Chapter I: The Monmouths in War

HOW ARTHUR GARDINER FOUGHT THE _FOUDROYANT_

Aye stout were her timbers and stoutly commanded,
In the annals of glory unchalleng'd her name;
Aye ready for battle when duty demanded,
Aye ready to conquer--or die in her fame!

_Old Song._

The _Monmouth_ of to-day is one of our 'County Cruisers'--and among them one of the smartest and best. Her special role in war-time will be to help in safeguarding the commerce of the British Empire on the high seas, to see that the corn-ships and the cattle-ships from across the Atlantic, on which the people of these islands depend for their existence from day to day, reach port without molestation by the 'corsair cruisers' of the enemy. It will be her duty to patrol on the trade routes far and wide, and chase off hostile ships at sight, or run them down and fight them. All that, with other duties at times thrown in:--

For this is our office, to spy and make room. As hiding, yet guiding the foe to their doom; Surrounding, confounding, to bait and betray And tempt them to battle the seas' width away.

For her work, whatever it may be, the _Monmouth_ is well equipped. She carries quick-firing guns and Krupp steel armour on her sides, and can steam at high speed--23 knots, or, on occasion, a trifle more.

A glance round on board this brand new twentieth-century cruiser of ours may be of interest at the outset.

An ugly customer to tackle looks the _Monmouth_ in her 'war-paint' of sombre Navy grey, devoid, as are our modern men-of-war, of all that has to do with prettiness and the merely decorative.

Mis arreos son las armas, Mi descanso el pelear,

My ornaments are arms, My pastime is in war,

is the motto of the Royal Navy of our day.

A big ship is the _Monmouth_, a first-class cruiser of not far short of 10,000 tons displacement,--9800 tons, to be exact,--a floating weight heavier than all the mass of iron and steel in the Eiffel Tower. She measures over all, from end to end, from ram to rudder, 463-1/2 feet. To give an idea, in another way, of the ship's size. If she were stood on end inside St. Paul's Cathedral, her bows would project 60 feet above the cross over the dome. Set up on end beside the Clock Tower at Westminster, the ship's length would overtop the tower by half as high again. The Monument piled on the top of the Nelson Column would need an extra 50 feet to equal the _Monmouth_ from stem to stern. Propped up against Beachy Head, the _Monmouth_ would overtop the turf at the edge of the cliff summit fully 90 feet. Laid lengthways inside St. Paul's, the _Monmouth_ would fill the whole length of the nave and chancel from the western door to the reredos. Placed along the front of Buckingham Palace, the _Monmouth's_ hull would overlap the facade for 50 feet on either side. In width the ship is 66 feet broad amidships,--22 yards, just the length of a cricket-pitch, or one foot wider than London Bridge after its recent enlargement. It takes 5 tons weight of paint to coat the hull above water, and 6 tons to coat it below; and costs, the single item of paint by itself, every time it is laid on--L800.

Her three funnels each stand up 75 feet into the air--very nearly the height of the Round Tower of Windsor Castle above the mound at its foot. Each funnel weighs 20 tons, and costs L400 to make--a year's pay of a colonel of hussars. In diameter each is the exact size, to an inch, of the 'Two-penny Tube.' If they were laid flat, a life-guardsman in King's Birthday regimentals could trot through them. Each lower mast is a steel tube, 80 feet from end to end and weighing 20 tons. The rudder weighs 18 tons; and the ram, a steel casting, 19 tons. The propellers each weigh 12 tons, and are each 16 feet across from tip to tip. The stern-post weighs 20 tons.

The armour on the conning-tower is 10 inches thick, and weighs 65 tons, the weight of a Great Western express engine. It cost L7500--a sum equal to the lumped salaries for one year of all the Sea Lords of the Admiralty. The 10 inches of nickel steel of which it is made can stand a harder blow than the 17 inches of iron armour on the turrets of the old _Inflexible_. The conning-tower is the main 'fighting station' of the ship, the nerve-centre of the mighty organisation. Thence in action, from behind a ring-fence of solid metal, are controlled the huge engines, far down below, impelled by

The strength of twice ten thousand horse
That serve the one command,

--if one may vary Mr. Kipling,--engines of the power of twenty-two thousand horses, the strength of an army corps of cavalry; also the steering of the ship and the firing of the guns. By means of a simple arrangement in the three primary colours--red, blue, and yellow--painted in bands round the walls of the conning-tower inside, the captain can tell at a glance, at any moment, which of his guns, and how many of them, can train on an enemy at any given point.

The _Monmouth's_ 'fighting-weight' is another matter. Fourteen 6-inch guns, Vickers-Maxims of the latest pattern, contribute something to that. This is the sort of weapon the 6-inch gun is. Imagine one set up in Trafalgar Square to fire with extreme elevation. Its 100-pound shells would drop on Kingston Bridge in one direction; beyond Harrow, ten miles off, in another. Other shells would burst over Barnet; sweep the woodland rides of Epping Forest; startle the tennis-players on the trim lawns of Chislehurst in Kent. And not many seconds would elapse between the flash of the discharge and the shell doing its work. Ten miles, of course, is the farthest that the gun could shoot, its 'estimated extreme range.' In war-time that sort of firing would not be worth while, as it would be impossible to mark the shots. Seven miles, roughly, or 12,000 yards, is the limit the gun is sighted for. Then again, imagine our gun firing at a mark. At 2000 yards, the minimum engaging distance in naval war because of torpedoes, aiming from Trafalgar Square at a target set up, say, in Ludgate Circus or at Hyde Park Corner, the shot would smash through a slab of wrought iron 14 inches thick as easily as a stone goes through a pane of glass. Firing at 6000 yards, the maximum distance for opening action in ordinary circumstances, at a target set up at Hammersmith, for example, the shot would cut a hole clean through 6-1/2 inches of wrought iron--armour 2 inches thicker than our first ironclad, the _Warrior_, had on her sides. Fired with a full charge of 25 lbs. of cordite, the shot leaves the gun at a speed of 2775 feet (or half a mile and forty-five yards) a second--a pace capable of carrying it in a minute as far as Reading; with energy sufficient to toss Cleopatra's Needle 30 feet into the air as lightly as a schoolboy flings up a wicket, or heave the biggest railway express engine 100 feet high, to hurl an elephant over the Eiffel Tower, or a cart-horse out of sight to three times the height of Snowdon.

Every round from one of the _Monmouth's_ 6-inch guns costs the country L12. The gun itself costs L1700. As a fact, each gun takes five months of work, night and day, to make; and weighs 7-1/2 tons, like all modern naval guns of any size, it is a 'wire gun,' constructed of steel tape wound round an inner tube or 'barrel,' in the same way that the string is laid round the handle of a cricket-bat, and jacketed over by an outer steel tube. Upwards of 18,200 yards of steel 'wire' are used for each 6-inch gun, 10-1/2 miles of it--a length that, pulled out straight, would stretch for half the distance between Dover and Calais. The set of sights for each gun, as an item by itself, costs L80.

The _Monmouth's_ 6-inch guns are each capable of firing from five to eight shots a minute, and there are on board, besides, ten 12-pounders, three 3-pounders, and some Maxims. The 12-pounders cost L300 each, and take four months to make.

In action, the _Monmouth_, fighting both broadsides at once, would let fly at the enemy at each discharge two-thirds of a ton of projectiles; within the first minute 3-1/2 tons weight of metal; every five minutes, 18 tons--all bursting shells. That is the _Monmouth's_ 'fighting-weight.'

To supply her guns the _Monmouth_ carries, stowed away in the different magazines far down in the recesses of the hold, 200 tons weight of ammunition--30 to 40 tons of it in cordite cartridges; the rest in shot and loaded shell, with each projectile painted its differentiating colour--white-banded 'armour-piercers,' red-tipped shrapnel, yellow lyddite, and so on.

Electricity works the great hooded turrets on the forecastle and quarter-deck, each of 4-inch nickel steel and carrying a pair of 6-inch guns, mounted side by side in double-barrelled sporting-gun fashion on a twin mounting, training the eighty odd tons of dead-weight to right and left, or from one side of the ship to the other, through three-quarters of a circle, as easily as one wheels one's arm-chair in front of the fire after dinner. Electricity also 'feeds' the guns, both in the turrets and in the casemates, as fast as they can be fired, bringing up the ammunition to the guns directly from the magazines.

The 4-inch Krupp steel armour on the _Monmouth's_ sides at the water-line, from the ram for three-quarters of the ship's length aft, cost to manufacture, in round figures, L60,000--equal to the total yearly income of four Archbishops of Canterbury or six Lord Chancellors. Two 'turtle-back' decks of thin steel armour further help to keep out shot. Altogether, in dead-weight, the armour all over the ship--on the sides, decks, bulkheads, conning-tower, casemates, barbettes, ammunition-supply tubes--amounts to 1800 tons, a fifth of the ship's entire displacement weight in sea-going trim.

Then another detail, and the most important of all. Speed, for a cruiser, is, of course, the prime essential. It means the power of picking out a foe, of running down a foe, the command of the weather-gage, the choice of the range, the power of bringing on or refusing battle. Twenty-three knots an hour, or 26-1/2 statute miles, is the _Monmouth's_ best pace. Twenty-three knots an hour means the covering of a land mile in 2 minutes 36 seconds; or 100 yards in 7-4/5 seconds. In modern athletics 9-3/5 seconds is the record for 100 yards. The record for the Oxford and Cambridge boat race works out at under 11 knots an hour--considerably less than the _Monmouth's_ everyday cruising speed in time of peace.

How it is done is, of course, an engine-room affair. Two main engines drive the ship: one engine to each of the immense 16-feet-wide twin-screws. At full speed they work up to an aggregate power of twenty-two thousand horses: eleven thousand horses each engine. Thirty-one boilers, of the much-maligned Belleville type, supply the steam. What that means the staff below have good reason to know. The thirty-one boilers, with their 'economisers,' provide seven thousand tubes to be looked after and kept clean. Collectively, the boiler-tubes offer to the fires in the stoke-hold a total heating-surface of 50,300 square feet: an area, that is, of an acre and a sixth, a space about equal to Trafalgar Square within the roadway, or the floor-space of the Albert Hall. Each boiler has two furnaces to heat it, making sixty-two in all. When all are alight they burn 40 tons of coal at once, on a grate-area of 1610 square feet; practically giving off a square space of flame 170 yards each way.

The main engines, however, are by no means all. There are on board sixty-five separate 'auxiliary engines' besides. The weight of the machinery alone on board the _Monmouth_, amounts to 1750 tons--a fourth of the total weight of the ship.

Six hundred and eighty officers and men form the complement of the _Monmouth_, and their pay costs the nation L32,000 a year. To feed them, 'bare navy,' costs two-thirds of that sum a year. The ship herself, as she floats, represents to the country a value not very far short of three-quarters of a million sterling, or, put in concrete form, 8 tons of sovereigns--a railway truck packed tight. Our first ironclad, the _Warrior_, cost less than half the amount expended on the _Monmouth_. The _Collingwood_, a first-class battleship of eighteen years ago, cost to complete L20,000 less than the price paid for the _Monmouth_ cruiser of to-day. Ten _Victorys_ or _Royal Georges_ could have been built and fitted for sea at the cost of this one cruiser of ours.

Such, in brief, are some of the 'points' of our modern _Monmouth_. The reputation that she has to live up to, the ancestry of her famous name, in particular the magnificent feat of arms that one of our _Monmouths_, the most famous of all, once achieved--these have now to be told.

* * * * *

The _Monmouth_, as a fact, bears a name that ranks second to none for brilliant associations and memories of heroism. Hardly another man-of-war has so many 'battle honours' to its credit. No ship of the Old Navy perhaps ever won such distinction in battle for sheer hard fighting as did the six _Monmouths_, one after the other, from which our cruiser _Monmouth_ of to-day takes her name. Were it possible for His Majesty's ships-of-war to have ship flags for display at reviews or on other ceremonial occasions, just as the regiments of the army use regimental colours, the _Monmouth's_ flag would show a record of upwards of thirty fights, and even then the list would not be complete. No flag, probably, could display the detailed record of the occasions on which _Monmouths_ of old did their duty before the enemy at sea.

The navy owes the name to Charles the Second, who introduced it on the roll of the fleet as a mark of special favour and a paternal compliment to Lucy Walters' ill-starred son, the vanquished of Sedgemoor, whose headless body now lies beneath the altar of the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower.

That was in the year of the Dutch attack on Chatham, and the same year saw our first _Monmouth's_ first fight. Mr. Pepys's 'complaints' notwithstanding, the _Monmouth_ made a good show on the occasion.[1] Her allotted duty was to bar the approach to the iron chain stretched across the Medway below Upnor Castle, and Captain Clarke, the _Monmouth's_ captain, kept his ship at her post until the position was no longer tenable. The _Monmouth_ later on was in the thick of the fight in the tremendous battle off Solebay, where James, Duke of York, defeated the Dutch fleet under Admiral Ruyter after nearly sixteen hours at close quarters; in Prince Rupert's three battles with the Dutch in 1673; and at La Hogue.

Our second _Monmouth_ was with Rooke when he made his swoop on the Vigo galleons--which dashing affair is commemorated to this day in the name of Vigo Street, off Regent Street;--took a distinguished part in the capture of Gibraltar; fought the French off Malaga; and helped Byng--Sir George Byng, Viscount Torrington, the father of the other Byng known to English history, the Byng who beat the enemy and was not shot--to settle the Spanish fleet off Cape Passaro in the year 1718.

The next _Monmouth_ had a hand in defeating two French fleets within six months--first with Anson and then with Hawke, in May and October 1747. This was the _Monmouth_ whose brilliant capture of the great French flagship the _Foudroyant_ in a desperate ship-to-ship duel at night forms our main story here.

The fourth _Monmouth_, at the close of a hot and bloody day, after a drawn battle with the French in the West Indies, in July 1779, received the unique compliment of being toasted that same night at dinner by the officers of the enemy's flagship--'To the brave little black English ship!' Nor is it easy to match another story of how this same _Monmouth_, in battle in the East Indies in 1782, resisted the fiercest onsets of the mighty De Suffren and his best captains, holding her own at bay, and stubbornly standing up to five French seventy-fours at once. Her main and mizen masts were shot down; the wheel was cleared of the men at it three times; the colours were shot away twice. Still, though, the _Monmouth_ fought on--until help came. Only three men were left alive on the _Monmouth's_ quarter-deck when the fight was over; one being her captain, James Alms, a sturdy son of Sussex, who stood at his post dauntlessly to the end, though twice wounded by splinters, with his coat ripped half off by a shot, with two bullet-holes through his hat, and his wig set on fire.

Yet another _Monmouth_ proved herself the bravest of the brave at Camperdown.

The brief summary of the _Monmouths'_ deeds of valour here given is, of course, not nearly all. It would take a big book to do adequate justice to the _Monmouths'_ war record--and there need not be a dull page in the volume.

So we pass on to what is by common consent accounted the brightest gem in the _Monmouth's_ coronet of fame, her fight with the _Foudroyant_, a French ship powerful enough to have sent the _Monmouth_ to the bottom at the first broadside, a set-to that lasted half through a February night, and ended the right way.

Now clear the ring, for hand to hand The manly wrestlers take their stand.

It was in February 1758, in the middle of the Seven Years' War. The British Mediterranean fleet in that month was blockading a French squadron that had sought shelter in the Spanish naval harbour of Carthagena. The squadron, numbering seven ships of the line and two frigates, had set sail from Toulon in January to reinforce the French fleet on the coast of Canada, and assist in the defence of Louisbourg, Cape Breton, which, as was known at Versailles, was to be attacked in force in the following summer. They counted on being able to evade the British Mediterranean fleet and give it the slip by running through the Straits of Gibraltar under cover of a dark winter's night. But _ils se faisaient un tableau_, that fault against which Napoleon in later days was always cautioning his generals. It all depended on the chance of their getting past Gibraltar unseen.

Unfortunately for the French plans, the British Admiralty were well aware of what was to be attempted. The fitting-out of the squadron at Toulon had been carried on with the greatest secrecy, but not so secretly that the British admiral at the head of the Mediterranean fleet had not learnt all about it. Admiral Osborn had also been warned from home of the probable destination of the French ships. The result was that when the French came they found him cruising with twelve line-of-battle ships a little to eastward of the Rock, and with a chain of look-out frigates stretching right across from Ceuta to Cape de Gata. M. de la Clue, the French admiral, found his way out of the Mediterranean barred, and having only seven ships of the line with him to the British commander's twelve, he turned aside and ran into the 'neutral' harbour of Carthagena.[2] He only got inside the port in the nick of time. Just as M. de la Clue's ships let go anchor within the Spanish batteries. Admiral Osborn's ships, duly warned by signals from their look-out frigates of every movement of the French squadron, came hastening up.

De la Clue sent off an urgent appeal for reinforcements, and in response five fresh ships of the line and a frigate were despatched from Toulon, in charge of the Marquis du Quesne, _Chef d'Escadre_, or, as we call the rank, Commodore. With these additional ships De la Clue would have the same numbers exactly as his adversary, and should, the French considered, be able to fight his way out. The Toulon ships sailed for Carthagena on the 25th of February with the idea of running the gauntlet of the blockading fleet and joining M. de la Clue at night. Again, however, Admiral Osborn was forewarned of the enemy's approach, and his look-out frigates did their work. Two of the French ships, pushing ahead of the others, managed, during the night of the 27th of February, to get past the British scouting frigates off Cape Palos and turn into Carthagena unseen, but the main French force, three ships of the line and the frigate, were caught in the act.

Soon after daybreak on the 28th of February--a bright, clear morning--the British frigate _Gibraltar_, cruising some twenty leagues north-east of Cape Palos, spied four strange sail away on the horizon to the north-east of her. The _Gibraltar's_ signals were repeated by the _St. George_ and the _Culloden_ and then Admiral Osborn ordered part of his fleet off Carthagena to head towards the strangers and chase. He had at the same time, of course, to keep his grip on M. de la Clue inside Carthagena and prevent him from making use of the opportunity to break out.

The strangers showed no colours and were too far off to be identified, but it was certain they could only be French ships. Indeed, too, as the English turned towards them, they began to edge away. A little later they divided and went off on different courses. One ship, a two-decker, stood in directly for the land. The smallest, the frigate, stood seaward, to the south-west. To cut off the two-decker and stop her from getting into Spanish waters the _Monarch_ and _Montague_ were detached and went off chasing to the north-west. The frigate was already practically out of reach. A little later the remaining two French ships, both two-deckers, were seen to draw apart. One of them headed as if to work round into Carthagena. The other, the biggest ship of the whole squadron, held on down the coast, as though to draw the British after her. In pursuit of the first of these two two-deckers went the _Revenge_ and the _Berwick_. The _Monmouth_ and the _Swiftsure_, with the _Hampton Court_ following them, went after the big ship. Of what force the French ships were, or their identity, nobody of course could tell as yet. They were too far off for the ports on their broadsides to be counted.

It is with the _Monmouth_ and her chase that we are particularly concerned.

From off the _Monmouth's_ deck all that at first could be seen of the chase was that she 'loomed large,' as the old sea phrase went--looked likely to be a tough customer. That, though, was so much the better. Going ahead before the wind with every reef shaken out, on her best point of sailing, the _Monmouth_ soon outstripped the _Swiftsure_ and the _Hampton Court_. By early in the afternoon she had left them both some leagues astern--mere dots on the far horizon. At the same time she was overhauling the big Frenchman fast. The _Monmouth_ had the reputation of being the fastest line-of-battle ship in the Royal Navy. 'She never gave chase to any ship that she did not come up with,' said the newspapers of her, when, in 1767, the _Monmouth_, unfit for further service and worn out after twenty-five years on the effective list of the fleet, was brought in to be broken up. To-day the ship displayed a speed in keeping with her reputation. Hand over hand the _Monmouth_ drew up nearer and nearer to her prospective foe, which loomed ever larger and larger. From the stranger's vast bulk and what gun-ports of her double tier could be counted end-on, from nearly dead astern, the chase was either an eighty-gun ship or an eighty-four.

If that was really so, it made all the difference in the world. French eighty-fours were at that day the most powerfully armed ships afloat. A French eighty-four carried 42-pounders as her main armament, and threw a broadside of 1136 lbs. at every discharge. That, in point of fact, was heavier metal than the _Royal George_ herself, the biggest first-rate in the British fleet, could throw. The _Monmouth_ was a small third-rate, one of the very smallest ships of the line in the Royal Navy, a sixty-four. Her heaviest guns were 24-pounders. Her total broadside amounted only to some 540 lbs. There would also be on board the eighty-four from 800 to 900 men, as against 470 in the _Monmouth_.

Who and what was the stranger? One man on board the _Monmouth_ knew, and apparently one man only.

The captain of the _Monmouth_ knew. He had already identified the ship ahead of him as the great _Foudroyant_ of 84 guns, until recently the flagship of the French Mediterranean fleet. Arthur Gardiner had good reason to know the _Foudroyant_.

Gardiner had been Byng's flag-captain, and the _Foudroyant_ had been the flagship of the French fleet off Minorca. The evidence at Byng's trial had absolutely exonerated Captain Gardiner.[3] It showed that Admiral Byng himself had practically taken the charge of the flagship out of his captain's hands, and had rejected his advice to go straight for the enemy without waiting for ships that were out of station, but in spite of that Gardiner had refused to be satisfied. He felt his connection with the affair bitterly, as a personal disgrace, he said. Indeed, as he told one of his friends, he only lived to find an opportunity of wiping out what was a slur on his good name, a stain on his honour. Apparently the idea became fixed in Captain Gardiner's mind that he was a marked man, that people said things of him; especially, that it was thought he had been 'shy' about laying his ship alongside the French flagship. That was intolerable, and out of it grew a feeling of peculiar antipathy towards this particular ship, the _Foudroyant_, that had become a sort of monomania with Captain Gardiner. It must, in these circumstances, have seemed to Captain Gardiner like the hand of Providence, when, some four months after the Byng court-martial, he was appointed to the _Monmouth_ and ordered out to the Mediterranean. And now his day had actually come. There was the very _Foudroyant_ right ahead of him, by herself, and with his own ship overtaking her fast.

At a quarter-past one in the afternoon the _Foudroyant_ ran a red flag up to the foretopgallant mast-head.[4] Apparently it was meant as a signal to her nearest consort, the ship that the _Revenge_ and _Berwick_ were in pursuit of, _L'Orphee_, to hoist her colours and commence firing. As the _Monmouth_ as yet was out of gunshot, three or four miles distant, the _Foudroyant_ had no need for the moment to hoist her own colours--nor did she show any until towards four o'clock, when the _Monmouth_ had at length begun to come within range. Then, exactly at six minutes to the hour, as an eye-witness notes, the French flag was displayed on the _Foudroyant's_ ensign staff, and a commodore's broad pennant at the main.

The _Monmouth's_ men had not long to wait.

On the stroke of four o'clock a spurt of flame leapt from one of the stern-chase ports of the _Foudroyant_, and as the smoke blew away to leeward the boom of a heavy gun came over the waters towards the _Monmouth_. It was the first shot. The ball splashed in the water not far off, and then the _Foudroyant_ fired a second shot--followed quickly by a third. The enemy had got the range. That, too, was enough for Captain Gardiner. His heavier guns could at least carry as far as the _Foudroyant's_ guns, and without waiting longer the _Monmouth's_ bow-chasers took up the game. 'Soon after being in gunshot of our chase,' says Lieutenant Carkett, the first lieutenant of the _Monmouth_, in his journal, 'she, having up French colours, began to fire her stern-chase at us, which we soon after returned with our bow-chase, and continued for about an hour, then ceased firing as she did, except a single gun now and then.'[5]

By this time, about five o'clock, the wind had fallen very light, but the _Monmouth_ still continued to gain steadily on her opponent. She was single-handed. The _Swiftsure_ and the _Hampton Court_ were hull down on the horizon, though they were still following with all sail set. The rest of the fleet was quite out of sight.

Just before the _Foudroyant_ began firing, Captain Gardiner, as we are told, called all hands aft. His address to them was brief, but what he said was to the point. 'That ship has to be taken, my lads, above our match though she looks. I shall fight her until the _Monmouth_ sinks.' Then they piped down and returned to quarters.

A little before this, while pacing up and down the quarter-deck with Lieutenant Campbell, a young army officer from Gibraltar who was on board in charge of a small detachment of soldiers (600 men from the Gibraltar garrison had been lent to Admiral Osborn to assist on deck in ships that were short-handed), he had said to the young officer, pointing to the _Foudroyant_ ahead of them: 'Whatever happens to you and me, that ship must go into Gibraltar.'

In that spirit Captain Gardiner took the _Monmouth_ into action as the evening began to close in--

Her ports all up, her battle-lanterns lit, And her leashed thunders gathering for their leap.

Captain Gardiner had a worthy antagonist. The Marquis du Quesne-Menneville, whose broad pennant flew at the _Foudroyant's_ mast-head that day, had the reputation of being as able an officer as any in the French service. No braver man ever wore the _bleu du Roi_. And he commanded a man-of-war that was, by common consent, considered the finest ship in all King Louis's navy. Only a short time before this a French officer, a prisoner of war, in conversation with one of his captors, had said of the _Foudroyant_: 'No single ship in the world can take her, not even your new _Royal George_! She can fight all to-day, and to-morrow, and the next day, and still go on fighting!' The _Foudroyant's_ weight of metal, indeed, was heavy enough to have sent the _Monmouth_ to the bottom at a single discharge. M. du Quesne, however, did not think fit to let the _Monmouth_ come up alongside. He would not venture to bring-to and accept the _Monmouth's_ challenge because of the _Swiftsure_ and the _Hampton Court_. They were a long way off, several hours distant, but they were to him, as far as the _Foudroyant_ was concerned, an enemy 'in being,' and he kept on before the wind.

'At half-past seven,' says Lieutenant Carkett, 'we came very nigh her, gave our ship a yaw, and discharged what guns we could bring to bear on her.' This meant checking the ship's way and hauling up at an angle to her course, turning off as it were to let fly a broadside right ahead. Apparently the _Monmouth_ lost ground in so doing. According to the first lieutenant's log, Captain Gardiner did not repeat the manoeuvre, and it took the _Monmouth_ nearly an hour to regain the distance that she dropped back.

'At half-past eight,' says Lieutenant Carkett, 'we came to a close engagement.'

From the engraving after T. Stothard, R.A.]

The _Monmouth_ now ranged up on the _Foudroyant's_ larboard quarter and hurled into her a crashing broadside of round-shot and grape, at half musket range. It was the first heavy blow, and it got home. Then fastening with a bulldog's grip on her big opponent, the _Monmouth_ set to and blazed away fiercely into the French ship as fast as the guns could be loaded and run out.

Nothing could be more masterly than the way the British captain handled his ship. Captain Gardiner knew his business. He meant to settle his personal score with the _Foudroyant_ once for all; but he had no idea of sacrificing needlessly the life of a single man. There was to be no reckless clapping of the little _Monmouth_ side by side with the _Foudroyant_. Gardiner was well aware of the weight of his opponent's metal. He laid the _Monmouth_ on the _Foudroyant's_ quarter and kept her there, skilfully placing her in a way that allowed every gun on the _Monmouth's_ broadside to train on the enemy, while, at the same time, the French were unable to bring a number of their guns in the fore-part of the ship to bear.

It was of course quite dark when the battle at close quarters began--half-past eight on a February evening. The moon, within two days of the last quarter, would not rise till between eleven and midnight. Each ship, however, had her distinguishing lights hoisted, and the gleam of the battle-lanterns through the _Foudroyant's_ ports gave the _Monmouth's_ men sufficient mark to lay their guns by. More they did not want.

The _Swiftsure_ at this time was about nine miles off, as her log notes, steering for the spot by the flash of the guns.

The _Hampton Court_ was a couple of miles or so astern of the _Swiftsure_.

The enemy, for their part, with their heavier guns, smote the _Monmouth_ hard and answered back her fire with equal spirit. Even now though, the French commodore would not risk bringing-to for a space and making an effort to get the _Monmouth_ fairly under his broadside, where his crushing superiority in gun-power might well have been decisive. He held on instead, drifting slowly before the light wind, fighting as he went. So far there was little to disquiet M. du Quesne in the way that things were going. As a fact, during the first hour, the terrific punishment that the _Foudroyant's_ 42-pounders were able to inflict told heavily on the _Monmouth_, and it looked as though the _Foudroyant_ could well hold her own to the end. Captain Gardiner, however, stuck to his task unflinchingly. All the time an incessant fire of musketry was kept up from the _Foudroyant's_ tops, and from her towering bulwarks, which were lined with soldiers all along the length of the ship.

They did considerable execution among the men at the upper-deck guns, and, among their other victims, wounded Captain Gardiner himself with a musket bullet through the arm. It was an ugly wound, but the gallant captain of the _Monmouth_ refused to quit the deck, and had the wound bound up as he stood. This was about a quarter to nine.

Fate, however, unhappily had more in store for Arthur Gardiner that night. At half-past nine, the captain received a second and a mortal wound. 'Captain Gardiner received a mortal wound which obliged him to be conveyed off the deck,' Lieutenant Carkett briefly records. A grape-shot struck Gardiner on the forehead, according to the journal of Lieutenant Baron,[6] the third lieutenant, and he was carried below insensible, to linger in the cockpit until four next morning, when he died, 'having been speechless since he received his wound.'

Neither account exactly tallies with the story of Gardiner's fall that reached England. According to that, poor Gardiner was conscious for some moments after he was struck down, and was able to recognise Carkett, as the first lieutenant bent over him. He bade Carkett, it was said, as his last orders, 'to fight the _Foudroyant_ to the last, and sink alongside rather than quit her.' In reply, the account proceeds, Carkett swore to the captain to fight the battle out to the very last, and sent on the spot for the carpenter and had the _Monmouth's_ ensign nailed to the staff, after which he declared with an oath that he would shoot dead on the spot any man who should even whisper a thought of lowering it. So, indeed, it well may have been. Robert Carkett could be trusted to die hard. He was just the man to make such a threat and to keep it. Lieutenant Carkett was a rough sea-dog.

As senior officer after Captain Gardiner's fall, Carkett took charge on the quarter-deck, and the battle went on with even more desperate fury than before:--

Spars were splinter'd, decks were shatter'd,
Bullets fell like rain;
Over mast and deck were scatter'd
Blood and brains of men.

Hour after hour, from half-past nine to twelve o'clock, the _Monmouth_ hung doggedly on the quarter of the great _Foudroyant_ and refused to be shaken off. She kept pace with the Frenchman steadily, not losing a foot, and not drawing nearer; mercilessly pounding away into the _Foudroyant's_ hull at a short seventy-yards range, as fast as the shot could be brought to the guns. Nor did the _Foudroyant's_ fire in reply slacken appreciably until midnight was past. Then, at length, the enemy seemed to tire, and the _Foudroyant's_ fire began to grow irregular and gradually to weaken.

From a contemporary print.

['At half past [one] her main-mast was shot away. She then ceased firing' (Log of Lieutenant Carkett of the _Monmouth_).]]

It was the beginning of the end. Aided by the clear moonlight,--by half-an-hour after midnight the moon was well up,--the _Monmouth's_ gunners made better practice than before. They redoubled their efforts, as gun after gun in the _Foudroyant's_ ports stopped firing, until, a few minutes after one o'clock, the big vessel ceased resisting altogether, and not a shot came from her. The _Foudroyant_ lay helpless, like a log on the water, dismasted, hammered to a standstill, a silenced and beaten ship.

Lieutenant Carkett in his log thus summarises what passed in the last hour. 'Half-past 12: Our mizen was shot away. At 1 A.M. the enemy's was shot away. Also at half-past her main-mast was shot away. She then ceased firing, having slackened her fire for some time before.'

Still, though, the _Foudroyant_ made no sign of giving in. _Lassata, nondum satiata_--all was not quite over yet. So the _Monmouth_ continued her cannonade. Until the enemy made the customary sign of surrender, Lieutenant Carkett had no option but to go on firing. Commodore du Quesne was holding out _pour l'honneur du pavillon_: and also for his own personal credit. He had not long to wait. Within a few minutes of the _Foudroyant's_ fire giving over the _Swiftsure_ arrived on the scene. Ranging up under the _Monmouth's_ stern, she hailed across requesting her to stop her fire.

The _Monmouth_ held her hand. She had done her work, and there was no need to do more now. As the _Monmouth's_ gunner, reporting on the night's expenditure, stated, the ship had fired away no fewer than 80 barrels of gunpowder (about four tons weight of powder), with 1546 round-shot, 540 grape-shot, and 156 double-headed shot.

Then the _Swiftsure_ rounded in to pass between the _Monmouth_ and the _Foudroyant_. All her batteries were lighted up, showing the men standing ready by the guns. Captain Stanhope as he came abreast hailed the _Foudroyant_, asking if she had surrendered. Her ensign was down. It had been shot away about the same time that the mizen-mast went. The reply came instantly--two shotted guns in rapid succession, and a sharp crackle of musketry. M. le Marquis's honour was not satisfied yet. What followed was inevitable. The _Swiftsure_ had now to administer the _coup de grace_ according to the rules of naval war. As the sound of the _Foudroyant's_ defiance died away, the _Swiftsure's_ double tier burst into flame, and the British seventy-four's broadside crashed into the French ship, sweeping her decks from stem to stern. It was enough. The next instant down came the _Foudroyant's_ lights and she called for quarter. The battle was over.

The Marquis du Quesne had refused to surrender to the _Monmouth_ single-handed. It was a point of honour. In the presence of a second British ship and a fresh ship, a seventy-four, his honour was fully satisfied. All the same, when the _Swiftsure's_ officer came on board to receive his sword, he insisted on being taken on board the _Monmouth_ and surrendering it to the commanding officer of that ship, to Lieutenant Carkett, giving it up, we are told, 'with great politeness.' A story was told afterwards that the French commodore expressed himself in bitter terms, and shed tears next morning when in full daylight, at close quarters, he saw the small size of the _Monmouth_ as compared with his own splendid ship. But that is as it may be.

The _Hampton Court_ came up some ten minutes after the _Swiftsure_ had arrived.

It remained now only to count the cost and overhaul damages.

How things stood on board the _Monmouth_ they knew before the night was out. Captain Gardiner was the only officer who had fallen. The four lieutenants of the ship had escaped without a scratch, as had the _Monmouth's_ two marine officers and Lieutenant Campbell. It was otherwise, unfortunately, among the men. The casualties between decks amounted to upwards of 24 per cent of the entire ship's company. The figures as officially returned were--29 killed and 81 wounded--110 altogether. Not a boat was left that could swim; the mizen-mast had been shot right away, smashed through close above the deck; the main-mast, riddled with holes, was tottering; every one of the sails had to be stripped from its yard and new sails bent; most of the rigging was lying in tangled heaps about the decks.

In the _Foudroyant_, the prize-crew that was placed in charge had their work cut out for them in looking after prisoners below and stopping leaks and dangerous shot-holes. The deadly shooting of the _Monmouth_ had in parts almost rent the _Foudroyant_ open. More than seventy shot-holes through the hull were counted, low down, at or near the water-line. All over the hull, more than a hundred shot-holes were to be seen, gaping holes with jagged and splintered edges; and more shots than one had gone through some of the holes. Some of the _Monmouth's_ shots had even gone right through from side to side, leaving enormous rents in the _Foudroyant_ on the unengaged side of the ship where they had smashed their way out. To give an idea of the terrible hammering that the _Foudroyant_ underwent, it may be stated that the repairs to the hull at Portsmouth took eight months to execute, at an expense of L7000, just half the total sum at which the Admiralty Prize Court valued the whole ship for purchase from her captors. As far as could be made out, the _Foudroyant's_ casualties amounted to 190 officers and men killed and wounded; but the French practice of throwing the dead overboard in action as they fell, made it impossible to arrive at the exact figures.

As well as could be managed on the spot, the two ships were cleared of wreckage and put in sea-going trim, and at noon next day, the 1st of March, they set out to rejoin Admiral Osborn, the _Swiftsure_ towing the _Foudroyant_, and the _Monmouth_ under her own canvas, under jury-rig, with the _Hampton Court_ close by in case of need.

They found the admiral with the rest of the fleet off Carthagena. With them was the French _Orphee_, which the _Revenge_ and _Berwick_ had run down and taken within two miles of Carthagena mole. M. de la Clue had missed his chance entirely. He had not stirred, although with the two men-of-war that had got in the night before he had had nine ships of the line, and the British admiral, with five of his ships detached in chase of Du Quesne's squadron, only seven. All that the French admiral had done the livelong day on the 28th had been to man and arm his boats and send them down to paddle about aimlessly at the mouth of the harbour.

The _Monmouth_ and _Revenge_ were ordered to Gibraltar to repair, accompanied by their two prizes. On the way the dead of the _Monmouth_ and the remains of Captain Gardiner were committed to the deep, off Cape de Gata, at half-past three on Saturday afternoon, the 4th of March. All four ships hove-to and half-masted their ensigns during the funeral service, and the bodies were passed overboard to the booming of the _Monmouth's_ minute-guns--his ship's last tribute to her dead captain. No tablet exists to Arthur Gardiner's memory in Westminster Abbey or elsewhere; but that, after all, matters little.

There is in the lone, lone sea A spot unmark'd but holy, For there the gallant and the free In his ocean bed lies lowly. Down, down beneath the deep, That oft in triumph bore him, He sleeps a sound and peaceful sleep, With the salt waves dashing o'er him.

He sleeps serene and safe From tempest and from billow, Where storms that high above him chafe Scarce rock his peaceful pillow. The sea and him in death They did not dare to sever; It was his home when he had breath, 'Tis now his home for ever.

Sleep on, thou mighty dead, A glorious tomb they've found thee, The broad blue sky above thee spread, The boundless ocean round thee. No vulgar foot treads here, No hand profane shall move thee, But gallant hearts shall proudly steer And warriors shout above thee.

And though no stone may tell thy name, thy worth, thy glory, They rest in hearts that love thee well, they grace Britannia's story.[7]

At Gibraltar the _Foudroyant_ was measured and found to be 12 feet longer than the _Royal George_. She was berthed alongside the mole with the _Monmouth_ lying next her, and an officer present graphically describes the disparity of size between them in these terms: 'It was like the Monument overlooking a ninepin!'

The French prisoners were still on board the _Foudroyant_. They went to England in the ship, most of them to be shut up in Porchester Castle, the great war-prison of the South of England in those times. The visitor to the ruins of Porchester Castle to-day, if he explores in a certain part of the keep, will find at one spot, rudely cut in the wall, a string of French names, under a sort of scroll similarly carved roughly in the stonework, with the legend '_Vive le vaisseau le Foudroyant_--1758,' the handiwork, it can hardly be doubted, of some of these very men. The Marquis du Quesne and his first and second captains came to England by themselves, in the _Gibraltar_ frigate, and were interned on parole at Northampton. The other surviving officers of the ship were paroled at Maidstone.

All England rang with Arthur Gardiner's name when, in the first week in April, the _Gibraltar_ arrived at Spithead with Admiral Osborn's despatches, and the _London Gazette_ told the story of how Gardiner had died 'as he was encouraging his people and inquiring what damage they had sustained between decks.' Everywhere, we are told, the news of the taking of the 'mighty _Foudroyant_' and how it was done excited the liveliest enthusiasm. Inn signboards were repainted with pictures of the fight, a favourite way with our eighteenth-century forefathers of commemorating great events; and a ballad was composed about it which was set to a popular tune of the day and sung all over the country. One of the signboards so painted was in existence a very few years ago,--and may be so still,--at Lostwithiel in Cornwall, bearing a representation of two old-fashioned men-of-war in desperate combat, with the legend 'The memorable battle of the _Monmouth_ and _Foudroyant_.'[8] Of the ballad and its music no trace is to be found, although some lines on the fight, apparently contemporary, are in print. One can, though, hardly fancy them being set to any sort of tune, still less anybody trying to sing them. Their shortcomings as verse too are obvious, but one must remember that it was the period when the Poet Laureate was Colley Cibber. There was no market in the days of George the Second for what our present Poet Laureate calls 'the higher kind of poetry.'

STANZAS

On the capture of the _Foudroyant_, of 84 guns, by the _Monmouth_, of 64, Anno 1758.

As Louis sat in regal state, The monarch, insolently great, Accosts his crouching slaves, 'Yon stubborn isle at last must bend, For now my _Foudroyant_ I send, The terror of the waves.

'When once he bursts in dreadful roar, And vomits death from shore to shore, My glory to maintain; Repenting Britons then will see Their folly to dispute with me The empire of the main.'

He spake, th' obedient sails were spread, And Neptune reared his awful head, To view the glorious sight; The Tritons and the Nereids came, And floated round the high-built frame, With wonder and delight.

Then Neptune thus the Gods address'd: 'The sight is noble, 'tis confess'd, The structure we admire; But yet this monst'rous pile shall meet With one small ship from Britain's fleet, And strike to Britons' fire.'

As from his lips the sentence flew, Behold his fav'rite sails in view, And signal made to chase; Swift as Camilla o'er the plain, The _Monmouth_ skimm'd along the main, Unrivall'd in the race.

Close to her mighty foe she came, Resolv'd to sink or gain a name Which Envy might admire; Devouring guns tumultous sound, Destructive slaughter flam'd around, And seas appear'd on fire.

When lo! th' heroic Gardiner fell, Whose worth the Muse attempts to tell, But finds her efforts vain; Some other bard must sing his praise, And bold as fancy's thoughts must raise The sadly mournful strain.

Carkett, who well his place supply'd, The mangling bolts of death defy'd, Which furious round him rag'd; While Hammick[9] points his guns with care, Nor sends one faithless shot in air, But skilfully engag'd.

Baron and Winzar's[10] conduct show'd Their hearts with untam'd courage glow'd, And manly rage display'd; Whilst every seaman firmly stood, 'Midst heaps of limbs and streams of blood Undaunted, undismay'd.

Austin[11] and Campbell next the Muse Thro' fiery deluges pursues, Serenely calm and great; With their's the youthful Preston's[12] name Must shine, enrolled in list of fame, Above the reach of fate.

Hark! how Destruction's tempests blow, And drive to deep despair the foe, Who trembling fly asunder; The _Foudroyant_ her horror ceas'd, And whilst the _Monmouth's_ fire increas'd, Lost all her pow'r to thunder.

Now, haughty Louis, cease to boast, The mighty _Foudroyant_ is lost, And must be thine no more; No gasconade will now avail, Behold he trims the new-dress'd sail, To deck Britannia's shore.

If e'er again his voice be heard, With British thunder-bolts prepar'd, And on thy coast appears; His dreadful tongue such sounds will send, As all the neighb'ring rocks shall rend, And shake all France with fears.

What is more interesting is that one of the _Foudroyant's_ officers, while a prisoner of war on board and on the way to England, wrote a set of verses in honour of the captain of the _Monmouth_. They appeared in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for July 1758 in this form:--

Chatham, _July 23_.

Mr. Urban--By inserting the following Elegy, which was written by a French officer, taken prisoner on board the _Foudroyant_, you will oblige many of your readers, and particularly your humble servant,

P. Cochet.

ELEGIE SUR LA MORT DU CAPT. GARDINER

Ce heros respectable a fini ses beaux jours,
Il a trop peu vecu, ce sage capitaine,
Le _Monmouth_ pleure encore l'objet de son amour
Et moi la cause de ma gene.

Aux combats il etoit un terrible ennemi,
Son exemple animoit le coeur le plus timide,
Au milieu des hazards le foible est affermi,
Ayant un tel chef pour son guide.

O _Monmouth_! quelle nuit, lorsque le _Foudroyant_,
Par ses bouches d'arain menacoit votre ruine,
Vous tenez contre lui, vous etes triomphant,
La victoire pour vous s'incline,

Conduit par ce heros, vos canons vomissoient
La foudre a gros bouillons, et la mort tout ensemble,
Il inspiroit sa force a ceux qui combattoient,
Ha! l'ennemi le sent et tremble.

O! quel funeste coup, ce heros n'est donc plus?
Le brave Gardiner tombe et finit sa vie,
Mais il vit dans nos coeurs, il vit par ses vertus,
Est-ce le ciel qui nous l'envie?

Quelle aimable douceur envers ses prisonniers,
Sa tendresse pour eux egaloit son courage,
Il ne ressembloit point aux inhumains guerriers,
Qui ne respirent que carnage.

Whatever may be the quality or literary merit of these verses, there could, surely, be no higher tribute to the memory of a British officer, the tribute of an enemy in the bitter hour of defeat; and the incident in all its circumstances is unique. With it we may close the story.

* * * * *

The 'little black ship' _Monmouth_ (Captain Fanshawe's ship), to which the officers of the French flagship _Languedoc_ drank at dinner on the night of the 6th of July 1779, was the next successor to Gardiner's _Monmouth_, and it was this _Monmouth_ on board which, in the East Indies, Captain Alms, on the 12th of April 1782 (actually the same day on which Rodney was fighting his battle in the West Indies) made so heroic a stand. The Camperdown _Monmouth_ came next, and after her a _Monmouth_ that was never commissioned at all. Finally we come to our modern _Monmouth_ cruiser of the present hour.

The quondam French _Foudroyant_, as a man-of-war of the Royal Navy, fought for England and did well. Her successor of the same name in the navy had strangely varied fortunes. She began her life as one of Nelson's flagships; and when she was worn out was sold to a German shipbreaker, by whom she was re-sold at an immense profit to Mr. G. Wheatly Cobb, of Caldicot Castle, Chepstow, in Monmouthshire curiously, who interested himself in the fate of the _Foudroyant_, and 'for Nelson's sake,' as he himself put it, spent L25,000 out of his own pocket in re-purchasing her and re-building and fitting her out to make the old veteran of the sea look, as far as possible, as she appeared in Nelson's time. A cruel fate, however, cut short the nobly conceived project. Our second _Foudroyant_ ended her days off Blackpool, of all places in the world, where, in the summer of 1897, in the hundredth year of her existence, she was wrecked in a gale.

_Photo, Symonds & Co., Portsmouth._

'SUCCESS TO THE _FORMIDABLE_!' November 17, 1898]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Pepys's _Diary_, June 30, 1667.--'Several complaints, I hear, of the _Monmouth's_ coming away too soon from the chaine, where she was placed with the two guardships to secure it.']

[Footnote 2: Spanish neutrality was a by-word at this period. England and Spain were not at war yet, but the family relationship between the Bourbons of Versailles and the Escurial caused the latter Power to put the loosest construction on their obligations.]

[Footnote 3: Summary of evidence at the court-martial on Admiral Byng, quoted in Entick's _New Naval History_ (published shortly after Byng's trial), p. 872:--

Tuesday 11 [Jan. 1757]. Captain Gardiner of the _Ramillies_ under Examination and Cross-Examination all Day. He ... said that he advised the Admiral to bear down, that the Admiral objected thereto, lest an Accident of a similar Nature with that of Admiral Mathews should be the Consequence.

Wednesday 12. Captain Gardiner was again examined and made it appear that the Admiral took the whole Command of the Ship from him, and no thing done that day but what he ordered.

Byng's words as to bearing down were these: 'You see, Captain Gardiner, that the signal for the line is out and that I am ahead of the ships _Louisa_ and _Trident_' (which two ships, according to the order of battle, should have been ahead of the admiral). 'You would not have me, as the admiral of the fleet, run down as if I were going to engage a single ship. It was Mr. Mathews' misfortune to be prejudiced by not carrying down his force together, which I shall endeavour to avoid.' One of Byng's ships, ahead of the flagship, had broken down. He would not pass her and go at the enemy, but stopped to re-form and 'dress' his line, during which time the enemy severely mauled Byng's leading ships. The French then drew out of range, and Byng, without further fighting, retired to Gibraltar. At the trial Gardiner was asked what he himself considered being 'properly engaged.' 'What I call properly engaged,' was the answer, 'is, within musket shot.' See _Minutes of the Court-Martial, etc._, published by Order, 1757 (folio).]

[Footnote 4: Log of the _Revenge_, Captain Storr. Admiralty documents, Captains' logs, at the Public Record Office.]

[Footnote 5: Admiralty documents, Captains' logs, _Monmouth_, at the Public Record Office.]

[Footnote 6: Captains' logs, _Monmouth_, at the Public Record Office (Admiralty documents).]

[Footnote 7: _Poems, chiefly Religious_: Rev. H.F. Lyte, 1833.]

[Footnote 8: The 'Monmouth' inn, to which the signboard belonged (now known as the 'Monmouth' hotel) was actually so named in 1758 in honour of Gardiner's _Monmouth_.]

[Footnote 9: Stephen Hammick, Second Lieutenant of the _Monmouth_, in command on the lower deck.]

[Footnote 10: David Winzar, Fourth Lieutenant of the _Monmouth_.]

[Footnote 11: Captain of Marines.]

[Footnote 12: Lieutenant of Marines.]