Читать книгу Champions of the Fleet. Captains and men-of-war and days that helped to make the empire онлайн

39 страница из 49

WHEN GEORGE THE THIRD WAS KING. OFFICERS AT AFTERNOON TEA ASHORE.

Thomas Rowlandson. 1786.

MANNING THE FLEET IN 1779. A WARM CORNER FOR THE PRESS GANG.

James Gillray. Oct. 15, 1779.

For twelve months before Trafalgar, the Dreadnought was Collingwood’s flagship in the Channel Fleet. Collingwood passed most of the time cruising on blockade duty in the Bay of Biscay, where he used to spend his nights pacing on deck to and fro restlessly, expecting the enemy at any moment, and snatching intervals of sleep lying down on a gun-carriage on the quarter-deck. Collingwood only changed from her into the bigger Royal Sovereign ten days before the battle. Under the eye of the former captain of our first Excellent man-of-war, the Dreadnought’s men had been trained to fire three broadsides in one minute and a half—a gunnery record for that day.

At Trafalgar the Dreadnought fought as one of the ships in Collingwood’s line, and did the best with what opportunity came her way.

“This quiet old Dreadnought” wrote Dickens of his visit to the ship in her last years, “whose fighting days are all over—sans guns, sans shot, sans shells, sans everything—did fight at Trafalgar under Captain Conn—did figure as one of the hindmost ships in the column which Collingwood led—went into action about two in the afternoon, and captured the San Juan in fifteen minutes.”