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
Things remained in this state until the following morning, the 3d of
August, when the Theseus and Alexander approached the Tonnant, and,
further resistance being utterly hopeless, the gallant French ship
hauled down her colors, replacing them with a flag of truce, and was
taken possession of by a boat from the Theseus.
The principal part of the crew of the Timoléon had, during the night,
escaped on shore, although a few had been taken off in the four vessels
which escaped. Between three and four hundred of those who reached the
shore were murdered by the Bedouins, while a few fought their way to a
French camp. Those who remained by the ship set her on fire, and she
soon after blew up, making the eleventh line-of-battle-ship lost by the
French in the battle of Aboukir, or the Nile.
As for the British ships engaged in this great battle, their damages
were chiefly aloft. The Bellerophon was the only British ship entirely
dismasted, and the Majestic the only one, beside her, which lost a
lower mast. The Alexander and Goliath lost top-masts; but the lower
masts, yards and bowsprits of all the British ships were more or less
damaged. And we must remember, that such damage was almost equivalent
to loss of propellers or boiler in ships of our day.
The Bellerophon’s hull was very much shattered, and many of her guns
broken to pieces. The Vanguard had received very great injury in her
hull, while the Swiftsure had received from the Tonnant shots under
water, which kept four feet of water in her hold during the entire
action, in spite of the pumps. The Theseus was hulled seventy times,
and the Majestic was in nearly as shattered a state as the Bellerophon.
The loss of the English was 218 killed and 678 wounded. Admiral Nelson
was struck by a splinter a little above his right, or blind eye,
causing a piece of skin to hang down over the lid. This was replaced
and sewed up.
The Bellerophon suffered most in killed and wounded, and the Majestic
next.
As regards the captured French ships, the statistics of loss were never
properly given. Five of them were entirely dismasted, and were rendered
unseaworthy as to their hulls.
The Peuple Souvérain and the Franklin, though not entirely dismasted,
were not in much better plight than the others. The Mercure and Heureux
were principally damaged by running on shore, where they lay with their
top-gallant yards across, to all appearance as perfect as when the
action commenced.
As no official account of the French loss was given, the matter was
left open to conjecture. One of the lowest estimates makes the French
loss 2000. It was probably more.
The French commander-in-chief, Admiral Brueys, while upon the Orient’s
poop, received three wounds, one of which was in the head. Soon
afterwards, as he was descending to the quarter-deck, a shot almost cut
him in two. He asked not to be carried below, but to be allowed to die
on deck--which he did, in a few minutes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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