Naval battles of the world : $b Great and decisive contests on the sea ... with an account of the Japan-China war and the recent battle of the Yalu; the growth, power, and management of our new Navy.Shippen, Edward
History
Naval battles of the world : $b Great and decisive contests on the sea ... with an account of the Japan-China war and the recent battle of the Yalu; the growth, power, and management of our new Navy.
Shippen, Edward
Naval battles; Sino-Japanese War, 1894-1895; United States. Navy
Anecdotes of the action are too numerous for all to find a place
here. But we may mention that on board the captured French ships the
cartridges were found to be mostly made of the fine painted vellum
on which church music was painted, and of the titles and _preuves de
noblesse_ of the principal French families, many hundred years old, and
illuminated, in many instances, with the genealogical tree. There was a
decree of the French Convention, applying the archives of the nobility
to that particular purpose. The great convoy of ships from the West
Indies and America, consisting of more than two hundred sail of ships,
of immense value, and of so much importance to the French government
that they risked the loss of their great Brest fleet for its safety,
arrived safely in port a few days after the battle of the first of
June.
BATTLE OF CAPE ST. VINCENT. A. D. 1797.
Although Rodney had fought a celebrated action off Cape St. Vincent a
few years before, yet the one which occurred in 1797 so far eclipsed it
that Rodney’s action is scarcely ever thought of.
St. Vincent is the name of the most southwestern point of Portugal, in
the old Kingdom of Algarve.
Admiral Sir John Jervis, with an English fleet under his command, left
the Tagus on the 18th of January, 1797, with eleven ships-of-the-line.
Before crossing the bar of the Tagus the St. George, a three-decker,
got on shore, and, being got off with difficulty, was found to be so
much injured as to render it necessary to send her back to Lisbon.
So with ten sail-of-the-line Sir John put to sea, having for his
first object to escort some Brazil merchantmen and their Portuguese
convoy to a safe latitude; thence he intended to proceed off Cape St.
Vincent, where he had appointed a rendezvous for the St. George to join
him. He also hoped to be there joined by long and anxiously expected
reinforcements from England.
His fleet consisted of the Victory, of 100 guns, his flag-ship; the
Britannia, 100, Vice Admiral Thompson; the Barfleur and Blenheim, 98s;
and the Captain, Culloden, Egmont, Excellent and Goliath, 74s, and the
Diadem, 64.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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