Rodney 25

Rodney 25

When Rodney was summoned by his captain of the fleet at daybreak on the

12th, and came on deck to see with his eyes the proof that his

calculation of the night before was correct, the French were straggling

over a space variously estimated at nine or at fifteen miles from east

to west to the north-east of him. The English were in a rough oval drawn

from north to south. Hood had resumed his proper place in the van;

Rodney was in the centre; Rear-Admiral Drake in the rear. A line

carried out from the leading English ship would bisect the French. As

the wind was from south of east, the trade wind of the West Indies, all

the Frenchmen to the west of that line were on the Admiral’s lee-bow,

which meant that he had every chance of forcing a battle on them before

they could again get away to windward. To the west of the French was

seen the crippled _Zélé_ in tow of the _Astrée_ going to Guadaloupe.

Rodney at once decided to try whether he could not, by threatening these

two vessels, draw the French admiral still farther to leeward. Orders

were given to some of the best sailers in Hood’s division to chase. As

soon as they had stood well out from among the English ships the effect

of the measure was manifest. Signals fluttered up the mainmast of the

_Ville de Paris_, and the French ships were seen to be coming down to

cover the _Zélé_, and to be steering to take their places in the line of

battle ahead, and astern of their admiral. This meant that Grasse had

sacrificed what remained to him of the windward position, and the fleets

were now equal as regards the wind. There was no time to be lost. At

once--it was now about a quarter to seven--the chasing ships were

recalled, but in order to avoid the delay which would be caused by

waiting till they resumed their place, Rodney decided to order the rear

to lead into action. Thus, while the chasing ships were returning to

their post in the van, the ships farthest from the enemy hauled to the

wind and stood to the north-east between the bulk of the fleet and the

land of Dominica. Each ship fell into place as her turn came, the

chasing ships from the van arriving in time to take their post in what

had now become the rear. In Captain Matthews’ plans the ships of

Admiral Drake’s division may be seen curling over the fleet, and

pointing at the French like the tail of the scorpion. The line was

formed with rapidity and without a hitch. It was, in technical language,

a line ahead on the starboard tack at a cable’s length asunder--each

ship was, that is to say, two hundred yards in front of or behind the

other in a line. From the first ship to the last there was, when the

formation was complete, a distance of more than five miles.

 

While the line was forming, the fleet went to breakfast. Every man not

actually at work, or the wheel, hastened to get all the food he could.

In the Admiral’s cabin a party sat down with the appetite of warriors

whom death could not daunt, and the care of veterans who foresaw the

extreme probability that no more victuals might be attainable for the

rest of that day. Douglas, the captain of the fleet; Symonds, the

captain of the _Formidable_; Paget, the Admiral’s secretary; Gilbert

Blane, his doctor; and a few others who messed at the Admiral’s table,

sat down with Rodney. Cranstoun remained on deck to watch the enemy. In

the middle of breakfast he came down with the news that on the course

they were then following the English would cut through the French.

Grasse had formed on the port tack, and was standing to the south-east

across the northerly course of the English. It was his natural object to

place himself across the mouth of the passage, and to windward of the

English if he could. The two fleets were now running along two lines

which formed an obtuse angle, of which the apex pointed to the east.

Whichever reached that apex first would weather the other. Cranstoun’s

message showed that the French would win the race. They had (though

there is some doubt on the point) been slightly favoured by a shift of

the trade wind to the north. Rodney made no answer to Cranstoun, and

doubtless thought the occasion called for none. He had always preferred

to engage to leeward, as he did in his battle with Langara. The windward

position was only valuable to him because it would enable him to force

on an action. Now, when it was a case with the French of “fight they

will, and fight they must,” he cared not a jot whether or no they

weathered the head of his line. His position compelled the enemy’s

admiral to give battle. As it turned out ill for him he has been

severely criticised by his countrymen, who do not seem to understand

that their complaints are in truth a confession of inferiority. The

experience of the previous day had shown that Rodney could not be shaken

off. On the morning of the 12th Grasse had to choose between running

away to Guadaloupe with the English after him, or standing as he was now

doing across their van. If he had endeavoured to get away on the

opposite tack he would have been unable to clear the Saints, and he

would have been taken in a trap. Not to have fought in these

circumstances would have been to acknowledge that a French fleet could

not hope to meet an English one on anything approaching to equal terms.

The plan of Grasse was a good plan enough. He hoped to cross the English

van, to cripple a few of the ships, then, when he had reached a

convenient place for tacking, to turn to windward, and make off while

Rodney was refitting his damaged ships.

 

The feasibility of this plan depended, for Grasse, on his power to keep

at long bowls. If a close action could be forced on them his ships would

be unable to tack under the English fire. A close action was forced. At

some moment between seven and eight o’clock the leading English ship,

the _Marlborough_, came within range. If the upper side of the obtuse

angle spoken of above is prolonged we shall get the relative position of

the fleets pretty accurately. The English formed the lower line and they

impinged on the French at about the ninth ship--the _Brave_. Rodney had

hoisted the signal to engage close to leeward. When, therefore, Captain

Taylor Penny of the _Marlborough_ found himself within musket-shot range

of the _Brave_ he put his helm up, and turning a little to port, led the

English line close along the French. Our enemy was as yet barely in

order. Bougainville, who commanded the van, had just taken his place.

Their rear was still in confusion, and Vaudreuil, who commanded there,

afterwards declared that he formed his line under small-arm fire. We

have now to figure to ourselves the two fleets filing past one another,

cannonading as they went. Both were going very slowly. The wind was

light; it was necessary to go at something below the speed of the

slowest ship, since all must retain the power to shoot ahead if

required, and so they filed slowly along at about three and a half miles

an hour. Their course would have carried the leading French ships away

from the English, but Grasse ordered them to bear down, with the

intention of putting our leading vessels under the utmost possible

amount of fire before they reached his centre and rear. Each fleet was

soon engaged from the leading ship, and the two lines hurtled past one

another in opposite directions. The English, having a margin of wind to

draw on, used it to hug the French close--so close that, as Thesiger, an

officer of the _Formidable_, said, it would have been possible to throw

a cold shot on board them as they went past. At that range the

carronades of the English ships did great execution. On board the

French, which were crowded with the soldiers who were to have conquered

Jamaica, the slaughter was terrible, and the effect of it soon visible,

first in the number of the dead, or sometimes only badly wounded, who

were hurled overboard to the sharks, and then in the slackening fire of

the French. Gilbert Blane has left it on record that although our

enemy’s fire was effective at long ranges, it grew wild and irregular at

close quarters. We could, he says, actually see the Frenchmen running

from their guns in spite of the determined efforts of the officers to

keep them steady. Captain Savage of the _Hercules_, who suffered as

badly from the gout as his Admiral, had a chair placed for himself in

the waist of his ship, and sat there leaning over the bulwarks

ironically saluting the passing enemy.

 

When the battle had lasted about an hour, and the English van had almost

reached the French rear, their admiral thought it was time to turn to

windward, and hoisted the order to do so twice. But the orders could not

possibly be obeyed. The French ships were yard-arm to yard-arm with the

English, and if they had tacked now would have been raked and rendered

helpless. Many of the ships cannot even have seen the signals in the fog

of smoke now hanging over both fleets. France had to “undergo her fate.”

Grasse bore on to the south, and at about nine the English van had

passed the last ship of his rear. On emerging from the rolling masses of

smoke the captains looked eagerly back for the signals at the towering

mast-head of the _Formidable_. As they looked they saw a great

three-decker heading north out of the cloud and the flames. For a moment

they thought the French admiral had doubled back on them, but as the

three-decker cleared the smoke they saw the cross of St. George, and

knew that the _Formidable_ had burst through the French line to

windward.

 

The movement had not been premeditated by Rodney, and the signal to

engage to leeward was still flying when he passed to windward. The

decision to depart from the old routine, according to which the English

fleet would have passed along the French and then have tacked back on

it--that decision which may be said to have affected the whole immediate

future of England--was sudden, was taken on the spur of the moment, was

equally unexpected by victor and vanquished. So much is certain; but the

exact circumstances under which it was done, and what share of the

credit ought to fall to whom, is the subject of the controversy spoken

of in the note at the beginning of this chapter. The courteous reader is

asked to remember that the incidents now about to be narrated have been

most diversely told, and still more diversely interpreted.

 

A glance at the list of ships given above will show that the

_Formidable_ was exactly in the middle of the English line, being the

eighteenth of the thirty-six men-of-war in it. As the French van bore in

upon ours she was engaged with each of their ships in succession. The

fleets were slipping slowly along, and it was well on for ten o’clock

before the _Formidable_ passed the eighteenth vessel in the French line.

She had gone close to them all, firing as soon as her guns could be

trained forward to meet, and as long as they could be trained aft to

follow, each foe as she defiled past. Then between each bout of fire

there would be a pause as the _Formidable_ came opposite the vacant

space between the ships in the French line, and having sent her last

broadside after one was training it forward to meet the next comer. It

must have been at a little before half-past nine that Rodney and Grasse,

whose ship was the fifteenth in the French line, saluted each other with

the cannon of their three-deckers. Up to now there had been nothing to

distinguish this from the ordinary sea-fights of the eighteenth century

save the number of the ships engaged and the closeness of the engagement.