Single ship actions are often as decisive as those between fleets;
and they are, as a rule, even more characteristic and interesting.
Of course, we mean by _decisive_ that they have often affected, for
good or evil, the _morale_ of nations, thereby encouraging one and
depressing the other, and thus in no small degree affecting the
progress of a war.
The frigate actions of our last war with Great Britain were very
pre-eminently of this nature, and some of them will, in due time, be
given.
The action of the Ambuscade and Bayonnaise has always been a fruitful
source of discussion, as well as of lively contradiction, between
the French and English naval writers, the latter being as much
depressed by allusions to it as the French are elated. Where so much
discussion and rejoinder have taken place in regard to the collision
of a comparatively insignificant force, we may expect to find many
contradictory statements.
In what follows we shall give the account of the beaten side, the
British, in the main points, premising, of course, that they would make
the best of a poor story. The _facts_ of the capture are not disputed,
and are given in about the same terms by both sides. It is the manner
of telling which differs.
On December 5th, 1798, the British 32-gun frigate Ambuscade, Captain
Jenkins, sailed from Portsmouth (to which port she had escorted a
prize, and on board the latter had left a few of her men as a prize
crew), for a cruise on the French coast. Not long after sailing she
made prizes of a brig and a lugger, and received on board from the
two vessels some thirty prisoners, while she sent to the prizes her
Second Lieutenant and a sufficient number of men to man them. Her Third
Lieutenant was at this time ill in his bed, and the Ambuscade was
reduced in her complement, by the sending of prize crews, from 212 to
190. Of this one hundred and ninety the English accounts claim that a
large number were boys. It is quite likely that she had many landsmen
and boys, as most English ships had at that time, but that she had such
a proportion of boys as to effect her efficiency is not very likely.
She was not a school-ship or a training-ship, but an active 32, engaged
in winter cruising on a notoriously rough station, and doing her best
to cripple the enemy by taking and sending in prizes.
On the morning of December 14th, while lying to off the mouth of the
Garonne, and momentarily expecting to be joined by the 32-gun frigate
Stag, a sail was made out, to seaward, standing in. The stranger was
directly end-on to the Ambuscade, and all on board the latter ship seem
to have taken it for granted it was her consort, the Stag, because
the latter was expected at that time. December mornings are not apt
to be clear and fine in the Bay of Biscay, and the new comer was some
distance off. They could see but little of her hull, from her position,
neither could they make out any colors, for the same reason.
This being the state of affairs, on an enemy’s coast, in time of
active war, the officers and men of the Ambuscade left her hove to,
and went unconcernedly to breakfast, with only a few hands on deck
to observe the approach of the strange sail, which came rolling down
at her leisure. Before nine o’clock she was within gunshot, and then
she suddenly hauled by the wind, and made all sail, apparently to
escape. She was now seen to be French, and the Ambuscade’s hands were
turned up, and a press of sail at once made in chase of what proved to
be the French 24-gun corvette, the Bayonnaise, commanded by Captain
Richer, and coming from Cayenne, with some 30 troops and an officer as
passengers; these raising the number on board to between 240 and 250
men.
The English ship seems to have been faster than her opponent, for
she soon placed herself within comfortable firing distance, when
she hoisted her colors, and the Bayonnaise did the same. The French
ship then shortened sail, and the action began; the interchange of
broadsides continuing for about an hour, the English account stating
that, at the end of that time, the Bayonnaise was suffering very
much. It is certain that the Ambuscade was suffering, for one of her
main-deck twelve-pounders, just abreast of her gangway, had burst. Now
James, and other English naval historians scout the idea that such an
accident should have any effect upon an action, when it relates to
so dauntless a spirit as that of Commodore Rodgers, in command of an
American frigate, outnumbered by an English squadron. But in this case
it is _their_ ox which is gored, and they make the most of it, even
going so far as to trace the capture of the English ship to that cause.
By this unfortunate accident her gangway was knocked away, the boats
on the boom were stove, and other damage done; while eleven men were
wounded.
It is true that the bravest and best disciplined ship’s company has its
ardor dampened by an occurrence of the kind, as they feel that the next
gun may, at any moment, in its turn sacrifice its crew. The good fame
of a gun is as important as that of a woman, and the bursting of a gun
during an engagement is one of the most unfortunate accidents which
can occur to any ship, be the destruction great or small. In addition
to this, all the English naval historians combine in saying that the
Ambuscade had an exceptionally bad crew; and James devotes as much
space to proving this, and also that this 24-gun corvette ought not
to have taken an English ship of 32 guns, as he does to most general
actions. The accident to the gun seems to have caused so much confusion
on board the English ship that the French corvette made sail to take
advantage of it, and make her escape from a disagreeable predicament.
This act on her part seems to have recalled the Ambuscade’s Captain
to a sense of his duty, and that ship soon overtook the Bayonnaise
again--coming up to leeward, to recommence the action--but at first,
owing to a press of sail, shooting a little too far ahead.
The Bayonnaise was, at this time, much damaged in hull, rigging and
spars, and had suffered a heavy loss in officers and men--among others,
her Captain and First Lieutenant--wounded. The commanding officer of
the troops who were passengers then suggested to the only sea-officer
left on deck the trial of boarding the English ship, which was so
much the more powerful in weight of metal. The plan was assented to,
the boarders called away, the corvette’s helm was put up, and she was
allowed to drop foul of the Ambuscade, carrying away with her bowsprit
the quarter-deck barricade, wheel, mizzen-rigging and mizzen-mast of
the English frigate. It is evident that the latter must have been in a
bad state to permit this to be done.
The Bayonnaise then swung round under the Ambuscade’s stern, but still
remaining foul of her, having caught the English ship’s rudder chain,
either by a grappling iron or by the fluke of an anchor, and the
French now, by a vigorous use of musketry, commanded completely the
quarter-deck of the Ambuscade.
The marines of the Ambuscade kept up a fire in return, but were
overpowered by the steady, close fire of the French soldiers, and in a
very short time the First Lieutenant was handed below, wounded in the
groin, when he almost immediately expired.
Almost at the same moment Captain Jenkins was shot in the thigh,
breaking the bone, and was necessarily removed from the deck, as was
the Lieutenant of Marines, from wounds in the thigh and shoulder.
Scarcely had these left the deck when the Master was shot through the
head, and instantly killed. The only surviving Lieutenant, who had left
his sick bed to take part in the defence, was now wounded in the head.
The gunner at this moment came on deck, and reported the ship on fire
below and abaft, which so alarmed the uninjured portion of the crew,
on account of the neighborhood of the magazine, that they left their
quarters on the gun-deck, and went below.
The fire was occasioned by some cartridges which had been carelessly
left upon the rudder head, and which, on the discharge of a gun through
the cabin window or stern port, into the bows of the Bayonnaise, had
exploded, badly wounding every man at the gun, besides blowing out
a part of the Ambuscade’s stern, and destroying the boat which was
hanging there.
In the height of all this confusion on board the Ambuscade the French
soldiers, who, throughout, had behaved splendidly, charged across the
bowsprit of their vessel, which formed a bridge to the quarter-deck
of the Ambuscade, now undefended, and, after a short struggle on the
main deck, found themselves in possession of the frigate. There is no
doubt that this result was most humiliating to a nation who had grown
to consider themselves irresistible by sea, when the odds were not too
great. The great advantage of the Ambuscade, her gun force, was not
made the most of; and although she was evidently the faster vessel, the
Frenchman, from superior tactics, was enabled to make his superiority
in musketeers tell. In fact, the whole story shows that the English
ship was sadly deficient in discipline and drill. It was immediately
given out that the majority of her crew “were the scum of the British
navy,” but the great trouble appears to have been with the captain
himself. This officer had been promoted to the command of the Ambuscade
from the Carnatic, 74, where he had been first lieutenant, and he had
brought with him from that ship a party of seamen whom he chose to call
the “gentlemen Carnatics,” and distinguishing those men whom he found
on board the frigate by the very opprobrious epithet of “blackguard
Ambuscades.” One can hardly speak calmly of the fact that such an idiot
as this was placed in such a responsible position; and, as he himself
had raised two parties in his ship, the only wonder is that she made
so good a defence. When Captain Jenkins and his surviving officers and
ship’s company were, some months later, exchanged, a court-martial was,
of course, held upon him, for the loss of the Ambuscade. The Captain
was suffering still from the effects of his dreadful wound, and he and
the rest were acquitted, in spite of the evidence showing that his
ship was in bad discipline, and that the action had been conducted
in a lubberly manner, on the part of the English, from first to last.
No questions appear to have been pressed as to why the Bayonnaise’s
character was not earlier ascertained, whereby confusion would have
been avoided in the opening of the engagement, and the Ambuscade might
have obtained the weather-gage, and kept her adversary from boarding;
while in that position, her superiority in metal should have told. It
was proved that the hammocks were not in the nettings, in spite of the
musketry being so much used, and other equally shameful points were
made manifest. Yet Jenkins was acquitted, and the sentence of the court
avoided even naming the ship by which he had been captured. The French
took their prize into Rochefort, and great were the rejoicings, not
without cause, for a French corvette had captured an English frigate.
Richer was promoted by the French Directory, over one grade, to that of
_Capitaine de Vaisseau_, and the crew properly rewarded. The gallant
officer in command of the troops, to whom so much of the credit of the
action is due, was killed on the Bayonnaise’s deck.
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