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Updated: June 1, 2025
It was now blowing hard from the west-northwest, with every appearance of heavy weather, the fleet not far from a lee shore, with an enemy considerably superior in numbers; for besides Hawke's twenty-three of the line, Duff had four fifty-gun ships.
Her life, her death, even her resting place, are all wrapped in the selfish and brutal silence of a selfish tyrant! He should have been only a drill sergeant to knock about the half-crazed brutes who stagger under a soldier's pack over these burning plains!" It suddenly occurred to her that in some mysterious way Major Alan Hawke's coming would contribute to the rescue of the captive Princess.
The officer selected for the latter was Howe, deservedly a favorite of Hawke's, but not therefore acceptable to him as a supplanter in his honors. The admiral had been for some time superintending the equipment of the vessels for the light division, when, on May 10, 1758, Howe reported to him, bringing his orders.
Alan Hawke's brow was gloomy when he read the last letter, which was a brief note from Captain Anstruther, informing him that his final instructions would be forwarded "in a week." The ominous silence of "Madame Berthe Louison," the living lie of her pretended visit to Russia, the trick of the letters sent on from Jitomir to his Parisian address, now only confirmed his jealous rage.
Nor does it at all detract from his credit that the enemy was much inferior in numbers; eleven to twenty-one. As in Hawke's pursuit of Conflans, with which this engagement is worthy to be classed, what was that night dared, rightly and brilliantly dared, was the dangers of the deep, not of the foe. The prey was seized out of the jaws of disaster. The results were commensurate to the risk.
When Major Alan Hawke's neat trap drew up before the marble house there was an officious crowd of Hindu underlings in waiting to welcome the expected guest.
I will go down to Calcutta, see the Viceroy, and then clear out for good. And I must placate Alan Hawke. I was a fool to ignore him. But, to make an enemy of him, on account of that damned woman, would be ruin. He chums with Ram Lal. He might cable to Anstruther." In fact Alan Hawke's bold social revolt had imposed on Johnstone.
The latter, in asking Hawke's employment, said the present cruise was less important than the one to succeed it, "for the galleons" the Spanish treasure-ships "make it a general rule to come home late in the fall or winter."
Rodney shared Hawke's general encomium, that "as far as fell within my notice, the commanders, their officers, and ships' companies, behaved with the greatest spirit and resolution." Rodney came under his close observation, for, the Eagle's "wheel being shot to pieces and all the men at it killed, and all her braces and bowlines gone," she drove twice on board the flag-ship.
These were but developments of Hawke's fine achievement of 1759; the prestige of originality belongs to him. Even their success, with better ships and the improvement of detail always accompanying habit, is foreshadowed by his.
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