Russia. So, with a band
of choristers preceding it, and amid the tolling of bells, the remains
of Admiral Greig were conveyed to the great cathedral, and there
lowered into their last resting-place, amid three discharges of cannon
and musketry from the ramparts, the troops, and the fleet, where he was
so well beloved and so much lamented.
Every officer who attended had a gold ring presented to him by
Catherine II., with the admiral's name and the day of his death
engraved upon it; and a magnificent monument has since been erected to
mark the place where he lies--a man "no less illustrious for courage
and naval skill, than for piety, benevolence, and every private virtue."
His estate in Livonia is still in possession of his descendants.
His son John died in China in 1793. Another son became Sir Alexis
Greig, Admiral of the Russian fleet, and Knight of all the Imperial
orders. In 1783 he studied at the High School of Edinburgh; he served
as a volunteer on board the _Culloden_ under Admiral Trowbridge,
and commanded the Russian fleets at the sieges of Varna and Anapa in
1828; though in 1801 he had been exiled to Siberia for remonstrating
with the Emperor Paul for his severity to certain British sailors.
His son Woronzow Greig (also educated, I believe, at the High School
of Edinburgh) was A.D.C. to Prince Menschicoff, and bore a flag of
truce from Sebastopol to Lord Raglan. He died of a mortal wound on the
desperate field of Inkermann.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 8: His father was a seafaring man. In the _Edinburgh
Courant_, 24th June, 1761, was the following notice: "The _Thistle_,
Capt. Charles Greig, of Inverkeithing, bound for St. Petersburg, passed
the Sound on the 6th instant." In Russia, the admiral bore the name of
Samuel _Carlovitch_ Greig (_i.e._ the son of Charles).]
[Footnote 9: Tooke states that Mrs. Greig was not at Leghorn; but the
French authorities affirm that she was, and place this event in 1774.]
[Footnote 10: In the battle with the Swedes in 1790, four Russian ships
were commanded by Scottish captains, viz., Denniston, whose head was
shot off; Marshal, who was drowned when leading his boarders; Miller
and Aikin, who each lost a leg. The latter died under the torture of
his wound. Six Russian admirals, all Scotchmen, Mackenzie, Ogilvie,
Mercer, Mason, and the two Greigs, have hoisted their flags in the
Black Sea. Mackenzie was the first naval chief at Sebastopol.--See
Slade's _Travels_, vol. ii.]
FIELD-MARSHAL COUNT BROWN.
Ulysses Maximilian Brown, Field-Marshal of the armies of the Empress
Maria Theresa, Governor of Prague, and Knight of the Golden Fleece, was
born on the 24th of October, 1705.
His father, Ulysses Baron de Brown and Camus, the representative
and descendant of one of the most ancient families in Ireland, was
then a Colonel of Cuirassiers in the service of Joseph I., Emperor
of Austria, and was one of the many brave Irish gentlemen who, after
the unfortunate battle of Aughrim, the surrender of Galway, and
capitulation of King James's army under St. Ruth, at Limerick, were
forced to feed themselves by the blades of their swords in the service
of foreign countries. When Marshal Catinat and the Duke of Savoy laid
siege to Valenza in 1696, they had no less than six battalions of Irish
exiles in their army. Baron Brown had served under the Emperor Leopold
I., who died in 1703; and by the Emperor Charles VI. had been created
Count of the Holy Roman Empire; while his brother George received the
same exalted rank, being at the same time a distinguished general of
infantry, colonel of a regiment of musketeers, and councillor of war.
In his childhood Ulysses Maximilian was sent to the city of Limerick
by his father, and there, for a few years, he pursued his studies at
a public school, until his uncle, Count George Brown, sent for him,
when only _ten_ years of age, to join his regiment of infantry, which
was then with the army marching into Hungary, under the famous and
gallant Prince Eugene of Savoy, against the Turks, who had invaded the
Imperial frontier. With this army the great Count Saxe was serving as
a subaltern officer.
The Turks had broken the peace of Carlovitz in 1715, conquered the
Morea, declared war against Venice, besieged Corfu, and spread a
general alarm among the courts of Europe. The Emperor's mediation was
rejected with disdain by Achmet III., the imperious Porte, whose army,
150,000 strong, hovered on the right bank of the Danube; but Prince
Eugene, with a small, well disciplined force, having passed the river
in sight of the inactive Osmanli, encamped at Peterwaradin, on the
confines of Sclavonia. Ulysses Maximilian Brown was with this army in
the regiment of his uncle.
A battle ensued on the 5th August, 1716, near Carlovitz, and the Turks
were totally routed, with the loss of their Grand Vizier Ali, and
30,000 slain; while fifty standards, 250 pieces of cannon, and all
their baggage, were taken. Other, but minor victories followed, and in
the month of June the brave Prince Eugene invested Belgrade, the key
of the Ottoman dominions on the Hungarian frontier. For two months it
was vigorously defended by 30,000 men, while the Turkish army, under
the new Grand Vizier, was intrenched close by, in a semi-circle which
stretched from the Danube to the Save, thus inclosing the troops of
Eugene in the marshes between those rapid rivers.
By war and disease the Imperialists suffered fearfully; fighting of
the most desperate kind ensued daily; and there, while yet a child,
the little Irish boy was taught to handle his espontoon, and became a
witness of, if not an actor in, those military barbarities which have
always blackened a war along the Ottoman frontier.
It was apparent to Eugene that the Turks, by destroying the bridge of
the Save, might obstruct his retreat, surprise a body of his Austrians
at Semlin, or cut off his artillery, which were bombarding the lower
town of Belgrade, while sickness and scarcity pressed severely upon
his slender force; thus it became evident that nothing but a decisive
victory would save him from gradual destruction. Already the Turks,
200,000 strong, were within musket-shot, and would soon storm his
lines, which were defended by only 40,000 men, exclusive of the 20,000
who were blocking up Belgrade.
On a dark midnight--the 16th of August--after uniting his forces
by firing three bombs, he attacked the mighty host of the Sultan
Achmet--the most complete that Turkey had ever equipped for battle.
Favoured by a thick fog, the Austrians broke through the slow and heavy
Osmanli, stormed all their intrenchments at the point of the bayonet,
turned their _own_ guns upon them, and grape-shotted the turbaned
fugitives, whose unwieldy army was totally routed, and fled, leaving
every cannon and baggage-waggon behind. The surrender of Belgrade,
two days after, was the immediate consequence of this brilliant
victory, and the Peace of Passarovitz, which, under the mediation of
Great Britain, was signed in July, 1718, succeeded in establishing a
twenty-five years' truce, and securing to Austria the western part of
Wallachia, Servia, Belgrade, and part of Bosnia.
After this battle, Ulysses Brown, then in his twelfth year, was sent to
Rome, where he continued his studies at the Clementine College, for the
period of four years.
In 1721 he went to Prague, and in two years completed himself in the
study of civil law.
He then entered the Austrian army, and in 1723 became a captain in
the regiment of infantry commanded by his uncle, Count George Brown;
and such was his ardour and such his knowledge in the art of war,
that only two years after, in 1725, we find him appointed to the
lieutenant-colonelcy of the same corps.
On the 15th of August in the following year he married Maria
Philippina, Countess of Martinitz, the beautiful Bohemian heiress, and
the last of an ancient and noble line.
In 1730 he served in the expedition to Corsica, and by his bravery
and example contributed greatly to secure the capture of Callansara,
where he was severely wounded in the thigh. This successful expedition
caused a rumour that the island was to be erected into a kingdom for
the Chevalier de St. George--James VIII. of the Scottish Jacobites;
and George II., on being bribed by the Genoese, prohibited his English
subjects from furnishing any assistance to the troops or inhabitants.
In 1732, Count Brown was made Chamberlain of the Austrian Empire: and
in 1734 was appointed full colonel of infantry, and Italy was the next
scene of his service.
France had resolved on humbling the overweening power of the House of
Hapsburg; the venerable Marshal Villars crossed the Alps, and with
a combined army of French and Spaniards, burst into Milan, overran
Austrian Lombardy, and carrying victory wherever he marched, in two
months' time left only Mantua under the flag of Charles VI. The latter
made strenuous efforts to protect himself--to secure the passage of
the Rhine against the Marshal Duke of Berwick on one hand, and to
recover his power in Italy from Villars on the other. The Diet voted
him 120,000 men; the Count de Merci marched 6000 of these to protect
the important fortress of Mantua; and with a force increased to 60,000
soldiers, drew towards the head of the Oglio and Po.
Leaving his young wife at the court of Vienna, Count Brown accompanied
this force with his regiment of German infantry; and it was among the
first of those brave battalions which effected the arduous passage
of the Po near Santo Benedetto, where the Count de Merci so boldly
and skilfully surprised the French troops, and drove them back at
the bayonet's point, with the loss of all their ammunition, baggage,
and the cities of Guastalla, Novella, and Mirandola, of which he
immediately took possession.
During this campaign Count Brown distinguished himself on every
occasion, but most particularly at the great battle of Parma, on the
29th of June, 1734. There a desperate hand-to-hand conflict ensued in
front of the city, on the high road which leads to Piacenza; and after
a struggle as deadly as Italy ever saw, the Austrians remained masters
of the field; but the Count de Merci, their general, was mortally
wounded by a musket-ball, and Count Brown and the Prince of Wirtemberg,
the lieutenant-general, had their horses shot under them. The French
made their most desperate stand at a farm-house, from the walls of
which "they mowed down whole companies of the Imperialists by grape
and musket-shot. This dreadful conflict lasted for ten hours without
intermission, when the enemy retired in good order towards the walls
of Parma." On the field lay ten thousand corpses; of the Imperialists
there fell the commander-in-chief, seven generals, and three hundred
and forty officers, were killed and wounded. Thus ended an attack which
the Count de Merci risked in direct opposition to the _advice_ of Count
Brown and other officers of experience. The Imperial army now fell back
upon Guastalla, where it was the good fortune of Count Brown to save it
and the cause of Charles VI. from total destruction.
The Austrians, under the Prince of Wirtemberg, were posted between the
Crostolo and the Po, near some strong redoubts at the head of one of
their bridges; and there, on the 19th of September, they were attacked
by the French, when after a hard conflict of eight hours, during which
Brown, then in his twenty-ninth year, charged repeatedly at the head
of his regiment, the Austrians were driven back, with the loss of
four standards, while the gallant Prince of Wirtemberg, old General
Colmenaro, the Prince of Saxe Gotha, and many other brave men, were
slain.
Count Brown made incredible exertions to preserve discipline, and with
his own regiment to cover the rear of the discomfited Imperialists,
who were thus enabled to fall back in good order to a new and stronger
position on the northward of the Po, where they kept the field until
January in the ensuing year, when the wearied French and Spaniards
retired into winter quarters. One of the most brilliant feats of the
campaign was the destruction of the bridge which the Marshal Duke de
Noailles had thrown over the Adige. At the head of his regiment the
brave Irish soldier of fortune achieved this arduous task in sight of
the whole French army, under a heavy discharge of cannon and musketry.
Thus terminated the Lombardo campaign, in which Austria, if she did not
lose her honour, won but little glory, though in the two battles of
Parma and Guastalla she lost ten thousand soldiers.
The French strengthened their forces, and a cruel edict was issued
at Paris, ordaining all British subjects in France between the ages
of fifteen and fifty to enlist in the Irish Brigade, or go to the
galleys--an edict which was enforced with such rigour, that in fifteen
days all the Parisian prisons were crowded with British residents,
chiefly poor Scottish Jacobites; but France soon found other and more
worthy means of reinforcing her armies in Italy and on the Rhine, than
by resorting to such inhospitable tyranny.
For his services in the Italian war, Count Brown received a general's
commission in 1736 from the Emperor Charles VI., who, discouraged
by his reverses, signified a desire for peace; but it was scarcely
negotiated, before he became involved in a new war that broke out on
the confines of Europe and Asia. The rapid progress of the Russians
against the Turks, and their capture of the Crimea, excited the
ambition of Charles, who, by the treaty of 1726, was bound to assist
Russia against the Porte; and now that prophecy, so often propagated,
was in every one's mouth, that the period fatal to the Crescent was
arrived!