The Santissima Trinidada was a monster in size. She was built in Havana, in 1769, as a 112-gun ship, except that she had greater beam than was usual with that class. Some time about 1796 her quarter-deck and forecastle were formed into a whole deck, barricades built along her gangways, with ports in them, and she was made into a flush four-decker, but was not really much superior in force to the three-decked 112s.
The most striking feature in this victory is the boldness of the attack. Another commander might have paused before running into the midst of twenty-five sail with fifteen. If he had paused to weigh the chances, the separated ships would have closed, and the Spanish line then have been too compact to be attacked with hopes of success.
Sir John Jervis, relying upon the character of his force, and viewing with a general’s eye the loose and disordered state of his enemy’s line, resolved to profit by it, attacked promptly, and conquered. It cannot be said that he broke the Spanish line, for there was no line to be broken. He simply chose the proper moment for advance, had a leader who never flinched or fell back, and he had all about him those who were emulous to follow so bright an example.
On the other hand, the bold front he put on was calculated to sink the hearts of those among the Spanish fleet who had little experience of naval warfare. The Spanish fleet was not only in confusion at the outset, but continued to be so; and some of their ships undoubtedly fired into their comrades, while they were so huddled together that if a shot missed one it was sure to strike another of them.
Then the British were better sailors, and repaired damages more quickly; and to many of them the battle was more like a rattling game than a grim matter of life and death and national renown.
It is reported that the Captain actually expended all her shot in this action, and when grape was needed for her 32-lb carronades, used 7-lb shot as a substitute.
This at a short distance must have caused great execution.
When the Spanish Admiral at last formed his scattered divisions into line, he found the British in equal, if not better, alignment; and each side then drew off, the one to lament, the other to exult, over the events of the day.
The Spanish were never accused of a lack of courage, either by sea or on land, and their discomfiture appears to have been caused principally by the worthlessness of the crews which manned their ships. These were composed of pressed landsmen, and soldiers of new levies, with a very few seamen in each ship. It has been reported that these “poor panic-stricken wretches,” when called upon to go aloft, to repair the damaged rigging, fell upon their knees, and cried out that they preferred being sacrificed on the spot to performing a duty where death seemed inevitable from more than one cause. The numerical superiority of their guns seemed little in their favor, for some of the San Josef’s were found with their tompions in, on the side which had been engaged, after the battle was over. Indeed, the numbers on board some of the Spanish ships seem to have been rather a detriment to them.
A rather prejudiced writer says that if eight of their twenty-five ships had been left at Carthagena, and had the five or six hundred seamen they probably contained been substituted for twice that number of raw hands, taken from the remaining seventeen ships, the latter would probably have made a better stand; and the victory, if achieved at all, have been at the expense of a much greater number of lives in the British fleet. Whatever the fault of the crews, the officers fought well. “Upon the whole, the victory off Cape St. Vincent, although from its consequences pre-eminently great, from its results, dispassionately considered, cannot be pronounced in an equal degree glorious.”