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FAMOUS FIGHTERS OF THE FLEET
[Illustration: Publisher's logo]
[Illustration:
_Frontispiece_.
THE ENEMY IN SIGHT--'FULL SPEED AHEAD!'
[Looking down, on board a battleship, from the forward fighting-top.]]
FAMOUS FIGHTERS OF THE FLEET
Glimpses through the Cannon Smoke in the Days
of the Old Navy
by
EDWARD FRASER
They left us a kingdom none can take,
The realm of the circling sea,
To be ruled by the rightful sons of Blake
And the Rodneys yet to be.
Henry Newbolt.
As it was in the days of long ago,
And as it still shall be.
Rudyard Kipling.
With Illustrations
London
Macmillan and Co., Limited
New York: the Macmillan Company
1904
All rights reserved
DEDICATION
The lasses and the little ones, Jack Tars, they look to you;
The despots over yonder, let 'em do whate'er they please,
God bless the little isle where a man may still be true,
God bless the noble isle that is Mistress of the Seas.
Tennyson.
PREFACE
This book, as far as its subject is concerned, is something of an
experiment, something of a new departure. It is an attempt to interest
people by recalling some of the associations of the brave days of old
that cluster round and attach to certain historic man-of-war names. As
far as that goes, indeed, having for its subject, as it has, the doings
in battle of famous hearts of oak of the fighting times--
Those oaken giants of the ancient race
That ruled all seas,
the book ought not to require an elaborate introduction, any special
pleading on its behalf, among those whose pride it is to count
themselves the
Sons and sires of seamen
Whose realm is all the sea.
Further, it may possibly be, that in a degree, this book may serve as
a reminder, even to some of those who to-day man His Majesty's Fleet,
of what an inheritance is theirs, and how tremendous an obligation.
The heroism of the Old Navy lives evermore in the man-of-war names of
the modern navy, and should lead our sailors more even than they do,
to 'glory,' in Kinglake's stirring language, in their ships' 'ancient
names, connecting each with its great traditions, and founding upon the
cherished syllables that consciousness of power which is a condition of
ascendancy in war.'
The names of the men-of-war, the stories of which are told here, stand
in the forefront among the famous names of the Sea Service for their
associations with great and dashing exploits. They are possibly not the
most widely known of all, not so familiar to everybody as are certain
other names similarly associated with other famous feats of arms of the
fighting days,--but that, after all, is perhaps all the more reason
that their stories should be told now. 'We are few, but of the right
sort,' said Nelson on one of the memorable occasions of his life,
and it is hoped that the half-dozen stories within these covers may
with justice say the same for themselves. The story of Lord Charles
Beresford's little _Condor_, if not an Old Navy event, has much in
keeping with the old order, and is included on its merits as being as
gallant a piece of fighting-work in its way as has been done in the
British Navy in our time.
My aim throughout has been to interest my readers. That a man-of-war's
life-record is not necessarily a dull subject, a mere collection
of dry facts, nor its incidents all matters of common knowledge,
the following pages, it is hoped, will show. In the main, as far as
possible, the accounts and impressions of eye-witnesses of the various
events related, as written down while the events were in progress
or were still fresh in recollection, old logs and letters, diaries
and journals, and the newspapers of the time, have been relied on.
Strangely appealing and mutely eloquent at times are some of our old
ship logs, with their pages faded and yellow and blurred, often with
the stain on them of what was once, more than a century ago, a fleck of
fresh sea spray that rested there just as it was whisked in through an
open port; now and then indeed with on them a dull rusty brown smear or
spot, grimly suggestive of something else. And, too, a terse, blunt
note, scrawled painfully down after a day under fire by the hard fist
of some rough Old Navy skipper, gone long since to his last reckoning,
says more--a good deal more--often, than pages could do of smoother
prose, by people who were not on the spot.
Practically all the literature of the subject in book form has been
laid under contribution. Among modern writers I am particularly
indebted to Captain Mahan and Professor J.K. Laughton, R.N., of King's
College, London, and to Mr. David Hannay, to whose brilliant monograph
on Rodney I am in a special degree under obligation.
For myself, I am well aware of the pitfalls that beset the path of the
landsman who presumes to write of nautical matters. So, indeed, it has
ever been since Agur the son of Jakeh, in the days of King Solomon,
placed it on record that "the way of a ship in the midst of the sea"
was "too wonderful." For any shortcomings of mine in this regard I ask
the kindly indulgence of my naval readers.
Throughout the stories, I trust, the amplest justice has been done,
and the fullest credit given, to those who were our gallant foes on the
several occasions.
In conclusion, I am greatly indebted to Lord Selborne, First Lord of
the Admiralty, for allowing me to use information which has proved
invaluable for my purposes; to Mr. A.B. Tucker of the _Graphic_ for
assistance with my proofs and maps, and suggestions as to certain
footnotes; and to Commander C.N. Robinson, R.N., for placing at my
disposal his fine collection of old naval prints and drawings.
E.F.
CONTENTS
PAGE
1. The _Monmouths_ in War 1
How Arthur Gardiner fought the _Foudroyant_.
2. Rodney's Ship on Rodney's Day 43
The _Formidable_ that broke the line.
3. Won at the Cannon's Mouth 172
His Majesty's Ship _Undaunted_.
4. 'Billy Blue': A Ballad of the Fleet 199
One of the _Royal Sovereign's_ days.
5. The 'Fighting' _Téméraire_. 213
Where, how, and when she made her name.
6. 'Well Done, _Condor_!' 287
Alexandria, 1882.
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Enemy in Sight--'Full Speed Ahead!' _Frontispiece_
PAGE
'Ready, Aye Ready!' Our Cruiser _Monmouth_ of to-day 1
In Action at Midnight 25
The _Monmouth_ fighting the _Foudroyant_ at close quarters 28
'Success to the _Formidable_!' Nov. 17, 1898 43
'Ut Veniant Omnes!' The Big 50-Ton Guns of the
_Formidable_ 46
Rodney's _Formidable_ on the day before her Launch 52
Rodney's Sword 53
Admiral Lord Rodney, K.B. (after Gainsborough's
portrait) 57
The Pitons of St. Lucia 61
The Count De Grasse 63
Clock-face from the _Ville de Paris_ 71
Bell of the _Ville de Paris_ 72
Chart showing Rodney's pursuit of De Grasse 83
Monument of the three Captains--Blair, Bayne, and
Lord Robert Manners--in Westminster Abbey 111
Fighting the Guns on the Main Deck 114
The Critical Moment of Rodney's Battle--how the
French Line was broken 122
The _Formidable_ breaking the Line. April 12, 1782 126
One of the 'Fighting Lanterns' of the _Ville de Paris_ 147
De Grasse's Flag comes down. Rodney watching the
Surrender of the _Ville de Paris_ 148
'Count De Grasse resigning his Sword to Admiral
Rodney' 150
The 'Rodney Temple,' Spanish Town, Jamaica 162
Admiral De Grasse as a Prisoner of War 163
Captain Robert Faulknor 172
Captain Faulknor storming Fort Louis 187
The Death of Captain Faulknor 197
'Billy Blue'--Admiral the Hon. Sir William Cornwallis,
G.C.B. 199
'Cornwallis's Retreat' 208
The 'Fighting' _Téméraire_ tugged to her last Berth to
be broken up 213
Where Turner met the _Téméraire_ 215
Camp of the Grand Army at Boulogne, 1804 227
Captain Lucas--the French hero of Trafalgar 253
The Battle of Trafalgar. Oct. 21, 1805--2.15 P.M. 260
Admiral Villeneuve's Sword 265
Admiral Villeneuve's Signature 279
The _Téméraire_ entering Portsmouth Harbour on her
return from Trafalgar. Dec. 20, 1805 281
Relics of the 'Fighting' _Téméraire_ 284
Alexandria--July 11, 1882. The _Condor_ attacking
Fort Marabout 287
Bombardment of Alexandria. July 11, 1882--9 A.M. 295
Vice-Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, K.C.B. 298
[Illustration: 'READY, AYE READY!' OUR CRUISER _MONMOUTH_ OF TO-DAY
From a drawing by W. Fred Mitchell, by kind permission of Messrs. J.
Griffin & Co., Portsmouth.]
I
THE _MONMOUTHS_ IN WAR
HOW ARTHUR GARDINER FOUGHT THE _FOUDROYANT_
Aye stout were her timbers and stoutly commanded,
In the annals of glory unchalleng'd her name;
Aye ready for battle when duty demanded,
Aye ready to conquer--or die in her fame!
_Old Song._
The _Monmouth_ of to-day is one of our 'County Cruisers'--and among
them one of the smartest and best. Her special rôle in war-time will
be to help in safeguarding the commerce of the British Empire on the
high seas, to see that the corn-ships and the cattle-ships from across
the Atlantic, on which the people of these islands depend for their
existence from day to day, reach port without molestation by the
'corsair cruisers' of the enemy. It will be her duty to patrol on the
trade routes far and wide, and chase off hostile ships at sight, or run
them down and fight them. All that, with other duties at times thrown
in:--
For this is our office, to spy and make room.
As hiding, yet guiding the foe to their doom;
Surrounding, confounding, to bait and betray
And tempt them to battle the seas' width away.
For her work, whatever it may be, the _Monmouth_ is well equipped. She
carries quick-firing guns and Krupp steel armour on her sides, and can
steam at high speed--23 knots, or, on occasion, a trifle more.
A glance round on board this brand new twentieth-century cruiser of
ours may be of interest at the outset.
An ugly customer to tackle looks the _Monmouth_ in her 'war-paint' of
sombre Navy grey, devoid, as are our modern men-of-war, of all that has
to do with prettiness and the merely decorative.
Mis arreos son las armas,
Mi descanso el pelear,
My ornaments are arms,
My pastime is in war,
is the motto of the Royal Navy of our day.
A big ship is the _Monmouth_, a first-class cruiser of not far short of
10,000 tons displacement,--9800 tons, to be exact,--a floating weight
heavier than all the mass of iron and steel in the Eiffel Tower. She
measures over all, from end to end, from ram to rudder, 463-1/2 feet.
To give an idea, in another way, of the ship's size. If she were stood
on end inside St. Paul's Cathedral, her bows would project 60 feet
above the cross over the dome. Set up on end beside the Clock Tower at
Westminster, the ship's length would overtop the tower by half as high
again. The Monument piled on the top of the Nelson Column would need an
extra 50 feet to equal the _Monmouth_ from stem to stern. Propped up
against Beachy Head, the _Monmouth_ would overtop the turf at the edge
of the cliff summit fully 90 feet. Laid lengthways inside St. Paul's,
the _Monmouth_ would fill the whole length of the nave and chancel from
the western door to the reredos. Placed along the front of Buckingham
Palace, the _Monmouth's_ hull would overlap the façade for 50 feet on
either side. In width the ship is 66 feet broad amidships,--22 yards,
just the length of a cricket-pitch, or one foot wider than London
Bridge after its recent enlargement. It takes 5 tons weight of paint to
coat the hull above water, and 6 tons to coat it below; and costs, the
single item of paint by itself, every time it is laid on--£800.
Her three funnels each stand up 75 feet into the air--very nearly
the height of the Round Tower of Windsor Castle above the mound at
its foot. Each funnel weighs 20 tons, and costs £400 to make--a
year's pay of a colonel of hussars. In diameter each is the exact
size, to an inch, of the 'Two-penny Tube.' If they were laid flat, a
life-guardsman in King's Birthday regimentals could trot through them.
Each lower mast is a steel tube, 80 feet from end to end and weighing
20 tons. The rudder weighs 18 tons; and the ram, a steel casting, 19
tons. The propellers each weigh 12 tons, and are each 16 feet across
from tip to tip. The stern-post weighs 20 tons.
The armour on the conning-tower is 10 inches thick, and weighs 65 tons,
the weight of a Great Western express engine. It cost £7500--a sum
equal to the lumped salaries for one year of all the Sea Lords of the
Admiralty. The 10 inches of nickel steel of which it is made can stand
a harder blow than the 17 inches of iron armour on the turrets of the
old _Inflexible_. The conning-tower is the main 'fighting station'
of the ship, the nerve-centre of the mighty organisation. Thence in
action, from behind a ring-fence of solid metal, are controlled the
huge engines, far down below, impelled by
The strength of twice ten thousand horse
That serve the one command,
--if one may vary Mr. Kipling,--engines of the power of twenty-two
thousand horses, the strength of an army corps of cavalry; also
the steering of the ship and the firing of the guns. By means of a
simple arrangement in the three primary colours--red, blue, and
yellow--painted in bands round the walls of the conning-tower inside,
the captain can tell at a glance, at any moment, which of his guns, and
how many of them, can train on an enemy at any given point.
The _Monmouth's_ 'fighting-weight' is another matter. Fourteen 6-inch
guns, Vickers-Maxims of the latest pattern, contribute something to
that. This is the sort of weapon the 6-inch gun is. Imagine one set
up in Trafalgar Square to fire with extreme elevation. Its 100-pound
shells would drop on Kingston Bridge in one direction; beyond Harrow,
ten miles off, in another. Other shells would burst over Barnet; sweep
the woodland rides of Epping Forest; startle the tennis-players on the
trim lawns of Chislehurst in Kent. And not many seconds would elapse
between the flash of the discharge and the shell doing its work.
Ten miles, of course, is the farthest that the gun could shoot, its
'estimated extreme range.' In war-time that sort of firing would not be
worth while, as it would be impossible to mark the shots. Seven miles,
roughly, or 12,000 yards, is the limit the gun is sighted for. Then
again, imagine our gun firing at a mark. At 2000 yards, the minimum
engaging distance in naval war because of torpedoes, aiming from
Trafalgar Square at a target set up, say, in Ludgate Circus or at Hyde
Park Corner, the shot would smash through a slab of wrought iron 14
inches thick as easily as a stone goes through a pane of glass. Firing
at 6000 yards, the maximum distance for opening action in ordinary
circumstances, at a target set up at Hammersmith, for example, the shot
would cut a hole clean through 6-1/2 inches of wrought iron--armour
2 inches thicker than our first ironclad, the _Warrior_, had on her
sides. Fired with a full charge of 25 lbs. of cordite, the shot leaves
the gun at a speed of 2775 feet (or half a mile and forty-five yards)
a second--a pace capable of carrying it in a minute as far as Reading;
with energy sufficient to toss Cleopatra's Needle 30 feet into the air
as lightly as a schoolboy flings up a wicket, or heave the biggest
railway express engine 100 feet high, to hurl an elephant over the
Eiffel Tower, or a cart-horse out of sight to three times the height of
Snowdon.
Every round from one of the _Monmouth's_ 6-inch guns costs the country
£12. The gun itself costs £1700. As a fact, each gun takes five months
of work, night and day, to make; and weighs 7-1/2 tons, like all modern
naval guns of any size, it is a 'wire gun,' constructed of steel tape
wound round an inner tube or 'barrel,' in the same way that the string
is laid round the handle of a cricket-bat, and jacketed over by an
outer steel tube. Upwards of 18,200 yards of steel 'wire' are used
for each 6-inch gun, 10-1/2 miles of it--a length that, pulled out
straight, would stretch for half the distance between Dover and Calais.
The set of sights for each gun, as an item by itself, costs £80.
The _Monmouth's_ 6-inch guns are each capable of firing from five to
eight shots a minute, and there are on board, besides, ten 12-pounders,
three 3-pounders, and some Maxims. The 12-pounders cost £300 each, and
take four months to make.
In action, the _Monmouth_, fighting both broadsides at once, would
let fly at the enemy at each discharge two-thirds of a ton of
projectiles; within the first minute 3-1/2 tons weight of metal; every
five minutes, 18 tons--all bursting shells. That is the _Monmouth's_
'fighting-weight.'
To supply her guns the _Monmouth_ carries, stowed away in the different
magazines far down in the recesses of the hold, 200 tons weight of
ammunition--30 to 40 tons of it in cordite cartridges; the rest in shot
and loaded shell, with each projectile painted its differentiating
colour--white-banded 'armour-piercers,' red-tipped shrapnel, yellow
lyddite, and so on.
Electricity works the great hooded turrets on the forecastle and
quarter-deck, each of 4-inch nickel steel and carrying a pair of 6-inch
guns, mounted side by side in double-barrelled sporting-gun fashion
on a twin mounting, training the eighty odd tons of dead-weight to
right and left, or from one side of the ship to the other, through
three-quarters of a circle, as easily as one wheels one's arm-chair
in front of the fire after dinner. Electricity also 'feeds' the guns,
both in the turrets and in the casemates, as fast as they can be fired,
bringing up the ammunition to the guns directly from the magazines.
The 4-inch Krupp steel armour on the _Monmouth's_ sides at the
water-line, from the ram for three-quarters of the ship's length
aft, cost to manufacture, in round figures, £60,000--equal to the
total yearly income of four Archbishops of Canterbury or six Lord
Chancellors. Two 'turtle-back' decks of thin steel armour further help
to keep out shot. Altogether, in dead-weight, the armour all over
the ship--on the sides, decks, bulkheads, conning-tower, casemates,
barbettes, ammunition-supply tubes--amounts to 1800 tons, a fifth of
the ship's entire displacement weight in sea-going trim.
Then another detail, and the most important of all. Speed, for a
cruiser, is, of course, the prime essential. It means the power
of picking out a foe, of running down a foe, the command of the
weather-gage, the choice of the range, the power of bringing on or
refusing battle. Twenty-three knots an hour, or 26-1/2 statute miles,
is the _Monmouth's_ best pace. Twenty-three knots an hour means the
covering of a land mile in 2 minutes 36 seconds; or 100 yards in 7-4/5
seconds. In modern athletics 9-3/5 seconds is the record for 100 yards.
The record for the Oxford and Cambridge boat race works out at under
11 knots an hour--considerably less than the _Monmouth's_ everyday
cruising speed in time of peace.
How it is done is, of course, an engine-room affair. Two main engines
drive the ship: one engine to each of the immense 16-feet-wide
twin-screws. At full speed they work up to an aggregate power of
twenty-two thousand horses: eleven thousand horses each engine.
Thirty-one boilers, of the much-maligned Belleville type, supply the
steam. What that means the staff below have good reason to know. The
thirty-one boilers, with their 'economisers,' provide seven thousand
tubes to be looked after and kept clean. Collectively, the boiler-tubes
offer to the fires in the stoke-hold a total heating-surface of 50,300
square feet: an area, that is, of an acre and a sixth, a space about
equal to Trafalgar Square within the roadway, or the floor-space of the
Albert Hall. Each boiler has two furnaces to heat it, making sixty-two
in all. When all are alight they burn 40 tons of coal at once, on a
grate-area of 1610 square feet; practically giving off a square space
of flame 170 yards each way.
The main engines, however, are by no means all. There are on board
sixty-five separate 'auxiliary engines' besides. The weight of the
machinery alone on board the _Monmouth_, amounts to 1750 tons--a fourth
of the total weight of the ship.
Six hundred and eighty officers and men form the complement of the
_Monmouth_, and their pay costs the nation £32,000 a year. To feed
them, 'bare navy,' costs two-thirds of that sum a year. The ship
herself, as she floats, represents to the country a value not very far
short of three-quarters of a million sterling, or, put in concrete
form, 8 tons of sovereigns--a railway truck packed tight. Our first
ironclad, the _Warrior_, cost less than half the amount expended on the
_Monmouth_. The _Collingwood_, a first-class battleship of eighteen
years ago, cost to complete £20,000 less than the price paid for the
_Monmouth_ cruiser of to-day. Ten _Victorys_ or _Royal Georges_ could
have been built and fitted for sea at the cost of this one cruiser of
ours.
Such, in brief, are some of the 'points' of our modern _Monmouth_. The
reputation that she has to live up to, the ancestry of her famous name,
in particular the magnificent feat of arms that one of our _Monmouths_,
the most famous of all, once achieved--these have now to be told.
* * * * *
The _Monmouth_, as a fact, bears a name that ranks second to none
for brilliant associations and memories of heroism. Hardly another
man-of-war has so many 'battle honours' to its credit. No ship of the
Old Navy perhaps ever won such distinction in battle for sheer hard
fighting as did the six _Monmouths_, one after the other, from which
our cruiser _Monmouth_ of to-day takes her name. Were it possible for
His Majesty's ships-of-war to have ship flags for display at reviews
or on other ceremonial occasions, just as the regiments of the army
use regimental colours, the _Monmouth's_ flag would show a record of
upwards of thirty fights, and even then the list would not be complete.
No flag, probably, could display the detailed record of the occasions
on which _Monmouths_ of old did their duty before the enemy at sea.
The navy owes the name to Charles the Second, who introduced it on the
roll of the fleet as a mark of special favour and a paternal compliment
to Lucy Walters' ill-starred son, the vanquished of Sedgemoor, whose
headless body now lies beneath the altar of the Chapel of St. Peter ad
Vincula in the Tower.
That was in the year of the Dutch attack on Chatham, and the same
year saw our first _Monmouth's_ first fight. Mr. Pepys's 'complaints'
notwithstanding, the _Monmouth_ made a good show on the occasion.[1]
Her allotted duty was to bar the approach to the iron chain stretched
across the Medway below Upnor Castle, and Captain Clarke, the
_Monmouth's_ captain, kept his ship at her post until the position was
no longer tenable. The _Monmouth_ later on was in the thick of the
fight in the tremendous battle off Solebay, where James, Duke of York,
defeated the Dutch fleet under Admiral Ruyter after nearly sixteen
hours at close quarters; in Prince Rupert's three battles with the
Dutch in 1673; and at La Hogue.
Our second _Monmouth_ was with Rooke when he made his swoop on the
Vigo galleons--which dashing affair is commemorated to this day in the
name of Vigo Street, off Regent Street;--took a distinguished part in
the capture of Gibraltar; fought the French off Malaga; and helped
Byng--Sir George Byng, Viscount Torrington, the father of the other
Byng known to English history, the Byng who beat the enemy and was not
shot--to settle the Spanish fleet off Cape Passaro in the year 1718.
The next _Monmouth_ had a hand in defeating two French fleets within
six months--first with Anson and then with Hawke, in May and October
1747. This was the _Monmouth_ whose brilliant capture of the great
French flagship the _Foudroyant_ in a desperate ship-to-ship duel at
night forms our main story here.
The fourth _Monmouth_, at the close of a hot and bloody day, after a
drawn battle with the French in the West Indies, in July 1779, received
the unique compliment of being toasted that same night at dinner by
the officers of the enemy's flagship--'To the brave little black
English ship!' Nor is it easy to match another story of how this same
_Monmouth_, in battle in the East Indies in 1782, resisted the fiercest
onsets of the mighty De Suffren and his best captains, holding her own
at bay, and stubbornly standing up to five French seventy-fours at
once. Her main and mizen masts were shot down; the wheel was cleared
of the men at it three times; the colours were shot away twice. Still,
though, the _Monmouth_ fought on--until help came. Only three men were
left alive on the _Monmouth's_ quarter-deck when the fight was over;
one being her captain, James Alms, a sturdy son of Sussex, who stood
at his post dauntlessly to the end, though twice wounded by splinters,
with his coat ripped half off by a shot, with two bullet-holes through
his hat, and his wig set on fire.
Yet another _Monmouth_ proved herself the bravest of the brave at
Camperdown.
The brief summary of the _Monmouths'_ deeds of valour here given is, of
course, not nearly all. It would take a big book to do adequate justice
to the _Monmouths'_ war record--and there need not be a dull page in
the volume.
So we pass on to what is by common consent accounted the brightest gem
in the _Monmouth's_ coronet of fame, her fight with the _Foudroyant_, a
French ship powerful enough to have sent the _Monmouth_ to the bottom
at the first broadside, a set-to that lasted half through a February
night, and ended the right way.
Now clear the ring, for hand to hand
The manly wrestlers take their stand.
It was in February 1758, in the middle of the Seven Years' War. The
British Mediterranean fleet in that month was blockading a French
squadron that had sought shelter in the Spanish naval harbour of
Carthagena. The squadron, numbering seven ships of the line and two
frigates, had set sail from Toulon in January to reinforce the French
fleet on the coast of Canada, and assist in the defence of Louisbourg,
Cape Breton, which, as was known at Versailles, was to be attacked in
force in the following summer. They counted on being able to evade the
British Mediterranean fleet and give it the slip by running through the
Straits of Gibraltar under cover of a dark winter's night. But _ils se
faisaient un tableau_, that fault against which Napoleon in later days
was always cautioning his generals. It all depended on the chance of
their getting past Gibraltar unseen.
Unfortunately for the French plans, the British Admiralty were well
aware of what was to be attempted. The fitting-out of the squadron
at Toulon had been carried on with the greatest secrecy, but not so
secretly that the British admiral at the head of the Mediterranean
fleet had not learnt all about it. Admiral Osborn had also been warned
from home of the probable destination of the French ships. The result
was that when the French came they found him cruising with twelve
line-of-battle ships a little to eastward of the Rock, and with a
chain of look-out frigates stretching right across from Ceuta to Cape
de Gata. M. de la Clue, the French admiral, found his way out of the
Mediterranean barred, and having only seven ships of the line with him
to the British commander's twelve, he turned aside and ran into the
'neutral' harbour of Carthagena.[2] He only got inside the port in the
nick of time. Just as M. de la Clue's ships let go anchor within the
Spanish batteries. Admiral Osborn's ships, duly warned by signals from
their look-out frigates of every movement of the French squadron, came
hastening up.
De la Clue sent off an urgent appeal for reinforcements, and in
response five fresh ships of the line and a frigate were despatched
from Toulon, in charge of the Marquis du Quesne, _Chef d'Escadre_,
or, as we call the rank, Commodore. With these additional ships De la
Clue would have the same numbers exactly as his adversary, and should,
the French considered, be able to fight his way out. The Toulon ships
sailed for Carthagena on the 25th of February with the idea of running
the gauntlet of the blockading fleet and joining M. de la Clue at
night. Again, however, Admiral Osborn was forewarned of the enemy's
approach, and his look-out frigates did their work. Two of the French
ships, pushing ahead of the others, managed, during the night of the
27th of February, to get past the British scouting frigates off Cape
Palos and turn into Carthagena unseen, but the main French force, three
ships of the line and the frigate, were caught in the act.
Soon after daybreak on the 28th of February--a bright, clear
morning--the British frigate _Gibraltar_, cruising some twenty leagues
north-east of Cape Palos, spied four strange sail away on the horizon
to the north-east of her. The _Gibraltar's_ signals were repeated by
the _St. George_ and the _Culloden_ and then Admiral Osborn ordered
part of his fleet off Carthagena to head towards the strangers and
chase. He had at the same time, of course, to keep his grip on M.
de la Clue inside Carthagena and prevent him from making use of the
opportunity to break out.
The strangers showed no colours and were too far off to be identified,
but it was certain they could only be French ships. Indeed, too, as the
English turned towards them, they began to edge away. A little later
they divided and went off on different courses. One ship, a two-decker,
stood in directly for the land. The smallest, the frigate, stood
seaward, to the south-west. To cut off the two-decker and stop her from
getting into Spanish waters the _Monarch_ and _Montague_ were detached
and went off chasing to the north-west. The frigate was already
practically out of reach. A little later the remaining two French
ships, both two-deckers, were seen to draw apart. One of them headed as
if to work round into Carthagena. The other, the biggest ship of the
whole squadron, held on down the coast, as though to draw the British
after her. In pursuit of the first of these two two-deckers went the
_Revenge_ and the _Berwick_. The _Monmouth_ and the _Swiftsure_, with
the _Hampton Court_ following them, went after the big ship. Of what
force the French ships were, or their identity, nobody of course could
tell as yet. They were too far off for the ports on their broadsides to
be counted.
It is with the _Monmouth_ and her chase that we are particularly
concerned.
From off the _Monmouth's_ deck all that at first could be seen of the
chase was that she 'loomed large,' as the old sea phrase went--looked
likely to be a tough customer. That, though, was so much the better.
Going ahead before the wind with every reef shaken out, on her best
point of sailing, the _Monmouth_ soon outstripped the _Swiftsure_ and
the _Hampton Court_. By early in the afternoon she had left them both
some leagues astern--mere dots on the far horizon. At the same time
she was overhauling the big Frenchman fast. The _Monmouth_ had the
reputation of being the fastest line-of-battle ship in the Royal Navy.
'She never gave chase to any ship that she did not come up with,' said
the newspapers of her, when, in 1767, the _Monmouth_, unfit for further
service and worn out after twenty-five years on the effective list of
the fleet, was brought in to be broken up. To-day the ship displayed
a speed in keeping with her reputation. Hand over hand the _Monmouth_
drew up nearer and nearer to her prospective foe, which loomed ever
larger and larger. From the stranger's vast bulk and what gun-ports of
her double tier could be counted end-on, from nearly dead astern, the
chase was either an eighty-gun ship or an eighty-four.
If that was really so, it made all the difference in the world. French
eighty-fours were at that day the most powerfully armed ships afloat.
A French eighty-four carried 42-pounders as her main armament, and
threw a broadside of 1136 lbs. at every discharge. That, in point of
fact, was heavier metal than the _Royal George_ herself, the biggest
first-rate in the British fleet, could throw. The _Monmouth_ was a
small third-rate, one of the very smallest ships of the line in the
Royal Navy, a sixty-four. Her heaviest guns were 24-pounders. Her total
broadside amounted only to some 540 lbs. There would also be on board
the eighty-four from 800 to 900 men, as against 470 in the _Monmouth_.
Who and what was the stranger? One man on board the _Monmouth_ knew,
and apparently one man only.
The captain of the _Monmouth_ knew. He had already identified the ship
ahead of him as the great _Foudroyant_ of 84 guns, until recently the
flagship of the French Mediterranean fleet. Arthur Gardiner had good
reason to know the _Foudroyant_.
Gardiner had been Byng's flag-captain, and the _Foudroyant_ had been
the flagship of the French fleet off Minorca. The evidence at Byng's
trial had absolutely exonerated Captain Gardiner.[3] It showed that
Admiral Byng himself had practically taken the charge of the flagship
out of his captain's hands, and had rejected his advice to go straight
for the enemy without waiting for ships that were out of station,
but in spite of that Gardiner had refused to be satisfied. He felt
his connection with the affair bitterly, as a personal disgrace, he
said. Indeed, as he told one of his friends, he only lived to find an
opportunity of wiping out what was a slur on his good name, a stain
on his honour. Apparently the idea became fixed in Captain Gardiner's
mind that he was a marked man, that people said things of him;
especially, that it was thought he had been 'shy' about laying his
ship alongside the French flagship. That was intolerable, and out of
it grew a feeling of peculiar antipathy towards this particular ship,
the _Foudroyant_, that had become a sort of monomania with Captain
Gardiner. It must, in these circumstances, have seemed to Captain
Gardiner like the hand of Providence, when, some four months after the
Byng court-martial, he was appointed to the _Monmouth_ and ordered out
to the Mediterranean. And now his day had actually come. There was the
very _Foudroyant_ right ahead of him, by herself, and with his own ship
overtaking her fast.
At a quarter-past one in the afternoon the _Foudroyant_ ran a red
flag up to the foretopgallant mast-head.[4] Apparently it was meant
as a signal to her nearest consort, the ship that the _Revenge_ and
_Berwick_ were in pursuit of, _L'Orphée_, to hoist her colours and
commence firing. As the _Monmouth_ as yet was out of gunshot, three
or four miles distant, the _Foudroyant_ had no need for the moment
to hoist her own colours--nor did she show any until towards four
o'clock, when the _Monmouth_ had at length begun to come within range.
Then, exactly at six minutes to the hour, as an eye-witness notes, the
French flag was displayed on the _Foudroyant's_ ensign staff, and a
commodore's broad pennant at the main.
The _Monmouth's_ men had not long to wait.
On the stroke of four o'clock a spurt of flame leapt from one of the
stern-chase ports of the _Foudroyant_, and as the smoke blew away
to leeward the boom of a heavy gun came over the waters towards the
_Monmouth_. It was the first shot. The ball splashed in the water
not far off, and then the _Foudroyant_ fired a second shot--followed
quickly by a third. The enemy had got the range. That, too, was
enough for Captain Gardiner. His heavier guns could at least carry
as far as the _Foudroyant's_ guns, and without waiting longer the
_Monmouth's_ bow-chasers took up the game. 'Soon after being in gunshot
of our chase,' says Lieutenant Carkett, the first lieutenant of the
_Monmouth_, in his journal, 'she, having up French colours, began to
fire her stern-chase at us, which we soon after returned with our
bow-chase, and continued for about an hour, then ceased firing as she
did, except a single gun now and then.'[5]
By this time, about five o'clock, the wind had fallen very light, but
the _Monmouth_ still continued to gain steadily on her opponent. She
was single-handed. The _Swiftsure_ and the _Hampton Court_ were hull
down on the horizon, though they were still following with all sail
set. The rest of the fleet was quite out of sight.
Just before the _Foudroyant_ began firing, Captain Gardiner, as we are
told, called all hands aft. His address to them was brief, but what he
said was to the point. 'That ship has to be taken, my lads, above our
match though she looks. I shall fight her until the _Monmouth_ sinks.'
Then they piped down and returned to quarters.
A little before this, while pacing up and down the quarter-deck with
Lieutenant Campbell, a young army officer from Gibraltar who was on
board in charge of a small detachment of soldiers (600 men from the
Gibraltar garrison had been lent to Admiral Osborn to assist on deck
in ships that were short-handed), he had said to the young officer,
pointing to the _Foudroyant_ ahead of them: 'Whatever happens to you
and me, that ship must go into Gibraltar.'
In that spirit Captain Gardiner took the _Monmouth_ into action as the
evening began to close in--
Her ports all up, her battle-lanterns lit,
And her leashed thunders gathering for their leap.
Captain Gardiner had a worthy antagonist. The Marquis du
Quesne-Menneville, whose broad pennant flew at the _Foudroyant's_
mast-head that day, had the reputation of being as able an officer as
any in the French service. No braver man ever wore the _bleu du Roi_.
And he commanded a man-of-war that was, by common consent, considered
the finest ship in all King Louis's navy. Only a short time before
this a French officer, a prisoner of war, in conversation with one
of his captors, had said of the _Foudroyant_: 'No single ship in the
world can take her, not even your new _Royal George_! She can fight all
to-day, and to-morrow, and the next day, and still go on fighting!'
The _Foudroyant's_ weight of metal, indeed, was heavy enough to have
sent the _Monmouth_ to the bottom at a single discharge. M. du Quesne,
however, did not think fit to let the _Monmouth_ come up alongside. He
would not venture to bring-to and accept the _Monmouth's_ challenge
because of the _Swiftsure_ and the _Hampton Court_. They were a long
way off, several hours distant, but they were to him, as far as the
_Foudroyant_ was concerned, an enemy 'in being,' and he kept on before
the wind.
'At half-past seven,' says Lieutenant Carkett, 'we came very nigh her,
gave our ship a yaw, and discharged what guns we could bring to bear on
her.' This meant checking the ship's way and hauling up at an angle to
her course, turning off as it were to let fly a broadside right ahead.
Apparently the _Monmouth_ lost ground in so doing. According to the
first lieutenant's log, Captain Gardiner did not repeat the manoeuvre,
and it took the _Monmouth_ nearly an hour to regain the distance that
she dropped back.
'At half-past eight,' says Lieutenant Carkett, 'we came to a close
engagement.'
[Illustration: IN ACTION AT MIDNIGHT
From the engraving after T. Stothard, R.A.]
The _Monmouth_ now ranged up on the _Foudroyant's_ larboard quarter
and hurled into her a crashing broadside of round-shot and grape, at
half musket range. It was the first heavy blow, and it got home. Then
fastening with a bulldog's grip on her big opponent, the _Monmouth_ set
to and blazed away fiercely into the French ship as fast as the guns
could be loaded and run out.
Nothing could be more masterly than the way the British captain handled
his ship. Captain Gardiner knew his business. He meant to settle his
personal score with the _Foudroyant_ once for all; but he had no idea
of sacrificing needlessly the life of a single man. There was to be
no reckless clapping of the little _Monmouth_ side by side with the
_Foudroyant_. Gardiner was well aware of the weight of his opponent's
metal. He laid the _Monmouth_ on the _Foudroyant's_ quarter and kept
her there, skilfully placing her in a way that allowed every gun on the
_Monmouth's_ broadside to train on the enemy, while, at the same time,
the French were unable to bring a number of their guns in the fore-part
of the ship to bear.
It was of course quite dark when the battle at close quarters
began--half-past eight on a February evening. The moon, within two days
of the last quarter, would not rise till between eleven and midnight.
Each ship, however, had her distinguishing lights hoisted, and the
gleam of the battle-lanterns through the _Foudroyant's_ ports gave the
_Monmouth's_ men sufficient mark to lay their guns by. More they did
not want.
The _Swiftsure_ at this time was about nine miles off, as her log
notes, steering for the spot by the flash of the guns.
The _Hampton Court_ was a couple of miles or so astern of the
_Swiftsure_.
The enemy, for their part, with their heavier guns, smote the
_Monmouth_ hard and answered back her fire with equal spirit. Even now
though, the French commodore would not risk bringing-to for a space
and making an effort to get the _Monmouth_ fairly under his broadside,
where his crushing superiority in gun-power might well have been
decisive. He held on instead, drifting slowly before the light wind,
fighting as he went. So far there was little to disquiet M. du Quesne
in the way that things were going. As a fact, during the first hour,
the terrific punishment that the _Foudroyant's_ 42-pounders were able
to inflict told heavily on the _Monmouth_, and it looked as though the
_Foudroyant_ could well hold her own to the end. Captain Gardiner,
however, stuck to his task unflinchingly. All the time an incessant
fire of musketry was kept up from the _Foudroyant's_ tops, and from her
towering bulwarks, which were lined with soldiers all along the length
of the ship.
They did considerable execution among the men at the upper-deck guns,
and, among their other victims, wounded Captain Gardiner himself with
a musket bullet through the arm. It was an ugly wound, but the gallant
captain of the _Monmouth_ refused to quit the deck, and had the wound
bound up as he stood. This was about a quarter to nine.
Fate, however, unhappily had more in store for Arthur Gardiner that
night. At half-past nine, the captain received a second and a mortal
wound. 'Captain Gardiner received a mortal wound which obliged him
to be conveyed off the deck,' Lieutenant Carkett briefly records. A
grape-shot struck Gardiner on the forehead, according to the journal
of Lieutenant Baron,[6] the third lieutenant, and he was carried below
insensible, to linger in the cockpit until four next morning, when he
died, 'having been speechless since he received his wound.'
Neither account exactly tallies with the story of Gardiner's fall
that reached England. According to that, poor Gardiner was conscious
for some moments after he was struck down, and was able to recognise
Carkett, as the first lieutenant bent over him. He bade Carkett, it was
said, as his last orders, 'to fight the _Foudroyant_ to the last, and
sink alongside rather than quit her.' In reply, the account proceeds,
Carkett swore to the captain to fight the battle out to the very last,
and sent on the spot for the carpenter and had the _Monmouth's_ ensign
nailed to the staff, after which he declared with an oath that he would
shoot dead on the spot any man who should even whisper a thought of
lowering it. So, indeed, it well may have been. Robert Carkett could be
trusted to die hard. He was just the man to make such a threat and to
keep it. Lieutenant Carkett was a rough sea-dog.
As senior officer after Captain Gardiner's fall, Carkett took charge on
the quarter-deck, and the battle went on with even more desperate fury
than before:--
Spars were splinter'd, decks were shatter'd,
Bullets fell like rain;
Over mast and deck were scatter'd
Blood and brains of men.
Hour after hour, from half-past nine to twelve o'clock, the _Monmouth_
hung doggedly on the quarter of the great _Foudroyant_ and refused to
be shaken off. She kept pace with the Frenchman steadily, not losing
a foot, and not drawing nearer; mercilessly pounding away into the
_Foudroyant's_ hull at a short seventy-yards range, as fast as the
shot could be brought to the guns. Nor did the _Foudroyant's_ fire in
reply slacken appreciably until midnight was past. Then, at length,
the enemy seemed to tire, and the _Foudroyant's_ fire began to grow
irregular and gradually to weaken.
[Illustration: THE _MONMOUTH_ FIGHTING THE _FOUDROYANT_ AT CLOSE
QUARTERS. THE FINAL ROUND--1.30 A.M.
From a contemporary print.
['At half past [one] her main-mast was shot away. She then ceased
firing' (Log of Lieutenant Carkett of the _Monmouth_).]]
It was the beginning of the end. Aided by the clear moonlight,--by
half-an-hour after midnight the moon was well up,--the _Monmouth's_
gunners made better practice than before. They redoubled their efforts,
as gun after gun in the _Foudroyant's_ ports stopped firing, until,
a few minutes after one o'clock, the big vessel ceased resisting
altogether, and not a shot came from her. The _Foudroyant_ lay
helpless, like a log on the water, dismasted, hammered to a standstill,
a silenced and beaten ship.
Lieutenant Carkett in his log thus summarises what passed in the last
hour. 'Half-past 12: Our mizen was shot away. At 1 A.M. the enemy's
was shot away. Also at half-past her main-mast was shot away. She then
ceased firing, having slackened her fire for some time before.'
Still, though, the _Foudroyant_ made no sign of giving in. _Lassata,
nondum satiata_--all was not quite over yet. So the _Monmouth_
continued her cannonade. Until the enemy made the customary sign of
surrender, Lieutenant Carkett had no option but to go on firing.
Commodore du Quesne was holding out _pour l'honneur du pavillon_: and
also for his own personal credit. He had not long to wait. Within a few
minutes of the _Foudroyant's_ fire giving over the _Swiftsure_ arrived
on the scene. Ranging up under the _Monmouth's_ stern, she hailed
across requesting her to stop her fire.
The _Monmouth_ held her hand. She had done her work, and there was
no need to do more now. As the _Monmouth's_ gunner, reporting on the
night's expenditure, stated, the ship had fired away no fewer than 80
barrels of gunpowder (about four tons weight of powder), with 1546
round-shot, 540 grape-shot, and 156 double-headed shot.
Then the _Swiftsure_ rounded in to pass between the _Monmouth_ and
the _Foudroyant_. All her batteries were lighted up, showing the men
standing ready by the guns. Captain Stanhope as he came abreast hailed
the _Foudroyant_, asking if she had surrendered. Her ensign was down.
It had been shot away about the same time that the mizen-mast went. The
reply came instantly--two shotted guns in rapid succession, and a sharp
crackle of musketry. M. le Marquis's honour was not satisfied yet. What
followed was inevitable. The _Swiftsure_ had now to administer the
_coup de grâce_ according to the rules of naval war. As the sound of
the _Foudroyant's_ defiance died away, the _Swiftsure's_ double tier
burst into flame, and the British seventy-four's broadside crashed into
the French ship, sweeping her decks from stem to stern. It was enough.
The next instant down came the _Foudroyant's_ lights and she called for
quarter. The battle was over.
The Marquis du Quesne had refused to surrender to the _Monmouth_
single-handed. It was a point of honour. In the presence of a second
British ship and a fresh ship, a seventy-four, his honour was fully
satisfied. All the same, when the _Swiftsure's_ officer came on
board to receive his sword, he insisted on being taken on board the
_Monmouth_ and surrendering it to the commanding officer of that
ship, to Lieutenant Carkett, giving it up, we are told, 'with great
politeness.' A story was told afterwards that the French commodore
expressed himself in bitter terms, and shed tears next morning when
in full daylight, at close quarters, he saw the small size of the
_Monmouth_ as compared with his own splendid ship. But that is as it
may be.