Clash in the Caribbean

By David A. Norris

Unexpected maneuvers by British Admiral George Brydges Rodney had scrambled the traditional engagement formation of the two fleets. The stately battle line of the French fleet of François-Joseph-Paul, Comte de Grasse, had been broken into pieces. Several ships were isolated, trapped, and outgunned by British vessels. Five ships of the line beset the Hector, a single French 74-gun ship. Three pumps, worked furiously by every hand who could be spared from the guns, could not keep ahead of the water pouring into the Hector ’s hull. The commander of the Hector, Capt. Claude Eugène Chauchouart de la Vicomte, was mortally wounded before he finished instructing his officers to surrender the battered ship. His successor was also wounded, and at last there was only one officer left to strike the colors. The Hector would not be the last casualty of Rodney’s gamble to “break the line” on April 12, 1782.

Admiral Rodney, who had entered the Royal Navy at the age of 13 in 1732, was now commanding Great Britain’s fleet in the Caribbean Sea. Following a long naval career and a time as the governor of Jamaica, he had returned to England. Tremendous gambling losses forced Rodney to flee to Paris in 1774 to avoid debtor’s prison, so he missed the opening of the American Revolution. Matters worsened as he went deeper into debt while in Paris, while France and Britain drifted toward open war. A British newspaper claimed that the French were deliberately holding Rodney prisoner, because they feared confronting him at sea. When reports of that claim reached Paris, an elderly French military hero, Louis Antoine de Gontaut-Biron, duc de Biron, was angered at the newspaper’s insult to his nation’s integrity that he enabled Rodney to discharge his debts. He returned to active service in 1779, joining a war in which his French benefactor was now his enemy.

French military aid had enabled Britain’s rebellious North American colonies to win independence. A French fleet under de Grasse had fended off reinforcements for the British Army at the Battle of the Virginia Capes on September 5, 1781. Trapped at Yorktown, Virginia, the Earl of Cornwallis surrendered his forces to Gen. George Washington on October 19, 1781.

After Yorktown, the French commander sailed to the Caribbean hoping to pick off some of George III’s Caribbean colonies. At the time, West Indian sugar-producing islands were more profitable than the vast but troublesome North American colonies. Early in 1782, de Grasse captured the British islands of St. Kitts, Nevis, and Montserrat.

Allied with France against Britain, Spain also had substantial forces in the Caribbean. De Grasse sailed to Fort Royal (now Fort-de-France) in Martinique. He planned to rendezvous with the Spanish at Cap-Français in northern Saint-Domingue (today, the city of Cap-Haïtien in Haiti). A force of 50 French and Spanish ships of the line carrying 20,000 soldiers would fall upon Jamaica, Britain’s Caribbean crown jewel. Among the planners of the attack on Jamaica was the Spanish governor of Louisiana, Bernardo de Gálvez.

At Fort Royal, de Grasse assembled 33 ships of the line to guard a convoy of 150 transport vessels. His flagship was the Ville de Paris. Rated at 110 guns but carrying up to 120, she was slightly larger than the 100-gun Victory, the Royal Navy’s largest vessel. His warships were divided into three divisions. One division was de Grasse’s own. Admiral Louis-Philippe Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil, the overall second in command, led another division. The third was under the famous officer and explorer of the South Pacific, Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville. Also aboard were as many as 5,500 soldiers. Once away from the harbor and out to sea, de Grasse would unite with the Spanish for the descent upon Jamaica.

Thirty miles to the south, Rodney’s fleet waited at Gros Islet Bay (now Rodney Bay), at the northern end of St. Lucia. Aboard the frigate Andromache in command of the fleet’s frigate squadron was Capt. George Anson Byron, who would become the uncle of the famed poet George Gordon, Lord Byron. Observers on Signal Peak, the highest point on Pigeon Island, watched for signals from the frigates. Rodney himself climbed to the top of the peak with his telescope. Seated in an armchair and shaded under a tent made of a canvas sail, the admiral scanned the seas and waited for de Grasse to sail.

On April 5, Byron signaled that soldiers were boarding the vessels at Fort Royal. Three days later, the French fleet left the harbor and Rodney followed with his 36 ships of the line. His flagship was the 98-gun Formidable. With him were Adm. Samuel Hood, aboard the 98-gun Barfleur, and Vice-Adm. Francis Samuel Drake, a descendant of the legendary Elizabethan mariner Sir Francis Drake, on the 70-gun Princessa.

De Grasse sailed northward from Martinique. Making good time, Rodney sailed past Martinique to catch de Grasse between Dominica (a British possession seized by the French the previous year) and the French colony of Guadeloupe on April 9. Most of de Grasse’s fleet was becalmed in the lee of Dominica’s rugged 4,000-foot volcanic peaks. About 15 of the French ships of the line, though, were far enough beyond the high mountains ashore to catch fresh winds that pushed them near a collection of little islands called the Iles de Saintes, between Dominica and Guadeloupe.

For several hours, the still air stalled the rest of the French fleet and nearly immobilized their pursuers. When a fresh breeze reached the French, de Grasse signaled the convoy vessels to run to Guadeloupe under the guard of two 50-gun ships, then ordered his leading vessels to confront Rodney.

The fleets maneuvered slowly as the feeble winds remained fickle, damaging each other from long range. Among Rodney’s ships the Royal Oak lost her main topmast and the Warrior’s was so damaged that it toppled two days later. Capt. William Baines of the Alfred had his leg taken off by a cannonball and died before a tourniquet could be applied.

Lieutenant Karl Gustav Tornquist, one of several Swedish officers serving with de Grasse, wrote that a gun exploded aboard his 74-gun Northumberland, killing 11 and wounding 25 men. Another cannon burst aboard the French 64-gun Caton, reportedly putting 80 men out of action. The Caton slipped away to Guadeloupe the next day for repairs.

After the opening clash, the convoy departed for Cap-Français. Outnumbered, the French commander wanted to avoid battle and protect the transports. Once united with the Spanish, de Grasse would have enough ships and guns to fall upon Jamaica, and deal with the Royal Navy as well.

De Grasse stayed to the windward of the British and hovered near the Iles de Saintes. Little happened for two days, except that the French 74-gun Zélé collided with the 64-gun Jason. The Zélé lost her main topmast, and the Jason was so damaged that she dropped out of the fleet and followed the Caton to Guadeloupe.

De Grasse could have gotten past the British and followed the convoy, but had to moderate his speed for the crippled Zélé. On the night of April 11-12, the troublesome vessel lost her bowsprit and mainmast in a collision with the Ville de Paris that also damaged the masts and rigging of the flagship. John Paul Jones, who later served as a volunteer with Admiral Vaudreuil, heard much about the battle. Jones said “this accident was due to the deficiency of watch-officers in the French Navy; the deck of the Zélé being in charge of a young ensign, instead of an experienced lieutenant.” The collision with the Ville de Paris was the fourteenth accident involving the Zélé in 13 months.

The Zélé was towed to Guadeloupe by the frigate Astrée, dropping de Grasse was down to 30 ships of the line to face 36 of Rodney’s.

At daybreak on April 12, the French were between Dominica and the Saintes. Although the British had closed much of the distance between the fleets, de Grasse still had a good chance of eluding pursuit. But, far from their comrades and much closer to the British were two isolated French ships—the Astrée towing the Zélé.

Rodney dispatched four ships after the Zélé. Rather than lose a 74-gun vessel, de Grasse ordered his captains to form a line of battle. By 7 a.m., Rodney recalled his four ships and formed his own line, approaching the enemy on a northerly course.

De Grasse sailed roughly south at an angle that would have intersected with the British. When the wind shifted, Rodney’s ships steered east north-east, and the French turned south south-east. In this new alignment, the first several French ships passed out of range before they were able to fire a shot. At 8 a.m., the French Brave (ninth in line) fired on the lead English ship, the Marlborough. Again, the British altered course, sailing north north-west to parallel the enemy line. Both lines pressed ahead, firing broadsides as enemy vessels took their turns slowly coming within range under the light breeze. So slow was the wind that it was almost 9:30 when the last British ship in line, the Barfleur, opened fire.

De Grasse signaled the ships of his van to turn south southwest, which would bring them back parallel with the advancing British. But, trouble still loomed ahead for the French admiral. His course, if held, would soon have the fleet becalmed in the lee of Dominica’s heights.

Only a few dozen yards apart, floating slowly in the feeble breezes, each pair of ships had time to pound each other at short range. Sails were punctured and slashed by shot until severed masts and spars crashed onto the decks, or plunged into the sea. When the fitful breezes ceased, a thick fog of gunpowder smoke made it difficult to identify or signal vessels, or sometimes even to see them.

By 9:15, the French Glorieux had lost her main and mizzen masts. As the wind shifted to blow from the southeast, the French turned their bows en echelon toward the British to keep their sails filled with the wind. Amid the changes in course and the winds, the Glorieux ground nearly to a halt. To avoid collision, two French ships behind the Glorieux bore up, opening a gap in the line of battle.

Normally in a fleet action, ships fought single file in two parallel lines. This way, each ship presented the maximum number of guns while covering the vulnerable bow or stern of her neighbors. Already within pistol shot of the Glorieux, Rodney ordered the Formidable to starboard, to cut through the gap in the enemy line.

How innovative was Rodney’s decision to break the line of battle? Admirals had occasionally done so in previous wars. Rodney may have seen preliminary writings on the topic by naval tactician John Clerk of Eldin, who later promoted “cutting the line” in his 1790 Essay on Naval Tactics. In 1829 General Sir Howard Douglas, son of Rodney’s flag captain Sir Charles Douglas, published testimonials that credited Captain Douglas for insisting that the reluctant admiral break the line.

Whether Rodney’s inspiration was a long-standing idea or the spontaneous grasping of opportunity, he cut the line just astern of the Glorieux. No previous signals had alerted any of his captains to this move, but now, five more British vessels followed the flagship.

The ship ahead of the Formidable, the Duke, also turned to cut the enemy line. Two ships, the Destin and the Magnanime, confronted the Duke. The Destin “poured in a broadside, not three bullets of which fell into the water… ”, said a French witness, “then, keeping the wind, cannonaded her on one side, while the Magnanime did as much, till bearing down in her turn, she swept the Duke from the stern, carrying her two galleries overboard.” Heavy fire shot brought down the Duke’s main topmast. A French witness stated that “this vessel was kept engaged by the Reflechy, and Diadème, and struck to the Triumphant; but M. de Vaudreuil could not man her, having no boats nor time.” British sources omit mention of the Duke striking her colors and escaping, but the ship’s “butcher’s bill” of 17 sailors dead, and three officers and 57 men wounded, was among the highest toll aboard Rodney’s vessels. Horatio Nelson, then a captain and not with Rodney’s fleet, later mentioned a rumor that the Duke had blown up during the battle.

Astern of Rodney’s flagship, the Bedford steered to break another gap in the enemy line, between the French 74s César and Hector. The Bedford was part of the rear division, under Rear Admiral Samuel Hood. Through the smoke, Hood saw that “the signal for the line was hauled down” by Rodney. Becalmed for the moment, he ordered his boats out to tow his flagship Barfleur toward the enemy. Rewarded with a bit of a breeze, Hood ordered all of his division toward the French. They followed the Bedford, pouring their fire into the Hector and the Cesar.

Rodney and Hood scrambled the expected battle plan, breaking the French formation into pieces. In effect, the British had three small lines of battle, with those led by Rodney and Hood cutting through the enemy fleet.

British gunners enjoyed another deadly advantage: the newly developed heavy, wide-bore guns called carronades. Throwing much heavier shot than traditional long guns, carronades paid for their smashing power with a limited range. On April 9, de Grasse’s ships kept their distance, making carronades useless and limiting the battle to the long guns. But, on April 12, the ships closed to within pistol shot. At that short range, the carronades hurled devastating heavy cannonballs and loads of grapeshot. Rodney stated that the Formidable alone fired eighty broadsides on April 12, throwing 35 tons of iron at the enemy. One French officer estimated that counting swivel guns, over 100,000 shots were fired by the cannon of the opposing fleets.

A shot from the Ville de Paris smashed into a chicken coop on the deck of the Formidable. Squawking chickens scampered away from the shattered remains of the coop. A cockerel fluttered his way up to roost on a spar over the quarterdeck. Perched on the yardarm, the rooster crowed and flapped his wings at every broadside. Admiral Rodney pointed to the rooster and told his surgeon Gilbert Blane, “Look at that fellow. Look at him; I declare he is a credit to his country”. After the battle, remembered one of the admiral’s friends, Rodney ordered the rooster to be “pampered and protected for life.”

A British gunner, whose wife was secretly aboard one of Rodney’s ships, was wounded and taken to the surgeon. His wife insisted that she had the right to take over his place, and helped fire back at the enemy. Rodney later reprimanded the gunner’s wife for breaking regulations, but he privately complimented her with a gift of ten gold guineas.

First the Formidable, then the Namur, hammered the already damaged Glorieux. Next followed the Canada, a 74 commanded by Capt. William Cornwallis, brother of the unfortunate Lord Cornwallis who surrendered Britain’s North American army at Yorktown the year before.

Cornwallis’ guns brought down the foremast and bowsprit of the Glorieux. The Glorieux’s captain, the Vicomte d’Escars (a great-grandson of England’s exiled James II, he was a notably bitter enemy of the British), was killed early in the action. Surviving gunners kept to their stations, while taking broadsides on each side of their ship. With the remnant of the broken stump of the mainmast as a staff, the flag of France still flew.

From the frigate Richemont, Midshipman Denis Decrès took a boat to bring a tow line to the Glorieux. Cannon shot splashed into the water around the boat, but Decrès delivered the tow line. The Richemont got under way, but the frigate struggled to drag the larger ship, with its hull filling with water. Lt. Jean-Honoré de Trogoff de Kerlessy had taken command of the Glorieux after d’Escars fell. Seeing that his ship could not be pulled fast enough to escape, the new commander did not want to sacrifice a frigate as well. The Glorieux hailed the frigate, urging the crew to drop the tow line and save themselves. When the Richemont’s captain refused to give up, Trogoff de Kerlessy ordered his crew to cut the towing cable.

At last, the shattered Glorieux ceased fire and surrendered to the Royal Oak. The British officers who took possession of the ship “were shown the stains of blood on the gunnel” where d’Escar’s “body was thrown overboard.”

De Grasse signaled for his ships to reassemble, but the captains were unable to rebuild their line. His van was two miles away to windward from de Grasse, and the remainder of the fleet was about four miles to leeward. Rodney and Hood closed in on the enemy vessels left behind when the battle line was broken. With de Grasse’s line in disarray, the ships closest to the British were far away from help, and in danger of being trapped and outgunned like the Glorieux.

British prisoners were pressed into manning the pumps aboard the battered French ships. Seaman John Dowling was a captive aboard the 74-gun Bourgogne. Dowling later reported 160 of the crew were killed or wounded. The captain, according to the prisoner, wanted to strike but his officers persuaded him to fight on. When the firing ended, the Bourgogne was down to just three rounds of cannon shot.

The memoirs of Lord Admiral James Saumarez, who commanded the 74-gun Russell during the battle, noted that “the captain of the maintop … having received a shot that carried off one of his arms, instead of requesting the assistance of his companions to take him below, insisted that they should continue at their stations, and let himself down by one of the backstays. After suffering amputation, he persisted in going again on deck, where he remained encouraging the men until the action terminated.”

From the ships of both fleets, dead sailors and severed limbs were heaved overboard all day. Each splash spread more blood in the water. Lured by the slaughter, a multitude of hungry sharks swarmed among the embattled ships, waiting for more bodies to feed upon.

Aboard the French 74-gun César, Capt. Bernard de Marigny lost his leg to a cannonball. Taken below, de Marigny turned over command to his lieutenant. Dismasted and nearly out of ammunition, the César struck to the Centaur.

The Hector, according to one of de Grasse’s officers, “sustained the most stubborn and terrible action possible. She looked like a blazing furnace vomiting forth fire and iron. After losing her captain, M. de la Vicomte, with six feet of water in her hold and incapable of further resistance, she struck.”

The Ardent, one of Bougainville’s squadron, had been in the van but turned back to assist the ships trapped by Rodney. Beset by the Belliqueux and the Prince William, pounded the Ardent into striking. Some British prisoners on board, taken from a merchant vessel captured some time ago, hauled up their red ensign to signal the ship’s surrender. The taking of the Ardent was especially sweet to the British. Originally part of the Royal Navy, she had been captured by the French Navy in 1779.

None of de Grasse’s ships could cut through the British vessels surrounding the Ville de Paris. Her rudder and spars were shot away. De Grasse was one of only three officers who were still on their feet. Casualties reached 400 dead and 600 wounded. On the gun decks, the candles had burned out in the battle lanterns, and all the cartridges had been fired away. Exhausted gunners fought, with the powder monkeys scooping out the last crumbs of powder from nearly empty barrels for new cartridges. One of the flagship’s guns exploded, killing sixteen sailors.

Admiral Hood in the Barfleur believed he saw the Ville de Paris nearing him, and he “concluded that de Grasse had a mind to be my prisoner, as an old acquaintance.” Hood held his fire until he ordered a continuous roll of broadsides at point-blank range. Ten minutes later, as the sun was lowering in the sky, de Grasse surrendered his ship to Hood. Now in command, Vaudreuil led the escape of most of the French fleet.

Volunteer aide Capt. Lord James Cranstoun boarded the Ville de Paris to take possession of the ship, and to receive de Grasse’s sword. Cranstoun ascended up the side and set foot on the captured vessel. He beheld an “altogether terrible” panorama of destruction. “Between the foremast and mainmast at every step”, he later told a fellow officer, “he was over his buckles in blood, the carnage having been prodigious…”

The Royal Navy’s gunners, as they were trained, concentrated their fire into the hulls of enemy vessels. French gunners tended to shred enemy masts and yards, in hopes of trapping and capturing enemy ships with less-damaged hulls. During this battle all three of the trucks (round wooden pieces that tipped the tops of each mast) of Admiral Drake’s flagship, the 70-gun Princessa, were shot away. Yet, the Princessa had only three sailors killed and 22 officers and sailors wounded.

When Cranstoun stepped below decks of the Ville de Paris, he had a horrifying look at the results of the British strategy of firing into the hulls. On the lower decks, the horror of spilled blood was even more intense than up top. The British shot that plunged through the sides and slaughtered so many of the crew and the military passengers also tore through the cattle and sheep penned on board as food for the soldiers. Trapped in the deadly fire, the animals “suffered not less from the crew and the troops from the effects of the cannon”, and the blood of the mangled animals was mingled with that of the human casualties.

At the battle’s end, many masts and spars in the British fleet were missing or cracked, but Rodney did not lose a single ship. His losses were 243 dead and 816 wounded. French casualties were apparently not available to British chroniclers, but estimates ran as high as 5500 or more dead. De Grasse’s fleet lost six post captains dead. Rodney lost one captain killed on April 9, while in the larger battle of April 12, he had one captain killed and one mortally wounded.

The mortally wounded commander was Capt. Robert Manners of the Resolution. Manners even made light of his condition in a letter, writing after the battle, “I am as well as a man can be with one leg cut off, one wounded, and the right arm broken. The doctor, who is sitting by me at present, says there are every hopes of recovery.” Manners soon developed tetanus, and died 11 days after he was wounded.

Altogether, five French ships were captured: the Ville de Paris, Hector, Ardent, Glorieux, and César. A lieutenant with a 50-man prize crew from the Centaur took possession of the César. A short time after the prize crew took charge, either one of the captors or one of the captured prowled below deck with a lantern in search of liquor. The candle ignited a cask of the French Caribbean rum known as ratafia, and the flaming alcohol fueled an uncontrollable blaze.

French sources state that Captain de Marigny was still alive, but he could not rise from his bed. Several sailors burst into his cabin and warned him that his ship was doomed. They offered to carry him to safety, but he turned the men away. “All the better!” he said. “At least the English will not have her. Close the door, my friends, and save yourselves.”

The British prize crew and some of de Marigny’s men fought a losing battle against the flames that relentlessly consumed the ship. There was no escape from the advancing flames. During the battle, the boats of the César had been smashed by flying shot. Anyone who jumped overboard to escape the fire fell victim to the horde of sharks circling the stricken vessel.

Under the night sky, the glow of the burning ship was visible to men on the decks of the retreating French fleet. They saw a final flare as the magazine exploded, and then the glow faded from sight. Rodney’s boats finally made their way through the sharks to the spot where the César went down. They picked up only a handful of French survivors. Not one of the prize crew was saved.

A French witness wrote that earlier, the 74-gun Palmier had struck her flag as well, but none of Rodney’s officers were able to row over and take possession. Then, the crew saw that the César was afire, but they mistook the burning ship for one of Rodney’s. An officer on the Palmier asked Captain Martelly-Chautard for permission to save the ship. The captain, “charmed with the proposal … told him that he had only to act as he pleased, and the officer saved the vessel.” The Palmier slipped away into the night “without noise or show of light,” and eventually joined the remaining ships of the fleet.

In common with the César, three other prizes taken at the Battle of the Saintes ever made it to Great Britain. The Hector under its new British crew was damaged in a battle with two French frigates, leaving her in poor shape when she was pummeled in the great hurricane of September 1782. Although she survived the storm, the Hector sank on October 4. The same September hurricane also sank the Glorieux and the Ville de Paris with all hands, save one crewman of the latter ship. Later known as “Wilson of the Ville de Paris,” he clung to a piece of wreckage until a Danish merchant ship rescued him.

With Vaudreuil in command, the other French ships fled toward the horizon. Justin Girod-Chantrans, a French naturalist aboard one of the ships that escaped, wrote, “after the fight our sails and rigging were in rags; we had not a single sheet to the foremast. We had over eighty balls in the hull, eight under the water line, and a hundred men killed or wounded of our crew of five hundred.”

Rodney, weighing the battered condition of his force and the need to protect the remaining British colonies in the Antilles, let them go. Besides the five ships of the line taken, the British for a time believed an erroneous report that another was sunk. Adding to the heavy cost to the French was the loss of the heavy siege train guns intended for the attack on Jamaica. Admiral Hood reported that all the prizes carried “shells and other ordnance stores, amongst which are forges complete for red-hot balls at a siege”. Also captured were 26 chests of coin, valued at £25,000, intended for supporting the cost of the invasion of Jamaica.

The ships that dropped out of de Grasse’s fleet before the great battle of April 12, the Caton and the Jason, sailed from Guadeloupe. Off Puerto Rico on April 19, Hood ran them down and captured them both along with a frigate and a sloop. Added to the captures of April 12, Hood’s action brought the total of prize money for Rodney’s fleet to a reported £420,000 (roughly $72 million today).

De Grasse’s battered fleet was now commanded by Vaudreuil. He reached Cap-Français with 15 ships of the line, where another four were waiting for them. Six more of his ships escaped to Curacao. Vaudreuil found his convoy safe in Cap-Français, where the Franco-Spanish army assembled for the invasion of Jamaica, with 15 Spanish ships of the line. Nonetheless, the allies dropped their plans for the joint attack on Jamaica. It would be almost a year and a half before the Treaty of Paris officially ended the war in 1783, but the Battle of the Saintes (or to use the French name, la Bataille de la Dominique) was the final great fleet action of the American Revolution.

Some officers, including Hood, scoffed at Admiral Rodney’s caution. Breaking the line allowed him to trap and overwhelm part of the enemy fleet, but allowed the rest to escape. Had the commander given the order for a general chase, thought Hood, “we should have had twenty sail of the enemy’s ships before dark”. Speaking with Rodney, Hood “lamented to Sir George on the 13th that … he did not continue to pursue so as to keep sight of the enemy all night, to which he only answered, ‘Come, we have done very handsomely as it is.’”

Rodney’s caution didn’t bother the British public. After all, the admiral had avenged their navy’s defeat by de Grasse at the Battle of the Virginia Capes. And, the glowing victory eased the sting of the loss of the Atlantic colonies at Yorktown. Furthermore, Rodney cemented Britain’s hold on her Caribbean possessions.

The Battle of the Saintes left a more important legacy for British naval power. Later British commanders looked back on the battle as proof that “breaking the line” could win decisive naval victories. Among them was Horatio Nelson, who in 1805 would lead the Royal Navy to its crowning victory at Trafalgar.

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