The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). Frederick Whymper
following anecdote will show how much an action was decided by this, and with how little loss of life.
The Bellona, of 74 guns and 558 men, with a most valuable freight on merchants’ account, and commanded by the celebrated Captain R. Faulkner, and the Brilliant, a 36-gun frigate, Captain Loggie, sailed from the Tagus in August, 1761. When off Vigo, three sail were discovered approaching the land, and the strangers continued their approach, till they found out the character of the English vessels, and then crowded on all sail, in flight. Upon this, the Bellona and Brilliant pursued, coming up with them next morning, to find that they would have to engage one ship of 74 guns, the Courageux, with 700 men, and two frigates of 36 guns each, the Malicieuse and Ermine. After exchanging a few broadsides, the French vessels shot ahead; when Captain Loggie, seeing that he could not expect to take either of the smaller vessels, determined to manœuvre, and lead them such a wild-goose chase, that the Bellona should have to engage the Courageux alone. During the whole engagement, he withstood the united attacks of both the frigates, each of them with equal force to his own, and at last obliged them to sheer off, greatly damaged. Meanwhile, the Courageux and Bellona had approached each other very fast. The Courageux, when within musket-shot, fired her first broadside, and there was much impatience on the Bellona to return it; but they were restrained by Faulkner, who called out to them to hold hard, and not to fire till they saw the whites of the Frenchmen’s eyes, adding, “Take my word for it, they will never stand the singeing of their whiskers!” His speech to the sailors just before the action is a model of sailor-like advice. “Gentlemen, I have been bred a seaman from my youth, and, consequently, am no orator; but I promise to carry you all near enough, and then you may speak for yourselves. Nevertheless, I think it necessary to acquaint you with the plan I propose to pursue, in taking this ship, that you may be the better prepared. … I propose to lead you close on the enemy’s larboard quarter, when we will discharge two broadsides, and then back astern, and range upon the other quarter, and so tell your guns as you pass. I recommend you at all times to point chiefly at the quarters, with your guns slanting fore and aft; this is the principal part of a ship. If you kill the officers, break the rudder, and snap the braces, she is yours, of course; but, for this reason, I desire you may only fire one round of shot and grape above, and two rounds, shot only, below. Take care and send them home with exactness. This is a rich ship; they will render you, in return, their weight in gold.” This programme was very nearly carried out; almost every shot took effect. The French still kept up a very brisk fire, and in a moment the Bellona’s shrouds and rigging were almost all cut to pieces, and in nine minutes her mizen-mast fell over the stern. Undaunted, Faulkner managed to wear his ship round; the officers and men flew to their respective opposite guns, and carried on, from the larboard side, a fire even more terrible than they had hitherto kept up from the starboard guns. “It was impossible for mortal beings to withstand a battery so incessantly repeated, and so fatally directed, and, in about twenty minutes from the first shot, the French colours were hauled down, and orders were immediately given in the Bellona to cease firing, the enemy having struck. The men had left their quarters, and all the officers were on the quarter-deck, congratulating one another on their victory, when, unexpectedly, a round of shot came from the lower tier of the Courageux. It is impossible to describe the rage that animated the Bellona’s crew on this occasion. Without waiting for orders, they flew again to their guns, and in a moment poured in what they familiarly termed two ‘comfortable broadsides’ upon the enemy, who now called out loudly for quarter, and firing at length ceased on both sides.” The Courageux was a mere wreck, having nothing but her foremast and bowsprit standing, several of her ports knocked into one, and her deck rent in a hundred places. She lost 240 killed, and 110 wounded men were put ashore at Lisbon. On board the Bellona only six men were killed outright, and about twenty-eight wounded; the loss of her mizen was her only serious disaster.
FIGHT BETWEEN THE “COURAGEUX” AND THE “BELLONA.”
One more possibility in the officer’s existence, although now nearly obsolete. The ceremonies formerly attendant on “crossing the line”—i.e., passing over the equator—so often described, have, of late years, been more honoured in the breach than in the observance. On merchant vessels they had become a nuisance, as the sailors often made them an opportunity for levying black mail on timid and nervous passengers. In the Royal Navy, they afforded the one chance for “getting even” with unpopular officers; and very roughly was it sometimes accomplished. They are for this reason introduced in this chapter, as the officers had a direct interest in them. With trifling exceptions, the programme was as follows. The men stripped to the waist, wearing only “duck” unmentionables, prepared, immediately after breakfast, for the saturnalia of the day—a day when the ship was en carnival, and discipline relaxed. Early in the day, a man at the masthead, peering through a telescope, would announce a boat on the weather-bow, and soon after, a voice from the jibboom was heard hailing the ship, announcing that Neptune wished to come on board. The ship was accordingly hove-to, when a sailor, in fashionable coat, knee-breeches, and powdered hair, came aft, and announced to the commander that he was gentleman’s gentleman to the god of the sea, who desired an interview. This accorded, the procession of Neptune from the forecastle at once commenced. The triumphal car was a gun-carriage, drawn by half-a-dozen half-naked and grotesquely-painted sailors, their heads covered by wigs of sea-weed. Neptune was always masked, as were many of his satellites, in order that the officers should not know who enacted the leading rôles. The god wore a crown, and held out a trident, on which a dolphin, supposed to have been impaled that morning, was stuck. He had a flowing wig and beard of oakum, and was, in all points, “made-up” for Neptune himself. His suite included a secretary of state, his head stuck all over with long quills; a surgeon, with lancet, pill-box, and medicines; his barber, with a razor cut from an iron hoop, and with an assistant, who carried a tub for a shaving-box. Mrs. Neptune was represented by the ugliest man on board, who, with sea-weed hair and a huge night-cap, carried a baby—one of the boys of the ship—in long clothes; the latter played with a marline-spike, given it to assist in cutting its teeth. The nurse followed, with a bucketful of burgoo (thick oatmeal porridge or pudding), and fed the baby incessantly with the cook’s iron ladle. Sea-nymphs, selected from the clumsiest and fattest of the crew, helped to swell the retinue. As soon as the procession halted before the captain, behind whom the steward waited, carrying a tray with a bottle of wine and glasses, Neptune and Amphitrite paid submission to the former, as representative of Great Britain, and the god presented him the dolphin. After the interview, in which Neptune not unfrequently poked fun and thrust home-truths at the officers, the captain offered the god and goddess a bumper of wine, and then the rougher part of the ceremony commenced. Neptune would address his court somewhat as follows: “Hark ye, my Tritons, you’re here to shave and duck and bleed all as needs it; but you’ve got to be gentle, or we’ll get no more fees. The first of ye as disobeys me, I’ll tie to a ten-ton gun, and sink him ten thousand fathoms below, where he shall drink nothing but salt-water and feed on seaweed for the next hundred years.” The cow-pen was usually employed for the ducking-bath; it was lined with double canvas, and boarded up, so as to hold several butts of water. Marryat, in the first naval novel he wrote, says: “Many of the officers purchased exemption from shaving and physic by a bottle of rum; but none could escape the sprinkling of salt water, which fell about in great profusion; even the captain received his share. … It was easy to perceive, on this occasion, who were favourites with the ship’s company, by the degree of severity with which they were treated. The tyro was seated on the side of the cow-pen: he was asked the place of his nativity, and the moment he opened his mouth the shaving-brush of the barber—which was a very large paint-brush—was crammed in, with all the filthy lather, with which they covered his face and chin; this was roughly scraped off with the great razor. The doctor felt his pulse, and prescribed a pill, which was forced into his cheek; and the smelling-bottle, the cork of which was armed with sharp points of pins, was so forcibly applied to his nose as to bring blood. After this, he was thrown backward into the bath, and allowed to scramble out the best way he could.” The first-lieutenant, the reader may remember, dodged out of the way for some time, but at last was surrounded, and plied so effectually with buckets of salt water, that he fled down a hatchway. The buckets were pitched after him, “and he fell, like the Roman virgin, covered with the shields