HMS Victory

“ Once they succeeded in setting fire, from the Redoubtable, to some ropes and canvas on the Victory's booms. The cry ran through the ship and reached the cockpit. But even this dreadful cry produced no confusion; the men displayed that perfect self-possession in danger by which English seamen are characterised; they extinguished the flames on board their own ship, and then hastened to extinguish them in the enemy, by throwing buckets of water from the gangway. When the Redoubtable had struck, it was not practicable to board her from the Victory ”

“ But it must always be remembered that these are but incidents; the business of the British Navy is the right use of the sea, and not conquest or display. For it, therefore, victory is not the affair of a day here or a day there, however rousing to the blood: it lies rather in what is neither spectacular nor resounding—in the monotonous but manifold perfection of an indispensable service. ”

“ The Spanish fleet were much scattered and in no particular order, but some eight ships were considerably to leeward of the rest, leaving a distinct gap, which was, however, rapidly narrowing, by the nineteen ships to windward running down to join their companions. For this gap the British ships pushed with all sail in a compact line, “Victory” in the centre. A few minutes hesitation might have been fatal, for had the enemy got all his ships together, the 15 English vessels would have fought against great odds ”

“ The usual record every twelve hours is “Victory north one mile.” Sometimes the flagship is rather more distant, and occasionally the “Admiral (Louis) went on board the Victory.” Doubtless the impatience and excitement was not all on Nelson’s part. Every man in the fleet must have felt that a battle was not far off. All this time the three frigates were almost daily out in chase, but no enemy was sighted, and it was not until June 3 that the Admiral signalled that the French and Spanish squadrons were at Martinique, “having gained this intelligence from two English letters of marque.” ”

“ On the 28th March Sir John Jervis was reinforced by a squadron from England, when he shifted his flag on the 30th from the “Victory” to the Ville de Paris, a new three-decked ship.
The fleet sailed next day (the “Victory” being now a private ship) and proceeded off Cadiz, where Nelson had been cruising for some time watching the Spanish ships, who, ever since the 16th of February had lain in that port, hooted and jeered at by the populace, and their Admirals and Captains disgraced. ”

“ In naval warfare the number of ships lost is no determining factor in figuring the actual victory—the important thing being the existence or nonexistence of the grand fleets of the combatants after the fighting is finished. Viewed from such an angle, the fact that the Allies had left no German ships at large other than those in the North Sea, cannot entitle them to victory at the end of the first six months of war. So long as a German fleet remained intact and interned in neutral ports, naval victory for the Allies had not come, though naval supremacy was indicated. ”

“ They shewed great coolness in the commencement of the battle; for as the Victory approached their line, their ships lying immediately ahead of her and across her bows fired only one gun at a time, to ascertain whether she was yet within their range. This was frequently repeated by eight or nine of their ships, till at length a shot passed through the Victory's main-top-gallant-sail; the hole in which being discovered by the Enemy, they immediately opened their broadsides, supporting an awful and tremendous fire. ”

“ The British navy may indeed hope to obtain control of the sea-ways, but the law of maritime war, as it has been settled by the Declarations of Paris and of London, makes it impracticable for Great Britain to use a naval victory, even if she wins it, in such a way as to be able commercially to throttle a hostile Power, while the British military forces available for employment on the Continent are so small as hardly to count in the balance. ”

“ The ship he engaged was so close that they did not fire their great guns on board the enemy, but only musketry; and manned the rigging on board; but nearly the whole that left the deck were killed. The ship had 25 guns dismounted by the Victory’s fire. A shot carried away four spokes from the wheel of the Victory, and never killed or wounded any of the men steering. Temporary places have been fitted up between the decks for the wounded men, which are warmed by stoves. ”

“ The next day the enemy unrigged all their ships and made a strong boom with their yards, top masts, and cables, buoyed up with casks, for which they had all the leisure and convenience they could wish, the wind hindering the English from doing anything; and, to try the admiral's patience to the very utmost, it so fell out that a drunken gunner firing a pistol, his other small fire-ship was destroyed; so that he had now none left but the Little Victory, which drew too much water to enter that part of the bay where the Algerines lay. ”

“ James said, but which, in fact, is something more than that—a receiving and drilling ship. We found a boat awaiting us, put (of course by Captain Hall's intervention) at our disposal by the commander of the Victory. It was manned with a dozen youngsters in the Victory's uniform, a white knit woollen blouse, with the word Victory in Maria-Louise-blue on the breast. They were stout, ruddy lads. The Victory, you know, is the ship in which Nelson won the battle of Trafalgar, and died in winning it. ”

“ Having made every other signal to his fleet he thought necessary, he finished with that most celebrated one—“England expects that every man will do his duty,”—which, at 11.40, was hoisted at the “Victory’s” mizen-topgallant-masthead, and was received by most of the ships with cheers.
This made, Lord Nelson’s customary signal on going into action—“Engage the enemy more closely”—was hoisted at the main, and there remained until the mast was shot away. ”

“ For a time, of course, there was nothing distinguishable but the flash of the guns through the night, but after an hour the moon rose out of the sea, and then two ships, locked in the embrace of death, stood out in the midst of a cloud of smoke. That these spectators looked on confidently rejoicing in the prospect of a victory for their own ship, need not be doubted. How they rejoiced as they thought that their shores were now to be rid of the “pirates” is easily imagined ”

“ Taking the Victory as a fair type of the best war-ships of her day (a day when there was not that painful uncertainty with regard to naval construction and armament existing now, in spite of our vaunted progress) , we still know that in the presence of a powerful steam-frigate with heavy guns, or an 11,000-ton ironclad, she would be literally nowhere. She was one of the last specimens, and a very perfect specimen, too, of the wooden age. This is the age of iron and steam. One of the largest vessels of her day, she is now excelled by hundreds employed in ordinary commerce. ”

“ Admiral Geary then hoisted his flag in the “Victory,” on 24th May, on succeeding to the command of the Channel fleet, and sailed early in June, with 29 line-of-battle ships, 14 of them three-deckers. He stationed himself off Brest, which he watched for three months, his object being to prevent the French from getting out, and joining the Spaniards fitting in Cadiz; when, having over 2500 sick on board his fleet, he returned to Spithead on the 18th August. He captured a valuable convoy of merchantmen during his cruise, but did not have a chance of measuring his strength with the enemy. ”

“ The still existing Asia, at Portsmouth, was launched thirteen years after the Victory had finally retired from the sea. The Victory as a fact had been some years afloat and had fought her first battle long before the great-great-grandfathers of most of us were old enough to trundle [161] a hoop or spin a top. She forms in herself, indeed, a direct and actual link between our own day and the times of George the Second.
Two famous Admirals of the Seven Years’ War time, Anson and Boscawen, were the Lords of the Admiralty who signed the order to lay the Victory’s keel. ”

“ Of 58 ships in the port when Lord Hood arrived, 14 were destroyed, 19 carried off, and 25 left to the French.
[Pg 19] In all these operations the men of the “Victory,” if not the ship herself, bore an active part, as they were landed, and helped to man the batteries with the other ship’s companies, and suffered great losses in the continual bombardment to which they were exposed. ”

“ And in these conditions the evasion of an artillery fight at decisive range should present no difficulties. Finally, such risks as were involved were well worth the incalculable enhancement of German prestige that would follow if a not-too-untruthful claim could be made to a naval victory. The world that has a natural sympathy with the weaker force would be inclined to regard even the escape of the German Fleet as something very like a German success. ”

“ Her captain, pilot, and third officer were all on the bridge, and the view was clear and unobstructed. Would a lookout on the bows have heard or seen more than they did? The bearing of this inquiry is, of course, on the failure of the Plymothian to detect the first alleged two-blast signal blown by the Victory. We have already indicated that the evidence is, to our minds, satisfactory that that two-blast signal was blown when the Victory was below Craney Island lighthouse. If so, the vessels were a mile and one-eighth apart, and the Victory was on the Plymothian's port bow. ”

“ All decisive fighting was practically hand to hand and man to man, except for the use of the ram by galleys and the exchange of arrows and stones at comparatively close quarters. But victory was only achieved, as a general rule, when the [50] enemy's ship was boarded and her crew defeated in a bloody tussle, at the end of which no one but the victors remained alive, unless, perhaps, some knight or noble who was worth preserving for the value of his ransom. ”

“ On the 18th of December the wind came from the N.E. when the whole fleet weighed and made sail. The first squadron consisted of the Victory, Vigo, Dreadnought, Orion, Mercury, and Snipe; the second comprised the St. George in tow of the Cressy, the Defence, and Bellete, and the third the convoy under the Hero and the Grasshopper; but the wind coming too far to the northward to enable the convoy to weather the Scaw, the signal was made from the Victory for it to return into port. At sunset on the 19th the St. George was seen well to windward of that dangerous headland ”

“ Not all the familiarity of the British navy with brilliant success – not the memory of the battles of a Duncan or a Nelson – not the knowledge of the victory of July 13th itself, can make one contemplate without emotion, the disparity of the English, whoso enterprising chief had resolved, with five 2-deckers, four of which were already crippled, and only one an 80-gun ship, to pursue the enemies’ united force, and, if possible, prevent a part of them from reaching Cadiz. ”

“ At this period, scarcely a person in the Victory escaped unhurt who was exposed to the Enemy's musketry; but there were frequent huzzas and cheers heard from between the decks, in token of the surrender of different of the Enemy's ships. An incessant fire was kept up from both sides of the Victory; her larboard guns played upon the Santissima Trinidada and the Bucentaur; and the starboard guns of the middle and lower decks were depressed, and fired with a diminished charge of powder, and three shot each, into the Redoutable. ”

“ One side was for facing risks and sinking the enemy at any cost. The other would have it that so long as the British Fleet was unconquered it was invincible, and that the distinction between “invincible” and “victorious” could be neglected. After all, as Mr. Churchill told us, while our fleet was crushing the life breath out of Germany, the German Navy could carry on no corresponding attack on us; and when the other camp denounced this doctrine of tame defence, he retorted that victory was not unnecessary but that the torpedo had made it impossible. ”

“ Lord Nelson had doubtless foreseen this, and thence his wish to anchor, and as a matter of fact, most of those few ships and prizes that did anchor, rode the gale out in safety and were saved; but the majority of the vessels were either anchorless, or in such deep water that they could not with convenience anchor.
The “Victory’s” trophy, the Redoutable, was one of those that sunk after the action in deep water, and in her, as in many of the other vessels lost, went down her prize crew of British seamen. ”

“ Now, a ship of the Queen Elizabeth class is of 27,000 tons, equal to the tonnage of the whole column of Nelson’s ships at Trafalgar. The Victory carried 101 guns, about one-third being 32-pounders; there were only two carronades firing a shot of sixty-two pounds. If every gun on the Victory had been fired in one sudden broadside, the entire weight of metal would have been 2296 pounds, or a little over one ton of iron, and the effective range would be less than half a mile. ”

“ During this cruise she was commanded by Captain Searle, but on her going round to Chatham for [Pg 49] a refit, Captain Dumaresq again returned to her, and Sir James Saumarez re-hoisting his flag on April 8th, 1809, she once more sailed for the Baltic, on the navigation being reported open. The best part of this year was spent by the “Victory” and fleet of 10 sail, in blockading the Russian ships in Cronstadt. One successful boat attack was made, when 8 of the enemy’s gun-boats were destroyed, but otherwise there was no fighting. ”