called it, proved comparatively light. The Admiral's first despatch
gave the figures as 230 killed and 759 wounded; corrected later to 337
killed and 766 wounded, or 1103 in all. Of the total the _Formidable's_
share was surprisingly small, only 14 killed and 39 wounded, yet hers
was the third heaviest return sent in. The French officers of De
Grasse's suite, indeed, when they were told the figures, refused at
first to accept them. 'It was with difficulty,' says Dr. Blane, 'we
could make the French officers believe that the returns of killed and
wounded made by our ships to the Admiral were true. One of them flatly
contradicted me, saying we always gave the world a false account of our
losses. I then walked him over the decks of the _Formidable_ and bade
him remark what number of shot-holes there were, and also how little
her rigging had suffered, and asked if that degree of damage was likely
to be connected with the loss of more than fourteen men, which was our
number killed, and the greatest number of any in the fleet except the
_Royal Oak_ and _Monarch_. He was visibly mortified to see how little
our ship had suffered, and then owned that our fire must have been much
better kept up and directed than theirs.'[51] It was, of course, the
demoralising effect of Rodney's gunnery on the enemy at the outset that
made all the difference.
The _Formidable_, as to that, had taken her own part effectively. The
gunner's return showed that the British flagship had fired eighty
broadsides--35 tons of shot. Rodney himself was enthusiastic over his
ship's performance. 'The _Formidable_,' he wrote, 'proved herself
worthy of her name!'
De Grasse came on board the _Formidable_ next morning, and stayed there
as Rodney's guest for two days while the _Ville de Paris_, for the time
being in tow of the _Namur_, was being cleansed and made habitable.
A night's rest worked wonders in the French admiral. 'He bears his
reverse of fortune with equanimity, conscious as he says that he has
done his duty, and I found him very affable and communicative.' So
Dr. Blane wrote. He and Captain Douglas acted as interpreters between
the admirals: Rodney--it is rather curious, if we remember a certain
story--could not speak a word of French.[52] De Grasse was very frank
with everybody. For one thing, he said, he did not wonder that he
had been beaten. From what he had seen he considered that the French
navy was 'a hundred years behind that of Great Britain.' Wrote Rodney
himself of one conversation:--'Comte de Grasse, who at this moment is
sitting in my stern gallery, tells me he thought his fleet superior to
mine, and does so still, though I had two more in number; and I am of
his opinion, as his was composed of all large ships and ten of mine
only sixty-fours.'[53]
Rodney remained in the neighbourhood of Dominica for four days,
refitting and repairing damages. His frigates meanwhile searched
the bays among the islands to northward, St. Kitts and Eustatius in
particular, for traces of French fugitives in that quarter. None,
however, were found. The only news brought back was that several
crippled French ships, one identified as De Vaudreuil's _Triomphante_,
had been sighted by the islanders passing on the day after the battle.
On the morning of the 17th Hood was despatched with the least damaged
of the British ships to cruise off the south of San Domingo and
intercept any of De Vaudreuil's laggards. Rodney himself moved off in
the afternoon of the same day with the more seriously damaged ships
and the prizes in tow, for Jamaica, following on much the same course
towards San Domingo. He met Hood four days later, returning with four
French prizes, two ships of the line and two frigates, the proceeds of
a smart little affair that Hood had had with a force of the enemy in
the Mona Passage. Rodney then continued his course for Port Royal where
he arrived on the 29th, to be received as the saviour of the colony.
[Illustration: THE 'RODNEY TEMPLE,' SPANISH TOWN, JAMAICA
[The two guns from the _Ville de Paris_ are visible behind the
railings.]]
'All Jamaica,' wrote Rodney, 'went mad with joy.' So much so, indeed,
that the Admiral did not set foot on shore for a week, 'to avoid being
pestered with addresses, etc.' To this day Rodney is the _genius loci_
in Jamaica. The statue to him, by Bacon, voted by the House of Assembly
'as a mark of gratitude and veneration,' is one of the sights of the
island. It represents the Admiral in the dress of a Roman Imperator,
and stands, flanked by two brass guns from the _Ville de Paris_
presented by Rodney himself, under an imposing classic temple that
takes up one side of 'the Square' in the centre of Spanish Town, the
old capital of Jamaica; with the 'King's House,' the residence of the
Governor, on one hand, and the House of Assembly on the other, and
facing it, across the gardens of the square, the Court House.
[Illustration: ADMIRAL DE GRASSE AS A PRISONER OF WAR
From the _London Magazine_ for August 1782.
Stated to have been 'drawn from the life by a celebrated artist,'
while De Grasse was in London on parole as a prisoner of war. The
background is, of course, artistic fancy work.]
The fleet remained refitting at Port Royal for upwards of nine weeks.
Port Royal dockyard proved to be in an almost hopeless state of neglect
and confusion, totally unfitted to supply the needs of a great fleet in
the condition of Rodney's. De Grasse left for England in the interval,
as a passenger in the first convoy sailing. We may take leave of him
here. How the French admiral--the first commander-in-chief of an
enemy brought to this country since Marshal Tallard came over after
Blenheim--landed on Southsea beach in the presence of a cheering crowd;
how King George received him in the most kindly and gracious manner,
while English society showed him every mark of courteous sympathy, are
matters beyond our present scope.[54] Nor can the unfortunate admiral's
after fate be referred to at length. It will be enough to say that
De Grasse later on published an open letter complaining that he had
been betrayed by his captains. This caused an outburst of indignation
in France which led to a _Conseil de Guerre_ on every officer from De
Vaudreuil downwards. The tribunal exonerated everybody,[55] laying all
the blame on De Grasse himself, and the admiral was banished from Court
in disgrace, which meant social ostracism and the cold shoulder for the
rest of his days.[56]
The _Ville de Paris_ followed her late admiral with the next convoy to
England--never, however, to arrive there. She went to the bottom in
a terrific storm which fell on the convoy in mid-Atlantic, but when,
or exactly where, or how, is to this day unknown. Of all on board,
upwards of five hundred officers and men, one seaman only was saved. He
was picked up after the storm one morning, clinging to some floating
wreckage--an imbecile. Mind and memory had gone. The only thing
that the man could say was that a day or two before he had seen the
_Glorieux_ go down suddenly. All after that, all about his own ship,
everything, except that he was 'Wilson of the _Ville de Paris_,'--was a
blank.
Rodney was detained at Port Royal until the 10th of July. Then with all
the fleet repaired and fit for service, just as he was on the point of
sailing to blockade the enemy off Cape Haitien, a ship from England,
the _Jupiter_, arrived bringing a curt order from the Admiralty to
'strike his flag and come home.' It was the first word of any kind he
had had from England since the battle; indeed, since the beginning
of April, when he was in Gros Islet Bay before the battle. To add to
the sting of the blow Rodney's successor was on board the ship that
brought the order:--Admiral Pigot, an absolute nonentity, a man who
had never served at sea since he was a captain, and then without
distinction. That was the sort of man sent out to supersede the first
naval commander of the age on the morrow of his greatest triumph. It
was all a matter of party politics, a shameless political job. Rodney
was a Tory in politics and had been appointed by a Tory First Lord. The
Whigs had come into power since he last heard from England, and the new
Ministry on coming into office had promptly cancelled his appointment
and sent out one of their own partisans, hitherto only known as a naval
M.P., to replace, in the presence of the enemy, the ablest sea officer
that Great Britain possessed.
The Ministry having discarded Rodney, what took place when the
startling news of Rodney's victory, with the capture of De Grasse and
the finest man-of-war in the world, reached England, was indeed the
irony of fate. It made up a striking and intensely dramatic situation.
When Rodney was ordered home the news of the battle had not arrived.
It came on the 18th of May, when Captain Byron of the _Andromache_,
and Lord Cranstoun, who had accompanied him, arrived with Rodney's
despatches at the Admiralty at two in the morning. Admiral Pigot had
only left London for Plymouth two or three days before. The Admiralty
and the Ministry were aghast, amazed, absolutely nonplussed. They had
recalled the victor in the hour of the greatest victory that the Royal
Navy had ever won perhaps since the defeat of the Spanish Armada. It
was an extremely awkward position. Admiral Pigot must be stopped at
all cost, and Rodney's order of recall torn up. That was the only
thing to be done. A King's messenger with relays of horses was sent
galloping down to Plymouth as fast as man could ride. He carried with
him a letter of compliment and congratulation to Rodney, written at
seven on the morning of the 18th, which was to go instead of the other.
The messenger got to Plymouth just too late. He arrived there at two
in the afternoon of the 19th, to find that Pigot had sailed on the
evening before. A swift cutter was sent after the _Jupiter_, but failed
to catch her up. So the Whig Ministry were left face to face with the
unenviable situation that their own narrow partisanship had created.
'A generation ago,' says a writer in one of the earlier numbers of the
_Quarterly Review_, 'men were still living who could tell of the flame
of indignation which ran through the country when it was known that the
new Whig Government had recalled Admiral Rodney, because the expedition
which he commanded had been planned by the Tories.' No doubt that was
so. But the flame burned itself out quickly. The Whigs in Parliament
and outside it were able to counter the Tory reproaches by retorting
that whatever was the case then, when the recall of Rodney was first
notified, three weeks before the despatches came, not a voice had
been raised against it. All over the country at the same time, Whigs
and Tories made common cause in heaping adulation on the victor, and
expressing their general feelings in exuberant rejoicings. In London,
after the Park and Tower guns and the pealing of the church bells
had confirmed the breakfast-table rumour, 'the whole town was in an
uproar,' we are told, everybody making the day a holiday and hanging
out flags. All London was illuminated that night, the very poorest
finding a candle to stick in every pane in their windows. Wraxall,
writing in 1816 (the year after Waterloo) his recollections of how
London received the news of Rodney's victory, says: 'When I reflect on
the emotions to which it gave rise in London, I cannot compare them
with any other occurrence of the same kind that we have since witnessed
in this country.'[57] Dr. Blane writing some years afterwards from
what he was told, says that even the cripples and invalids in hospital
'demonstrated their joy on hearing of this victory, by hoisting shreds
of coloured cloth on their crutches.' Lady Rodney and her daughters
went to the theatre that evening. 'When we went in,' wrote Miss Jane
Rodney to her father, 'the whole house testified by their claps and
huzzas, the joy they felt at the news, and their love for you, and
their acclamations lasted for, I am sure, five minutes.'[58] The
versifiers of course seized on the occasion, and they found editors
ready to take their 'copy.'
The Grass in Paris streets so long had grown
That farmer Rodney thought it should be mown,
So up his Formidable scythe he took
And cut the Grass of Paris at one stroke--
was one effusion that is among the best. Throughout the country, as the
laurel-bedecked stage-coaches passed the news along, there was hardly
a village that did not ring its bells and have its bonfire. Half the
taverns, we are told, painted out their 'Markis o' Granby' signboards
for 'The Admiral Rodney,' and Rodney's is to this day the most common
of naval names on inn signboards. There are, as a fact, more 'Lord
Rodneys' up and down the country than 'Lord Nelsons.'
Rodney, at Port Royal, accepted the situation with quiet dignity. He
said nothing, handed over the command to Admiral Pigot, and shifted
out of the _Formidable_ forthwith into the smaller _Montagu_, then
under orders to proceed to England. Twelve days after Pigot's arrival,
Rodney sailed. There is no need to carry the story further. How Rodney
was rewarded by the country, and how he passed his closing years, are
matters of general history.
One of the _Formidable's_ men on Rodney's day was a smart young seaman
named Stephens. He lived to be 'Mr.' Stephens, the boatswain of the
famous _Shannon_ when she met the _Chesapeake_, on which occasion,
too, he lost an arm. He found a place in Captain Broke's despatch,
and had the further distinction of being asked by the officers to
sit for a statuette of himself to be made, which became one of the
special treasures of the last of the _Shannon's_ officers, the late
Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Provo Wallis. The last surviving officer
of Rodney's flagship was Sir Charles Dashwood, who died in 1847,
Vice-Admiral of the White, and K.C.B. The last survivor of all, both of
the _Formidable's_ company in 1782, and of all who fought in the battle
itself, was a seaman of the _Formidable_, George Neale, who died at
Coventry in 1849.
We will close the story with one final word about the _Formidable's_
after career. She outlasted Rodney by nineteen years, and served in
the interim throughout the war with the French Revolution and with
Napoleon. Had it not been for an accidental delay she would have been
Duncan's flagship at Camperdown. The _Formidable_ had been fitted for
Admiral Duncan's flag, and sailed from the Downs for the Texel on the
very day that the battle was fought. Her end came in 1813, in which
year the fine old veteran of the sea was struck off the Navy List as
unfit for further service, and handed over to the shipbreaker.
To Dead Man's Bay when her day is past,
To Dead Man's Bay comes the ship at last.
Thus for the present we close the record of this 'blustering adjective'
from the point of view of naval history. Enough has been told. 'A
nation,' says Guizot, 'is safe in the greatest crisis of its fate if
it can remember its own history.' Those who on a future day may serve
in our present _Formidable_ before an enemy, will be none the worse
for remembering the associations of old-time victory that form part
and parcel of their ship's famous name, in virtue of which, that name
finds its place to-day on the roll of the Royal Navy for 'one of the
best' among the battle-ships of the British Fleet.[59] 'No man,' wrote
a young officer of the famous _Bellerophon_, in his last letter home
on the evening before Trafalgar, 'can be a coward on board the _Billy
Ruff'n_.' No man on board the _Formidable_, who knows the story of his
ship, should be found wanting on the day of battle. It will rest as a
point of honour with those who then man the _Formidable_ to remember
Rodney and prove the _Formidable_ 'worthy of her name.'
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 13: _Admirals All, and Other Verses_, p. 15.]
[Footnote 14: _Edward the Third_, Act III. Sc. 1.]
[Footnote 15: Built at Chatham in 1777 as a 98-gun three-decker of 1945
tons. The _Formidable_ taken at Quiberon was broken up some ten years
previously.]
[Footnote 16: From Mr. Newbolt's verses on a memorial brass in Clifton
College chapel.]
[Footnote 17: He was captain of the French frigate _L'Aréthuse_ on May
18, 1759, when she was cut off and captured, off the Brittany coast,
by a British squadron; to become a British frigate, and later on the
'Saucy' _Arethusa_ of the celebrated ballad.]
[Footnote 18: Hennequin's _Biographie Maritime_, art. 'Vaudreuil';
also L. Dussieux's _Généraux et Marins du XVIII. Siècle_, p. 260. The
governorship of the island of Dominica was offered to De Vaudreuil
after its capture from Great Britain through treachery. Some of the
creole inhabitants of Dominica invited the French over from Martinique,
and, on the night of their landing, made the garrison of the principal
fort in the island drunk, plugged up the touch-holes of their cannon,
and put sand in the locks of their muskets.]
[Footnote 19: Bougainville was born in 1729. He was granted the
_particle nobiliaire_ by order of the King as a special favour, escaped
the guillotine during the Terror by the merest chance, and died a
Senator of the Empire in 1811. Bougainville's name is commemorated
in the French navy to-day in a corvette used as a training ship for
cadets. The vessel is well known as a visitor to Dartmouth and Plymouth
Sound every year.]
[Footnote 20: It was the practice of the Comte de la Charette to
blacken the sides of each ship that he commanded. Ordinarily, at this
period, ships' sides were of a yellow colour--the planking simply
varnished over.]
[Footnote 21: Carlyle, _French Resolution_, vol. ii. bk. ii. chap. i.]
[Footnote 22: Carronades were short pieces of large calibre, throwing
heavy shot, but with a very limited range. They were only of use
for fighting at close quarters, when, however, they were terribly
destructive. They were invented and first made at the Carron Ironworks
in Scotland--whence the name.]
[Footnote 23: Sir Gilbert Blane, _Dissertations on Medical Science_,
vol. i. p. 86.]
[Footnote 24: It extends sometimes to as far as six or seven miles
seaward.--_West India Pilot._]
[Footnote 25: 'De Grasse's action,' says Captain Mahan (_The Influence
of Sea Power upon History_, p. 290), 'was justified by the court which
tried him, in which were many officers of high rank and doubtless of
distinction, as being "an act of prudence on the part of the admiral
dictated to him by the ulterior projects of the cruise." Three days
later he was signally beaten by the fleet he had failed to attack at
disadvantage, and all the ulterior projects of the cruise went down
with him.']
[Footnote 26: _Annual Register_, 1782 (History of Europe), p. 206.]
[Footnote 27: Mundy's _Life of Rodney_, vol. ii. p. 251.]
[Footnote 28: _United Service Journal_, 1833, part i. p. 512, Sir C.
Douglas's narrative.]
[Footnote 29: Imagine this page the surface of the sea, the top being
north, the foot south, and so on. The wind would be blowing diagonally
across from the right-hand corner at the foot of the page. Rodney's
ships would be approaching slantwise towards the centre of the page
from near the left-hand lower corner. De Grasse's fleet would be coming
down to meet them near the centre from a point at the top of the page
about two inches from the left-hand corner.]
[Footnote 30: To make sure that they saw the signal and obeyed it
without delay, De Grasse kept firing gun after gun to enforce it, until
all had answered.]
[Footnote 31: Captain Mahan in _The Royal Navy: A History_, vol. iii.
p. 528.]
[Footnote 32: Mundy's _Life of Rodney_, vol. ii. pp. 235-236.]
[Footnote 33: British flag-officers were at this time still divided,
for purposes of promotion, into groups and subdivisions, as Admirals,
Vice-Admirals, and Rear-Admirals of the Red, White, and Blue (except
that there was no Admiral of the Red), which had existed since the
middle of the seventeenth century, although the original purpose of the
arrangement, in accordance with the tactical formations of fleets for
battle, had long ceased to exist. The French, on the other hand, had
no permanent subsidiary gradations in their flag-officers' list, and
held to their original tactical distribution of squadrons; the senior
officer commanding the Escadre Blanche, the second the Escadre Blanche
et Bleue, the third the Escadre Bleue.]
[Footnote 34: _Hist. MSS. Commission: Report XIV._ Duke of Rutland's
MSS. at Belvoir Castle, vol. iii. p. 55. At Belvoir Castle there are
preserved, besides eight brass cannon of French make, the carved tiller
of the _Resolution_, and some bottles of wine stamped with the Manners
peacock, which were in the ship as part of the captain's stores.]
[Footnote 35: There is a very fine model of the _Duke_, representing
her exactly as she appeared on the 12th of April 1782, in the naval
collection at South Kensington Museum.]
[Footnote 36: The first was in the fighting on the 9th of April. 'De
Grasse had sent me a message that he could not meet me in March,
but that he certainly would attack us in April. He did not keep his
promise, for I attacked him. In the first day's action, when the
_Formidable_ came abreast of the _Ville de Paris_, I ordered the main
topsail to be laid aback. [This was a well-understood form of personal
challenge at sea.] De Grasse, who was about three miles to windward,
did not accept the challenge, but kept his wind and did not fire one
shot the whole day.' (Letter to Lady Rodney, May 4, 1782; quoted in
Mundy's _Life_, etc., vol. ii. p. 291.)]
[Footnote 37: Sir Gilbert Blane, _Dissertations on Medical Science_,
vol. i. p. 88 _et seq._]
[Footnote 38: Sir C. Dashwood's letter is dated Torquay, 8th July 1829.
It is quoted in full in the _United Service Journal_ for 1833, part i.
p. 73.]
[Footnote 39: Professor J. Knox Laughton, R.N., _Dictionary of National
Biography_, art. 'Rodney.']
[Footnote 40: The _Diadème's_ name appears in De Vaudreuil's official
return of the ships rallied by him which reached Cap François, San
Domingo, on the 25th of April.]
[Footnote 41: Hennequin, _Biographie Maritime_, vol. i. p. 356.]
[Footnote 42: Navy Records Society: _The Naval Miscellany_, vol. i.
p. 234. A letter apparently from a lieutenant of the _Ville de Paris_
gives details.]
[Footnote 43: Navy Records Society, _Letters of Sir Samuel Hood_, pp.
102-103.]
[Footnote 44: Sir Gilbert Blane, _Dissertations on Medical Science_,
vol. i.]
[Footnote 45: _United Service Journal_ for 1833, vol. i. p. 514.]
[Footnote 46: De Grasse, it is stated, had not once left the
quarter-deck since daybreak. See also _Historical Memoirs of my Own
Time_, Sir N.W. Wraxall, vol. iii. p. 108.]
[Footnote 47: Wraxall's _Memoirs_, iii. p. 107. Lord Cranstoun told Sir
N.W. Wraxall that _he_ 'was sent after the _Ville de Paris_ struck to
take possession of her, as well as to receive De Grasse's sword.' In
the memoir of Captain Knight of the _Barfleur_ (_Naval Chronicle_, xi.
pp. 428-429) it is stated that 'Captain Knight received and presented
to his Admiral the sword of Count de Grasse and those of all the
surviving officers of the _Ville de Paris_, who, with the exception
of the Count (he, by desire of Sir Samuel Hood, remaining in his own
ship), lodged that night in the captain's cabin of the _Barfleur_.' Our
illustration depicts a third version of the incident.]
[Footnote 48: Hennequin, _Biographie Maritime_, vol. i. art. 'Marigny.']
[Footnote 49: They were:--the Chevalier du Pavillon, De Vaudreuil's
flag-captain; De la Clochetterie; De la Vicomté; Comte Bernard de
Marigny; De Saint Césaire; and D'Escars of the _Glorieux_.]
[Footnote 50: Half a million sterling was the French monetary loss
in one of the biggest sea battles ever fought. Japan lost upwards of
a million and a quarter by the sinking of one battleship alone, the
_Hatsuse_; and Russia, a million and eight thousand pounds by the
sinking of the _Petropavlovsk_.]
[Footnote 51: Blane's _Dissertations on Medical Science_, vol. i., as
before.]