Lord Howe signalled that he meant to attack the centre of the enemy’s line, and then that he would break through and engage to leeward. His line bore up at about a quarter-past eight, after a pause had been made to allow the men to have breakfast. The approach was slow, for the opportunity was taken to rectify the order of the ships so that they should be fairly matched. The course steered was to the north-west, the ships advancing on oblique lines to assail the enemy who was on their bow, and who lay in very good order awaiting the attack, in a line ahead from west to east. The wind, though less strong than on previous days, was still from the south-west, and the sea was calmer than it had been for the last few days.
It was nearly half-past nine when Howe’s fleet came within range of the French guns and the enemy opened fire. For a few moments none of his ships answered. They were waiting till they were in a position to answer with effect. If the admiral’s orders had been exactly obeyed each of his captains would have steered for the space astern of the Frenchman corresponding to himself in the hostile line, and would have passed through it, and would have engaged to leeward. But the order was not exactly obeyed, sometimes because the French closed their line and no open space was left; sometimes because the rapidly gathering cloud of smoke deprived zealous officers of the power to see; sometimes because an effective effort to obey was not made. The signal to pass through the enemy’s line was accompanied by a superfluous and mischievous note to the effect that the captain who could not find a place to pass was at liberty to engage without passing. It was superfluous, because there was surely no necessity to tell any man that he was not expected to do the physically impossible, and mischievous, because this official recognition of the alternative gave the weaker sort an excuse for not doing their utmost. There were those who did not. The Cæsar hauled up too far to windward, exposed herself to the concentrated fire of the leading French ships, was damaged, made distracted vacillating movements, was of no use, and yet suffered more loss of life than some vessels which really contributed to the victory. Following the line from west to east, the Bellerophon engaged the Gasparin to windward, but close and hotly, till the Frenchman, together with his next ahead, the Convention, flinched, bore up and ran to leeward, heading to the east. The rigging of the Bellerophon was cut to pieces, and she could not follow. Yet she lost fewer men than the Cæsar. But Admiral Pasley, who lost his leg, was among the wounded. The Leviathan engaged the America to windward to good purpose, pushing her hard, driving her out, following her, and swinging round to leeward of her as she strove to follow her leaders to the eastward. Old habit had fixed the French captains in the faith that a naval battle was to be fought by firing to dismast and then slipping away to form a new line to leeward. The Russell engaged the Téméraire till this French ship also slipped away. Then she pressed on, and falling in with the America helped to take her. The Royal Sovereign fought the Terrible, drove her out of the line, and then joined in overwhelming the America. The Marlborough broke through the French line astern of the Impétueux, the next behind the Terrible, became entangled with the former and the Mucius, her next astern, so that the three fell aboard one another, and the English ship was severely mauled. The Defence cut the line between the Mucius and the Eole, suffering much. The Impregnable, Tremendous, and Barfleur engaged the Tourville, Trajan, and Tyrannicide to windward—not as closely as Howe would have wished. The Barfleur was the flagship of Admiral Bowyer, who also was wounded, and her captain was Cuthbert Collingwood, the most calmly intrepid of men. No want of goodwill can have restrained him. In the smoke her crew could see only a short distance. They believed, and for a time Collingwood himself believed, that a French ship beside them had sunk. “Up jumped the Johnnies on the guns and cheered,” so Collingwood records, but they were mistaken. The Culloden and Gibraltar fired from windward, not closely, nor to the purpose. The Queen Charlotte, Howe’s flagship, was steered to break the line astern of the French flagship, the Montagne. As she came down she took the fire of the Jacobin and the Achille, the next French vessels, without reply. The captain of the Montagne—or the Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse—understood her aim, backed their sails, and endeavoured to bar her road. Gassin, the captain of the Jacobin, saw it too, and, letting all draw, shot ahead to close the line. He took the officer-like course, but he took it too eagerly. The Jacobin nearly ran into the stern of the Montagne, and to avoid a collision had to port her helm, and was carried on till she ranged up on the leeside of the flagship. The Queen Charlotte swept through the space left by her advance. The flag of the Montagne flapped against the shrouds of the English flagship, so closely did she pass. Her broadside was delivered with shattering force, and then she ranged up between the Montagne and the Jacobin. If either had been laid on her bow she must have suffered, if not disaster, still great injury. But the Jacobin soon stood on, and then so did the Montagne, which had made little or no reply to the English fire. The Brunswick headed to pass through the gap left by the Achille which had followed the Jacobin, but Captain Renaudin, of the Vengeur, stood on and barred the way. Then Captain John Harvey, of the Brunswick, obeyed the admiral’s signal in the spirit since in the letter he could not. He ran into the French ship, his three starboard anchors hooking the Frenchman’s port fore-shrouds and fore-channels. When his master, Mr. Stewart, asked if the anchors should be cut away he answered, “No, we have got her, and we will keep her.” The two ships turned before the wind, and drifted to leeward, grappled one to the other. The Valiant, the Orion, the Queen, the Ramillies, the Alfred, the Montague, all engaged to windward more or less closely—some of them notably rather less than more. The Royal George broke through between the Républicain and the Sans-Pareil. The Majestic engaged to windward. The Glory broke in among the ships of the French rear, and the Thunderer passed behind the last of them, and so entered the mêlée.
These movements which must needs be told consecutively, were contemporaneous, or nearly so. As the French ships pushed on to close spaces ahead of them, a westerly movement was given to the line, and the English vessels furthest to the east had the greater distance to go and so came later into action. Though Howe’s orders were not fully obeyed the French formation was broken, and the English were mingled with the enemy’s vessels in confusion. Out of that confusion order was again evolved. The general movement to leeward carried most of the French clear, and among them the Montagne, which shook off the Queen Charlotte, crippled by the loss of her main topmast. When the two fleets were disentangled, Villaret-Joyeuse was able to form a line to leeward, but ten of his ships were surrounded by the English. He came gallantly back to their assistance and rescued four, the Républicain, the Mucius, the Scipion, and the Jemmapes. Two of the English ships were put in peril by his return—the Queen, which had eagerly pushed through the broken French rear, and the Brunswick, which had drifted away locked to the Vengeur. Their strife was furious, and carried to a decisive conclusion. Captain Harvey was mortally wounded, but the Vengeur, shattered by the fire of the Brunswick and other English vessels, sank, carrying part of her crew down with her, but not before she had surrendered.
The return of Villaret-Joyeuse alarmed the captain of the fleet, Sir Roger Curtis, and he urged the admiral to call his ships about him lest the Frenchman should take his revenge. Howe, so exhausted by four days of strain that he nearly fell from fatigue, yielded to his importunity. The English ships were recalled, and before two o’clock the action ceased. We remained in possession of six prizes, the Sans-Pareil, Juste, America, Impétueux, Northumberland, and Achille. The total loss of life from the 28th May to the 10th June was but 290 killed. The wounded were 858. The casualty list of the six French ships taken was greater—1266 in all, and the total loss must have been very much heavier.
The operations of the campaign did not end when the fleets drew apart on the afternoon of the 1st June. Admiral Montagu was not allowed to remain in Plymouth Sound. When the Audacious brought news on the 3rd June that the fleets were in contact, he was ordered out again, and he sailed on the 4th with nine sail of the line. On the 8th June he was off Brest where he found himself in the midst of enemies. A reserve squadron had been fitted out in the port, and two at sea. It was weaker than Montagu’s, and retired before him to Bertheaume Bay. But on the 9th the fleet of Villaret-Joyeuse, diminished, but still formidable to Montagu’s squadron of nine, hove in sight. He slipped between the two, and retreated to Plymouth where he anchored on the 12th. In the meantime, Vanstabel, who, after crossing the scene of the action of the 29th May, had anchored at Penmarch, came into Brest under cover of the French fleet, and the great food convoy was safely housed. The main English fleet made for home when it lost sight of the French on the 1st of June. Part of the ships were left at Plymouth, but the majority and the prizes anchored at Spithead on the 13th of June.
CHAPTER XI
THE WAR TILL THE END OF 1797
Authorities.—See the list of Authorities in the previous Chapter. Also, Projets et Tentatives de Débarquement aux Îles Britanniques by Captain Desbrière.
The victory of the 1st of June was followed by an interval of more than two years marked by no great naval conflict. The French Navy was at once too completely disorganised and too ill-directed to act with effect. It was indeed driven to exertions injurious only to itself by the Jacobin rulers in Paris, who were themselves driven on by such passions as the “beastly froth of rage” which caused them to issue their decree of the 24th May 1794—the decree forbidding their armies and fleets to give quarter to Hanoverians or Englishmen. It was repealed on the 30th December, five months after the fall of the Terrorists on the 27th of July, and when experience had shown the French that not they but their enemies were to have the more frequent opportunities to refuse quarter. The English fleet had no substantial opponent at sea at whom to strike, and was, moreover, but poorly led for the most part.