All at Sea - French Third Rates of Renown (Argonaute)

The French 74-gun Argonaute is an interesting choice of model to include in the 'Third Rates of Renown' range by Warlord Games, in that the history of this particular ship was relatively short and her most significant action was fought as part of the Combined Fleet at Trafalgar where her performance there was not without criticism.

I would have loved to have sat in on that particular product development presentation by the Warlord Games, Black Seas Brand Manager presenting the case for her inclusion, but hey-ho, lets see what I might have said to justify the proposal.

Achille, sister ship to the Argonaute and like her, one of the sub-class of Temeraire class ships, being one of the forty-six Duquesne group. 
Model of Achille held by Musee Nationale de la Marine, showing her as in 1805, also another Trafalgar veteran.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Achille_mp3h9307.jpg

Argonaute of 74-guns was ordered to be built at the French port of L'Orient on the 10th July 1794, but was not completed and launched for another four years, 22nd December 1798 despite the needs of the French navy to defend French interests abroad as it struggled to rebuild from the chaos of the revolution.

Perhaps one of her principle claims to fame is that she along with her forty-six sister ships of the Duquesne group formed the core group that became part of the standard French 74-gun ship of the line class named after the first ship in it, Temeraire, launched in 1782 and designed by the great French ship designer Jacques-Noel Sane. 

Jacques-Noel Sane French Naval Engineer

Indeed it was Sane who led the move to settle on a standardised set of designs of French ships that came to characterise the Marine Nationale throughout the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

With the Peace of Amiens signed in 1802 and French troops already involved in suppressing the Haitian revolt in their colony of Saint Domingue, Rear Admiral Jacques Bedout was personally selected by Napoleon to lead a squadron of five ships of the line to join the fleet of Vice Admiral Vilaret de Joyeuse in support of French operations, with Admiral Bedout raising his flag aboard the Argonaute.

Rear Admiral Bedout raised his flag on the Argonaute
to lead his squadron to the Caribbean in 1802 

The campaign in Saint Domingue ended in French defeat in 1803 and Admiral Bedout retired through ill-health with the French navy now back at war with the British Royal Navy.

Following her service in the Caribbean, Argonaute's final campaign under French colours would be in 1805 when she is listed as part of Spanish Vice Admiral Gravina's Squadron of Observation, part of the Franco-Spanish Combined Fleet that would meet Nelson at Trafalgar.

Argonaute was not with Vice Admiral Villeneuve on his cruise to the Caribbean in the summer of 1805 and thus did not take part in the Battle of Cape Finistere, 22nd July 1805, when Villeneuve clashed with Vice Admiral Calder's British Squadron before heading to El Ferrol and then on to Cadiz, but I have so far found no reference as to where and when she came under Villeneuve's command but can only conclude that she was one of the French squadron which also included (Duguay Trouin, Redoutable, Heros, Fougeux, all 74-gun) docked at El Ferrol, to be collected along with the Spanish squadron (Principe Asturias 112-guns, Neptuno 80-guns, Monarca, Montanes, San Augustin, San Ildefonso, San Francisco de Asis and San Juan Nepomuceno all 74-guns) before Villeneuve took his fleet south to Cadiz.

At Trafalgar the Argonaute would be under the command of Captain Jacques Epron-Desjardins and would be astern of the Swiftsure 74-guns and slightly ahead of the Spanish Argonauta 80-guns and San Ildefonso 74-guns as British Vice Admiral Collingwood's Lee Column approached the Combined Fleet's line of battle.

Between 12.30 and 12.45, HMS Bellerophon followed in turn by HMS Colossus broke the Combined Fleet's line with Bellerophon passing between the Spanish ships Bahama and Montanes raking both as she passed, before exchanging fire with the French Swiftsure and Aigle with whom she would become locked.

My interpretation of HMS Colossus from my post about her in April
http://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2020/04/all-at-sea-on-stocks-in-jjs-dockyard_19.html

HMS Colossus following close behind swung in behind Swiftsure who in turn turned to starboard to offer her broadside, causing the following Argonaute to turn to starboard to engage Colossus with her portside guns, thus doubling the British ship.

However shortly after 13.00, in the smoke that surrounded the action, the Colossus and Argonaute ended up steering convergent courses and both Captains Morris and Epron could do nothing to avoid the crashing collision that followed that saw four of the Colossus' starboard gun ports ripped off.

That said, Epron in his report claims to have deliberately caused the collision stating;

'having hauled aboard the tacks on the courses we closed up the opening and obliged her to run us aboard to larboard.' 

The exchange of fire could not have been any closer as the two ship began to exchange blows like two boxers working each other over on the ropes, with broadsides exchanged muzzle to muzzle.

After a ten minute battering, according to Captain Morris on the Colossus, although Epron claimed it was half an hour, the Argonaute drifted astern, leaving Colossus free to to take on their next opponent the Spanish 74-gun Bahama under Commodore Galiano.

As the French ship drifted away to leeward she may have also taken brief fire from HMS Revenge before she effectively quit the battle, with Captain Epron stating her damage as;

'shrouds cut to pieces . . . as well as our back-stays, all the rigging cut up, and the spars in a most shattered state, especially the main and mizzen masts, the fore topmast, the jib-boom, courses, hull, boats and spare spars. In this condition we fell off to leeward.'

Captain Epron concluded his report by listing his casualties as 187 which included 55 dead and 132 wounded from an initial crew of 755 men.

Argonaute escaped the battle and managed to sit out the storm that followed by anchoring outside Cadiz on the 22nd October, where she signalled the frigate Hermione to take her in tow, a signal that was seemingly ignored by Captain Jean Michel Mahe, the very experienced captain of Hermione, which apparently was to ignite a barrage of claims and counter claims between the two officers.

The close of the Battle of Trafalgar as at 17.00 - Nicholas Pocock

It would seem that Captain Mahe accused Epron of effectively being battle shy by quitting his station and the battle with his rigging undamaged.

The Argonaute was eventually taken into Cadiz, but it seems a combination of her damage and the British blockade that followed prevented her return to service and she was exchanged for the Spanish 68-gun Vencedor based in Ferrol, which left Argonaute at Cadiz where she would be broken up in 1806.

At Trafalgar the Argonaute would be armed with 28 x 36-pounder long guns on her lower deck, 30 x 24-pdrs on her upper deck, 12 x 8-pdrs on her quarterdeck, 4 x 8-pdrs on her forecastle and 3 x 36-pdr carronades on her poop.

She is shown with an over strength crew of 755 men which included 490 naval personnel, 215 infantry (members of the 16th and 79th Ligne) and 50 marine artillerymen.

Although not, in my mind, a third rate of much renown, the Argonaute model captures nicely the rounded stern galleries of a typical French man of war of this era and makes a nice addition to any French collection.

Sources referred to;

The Trafalgar Companion - Mark Adkin

The Battle of Trafalgar Geoffrey Bennett

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Argonaute_(1798)

https://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_ship&id=2018

Next up, Mr Steve and I managed to get another battlefield walk in before the new restrictions on movement and headed out into Gloucestershire to visit the Wars of the Roses battlefield of Tewkesbury, and the English Civil War clash at Ripple Field, plus I have another book review and a report on Steve M and my third game of Mr Madison's War which turned into a real swing of initiative war and the next ship in the Third Rates of Renown to feature will be the French 80-gun Formidable.

Broke of the Shannon and the War of 1812 - Tim Voelcker

 

Perhaps one of the most evenly matched single ship engagements, at least on paper, with broadside weights of 538 lbs (Shannon) compared to 590 lbs (Chesapeake) and crew numbers of 330 men (Shannon) and 388 men (Chesapeake), has to be the action fought in Massachusetts Bay off Boston on the 1st of June 1813 between HMS Shannon 38-guns and the USS Chesapeake 38-guns; during a war between Great Britain and the United States that even today has the ability to create different interpretations for those in the three nations, Great Britain, Canada and the United States and perhaps four nations, if you include the native Americans intimately caught up in the struggle, and then only among those who know or remember this war within the wider 'Great War' against Napoleon.

Broke (pronounced Brook) of the Shannon is a collection of essays that make up its seventeen chapters that sets out to not just look at this significant, for the time, clash between two evenly matched ships but also to put the impact of the action into the context of the wider world in which it was fought from the national to the personal perspective and to include academic voices from the three principal nations involved to help give an added perspective for, as the quote might have said, 'victory is in the eye of the beholder'.

I have to say from my own, and probably a typically British perspective, the War of 1812 is one of Britain's forgotten wars and if you stopped the average Brit in the streets and asked about it, you would most likely get a bit of a blank expression, although given the state of history teaching in the country today that might not be so surprising to many of my countrymen.

My early interest in the conflict was enthused because I have family living in Canada and at the tender age of seven or eight can recall my maternal uncle who was ex Royal Naval Air Service and who emigrated to Canada in the late forties regaling me with the tales of battle fought out around the Great Lakes and the importance of the War of 1812 in the story of an independent Canada quite distinct from either the mother country or the United States.

That early introduction to another national story was to leave its mark and I can well remember eagerly opening up my first edition copy of the War of 1812 block game from Columbia Games and eventually visiting some of the battlegrounds in the late eighties on my honeymoon to the States and Canada.

This book published in time for the bicentenary of the battle had been on my 'to-read list' early on and thus with my current focus on all things 'age of sail' naval, I was very interested in reading a modern interpretation which started with perhaps for me one of the more interesting chapters looking at the battle and the war from an American perspective with Chapter One written by Dr John B Hattendorf, a very renowned US Naval historian and former naval officer and, more recently, Professor of Maritime History at the US Naval War College in Newport, entitled 'The War of 1812: An American Perspective'.

In a very well constructed and thought through analysis, Dr Hattendorf set out to explore the various interpretations of the war put on it by Americans with a common theme of constructing a narrative around the second war for independence, with little attention to what the war had originally been about but a great focus given to a very selected set of events often taken out of context.

Thus he lists these accomplishments to include Andrew Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans, the early war frigate victories, the burning of Washington and 'the rocket's red glare' showing the flag still flying over Baltimore, neatly emphasised by the ringing phrase 'Don't give up the ship!' much as any Brit would quote back 'England expects . . . .'  

Perry's Victory on Lake Erie - William Henry Powell 1865

Of course the list very often omits the war changing naval victory by Commodore Thomas Macdonagh  that stopped the British invasion in its tracks around Lake Champlain in 1814 in favour of the strategically lesser important victory of Commodore Oliver Hazzard Perry fought the year before on Lake Erie, together with the flag he carried bearing the immortal phrase dedicated to his friend Captain James Lawrence killed commanding the USS Chesapeake and since reproduced on US postage stamps, in portraits depicting Perry transferring his flag during the Battle of Lake Erie, to museum keepsakes such as facsimile flags, women's scarves, men's neckties and mugs, seemingly and ironically to forget that that is exactly what the crew of the USS Chesapeake did do, give up the ship.

Captain James Lawrence commander of the USS Chesapeake and killed in the action with HMS Shannon. A disappointed man, he had been expecting the prestigious command of the 44-gun Constitution following his impressive victory over HMS Peacock, however the falling sick of Chesapeake's previous captain and the Constitution still being in repairs conspired to cause him to be offered command of the lesser ship, which he considered beneath his merit and seniority. 

Dr Hattendorf then poses the question why? In the light of all the American frigate actions being of no strategic consequence and James Lawrence no Horatio Nelson, to quote;

'To the rational mind, the American viewpoint appears to make no sense beyond nationalistic bombast.'

However, as he then goes on to point out, when national identity becomes a focal point for a nation at war, a certain rationality takes second place to national honour, pride and achievement neatly summed up in the first American biography of Captain Lawrence by Washington Irving in 1813 when he concluded;

For our part, we conceive that the great purpose of our navy is accomplished. It was not to be expected that with so inconsiderable force, we could make any impression on British power, or materially affect British commerce. We fought, not to take their ships and plunder their wealth, but to pluck some of the laurels where with to grace our own brows. In this we have succeeded; and thus the great mischief that our little navy was capable of doing to Great Britain, in showing that her maritime power was vulnerable, has been affected and is irretrievable.'

On reading this perspective I found myself reflecting on the response of the British public to the news of the Shannon's victory which as Dr Hattendorf emphasises had quite a different effect on the course of the naval war, combining as it did with the blockade of Decatur's squadron (United States 44-guns, Macedonian 38-guns and Hornet 20-guns) at New London and seeing nearly half of the US naval force removed from operations in a single day.

Action off New London 1st June 1813 - Irwin John Bevan
HMS Acasta fires on USS United States and flagship of Commodore Stephen Decatur

However that was not what inspired the British to adopt the national toast;

'To an Irish river and an English brook'

No it was the dent to pride and national honour represented by the unending victories achieved by the Royal Navy from the Glorious June 1st 1793 onward, that seemed unstoppable, suddenly to seem to be threatened by such a small force of American small ships and its seemingly endless series of single ship victories likely to turn the world upside down. All that doubt and frustration was ended on the Glorious June 1st 1813. 

Captain Philip Bowes Vere Broke RN.
The letters quoted, written to his wife Sarah Louisa referred to as 'his beloved Loo' reveal a very humane man, keen to resume his familial duties at home once his war was concluded and when he had done his duty by the country, contrasting with an officer who took very seriously the requirements of a fighting captain, particularly in the discipline and science of naval gunnery which he took to new levels of proficiency and made HMS Shannon one of the most effective units in the Royal Navy and a model for others in the service to imitate.    

However in the revealing of the American perspective and the similar response generated in the British public for pride in the effectiveness of their military forces, the fact that the war is so vague in the British psyche is probably down to the consideration that the British focus was and has been historically on the defeat of Napoleon and the existential threat to the British way of life he and his Imperial aspirations represented and thus the war with America was viewed very much as a side show and never the national defining war that it became for Americans or Canadians, hence the achievement of Captain Philip Bowes Vere Brook RN and the pride his victory stirred at home at the time, in the wider navy and in restoring national confidence, is somewhat lost to later generations and the British public memory and this book goes a long way to allow later generations to take a more considered look at the achievement of him and the crew of HMS Shannon.

Action between HMS Shannon and the USS Chesapeake, 1st June 1813 - National Maritime Museum
USS Chesapeake would likely have contrasted in her newly fitted out condition to the battered Shannon, described as 'a little black dirty ship' following years of blockade duties under Broke since her commissioning in 1806 but with a captain more focussed on fighting efficiency over appearances having a crew now honed to be a frighteningly effective fighting unit superbly drilled in his scientific gunnery methods.

Subsequent chapters go on to further outline how the war was viewed in other parts, the wider conflict and its relation, the characters of the two captains and their previous experience, the battle and its consequences, not to mention the ballads and poetry that came to be, eulogising the victory, but what most grabbed my interest was the detailing of Captain Broke as an expert in naval gunnery and his ingenious improvements in equipment and training that he introduced that lead to the success HMS Shannon achieved in between eleven and fifteen minutes* from the first guns firing to the USS Chesapeake striking. * Broke himself, in a letter to his wife claims the action lasted fifteen minutes but according to the official timings recorded by Lieutenant Wallis of the Shannon the firing started at 17.50 and the action concluded at 18.01.

Martin Bibbins, one of the contributors to the book, an expert in naval gunnery of the period who has advised on films such as, Master & Commander, Far Side of the World, The TV series of C.S. Forester's character, Hornblower and assembled the 52-gun broadside staged on HMS Victory for the 2005 Trafalgar bicentenary commemoration wrote the chapter entitled 'A Gunnery Zealot: Broke's Scientific Contribution.

In a twelve page chapter accompanied by five illustrations, Bibbins recounts a most remarkable series of adaptations, improvements and new techniques and equipment modifications coupled with organisational improvements that Broke introduced the crew of the Shannon to with much of the equipment modifications financed out of Broke's own pocket.

As well as building on the gunnery standards of leaders such as Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, Nelson's second in command at Trafalgar and a leader in gunnery tactics, which introduced the idea of speed in loading and firing with the necessary teamwork and practice to achieve a rate of fire equivalent to three broadsides in three and half minutes, Broke introduced his ideas which created tables of recommended loads of projectiles and powder for achieving specific results against different targets, aiming to either dismast, disable, rake or silence the target and the variations to be accounted for with range, sea state and swell.

To help with these refinements, he had his guns fitted with locks and tangent sights, with the former using quill primers in the touch hole allowing the gun to ignite almost as soon as the gunner pulled the lanyard to fire, thus overcoming shooting too high or low because of the delayed ignition coupled with the roll of the ship.

The sights added to the process for the gunner to pick out masts by aiming along the gun using the tangent site to allow for range and knowing the horizontal pitch of the gun precisely and being able to look along the barrel using the sight even as it was fired with its subsequent recoil; all these aspects being difficult if not impossible for guns fired simply by pointing in the general direction and using a lighted match with its consequential delayed ignition.

Broke could now have his gunners set up their guns according to how he wanted to direct the horizontal fire of his battery and, with arcs in degrees marked out on the deck behind each gun, all or some, in specific groups, could now be angled under command to focus their fire in any particular direction with the arc laid out, permitting him and his officers to direct their gunfire like never before.

One final rather unique modification was Broke's addition of his 9-pounder barbette guns, having his 9-pdrs on the forecastle and quarterdeck mounted on higher brackets that not only allowed the guns to fire over the bulwarks instead of through them via a gun port, but also to be able to elevate up to 33 degrees and able to combine their cross fire to sweep an enemy deck or shred its shrouds and rigging.

Alongside these changes Broke worked his crew up to a high state of efficiency with constant training on the great guns and small arms throughout the week except weekends, given over to the housekeeping of the ship and the spiritual requirements of the men.

The tracks of the Shannon and Chesapeake as depicted by Captain A.T. Mahan in his book 'Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812'
Broke addressed the crew of the Shannon just before the action commenced at 17.50 at pistol shot range (40-50 yards);
'Throw no shot away. Aim every one. Keep cool. Work steadily. Fire into her quarters. Don't try to dismast her. Kill her men, and the ship is yours.' 

After reading this particular chapter the events described in the next one looking at the battle and its short but conclusive outcome suddenly fell into place as the action described illustrated this killing machine in its dreadful work as HMS Shannon dismantled her opponent with precision with her barbette guns wreaking havoc in Chesapeakes tops and rigging raised to maximum elevation, whilst other 9-pdrs targeted her helm. The top deck was soon cleared in the maelstrom of metal from cannon and muskets seeing Captain Lawrence carried below, hit by two musket rounds and leaving the way clear for the Shannon's to board during which Captain Broke would sustain a sabre slash to the head that might have killed most men.

The melee on the forecastle of the Chesapeake in which Captain Broke, wearing his typical top hat, was wounded by a cutlass cut to the head leaving a three inch wound. Parrying a pike thrust and slashing the man across the face with his sword, a second man dealt him the blow with the cutlass whilst a third clubbed him with the butt of his musket. One of the Americans was about to finish him off but was stopped when marine John Hill ran the attacker through with his bayonet.

The difference in firepower exchanged in just ten minutes is staggering, with Shannon hitting Chesapeake with 44 round shot and with Shannon receiving just 10 or 11 in return, with much of the American shots hitting the coppers around her waterline.

Chesapeake's crew were not raw or inexperienced as three quarters of her crew, 279 men had sailed before with her previous commander, with 32 recognised on capture as British.

The casualty rate was another staggering consequence of this battle with Chesapeake losing nearly as many men in eleven minutes than HMS Victory (159 casualties - 57 killed and 102 wounded) at Trafalgar in several hours of fighting, seeing the USS Chesapeake receiving 146 casualties (69 dead and 77 wounded) and HMS Shannon 83 casualties, (34 killed and 49 injured) in return, with the action as a whole seeing more men killed per minute than in both Nelson's and Villeneuve's fleets combined.

Broke of the Shannon and the War of 1812 is 237 pages and contains the following:

List of Illustrations and Maps

Preface and Acknowlegements

Notes on Contributors

Introduction - Tim Voelcker

Historical Note and Brief Family Tree

Chapters

1. The War of 1812: A Perspective  from the United States, John B. Hattendorf

2. Sideshow? British Grand Strategy and the War of 1812, Andrew Lambert

3. Canada and the War of 1812, Chris Madsen

4. Prize Laws in the War of 1812, Gabriela A. Frei

5. Victories or Distractions, Honour or Glory?, Tim Voelcker

6. Broke - His Youth and Education, John Blatchly

7. In Arctic Waters, Michael Barritt

8. Letters to his Wife 'Loo', Ellen Gill

9. A Gunnery Zealot: Broke's Scientific Contribution to Naval Warfare, Martin Bibbins

10. The Battle, Martin Bibbins

11. Broke's 'Miraculous' Recovery, Peter Schurr

12. Representing Nations: Caricature and the Naval War of 1812, James Davey

13. Halifax and its Naval Yard, Julian Gwyn

14. HMS Shannon's Later Commissions, Martin Salmon

15. Chesapeake Mill, John Wain

16. Ballads and Broadsides: The Poetic and Musical Legacy of the Shannon and the Chesapeake, Richard Wilson

17. The Peace and its Outcome, Colin Reid

Broke's Rewards

Selected Bibliography

Index

This book is a very good read and with an all encompassing range of contributions that helps to put the action between the two ships into the historical context of the war as a whole and the legacy from it in terms of the art and literature that followed together with the advancement of the science of naval warfare it generated.

The book in hard cover has a recommended retail of £19.99 but new copies can be picked up for under £8.00 including P&P

All at Sea - British Third Rates of Renown (HMS Tonnant)

The Tonnant, in action and dismasted, with her colours nailed to a stump and her captain mortally wounded but still commanding fron his quarterdeck at the Battle of the Nile 1st August 1798 - Louis Le Breton (National Maritime Museum)

HMS Tonnant, was the French ship Le Tonnant, meaning 'Thundering', an 80-gun ship designed by the great French ship designer Jaques-Noel Sane and built in the Toulon shipyard, launching there on the 24th October 1789.

The Anglo-Spanish and their allies forced to depart from Toulon in 1793, attempting to destroy naval materials that they cannot take away. In the chaotic withdrawal, Le Tonnant 80-guns was left to the Republican forces.

She seemed destined not to serve her French builders, as the Tonnant fell into Anglo-Spanish hands in August 1793, when Admiral Sir Samuel Hood captured her after leading the combined allied fleet into the harbour in support of French Royalists who invited them in to help defend the city from Republican forces; however she was one of the ships left behind and intact when the allies were forced to withdraw.

Following the allied withdrawal and through 1794, the French concentrated on recreating their Mediterranean squadron under Contre-amiral (Rear Admiral) Pierre Martin, seeing him make a brief sally in June of that year with seven ships of the line, and achieving some success with the capture of the Sardinian frigate Alceste on the 8th June, but was quickly back in Toulon after being confronted by Admiral Hood and the British fleet now operating a loose blockade out of the island of Corsica.

Contre-amiral (Rear Admiral) Pierre Martin

By 1795 the French Mediterranean squadron was back up to its former power and Admiral Martin was ordered to sea, setting sail on the 3rd of March 1795 for operations in the Ligurian Sea north of Corsica. 

It would seem the purpose of Martin's expedition is unclear, but it was either to support French troops along the coast or to protect a planned invasion of Corsica, with a troop convoy assembled in Toulon.

Le Tonnant's first commander Captain Julien Marie Cosmao-Kerjulien

Either way, Tonnant was one of the thirteen ships of the line supported by six frigates that set sail under her new commander Captain Julien Marie Cosmao-Kerjulien who had taken command in December 1794.

The British fleet was now commanded by the rather inept Vice Admiral William Hotham who took command when Admiral Hood was summoned home late in 1794 and it was under his command that its fourteen ships of the line made contact with Martin's squadron off Cape Noli in the Gulf of Genoa on the 11th March, and with the French turning to run for Toulon, caused Hotham to signal a general chase.

I think the figurehead and stern galleries on the model are highly speculative, but I like them and they certainly add character.

Hotham finally caught up with the rear of Martin's squadron on the 13th March some 20 nautical miles south west of Genoa, with the French under full sail for Toulon, but with the Ca Ira 80-guns under tow from the Censeur 74-guns, this following the former losing its fore and main topmast in a collision with another French ship, the Victoire 80-guns, and then being damaged further following an aggressive attack by Captain Horatio Nelson aboard HMS Agamemnon 64-guns and the frigate HMS Inconstant 36-guns, before Martin was able to drive them off by dropping back with his centre.

Map showing the positions of the two battles fought in the Ligurian Sea between Admirals Martin and Hotham in 1795
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Hy%C3%A8res_Islands#/media/File:Ligurian_Sea_map.png

Admiral Martin, determined to avoid his two rearmost ships falling into enemy hands, as the British van closed, had to wear round in succession to try and put his main body between them and the British pursuers, however confusion in the French fleet allowed Hotham to cut off the now badly damaged Censeur and Ca Ira and despite appeals to the British admiral by a frustrated Nelson, to pursue the French main body after securing the prizes, Martin was allowed to withdraw unmolested back to Toulon.

The Agamemnon engaging the Ca Ira, 13th March 1795 at the Battle of Genoa - Nicholas Pocock (National Maritime Museum)

Specific casualties among the French ships are not known with the British reporting a loss of 74 killed and 284 wounded and around 750 casualties aboard the captured Ca Ira and Censeur between them but it seems the Tonnant together with Duquesne, Victoire and Timoleon were all heavily engaged and badly damaged in the action.

Admiral Martin would try his luck again in the Ligurian Sea in July and was spotted by the British 'Flying' squadron commanded by Commodore Nelson which brought on another fleet chase as the the French withdrew with Hotham's British fleet in hot pursuit.

This time the French again managed to escape, losing their slowest ship, Alcide 74-guns which with a fire onboard caused her magazine to explode late in the afternoon taking 300 of her crew with her, but also seeing Hotham criticised with lacking energy and diligence for not attacking more vigorously.

As far as Tonnant was concerned, she was not engaged throughout the action and suffered no losses or damage.

The next and last time under French colours the Tonnant would be in action would be at the Battle of the Nile on the 1st August 1798 when Rear Admiral Nelson entered Aboukir Bay with his squadron late in the afternoon to attack the French squadron of Vice Admiral Francois-Paul Brueys d'Aigalliers anchored in line on the orders of General Bonaparte in support of his invading French army of Egypt.

Battle of the Nile 1-2 August 1798 showing Tonnant anchored behind and in support of the flagship L'Orient.
Courtesy of 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_Battle_of_the_Nile_1798-en.png

Anchored directly behind the French flagship L'Orient 120-guns, the Tonnant was the penultimate French ship to be attacked as Nelson sought to overcome the van and centre of Bruey's line that saw the French flagship come under heavy attack from HMS Bellerophon, Swiftsure and Alexander, which saw her fires take hold and her magazine explode at about 22.00.

All the ships close by could see the impending doom of the L'Orient and took whatever avoiding action they could to protect themselves from the likely explosion and this saw the Tonnant along with the Heureux and  Mercure cut their cables in rapid succession, with the latter two drifting aground whilst continuing to fire, but the Tonnant managing to drop anchor near to the next French ship still in line, the Guillaume Tell, flagship of Rear Admiral Pierre Villeneuve.

Tonnant's commander at the Battle of the Nile, Captain Aristide Aubert du Petit Thouars

The fighting in the final phase of the battle focussed on the Tonnant and the rear most French ships and the accounts are confused and incomplete, but following the lull that ensued after the destruction of the L'Orient, many ships of both sides took the opportunity to make repairs and extinguish fires of their own.

The fighting reached a crescendo at about 0600 on the morning of 2nd August as HMS Zealous, Goliath, Theseus, Alexander each of 74-guns and Leander 50-guns, closed in on the French rear, that would see the French commander, Rear Admiral Villeneuve, cut and run aboard the Guillaume Tell in company with Genereux each of 74-guns and the frigates Diane 48-guns and Justice 44-guns.

The 80-gun Tonnant battered but unbowed with her mortally wounded captain propped up in a barrel stoically issuing commands on his quarterdeck despite having lost both arms and a leg to separate round shot, and having his colours nailed to pole following all the masts being shot away

The Tonnant was by that stage aground and dismasted, having drifted onto the nearby shoals, but still fighting bravely, having badly damaged HMS Majestic, causing nearly 200 casualties including her commander Captain George Westcott, the only British captain killed in the battle.

When the Theseus and Leander approached her at about 0600 she finally capitulated having suffered, 120 men killed and 150 wounded, nearly half her compliment and included her captain who is reported to have finally shot himself in the head with his pistol.

Most nations of the period retained the names of captured ships, especially if they had fought particularly well in the action in which they were captured thus it was that HMS Tonnant was taken into the service of the Royal Navy on the 9th December 1798 eventually being sent home to Plymouth on the 17th July 1799 and with a short commission in the Channel and Gibraltar was back in Portsmouth laid up in ordinary by 1800.

With the start of the Napoleonic War in 1803, Tonnant was fitted out and recommissioned in March 1803 under the command of Captain Sir Edward Pellew and attached to the Channel Squadron blockading the Spanish port of El Ferrol and it was in these duties that she participated in the recapture of  the Indiaman Lord Nelson on the 27th August, as the French prize crew attempted to take her into the Spanish port.

Captain Sir Edward Pellew, seen here in 1804, was HMS Tonnant's first commander in the Napoleonic War and in which he flew his commodore's pennant.

The following month as part of Sir Robert Calder's squadron she took part in the chase of the French 74-gun Duguay-Trouin and the 36-gun frigate Gurriere as they managed to evade Tonnant and the British blockade and get into Corunna.

In May 1804 Pellew handed command over to Captain William Henry Jervis, whose time with HMS Tonnant was limited as he drowned off Brest when his gig overturned on its way across to the flagship, San Josef on the 26th January 1805, thus seeing the appointment of Captain Charles Tyler.

Captain Charles Tyler. the son of an army officer, took command of Tonnant
after his predecessor drowned off Brest in January 1805 and would be in command at the Battle of Trafalgar in October that year.

Captain Tyler had served alongside Nelson as captain of the frigate Meleager 32-guns in 1794 and was at Calvi in Corsica when Nelson lost his eye, and was at Copenhagen in 1801 commanding HMS Warrior 74-guns in 1801.

Thus it was that he would command HMS Tonnant under the great admiral when as part of Vice Admiral Collingwood's squadron of observation he arrived off Cadiz in June 1805 to keep watch and observe the arrival of Villeneuve's French squadron returned from the West Indies and his recent clash with Admiral Calder's squadron off of Ferrol.

On the 21st October, the Tonnant would be the fourth ship in Admiral Collingwood's Lee Column as it bore down on the Combined Fleet at Trafalgar with her band on deck playing 'Britons Strike Home' and cutting the line between the Spanish Monarca 74-guns and the French Algeciras 74-guns, flagship of Rear Admiral Magon, whilst also raking the French Pluton 74-guns.

Lieutenant Frederick Hoffman of the Tonnant described the breakthrough and the proximity of the enemy ships on each side as;

Lieutenant, later Captain Frederick Hoffman,
left his account of the fighting while aboard HMS Tonnant at Trafalgar.
See the link below for 'A Sailor of King George'.

'so close that a biscuit could have been thrown on either of them. Our guns were double shotted. The order was given to fire; being so close, every shot was poured into their hulls, and down came the Frenchman's (Algeciras') mizzen mast, and after our second broadside, the Spaniard's (Monarca's) fore and crossjack yards.'

HMS Tonnant engaging the Spanish 74-gun Monarca at Trafalgar - Nicholas Pocock

A third broadside was enough for the Monarca and she hauled down her colours, drifting away as she did so, being the first ship in the Combined Fleet to surrender, within ten to fifteen minutes and a sign of the accuracy of Tonnant's gunnery.

Contre Amiral Charles Rene Magon, killed at Trafalgar - Olivier Pichat (Palace of Versailles)

The Tonnant sailed on and Tyler spotted HMS Mars being pounded by the French Pluton and so turning to starboard raked the French 74 through her starboard quarter, but an alert Admiral Magon brought the Algeciras around to return the compliment to the Tonnant.

Turning to meet the new threat the bowsprit of the Algeciras thrust through the shrouds of the Tonnant amidships. Hoffman described the combat;

'A French ship of 80 guns, with an Admiral's flag, came up and poured a raking broadside into our stern, which killed or wounded forty petty officers and men, nearly cut the rudder in two, and shattered the whole of the stern, with the quarter galleries.

She then in the most gallant manner locked her bowsprit in our starboard main shrouds and attempted to board us with the greater part of her officers and ship's company. She had riflemen in the tops who did great execution. Our poop was soon cleared, and our gallant Captain shot through the left thigh, and obliged to be carried below.

During this time we were not idle. We gave it to her most gloriously with the starboard and main-deckers and turned the forecastle guns, loaded with grape, on the gentlemen who wished to give us so fraternal a hug.

The marines kept up a warm destructive fire on the boarders. Only one man made good his footing on the quarterdeck, when he was pinned through the calf of his right leg by one of the crew with his half-pike, whilst another was going to cut him down, which I prevented, and desired to be taken to the cockpit.

Our severe contest with the French Admiral lasted more than half an hour, our sides grinding so much against each other that we were obliged to fire the lower-deck guns without running them out.'

The battered Monarca 74-guns strikes her colours to Tonnant at Trafalgar - Nicholas Pocock

Both ships caught fire in the close exchange and were eventually extinguished as the fight continued as recounted by Lieutenant Hoffman;

'At length we had the satisfaction of seeing her three lower masts go by the board, ripping the partners up in their fall, as they had been shot through below the deck, and carrying with them all their sharp-shooters to look sharper in the next world, for as all our boats were shot through we could not save one of them in this. 

The death of Admiral Magon

The crew were then ordered with the second lieutenant to board her. They cheered and in a short time carried her. They found the gallant French Admiral Magon killed at the foot of the poop ladder, the captain dangerously wounded. Out of eight lieutenants five were killed, with three hundred petty officers and seamen, and about one hundred wounded. 

We left the second lieutenant and sixty men in charge of her, and took some of the prisoners on board when she swung clear of us. We had pummelled her so handsomely that fourteen of her lower deck guns were dismounted, and her larboard bow exhibited a mass of splinters.'

Boarding actions were not as common as Hollywood would have you believe, with the simple problem of bridging the gap between the tumblehome of two ships close together, often preventing such an attack unless bridged by a main yard lowered of often dropped with a swift slash of a cutlass or as in the case of HMS Tonnant having the main shrouds pierced by the enemy's bowsprit, forming a perfect bridge. - Scene from Master and Commander, The Far Side of the World.

Following her battle with the Algaciras, Tonnant became engaged in exchanging broadsides with the Spanish San Juan Nepomuceno 74-guns, but the honour of finishing off the Spaniard went to the late arriving Dreadnought 98-guns who concluded the action within ten minutes.

HMS Tonnant would finish her battle badly damaged, with all three topmasts and the mainyard shot away and with her hull and rudder battered together with her stern gallery and rails demolished; this together with the loss of seventy-six casualties, with twenty-six killed and her captain among the wounded.

My interpretation of the San Juan Nepomuceno from my post about her back in July.
https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2020/07/all-at-sea-on-stocks-in-jjs-dockyard_21.html

After the battle Tonnant was towed to Gibraltar by HMS Spartiate 74-guns for repairs, before returning to Portsmouth in January 1806 to begin a much needed six month refit at a cost of £17,890 equivalent to about £1,618,000 today, illustrating the damage the ship must have received.

Admiral Sir Alexander Inglis Cochrane commanded the forces engaged in the Chesapeake campaign in 1814 from HMS Tonnant

From 1806 to 1812 HMS Tonnant served with the Channel Squadron, performing her blockade duties before the declaration of war by the Americans would see her go back to Portsmouth for another refit before joining the North American Squadron operating out of Halifax, Nova Scotia in the first quarter of 1814, later to become the flagship of Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Inglis Cochrane for most of her time in the Chesapeake Bay from which he conducted the campaign against Washington and Baltimore.

Whilst aboard HMS Tonnant, American Colonels John Stuart Skinner and Francis Scott Key dined with Admiral Cochrane and Major General Robert Ross as they negotiated the release of Doctor William Beanes whose observation of the bombardment of Fort McHenry before Baltimore inspired the poem 'Defence of Fort M'Henry' later to become the American National Anthem, 'The Star Spangled Banner'. The ship would also carry the body of General Ross back to Halifax in a barrel of Jamaica Rum for burial after his death at the Battle of North Point.

The Battle of Lake Borgne, Louisiana, 14th December 1814, a delaying action that saw the capture of all five US Navy gunboats by forty two Royal Navy ships boats armed with carronades in the bows and carrying 980 seamen and marines, but that ultimately helped in the defence of New Orleans and Major General Andrew Jackson's victory at the battle on 8th January 1815

Tonnant would also serve later as Cochrane's flagship in the New Orleans Campaign of 1815 where the ships boats participated in the successful capture of five US Navy gunboats only to have the delay caused by the action aid General Jackson's eventual victory and repulse of the British troops before the city.

HMS Tonnant's war concluded with the exile of Napoleon Bonaparte to St Helena in 1815, being finally paid off in to the ordinary in November 1818 and broken up at Plymouth in March 1821.

At the Battle of Trafalgar HMS Tonnant was armed with 32 x 32 pounder long guns on her lower deck, 32 x 18-pdrs on her upper deck, 2 x 18-pdrs and 14 x 32-pdr carronades on her quarterdeck and 4 x 32-pdr carronades on her forecastle giving her 84 pieces. 

At the battle she was very much under her compliment with 600 naval personnel and 88 Royal Marines.

As you can see the metal fittings of figurehead and stern galleries are very distinctive on this model but again the references for them seem doubtful but do make for a very impactful model to grace the table with.

Sources refereed to in this post:

The Trafalgar Companion - Mark Adkin

Nile 1798, Nelson's First Great Victory - Gregory Fremont-Barnes (Osprey Campaign)

A Sailor of King George - Captain Frederick Hoffman RN. Guttenberg Library Link

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27520/27520-h/27520-h.html

Other Links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Tonnant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Genoa_(1795)

https://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_ship&id=1993

Next up: A book review covering a very famous action from the War of 1812, Mr Steve and I have been on our travels and Mr Madison's War goes into a third game, as well as the Third Rate of Renown looking at the Marine Nationale's Argonaute.