Part 1

CHAMPIONS OF THE FLEET

_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._

FAMOUS FIGHTERS OF THE FLEET. THE ENEMY AT TRAFALGAR. THE ROMANCE OF THE KING’S NAVY. ETC. ETC.

CHAMPIONS OF THE FLEET

CAPTAINS AND MEN-OF-WAR AND DAYS THAT HELPED TO MAKE THE EMPIRE

BY EDWARD FRASER

WITH 19 ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMVIII

WM. BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH

PREFACE

These tales of the navy of the fighting days of old are to some extent, it may seem, cruises in rather out-of-the-way waters. At the same time, they may claim present-day associations that should render them not out of place just now. How and why, for instance, the world-famous name _Dreadnought_ came into the Royal Navy is a story of interest on its own account that ought to be timely. With that also is told something of what our _Dreadnoughts_ of old did under fire in the fighting days of history: with Drake; against the Armada; with Sir Walter Raleigh; against De Ruyter and the Dutchmen; at La Hogue; how one gave the _sobriquet_ “Old Dreadnought” to the famous Boscawen; how Nelson’s uncle and patron Maurice Suckling captained the same ship in battle; of Collingwood in the _Dreadnought_; and of the _Dreadnought_ at Trafalgar. We get, too, a passing glance at certain of the “points” of our mighty battleship the _Dreadnought_ of the present hour. Again, in the year that has seen the name of Clive recalled to the memory of his countrymen by an ex-Viceroy of India in connection with the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Plassey, what the navy did for Clive at the most critical moment of his fortunes, how without its active support on the field of battle Clive would have been powerless, the forgotten, or certainly little appreciated, part that the navy took in the founding of our Indian empire—should be of interest to English readers. This year again sees a new _Téméraire_, one of our “improved _Dreadnoughts_,” added to the Royal Navy. The fine story of how the never-to-be-forgotten name _Téméraire_—immortalized alike by Turner and by Trafalgar—first came to appear on the roll of the British fleet is told here. And it should be of interest to recall certain incidental matters concerning the old _Victory_ herself: among others the circumstances in which she came to be built and was safely sent afloat in spite of expected incendiarism; where too those who fought on board at Trafalgar came from, and how many representatives each of our counties had with Nelson in his last fight. Such are some of the matters dealt with in these pages, which of themselves should afford entertainment and help also to make this book useful.

E. F.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. OUR _DREADNOUGHTS_:—THEIR NAME AND BATTLE RECORD 1

II. “KENT CLAIMS THE FIRST BLOW” 52

III. THE AVENGERS OF THE BLACK HOLE:—WHAT THE NAVY DID FOR CLIVE 77

IV. BOSCAWEN’S BATTLE:—THE TAKING OF THE _TÉMÉRAIRE_ 126

V. HAWKE’S FINEST PRIZE:—HOW THE _FORMIDABLE_ CHANGED HER FLAG 141

VI. WHEN THE _VICTORY_ FIRST JOINED THE FLEET:—HOW THEY BUILT THE _VICTORY_ AT CHATHAM 160

VII. ON VALENTINE’S NIGHT IN FRIGATE BAY 191

VIII. THE PAGEANT OF THE _DONEGAL_:—A MEMORY OF ’98 208

IX. ON BOARD OUR FLAGSHIPS AT TRAFALGAR:—CAPTAIN HARDY AND THOSE WHO MANNED THE _VICTORY_—UNDER FIRE WITH COLLINGWOOD—“OLD IRONSIDES” AND THE THIRD IN COMMAND 222

ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAMPIONS THEN AND NOW: THE _VICTORY_ AND THE _DREADNOUGHT_ _Frontispiece_

Both ships, and the submarine alongside the _Victory_, are shown on the same scale. The picture is reproduced by kind permission of the proprietors of the _Illustrated London News_. Photos by Stephen Cribb, Southsea.

_Facing page_

OUR FIRST _DREADNOUGHT_ 10

From a contemporary print kindly lent by Mr. Wentworth Huyshe. The _Dreadnought_ is shown as she appeared when serving in the “Ship Money” Fleet of Charles the First—_circ._ 1637.

“OLD DREADNOUGHT’S” _DREADNOUGHT_ 28

From the original drawing made in 1740 for the official dockyard model. Now in the Author’s collection.

THE RED-LETTER DAY OF NELSON’S CALENDAR. HOW THE _DREADNOUGHT_ LED THE ATTACK ON THE 21ST OF OCTOBER, 1757 34

Painted by Swaine. Engraved and Published in 1760.

WHEN GEORGE THE THIRD WAS KING. OFFICERS AT AFTERNOON TEA ASHORE 38

Thomas Rowlandson. 1786.

MANNING THE FLEET IN 1779. A WARM CORNER FOR THE PRESS GANG 38

James Gillray. October 15th, 1779.

THE COUNTY AND ITS SHIP. THE _KENT_ TROPHY CHALLENGE SHIELD 54

From a photograph kindly lent by the designers and manufacturers of the trophy, Messrs. George Kenning & Son, Goldsmiths, Little Britain and Aldersgate Street, London.

THE SCENE OF THE OPERATIONS UNDER ADMIRAL WATSON AND CLIVE 76

From Major James Rennell’s “Bengal Atlas,” published in 1781. Reproduced by the courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society.

ADMIRAL BOSCAWEN’S VICTORY 136

In the foreground to the right is seen the _Warspite_ attacking the _Téméraire_. Boscawen’s flagship, the _Namur_, is in the centre flying the Admiral’s Blue Flag at the main, and at the fore the red battle-flag, the “Bloody Flag” of the Old Navy. Painted by Swaine. Engraved and published in 1760.

HAWKE’S VICTORY IN QUIBERON BAY 152

The picture shows the _Royal George_ (in the centre) sinking the _Superbe_, and the _Formidable_ (immediately beyond the _Superbe_ and in the background) lowering her colours to the _Resolution_ (the ship coming up astern of the _Royal George_). Painted by Swaine. Engraved and published in 1760.

THE EXECUTION OF ADMIRAL BYNG 164

From a contemporary print.

PORTSMOUTH IN THE YEAR THAT THE _VICTORY_ JOINED THE FLEET 170

From a contemporary print.

AT PORTSMOUTH POINT 176

Thomas Rowlandson.

IN PORTSMOUTH HARBOUR 176

Thomas Rowlandson.

THE _VICTORY_ ON HER FIRST CRUISE 186

Drawn by Captain Robert Elliot, R.N. Engraved and Published in 1780.

THE FIRST FIGHT IN FRIGATE BAY, ST. KITTS 198

Admiral Sir Samuel Hood’s squadron of 22 ships (at anchor) beating off De Grasse’s opening attack with 28 ships (shown coming into the bay under full sail) at 2.30 p.m. on January 25th, 1782. Drawn by N. Pocock, “from a sketch made by a gentleman who happened at the time to be on a visit at a friend’s, on a height between Basse Terre and Old Road.”

OUR FIRST _DONEGAL_ 212

The captured French line-of-battle ship _Hoche_, being towed by the _Doris_, 36, Lord Ranelagh, into Lough Swilly. Drawn by N. Pocock, from a sketch made from the _Robust_ by Captain R. Williams of the Marines.

REPRODUCTION OF THE OFFICIAL DRAWING OF THE _VICTORY’S_ FORETOPSAIL AFTER TRAFALGAR AS RETURNED INTO STORE AT CHATHAM DOCKYARD IN MARCH, 1806 228

TRAFALGAR—12 NOON: AS SKETCHED ON THE SPOT BY A FRENCH OFFICER 252

From a photograph of the original sepia drawing now in the possession of a descendant of Captain Lucas of the _Redoutable_.

CHAMPIONS OF THE FLEET

To the fame of your name When the storm has ceased to blow; When the fiery fight is heard no more, And the storm has ceased to blow.

I

OUR _DREADNOUGHTS_:—THEIR NAME AND BATTLE RECORD

A name through all the world renown’d, A name that rouses as a trumpet sound.

The “Massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s Day”—on the 24th of August, 1572—was directly the cause of the coming into existence of our first _Dreadnought_.

Startled and horrified at the terrible news, as the details of the ghastly story crossed the channel, Queen Elizabeth replied by instantly calling the forces of England to arms. John Hawkins, at the head of twenty ships of war, was sent to cruise off the Azores. The rest of the fleet was ordered to mobilize and be ready to concentrate in the Downs. Instructions were issued for the beacons to be watched. The militia were ordered to muster and march to the coast. A subsidy was sent over to the Protestants in Holland, and a rush of volunteers followed to join those from England already in the field. Huguenot refugees in this country were given leave to fit out vessels to help their co-religionists at La Rochelle. Four men-of-war for the Royal Navy were ordered to be laid down forthwith. They comprised the most important effort in shipbuilding that England had made for ten years.

To facilitate rapidity of building, the work on the four vessels was divided between the two chief master-shipwrights—or, as we should say, naval constructors—of the day: two ships to Matthew Baker, two ships to Peter Pett. Both men were at the top of their profession. Peter Pett was a distinguished member of the great family of naval shipwrights, whose fame has come down to our own times. Baker, who was also of a family of naval shipwrights of repute, was considered by many of the naval officers of the day as the better man. “Mr. Baker,” wrote one, “for his skill and surpassing grounded knowledge in the building of the ships advantageable to all purposes hath not in any nation his equal.” Pett and Baker were keen business rivals, and their rivalry came into play on the present occasion.

The names of the new ships were announced in due course, and represented Her Majesty’s mood on the occasion. She herself selected and appointed them with intention. It was Queen Elizabeth’s way to give her ships “telling” names. “The choice of energetic names for the ships of her Royal Navy,” it has been said, “was one of the means employed by the heroic and politic Elizabeth to infuse her own dauntless spirit into the hearts of her subjects, and to show to Europe at large how little she dreaded the mightiest armaments of her enemies.” More than that, however, needs to be said. As a rule, in the cases of her bigger ships, the Queen chose names that carried, in addition, an underlying meaning, that bore direct allusion to some national event of the hour. According to one who lived at the time, writing about the first ship launched by the Queen, to which, in accordance with old custom, the sovereign’s name was given: “The great Shipp called the _Elizabeth Jonas_ was so named by Her Grace in remembrance of her owne delyverance from the furye of her Enemys, from which in one respect she was no less myraculously preserved than was the prophet Jonas from the Belly of the whale.” In like manner our first _Victory_ and our first _Triumph_ were given those ever famous names, in the first place, of set intention to commemorate the historic double-event of the year in which they both joined the Queen’s fleet. The _Aid_, or _Ayde_, another Elizabethan man-of-war, was so called to commemorate Elizabeth’s first expedition to help the Huguenots of Normandy in their forlorn hope struggle for liberty of conscience, which was just setting out when the _Aid_ went off the stocks. Our first _Revenge_, of immortal renown, did not receive that name at haphazard in the year of Don John of Austria’s insolent threat to invade England and depose Elizabeth by force of arms. Our first _Repulse_ was appointed that name—extant to this day in the Royal Navy for one of our older battleships—in memory of the defeat of the Spanish Armada:—_Dieu Repulse_ was the earlier form of the name as the Queen gave it. And to take at random two other names from the list, it was to commemorate the same overthrow of the arch-enemy of England in those times that Queen Elizabeth chose the names _Defiance_ and _Warspite_—in curious reference, this latter name, to an incident during the fighting with the Armada—for two others of her men-of-war.

It was of set purpose that Queen Elizabeth, in the year of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, chose the name _Dreadnought_ for one of her ships of war. The intentions of the Catholic League towards England were an open secret in every council chamber of Europe. The papal Bull, excommunicating and deposing Elizabeth, had been nailed on the doors of Lambeth Palace. It was at their disposal. Alva’s butcheries in the Netherlands were fresh in the recollection of the world, and the memory of other dark doings came still more closely home to our own people; how Englishmen had been “seized in Spain and the New World to linger amidst the tortures of the Inquisition or to die by its fires.” Burghley and Walsingham, and others as well, had fully understood the menace for England and the warning of Lepanto only two years before. Their secret agents had supplied them with a copy of De Spes’ confidential report to Alva and King Philip to the effect that the ports of England were poorly fortified, and that only eleven at most of Queen Elizabeth’s twenty ships of war were worth taking into account. They had not forgotten what had happened three years before, when, under the guise of an escort for the new Queen of Spain from Flanders to the Tagus, an extremely formidable Spanish fleet, fully equipped for war, had come north and lain for some weeks in the Scheldt, acting throughout in a very suspicious way. That was a twelvemonth before Lepanto. Now the situation seemed even more menacing for England. The Queen’s so-called Agreement with Spain, lately come to, for practical purposes was hardly worth the paper it was drafted on. There was Mary Stuart and her partizans to be reckoned with also; the restless intriguing of the Roman Catholics all over England; open rebellion in Ireland. What might not the consequences of the Paris massacre involve in the near future? It was at such a moment that the name _Dreadnought_ was first appointed to an English man-of-war, and the Queen’s choice in the circumstances partook of the nature almost of an Act of State, specially designed to express the temper of the nation. In the same spirit of exalted patriotism in which, at a later day, Elizabeth, from Tilbury camp, with proud scorn bade King Philip and the Prince of Parma and all other enemies of the realm do their worst, the great Queen, of her own royal will and pleasure, named for the Royal Navy its first _Dreadnought_.

_Swiftsure_ was the name given to the second ship of the set. “Swift-suer” was the way the Queen Elizabeth spelled it—“Swift-pursuer,” that is—not an inappropriate name for the sister ship of a _Dreadnought_. The pair were intended as ships of the line, to use a later day term. The other two ships of the group were smaller vessels of the light cruiser class of the period, intended for service as scouts, as the “eyes and ears of the fleet” at sea. Their names were the _Achates_ and the _Handmaid_, expressive names both in their way.

Matthew Baker’s men had the _Dreadnought_ and _Handmaid_ to build; Pett’s men the _Swiftsure_ and the _Achates_. They all started work within three weeks, and Pett’s men won the race by just a month. The _Swiftsure_ and the _Achates_ were both sent afloat on the 11th of October, 1573; the _Dreadnought_ and the _Handmaid_ on the 10th of the following month.

An Arctic explorer of those times, whose name lives on our maps—the man, indeed, who named the North Cape for us, Captain Stephen Borough (or Borogh, as he himself usually wrote it), one of “ye foure Principall Masters in Ordinarye of ye Queene’s Maᵗⁱᵉˢ Navye Royall,” by special appointment also the Master of the _Victory_, and a son of North Devon in her proudest day—had naval charge and supervision over the building of the _Dreadnought_ and the other ships at Deptford. He lodged meanwhile at Ratcliffe, across the river, and his “traveylinge chardges,” with the waterman’s receipt for rowing him to and fro on his weekly visits of inspection, signed “Richard Williams of Ratcliff, Whyrryman,” is still in existence.

The marshmen and labourers at the dockyard began their digging, “working upon ye opening of ye dockhedde for ye launchynge,” during the first days of November. That was the first of the preliminaries, necessitated by the primitive arrangements of those times. The dock at Deptford in which the timbers of the _Dreadnought_ were put together was of the crudest type: practically an oblong excavation in the river bank, the sides and inner end of which were shored up and kept from falling in by wooden planks. The outer end, or river end, was closed and sealed when a ship was inside by a water-tight dam of brushwood-faggots, clay, and stones filled in and rammed down between the overlapping double gates of the dock. An “ingyn to drawe water owte of ye dokke,” worked by relays of labourers, pumped out the water inside the dock after it was closed. Before the dock could be re-opened the stones, faggots, etc. of the “tamping” or stopping had to be dug up and removed. Then at low water the gates would be swung back, and the water from the river flow in as the tide rose for the launch or float-out of the ship into the river.

On board the _Dreadnought_, meanwhile, the finishing touches were being put by the contractors’ workmen—Thomas Hodges, of “Parris Garden,” and Thomas Wells, of Chatham, and their men seeing to the ironwork fittings, “ye workmanshipp and making of lockes and boltes, keyes and haidges [_sic_] for ij newe cabbons, as also for hookes, and stockelockes, porthaidges [_sic_], revetts and countre-revetts, shuttynges with rings, greate dufftayles and divers other necessaries”; joiners sent by “Jullyan Richards of London, widdow,” who had a contract for certain other fittings; other joiners from Lewys Stocker, also of London, seeing to “ye sellynges [_sic_] and formysling ye cabbins and makyng casements for windows, seelings, awmeryes [_sic_], cupboards, settes, bedsteddes, formes, stools, trisstelles, tables,” etc. “for her Grace’s newe shippe ye _Dreadnaughte_.” Hard by, alongside Deptford creek, were lying the masts for the ship, ready to be put in place after she was afloat; with “toppes greate and small, mayne-tops, ffore-toppe, mizzen-toppe, and toppe-galantes;” besides barge loads from Richard Pope, of “Ereth,” of “gravaille for ye ballistynge of hur highness Shipe called ye _Dreadnaughte_ at iiijᵈ every time.” Prest-master Thomas Woodcot was meanwhile hard at work elsewhere, “travailling about the presting of marynnars within the River of Theames for ye Launchynge and Rigging of Hur highnes’ ij newe shippes at Deptfordstraund [_sic_] by the space of viii daies at iijs iiijd per diem.”

The future “nucleus crew” of the _Dreadnought_, who were to act as ship-keepers on board when the ship went round to moor with the rest of the fleet laid up in the Medway, had been warned to be at Deptford by the morning of the 10th of November. They were drawn apparently from the ships lying off Gillingham, just below Chatham, or “Jillingham Ordinarie”—the “Fleet Reserve,” as we say nowadays—and numbered, all told, ten men and a boy. These were the names of our original “Dreadnoughts” of three hundred and thirty-three years ago, and their quarterly pay, according to “The Accompte as well Ordinarie as Extraordinarie of Benjamin Gonson, Treasurer of ye Quene’s Majestie’s Maryn cawses,” 1574, a quaint, bulky, ponderous, parchment covered volume, of massive proportions, laced with faded green silk, and bound with leather straps, now well worn and in parts frayed nearly away:

THE “DREADNAUGHTE.”

MARYNERS.

Robarte Baxster, boteson:—xij wekes vj daies xxxvijˢ vjᵈ Richard Boureman, cooke: xij wekes vj daies xxixˢ vᵈ John Awsten: xij wekes vj daies xxjˢ vᵈ Nicholas Francton: xij wekes vj daies xxjˢ vᵈ Christofer Parr, gromett: xij wekes vj daies xxjˢ jᵈ Henry Osbourne: xij wekes vj daies xxjˢ vᵈ James Laske: xij wekes vj daies xxjˢ vᵈ Richard Shutt: xij wekes vj daies xxjˢ vᵈ Robartt Woodnaughtt: xij wekes vj daies xxjˢ vᵈ William Appleford: xij wekes vj daies xxjˢ vᵈ John Huntt, master gonner: xij wekes vj daies xxxijˢ ijᵈ

This is what the _Dreadnought_ looked like as she lay in the dock on the Tuesday morning that saw the ship take the water. Imagine a solid-looking heavily-timbered hull, round bowed, with long, raking forward prow or beak, reaching out some ten or twelve yards ahead of the actual vessel, and with at the after-end a lofty towering poop with shallow overhanging balustraded gallery. Amidships the vessel is of a width equal to nearly a third of her length. From the “greate beaste,” the figure-head—a dragon—“gilded and laid with fine gold,” representing one of the supporters of the Queen’s arms, set up on the tip of the beak, away aft to the stern gallery is a distance of, over all, about a hundred and twenty feet. The body of the hull itself has a keel length of some eighty feet—from rudder post to fore-foot. Along the water-line the bends are all tarred over, with varnished side planking above, tough oak timber from the Crown lands of the Sussex Weald by Horsham. The topsides above are varnished to the bulwarks, where a touch of colour shows; ornamental carved and painted work in royal Tudor green and white, laid on in “colours of oil” and garnished with Her Majesty’s family badges in gold, and with here and there, on the balustrades of the quarter-rails and stern gallery, an additional touch of red. On the stern, “painted in oils,” are the arms of England, with the Lion and the Dragon, the Queen’s royal supporters, and below, on a scroll, Her Majesty’s motto, _Semper Eadem_.

These are other things about the ship that would strike the Deptford visitor of that day. The square-headed forecastle is low and squat in appearance, compared with the piled-up, narrow poop right aft, looking over from which a foreign visitor to the Queen’s fleet once declared that “it made one shudder to look downwards.” The bottom of the ship is coated with “tallow and rosin mingled with pitch.” The square-cut, wide portholes, out of which the guns will point when they are on board—the Tower lighters will bring them down for mounting in a week or two—were the idea, they say in the yard, of Master Shipwright Baker’s father, old James Baker, many years ago King Harry’s shipwright, improving on the original French style. It was old Baker too, they say, who “first adapted English ships to carry heavy guns.” The Reformers wanted to send the old man to the stake for “being in the possession of some forbidden books”; but King Harry could not afford to let them burn England’s best naval architect even for the benefit of Protestantism.