Chapter II: Rodney's Ship on Rodney's Day (3)

Here is Midshipman Dashwood's narrative as he wrote it down from memory some forty years or so after both Rodney and Sir Charles Douglas had been laid in the grave. Dashwood was then an admiral, Sir Charles Dashwood, K.C.B. The account was written for Sir Howard Douglas, son of Rodney's flag-captain.[38]

I shall simply relate facts, to which I was an eye-witness, and can vouch for their truth. Being one of the aides-de-camp to the Commander-in-Chief on that memorable day, it was my duty to attend both on him and the Captain of the Fleet, as occasion might require. It so happened, that some time after the battle had commenced, and whilst we were warmly engaged, I was standing near Sir Charles Douglas, who was leaning on the hammocks (which in those days were stowed across the fore part of the quarter-deck), his head resting on one hand and his eye occasionally glancing on the enemy's line, and apparently in deep meditation, as if some great event were crossing his mind. Suddenly raising his head and turning quickly round he said, 'Dash! where's Sir George?' 'In the after-cabin, sir,' I replied. He immediately went aft; I followed; and on meeting Sir George coming from the cabin close to the wheel, he took off his cocked hat with his right hand, holding his long spy-glass in his left, and making a low and profound bow, said, 'Sir George, I give you joy of the victory!' 'Pooh!' said the Chief, as if half angry; 'the day is not half won yet.' 'Break the line. Sir George, ... the day is your own, and I will insure you the victory.' 'No,' said the admiral, 'I will not break my line.' After another request and another refusal Sir Charles desired the helm to be put a-port, Sir George ordered it to starboard. On your father ordering it again to port, the admiral sternly said, 'Remember, Sir Charles, that I am Commander-in-Chief--starboard, sir,' addressing the Master, who, during this controversy, had placed the helm amidships. Both the Admiral and the Captain then separated, the former going aft, and the latter forward. In the course of a couple of minutes or so each turned, and again met nearly on the same spot, when Sir Charles quietly and coolly again addressed the Chief, 'Only break the line, Sir George, and the day is your own.' The Admiral then said, in a quick and hurried way, 'Well, well, do as you like,' and immediately turned round and walked into the after cabin. The words 'Port the helm!' were scarcely uttered when Sir Charles ordered me down with directions to commence firing on the larboard side.

How far an admiral's recollection of something that happened when he was a midshipman seventeen years of age is likely to be trustworthy is the point. Sir Charles Dashwood's account was called forth by the great magazine controversy of 1830 over the question as to who was the actual originator of the manoeuvre of 'Breaking the Line,' on the 12th of April 1782. A claim to the credit of it for his father, made by Sir Howard Douglas, as set forth by him in the preface of a book that he wrote on _Naval Gunnery_, raised the storm, and half England took sides in the discussion.

Against Admiral Dashwood's memory for fifty-year-old details have to be set the disciplinary improbabilities of the story for one thing, particularly in the case of an officer so notoriously strict and punctilious as was Rodney. It is incredible, not only that he would have taken part in an altercation before the men on the quarter-deck, but also that the most brilliant naval tactician of the time could have missed seeing so obvious an opportunity. It is also significant that not a word that anything unusual had happened on board Rodney's flagship, in the most famous battle of the whole war, ever found its way into print from any one of those on the _Formidable's_ quarter-deck, and near by at the moment, during the lifetime of either Rodney or Sir Charles Douglas, or until the flag-captain's son burst his bombshell. And it is possible to pick other holes in the case set up against Rodney. It is easily probable that Captain Douglas called Rodney's attention to the gap in the enemy's line, but without any theatricals. It would have been his duty to do so. He had then to stand back and take his orders. The admiral, by nature, and as his whole career proved, 'a man quick to see an opportunity, prompt to seize it,'[39] would hardly require teaching his business, least of all a man with Rodney's fighting record.

Blane returned on deck at the moment that Midshipman Dashwood was flying down the ladder to the batteries below with the order to open fire on the port side. It was just as the _Formidable_ was swinging her bows slowly round to pass through between the wreck of the _Glorieux_ and the _Diademe_. He apparently saw no trace of excitement about the admiral, no sign of loss of temper, nothing to suggest that anything unusual had just been happening. On the contrary, Rodney was in quite a jocular mood. 'Now comes the struggle,' was Rodney's greeting to the doctor, with one of those classical allusions that came so naturally to the gentlemen of that day, pointing to the hulk of the dismasted _Glorieux_ as it drifted close alongside them,--'Now comes the struggle for the body of Patroclus!' Blane looked down on to the _Glorieux'_ deck and right into her port-holes. 'The _Formidable_,' he tells us, 'was so near that I could see the cannoniers throwing away their sponges and handspikes in order to save themselves by running below!'

The British flagship swept through the gap, pouring a broadside into the _Glorieux_ to the right and the _Diademe_ to the left. The _Glorieux_ was at that moment 'close to our starboard side and almost in contact therewith, about a ship's breadth from us.' On the larboard side, eye-witnesses related, the _Formidable's_ three tiers of guns went off with 'one platoon report.' After it the _Diademe_ had vanished. She was seen no more from the _Formidable_, nor apparently by any other ship of the British fleet. Rodney himself believed--and reported to the Admiralty in his official despatch--that she had been sent to the bottom, with all hands there and then.[40]

THE _FORMIDABLE_ BREAKING THE LINE. April 12, 1782

After J.C. Schetky.

[The original water-colour was painted for the Duke of Rutland (elder brother of Captain Lord Robert Manners, mortally wounded in the battle), and is at Belvoir Castle.]]

Immediately after that, as the smoke cleared off, a group of three or four French ships were made out near at hand, all huddled together in a mass. They were the ships that had been following the _Diademe_. Thrown aback by the shift of wind, and further disordered by the sudden turning round of the _Diademe_ herself right across their bows, they had got jammed together in confusion, 'almost, if not quite, in contact with each other.' They were full in the path of the _Formidable_ as she went through the line. She had to pass quite close to them. At the same instant the _Duke_ was about to pass on the farther side of the group. Captain Gardner had seen the admiral, astern of him, swing round suddenly to break through the enemy's line, and guessing what was intended, had of his own accord followed suit, forcing his way through between the two Frenchmen nearest himself at the moment. Thus the hapless group of French ships found itself all at once placed under fire on two sides from the most powerful three-deckers in the British fleet, they themselves also at that moment being hardly able to fire a shot in reply. It was a shattering and an overwhelming stroke. It practically crushed the French centre out of existence as a fighting entity. Rodney's men had only to fire 'into the brown.' Dr. Blane, who was watching it all from the _Formidable's_ gangway, by Rodney's side, describes what he saw. 'The unfortunate group, composing now only one large single object to fire at, was attacked ... all at once, receiving several broadsides from each ship, not a single shot missing, and dreadful must have been the slaughter.'

Captain Fanshawe's hard-hitting _Namur_, a 90-gun ship, followed the _Formidable_; then came Inglis's _St. Albans_, a 64; Cornwallis's _Canada_, one of the deadliest fighting 74's in Rodney's fleet; Dumaresq's _Repulse_, another 64, manned by a smart set of Guernsey lads; and Nicholas Charrington's 74, the _Ajax_. One after the other these all filed close past the helpless crowd of panic-stricken Frenchmen, firing into them fast and furiously. Each one, at the same time, passed close and fired into the luckless _Glorieux_ on the farther side,--still quivering after the last tremendous salvo from, to use Captain Douglas's own expression, 'the _Formidable's_ thundering starboard side,' racked through and through by that awful tornado of 8 cwts. of solid shot, lying like a log on the water, a bare hulk under a mass of splintered spars, torn canvas and tangled rigging. Captain Inglis of the _St. Albans_ was watching her and made note of what he saw. The _Glorieux_, said Inglis, did not return a single shot to the _St. Albans'_ broadside, although the rags of her colours could be seen still fluttering defiantly from where they had been nailed to the stump of the mizen mast. Only one man was to be seen on deck, on the poop, and he, poor fellow, dropped to the _St. Albans'_ marines. After his ship had passed the _Glorieux_ Inglis looked back at her and watched the _Canada_ give her a staggering broadside. 'From the dust, the pieces of timber, and the smoke which flew to a great distance from the side opposite of that where she had received the blow, it seemed as if the ship (literally speaking) had been blown out of the water, and as if the whole of the mass had been driven to windward'!

With the smashing of the French centre the fate of the day was settled. The end might be some hours off--as it was in fact,--but from now onwards it was plainly in sight. 'From this moment,' says Blane, 'victory declared itself. All was disorder and confusion throughout the enemy's fleet from end to end.'

As a fact, to make things worse still for the enemy, De Grasse's line had been broken through in yet another place. At the same moment that Rodney's ships were crossing the French line at the centre, Hood's division was breaking through it in the rear. It was quite unintentional with Hood and his captains, a blunder in the smoke fog; but it had a most telling effect on the fortunes of the day. It completed the ruin of De Grasse's array. The same southerly shift of the wind which had caused the gap in the centre was the cause primarily of Hood's going through farther along the line. The _Bedford_, Commodore Affleck, the rear ship of Rodney's centre squadron, was following in her place, astern of the _Ajax_, when she suddenly lost her leader in the smoke. At that instant the shift of wind broke up the French. Unaware of what she was doing, the _Bedford_, keeping her helm steady and holding straight ahead, pushed through the nearest gap in the enemy's line. So little, in fact, was the _Bedford's_ captain aware of what was happening, that the first intimation he had of what he had done was the sudden discovery that he had no enemy to starboard to fire at. As the best thing to be done he ported helm and stood on along the larboard side of the enemy's ships ahead, which belonged to De Grasse's _corps de bataille_, the French centre squadron. Hood's leading ships, the _Prince William_ and the _Magnificent_, followed the _Bedford_, and in the wake of them, through the widening gap, poured the rest of Hood's ships, ten in number. They pressed in, sweeping across the stern of the _Hector_, the rear ship of the French van, and between her and the _Cesar_, the leader of De Grasse's squadron. Thus at one stroke were the ships of the French van cut off _en bloc_ from the centre and the rear. One after the other, as they passed, Hood's twelve ships (or thirteen counting in the _Bedford_ as one) cannonaded the _Cesar_ and the _Hector_, crippling both hopelessly, and reducing them to a state little better than that in which Rodney's five followers had left the _Glorieux_.

To give an idea of the wide expanse over which the battle was at this moment raging, it should be said that Hood's _Barfleur_, when she broke the line, was 2-1/4 miles from the _Formidable_. The _Marlborough_, away in the van, was 3-1/2 miles off, and had already come out of action, having ceased firing after passing the French rearmost ships. Hood's rear ship, the _Royal Oak_, fired her parting broadside into the stern of the ill-starred _Cesar_ a few minutes after eleven, with which the first stage of the battle came to an end. The _Formidable_ had ceased firing more than an hour before.

The two fleets, after passing through each other, drifted slowly apart, the breeze falling gradually away to light airs and mere catspaws, after which it dropped altogether and left both sides becalmed, to look at each other from a distance and repair damages. They lay like this, out of range for most of the ships, for upwards of an hour.

Each was left by the events of the morning in a straggling and broken-up array, but, as the clearing off of the smoke disclosed, in widely different circumstances. The British, though the three squadrons were all separated, were yet more or less within touch, and with each of their groups fairly well together. They were about four miles from the nearest of the French ships, and having regard to the quarter whence the breeze would in ordinary course spring up during the afternoon, to windward of them. The French, on the other hand, were in hopeless disorder at all points and all dead to leeward. They were lying anyhow, in three irregular groups or clusters of ships, and widely separated. The centre group comprised the _Ville de Paris_, herself, with five or six ships, all more or less crippled. Two miles from De Grasse and to leeward of him lay twelve ships of Bougainville's van squadron. Three or four miles away to westward was De Vaudreuil with the rear squadron. Such was the position on both sides when, between noon and one o'clock, the anticipated breeze suddenly sprang up, coming very light and fitful at first, then steadily and from the expected quarter.

One grim detail must be noted. As the two fleets drifted apart and men had time to look round, they saw, we are told, an awful sight, which struck horror into Briton and Frenchman alike. On all sides the water was alive with ravening sharks, that had swarmed up from the bottom, attracted to the spot, summoned to their banquet, by the splashes in the water and the noise of the cannonade. Right and left the surface of the sea was furrowed by the fins of the greedy monsters as they swam about, snapping savagely all round. Under the murderous fire of the British gunners most of the French ships had been turned into veritable slaughter-houses. Each ship had been packed with troops for the Jamaica expedition. Every seventy-four that morning, including the hundred and fifty or two hundred soldiers on board, had carried not fewer than nine hundred men at least. Some ships had had still more on board. The _Ville de Paris_, for one, carried thirteen hundred. Awful indeed had been the slaughter as the English broadsides, aimed at the French port-holes at point-blank range, swept the decks and tore lanes through the closely-packed masses of men as they stood helplessly at quarters. It was the dreadful sequel that interested the sharks. In order to get the dead out of the way at once in the turmoil of the fighting, and give room to work the guns, most of the bodies of the fallen had been pitched overboard then and there--the dead, and, as some said, the not quite dead as well. Many a poor fellow had gone overboard with the spars and rigging as they crashed over the side, shot away in action. _Requin_ is, of course, the French for shark. As a fact, it is a popular corruption of the word 'requiem,' which was the old French name for the monster down to the seventeenth century. Littre explains why:--'a cause,' he says, 'qu'il n'y a plus a dire qu'un requiem pour celui qu'un requin saisit.'

The British were the first to feel the breeze as it came again after mid-day, and every captain began to cast his ship's head round to follow in the direction of the enemy. Hood, who at the outset remained becalmed after Rodney and Drake had begun to move again, was seen getting out his boats to tow the _Barfleur_ round into the breeze. To over-take the French as soon as possible was the business of the afternoon for Rodney's captains.

De Grasse's business, on the other hand, was to get away without further fighting if he could, or at least to try and re-form. It was not an easy task, in the scattered state of his fleet and in the presence of an enemy who had the weather-gage. The _Ville de Paris_ signalled for all to re-form line on the ships farthest to leeward, at the point farthest off from the British, and she headed in that direction herself. It was 'playing for safety,' so to speak, at the cost of abandoning some of his ships. What the rally so far to leeward would inevitably mean for certain of De Grasse's worst-damaged ships was soon seen. The more manageable of the French ships were able to make their way to leeward; but it was another matter for the cripples--in especial for the shattered trio--for the dismasted _Glorieux_ and the partially wrecked _Cesar_ and _Hector_. For them it meant that they were to be left to their fate, left lying, between the two fleets, hardly able to move at all, full in the way of the advancing British. And so it proved in the result. On the hapless three, in due course, on each in her turn, fell the first blows of the reopening battle.

The _Glorieux_ was the first of the French to yield, in spite of an extremely gallant effort to save her. About one o'clock, as the breeze began to freshen, the French frigate _Richmond_ was ordered to close the _Glorieux_ and pass a towing cable on board. The effort was made under fire, for Rodney's nearest ships were already within range of the _Glorieux_. Midshipman Denis Decres, _aspirant de marine_ of the _Richmond_, had charge of the boat, round which the English cannon-balls splashed on all sides. He did his work, despite its difficulties, and won widespread fame and promotion for his gallantry. He lived to become an admiral, Napoleon's favourite Minister of Marine and a Peer of France, Duc Decres. On his grand monument in Pere la Chaise is a sculptured panel in relief, to commemorate this particular incident in Admiral Decres' career. It is elaborately carved, and represents a naval battle in grey marble, smoke-clouds, cannon firing, and so forth, with, in the centre, a small boat with a rope, a boy standing up at the stern, and near by a big dismasted man-of-war. Over the panel is the legend--'Remorque portee au _Glorieux_: 1782.' The attempt, however, was palpably a hopeless one. The stricken seventy-four was water-logged and could hardly stir. The officers of the _Glorieux_ recognised the state of things at once. They hailed across to the frigate to cast off the tow and shift for herself. De Mortemart, the captain of the _Richmond_, however, was not inclined to abandon a consort in distress. Although some of the British ships were already threatening to cut him off, as well as the _Glorieux_, he flatly refused to leave her. After that, as the only thing to be done, the hopeless ship's company of the _Glorieux_ cut the rope. So the two ships parted. The _Richmond_ had to move away, and in the end she only saved herself with difficulty. Another French ship that tried at the last moment to create a forlorn-hope diversion in favour of the _Glorieux_, was De Glandeve's _Souverain_, but she in turn had to give up the attempt, and, hunted like a hare among hounds, was hard put to it in the end to get clear. Now, without further respite, the British dogs of war ran in and closed on the doomed _Glorieux_. Trogoff de Kerlessi, her first lieutenant, and the senior surviving officer on board, could do no more. As the first British ship came up, he with his own hand stripped away the tattered shreds of the _Glorieux_' ensign, that still remained nailed to the stump of the mizen mast, and called across to the British to take possession. There was no other course left. The decks of the _Glorieux_ were shambles from end to end--'a scene of complete horror,' in the words of Dr. Blane. 'The numbers killed were so great, that the surviving, either from want of leisure or through dismay, had not thrown the bodies of the killed overboard, so that the decks were covered with blood and mangled limbs of the dead, as well as wounded and dying.' Baron d'Escars, the captain, had fallen some time previously, about nine o'clock,--one of the victims of the _Formidable's_ awful first broadside. 'On boarding her,' adds Blane, 'our officers ... were shown the stains of blood on the gunnel where his body was thrown overboard.'

The _Royal Oak_, one of Hood's squadron, was ordered to take the _Glorieux_ in tow. Captain Burnett had almost exhausted his ammunition, and he utilised the opportunity to ransack the prize's magazines and transfer on board his own ship all the powder barrels the _Glorieux_ had left, to fight any further Frenchmen he might encounter with their own powder. Several others of Rodney's ships, indeed, were equally short of powder after their morning's work, and another of Hood's squadron, the _Monarch_, was at that very moment alongside the _Andromache_, lifting forty barrels out of the frigate to enable herself to continue in action.

The _Cesar_ was the second French ship to meet her fate. She was the next to drop astern, and the _Centaur_ and the _Bedford_ went at her together as they came up. Though little better than a wreck, the _Cesar_ made a heroic defence for nearly half-an-hour. Hailed by the _Centaur_ to surrender, the Comte de Marigny, the _Cesar's_ captain, replied by nailing his colours to the mast with his own hand and opening fire. De Marigny fell dangerously wounded within the first five minutes, but Captain Paul, his commander, took charge and made a desperate defence. He held out until, one after the other, his masts had gone overboard, the mizen carrying the ensign staff with it. After that, no rescue being possible, with six feet of water in the hold, and with only thirty-six rounds for her guns left in the magazine, the _Cesar_ surrendered to the _Centaur_.

Elsewhere at this time, towards four o'clock, there was a good deal of 'partial and desultory' firing, to use Dr. Blane's term, going on here and there, principally in the direction of De Grasse's squadron. The French admiral's attempt to rally and re-form line had failed. Bougainville's ships kept away in a body, apparently too much occupied in repairing their own damages to pay attention to their commander-in-chief. Many of De Vaudreuil's seemed equally shy, although De Vaudreuil himself, with two or three of his command, gallantly beat to windward and joined the _Ville de Paris_, making up a forlorn-hope band round De Grasse that comprised the rearmost formed group of the French fleet. They moved away at the best speed they were capable of, but owing to the state of the _Ville de Paris's_ masts and spars, the rate of sailing was dangerously slow.

De Grasse's group, numbering, with De Vaudreuil's accession and others, nine ships in all, formed, as it were, a lodestone to the British captains. It drew towards it all who could possibly make for the spot. The great French flagship in the centre, with the commander-in-chief's flag at the mast-head, was for all eyes the supreme attraction. Each followed as well as the wind, which was variable and at times very light, and the state of his own masts and spars, would let him.

The French _Hector_ was their first victim, between five and six o'clock in the evening,--the third Frenchman to surrender. She had been badly hammered by Hood's squadron when it broke the line, losing so many men that to supply the main and upper deck batteries the quarter-deck and forecastle guns had to be abandoned, but had been able to keep up with the _Ville de Paris_ for most of the afternoon. For the last two and a half hours, according to a letter from one of the _Hector's_ officers, they had been firing their stern chasers to try and keep the advancing British back, but in vain. Then, towards the end of the time, two British seventy-fours drew out and ranged alongside the _Hector_. They were the _Canada_ and the _Alcide_. The two pushed up abreast and came to close quarters. Their attack was met by the _Hector_ in a spirit worthy of her heroic name. She struck out right and left like a wounded tigress at bay. She looked, in the words of an eye-witness, 'like a blazing furnace vomiting fire and iron.' The display was brilliant, but it could not last. De la Vicomte, the gallant captain of the _Hector_, was struck down, mortally wounded, and with his fall the spirit of the defence flickered out. 'Some men on the main deck having run from their quarters,' says the letter just referred to, 'the captain was putting his foot on the ladder to go below to kill with his own hand the dastards, when a cannon-ball smashed his thigh.' He was carried to the cockpit, and a few minutes later De Beaumanoir, the first lieutenant, 'seeing the ship being knocked to pieces and powder running short,' after a hasty consultation with the other surviving officers, hauled the ensign down and hailed the _Alcide_ that they had surrendered.

A fourth ship, the _Ardent_, was taken about the same time. She was one of Bougainville's squadron, and the only ship of all the French van that, on seeing how things were likely to fare with the commander-in-chief, had turned back to lend him a hand. In so doing she met her fate. The _Ardent_ was intercepted and cut off by the British _Belliqueux_ and the _Prince William_, who brought her to close action, and after a sharp set-to of a quarter of an hour, made her lower her colours. Some English prisoners, taken a few weeks before out of a merchantman prize, happened to be on board, and their red ensign was hoisted in token of surrender. The taking of the _Ardent_ was peculiarly gratifying to the British fleet. In point of fact it was a recapture. The _Ardent_ was a British-built man-of-war which had fallen into the hands of the enemy in very discreditable circumstances earlier in the war. It was this same ship that the Franco-Spanish combined fleet had snapped up, practically without her firing a shot, off Plymouth Sound three years before, when they were parading the English Channel in triumph at the time they compelled the Channel Fleet to retreat before them to Spithead. It was a satisfactory stroke of retaliation, although if it had taken place six weeks earlier it would have been still more satisfactory. Then the Vicomte de Marigny--Charles Rene Louis, of an old Norman family, elder brother to Comte Bernard, the captain of the _Cesar_--the officer who had been the original captor of the _Ardent_, would have been on board. In honour of his capture of a British man-of-war, 'si vaillamment,' Charles de Marigny had been posted to the prize by the King of France's special command, his commission being accompanied by a picture in oils representing his feat, painted at the instance of His Most Christian Majesty, and sent by the King's order to be hung in the cabin of the _Ardent_, with the legend over it: 'Donne par le Roi au brave Vicomte de Marigny.'[41] The Vicomte, unfortunately for the dramatic completeness of the situation, had been sent home with De Grasse's despatch after the capture of St. Kitts, and he had taken the oil-painting with him. Still, though, even without De Marigny, it was a good thing to have the _Ardent_ back under her old flag once more.

We now come to the closing fight of the day, to the story of the fate of the noblest victim of all. It was next the turn of the _Ville de Paris_ herself. Between half-past five and six o'clock the course of the pursuit had brought the headmost of Rodney's ships well up with the rearmost group of the enemy, close astern of De Grasse himself and the little group of ships that kept company with the _Ville de Paris_. There were ships both of Rodney's own squadron and of Hood's squadron among the British at that point, although most of them were Hood's, hustled forward in chase by their chief's incessant signals during the afternoon. The _Barfleur_ herself, with every inch of canvas set and stu'ns'ls out aloft and alow, was following among the foremost and eagerly pressing on. The _Formidable_ and great part of Rodney's squadron were in rear, a little way off. As they neared the enemy the headmost ships came streaming on and firing briskly, steering to overlap the French on either side.

The French, for their part, were in a straggling line, with irregular gaps between the ships. They comprised the _Ville de Paris_, originally in the centre but now fallen back to be almost last ship; the _Triomphante_, De Vaudreuil's flagship; De la Charette's _Bourgogne_, Macarty Macteigne's _Magnifique_, De Rions' _Pluton_, and the _Marseillais_, commanded by De Castellane-Majastre. All these belonged to De Vaudreuil's squadron, and had rallied with their chief to try and help the admiral. Three of De Grasse's own ships were with them--all that had stood by the chief,--the _Languedoc_ and the _Couronne_ (the _Ville de Paris's_ two 'seconds' in the original line of battle) and the younger De Vaudreuil's _Sceptre_. Like his brother, that officer was at the post of greatest danger, in accordance with the traditions of his House. The last three had dropped back to join De Grasse about four o'clock. None of Bougainville's ships were near De Grasse; the only one that had tried to reach him had been the _Ardent_, now, as the result, in Rodney's hands. Round this devoted band of nine ships the British attack concentrated, and for a second time the battle blazed up fiercely. The encounter was, however, too one-sided to endure. Stout-heartedly as they defended themselves, and most of them were fighting both broadsides at once, the French last-hope band were thrown into disorder and broken up.

The British _Canada_, Cornwallis's hard-hitting seventy-four, fresh from her victorious bout with the French _Hector_, came on in the forefront of the pursuing British and fastened at once on the _Ville de Paris_. The French flagship by now had fallen quite to the rear. The _Couronne_ had failed her admiral at the last moment. De Grasse, as he himself reported to Versailles, had personally hailed her just before, and ordered her to keep station close in the flagship's wake. They had answered back, 'Oui, General!' but as the _Canada_ came up the _Couronne_ shifted out of the way and edged off past the flagship, letting Cornwallis in.[42] Cornwallis knew what he had to do, and pointed his guns high. Stationing the _Canada_ on the quarter of the _Ville de Paris_, out of direct reach of De Grasse's broadside, he hung on there fixedly, pounding his hardest meanwhile into the French flagship with every gun the _Canada_ could bring to bear, cutting away spars and rigging and holding the great vessel back until other British ships were at hand to take up the task. The _Canada_ then moved off after the other French ships farther on, passing over the work of holding the _Ville de Paris_ to Saumarez of the _Russell_, the only captain of Admiral Drake's squadron who was 'in at the death'--thanks to his own intelligent anticipation of probable events earlier in the day. The _Russell_ during the afternoon had had a series of long-range encounters with four of the French fleet elsewhere, but she was fresh enough for the business before her. Saumarez pushed in boldly, hauled up under the stern of the _Ville de Paris_, and gave her a raking broadside that swept the giant three-decker from end to end. After that the _Russell_ placed herself on the lee quarter of the _Ville de Paris_, to prevent her from edging off after the other French ships of her group, which were now giving way everywhere as the attack on them was being driven home. There she remained until Hood himself with the _Barfleur_ came on the scene.

De Grasse by this had been practically abandoned to his fate. Even De Vaudreuil's devotion could help him no further now. The _Languedoc_ made one despairing attempt to come to her flagship's rescue, but could not get through. Beaten back by the _Duke_ and another ship, she turned away and fled, hoisting all sail. On board the _Ville de Paris_ every spar had been shot down, stripped from the masts, which had themselves been riddled and were tottering. The rudder had been smashed away, and the ship could not be steered; many guns were disabled; one gun had burst, killing sixteen men and injuring thirty. There was hardly a yard of space along her sides that had not a shot-hole through it. From three to four hundred of her crew--the exact numbers were never returned--were dead or in the cockpit. Those who were still at quarters were dead-beat and nearly dropping from exhaustion, having been without food since daybreak. All the cartridges in the magazines were exhausted, and they had to supply the guns by ladling loose powder into them from open barrels brought up on deck. The 'fighting lanterns' between decks were mostly extinguished, the candles burned out; all was dark below, and they waded ankle-deep and stumbled amid the horrible _debris_ of what that morning had been living human beings. Even then De Grasse would not give in; not at least to any British captain. He stoutly resisted until, a little after six o'clock, he caught sight of Hood's flag at the _Barfleur's_ mast-head, showing above the smoke a little way off. He would wait until Hood came up and then surrender. It was a point of honour: his flagship should lower her colours only to a flagship.

Now in the Museum of the Royal United Service Institution, Whitehall.]

As the _Barfleur_ got nearer, De Grasse fired a challenging gun. It was to attract the approaching flagship's attention. Hood marked the gun and understood it. He at once headed the _Barfleur_ directly for the _Ville de Paris_. 'I concluded,' said Hood, 'the Count de Grasse had a mind to be my prisoner, as an old acquaintance, and therefore met his wishes by looking towards him.' As the _Barfleur_ began to close with the French flagship, De Grasse made a show of opening fire on her, 'which I,' continued Hood, 'totally disregarded till I had proved, by firing a single gun from the quarter-deck, that I was within point blank.'[43] That was the _Barfleur's_ distance. Ranging up to the _Ville de Paris_ Hood greeted the French admiral with one tremendous salvo of round-shot and grape at close quarters that crashed through the sides of De Grasse's doomed flagship as though they were cardboard. That one broadside struck down sixty men. All was over for the French admiral now. In less than ten minutes the end had come. De Grasse stepped to the taffrail, and with his own hand pulled the _Ville de Paris's_ ensign down. The battle of the 'Glorious Twelfth of April' had been fought and won. As the _Ville de Paris's_ ensign dropped the sun's rim touched the sea-line.

There were but three unwounded men on the _Ville de Paris's_ quarter-deck when the admiral hauled down the flag. De Grasse himself was one. More than a third of the flagship's immense company, officers and men, had gone down, while he himself, at the most exposed point of all from the first shot to the last and seeming to court death throughout, had come through the day unscathed, except for a contusion across the loins from a splinter which did not break the skin.

After the picture by Robert Edge Pine; now in the Town Hall of Kingston, Jamaica.

[Immediately behind Rodney's left shoulder is seen the head of Lord Cranstoun. Midshipman Dashwood is readily recognisable, and the tall, bulky man on the extreme right of the picture is Sir Charles Douglas with the little bantam cock near his feet. The picture was shown at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1784.] ]

The grand finale was witnessed from the _Formidable_, now close at hand and drawing up, but just too late to share in the honour of the event. Dr. Blane saw the French flag drop. 'The _Formidable_ was right astern, and having come within shot, was yawing in order to give the enemy a raking broadside, when, Sir Charles Douglas and I standing together on the quarter-deck, the position of our ship opened a view of the enemy's stern between the foresail and the jib boom, between which we saw the French flag hauled down!'[44]

Some one else saw it too--De Vaudreuil. He was about a quarter of a mile off at the moment, and still fighting. It made him senior officer, commander-in-chief. There was now no De Grasse to keep pace with for the honour of the flag. He could consider his own safety. De Vaudreuil at once clapped on every sail that his masts could bear and made off, hoisting as he did so the signal to rally to the north-west. The _Bourgogne_ was the nearest ship to him. Across to her De Vaudreuil shouted orders to make all sail and follow, and as he passed the other ships ahead of him he hailed each to the same effect in turn.

Captain Knight of the _Barfleur_--son of Dr. Johnson's old friend, Admiral Sir Joseph Knight, with whom the Doctor once stayed for a week on board the _Ramillies_ at Chatham, and afterwards expressed the opinion that 'No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into gaol'--received De Grasse's surrender. A party of seamen and marines from the _Barfleur_ under the first-lieutenant at the same time took possession of the prize. They put off within five minutes of the surrender, and arrived not a moment too soon. With the hauling down of the flag all discipline on board vanished. 'The moment the _Ville de Paris_ struck,' wrote Captain Douglas, 'her worthless, disorderly crew broke open the chests and trunks of all their officers, and with lighted candles in their hands, stove in the doors of the store-rooms in quest of wine and other liquors, to the great danger of all on board from fire.'[45]

Lord Cranstoun in a boat from the _Formidable_ reached the _Ville de Paris_ a few minutes after Captain Knight. He described De Grasse as 'a tall, robust, and martial figure, presenting in that moment an object of respect, no less than of concern and sympathy.' He looked pale and apparently dazed at the tremendous catastrophe that had befallen him. According to Lord Cranstoun the French admiral 'could not recover from the astonishment into which he was plunged, the expressions of which he often iterated, at seeing in the course of so short a time, his vessel taken, his fleet defeated, and himself a prisoner.' Lord Cranstoun brought De Grasse a courteous message from Rodney, to the effect that if he wished he might remain for the night 'at his ease' on board the _Ville de Paris_, 'with every testimony of attention and regard manifested towards him on the part of the British commander.'[46]

'Count de Grasse, the French Admiral, resigning his Sword to Admiral Rodney after being defeated by that gallant Commander in the West Indies. April 12, 1782.'

From the engraving by Fiegl, after Metz.]

The state of things on board was appalling, 'altogether terrible,' said Lord Cranstoun. The quarter-deck was 'covered with dead and wounded.... Between the foremast and main-mast, at every step he took,' Lord Cranstoun told Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, 'he was over his buckles in blood.'[47] Below, where the cattle (to provide the troops on board with meat) had been stalled between the guns, things were even more horrible, for 'they had suffered not less than the crew and troops from the effects of the cannon.' De Grasse himself, incidentally, gives an idea of the state to which the _Ville de Paris_ had been reduced at the end. In his official report to Versailles on the battle he said, 'I was reduced to such a state that the enemy on the morning of the 13th, to strike the ship's pennant, were obliged to cut away the masts for fear, in sending a man to get at the pennant, all would go overboard or come down in a crash on deck.'

Immediately after the surrender of the _Ville de Paris_ Rodney made the signal for the fleet to cease firing and bring-to. There was to be no pursuit. It was a decision for which Rodney has been bitterly criticised. He had, however, his reasons, and he put them in writing; but it was, all said and done, a very grave error of judgment on the part of the British leader. 'Come, come,' he is said to have exclaimed in reply to a suggestion that was made to him by Hood, that part of the fleet at any rate might follow up the enemy, 'we have done very handsomely!' It was not the old Rodney of the _Eagle_ who said that, one must remember. Rodney in April 1782 was a man broken in health, racked with gout, a man grown prematurely old,--ten years, at least, older than his real age,--and utterly worn out after twelve anxious hours on deck under a burning sun. Before that, also, as Rodney himself said, he had had no proper rest for four nights. Most unfortunately, as it proved, Rodney underestimated the force of the smashing blow that he had dealt the enemy, and formed an entirely erroneous estimate of the condition of the ships that had escaped. He allowed himself to form a picture of their condition that was totally at variance with the facts, and did not think it wise to risk a pursuit in the dark. He made up his mind that the enemy had gone off 'in a collected body,' and that his own fleet had suffered more severe damage than was actually the case. There is no need here to press the matter further, or to recall Hood's bitter animadversions on his chief's breakdown, or what certain of the captains are said to have thought. Rodney was commander-in-chief and all responsibility for the safety of the British West Indies rested on his shoulders. Also his reasons for bringing-to commended themselves to him at the time.

The short tropical evening closed in, and darkness fell on the scene--the darkness of a sultry black night without moon or stars. Each ship, of course, had her poop lantern showing, and lights gleamed out through the ports of all as the working parties moved about between decks, busily engaged in cleaning up and taking temporary measures to clear away the marks of battle, as far as might be done in an hour or two, preparatory to turning-in for the night.

Yet before the wearied men could get to their hammocks one more event was to happen, to mark the dread closing of a tremendous day. Nor was it out of keeping with what had gone before. Towards nine o'clock, all of a sudden, a burst of roaring flame shot up from one of the French prizes, illuminating the sky and sea for many miles all round. De Vaudreuil and his fugitive fifteen, far away to northward by now, below the horizon, could see the reflection and guessed what it was. Bougainville, in the other direction, flying towards Curacao, saw it too. The victim was the captured _Cesar_. One of her own disorderly crew, it came out later, did the mischief. They had been as usual clapped under hatchways after the surrender, but had the hold to themselves. There the rabble--as on board the _Ville de Paris_, all bonds of discipline had ceased to exist with the striking of the flag--had broken into the spirit-room and held a wild orgy among themselves, regardless of consequences. A drunken French soldier, seeking for more drink with a pannikin in one hand and a naked light in the other, dropped the flaring candle into an open cask of ratafia. Who-o-o-f!!! Instantly the whole place was ablaze from end to end, and the flames leapt along in a flash from deck to deck throughout the ship. There was no checking them, and the splintered woodwork everywhere was in the best state to feed the fire. Out of mercy to the prisoners below the hatches were lifted off, and those who could escape given a chance. That, unfortunately, at the same time made things worse for the ship. The more sober of the Frenchmen joined the small British prize-crew of fifty-eight men and a lieutenant, and lent a hand to try and get the flames under. Half-a-dozen thought of their wounded captain, the Comte Bernard de Marigny, who was lying badly wounded in the cabin. These made their way into the cabin, and told De Marigny that the ship was expected every minute to blow up. 'So much the better,' was all the Captain replied, very quietly, according to French accounts, 'the English won't keep her! Shut my door, my friends, and leave me. Try and save yourselves!'[48] The British prize-crew--they were all from the _Centaur_--fought the fire heroically, and spared no efforts to beat the flames back, but in vain. The British lieutenant in command was seen at the last in the stern gallery giving his orders. All the _Cesar's_ boats had been knocked to pieces in the battle. Outside, all round, were the boats of the fleet lying on their oars, ready to save all they could, but, for various reasons, unable to get near the ship. One of the reasons has been specially recorded--the sharks. Again the sharks were on the spot, 'not yet glutted,' said Dr. Blane, 'with the carnage of the preceding day.' What the men on the boats saw and told the doctor, was, in Blane's words, 'too horrid to describe.' A solid belt of sharks surrounded the burning _Cesar_, a closely packed mass of struggling, huge-girthed brutes, rolling and tumbling about all round, jostling one another and scraping their rough backs together as they plunged and wallowed about all over the surface. Attracted by the glare they had come crowding to the spot, 'every shark in those waters seemed to be there,' and swarmed thronging close round the vessel, surging up and snapping and tearing at the poor frenzied wretches who were clinging on alongside on fragments of spars and wreckage that had dropped overboard. One by one the sharks picked the poor fellows off. The boats meanwhile could not, dared not, force their way through. They could only look helplessly on and wait for the end:--

Watch the wild wreck; but not to save.

The end came between ten and eleven. The _Cesar_, half burned to the water's edge, blew up with a dull heavy roar--'not a loud explosion,' notes an onlooker. Indeed there was not much powder left to blow up in the bravely defended ship's magazines. It was merely a belching up of flame and sparks, like the blowing out of the pinch of powder at the bottom of a squib or Roman candle; just enough to rend the remains of the hull apart and scatter its contents. Then all was black darkness. A few twinkling sparks high overhead caught the eye, as the burning fragments poised in mid-air and turned for the downward drop, followed by splashes in the sea all round, and here and there, out of sight,

A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry Of some strong swimmer in his agony,

as some shark claimed its last victim, and then all was over. Silence and darkness fell once more on the heaving waters, and the boats pulled sadly and wearily back to their ships. Such was the tragedy of the _Cesar_. A handful of survivors were picked up, though how they escaped is not stated. All were Frenchmen. Not one of the British prize-crew escaped.

Now at last Rodney's day was over: the 'Glorious Twelfth' reached its last hour in silence and passed away.

* * * * *

'The battle is over and the British fleet victorious, De Grasse is in my cabin, the _Ville de Paris_ and four ships of the line are in our possession and one sunk, their whole fleet completely mauled.' So ran the opening sentence of Rodney's first letter after the battle, written on the morning of the 13th. Writing to a brother-admiral he spoke of the battle as having been 'long and bloody, but never doubtful in my opinion.' Eleven hours was Rodney's estimate of its duration, and he added, 'by persons appointed to observe there was never seven minutes' respite during the engagement.'

For the enemy it had been a sanguinary and costly day. The French losses in the battle--including the crews of four ships taken by Hood a week later--amounted, in round numbers, to 'at least 15,000 men.' Seven thousand of the number were either killed, wounded, or drowned. Six French captains were among the dead,[49] who, reckoned by themselves, were 3000. Over a thousand of the casualties were in the _Ville de Paris_ and the _Cesar_ alone. Among the 8000 prisoners were 2000 soldiers. The monetary loss to France, in the value of _materiel_ taken, was put at just half a million sterling; and that sum does not include the treasure-chest of De Bouille's army, thirty-six boxes of money containing coin to the value of L25,000.[50] Also on board the captured ships, by a curious chance, was found the whole of the French army's siege-train for Jamaica, heavy guns and carriages, and equipment complete.

Such were some of the first fruits. The immediate collapse of the campaign against Jamaica was another of the fruits of the victory, and there were yet other results of wider-reaching effect. The blow that Rodney dealt on the 12th of April reacted on the sea campaign in Home waters, and strengthened Howe's hand for the final effort of the war, the relief of Gibraltar. 'On that memorable day,' says Froude, 'was the English Empire saved.'

For the British the 'butcher's bill,' as the tars of Rodney's day called it, proved comparatively light. The Admiral's first despatch gave the figures as 230 killed and 759 wounded; corrected later to 337 killed and 766 wounded, or 1103 in all. Of the total the _Formidable's_ share was surprisingly small, only 14 killed and 39 wounded, yet hers was the third heaviest return sent in. The French officers of De Grasse's suite, indeed, when they were told the figures, refused at first to accept them. 'It was with difficulty,' says Dr. Blane, 'we could make the French officers believe that the returns of killed and wounded made by our ships to the Admiral were true. One of them flatly contradicted me, saying we always gave the world a false account of our losses. I then walked him over the decks of the _Formidable_ and bade him remark what number of shot-holes there were, and also how little her rigging had suffered, and asked if that degree of damage was likely to be connected with the loss of more than fourteen men, which was our number killed, and the greatest number of any in the fleet except the _Royal Oak_ and _Monarch_. He was visibly mortified to see how little our ship had suffered, and then owned that our fire must have been much better kept up and directed than theirs.'[51] It was, of course, the demoralising effect of Rodney's gunnery on the enemy at the outset that made all the difference.

The _Formidable_, as to that, had taken her own part effectively. The gunner's return showed that the British flagship had fired eighty broadsides--35 tons of shot. Rodney himself was enthusiastic over his ship's performance. 'The _Formidable_,' he wrote, 'proved herself worthy of her name!'