o'clock in the evening,--the third Frenchman to surrender. She had
been badly hammered by Hood's squadron when it broke the line, losing
so many men that to supply the main and upper deck batteries the
quarter-deck and forecastle guns had to be abandoned, but had been
able to keep up with the _Ville de Paris_ for most of the afternoon.
For the last two and a half hours, according to a letter from one of
the _Hector's_ officers, they had been firing their stern chasers to
try and keep the advancing British back, but in vain. Then, towards
the end of the time, two British seventy-fours drew out and ranged
alongside the _Hector_. They were the _Canada_ and the _Alcide_. The
two pushed up abreast and came to close quarters. Their attack was met
by the _Hector_ in a spirit worthy of her heroic name. She struck out
right and left like a wounded tigress at bay. She looked, in the words
of an eye-witness, 'like a blazing furnace vomiting fire and iron.'
The display was brilliant, but it could not last. De la Vicomté, the
gallant captain of the _Hector_, was struck down, mortally wounded,
and with his fall the spirit of the defence flickered out. 'Some men
on the main deck having run from their quarters,' says the letter
just referred to, 'the captain was putting his foot on the ladder to
go below to kill with his own hand the dastards, when a cannon-ball
smashed his thigh.' He was carried to the cockpit, and a few minutes
later De Beaumanoir, the first lieutenant, 'seeing the ship being
knocked to pieces and powder running short,' after a hasty consultation
with the other surviving officers, hauled the ensign down and hailed
the _Alcide_ that they had surrendered.
A fourth ship, the _Ardent_, was taken about the same time. She
was one of Bougainville's squadron, and the only ship of all the
French van that, on seeing how things were likely to fare with the
commander-in-chief, had turned back to lend him a hand. In so doing
she met her fate. The _Ardent_ was intercepted and cut off by the
British _Belliqueux_ and the _Prince William_, who brought her to close
action, and after a sharp set-to of a quarter of an hour, made her
lower her colours. Some English prisoners, taken a few weeks before out
of a merchantman prize, happened to be on board, and their red ensign
was hoisted in token of surrender. The taking of the _Ardent_ was
peculiarly gratifying to the British fleet. In point of fact it was a
recapture. The _Ardent_ was a British-built man-of-war which had fallen
into the hands of the enemy in very discreditable circumstances earlier
in the war. It was this same ship that the Franco-Spanish combined
fleet had snapped up, practically without her firing a shot, off
Plymouth Sound three years before, when they were parading the English
Channel in triumph at the time they compelled the Channel Fleet to
retreat before them to Spithead. It was a satisfactory stroke of
retaliation, although if it had taken place six weeks earlier it would
have been still more satisfactory. Then the Vicomte de Marigny--Charles
Réné Louis, of an old Norman family, elder brother to Comte Bernard,
the captain of the _César_--the officer who had been the original
captor of the _Ardent_, would have been on board. In honour of his
capture of a British man-of-war, 'si vaillamment,' Charles de Marigny
had been posted to the prize by the King of France's special command,
his commission being accompanied by a picture in oils representing his
feat, painted at the instance of His Most Christian Majesty, and sent
by the King's order to be hung in the cabin of the _Ardent_, with the
legend over it: 'Donné par le Roi au brave Vicomte de Marigny.'[41] The
Vicomte, unfortunately for the dramatic completeness of the situation,
had been sent home with De Grasse's despatch after the capture of St.
Kitts, and he had taken the oil-painting with him. Still, though, even
without De Marigny, it was a good thing to have the _Ardent_ back under
her old flag once more.
We now come to the closing fight of the day, to the story of the fate
of the noblest victim of all. It was next the turn of the _Ville de
Paris_ herself. Between half-past five and six o'clock the course of
the pursuit had brought the headmost of Rodney's ships well up with
the rearmost group of the enemy, close astern of De Grasse himself and
the little group of ships that kept company with the _Ville de Paris_.
There were ships both of Rodney's own squadron and of Hood's squadron
among the British at that point, although most of them were Hood's,
hustled forward in chase by their chief's incessant signals during
the afternoon. The _Barfleur_ herself, with every inch of canvas set
and stu'ns'ls out aloft and alow, was following among the foremost
and eagerly pressing on. The _Formidable_ and great part of Rodney's
squadron were in rear, a little way off. As they neared the enemy
the headmost ships came streaming on and firing briskly, steering to
overlap the French on either side.
The French, for their part, were in a straggling line, with irregular
gaps between the ships. They comprised the _Ville de Paris_, originally
in the centre but now fallen back to be almost last ship; the
_Triomphante_, De Vaudreuil's flagship; De la Charette's _Bourgogne_,
Macarty Macteigne's _Magnifique_, De Rions' _Pluton_, and the
_Marseillais_, commanded by De Castellane-Majastre. All these belonged
to De Vaudreuil's squadron, and had rallied with their chief to try and
help the admiral. Three of De Grasse's own ships were with them--all
that had stood by the chief,--the _Languedoc_ and the _Couronne_ (the
_Ville de Paris's_ two 'seconds' in the original line of battle) and
the younger De Vaudreuil's _Sceptre_. Like his brother, that officer
was at the post of greatest danger, in accordance with the traditions
of his House. The last three had dropped back to join De Grasse about
four o'clock. None of Bougainville's ships were near De Grasse; the
only one that had tried to reach him had been the _Ardent_, now, as the
result, in Rodney's hands. Round this devoted band of nine ships the
British attack concentrated, and for a second time the battle blazed
up fiercely. The encounter was, however, too one-sided to endure.
Stout-heartedly as they defended themselves, and most of them were
fighting both broadsides at once, the French last-hope band were thrown
into disorder and broken up.
The British _Canada_, Cornwallis's hard-hitting seventy-four, fresh
from her victorious bout with the French _Hector_, came on in the
forefront of the pursuing British and fastened at once on the _Ville
de Paris_. The French flagship by now had fallen quite to the rear.
The _Couronne_ had failed her admiral at the last moment. De Grasse,
as he himself reported to Versailles, had personally hailed her just
before, and ordered her to keep station close in the flagship's wake.
They had answered back, 'Oui, Général!' but as the _Canada_ came up
the _Couronne_ shifted out of the way and edged off past the flagship,
letting Cornwallis in.[42] Cornwallis knew what he had to do, and
pointed his guns high. Stationing the _Canada_ on the quarter of the
_Ville de Paris_, out of direct reach of De Grasse's broadside, he
hung on there fixedly, pounding his hardest meanwhile into the French
flagship with every gun the _Canada_ could bring to bear, cutting
away spars and rigging and holding the great vessel back until other
British ships were at hand to take up the task. The _Canada_ then moved
off after the other French ships farther on, passing over the work of
holding the _Ville de Paris_ to Saumarez of the _Russell_, the only
captain of Admiral Drake's squadron who was 'in at the death'--thanks
to his own intelligent anticipation of probable events earlier in the
day. The _Russell_ during the afternoon had had a series of long-range
encounters with four of the French fleet elsewhere, but she was fresh
enough for the business before her. Saumarez pushed in boldly, hauled
up under the stern of the _Ville de Paris_, and gave her a raking
broadside that swept the giant three-decker from end to end. After
that the _Russell_ placed herself on the lee quarter of the _Ville de
Paris_, to prevent her from edging off after the other French ships of
her group, which were now giving way everywhere as the attack on them
was being driven home. There she remained until Hood himself with the
_Barfleur_ came on the scene.
De Grasse by this had been practically abandoned to his fate. Even De
Vaudreuil's devotion could help him no further now. The _Languedoc_
made one despairing attempt to come to her flagship's rescue, but could
not get through. Beaten back by the _Duke_ and another ship, she turned
away and fled, hoisting all sail. On board the _Ville de Paris_ every
spar had been shot down, stripped from the masts, which had themselves
been riddled and were tottering. The rudder had been smashed away,
and the ship could not be steered; many guns were disabled; one gun
had burst, killing sixteen men and injuring thirty. There was hardly
a yard of space along her sides that had not a shot-hole through it.
From three to four hundred of her crew--the exact numbers were never
returned--were dead or in the cockpit. Those who were still at quarters
were dead-beat and nearly dropping from exhaustion, having been
without food since daybreak. All the cartridges in the magazines were
exhausted, and they had to supply the guns by ladling loose powder into
them from open barrels brought up on deck. The 'fighting lanterns'
between decks were mostly extinguished, the candles burned out; all was
dark below, and they waded ankle-deep and stumbled amid the horrible
_débris_ of what that morning had been living human beings. Even then
De Grasse would not give in; not at least to any British captain. He
stoutly resisted until, a little after six o'clock, he caught sight of
Hood's flag at the _Barfleur's_ mast-head, showing above the smoke a
little way off. He would wait until Hood came up and then surrender. It
was a point of honour: his flagship should lower her colours only to a
flagship.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE 'FIGHTING LANTERNS' OF THE _VILLE DE PARIS_
Now in the Museum of the Royal United Service Institution, Whitehall.]
As the _Barfleur_ got nearer, De Grasse fired a challenging gun. It
was to attract the approaching flagship's attention. Hood marked the
gun and understood it. He at once headed the _Barfleur_ directly for
the _Ville de Paris_. 'I concluded,' said Hood, 'the Count de Grasse
had a mind to be my prisoner, as an old acquaintance, and therefore
met his wishes by looking towards him.' As the _Barfleur_ began to
close with the French flagship, De Grasse made a show of opening fire
on her, 'which I,' continued Hood, 'totally disregarded till I had
proved, by firing a single gun from the quarter-deck, that I was within
point blank.'[43] That was the _Barfleur's_ distance. Ranging up to the
_Ville de Paris_ Hood greeted the French admiral with one tremendous
salvo of round-shot and grape at close quarters that crashed through
the sides of De Grasse's doomed flagship as though they were cardboard.
That one broadside struck down sixty men. All was over for the French
admiral now. In less than ten minutes the end had come. De Grasse
stepped to the taffrail, and with his own hand pulled the _Ville de
Paris's_ ensign down. The battle of the 'Glorious Twelfth of April' had
been fought and won. As the _Ville de Paris's_ ensign dropped the sun's
rim touched the sea-line.
There were but three unwounded men on the _Ville de Paris's_
quarter-deck when the admiral hauled down the flag. De Grasse himself
was one. More than a third of the flagship's immense company, officers
and men, had gone down, while he himself, at the most exposed point
of all from the first shot to the last and seeming to court death
throughout, had come through the day unscathed, except for a contusion
across the loins from a splinter which did not break the skin.
[Illustration: DE GRASSE'S FLAG COMES DOWN. RODNEY WATCHING THE
SURRENDER OF THE _VILLE DE PARIS_
After the picture by Robert Edge Pine; now in the Town Hall of
Kingston, Jamaica.
[Immediately behind Rodney's left shoulder is seen the head of Lord
Cranstoun. Midshipman Dashwood is readily recognisable, and the tall,
bulky man on the extreme right of the picture is Sir Charles Douglas
with the little bantam cock near his feet. The picture was shown at
the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1784.] ]
The grand finale was witnessed from the _Formidable_, now close at hand
and drawing up, but just too late to share in the honour of the
event. Dr. Blane saw the French flag drop. 'The _Formidable_ was right
astern, and having come within shot, was yawing in order to give the
enemy a raking broadside, when, Sir Charles Douglas and I standing
together on the quarter-deck, the position of our ship opened a view of
the enemy's stern between the foresail and the jib boom, between which
we saw the French flag hauled down!'[44]
Some one else saw it too--De Vaudreuil. He was about a quarter of a
mile off at the moment, and still fighting. It made him senior officer,
commander-in-chief. There was now no De Grasse to keep pace with for
the honour of the flag. He could consider his own safety. De Vaudreuil
at once clapped on every sail that his masts could bear and made off,
hoisting as he did so the signal to rally to the north-west. The
_Bourgogne_ was the nearest ship to him. Across to her De Vaudreuil
shouted orders to make all sail and follow, and as he passed the other
ships ahead of him he hailed each to the same effect in turn.
Captain Knight of the _Barfleur_--son of Dr. Johnson's old friend,
Admiral Sir Joseph Knight, with whom the Doctor once stayed for a
week on board the _Ramillies_ at Chatham, and afterwards expressed
the opinion that 'No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough
to get himself into gaol'--received De Grasse's surrender. A party of
seamen and marines from the _Barfleur_ under the first-lieutenant at
the same time took possession of the prize. They put off within five
minutes of the surrender, and arrived not a moment too soon. With the
hauling down of the flag all discipline on board vanished. 'The moment
the _Ville de Paris_ struck,' wrote Captain Douglas, 'her worthless,
disorderly crew broke open the chests and trunks of all their officers,
and with lighted candles in their hands, stove in the doors of the
store-rooms in quest of wine and other liquors, to the great danger of
all on board from fire.'[45]
Lord Cranstoun in a boat from the _Formidable_ reached the _Ville de
Paris_ a few minutes after Captain Knight. He described De Grasse as 'a
tall, robust, and martial figure, presenting in that moment an object
of respect, no less than of concern and sympathy.' He looked pale and
apparently dazed at the tremendous catastrophe that had befallen him.
According to Lord Cranstoun the French admiral 'could not recover from
the astonishment into which he was plunged, the expressions of which he
often iterated, at seeing in the course of so short a time, his vessel
taken, his fleet defeated, and himself a prisoner.' Lord Cranstoun
brought De Grasse a courteous message from Rodney, to the effect
that if he wished he might remain for the night 'at his ease' on board
the _Ville de Paris_, 'with every testimony of attention and regard
manifested towards him on the part of the British commander.'[46]
[Illustration:
'Count de Grasse, the French Admiral, resigning his Sword to Admiral
Rodney after being defeated by that gallant Commander in the West
Indies. April 12, 1782.'
From the engraving by Fiegl, after Metz.]
The state of things on board was appalling, 'altogether terrible,'
said Lord Cranstoun. The quarter-deck was 'covered with dead and
wounded.... Between the foremast and main-mast, at every step he took,'
Lord Cranstoun told Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, 'he was over his buckles in
blood.'[47] Below, where the cattle (to provide the troops on board
with meat) had been stalled between the guns, things were even more
horrible, for 'they had suffered not less than the crew and troops from
the effects of the cannon.' De Grasse himself, incidentally, gives an
idea of the state to which the _Ville de Paris_ had been reduced at the
end. In his official report to Versailles on the battle he said, 'I
was reduced to such a state that the enemy on the morning of the 13th,
to strike the ship's pennant, were obliged to cut away the masts for
fear, in sending a man to get at the pennant, all would go overboard or
come down in a crash on deck.'
Immediately after the surrender of the _Ville de Paris_ Rodney made
the signal for the fleet to cease firing and bring-to. There was to
be no pursuit. It was a decision for which Rodney has been bitterly
criticised. He had, however, his reasons, and he put them in writing;
but it was, all said and done, a very grave error of judgment on the
part of the British leader. 'Come, come,' he is said to have exclaimed
in reply to a suggestion that was made to him by Hood, that part of
the fleet at any rate might follow up the enemy, 'we have done very
handsomely!' It was not the old Rodney of the _Eagle_ who said that,
one must remember. Rodney in April 1782 was a man broken in health,
racked with gout, a man grown prematurely old,--ten years, at least,
older than his real age,--and utterly worn out after twelve anxious
hours on deck under a burning sun. Before that, also, as Rodney himself
said, he had had no proper rest for four nights. Most unfortunately, as
it proved, Rodney underestimated the force of the smashing blow that he
had dealt the enemy, and formed an entirely erroneous estimate of the
condition of the ships that had escaped. He allowed himself to form a
picture of their condition that was totally at variance with the facts,
and did not think it wise to risk a pursuit in the dark. He made up his
mind that the enemy had gone off 'in a collected body,' and that his
own fleet had suffered more severe damage than was actually the case.
There is no need here to press the matter further, or to recall Hood's
bitter animadversions on his chief's breakdown, or what certain of the
captains are said to have thought. Rodney was commander-in-chief and
all responsibility for the safety of the British West Indies rested on
his shoulders. Also his reasons for bringing-to commended themselves to
him at the time.
The short tropical evening closed in, and darkness fell on the
scene--the darkness of a sultry black night without moon or stars. Each
ship, of course, had her poop lantern showing, and lights gleamed out
through the ports of all as the working parties moved about between
decks, busily engaged in cleaning up and taking temporary measures to
clear away the marks of battle, as far as might be done in an hour or
two, preparatory to turning-in for the night.
Yet before the wearied men could get to their hammocks one more event
was to happen, to mark the dread closing of a tremendous day. Nor was
it out of keeping with what had gone before. Towards nine o'clock,
all of a sudden, a burst of roaring flame shot up from one of the
French prizes, illuminating the sky and sea for many miles all round.
De Vaudreuil and his fugitive fifteen, far away to northward by now,
below the horizon, could see the reflection and guessed what it was.
Bougainville, in the other direction, flying towards Curaçao, saw it
too. The victim was the captured _César_. One of her own disorderly
crew, it came out later, did the mischief. They had been as usual
clapped under hatchways after the surrender, but had the hold to
themselves. There the rabble--as on board the _Ville de Paris_, all
bonds of discipline had ceased to exist with the striking of the
flag--had broken into the spirit-room and held a wild orgy among
themselves, regardless of consequences. A drunken French soldier,
seeking for more drink with a pannikin in one hand and a naked light
in the other, dropped the flaring candle into an open cask of ratafia.
Who-o-o-f!!! Instantly the whole place was ablaze from end to end,
and the flames leapt along in a flash from deck to deck throughout
the ship. There was no checking them, and the splintered woodwork
everywhere was in the best state to feed the fire. Out of mercy to the
prisoners below the hatches were lifted off, and those who could escape
given a chance. That, unfortunately, at the same time made things
worse for the ship. The more sober of the Frenchmen joined the small
British prize-crew of fifty-eight men and a lieutenant, and lent a hand
to try and get the flames under. Half-a-dozen thought of their wounded
captain, the Comte Bernard de Marigny, who was lying badly wounded in
the cabin. These made their way into the cabin, and told De Marigny
that the ship was expected every minute to blow up. 'So much the
better,' was all the Captain replied, very quietly, according to French
accounts, 'the English won't keep her! Shut my door, my friends, and
leave me. Try and save yourselves!'[48] The British prize-crew--they
were all from the _Centaur_--fought the fire heroically, and spared no
efforts to beat the flames back, but in vain. The British lieutenant in
command was seen at the last in the stern gallery giving his orders.
All the _César's_ boats had been knocked to pieces in the battle.
Outside, all round, were the boats of the fleet lying on their oars,
ready to save all they could, but, for various reasons, unable to get
near the ship. One of the reasons has been specially recorded--the
sharks. Again the sharks were on the spot, 'not yet glutted,' said Dr.
Blane, 'with the carnage of the preceding day.' What the men on the
boats saw and told the doctor, was, in Blane's words, 'too horrid to
describe.' A solid belt of sharks surrounded the burning _César_, a
closely packed mass of struggling, huge-girthed brutes, rolling and
tumbling about all round, jostling one another and scraping their rough
backs together as they plunged and wallowed about all over the surface.
Attracted by the glare they had come crowding to the spot, 'every shark
in those waters seemed to be there,' and swarmed thronging close round
the vessel, surging up and snapping and tearing at the poor frenzied
wretches who were clinging on alongside on fragments of spars and
wreckage that had dropped overboard. One by one the sharks picked the
poor fellows off. The boats meanwhile could not, dared not, force their
way through. They could only look helplessly on and wait for the end:--
Watch the wild wreck; but not to save.
The end came between ten and eleven. The _César_, half burned to the
water's edge, blew up with a dull heavy roar--'not a loud explosion,'
notes an onlooker. Indeed there was not much powder left to blow up in
the bravely defended ship's magazines. It was merely a belching up of
flame and sparks, like the blowing out of the pinch of powder at the
bottom of a squib or Roman candle; just enough to rend the remains of
the hull apart and scatter its contents. Then all was black darkness.
A few twinkling sparks high overhead caught the eye, as the burning
fragments poised in mid-air and turned for the downward drop, followed
by splashes in the sea all round, and here and there, out of sight,
A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry
Of some strong swimmer in his agony,
as some shark claimed its last victim, and then all was over. Silence
and darkness fell once more on the heaving waters, and the boats pulled
sadly and wearily back to their ships. Such was the tragedy of the
_César_. A handful of survivors were picked up, though how they escaped
is not stated. All were Frenchmen. Not one of the British prize-crew
escaped.
Now at last Rodney's day was over: the 'Glorious Twelfth' reached its
last hour in silence and passed away.
* * * * *
'The battle is over and the British fleet victorious, De Grasse is in
my cabin, the _Ville de Paris_ and four ships of the line are in our
possession and one sunk, their whole fleet completely mauled.' So ran
the opening sentence of Rodney's first letter after the battle, written
on the morning of the 13th. Writing to a brother-admiral he spoke of
the battle as having been 'long and bloody, but never doubtful in my
opinion.' Eleven hours was Rodney's estimate of its duration, and he
added, 'by persons appointed to observe there was never seven minutes'
respite during the engagement.'
For the enemy it had been a sanguinary and costly day. The French
losses in the battle--including the crews of four ships taken by
Hood a week later--amounted, in round numbers, to 'at least 15,000
men.' Seven thousand of the number were either killed, wounded, or
drowned. Six French captains were among the dead,[49] who, reckoned by
themselves, were 3000. Over a thousand of the casualties were in the
_Ville de Paris_ and the _César_ alone. Among the 8000 prisoners were
2000 soldiers. The monetary loss to France, in the value of _matériel_
taken, was put at just half a million sterling; and that sum does not
include the treasure-chest of De Bouillé's army, thirty-six boxes of
money containing coin to the value of £25,000.[50] Also on board the
captured ships, by a curious chance, was found the whole of the French
army's siege-train for Jamaica, heavy guns and carriages, and equipment
complete.
Such were some of the first fruits. The immediate collapse of the
campaign against Jamaica was another of the fruits of the victory, and
there were yet other results of wider-reaching effect. The blow that
Rodney dealt on the 12th of April reacted on the sea campaign in Home
waters, and strengthened Howe's hand for the final effort of the war,
the relief of Gibraltar. 'On that memorable day,' says Froude, 'was the
English Empire saved.'