Admiral. When, at half-past seven that evening, the alarm guns of the
frigate _Gibraltar_ were heard, and the ship herself came into the bay to
report what she had seen, practically half Boscawen’s fleet of fourteen
ships were undergoing refit, lying with sails unbent and topmasts
struck. The energy of the British Admiral and his captains recovered
the situation for England. Taken at a disadvantage as Boscawen’s fleet
was, all hands turned to with such smartness that within two hours of
the alarm guns being first heard every ship in Boscawen’s command was
in sea-going trim, ready for the order to weigh anchor. Before ten that
night, within two and a half hours of the _Gibraltar_ coming in, every
line-of-battle ship of the British Fleet was at sea, together with two
frigates and a fireship, heading through the Straits in chase of the
French under all sail.
They had their reward before many hours had passed.
At seven next morning, when off Cape Trafalgar, Boscawen got
sight—although for the moment they were far ahead—of the French fleet:
what bad seamanship during the night had left of it. No fewer than five
ships of de la Clue’s original fleet of twelve had parted company with
their Admiral and gone astray in the night after getting out of the
Straits. They straggled and dropped astern, and found themselves in the
morning out of sight, some leagues distant from their flagship and only
off Cadiz.
This again led to a disastrous mistake on the part of the French Admiral.
De la Clue, when about seven o’clock he first sighted the leading ships
of Boscawen’s fleet in the distance, coming up astern, took them for
his own missing five, and hove-to his whole fleet to give them time
to join. Worse still: after waiting awhile for them he went about and
actually stood back slowly to meet them—seven French men-of-war in
war time bearing up for fourteen English! He refused to believe that
Boscawen could possibly have got out of Gibraltar so quickly. The French
Admiral, in fact, held on towards the advancing enemy until, when escape
had become impossible, on finding his private signals unanswered, the
horrifying truth of the situation dawned on the unfortunate de la Clue.
It was then too late.
He turned and ran for it. He would try and outsail his pursuers if
he could; if not he would seek a refuge and shelter in some neutral
Portuguese port. Boscawen followed promptly, clearing for action as he
neared, and catching up the enemy all the morning hand over hand.
At noon, a fresh gale helping Boscawen along, he was almost within
gunshot of the French. At two in the afternoon his headmost ships were
near enough to open a long-range fire.
All that Sunday afternoon a running fight went on, protracted by the
wind suddenly dying away to nearly a calm. The rearmost of the French
squadron, the _Centaure_, a ship of seventy-four guns, practically held
the leading pursuers in check during most of that time. Nothing could be
more courageous than the _Centaure’s_ defence, regardless of the odds
against her. Until nearly nightfall she kept Boscawen’s leading ships
from closing on her and her consorts. The _Centaure_, under orders to
cover the retreat, exchanged a never-ceasing cannonade with the ships of
the English van for five hours, the fight becoming hotter and ever closer
until just before sunset. Then at length, with her three topmasts and the
mizen-mast shot away, and the ship herself so shattered and holed between
wind and water that she was with difficulty kept afloat, the well-fought
_Centaure_ had to lower her colours. She had played her part. She had
gained time for her Admiral to seek the shelter of Lagos Bay. In so doing
the _Centaure_ had lost over two hundred men in killed alone, including
her gallant captain, de Sabran. Although he had received no fewer than
eleven wounds, he still kept the quarter-deck until he received his
twelfth, and death wound.
A little ahead of the _Centaure_ was Admiral de la Clue’s flagship
_L’Océan_, with the _Téméraire_, and the _Redoutable_ and the _Modeste_
near by, sailing in a cluster just ahead of her. All four had every now
and then been assisting the _Centaure_, as now one, now another, of the
English ships came within range of their guns. Away in the van of the
French squadron were two more ships, the _Souverain_ and the _Guerrière_,
which were pushing on at some distance ahead of all.
To escape into neutral waters was the only course practicable to the
French ships, and all they now aimed at, as they held on during the
afternoon, crowding canvas to make land—the coast of Portugal near
Cape St. Vincent—which soon began to rise ahead of them more and more
distinctly.
A few minutes before the _Centaure_ surrendered there was a sharp
interchange of broadsides between the two flagships, Boscawen’s _Namur_
and de la Clue’s _Océan_, both three-deckers. The _Namur_ pushed past
the _Centaure_, then plainly _in extremis_, within gunshot of his chief
antagonist. Boscawen fastened on his chosen opponent and engaged the
French Admiral hotly, until a series of mishaps for the _Namur_, lucky
hits on the part of the French gunners, temporarily disabled the British
flagship by shooting down her mizen-mast and main-topsail yard. That
forced the _Namur_ to drop back out of action.
Admiral Boscawen, the story goes, at once quitted his crippled ship to
go on board the _Newark_, a seventy-four, the nearest ship among the
leaders in the British van, and had a narrow escape from drowning in his
passage from ship to ship; through a cannon-ball which struck his barge
and smashed a hole in it. The Admiral saved his own life and those of the
men with him, as it is related, by his presence of mind. The barge began
to fill and would have sunk under them, had not Boscawen smartly whipped
off his wig and stuffing it into the hole stopped the inrush of water,
enabling them to keep afloat until they could get alongside the _Newark_.
There was little more firing that evening after the _Centaure_ had made
her submission, but the pursuit of the _Téméraire_ and the other French
ships coastwise went steadily on.
All that night Boscawen chased, keeping the enemy well in sight,
although, as on the night before, they showed no lights.
Early next morning only four French ships were to be seen. The
_Souverain_ and the _Guerrière_, the two headmost of the enemy, had
altered course after dark. Being far ahead already, they managed to slip
off unobserved and got clear away. The four ships still before Boscawen
were in themselves, however, sufficient prize. These were now heading
in directly for the land, and were only a short way ahead of the British
Fleet.
De la Clue was about to make his second mistake. Admiral Boscawen, he
apparently imagined, would think twice about following him into neutral
waters and attacking him there. But the neutrality of Portugal was of
little account at such a moment. Might was right that August day for “Old
Dreadnought.” International proprieties notwithstanding, the British
Admiral “in a very Roman style made free with the coast of Portugal,” as
Horace Walpole put it. Boscawen swept straight down after de la Clue,
with his men at quarters and his guns run out.
The final phase opened about eight o’clock on the 19th of August, Monday
morning, when the French flagship _L’Océan_ was seen to run heavily
aground. She brought up hard and fast, and the next moment her three
masts went crashing over the side. Boscawen instantly signalled to the
leading British ship, a seventy-four, the _America_, to deal with the
French flagship. The order was carried out promptly. The _America_
closed nearly alongside the wrecked three-decker and opened fire on her;
whereupon the doomed _L’Océan_ lowered her flag. In the brief interval
before the _America’s_ boats, sent off to take possession of the prize,
could board the French flagship, M. de la Clue himself, mortally wounded
and with one leg broken, was hastily got away and rowed ashore, to die
there a little later. Almost at the same time that _L’Océan_ wrecked
herself, the _Redoutable_ ran on shore close by, breaking her back.
[Illustration: ADMIRAL BOSCAWEN’S VICTORY
_Painted by Swaine. Engraved and Published in 1760._
_In the foreground to the right is seen the “Warspite” attacking the
“Téméraire.” Boscawen’s flagship the “Namur” is in the centre flying the
Admiral’s Blue Flag at the main; and at the fore the red battle-flag,—the
“Bloody Flag” of the Old Navy._]
There remained the _Téméraire_ and the _Modeste_, which two ships, for
their part, let go anchor close under the guns of a Portuguese fort on
shore. The _Warspite_, a seventy-four of equal strength with the bigger
French ship, was told off to deal with the _Téméraire_. She closed on
her antagonist forthwith, in spite of warning shots from the Portuguese
fort, and attacked at pistol-shot range. Hopeless as his case was, with
no possibility of escape open to him, for upwards of an hour M. de
Chastillon, the _Téméraire’s_ captain, made a fight of it. Then having
done all he could he gave up his ship. The _Modeste_ surrendered not long
afterwards, and so Boscawen’s battle ended.
It was Captain Bently, of the _Warspite_, who gave the Royal Navy its
first _Téméraire_. The story of that morning’s work is told in the
_Warspite’s_ log:
“August 19th: 4 a.m.—Saw 4 sail of the enemy about 4 or 5 leagues from
us, running inshore. The other two having altered their course in the
night were out of sight. Continued chase and before 8 a.m. the French
admiral ran ashore 6 leagues E. of St. Vincent. All his masts went by the
board. Soon after saw another ashore, 4 miles W. of the French admiral,
and his masts too went by the board. The other two anchored close inshore.
“9 a.m.—Little wind and fair weather. Admiral anchored 3 leagues from
shore and signalled for all captains. At the same time signalled to the
_Conqueror_ and _Jersey_ to chase N.W. _Warspite_ brought-to.
“Captain Bently returned from the Admiral and stood inshore for the
easternmost of the enemy’s ships at anchor. The _America_ stood for the
French admiral. Little wind, hazy. Great swell from S.E. 1 p.m. _America_
anchored to eastward of the Ocean.
“We continued standing for the other French ships at anchor 2 m. to W. of
the _Ocean_. Soon after a fort fired several shot at the _Warspite_, but
hoisted no colours. Several of the shots struck the ship and did us some
damage.
“We continued standing in near the French ship and fired a few shot at
her, imagining she would immediately strike her colours; but finding she
did not, stood on and tacked and came close under her stern, and ¼ before
3 we began to engage her: ¼ before 4 she struck.
“At that time the Vice-Admiral with the _Jersey_, _Guernsey_, and _St.
Albans_ stood in to westward of us after another ship on shore and fired
some guns, when she struck; after which they set her on fire and stood
in towards the Cape where another French ship was at anchor which they
brought off. On our beginning to fire, the _America_ fired some guns on
the _Ocean_: she instantly hauled down her colours.
“We sent a boat on board and took possession of our prize, which proved
to be the _Téméraire_, 74 guns, 716 men. At ¼ to 5 we cut her cables and
carried her down to the Admiral.
“In the evening the _Intrepid_ and _America_ set fire to the _Ocean_.”
Boscawen, with his work accomplished and the Toulon fleet accounted for,
sailed away for England, carrying the _Téméraire_ and the _Modeste_ with
him under British colours, to add both ships, in their original French
names, to the British Navy. His battle in Lagos Bay under the shadow of
the cliffs of Cape St. Vincent, if perhaps few people nowadays remember
it, perhaps have ever heard of it, yet, in the words of Captain Mahan,
“saved England from invasion,” and the _Téméraire’s_ name should always
stand for us as a memento of that fact.
At the time the event made a widespread impression throughout Europe.
It caused great enthusiasm, as we are told, in the camps of the allied
armies fighting the French beyond the Rhine, and was honoured by a cannon
salute. “We were entertained,” wrote a British officer in the army which
had just fought at Minden, “with a _feu de joie_ within hearing of the
French camp, in honour of Admiral Boscawen’s success against the Toulon
squadron.”
The little difficulty with Portugal that ensued was settled amicably. The
elder Pitt, then Prime Minister, had his own way of dealing with matters
that would upset the feebler nerved politicians of our modern House of
Commons. The Opposition in the House tried, of course, to make party
capital over Boscawen’s breach of Portuguese neutrality. “Very true,” was
all the answer Pitt deigned to make, “but the enemy’s ships were burned.”
He sent Lord Kinnoull to Lisbon with a polite expression of regret at
the unavoidable necessity of the case, and the incident was not heard of
again.
For many years after her capture by Boscawen the _Téméraire_ was reckoned
one of the finest seventy-fours in King George’s service, and among the
“crack” ships of the British Navy. She served England both in European
waters and across the Atlantic, with all the most notable admirals of the
time—with Hawke and Boscawen himself; in the Channel Fleet blockading
Brest; and under Keppel, Rodney, and Pocock in the West Indies. After
being for nearly twenty years in commission, the old war-prize in her
closing days—at the beginning of the war with France and Spain, when
the two nations combined against England to assist the rebel American
colonists—was converted into a floating-battery hulk for harbour defence,
on which duty our first _Téméraire_ ended her career. In June, 1784, she
was sold out of the service for breaking up.
That is the story of our first _Téméraire_, the immediate predecessor of
the famous “Fighting” _Téméraire_ of Trafalgar fame, which formed the
subject of Turner’s masterpiece.
One battleship of our ironclad fleet has borne the name. That was the
_Téméraire_ which was with Sir Geoffrey Hornby when he passed the
Dardanelles in 1878. She took part also at the bombardment of Alexandria
in 1882, and still exists, converted for use as a floating workshop at
Devonport, under the unrecognizable label of _Indus II_.
Our new “improved _Dreadnought_” _Téméraire_ of 1907 is the fourth bearer
of the name under the British flag.
V
HAWKE’S FINEST PRIZE:—HOW THE _FORMIDABLE_ CHANGED HER FLAG
The guns that should have conquered us they rusted on the shore,
The men that would have mastered us they drummed and marched no more,
For England was England, and a mighty brood she bore—
When Hawke came swooping from the West!
How the British Navy came by its first _Formidable_ man-of-war, the
predecessor in the direct line of the fine first-class battleship, the
_Formidable_ of our modern Navy, is one of the most exciting tales in
our naval annals. It serves too to commemorate one of the most brilliant
victories ever won at sea—the dashing encounter on that eventful winter’s
afternoon in the Bay of Biscay, “When Hawke came swooping from the West”:—
’Twas long past noon of a wild November day
When Hawke came swooping from the West;
He heard the breakers thundering in Quiberon Bay,
But he flew the flag for battle, line abreast.
Down upon the quicksands, roaring out of sight,
Fiercely beat the storm-wind, darkly fell the night.
But they took the foe for pilot and the cannon’s glare for light,
When Hawke came swooping from the West.
How the _Formidable_ passed that day from France to England is, indeed,
something of which both England and France may be jointly proud. Never
fought men more heroically on both sides—the enemy to keep, we to
take—amid all the horrors of a furious storm and ever imminent shipwreck
and catastrophe.
This is the story of how, where, and when the Royal Navy won its first
_Formidable_, the first of a famous line.
It was the afternoon of the 20th of November, 1759, a Tuesday. The scene
was among the black-fanged reefs of granite rock, and the treacherous
quicksands that fringe the “sickle-shaped sweep” of Quiberon Bay on the
coast of the Morbihan, in Lower Brittany, in the north-eastern quarter of
the Bay of Biscay. The battle was fought in the height of a wild raging
storm from the Atlantic, a tremendous gale from the north-west, howling
blasts of wind, and torrents of hissing rain, and thick, dark weather,
with the sea lashed to fury all round, and gigantic breakers running “so
high that no boat could live for a moment among them,” as one who was
present described. “A network of shoals and sandbanks” is what a French
writer calls Quiberon Bay, “with heavy surf breaking along the shore on
the calmest days of summer, and ugly cross-currents swirling to and fro
with the strength and rush of a mill race”; a place “lined with reefs
that the navigator never sees without alarm, and never passes without
emotion.”
Hawke and his captains swept down on the French fleet, cornered between
the storm and the shore, in the midst of the rocks and quicksands;
without charts themselves, and for the most part without pilots, or, at
least, pilots that they could trust; flinging themselves on the enemy
heedless of gale and breakers, attacking ship after ship of the French as
each was met with, “to make,” in Hawke’s own expressive words, “downright
work of them.”
De Conflans, Maréchal de France, commanded the French Fleet. He was one
of a batch of eight marshals created, _honoris causa_, some two years
before; a boon companion of royalty, one of the “flying tables” set, a
fine figure of a man to look at, as his portrait at Versailles shows
him, handsome, tall, and well made, a hard rider to hounds at Compiègne
or Fontainebleau, with a pretty wit in the boudoir and over the card
table; also one of the Pompadour’s courtier friends, which was perhaps
the main reason why a man of de Conflans’ stamp as a naval officer found
himself in chief command at that place that day. There were marshals of
the French Navy as well as of the army under the _ancien régime_. The
rank was first instituted by Louis XIV when he solaced Admiral Tourville
with the _bâton_ and its consequences—a big salary, the title of
“Monseigneur,” and court precedence at the head of the Grand Officers of
State—to make up for his ill-fortune at La Hogue.
As an admiral Conflans proved an utter failure. That morning, when he
first, some forty miles to westward of Belleisle, saw Hawke approaching,
he formed line and brought-to. He would fight the English, he said, in
the open sea to the south of Belleisle. As Hawke came nearer, when it was
too late, he changed his mind and ran off pell-mell to take shelter among
the reefs and shoals of Quiberon. With Conflans were de Beauffrement,
Vice-Admiral, the second in command, and the Comte de Verger,
Rear-Admiral, the third in command, who had his flag in the _Formidable_.
De Verger’s squadron formed up astern, its place in the line of battle.
As Hawke’s leading ships began to overtake the French the gallant
Rear-Admiral shortened sail and dropped back. He would await his fate at
what in the circumstances was the post of honour, as rearmost ship of
all. There, practically single-handed, the _Formidable_ bore the brunt of
Hawke’s opening attack.
Hawke’s van ships caught up the rear of the French Fleet just to the
south-east of Belleisle, as it was in the act of heading to round the
Cardinals, a chain of dangerous rocks and outlying islets, and stand in
for Quiberon Bay, then still ahead of them some eighteen to twenty miles.
Conflans was that distance from his intended refuge when the first shots
went off. Both fleets began to fight as they overlapped, the British
coming up under every stitch of canvas which their masts could stand—“not
a topsail was reefed”—the ships now wallowing in the trough of the waves,
now plunging and rolling and staggering forward on the crest, while heavy
surging cross-seas burst and broke in deluges of seething foam over
the ships’ bows. So terrible was the weather that on board some of the
British ships men were flung down on deck or hurled helplessly about and
seriously injured and maimed. In one or two men were washed overboard and
never seen again. The guns were double-breeched; eight men were at the
wheel in every ship. So on that awful November afternoon did Hawke swoop
down to strike.
On the French side there were twenty-one ships—with Hawke, twenty-three;
but the French ships were on the average bigger vessels than ours, and
carried heavier guns. That for fighting purposes in such weather gave
Conflans the advantage. Another thing was this: all the fighting that
day was done by barely two-thirds of Hawke’s fleet. A full third of the
British Fleet were too far in rear—out-paced in the chase—and were unable
to come up in time to have any influence on the fortune of the fight.
Ship after ship of the advancing British Fleet as they reached the enemy
attacked the _Formidable_ hotly. First, the _Dorsetshire_, of seventy
guns, captained by Peter Denis, an Irishman (Anson’s dashing lieutenant
of the old _Centurion_ days), gave her a flying broadside as she swept
by to windward; passing on then and driving ahead, making for the French
van. Then the _Defiance_, another seventy-gun ship, following fast in the
_Dorsetshire’s_ wake, gave the _Formidable_ a second broadside.
Lord Howe, in the _Magnanime_, a powerful seventy-four and a prize from
the French on a former day, came next. Thierri, best of pilots for
that coast, was at the con. He had volunteered for the _Magnanime_,
as he explained, “parceque le capitaine ’Owe est jeune et brave!”
Howe as he came on meant merely to brush past the _Formidable_ with
as brisk interchange of fire as might be, and then push ahead like
the others to wing the flyers in the van; but a shot from the French,
as he came abreast de Verger, carried his foreyard away and checked
the _Magnanime_. “Black Dick”—Howe’s name in the Navy—closed with the
_Formidable_ instantly. He “bore down upon the Rear Admiral,” in the
words of an eye-witness, “and getting under his lee opened a most
tremendous fire from his thirty-twos and twenty-fours.” “Lord Howe, who
attacked the _Formidable_,” says Horace Walpole, “bore down upon her with
such violence that her prow forced in his lower tier of guns.” In the
collision, as we are told by some one else, the _Formidable’s_ port lids
“were wrenched clean away.”
Ten minutes later up came the _Warspite_, Sir John Bently, the captor of
the _Téméraire_ in Boscawen’s battle, who had recently joined the Channel
Fleet. Hauling up near at hand, she joined with the _Magnanime_ in the
attack. The two ships were two of the smartest in all the British Navy,
and under their terrific pounding the _Formidable_ was dismasted and
reduced almost to a wreck. “In half an hour,” says our eye-witness, “they
made a dreadful havoc in the _Formidable_, whose fire began to slack.”
De Verger’s flag, though, still flew defiantly, as did the French ensign
at the staff astern, although the gallant Admiral had already fallen,
as well as his first captain (de Verger’s younger brother), and most of
the other officers, with, in addition, upwards of two hundred men. The
Comte de Verger himself, we are told, was badly wounded at the outset
of the fighting. He was carried below, and had his wounds dressed, but
he refused to stay in the cockpit. He had himself brought up again in a
chair and set down on the quarter-deck. There a little later a second
shot struck him dead.