THE NAMES OF MEN-OF-WAR.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 176, 23 July 1878, Page 4

THE NAMES OF MEN-OF-WAR.

[From Uie Saturday Review.] In a recent article wo gave an account of the line-of-bnttle ships enpa&pd in the action of the Ist of June 1794 at the bottle of the Nile, at Copenhagen^ and fit Trafalgar, which are now represented in th* xinvv hy vesgels hearing (he earn? mikpr. Want of flpnfe pr P . rental nP nf , ,|,e umo, from speaking of jWßllnr ships, »nd we now propose briefly to dpsmhe some of the memorably frieate actions of (he old war, which fere recalled by names at present belong*, ing to men-of-war eilher actually in eommisßi'on or fit for sprvfra. Vessels which appear on tbe Navy Lint bs'?*o4 for harbor work only, will oo 't be taken into Recount • and. as need hardly be said, no f\Uempt will be made to a complex, or anything like a complete list of the still surviving names which btp 3 associated with the combats of tbe great war jiffninet France, it being impossible, within our limits to spe^k of any but ihe most remarkable fictions. A very striking one, which occurred at no long period after hostilities had bepun ia recalled by the Nymphe, a screw corvette of nine guns, which is, or vns, a short tiniß ago, on tho Australian station. On June 18, 1793, {be English 12-pounder 36-gun frigate Nymphe, commnnded by ihe famous captain who afterwards became Lord Exmouth, sighted near the Start tho French frigate Cleopatre, of about equal strength. The English ship immediately made sail after the other, which at firet apparently attempted to get away, but after « while shortened sail and awaited the coming of the Nympha. As she approached, thp men on board her cheered, and the French captain harangued his crew, waving a cap of liberty, which was afterwords fßstened to the main truck. Despite this Republican manifestation, however, the battle was commenced with an elaborate courtesy worthy of the days of chivalry. Both captains, remained uncovered until the vessels were very near each other when Cnptain Pellew, seeing thst the' foremost guns of the Nymphe bore on the Btarbosrd quarter of the Cleopnfre, put on hie hat as n signal that the action was about to commence, and formalities beine over tbe mornings work began. Very Bharp and short it wss. Theiwo frigates Tunning before the wind, f X . cbacged a furious eannouade, until Ihe Cleopatro, having lost her raizen-m^t and her wheel, enrae round with her bow to the Nymphe'a broadside and ran into ber. Captain Pellew at first thought tbat tbe French Orew were about (o bourd, and ordered his men to repel hoarders ; but promptly Beeius: Ihnt the enemy was in no condition to attack, be told bis own Bailors to hoard the other vessel, which they r'irf, crpfuring her immediately. The whole engagement, though there was considerable loss on both sides, took a wooderful!y short space of time compared with that of most frigate aclions, and wna described with fidmirablc terst ness and simplicity by Captain Pellew fo his brother. "We dished her up," said the captain of tbe Nymphe, "in flliy minutes." The French commander was killed in this engagement, and showed in his last moments o heroism not to be surpassed. Horribly mangled by a round shot, he drew from his pocket what he imagined to be a list of secret signals which he harl in his possession, &»d died died biting it to pieces. It seems painful to add that ihe unfortunate man was mistaken, and that he destroyed, cot the list, but his commission, which be took out by mistake. The next memorable fk-ht in which a vessel now represented in the navy did bsttle was that of the Blanche and Pique. The former, a 12-pounder 32-gun frigate, wee cruising off Grande-Terre, Guadeloupe, in the beginning of January, 1795, and, on the 4th of tbat month succeeded, with some little difficulty, in tempting the French frigate Pique, of a strength a little exceeding her own, from under the shelter of Ihe batteries. The notion began at 1 a.m. on the sth; und an unremitting cannonade continued for an hour ond a half, at the end of which time the Pique, having lost her main and mizen masts, ran into the Blanche'e quarter. The French crew with great gallantry attempted to board but were repulsed, and Captain Faulkner, who commanded the English frigate was killed while lashing the Pique's bowsprit to the capstan of bis own ship. Other ban -la lashed the bowsprit to the stump of the Blanche's mainmast, and tbe two vessels were thus made fast together; but the French ship got into such a position that the guna of the Blanche could not be made to bear on her. Two of them, however, were shortly brought into play by a proceeding thoroughly characteristic of the seamen of thoße days, and often referred to since as a proof of their determination to succeed at all hazards. The men of the Blanche deliberately pointed two of their 12-pounders at the stern frame of their own vessel, and blew away a considerable part of it on either side so as to be able to fire into the Pique. This singular manoeuvre waa successful, snd a murderous cannonade was kept up for more than two hours, until at last some of the French crew cried for quarter, as well they might, when the Blanche at once ceased firing. The loss on board the Pique in this engagement was enormous, the total number of killed and wounded being proportionally greater even than that on board the Africaiue in the famous fight with the Phoebe, sometimes spoken of as the most gaogDi'nary of frigate actions. Out of a crew of. 279, all told, the Pjqae

had 76 killed and 110 wounded, that is to say, only one-third of the men who were on b&ard the ship when the ec.saseloient began were alive and uninjured nt Ihe end of it. To (he case of the Blanche's, as of the Phoebe's action, it is curious to contrast the geutle . feminine names of the ships with the tremendous havoc wrought by their gune. The present Blanche la a screw corvette of 1,755 tons, carrying twelve euDR; nod in this cuße, as well as in that of the Nymphe, it is perhaps to be regretted that nnrnes associated with such memorable encounters should not have been uiven to larger and more powerful vessels than those which now bear them. Thfl battle between the Glattcn anJ the fFreneh frigates fought on July 15, 1798, may perhapg be considered as scarcely falling witbiu the same category as -those which have been described, inasmuch as the Glatton, a converted East Indiaman, belonged to the anomalous class of the fifties, and was not considered a frigate. She seems, however, to have been much more like a frigate tlißu anything else, acd some mention of her fiction eon therefora hardly be omitted in donling with the preseut subject. The Glal-if-n, which carried 56 guns, Jhose on the main dack being 68-pounder carronades, Biahled, whon off the coast of Flanders, in July, 1796, four frigates, two corvettes, a brip, and a cutter, nil French ; and Captain Trollope, who commanded the English ship, at once determined to attack them, trusting to the great weight of meial in his brondeide. He accordiuoly made sail for them, and ranging up alongside the largest of the squadron, which he rightly held to be the Commodore's ship, challenged her, with an audacity which would have been ludicrous if it hud not been heroic, to surrender to au English man-of-war. The French vessel's answer was to show her colors and the broad pennant, and the action at once began. " This lasted from a little before ten in the morning to eleven at night, when the Glatton had completely discomfited her adversaries, all of whom had given up the fight ; but, owing to the injured state of the English ship's spars and rigging, could not pursue any one of them. Damages Were to some extent repaired during the nighi, and next morning the indomitable Glatton again sought battle with her opponents of the day before : but they would have none of her, and bore away for Flushing, into which port the solitary English ship drove them all. The* present Glatton is a double screw iron-turret ship of 4912 tons, intended for coast defence. Hie has armor of considerable thickness^ and carries two 25-ton gnns ; but, in spite of her size and Btrength, it may be doubted whether a name rendered memorable by such an actiou has been well bestowed, and whether it ought not to have been given to some still more powerful ship. The vessel which defeated six others, one of them larger than herself, ought°surely to be represented in our days by a first-rate.