United States or Puerto Rico ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Admiral Graves, who had succeeded Admiral Arbuthnot in the command of the British fleet on the American station, was then lying at New York with seven sail-of-the-line; but two of his ships had been damaged in a cruise near Boston and were under repair.
Early in May, Collingwood was sent from England with eight sail-of-the-line for the West Indies; but learning on the way that Nelson had gone thither, he detached to him two of his swiftest seventy-fours, and, with great good judgment, himself took position off Cadiz, where he covered the entrance of the Mediterranean, and effectually prevented any ships from either Cartagena or Ferrol concentrating in the neighborhood of the Straits.
The delays caused by the repairs to the "Vanguard," and by the subsequent necessity of seeking the separated frigates at the rendezvous appointed for such a case, made possible the junction of Troubridge, of whose approach Nelson was totally ignorant. On the 2d of June Sir James Saumarez mentions speaking a ship, which a few days before had seen eleven sail-of-the-line, supposed to be English.
The latter, at quarter before five, fifteen minutes after Nelson breathed his last, retreated upon Cadiz, making signal for the vessels which had not struck to rally round his flag. Ten other ships, five French and five Spanish, in all eleven sail-of-the-line, made good their escape into the port. "Before sunset," wrote an eye-witness on board the "Belleisle," "all firing had ceased.
Meantime, the French had proceeded in force against Santa Lucia, landing a considerable body of troops, and investing the island with twenty-five sail-of-the-line, two of which with 1300 soldiers went on to attempt the British Tobago.
Jervis, knowing his man, was content to have it so, reserving of course to himself the decision of the broad outlines of military exertion. The inshore squadron was gradually increased till it numbered ten sail-of-the-line.
"I believe," wrote Morris in 1794, and few men better understood financial conditions, "that we could now maintain twelve ships-of-the-line, perhaps twenty, with a due proportion of frigates and smaller vessels. And I am tolerably certain that, while the United States of America pursue a just and liberal conduct, with twenty sail-of-the-line at sea, no nation on earth will dare to insult them.
He brings accounts that the great Expedition is sailed, and that seven Russian sail-of-the-line are expected in the Mediterranean; therefore I may suppose the French fleet are bound to the westward. I must do my best. God bless you. I am very, very miserable, but ever, my dear Ball," etc. A week more was to elapse before this dreadfully harassing surmise was converted into a certainty.
Amphitheatrical Rio! in your broad expanse might be held the Resurrection and Judgment-day of the whole world's men-of-war, represented by the flag-ships of fleets the flag-ships of the Phoenician armed galleys of Tyre and Sidon; of King Solomon's annual squadrons that sailed to Ophir; whence in after times, perhaps, sailed the Acapulco fleets of the Spaniards, with golden ingots for ballasting; the flag-ships of all the Greek and Persian craft that exchanged the war-hug at Salamis; of all the Roman and Egyptian galleys that, eagle-like, with blood-dripping prows, beaked each other at Actium; of all the Danish keels of the Vikings; of all the musquito craft of Abba Thule, king of the Pelaws, when he went to vanquish Artinsall; of all the Venetian, Genoese, and Papal fleets that came to the shock at Lepanto; of both horns of the crescent of the Spanish Armada; of the Portuguese squadron that, under the gallant Gama, chastised the Moors, and discovered the Moluccas; of all the Dutch navies red by Van Tromp, and sunk by Admiral Hawke; of the forty-seven French and Spanish sail-of-the-line that, for three months, essayed to batter down Gibraltar; of all Nelson's seventy-fours that thunder-bolted off St.
In the crucial instance, when Derby's squadron of thirty sail-of-the-line was hemmed in the open roadstead of Torbay by the allied forty-nine, the conclusion of the council of war not to fight only epitomized the character of the action of the combined navies.
Word Of The Day