Chapter II: Rodney's Ship on Rodney's Day (4)

De Grasse came on board the _Formidable_ next morning, and stayed there as Rodney's guest for two days while the _Ville de Paris_, for the time being in tow of the _Namur_, was being cleansed and made habitable. A night's rest worked wonders in the French admiral. 'He bears his reverse of fortune with equanimity, conscious as he says that he has done his duty, and I found him very affable and communicative.' So Dr. Blane wrote. He and Captain Douglas acted as interpreters between the admirals: Rodney--it is rather curious, if we remember a certain story--could not speak a word of French.[52] De Grasse was very frank with everybody. For one thing, he said, he did not wonder that he had been beaten. From what he had seen he considered that the French navy was 'a hundred years behind that of Great Britain.' Wrote Rodney himself of one conversation:--'Comte de Grasse, who at this moment is sitting in my stern gallery, tells me he thought his fleet superior to mine, and does so still, though I had two more in number; and I am of his opinion, as his was composed of all large ships and ten of mine only sixty-fours.'[53]

Rodney remained in the neighbourhood of Dominica for four days, refitting and repairing damages. His frigates meanwhile searched the bays among the islands to northward, St. Kitts and Eustatius in particular, for traces of French fugitives in that quarter. None, however, were found. The only news brought back was that several crippled French ships, one identified as De Vaudreuil's _Triomphante_, had been sighted by the islanders passing on the day after the battle. On the morning of the 17th Hood was despatched with the least damaged of the British ships to cruise off the south of San Domingo and intercept any of De Vaudreuil's laggards. Rodney himself moved off in the afternoon of the same day with the more seriously damaged ships and the prizes in tow, for Jamaica, following on much the same course towards San Domingo. He met Hood four days later, returning with four French prizes, two ships of the line and two frigates, the proceeds of a smart little affair that Hood had had with a force of the enemy in the Mona Passage. Rodney then continued his course for Port Royal where he arrived on the 29th, to be received as the saviour of the colony.

[The two guns from the _Ville de Paris_ are visible behind the railings.]]

'All Jamaica,' wrote Rodney, 'went mad with joy.' So much so, indeed, that the Admiral did not set foot on shore for a week, 'to avoid being pestered with addresses, etc.' To this day Rodney is the _genius loci_ in Jamaica. The statue to him, by Bacon, voted by the House of Assembly 'as a mark of gratitude and veneration,' is one of the sights of the island. It represents the Admiral in the dress of a Roman Imperator, and stands, flanked by two brass guns from the _Ville de Paris_ presented by Rodney himself, under an imposing classic temple that takes up one side of 'the Square' in the centre of Spanish Town, the old capital of Jamaica; with the 'King's House,' the residence of the Governor, on one hand, and the House of Assembly on the other, and facing it, across the gardens of the square, the Court House.

From the _London Magazine_ for August 1782.

Stated to have been 'drawn from the life by a celebrated artist,' while De Grasse was in London on parole as a prisoner of war. The background is, of course, artistic fancy work.]

The fleet remained refitting at Port Royal for upwards of nine weeks. Port Royal dockyard proved to be in an almost hopeless state of neglect and confusion, totally unfitted to supply the needs of a great fleet in the condition of Rodney's. De Grasse left for England in the interval, as a passenger in the first convoy sailing. We may take leave of him here. How the French admiral--the first commander-in-chief of an enemy brought to this country since Marshal Tallard came over after Blenheim--landed on Southsea beach in the presence of a cheering crowd; how King George received him in the most kindly and gracious manner, while English society showed him every mark of courteous sympathy, are matters beyond our present scope.[54] Nor can the unfortunate admiral's after fate be referred to at length. It will be enough to say that De Grasse later on published an open letter complaining that he had been betrayed by his captains. This caused an outburst of indignation in France which led to a _Conseil de Guerre_ on every officer from De Vaudreuil downwards. The tribunal exonerated everybody,[55] laying all the blame on De Grasse himself, and the admiral was banished from Court in disgrace, which meant social ostracism and the cold shoulder for the rest of his days.[56]

The _Ville de Paris_ followed her late admiral with the next convoy to England--never, however, to arrive there. She went to the bottom in a terrific storm which fell on the convoy in mid-Atlantic, but when, or exactly where, or how, is to this day unknown. Of all on board, upwards of five hundred officers and men, one seaman only was saved. He was picked up after the storm one morning, clinging to some floating wreckage--an imbecile. Mind and memory had gone. The only thing that the man could say was that a day or two before he had seen the _Glorieux_ go down suddenly. All after that, all about his own ship, everything, except that he was 'Wilson of the _Ville de Paris_,'--was a blank.

Rodney was detained at Port Royal until the 10th of July. Then with all the fleet repaired and fit for service, just as he was on the point of sailing to blockade the enemy off Cape Haitien, a ship from England, the _Jupiter_, arrived bringing a curt order from the Admiralty to 'strike his flag and come home.' It was the first word of any kind he had had from England since the battle; indeed, since the beginning of April, when he was in Gros Islet Bay before the battle. To add to the sting of the blow Rodney's successor was on board the ship that brought the order:--Admiral Pigot, an absolute nonentity, a man who had never served at sea since he was a captain, and then without distinction. That was the sort of man sent out to supersede the first naval commander of the age on the morrow of his greatest triumph. It was all a matter of party politics, a shameless political job. Rodney was a Tory in politics and had been appointed by a Tory First Lord. The Whigs had come into power since he last heard from England, and the new Ministry on coming into office had promptly cancelled his appointment and sent out one of their own partisans, hitherto only known as a naval M.P., to replace, in the presence of the enemy, the ablest sea officer that Great Britain possessed.

The Ministry having discarded Rodney, what took place when the startling news of Rodney's victory, with the capture of De Grasse and the finest man-of-war in the world, reached England, was indeed the irony of fate. It made up a striking and intensely dramatic situation. When Rodney was ordered home the news of the battle had not arrived. It came on the 18th of May, when Captain Byron of the _Andromache_, and Lord Cranstoun, who had accompanied him, arrived with Rodney's despatches at the Admiralty at two in the morning. Admiral Pigot had only left London for Plymouth two or three days before. The Admiralty and the Ministry were aghast, amazed, absolutely nonplussed. They had recalled the victor in the hour of the greatest victory that the Royal Navy had ever won perhaps since the defeat of the Spanish Armada. It was an extremely awkward position. Admiral Pigot must be stopped at all cost, and Rodney's order of recall torn up. That was the only thing to be done. A King's messenger with relays of horses was sent galloping down to Plymouth as fast as man could ride. He carried with him a letter of compliment and congratulation to Rodney, written at seven on the morning of the 18th, which was to go instead of the other. The messenger got to Plymouth just too late. He arrived there at two in the afternoon of the 19th, to find that Pigot had sailed on the evening before. A swift cutter was sent after the _Jupiter_, but failed to catch her up. So the Whig Ministry were left face to face with the unenviable situation that their own narrow partisanship had created.

'A generation ago,' says a writer in one of the earlier numbers of the _Quarterly Review_, 'men were still living who could tell of the flame of indignation which ran through the country when it was known that the new Whig Government had recalled Admiral Rodney, because the expedition which he commanded had been planned by the Tories.' No doubt that was so. But the flame burned itself out quickly. The Whigs in Parliament and outside it were able to counter the Tory reproaches by retorting that whatever was the case then, when the recall of Rodney was first notified, three weeks before the despatches came, not a voice had been raised against it. All over the country at the same time, Whigs and Tories made common cause in heaping adulation on the victor, and expressing their general feelings in exuberant rejoicings. In London, after the Park and Tower guns and the pealing of the church bells had confirmed the breakfast-table rumour, 'the whole town was in an uproar,' we are told, everybody making the day a holiday and hanging out flags. All London was illuminated that night, the very poorest finding a candle to stick in every pane in their windows. Wraxall, writing in 1816 (the year after Waterloo) his recollections of how London received the news of Rodney's victory, says: 'When I reflect on the emotions to which it gave rise in London, I cannot compare them with any other occurrence of the same kind that we have since witnessed in this country.'[57] Dr. Blane writing some years afterwards from what he was told, says that even the cripples and invalids in hospital 'demonstrated their joy on hearing of this victory, by hoisting shreds of coloured cloth on their crutches.' Lady Rodney and her daughters went to the theatre that evening. 'When we went in,' wrote Miss Jane Rodney to her father, 'the whole house testified by their claps and huzzas, the joy they felt at the news, and their love for you, and their acclamations lasted for, I am sure, five minutes.'[58] The versifiers of course seized on the occasion, and they found editors ready to take their 'copy.'

The Grass in Paris streets so long had grown That farmer Rodney thought it should be mown, So up his Formidable scythe he took And cut the Grass of Paris at one stroke--

was one effusion that is among the best. Throughout the country, as the laurel-bedecked stage-coaches passed the news along, there was hardly a village that did not ring its bells and have its bonfire. Half the taverns, we are told, painted out their 'Markis o' Granby' signboards for 'The Admiral Rodney,' and Rodney's is to this day the most common of naval names on inn signboards. There are, as a fact, more 'Lord Rodneys' up and down the country than 'Lord Nelsons.'

Rodney, at Port Royal, accepted the situation with quiet dignity. He said nothing, handed over the command to Admiral Pigot, and shifted out of the _Formidable_ forthwith into the smaller _Montagu_, then under orders to proceed to England. Twelve days after Pigot's arrival, Rodney sailed. There is no need to carry the story further. How Rodney was rewarded by the country, and how he passed his closing years, are matters of general history.

One of the _Formidable's_ men on Rodney's day was a smart young seaman named Stephens. He lived to be 'Mr.' Stephens, the boatswain of the famous _Shannon_ when she met the _Chesapeake_, on which occasion, too, he lost an arm. He found a place in Captain Broke's despatch, and had the further distinction of being asked by the officers to sit for a statuette of himself to be made, which became one of the special treasures of the last of the _Shannon's_ officers, the late Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Provo Wallis. The last surviving officer of Rodney's flagship was Sir Charles Dashwood, who died in 1847, Vice-Admiral of the White, and K.C.B. The last survivor of all, both of the _Formidable's_ company in 1782, and of all who fought in the battle itself, was a seaman of the _Formidable_, George Neale, who died at Coventry in 1849.

We will close the story with one final word about the _Formidable's_ after career. She outlasted Rodney by nineteen years, and served in the interim throughout the war with the French Revolution and with Napoleon. Had it not been for an accidental delay she would have been Duncan's flagship at Camperdown. The _Formidable_ had been fitted for Admiral Duncan's flag, and sailed from the Downs for the Texel on the very day that the battle was fought. Her end came in 1813, in which year the fine old veteran of the sea was struck off the Navy List as unfit for further service, and handed over to the shipbreaker.

To Dead Man's Bay when her day is past, To Dead Man's Bay comes the ship at last.

Thus for the present we close the record of this 'blustering adjective' from the point of view of naval history. Enough has been told. 'A nation,' says Guizot, 'is safe in the greatest crisis of its fate if it can remember its own history.' Those who on a future day may serve in our present _Formidable_ before an enemy, will be none the worse for remembering the associations of old-time victory that form part and parcel of their ship's famous name, in virtue of which, that name finds its place to-day on the roll of the Royal Navy for 'one of the best' among the battle-ships of the British Fleet.[59] 'No man,' wrote a young officer of the famous _Bellerophon_, in his last letter home on the evening before Trafalgar, 'can be a coward on board the _Billy Ruff'n_.' No man on board the _Formidable_, who knows the story of his ship, should be found wanting on the day of battle. It will rest as a point of honour with those who then man the _Formidable_ to remember Rodney and prove the _Formidable_ 'worthy of her name.'

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 13: _Admirals All, and Other Verses_, p. 15.]

[Footnote 14: _Edward the Third_, Act III. Sc. 1.]

[Footnote 15: Built at Chatham in 1777 as a 98-gun three-decker of 1945 tons. The _Formidable_ taken at Quiberon was broken up some ten years previously.]

[Footnote 16: From Mr. Newbolt's verses on a memorial brass in Clifton College chapel.]

[Footnote 17: He was captain of the French frigate _L'Arethuse_ on May 18, 1759, when she was cut off and captured, off the Brittany coast, by a British squadron; to become a British frigate, and later on the 'Saucy' _Arethusa_ of the celebrated ballad.]

[Footnote 18: Hennequin's _Biographie Maritime_, art. 'Vaudreuil'; also L. Dussieux's _Generaux et Marins du XVIII. Siecle_, p. 260. The governorship of the island of Dominica was offered to De Vaudreuil after its capture from Great Britain through treachery. Some of the creole inhabitants of Dominica invited the French over from Martinique, and, on the night of their landing, made the garrison of the principal fort in the island drunk, plugged up the touch-holes of their cannon, and put sand in the locks of their muskets.]

[Footnote 19: Bougainville was born in 1729. He was granted the _particle nobiliaire_ by order of the King as a special favour, escaped the guillotine during the Terror by the merest chance, and died a Senator of the Empire in 1811. Bougainville's name is commemorated in the French navy to-day in a corvette used as a training ship for cadets. The vessel is well known as a visitor to Dartmouth and Plymouth Sound every year.]

[Footnote 20: It was the practice of the Comte de la Charette to blacken the sides of each ship that he commanded. Ordinarily, at this period, ships' sides were of a yellow colour--the planking simply varnished over.]

[Footnote 21: Carlyle, _French Resolution_, vol. ii. bk. ii. chap. i.]

[Footnote 22: Carronades were short pieces of large calibre, throwing heavy shot, but with a very limited range. They were only of use for fighting at close quarters, when, however, they were terribly destructive. They were invented and first made at the Carron Ironworks in Scotland--whence the name.]

[Footnote 23: Sir Gilbert Blane, _Dissertations on Medical Science_, vol. i. p. 86.]

[Footnote 24: It extends sometimes to as far as six or seven miles seaward.--_West India Pilot._]

[Footnote 25: 'De Grasse's action,' says Captain Mahan (_The Influence of Sea Power upon History_, p. 290), 'was justified by the court which tried him, in which were many officers of high rank and doubtless of distinction, as being "an act of prudence on the part of the admiral dictated to him by the ulterior projects of the cruise." Three days later he was signally beaten by the fleet he had failed to attack at disadvantage, and all the ulterior projects of the cruise went down with him.']

[Footnote 26: _Annual Register_, 1782 (History of Europe), p. 206.]

[Footnote 27: Mundy's _Life of Rodney_, vol. ii. p. 251.]

[Footnote 28: _United Service Journal_, 1833, part i. p. 512, Sir C. Douglas's narrative.]

[Footnote 29: Imagine this page the surface of the sea, the top being north, the foot south, and so on. The wind would be blowing diagonally across from the right-hand corner at the foot of the page. Rodney's ships would be approaching slantwise towards the centre of the page from near the left-hand lower corner. De Grasse's fleet would be coming down to meet them near the centre from a point at the top of the page about two inches from the left-hand corner.]

[Footnote 30: To make sure that they saw the signal and obeyed it without delay, De Grasse kept firing gun after gun to enforce it, until all had answered.]

[Footnote 31: Captain Mahan in _The Royal Navy: A History_, vol. iii. p. 528.]

[Footnote 32: Mundy's _Life of Rodney_, vol. ii. pp. 235-236.]

[Footnote 33: British flag-officers were at this time still divided, for purposes of promotion, into groups and subdivisions, as Admirals, Vice-Admirals, and Rear-Admirals of the Red, White, and Blue (except that there was no Admiral of the Red), which had existed since the middle of the seventeenth century, although the original purpose of the arrangement, in accordance with the tactical formations of fleets for battle, had long ceased to exist. The French, on the other hand, had no permanent subsidiary gradations in their flag-officers' list, and held to their original tactical distribution of squadrons; the senior officer commanding the Escadre Blanche, the second the Escadre Blanche et Bleue, the third the Escadre Bleue.]

[Footnote 34: _Hist. MSS. Commission: Report XIV._ Duke of Rutland's MSS. at Belvoir Castle, vol. iii. p. 55. At Belvoir Castle there are preserved, besides eight brass cannon of French make, the carved tiller of the _Resolution_, and some bottles of wine stamped with the Manners peacock, which were in the ship as part of the captain's stores.]

[Footnote 35: There is a very fine model of the _Duke_, representing her exactly as she appeared on the 12th of April 1782, in the naval collection at South Kensington Museum.]

[Footnote 36: The first was in the fighting on the 9th of April. 'De Grasse had sent me a message that he could not meet me in March, but that he certainly would attack us in April. He did not keep his promise, for I attacked him. In the first day's action, when the _Formidable_ came abreast of the _Ville de Paris_, I ordered the main topsail to be laid aback. [This was a well-understood form of personal challenge at sea.] De Grasse, who was about three miles to windward, did not accept the challenge, but kept his wind and did not fire one shot the whole day.' (Letter to Lady Rodney, May 4, 1782; quoted in Mundy's _Life_, etc., vol. ii. p. 291.)]

[Footnote 37: Sir Gilbert Blane, _Dissertations on Medical Science_, vol. i. p. 88 _et seq._]

[Footnote 38: Sir C. Dashwood's letter is dated Torquay, 8th July 1829. It is quoted in full in the _United Service Journal_ for 1833, part i. p. 73.]

[Footnote 39: Professor J. Knox Laughton, R.N., _Dictionary of National Biography_, art. 'Rodney.']

[Footnote 40: The _Diademe's_ name appears in De Vaudreuil's official return of the ships rallied by him which reached Cap Francois, San Domingo, on the 25th of April.]

[Footnote 41: Hennequin, _Biographie Maritime_, vol. i. p. 356.]

[Footnote 42: Navy Records Society: _The Naval Miscellany_, vol. i. p. 234. A letter apparently from a lieutenant of the _Ville de Paris_ gives details.]

[Footnote 43: Navy Records Society, _Letters of Sir Samuel Hood_, pp. 102-103.]

[Footnote 44: Sir Gilbert Blane, _Dissertations on Medical Science_, vol. i.]

[Footnote 45: _United Service Journal_ for 1833, vol. i. p. 514.]

[Footnote 46: De Grasse, it is stated, had not once left the quarter-deck since daybreak. See also _Historical Memoirs of my Own Time_, Sir N.W. Wraxall, vol. iii. p. 108.]

[Footnote 47: Wraxall's _Memoirs_, iii. p. 107. Lord Cranstoun told Sir N.W. Wraxall that _he_ 'was sent after the _Ville de Paris_ struck to take possession of her, as well as to receive De Grasse's sword.' In the memoir of Captain Knight of the _Barfleur_ (_Naval Chronicle_, xi. pp. 428-429) it is stated that 'Captain Knight received and presented to his Admiral the sword of Count de Grasse and those of all the surviving officers of the _Ville de Paris_, who, with the exception of the Count (he, by desire of Sir Samuel Hood, remaining in his own ship), lodged that night in the captain's cabin of the _Barfleur_.' Our illustration depicts a third version of the incident.]

[Footnote 48: Hennequin, _Biographie Maritime_, vol. i. art. 'Marigny.']

[Footnote 49: They were:--the Chevalier du Pavillon, De Vaudreuil's flag-captain; De la Clochetterie; De la Vicomte; Comte Bernard de Marigny; De Saint Cesaire; and D'Escars of the _Glorieux_.]

[Footnote 50: Half a million sterling was the French monetary loss in one of the biggest sea battles ever fought. Japan lost upwards of a million and a quarter by the sinking of one battleship alone, the _Hatsuse_; and Russia, a million and eight thousand pounds by the sinking of the _Petropavlovsk_.]

[Footnote 51: Blane's _Dissertations on Medical Science_, vol. i., as before.]

[Footnote 52: It is certainly curious that a man of the world such as Rodney was should not have known French. Most people have heard the story--the truth of which is well established--of Rodney's detention in Paris, at the outset of the war, owing to his debts, and how the Duc de Biron advanced him the money which enabled Rodney to leave for England.]

[Footnote 53: It is rather difficult to reconcile these two statements by De Grasse, one to Dr. Blane and the other to Rodney.]

[Footnote 54: According to the _London Magazine_ for August 1782, King George, at an audience granted to De Grasse shortly after the French admiral's arrival in England, returned him the sword that De Grasse had surrendered to Rodney. 'This _etiquette_,' the _London Magazine_ proceeds, 'enabled the Count to appear at Court.' He spent the week he was in London, we are told, 'in paying visits to the great officers of State and some of the principal nobility of the kingdom, by whom he was entertained in a sumptuous and hospitable style. He likewise took a view of the Bank and other public edifices, and of Vauxhall and other places of amusement.... Every mark of respect was shown to him, even by the common people, in testimony of his valour.']

[Footnote 55: Practically everybody: four or five officers were called before the court at the close of the proceedings, and formally reprimanded for not having done all they might. De Vaudreuil came off with flying colours, and all documents containing reflections on him were ordered to be suppressed. The warmest commendation was bestowed on the captains who rallied with De Vaudreuil to the support of De Grasse.]

[Footnote 56: 'The most virulent expressions of disgust were hurled on his misfortune and his fame; epigrams circulated from mouth to mouth, and even the women carried ornaments called "a la De Grasse," having on one side a heart and on the other none.' (Sir E. Cust's _Annals of the Wars of the Eighteenth Century_, vol. iii. p. 329). Also General Mundy in his _Life of Lord Rodney_ (vol. ii. p. 290, note), says of De Grasse: 'On his return to France he was disgraced by his Court, and in the gardens of the Tuileries his life was nearly sacrificed to the fury of an exasperated mob.']

[Footnote 57: Wraxall's _Memoirs_, iii. p. 104. Several of the medals, in silver and bronze, struck to commemorate the great occasion are now in private collections. A lady's fan of the period, bearing a portrait of Rodney with emblematical devices in honour of the victory, was on view two or three years ago at a small exhibition of fans of the eighteenth century in Bond Street.]

[Footnote 58: Letter quoted in Mundy's _Life of Lord Rodney_, vol. ii. p. 309.]

[Footnote 59: Mr. Schetky, the artist, whose picture of Rodney's victory is reproduced in this book, relates in a note the following anecdote. 'It is in reference to this famous action (Rodney's victory) that the story is told of the old one-legged veteran, a patient in the Edinburgh Infirmary, who, being asked by Dr. John Barclay, "Where did you lose your leg, my man?" briefly replied, "At the 12th of April, your honour." The doctor, not immediately calling to mind that great day, inquired again, "_What_ 12th of April?" Jack looked him in the face with supreme contempt, and retorted indignantly, "What 12th of April? Who ever heard of any 12th of April but One."']