The Glorious First of June

1794

His Majesty's ship the Brunswick had a large figure-head of the duke, with a laced hat on. The hat was struck off by a shot in the battle. The crew of the Brunswick, thinking it a degradation that a prince of that house should continue to be uncovered in the face of the enemy, sent a deputation to the quarter-deck, to request that Captain Harvey would be pleased to order his servant to give them his laced cocked hat to supply the loss. The captain, with great good humour, complied, and the carpenter nailed it on the duke's head, where it remained till the battle was finished. One of the sailors of this ship, in a letter to his wife at Newton Abbot, makes the following very shrewd and sensible remark "This dreadful battle happened on a Sunday; and if the French have rejected that day out of their calendar, God Almighty has shewn them that he has not left it out of his." Nothing could exceed the gallant conduct of the Brunswick in her action with the Vengeur. One of the bower-anchors of the former being shot away, the cable ran out its whole length, and the ship in rounding fell close alongside the Vengeur. In this situation, being observed by Captain Henry Harvey, the brother of the commander of the Brunswick, who afterwards fell on that day, he stood to their relief in the Ramilies, and poured such a tremendous and destructive fire into the Vengeur, that just after the conclusion of the battle, she went to the bottom. The Defence, Captain Gambier, behaved most gallantly, and was terribly cut up and totally dismasted. She was one of the few that passed through the enemy's line, got into the midst of the French ships, and lost her main and mizen-masts. Captain Gambier was an excellent officer, and a gentleman of strict principles of religion and morality. At the close of the action, Captain Pakenham, a rattling good-humoured Irishman, hailed him from the Invincible: "Well, Jimmy, I see you are pretty well mauled; but never mind, Jimmy, whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." Another incident took place in the little Defence: the lieutenant of the after part of the main-deck, seeing a three-decker, the Republicain (which shot away her remaining mast), suddenly bearing down towards them, struck with a kind of momentary panic, ran up to the quarter-deck, and addressing the captain with eagerness, exclaimed, "D--n my eyes, sir, but here is a whole mountain coming upon us, what shall we do?" Captain Gambier, unmoved and looking gravely at him, said in a solemn tone, "How dare you, sir, at this awful moment, come to me with an oath in your mouth? Go down, sir, and encourage your men to stand to their guns, like brave British seamen." On asking Captain (then Lord) Gambier, some years afterwards, if the story was true, he replied, he believed something of the kind occurred.

The crew of l'America ran below, and, when taken, assured Hugh Conway that it was only a ruse de guerre, as they had intended popping out upon him when he should attempt to board; but somehow the manoeuvre failed, which seems truly astonishing. They say we acted very unfairly by not informing them we intended to attack them the day we did, which happened precisely the day they did not expect it, after having been regularly prepared for it by several days preceding that ill-chosen one. To this reasonable objection for our breach of etiquette, we may attribute the assurance of the captain that we were entirely deceived if we imagined we had gained a victory; it was not even worthy of the name of combat--"Ce n'est qu'une boucherie ou vous n'avez montre ni science ni tactique." I think the ferocious courage that could dictate this observation from a man who was a prisoner to his conqueror, is worthy of admiration, and of a piece with that of the Jacobin, who fired her upper guns when her lower deck was under water. The officers of the Vengeur were carrying prisoners from one of our ships, when theirs went down; and when our people were scarce able to support the sight of our enemies in their horrid situation, the French devils looked upon the catastrophe of their countrymen with perfect coolness. The cartridges on board the French ships taken, and used in the fleet generally, were mostly made of the fine painted church music used in the cathedrals, and, of the preuves de noblesse of the principal families, many hundred years old, and illuminated with the genealogical tree. There was a decree of the Convention for applying the archives of the nobility to that purpose.

I think I have now sent you all my stories, except that Tom Pakenham having fired away in a very rude style on one of the French men-of-war, and observing they did not answer the compliment in the manner he expected, stopped his fire, and desired to know if the ship had been struck. On being answered they had not, he hallooed out, in great rage, "Then d--n ye, why do you not fire?" Remarking that one of the enemy's ships had shot away the top masts of one commanded by his particular friend, Pakenham declared with an oath: "I'll pay you for that," and bearing down on the Frenchman, he gave him a broadside for the affront offered to his friend.

Tales of the Wars, 1839