Rodney

The ill health of which Rodney had complained all through the year had now increased on him. He had applied for leave to come home during the hurricane months, and it had been reluctantly granted him. As it was now June, and therefore close on the dangerous season, he began to make ready. Hood was to be despatched with the bulk of the squadron to Sandy Hook. Rodney himself decided to make an attempt to go there also, and only to sail for Europe if he found himself unable to stand a northern latitude. His old flag-ship the Sandwich was so battered as to be unfit to stand the voyage. He therefore shifted his flag to the Gibraltar, which had been the Fenix, Don Juan de Langara’s flag-ship. On August 1st he sailed, and after going as far north as the latitude of the Bahamas found himself so ill as to be compelled to renounce all intention of going on to America. He therefore steered directly for England, and after touching at Cork, arrived at Plymouth on September 19th.

CHAPTER X

RODNEY’S STAY IN ENGLAND

Indeed he needed consolation for the second as well as for the first. The last campaign had on the whole gone against him, and his popularity was not what it had been. Rodney might have dispensed with popular applause, but he could not help seeing that his ministerial friends were disappointed in him. There was no talk of superseding him. It was not the wont of George the Third to throw over a faithful servant who had been unsuccessful, and on such a point the Ministry would not go against the wish of the King. But there were no signs given him of welcome. The war was going against England, making the position of the Ministry harder every day. Lord North and his colleagues could not but feel that Rodney had of late done little to help them. When the news of the capture of St. Eustatius came there had been talk of a peerage for the Admiral. It was so serious that the Duke of Chandos sent him a message through Lady Rodney offering to let him have Rodney Stoke on reasonable terms if he wished to take his title from the ancient possession of the family from which he claimed to descend. The talk ended in talk, however, as later events in the West Indies went against us. The failure at St. Vincent, the loss of Tobago under the very eyes, as the grumblers would say, of Rodney’s fleet, the ease with which Grasse had made his way to Fort Royal, and the impunity with which he had subsequently ranged the West Indies in defiance as it seemed of our fleet, made a great score against us. To this we could only set off, in the way of actual advance, the capture of St. Eustatius and the Dutch post on the mainland. This had seemed a brilliant success at the time, but it did not last. When it was seen that the want of the island had neither weakened the insurgents on the continent, nor stopped the activity of the Yankee privateers, nor made it a whit more difficult for a French admiral to keep the sea,—when finally it was found, as it soon was, that the seizure of the island had made it harder than before for Englishmen to obtain those products of the plantations which had become necessaries to them,—the popular voice turned with its usual versatility from loud applause to loud complaint. The outcry of the planters in St. Kitts, and the traders whose goods had been confiscated, found an echo in England. Their case was taken up in Parliament by the formidable voice of Burke. Rodney therefore found himself the mark for not a little obloquy.

The Admiral did not sit in silence under these attacks. He published a selection of his letters in order to prove that his conduct at St. Eustatius had been unimpeachable, and that he was not to blame for subsequent failures. The person to whom he entrusted the publication of the pamphlet turned out to be an injudicious editor, for he printed Hood’s request to be allowed to cruise to windward of Martinique, which of course was to put a weapon into the hands of the Admiral’s enemies. Rodney was annoyed, but the mischief was done.

In December Rodney had an opportunity of answering his enemies in Parliament. Burke moved for a committee to inquire into the circumstances of the seizure of St. Eustatius in a vehement denunciatory speech such as he only could deliver. The occasion called out both the weakness and the strength of the great orator. He saw a chance of damaging the Administration, and seized on it as a party man, in which character he was neither better nor worse than five hundred other honourable gentlemen. He also thought he saw that the honour of England had been tarnished, and her interests sacrificed, by cruelty and greed. A man must have read Burke to very little purpose who does not know that when he was convinced he had to deal with these sins his anger was perfectly sincere and also perfectly generous. In this case he had been persuaded by the lamentations of the sufferers at St. Eustatius, and he attacked Rodney with asperity. His charges were in many cases exaggerated, and Rodney had no difficulty in disposing of them. There was, however, a substance of truth below the exaggeration, and to that the Admiral’s answer was but lame. It was easy for him to show that he had not knowingly allowed provisions and naval stores to be sold to the French islands in order to fill his own pocket. It was not equally easy for him to prove that he had not gone to undue lengths in his seizures, or that he had not stayed too long at St. Eustatius. In his excuses for subsequent failures he was sadly hampered by the notorious fact that he had differed in opinion from his subordinate, and that the subordinate turned out to be right. There is far too much of the weak man’s plea, “It could not be helped, and how could I know?” for Rodney’s honour. On the whole one is glad to be done with a disagreeable passage in his life. The Ministerial majority being still intact, Burke’s motion was of course rejected.

Rodney was now to have an opportunity of vindicating himself in another and far more effectual way. Early in December he was summoned by the King to consult on the measures to be taken to check the victorious progress of the French in America. On what from this year forward it is strictly accurate to call the coast of the United States, the war had gone steadily against England for months. At the close of the campaign season in the West Indies, Grasse had sailed for America at the same time as Hood. There he in combination with Washington and Rochambeau carried out the operations which culminated in the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. It is just possible that if Hood had commanded for us at sea, the army under Cornwallis might have been saved, but our admiral was Graves, a thoroughly commonplace and pedantic officer. He was out-manœuvred by Grasse, and his retreat from the Chesapeake after a miserably feeble fight with the Frenchman, which was bitterly criticised by Rodney, left Cornwallis helpless in the midst of an enemy four times as numerous as his own army. The surrender of Yorktown followed on October 17th, 1781.

The news reached England in the following month. It convinced all men, even the King, that the independence of the colonies must be recognised at last, but it also showed that the war had entered on a new phase. Freed by the success of their allies from the necessity of helping the Americans, the French would now be at liberty to devote themselves to that attack on our West Indian possessions which had always been the ultimate object of their war policy. It was a matter of course that Grasse, the hurricane season being over in the West Indies, and his work on the mainland done, would hurry back to Martinique. It was known that a great armament was preparing at Brest to sail under Guichen, Rodney’s old antagonist, which was to reinforce Grasse. Then the whole force in combination with the Spaniards from Havannah was to attack Jamaica. A determined effort must be made to defeat this plan, or the war would end in disaster at sea as it had done on land.

Throughout November the Admiralty was at work preparing reinforcements for Hood, who was already outnumbered, and would be mewed up in port by an overwhelming force if Guichen reached the Antilles before our own ships. Early in December the danger had become so pressing that it was decided not to wait till all our reinforcements were ready, but to send part on as soon as they could be made ready. The King summoned Rodney to an audience and received from him the assurance that he would not waste a day in getting to sea. From the King’s cabinet the Admiral hastened to Portsmouth to hoist his flag on the Formidable and again take up the reins.

Until the January of the following year Rodney was at work, first at Portsmouth and then at Plymouth (which in a moment of exasperation he most unjustly called a “horrid port”), superintending the fitting out of the squadron, collecting men, driving on the laggard dockyard officials, beating down the ill-will of port admirals who were sulky at real or imaginary intrusions on their authority. With this kind of opposition Rodney, well supported as he was now by the Admiralty, kept no measure. It was instantly crushed; and as for the dockyard officials, what orders could not do was effected by the crack of the whip. The Admiral could declare with pardonable pride that he had forced more work out of the yard in a month than it had done in a year before. All this drive was of course augmented by the usual torrent of applications for places or promotion from candidates and their friends. Some of these could be neglected or refused, but to others attention must be paid. One of these came from Sandwich on behalf of a Lord Cranstoun who “is greatly patronised by the Lord Advocate.” It is highly probable that if Sandwich had been divinely informed that the end of the world would occur in an hour, the ruins of the universe would have fallen on him placidly penning a request to somebody to find a place for somebody who was protected by somebody of importance. Nothing could be done for Cranstoun for the moment, but Rodney was not quite satisfied with Symonds the captain of the Formidable, and he decided to take the Scotch protégé of the Lord Advocate with him as a volunteer, and to give him the command of the flag-ship as soon as a place could be found for the other officer.

Two appointments were made at Rodney’s own request which must not be passed over. Gilbert Blane was named Physician to the Fleet. This was not only an excellent administrative measure, but a well-deserved reward for past services. Since the end of 1779 Blane had sailed with Rodney, and had used his influence to introduce a number of sanitary reforms by which many hundreds of stout and well-trained seamen were preserved from fever and scurvy for the day when England’s need for stout and well-trained men was great indeed. Cleanliness and good food had been his favourite prescriptions, and to them was due the excellent general health of our squadrons in the West Indies. The second appointment was that of Sir Charles Douglas as Captain of the Fleet—an officer who was occasionally appointed to help an admiral in command of a very large force. He corresponded to the chief of the staff in an army. Douglas would be entitled to especial notice in a life of Rodney if only because of the claim made on his behalf by his son Sir Howard, the gunner—that he inspired his admiral at the great and critical moment of the battle of April 12th. But Sir Charles Douglas would be a notable man if no such claim had ever been made. It may be said of him that he did for the gunnery of the fleet what Blane did for its health. To him is due the use of the lock for firing cannon in place of the old port fire and powder horn—a change which diminished the risk of explosions and increased the accuracy of our practice. He also improved the construction of gun carriages so as to enable the cannon to be trained farther fore and aft, whereby the range of fire was materially increased. These reforms, be it noted, were made on his own initiative, and frequently at his own expense. They were adopted by other captains on his example. These two Scotchmen were admirable types of those officers who, on blue water and in the presence of the enemy, by their own efforts perfected the old sailing navy. It is not the least of Rodney’s services that he saw the merits of both and used them.

While he was completing his staff and fitting his ships for sea the wind had settled in the south-west, and had imprisoned him at Plymouth. It was some consolation in this trial that the wind which kept him in Cawsand Bay would also keep Guichen in Brest. But before the end of December the fear that the Frenchman might head him in the race to the West Indies had been removed by means more glorious to us than the help of our old allies the storms. Guichen did put to sea with his convoy, but soon after he was out he fell in with Kempenfelt, who was cruising off the mouth of the Channel. It was a wild and misty day. By a piece of mismanagement, which does little credit to his reputation as a tactician, Guichen was to leeward of his convoy. A sudden lifting of the mist revealed him to Kempenfelt, who was to windward. The English admiral swooped on his prize before the transports could run under their convoy’s lee. Fifteen of them, laden with troops and stores, were captured. The others scattered in terror and were lost in the mist. Guichen returned to Brest, and in deep humiliation resigned his command.

When Kempenfelt’s destruction of the reliefs for the West Indies was known, the Ministry, seeing that there was now no fear of a meeting with a superior force on the way, urged Rodney to put to sea with the ships which were actually ready, and leave the rest to follow. In words which ring like the famous appeal to Radetzky—“Austria is in thy camp,” Sandwich solemnly reminded him that “the fate of this Empire is in your hands.” Rodney answered the appeal. The instant that the wind, shifting a little to the north, ceased to blow directly into Plymouth Sound—then unprotected by its breakwater—he put to sea with four ships of the line, and began to fight the winds for a passage out to the ocean. The week which followed was a better test of the quality of the Admiral’s nerve, and the seamanship of the little squadron round him, than a battle with Souffren himself could have been. Rodney was now sixty-four, an older man then than he would have been at the same years now. His gout had returned on him so cruelly at Plymouth that he had been compelled to leave the very signing of his letters to Sir Charles Douglas. The wind was blowing straight in his teeth with undeviating fury. But he fought on doggedly, and at last, after a week of struggle, seamanship prevailed. On January 17th, 1782, the squadron weathered Ushant in sea which made a clean breach over such mighty three-deckers as the Formidable and the Namur. From the open sea he sent back a frigate with the news to Sandwich, and then pressed on, accompanied by storms, to the West. On February 19th he anchored in Carlisle Bay in Barbadoes. From thence he sailed to join Hood off Antigua, and was again in command of the West Indies.

CHAPTER XI

TO APRIL 12TH

When the Admiral and his second in command met off Antigua it was manifest that the crisis of the war was fast approaching in the West Indies. Since Grasse had returned from the coast of North America the French had possessed a considerable superiority of force, and had used it to complete their conquest of the English islands. The bolder and more efficacious policy would have been to seek out Hood and crush him before reinforcements arrived from England. But this was at no period in the war the line taken by any French commander except Souffren. Grasse followed the traditional rules and attacked the islands. Before his arrival Bouillé had retaken St. Eustatius by a dashing surprise. When the French admiral and the governor of Martinique had again joined they fell upon St. Kitts, which lies between St. Eustatius and Antigua. A naval force of twenty-nine sail of the line conveyed Bouillé’s soldiers, and the expedition landed in January. It was far too strong to be resisted by the small English garrison under General Fraser—the more because the planters, being thoroughly sulky since the confiscation of their goods at St. Eustatius, refused to give him any help. He retired with his soldiers to Brimstone Hill, and fortifying himself there, held out in the hope that relief would come.

The news of the attack reached Hood at Barbadoes, and he saw at once that honour and interest alike required that an effort should be made. He shipped a small force of soldiers under General Prescott and sailed for St. Kitts. The manœuvring and fighting which followed make what Cortes would have called a muy hermosa cosa—a very pretty piece of work. The French were stronger by seven sail of the line, but Hood had decided to attack them where they were anchored near the Basseterre Bank to cover the troops on shore. His plan was defeated through the gross misconduct of the officer of the watch of one of our frigates, who threw his vessel right across the bows of the leading liner, and caused a collision which entailed a waste of invaluable time. The approaching English fleet was seen by Grasse, who got up anchor and stood to sea. By steady manœuvring Hood kept between him and the land. Then he ran in and anchored at Basseterre himself, thus cutting Grasse off from Bouillé. The Frenchman, furious at finding himself outmanœuvred, made three attacks on the English, but Hood had anchored close on the tail of the bank, and had placed his ships so admirably for mutual support, that the enemy was beaten off with loss. General Prescott was landed, and an effort made to relieve Fraser. But the English military force was too weak to raise the siege of Brimstone Hill, and soon fell back to secure the protection of the guns of the fleet.

For some weeks these various land and sea forces remained in a curiously complicated position. Fraser at Brimstone Hill was besieged by Bouillé, who was threatened by Prescott from Basseterre. Hood while covering Prescott was threatened by Grasse, who lay out at sea watching him. Reinforcements had arrived which raised the French to over thirty vessels. At last Brimstone Hill surrendered. There was nothing to be gained by holding on to Basseterre any longer. On February 17th Hood re-embarked Prescott’s men, and summoned his captains on board the Barfleur. Every man’s watch was set by the Admiral’s, and orders were given that at ten o’clock exactly every cable was to be cut, and the fleet was to slip to sea under the shadow of the land. At sundown the riding lights of the English fleet were hoisted on boats anchored outside of them. At the appointed time the axes of the carpenter’s gangs fell on the cables from end to end of the fleet, and Hood slipped to sea leaving the lights on the boats to mislead the French till daylight. When it came, a few flecks of white on the horizon made by the topsails of Hood’s ships told Grasse that the enemy, who had outmanœuvred him all along, had baffled him again. The effort to save St. Kitts had failed from want of means, but it was gallantly made. The success with which an inferior English force had defied the French, and had outmanœuvred them, greatly raised our spirits after the last unlucky months. His failure had discredited Grasse, and had tended to increase the already existing ill-will between him and his second and third in command, Vaudreuil and Bougainville.

The junction with Rodney had raised the English force nearer to an equality with the French. Grasse was not minded, however, to fight a battle. His orders were to make ready for that attack on Jamaica which was to put a triumphant finish to the war. So, taking Bouillé on board again, he returned to Fort Royal in Martinique. Rodney went south to Gros Islet Bay in Santa Lucia—his old headquarters—and there resumed his watch on the enemy.

It was known on both sides that a decisive battle lay ahead of them. Rodney had written to Parker at Jamaica immediately on reaching the West Indies, warning him of the approaching attack. The French, he informed him, would certainly make an effort to fall on the Greater Antilles soon. For his part he would do his best to fight them to windward, but if they slipped through his fingers there, then he would follow them to the west, would join Parker, and the battle would be fought off Jamaica. In any case there would be a battle. During March both fleets were making ready. Both expected and received reinforcements. The ships which were fitting out in England when Rodney left, followed him soon, and their arrival raised his force to thirty-six sail of the line with a good proportion of frigates. In the meantime another expedition had been fitted out at Brest to replace that broken up by Kempenfelt in December. It was commanded by Captain Mithon de Genouilly, and it reached Fort Royal safely in spite of us before the end of March. On this occasion, also, one has to confess that Rodney differed in opinion from Hood, and that his measures did not succeed. Hood argued that the French in their anxiety to arrive safely would avoid the neighbourhood of the English station at Santa Lucia, and he asked for leave to cruise well to the north among the Antilles. Rodney replied that the French had always entered the West Indies by the passage between Martinique and Dominica, and would certainly do so again. He therefore stationed Hood off this passage, and ordered him to stay there. The calculation that the French would adhere to the old routine was shrewd enough, and fairly justified by their conduct of the war, but on this occasion it turned out to be mistaken. Mithon de Genouilly steered a more northerly course. He entered the West Indies by Deseada, which is just off Guadaloupe to the east, and then, hugging the leeward side of the islands, got safe into Fort Royal. Whether the disposition preferred by Hood would have barred his road we cannot tell. To have divided our force as widely as he recommended might have been a dangerous step in the presence of a bold enemy, and Rodney perhaps did well to avoid the risk that even Grasse would throw over the cautious French tactics once in a way. But he was certainly keenly disappointed by the escape of Mithon de Genouilly, all the more because he had expressed the fullest confidence in the measures taken to stop him. A squadron being no longer needed to windward of Martinique, Hood was recalled to Santa Lucia, and the English fleet was kept ready to start in pursuit the instant the look-out frigates saw Grasse standing out from Fort Royal. It was Rodney’s last disappointment.

The two fleets were now within one ship equal in point of numbers. Grasse was, however, hampered by a great convoy of merchant vessels which had to be seen safely to San Domingo—a charge which very materially affected his manœuvres when he did at last get to sea. They were trading vessels, not transports. The troops which were to be landed in Jamaica were embarked on the war-ships, and with them the battering-train. Bouillé was not to go in command this time, as the Spanish Government insisted that an island which, by the terms of their compact with France, was to be conquered for Spain, should be attacked under the direction of a Spanish general. His supersession made no difference, as things turned out; but if the combined expedition had actually reached Jamaica, it would have been all to our advantage. Until April 8th the two fleets remained at anchor—the French getting ready at Fort Royal; the English waiting to start in pursuit from Santa Lucia, some forty miles to the south. All leave was stopped on our ships. Neither officer nor man landed except on duty. A line of frigates patrolled the space between the two ports within signalling distance of one another.

At last, on the 8th, the Andromache frigate, commanded by Captain Byron—“an active, brisk, and intelligent officer,” according to Rodney—was seen standing in for Santa Lucia with the signal flying which told that the French were getting to sea. Within two hours the English were out, and in pursuit. The shortest route for the French would have been across the Caribbean Sea to their rendezvous with the Spaniards on the coast of San Domingo. But Grasse could not take that course without incurring the certainty of being caught up by the pursuer. There is much dispute between the writers of the time as to which of the two fleets, French and English, sailed better, each asserting that the other had the quicker heels. In this case, however, there could be no doubt that the English, having a greater number of coppered ships, could have overhauled the enemy. Besides, Grasse would have been hampered by his lumbering merchantmen. As it was his duty to save them, and his cue to avoid a battle till he had effected his junction with the Spaniards, it was probable that he would take the alternative route—that he would hug the western or leeward side of the islands and stand to the north, partly because this course would give him the better chance of keeping the weather-gage, and partly because it would enable him to stand in guard over his convoy by keeping it between himself and the land. So Rodney acted on the supposition that Grasse would go northward, and through the night of April 8th he steered in that direction past Martinique. On the morning of the 9th the English fleet was off Dominica, and it was seen that Rodney had judged rightly. There to north and east of our ships were the French fleet and convoy.

Rodney and Grasse were now face to face on their decisive field of battle. This field is the stretch of water which extends along the west side of Dominica to the southern point of Guadaloupe—a length of nearly fifty miles. It is subject to conditions which dictated the course of the next four days of fighting and manœuvres as effectually as ever mountain, wood, or river shaped a battle on land. The island of Dominica is twenty-seven miles long, it runs from east of south to west of north, and it is full of hills. The Morne Diablotin, about nine miles from the northern point, is four thousand seven hundred and forty-seven feet high. These hills had not a little to do with the coming battles. Twenty-one miles to the north, and a little to the west of Dominica, is the southern point of the French island of Guadaloupe. The passage between the two is not, however, for purposes of navigation twenty-one miles wide. At about fifteen miles from the northern point of Dominica it is interrupted by a string of small islands called the Saints, which extend five miles from E.N.E. to W.S.W. They give its name to the strait—the Saints’ Passage. These fifty miles of water are divided very sharply into two zones, so to speak, by the winds which blow over them. The open water between Dominica and Guadaloupe is swept by the Easterly Trades. But these winds are broken by the high land of Dominica. All along the western side of the island there is a belt of water which is subject to calms, or to variable land and sea breezes. It is obvious, therefore, that a great fleet, manœuvring in these waters, and extended in a line of battle miles long, might be in two winds. One end of it might be in the “true breeze” blowing through the Saints’ Passage, while the other was in the variable breezes blowing off, or along, or on to the shore. It might even happen that one half of the fleet might have the wind while the other was becalmed under the land. As a matter of fact we shall see that both fleets were subject to these various conditions from the 9th to the 12th April, and that the whole course of the fighting was largely dictated by them.

At daylight on the 9th, English and French were alike becalmed under Dominica. Grasse had his convoy of merchant ships huddled together in Prince Rupert’s Bay, an anchorage about three miles long and one deep on the north-western side of the island. To seaward and to the south of them were the thirty-five liners and the frigates of his fleet. The English were opposite the central and southern parts of the island, arranged in a long roughly-formed line. Sir Samuel Hood with the ships of the van was farthest to the north; Rodney was in the centre to the south of him; farthest south and farthest from the enemy was Rear-Admiral Drake with his division. Two of the French ships, the Auguste and the Zélé, were at some distance from their own fleet and near the English. As the sun rose the southerly breezes got up along the coast of the island. They were very partial, and broken all day long by calms. The first of the great host of ships now collected under the island to feel them were the nine immediately around Sir Samuel Hood. He at once formed his line, and stretched ahead, aiming to cut off the isolated French ships. One of them might have been actually separated but for the rigidity of the discipline which prevailed in the English fleet. As the breeze reached her, this vessel stood in towards her own fleet, steering close-hauled across the head of the English. She came so near that the leading ship, the Alfred, was compelled to bear up to avoid a collision. Officers and men in Hood’s ships waited eagerly for the order to open fire, but it never came. Hood was watching the mast of the Formidable for the order to begin, but it was never hoisted, for some unexplained reason, and the bold Frenchman rejoined Grasse untouched. This was an instance of the punctilious obedience which is only just better than disobedience—the action of a man who is resolved to accept no responsibility, and to leave his commander all the burden; but it was not disapproved by Rodney.

When the wind reached the French ships, Grasse at once ordered his convoy to make their way to Guadaloupe to the north-west and leeward. Two liners were sent with them, and before night they were all out of sight. With the thirty-three ships which remained to him, Grasse resolved to work to windward past the Saints. He knew that Rodney would follow him and not the traders, which would therefore be safe, and he calculated on his own power of avoiding a battle by keeping to windward. It is just possible that if he had gone off at once he might have worked through the passage, while only half the English had the wind. Some of his vessels were, however, dangerously near Hood, and might have fallen behind. Neither interest nor honour permitted him to sacrifice them, and then, too, he saw a chance of crippling the English pursuit by an attack on the isolated van.

That he had the chance is beyond question. If, in Rodney’s own language, he “had come down as he should,” Hood might have been surrounded, cut off, and crushed by numbers long before our becalmed ships could come up. Some at least of our van must have fallen into the hands of the enemy. But we were saved by that pedantic adherence to the line of battle which had been the rule with both fleets, and then by the rule which bound a French admiral to subordinate an opportunity of immediate advantage to his ultimate object. Grasse would not come to close quarters from fear of being entangled into a damaging battle. He decided to range past Hood’s ships to windward at half-cannon shot, and fire to cripple his rigging. The manœuvre, such as it was, was neatly performed. During the forenoon of the 9th about half the French ships under the direct command of Vaudreuil were engaged in ranging past Hood, then, when they reached the end of his line, tacking to windward to return to their starting-point, and pass along from end to end again. The English ships lay with their topsails to the mast, taking the Frenchmen’s fire and returning it. More than half the English ships were mere spectators of the battle. The calms kept them helpless, but towards mid-day a few of them, by trimming their sails to every cat’s-paw of wind, contrived to work up. Rodney’s flag-ship the Formidable was one of these, and was steered between the land and Hood in the hope of cutting off some of the French ships. As they were seen to be coming up, Grasse at once hauled off to windward. There was some more distant cannonading, but the Frenchman had thrown away a magnificent chance, and fortune gave him no other. A few of Hood’s ships had indeed been damaged. Captain Bayne of the Alfred had been killed, and the damage to the squadron was sufficiently severe to induce Rodney to order it to change places with the rear, giving a promise, however, that so soon as another battle seemed imminent it should return to the place of honour. For the rest, none of the English ships were so damaged as to be unable to take part in the battle of the 12th. Our fire, too, had been very steady and quick. The French had masts and spars to replace, so that their flight was as much hampered as our pursuit. The action is, in fact, an admirable example of the rule that half-hearted operations in war are always disastrous. Grasse would not risk his fleet in order to crush a part of the English, and so he left his enemy intact to ruin him and his “ultimate object” together three days later.

The night of the 9th and whole of the 10th were spent by the two fleets in repairing damages. Calms and cat’s-paws of wind kept them rolling harmlessly in sight of one another. During the night of the 10th the Zélé, which was built to bring the French fleet into trouble, ran into the Junon, and so damaged her that she had to be sent off to Guadaloupe. The Caton, too, was found to be so ill rigged that Grasse got rid of her likewise, and thus reduced his fleet to thirty-one vessels. All through the 11th the wind gave Rodney no chance of forcing on an action. The French were beating to windward through the passage, or gradually wriggling out from under the land. By evening most of them were out of sight. Rodney had hitherto kept his fleet in line of battle, but when he saw that the escape of the French had become a question of an hour or two, he ordered a general chase of the few which still remained to leeward of the Saints. The best sailers of the English fleet were soon close upon them, and they were signalling for help. It was, of course, impossible for Grasse to leave them to their fate, and he came bowling back before the wind to protect them. He saved them from capture, but he lost all the advance he had made by a day of laborious tacking. Before dark the whole French fleet was back to leeward of the Saints. Rodney recalled his chasing ships, and stood with his whole fleet to the south. It was too late to fight a battle now, but he wished to draw the French on and so make it double sure that he would find them on the, for them, wrong side of the passage next morning. The orders of the English fleet were to stand to the south till two in the morning, and then tack to the north. Rodney turned in with the well-grounded conviction that when day broke the French would be seen by the morning watch much where they had been left over-night.

It was extremely unlikely that the French fleet would in any case succeed in doing by night what it had failed to do by day, but at two in the morning, just when the English fleet was coming round to the north again, an event happened which made the battle of the following day inevitable. The Zélé with the others was tacking at the mouth of the passage, endeavouring not to lose if she could not gain ground in the trade wind. In the dark she met the Ville de Paris, Grasse’s own splendid flag-ship. The Zélé was on the port, the Ville de Paris on the starboard tack. According to the express orders of the admiral, and according to what is now the universal rule of the road at sea, it was the duty of the Zélé to put her helm up and go under the stern of the flag-ship. But the great gods were weary of Grasse’s peddling. They blinded the officer of the watch on the Zélé. He luffed, endeavoured to cross the bow of the flag-ship, and ran smash into her. The Zélé had her bowsprit snapped off short, and her foremast carried away just above the deck. The two vessels were entangled, wind and current swept them to leeward before they could be got clear. Then Grasse ordered the Astrée frigate, commanded by the famous and unlucky La Perouse, to take the Zélé in tow.

It was two hours before the cable was made fast, and they were on their way to Guadaloupe. By daylight, about five o’clock, Grasse and the ships closest to him had fallen to leeward. When the first rays of the sun showed them to the English fleet, now heading towards them, they were stretching over from nine to fifteen miles of water to westward of the Saints. Sir Charles Douglas, who was already up on board the Formidable, saw that the course of the English would cut right through them. He hurried down to the Admiral’s cabin to report that “God had given him his enemy on the lee bow.” From Rodney to the youngest middy in the fleet, all men saw that the battle was coming now.

CHAPTER XII

THE BREAKING OF THE LINE[A]

The great importance of this battle seems to justify a survey of the strength of the two fleets which took part in it. As the result of that survey, common honesty extorts the confession that the English were distinctly the stronger of the two in ships and guns. Very legitimate national pride enables us to add that it was also much the better. On that day Rodney had under his command thirty-six sail of the line, including five three-deckers, carrying in all two thousand six hundred and seventy-four guns. In addition to these weapons, some at least of the English ships carried carronades—short guns with a large bore, very effective at close quarters—which, being mounted on hitherto vacant spaces on the upper-deck as an experiment, were not counted in the nominal armament, but did add materially to the weight of the fire. Grasse had thirty sail of the line, including one three-decker, carrying in all two thousand two hundred and forty-six guns. The carronade was not as yet in use in the French service. We had therefore a superiority of six ships and two hundred and fourteen guns in a broadside, without counting the carronades. On the other hand, the French ships were generally larger vessels rate for rate than ours, and the calibre of their guns heavier. Ingenious attempts have been made to show that by virtue of the size of their ships, and the weight of the individual guns, the French were really equal if not superior to us. Sir Charles Douglas even calculated that they were two seventy-fours to the good. But our guns were quite big enough for the work they had to do, and battles are won by a superiority of sufficient blows. That we were materially stronger than our enemy cannot, I think, be honestly denied.

In this calculation, too, Sir Charles was less than just to himself. The improvements which he had introduced into our gunnery were part of our effective strength. His locks and his carriages enabled such of our ships as had adopted them both to fire quicker and to train their guns farther fore and aft than the French, whereby an Englishman passing an enemy on opposite tacks could get him under fire sooner, and keep him under it longer than he could answer. This was a kind of superiority which may be quoted with pride, for it was the fruit of intelligent and zealous work. The spirit which animated Sir Charles was shared by other captains also. There had been a great development of professional zeal during the war, and in many ways the fittings of our ships had been improved—for which let thanks be once more given to the power enjoyed by our captains. The crews, too, collected early in the war by hook and by crook, in the fashion already described, had been brought into admirable discipline. Long cruising in fleets had given our officers a complete knowledge of the qualities of their vessels as compared with others—a very necessary kind of knowledge indeed when a number of ships were to manœuvre together. Finally the spirit of the fleet was high. In spite of the little success gained in the war hitherto, our officers and men believed themselves to be better seamen and gunners than the French, and had been confirmed in that belief by the fighting near St. Kitts. They only wanted a chance. The disaster at Yorktown and the danger of England had roused the patriotism of our seamen, whether on quarter-deck or forecastle, and that emotion had swept the “spirit of faction” out of their hearts. In Sandwich’s words, they knew that the fate of the Empire was in their hands, and they did not intend that it should be lost for want of fierce fighting. Whatever Hood might think of Rodney, it was certain that he would obey punctually, and would do his utmost to damage the King’s enemies. In that respect he had a superiority over the French better than many ships and guns. There was no such spirit among the French officers and men. There was the gallantry of their race, there were knowledge and discipline; but there was no enthusiasm, and not much real aptitude for the work of sea-fighting. The jealousies which divided officers of all ranks were not controlled by a high patriotic spirit, and the qualities of the crews had sunk since the beginning of the war as the well-trained men were swept off and replaced by others drawn from a poorer maritime population than ours.

That every man may have his fair share of honour, the list of the two fleets is here given in the order in which they went into battle.

When Rodney was summoned by his captain of the fleet at daybreak on the 12th, and came on deck to see with his eyes the proof that his calculation of the night before was correct, the French were straggling over a space variously estimated at nine or at fifteen miles from east to west to the north-east of him. The English were in a rough oval drawn from north to south. Hood had resumed his proper place in the van; Rodney was in the centre; Rear-Admiral Drake in the rear. A line carried out from the leading English ship would bisect the French. As the wind was from south of east, the trade wind of the West Indies, all the Frenchmen to the west of that line were on the Admiral’s lee-bow, which meant that he had every chance of forcing a battle on them before they could again get away to windward. To the west of the French was seen the crippled Zélé in tow of the Astrée going to Guadaloupe. Rodney at once decided to try whether he could not, by threatening these two vessels, draw the French admiral still farther to leeward. Orders were given to some of the best sailers in Hood’s division to chase. As soon as they had stood well out from among the English ships the effect of the measure was manifest. Signals fluttered up the mainmast of the Ville de Paris, and the French ships were seen to be coming down to cover the Zélé, and to be steering to take their places in the line of battle ahead, and astern of their admiral. This meant that Grasse had sacrificed what remained to him of the windward position, and the fleets were now equal as regards the wind. There was no time to be lost. At once—it was now about a quarter to seven—the chasing ships were recalled, but in order to avoid the delay which would be caused by waiting till they resumed their place, Rodney decided to order the rear to lead into action. Thus, while the chasing ships were returning to their post in the van, the ships farthest from the enemy hauled to the wind and stood to the north-east between the bulk of the fleet and the land of Dominica. Each ship fell into place as her turn came, the chasing ships from the van arriving in time to take their post in what had now become the rear. In Captain Matthews’ plans the ships of Admiral Drake’s division may be seen curling over the fleet, and pointing at the French like the tail of the scorpion. The line was formed with rapidity and without a hitch. It was, in technical language, a line ahead on the starboard tack at a cable’s length asunder—each ship was, that is to say, two hundred yards in front of or behind the other in a line. From the first ship to the last there was, when the formation was complete, a distance of more than five miles.

While the line was forming, the fleet went to breakfast. Every man not actually at work, or the wheel, hastened to get all the food he could. In the Admiral’s cabin a party sat down with the appetite of warriors whom death could not daunt, and the care of veterans who foresaw the extreme probability that no more victuals might be attainable for the rest of that day. Douglas, the captain of the fleet; Symonds, the captain of the Formidable; Paget, the Admiral’s secretary; Gilbert Blane, his doctor; and a few others who messed at the Admiral’s table, sat down with Rodney. Cranstoun remained on deck to watch the enemy. In the middle of breakfast he came down with the news that on the course they were then following the English would cut through the French. Grasse had formed on the port tack, and was standing to the south-east across the northerly course of the English. It was his natural object to place himself across the mouth of the passage, and to windward of the English if he could. The two fleets were now running along two lines which formed an obtuse angle, of which the apex pointed to the east. Whichever reached that apex first would weather the other. Cranstoun’s message showed that the French would win the race. They had (though there is some doubt on the point) been slightly favoured by a shift of the trade wind to the north. Rodney made no answer to Cranstoun, and doubtless thought the occasion called for none. He had always preferred to engage to leeward, as he did in his battle with Langara. The windward position was only valuable to him because it would enable him to force on an action. Now, when it was a case with the French of “fight they will, and fight they must,” he cared not a jot whether or no they weathered the head of his line. His position compelled the enemy’s admiral to give battle. As it turned out ill for him he has been severely criticised by his countrymen, who do not seem to understand that their complaints are in truth a confession of inferiority. The experience of the previous day had shown that Rodney could not be shaken off. On the morning of the 12th Grasse had to choose between running away to Guadaloupe with the English after him, or standing as he was now doing across their van. If he had endeavoured to get away on the opposite tack he would have been unable to clear the Saints, and he would have been taken in a trap. Not to have fought in these circumstances would have been to acknowledge that a French fleet could not hope to meet an English one on anything approaching to equal terms. The plan of Grasse was a good plan enough. He hoped to cross the English van, to cripple a few of the ships, then, when he had reached a convenient place for tacking, to turn to windward, and make off while Rodney was refitting his damaged ships.

The feasibility of this plan depended, for Grasse, on his power to keep at long bowls. If a close action could be forced on them his ships would be unable to tack under the English fire. A close action was forced. At some moment between seven and eight o’clock the leading English ship, the Marlborough, came within range. If the upper side of the obtuse angle spoken of above is prolonged we shall get the relative position of the fleets pretty accurately. The English formed the lower line and they impinged on the French at about the ninth ship—the Brave. Rodney had hoisted the signal to engage close to leeward. When, therefore, Captain Taylor Penny of the Marlborough found himself within musket-shot range of the Brave he put his helm up, and turning a little to port, led the English line close along the French. Our enemy was as yet barely in order. Bougainville, who commanded the van, had just taken his place. Their rear was still in confusion, and Vaudreuil, who commanded there, afterwards declared that he formed his line under small-arm fire. We have now to figure to ourselves the two fleets filing past one another, cannonading as they went. Both were going very slowly. The wind was light; it was necessary to go at something below the speed of the slowest ship, since all must retain the power to shoot ahead if required, and so they filed slowly along at about three and a half miles an hour. Their course would have carried the leading French ships away from the English, but Grasse ordered them to bear down, with the intention of putting our leading vessels under the utmost possible amount of fire before they reached his centre and rear. Each fleet was soon engaged from the leading ship, and the two lines hurtled past one another in opposite directions. The English, having a margin of wind to draw on, used it to hug the French close—so close that, as Thesiger, an officer of the Formidable, said, it would have been possible to throw a cold shot on board them as they went past. At that range the carronades of the English ships did great execution. On board the French, which were crowded with the soldiers who were to have conquered Jamaica, the slaughter was terrible, and the effect of it soon visible, first in the number of the dead, or sometimes only badly wounded, who were hurled overboard to the sharks, and then in the slackening fire of the French. Gilbert Blane has left it on record that although our enemy’s fire was effective at long ranges, it grew wild and irregular at close quarters. We could, he says, actually see the Frenchmen running from their guns in spite of the determined efforts of the officers to keep them steady. Captain Savage of the Hercules, who suffered as badly from the gout as his Admiral, had a chair placed for himself in the waist of his ship, and sat there leaning over the bulwarks ironically saluting the passing enemy.

When the battle had lasted about an hour, and the English van had almost reached the French rear, their admiral thought it was time to turn to windward, and hoisted the order to do so twice. But the orders could not possibly be obeyed. The French ships were yard-arm to yard-arm with the English, and if they had tacked now would have been raked and rendered helpless. Many of the ships cannot even have seen the signals in the fog of smoke now hanging over both fleets. France had to “undergo her fate.” Grasse bore on to the south, and at about nine the English van had passed the last ship of his rear. On emerging from the rolling masses of smoke the captains looked eagerly back for the signals at the towering mast-head of the Formidable. As they looked they saw a great three-decker heading north out of the cloud and the flames. For a moment they thought the French admiral had doubled back on them, but as the three-decker cleared the smoke they saw the cross of St. George, and knew that the Formidable had burst through the French line to windward.

The movement had not been premeditated by Rodney, and the signal to engage to leeward was still flying when he passed to windward. The decision to depart from the old routine, according to which the English fleet would have passed along the French and then have tacked back on it—that decision which may be said to have affected the whole immediate future of England—was sudden, was taken on the spur of the moment, was equally unexpected by victor and vanquished. So much is certain; but the exact circumstances under which it was done, and what share of the credit ought to fall to whom, is the subject of the controversy spoken of in the note at the beginning of this chapter. The courteous reader is asked to remember that the incidents now about to be narrated have been most diversely told, and still more diversely interpreted.

A glance at the list of ships given above will show that the Formidable was exactly in the middle of the English line, being the eighteenth of the thirty-six men-of-war in it. As the French van bore in upon ours she was engaged with each of their ships in succession. The fleets were slipping slowly along, and it was well on for ten o’clock before the Formidable passed the eighteenth vessel in the French line. She had gone close to them all, firing as soon as her guns could be trained forward to meet, and as long as they could be trained aft to follow, each foe as she defiled past. Then between each bout of fire there would be a pause as the Formidable came opposite the vacant space between the ships in the French line, and having sent her last broadside after one was training it forward to meet the next comer. It must have been at a little before half-past nine that Rodney and Grasse, whose ship was the fifteenth in the French line, saluted each other with the cannon of their three-deckers. Up to now there had been nothing to distinguish this from the ordinary sea-fights of the eighteenth century save the number of the ships engaged and the closeness of the engagement.

A chair had been placed on the quarter-deck of the Formidable for the Admiral, and he rested on it except when he was walking through the cabins under the poop, to the gallery astern, from which he could watch the ships of his line behind him. On the quarter-deck with him were several whose names must not be passed over. Sir Charles Douglas was there with his aides—little middies—of whom one, Charles Dashwood, a boy of thirteen, is associated more closely than his seniors at the time would have thought possible with the memories of the victory. Near the wheel stood Frederick Thesiger, he who afterwards carried Nelson’s letter to the Regent of Denmark after the battle of the Baltic. Thesiger had completed his time as midshipman, and was waiting for his lieutenant’s commission. He had been chosen on the recommendation of Captain Symonds to stand by the wheel and see that the quartermasters executed orders punctually. Gilbert Blane, not being one of the medical staff of the ship, employed himself during the early stage in helping to provide work for the French doctors. He worked at a gun in the fore-cabin till he was tired.

It was thirsty work fighting in the thick pall of sulphurous smoke in which the gunpowder soon wrapped a ship. Rodney, in one of his turns through the cabins, called one of the middies and told him to mix a tumbler of lemonade. The middy went to work, and, having nothing more handy for the purpose, stirred the brew up with the hilt of his dirk. “Child, child,” said the Admiral, “that may do for the midshipmen’s mess. Drink that lemonade yourself, and send my steward here”—which order the middy obeyed with alacrity.

When eighteen of the Frenchmen had gone by, each carrying away marks of the Formidable’s broadside, the Admiral was standing on the quarter-deck, and with him was Gilbert Blane. The high bulwarks on either side, and the hammocks stacked across the front of the quarter-deck in a barricade, shut in the view. Rodney wished to take a look at the French line, and, accompanied by Blane, stepped out on the starboard gangway. They had just passed the Sceptre, and leaning over the rails of the gangway they saw the Glorieux, seventy-four, rolling down on them. She had just taken the fire of Captain Alan Gardner in the Duke, ninety-eight, a splendidly-efficient three-decker, and was reeling from the shock. Her captain, the Vicomte d’Escars (a name it is now thought correct to spell Des Cars), a gentleman of the house of Fitzjames, had been killed, and hurled overboard to the sharks. His lieutenant, Trogoff de Kerlessi, had nailed the white flag with the golden lilies to the stump of a mast. Rodney and Blane saw the Frenchmen on the upper-deck throwing away rammers and sponges, and running from the guns. A glance showed Rodney that the wind was forcing the Glorieux down on him, and that she was almost about to touch. His broadsides were being aimed low, but not sufficiently low for that. She had enough, but she must be crushed, and knocked out of the French line. “Now,” said Rodney to the doctor, “comes the fight for the body of Patroclus.” He looked round for a messenger. None was at hand, and he turned to Blane, saying, “Run down and tell them to elevate their metal.” The phrase was obscure to the doctor in spite of his experience as a gunner, but Hudibras came to his help. He remembered that it is the nature of guns that, “the higher are their pitches the lower they let down their breeches.” He ran down with the order—which meant that the muzzles of the guns were to be depressed to fire a sinking broadside—and so deprived posterity of an admirable witness of what happened on the Formidable’s quarter-deck during the next few minutes.

In these minutes was taken the decision which gave its exceptional and vital importance to the battle. While Rodney and Blane were speaking in the gangway, or just before, there had come a shift in the wind which affected the southern half of the two fleets simultaneously but diversely. It was one of those currents of air common enough in the neighbourhood of land, and it came from the south-east, striking on the bows of the French and the sterns of the English. Our vessels going before the wind had only to trim their sails a little to keep their place. But it threatened to take the French aback, to blow right ahead of them, and stop their way. To avoid this they were compelled to turn to the right, which had the effect of throwing them into what the French call a chequer, we a bow and quarter line—that is to say, that instead of following one another in a line, they were suddenly spun round into the position of the half-closed lathes of a venetian blind. The already existing confusion in the French line was immensely increased, and a great gap appeared just astern of the Glorieux, which was now right on the starboard bow of the Formidable, caused probably by the fact that the Diadème, the next succeeding Frenchman, was forced across the bows of the English flag-ship.

Sir Charles Douglas was at this moment leaning on the hammocks in the front of the quarter-deck, and he saw the evidence of the existing confusion in the French line. That he realised the whole extent of it we need not believe, but he saw the gap, and he saw that by passing through it we might cut the French rear off from the centre and put it between two fires. He jumped down from the hammocks and (so Dashwood told the story in later years) asked his little aide, “Dash, where is Sir George?”—“I think he is in the cabin, sir,” was the answer. Both turned aft and came face to face with the Admiral, who was just stepping out of the gangway. Sir Charles went up to him, and, taking off his hat, pointed out the gap in the French line to Rodney, urging him to steer through it. For a moment the Admiral hesitated. He did not like to “have things sprung on him” at any time, and now it behoved him to think. It was very well for the captain of the fleet to recommend the manœuvre; he would be covered by the authority of his Admiral. For Rodney, who would have to bear the responsibility for the consequences, it was a very serious step indeed. He had served under Mathews, and had not forgotten the fate which overtook that officer for departing from the consecrated rules of battle. His first impulse was to say no, and he did. “I will not break my line, Sir Charles,” was his answer. In his eager conviction that he was right Douglas pressed the Admiral again, and even so far forgot himself as to actually give the order to port to the quartermasters. A fierce reminder of their respective positions from Rodney stopped him before the wheel had moved. Then, as we may well suppose, instinctively feeling the indecency of a wrangle, the two men turned from one another for a moment. The break in the dispute calmed both. They turned and faced one another near the wheel. Douglas respectfully implored Rodney to take his advice. Reflection had shown Rodney that his subordinate was right, and with a wisdom and magnanimity which have been strangely distorted, and a courtesy which has been wondrously misunderstood, he told Douglas to do as he pleased. At once the order to port was repeated. Dashwood was sent flying down with the needful directions to the lieutenants in the batteries. The Formidable swung round to starboard, and cut through the French line, pouring her broadside into the Glorieux to right and the Diadème to left as she went.

When he had given his consent to the change in the course of the Formidable, Rodney at once went aft to the stern-walk, to see whether the ships behind were following. There were then no means of signalling a new order suddenly, and the old order to engage to leeward was still flying. If his captains behaved as others had done in the fight with Guichen on April 17th two years before, if they stuck to the pedantic old rules, the Formidable might find herself alone to windward of the French. Happily a very different spirit prevailed now, and Captain Inglis of the Namur, the next ship astern to the Formidable, looking to the spirit and not the letter, followed his Admiral through the gap, though the signal to engage to leeward had not been hauled down. He was himself followed by Cornwallis in the Saint Albans, Dumaresq in the Canada, Charrington in the Repulse, and Fanshawe in the Ajax. These vessels filed past the Glorieux, reducing her to a wreck. Captain Inglis, looking after her as she dropped astern of him, saw her almost blown out of the water by the fire of the Saint Albans. By this movement all the eleven ships of Vaudreuil’s division were cut off from the other nineteen, and forced to turn off to the west. Captain Alan Gardner of the Duke, the ship next ahead of the Formidable, finding that the Diadème had stopped the way of the French ships astern of her, and was in a confused tangle with them, spontaneously did as his Admiral had just done—ported his helm and passed to windward, firing right and left into the bewildered enemy.

In the meantime the French line had been cut in a second place. The last ship of the English centre division was the Bedford, seventy-four, in which Commodore Affleck had his broad pennant flying. The Bedford had sailed along the French line close in the now dense smoke of battle, which would be particularly thick in the rear of the English line. As it was to leeward the smoke of both fleets would be rolled on our ships. Suddenly the Bedford found that there was no enemy to windward of her. She had, in fact, in the fog of gunpowder smoke passed through another gap in the enemy’s formation, caused by the shift of the wind to the south-east. Affleck stood on, followed by the twelve ships of Hood’s division. The Frenchman astern of which they passed was the César, the twelfth in the line. As the Glorieux was the nineteenth, it will be seen that seven French ships in the centre were cut off from their van and rear alike. These seven—the Dauphin Royal, seventy; Languedoc, eighty; Ville de Paris, one hundred and four; Couronne, eighty; Eveillé, sixty-four; Sceptre, seventy-four; and Glorieux, seventy-four—were huddled into a mass and torn to pieces by the fire of the Formidable, and the ships astern of her as far as the Ajax, which was poured into them from starboard, while thirteen of our ships, from the Bedford to the Royal Oak, were cannonading them from the port side. By eleven the last ship of the English rear had passed the César. Rodney had cleared the French line before. Our van under Drake had cleared the French rear, the sportive Captain Savage of the Hercules luffing to rake the last Frenchman—the Pluton, seventy-four, commanded by a very brave and skilful officer named D’Albert de Rions—as he cleared her. Then, all our ships being up to windward and out of the smoke, we could look back, as the wind scattered it and rolled it to the west—could look and see such a spectacle as no British seaman had seen in this war so far.

There to westward and south-westward of us lay the French, broken into three fragments. On the surface of the water there was something which was pure horror to all whose eyes were compelled to see it. Shoals of sharks—which alone among God’s creatures the sailor tortures without remorse, the loathsome brute which loiters to profit by his misfortune—had collected to feed on the corpses thrown overboard, or the living who had fallen with fragments of rigging. They were leaping over one another, and ravening at their prey. From them the eyes of our men turned to the scattered fragments of the French fleet. They were three in number. Vaudreuil with the rear had been turned to the west. Two miles south of him seven ships were huddled round the flag. Four miles to the south-east of him again was Bougainville. His course had taken him into the dead calm under the high land of Dominica. The English had themselves broken into three in dividing the enemy, but they had streamed up to windward. They could unite, and had it in their power to select the point of attack. Between the two fleets lay the dismasted hulks of the César and the Glorieux, the vessels astern of which the French line had been cut, rolling helpless on the water.

For an hour or so our advantage of position was not available. The thunder of so many guns had beaten down the wind. Conquerors and conquered lay bound by the calm. A little after mid-day a gentle breeze arose, and the English streamed down on the enemy. The signal for the line of battle was hauled down, and we advanced in no order, as needing none against a foe already shattered. It has always been the weakness of the French to be enslaved by rules, and to become panic-stricken when these break down. There was panic among them now. Signal after signal was hoisted in vain by their admiral. Bougainville, tied by ill-will as much as by the calm, did nothing; Vaudreuil did little. The English as they felt the wind—all of them, that is, whose rigging had not been too severely cut up—pressed upon the enemy, steering, by a natural impulse and without express orders, to where the mighty bulk of the Ville de Paris and the flag of Grasse pointed out the great prize. The crippled Glorieux was the first of the enemy to surrender. A gallant attempt to save her was made by the French frigate Richmond, commanded by Captain Mortemart, a gentleman, as his name shows, of a good house. He offered to take the crippled liner in tow, but Trogoff de Kerlessi would not allow his gallant countryman to sacrifice himself and his ship in vain. The English were closing round. Trogoff cut the cable, telling Mortemart to save himself, and then surrendered his shattered vessel, as a brave man might, without dishonour. There was some honour in defeating enemies of that stamp. The César hauled down her colours soon after. The Hector and the Ardent fell next. This last was a most welcome prize. She had been taken from the English by the great combined fleet of Frenchmen and Spaniards which cruised at the mouth of the Channel in 1779. She alone had pushed out from among Bougainville’s squadron to the help of her admiral, and was close to him when she struck. Her captain’s name was Gouzillon. The last of the French prizes to be taken was the Ville de Paris. The light winds made our movements slow, and our ships only came up with her when the afternoon was wearing on. They tackled her to port and to starboard, but the admiral fought as a man fights who wishes to atone by heroism for all faults. His cartridges were used up, and it was necessary to hoist powder-barrels out of the hold, and serve out the powder with the ladle. The solid fog of smoke between decks choked the lanterns by which the men worked below. Still, until nearly six he had not surrendered. Then, with the feeling which caused Francis I. at Pavia to refuse to give up his sword till he could hand it to the Viceroy of Naples, the alter ego of a sovereign and in some sort his equal, he looked about for a flag-officer to whom to surrender. At that moment Samuel Hood bore down on him in the Barfleur. She had been long becalmed, and it had been necessary to get the boats out to tow her into the breeze. Now she was pressing on to lay alongside the Ville de Paris. Grasse turned towards her, firing a gun of salute. Hood concluded that his old friend of the fights off Martinique and St. Kitts wished to surrender to him. He returned the salute, ranged up alongside, and the two admirals fought a space for honour’s sake. There was no want of cartridges on board the Barfleur. Her guns were cold. Her men were fresh. Her terrible fire speedily overpowered the languid answer of the Ville de Paris, whose crew, diminished by a half, were fighting hopelessly in the dark of the smoke with guns which they could only slowly feed with powder. After a few minutes Grasse concluded that enough had been done. There were but three unwounded men on his upper-deck, of whom he was one. More men had been slain in his ship than in the whole British fleet. There were not two square feet of his upper works unshattered by shot. His rigging was a wreck. At six o’clock he hauled down the Fleur de Lys with his own hands. A few minutes later he stepped into the cutter which shot alongside him from the Barfleur, and was taken a prisoner to Hood. By Hood he was taken to Rodney, and so ended a career which might have finished with honour if he had not later disgraced himself by ignoble attempts to throw the blame of defeat on his captains.