THE SACK OF CHERBOURG.
During the reign of Louis XIV. plans had been proposed by the
celebrated Marshal Vauban, for the fortification of Cherbourg; these
were then only partially carried into effect, but a noble and
spacious harbour had subsequently been formed. Two piers, one a
thousand, the other five hundred, feet in length, had been built, and
outer and inner basins were made large enough to contain ships of the
line; these basins were closed by gates each forty-two feet wide.
To destroy these, General Bligh had fifteen hundred soldiers at work
making blasts, and so well did they prosecute the art of destruction,
that the labour of thirty years, and the expense of one million two
hundred thousand pounds (English) perished in a few days. In short,
the noble harbour of Cherbourg was utterly ruined, and the shipping
it contained was given to the flames.
We took twenty-four tons of gunpowder out of the French magazines,
and blew up or threw down all the bastions and batteries along the
shore, from Fort Querqueville to the Isle Pelee, and dismounted, or
flung into the sea, one hundred and sixty-three pieces of cannon and
three mortars, with a vast quantity of shot and shell. Two mortars
and twenty-two beautiful guns, all of polished brass, together with
several colours (among them, of course, the standard taken by poor
Jack Charters), were put on board the commodore's ship.
On the side of one of the great sluice-gates I saw an inscription in
French to the following effect:--
"Louis and Fleury trust to Asfield's care,
Amid the waves to raise this mighty pier,
Propitious to our prayers the fabric stood,
Curbed the fierce tide, and tamed the threatening flood,
Hence wealth and safety flow--hence just renown,
The king, the statesman, and the hero crown!
This work, by command of Louis XV.
The advice of Cardinal Fleury, and direction of Count Asfield,
Shall endure for ever!"
Scarcely had I finished reading this, than an officer of our regiment
called to me--
"Hallo! look out! stand back there!"
He had a match in his hand, which he applied to a train, and in one
minute the whole fabric, with a tremendous concussion, rent, split,
rose into the air amid a cloud of smoke, and vanished as it sank into
the surf that boiled over it.
Two armed ships which lay in the inner basin we despatched to
England, and eighteen others we burned or sunk filled with stones.
On the people of Cherbourg a contribution of forty-four thousand
livres was levied by beat of drum; and so rapidly did our miners and
devastators do their work, that the whole place was a scene of
melancholy ruin and desolation before the Count de Raymond could
muster forces of the line sufficient to dislodge us, for France had
then two armies in Germany.
Thus, all our troops were on board, and the whole armament ready for
sea by the 17th of August; our total loss, after having destroyed,
what was styled in the prints of the day, "that most galling thorn in
the side of British commerce," being only Captain Lindsay of the
Scots Greys, and twenty-four others killed, some thirty wounded, and
ten horses.
The whole army re-embarked without molestation at Fort Galette, about
three o'clock in the morning.
The commodore, who had now, by the death of his brother, who fell at
the head of the 55th Regiment in the disastrous affair of
Ticonderoga, succeeded to the title of Viscount Howe, gave the signal
for sea, and we sailed on the evening of the 17th for England. I was
again on board his ship with the light troop of my regiment.
The destruction I had witnessed, and the distress and alarm of the
poor unoffending people, sickened me of war for a time, and I felt
happy when we bore up the Channel, though still haunted by memories
of the land of Brittany, on which I should never look again--a land
of stern and dreary mountains, of dark primæval forests, of rocky
bluffs, of ruined castles and giant monoliths--the land where I loved
so tenderly and endured so terribly.
On the 19th I saw Old England again, and the whole fleet came to
anchor in Portland Roads.
The colours and brass guns taken at Cherbourg, after being exhibited
to gaping multitudes in Hyde Park, were drawn in triumph through all
the principal streets of London, as the spoil of conquered France,
amid a noisy pomp that brought ridicule on the ministry. After this
they were lodged in the Tower.
Instead of being sent home to Scotland, as we had fondly speculated,
the light troop of the Scots Greys now marched through Dorsetshire
and Hampshire into Sussex, where we reached the head-quarters of the
regiment, then under orders to join the army in Germany.
Our fine old colonel--"auld Geordie Buffcoat," as the corps named
him--complimented the troop for its uniform good conduct during the
two expeditions to the coast of France, and hoped that when on the
Rhine we should still prove ourselves "to be his own brave lads, who
were _second to none_!"