Champions of the fleet

by Edward Fraser

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

Charles the Second’s Dreadnought was our second man-of-war of the name. Originally the Torrington, one of Cromwell’s frigates, and named, after the Puritan usage, to commemorate a Roundhead victory over the hapless Cavaliers, Restoration Year saw the ship renamed Dreadnought, under which style she rendered the State good service for many a long year to come. In that time the Dreadnought fought, always with credit, in no fewer than seven fleet battles. She was with the Duke of York when he beat Opdam off Lowestoft in 1665; with Monk, Duke of Albemarle, and Prince Rupert in the “Four Days’ Fight” of 1666; at the defeat of De Ruyter in the St. James’s Day Fight of the same year. Solebay, in the Third Dutch War, was another of our second Dreadnought’s notable days, and also Prince Rupert’s three drawn battles with De Ruyter off the Banks of Flanders in 1673. Worn out with thirty-six years’ service (reckoning from the day that the Torrington first took the water), the Dreadnought had set forth to meet the famous French corsair, Jean Bart, in the North Sea, when, one stormy October night of 1690, she foundered off the South Foreland. Happily, the boats of her squadron had time to rescue those on board.

Our fourth Dreadnought, William the Third’s ship, fought the French at Barfleur and La Hogue, and after that did good service down to the Peace of Ryswick as a Channel cruiser and in charge of convoys. She served all through “Queen Anne’s War,” by chance only missing Benbow’s last fight. Later, the Dreadnought was with the elder Byng—Lord Torrington—at the battle off Cape Passaro, in the Straits of Messina, in 1718, where one, if not two, Spaniards lowered their colours to her. The Dreadnought on that occasion formed one of Captain Walton’s detached squadron, whose exploit history has kept on record, thanks to Captain Walton’s dispatch to the admiral, as set forth in the popular version of it: “Sir, we have taken all the ships on the coast, the number as per margin.” Of that dispatch more will be said elsewhere.[1] The Dreadnought ended her days in George the Second’s reign, at the close of the war sometimes spoken of as “The War of Jenkins’ Ear.”

Two Dreadnought officers, Sir Edward Spragge, who captained our second Dreadnought in the “Four Days’ Fight,” and Sir Charles Wager, a very famous admiral in his day, First Lieutenant of our third Dreadnought in the year before La Hogue, have monuments in Westminster Abbey.

Boscawen’s Dreadnought comes next, a sixty-gun ship built in the year 1742. She was the first ship of the line that Boscawen had the command of, and she gave him his sobriquet in the Navy, “Old Dreadnought,” the name of his ship just hitting off the tough old salt’s chief characteristic—absolute fearlessness. An incident that occurred on board the Dreadnought while Boscawen commanded the ship gave the sobriquet vogue. It is, too, a fine sample of what Carlyle calls “two o’clock in the morning courage.”

It was in the year 1744, when we were at war with both France and Spain, one night when the Dreadnought was cruising in the channel. The officer of the watch, the story goes, came down after midnight to Captain Boscawen’s cabin and awoke him, saying, “Sir, there are two large ships which look like Frenchmen bearing down on us; what are we to do?” “Do?” answered Boscawen, turning out of his cot and going on deck in his nightshirt, “Do? why, d⸺ ’em; fight ’em!” The fight did not come off, however, as the suspicious strangers disappeared.

On board Boscawen’s Dreadnought it was that, fourteen years later, Nelson’s uncle, Maurice Suckling, who got Nelson his first appointment in the Royal Navy, and under whose command the boy Nelson first went to sea, made his mark as a post-captain. It was in the West Indies in 1757, the year in which Byng was shot, and the day was the 21st of October.

The Dreadnought with two consorts met seven French men-of-war, four of them individually bigger and more heavily gunned ships than ours, and the other three powerful frigates, and gave them a sound thrashing.

The news was received in England with exceptional gratification as the first sign of the turn of the tide since Byng’s defeat off Minorca. That was one thing about it that stamped the event in popular memory. A second memorable thing was the incident, according to the popular story, of the “Half Minute Council of War” that preceded the fight.