22. Howe’s Victory of June 1, 1794

[Prior to the engagement, the French fleet had met and was convoying to port 180 vessels from America with food-stuffs of which France was then in dire need. The British fleet encountered the French 400 miles west of Ushant on May 28, and in the four days of maneuvering and pursuit which followed, Howe displayed marked energy and tactical skill. Though the French fleet was defeated in the ensuing battle, it covered the escape of the convoy.—Editor.]

The French admiral on the evening of the 29th saw that he now must fight, and at a disadvantage; consequently, he could not hope to protect the convoy. As to save this was his prime object, the next best thing was to entice the British out of its path. With this view he stood away to the north-west; while a dense fog coming on both favored his design and prevented further encounter during the two ensuing days, throughout which Howe continued to pursue. In the evening of May 31 the weather cleared, and at daybreak the next morning the enemies were in position, ready for battle, two long columns of ships, heading west, the British twenty-five, the French again twenty-six through the junction of the four vessels mentioned. Howe now had cause to regret his absent six, and to ponder Nelson’s wise saying, “Only numbers can annihilate.”

This time for maneuvering was past. Able tactician as he personally was, and admirable as had been the direction of his efforts in the two days’ fighting, Howe had been forced in them to realize two things, namely, that his captains were, singly, superior in seamanship, and their crews in gunnery, to the French; and again, that in the ability to work together as a fleet the British were so deficient as to promise very imperfect results, if he attempted any but the simplest formation. To such, therefore, he resorted; falling back upon the old, unskillful, sledge-hammer fashion of the British navy. Arranging his ships in one long line, three miles from the enemy, he made them all go down together, each to attack a specified opponent, coming into action as nearly as might be at the same instant. Thus the French, from the individual inferiority of the units of their fleet, would be at all points over-powered. The issue justified the forecast; but the manner of performance was curiously and happily marked by Howe’s own peculiar phlegm. There was a long summer day ahead for fighting, and no need for hurry. The order was first accurately formed, and canvas reduced to proper proportions. Then the crews went to breakfast. After breakfast, the ships all headed for the hostile line, under short sail, the admiral keeping them in hand during the approach as an infantry officer dresses his company. Hence the shock from end to end was so nearly simultaneous as to induce success unequalled in any engagement conducted on the same primitive plan.

Picturesque as well as sublime, animating as well as solemn, on that bright Sunday morning, was this prelude to the stern game of war about to be played: the quiet summer sea stirred only by a breeze sufficient to cap with white the little waves that ruffled its surface; the dark hulls gently rippling the water aside in their slow advance, a ridge of foam curling on either side of the furrow ploughed by them in their onward way; their massive sides broken by two, or at times three, rows of ports, whence, the tompions drawn, yawned the sullen lines of guns, behind which, unseen, but easily realized by the instructed eye, clustered the groups of ready seamen who served each piece. Aloft swung leisurely to and fro the tall spars, which ordinarily, in so light a wind, would be clad in canvas from deck to truck, but whose naked trimness now proclaimed the deadly purpose of that still approach. Upon the high poops, where floated the standard of either nation, gathered round each chief the little knot of officers through whom commands were issued and reports received, the nerves along which thrilled the impulses of the great organism, from its head, the admiral, through every member to the dark lowest decks, nearly awash, where, as farthest from the captain’s own oversight, the senior lieutenants controlled the action of the ships’ heaviest batteries.

On board the Queen Charlotte, Lord Howe, whose burden of sixty-eight years had for four days found no rest save what he could snatch in an arm-chair, now, at the prospect of battle, “displayed an animation,” writes an eye-witness, “of which, at his age, and after such fatigue of body and mind, I had not thought him capable. He seemed to contemplate the result as one of unbounded satisfaction.” By his side stood his fleet-captain, Curtis, of whose service among the floating batteries, and during the siege of Gibraltar, the governor of the fortress had said, “He is the man to whom the king is chiefly indebted for its security;” and Codrington, then a lieutenant, who afterwards commanded the allied fleets at Navarino. Five ships to the left, Collingwood, in the Barfleur, was making to the admiral whose flag she bore the remark that stirred Thackeray: “Our wives are now about going to church, but we will ring about these Frenchmen’s ears a peal which will drown their bells.” The French officers, both admirals and captains, were mainly unknown men, alike then and thereafter. The fierce flames of the Revolution had swept away the men of the old school, mostly aristocrats, and time had not yet brought forward the very few who during the Napoleonic period showed marked capacity. The commander-in-chief, Villaret-Joyeuse, had three years before been a lieutenant. He had a high record for gallantry, but was without antecedents as a general officer. With him, on the poop of the Montagne, which took her name from Robespierre’s political supporters, stood that anomalous companion of the generals and admirals of the day, the Revolutionary commissioner, Jean Bon Saint-André, about to learn by experience the practical working of the system he had advocated, to disregard all tests of ability save patriotism and courage, depreciating practice and skill as unnecessary to the valor of the true Frenchman.

As the British line drew near the French, Howe said to Curtis, “Prepare the signal for close action.” “There is no such signal,” replied Curtis. “No,” said the admiral, “but there is one for closer action, and I only want that to be made in case of captains not doing their duty.” Then closing a little signal book he always carried, he continued to those around him, “Now, gentlemen, no more book, no more signals. I look to you to do the duty of the Queen Charlotte in engaging the flagship. I don’t want the ships to be bilge to bilge, but if you can lock the yardarms, so much the better; the battle will be the quicker decided.” His purpose was to go through the French line, and fight the Montagne on the far side. Some doubted their succeeding, but Howe overbore them. “That’s right, my lord!” cried Bowen, the sailing-master, who looked to the ship’s steering. “The Charlotte will make room for herself.” She pushed close under the French ship’s stern, grazing her ensign, and raking her from stern to stem with a withering fire, beneath which fell three hundred men. A length or two beyond lay the French Jacobin. Howe ordered the Charlotte to luff, and place herself between the two. “If we do,” said Bowen, “we shall be on board one of them.” “What is that to you, sir?” asked Howe quickly. “Oh!” muttered the master, not inaudibly. “D—n my eyes if I care, if you don’t. I’ll go near enough to singe some of our whiskers.” And then, seeing by the Jacobin’s rudder that she was going off, he brought the Charlotte sharp round, her jib boom grazing the second Frenchman as her side had grazed the flag of the first.

From this moment the battle raged furiously from end to end of the field for nearly an hour,—a wild scene of smoke and confusion, under cover of which many a fierce ship duel was fought, while here and there men wandered, lost, in a maze of bewilderment that neutralized their better judgment. An English naval captain tells a service tradition of one who was so busy watching the compass, to keep his position in the ranks, that he lost sight of his antagonist, and never again found him. Many a quaint incident passed, recorded or unrecorded, under that sulphurous canopy. A British ship, wholly dismasted, lay between two enemies, her captain desperately wounded. A murmur of surrender was somewhere heard; but as the first lieutenant checked it with firm authority, a cock flew upon the stump of a mast and crowed lustily. The exultant note found quick response in hearts not given to despair, and a burst of merriment, accompanied with three cheers, replied to the bird’s triumphant scream. On board the Brunswick, in her struggle with the Vengeur, one of the longest and fiercest fights the sea has ever seen, the cocked hat was shot off the effigy of the Duke of Brunswick, which she bore as a figure-head. A deputation from the crew gravely requested the captain to allow the use of his spare chapeau, which was securely nailed on, and protected his grace’s wig during the rest of the action. After this battle with the ships of the new republic, the partisans of monarchy noted with satisfaction that, among the many royal figures that surmounted the stems of the British fleet, not one lost his crown. Of a harum-scarum Irish captain are told two droll stories. After being hotly engaged for some time with a French ship, the fire of the latter slackened, and then ceased. He called to know if she had surrendered. The reply was, “No.” “Then,” shouted he, “d—n you, why don’t you fire?” Having disposed of his special antagonist without losing his own spars, the same man kept along in search of new adventures, until he came to a British ship totally dismasted and otherwise badly damaged. She was commanded by a captain of rigidly devout piety. “Well, Jemmy,” hailed the Irishman, “you are pretty well mauled; but never mind, Jemmy, whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.”

The French have transmitted to us less of anecdote, nor is it easy to connect the thought of humor with those grimly earnest republicans and the days of the Terror. There is, indeed, something unintentionally funny in the remark of the commander of one of the captured ships to his captors. They had, it was true, dismasted half the French fleet, and had taken over a fourth; yet he assured them it could not be considered a victory, “but merely a butchery, in which the British had shown neither science nor tactics.” The one story, noble and enduring, that will ever be associated with the French on the 1st of June is in full keeping with the temper of the times and the enthusiasm of the nation. The seventy-four-gun ship Vengeur, after a three hours’ fight, yardarm to yardarm, with the British Brunswick, was left in a sinking state by her antagonist, who was herself in no condition to help. In the confusion, the Vengeur’s peril was for some time not observed; and when it was, the British ships that came to her aid had time only to remove part of her survivors. In their report of the event the latter said: “Scarcely had the boats pulled clear of the sides, when the most frightful spectacle was offered to our gaze. Those of our comrades who remained on board the Vengeur du Peuple, with hands raised to heaven, implored, with lamentable cries, the help for which they could no longer hope. Soon disappeared the ship and the unhappy victims it contained. In the midst of the horror with which this scene inspired us all, we could not avoid a feeling of admiration mingled with our grief. As we drew away, we heard some of our comrades still offering prayers for the welfare of their country. The last cries of these unfortunates were, ‘Vive la République!’ They died uttering them.” Over a hundred Frenchmen thus went down.

Seven French ships were captured, including the sunk Vengeur. Five more were wholly dismasted, but escaped,—a good fortune mainly to be attributed to Howe’s utter physical prostration, due to his advanced years and the continuous strain of the past five days. He now went to bed, completely worn out. “We all got round him,” wrote an officer, Lieutenant Codrington, who was present; “indeed, I saved him from a tumble, he was so weak that from a roll of the ship he was nearly falling into the waist. ‘Why, you hold me up as if I were a child,’ he said good-humoredly.” Had he been younger, there can be little doubt that the fruits of victory would have been gathered with an ardor which his assistant, Curtis, failed to show.