FIGHTING THE GUNS ON THE MAIN DECK. 1782.
[This would seem to have been drawn in 1782, when Rowlandson paid his flying visit to see the remains of the Royal George, and was probably worked up from a sketch on board one of the obsolete guardships in harbour with certain fancy touches of the artist's own.]
Rodney was on the quarter-deck, seated for most of the time in an arm-chair. He was badly crippled after his last attack of gout, from which he had hardly recovered. Every now and again the admiral would rise and pass aft through his cabin under the poop to the stern gallery to look out astern and see what might be made out of the battle from there, or go forward to the gangway at the side, clear of the piled-up hammocks on the quarter-deck bulwarks, to look out ahead. His gout, it would seem, would not let him mount the ladder to the poop. It was during one of the admiral's intervals of rest probably, while he was sitting down for a few minutes in the middle of the men as they worked the quarter-deck guns, that Rodney, as we are told, made the discovery that one of the gunners there was a woman. Brought up on the spot before the admiral and taxed with disobedience of orders in not staying to help in the cockpit, the delinquent threw herself on Rodney's mercy. She was, she said, a sailor's wife. Her husband had been wounded and carried below, whereupon she had come up to take his place at his gun. It was of course a breach of discipline, and Rodney reprimanded the woman sharply. Then he softened, gave her ten guineas, and sent her down to nurse her husband.
Here is another incidental personal detail about Rodney on that morning. In one of his passings to and fro, between the quarter-deck and the stern walk, as Rodney went through his cabin he saw some lemons lying on a side table. The old gentleman was hot and his throat parched with the sulphurous fumes of the all-pervading powder smoke. He called to a midshipman near by to make him a glass of lemonade. The boy did so, and having nothing to stir the glass with, picked up a knife on the table that had been used by some one for cutting up a lemon. Quite happy, he stirred the admiral's drink with the black and sticky blade. Rodney turned and caught sight of the performance. 'Child, child!' he exclaimed, with a grimace, as the boy was about to present the glass to him, 'that may do for the midshipmen's mess. Drink the stuff yourself and go and send my steward here!' The midshipman obeyed both orders.
It was about twenty minutes to nine, as the Formidable was nearing the centre of the French line, that the vast bulk of the Ville de Paris began to loom up ahead of them. There was no mistaking De Grasse's flagship. Her towering canvas, her tall sides and lofty bulwarks, her triple tier of ports, all these marked out the pride of the French fleet among the other ships, even without the identifying feature of the figure-head, the great shield at the bows with the arms of Paris heraldically emblazoned in gold and crimson and blue. Just before this, as Captain Fanshawe of the Namur, next astern of Rodney, noted, our ships had slackened fire to let the smoke drift off. Each flagship could thus distinguish the other easily as they closed. Each, of course, bore at her mast-head her Commander-in-Chief's personal standard; the Ville de Paris De Grasse's plain white Bourbon flag, the 'Cornette Blanche'; the Formidable, Rodney's flag as Admiral of the White, the red cross flag of St. George.
It was a dramatic moment as the two leaders drew together to cross swords. The Formidable's men felt it. They redoubled their efforts and blazed away with every gun that would train into the imposing-looking French three-decker's bows as she came on, leading off with a tremendous cannonade of round-shot and grape that made terrible havoc along the crowded decks of the Ville de Paris. To the utter surprise of all there was next to no reply. A loose, irregular discharge came back, fired hurriedly and badly aimed. That was all. With a weak, half-hearted fire from about half her guns, the Ville de Paris surged past the Formidable and vanished in the smoke astern. It was indeed a pitiful exhibition. The fierce broadsides of Rodney's ships ahead had done their work. Every British captain had reserved at least one of his broadsides for the Ville de Paris, 'sickening' her, in the expressive Old Navy phrase, and after that the startling rapidity of the outburst with which the Formidable greeted her approach had completed the demoralisation on board. It flurried and staggered the French flagship's crew, and before they could recover themselves they had gone astern. As De Grasse went by some of the Formidable's batteries got off four double-shotted rounds into the Ville de Paris, none less than three, with such magnificent smartness did Rodney's gunners handle their guns.
What did De Grasse himself think of his men's poor show? What did he think now—he could hardly have forgotten it—of his polite challenge to Rodney from Fort Royal by Captain Vashon a few weeks ago 'that nothing would give him greater pleasure than to meet 'le Chevalier Rodney,' and that he 'looked forward to personally welcoming the British Admiral on board the Ville de Paris'? It was the second opportunity for a personal encounter with his antagonist that De Grasse had lost that week.[36] He was to have no more. As to his welcome of 'le Chevalier Rodney,' he would have the opportunity of making the acquaintance of the British Admiral face to face and within twenty-four hours—though not on board the Ville de Paris. The French flagship took her hammering from the Formidable and passed on to run the gauntlet of the other British ships astern.
It was apparently just as the Ville de Paris was passing that a French cannon-ball struck a fowl-coop on deck where a number of pullets for the admiral's table were kept. The coop was smashed to splinters and the fowls flew out. One of them, the story goes, a little bantam cock, fluttered up and perched on a spar above the quarter-deck, where it set-to crowing lustily and clapping its wings at every broadside from the guns. Rodney passed at the moment and pointed the bird out to Dr. Blane. 'Look at that fellow,' said Rodney, 'look at him; I declare he is a credit to his country.' The Admiral gave orders that the little cock should not be killed, but be taken care of and made a special pet for the reminder of its days.
Following in the wake of the Ville de Paris came the big Couronne, a powerful eighty-four, whose efficiency in war Rodney had personally tested on a former day; the Eveillé, Le Gardeur de Tilly's little sixty-four, showing signs of what she had gone through; and then the Sceptre, the Comte de Vaudreuil's ship, a seventy-four.