When one thinks of battles involving oared galleys one
thinks automatically of actions in the Mediterranean. The lot of a galley-slave
chained to an oar must have been dreadful enough in the warm and usually calm
waters of that sea, but it must have been infinitely worse in the cold, rough
waters off the French coast and in the North Sea. The galley’s day as a
fighting vessel – a long one, stretching back two thousand years – ended in the
early eighteenth century and as such they do not figure in most accounts of sea
warfare of that era, as “Fighting Sail” reached its apogee of efficiency. I was
therefore all the more surprised to come on an account in a Victorian
publication of a battle with galleys in the Thames estuary in 1707. This was
during the War of Spanish Succession, the last of Louis XIV’s wars, that which
began the long decline of French power through much of the remaining century.
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A réale galley belonging to the Mediterranean fleet of Louis XIV
Licensed
under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license |
Louis XIV (a
man much given to his own comfort and luxury, as his creation of the palace at
Versailles testifies) appears to have been favourable to use of galleys and ordered
that courts should sentence convicted criminals to serve as oarsmen in them as
far as possible, even in peacetime. Though the idea was never implemented, he
appears to have considered substitution of galley-service for the death penalty.
Considering that execution in France this period was by the barbaric method of breaking
on the wheel, being chained to an oar would probably have represented a
marginally preferable fate.
In August
1707 a French force of six galleys, commanded by a Commodore Langeron, was off the
Thames estuary, en route for an
attack on the British port of Harwich. It was being guided by a Captain Thomas
Smith, an English Jacobite who had taken service in the French navy after
fleeing to France following the deposition of the King James II from the British
throne. Like many supporters of the exiled king, Smith had a bitter score to
settle. The galleys appear to have been some 150-feet long and 22-feet in the beam,
carrying sail on three masts and also propelled by oars pulled by some 200
chained slaves. They carried around 12 guns. Though such vessels were obviously
very manoeuvrable in Mediterranean conditions, one wonders just how well their
high length to beam ratio would have made them workable in rougher Northern
seas.
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The Battle of Grengam (a.k.a as Ledsund)
in 1720 by Ferdinand Perrot (1808–41).
It shows a Russian galley engaging Swedish
frigates at close range
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| Captain Seth Jermy |
This French
squadron ran into a British convoy of thirty-six merchantmen coming from the Netherlands
under the escort of a single frigate, the 20-gun HMS Nightingale, commanded by a Captain Seth Jermy (1653–1724). On
sighting the French Jermy ordered the convoy to crowd on sail and head up the Thames
while he turned with his own single ship to meet the oncoming six vessels He
must have known the odds to be hopeless – one is reminded of the epic last
stands of the Rawalpindi and the Jervis Bay in WW2 – but his intention
was to impose a sufficient delay to allow his charges to escape. Commodore
Langeron, on the French side, decided to take on the Nightingale with his own galley, the La Palme, and pressed on so fast that he left his next ship so far
astern as to make it impossible to render direct assistance. As she closed with
the Nightingale the French galley
opened fire but the British frigate withheld hers, making no attempt to escape.
Anticipating little resistance, and encountering only irregular fire from the
frigate when the range had decreased to pistol-shot, Commodore Langeron decided
on carrying her by boarding.
The preferred
method of attack by galley appears to have been to use her superior manoeuvrability
under oars to come bows-on to the enemy’s stern, rake her with cannon fire, then
ram, locking both vessels together and pouring boarders across from elevated
platforms on the foreship. As the La
Palme drove on Captain Jermy handled the Nightingale so skilfully that at the last moment she avoided her
attacker’s viciously-pointed ram and he laid his own vessel alongside her. In the
process Nightingale smashed into the galley’s
oars – the effect on the wretches chained to them must have been horrific. Only
now did Jermy open with a full broadside, sweeping the enemy’s deck, the effect
magnified by seamen in the fighting tops dropping grenades. Jermy now launched
his own boarding party and a murderous hand-to-hand conflict began on La Palme’s deck. Commodore Langeron’s next
galley in line finally arrived to join the fray and the Nightingale’s boarders, outnumbered, were forced back to their own
ship, where most were subdued or killed.
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| "English warships heeling in the breeze onshore" by Willem v/d Velde the Younger (1633-1707) Judging from their size, HMS Nightinale would have looked very similar |
Captain Seth
Jermy had retreated to his own cabin, which gave access to the gunpowder store.
He repulsed French attempts to enter – shooting dead a sergeant of marines – and
was contemplating blowing up the ship rather than surrender. Only when he saw
that his merchant charges had gained safety was he prepared to listen to terms
of surrender and to accept them. A French account recorded that when Jermy was
brought before the French commander his appearance was unprepossessing – Commodore Langeron “could not help testifying his surprise at the inconsiderable figure
which had made such a mighty uproar – he was humpbacked, pale-faced, and as
much deformed in person as beautiful in mind.” Langeron’s reaction could
not have been more gracious. He returned Jermy’s sword to him with the words: ”Take, sir, a weapon no man better deserves
to wear; forget you are my prisoner, but remember I respect you for a friend.”
Captain
Thomas Smith, the Jacobite in French service, seems to have borne himself well
in the action and was rewarded with command of the captured Nightingale. He was to enjoy it only for
a year, as he was captured by the British and hanged for his part in the
attempt on Harwich. Jermy was exchanged with a French prisoner fourteen months
after the battle and was immediately – and deservedly – appointed to another
command. He retired from the navy in 1712.
And what of the
men chained to the French oars? The record seems to say nothing of them. The
mind recoils from considering their ultimate fates.
Britannia’s Wolf is available as an audio book
– listen to a sample
To listen to
as sample go to the links below and click on the small arrow beneath the cover
image there:
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