Champions of the fleet

by Edward Fraser

In a few seconds the Kent’s anchors held, and the ship was brought up; but she had got into a bad position. The forward-half of the ship lay partially opposite the south-east bastion, with the after-half overlapping the southern face of the fort in such a way that some of the guns of the further bastion on that side, the south-west bastion, could play upon the quarters and stern. Most of the guns mounted on the ravelin and along the curtain of the river front could at the same time train on her bows with a raking fire, assisted by some of the guns on the north-east or flagstaff bastion, facing the Tyger, some of which could be brought to bear. More serious still was this. The Salisbury had been pushed entirely out of the fight: had been placed practically out of action for the day. The channel was not wide enough to let the Salisbury tow ahead and pass the flagship, and the Salisbury had to anchor at a spot whence only one or two of her guns could engage. Thus it came about that the whole brunt of fighting Fort d’Orleans fell on two ships, the Tyger and the Kent, by themselves.

Not a shot, according to Dr. Ives, had so far been fired in reply to the enemy’s “tremendous cannonade.” The Tyger was waiting for the Kent to hoist the red flag. It went up as soon as the Kent’s anchors held. “As soon as the ships came properly to an anchor, they returned it with such fury as astonished their adversaries.” “Our ships lay so near the fort,” says the doctor also, that “the musket balls fired from their tops, by striking against the chunam walls of the Governor’s palace, which was in the very centre of the fort, were beaten as flat as a half-crown.”

Clive’s men were at work meanwhile on the land side. They had begun pushing the enemy hard on the previous afternoon, and had opened a brisk attack on the outworks before daylight that morning, under the pressure of which the French outposts fell back, until they had abandoned practically all their landward positions beyond the walls of Fort d’Orleans. Clive’s soldiers after that occupied some bungalows that stood not far from the walls, from under cover of which they plied the enemy on the ramparts with a continuous fusillade of musketry, and with six light guns they had pushed forward. The soldiers, however, could make little further progress for the present.

“For three hours nothing was heard but an incessant roll of artillery and musketry, the crashing of timbers and masonry, the shouts and cheers of the combatants, and the shrieks and groans of the wounded.”

Describing the scene on board his own ship during the first two hours, Dr. Ives says: “The fire was kept up with extraordinary spirit. The flank guns of the south-west bastion galled the Kent very much, and the Admiral’s aides-de-camp being all wounded, Mr. Watson went down himself to Lieutenant William Brereton, who commanded the lower-deck battery, and ordered him particularly to direct his fire against those guns, and they were accordingly soon afterwards silenced.”

Then he relates this incident, which occurred on board just afterwards. “At eight in the morning,” says the doctor, “several of the enemy’s shot struck the Kent at the same time; one entered near the foremast, and set fire to two or three 32-pound cartridges of gunpowder as the boys held them in their hands ready to charge the guns. By the explosion the wad-nets and other loose things took fire between decks, and the whole ship was so filled with smoke that the men in their confusion cried out she was on fire in the gunner’s store-room, imagining from the shock they had felt from the balls that a shell had actually fallen into her. This notion struck a panic into the greatest part of the crew, and seventy or eighty jumped out of the portholes into the boats that were alongside the ship. The French presently saw this confusion on board the Kent, and resolving to take the advantage, kept up as hot a fire as possible upon her during the whole time. Lieutenant Brereton, however, with the assistance of some other brave men, soon extinguished the fire. Then running to the ports he begged the seamen to come in again, upbraiding them for deserting their quarters; but finding this had no effect on them, he thought the more certain method of succeeding would be to strike them with a sense of shame. He therefore loudly exclaimed, ‘Are you Britons? You Englishmen! and fly from danger! For shame! For shame!’ This reproach had the desired effect; to a man they immediately returned into the ship, repaired to their quarters, and renewed an inspirited fire into the enemy.”

The end was in sight by nine o’clock, and it came within a very few minutes of the hour.

“In about three hours from the commencement of the attack, the parapets of the north and south bastions were almost beaten down, the guns were mostly dismounted, and we could plainly see from the main-top of the Kent that the ruins from the parapet and merlons had entirely blocked up those few guns which otherwise might have been fit for service. We could easily discern, too, that there had been a great slaughter among the enemy, who finding that our fire against them rather increased, hung out the white flag, whereupon a cessation of hostilities took place, and the Admiral sent Lieutenant Brereton (the only commissioned officer on board the Kent that was not killed or wounded) and Captain Coote of the King’s regiment with a flag of truce to the fort, who soon returned, accompanied by the French Governor’s son, with articles of capitulation.”

At the moment that the Governor hung out the flag of truce (“waved over their walls a flag of truce,” in the Admiral’s own words) the landward side of the fort was still holding Clive’s soldiers at bay. The firing from the ramparts there continued for some little time after the flag on the Governor’s palace had been lowered.

The formal surrender and giving up of the fort took place at three o’clock in the afternoon. Says Admiral Watson in his dispatch: “I sent Captain Latham of the Tyger ashore to receive the keys and take possession of the fort. Col. Clive marched in with the King’s troops about five in the afternoon.” The Kent’s log notes this: “5.30 p.m. The Fort at Chandernagore fired 21 guns as a salute to H.M. Colours, after being hoisted half an hour before.”