Nelson & His World

William Pryce Cumby's account of Trafalgar where he served in Bellerophon (printed in the Nelson Dispatch of April 1998) includes the following:

At 10 minutes past 4 we opened our fire upon those five ships the sternmost of which (a Spanish two-decker) was cut off and struck to the Minataur [sic]: the four ships escaped.'

How would such a chaotic scenario be handled? A ship, with its own dead and wounded, presumably, having to cope with the rituals and procedures of five surrenders simultaneously. Would Captain Mansfield (for 'twas he) have had to account for four ships getting away? Or would it be recognised that multiple surrenders like this would be likely to overwhelm the ship receiving them.

If I understand correctly it was only a single ship - the sternmost one - that struck. The other four made good their escape without striking and obviously without a ship in the vicinity still able to pursue.

Doh! Thanks for the explanation! How careless of me to mis-read the sentence!

'Qui s'excuse, s'accuse', as they say across the Channel but I am juggling a lot of balls in the air at the moment and am somewhat frazzled. Would anyone mind if I deleted this thread? Please say, and if no one claims that it must stay in the interests of TRUTH in the next 24 hours, I'll zap it tomorrow.

Anna,

Before you do though it might be as well to mention that the Spanish two-decker, which struck to the Minotaur, was the Neptuno. Her ensign, together with that of the union flag from the Minotaur, were those given to master's mate Stephen Hilton, and were put on display in Selling Church, remaining there until recently. We had an earlier thread about that.

The four French ships of the van squadron, which initially posed a threat to the British fleet, were under Rear Admiral Dumanoire Le Pelley. They were the the Formidable, Scipion, Dugay Trouin, and the Mont Blanc. All four were later captured, on November 4th, by a squadron under Sir Richard Strachan. The Duguay Trouin was renamed Implacable, and remained in the RN until she was scuttled in the Channel in 1949.

Kester

I don't know if you recall from this film (Tony posted the link on an earlier thread) that the scuttling of Implacable was a bit of a botched job - and it took 3 hours for her to sink.

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/implacable-to-the-end

Well at a recent Nelson Society area meeting there was a chap who was a young sailor in 1949 and was on one the ships/boats that were observing the scuttling.

He explained what went wrong. He said that they put huge amounts of ballast in Implaceable to ensure it would go straight down. But unfortunately that tactic backfired on them. When the explosives were fired the bottom was so heavy that it parted company with the upper decks/superstructure which were just left floating.

Whoops!!

After about 3 hours the remaining part did sink of its of accord.

Mark

In view of the interesting subsequent posts, I think I'll leave the thread in place. Let my howler stand!

My original question might also be rephrased more generally: what were the rules or etiquette of war regarding surrendered ships? It was considered bad form for a ship which had struck to resume the fight; but I gather that a ship which had struck was entitled to make a getaway if possible. In such a case, would the captain who had accepted the surrender have to account for the escape, or would losing a ship after surrender be regarded as one of the hazards of war, with no blame attached to the captain?

Anna

Sorry I didn't mean to confuse things further with my post - which is way off the original topic heading anyway.

Feel free to delete away and I'll post that as a new thread.

Mark

No apology needed, Mark - the odd 'de-rail' adds to the interest. Remember the best lessons at school? They were the ones when you got the teacher off the subject!

And it was me that started it! Sorry about that – or am I?

Mark,

Thanks for the film clips. I've seen the one of the sinking before, but it was interesting to see the one of the Implacable in dry dock, pre the sinking.

Anna,

I had thought Tony might respond (and I suppose he still might), but a look at his website gives a few more details of the Minotaur's part in the capture of the Neptuno.

As to your other question, I get the impression that the French and the Spanish looked at things rather differently, when it came to 'surrendering'. The British I think played it mostly 'by the book', and took surrender to mean just that, ie. to cease fire, give yourself up, and lower your colours, when there was no other choice – other than getting men killed uneccessarily. The French and Spanish on the other hand would on occasion rehoist their colours, and resume firing, after they had originally surrendered, if they thought they could get away with it – as many a British boat crew, on their way to accept the surrender, could attest to – and when they were forced to return to their ship! I seem to remember this happened with the four-decker Spanish Santisima Trinidad at Trafalgar.

The British certainly looked upon this attitude as 'bad form' not least because it could, and did, get men killed, but as said the French and Spanish seemed to have a different way of thinking. I have sometimes wondered though, whether the Spanish may have acted nearer to the British way of thinking, if they had not had the French breathing down their necks, as they would seem to behave the more honourably. The French Navy before the Revolution was probably the same but, after 1789, things as we know changed within it and attitudes hardened.

Sorry for my silence - I was away for a week in the lands of intermittent phone signals, let alone broadband, and I'm slaving away to meet an article deadline while guiltily watching others do all the preparations for one of our son's wedding on Saturday. Taking time off to enjoy myself in this wonderful forum would be most inappropriate!

I'm not sure that things were at all clear cut, as so much would depend on circumstance. I suppose there was an expectation that captains would behave in a gentlemanly fashion, but 'honour' had some different connotations then, and sometimes seems to me more akin to saving face than anything to do with ethical behaviour. If a captain was temporarily disabled and his first lieutenant struck, I'm sure that if he recovered before anyone had taken possession of his ship and disagreed with the decision, then his honour would require him to rehoist his colours and fight on. And if you didn't take possession of a ship that had struck, then circumstances could change quickly. If you had to fight on against other enemy ships, they could be said to have rescued the surrendered ship. I don't think any captain, French or British, would sit by for very long to await the outcome, if there was a chance of escape.

A captain certainly wouldn't be held to account for failing to take possession of a prize if he had to fight on against other ships, and I don't believe there was any set formal process to hold anyone to account for losing a prize even after taking possession, although obviously the commander-in-chief might want an explanation, and there would be a danger of falling foul of the Articles of War by not doing one's 'utmost'. But it was not like losing your own ship (or more to the point, His Majesty's ship), where you would face a court martial no matter how extenuating the circumstances.

Incidentally, as regards Minotaur and Neptuno, Dumanoir's ships were to windward of the main battle and Minotaur and Spartiate were the only British ships in a position to change course to reach them and engage closely - which took 40 minutes or so! Other ships that fired on them such as Bellerophon, and Victory herself, could only fire on them at long range, and had no hope of making them surrender if they wished to escape. Minotaur and Spartiate laid their sails back, to engage, but Dumanoir declined to stay around, and just exchanged broadsides in passing. Had he chosen to, Dumanoir with his first four ships could easily have doubled Minotaur and Spartiate without fear of other British ships reaching them for some considerable time. As it was, he chose to abandon Neptuno to Minotaur and Spartiate who instead doubled her. Strangely, it was Dumanoir's version of events that made it into the history books despite being a cynical and blatant attempt to put a spin on his fleeing the battle. I suppose it was because his account conveniently appeared in The Times after his capture.