Billy Ruffian

FOUR Preparations for War 1790-4

On 31 August 1790 the Bellerophon sailed out of the Thames Estuary, rounded the North Foreland, sailed past Ramsgate and the chalk cliffs lining the great sweep of Pegwell Bay and Sandwich Bay, and headed for the Downs. There, in the sheltered waters off Deal, she rounded up into the wind, dropped anchor and fired a 13-gun salute to the admiral of the fleet of warships gathered in the anchorage. For three years she had been part of a fleet in mothballs, a hulk without masts and guns: one ship in a line of thirty or forty similar hulks, rising and falling with the tide on the River Medway. Now for the first time she joined the fleet as an armed and operational ship of the line. For the next month she was part of the extraordinary activity which took place whenever a fleet was gathered in the Downs.

It is hard for us to picture the scene which would have greeted an onlooker on the beach at Deal in those days. When the steamships came along in the nineteenth century the Downs lost the key role which it had played for centuries in the lives of seamen sailing up and down the English Channel. Today the once famous anchorage has no significance for the crews of the container ships and bulk carriers passing through the Dover Straits, or for the thousands of passengers on the cross-Channel ferries from Dover and Ramsgate. And yet in the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century it was not unusual for several hundred ships to be gathered in the Downs, waiting for favourable winds to take them down the English Channel or up around the North Foreland and into the Thames Estuary. A first glance at a chart of the area suggests that it is an unlikely place to choose as an anchorage. The shore is bleak and exposed with no coves to provide sheltered landing places for boats. The shingle beach shelves steeply into deep water and boats have to be launched and landed through the surf. And 4 miles offshore lie the Goodwin Sands, notorious as one of the greatest hazards to shipping in the world. But although the Goodwin Sands were, and are, a graveyard of ships they also provided shelter from easterly and south-easterly winds for ships anchored in the Downs; while the white cliffs of the South Foreland and the angle of the coast at this point provided shelter from the full blast of south-westerly gales. So for weeks at a time the waterfront at Deal, and the anchorage beyond, were as busy as the Pool of London. Ships of all sizes and many nationalities waited there for fair winds. Anchored among the fishing boats and the merchantmen were the warships, easily distinguished by their flags and pennants streaming in the wind, and the constant booming of their guns. During the three weeks that the Bellerophon was anchored in the Downs she fired a 19-gun salute for the anniversary of the King's accession, she fired her guns to salute the comings and goings of admirals, she fired guns to draw attention to various signals, and she devoted one whole morning to gunnery practice, 'exercising the great guns'.

In addition to the forest of vessels anchored offshore there was a constant coming and going of small craft: bumboats filled to the gunwales with baskets of bread, fish, fruit and vegetables for the warships and Indiamen; naval longboats weighed down with barrels of water, rum and beef; gigs ferrying naval officers from ship to shore; local boats taking pilots out to the ships; and fishing boats being hauled up the beach with the aid of capstans. The Bellerophon spent a busy three weeks anchored amidst this bustle of activity. She took in water and provisions, had her sides painted, sent a press gang to take hands off some West Indiamen, and on 25 September set sail down the Channel to Portsmouth. Two days later she dropped anchor at Spithead, the fleet anchorage in the Solent, opposite the entrance to Portsmouth harbour. There were warships everywhere, their commanders awaiting orders to put to sea. For the next two months the crew of the Bellerophon passed the time blacking and tarring the rigging, painting the gun carriages, stowing ballast, and getting drunk. Pasley punished several seamen with two dozen lashes for drunkenness, neglect of duty and theft. And early one morning William Knight, an able seaman, fell into the harbour from the jib boom and was drowned.

By the end of October 1790 it was clear that the threatened conflict with Spain was not going to happen. Britain's warlike preparations had made a considerable impression on the Spanish. An agreement was reached in which Spain abandoned her claims to exclusive trading rights to the north-western coast of America and she also agreed to pay reparations for the damage inflicted on the British ships. On 21 November the Bellerophon, in company with five other ships of the line, was sent back to Sheerness. A year later she was back on her moorings in Chatham. Her crew were paid off, her masts were taken out, her guns removed, and she resumed her place in the long line of decommissioned ships on the Medway waiting for the next call to arms.

Meanwhile events in France were leading up to a war which would involve most of the countries of western Europe and pose the very real threat of an invasion of England. The Paris mob had became so threatening that in June 1791 King Louis XVI attempted to escape and go into exile but the coach in which he was travelling was stopped and he was sent back to Paris, a virtual prisoner. Concerned for the safety of Marie Antoinette, the king's Austrian wife, and under pressure from French emigres to provide support for royal government in France, the Emperor of Austria entered into an alliance with the King of Prussia. This was seen by the revolutionaries in Paris as a threat against the people of France. In February 1792 the National Assembly declared war on Austria and Prussia. The French army was under-financed and most of its aristocratic officers had emigrated so it was no surprise that it was defeated in its first clash with the Austrian army. However the revolutionary ardour and patriotism of the people's army proved an overwhelming force and on 20 September 1792 the French defeated a Prussian army at Valmy, pushed them back across the Rhine and occupied Brussels.

Britain watched the movements of the French army with growing concern but it was the execution of the French king which led politicians and political commentators to realise that war with France was inevitable. Louis XVI was executed on the morning of Monday 21 January 1793 but it was four days before the news reached London. On 25 January The Times printed a detailed report describing the King's last hours. He had taken an affectionate farewell of his family at 6 am and had been driven through the hushed streets of Paris in the mayor's carriage to La Place de Révolution. The guillotine had been set up beside the pedestal which had formerly supported the statue of his grandfather. Dressed in a brown greatcoat, white waist-coat and black breeches, he mounted the scaffold with composure, attended by an Irish priest as his confessor. His attempt to address the crowds was drowned by the beating of hundreds of drums from the massed ranks of the soldiers surrounding the guillotine. The executioner laid hold of him and at a quarter past ten the blade came down. When his severed head was held up by the executioner the people threw their hats in the air and let out a great shout of 'Vive la Nation!'

Fanny Burney was living at Norbury Park, near Box Hill, when she heard the news. She was so devastated that for some days she lost any desire to read, write or even go walking. 'The dreadful tragedy in France has entirely absorbed me,' she told her father, 'Except the period of the illness of our own inestimable King, I have never been so overcome with grief and dismay for any but personal and family calamities. O what a tragedy! how implacable its villany, and how severe its sorrows!'

Within two days of receiving the news in London the French ambassador was ordered to 'quit this kingdom before the first of February next, on account of the atrocious act lately perpetrated at Paris.' And by the end of the first week of February the British government was informed that France had declared war on England and Holland. The Nootka Sound crisis and the threat of war with Spain had served as a useful dress-rehearsal for the Royal Navy, and the preparations for war against France followed similar lines. The Board of Admiralty sent off press warrants to the mayors and chief magistrates of the cities, boroughs and towns of England and Wales. Once again the press gangs went into action on the Thames and on the night of 4 March all homeward- and outward-bound merchant ships were stripped of their crews. Within a few days three tenders full of men were despatched from the rendezvous on Tower Hill to HMS. Sandwich, the guardship at the Nore. Similar operations took place in Portsmouth and Plymouth. But the forcible recruitment of seamen did not go smoothly everywhere. In Newcastle and Sunderland the sailors kept together in large groups, and successfully beat off the press gangs. They made it clear that they were refusing to enter His Majesty's service without an increase in the current rate of pay. The scandalously low pay of seamen was a source of much resentment in the navy and would eventually lead to mutinies throughout the fleet in 1797.

Along with the recruitment of seamen the Admiralty issued orders for ships in ordinary to be put back into commission. On 16 March, barely two weeks after the declaration of war, Captain Pasley climbed aboard the Bellerophon and commissioned the ship. It was a crisp spring day with a fresh breeze blowing across the river. There were some workmen from the dockyard on board and by the end of the day they were joined by a handful of seamen and several officers. More men continued to arrive during the next few days, some of them pressed men, some of them volunteers, and they were all set to work cleaning the ship and putting her back into working order.

On 25 March the ship was hauled alongside one of the two sheer hulks permanently stationed at Chatham. These were old warships which had been converted into floating cranes. With the aid of a capstan on the deck of the sheer hulk, and the combined muscle power of two or three dozen seamen and dockworkers, the three great masts and the bowsprit were lifted aboard and lowered into place. Over the next few days a team of riggers from the dockyard set up the standing rigging for the lower masts, and then helped the crew to raise the topmasts. Nearly 300 tons of iron and shingle ballast was heaved aboard, followed by a constant stream of provisions. On 26 April the Bellerophon sailed down the river to Blackstakes where the seventy-four guns were swung aboard, and secured on their carriages. The ship then sailed downstream to the anchorage at the Nore where she stayed for the next month. She was now ready for sea but was still short of seamen. Twenty-three of the pressed men rounded up on the Thames and held aboard HMS. Sandwich joined the crew on 14 May and, in an effort to get hold of more sailors, Pasley sent out the Bellerophon's boats with an officer and a gang of sailors to round up a few more men. At last on 13 June she left the mouth of the Medway and sailed around the North Foreland and down the Channel to Portsmouth where she joined a great gathering of warships.

The fleet gathered in the anchorage at Spithead that summer was formidable and included the combined might of Britain's navy. Many of the ships present would become household names in the coming conflict. The first to depart were the ships of the Mediterranean fleet, under the command of Vice-Admiral Lord Hood in the Victory, which set sail down the Channel heading for Gibraltar and Toulon. They were followed a few days later by a squadron of seven warships which headed out across the Atlantic with orders to safeguard British possessions in the West Indies. And on 14 July the Channel fleet, under the command of Admiral Lord Howe, weighed anchor and set sail. There were fifteen ships of the line, including the Bellerophon, seven frigates and a fireship. Their orders were to destroy the French fleet from Brest which had left harbour and was believed to be cruising off Belle Isle.

On this, her first cruise outside home waters, the Bellerophon got no further than the seas to the south-west of the Scilly Isles. On 18 July the fleet was sailing in line ahead when the wind suddenly shifted and rose to gale force. The Majestic, which was sailing immediately ahead of the Bellerophon, with sails flapping and thundering in the wind, was driven across the bows of the Bellerophon. Captain Pasley described what happened next:

At half-past three I was called in a great hurry and told the Majestic would be aboard of us. I ran out and found it was only too true, and past remedy. She came down on us in the act of wearing and ran over our bowsprit, which she carried away, with the head and stem. There being a good deal of sea, the foremast soon followed, carrying away with it the main topmast and main yard, with a dreadful crash. Not one life was lost nor man hurt, thanks to God.

Although the structural damage to the hull was limited to the smashing of the figurehead and cutwater, the ship was crippled by the loss of the bowsprit, foremast and main topmast and Pasley had no option but to return to England for repairs. The Bellerophon was taken in tow by the Ramillies and headed for Plymouth. In the years to come, the morale and fighting spirit of the Bellerophon's crew became legendary and we get a glimpse of this spirit in their reaction to the collision. Although the crew were new and had only brief experience of working together, they managed to clear up the wreckage on deck, and within twenty-four hours they erected such an effective jury rig that they outsailed the Ramillies and were able to cast off the towing line. They sailed back to Plymouth unassisted and were soon alongside the sheer hulk where the ship was examined by officers from the royal dockyard. The damaged rigging was replaced, the topmasts set up again, and repairs were carried out to the ship's head.

Five weeks after the collision the Bellerophon was back with Howe's fleet patrolling the seas off the west coast of Brittany. She had not missed any action. The French fleet had retreated back into the great harbour at Brest, protected by the forts at the harbour entrance. There was nothing that Howe and his ships could do but watch and wait. It was the Mediterranean fleet, commanded by Lord Hood, which was the first to go into action against the forces of Revolutionary France. By chance both Napoleon and Nelson were directly involved in the consequences of this action.

Toulon, the principal French naval base in the Mediterranean, was a fortified town of 28,000 inhabitants. In the summer of 1793 the local people, sickened by the execution of the King and the rising tide of terror, threw out the Jacobins who had been running the town. They believed that the restoration of the French monarchy was the only hope for France and on 27 August they raised a white flag spangled with fleur-de-lis over the town and proclaimed the young Louis XVII as their king. When the Revolutionary government in Paris sent an army to restore control, the people of Toulon looked to the old enemies of France for help and opened the port to British and Spanish troops and ships. (Britain and Spain had patched up their differences following the Nootka Sound crisis.) Lord Hood sailed his fleet into the harbour and landed two regiments of British infantry and 200 marines. The Spanish sent an army across the frontier to defend the landward side of the town.

Nelson had joined Hood's Mediterranean fleet a few weeks before. Like so many British naval officers he had been on half pay and without a ship for several years while the nation was at peace. He had spent much of this time staying at his father's country rectory in Norfolk. It should have been an idyllic interlude but he was impatient to get back to sea, and his wife Fanny felt cold and isolated after the tropical heat and social life which she had enjoyed in the West Indies. In January 1793, shortly before King Louis was sent to the guillotine, Nelson was given command of the 64-gun ship Agamemnon, the ship in which he would first make his name. Hood sent him to Naples to persuade the King of Naples and Sicily to send reinforcements to assist in the defence of Toulon against the advancing Revolutionary army. Nelson secured a promise that 2,000 troops would be immediately despatched to Toulon. He also struck up a warm friendship with the British envoy Sir William Hamilton and his wife Emma, Lady Hamilton. They invited him to stay with them at their house, a former palace on high ground overlooking the bay, its sunny rooms filled with fine paintings, exquisite statues and the Greek vases which were Sir William's passion. Nelson was charmed by them both and, although he must have been aware of Emma's colourful past, he wrote and told Fanny that 'She is a young woman of amiable manners and who does honour to the station to which she is raised.' He was entertaining them on board the Agamemnon when he received news that a French warship with a captured British merchantman was at anchor off Sardinia. 'I considered that the city of Naples looked to what an English man-of-war would do. I ordered my barge to be manned, sent the ladies ashore and in two hours my ship was under sail.'

There was no sign of the French warship off Sardinia so Nelson headed back to Toulon. When he arrived in the harbour on 5 October he found the British fleet under heavy bombardment. Directing the guns from the ramparts overlooking the harbour was the 24-year-old artillery officer Napoleon Bonaparte, now a major and soon to be promoted to brigadier-general. It was the only occasion that the two men, who were to play such a significant role in history, were ever in sight of each other. As far as Napoleon was concerned the sails of the Agamemnon were just another target for his guns, and Nelson had no idea who was organising the bombardment. 'Shot and shells are throwing about us every hour,' he wrote but he did not have to endure the shelling for long because within a week he was despatched to Sardinia and was soon in action against a squadron of French frigates.

Although Napoleon was not in command of the French forces at Toulon, his actions were largely responsible for the recapture of the city. Earlier in the year a civil war on the island of Corsica had resulted in the Bonaparte properties being ransacked and the family being declared outlaws. Napoleon rescued his family and took them first to Toulon and then settled them in Marseilles. He was therefore close at hand when the British and Spanish entered Toulon. He immediately made himself available to the commander of the French Revolutionary forces and was given a free hand to organise the artillery. He was aware that this was his big chance. He sent men to get guns from the forts at Monaco and Antibes, he brought in 100,000 sacks of earth on wagons from Marseilles to build parapets, and he organised an arsenal of eighty forges. The guns were set up behind the new defences which he built along the waterfront and he directed a continuous and devastating bombardment at the British ships in the harbour.

The chaotic conditions in the Revolutionary army led to the coming and going of several commanders until on 17 November an experienced and professional soldier, General Dugommier, arrived to take charge. Napoleon persuaded him to adopt a plan of attack which involved the capture of a key fort on high ground overlooking the harbour. The attack took place on 17 December in driving rain. While Napoleon's guns battered the fort, Dugommier led the first charge on the ramparts but he was repulsed. Napoleon, mounted on horseback, led the second charge of 2,000 troops. When his horse was shot under him he continued on foot, detached a battalion of light infantry to launch a flanking attack at the same time as his own, and succeeded in getting his men into the fort. After two hours of hand-to-hand fighting the fort surrendered. Napoleon was badly wounded by an English sergeant who thrust his pike deep into his left thigh, and he was lucky that the army surgeon who treated him decided not to amputate his leg.

As Napoleon had foreseen, the capture of the fort made the position of the British fleet untenable and Hood was forced to organise an immediate withdrawal. He set fire to the arsenal, burned nine of the French warships on their moorings, and under cover of darkness he embarked the allied troops and slipped out to sea, taking with him several French ships as prizes. However, he left behind eighteen French ships of the line, enough to provide the navy of the French Revolution with a powerful Mediterranean fleet. These were the ships which Nelson, leading a fleet which included the Bellerophon, would attack at the mouth of the Nile in five years' time.

While Admiral Lord Hood's fleet was in action at Toulon, Lord Howe's fleet continued to patrol the western approaches of the English Channel. During the course of two September cruises to Ushant and back, Lord Howe decided to race all his ships under full sail. This was a useful exercise which would enable him to group them according to their relative speeds when he took them into battle. The result was a triumph for the Bellerophon. As they passed Bolt Head on the Devon coast on 4 September, Howe made the signal 'for the fleet to take stations as most convenient'. The Bellerophon came up with and passed most of the ships with all sail set. The ships were then ordered to head for Torbay. Pasley piled on all sail, including the topgallant studding sails, and noted that even in the light breeze then prevailing the ship achieved a speed of 10 knots. On the second cruise the speed of the Bellerophon was proved beyond all doubt. As they headed back from Ushant at the end of September, Lord Howe again made the signal for each ship to make the best of her way into Torbay. The Bellerophon's log recorded the result: 'Set all sail, passed all the ships and about 5 was anchored in the Bay and all sails handed before any of the rest got a berth.'

For the Bellerophon to outsail the entire fleet including the frigates was a considerable achievement and reflected well not only on her commander and crew but also on Edward Greaves who built her and on Sir Thomas Slade her designer. She now acquired the name 'The Flying Bellerophon' although no doubt the sailors continued to refer to her as plain 'Billy Ruff'n'. In fact we know the exact speed of the ship on all points of sailing because two of the reports on her sailing qualities have been preserved. These reports were printed forms which the captains completed at various intervals during the life of a ship. The forms consisted of a series of questions which covered the performance of the ship on different points of sailing and under various conditions of wind and weather, her draught before and after being loaded with stores for foreign service, and such details as the height of her lowest gunport above the surface of the water.

The first report on the Bellerophon was completed by Captain Darby in April 1800, fourteen years after her launch. From this we learn that her top speed was 12 knots which she achieved when running before the wind. 'With the wind two points abaft the beam and a stiff gale she will run 11 knots, with the wind on the beam, 10 knots, one point before the beam 9 knots, and close to the wind with a head sea 5 knots.' Such speeds were not so remarkable for a vessel with a length on the waterline of 168 feet, and are put in the shade by the performance of the clipper ships in the second half of the nineteenth century which could achieve speeds of 15 or 16 knots for days on end, but of course the Bellerophon, like her fellow ships of the line, was not built primarily for speed but as a gun platform for 74 guns and as a bulk carrier for ammunition and water and provisions for 550 sailors and marines. In a second report on her sailing qualities completed by Captain Halsted in 1811 the Bellerophon was still achieving top speeds of 12 knots and in answer to the question of how her rate of sailing compared with other ships the answer was 'In general superior.' Both reports commended her on being well built, and very weatherly. She steered very well, and in the trough of the sea 'she rolls deep but very easy'.

After the first race back to Torbay Lord Howe created a flying squadron of the fastest ships in the fleet and put Pasley in command of the squadron with the position of commodore. This gave an experienced or talented captain a temporary command over other captains in the squadron, even if they were his seniors. Pasley had held it once before when in command of the ships in the Medway. On that occasion he commanded the Bellerophon himself and drew no extra pay, but he was now given a captain under him to command the ship while he took command of the squadron. He was able to draw the pay and wear the uniform of a rear-admiral, and to fly a broad pennant on his ship which, according to the ship's log, was first hoisted on 11 September.

The man who became Captain of the Bellerophon under Commodore Pasley was William Johnstone Hope, a 28-year-old Londoner. He had joined the navy at the age of ten, had served on a frigate under Prince William Henry (the future King William IV) and on the Boreas under Nelson. In 1790 he was given his first independent command, the Rattler, a sloop, and this was followed by command of a frigate and then a fireship. He was advanced to the rank of post-captain on 9 January 1794 and given command of the Bellerophon. Captain Hope and Commodore Pasley both arrived at Portsmouth early on the morning of 16 January 1794. Pasley had been away on leave, visiting his wife and two daughters in Winchester. It was a fine but cold winter's day with a light breeze. They were rowed out across the choppy waters of the anchorage to the Bellerophon and as they stepped onto the deck of the ship they were welcomed by the salutes of the ship's officers, the shrill whistles of the bosun's pipes, and the stamping feet of the line of red-coated marines as they presented arms. Back at his desk in the great cabin at the stern of the ship, Pasley wrote a letter to the Admiralty informing their lordships that he had returned to duty and asking them to give orders to the Navy Board 'to cause the Bellerophon to be fitted in the usual manner as a flagship, that proper accommodations may be made for the additional officers appointed.'

At 10 am they weighed anchor and sailed to St Helen's Roads, the anchorage in the lee of the Isle of Wight, off Bembridge. The next day they were joined by the other ships in Pasley's squadron and on 17 January they sailed with the fleet out into the Channel, past the Eddystone rock, towards Ushant. During the next four months the Bellerophon, in company with other warships, made a series of cruises out to Ushant and back, just as she had the previous autumn. It was hard, gruelling work at the best of times but in the winter months the men had to endure bitterly cold weather and storms. The seas to the west of Brittany and in the Bay of Biscay are notoriously hostile for sailing ships. Gales sweeping across the Atlantic stir up long rollers which can change to breaking seas as they hit the shallow waters of the continental shelf. With the prevailing wind in the south-west, the rockbound coast of France becomes a dangerous lee shore, made more hazardous by numerous offshore islands and shoals, fierce currents and overfalls. The log-books of the British ships sent out to patrol this coast make little mention of the dangers and none at all of the hardships involved. The letters of Commodore Pasley occasionally provide a glimpse of the conditions. In January 1794 he was ordered to take a squadron of seven ships down the Channel to intercept some French frigates known to be sailing off Cherbourg. There was no sign of the frigates so, when they arrived off Ushant, Pasley decided to send two of his own frigates to reconnoitre the port of Brest, while he and the ships of the line took up station 6 to 10 leagues west of Ushant to cover their retreat if they ran into trouble. The frigates had only been gone a few hours when the squadron was hit by a fierce gale from the north-west.

'Twice I hauled the squadron to the westward,' Pasley wrote, 'and each time I met a violent gale from the NW. In the last attempt we carried away our bumpkin.' When it became clear that there was going to be no let-up in the weather Pasley ordered the squadron to bear away and seek shelter in Torbay. He assured the Admiralty that the Channel was clear of enemy cruisers and promised to resume his station off the French coast as soon as the gales subsided. This he did but the squadron was again driven back to Torbay, this time by a strong south-westerly gale which caused the Defence to spring her main topmast. He concluded his report, 'Since I have had the honour of commanding a kings ship I never experienced such a continuance of boisterous weather as the squadron entrusted to my care has encountered from the 24th ult.' And this came from a veteran sailor who had made several Atlantic crossings and sailed as far afield as Newfoundland and the Guinea coast of Africa.

Later, in the long war against France, and for limited periods, the British Navy mounted a continous blockade of the French coast but this was not a policy pursued in the early stages of the war. An effective blockade required a very large fleet in order to contain the enemy ships in their naval bases. Lord Howe, who was in command of the Channel fleet from 1790 to 1794, saw no point in wearing out his ships during the winter months and preferred to send squadrons out to patrol the western approaches while keeping much of the fleet in home waters, ready for action in the event of the French fleet putting to sea. This led to him being called 'Lord Torbay' by those who wanted to see quick results but Howe was old enough and experienced enough to shrug off criticism from landsmen who knew little or nothing of naval matters.

Richard, Earl Howe, Admiral of the Fleet, is little known today outside the small world of those interested in maritime history. He never achieved the fame of Nelson or Drake or Captain Cook, and yet in an age which produced a succession of brilliant naval commanders he was a revered figure, admired by his fellow officers and widely respected by the common sailors in his fleet. He had captured a French ship off the mouth of the St Lawrence River at the beginning of the Seven Years War and he later led Hawke's fleet into action in the Battle of Quiberon Bay in 1759. He had been Commander-in-Chief on the North American station during the American War of Independence and had fought a series of rearguard actions against superior French forces. He had led the fleet which recaptured Gibraltar from the Spanish in 1782. And for five years he had held the office of First Lord of the Admiralty. His reputation was built on his courage, his leadership and his mastery of all aspects of his profession. Nelson was among his admirers and after his victory at the Nile it was the letter of congratulation he received from Howe that he valued above all others.

'It is only this moment that I had the invaluable approbation of the great, the immortal Earl Howe,' he wrote, 'an honour the most flattering a Sea-officer could receive, as it comes from the first and greatest Sea-officer the world has ever produced.' He went on to describe Howe as 'our great Master in Naval tactics and bravery . . .' Howe would have been the first to disown such extravagant praise. He was a man of few words, as unshakeable as a rock, and as silent, according to Horace Walpole. His dour manner, his rugged, impassive features, his dark eyes and heavy, black eyebrows had earned him the name of 'Black Dick'. He was now aged sixty-eight and was shortly to lead his ships into battle in the first major fleet action of the war against Revolutionary France.