Chapter 2

STANZAS

On the capture of theFoudroyant, of 84 guns, by theMonmouth, of 64, Anno 1758.

As Louis sat in regal state,The monarch, insolently great,Accosts his crouching slaves,'Yon stubborn isle at last must bend,For now myFoudroyantI send,The terror of the waves.'When once he bursts in dreadful roar,And vomits death from shore to shore,My glory to maintain;Repenting Britons then will seeTheir folly to dispute with meThe empire of the main.'He spake, th' obedient sails were spread,And Neptune reared his awful head,To view the glorious sight;The Tritons and the Nereids came,And floated round the high-built frame,With wonder and delight.Then Neptune thus the Gods address'd:'The sight is noble, 'tis confess'd,The structure we admire;But yet this monst'rous pile shall meetWith one small ship from Britain's fleet,And strike to Britons' fire.'As from his lips the sentence flew,Behold his fav'rite sails in view,And signal made to chase;Swift as Camilla o'er the plain,TheMonmouthskimm'd along the main,Unrivall'd in the race.Close to her mighty foe she came,Resolv'd to sink or gain a nameWhich Envy might admire;Devouring guns tumultous sound,Destructive slaughter flam'd around,And seas appear'd on fire.When lo! th' heroic Gardiner fell,Whose worth the Muse attempts to tell,But finds her efforts vain;Some other bard must sing his praise,And bold as fancy's thoughts must raiseThe sadly mournful strain.Carkett, who well his place supply'd,The mangling bolts of death defy'd,Which furious round him rag'd;While Hammick[9]points his guns with care,Nor sends one faithless shot in air,But skilfully engag'd.Baron and Winzar's[10]conduct show'dTheir hearts with untam'd courage glow'd,And manly rage display'd;Whilst every seaman firmly stood,'Midst heaps of limbs and streams of bloodUndaunted, undismay'd.Austin[11]and Campbell next the MuseThro' fiery deluges pursues,Serenely calm and great;With their's the youthful Preston's[12]nameMust shine, enrolled in list of fame,Above the reach of fate.Hark! how Destruction's tempests blow,And drive to deep despair the foe,Who trembling fly asunder;TheFoudroyanther horror ceas'd,And whilst theMonmouth'sfire increas'd,Lost all her pow'r to thunder.Now, haughty Louis, cease to boast,The mightyFoudroyantis lost,And must be thine no more;No gasconade will now avail,Behold he trims the new-dress'd sail,To deck Britannia's shore.If e'er again his voice be heard,With British thunder-bolts prepar'd,And on thy coast appears;His dreadful tongue such sounds will send,As all the neighb'ring rocks shall rend,And shake all France with fears.

What is more interesting is that one of theFoudroyant'sofficers, while a prisoner of war on board and on the way to England, wrote a set of verses in honour of the captain of theMonmouth.They appeared in theGentleman's Magazinefor July 1758 in this form:—

Chatham,July 23.Mr. Urban—By inserting the following Elegy, which was written by a French officer, taken prisoner on board theFoudroyant, you will oblige many of your readers, and particularly your humble servant,P. Cochet.

Chatham,July 23.

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

P. Cochet.

ÉLÉGIE SUR LA MORT DU CAPT. GARDINER

Ce héros respectable a fini ses beaux jours,Il a trop peu vécu, ce sage capitaine,LeMonmouthpleure encore l'objet de son amourEt moi la cause de ma gêne.Aux combats il étoit un terrible ennemi,Son exemple animoit le c[oe]ur le plus timide,Au milieu des hazards le foible est affermi,Ayant un tel chef pour son guide.OMonmouth! quelle nuit, lorsque leFoudroyant,Par ses bouches d'arain menaçoit votre ruine,Vous tenez contre lui, vous êtes triomphant,La victoire pour vous s'incline,Conduit par ce héros, vos canons vomissoientLa foudre à gros bouillons, et la mort tout ensemble,Il inspiroit sa force à ceux qui combattoient,Ha! l'ennemi le sent et tremble.O! quel funeste coup, ce héros n'est donc plus?Le brave Gardiner tombe et finit sa vie,Mais il vit dans nos c[oe]urs, il vit par ses vertus,Est-ce le ciel qui nous l'envie?Quelle aimable douceur envers ses prisonniers,Sa tendresse pour eux égaloit son courage,Il ne ressembloit point aux inhumains guerriers,Qui ne respirent que carnage.

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

The 'little black ship'Monmouth(Captain Fanshawe's ship), to which the officers of the French flagshipLanguedocdrank at dinner on the night of the 6th of July 1779, was the next successor to Gardiner'sMonmouth, and it was thisMonmouthon board which, in the East Indies, Captain Alms, on the 12th of April 1782 (actually the same day on which Rodney was fighting his battle in the West Indies) made so heroic a stand. The CamperdownMonmouthcame next, and after her aMonmouththat was never commissioned at all. Finally we come to our modernMonmouthcruiser of the present hour.

The quondam FrenchFoudroyant, as a man-of-war of the Royal Navy, fought for England and did well. Her successor of the same name in the navy had strangely varied fortunes. She began her life as one of Nelson's flagships; and whenshe was worn out was sold to a German shipbreaker, by whom she was re-sold at an immense profit to Mr. G. Wheatly Cobb, of Caldicot Castle, Chepstow, in Monmouthshire curiously, who interested himself in the fate of theFoudroyant, and 'for Nelson's sake,' as he himself put it, spent £25,000 out of his own pocket in re-purchasing her and re-building and fitting her out to make the old veteran of the sea look, as far as possible, as she appeared in Nelson's time. A cruel fate, however, cut short the nobly conceived project. Our secondFoudroyantended her days off Blackpool, of all places in the world, where, in the summer of 1897, in the hundredth year of her existence, she was wrecked in a gale.

'SUCCESS TO THEFORMIDABLE!' November 17, 1898

FOOTNOTES:[1]Pepys'sDiary, June 30, 1667.—'Several complaints, I hear, of theMonmouth'scoming away too soon from the chaine, where she was placed with the two guardships to secure it.'[2]Spanish neutrality was a by-word at this period. England and Spain were not at war yet, but the family relationship between the Bourbons of Versailles and the Escurial caused the latter Power to put the loosest construction on their obligations.[3]Summary of evidence at the court-martial on Admiral Byng, quoted in Entick'sNew Naval History(published shortly after Byng's trial), p. 872:—Tuesday 11 [Jan. 1757]. Captain Gardiner of theRamilliesunder Examination and Cross-Examination all Day. He ... said that he advised the Admiral to bear down, that the Admiral objected thereto, lest an Accident of a similar Nature with that of Admiral Mathews should be the Consequence.Wednesday 12. Captain Gardiner was again examined and made it appear that the Admiral took the whole Command of the Ship from him, and no thing done that day but what he ordered.Byng's words as to bearing down were these: 'You see, Captain Gardiner, that the signal for the line is out and that I am ahead of the shipsLouisaandTrident' (which two ships, according to the order of battle, should have been ahead of the admiral). 'You would not have me, as the admiral of the fleet, run down as if I were going to engage a single ship. It was Mr. Mathews' misfortune to be prejudiced by not carrying down his force together, which I shall endeavour to avoid.' One of Byng's ships, ahead of the flagship, had broken down. He would not pass her and go at the enemy, but stopped to re-form and 'dress' his line, during which time the enemy severely mauled Byng's leading ships. The French then drew out of range, and Byng, without further fighting, retired to Gibraltar. At the trial Gardiner was asked what he himself considered being 'properly engaged.' 'What I call properly engaged,' was the answer, 'is, within musket shot.' SeeMinutes of the Court-Martial, etc., published by Order, 1757 (folio).[4]Log of theRevenge, Captain Storr. Admiralty documents, Captains' logs, at the Public Record Office.[5]Admiralty documents, Captains' logs,Monmouth, at the Public Record Office.[6]Captains' logs,Monmouth, at the Public Record Office (Admiralty documents).[7]Poems, chiefly Religious: Rev. H.F. Lyte, 1833.[8]The 'Monmouth' inn, to which the signboard belonged (now known as the 'Monmouth' hotel) was actually so named in 1758 in honour of Gardiner'sMonmouth.[9]Stephen Hammick, Second Lieutenant of theMonmouth, in command on the lower deck.[10]David Winzar, Fourth Lieutenant of theMonmouth.[11]Captain of Marines.[12]Lieutenant of Marines.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]Pepys'sDiary, June 30, 1667.—'Several complaints, I hear, of theMonmouth'scoming away too soon from the chaine, where she was placed with the two guardships to secure it.'

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

[3]Summary of evidence at the court-martial on Admiral Byng, quoted in Entick'sNew Naval History(published shortly after Byng's trial), p. 872:—Tuesday 11 [Jan. 1757]. Captain Gardiner of theRamilliesunder Examination and Cross-Examination all Day. He ... said that he advised the Admiral to bear down, that the Admiral objected thereto, lest an Accident of a similar Nature with that of Admiral Mathews should be the Consequence.Wednesday 12. Captain Gardiner was again examined and made it appear that the Admiral took the whole Command of the Ship from him, and no thing done that day but what he ordered.Byng's words as to bearing down were these: 'You see, Captain Gardiner, that the signal for the line is out and that I am ahead of the shipsLouisaandTrident' (which two ships, according to the order of battle, should have been ahead of the admiral). 'You would not have me, as the admiral of the fleet, run down as if I were going to engage a single ship. It was Mr. Mathews' misfortune to be prejudiced by not carrying down his force together, which I shall endeavour to avoid.' One of Byng's ships, ahead of the flagship, had broken down. He would not pass her and go at the enemy, but stopped to re-form and 'dress' his line, during which time the enemy severely mauled Byng's leading ships. The French then drew out of range, and Byng, without further fighting, retired to Gibraltar. At the trial Gardiner was asked what he himself considered being 'properly engaged.' 'What I call properly engaged,' was the answer, 'is, within musket shot.' SeeMinutes of the Court-Martial, etc., published by Order, 1757 (folio).

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

Tuesday 11 [Jan. 1757]. Captain Gardiner of theRamilliesunder Examination and Cross-Examination all Day. He ... said that he advised the Admiral to bear down, that the Admiral objected thereto, lest an Accident of a similar Nature with that of Admiral Mathews should be the Consequence.Wednesday 12. Captain Gardiner was again examined and made it appear that the Admiral took the whole Command of the Ship from him, and no thing done that day but what he ordered.

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

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

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

[5]Admiralty documents, Captains' logs,Monmouth, at the Public Record Office.

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

[7]Poems, chiefly Religious: Rev. H.F. Lyte, 1833.

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

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

[10]David Winzar, Fourth Lieutenant of theMonmouth.

[11]Captain of Marines.

[12]Lieutenant of Marines.

RODNEY'S SHIP ON RODNEY'S DAY

THEFORMIDABLETHAT BROKE THE LINE

Brave Rodney made the French to rueThe Twelfth of April 'Eighty two.Old Song.

The West Indies is the Station for honour.Nelson.

'Whocan feel any pride in a mere blustering adjective? We do seriously believe that the Admiralty would add something to the popularisation of the navy by a reform of the naming system. It is proper enough to christen new ships after famous old vessels of the past, and the 'Admirals' also are very proper and pleasant, but why this mania for adjectives and such futilities?'

So a London newspaper commented on the selection of the nameFormidablefor the great first-class battleship that to-day bears that name proudly lettered at her stern. Well, we shall see what we shall see. When all is said and done, itmay appear, perhaps, that some of us are not so unreasonable after all in taking pride in seeing this 'blustering adjective' inscribed as a man-of-war name on the roll of our modern British fleet. Handsome is, every nursery knows, that handsome does. It is more than highly probable that should the day for 'the real thing,' as Mr. Kipling calls it, come in our presentFormidable'stime, those to whose lot it may fall to face theFormidablefrom the enemy's side will think that, in regard to this particular ship at least, there is something in a name.

This is the sort of vessel that our twentieth-century battleship theFormidableis, glancing at some of her points—the details on which she relies to make good the intention of her name. Hard hitting is theFormidable'sbusiness in life, so to speak, herraison d'être; her forte, the dealing of knock-down blows. To that end she carries the most powerful guns in existence: 50-ton breech-loaders, a foot in diameter in the bore; capable of hurling gigantic shells each between three and four feet long and weighing 850 lbs., or 7½ cwts., with a bursting charge of three-quarters of a hundredweight of powder or lyddite, through three feet of iron at a mile and a half off, or all the way across from Shakespeare's Cliff at Dover on to the sand dunes round Calais. Each firing charge of cordite weighs by itself nearly 2 cwts.—the weight of a sack of coal as delivered at a house-holder's door from a tradesman's cart,—and each gun by itself takes a year to construct. TheFormidable'sguns could silence the old 'Woolwich Infants' and the mighty 80-ton guns that the famousInflexiblecarried, from a range miles beyond the farthest that the older guns could reach. Yet these less than twenty years ago were reckoned a wonder of the world.

A finger's pressure, nothing more,The ponderous cannon's thund'ring roar,A passing cloud of smoke, and lo!The waves engulf the haughty foe!

wrote a versifier once about what the guns of theInflexiblecould do. With less than half the weight, they are considerably more powerful weapons than the 110-ton monsters of theBenbowandSans Pareiland the ill-fatedVictoria, one of which was tested at Shoeburyness against a specially-built-up target of enormous proportions, and sent its shot, as easily as one can push one's finger into a lump of putty, clean through 20 inches of steel-faced compound armour, 8 inches of cast iron, 20 feet of oak, 5 feet of granite, 11 feet of concrete, and lastly 6 feet of brick—to a depth of 44 feet 4 inches altogether. As to the actual size of the guns, of the ship's heavier pieces: each is 41 feet long—13 yards and 2 feet from muzzle to breech. Pace this out on agravel garden-walk, and imagine the length covered by a gigantic steel tube, three-quarters of a yard across at one end and swelling gradually to over 5 feet thick at the other—that may give some idea of the bulk of aFormidablegun. Such a piece of ordnance would have suited the mood of old Marshal Soult when he refused to fight a duel on the score of his dignity. 'A marshal of France,' growled the old gentleman at his challenger's seconds on their calling to offer him the choice of weapons, 'a marshal of France only fights with cannon!'

Four of these weapons form theFormidable's'main armament.' They are mounted, two on the quarter-deck and two on the forecastle, each pair in a circular barbette 37½ feet in diameter, walled round with 12-inch thick Harveyed steel of immense resisting capacity, and weighing upwards of 315 tons. They can load at any angle of elevation or of training, and the ammunition-supply mechanism ensures the guns being loaded as fast as they can fire.Bis dat qui cito dat, 'who gives quickly gives twice,' is the maxim of the modern navy gunner. As far as her 12-inch guns are concerned, theFormidablecould let the enemy have two 850-lb. lyddite shells from each gun every eighty seconds. The ship's magazines and shell-rooms stow eighty rounds for each gun. Fired at the same time, the four guns exert a combined force enough to lift the whole ship up bodily ten feet.

'UT VENIANT OMNES!'—THE BIG 50-TON GUNS OF THEFORMIDABLE

To support the 'main armament' and provide for all comers, down to hostile torpedo boats, there are on board theFormidable, as 'secondary armament,' twelve 6-inch Vickers guns of the latest pattern (mounted six a side), sixteen 12-pounders and six 3-pounders (mounted in the fighting-tops—three in each top), with Maxims and light boat and field guns. In battle, fighting an enemy end-on, this embodiment of a 'blustering adjective' would, within the first five minutes, have sent at the enemy upwards of 7 tons of bursting shells; fighting broadside-on, over 16 tons.

TheFormidableis no less efficiently fitted for standing up to the enemy and taking her share of hard knocks. On her sides amidships, shielding from injury the engines and boilers, the 'vitals' of the ship as they are called, a wide belt of Harveyed steel armour extends. It is 9 inches thick, and 217 feet long by 15 feet deep, and is built up of some seventy odd plates or slabs of solid steel fitted together, each one of just the surface area of a billiard-table with an extra yard added to its length, and weighing each upwards of 12 tons. Each plate separately takes from a fortnight to three weeks to make. Where the 9-inch armour leaves off, towards the ends of the ship, a thinner steel belt, 3 inches thick, with anarmoured deck, also of 3-inch steel, carries forward the protection. At the bows it joins on to the ship's enormous ram—a ponderous forging of 35 tons of steel.

Such, roughly indicated, are some of the main features in regard to offence and defence of this Titanic 'bruiser of the sea,' His Majesty's battleship theFormidable. Below, the ship has twenty Belleville boilers, capable of raising steam at a pressure of 300 lbs. to the square inch; engines of 15,000 horse-power, capable of driving the ship's immense hull, a length of 430 feet over all from stem to rudder, through the water, full speed ahead, at 18 knots an hour (nearly twenty land miles), each of the great 17-foot twin-screws thrashing round at the rate of 108 revolutions a minute. She can stow coal enough to carry her without re-coaling, at an average cruising speed of 10 knots, from Spithead to Buenos Ayres or through the Suez Canal as far as the Bay of Bengal.

A million sterling of the nation's money, with a trifle of forty odd thousand pounds added, is what theFormidablerepresents—£1,040,000 literally cast on the waters. Of that sum the guns by themselves cost £74,500—more, in fact, than it cost to build and rig and fit theVictoryfor sea. And her upkeep in commission—interest on first cost, wear and tear, crew, victualling, coal, stores,and ordnance stores—costs £163,000 a year. In action every shot from theFormidable'sbig guns would cost £80—a sum equivalent to the annual pay of two midshipmenplusa naval cadet.

These features of theFormidableare enough to show that in the case of this particular modern battleship, at any rate, the name is not misapplied, not unsuitable, nor without justification: that it is something more than a 'futility,' something more than a 'merely blustering adjective.' We may trust the honour of the flag to theFormidable'skeeping, assured that should the hour of trial come in her time she has the means of taking her own part with power and advantage. Grant her, when that time comes, 'good sea-room and a willing enemy,' as the war toast of the Old Navy used to go, and the British Empire may rest assured that, as far as this particular ship is concerned,

... in the battle's dance of death,She'll dance the strongest down.

There is, though, another justification, and of the amplest kind, for the presence on the roll of the British fleet of the nameFormidable. This 'merely blustering adjective' has a meaning there that is all its own—araison d'êtrenot only for the Royal Navy but for all the world in that connection that issui generis. The British fleetdoes not owe the name to any whim or fancy of a modern Admiralty First Lord.Vixere fortes ante Agamemnon—there have been famousFormidablesbefore the present ship.Formidable, indeed, is one of our best 'trophy names'—a name that came into the British service as spoil of war, won from the enemy in very exceptional circumstances. It stands in a special sense as a memento of one of the most brilliant exploits in our annals—of that tremendous November afternoon battle of 1759, fought in a wild Atlantic storm amid the reefs of Quiberon Bay, on that historic occasion, so happily described in Mr. Henry Newbolt's stirring verse,[13]'when Hawke came swooping from the west.'

'Twas long past noon of a wild November dayWhen Hawke came swooping from the west;He heard the breakers thundering in Quiberon Bay,But he flew the flag for battle, line abreast.Down upon the quicksands roaring out of sightFiercely beat the storm-wind, darkly fell the night,But they took the foe for pilot and the cannon's glare for lightWhen Hawke came swooping from the west.

One result of Hawke's swoop was, of course, the stopping of all French invasion schemes for the rest of the Seven Years' War. Henceforward there was no need to watch the southward beaconsnight after night; no need of more shore batteries at Brighton and elsewhere along the Sussex coast; no further need to cover the South of England with standing camps for Pitt's new militiamen to learn their drill in; no more need to shock the good ladies of Hampshire with the sight of bare-legged Highlanders marching to and fro.

The guns that should have conquered us, they rusted on the shore,The men that would have mastered us, they drummed and marched no more;For England was England, and a mighty brood she boreWhen Hawke came swooping from the west.

The other result of Hawke's swoop was theFormidable—the French flagshipFormidable—the sole trophy that the stormy weather allowed Hawke to bring off from the fight. The Royal Navy took over the fine prize, a magnificent two-decker of eighty guns, enrolled her name as it stood on the list of the British fleet, and in due course handed the name on from one successor to another, until we come in the end to our own fine steel-clad battleship, theFormidablethat to-day graces

The proud Armado of King Edward's ships,

in the words of poor Kit Marlowe's 'mighty'—and prophetic—line.[14]

Then we have another justification, the most notable of all. TheFormidable'sname has acquired a new significance since the days of Hawke. To-day it has to the Royal Navy a more recent meaning. It stands on the roll of the fleet as the special memorial of another achievement, as a memento of another admiral's 'stricken field,' in special honour of Rodney's most famous feat of arms, of the great victory that has given Rodney his place in the history of the British Empire. On that day aFormidablewas Rodney's flagship; the second ship of the name, the immediate successor of Hawke's great prize, our first British-built man-of-warFormidable.[15]'If ever,' wrote Froude, 'the naval exploits of this country are done into an epic poem—and since theIliadthere has been no subject better fitted for such treatment or better deserving it—the West Indies will be the scene of the most brilliant cantos.' In at least one of those cantos Rodney'sFormidablewould be a central figure.

We now come directly to the place, time, and circumstances of the event, taking up the tale a little before the fighting actually opens.

RODNEY'SFORMIDABLEON THE DAY BEFORE HER LAUNCH

[Note, to the right of the ship, the canvas 'booths' or stands for the Commissioner of Chatham Dockyard and officers and guests of distinction. The launching flagstaffs on board were usually set up on the day before a launch, to fly the Jack at the bows, the Admiralty flag, Royal Standard, and Union flag where the three masts would be; and the 'St. George's ensign' (White Ensign) on the ensign staff.]

It begins, first of all, in Gros Islet Bay, St. Lucia, a locality that one wants a fairly large mapto find. The name is hardly a familiar one, yet it has a place of its own, of special interest in our naval annals. Gros Islet Bay was Rodney's headquarters in the West Indies during March 1782 and the first week of April, at the time that theFormidablewas Rodney's flagship. Rodney was in Gros Islet Bay with his fleet of 36 sail of the line, and the French admiral De Grasse, at the head of 34 of the line, was facing him in Fort Royal Bay, Martinique, distant some thirty miles—about as far off as Boulogne is from Folkestone. So the lists were set.

RODNEY'S SWORD

Rodney had come out from England specially to save the British West Indies from De Grasse. And even more than the fate of the 'sugar islands' depended on his efforts. 'The fate of this Empire,' were the last words of the First Lord of the Admiralty (Lord Sandwich) to Rodney before he sailed, 'the fate of this Empire is in your hands!' He forced his way across the ocean in mid-winter, battling through a series of fierce storms that day after day threatened to tear the masts out of his ship. 'Ushant,' wrote Rodney to his wife, 'we have weathered ina storm but two leagues, the sea mountains high, which made a fair breach over theFormidableand theNamur, but it was necessary for the public service that every risk should be run. Persist and conquer is a maxim that I hold good in war, even against the elements, and it has answered.' It did answer. Rodney arrived to find that there were still four islands left to Great Britain. All our West Indian possessions had fallen except Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua, and St. Lucia. St. Kitts, Nevis, Montserrat, and Demerara had been taken, actually, while Rodney was on his way out. De Grasse when Rodney arrived was refitting for a yet more audacious project at Fort Royal, Martinique, the Portsmouth of the French navy in the West Indies; and to be on the spot to intercept him and bring him to decisive battle at the first chance, Rodney anchored his fleet in the nearest available harbour, within touch and almost within sight of the French fleet, in the roadstead of Gros Islet Bay, St. Lucia.

Both fleets during March and the first week of April were hard at work refitting. Twelve of Rodney's ships had come out from England with him and wanted little; the others of the thirty-six, however, belonged to the fleet originally on the station, and after the trying time of it they had had during the past six months, including two sharp fights with the French, were badly in need of arefit. De Grasse's fleet was in like case. The arrival of convoys from home, however, with war stores and supplies of all kinds for both fleets, towards the end of March, made it all but certain that the month of April would not go by without a battle in the open sea.

Those days in Gros Islet Bay proved to Rodney of vital importance. Secret intelligence came to hand which disclosed to him the enemy's entire plan of campaign. A gigantic and startling project was on foot. An elaborate and wide-reaching combination had been designed in which a Franco-Spanish army and a Franco-Spanish fleet were both to take part, the operations being projected on a scale far beyond anything hitherto attempted in the war on either side. It aimed at nothing less than the sweeping of the British flag out of the West Indies by one tremendous and overmasteringcoup.

De Grasse's fleet was to be the chief factor in the situation, the mainspring of the movement. The preliminary dispositions had already been made. Thirteen Spanish ships of the line were at that moment waiting off Cape Haitien in San Domingo, accompanied by transports with 24,000 troops on board. They were expecting to be joined by a force of 10,000 French soldiers from Brest, escorted by five or six men-of-war which were already overdue. According to the grand plan, De Grasse with his fleet, thirty-four ofthe line, with store-ships and the convoy that had arrived in March, was to move out from Fort Royal, with some five or six thousand more troops on board the men-of-war, and cross over and join hands with the assemblage off San Domingo. The united armada, making up some sixty ships of the line, against which Rodney's thirty-six and the handful of ships at Port Royal could not hope to stand, were then to swoop down on Jamaica and capture it out of hand. There were only 3500 British regulars in Jamaica, and the planter militia and armed negroes were of little account. Jamaica taken, said the enemy, Barbados would fall at the first summons, and Antigua and St. Lucia would follow, making an end of the British West Indies. So confident were the enemy of success that, as it was reported, Don Bernardo Galvez, the Spanish Commander-in-Chief, had already been publicly addressed at Havana as 'Governor of Jamaica,' which island, according to the secret arrangement between the allies (already drafted), was to be Spain's share of the spoil.

Rodney's fleet—theFormidableand her thirty-five consorts off St. Lucia—were all that stood between the scheme and its fulfilment. Realising to the utmost what depended on him, Rodney pressed on his preparations for sea with intensified vigour, so as to be ready to fall on De Grasse immediately he left Fort Royal.

[Facsimile of the signature to despatch announcing the victory over De Grasse.]

During March and the early part of April—except for ten days lost in a futile attempt to cut off De Grasse's convoy from France on its way to Fort Royal—Rodney was busy refitting: a task that taxed all his energies owing to the state to which some of the ships had been reduced, short of powder, shot, sea stores of all kinds, bread, even anchors. All the fleet, too, had to be watered, which proved a slow and difficult business owing to the bad weather. 'I think,' wrote Rodney in March, 'the winter season has followed us: nothing but violent hard gales, and such a sea that half the boats of the fleet have been stove in watering, which has delayed us much in refitting.'

Incidentally the admiral had other matters to attend to. One—it will be interesting to make a small point of it here—was to correspond personally with his opponent. The subject was the interchange of prisoners taken at St. Kitts and earlier in the campaign. The British sloop-of-warAlertwas the intermediary, going and coming under a flag of truce. Nothing could exceed the courteous tone of Rodney's correspondence with the French admiral; and, on the other hand, De Grasse was civility itself. He treated Captain Vashon of theAlert, while that officer was at Fort Royal, with every consideration, made him his guest for the time, and expressed in conversation with the British captain the highest esteem and consideration for 'le Chevalier Rodney.'

Rodney wrote to De Grasse, for instance, in one letter, after dealing in the pleasantest way with the business in hand:—

It will make me happy if at any time this island produces anything worthy your acceptance, or that may be the least useful to your table. As the merchant ships which have lately arrived from Europe may have brought different species of necessaries that may be agreeable to your Excellency, it will make me happy, Sir, to obey your commands.

The bearing of the two admirals to one another in their personal dealings affords a pleasing instance of the high-bred, chivalrous courtesy that was so characteristic of the old-time fighting days. It was the way with the men of theancien régimeon both sides the Channel when they met in war never to forget that, first and foremost, they were gentlemen. In this spirit, almost at that very moment, indeed, De Crillon at Gibraltar was exchanging similar compliments with the 'old Cock of the Rock,' General Eliott—'Eliott the Brave': the same spirit that at Fontenoy, as all the world knows, moved one side to challenge the other to fire first. It was the same chivalrous spirit that prompted the captains of the British fleet in the East Indies to pay their unique compliment to the great De Suffren at the close of this war. Hostilities were over, peace had been proclaimed, and the rival fleets, so lately enemies,met, both on their way home, in Table Bay. They had fought five fierce battles within sixteen months—each one a drawn action, with honours divided. On finding the Bailli de Suffren and his fleet in Table Bay when they arrived, the British captains, brave old Commodore King, the senior officer, at their head, proceeded in a body to call on the gallant leader of their quondam foes, and pay the homage of brave men to the brilliant tactician they had more than once been hard put to it to keep at bay. Their generous tribute delighted the warm-hearted Provençal immensely, as he described, by the spontaneity and peculiar graciousness of the act. The intercourse between Rodney and De Grasse was in essentials of the same kind: the outcome of two warriors' sense ofnoblesse obligethe one to the other; the obligation, as a point of honour, on both sides—

To set the cause above renown,To love the game beyond the prize,To honour while you strike him downThe foe that comes with fearless eyes.To count the life of battle good,And dear the land that gave you birth,And dearer yet the brotherhoodThat binds the brave of all the earth.[16]

It was, as it were, the swordsmen's obligatory recognition of each other in 'the Salute' whenthey first come face to face, ere the sword-blades cross and clash in fight; one of the courtesies of war between destined opponents, wishing one another well until the striking of the appointed hour—

Health and high fortune till we meet,And then—what pleases Heaven!

'Always be polite,' said Bismarck once to Moritz Busch; 'be polite to the foot of the scaffold, but hang your man nevertheless!' Nothing could be nicer than Rodney's attentions, but he was in deadly earnest all the same—he meant, at the proper time, 'to hang his man nevertheless!'

THE PITONS OF ST. LUCIA

Another incidental detail. It was while Rodney's fleet off Gros Islet Bay was getting ready for sea that, according to local tradition, the grim little real-life tragedy of the Pitons took place. The Pitons or 'Sugar Loaves,' as, from their general shape, they are to this day commonly called by seafaring men, are two gigantic cones of rock, of volcanic origin, that thrust themselves up out of the sea off the south-westernmost end of St. Lucia, rising abruptly, almost sheer from the water's edge. The larger of the two, the Grand Piton, towers up to a height of some 2720 feet, or nearly seven times the height of St. Paul's Cathedral; the smaller has an elevation some 300 feet less. A number of sailors, the story goes, either stragglers from a watering-party or, possibly, men from theRussell, a seventy-four,then undergoing repairs in thecarénage, managed to get on to the Grand Piton, clambering up on to its lower slopes 'by means of lianes and scrub.' Their intention was to try and scale the huge mass and plant a Jack flag they had brought with them on the boulders at the summit. The Grand Piton is covered almost to the top with dense bush, but there are bare patches and open areas of rock surface and ledges here and there. How many landed or started to climb is not stated, but, according to the story told at St. Lucia to this day, lookers-on with telescopes made out four men, including one man with the flag, more than half-way up. Immediately afterwards one of the party was seen to stagger and fall, and then roll down a little way and disappear. The others went on until some two or three hundred feet higher up, when a second man dropped. The two survivors went on steadily higher still, and then suddenly one of the two was seen to go down. His companion apparently took no notice. He pressed on with his flag, intent only on getting to the top. He nearly succeeded. The last man seemed to have almost reached the summit when he, like his messmates, was seen to stop, stagger, throw up his arms, and drop. So the local people tell visitors to St. Lucia to this day. What was it? What made the men fall dead so suddenly? How they met their death no man ever knew.Few human feet besides theirs, if indeed any, have ever tried to scale the Pitons, and the bones of Rodney's sailors lie up there on the windy height as they fell—what the weather and a hundred and twenty years' exposure in the open has left of them. Was it sunstroke? Local opinion attributes their fate to another cause. The Pitons, like the whole island of St. Lucia itself, are known to swarm with venomous serpents, the deadlyfer de lance—'perhaps the deadliest snake in the world' it has been called—an ugly monster, in average length from 3 to 5 feet, as thick as a boy's wrist, of a dull red or reddish-yellow colour, fiercely aggressive in its ways, ever ready to strike at sight, and its bite practically instant death.Craspedocephalus—the name in itself is almost enough to kill—would account for everything. Whatever the cause really was, at any rate the Grand Piton has ever since kept its secret to itself.

At Fort Royal, meanwhile, everybody, from the great French Admiral De Grasse himself down to the smallestmousse, was in the highest spirits and assured of victory. To one and all the hour was at hand for the development of the grand scheme that was to lay all the West Indies at the feet of France. Hardly a finer fleet, perhaps, had ever assembled under a French admiral than that lying there at that moment in attendance on the orders of De Grasse. Therewere thirty-four ships of the line, the finest men-of-war in the French navy among them, and their captains were some of the smartest and most dashing and most highly trained officers that ever trod a French quarter-deck. A specially interesting set they were, as it happened, in many ways.

THE COUNT DE GRASSE

De Grasse himself was a man of reputation, a talented and highly trained officer, able to map out the strategy of a campaign in advance with any man of his time, as his admirably planned and executed Chesapeake campaign had just proved toall the world. He was just fifty-nine—five years younger than Rodney. Both men had followed the sea for half-a-century, the young De Grasse taking service under the Order of Malta, in which seven-and-twenty of his ancestors had been enrolled before him, just about the time that the schoolboy Rodney was leaving Harrow to enter the Royal Navy as the last of the 'King's Letter Boys.' Since then De Grasse, as an officer of the French navy in the regular line, had served all over the world, and done well for his country and himself. He had fought against England in three wars and been taken prisoner once. In the present war, indeed, he had already taken part in six fleet actions, and in three of them aschef d'escadreand third in command had had opportunity of learning something of Rodney's methods on the day of battle. Such was Joseph Paul de Grasse-Briançon, Knight of Malta, Grand Cross of the Order of St. Louis, Chevalier of the Order of Cincinnatus, Count de Grasse and Marquis de Grasse-Tilly, thirty-fifth of his line, of thenoblesseof Provence, overlord of forty fiefs, the man in whose hands rested the fate of the campaign now about to open. 'Fresh from the victorious thunder of the American cannon' as he was, not a man under his orders doubted his ability to achieve success in the grand project that had been committed to his hands.

The Marquis de Vaudreuil was De Grasse's second in command. There was no better gentleman, from all accounts—never a nobler specimen of a French naval officer of the old school than Louis Philippe de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil. He looks it in his portrait at Versailles—abeau sabreurof the sea,rusé, ready-witted in emergency, a 'first-class fighting man' in all respects. The son of a sailor, the grandson of a sailor, the great-grandson of a sailor, he belonged to a family that had sent its sons to serve 'on the ships of the King' ever since France had had a navy. 'Il a de l'eau de mer autour du c[oe]ur' is an old Breton saying that applied in the case of the scions of the Norman house of De Vaudreuil. He was a year younger than De Grasse, and like his chief had once had to go through the bitter experience of having to raise his hat on the quarter-deck of a foeman's ship as he gave up his sword to a foreigner in token of surrender.[17]Like De Grasse also, De Vaudreuil had taken part in six fleet battles since the war began. He was there by his own choice. There was not a man in the fleet who had not heard how, only a little time before, De Vaudreuil had refused the King's personal offer of a lucrative colonial governorship—De Vaudreuilwas a poor man—rather than be absent from what to him was the post of duty. 'I am a sailor, your Majesty,' was the fine reply, 'and in war-time a sailor's place is on the sea.'[18]No officer in the whole French navy was more personally popular than was this courtly son of old-time France—'noble de sang, d'armes, et de nom.'

The circumnavigator Bougainville,chef d'escadre, was third in command, and about to add another experience to the many he had gone through in his crowded life. Professor of mathematics, barrister, author, major of militia, diplomatist, colonel of light dragoons, A.D.C. at Quebec and on the Rhine, circumnavigator, flag-captain—there were few things within his reach that Louis Antoine de Bougainville, the clever son of a country lawyer, had not tried his hand at in his time.[19]

Of the other officers, a third almost of theAnnuaire de la Noblesse, the Debrett of Versailles, was represented at Fort Royal. Among the senior officers alone there were four Marquises, two Viscounts, five Counts, six Chevaliers, two Barons, nineteen 'de's,' only two plain Messieurs. There was a second De Vaudreuil, the Vicomte's younger brother, the Comte de Vaudreuil, a man of another kind—a smart, hard-fighting officer, but better known for his feats of gallantry than for his feats of arms, in particular as the favoured first lover of that haughty young beauty Gabrielle Yolande de Polignac, daintiest of Court ladies of the hour, 'avec le visage d'un ange et'—perhaps it will be kinder to say no more. The Comte de Vaugiraud was Captain of the Fleet. Baron d'Escars, of the house of Fitz-James, notorious for his fanatical hatred of Great Britain, was captain of theGlorieux. The Sieur de la Clochetterie, an impetuous and brilliant officer—whose name as captain of theBelle Poulein her duel with the 'Saucy'Arethusaat the outset of the war, the French navy still remembers—commanded theHercule. Comte d'Albert de Rions, by reputation the ablest tactician in the French navy, after De Suffren, was the senior captain. A De la Charette commanded the blackBourgogne;[20]a De Castellan, theAuguste; De la Vicomté, theHector; and so on. There is, indeed,as one runs down the list of the French captains at Fort Royal, quite a ring of mediæval chivalry, of old-time romance, about their names. De Mortemart, De Monteclerc, De Saint Césaire, De Champmartin, De Castellane-Majastre, Le Gardeur de Tilly, to take half-a-dozen other names at random—one might almost be checking off one of Bayard'scompagnies d'élite, or calling over a muster-roll of the Lances of Du Guesclin. In the junior ranks were a De Tourville, the Vicomte de Betisy, two scions of the historic house of St. Simon, a Grimaldi, a Lascaris, a De Lauzun, a De Sevigné, a MacMahon, a Talleyrand, a De Ségur, a De Rochefoucauld, a Montesquieu. Brueys d'Aigalliers, of a noble family of Languedoc, who later on took service under the Revolution, and perished fighting Nelson at the Nile, was one of the lieutenants. La Pérouse, the explorer, was acapitaine de frégate. Bruix and Denis Decrès, Napoleon's Ministers of Marine in later days, were two of the midshipmen. Magon, who fell a rear-admiral at Trafalgar, was anenseigne de vaisseau. L'Hermitte, Troude, Willaumez, Emeriau, Bourayne, others of Napoleon's admirals, were among the boyvolontiers d'honneur(naval cadets) in various ships of the Fort Royal fleet. De Grasse's personal staff comprised the Vicomtede Grasse, the admiral's nephew, the Comte de Cibon, and the Marquis de Beaulieu.

It was a glittering and gallant crowd that walked the quarter-deck with all the gayabandonof their race those balmy, fragrant West Indian evenings of April 1782, while the band played 'Vive Henri Quatre!' and 'Charmante Gabrielle,' high spirited, and heedless of the coming days. What were they not going to do, 'pour en finir avec ces Anglais—bêtes!' Jamaica first,cela s'entend! Then the sack of Barbados,—the spoil of the goldsmiths and silversmiths of Bridgetown and the mansions of the planters, whose sideboards, groaning under the weight of gold and silver plate, 'astonished and stirred the envy of every passing visitor,' as travellers had told ever since the time of old Père Labat, 'gold and silver plate so abundant that the plunder of it would pay the cost of an expedition for the reduction of the island!'Vive la France! Vive la Gloire!Light-hearted and gay, how many of them gave a thought to something else? What of those who would not live to see the coming battle through? How many of them all would kneel next Sunday three weeks to receive theaumônier'sblessing at early mass? Ah well!—what mattered it!—Fortune de guerre!Perhaps so. Perhaps, indeed, better so—at any rate, for some of them. Those who were to fall in the coming fight were to beenvied, rather, in their ending. It was better, surely, to go down there and then, to be dropped overboard in the clear, deep water alongside, eight hundred and fifty fathoms down, to sleep the last sleep beneath the lapping wavelets of the blue Caribbean, dead on the field of honour, than to survive for what was yet to come for France, to experience the fate that was to befall so many a gallant French officer who outlived the cannon thunders of Rodney's day. To be laid to rest there in those soft summer seas was at least a better fortune than to have to undergo the cruel doom that a few years later overtook so many of their messmates who outlasted the fight. Better be smashed in two by an English cannon-ball on the quarter-deck, than perish hideously in the dungeons of Draguignan, or go in the tumbrils to a death of ignominy and cold-blooded horror, clattering over the cobble-stones to the Place de Grève, while all round the mob of Paris howled and danced and cursed—the hapless lot of so many a gallant naval officer among the rest of the gentlemen of old-time France,

... those gallant fellows who died by guillotine,For honour and the fleur-de-lis and Antoinette the Queen.

It was better too, surely, than what befell so many others of those who escaped the Terror; better than to have to drag out year after yeara pitiful existence as anémigréin London, in squalid lodgings in Somers Town, driven, poor fellows, to earn a wretched and precarious livelihood by teaching French for a few pence a lesson, or as dancing-masters, and then after it all be put away in a cheap grave in the grimy soil of St. Pancras old churchyard. It was better than that.Vive la Gloire! Vixerunt.Each one has had his day—

And somewhere, 'mid the distant stars,He knows, mayhap, what glory is.

CLOCK-FACE FROM THEVILLE DE PARIS

Now in the Museum of the Royal United Service Institution, Whitehall. The clock-face was set up at the break of the poop, above the quarter-deck. It was the duty of a sentry to move the hands on every hour.

The ships were worthy of the men. The pick of the French fleet was with De Grasse—one ship of a hundred and four guns, five of eighty-four, three eighties, nineteen seventy-fours, six sixty-fours—thirty-four sail of the line altogether, besides sixteen frigates. A fine show they made with their yellow sides, belted with black at the water-line, and darkblue bulwarks, with red ports, gilded figure-heads and balustraded galleries, and gleaming brass Gribeauval guns, the newest type of ordnance from the foundries of Indret and La Ruelle. The magnificentVille de Paris, 'leviathan of ships,' was De Grasse's flagship, the finest and largest first-rate in the world, the splendid present offered by the citizens of Paris to the King at the close of the Seven Years' War, as their contribution towards making good the losses that France had suffered in the war. Four and a half million livres she was said to have cost, nearly four times the price of the BritishRoyal Georgeor theVictory. Seven others of the fifteen powerful men-of-war that the provinces and corporations of France, following the example of the capital, then offered to the State, were at Fort Royal, on which no money nor pains had been spared to make them equal in efficiency to the finest ships afloat.

BELL OF THEVILLE DE PARISNow in the Museum of the Royal United Service Institution, Whitehall.

A small army of soldiers was at Fort Royal, as well as De Grasse's fleet. There were between five and six thousand troops there, waiting undercanvas for the order to embark on board the men-of-war. Bouillé commanded them,—the Marquis de Bouillé, the conqueror of St. Kitts and Nevis and Montserrat and Dominica and St. Eustatius, 'tiger-spring Bouillé,'[21]though better known to fame, perhaps, for his share in the events of a later day, as Commandant-General of Metz and the 'last refuge of royalty.' Varennes, however, was a name that De Bouillé, possibly, had as yet not heard of. Postmaster Drouet still rode in the ranks of the Condé dragoons. Some of the smartest corps in the French service were there: Regiment de Foix, dashing d'Armagnac, Artillerie de Metz, Regiments de Béarn, de Touraine, and de Monsieur, red-coated Irishmen of the Walsh and Dillon corps, half a battalion of Royal Contois, two battalions of Auxerrois, brought from York Town with De Grasse, after having witnessed the march out of the surrendered British army. One of the most striking of the great paintings on the walls of theGalerie des Bataillesat Versailles shows an aide-de-camp, a cocked-hatted, high-gaitered young dandy, garbed in Bourbon white with the mauve facings and silver lace of Auxerrois receiving orders from Washington just before the last attack. De Bouillé's division had already its place on paper as one of the wings of the 'Army of Jamaica.'

Now we turn to Gros Islet Bay and the British fleet. Rodney's ships lay at anchor to the south of Pigeon Island, off the north-west of St. Lucia, in the roadstead in front of Gros Islet Bay, about half-a-mile off shore, a stretch of deep water extending a mile and a half. The Gros Islet, from which the bay takes its name, was the old French name for Pigeon Island. There was also a village of the name on the shore opposite the island. Seven miles along the coast to the south was thecarénage, where ships could be hove down and repaired; now called Castries, and an important port and naval station, destined, with the opening of the Panama Canal, to become the Valetta of the West Indies. The watering place for the fleet was at Trou Gascon in the bay.

Rodney's thirty-six sail of the line in Gros Islet Bay were thus made up: five three-deckers (four of 98 guns,Formidable,Barfleur,Prince George, andDuke, and one of 90, theNamur), and thirty-one two-deckers (twenty of them 74's, one a 70-gun ship, and ten 64's). They were as a rule older and slower vessels than the French ships: nearly a third of them, in fact, had seen service in the Seven Years' War. In guns the British fleet mounted 2620 pieces all told, against 2526 on the French side, but the enemy's metal was considerably the heavier. Most of De Grasse's shipscarried 36-pounders (French weight, equivalent to 42-pounders by British reckoning), as against the 32-pounders that were Rodney's heaviest guns. According to the British Flag Captain, Sir Charles Douglas, the difference between the fleets in weight of metal worked out at 4396 lbs. (nearly two tons) in favour of the enemy. It made the French stronger, Douglas held, by 'the weight of metal of four 84's.' That was the difference on paper. In point of fact, certain details of equipment reversed the disparity. Most of Rodney's ships had their guns fitted with locks and priming-tubes, in place of the old port-fires and powder-horns which the French still used. Also, they had been supplied with certain devices for quickening the service of the guns, increasing their rate of fire, and giving them a wider arc of training on the broadside. All that gave Rodney a very real advantage in hard-hitting power, without counting the carronades[22]or 'smashers' that most of the British ships mounted as extra to their regulation armaments.

In all respects Rodney's fleet was in the very highest order, and its discipline and general smartness left little to be desired. Thanks to theenergy and skill of Dr. Blane, Rodney's Physician of the Fleet, no previous British fleet in time of war perhaps had ever been so free from sickness. In some ships there was not a man unfit to go to quarters. TheAjax, to name one ship, had no sick list. In theFormidable, out of 900 men on board, only two were unfit for duty. Before leaving Plymouth, Dr. Blane had had Teneriffe wine supplied to the flagship instead of rum, together with molasses and pickled cabbages, and the dietary had had a marvellous effect on the health of the men. For the first four months of the commission there was not a single death from sickness.[23]

As we glanced at De Grasse's captains, so we may glance at the gallant fellows in whose hands rested the fate of the British Empire. They were of another class than the captains of the enemy. There were no counts or viscounts with long pedigrees and high-sounding romantic names among Rodney's captains. Few of them were of 'the offspring of the sons and daughters of fashion,' though of course some were men of birth and breeding. Rodney himself, a baronet and K.B. (distinctions won on his own account), was a man of family. Sir Samuel Hood, also a self-made baronet, was a Somersetshire parson's son. Rear-Admiral Francis Samuel Drake, the third incommand, a descendant of the great Sir Francis of Elizabethan days, belonged to the ordinary country gentleman class—man for man, no doubt, as good as any nobleman of France, but as denizens of another world to a Lord Chamberlain or a master of the ceremonies. Among the captains, Lord Robert Manners, of theResolution, was the Marquis of Granby's second son; the Hon. William Cornwallis, of theCanada, was a younger son of Earl Cornwallis; Captain Reynolds, of theMonarch, was heir-presumptive to the Ducie peerage; Captain Lord Cranstoun, a volunteer on board theFormidable, was a baron of the Scottish peerage. These four, with Sir Charles Douglas, the Captain of the Fleet, another self-made baronet (for war service), and Sir James Wallace, a knight, constituted, with the admiral and Hood, the socialéliteof Rodney's fleet—a list that hardly comes into comparison with De Grasse's little Versailles. The bulk of the British captains were the sons of ordinary folk, sons of squires and country parsons, and old naval officers to some extent, drawn from all over the three kingdoms—the sort of men that had officered the Royal Navy for the past hundred years, the men to whom Great Britain to-day owes her place among the nations. That, indeed, is literally the case. Also, not a few of those who to-day serve His Majesty King Edward on the quarter-deck are linealrepresentatives of Rodney's officers who in that April week of the year 1782 were in Gros Islet Bay, watching hour by hour for theFormidableto hoist the sailing-flags. It is an interesting instance of hereditary inclination—of how the naval spirit runs in families. Two-thirds of Rodney's captains, practically, are represented at the present hour in the Royal Navy by direct descendants. One has only to turn over the pages of the current Navy List to find Hoods and Inglefields and Parrys, and Graveses and Gardners, Fanshawes and Dumaresqs, a Buckner, a Blur, a Burnett, a Balfour, a Savage, a Symons, a Charrington, an Inglis, a Wallace, a Byron, a Cornish, a Truscott, a Saumarez, Knights and Wilsons, and Williamses and Wilkinsons and Thomsons, besides others, who either trace their descent directly from Rodney's captains or come of the same stock.

All in Gros Islet Bay were burning with anxiety to meet the enemy, absolutely confident of the result. About that, from the highest to the lowest, there were no two opinions. 'Their fate,' wrote Rodney himself in a letter on the 4th of April, 'is only delayed a short time, for have it they must and shall.' That was the common sentiment with all. The fleet was prepared to sail at an hour's notice. All leave was stopped. Not an officer or man was allowed out of his ship except on duty. Rodney meant that the blow,when it fell, should come, in the language of the prize-ring, as a 'knock-out' blow. It should be, to use Rodney's own words, 'the great event that must restore the empire of the seas to Great Britain.'

De Grasse was closely watched from hour to hour. Every movement at Fort Royal was signalled to theFormidablepractically as it was made. A chain of Rodney's frigates reported everything that De Grasse did—a line of ships that stretched across the thirty miles of sea between Gros Islet Bay and the fleet in Fort Royal. To and fro they tacked day and night, patrolling ceaselessly, observing all that passed and sending word of it along the chain. Two line-of-battle ships, theMagnificentand the fast-sailingAgamemnon, stiffened the frigate line at the end nearest the enemy. Captain George Anson Byron, of theAndromache, was in command of the look-out squadron—'an active, brisk, and intelligent officer,' Rodney calls him, the second son of old John Byron, 'Foul Weather Jack.' A signal-station on Pigeon Island, set up near the edge of a steep cliff 340 feet high (nearly the height of Beachy Head), kept touch with the frigates and linked them with the battle fleet. From the look-out post the men on duty could see not only the nearer frigates of the chain, but also right across to the mountains of Martinique, and in clear weathercatch the white glint of the topgallant sails of the more distant vessels in front of Fort Royal, on the far horizon and hull down. The admiral himself, we are told, used to land on Pigeon Island nearly every day, and go up to the signal station, where, under an awning made from a sail, he would sit in an arm-chair with his telescope at his eye, scanning the frigate line. On the site of Rodney's signal-station there now stands a small fort, called 'Fort Rodney,' and visitors are shown what is said to be the actual slab of rock on which the admiral's chair was placed.

On the 3rd of April Captain Byron sent in the message that the enemy's preparations for sea appeared complete. On the 5th he signalled across that he could see the French soldiers being embarked on board the men-of-war. The fateful hour was on the point of striking. Then the news that Rodney wanted came. Just before eight on the morning of Sunday, the 8th of April, the signal was seen flying at the mast-head of the nearest of the frigates: 'THE ENEMY ARE COMING OUT OF PORT.'

The whole fleet was at sea, says Dr. Blane, 'in a little more than two hours.' In rapid succession theFormidablesignalled, first to recall all boats and watering parties on board their ships at once, then for the fleet to 'Prepare to sail.' Following on that, at nine o'clock, according to theFormidable'slog, the signal was made—'Prepare for battle!' Before half-past ten all was ready. TheFormidablenow loosed her main-topsail and fired a gun; to prepare to weigh anchor. That done, down dropped the foretopsail, and off went a second gun—'Weigh!' A quarter of an hour later—

With boats on board, with anchors weighed,The fleet rides ready in the bay.

The whole fleet was under sail and moving out to sea by a little before eleven. Rodney had started on his chase.

Before noon the rear ships were clearing Pigeon Island and Point du Cap, the northernmost headland of St. Lucia, was on the beam. TheMagnificentandAgamemnon, falling back from their advanced positions while the frigates held on ahead, now came into the fleet. De Grasse, they reported, had come out and gone off to the north-west, with thirty-five sail of the line, ten frigates, and an immense convoy of merchantmen and store-ships, numbering upwards of a hundred and fifty sail. The convoy had left Fort Royal at daybreak, some time in advance of the men-of-war, working up along the coast towards St. Pierre under a small escort.

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