XVI. 1794. weather-gage of the enemy, he was enabled to break their CHAP. line near the centre, and double with a preponderating force on the one-half of their squadron. The signal he displayed was No. 39, the purport of which was, "that, having the weather-gage of the enemy, the admiral means to pass between the ships of their line and engage them to leeward, leaving, however, a discretion to each captain to engage on the windward or leeward." The French fleet was drawn up in close line, stretching nearly east and west; and a heavy fire commenced upon the British ships, as soon as they came within range. They did not come perpendicularly upon their adversaries as at Trafalgar, but made sail abreast, in such a manner as that each ship should, as soon as possible, cut the line, Howe, 32. and get alongside of its destined antagonist, and engage Brenton, i. it to leeward, so that, if worsted, the enemy could not i. 147. get away.1 1 Barrow's 19. ment of the Had the admiral's orders been literally obeyed, or capable of complete execution, the most decisive naval Commencevictory recorded in history would in all probability have action. attended the British arms. But the importance of specific obedience, in the vital point of engaging the enemy to leeward, was not then generally understood; and the enemy's line was so regular and compact, that in most places it was thought to be, and in some was, impervious. The consequence was, that five only of the ships after the Douglas did this on his own original impulse at the moment, as Wellington in the case of the flank attack on the opening in the French line at Salamanca, or whether he did so in consequence of having previously been made acquainted with the suggestions of Mr Clerk of Eldin on the subject. The main strength of Mr Clerk of Eldin's partisans lay in the fact, which was proved by a great number of concurring witnesses, that Lord Rodney, especially in his later years, frequently said, with the generosity which so often accompanies real elevation of mind, that he had gained the victory of the 12th April, in consequence of having studied and adopted Mr Clerk's suggestions contained in his " Naval Tactics," printed and circulated in the January preceding. It was stated also, by various persons, that Lord Cranstoun, who had been on board the fleet going out, said repeatedly that he had heard Rodney, at his own table during the voyage, discuss Mr Clerk's projects, and express his intention of breaking the line, in pursuance of his suggestions, if he fell in with the enemy. These testimonies, which came from XVI. 1794. CHAP. Queen Charlotte, viz., the Defence, Marlborough, Royal George, Queen, and Brunswick, succeeded in passing through. The Cæsar, in particular, which was the leading vessel when the signal for close action was flying the most respectable persons, embracing, among others, Sir Walter Scott, Lord Chief Commissioner Adam, and many others, naturally produced a great impression, and amply justified the zeal with which the family and friends of Mr Clerk of Eldin strove to appropriate to him the merit of the original idea on the subject. To this it was added, that Sir Charles Douglas had had several conferences with Mr Clerk on the subject of naval tactics, at one of which Lord Chief Commissioner Adam was present, shortly before leaving Britain, which he was said to have done some months after Rodney, who set sail from Portsmouth on 2d January 1782, in which the plan of breaking the line was distinctly explained to that officer by Mr Clerk. On the other hand, Sir Howard Douglas, on behalf of his father, advanced a great variety of proofs of a still more convincing, because a more authentic, kind. The "Naval Tactics," as it now stands, was published for the first time in 1790; but fifty copies were thrown off and distributed in the first week of January 1782, three months before Rodney's battle was fought, and the case for Mr Clerk's partisans was mainly rested on the hypothesis, said to be established by conclusive evidence, that Rodney had seen, or at least heard of, one of these copies, and adopted its principles. But Sir Howard overturned all these inferences, by proving that the breaking the line and attacking to leeward the peculiar manœuvre which gained the battle of 12th April-was not mentioned in the edition of the "Naval Tactics," printed in 1782, at all, but appeared for the first time in the edition of 1790, eight years after the battle had been gained. This was admitted by Mr Clerk himself in the 1790 edition.* It is evident, therefore, that, whether Rodney or Sir Charles Douglas knew of the 1782 edition or not, when the battle of 12th April in that year was fought, it is not from it they could have taken the idea of the brilliant manœuvre which won the victory. In truth, various accounts from eyewitnesses concurred in stating, that, so far from the breaking of the line and engaging to leeward having been previously thought or determined on by Rodney, it was taken up at the moment by Sir Charles Douglas, in consequence of having observed an accidental gap in the French line in the middle of the battle, and was in truth forced by him, after a considerable altercation and much resistance on his part, on Rodney.+ Sir Howard has shown, too, from the log of the vessel in which he sailed, that Lord Cranstoun could not have heard the conversations said to have been reported by him at the admiral's table on the voyage out, as he only arrived in time to dine with him the day before the battle. In regard to the assertion, that Sir Charles Douglas sailed some months after Rodney, and that in the interval Mr Clerk had met him, and explained the breaking of * "These observations (on the attack to the leeward) were intended to be inserted in the first edition of this essay, printed January 1, 1782, as being applicable to the two similar encounters of Lord Rodney, on 15th and 19th May 1780, and as well as those of the 27th July, where the adverse fleets had passed each other on contrary tacks. But it was afterwards thought proper to omit them, as it was conceived it might be prejudicial to the other parts of the work to advance any thing doubtful; no example of cutting an enemy's line in an attack from the leeward, before that time, having been given."-" Naval Tactics," p. 119; note, edition 1790. † Several most respectable persons on board Rodney's ship (the Formidable) at the time Sir Charles Douglas suggested the breaking of the line to the admiral, concur in this statement. Take for example, the following from Captain Sir Charles Dashwood, then aid-de-camp to Rodney on board the Formidable:-" After attentively observing the enemy's line, and remaining some time in deep meditation, Sir Charles said, addressing the admiral, Sir George, I give you joy XVI. from the admiral's mast-head, backed her main topsails, CHAP. and engaged on the windward of the enemy; and the Gibraltar also omitted to obey the order, by crossing the French admiral and engaging his second a-head-a disheartening circumstance, though arising, as it afterwards the line, it appeared from the log of the Formidable, that Rodney and Sir Charles left London together on the 2d December 1781, and on the 2d January 1782 sailed together for the West Indies. Lord Chief Commissioner Adam, when applied to on the subject, declared he had no recollection of any such meeting or conversation. Mr Clerk also himself, in none of the successive editions which he published of his work during his life, ever once asserted he had met with Sir Charles Douglas, or explained his system to him previous to Rodney's victory, although his son said he had done so after his death--an omission which was not likely to have happened, if he had been conscious of having been the original author of the manoeuvre which had gained that brilliant victory. Perhaps these conflicting statements may furnish the true key to the fact, in regard to this much agitated controversy, which is, that Rodney, conscious that the manoeuvre which won the day had been in a manner forced upon him by his flag-captain, was afterwards, in his old age, more solicitous than he would have been in his earlier years, to take the merit of the movement, and claim forethought and consideration on his part for a step which was in truth the happy inspiration of genius at the moment, in another, to whom the glory of the success really belongs. The breaking of the line and the engaging the enemy's fleet to leeward, since so often and successfully practised against the French at sea, though not generally done before, was not, previous to Rodney's memorable battle, unknown in the British service. A century before, it had been practised in a battle with the Dutch. "Sir George, with nine of his headmost ships, charged through the Dutch fleet and got the weathergage."-LEDYARD'S Naval History, b. iii. p. 542. This is the account of the battle, 16th August 1652. In truth, this manoeuvre has been adopted by military genius on the inspiration of the moment, from the earliest times, both at land and sea. It was the leading principle of the fierce engagements between the brass-headed galleys of antiquity, and won their greatest naval victories; it was applied with decisive success by Wellington, when he interposed in the gap between Thomière's division and the remainder of the army at Salamanca; and by Napoleon, when he hurled Soult forward to seize the deserted hill of Pratzen, in the centre of the Allied line at Austerlitz. See, for this interesting controversy, Edinburgh Review, April 1830, vol. li. p. 1; PLAYFAIR's Works, iii. 461, and SIR HOWARD DOUGLAS'S Naval Evolutions, London, 1832, where the subject is most ably treated, and all the contemporary statements from eyewitnesses on Rodney's victories are to be found. of the victory.' Pooh,' said Rodney, the day is not half won yet.' Break the line, Sir George,' said Douglas; the day is your own, and I will insure the victory.' 'No,' said the admiral; I will not break my line.' After another request and another refusal, Sir Charles desired the helm to be put a-port, upon which Sir George ordered it to starboard. Sir Charles again ordered it a-port: upon which Rodney sternly observed, Remember I am commander-inchief: starboard, sir.' In two minutes, they again met on the deck, and Sir Charles said, Only break the line, Sir George, and the day is your own.' The admiral then said, in a quick and hurried way, 'Well, well, do as you like.' Port the helm!' upon this, cried Sir Charles. Firing commenced on the larboard side; in two minutes the Formidable passed between two French ships, each nearly touching us, followed by the Namur and the other ships astern; and from that minute victory was decided in our favour." Sir Joseph Yorke's and F. Thessiger's evidence is precisely to the same effect.-See Sir Howard Douglas's Appendix, p. 1-10. 1794. XVI. 1794. CHAP. appeared, from want of capacity rather than timidity on the part of its captain.* Howe, however, was not discouraged, but held steadily on, walking on the front of his poop along with Sir Roger Curtis, Sir Andrew Douglas, and other officers, while the crew were falling fast around him, and the spars and rigging rattled down on all sides, under the terrible and constantly increasing fire of the enemy. With perfect composure, a shot to be fired, but the British admiral ordered not the prospect that awaited the French vessel from the majestic advance of the British admiral, that Jean Bon Saint André, the commissioner of the Convention on board, overcome with terror, took refuge below. After many entreaties, Howe allowed a straggling fire to be returned, but from the main and quarter deck only; and reserving his whole broadside, poured it with awful force 1 Barrow's into the stern of the Montagne, as he slowly passed Howe, 232, through the line between that huge three-decker and the 233. Bren- Jacobin of eighty guns. So close did the ships pass on 130. James, this occasion, that the tricolor flag, as it waved at the Montagne's flag-staff, brushed the main and mizen 20. Jom.v. shrouds of the Queen Charlotte; and so terrible was the effect of the broadside, that three hundred men were killed or wounded by that discharge.1 Life of ton, i. 129, i. 147, 148. Vict. et Cong. iii. 290. Toul. iv. 247. 20. conflict which en sued. Fearful of encountering a similar broadside on the Desperate other side, the captain of the Jacobin stretched across under the Montagne's lee, and thus threw herself a little behind that vessel right in the Queen Charlotte's way, in the very position which Howe had designed for himself to engage the enemy's three-decker. The British admiral, therefore, was obliged to alter his course a little, * The rudder of the Cæsar had been early in the action disabled by a chance shot, which was the main cause of that vessel not breaking the line: though the captain was afterwards, at his own request, brought to a court-martial, and dismissed the service. XVI. 1794. and pass aslant between the two vessels, and, having thus CHAP. got between them, opened a tremendous fire on both. The Jacobin soon made sail, to get out of the destructive range, and, being to the leeward of the British admiral, he effected his escape; but the Montagne could not do the same, being to the windward, and she would unquestionably have been taken, as she was hardly firing at all after the first awful broadside, when the foretop-mast of the Queen Charlotte came down with a tremendous crash. During the confusion occasioned by this catastrophe, the Montagne, taking advantage of the momentary inability of her antagonist to move, contrived to sheer off, leaving the British admiral now engaged with the two ships second and third astern of her. The Vengeur of seventy-four guns was warmly engaged at this time with the Brunswick, under Harvey; but another French ship, the Achille, came up on the other side, and a terrible combat began on the part of the British vessel, thus engaged on both hands. It was sustained, however, with admirable courage. Captain Harvey was severely wounded in the hottest part of the engagement, but, before being carried down, he said—"Persevere, my brave lads, in your duty continue the action with spirit for the honour of our king and country, and remember my last words, The colours of the Brunswick shall never be struck."" Such heroism was not long of meeting with its reward: the Ramillies soon after came up, and opened her fire upon the Vengeur; the load was taken off the Brunswick; by a fortunate shot the rudder of the French vessel was shot away, and a large opening beat in her stern, into which 1 James, i. the water rushed with great violence. The Vengeur was 162, 165. now found to be sinking; the Achille made off, followed by the Ramillies, to which she soon struck; and the Vengeur shortly after went down with three hundred and fifty of her crew, four hundred and fifty having been humanely taken off by the boats of the Alfred and Culloden.1* 6 * It was stated in the French Convention, and has been repeated in all the Brenton, i. 130, 131. Howe, 233, Barrow's 234. Jom. V. 291. 247. Toul. iv. |