Originally the _Torrington_, one of Cromwell’s frigates, and named,
after the Puritan usage, to commemorate a Roundhead victory over the
hapless Cavaliers, Restoration Year saw the ship renamed _Dreadnought_,
under which style she rendered the State good service for many a long
year to come. In that time the _Dreadnought_ fought, always with credit,
in no fewer than seven fleet battles. She was with the Duke of York
when he beat Opdam off Lowestoft in 1665; with Monk, Duke of Albemarle,
and Prince Rupert in the “Four Days’ Fight” of 1666; at the defeat of
De Ruyter in the St. James’s Day Fight of the same year. Solebay, in
the Third Dutch War, was another of our second _Dreadnought’s_ notable
days, and also Prince Rupert’s three drawn battles with De Ruyter off
the Banks of Flanders in 1673. Worn out with thirty-six years’ service
(reckoning from the day that the _Torrington_ first took the water), the
_Dreadnought_ had set forth to meet the famous French corsair, Jean Bart,
in the North Sea, when, one stormy October night of 1690, she foundered
off the South Foreland. Happily, the boats of her squadron had time to
rescue those on board.
Our fourth _Dreadnought_, William the Third’s ship, fought the French at
Barfleur and La Hogue, and after that did good service down to the Peace
of Ryswick as a Channel cruiser and in charge of convoys. She served all
through “Queen Anne’s War,” by chance only missing Benbow’s last fight.
Later, the _Dreadnought_ was with the elder Byng—Lord Torrington—at the
battle off Cape Passaro, in the Straits of Messina, in 1718, where one,
if not two, Spaniards lowered their colours to her. The _Dreadnought_ on
that occasion formed one of Captain Walton’s detached squadron, whose
exploit history has kept on record, thanks to Captain Walton’s dispatch
to the admiral, as set forth in the popular version of it: “Sir, we have
taken all the ships on the coast, the number as per margin.” Of that
dispatch more will be said elsewhere.[1] The _Dreadnought_ ended her days
in George the Second’s reign, at the close of the war sometimes spoken of
as “The War of Jenkins’ Ear.”
Two _Dreadnought_ officers, Sir Edward Spragge, who captained our second
_Dreadnought_ in the “Four Days’ Fight,” and Sir Charles Wager, a very
famous admiral in his day, First Lieutenant of our third _Dreadnought_ in
the year before La Hogue, have monuments in Westminster Abbey.
Boscawen’s _Dreadnought_ comes next, a sixty-gun ship built in the year
1742. She was the first ship of the line that Boscawen had the command
of, and she gave him his _sobriquet_ in the Navy, “Old Dreadnought,”
the name of his ship just hitting off the tough old salt’s chief
characteristic—absolute fearlessness. An incident that occurred on board
the _Dreadnought_ while Boscawen commanded the ship gave the _sobriquet_
vogue. It is, too, a fine sample of what Carlyle calls “two o’clock in
the morning courage.”
It was in the year 1744, when we were at war with both France and
Spain, one night when the _Dreadnought_ was cruising in the channel.
The officer of the watch, the story goes, came down after midnight to
Captain Boscawen’s cabin and awoke him, saying, “Sir, there are two large
ships which look like Frenchmen bearing down on us; what are we to do?”
“Do?” answered Boscawen, turning out of his cot and going on deck in his
nightshirt, “Do? why, d⸺ ’em; fight ’em!” The fight did not come off,
however, as the suspicious strangers disappeared.
On board Boscawen’s _Dreadnought_ it was that, fourteen years later,
Nelson’s uncle, Maurice Suckling, who got Nelson his first appointment
in the Royal Navy, and under whose command the boy Nelson first went to
sea, made his mark as a post-captain. It was in the West Indies in 1757,
the year in which Byng was shot, and the day was the 21st of October.
The _Dreadnought_ with two consorts met seven French men-of-war, four of
them individually bigger and more heavily gunned ships than ours, and the
other three powerful frigates, and gave them a sound thrashing.
The news was received in England with exceptional gratification as the
first sign of the turn of the tide since Byng’s defeat off Minorca. That
was one thing about it that stamped the event in popular memory. A second
memorable thing was the incident, according to the popular story, of the
“Half Minute Council of War” that preceded the fight.
The three British ships were the _Augusta_, Captain Forrest; the
_Dreadnought_, Captain Maurice Suckling; and the _Edinburgh_, Captain
Langdon. The three had been sent by the admiral at Jamaica to cruise off
Cape François, in order to intercept a large French homeward merchant
convoy reported to be weakly guarded. The available French naval force on
the station was believed to be too weak to face our little squadron. But,
unknown to Admiral Cotes at Port Royal, fresh men-of-war had just arrived
from France purposely to see the convoy home. In the result, when our
three ships arrived off Cape François, seven French ships stood out to
meet them. In spite of the odds the British three held on their course.
These were the forces on either side, in ships and men:—
BRITISH LINE OF BATTLE.
_Dreadnought_ 60 guns Capt. Suckling 375 men
_Augusta_ 60 ” Capt. Forrest 390 ”
_Edinburgh_ 64 ” Capt. Langdon 467 ”
--- ----
184 guns. 1232 men.
=== ====
FRENCH LINE OF BATTLE.
_La Sauvage_ 30 guns 206 men
_L’Intrépide_ (Commodore) 74 ” 900 ”
_L’Opiniâtre_ 64 ” 640 ”
_Le Greenwich_ (formerly British) 50 ” 400 ”
_La Licorne_ 30 ” 200 ”
_Le Sceptre_ 74 ” 750 ”
_L’Outarde_ 44 ” 350 ”
--- ----
366 guns. 3446 men.
=== ====
Directly the French came in sight the senior officer, Captain Forrest of
the _Augusta_, signalled to the other two captains to come on board for
a council of war. They came, and, the story goes, arrived alongside the
_Augusta_ together and mounted the ship’s side together. As they stepped
on to the _Augusta’s_ gangway, Captain Forrest, it is related, addressed
the two officers in these terms: “Gentlemen, you see the enemy are out;
shall we engage them?” “By all means,” said Captain Suckling. “It would
be a pity to disappoint them,” said Captain Langdon. “Very well, then,”
replied Forrest; “will you gentlemen go back to your ships and clear for
action?” The two captains bowed, and turned and withdrew without having,
as it was said, actually set foot on the senior officer’s quarter-deck.
Within three-quarters of an hour they were in action, the _Dreadnought_
leading in and attacking the French headmost ship as the squadrons
closed. Captain Suckling opened the fight by throwing the _Dreadnought_
right across the bows of the _Intrépide_, a 74, and much the bigger ship,
forcing her to sheer off to port to avoid being raked.
Backed up by the _Augusta_ and the _Edinburgh_, the _Dreadnought_ was
able to overwhelm the French commodore with her fire, and force the
crippled _Intrépide_ back on the next ship, the _Opiniâtre_. That vessel
in turn backed into the fourth French ship, and she into another, the
_Sceptre_. The four big ships of the enemy were accounted for. Our three
ships seized the opportunity. Well in hand themselves, they pounded
away, broadside after broadside, into the hapless Frenchmen, who were
too much occupied in trying to disentangle themselves to do more than
make a feeble and ineffective reply. By the time that they got clear the
British squadron had so far got the upper hand that the French drew off,
leaving the British squadron masters of the field. All of our three ships
suffered severely, the _Dreadnought_ most of all.
In Nelson’s lifetime the day was always observed by the family at Burnham
Thorpe with special festivities, and Nelson himself often called it, it
is on record, “the happiest day of the year.” More than that too, Nelson
himself more than once half playfully expressed his conviction that he
too might some time fight a battle on another 21st of October, and make
the day for the family even more of a red-letter day. As a fact, during
the last three weeks of his life on board the _Victory_ off Cadiz, in
October, 1805, Nelson, with a prescience that the event justified, used
these words both to Captain Hardy and to Dr. Beatty the surgeon of the
flagship: “The 21st of October will be our day!”
Captain Maurice Suckling’s “Dreadnought” sword was bequeathed to Nelson
and was ever kept by him as his most treasured possession. He always wore
it in battle, it is said; notably at St. Vincent, when he boarded and
took the two great Spanish ships the _San Nicolas_ and the _San Josef_;
and his right hand was grasping it when the grape shot shattered his arm
at Teneriffe.
The _Dreadnought_ of Boscawen and Maurice Suckling ended her days at
perhaps England’s darkest hour of national trial—at the time of the
American War. She was doing harbour duty at Portsmouth at the time, as a
guard and receiving ship.
At no period, perhaps in all our history did the future and the prospects
of the British Empire seem so absolutely hopeless. We were fighting for
existence against France and Spain, the two chief maritime Powers of
Europe; and at the same time the vitality of the nation was being sapped
by the never-ceasing struggle with the American colonists, now in its
seventh year. Holland had added herself to our foes; Russia and the
Baltic Powers were banded together in a league of “armed neutrality,” and
stood by sullen and menacing. That, however, was not the worst. The price
of naval impotence had to be paid. Great Britain was no longer mistress
of the sea. She had lost command of the sea, and was drinking the bitter
cup of consequent humiliation to the dregs.
[Illustration: THE RED-LETTER DAY OF NELSON’S CALENDAR. HOW THE
_DREADNOUGHT_ LED THE ATTACK ON THE 21st OF OCTOBER, 1757
_“Edinburgh.”_ _“Augusta.”_ _“Dreadnought.”_
_Painted by Swaine. Engraved and Published in 1760._]
It was the direct outcome of party politics and short sighted naval
retrenchments in time of peace, pandering to the clamour of ministerial
supporters in the House of Commons. The printed Debates and Journals of
the House between 1773 and 1781 are extant, as are also the summaries of
the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, for those who care to learn what passed.
Out-matched and out-classed at every point, the British fleet found
itself held in check all the world over. Colony after colony was wrested
from us, or had to be let go, while our squadrons in distant seas had
not strength enough to do better than fight drawn battles.[2] Gibraltar,
closely beset by sea and land, was still holding out, but no man dared
prophesy what news of the great fortress might not arrive next. Minorca,
England’s other Mediterranean possession, had to surrender. The enemy
were masters of the island, after driving the garrison into their last
defences at St. Philip’s Castle. Nearer home, Ireland, in the enjoyment
of Home Rule, was using the hour of Great Britain’s difficulty as her
opportunity for demanding practical independence, with eighty thousand
Irish volunteers under arms to back up the threats of the Dublin
Parliament.
The Channel Fleet, though reinforced with every ship it was possible
to find crews for, held the Channel practically on sufferance. Once it
had to retreat before the enemy and seek refuge at Spithead. On another
occasion the enemy were on the point of attacking it in Torbay with such
preponderance of force that overwhelming disaster must have befallen it.
Fortunately for England the French and Spanish admirals disagreed at the
last moment and turned back.
Hanging in a frame on the walls of the Musée de Marine at the Louvre
the English visitor to Paris to-day may see a draft original “State,”
giving the official details of the divisions and brigades and the ships
to escort them, of one of the French armies which was to be thrown across
into England. It was no empty menace, and for three years the beacons
along our south and east coasts had to be watched nightly; while camps
of soldiers, horse and foot and artillery—the few regulars that had not
been sent off to America—with all the militia regiments in the kingdom,
extended all the way round, at points, from Caithness to Cornwall. To
safeguard London there were camps of from eight to ten battalions each,
mostly militia, at Coxheath, near Maidstone, at Dartford, at Warley, at
Danbury in Essex, and at Tiptree Heath. To secure the colliery shipping
of the Tyne two militia battalions were under canvas near Gateshead. A
camp at Dunbar and Haddington watched over Edinburgh. The West Country
was guarded by a big camp of fifteen militia battalions at Roborough,
near Plymouth, with an outlying camp on Buckland Down, near Tavistock.
To prevent the enemy making use of Torbay, Berry Head was fortified,
the ruins of the old Roman camp of Vespasian’s legionaries there being
utilized to build two twenty-four pounder batteries overlooking the
passage into the bay. Every town almost throughout England had its “Armed
Association” or “Fencibles,” volunteers, the men of which, by special
permission from the Archbishop of Canterbury, drilled after church time
every Sunday.
The effect on the oversea commerce of the country, penalized by excessive
insurance rates, was calamitous. From 25 to 30 per cent premium was paid
at Lloyds on cargoes from Bristol, Liverpool, and Glasgow to New York
(still in British hands); and 20 per cent to the West Indies. As to the
reality of the risk. On one occasion the enemy captured an Indiaman fleet
bodily off Madeira, only eight vessels out of sixty-three escaping,
with a loss to Great Britain of a million and a half sterling, including
£300,000 in specie. We have, indeed, at this moment a daily reminder of
the disaster. One of the unfortunate underwriters was a Mr. John Walter.
His whole fortune swept away, he took to journalism, and the _Times_
newspaper was the result. Home waters were hardly more secure. Rather
than pay the excessive extra premium demanded for the voyage up Channel,
London merchants had their goods unladen at Bristol, and carried in light
flat-bottomed craft called “runners,” built specially for the traffic,
up the Severn to Gloucester, thence to be carted across to Lechlade
for conveyance to their destination by barge down the Thames. At the
same time the North Sea packets from Edinburgh (Grangemouth) to London
refused all passengers who would not undertake to assist in the defence
of the vessel in emergency. Printed notices were pasted up at the wharves
announcing that no Quakers would be carried.
To such a pass had the loss of her supremacy at sea reduced Great Britain
in the closing year of our fourth _Dreadnought’s_ career.
Our fifth _Dreadnought_ fought at Trafalgar. She was a 98-gun ship, one
of the same set as the famous “fighting” _Téméraire_. The newspapers of
the day made a good deal of her launch, which took place at Portsmouth
Dockyard, on Saturday, the 13th of June, 1801. Here is an extract from
one account:—
“At about twelve o’clock this fine ship, which has been thirteen years
upon the stocks, was launched from the dockyard with all the naval
splendour that could possibly be given to aid the grandeur and interest
of the spectacle. She was decorated with an Ensign, Jack, Union, and the
Imperial Standard, and had the marine band playing the distinguished
martial pieces of ‘God save the King,’ ‘Rule Britannia,’ etc. etc. A
prodigious concourse of persons, to the amount, as is supposed, of at
least 10,000, assembled, and were highly delighted by the magnificence
of the ship and the beautiful manner in which she entered the watery
element. But what afforded great satisfaction was, that, in the passage
of this immense fabric from the stocks, not a single accident happened.
She was christened by Commissioner Sir Charles Saxton, who, as usual,
broke a bottle of wine over her stem. Her complement of guns is to be 98,
and she has the following significant emblem at her head; viz.—a lion
couchant on a scroll containing the imperial arms as emblazoned on the
Standard. This is remarkably well timed and adapted to her as being the
first man-of-war launched since the Union of the British Isles.”
[Illustration: WHEN GEORGE THE THIRD WAS KING. OFFICERS AT AFTERNOON TEA
ASHORE.
_Thomas Rowlandson. 1786._]
[Illustration: MANNING THE FLEET IN 1779. A WARM CORNER FOR THE PRESS
GANG.
_James Gillray. Oct. 15, 1779._]
For twelve months before Trafalgar, the _Dreadnought_ was Collingwood’s
flagship in the Channel Fleet. Collingwood passed most of the time
cruising on blockade duty in the Bay of Biscay, where he used to spend
his nights pacing on deck to and fro restlessly, expecting the enemy at
any moment, and snatching intervals of sleep lying down on a gun-carriage
on the quarter-deck. Collingwood only changed from her into the bigger
_Royal Sovereign_ ten days before the battle. Under the eye of the former
captain of our first _Excellent_ man-of-war, the _Dreadnought’s_ men had
been trained to fire three broadsides in one minute and a half—a gunnery
record for that day.
At Trafalgar the _Dreadnought_ fought as one of the ships in
Collingwood’s line, and did the best with what opportunity came her way.
“This quiet old _Dreadnought_” wrote Dickens of his visit to the ship in
her last years, “whose fighting days are all over—_sans_ guns, _sans_
shot, _sans_ shells, _sans_ everything—did fight at Trafalgar under
Captain Conn—did figure as one of the hindmost ships in the column which
Collingwood led—went into action about two in the afternoon, and captured
the _San Juan_ in fifteen minutes.”
While fighting the _San Juan_—the _San Juan Nepomuceno_, a Spanish
seventy-four—the _Dreadnought_ had to keep off two other Spaniards and
a Frenchman at the same time; Admiral Gravina’s flagship, the _Principe
de Asturias_, of 112 guns, and the _San Justo_ and _Indomptable_, two
seventy-fours. The _San Juan_ in the end proved an easy prize, for she
had been already severely mauled by some of Collingwood’s leading ships.
On being run alongside of she gave in quickly. Without staying to take
possession, the _Dreadnought_ pushed on to close with the big _Principe
de Asturias_, and gave her several broadsides, one shot from which
mortally wounded Admiral Gravina. The Spanish three-decker, however,
managed to disengage, and made off, to lead the escaping ships in their
flight for Cadiz. Thus the _Dreadnought_ was baulked of her big prize.
It was the Trafalgar _Dreadnought_ that gave the name to that great
international institution, the _Dreadnought_ Seamen’s Hospital, at
Greenwich. This, of course, was long after Trafalgar, for the “wooden
whopper of the Thames,” as Dickens called the old three-decker in her
old age, did not make her appearance off Greenwich until a quarter of a
century later. The fine old veteran of “Eighteen Hundred and War Time,”
lasted until 1857, and to the end they preserved on board as the special
relic of interest, “a piece of glass from a cabin skylight scrawled over,
with somebody’s diamond ring, with the names of those officers who were
in her at Trafalgar.” Another old three-decker replaced the Trafalgar
ship until 1870, when the institution was removed on shore. At Chatham
to-day, in the dockyard museum, visitors may see the _Dreadnought’s_ bell
which was on board the old ship during the battle, and was removed from
her when the _Dreadnought_ was broken up. Yet another memento of the
Trafalgar _Dreadnought_ exists in the Eton eight-oar _Dreadnought_, one
of the “Lower Boats,” and so-called originally, together with the boat
that bears the name _Victory_, in honour of Nelson and Trafalgar.
Our sixth _Dreadnought_ is a still existing ironclad turret-ship,
mounting four 38-ton muzzle loaders, launched in 1875. She is a ship
of 10,820 tons, and cost to complete for sea £619,739. She served
for ten years—from 1884 to 1894—in the Mediterranean, and after that
as a coast-guard ship in Bantry Bay. Paid off finally in 1905, the
_Dreadnought_ now lies at her last moorings in the Kyles of Bute,
awaiting the final day of all for her naval career, and the auctioneer’s
hammer.
To conclude with a flying glance at our mighty battleship, the
_Dreadnought_ of to-day, the seventh bearer of the name until now, and
as all the world knows by far the most powerful man-of-war that has ever
sailed the seas. She is the biggest and the heaviest and the fastest and
the hardest-hitting vessel that any navy as yet has seen afloat. And
more than that. The _Dreadnought_ has been so built as to be practically
unsinkable by mine or torpedo; while at the same time her tremendous
battery of ten 12-in. guns—huge cannon, each forty-five feet long—makes
her absolutely irresistible in battle against all comers; a match for
any two—probably any three—of the biggest battleships in foreign navies
afloat at the present hour.
These are some of the “points”—some of the leading features—of this grim
_mastodonte de mer_ of ours, His Majesty’s battleship, the _Dreadnought_.
With her coal, ammunition, and sea stores on board, the _Dreadnought_
weighs—or displaces in equivalent bulk of sea water, according to the
present-day method of reckoning the size of men-of-war—17,800 tons.
Put the _Dreadnought_ bodily inside St. Paul’s and she would fill the
whole nave and chancel of the Cathedral from reredos to the Western
doors. Her length would take up the whole of one side of Trafalgar
Square. Her width would exactly fill Northumberland Avenue, leaving only
some half-dozen inches between the house fronts on either side and the
outside of the hull. Two _Victorys_ and a frigate of Nelson’s day, fully
manned and rigged, could be packed away within the _Dreadnought’s_ hull.
[Illustration: [Our _Dreadnought_ of to-day: deck-plan to scale; showing
the disposition of the 12-in. 58-ton turret-guns and their arcs of
training. (Bows to the right.)][3]]
Measured from end to end, from bows to stern, the ship’s hull extends 490
feet. From forecastle to keel, measuring vertically, is a matter of some
60 feet down, equivalent to about the normal height of a church tower.
What, however, above everything else, specially distinguishes the
_Dreadnought_ from all other warships afloat, is her terrific battery.
Hitherto four 12-inch guns have formed the standard main armament for
all battleships. The _Dreadnought_ carries ten 12-inch guns of a new and
more powerful type than any heretofore in existence. They are mounted in
pairs in “redoubts,” armoured with Krupp steel eleven inches thick, and
are so grouped on board that when fighting broadside-on with an enemy,
eight of the ten guns will bear on the enemy and be in action throughout.
In chase, or fighting end-on, six of the guns are available at all
times. The firing charge per gun of “modified” cordite weighs by itself
2 cwt.—the weight of a sack of coals on a street coal-cart. In the hour
of battle each discharge from the _Dreadnought’s_ broadside will hurl
into the enemy three tons of “metal”—bursting shells—each shell being
from three to four feet long, and weighing singly 7½ cwt. With each shot
also, bang goes £80, the cost of the cartridge and its projectile. Twelve
thousand yards will be the _Dreadnought’s_ chosen range for engaging—six
miles—about as far as clear vision is possible above the horizon.
[Illustration: [Curve of flight, or trajectory, of 850 lb. projectile
from a _Dreadnought_ 12-in. turret-gun fired with full service charge.]]
[Illustration: [The 12-in. gun is about the same weight as an ordinary
railway passenger train engine.]]
“Mark X” is the official style for the _Dreadnought_ class of 12-inch
gun. It is the most powerful piece of ordnance in the world. It weighs
upwards of fifty-eight tons, about the weight of a larger “tank” railway
engine of the kind that brings the suburban bread-winner up to London
every morning. Its muzzle velocity—the speed at which the shot flashes
forth from the gun—is 2900 feet (966⅔ yards, or well over half a mile) in
a second. The force with which the shot starts off is enough to send it
through a solid slab of wrought iron set close up in front of the muzzle
of the gun 4¼ feet thick. When fired with full charges, each gun develops
a force able to lift the _Dreadnought_ herself bodily nearly a yard up,
exerting a force equivalent to 47,697 “foot-tons,” in gunnery language.
The entire broadside of eight 12-inch guns, fired simultaneously, as at
the gun trial off the Isle of Wight, develops a force sufficient to
heave the huge vessel herself, 21 feet up—nearly out of the water, in
fact.