Chapter IX: On Board Our Flagships at Trafalgar:—captain Hardy and (6)

Any summer’s day in the early Fifties of the eighteenth century the wayfarer among the uplands of the Kent and Sussex Wealds would have met processions of “tugs,” as the local timber conveyances were called, drawn by teams of oxen, laboriously hauling along the rough oak trunks, lopped and barked, stamped with King George’s broad arrow, and each numbered with a smear of red paint, that were in the course of events to form the frame and side timbers of the _Victory_. From Frant and Ashdown, Eridge and Mabledon, over all the wooded country round Tunbridge Wells where Kent and Sussex march, by Wadhurst, Buxted, and Mayfield, from Horsham on the north to nearly as far south as Lewes, they might have been seen working slowly along the clay-bound forest roads, two-and-twenty oxen to one trunk in wet weather sometimes, in charge of smock-frocked, leather-breeched Wealden peasants (“them leather-legged chaps o’ the Weald”), toiling from cross-road to cross-road towards Maidstone, where, alongside Messrs. Prentice’s wharves, the Medway timber hoys for Chatham lay in waiting. Kent and Sussex oak was proverbial at that day as being without equal in strength and toughness for the frame timbers and sides and upper works of a man-of-war—the fighting parts of a ship. And, at the same time, the wayfarer in another land, wandering where the Vistula rolls its sluggish course northwards to the Baltic, would have met a great part of the rest of the future _Victory_ in the long rafts drifting downstream from the oak forests of Poland and East Prussia, floating slowly along, to arrive at length at the Dantzic contractor’s yard, and thence finally pass oversea to the saw-pits of Chatham. For the under-water timbers and planking of our old-time men-of-war and other parts of a ship exposed to salt water there was no timber in the world, so it was generally considered at that time, to compare in durability with “East Country” oak—“‘K’ brand, Dantzic,” in particular. Also it was cheap. By the end of the year 1754 the pick of the best shipbuilding timber in England and in all Europe had been placed in store on the berths and racks at Chatham, available for the expected big ship, thenceforward to season gradually and improve in keeping year by year.

The order to the Dockyard Commissioner at Chatham to get ready to take the _Victory_ in hand was dated the 13th of December, 1758. It directed Commissioner Cooper to “prepare to set up and build a new ship of 100-guns as soon as a dock shall be available for the purpose.” A sum of £3200, it also informed the Commissioner, would be set aside in the coming Navy Estimates for preliminaries. It was the custom at that time to build first-rates in a dock; they were thought too big to build on a slip.

The new ship—no name was as yet officially announced for her—was to be, as we should nowadays say, an “improved” _Royal George_ (the _Royal George_ was our latest completed big ship, the same _Royal George_ that came at a later day to so unfortunate an end), and for six months the draughtsmen in the office of the Surveyor of the Navy, under the supervision of Mr. Thomas Slade (afterwards Sir Thomas), Senior Surveyor of the Navy, the designer of the _Victory_, were busy on the working plans. These were completed by the first week of June, 1759, and laid before the Admiralty. They were formally passed on the 14th of June, and a few days later the Rochester stage-waggon from London stopped at the dockyard gates to deliver the box with the duplicate plans, all ready to be laid off and chalked down in detail, each part of the ship the actual size, on the mould loft floor. Master-Shipwright Lock would then get his mould-boards and have the saw-pits set going, in readiness for the arrival of the regulation Navy Board Order to commence building. That order came on the 7th of July.

The dock allotted for the building of the new ship at Chatham was that then known as the “Old Single Dock,” the dock now called “No. 2 Dock,” near the Admiral Superintendent’s Office and opposite the old yard clock and bell turret. There, on a Monday morning, the 23rd of July, 1759—an auspiciously bright and sunny morning as it befell—the keel of the _Victory_ was laid.

The ship was to be afloat, according to Admiralty calculations, within thirty-three months—by the 31st of March, 1762. That meant, in the existing state of things at Chatham, working on her, at any rate during the earlier stage of getting the vessel into frame, day and night. They had two 90-gun three-deckers and two seventy-fours in various stages of building, besides the _Victory_ to take in hand; and in addition they had nearly every week extra refits or repairs to undertake for ships coming in from the fleets at sea—a complication of tasks which involved the keeping of every man and boy of the two thousand and odd hands then on the muster-sheets of Chatham yard hard at work from Monday at daylight to Saturday at dusk. Half the establishment alternately were on overtime, working on Sundays and nightly through the week, for spells of three or five hours after bell-ringing—in dockyard lingo, “double tides” and “nights.” It was the same just then in all our dockyards; the day-gangs as they worked having each man’s meals brought from home into the yard to him, to eat in the half-hour allowed, near by his job; the night-gangs all toiling on under the flaring light of cressets and links, without a break, until past ten o’clock.

Amid such surroundings at Chatham they began building the _Victory_, a hundred and fifty men being employed on the ship at first, to set up and bolt together the various frames and floor timbers, and fit and fix together in place the stem and stern pieces and brackets and the huge rib timbers and beams, as fast as the converter and the sawyers could supply them. So things went on from August to the following January (1760). Then the gangs of shipwrights employed on the _Victory_ were reduced, and the rate of working allowed to slacken down. With the French Mediterranean Fleet broken up by Boscawen—one half taken or burned and the other half cut off and shut up at Cadiz—and the French Channel Fleet shattered by Hawke, and its refugee ships lying broken-backed and stranded up the Vilaine, on the sandbanks above the bar, the stress of the war was past. And there was little need to trouble for the immediate future with only M. Berryer at the Ministry of Marine.

By August, 1760, the hull timber-work had been put together into the outline of a ship, and was practically complete in frame, the skeleton of the future man-of-war. The workmen were then almost all called off, and the ship, according to custom, was left aside for a space, to “stand in frame” and season. She had cost so far, according to the Navy Estimates, upwards of £14,000 in materials and labour.

Two months later, on the 28th of October, the Admiralty officially named the _Victory_. On that day their lordships signed an order that “the new 100-gun ship building at Chatham,” as the vessel had hitherto been styled in all official documents, should take the name of the _Victory_. At the same time a notification was sent to the Navy Board, directing them “to cause the name appointed by my Lords to be so registered in the List of His Majesty’s Navy,” and “communicated” to Chatham Dockyard.

The name, of course, from the first had been an open secret. There were at that period seven British warship names which were tacitly accepted as set apart for first-rate ships of war. They were: _Royal Sovereign_, _Britannia_, _Royal William_, _Royal Anne_, _Royal George_, _London_, and _Victory_. These seven had stood at the head of the Navy List as a group by themselves, in successive ships, for some seventy years and more. The name _Victory_, in 1760, was the only one not appropriated to any existing ship. It had been wanting ever since the disaster of 1744, and the new 100-gun ship, as a first-rate, had a right to it in accordance with the custom of the service. Thus our present _Victory_ man-of-war is linked directly with the old-time veterans of her name; thus, indeed, from the Armada to Trafalgar, in a line of continuous succession—

Victory to Victory ever
Hands the torch of Glory on.

But that is not quite all. In a special sense no more appropriate name could have been given to the British man-of-war laid down as the special first-rate of the year 1759. In that sense the _Victory_ commemorates in her name the most brilliant year of warlike achievement in our annals, the most successful year for British arms that the world ever saw. In her name, in this regard, our Nelson’s _Victory_ of to-day stands as an abiding national memorial of England’s greatest year of victory; the “Wonderful Year,” as our forefathers themselves called it, the year of Minden and Lagos Bay and Quiberon and Quebec. “We are forced,” wrote Horace Walpole, in October, 1759, “to ask every morning what victory there is for fear of missing one.”

March 31st, 1762, came—the date by which the _Victory_ was to have been afloat. She was, though, still in frame, hardly advanced beyond that; her bottom planked over, but all above practically as yet only in skeleton, little advanced, in fact, beyond the stage at which the shipwrights had left her eighteen months before. The Admiralty’s change of plans after the French collapse at sea at the end of 1759 had put her completion off for two years. It was, however, not entirely lost time. An additional £12,000 had been laid out meanwhile for the ship in preparing and working up materials to be used in her, and seasoning them in readiness to push on with the building when work on the vessel was resumed.

_Drawn by Captain Robert Elliot, R.N. Engraved and Published in 1780._]

The new date for completion, March, 1764, came in its turn, but again the _Victory_ was not ready. Upwards of £50,000 had by now been spent on her, and the ship was four-fifths finished, her sides planked to the upper works and the decks laid. They had slackened off considerably in regard to new construction at Chatham after the war ended. The dockyard establishment had been reduced by two-thirds and overtime stopped. General repairs were the order of the day, to make good the wear-and-tear of war service at all the dockyards, and practically a third part of the whole sea-going navy fell to Chatham’s share of mending.

Another six months was then officially granted for the finishing of the _Victory_; but this time the Admiralty themselves, and the French incidentally, caused fresh delay. My Lords did their share by coming down to Chatham at the end of May, 1764, on a visit of inspection, walking over the _Victory_ and leaving suggestions for alterations to be made which would take at least four additional months to carry out. The French hindered the intended progress by a display of aggressiveness towards England over the Newfoundland fisheries question, as left arranged by the recent Treaty of Paris. That trouble at the outset looked so serious that the workmen at the dockyards were drawn off all ships building and repairing in order to get part of the Ordinary, the ships in reserve, into sea-going state at once. So the _Victory_ had her completion again put off.

In the midst of this French “disturbance”—as our ancestors of that time termed international unpleasantnesses of the kind—we may conveniently take our leave of the _Victory_ on the stocks at Chatham, in the midst of a series of strange scenes the like of which, happily, have not often been witnessed in an English dockyard.

The Newfoundland difficulty was still unsettled, when, at the end of October, 1764, secret information of a startling nature suddenly reached the Admiralty from abroad. It was to the effect that a plot was on foot, with the connivance of the French Government, to destroy the English dockyards by incendiarism and fire the ships of war under construction. There proved to be reason to consider the news in a most serious light, and extraordinary measures of precaution were forthwith ordered at all the yards.

At Chatham, the nightly guard-boats patrolling the line of ships laid up at moorings in the Medway Ordinary, were doubled. Strict orders were issued to those in charge of the ships in Ordinary to keep their gun-room ports close shut all night, to send adrift before dark all shore boats lying astern, to hoist in all the ship’s boats, to haul up on board at night all the Jacob’s ladders over the stern used by the ship-keepers for getting on board. All fishing boats and hoys passing up and down the Medway were kept under observation. All doubtful or strange boats of any kind on the river were to be challenged and reported. Special dockyard guard-boats were told off to patrol from sunset to sunrise along the river front of the yard. All persons landing at the yard from the guardships after dark were to come alongside and disembark only at certain specified points. Strangers visiting the yard on business during the day were to be accompanied throughout their stay; no foreigner of whatever quality or rank was to be allowed to pass the gates without a written permit from the Commissioner. The yard-warders posted ashore on look-out round the walls of the yard were doubled, and marines were drafted into the yard to keep watch at night, “conformable to the strictest rules of Garrison duty.” A captain’s guard was posted at the dockyard gates, and a subaltern’s guard at the North-East Tower. A special parole with countersign was given out by the Commissioner every twenty-four hours. Constant patrols of marines were kept on the move round and about the yard all night. Armed sentries were posted on the river front, by the workshops and storehouses, the hemp and rope houses, and the timber berths. No fewer than twenty-two of these sentry-posts were appointed in and about Chatham dockyard, and each man going on duty was supplied with three rounds of ball.

To safeguard the _Victory_, the pride of Chatham, “the finest man-of-war ever built for the Royal Navy,” as they already spoke of her, a cocked-hatted, high-gaitered marine sentry, loaded firelock on shoulder, was kept pacing up and down with steady tramp alongside the dock where the ship lay, all the night long. His orders were to challenge all suspicious persons and loiterers, and all persons approaching the ship, twice—“Halt, who comes there!” If not answered after that, he was to fire. To prove himself on the alert, at every quarter of an hour, when the warders on the wall look-out towers struck their bells, the sentry had to call out the number of his post, passing it on to the next sentry, and echoing back the hail “All’s well!” A fresh man came on duty every two hours. To further ensure the safety of the _Victory_, once at least during every night a “visiting rounds” patrol, comprising an officer from the main guard and a corporal and file of marines with lantern and jingling keys, boarded the ship to explore between-decks and below for lurking evil-doers or any combustibles that might be secreted.

But Jack the Painter’s time had not yet come. Nothing in the way of incendiarism happened at Chatham, or at any of the other dockyards in 1764, and after two or three months of unrest, things resumed their normal state of tranquillity.

Nothing more happened after that to hinder or delay the completion of the _Victory_, and by the following March her bulkheads and magazines were fitted, the port-lids and the rudder hung, and the poop lanterns in place, and the caulkers and painters were getting through with their finishing touches.

On St. George’s day, April 23rd, 1765, the Commissioner at Chatham reported the _Victory_ to the Admiralty as ready to be launched. The requisite order in reply, dispatched through the Navy Board, arrived on the 30th of April. It directed the launch to take place at the next spring tides These were due on the 7th of May.

VII

ON VALENTINE’S NIGHT IN FRIGATE BAY

If we go forward, we die;
If we go backward, we die;
Better go forward—and live!

The story of what happened once in Frigate Bay, St. Kitts, in the West Indies, recalls one of our “forgotten glories”; a feat of arms that nine out of ten people, one may be quite certain, have never heard of. Nor do our general histories say much of it, even of those whose pages make reference to it. Yet it is one of the very smartest, and neatest, and cleverest displays that, it may be, any British Admiral ever made, and it was managed, too, in the face of heroic odds. In every sense it was a daring and dashing deed of arms, and its moral effect on the enemy at the time was immense and widespread. It was in February of the year 1782, in the closing year of England’s long war with France and Spain in alliance with the rebel American Colonists. At that moment the French under the Comte de Grasse were in overpowering force in the West Indies, and were about, as they loudly vaunted, to make a sweeping attack on the five remaining British Islands, which, they declared openly, would prove an easy prey.

Rodney, the British Commander-in-Chief in the West Indies, had gone home on sick leave for a short time at the end of the preceding season. He was now on his way out again, with what reinforcements the sorely-tried Admiralty, at their wits’ end for ships and the men to man them with, could get together for him; but he had not yet arrived. Sir Samuel Hood (the famous Lord Hood of a later day), Rodney’s second in command, was in charge of the station in Rodney’s absence. It was by him that the brilliant exploit which forms our story here was achieved in Frigate Bay, St. Kitts.

Hearing in December, 1781, that the French Admiral, de Grasse, who had been co-operating with Washington in the Chesapeake, had arrived with his whole force at Martinique, and was on the point of sailing thence, or had already sailed, with a large force of troops on board to attack and capture Barbados, Hood at once followed; to try and hold the enemy in check till Rodney joined. He had only twenty-two ships of the line to de Grasse’s twenty-six, but he meant to make a fight of it in any event.

Six of Hood’s ships, it should be noted, were only 64-gun ships, the smallest class of vessels placed in the line of battle; and two of the fleet, also, the _Invincible_ and the _Prudent_, were old vessels, worn out and crazy. Both, indeed, had been officially reported on as unfit for sea. Hood’s biggest ship was his own flagship, the _Barfleur_, a 90-gun ship. De Grasse’s ships, on the other hand, comprised the most powerful man-of-war in the world—the gigantic _Ville de Paris_ of 112 guns; and the French had as well twenty seventy-fours and three sixty-fours.

On his way to Barbados, Hood put into English Harbour, Antigua, the naval head-quarters of the Leeward Islands Station. There he heard fresh news. The blow had fallen elsewhere. De Grasse had been delayed on his way to Barbados by bad weather. He had turned aside, and swooped down on St. Kitts. He had already begun a fierce attack, it was reported, and the small British garrison of regulars in the island were in a very precarious position. They were, however, still holding out. They occupied an impregnable position on Brimstone Hill, but their supplies were short and there was treachery among the islanders.

Hood received details at Antigua of the attack on St. Kitts. Taking on board the 28th and 69th Foot and two companies of the 13th, part of the garrison of the island, and arranging also to form two battalions of marines, made up from the marines serving on board his fleet, Hood sailed at once to try and save the island. “He sailed,” to use the words of one of Hood’s officers, “with the inadequate force of 1500 troops, which was all he could get from the general commanding at Antigua, on the 23rd of January, to relieve St. Christopher’s, attacked by 9000 Frenchmen under the Marquis de Bouville” [_sic_] (i.e. de Bouillé).

Hood proposed to surprise de Grasse at anchor and attack him at daybreak on the morning of the 24th of January. He knew that the enemy were lying in Basseterre Roads, a few miles from Brimstone Hill. To counterbalance the numerical superiority of the French fleet, Hood, in his plan of attack, proposed to throw the entire British squadron on one portion of the enemy, which he hoped to overwhelm before the rest could weigh and come to the rescue. Then he would be able, he expected, to match himself effectively against what would remain of the French. The plan was foiled at the outset by the blundering of the officer of the watch on board the _Nymphe_, a frigate, which, during the night of the 23rd, in the dark got across the bows of the _Alfred_, a seventy-four, the leader of the battle-line. She caused a collision that damaged the _Alfred_ very seriously, and nearly cut the _Nymphe_ in two.

Owing to the collision Hood’s entire plan had to be altered. The repairs to the _Alfred_ took all day on the 24th and until ten o’clock on the morning of the 25th, before the ship was again fit for service, and during that time the rest of the British fleet lay-to. They were already in sight of St. Kitts, with the result that the news of Hood’s arrival in the neighbourhood, up to then unsuspected, reached the French Admiral. Now there was no longer a question of surprise. Before he actually sighted the British fleet, de Grasse had got ready for Hood, and had had time to get under way and stand out to meet him.

Hood, disappointed though he was, was not baffled. He had a second plan of action in his mind. He next began to manœuvre as if he did not wish to come to close quarters with de Grasse—as, indeed, might well be the case, looking at the odds. He made a series of feints, as though he desired to shirk a battle and slip away, on which the French Admiral, becoming more and more confident, stood boldly out to sea after him. That was Hood’s game. He drew de Grasse clear of St. Kitts and to leeward of the island, manœuvring meanwhile so as to keep the weather-gage for himself. Then, suddenly hauling his wind, Hood dashed in, making for the anchorage the French had quitted in Basseterre Roads.

He swept in so close along the shores of Nevis—to prevent the enemy getting within him—that one of his frigates, the _Solebay_, “was wrecked from not having room to pass between the line-of-battle ship she was abreast of and the western point of Nevis.”

Holding his way ahead, Hood slipped right past the French and raced de Grasse for his own anchorage. Hood won the race on the post. After a flying interchange of broadsides he brought in his whole fleet, well in hand, right into Frigate Bay, Basseterre Roads, exactly where de Grasse had been lying previously, and occupied the very moorings that the French had originally had. In that way he placed the British fleet between the French troops on shore and their supporting fleet It was a masterstroke. Hood had turned the tables exactly. He completely cut off the French troops on shore from receiving aid from their fleet.

* * * * *

Completely surprised and outwitted by the British Admiral’s daring move, all that de Grasse could do was to attempt to overpower Hood while he was in the act of anchoring. What happened is described by the officer in the British fleet who has already been quoted.

“When he perceived the whole fleet following their leader, he tacked his fleet together ... and, in consequence, the French fleet approached within gunshot at a little before three o’clock. De Grasse, who was in the centre of his line, fetched in the _Ville de Paris_ nearly abreast of the _Canada_, while the headmost ship of his fleet was drawing in abreast of Sir Samuel Hood’s ship, the _Barfleur_. Their whole van boldly advanced towards the _Barfleur_, which reserved her fire until the brave Frenchman approached within musket shot, when she opened such a well-directed and quickly repeated fire, that in a few minutes the French ship had her jib-boom shot away, her sails nearly cut into ribbons, and her rigging so cut up that she quickly put her helm a-weather, and bore away from her redoubted antagonist. De Grasse perceiving an opening in our line, boldly attempted to sever it; but Cornwallis placed himself in the breach, which he so ably defended that his gigantic opponent was glad to relinquish the hazardous enterprise. Hood looked on undismayed at this attack upon his rear, knowing that he could confide in every individual captain, and very coolly ordered the signal to be made for the ships ahead to make more sail, in order to hasten their anchoring as soon as possible. In the meantime, the _St. Albans_ (the leading British ship) had taken up her station, and anchored at 3 p.m., and the other ships did the same in succession, while the centre and rear were closely engaged with the enemy, who pressed them close until every ship was anchored, when the French wore in succession and stood out to sea.”

De Grasse made two fierce attacks on Hood next day.

“On the morning of the 26th, at half-past eight,” continues our officer eye-witness, “the French fleet were seen coming round Nevis Point, intending to force a passage, but so singularly felicitous was the position taken up by the British Admiral, that when the enemy’s leading ship approached, the wind headed her, so that she could not fetch above the third ship in our line. The springs of our van ships were so admirably attended to that the broadsides of four of them were brought to bear at the same time upon the unfortunate Frenchmen, and were opened with tremendous effect.

“The crash occasioned by their destructive broadsides was so tremendous on board the ship (the _Pluton_), that whole pieces of plank were seen flying from her off side ere she could escape. The French ships generally approached the British van with more caution, with the exception of some, among them being the _Ville de Paris_. De Grasse, in order to prolong the individual encounter as much as possible, counterbraced his after-yards to retard his ship’s way through the water along the British line; and so the French flagship was detained a considerable time abreast of the _Resolution_, _Prudent_, _Canada_, and _Alfred_ in succession, as the _Ville de Paris_ slowly forged ahead and fired upon them.

“During this short but tremendous conflict between the respective combatants, nothing whatever could be seen of them for upwards of twenty minutes, save De Grasse’s white flag gracefully floating above the immense volume of smoke, or the pendants of the other ships.

“In the afternoon the French made a second attack on our line. It commenced at fifty minutes past two, and was principally directed against the centre and rear, the morning attack having convinced them that the British van was not to be assailed with impunity. Never, perhaps, was a superior enemy so completely foiled as de Grasse was on this occasion.”

Hood used all the means in his power to make good the advantage that he had gained, as we are further told:

“Sir Samuel Hood not only secured his fleet from any assault by sea, but also took measures to prevent the enemy from molesting it from the land, where it was infinitely more vulnerable: for could they have thrown up any batteries on the hill situated above Green Point, his position would have been no longer tenable. To prevent such an attempt on the part of the enemy, he landed the troops that accompanied the fleet in Frigate Bay, where they took post on the eminence that commanded the narrow neck, which continues the southern point of St. Christopher’s with the main island.”

_Admiral Sir Samuel Hood’s squadron of 22 ships (at anchor) beating off De Grasse’s opening attack, with 38 ships (shown coming into the bay under full sail) at 2.30 p.m. on January 25th, 1782._

_Drawn by N. Pocock, “from a sketch made by a gentleman who happened at the time to be on a visit at a friend’s, on a height between Basse Terre and Old Road.”_]

The troops made an effort to join hands with the garrison on Brimstone Hill as soon as possible after they had landed. They advanced rapidly, and in their first fight with the French covering force met with some success. Driving in the enemy’s outlying detachments, they advanced some way towards the French main position. Then the situation altered. De Bouillé himself, at the head of 4000 men, came on the scene. General Prescott, the British army officer in charge of the relief operations, had with him only 1,500 men, the soldiers from Antigua. He had refused to take the two battalions of marines (each of 500 men) which Hood had had prepared for service on shore and had urged him to take as well. Hopelessly outnumbered General Prescott had to fall back. In the end he was compelled to evacuate his camp near the sea and re-embark all his soldiers on board the fleet. That meant the doom of Brimstone Hill, and the colony of St. Kitts with it.

The garrison under Governor Shirley and Brigadier Fraser—comprising the 1st Battalion of the Royals, and the flank companies of the 15th Foot and a detachment of Royal Artillery, with a handful of local militiamen—from a thousand to twelve hundred men in all, still held out, doing their best. As long as they held out Hood made up his mind to stay where he was. Rodney was overdue now with his promised reinforcement from England, a dozen ships of the line. If Rodney arrived while the British flag was still flying in the island and could join hands with Hood, there was yet a chance of checkmating the enemy and of saving St. Kitts. But could Brimstone Hill hold out? It was more than doubtful.

The place was naturally an impregnable fortress, but the fortifications had been badly placed. The garrison were not numerous enough to line the walls. They had no heavy guns mounted, and the enemy were day after day bombarding them with a pitiless fire that closed in on them more and more, and became fiercer and more deadly and destructive every hour.

* * * * *

It is an ugly story—the tale of the fortifications of Brimstone Hill. Strong entrenchments had been planned a year before, and heavy guns sent out from England to be mounted on the ramparts. But the local authorities had not troubled to follow the plans, and what fortifications had been built had been run up incompletely and carelessly. The guns specially sent out from Woolwich for the works—brass 24-pounders and 13-inch mortars—had never been mounted at all. They had, as a fact, been left lying at the foot of the hill near the seashore, just as they had been landed, together with their gun carriages and every kind of equipment complete, besides tons of shot and shell. For over a year the local authorities had paid no heed to the repeated requests of the governor, and the general in command of the garrison in the island, to provide the labour and appliances indispensable for transporting the guns and material to the top of Brimstone Hill. Rodney himself during the previous summer had repeatedly urged the island local authorities, as a matter of public safety, to do their duty in the matter, but all had been in vain. The result was that de Bouillé and his army had on landing seized the guns and their ammunition, all lying there ready to hand. The French, in fact, had formed out of them the very siege train by means of which they were now able to batter down the weak fortifications on the hill above. The garrison, on the other hand, had only the few light 3-pounder and 6-pounder field pieces belonging to the Royal Artillery, with which to reply.

With the heavy guns provided from England in position, Brimstone Hill might well have held out till Rodney and his reinforcements had arrived and joined Hood, when the enemy must have paid dearly for their attempt. And, at the same time, without the English garrison guns at his disposal, de Bouillé would have been harmless. By an extraordinary coincidence the ship carrying the French siege train for St. Kitts had been wrecked on its way, and the second ship, carrying the French siege ammunition, had been captured by Hood. The French had actually no other siege artillery or ammunition nearer than in the gun park on shore at Martinique.

Rodney, indeed, on learning the facts of the case at St. Kitts after his arrival, did not hesitate to write to England and to make other serious imputations on the loyalty of the colonials all through the whole business. “The inhabitants of Basseterre in St. Christopher’s,” he wrote, “suffered the enemy to land without firing a single gun, though they had three good batteries which might have done good service and destroyed many of the enemy, and certainly prevented their landing at Basseterre.” “Nor during all the time that Hood was lying off the capital, in Frigate Bay,” added Rodney, “did a single inhabitant come on board or afford the least intelligence.”

The disaffection at St. Kitts, unfortunately, was no isolated case, as Rodney reported in the same dispatch. Actual treason, indeed, was rife among the white populations throughout the British West Indies, except in loyal Jamaica and at Antigua. The planter-militia forces in the various islands were worse than useless. “Barbados,” wrote Rodney, “is in no state of defence, and their legislature will not raise a penny to repair the fortifications.... They wish to be taken, but the rogues shall be disappointed while I remain here!” Dominica fell into the enemy’s hands through the vilest treachery. There the garrison of the principal fort defending the island, near Roseau, the capital, were made drunk by the colonials, who at the same time plugged up the touch-holes of their cannon and rendered the soldiers’ muskets useless by putting sand into the gun locks; after which they signalled to a French expeditionary column, which had secretly been assisted ashore that same night, to advance and take possession.

* * * * *

At sea, meanwhile, off Frigate Bay, de Grasse watched and waited, contenting himself with “observing” Hood from just outside gunshot range of the British fleet. During the three weeks between the 26th of January and the 13th of February, Hood’s men were, as the Admiral described, “under arms night and day,” but doing their duty all the time, as Hood put it, “with a cheerfulness and good humour which charmed me.” This was in spite of much privation. They were deficient in provisions and stores, having had but little time to take in anything at Antigua—short of water and “practically without bread, living on yams and country flour to eke out their own.” Powder and shot, too, were short in some of the ships. None of the fleet, indeed, had had an opportunity of replenishing magazines since they arrived in the West Indies after the fighting in the Chesapeake in the previous September.

“The enemy’s fleet made frequent demonstrations of attacking us, but never came near enough to engage. On the 12th February their fleet amounted to thirty-two ships of the line, a strong reinforcement from France having joined, which not only supplied the place of their disabled ships, but contributed to swell their numbers. On the 13th the Comte de Grasse despaired of being able to assail with any prospect of success our little fleet of twenty-two ships, and prudently anchored off Nevis.”

The end came for the Brimstone Hill garrison on the 13th of February. Further resistance was hopeless, and there seemed no prospect of relief reaching them. The ramparts had been beaten down; their ammunition was exhausted, most of their guns were disabled. De Bouillé summoned the place, announcing his intention of storming the works. Unable to offer more resistance the garrison surrendered, on terms that were complimentary to the very gallant resistance that they had made.

Hood, at his anchorage in Frigate Bay, learned the unwelcome news by a flag of truce from the French camp near Basseterre next morning, Wednesday, the 14th of February. It meant that he must now look out for himself. The situation had changed to one of very serious danger for him. Not only was there de Grasse outside, with a fleet that was being reinforced almost daily with fresh ships from Martinique, but there was also the French army on shore. They had already begun throwing up batteries in which they were mounting the same heavy long range English guns by means of which they had reduced Brimstone Hill. The shot and shell from these would speedily render further continuance at the anchorage impossible. The enemy, moreover, had found an excellent position for their purpose on a lofty bluff whence they could sweep the anchorage from end to end.

De Grasse’s fleet numbered ten ships more than Hood had; and most of the recent arrivals were 80-gun ships.

De Grasse’s withdrawal to Nevis for a few hours in order to refit his fleet out of some storeships that had just arrived from France gave Hood his chance. The French Admiral made sure that in the circumstances there was no possibility of the British fleet escaping complete destruction. Off Nevis he could keep the English fleet in sight, and only a couple of hours sail from him. Hood seemed, as it were, between the upper and nether millstones: between the French fleet in overpowering force on one side, and the batteries on shore on the other, which also, as de Grasse knew, were to be ready to open fire next day.

* * * * *

Once more, though, it was to be the old story of the slip between the cup and the lip. Hood essayed one desperate chance, and won it. He proved himself a good deal more than a match for de Grasse and de Bouillé on shore combined.

The British Admiral lost no time over his preparations. He had made up his mind what to do within an hour of receiving the news of the fall of Brimstone Hill. And then he acted forthwith.

At noon on the 14th Hood signalled for a lieutenant from every ship to come on board the flagship _Barfleur_. Certain special instructions were given out, and the officers were directed to come on board for further orders after dark—at nine o’clock that night. In accordance with the admiral’s instructions, at four in the afternoon every ship ostentatiously lowered top-gallant yards, making things snug for the night to all appearances, to spectators at a distance. Immediately it was dark, as quickly as possible stream-anchors were got in, and every preparation was rapidly made for putting to sea. These left every ship riding with only one anchor down, the small bower. At nine o’clock, as had been ordered also, top-gallant yards were quietly rehoisted and crossed on board every ship. Then the officers told to return for further orders, pulled silently off to the _Barfleur_ again and reported everything ready.

Each officer on arriving was requested to go down to the _Barfleur’s_ cabin. Hood was there, and he saw each one set his watch exactly by the flagship’s clock. Then all were ordered to return on board their respective ships. As the hands of the officers’ watches pointed to eleven, every ship was to cut her cable, come to sail at once, and get under way in line of battle ahead, every ship moving out to sea independently, steering to the westward, keeping on a given line of bearing. On no account must there be any noise—no hailing, no signalling whatever. Not a match must be struck on board, and all lights must be screened.

Not a single mishap, not one mistake, from all accounts, marred the execution of the bold manœuvre.

It was a black and moonless night. As six bells—eleven o’clock—clanged out on board the _Barfleur_, the other ships each struck six bells. The next moment a couple of heavy blows with an axe chopped the bower cable through on board every ship. Then, simultaneously, sails were let fall silently from the yards everywhere, and were swiftly and silently sheeted home. At once now, in unison, the whole fleet began to forge ahead, moving all together through the water. To aid in deceiving the enemy as to what was happening, lighted ship’s lanterns were left behind, lashed to poles set up on the casks that had served as cable buoys, making it appear from a very short distance off as though the fleet were still there, riding at anchor in the roads.

The masterly _ruse_ succeeded to the full. The watch on board the English fleet could see the lights of some of de Grasse’s ships away to seaward. They themselves, one and all, entirely unobserved, passed out in the darkness. Not a trace of Hood’s twenty-two ships was visible when de Grasse came on deck on board his flagship, the _Ville de Paris_, next morning.

They met Rodney at sea a few days later;—and then, in due course Rodney and Hood together smote the French once for all for that war, in the great battle of “The Glorious Twelfth of April,” 1782.[10]

VIII

THE PAGEANT OF THE _DONEGAL_:—A MEMORY OF ’98

Joy! joy! the day is come at last, the day of hope and pride—
And see! our crackling bonfires light old Bann’s rejoicing tide,
And gladsome bell and bugle-horn from Newry’s captured towers,
Hark! how they tell the Saxon swine this land is ours—is OURS!

Come, trample down their robber rule, and smite its venal spawn,
Their foreign laws, their foreign Church, their ermine and their lawn,
With all the specious fry of fraud that robbed us of our own;
And plant our ancient laws again beneath our lineal throne!

The name Donegal has a significance to the Royal Navy that is all its own. It was designated by the Admiralty as a county cruiser name, for one of the ships of the _Kent_ and _Monmouth_ group; but there is more than that behind the name. _Donegal_ lettered on the stern of a man-of-war has its own traditions—associations of a yet wider interest to the British fleet. The name, as a fact, owes its appearance on the Navy List to a very special occasion. H.M.S. _Donegal_, in its origin, is only incidentally connected with County Donegal. The cruiser through her name stands, in fact, to remind the world that the Royal Navy does not “fear to speak of ’98.”

It is quite a little drama how this particular man-of-war name first came to make its appearance on the roll of the British fleet; and in that form, perhaps, one may most effectively tell the story—as a sort of pageant, bringing the details forward in, as it were, a series of tableaux.

* * * * *

First we have the opening scene, in bustling Paris, in the month of August, 1798, something after this fashion:

The Marseillaise is pealing! the crowds are mad with joy,
With flags and failtë fêting the gallant Paris Boy,
Who leads the bright procession of Frenchmen gay and bold?,
The Students of the Quarter, the Latin Quarter Old;—
They’re girt with dainty rapiers, they’re gloved with gloves of white,
The knightly Gallic Swordsmen who love the People’s Right!
They bear in bright procession a pledge from France’s shore,
The busts of Hoche and Humbert beneath the Tricolour!

Then we have a September scene far away. We are now among the wild, unkempt kerns and peasants of County Donegal, in their villages and rude moorland huts of turf and boulders, dotted among the lonely valleys far away amid the bare, desolate, wind-swept uplands and bleak, gaunt, long-backed ridges, shrouded for half the year in rolling grey mists from off the ocean, that range along the coasts of North-Western Ireland. Everywhere the men are hard at work, seated in groups round their peat fires, all actively engaged in pointing pikes and grinding axes, lashing scythe-blades to short poles, and putting a fresh edge to ugly crooked knives; crooning to themselves the while over their toil:—

Oh, the Frinch are on the say,
Says the Shan Van Voght—
Oh, the Frinch are on the say,
Says the Shan Van Voght—
The Frinch are in the Bay,
They’ll be here without delay,
And the Orange will decay,
Says the Shan Van Voght.

Again we are on the coast; by Donegal Bay. It is the morning of Friday, the 12th of October, ’98, between seven and eight o’clock. Eager-faced, excited watchers line the crags of Bloody Foreland. From the wide, flat expanse of sea below comes up on the wind the dull, heavy, throbbing sound of a distant cannonade. It has been getting nearer since daybreak. It now comes nearer and nearer still; and by degrees, from the direction of Tory Island, on the horizon over yonder, where a grey rolling cloud of powder-smoke lies heavy over the sea, two squadrons of men-of-war, two straggling lines of ships, most of them firing fiercely, come dimly into view. One is assuredly the long-looked-for French—Commodore Bompart’s squadron from Brest, bringing three thousand French soldiers and Wolfe and Matthew Tone. They were to have landed at Lough Swilly yesterday and raised the country-side. The other is the English fleet—a British squadron that has followed round from Cawsand Bay under press of sail to look after M. Bompart. They picked up news of him off the Fastnet and Achill Island, and pushed on here. On the previous day at noon—as we learn later on—off Malin Head in a stiff north-westerly gale, the British look-outs sighted the French squadron; and they have been working to bring Monsieur Bompart to battle ever since.

It looks likely to go hard with the French. At the last moment a mishap checked their attempt to give the British the go-by. Their best ship, the _Hoche_, a fine 80-gun two-decker, and M. Bompart’s own flagship, got disabled in a squall last night. Her maintopmast carried away, bringing down with it the main and mizen top-gallant masts and tearing a gaping rent in the mainsail. So Sir John Borlase Warren, the British Commodore, has been able to get level with his enemy, on whom he is now tacking to bring the fight to close quarters, in conditions where his superior force—three line-of-battle ships and five frigates to one line-of-battle ship, eight frigates, and a schooner—ought to decide M. Bompart’s fate before dinner-time.

Eleven o’clock. The inevitable has happened. The Frenchmen have been overpowered at all points and broken up. The French Commodore is now only holding out as long as possible _pour l’honneur du pavillon_. In the centre of the battle, a dismantled wreck, with the scuppers running blood at every heave of the vessel on the swell, lies M. Bompart’s flagship, the hapless _Hoche_. Three British ships together—a sixty-four and two frigates—are pouring broadside after broadside into her without ceasing for a moment.

Wolfe Tone, the story goes, was on board the _Hoche_, and refused at the outset a chance that was offered him to get away by a boat to the _Biche_, a fast-sailing schooner then about to make off, or to one of the French frigates, by which means alone it was possible for him to escape. “The action is hopeless,” said the French officers to him on the quarter-deck; “with the odds against us it can only have one end. We shall be prisoners of war; but what will become of you?” “No!” replied Tone. “Shall it be said that I fled when the French were fighting the battle of my country? No; I shall stand by the ship.” He went below and took charge of a division of guns in one of the batteries.

The end, as the watchers on land soon see, comes swiftly. Further resistance would be murder. Beaten to a standstill, riddled like a sieve, with twenty-five guns disabled, more than half her men put _hors de combat_, her lower masts shot through and every moment threatening to go over the side, her rudder smashed to splinters, with five feet of water in the hold—down perforce has to come the _Hoche’s_ tricolor. So the battle ends.

_The captured French line of battle ship “Hoche,” being towed by the “Doris,” 36, Lord Ranelagh, into Lough Swilly. Drawn by N. Pocock, from a sketch made from the “Robust” by Captain R. Williams of the Marines._]

It is just twenty minutes past eleven. Three other French ships, overtaken at their first attempt at flight, have already surrendered. The rest are making off, scattering over the horizon with British frigates in pursuit, to be run down and taken in the end—all of them except two.[11]

The fourth tableau rings down on the piece. The last scene closes some weeks later in the quiet waters of the Hamoaze off Devonport Dockyard, whither the _Hoche_ was taken round, with the arrival of an Admiralty messenger at the Port Admiral’s office. He brings in his dispatch wallet an official memorandum that “My Lords have been pleased to direct Sir J. B. Warren’s prize to be registered in the List of the Navy by the name of the _Donegal_.”

In this way it was that the name Donegal came originally into the Royal Navy for a man-of-war, and the battle of October, ’98, off the coast of Donegal is our present cruiser’s principal bond of connection with the county.

* * * * *

The luckless Wolfe Tone passed from the quarter-deck of the _Hoche_ to the condemned cell and a suicide’s grave. It came about in this way. The _Hoche_ was towed into Lough Swilly and the prisoners were landed and marched to Letterkenny. The Earl of Cavan invited the French officers to breakfast. Tone was amongst the guests. He was in a French military uniform. An old college companion at T.C.D., Sir George Hill, recognized him. “How do you do, Mr. Tone?” said Hill pointedly. “I am very happy to see you.” Tone greeted Hill cordially, and said, “How are you, Sir George? How are Lady Hill and your family?” The police, who had had information that Tone would be among the prisoners, lay in waiting in an adjoining room. Hill went to them, pointed to Tone, and said, “There is your man.” Tone was called from the table. He knew what it meant—that his hour had come, but he went cheerfully to his doom. Entering the next apartment, he was surrounded by police and soldiers, arrested, loaded with irons, and hurried off to Dublin Castle. There he was tried by court-martial and sentenced to be hanged within forty-eight hours. His request for a firing party was curtly refused. Curran got a writ of habeas corpus from Lord Chief Justice Kilwarden. But he was too late. Tone anticipated the execution of the law, and died by his own hand—with a penknife.

* * * * *

The _Donegal_ man-of-war served Great Britain for forty-seven years, keeping up to the last her reputation of being one of the swiftest two-deckers afloat.

Trafalgar should have been one of her battle honours. One of the very smartest captains that ever trod a British quarter-deck, “a dear Nelsonian” of exceptional ability and merit, the gallant and chivalrous Sir Pulteney Malcolm, commanded the _Donegal_ at that time. The _Donegal_ had been sent by Nelson to Gibraltar to shift the low tier of water-casks just four days before the battle. While there, at two o’clock on the morning of Trafalgar day, Monday, the 21st of October, the _Weazle_ sloop-of-war came bustling into Gibraltar Bay, and firing alarm guns. She brought the fateful news that the enemy had left Cadiz and were at sea. Captain Blackwood, of the _Euryalus_, in command of Nelson’s inshore frigate squadron, had packed the _Weazle_ off to Gibraltar to call up the six ships of the line, recently detached from Nelson’s fleet, that had gone in there to fill up water-casks and refit.

The _Donegal_ was lying with her sails unbent from the yards, her bowsprit out, and her fore-topmast and foreyard struck. All her powder had been landed, and the ship was fast alongside the Mole. The crew had not turned in, as Captain Malcolm was keen to rejoin Nelson off Cadiz at the earliest moment. When the _Weazle’s_ guns were first heard, they were hard at work shifting the lower tier of casks in the hold.