Chapter 6

FOOTNOTES:[60]Captain George Grey, flag-captain in theBoyneto Sir John Jervis.[61]In his 'public letter' Sir John Jervis throws all the blame on M. de Tourelles' 'want of precision,' and Captain Brown's name appears at the head of those to whom the admiral declares himself 'greatly indebted' (James'sNaval History, i. p. 244). On the other hand, Captain Brenton (Naval History, vol. i. p. 183) says: 'I once heard a lady ask Lord St. Vincent why he did not bring Captain Brown to a court-martial. I think his Lordship replied, "I thought it best to let him go home quietly." Captain Brown should have demanded a court-martial on himself.'[62]Naval Chronicle, vol. xvi. pp. 31-32.[63]Naval Chronicle, vol. xvi. p. 33.[64]Public Record Office. Admiralty documents: Captains' Logs,Zebra.[65]London Gazette, April 21, 1794. Articles of Capitulation of Fort Bourbon, No. 3. 'The 37th regiment, formerly Marshal Turenne's, shall keep their colours and arms. Answer: Refused; being contrary to all customs of war. The officers may keep their swords.'[66]H.R.H. The Duke of Clarence, afterwards William IV., in 1827.

FOOTNOTES:

[60]Captain George Grey, flag-captain in theBoyneto Sir John Jervis.

[61]In his 'public letter' Sir John Jervis throws all the blame on M. de Tourelles' 'want of precision,' and Captain Brown's name appears at the head of those to whom the admiral declares himself 'greatly indebted' (James'sNaval History, i. p. 244). On the other hand, Captain Brenton (Naval History, vol. i. p. 183) says: 'I once heard a lady ask Lord St. Vincent why he did not bring Captain Brown to a court-martial. I think his Lordship replied, "I thought it best to let him go home quietly." Captain Brown should have demanded a court-martial on himself.'

[62]Naval Chronicle, vol. xvi. pp. 31-32.

[63]Naval Chronicle, vol. xvi. p. 33.

[64]Public Record Office. Admiralty documents: Captains' Logs,Zebra.

[65]London Gazette, April 21, 1794. Articles of Capitulation of Fort Bourbon, No. 3. 'The 37th regiment, formerly Marshal Turenne's, shall keep their colours and arms. Answer: Refused; being contrary to all customs of war. The officers may keep their swords.'

[66]H.R.H. The Duke of Clarence, afterwards William IV., in 1827.

'BILLY BLUE': A BALLAD OF THE FLEET

ONE OF THEROYAL SOVEREIGN'SDAYS

Slowly they mov'd, and wedged in firm array,The close compacted squadron won its way.Homer,Iliad(Pope's version).

Could common prudence have allowed me to let loose their valour on the enemy, I hardly know what might not have been accomplished by such men.—Admiral Cornwallis,June 17, 1795. (From the official despatch.)

Fightingdays abound in the story of theRoyal Sovereign. There is hardly a more famous name in the annals of the Royal Navy, and its record goes back to a hundred years before the Spanish Armada.

Our firstSovereignwas one of the consorts of theGreat Harryin Henry the Eighth's Navy, and fought the French in battle side by side with that 'greate shipp.'

The second was Charles the First'sSovereignof the Seas, built out of the ship-money tax which began the quarrel with Parliament that in the end brought the King's head to the block. 'Her building,' says Evelyn, 'cost his Ma'tie the affections of his subjects, who quarrell'd with him for a trifle, refusing to contribute either to their own safety or to his glory.'[67]The ship did brilliant service with Blake and Monk against Tromp and Ruyter, and won from the Dutch thesobriquetof the 'Golden Devil,' in allusion to her gorgeous ornamentation and the death-dealing broadsides from her heavy guns. As theRoyal Sovereign, the name bestowed on her by Charles the Second at the Restoration, in place of the original form, the ship added laurels to her fame. She was in the thick of the fray in the 'Four Days' Fight' of 1666—the 'Four Days' Fight' was what the courtiers of Whitehall called the battle, the ruder 'tarpaulins' who fought the guns called it the 'Four Days' Bloody Blunder';—in the 'St. James's Day Fight' of the same year; at Solebay; and in all the other fleet battles of the Second and Third Dutch Wars. Among the men of note who flew their flags on board theRoyal Sovereignin battle were James, Duke of York (afterwards King James the Second), and Prince Rupert. This same man-of-war, too, in William the Third's time, was one of the flagships atLa Hogue, where she had 'a very hott dispute' with one of the French flagships. She was also flagship of the admiral in command at the burning of the famousSoleil Royaland two other French first-rates in Cherbourg Bay. A sleepy old bo'sun's mate, one January night, four years after La Hogue, left a lighted candle-end in his cabin in theRoyal Sovereign, and then went on deck to keep his watch, forgetting all about it. So the quondamSovereign of the Seascame to her end. In accordance with the sentence of the court-martial[68]on the wretched man, he was rowed up the Medway past the fleet lying there with a halter round his neck, and was then publicly flogged on his bare back, after which he was landed at Chatham dockyard with every mark of degradation, and taken off to be imprisoned in the Marshalsea for life.

The thirdRoyal Sovereign, partly built, in accordance with an Admiralty order, out of as much of the timbers of the old ship as could be saved—'such part of the remains of the said ship as shall be serviceable'[69]—was launched in the presence of the great Duke of Marlborough, who presided on the occasion. It was in the cabin of thisRoyalSovereignthat Admiral Rooke planned his swoop on the Vigo galleons, and the ship also served as flagship to Sir Clowdisley Shovell.[70]She lasted long enough to be flagship at Portsmouth during the Seven Years' War, and it was on board her, one stormy March morning, that Admiral Boscawen signed the order for the firing party that shot Admiral Byng.

The fourthRoyal Sovereignfought as a flagship with Lord Howe on the 'Glorious First of June,' and was Collingwood's ship at Trafalgar. 'See how that noble fellow Collingwood takes his ship into action!' exclaimed Nelson, as he saw theRoyal Sovereignopen fire and break the line. Nor did any other ship in all the British fleet make a more brilliant fight of it that day than theRoyal Sovereignand her 'Tars of the Tyne,' as Collingwood himself called the sturdy Northumbrian lads who formed nine-tenths of his flagship's crew.

Our fifthRoyal Sovereignwas an ironclad of the 'sixties, and the sixth is the present battleship of the name, now in the Home Fleet, which was named and launched with muchéclatby Queen Victoria at Portsmouth on the 26th of February 1891, and served for many years as flagship of the Channel Fleet.

Such in brief outline are some of the leading events in the story of theRoyal Sovereign.

The historic event here related in ballad form belongs to the story of theRoyal Sovereignof the great war with the French Revolution, the fourth ship of the name. 'Cornwallis's Retreat' was the name that our ancestors had for it. It took place on the 17th of June 1795, and theRoyal Sovereignwas the British flagship on the occasion. The event, no doubt, is unknown to most of us. Nine out of ten people probably never heard of it. It is one of the forgotten episodes of our annals. Nothing is said of it in our general histories. One finds it alluded to in naval books, but little mention is made of it outside that class of literature. Even that famous naval dining club, the 'Royal Naval Club of 1765 and 1785,' which meets regularly at intervals throughout the year to commemorate notable events in the annals of the Sea Service—La Hogue, Rodney's battle, the 'Glorious First of June,' the battle of Cape St. Vincent, Camperdown, and so on—does not celebrate the 17th of June, the anniversary day of 'Cornwallis's Retreat.' Yet, surely, it is deserving of the honour? As a display of cool valour in the face of tremendous odds, of down-right heroism and unflinching endurance, crowned in the end with complete success, this feat of Admiral the Honourable William Cornwallis'sdistinguished career deserves, there is no gainsaying, to be reckoned among the finest exploits in our history.[71]

It may partly be, of course, because of the term 'retreat' that the event of the 17th of June 1795 has nowadays been forgotten by the Navy and the nation. Englishmen do not like retreats. Everybody knows the story of how Napoleon once told a captured British drummer boy to prove his identity by beating the British Army 'retreat,' and how the little lad scornfully flung down his drum, and looking Bonaparte in the face replied, 'There is no such drum-beat in the British Army. We don't do it!'[72]To our forefathers of a hundred years ago, however, 'Cornwallis's Retreat,' as they themselves called it, was a source of infinite pride and gratification. They did not hesitate to compare it, and notunreasonably, with that famous tale of history, Xenophon'sRetreat of the Ten Thousand.

Here is the story, told in plain unconventional ballad form, as it were by one present on the occasion. The details are historical, and the words attributed to the admiral are his own, as reported at the time. 'Billy Blue,' it should be added, was a favourite nickname for Cornwallis in the Navy, although whether it had come into vogue as early as the date of the incident is another thing.

'CORNWALLIS'S RETREAT'

[On the left are the French frigates in a body to windward. The two leading British ships are theBellerophonand theBrunswick, the slowest sailers of the squadron. To the right centre is theRoyal Sovereignbearing down to help theTriumphand theMars. On the right is thePallasfrigate (Captain the Hon. H. Curzon), Cornwallis's repeating frigate.]

BILLY BLUE

A BALLAD OF THE FLEET

It was just at break o' day,We were cruising in the Bay,With Blue Billy in theSov'renin the van,When the French fleet bound for Brest,From Belleisle came heading West—'Twas so, my lads, the saucy game began.Billy Blue—Here's to you, Billy Blue, here's to you!Washing decks was hardly done,When we heard the warning gun,And we saw 'em, black and clear against the sky;Twelve big ships of the line,—And with frigates, twenty-nine,On the easterly horizon drawing nigh.Billy Blue, etc.We'd theTriumphand theMars,And theSov'ren—pride of tars,Billy Ruff'n, and theBrunswick, known to fame;With thePallas, and thePhaeton,Frigates that the flag did wait on—Seven ships to uphold Old England's name.Billy Blue, etc.From thePhaetonfrigate first,In a flash the numbers burst,As the signal bunting 'broke' and fluttered free;But we cheer'd from ship to ship,And we set the guns to strip,For to fight 'em we could trust old Blue Billee!Billy Blue, etc.He was shavin', so they say,When he heard the news that day,And his skipper came his wishes for to larn;But he only said, 'All right,Let 'em bark, for we can bite,For all they're like to try on us, I don't care a darn!'Billy Blue, etc.'No, I don't care a rapFor any Frenchy chap,When they come they'll get the dressing they deserve;I've the best four in the fleet,That the Frenchmen well could meet,With the "Fightin'Billy Ruff'n" in reserve.'[73]Billy Blue, etc.'As she broke the line with Howe,So she's game to do it now,And repeat her "First o' June" here in these seas;With their name for dauntless pluck,And theBilly Ruff'n'sluck,I will fight as many Frenchmen as you please!'Billy Blue, etc.But it wasn't merely bluff,For he saw the job was tough,And the signal promptly flew to 'Go about':With the slowest ship in front,And his own to bear the brunt,—So we headed back for England, guns run out.Billy Blue, etc.To theSov'ren'slads he toldLike some hero chief of old,As he bade 'em from the quarter-deck 'Good luck';'To no foe upon the sea.You may take it, men, from me,Is the ensign of theSov'rento be struck!'Billy Blue, etc.'Let the odds be what they will,We must go on fighting still,For the honour of theSov'ren'sold renown;And when, men, all is done,As we fire our last gun,With our colours flying still, we'll go down!'[74]Billy Blue, etc.Soon we heard theBranle-basWhat cheers up the Frenchy tar,And their 'Vives' for 'La Nation!' and 'La Patrie!''Tis the way, as you should know,With the maritime Crappo,When he's got to do his fightin' on the sea.Billy Blue, etc.Then they came on, looking slaughter,Like to blow us from the water,As they near'd to port and starboard and astarn;But we put in double shot,And we paid 'em back so hot,That they looked at one another with consarn.Billy Blue, etc.'Just a broadside or two—Certainement,For the honour of their flag—cela s'entend,But it's more than very fine, seven ships to twenty-nine!—Most decidedly 'no go,'Not at allcomme il faut,And a bit of British insolence for punishment condign!'Billy Blue, etc.'Just a broadside, if they like,Then forthwith their colours strikeHaving rendered to their flag the homage due:It's sheer madness to pretend,They can fight us to the end—There's no other course theRosbifscan pursue!'Billy Blue, etc.Next theTriumphthey attacked,And theMarsgot badly whacked,'Twas theSov'renwith her broadsides beat 'em back:Her three tiers all aflame,Sweeping round the flagship came,Leaving death and Frenchmen's wreckage in her track.Billy Blue, etc.And they didn't let us rest,For they did their level best,Fighting on and off from eight till after five;Till at length they seemed to see,That it wasn't going to be,That they shouldn't take us dead, nor yet alive.Billy Blue, etc.How it ended, is a story,Not at all to France's glory,Of a little game thePhaeton'smen did play;Making Mossoo go in fear,That the Channel Fleet was near,And think perhaps he'd better run away.Billy Blue, etc.For Blue Billy sent thePhaeton,When the pass looked like a strait one,To cruise out in the offing,—just in sight:'At a fitting time,' said he'You will signal down to me,That Lord Bridport will be with us before night.'Billy Blue, etc.'You will fire guns, you know,And to'gallant sheets let go,As the custom is, reporting fleets at sea;With a signal that they're 'friends'—Which I think will serve our ends,To humbug those chaps astarn with Monsieur V.'[75]Billy Blue, etc.The Frenchmen cried 'Morblo!'And they shuffled to and fro,Till they judg'd they'd haul their wind and go about;To Belleisle back all the way,At anchor there to stay,Till they learnt the coast was clear to venture out.Billy Blue, etc.Yet no Channel Fleet was near,To excuse the Frenchmen's fear,For Lord Bridport was still cruising leagues afar,[76]And a well-wornruse de guerreWas a hardy game to dare,With French frigates—seventeen—the plot to mar.Billy Blue, etc.It so happened, for the rest,Just to point thePhaeton'sjest,By the merest chance—it wasn't meant at all—Distant coasters passing by,Chanced to fleck the evening sky,And still faster to impel the flying Gaul.Billy Blue, etc.Here's to Stopford of thePhaeton,And Flag-Captain Whitby bold,To Fitzgerald of theBrunswick, tried and true,Gallant Gower of theTriumph,Gallant Cotton of theMars,Lord Cranstoun—Billy Ruff'n—here's to you!Billy Blue, etc.Aye, Blue Billy:—here's to him, with three times three,To the honour of his name upon the sea!'He upheld Old England's credit,' said the country in its pride:'Cornwallis's Retreat,'Greek Xenophon's great feat,In its spirit we may claim to set beside.Billy Blue, etc.E'en our foes, theParley Voos,At this feat of Billy Blue'sProfessed to be astounded—'Etonnés':—'Hors de ligne' 'twas, so to speak,'Une affaire trop héroïque,''Le Déterminé,' they call him to this day.Billy Blue—Here's to you, Billy Blue, here's to you!

For the magnificent display made by one and all on the occasion, Admiral Cornwallis and the captains of his squadron were thanked by both Houses of Parliament, while every ordinary seaman on board the ships was specially rated 'A.B.'[77]Of his men, indeed, Cornwallis himself said in his official despatch, 'Could common prudence have allowed me to let loose their valour on the enemy, I hardly know what might not have been accomplished by such men.' The last survivor of Cornwallis's squadron, one of the midshipmen of the flagshipRoyal Sovereign, died in the year 1869.

'Billy Blue'[78]himself lived to command the Channel Fleet in the great war with Napoleon, and, in conjunction with Nelson at the head of the Mediterranean Fleet, to save England from invasion in 1805, when the Grand Army stood on the heights above Boulogne every day expecting an opportunity to cross over, 'battling,' in the words of Captain Mahan, 'the wild gales of the Bay of Biscay in that tremendous and sustained vigilance concerning which Collingwood wrote that "Admirals need be made of iron."' A man-of-war of 74 guns, a model of which is one of the treasures of the Royal United Service Institution at Whitehall, was in 1813 named theCornwallisin honour of Admiral Cornwallis, and that ship's immediate successor is our fine modern battleship theCornwallisof to-day.

THE 'FIGHTING'TÉMÉRAIRETUGGED TO HER LAST BERTH TO BE BROKEN UP

[This print of Turner'sTémérairediffers from the painting. The sky was engraved by R. Dickens principally in dry-point, and was toned down by J.T. Willmore; the ship and tug were engraved in line by Saddler. The rigging of theTéméraireand the mast and funnel of the tug do not correspond with the picture at the National Gallery, but Turner permitted it as making a better engraving.]

FOOTNOTES:[67]Evelyn's Diary, July 16, 1641.[68]The court-martial was held at Chatham on January 27, 1696, and comprised two admirals and seventeen captains. The minutes of the evidence and the sentence are in the Public Record Office. (Admiralty (Secretary's Dept.) In-Letters, 5256.)[69]Public Record Office,Admiralty Out-Letters: Order of October 29, 1697.[70]Sir Cloudesley Shovel is the popular form of the name. It is here given as the admiral himself spelled it.[71]The Naval Medal was granted for Cornwallis's Retreat with a clasp inscribed '17 June 1795.' TheGazettenotification records the service that the medal was granted for thus: 'Brilliant repulse of a fleet four times superior in force.'[72]Compare the curious definition of the term 'Retreat' in Falconer'sNaval Dictionary(2nd edition, 1789). 'Retreat:—The order or disposition in which a fleet of French men-of-war decline engagement, or fly from a pursuing enemy. (Note) The reader who wishes to be expert in this manœuvre will find it copiously described by several ingenious French writers ... who have given accurate instructions deduced from experience for putting in practice when occasion requires. As it is not properly a term of the British marine, a more circumstantial account of it might be considered foreign to our plan.'[73]'TheBellerophon,' wrote Cornwallis to the Admiralty, 'I was glad to keep in some measure in reserve.... I considered that ship as a treasure in store, having heard of her former achievements and observing the spirit manifested by all on board.' Quite unaccountably, as it so happened, theBellerophon, the fastest 74 in the service, sailed very badly that day. According to one of her men, the reason was this: 'it warn't in the natur' of her to run from an enemy.'[74]Admiral Cornwallis's actual words were, 'Remember, men, theSovereign'sflag and ensign are never to be struck to an enemy. She goes down with them flying.'[75]'Monsieur V.' was the familiar term for the French admiral then in command of the Brest Fleet—Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse. The words of the last line are the actual words Cornwallis used.[76]Severe comment was made at the time on Lord Bridport for so disposing his fleet as to leave Cornwallis's squadron isolated and in such a situation of extreme peril.[77]'Landmen' or 'Landsmen,' 'Ordinary Seamen,' and 'Able Seamen' or 'A.B.s' were the three classes or ratings into which men before the mast were divided, usually according to ability and length of service. 'A.B.' was the highest rating, entitling those of the rate to increased pay, and affording opportunities for promotion.[78]It should have been mentioned earlier that he was the same officer who so ably commanded theCanadain Rodney's fleet on the 12th of April 1782, and took a leading part in bringing about the surrender of De Grasse, as has been described.

FOOTNOTES:

[67]Evelyn's Diary, July 16, 1641.

[68]The court-martial was held at Chatham on January 27, 1696, and comprised two admirals and seventeen captains. The minutes of the evidence and the sentence are in the Public Record Office. (Admiralty (Secretary's Dept.) In-Letters, 5256.)

[69]Public Record Office,Admiralty Out-Letters: Order of October 29, 1697.

[70]Sir Cloudesley Shovel is the popular form of the name. It is here given as the admiral himself spelled it.

[71]The Naval Medal was granted for Cornwallis's Retreat with a clasp inscribed '17 June 1795.' TheGazettenotification records the service that the medal was granted for thus: 'Brilliant repulse of a fleet four times superior in force.'

[72]Compare the curious definition of the term 'Retreat' in Falconer'sNaval Dictionary(2nd edition, 1789). 'Retreat:—The order or disposition in which a fleet of French men-of-war decline engagement, or fly from a pursuing enemy. (Note) The reader who wishes to be expert in this manœuvre will find it copiously described by several ingenious French writers ... who have given accurate instructions deduced from experience for putting in practice when occasion requires. As it is not properly a term of the British marine, a more circumstantial account of it might be considered foreign to our plan.'

[73]'TheBellerophon,' wrote Cornwallis to the Admiralty, 'I was glad to keep in some measure in reserve.... I considered that ship as a treasure in store, having heard of her former achievements and observing the spirit manifested by all on board.' Quite unaccountably, as it so happened, theBellerophon, the fastest 74 in the service, sailed very badly that day. According to one of her men, the reason was this: 'it warn't in the natur' of her to run from an enemy.'

[74]Admiral Cornwallis's actual words were, 'Remember, men, theSovereign'sflag and ensign are never to be struck to an enemy. She goes down with them flying.'

[75]'Monsieur V.' was the familiar term for the French admiral then in command of the Brest Fleet—Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse. The words of the last line are the actual words Cornwallis used.

[76]Severe comment was made at the time on Lord Bridport for so disposing his fleet as to leave Cornwallis's squadron isolated and in such a situation of extreme peril.

[77]'Landmen' or 'Landsmen,' 'Ordinary Seamen,' and 'Able Seamen' or 'A.B.s' were the three classes or ratings into which men before the mast were divided, usually according to ability and length of service. 'A.B.' was the highest rating, entitling those of the rate to increased pay, and affording opportunities for promotion.

[78]It should have been mentioned earlier that he was the same officer who so ably commanded theCanadain Rodney's fleet on the 12th of April 1782, and took a leading part in bringing about the surrender of De Grasse, as has been described.

THE 'FIGHTING'TÉMÉRAIRE

WHERE, HOW, AND WHEN SHE MADE HER NAME

Heard ye the thunder of battleLow in the south and afar?Saw ye the flush of the death-cloud,Crimson o'er Trafalgar?Such another day neverEngland will look on again,When the battle fought was the hottest,And the hero of heroes was slain.Francis Turner Palgrave.

In England's song for everShe's theFighting Téméraire.Henry Newbolt.

Trafalgarwas her day. It was at Trafalgar that theTémérairemade her mark and won undying fame.

First of all—

She came to Nelson's aid,The battle's brunt to bear,And nobly sought to lead the van,The Brave OldTéméraire.

Then she was 'theVictory'scompanion in her closing strife,' as Mr. Ruskin has called theTéméraire, 'prevailing over the fatal vessel that had given Nelson death.'[79]That is one of the reasons why people remember theTéméraire. There is another—that all the world knows. To learn it one has only to visit the National Gallery. Turner's masterpiece has made theTéméraire'sname a household word all the world over. But, all the same, had Turner never painted his picture at all, even without the aid of Turner's magic brush, theTémérairemust surely, for the part she took in the greatest sea-fight of history, have achieved for her name an immortal renown.

How Turner came to paint his 'FightingTéméraire' is a story in itself. The famous picture came into being by the merest accident; as the outcome of a happy chance, as the result of a casual meeting with the old ship at a water-picnic on the Thames one autumn evening of the year 1838.[80]Turner, with Clarkson Stanfield and some friends, was boating off Greenwich marshes in Blackwall Reach when the old ship passed them, coming up the river from Sheerness to meet her destined end off Rotherhithe, where the shipbreaker Beatson's men were waiting for her. She had been sold out of the service some days beforefor £5530, barely the market value of the copper bolts that held her timbers together—just a twelfthof the prime cost of the ship's hull in labour and materials, or one-twentieth of the total value of the ship, gunned and equipped for sea. Forlorn enough, and a thing for pity, looked the grand old man-of-war as the Sheerness men had left her, her sails stripped from the yards, her tiers of ports without guns and closed down, her hull with its last coat of dockyard drab all rusty-looking and weather-stained, cast off and discarded, as it were a broken warrior being borne to a pauper's grave.

['Turner saw the tug and ship just before entering Greenwich Reach, and when before rounding the Isle of Dogs she would be steering about South-South-East up Blackwall Reach, with the summer setting sun astern of her in the North-North-West.'—Mr.R.C. Lesliein theAthenæum.]

Two tugs had the ship in tow, as contemporary accounts of theTéméraire'sarrival in the river relate, not one, as Turner has painted the memorable scene.[81]In Turner's picture theTéméraireis shown passing the water-party before she rounded the Isle of Dogs, when heading south-south-east up Blackwall Reach, with the September sun setting astern of the ship to the north-west. 'There's a fine picture, Turner,' said Stanfield, pointing to the war-worn veteran of the sea as she stemmed her way past them, and Turner went home full of the idea to reproduce the scene on canvas, with touches of his own, to give the world a picture 'of all pictures of subjects not involving human pain,' says Mr. Ruskin, 'the most pathetic that ever was painted.'[82]

Now the sunset breezes shiver,Téméraire! Téméraire!And she's fading down the river,Téméraire! Téméraire!Now the sunset breezes shiver,And she's fading down the river,But in England's song for everShe's theFighting Téméraire.[83]

The FightingTémérairetugged to her last berth to be broken up,' was the title Turner gave his picture when he sent it in to the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1839. He added these lines, composed apparently by himself—

'The flag that braved the battle and the breezeNo longer owns her.'

The 'Fighting'Témérairewas an Essex ship, built—nine-tenths of her—of oak cut in Hainault forest and sent across to Chatham dockyard, where theTéméraire'skeel was laid in July 1793.[84]Tuesday, the 11th of September 1798, was the day of her launch, 'a squally day with drenching rain.' She was a three-decker, a second-rate, 'a ninety-eight,' in the Navy parlance of the time, a ship carrying ninety-eight guns (32-pounders, 18's, and long 12's, with twelve carronades as well), throwing a broadside weight of metal at each discharge of 1336 lbs., very nearly twelve cwts.—three-fifths of a ton of solid cast iron. 'She is one of the finest ships that we have seen,' wrote an officer who inspected theTéméraireon the stocks a little while before she was launched.

An Essex man captained theTéméraireat Trafalgar, Eliab Harvey, of Rolls Park, Chigwell, Essex. He was a great-grandson of Eliab Harvey, brother of Dr. William Harvey the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, by whose side he now lies buried in the family vault under the Harvey Chapel in Hempstead Church, near Saffron Walden. All Essex, we are told, was represented at the funeral, or followed the coffin to its last resting-place. Captain Harvey, during the time that he commanded theTéméraire, had also a seat in Parliament for the county of Essex, in accordance with a political usage of those days which enabled officers on active service to represent constituencies at Westminster, although Ministers apparently did not always find it satisfactory. 'I don't like your M.P. Navy Captains,' said Castlereagh once; 'they are always off Cape Finisterre when they are wanted, and when they are sent for they say they don't like being "whistled up merely togive a vote."' Those who know their Marryat will remember the case of the Hon. Captain Delmar, M.P., of H.M.S.Paragon, a frigate in the Channel Squadron, 'which was never sea-going except in the Recess.' It was better though than this with theTéméraire, which Captain Harvey commissioned for the 'Western Squadron,' as in those days the Channel Fleet was generally called, at Plymouth, in November 1803, six months after the outbreak of the Great War with Napoleon.

Strange as it may seem to us, theTéméraire'sname at that moment had for most people an unpleasant ring about it. The shadow of a terrible tragedy rested just then over the nameTéméraire. The public had not yet got over the shock with which, barely two years before, the whole country had learnt that the crew of one of the flagships of the Channel Fleet, while lying in Bantry Bay, had mutinied, and offered violence to their Admiral and officers, using ugly threats and proposing to point guns loaded with grape-shot to sweep the quarter-deck. Nor had people forgotten the grim sequel, the relentless severity of the retribution that fell on the ringleaders; how eleven of theTéméraire'smen had been hanged at the yard-arm, two flogged through the fleet at Spithead, receiving two hundred lashes each, seven sent to the hulks for life. The newspapers had been full of the terrible story, as related day by day in theevidence at the two courts-martial that sat at Portsmouth to try the mutineers. The trial lasted five days, and the report of it in theTimesof the 13th of January 1802 took up the whole paper, all but two columns. Nor had the following paragraph which appeared in theNaval Chronicle, done any good to theTéméraire'sreputation:—'Plymouth, October 7th, 1802; The seamen of theTéméraireof 98-guns, Rear-Admiral Campbell, paid off, put on crape hat-bands round their straw hats in memory of the mutineers in that ship who were executed for the mutiny in Bantry Bay last year.' That unhappy episode in the ship's story was, however, as far as theTéméraireherself was concerned, now past and done with. Now theTémérairehad a new ship's company throughout; captain, officers, and men, with a future of their own before them.

Captain Harvey manned his ship to a large extent with Liverpool men, sent round from the Mersey by tender, and sailed from Cawsand Bay on the 11th of March 1804, to join Admiral Cornwallis off Brest.

It was perhaps the most critical period in our national history. On the heights above Boulogne lay Napoleon's Grand Army, 160,000 men, waiting for the French fleet to put to sea and secure its passage across the Straits of Dover.[85]The fate ofEngland depended on the British Navy. There were twenty-one French line-of-battle ships in Brest, six others at Rochefort, and five sheltering in the Spanish port of Ferrol. At Brest, also, there were known to be upwards of 20,000 French soldiers; and another 20,000 under Augereau were under canvas at Rochefort, 'supposed against Ireland,' according to Admiral Cornwallis's instructions from the Admiralty. It was the business of the Channel Fleet to hold the enemy in check at all points from Ushant Island, off Brest, to Cape Finisterre, and prevent aid from elsewhere arriving to enable them to put to sea. At the same time, as his appointed part in the great strategic plan of campaign, Nelson off Toulon kept his tireless watch over the French Mediterranean Fleet. Thus the toils were set, the gambit was opened.

'They were dull, weary, eventless months,' says Captain Mahan in one of his most telling passages,[86]'those months of watching and waiting of the big ships before the French arsenals. Purposeless they surely seemed to many, but they saved England. The world has never seen a more impressive demonstration of the influence of sea-power upon its history. Those far-distant storm-beaten ships, upon which the Grand Army never looked, stood between it and the dominion of the world.'

It was Napoleon with all the resources of his Empire in its full vigour at his back, Napoleon at the zenith of his intellect and genius for war, Napoleon in the year before Austerlitz—baffled and held at arm's length by the British Navy. One has only to glance at the daily newspapers of 1804 to realise the superb self-confidence with which Great Britain braced herself to meet the threatening peril. The nation knew its strength and on what, under Providence, it relied; the nation knew it and the Navy knew it—as we too, after forgetting it for a time, have in these later years at length come again to recognise the vital root-fact of Great Britain's existence—

No track of men, no footsteps to and froLead to her gates. The path lies o'er the seaInvincible.

Six months of pitching and rolling in the dreary Bay of Biscay was theTéméraire'slot at the outset, as one of Vice-Admiral Calder's squadron watchingRochefort. The most disliked of all billets perhaps was blockade duty off the Basque Roads, ever facing the dreary sand dunes of Aix and Oléron, stretching wearily along the featureless coast, there and back, between Sables d'Olonne and the mouth of the Gironde, buffeted week in week out by persistent gales and rough weather. All there was to do, practically, was now and again to stop some wretched neutral passing by—usually a Portuguese trading brig, or a Prussian galliot, for or from Bordeaux—and examine her papers; but for days together sometimes—

The Wind at the West or thereabout,Nothing gone in and nothing come out,

was all that went down in their logs, according to the refrain on the dull routine of their daily life of a gun-room ditty composed on board one of the ships blockading Rochefort. Every two or three months, as her turn came round, one or other of the ships would part company for a week or ten days and proceed to Cawsand Bay—communicating on the way with the fleet off Brest to take letters for England—to fill up her water-casks and take in fresh stores and provisions, overhaul spars and rigging, and then return bringing bullocks and bread and vegetables for the squadron. That was their only relaxation. In her turn, towards the end of May, theTémérairewent in to Cawsand Bay,as the 'Plymouth Report' of the Naval Chronicle records.

May 26.—Came in from the Channel Fleet, which she left all well, last Wednesday, theTéméraireof 98 guns. The enemy as usual. Our frigates frequently go in to reconnoitre within a mile and a half of the outer-most ships, and within range of their shots and shells of which the enemy give them plenty but without damage.

In August, when Collingwood had relieved Calder, a closer watch on the enemy than before was maintained, owing to the prevalence of rumours that the French were on the point of putting to sea. Collingwood, we are told, frequently passed the night on the quarter-deck of his flagship, at intervals lying down on a gun-carriage to snatch a short sleep, 'from which Admiral Collingwood would rise from time to time to sweep the horizon with his night glass lest the enemy should escape in the dark.'[87]The French, though, remained quiet all the time. One or two of their ships would come out now and then and exercise at sail drill in Basque Roads, and they had a small sham fight once, but no attempt was made to run or force the blockade.

September saw theTémérairetransferred from the Rochefort squadron to 'the Team' off Brest,as the big ship division of Cornwallis's main fleet was familiarly called in the Navy. There was more to do and see off Brest, perhaps, but the life there was no less hard and toilsome. The three-deckers cruised by themselves outside Ushant, patrolling night and day; keeping far out to seaward when the wind was from the west, and, as the standing order ran, 'well up with Ushant in an easterly wind.' Off Black Rocks, between Ushant and the mainland, cruised four or six two-deckers, the 'Inshore Squadron'; while close in, off the mouth of Brest Harbour itself, just out of gunshot of the shore batteries, watching every move in the French fleet as it lay at anchor in the roadstead, were frigates and cutters on the look-out. Every day they expected the enemy to leave port, but, as it had been off Rochefort, in vain.

Then the winter storms set in, hard gales continuously and squally weather. Twice during October severe storms from the south-west compelled Cornwallis to stand off the coast and bear up for Torbay: to lie there with the 'Blue Peter' at the fore, and not a soul allowed on shore, until at the first sign of the wind shifting anchors were weighed for Brest again. In November a rough north-easter drove part of the fleet off the station many leagues out into the Atlantic. The rest found shelter on the enemy's own coast, in Douarnenez Bay, less than twenty miles fromBrest, and rode the storm out there. 'It is with great satisfaction,' says theTimesof the 16th of November 1804, 'we understand that our fleet off Brest, has withstood the violent gales which have of late prevailed, and continues to maintain that vigilant position, which, we trust, will effectually obstruct the designs of the enemy.'[88]December and the January of the New Year (1805) brought worse weather still, a succession of fierce gales—'it blows harder than ever we remember,' wrote theNaval Chronicle'sPortsmouth correspondent in January—that crippled half the fleet and forced Cornwallis to spend all February and half March repairing damages inTorbay. Seven of the big ships, leaking seriously, with hulls strained, gear swept overboard, masts sprung, spars carried away, had to go into dock at Plymouth, among them theTéméraire, whose repairs took two months to make good.

CAMP OF THE GRAND ARMY AT BOULOGNE, 1804

[The tents north of the harbour (to the reader's left) belong to Vandamme's Division of Marshal Soult's Army Corps (the 4th). Those to the south belong to an outlying brigade of Marshal Ney's Corps (the 6th). The camp inland is that of Suchet's and St. Hilaire's Divisions of Soult's Corps. Napoleon's headquarters were near Mont Lambert, the hill crowned by a signal station. In the centre of the sketch are seen the masts of the 'Invasion Flotilla' behind a breakwater mounting heavy guns.]

She rejoined the flag off Brest in April, just as the startling news came to hand that the French Toulon Fleet had appeared off Cadiz, joined hands with the Spanish Fleet there and gone off westward. Their destination was unknown and there was no news of Lord Nelson. All that month of May theTéméraireand her consorts off Brest held themselves ready to clear for action at the shortest notice, daily expecting the sails of Admiral Villeneuve's fleet to appear on the horizon to the south-west. As if awaiting Villeneuve's arrival, also, the whole of the Brest fleet had come out of harbour and was riding at single anchor, twenty-one sail of the line completely equipped for sea, under the cliff batteries of Bertheaume Bay. The British fleet off Brest for the moment could only muster seventeen sail. In England, meanwhile, the newspapers were full of accounts of how the Grand Army at Boulogne, now vauntingly styledl'Armée d'Angleterre, was duly holding embarkation and landing parades and drills on the sea-shore under the eyes of Soult and Ney. At the end of the month intelligence arrived that Villeneuve was in theWest Indies, and that Nelson had gone in pursuit of him. June passed in waiting for information of Villeneuve's return to Europe, the Channel Fleet being continuously reinforced from England, which enabled Collingwood and a 'Special Service' squadron to be detached to keep guard off Cadiz and the Straits of Gibraltar. On the 11th of July came the news that Villeneuve had been sighted in Mid-Atlantic, homeward bound; after which, a fortnight later, came the further news that Admiral Calder had had an indecisive battle with the enemy off Cape Finisterre, and that Villeneuve had put into Ferrol. Calder himself rejoined Cornwallis a few days afterwards, and then Nelson came in with his fleet.

Cornwallis, from the ships now at his disposal, immediately made up a new fleet of eighteen sail of the line to blockade Villeneuve in Ferrol. It was placed under Calder's orders and sent off on the 16th of August. TheTémérairesailed with Calder, and so the story of her service with the 'Western Squadron' ends.

Before they arrived off Ferrol they heard from a frigate that Villeneuve had left the port. He had put to sea as though intending to cross the Bay of Biscay direct to Brest, but when two days out, had suddenly, for some unfathomable reason of his own, gone about and stood southward. Whither he was bound could only be guessed,but Calder's orders were to follow the French wherever they might go, and he made for the Straits of Gibraltar under all sail.

Did he pass over a certain spot, some ninety miles north-west of Cape Finisterre, where a mass of frigate wreckage and splinters and jagged chips was floating about—like the ring of fluttered feathers that one sometimes sees at the corner of a wood on an autumn afternoon telling how a sparrow-hawk has passed that way? That flotsam off Finisterre, could it have spoken, would have told a tale; the story of the incident on which the campaign of Trafalgar hinged:—whyAdmiral Villeneuve had gone south instead of north.[89]

Off Cadiz Calder found Collingwood with half a dozen ships, and learned that the French were refitting in that port. Collingwood had had the narrowest of narrow escapes of being cut off and overpowered by the enemy's sudden appearance off Cadiz,[90]but he had cleverly got out of their wayin the nick of time, and was now 'observing' them, making believe by sham signals every day that he was in touch with a large British fleet in the offing. Collingwood as the senior officer took Calder under his orders, and the united forces continued to watch Cadiz until at the end of September Lord Nelson himself arrived from England to take the supreme command.

For three weeks, as we all know, Nelson kept watch and ward over the enemy in Cadiz, until on the morning of Saturday the 19th of October his look-out frigates off the mouth of Cadiz harbour at last made the longed-for signal that the combined fleet was coming out of port.

They began to come out between seven and eight o'clock on Saturday morning, and from that time until the two fleets were in presence of each other off Cape Trafalgar on Monday morning, every move the enemy made was signalled to Nelson, lying out of sight from Cadiz, off Cape St Mary, by flag signals passed along a chain of ships in the day-time, and with rockets and blue lights and thefiring of guns at night. 'For two days,' writes Midshipman Hercules Robinson of the frigateEuryalus, Captain Blackwood's ship, in charge of the look-out squadron, 'there was not a movement that we did not communicate, till I thought that Blackwood, who gave the orders, and Bruce our signal mid, and Soper our signal man who executed them, must have died of it; and when we had brought the two fleets fairly together we took our place between the two lines of lights, as a cab might in Regent Street, the watch was called and Blackwood turned in quietly to wait for the morning.'[91]So close to the enemy did theEuryaluskeep all Sunday night that, in the words of one of the men on board (a marine named Pearce) in a letter home, 'their lights looked like a street well lighted up.'

Monday was Trafalgar Day. The enemy when first sighted from the British Fleet at daybreak were about eleven or twelve miles off, 'a forest of masts to leeward,' as one officer described them, standing along the coast towards the Straits of Gibraltar. Nelson at once headed eastward, straight for them:—'ere it was well light the signals were flying through the fleet to bear up and form the order of sailing in two columns.' Then, immediately after that, up went the flags 'Prepare for battle,' Signal No. 13, and in responsethroughout the fleet, the drums on board every ship at once struck up the stirring old war-beat of the Navy, 'Hearts of Oak'—

Come cheer up, my lads, 'tis to glory we steer,To add something more to this wonderful year.

By seven o'clock every ship in the fleet had been cleared for action and all were ready for the enemy. A quarter of an hour was sufficient to clear for action on board a smart ship in 'Eighteen hundred and War time,' as our grandfathers called the days when the 'Fighting'Témérairewas at sea.

So admirably had Nelson organised his fleet and arranged things beforehand that three signals were all that he needed to make to set the day's work in train. At twenty minutes to seven theVictorysignalled—'Form the order of sailing in two columns.' Then, a moment later, up went 'No. 13,'—the fighting flags—two flags, the upper one comprising three horizontal bands, yellow, red, yellow; the lower, three vertical bands, blue, white, blue—'Prepare for battle.' Ten minutes later another signal went up—'Bear up and sail large on the course steered by the Admiral.' The whole fleet on that headed directly for the enemy under all sail. These three signals were all that were necessary for the tactics of the battle, and all that Nelson made. What other signals were made from theVictoryduring theday, until after the fight had been won, dealt with subsidiary points and were merely incidental.

Here is the opening entry for the day in theTéméraire'slog. 'At daylight saw the enemy's fleet in the S.E. Cleared ship for action and made all sail. Light airs. Standing for the enemy.'

At eight o'clock all hands throughout the fleet were piped to breakfast. 'The officers,' we are told by one of them, 'now met at breakfast, and though each seemed to exult in the hope of a glorious termination to the contest so near at hand, a fearful presage was experienced that all would not again unite at that festive board.' More than one seemed 'particularly impressed with a persuasion that he would not survive the day.... The sound of the drum, however, soon put an end to our meditations; and, after a hasty, and, alas, a final farewell to some, we repaired to our respective posts.'[92]

All on board now went to quarters, to their stations for the battle; the cooks' fires were put out, and the magazines opened and powder sent up to the guns.

At nine o'clock the two fleets were about six miles apart. It was a gloriously fine morning,with the sky almost cloudless. A light breeze blew from the north-west, before which, with every sail set, the fleet bore down towards the enemy, the ships lifting on the swell as the long surging rollers from the ocean bore them forward.

At this point we may for one moment glance across at the enemy and see how they on their side have been faring. With the Combined Fleet,[93]as it happened, the situation was by no means promising. The coming event was already casting its shadow before. Things had already begun to shape themselves awkwardly. Admiral Villeneuve had found it advisable to go about, and the Combined Franco-Spanish Fleet was now standing northward, heading back towards Cadiz, and forming into line of battle as they went along. The sight of the British fleet that morning had been an unpleasant surprise for Admiral Villeneuve. His look-out ships on the previous evening had reported the British fleet to him as not more than eighteen sail of the line, and to leeward. There were now in sight,—he could see them with his own eyes—upwards of ten sail of the line, including several three-deckers, more than that. Also—what weighed even more with Admiral Villeneuve—they were to windward of him. That meant that astronger force than Villeneuve cared to meet was within striking distance of him and had the weather gage. Whether he went on or whether he went back, he would have to fight. He had cast the die. He had crossed the Rubicon.

'Twas vain to seek retreat and vain to fear,Himself had challenged and the foe drew near.

As the best thing, if not indeed the only thing he could do in the circumstances, he decided to turn back and make for Cadiz. If he could not avoid a battle, he trusted to be able to get sufficiently near Cadiz to have the port open to him after the battle, for his damaged ships or as a place of general refuge should things go wrong.

With such thoughts in his mind, Villeneuve, just about the time that Nelson was sitting down to breakfast, issued orders for the Combined Fleet to go about, every ship independently, and form in line of battle on the port tack, with half a cable interval between ships. They were still in the middle of the manœuvre at nine o'clock. It was not till after ten o'clock that anything approaching the line of battle as ordered had been formed, and then hardly half-a-dozen ships were in station. All the enemy's efforts, at the end of two hours, resulted in the formation of a crescent or bow-shaped array of ships, sagging in the centre away to leeward like a slack cord, with the ships distributed irregularly along its length, here in single file and with wide gaps between, there in two's and three's. As things turned out this malformation proved ideal for the occasion; but it was entirely by chance.

It has been said, indeed, that Admiral Villeneuve had already begun to anticipate defeat. As he took in the grouping and disposition of the British fleet, the double column of attack and how the leaders were pointing, there broke from his lips, we are told, an exclamation of blank dismay. Before a shot was fired Villeneuve had already admitted himself beaten. There was no precedent known to him for a battle formation such as Nelson was adopting.[94]There was nothing like it in Paul Hoste, nothing like it in the pages of De Morogues or Ramatuelle. No text-book could help him, and to improvise a new order of battle for himself on the spur of the moment was beyond Admiral Villeneuve's capacity. Practically he could only await events and meet an absolutely new form of attack, specially devised for the occasion by the greatest master of the art of naval war that ever lived, with an order of battle that was not new in the days of the Grand Monarque, with tactics such as Tourville had employed at LaHogue. It was like the Prussian General Rüchel at Jena opposing Napoleon with the tactics of Frederick at Kolin; attempting to foil Ney and Murat by giving the order 'Right shoulders up.'

There were on the Franco-Spanish side thirty-three ships (eighteen French and fifteen Spanish); in the British fleet twenty-seven. Nelson's plan of battle at the outset, as we shall presently see, reversed the odds and turned them into odds in his own favour, of twenty-seven against twenty-three. That is, the odds reckoned numerically, by counting ships. The average British ship of the line in 1805 could fire three broadsides while a French ship was firing two, which vastly increased the odds in Nelson's favour. The British fleet came on in two columns; one (Nelson's own) comprising twelve ships; the other (Collingwood's column) of fifteen. Nelson's plan of battle was for Collingwood to break the enemy's line at about a third of its length from the rear, and hold fast in close action the ships cut off. He himself, after that, would break through the remaining two-thirds of the Franco-Spanish line midway, and fall on the enemy's centre, joining hands with Collingwood. With the wind as it then was, a little to the north of west, the ten ships of the enemy's van squadron would be cut off by these tactics and thrust to leeward, out of the battle. They would have to work upround laboriously against the wind before they could get to the aid of their consorts, a business that must take a considerable time. Meanwhile the whole force of the British fleet would have been brought to bear on two-thirds of the enemy with, as Nelson confidently trusted, decisive results.

Throughout the British fleet the men were in the highest spirits, eager and ready for the fray, and at the same time cool and confident. 'As we neared the French fleet,' an officer in theAjaxrelates,[95]'I was sent below with orders, and was much struck with the preparations made by the bluejackets, the majority of whom were stripped to the waist; a handkerchief was tightly bound round their heads and over the ears, to deaden the noise of the cannon, many men being deaf for days after an action. The men were variously occupied; some were sharpening their cutlasses, others polishing the guns, as though an inspection were about to take place instead of a mortal combat, whilst three or four, as if in mere bravado, were dancing a horn-pipe; but all seemed deeply anxious to come to close quarters with the enemy. Occasionally they would look out of the ports, and speculate as to the various ships of the enemy, many of which had been on former occasionsengaged by our vessels.' Elsewhere, we are told, the men kept pointing out various ships in the Franco-Spanish line, as seen through the open ports, and calling to one another, 'What a fine sight them ships will make at Spithead!' Particularly keen was every man that his ship should if possible get alongside the huge Spanish four-decker which all could see, near the centre of the enemy's fleet, theSantisima Trinidad. On board theBellerophon, one of Collingwood's leading ships, the men at quarters on the main deck chalked 'Billy Ruff'n, Victory or Death' on their guns.[96]

How keen was the rivalry among the ships at the head of Nelson's line, as the morning advanced, is shown by two incidents in which theNeptune—a 98-gun three-decker like theTéméraire, the ship next in the line to her—and theTéméraireherself, both figured.

TheTémérairehad the post of honour in Nelson's line, that of 'second,' or chief supporter to theVictory, but theNeptunehad gradually drawn up level with her. Not content with that, theNeptunebegan to edge past theTéméraire, until, forging ahead, she had come up alongside the flagship herself. Indeed, it appeared as though she was ambitious of passing ahead of theVictory, and leading Nelson into the battle. The Admiral himself stopped her. Nelson at the moment that theNeptunebegan to draw up level with theVictory, happened to be in the stern gallery leading out of his cabin, observing how the rear ships of the fleet were coming on. He saw what was taking place, and at once hailed theNeptune. 'Neptunethere,' he called out in a sharp, rasping tone, 'take in your stu'ns'ls and drop astarn. I shall break the line myself!'[97]TheNeptunehad to comply forthwith, and on her falling back theTémérairepushed up and resumed her allotted berth as the ship next to theVictory.

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