THE BREAKING OF THE LINE[A]
The great importance of this battle seems to justify a survey of the
strength of the two fleets which took part in it. As the result of that
survey, common honesty extorts the confession that the English were
distinctly the stronger of the two in ships and guns. Very legitimate
national pride enables us to add that it was also much the better. On
that day Rodney had under his command thirty-six sail of the line,
including five three-deckers, carrying in all two thousand six hundred
and seventy-four guns. In addition to these weapons, some at least of
the English ships carried carronades--short guns with a large bore, very
effective at close quarters--which, being mounted on hitherto vacant
spaces on the upper-deck as an experiment, were not counted in the
nominal armament, but did add materially to the weight of the fire.
Grasse had thirty sail of the line, including one three-decker, carrying
in all two thousand two hundred and forty-six guns. The carronade was
not as yet in use in the French service. We had therefore a superiority
of six ships and two hundred and fourteen guns in a broadside, without
counting the carronades. On the other hand, the French ships were
generally larger vessels rate for rate than ours, and the calibre of
their guns heavier. Ingenious attempts have been made to show that by
virtue of the size of their ships, and the weight of the individual
guns, the French were really equal if not superior to us. Sir Charles
Douglas even calculated that they were two seventy-fours to the good.
But our guns were quite big enough for the work they had to do, and
battles are won by a superiority of sufficient blows. That we were
materially stronger than our enemy cannot, I think, be honestly denied.
In this calculation, too, Sir Charles was less than just to himself.
The improvements which he had introduced into our gunnery were part of
our effective strength. His locks and his carriages enabled such of our
ships as had adopted them both to fire quicker and to train their guns
farther fore and aft than the French, whereby an Englishman passing an
enemy on opposite tacks could get him under fire sooner, and keep him
under it longer than he could answer. This was a kind of superiority
which may be quoted with pride, for it was the fruit of intelligent and
zealous work. The spirit which animated Sir Charles was shared by other
captains also. There had been a great development of professional zeal
during the war, and in many ways the fittings of our ships had been
improved--for which let thanks be once more given to the power enjoyed
by our captains. The crews, too, collected early in the war by hook and
by crook, in the fashion already described, had been brought into
admirable discipline. Long cruising in fleets had given our officers a
complete knowledge of the qualities of their vessels as compared with
others--a very necessary kind of knowledge indeed when a number of ships
were to manœuvre together. Finally the spirit of the fleet was high.
In spite of the little success gained in the war hitherto, our officers
and men believed themselves to be better seamen and gunners than the
French, and had been confirmed in that belief by the fighting near St.
Kitts. They only wanted a chance. The disaster at Yorktown and the
danger of England had roused the patriotism of our seamen, whether on
quarter-deck or forecastle, and that emotion had swept the “spirit of
faction” out of their hearts. In Sandwich’s words, they knew that the
fate of the Empire was in their hands, and they did not intend that it
should be lost for want of fierce fighting. Whatever Hood might think of
Rodney, it was certain that he would obey punctually, and would do his
utmost to damage the King’s enemies. In that respect he had a
superiority over the French better than many ships and guns. There was
no such spirit among the French officers and men. There was the
gallantry of their race, there were knowledge and discipline; but there
was no enthusiasm, and not much real aptitude for the work of
sea-fighting. The jealousies which divided officers of all ranks were
not controlled by a high patriotic spirit, and the qualities of the
crews had sunk since the beginning of the war as the well-trained men
were swept off and replaced by others drawn from a poorer maritime
population than ours.
That every man may have his fair share of honour, the list of the two
fleets is here given in the order in which they went into battle.
THE ENGLISH FLEET
SHIPS GUNS CAPTAINS
Marlborough 74 Taylor Penny.
Arrogant 74 Samuel Cornish.
Alcide 74 Charles Thompson.
Nonsuch 74 William Truscott.
Conqueror 74 George Balfour.
Princesse 70 { Samuel Drake, Rear-Admiral.
{ Charles Knatchbull.
Prince George 98 James Williams.
Torbay 74 John Gidoin.
Anson 64 William Blair.
Janie 74 Robert Barber.
Russel 74 James Saumarez.
America 64 Samuel Thompson.
Hercules 74 Henry Savage.
Prothée 64 Charles Buckner.
Résolution 74 Robert Manners.
Agamemnon 64 Benjamin Caldwell.
Duke 98 Alan Gardner.
{ G. B. Rodney, Admiral.
{ Charles Douglas.
Formidable 98 { John Symonds.
{ Cranstoun.
Namur 90 Inglis.
Saint Albans 64 William Cornwallis.
Canada 74 Thomas Dumaresq.
Repulse 64 Charrington.
Ajax 74 Robert Fanshawe.
Bedford 74 { Affleck, Commodore,
{ Grave.
Prince William 64 George Wilkinson.
Magnificent 74 Robert Linzee.
Centaur 74 John Inglefield.
Belliqueuse 64 Alexander Sutherland.
Warrior 74 James Wallace.
Monarch 74 Francis Reynolds.
Barfleur 90 Samuel Hood, Vice-Admiral.
Valiant 74 John Knight
Yarmouth 64 S. G. Goodall.
Montagu 74 Anthony Parry.
Alfred 74 George Brown.
Royal Oak 74 Thomas Burnett.
FRENCH FLEET
Hercule 74 Chadeau de la Clocheterie.
Souverain 74 De Glandevés.
Palmier 74 De Martelly Chautard.
Northumberland 74 De Sainte Césaire.
Neptune 74 Renaud d’Aleins.
Auguste 80 { De Bougainville, Chef d’Escadre,
{ De Castellan.
Ardent 64 De Gouzillon.
Scipion 74 Clave.
Brave 74 D’Amblimont.
Citoyen 74 D’Ethy.
Hector 74 De la Vicomté.
César 74 De Marigny.
Dauphin Royal 70 De Roquefeuil Montpéroux.
Languedoc 80 D’Arros d’Argelos.
Ville de Paris 104 { Comte de Grasse, Lieut.-Gén.
{ De Lavilléon.
Couronne 80 Mithon de Genouilly.
Eveillé 64 Le Gardeur de Tilly.
Sceptre 74 De Vaudreuil.
Glorieux 74 D’Escars.
Diadème 74 De Monteclerc.
Destin 74 Dumaitz de Goimpy.
Magnanime 74 Le Béque.
Refléchi 64 De Médine.
Conquérant 74 De la Grandière.
Magnifique 74 Macarty Macteigne.
Triomphant 80 { De Vaudreuil, Chef d’Escadre.
{ Le Chevalier du Paullion.
Bourgogne 74 De Charitte.
Duc de Bourgogne 80 { Coriolis d’Espinouse.
{ De Champmartin.
Marseillais 74 De Castellane Majastre.
Pluton 74 D’Albert de Rions.
When Rodney was summoned by his captain of the fleet at daybreak on the
12th, and came on deck to see with his eyes the proof that his
calculation of the night before was correct, the French were straggling
over a space variously estimated at nine or at fifteen miles from east
to west to the north-east of him. The English were in a rough oval drawn
from north to south. Hood had resumed his proper place in the van;
Rodney was in the centre; Rear-Admiral Drake in the rear. A line
carried out from the leading English ship would bisect the French. As
the wind was from south of east, the trade wind of the West Indies, all
the Frenchmen to the west of that line were on the Admiral’s lee-bow,
which meant that he had every chance of forcing a battle on them before
they could again get away to windward. To the west of the French was
seen the crippled _Zélé_ in tow of the _Astrée_ going to Guadaloupe.
Rodney at once decided to try whether he could not, by threatening these
two vessels, draw the French admiral still farther to leeward. Orders
were given to some of the best sailers in Hood’s division to chase. As
soon as they had stood well out from among the English ships the effect
of the measure was manifest. Signals fluttered up the mainmast of the
_Ville de Paris_, and the French ships were seen to be coming down to
cover the _Zélé_, and to be steering to take their places in the line of
battle ahead, and astern of their admiral. This meant that Grasse had
sacrificed what remained to him of the windward position, and the fleets
were now equal as regards the wind. There was no time to be lost. At
once--it was now about a quarter to seven--the chasing ships were
recalled, but in order to avoid the delay which would be caused by
waiting till they resumed their place, Rodney decided to order the rear
to lead into action. Thus, while the chasing ships were returning to
their post in the van, the ships farthest from the enemy hauled to the
wind and stood to the north-east between the bulk of the fleet and the
land of Dominica. Each ship fell into place as her turn came, the
chasing ships from the van arriving in time to take their post in what
had now become the rear. In Captain Matthews’ plans the ships of
Admiral Drake’s division may be seen curling over the fleet, and
pointing at the French like the tail of the scorpion. The line was
formed with rapidity and without a hitch. It was, in technical language,
a line ahead on the starboard tack at a cable’s length asunder--each
ship was, that is to say, two hundred yards in front of or behind the
other in a line. From the first ship to the last there was, when the
formation was complete, a distance of more than five miles.
While the line was forming, the fleet went to breakfast. Every man not
actually at work, or the wheel, hastened to get all the food he could.
In the Admiral’s cabin a party sat down with the appetite of warriors
whom death could not daunt, and the care of veterans who foresaw the
extreme probability that no more victuals might be attainable for the
rest of that day. Douglas, the captain of the fleet; Symonds, the
captain of the _Formidable_; Paget, the Admiral’s secretary; Gilbert
Blane, his doctor; and a few others who messed at the Admiral’s table,
sat down with Rodney. Cranstoun remained on deck to watch the enemy. In
the middle of breakfast he came down with the news that on the course
they were then following the English would cut through the French.
Grasse had formed on the port tack, and was standing to the south-east
across the northerly course of the English. It was his natural object to
place himself across the mouth of the passage, and to windward of the
English if he could. The two fleets were now running along two lines
which formed an obtuse angle, of which the apex pointed to the east.
Whichever reached that apex first would weather the other. Cranstoun’s
message showed that the French would win the race. They had (though
there is some doubt on the point) been slightly favoured by a shift of
the trade wind to the north. Rodney made no answer to Cranstoun, and
doubtless thought the occasion called for none. He had always preferred
to engage to leeward, as he did in his battle with Langara. The windward
position was only valuable to him because it would enable him to force
on an action. Now, when it was a case with the French of “fight they
will, and fight they must,” he cared not a jot whether or no they
weathered the head of his line. His position compelled the enemy’s
admiral to give battle. As it turned out ill for him he has been
severely criticised by his countrymen, who do not seem to understand
that their complaints are in truth a confession of inferiority. The
experience of the previous day had shown that Rodney could not be shaken
off. On the morning of the 12th Grasse had to choose between running
away to Guadaloupe with the English after him, or standing as he was now
doing across their van. If he had endeavoured to get away on the
opposite tack he would have been unable to clear the Saints, and he
would have been taken in a trap. Not to have fought in these
circumstances would have been to acknowledge that a French fleet could
not hope to meet an English one on anything approaching to equal terms.
The plan of Grasse was a good plan enough. He hoped to cross the English
van, to cripple a few of the ships, then, when he had reached a
convenient place for tacking, to turn to windward, and make off while
Rodney was refitting his damaged ships.
The feasibility of this plan depended, for Grasse, on his power to keep
at long bowls. If a close action could be forced on them his ships would
be unable to tack under the English fire. A close action was forced. At
some moment between seven and eight o’clock the leading English ship,
the _Marlborough_, came within range. If the upper side of the obtuse
angle spoken of above is prolonged we shall get the relative position of
the fleets pretty accurately. The English formed the lower line and they
impinged on the French at about the ninth ship--the _Brave_. Rodney had
hoisted the signal to engage close to leeward. When, therefore, Captain
Taylor Penny of the _Marlborough_ found himself within musket-shot range
of the _Brave_ he put his helm up, and turning a little to port, led the
English line close along the French. Our enemy was as yet barely in
order. Bougainville, who commanded the van, had just taken his place.
Their rear was still in confusion, and Vaudreuil, who commanded there,
afterwards declared that he formed his line under small-arm fire. We
have now to figure to ourselves the two fleets filing past one another,
cannonading as they went. Both were going very slowly. The wind was
light; it was necessary to go at something below the speed of the
slowest ship, since all must retain the power to shoot ahead if
required, and so they filed slowly along at about three and a half miles
an hour. Their course would have carried the leading French ships away
from the English, but Grasse ordered them to bear down, with the
intention of putting our leading vessels under the utmost possible
amount of fire before they reached his centre and rear. Each fleet was
soon engaged from the leading ship, and the two lines hurtled past one
another in opposite directions. The English, having a margin of wind to
draw on, used it to hug the French close--so close that, as Thesiger, an
officer of the _Formidable_, said, it would have been possible to throw
a cold shot on board them as they went past. At that range the
carronades of the English ships did great execution. On board the
French, which were crowded with the soldiers who were to have conquered
Jamaica, the slaughter was terrible, and the effect of it soon visible,
first in the number of the dead, or sometimes only badly wounded, who
were hurled overboard to the sharks, and then in the slackening fire of
the French. Gilbert Blane has left it on record that although our
enemy’s fire was effective at long ranges, it grew wild and irregular at
close quarters. We could, he says, actually see the Frenchmen running
from their guns in spite of the determined efforts of the officers to
keep them steady. Captain Savage of the _Hercules_, who suffered as
badly from the gout as his Admiral, had a chair placed for himself in
the waist of his ship, and sat there leaning over the bulwarks
ironically saluting the passing enemy.
When the battle had lasted about an hour, and the English van had almost
reached the French rear, their admiral thought it was time to turn to
windward, and hoisted the order to do so twice. But the orders could not
possibly be obeyed. The French ships were yard-arm to yard-arm with the
English, and if they had tacked now would have been raked and rendered
helpless. Many of the ships cannot even have seen the signals in the fog
of smoke now hanging over both fleets. France had to “undergo her fate.”
Grasse bore on to the south, and at about nine the English van had
passed the last ship of his rear. On emerging from the rolling masses of
smoke the captains looked eagerly back for the signals at the towering
mast-head of the _Formidable_. As they looked they saw a great
three-decker heading north out of the cloud and the flames. For a moment
they thought the French admiral had doubled back on them, but as the
three-decker cleared the smoke they saw the cross of St. George, and
knew that the _Formidable_ had burst through the French line to
windward.
The movement had not been premeditated by Rodney, and the signal to
engage to leeward was still flying when he passed to windward. The
decision to depart from the old routine, according to which the English
fleet would have passed along the French and then have tacked back on
it--that decision which may be said to have affected the whole immediate
future of England--was sudden, was taken on the spur of the moment, was
equally unexpected by victor and vanquished. So much is certain; but the
exact circumstances under which it was done, and what share of the
credit ought to fall to whom, is the subject of the controversy spoken
of in the note at the beginning of this chapter. The courteous reader is
asked to remember that the incidents now about to be narrated have been
most diversely told, and still more diversely interpreted.
A glance at the list of ships given above will show that the
_Formidable_ was exactly in the middle of the English line, being the
eighteenth of the thirty-six men-of-war in it. As the French van bore in
upon ours she was engaged with each of their ships in succession. The
fleets were slipping slowly along, and it was well on for ten o’clock
before the _Formidable_ passed the eighteenth vessel in the French line.
She had gone close to them all, firing as soon as her guns could be
trained forward to meet, and as long as they could be trained aft to
follow, each foe as she defiled past. Then between each bout of fire
there would be a pause as the _Formidable_ came opposite the vacant
space between the ships in the French line, and having sent her last
broadside after one was training it forward to meet the next comer. It
must have been at a little before half-past nine that Rodney and Grasse,
whose ship was the fifteenth in the French line, saluted each other with
the cannon of their three-deckers. Up to now there had been nothing to
distinguish this from the ordinary sea-fights of the eighteenth century
save the number of the ships engaged and the closeness of the
engagement.
A chair had been placed on the quarter-deck of the _Formidable_ for the
Admiral, and he rested on it except when he was walking through the
cabins under the poop, to the gallery astern, from which he could watch
the ships of his line behind him. On the quarter-deck with him were
several whose names must not be passed over. Sir Charles Douglas was
there with his _aides_--little middies--of whom one, Charles Dashwood, a
boy of thirteen, is associated more closely than his seniors at the time
would have thought possible with the memories of the victory. Near the
wheel stood Frederick Thesiger, he who afterwards carried Nelson’s
letter to the Regent of Denmark after the battle of the Baltic. Thesiger
had completed his time as midshipman, and was waiting for his
lieutenant’s commission. He had been chosen on the recommendation of
Captain Symonds to stand by the wheel and see that the quartermasters
executed orders punctually. Gilbert Blane, not being one of the medical
staff of the ship, employed himself during the early stage in helping to
provide work for the French doctors. He worked at a gun in the
fore-cabin till he was tired.
It was thirsty work fighting in the thick pall of sulphurous smoke in
which the gunpowder soon wrapped a ship. Rodney, in one of his turns
through the cabins, called one of the middies and told him to mix a
tumbler of lemonade. The middy went to work, and, having nothing more
handy for the purpose, stirred the brew up with the hilt of his dirk.
“Child, child,” said the Admiral, “that may do for the midshipmen’s
mess. Drink that lemonade yourself, and send my steward here”--which
order the middy obeyed with alacrity.
When eighteen of the Frenchmen had gone by, each carrying away marks of
the _Formidable’s_ broadside, the Admiral was standing on the
quarter-deck, and with him was Gilbert Blane. The high bulwarks on
either side, and the hammocks stacked across the front of the
quarter-deck in a barricade, shut in the view. Rodney wished to take a
look at the French line, and, accompanied by Blane, stepped out on the
starboard gangway. They had just passed the _Sceptre_, and leaning over
the rails of the gangway they saw the _Glorieux_, seventy-four, rolling
down on them. She had just taken the fire of Captain Alan Gardner in the
_Duke_, ninety-eight, a splendidly-efficient three-decker, and was
reeling from the shock. Her captain, the Vicomte d’Escars (a name it is
now thought correct to spell Des Cars), a gentleman of the house of
Fitzjames, had been killed, and hurled overboard to the sharks. His
lieutenant, Trogoff de Kerlessi, had nailed the white flag with the
golden lilies to the stump of a mast. Rodney and Blane saw the Frenchmen
on the upper-deck throwing away rammers and sponges, and running from
the guns. A glance showed Rodney that the wind was forcing the
_Glorieux_ down on him, and that she was almost about to touch. His
broadsides were being aimed low, but not sufficiently low for that. She
had enough, but she must be crushed, and knocked out of the French line.
“Now,” said Rodney to the doctor, “comes the fight for the body of
Patroclus.” He looked round for a messenger. None was at hand, and he
turned to Blane, saying, “Run down and tell them to elevate their
metal.” The phrase was obscure to the doctor in spite of his experience
as a gunner, but Hudibras came to his help. He remembered that it is the
nature of guns that, “the higher are their pitches the lower they let
down their breeches.” He ran down with the order--which meant that the
muzzles of the guns were to be depressed to fire a sinking
broadside--and so deprived posterity of an admirable witness of what
happened on the _Formidable’s_ quarter-deck during the next few minutes.
In these minutes was taken the decision which gave its exceptional and
vital importance to the battle. While Rodney and Blane were speaking in
the gangway, or just before, there had come a shift in the wind which
affected the southern half of the two fleets simultaneously but
diversely. It was one of those currents of air common enough in the
neighbourhood of land, and it came from the south-east, striking on the
bows of the French and the sterns of the English. Our vessels going
before the wind had only to trim their sails a little to keep their
place. But it threatened to take the French aback, to blow right ahead
of them, and stop their way. To avoid this they were compelled to turn
to the right, which had the effect of throwing them into what the French
call a chequer, we a bow and quarter line--that is to say, that instead
of following one another in a line, they were suddenly spun round into
the position of the half-closed lathes of a venetian blind. The already
existing confusion in the French line was immensely increased, and a
great gap appeared just astern of the _Glorieux_, which was now right on
the starboard bow of the _Formidable_, caused probably by the fact that
the _Diadème_, the next succeeding Frenchman, was forced across the bows
of the English flag-ship.
Sir Charles Douglas was at this moment leaning on the hammocks in the
front of the quarter-deck, and he saw the evidence of the existing
confusion in the French line. That he realised the whole extent of it we
need not believe, but he saw the gap, and he saw that by passing through
it we might cut the French rear off from the centre and put it between
two fires. He jumped down from the hammocks and (so Dashwood told the
story in later years) asked his little _aide_, “Dash, where is Sir
George?”--“I think he is in the cabin, sir,” was the answer. Both turned
aft and came face to face with the Admiral, who was just stepping out of
the gangway. Sir Charles went up to him, and, taking off his hat,
pointed out the gap in the French line to Rodney, urging him to steer
through it. For a moment the Admiral hesitated. He did not like to
“have things sprung on him” at any time, and now it behoved him to
think. It was very well for the captain of the fleet to recommend the
manœuvre; he would be covered by the authority of his Admiral. For
Rodney, who would have to bear the responsibility for the consequences,
it was a very serious step indeed. He had served under Mathews, and had
not forgotten the fate which overtook that officer for departing from
the consecrated rules of battle. His first impulse was to say no, and he
did. “I will not break my line, Sir Charles,” was his answer. In his
eager conviction that he was right Douglas pressed the Admiral again,
and even so far forgot himself as to actually give the order to port to
the quartermasters. A fierce reminder of their respective positions from
Rodney stopped him before the wheel had moved. Then, as we may well
suppose, instinctively feeling the indecency of a wrangle, the two men
turned from one another for a moment. The break in the dispute calmed
both. They turned and faced one another near the wheel. Douglas
respectfully implored Rodney to take his advice. Reflection had shown
Rodney that his subordinate was right, and with a wisdom and magnanimity
which have been strangely distorted, and a courtesy which has been
wondrously misunderstood, he told Douglas to do as he pleased. At once
the order to port was repeated. Dashwood was sent flying down with the
needful directions to the lieutenants in the batteries. The _Formidable_
swung round to starboard, and cut through the French line, pouring her
broadside into the _Glorieux_ to right and the _Diadème_ to left as she
went.
When he had given his consent to the change in the course of the
_Formidable_, Rodney at once went aft to the stern-walk, to see whether
the ships behind were following. There were then no means of signalling
a new order suddenly, and the old order to engage to leeward was still
flying. If his captains behaved as others had done in the fight with
Guichen on April 17th two years before, if they stuck to the pedantic
old rules, the _Formidable_ might find herself alone to windward of the
French. Happily a very different spirit prevailed now, and Captain
Inglis of the _Namur_, the next ship astern to the _Formidable_, looking
to the spirit and not the letter, followed his Admiral through the gap,
though the signal to engage to leeward had not been hauled down. He was
himself followed by Cornwallis in the _Saint Albans_, Dumaresq in the
_Canada_, Charrington in the _Repulse_, and Fanshawe in the _Ajax_.
These vessels filed past the _Glorieux_, reducing her to a wreck.
Captain Inglis, looking after her as she dropped astern of him, saw her
almost blown out of the water by the fire of the _Saint Albans_. By this
movement all the eleven ships of Vaudreuil’s division were cut off from
the other nineteen, and forced to turn off to the west. Captain Alan
Gardner of the _Duke_, the ship next ahead of the _Formidable_, finding
that the _Diadème_ had stopped the way of the French ships astern of
her, and was in a confused tangle with them, spontaneously did as his
Admiral had just done--ported his helm and passed to windward, firing
right and left into the bewildered enemy.
In the meantime the French line had been cut in a second place. The last
ship of the English centre division was the _Bedford_, seventy-four, in
which Commodore Affleck had his broad pennant flying. The _Bedford_ had
sailed along the French line close in the now dense smoke of battle,
which would be particularly thick in the rear of the English line. As it
was to leeward the smoke of both fleets would be rolled on our ships.
Suddenly the _Bedford_ found that there was no enemy to windward of her.
She had, in fact, in the fog of gunpowder smoke passed through another
gap in the enemy’s formation, caused by the shift of the wind to the
south-east. Affleck stood on, followed by the twelve ships of Hood’s
division. The Frenchman astern of which they passed was the _César_, the
twelfth in the line. As the _Glorieux_ was the nineteenth, it will be
seen that seven French ships in the centre were cut off from their van
and rear alike. These seven--the _Dauphin Royal_, seventy; _Languedoc_,
eighty; _Ville de Paris_, one hundred and four; _Couronne_, eighty;
_Eveillé_, sixty-four; _Sceptre_, seventy-four; and _Glorieux_,
seventy-four--were huddled into a mass and torn to pieces by the fire of
the _Formidable_, and the ships astern of her as far as the _Ajax_,
which was poured into them from starboard, while thirteen of our ships,
from the _Bedford_ to the _Royal Oak_, were cannonading them from the
port side. By eleven the last ship of the English rear had passed the
_César_. Rodney had cleared the French line before. Our van under Drake
had cleared the French rear, the sportive Captain Savage of the
_Hercules_ luffing to rake the last Frenchman--the _Pluton_,
seventy-four, commanded by a very brave and skilful officer named
D’Albert de Rions--as he cleared her. Then, all our ships being up to
windward and out of the smoke, we could look back, as the wind
scattered it and rolled it to the west--could look and see such a
spectacle as no British seaman had seen in this war so far.
There to westward and south-westward of us lay the French, broken into
three fragments. On the surface of the water there was something which
was pure horror to all whose eyes were compelled to see it. Shoals of
sharks--which alone among God’s creatures the sailor tortures without
remorse, the loathsome brute which loiters to profit by his
misfortune--had collected to feed on the corpses thrown overboard, or
the living who had fallen with fragments of rigging. They were leaping
over one another, and ravening at their prey. From them the eyes of our
men turned to the scattered fragments of the French fleet. They were
three in number. Vaudreuil with the rear had been turned to the west.
Two miles south of him seven ships were huddled round the flag. Four
miles to the south-east of him again was Bougainville. His course had
taken him into the dead calm under the high land of Dominica. The
English had themselves broken into three in dividing the enemy, but they
had streamed up to windward. They could unite, and had it in their power
to select the point of attack. Between the two fleets lay the dismasted
hulks of the _César_ and the _Glorieux_, the vessels astern of which the
French line had been cut, rolling helpless on the water.
For an hour or so our advantage of position was not available. The
thunder of so many guns had beaten down the wind. Conquerors and
conquered lay bound by the calm. A little after mid-day a gentle breeze
arose, and the English streamed down on the enemy. The signal for the
line of battle was hauled down, and we advanced in no order, as needing
none against a foe already shattered. It has always been the weakness of
the French to be enslaved by rules, and to become panic-stricken when
these break down. There was panic among them now. Signal after signal
was hoisted in vain by their admiral. Bougainville, tied by ill-will as
much as by the calm, did nothing; Vaudreuil did little. The English as
they felt the wind--all of them, that is, whose rigging had not been too
severely cut up--pressed upon the enemy, steering, by a natural impulse
and without express orders, to where the mighty bulk of the _Ville de
Paris_ and the flag of Grasse pointed out the great prize. The crippled
_Glorieux_ was the first of the enemy to surrender. A gallant attempt to
save her was made by the French frigate _Richmond_, commanded by Captain
Mortemart, a gentleman, as his name shows, of a good house. He offered
to take the crippled liner in tow, but Trogoff de Kerlessi would not
allow his gallant countryman to sacrifice himself and his ship in vain.
The English were closing round. Trogoff cut the cable, telling Mortemart
to save himself, and then surrendered his shattered vessel, as a brave
man might, without dishonour. There was some honour in defeating enemies
of that stamp. The _César_ hauled down her colours soon after. The
_Hector_ and the _Ardent_ fell next. This last was a most welcome prize.
She had been taken from the English by the great combined fleet of
Frenchmen and Spaniards which cruised at the mouth of the Channel in
1779. She alone had pushed out from among Bougainville’s squadron to the
help of her admiral, and was close to him when she struck. Her captain’s
name was Gouzillon. The last of the French prizes to be taken was the
_Ville de Paris_. The light winds made our movements slow, and our ships
only came up with her when the afternoon was wearing on. They tackled
her to port and to starboard, but the admiral fought as a man fights who
wishes to atone by heroism for all faults. His cartridges were used up,
and it was necessary to hoist powder-barrels out of the hold, and serve
out the powder with the ladle. The solid fog of smoke between decks
choked the lanterns by which the men worked below. Still, until nearly
six he had not surrendered. Then, with the feeling which caused Francis
I. at Pavia to refuse to give up his sword till he could hand it to the
Viceroy of Naples, the _alter ego_ of a sovereign and in some sort his
equal, he looked about for a flag-officer to whom to surrender. At that
moment Samuel Hood bore down on him in the _Barfleur_. She had been long
becalmed, and it had been necessary to get the boats out to tow her into
the breeze. Now she was pressing on to lay alongside the _Ville de
Paris_. Grasse turned towards her, firing a gun of salute. Hood
concluded that his old friend of the fights off Martinique and St. Kitts
wished to surrender to him. He returned the salute, ranged up alongside,
and the two admirals fought a space for honour’s sake. There was no want
of cartridges on board the _Barfleur_. Her guns were cold. Her men were
fresh. Her terrible fire speedily overpowered the languid answer of the
_Ville de Paris_, whose crew, diminished by a half, were fighting
hopelessly in the dark of the smoke with guns which they could only
slowly feed with powder. After a few minutes Grasse concluded that
enough had been done. There were but three unwounded men on his
upper-deck, of whom he was one. More men had been slain in his ship than
in the whole British fleet. There were not two square feet of his upper
works unshattered by shot. His rigging was a wreck. At six o’clock he
hauled down the Fleur de Lys with his own hands. A few minutes later he
stepped into the cutter which shot alongside him from the _Barfleur_,
and was taken a prisoner to Hood. By Hood he was taken to Rodney, and so
ended a career which might have finished with honour if he had not later
disgraced himself by ignoble attempts to throw the blame of defeat on
his captains.
The battle was over, and had been over for some time; but in the opinion
of many officers the pursuit should have lasted longer. If we can
believe Thesiger, who wrote a few months later to his brother, Douglas
pressed Rodney to follow the French through the night. Having wedged
ourselves between Vaudreuil and Bougainville, it would seem that we
might have followed and crushed either. The French were certainly broken
into two. Part of them fled in panic to Curaçoa, six hundred miles off;
others to San Domingo. But Rodney thought otherwise. He--so says
Thesiger--silenced Douglas by telling him that he had already spoken too
much. The captain of the fleet was beyond dispute so stung by this, or
some similar, rebuke that he seriously thought of resigning his place to
Fanshawe of the _Ajax_. He thought better of it, and was always
afterwards perfectly loyal to his admiral when busybodies asked him if
enough had been done. “We had a great deal to do, sir, and I think you
will allow we did a great deal,” was his uniform reply. Rodney did
answer the critics by giving his reasons for not pursuing. He alleged
the crippled state of some of his ships, the probability that the French
might reunite, the chance that the prizes might be lost, the necessity
of going on to Jamaica and looking to its safety. These are, frankly,
not reasons which would have satisfied Hawke, or Rodney himself twenty
years before. But he was old, broken by disease, his hour of full
triumph had come late, he had that day had thirteen hours of incessant
strain of work and anxiety. Something must be allowed for human
weakness. The pursuit was stopped and the fleet lay to for the night.
The last incident of the battle was the loss of the _César_--a
foreshadowing of what was to follow, for none of our prizes lived to
reach England. After the surrender the French crew broke into disorder,
and one of them, entering her spirit-room with a naked light, set fire
to an unheaded cask of ratafia. The flames spread, and the _César_
burned to the water’s edge. The English prize-crew perished in her, the
lieutenant in command being seen in the stern-walk fighting the fire to
the last. No boat dared approach: the sharks were swarming under the
counter; and he stayed to die in the flames, at his post.
Such, as far as I have been able to realise it, was the great battle
sometimes called by us “of the Saints,” but most commonly “of April
12th,” and by the French termed the battle off Dominica. The failure to
pursue was a blot; but after all, as Sir Charles Douglas was wont to
say, “a great deal _had_ been done.” If we had not twenty prizes instead
of five, we had destroyed at a blow the laboriously-built-up prestige of
the French fleets in the New World, which was something. We had
restored our own nerve and shaken the enemy’s. This result was fully
shown some months later when Howe sailed on the final relief of
Gibraltar. On that occasion the combined French and Spanish fleets
shrank timidly from measuring themselves with a greatly inferior English
force. The immediate effect of the battles was to break up the French
fleet in the West Indies and to save Jamaica. Vaudreuil, who fled to San
Domingo, waited only to collect as many ships as he could, and then
sailed for the coast of North America. The French ships which had taken
refuge at Curaçoa made no further attempt to keep the sea. It is true
that during the remainder of the war, which dragged on till the
beginning of 1783, the allies collected considerable fleets and
continued to talk of renewing the attack on the West Indies. English
Ministers, when called upon to defend the peace then made, pointed to
the size of these fleets as reasons why we should accept less good terms
than the nation thought we had a right to demand. But in truth the
allies made no real use of those forces, and they were only quoted by
English Ministers as an excuse for doing what they felt to be made
necessary by the financial burden imposed by the war, and the fatigue
caused by five years of fighting. Essentially the peace was a good one.
We were, indeed, compelled to acknowledge the independence of the United
States, and we restored Minorca and Florida to Spain; but we kept
Gibraltar, we fixed our grip for ever on India, and we settled on equal
terms with France. Our position was in reality intact and our spirit
unbroken. That this was so was largely due to the victory of April 12th.
It is therefore right that this day, and the man who commanded on it,
should be remembered among the great days and the great men of the
Empire.
The battle has a place all its own in the history of our navy. It marked
the beginning of that fierce and headlong yet well-calculated style of
sea-fighting which led to Trafalgar, and made England undisputed
mistress of the sea. Perhaps a little too much has been made of the
manœuvre of “breaking the line.” The value of a manœuvre in war is
apt to depend on the value of the men who make it. The history of our
own navy contains a convincing example of that truth. In 1811 Sir
William Hoste fought an action off Lissa with a squadron of frigates
against a French frigate squadron under Dubourdieu. The Frenchman
deliberately imitated Nelson’s plan of attack at Trafalgar. Yet he was
completely beaten, and fell in the defeat. It would seem, therefore,
that something more goes to the gaining of victories than manœuvres.
In truth, the English fleet won because it was infinitely superior to
the French--a hundred years ahead of it, as the prisoners acknowledged.
If it had not so won before, it was because it had been tied down by
pedantic rules. When Rodney broke from them he gave the real superiority
of our ships a chance to exert itself. That superiority he himself had
helped to create. No Sir Charles Douglas, no Edmund Affleck, no Hood
even, can take that glory away. For the rest, are we the poorer because
we had a splendid force as well as a great commander?