Billy Ruffian

FIVE The Glorious First of June 1794

On the morning of 28 May 1794 the Bellerophon was far out in the North Atlantic. The Isle of Ushant on the French coast was 400 miles to the east, and Plymouth, the nearest British naval base, was more than 600 miles away. The weather was fine, but high feathery clouds, a freshening south-westerly breeze and a heavy swell from the west warned of gales to come. In the pale light of dawn it was just possible to see the topsails of the frigates on the eastern horizon. They had been sent ahead to search for the enemy fleet which was known to be somewhere close at hand. Astern of the Bellerophon was the main body of the British fleet, sailing in two columns with Lord Howe in the Queen Charlotte leading the weather column. Sailing in company with the Bellerophon were the Russell, the Thunderer and the Marlborough. They were the fastest 74-gun ships in the fleet and together formed the flying squadron of Thomas Pasley who had recently been promoted to rear-admiral. Their job was to chase and intercept the enemy ships if and when they were sighted.

The British were on the lookout for a large convoy of merchant ships and their escorting warships. France had suffered a bad harvest in 1793 and was heavily dependent on supplies of grain from America. A convoy had been assembled in Virginia consisting of more than a hundred merchantmen: some of the ships were carrying produce from the French West Indies; most were carrying cargoes of wheat flour. The convoy had set off from America on 2 April accompanied by two ships of the line and three frigates. Another squadron of five ships of the line, three frigates and a corvette, under Rear-Admiral Nielly, was sent out from France to meet them. To make doubly sure that the convoy did not fall into the hands of the British, the Brest fleet, under the command of Rear-Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse, was despatched on 16 May to bring the merchantmen safely into port. The Brest fleet consisted of twenty-six ships of the line, including three huge three-deckers of 110 guns, and one of 120 guns.

The Channel fleet, under the command of Lord Howe, did not have the weight of guns of the French fleet but it had more supporting vessels. There were twenty-six ships of the line, seven frigates, two fireships, two armed cutters and a hospital ship. Anchored in port this would have been an impressive array of vessels but in the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean they were no more than a few white specks on the ruffled grey surface of the sea. Thanks to the prevailing foggy weather Villaret-Joyeuse had successfully avoided the watching British ships on his outward voyage towards the convoy and in theory he should have been able to evade them on his return. However, two French corvettes and various merchant ships had blundered into the path of Howe's fleet and had given him some idea of the whereabouts of the enemy. Instead of heading westwards out into the Atlantic, Howe had altered course and the fleet was now steering south-east.

At 6 am on the 28th the frigate Phaeton sent a signal back to Admiral Pasley on the Bellerophon. She had sighted a strange sail to the south-east. She followed this with a second signal to the effect that there was a strange fleet to the south-south-west. Three hours passed by with no further news and the four ships of the flying squadron continued to sail south-eastwards, heeling before the rising wind, their bows dipping into the choppy seas and sending puffs of white salt spray into the air. At around 9 o'clock the lookouts on the Bellerophon saw for themselves the sails of a large fleet on the horizon to windward. As they drew closer they were able to count the individual ships. There were thirty-three ships in all and twenty-three of them appeared to be ships of the line. A young observer in Howe's fleet recorded that 'At 10 the Bellerophon 74 commanded by the bold Adml Paisley [Pasley] went per signal to reconnoitre the strange fleet.' Accompanied by the other three ships of the flying squadron, the Bellerophon slowly and steadily gained on the fleet but it was not until noon that the lookouts in the tops were able to confirm what they already knew. Ahead of them was the French fleet. It was stretched out in a long line, 'standing on the larb'd tack under easy sail'.

What happened next, and in the three days which followed, was recorded in the log-books of every ship present and these provide a glimpse of the action from a variety of angles. Most of the log-book accounts are restricted to brief notes of the weather, sail changes, signals, damage sustained by the ships and a note of the numbers of dead and injured. However the events were also recorded in journals and notebooks by a number of people who were present on board the warships and these provide a more personal view of the proceedings. Among the most interesting are the notebooks of Edward Codrington, who was a midshipman in Howe's flagship and later became an admiral; the observations of two thirteen-year-old midshipmen - William Dillon of the Defence and William Parker of the Orion; and a letter from an ordinary seaman serving in the Queen.

There is an additional, and unusual, perspective on the events leading up to and culminating in the Battle of the Glorious First of June and this is an illustrated journal by the marine artist Nicholas Pocock. He was present on the frigate Pegasus, and not only kept a journal but illustrated the unfolding events with aerial views and dozens of sketches. The son of a seaman, Pocock had risen to become a captain of merchant ships sailing out of Bristol. For ten years he recorded his voyages to South Carolina and the West Indies with delicate pen-and-wash drawings in his log-books. While still in his thirties he retired from the sea and set himself up as a painter of Bristol views and shipping on the Avon. His local success prompted him to move to London with his family in 1789 and he soon had a thriving practice as a painter of naval actions. His knowledge of ships and seamanship and his meticulous attention to detail much impressed his naval patrons who included senior captains and several admirals such as Lord Hood and Lord Bridport.

It is not known how Pocock came to be on board the Pegasus - we can only assume that he was invited along as a guest by her captain, Robert Barlow. But what is certain is that Pocock was in a good position to see the unfolding action. In fleet actions the battle was fought out between the ships of the line. The role of the frigates was to stand by and be ready to assist ships in trouble. They also had the vital task of repeating the signals made by the commander- in-chief whose flagship would usually be in the thick of the action, only her topmasts visible above the dense clouds of gunsmoke. On 1 June the frigate Niger was the repeating frigate for the van, the Aquilon for the rear squadron, and the Pegasus for the centre. Nicholas Pocock was fifty-two in 1794 but as a former seaman he would have had no qualms about going aloft and, from a position high up in the tops of the Pegasus, he would have had an aerial view of the whole scene.

Pocock's notes and sketches place considerable emphasis on the signals hoisted at various times by Lord Howe, and with some justification because these played a key part in the proceedings. The British Navy had used various forms of flag signals since the time of the Anglo-Dutch wars in the previous century, but these tended to be inflexible and became unwieldy as more and more flags were introduced to cope with the various orders and instructions issued by commanders. It was Lord Howe who first introduced a new system during the American War of Independence of 1776. While in command on the North American station he issued a book entitled Signal Book for Ships of War which was accompanied by explanatory instructions. During the next few years he and a number of other officers refined and experimented with different arrangements of flags. In 1790 Howe issued a revised Signal Book for Ships of War which was based on a numerical system. The numbers one to ten were each represented by a flag, and by using combinations of these, together with the explanations in the signal book, it was possible to issue a great variety of instructions with a limited number of flags. The flags were designed to be easily distinguished at a distance so there was only one with a diagonal cross, one with two vertical bands of colour and so on. They came into their own in the events which began on 28 May when Howe was in command of a large and extended fleet and needed to send signals to ships which were sometimes 2 or 3 miles distant from his flagship.

By mid-afternoon the weather had turned nasty. The wind had risen to gale force and squally showers of rain were sweeping across the heaving surface of the sea. With the leading British ships now closing on the rear of the long column of French ships, Lord Howe hoisted signal 29 at the mizen masthead of the Queen Charlotte. In the first of his aerial views of the action Pocock shows the signal flags in the top right-hand corner of his picture - a flag with a blue cross on a white ground for the figure 2 and a flag with red, white and blue horizontal stripes for the figure 9. Captain Hope simply recorded this as 'the general signal for chase and battle' but it had a more particular meaning which was 'to attack or harass the rear of the enemy ... to bring on a general action' which was exactly what the flying squadron proceeded to do. The Russell and the Thunderer were in the lead and, as they cut across the enemies' wake, they fired ranging shots at a distance of about a mile. These were the first shots in the first sea battle of the prolonged war against France: a war which would reach its climax at sea with the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 but which was not finally concluded until Napoleon was defeated on the field of Waterloo in 1815. Thanks to a bold and well-timed manoeuvre by Admiral Pasley, the Bellerophon became the first ship in Howe's fleet to go into action in this opening battle. Midshipman Parker observed that 'At 8 o'clock Adml Paisley [Pasley] got within gun shot of the enemy's rear and gave them a very warm and fierce reception which the enemy returned with great vivacity.' The Bellerophon's adversary was a huge French three- decker, just as it would be in a more famous battle in four years' time.

Captain Vandongen, in command of the Révolutionnaire of 110 guns, believing that he had the firepower to overwhelm the 74-gun ships on his tail, dropped back into the path of the Bellerophon. Pasley judged his moment, tacked his ship and was soon exchanging fire with the Frenchman. He later wrote, 'On that day, and for some days before, the Bellerophon was the worst-sailing ship of the flying squadron. Yet by embracing the moment for tacking after the enemy, she was enabled to bring them to action, with which she was engaged alone more than an hour and a half.'

Lord Howe saw what was happening and, as the rest of his fleet was still some distance away, he made a signal to the other ships in the flying squadron to come to the Bellerophon's assistance. The Russell, the Thunderer and the Marlborough headed towards the scene of the action which was conspicuous in the gathering gloom by the brilliant flashes of gunfire and the thunderous boom of the broadsides. By the time they reached the embattled ships and swept past, firing their guns, the Bellerophon was in difficulties. The broadsides of the three-decker had caused a considerable amount of damage and her main topmast was about to go by the board. She was forced to signal her inability to continue in action and drifted clear of the French ship. As she did so, the leading ships from the main body of Howe's fleet at last arrived on the scene. The Audacious and the Leviathan engaged in a running battle with the French ship which had lost her mizenmast but continued to direct such devastating fire at her attackers that the Audacious was reduced to a crippled wreck.

It was now around 8 o'clock in the evening. A sea mist was reducing visibility and Lord Howe realised that he would be unable to bring on a general action before darkness fell and communication with his ships became difficult. He therefore made the signal to recall the fleet and form line ahead and astern of his flagship. During the night the much battered Révolutionnaire evaded the British fleet and made her way back to Brest escorted by a French seventy-four. The equally battered Audacious needed dockyard attention and headed back to England. The first round had ended in a draw.

With the coming of dawn on 29 May the enemy fleet was seen to be 4 or 5 miles away, sailing in a line ahead. It was a grey day, with cloudy skies and a mist hovering on the horizon. The wind was still blowing from the south-west and had lessened from gale force to a stiff breeze, but a heavy swell continued to roll across the ocean from the west. The French were to windward of the British and therefore had the advantage of the weather gauge. This meant that they could choose to run down on the British fleet with the wind behind them or try and avoid action altogether by maintaining their current course which was taking them away from the British. Howe was determined to bring on a general action but this meant sailing close-hauled and tacking his fleet to bring his leading ships into contact. The second of Nicholas Pocock's aerial views shows exactly what happened. Lord Howe hoisted signal 78 for the fleet to tack in succession, 'the headmost and weathermost ships to tack first'. At 11.30 am the French fleet is stretched out along the horizon. Most of the British fleet have already tacked and the leading ships have begun firing on the enemy. The Bellerophon is in the centre of the picture, following in the wake of Lord Howe's flagship.

If they stayed on the same tack the leading British ships would pass harmlessly to leeward of the French so Lord Howe hoisted the signal to cut through the enemy's line. Captain Hope in the Bellerophon observed that Howe 'tacked in the midst of a very heavy fire or cannonade and cut through between the 4th and 5th ship in their rear. We tacked and passed between the 2nd and 3rd ships.' He went on to provide a glimpse of the confusion as ships at close quarters poured broadsides into each other: 'In passing we brought down a ships topmasts and in the heat of the action it was difficult to know who was French and who was English. We was all firing thro one another.' By sailing through the line of enemy ships, the Queen Charlotte and the Bellerophon exposed themselves to the full broadsides of the enemy before they were able to bring their own guns to bear. Captain Hope noted that 'in passing the line we had our sails and rigging cut to pieces' but they had succeeded in cutting off three French ships and isolating them from the rest of the French fleet. These ships received such a pounding from the British guns that one of them was totally disabled. Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse acted promptly. In the words of Pocock, 'The French Admiral seeing this ship must be taken if he stood on, wore his fleet in succession from the van and rallied in a very gallant manner and in good order towards our fleet.' In the ensuing mêlée the French managed to rescue their damaged ships and tow them clear.

This second day of action, like the first, ended inconclusively. The French had fought valiantly but several of their ships were so badly damaged that they had to retire from the scene. Some of Howe's ships, notably the Leviathan and the Queen, had sustained heavy casualties and were badly damaged but they could be repaired by their crews on the spot. From a tactical point of view the British were now in a much stronger position. By tacking through the enemy line Howe had successfully manoeuvred his ships to windward of the French and now he had the weather gauge.

That night the sea mist, which had been lurking on the horizon, spread across the ocean and enveloped the two fleets in a damp haze. Howe's main concern was to prevent the French fleet from escaping. The French admiral's concern was to protect his crippled warships and to keep the grain convoy at a safe distance from the British. On the Bellerophon the crew used the interlude of night to carry out urgent repairs and were employed splicing lengths of rope and repairing sails and rigging. The gun crews remained at their quarters. Indeed, according to a seaman on another ship, 'we lay upon the decks at our guns all night for two nights and three days.' In spite of their vigilance they lost sight of the French fleet and at one stage the fog was so thick that visibility was reduced to a cable's length (200 yards) and they could only glimpse three of their own ships in the immediate vicinity. In the early hours of 31 May the mist was accompanied by drizzling rain. Edward Codrington provides us with a vivid picture of the scene on board the Queen Charlotte at dawn. The ship was cleared for action and there was consequently only a canvas screen between the Admiral's cabin and the quarterdeck. Codrington was an officer of the watch at that early hour and by lifting the canvas screen he was able to observe a brief exchange between Lord Howe and his flag captain Sir Roger Curtis. He saw Lord Howe sitting in an armchair in his greatcoat. Curtis came in to make his report to the Admiral.

'My Lord, I am sorry to tell you that the fog is now so thick that we cannot see anything beyond our ship, and God knows whether we are standing into our own fleet or that of the enemy.'

'Well, Sir, it can't be helped,' Howe calmly replied, 'we must wait with patience till the weather improves.' Codrington noted that the Admiral showed no nervousness in the difficult circumstances but 'evinced a heroic fortitude which may have been equalled, but never can have been exceeded.'

The fog partly cleared at around 6 o'clock and the crew of the Bellerophon were able to see most of the rest of the fleet but not the Queen Charlotte which remained hidden in a fog bank. Not till around 1 o'clock in the afternoon did the fog clear sufficiently for the flag-ship to be able to rejoin the fleet and for them to be able to see the French fleet which was now 8 or 9 miles to leeward. Lord Howe hoisted the signal for the fleet to form the established line of battle and they set a course for the enemy. By 6.30 in the evening the French were still too far away and it was evident to Howe that he would not be able to bring on a conclusive general action before nightfall. He decided to hold his hand till the next day and gave the signal 'to haul the wind on the larboard tack.' That evening the British crews completed the repairs to the damaged ships and prepared for the impending battle. Howe sent the frigates Phaeton and Southampton along the line with orders to hail each ship and tell them that the Queen Charlotte would be sailing all night under a single foresail, reefed topsails, jib and main staysail. This enabled individual captains to judge the speed required to maintain their station in the line.

The morning of 1 June was cloudy with a fresh breeze from south-south-west and a continuing heavy swell from the west. On the Bellerophon they could see no sign of the enemy fleet at daybreak but the frigates had spotted them about 7 miles to leeward. Howe was determined to make the battle decisive and he therefore hoisted signal 34 which meant, 'having the wind of the enemy, the Admiral means to pass between the ships in the line for engaging them to leeward'. And in case there should be any doubt in his captains' minds he followed this up an hour later with signal 36, 'Each ship independently to steer for and engage her opponent in the enemy's line.' Although baldly expressed in the language of Howe's signal book, this order was similar in spirit and intention to the famous direction which Nelson was to give to his captains before Trafalgar when he told them that 'no captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of an enemy.'

By 9.30 the two fleets were within gunshot of each other and Lord Howe ordered the signal for close action to be hoisted at the mizenmast of his flagship. This was signal number 5, a distinctive red-and-white-quartered flag which signified 'To engage the enemy. If closer a red pennant will be shown over the flag.' Howe made sure that the red pennant was duly hoisted. Codrington was with the Admiral on the quarterdeck at this moment and observed him shut the little signal book which he always carried with him, and turn to the officers surrounding him, saying, 'And now, gentlemen, no more book, no more signals. I look to you to do the duty of the Queen Charlotte in engaging the French admiral. I do not wish the ships to be bilge and bilge, but if you can lock the yardarms so much the better, the battle will be sooner decided.' He then took over conning the ship, just as he had done thirty-five years before at the Battle of Quiberon Bay when he had steered the Magnanime among the treacherous shoals on the French coast in a November gale. He now headed for the centre of the French line and selected as his adversary the Montagne, a three-decker of 120 guns and the flagship of Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse.

From his viewpoint on the frigate Pegasus, Nicholas Pocock was well placed to observe the opening stages of the battle. The third of his aerial views shows the scene at 10.30 in the morning. The battle has been raging for about an hour. The Queen Charlotte has hauled up under the stern of the Montagne and her foretopmast is going over the side. Dense clouds of gunsmoke have already hidden many of the ships of the line from view. Standing well clear of the action in the foreground are five of the British frigates, the fireship Comet, the cutter Rattler, and the hospital ship Charon. The Pegasus is in the centre of the picture, in a position where she can repeat Howe's signals.

In this picture, as in his other three aerial views, Pocock has taken a bird's eye view of the entire scene rather than a literal view of what he would have seen from the masthead of the Pegasus. It was his usual practice before he began work on a painting of a sea battle to produce a careful plan of the action so that he could check the positions of the ships and the direction of wind and tide with people who had been present. In his First of June Notebook he used his own observations to produce what amounted to three-dimensional plans of the action. A few years later, when he was commissioned to paint pictures of Nelson's famous victories at the Nile, Copenhagen and Trafalgar, he chose to paint similar aerial views of the actions, presumably because these gave the spectator a clear and easily understood view of the relative positions of all the ships involved.

In addition to the aerial views, Pocock also made dozens of sketches of the battle on 1 June from the decks of the Pegasus. Like his distinguished predecessor Willem van de Velde the Elder, who was present at several of the battles of the Anglo-Dutch Wars, he used pen and pencil with the addition of a rapidly applied grey wash. This enabled him to depict the flash of cannon fire, the billowing smoke, the falling masts and spars, and the choppy surface of the sea with a freshness and a sense of immediacy which is missing from so many of the battle pictures by his contemporaries. Unfortunately on 1 June the Bellerophon was too far away from Pocock to be seen clearly and she only appears in his bird's eye views.

When the British fleet sailed down on the enemy in line abreast the Bellerophon was at one end of the line with only the Caesar outside her. As they neared the French line Captain Molloy in the Caesar began firing at long range but then held back. (This led to much hostile criticism afterwards and a court martial.) The Caesar's absence meant that the fire of several French ships was directed at the Bellerophon as she made her final approach. According to Captain Hope, 'in going down we received a very heavy fire from 3 or 4 of the enemies van'. The officers on the quarterdeck were always in a dangerously exposed position and they now came under a murderous hail of musket balls and cannon shot. Shortly before 11 o'clock Admiral Pasley was hit. According to Matthew Flinders, the future explorer who was a midshipman on the Bellerophon, 'our brave admiral lost his leg by an 18 pound shot which came through the barricadoes of the quarter-deck - it was in the heat of the action.' When two of his seamen expressed their sorrow at seeing him wounded Pasley briskly replied, 'Thank you, but never mind my leg: take care of my flag.'

The Admiral was taken below where Alexander White, the surgeon, found his leg was so shattered that it had to be amputated. We get a rare glimpse of what the atmosphere below deck must have been like at this time in a letter written by Jonathan Wilkinson, a 28-year-old seaman serving on another ship, the 98-gun Queen. Before joining the navy Wilkinson had worked on a farm in Nottinghamshire and his letter was addressed to his former employer.

'Sir, in the time of the action you would have thought the element had been all on fire and the shot flying about our heads 42 pounder and case shot and double-headed shot. It was all the same as a hail storm.' Wilkinson described how the Queen had to run the gauntlet through the French lines and 'at the gun that I was quartered at we had 4 shot come in and killed two men and wounded five ditto which I was wounded in my left arm and in my breast but thanks be to God I'm a great deal better and to let you know that our captain lost his leg and is since dead and the master of the ship he was killed right out in the time of action . . .'

While Admiral Pasley was on the surgeon's makeshift operating table, Captain Hope continued to give orders from the quarterdeck and the Bellerophon's gun crews continued to thunder away at the enemy ships on either side. The bombardment was so effective that the captain of the French 74-gun ship L'Eole decided that his ship had taken enough punishment and withdrew from the line of battle. By this time the Bellerophon had lost all three of her topmasts, most of her lower shrouds were shot away, and her mainsail was shot to pieces. Unable to manoeuvre the ship any more, Captain Hope had to signal to the frigate Latona to come to her assistance and tow her clear. As they emerged from the pall of gunsmoke Captain Hope counted eleven ships without a mast standing, one of them being the Defence, a seventy-four designed by Slade and a sister ship of the Bellerophon.

Nicholas Pocock witnessed the heroic performance of the Defence and later produced a small oil painting of her under fire from two French ships. It is one of the most authentic depictions of a sea battle ever painted. It has none of the theatrical glamour of Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg's vast canvas, The Glorious First of June, but it does have a deadpan realism and a mastery of significant detail which could only come from the hand of someone who had witnessed the occasion. Captain Gambier in command of the Defence had piled on so much sail during the approach to the enemy that his ship drew ahead of the British line and came under a concentrated hail of fire as she reached the French line. First she lost her mizenmast and then her mainmast, but even when her foremast was shot away and her deck was strewn with wreckage, her gun crews continued to keep up a barrage of fire. Midshipman Dillon observed that 'The lower deck was at times so completely filled with smoke that we could scarcely distinguish each other, and the guns were so heated that, when fired, they nearly kicked the upper deck beams.' At one stage Dillon was standing next to a seaman called John Polly who was so short that he was confident that any shot would pass harmlessly over his head.

'The words had not been long out of his mouth when a shot cut his head right in two, leaving the tip of each ear remaining on the lower part of the cheek.' Dillon noted that 'The head of the seaman was cut so horizontally that anyone looking at it would have supposed it had been done by the blow of an axe.' His words are a graphic reminder of the horrendous damage which could be inflicted by a single cannon ball. Codrington observed that one French shot went clean through 7 feet of oak timbers and then struck a gun with such force that it dented the barrel. On the frigate Phaeton a 36-pounder shot went through her quarter gallery, took off a man's head, broke both the thighs of another man and wounded several others.

The battle lasted for more than four hours. By 12.30 many of the ships had fought themselves to a standstill and Lord Howe hoisted the signal for ships to close and join the Admiral. The fourth of Pocock's aerial views shows the scene an hour later with those French ships which were not totally disabled retreating 'in tolerable good order'. Scattered across a wide expanse of ocean are dozens of wrecked and dismasted vessels. The Bellerophon can be seen on the extreme left of the picture, 'Fore and main topmast gone and much shattered.' On board the ship Captain Hope and his officers were attempting to produce some order from the chaos. The ship was strewn with the debris of shattered spars, sails and rigging and the boats and spars which were stored on the main deck were almost destroyed by shot and falling debris. The men began clearing away the wreckage, and carrying out urgent repairs to the standing rigging supporting the mainmast which was in a dangerous condition.

Considering the ferocity of the gunfire which she faced during the first part of the battle the Bellerophon suffered surprisingly few casualties, with four men killed and thirty wounded. Other ships did not fare so well. The Queen had thirty-six killed and over sixty wounded but the highest British death toll was the Brunswick's which had forty-four men killed, including her captain, John Harvey. The Brunswick was engaged in a prolonged and ferocious duel with the French ship Vengeur du Peuple. According to Lieutenant Bevan, 'We did not fire a single gun untill we were within point blank shot and 10 minutes after ten we lay'd the Vengeur, an 84, alongside. Sometimes their guns running into our ports, at other times ours into theirs.'

The anchors of the two ships had become hooked and the ships were so closely locked in combat that the Brunswick was unable to open her lower deck ports and had to blast them off with her guns. After four dreadful hours the Vengeur hauled down her flag and surrendered, her masts going by the board soon afterwards. The Brunswick succeeded in extricating herself from the wreckage and sailed clear of the Vengeur which was sinking. Boats from the Culloden and the Alfred managed to take off the French ship's captain and about 130 of her crew before she went down. Her final moments were vividly recorded by Mr Baker of the Orion:

At half-past five o'clock, we were witness to the most shocking scene possible. Le Vengeur, being very much mauled between wind and water in the action, filled with water and lay upon her beam ends. Numbers of unfortunate wretches were seen clinging to her side. Soon they were floating in the water and crying for assistance. In a minute's time, she heel'd right over and went to the bottom. Numbers were seen floating in the water, of whom the Rattler cutter picked up several, but much the greater part of the crew were lost.

The sinking of the Vengeur made a great impression on all present because it was extremely rare for warships of this period to be sunk by gunshot unless the magazine caught fire and exploded. Normally their massive oak hulls could take several hours of bombardment and still remain afloat. When news of the heroic defence of the Vengeur reached France her crew were hailed as martyrs in the cause of the Revolution and the ship became the subject of numerous pictures and patriotic ballads.

Before they retreated from the scene of the battle the French frigates succeeded in towing away four or five damaged ships of the line but they were unable to prevent six dismasted warships from falling into the hands of the British. Two of these, Le Juste and Sans Pareil, were 80-gun ships, the others were 74s. It was the largest number of prizes captured during a sea battle in the eighteenth century up till that date and was considered a glorious triumph when the news eventually reached England. But the victory was achieved at a heavy cost. The total casualty list for the British fleet was 287 men killed and 811 wounded. The French were reckoned to have lost 1,500 killed and 2,000 wounded, with 3,500 men made prisoner.

As the smoke drifted away and the prizes were taken in tow, Lord Howe retired to bed, totally exhausted. For four days running he had masterminded the movements of a large fleet by day and night. On three of those days his ships had been in action and on two of them his own flagship had led by example: on 29 May the Queen Charlotte was the first British ship to cut through the French line, and on 1 June she had to force her way between the 120-gun Montagne and the 80-gun Jacobin while under fire from both ships. It would have been a gruelling enough experience for a young man but for a man of sixty-nine it certainly took its toll. A few captains remarked at the time that the victory would have been even more spectacular if Howe had not called a halt to the fighting and had allowed his captains to chase down and secure more of the disabled French ships. With hindsight, and the knowledge of what Nelson was to achieve in the years to follow, there is clearly some truth in this. But in defence of Howe it has to be remembered that the battle was fought 600 miles out in the open ocean and a number of his ships required dockyard repairs before they could fight again. He had achieved a decisive victory over a French fleet whose officers and men may have lacked the experience and expertise of the British, but who fought, like the armies of the French Revolution, with a patriotic and almost fanatical fervour. Captain Collingwood, who was in command of the Barfleur and would later be Nelson's second in command at Trafalgar, considered the action on 1 June was 'as compleat a victory as ever was won upon the seas, more decided than we had just reason to expect, for the enemy was superior to us in strength and fought with a savage ferocity.'