Marines blurbs
I bring you three excerpts from The Royal Marines 1664 to the present, which I thought of particular interest. It is unfortunate that these sources are not more widely available.
On Marines and drill.
Marines' action stations were the forecastle and poop, from where they had the best field of fire. A decorated punchbowl made for Sir Charles Douglas, Rodney's flag captain at the Battle of the Saints, and now at the National Maritime Museum, clearly shows HMS Formidable's Marines drawn up in those positions. In 1776, HMS Enterprise, a 6th Rate Frigate, with 28 guns and 34 Marines, stationed 24 on the quarterdeck with the senior Lieutenant, Sergeant and drummer, and another 10 on the forecastle, with the Lieutenant and Corporal. At the First Battle of the Capes John Howe, 'was Stationed on the forecastle with twelve Privates 2 Corporal 1 Serjent and one Lieutenant of Marines... they were all killed and wounded except myself and too Privats and the Lieut.'
The immortal memory of Nelson's death by a sniper's shot tends to associate musketry at sea with individual marksmanship, but this impression is misleading. Eighteenth-century Marines were not trained to pick off enemy officers, and they rarely went aloft. Small-arms men in the tops were also there to repair the rigging, a task for seamen. The tactical purpose of Marines before Trafalgar was to clear enemy decks with well-directed blasts of musketry. The emphasis was on volleys and tight fire control:
see the Shot well rammed down; that the Men take a good Aim, level well, without trembling; direct their Fire where it is likely to do most Execution; pull the Triggers very strong, and look boldly into their Fire, without turning the Head; they must never be suffered to fire at random, or in a Hurry; for it is certain that the Discharge of one Rank, loaded methodically, and who take Aim, does more Execution than three Discharges of the same Number of Men, loading and firing at random.
Even against small targets, Marines operated in groups: 'a platoon of the best Marksmen should be picked out, and ordered to take Aim, and fire at the Port-Holes: Two or Three expert Men killed at a Gun may silence it for half an Hour.' At the critical moment of a frigate action (10 Aug 1805), 'one of the most brilliant and exemplary cases of the kind', Le Didon (40) ran on board HMS Phoenix's (36) starboard quarter. The only gun either of the two entangled ships could bring to bear was a brass 32-pounder on Didon's forecastle, but as fast as the French gunners tried to fire it, HMS Phoenix's Marines shot them down. Years later her Captain wrote to Lieutenant Pleydell, the surviving Marine officer:
'Never can I forget the service you were to me', he wrote, '...when the success of the battle (...) depended, a good deal, upon your example and conduct, and prevented that large piece of artillery on the forecastle of Didon from sweeping the whole of our deck.'
Marines learned three distinct ways of delivering fire: Parapet Firings to leeward or windward, and, for more advanced students, the Marine Firing. Sailing ships heel over before the wind, giving a clear view to leeward, but exposing their deck to fire, so it was safer to engage to windward, but more difficult, as the roll of the ship exaggerated the height of the bulwark, obstructing the musketeer. Different drill formations emerged: two ranks to fire to leeward, and three when firing to windward. The two ranks kept as close as possible to the barricade, to exploit what cover it gave, and fired together by successive platoons, from left or right as most appropriate. The three ranks fired one whole rank at a time, the other two reloading under the cover of the bulwark. The Marine Firing allowed soldiers to reload kneeling down and fire in their own time. This was astonishingly liberal in a period that usually reduced soldiers to mindless automata. Raw Marines might blaze away aimlessly, but experienced men could be trusted to take cover at random musket shot, standing up by platoons to fire in their turn: 'Every man having an object in view, Fires, without any Word of Command or waiting for the Rest, and kneels to load again'. The aim of all three Firings was to deliver a continual hail of musket balls to shake enemy morale. A detachment was not properly exercised until they could deliver four rounds a minute: 'for nothing can gall an Enemy so much as a constant Fire, which intimidates the common People, and often puts it out of an Officer's power to re-animate them.'
Detachments only fired a full volley when raking an opponent's bow or stern, to which the enemy could not reply, or when the enemy attempted to board, followed by a brisk bayonet charge to deny them time to gain a footing. Captain Robert Hughes recognised the value of foot soldiers in such circumstances, when ordered to recruit his ship's complement in 1709: 'I humbly pray there may be 40 Mareens ordered amongst them who are so serviceable in case of being boarded by an enemy.' Marines did not usually fix bayonets, 'very inconvenient in a Sea Engagement', but:
If the enemy, either by design or accident, fall on board His Majesty's ship, the officers will order their men to fix bayonets to repulse them, if they should attempt to board, or to cover or protect our boarding party if they should be obliged to retreat.'
On Marines under fire.
At Navarino, one of HMS Genoa's detachment had an arm shot off, which he coolly placed along the shelf-space above the gunport saying, 'There's an example to you all!' The Chaplain of HMS Venerable, flagship at Admiral Duncan's victory off Camperdown (1797), alternately acted 'as Sailor, Chaplain, and Surgeon's Assistant, when the battle might too truly be said to bleed in every vein':
A marine of the name of Covey was brought down to the surgery, deprived of both his legs; and it was necessary, some hours after, to amputate still higher. 'I suppose,' says Covey, 'those d---d scissors will finish the business of the bullet, mister Mate?' -- 'Indeed, my brave fellow', cried the Surgeon, 'there is some fear of it' -- 'Well never mind', cried Covey, 'I've lost my legs, to be sure, and mayhap may lose my life; but we beat the Dutch! D---n me, we have beat the Dutch! This blessed day my legs have been shot off, so I'll have another cheer for it -- huzza! huzza!'
Covey was credited with an awful reputation for swearing, though his language seems mild enough in the circumstances. He lived on until 1806 as cook in a ship in ordinary at Portsmouth Harbour, his last recorded words being 'Hallelujah! Hallelujah!'
On Marines at Trafalgar.
Trafalgar is the first major naval action where sufficient detailed accounts survive to provide more than a generalized impression of the part played in it by Marines. This reflects public interest in a battle that ended a century of French invasion scares, and also the expansion of the Corps. The shortage of genuine Marines at the Glorious First of June in 1794 was such that half the British ships carried detachments of line regiments. Cyril Field's only anecdote of the battle concerns a dead Marine's jacket, hoisted on a pike to replaced HMS Marlborough's colours. At Cape St Vincent it was a soldier of the 69th who smashed the San Nicolas' stern windows for Nelson's boarding party. By the time of Trafalgar, the Marine establishment had grown to 30,000, releasing line regiments for work ashore. A fourth Grand Division at Woolwich helped accommodate the additional numbers, which in 1807 peaked at 31,400. Some 2,600 Marines fought at Trafalgar, almost 10 per cent of the Corps.
Among them was Lewis Roteley of HMS Victory, who recorded his experiences in letters, a mutilated journal and notes for a speech. Sixteen-year-old Paul Nicholas, the future historian of the Corps, also saw action there, in HMS Belleisle (74), an inspiring ship for any historically conscious Marine. Roteley and Nicholas were in the thick of the fight, sailing in the first and second ships respectively of the weather and lee divisions of the British fleet, among the first to break through the Franco-Spanish line. Further down the lee division in HMS Revenge (74) was Private David Newton, who many years later summed up the outstanding features of the battle for his village Rector:
You see, sir, the enemy was drawn up in a kind of half-moon shape, two deep, and close together; so we went spank into them... and broke their line. But just as we had done so, and were getting into position, our tiller rope was shot away, and four ships at once set upon us, two taking us fore and aft. It was very hot work, Sir, while it lasted, and our second lieutenant Mr Little, came down between decks and ordered all the men to lie down flat on the decks. Fortunately the 'Billyruffian'... and another ship came to our aid, and it ended in two or three... of the Captains that had attacked us having to deliver up their swords on our deck to Captain Moresom.
Roteley was more precise: 'At 9 beat to Quarters and finished clearing for action at 10 beat to Retreat and all hands went to dinner Make signal to form the order of battle in two columns.' After making the famous signal 'England expects' at 10.30, Nelson hailed his second, HMS Temeraire (98), to emphasise his intention to pierce the enemy line between the ninth and tenth ships, telling her to keep more open order, 'you will drop astern and follow my motions.' The British ships came on slowly, exposed to end-on fire for thirty minutes, with no chance of replying:
Previous to breaking the Enemys line their fire was terrific the Victory was steering for the Four decker when four ships ahead and four astern together with the huge Leviathan brought all their broadsides to bear upon the Bows of the Victory, it was like a hail storm of shot passing over our heads.
Nicholas and Roteley were on their respective poop decks. 'Horrorstruck at the bloody corpses... the shrieks of the wounded and the moans of the dying,' Nicholas resisted the temptation to join everyone else, prone on the deck. He took comfort from his senior, Lieutenant J. Owen RM, who calmly paced the deck, 'an instance of how much depends on the example of those in command when exposed to the fire of the enemy.' Victory's Marines stood fast, 'no Man went down until knocked down... not a Man was hit below the waist'. Nelson, 'whose eye was every where', had seen nothing to surpass their steadiness in any of his previous battles, but they suffered accordingly: 'The Poop became a slaughter house and soon after the commencement the two senior Lieutenants of Marines and half the original forty were placed Hor de Combat.' Adair, Victory's Captain of Marines, sent Roteley below for reinforcements:
I need not inform a Seaman the difficulty of separating a Man from his Gun in the excitement of action the Marines had thrown off their Red Jackets and appeared in their check shirts and blue trowsers there was no distinguishing Marine from Seaman all were working like horses... we were engaging on both sides every gun was going off.... and as Roderick would say "Oh what a Row".'
Belleisle broke into rather than through the line of Allied ships:
It was just twelve o'clock when we reached their line. Our energies became roused, and the mind diverted from its appalling condition, by the order of 'Stand by your guns!' which as they successively came to bear were discharged into our opponents on either side... Although until that moment we had not fired a shot, our sails and rigging bore evident proofs of that manner in which we had been treated; our mizzenmast was shot away and the ensign had three times been rehoisted; numbers lay dead upon the decks, and eleven wounded were already in the surgeon's care.
Until supporting vessels came up, the leading British ships were out-numbered. Bellisle exchanged broadsides with Fougueux (74), losing mizzen and maintopmast, before becoming wedged between two more French ships: 'At half-past two our foremast was shot away close to the deck. In this unmanageable state we were but seldom capable of annoying our antagonists, while they had the power of choosing their distance, and every shot from them did considerable execution.' Bellisle's surviving Marines fought the quarterdeck guns until 8.30, when an unidentified ship loomed through the smoke,
which would either relieve us from our unwelcome neighbours or render our situation desperate. We had scarcely seen the British colours since one o'clock, and it is impossible to express our emotion as the alteration of the stranger's course displayed the white ensign.
When Roteley returned to the quarterdeck, with twenty-five Marines separated forcibly from their guns, he found the French Redoubtable (74) so close on the starboard quarter that the gun's muzzle flashes set both ships' timbers on fire. Sharpshooters in Redoubtable's swept Victory's deck with a deadly fire, reducing Adair's party to ten:
himself was wounded in the forehead by splinters yet still using his musket with effect - one of his last orders to me were Roteley fire away as fast as you can when a Ball struck him on the Back of the neck and he was a Corpse in a moment.
Nelson fell about the same time, the double loss exasperating Roteley's Marines: 'the first order I gave was to clear the mizzentop when every musket was levelled... and in five minutes not a man was left alive on it.' Beyond Redoubtable HMS Temeraire engaged another French ship to starboard, the four vessels rubbing sides as if in harbour:
it subsequently became a great nicety in directing the firing of the Musketry lest we should shoot our own friends over the deck of the Redoubtable I therefore directed the fire of the Marines to the main and foretops of that devoted ship - and but few of their Topmen escaped.
Redoubtable struck perhaps half an hour after Sergeant Secker with two other Marines had carried Nelson below. Victory now engaged the Spanish flagship, the Santissima Trinidad (140). Already hard pressed, she could not avoid the fire of Victory's larboard guns through her stern windows, and at 2.30 Roteley had 'the satisfaction of seeing the largest ship in the world haul down her colours'. More Allied ships surrendered about 3, allowing the smoke to clear a little:
never did I behold anything so awfully grand stragelling ships engaging ship to ship, one of the enemy ships on fire and expecting to see her ascend every moment a number of ships laying like hulks upon the surface of the water totally dismasted.
Shortly after Nelson's death at 4.30 the Allied van 'tacked and stood along our line to windward firing indiscriminately upon friend and foe', but they were soon driven off, 'leaving us compleat masters of the field and twenty sail of the line in our hands.'
In the head of action many humble deeds of heroism escaped attention. Isolated exceptions included a corporal in Victory who bound up the stump of his arm with Adair's sash to lead a boarding party, and the private Marine who lost his arm to a cannonball, but with the good soldier's aversion to leaving his weapon carried his firelock down to the surgeon's quarters in the cockpit. There was keen competition to avenge Nelson. Captain Hardy gave credit to Midshipman Pollard, but an officer in Euryalus (36) thought the mysterious marksman 'was immediately shot by a Corporal of Marines from the quarter-deck of Victory - a poor satisfaction'. A hilarious French bulletin claimed that Admiral Villeneuve, the French commander-in-chief, had personally shot Nelson, but admitted their man was also missing, after boarding HMS Victory, where a Marine guard of honour in full dress had presented arms as he came aboard a prisoner. Captain Atcherley RM had taken Villeneuve's surrender aboard Bucentaure (80), amidst carnage eclipsing that in Victory and Belleisle: the dead in heaps, mangled by repeated hits from raking shots, a single one of which had killed or disabled forty men. Lieutenant Owen of Belleisle found similar scenes in Argonauta (74), a confusion of wreckage and corpses across her deserted quarterdeck. Marines played a key role in securing the prizes. Atcherley had taken the magazine key and left just two sentries in Bucentaure as symbolic representatives of her captors. Many of the little prize parties must have perished in the storm that followed the battle. Among them was John Fernyhough, drowned in the surf, when El Rayo (100) was dismasted and lost in Cadiz Bay.
Those who escaped drowning found the battle's immediate aftermath an exhausting anti-climax. Victory 'had a very bad passage home with heavy Gales [in] a Leaky disabled Ship short of Water and Provisions', as most of the officers' stock had been thrown overboard before the action, and not replaced at Gibraltar, 'an uncommon dear place'. Roteley was 'not a little Proud of having had the Honour of Commanding the Marines on board Lord Nelson's ship the Junior Lieutenant', but honour was the only immediate reward for many. Captain Tummins' brevet majority was the only Marine promotion for Trafalgar, a miserable reward for a Corps which supplied an eighth of the manpower, but suffered a quarter of the casualties. Eighteen months after the battle Roteley found his Trafalgar prize money 'falls far short of my expectations'. He asked his father to invest it, 'that the money was too dearly earned to ever be spent. In the Navy there is little but Prize Money to be made when there is much fighting for it.' Noticed in his obituary as 'one of the last of the heroes of Trafalgar', Roteley gained his own majority as a mercenary in Venezuela. David Newton became an object of public charity, until a Marine General advised Newton's parish clergyman how to apply for a Greenwich Hospital pension of 1/6d a day.
On Marines and drill.
Marines' action stations were the forecastle and poop, from where they had the best field of fire. A decorated punchbowl made for Sir Charles Douglas, Rodney's flag captain at the Battle of the Saints, and now at the National Maritime Museum, clearly shows HMS Formidable's Marines drawn up in those positions. In 1776, HMS Enterprise, a 6th Rate Frigate, with 28 guns and 34 Marines, stationed 24 on the quarterdeck with the senior Lieutenant, Sergeant and drummer, and another 10 on the forecastle, with the Lieutenant and Corporal. At the First Battle of the Capes John Howe, 'was Stationed on the forecastle with twelve Privates 2 Corporal 1 Serjent and one Lieutenant of Marines... they were all killed and wounded except myself and too Privats and the Lieut.'
The immortal memory of Nelson's death by a sniper's shot tends to associate musketry at sea with individual marksmanship, but this impression is misleading. Eighteenth-century Marines were not trained to pick off enemy officers, and they rarely went aloft. Small-arms men in the tops were also there to repair the rigging, a task for seamen. The tactical purpose of Marines before Trafalgar was to clear enemy decks with well-directed blasts of musketry. The emphasis was on volleys and tight fire control:
see the Shot well rammed down; that the Men take a good Aim, level well, without trembling; direct their Fire where it is likely to do most Execution; pull the Triggers very strong, and look boldly into their Fire, without turning the Head; they must never be suffered to fire at random, or in a Hurry; for it is certain that the Discharge of one Rank, loaded methodically, and who take Aim, does more Execution than three Discharges of the same Number of Men, loading and firing at random.
Even against small targets, Marines operated in groups: 'a platoon of the best Marksmen should be picked out, and ordered to take Aim, and fire at the Port-Holes: Two or Three expert Men killed at a Gun may silence it for half an Hour.' At the critical moment of a frigate action (10 Aug 1805), 'one of the most brilliant and exemplary cases of the kind', Le Didon (40) ran on board HMS Phoenix's (36) starboard quarter. The only gun either of the two entangled ships could bring to bear was a brass 32-pounder on Didon's forecastle, but as fast as the French gunners tried to fire it, HMS Phoenix's Marines shot them down. Years later her Captain wrote to Lieutenant Pleydell, the surviving Marine officer:
'Never can I forget the service you were to me', he wrote, '...when the success of the battle (...) depended, a good deal, upon your example and conduct, and prevented that large piece of artillery on the forecastle of Didon from sweeping the whole of our deck.'
Marines learned three distinct ways of delivering fire: Parapet Firings to leeward or windward, and, for more advanced students, the Marine Firing. Sailing ships heel over before the wind, giving a clear view to leeward, but exposing their deck to fire, so it was safer to engage to windward, but more difficult, as the roll of the ship exaggerated the height of the bulwark, obstructing the musketeer. Different drill formations emerged: two ranks to fire to leeward, and three when firing to windward. The two ranks kept as close as possible to the barricade, to exploit what cover it gave, and fired together by successive platoons, from left or right as most appropriate. The three ranks fired one whole rank at a time, the other two reloading under the cover of the bulwark. The Marine Firing allowed soldiers to reload kneeling down and fire in their own time. This was astonishingly liberal in a period that usually reduced soldiers to mindless automata. Raw Marines might blaze away aimlessly, but experienced men could be trusted to take cover at random musket shot, standing up by platoons to fire in their turn: 'Every man having an object in view, Fires, without any Word of Command or waiting for the Rest, and kneels to load again'. The aim of all three Firings was to deliver a continual hail of musket balls to shake enemy morale. A detachment was not properly exercised until they could deliver four rounds a minute: 'for nothing can gall an Enemy so much as a constant Fire, which intimidates the common People, and often puts it out of an Officer's power to re-animate them.'
Detachments only fired a full volley when raking an opponent's bow or stern, to which the enemy could not reply, or when the enemy attempted to board, followed by a brisk bayonet charge to deny them time to gain a footing. Captain Robert Hughes recognised the value of foot soldiers in such circumstances, when ordered to recruit his ship's complement in 1709: 'I humbly pray there may be 40 Mareens ordered amongst them who are so serviceable in case of being boarded by an enemy.' Marines did not usually fix bayonets, 'very inconvenient in a Sea Engagement', but:
If the enemy, either by design or accident, fall on board His Majesty's ship, the officers will order their men to fix bayonets to repulse them, if they should attempt to board, or to cover or protect our boarding party if they should be obliged to retreat.'
On Marines under fire.
At Navarino, one of HMS Genoa's detachment had an arm shot off, which he coolly placed along the shelf-space above the gunport saying, 'There's an example to you all!' The Chaplain of HMS Venerable, flagship at Admiral Duncan's victory off Camperdown (1797), alternately acted 'as Sailor, Chaplain, and Surgeon's Assistant, when the battle might too truly be said to bleed in every vein':
A marine of the name of Covey was brought down to the surgery, deprived of both his legs; and it was necessary, some hours after, to amputate still higher. 'I suppose,' says Covey, 'those d---d scissors will finish the business of the bullet, mister Mate?' -- 'Indeed, my brave fellow', cried the Surgeon, 'there is some fear of it' -- 'Well never mind', cried Covey, 'I've lost my legs, to be sure, and mayhap may lose my life; but we beat the Dutch! D---n me, we have beat the Dutch! This blessed day my legs have been shot off, so I'll have another cheer for it -- huzza! huzza!'
Covey was credited with an awful reputation for swearing, though his language seems mild enough in the circumstances. He lived on until 1806 as cook in a ship in ordinary at Portsmouth Harbour, his last recorded words being 'Hallelujah! Hallelujah!'
On Marines at Trafalgar.
Trafalgar is the first major naval action where sufficient detailed accounts survive to provide more than a generalized impression of the part played in it by Marines. This reflects public interest in a battle that ended a century of French invasion scares, and also the expansion of the Corps. The shortage of genuine Marines at the Glorious First of June in 1794 was such that half the British ships carried detachments of line regiments. Cyril Field's only anecdote of the battle concerns a dead Marine's jacket, hoisted on a pike to replaced HMS Marlborough's colours. At Cape St Vincent it was a soldier of the 69th who smashed the San Nicolas' stern windows for Nelson's boarding party. By the time of Trafalgar, the Marine establishment had grown to 30,000, releasing line regiments for work ashore. A fourth Grand Division at Woolwich helped accommodate the additional numbers, which in 1807 peaked at 31,400. Some 2,600 Marines fought at Trafalgar, almost 10 per cent of the Corps.
Among them was Lewis Roteley of HMS Victory, who recorded his experiences in letters, a mutilated journal and notes for a speech. Sixteen-year-old Paul Nicholas, the future historian of the Corps, also saw action there, in HMS Belleisle (74), an inspiring ship for any historically conscious Marine. Roteley and Nicholas were in the thick of the fight, sailing in the first and second ships respectively of the weather and lee divisions of the British fleet, among the first to break through the Franco-Spanish line. Further down the lee division in HMS Revenge (74) was Private David Newton, who many years later summed up the outstanding features of the battle for his village Rector:
You see, sir, the enemy was drawn up in a kind of half-moon shape, two deep, and close together; so we went spank into them... and broke their line. But just as we had done so, and were getting into position, our tiller rope was shot away, and four ships at once set upon us, two taking us fore and aft. It was very hot work, Sir, while it lasted, and our second lieutenant Mr Little, came down between decks and ordered all the men to lie down flat on the decks. Fortunately the 'Billyruffian'... and another ship came to our aid, and it ended in two or three... of the Captains that had attacked us having to deliver up their swords on our deck to Captain Moresom.
Roteley was more precise: 'At 9 beat to Quarters and finished clearing for action at 10 beat to Retreat and all hands went to dinner Make signal to form the order of battle in two columns.' After making the famous signal 'England expects' at 10.30, Nelson hailed his second, HMS Temeraire (98), to emphasise his intention to pierce the enemy line between the ninth and tenth ships, telling her to keep more open order, 'you will drop astern and follow my motions.' The British ships came on slowly, exposed to end-on fire for thirty minutes, with no chance of replying:
Previous to breaking the Enemys line their fire was terrific the Victory was steering for the Four decker when four ships ahead and four astern together with the huge Leviathan brought all their broadsides to bear upon the Bows of the Victory, it was like a hail storm of shot passing over our heads.
Nicholas and Roteley were on their respective poop decks. 'Horrorstruck at the bloody corpses... the shrieks of the wounded and the moans of the dying,' Nicholas resisted the temptation to join everyone else, prone on the deck. He took comfort from his senior, Lieutenant J. Owen RM, who calmly paced the deck, 'an instance of how much depends on the example of those in command when exposed to the fire of the enemy.' Victory's Marines stood fast, 'no Man went down until knocked down... not a Man was hit below the waist'. Nelson, 'whose eye was every where', had seen nothing to surpass their steadiness in any of his previous battles, but they suffered accordingly: 'The Poop became a slaughter house and soon after the commencement the two senior Lieutenants of Marines and half the original forty were placed Hor de Combat.' Adair, Victory's Captain of Marines, sent Roteley below for reinforcements:
I need not inform a Seaman the difficulty of separating a Man from his Gun in the excitement of action the Marines had thrown off their Red Jackets and appeared in their check shirts and blue trowsers there was no distinguishing Marine from Seaman all were working like horses... we were engaging on both sides every gun was going off.... and as Roderick would say "Oh what a Row".'
Belleisle broke into rather than through the line of Allied ships:
It was just twelve o'clock when we reached their line. Our energies became roused, and the mind diverted from its appalling condition, by the order of 'Stand by your guns!' which as they successively came to bear were discharged into our opponents on either side... Although until that moment we had not fired a shot, our sails and rigging bore evident proofs of that manner in which we had been treated; our mizzenmast was shot away and the ensign had three times been rehoisted; numbers lay dead upon the decks, and eleven wounded were already in the surgeon's care.
Until supporting vessels came up, the leading British ships were out-numbered. Bellisle exchanged broadsides with Fougueux (74), losing mizzen and maintopmast, before becoming wedged between two more French ships: 'At half-past two our foremast was shot away close to the deck. In this unmanageable state we were but seldom capable of annoying our antagonists, while they had the power of choosing their distance, and every shot from them did considerable execution.' Bellisle's surviving Marines fought the quarterdeck guns until 8.30, when an unidentified ship loomed through the smoke,
which would either relieve us from our unwelcome neighbours or render our situation desperate. We had scarcely seen the British colours since one o'clock, and it is impossible to express our emotion as the alteration of the stranger's course displayed the white ensign.
When Roteley returned to the quarterdeck, with twenty-five Marines separated forcibly from their guns, he found the French Redoubtable (74) so close on the starboard quarter that the gun's muzzle flashes set both ships' timbers on fire. Sharpshooters in Redoubtable's swept Victory's deck with a deadly fire, reducing Adair's party to ten:
himself was wounded in the forehead by splinters yet still using his musket with effect - one of his last orders to me were Roteley fire away as fast as you can when a Ball struck him on the Back of the neck and he was a Corpse in a moment.
Nelson fell about the same time, the double loss exasperating Roteley's Marines: 'the first order I gave was to clear the mizzentop when every musket was levelled... and in five minutes not a man was left alive on it.' Beyond Redoubtable HMS Temeraire engaged another French ship to starboard, the four vessels rubbing sides as if in harbour:
it subsequently became a great nicety in directing the firing of the Musketry lest we should shoot our own friends over the deck of the Redoubtable I therefore directed the fire of the Marines to the main and foretops of that devoted ship - and but few of their Topmen escaped.
Redoubtable struck perhaps half an hour after Sergeant Secker with two other Marines had carried Nelson below. Victory now engaged the Spanish flagship, the Santissima Trinidad (140). Already hard pressed, she could not avoid the fire of Victory's larboard guns through her stern windows, and at 2.30 Roteley had 'the satisfaction of seeing the largest ship in the world haul down her colours'. More Allied ships surrendered about 3, allowing the smoke to clear a little:
never did I behold anything so awfully grand stragelling ships engaging ship to ship, one of the enemy ships on fire and expecting to see her ascend every moment a number of ships laying like hulks upon the surface of the water totally dismasted.
Shortly after Nelson's death at 4.30 the Allied van 'tacked and stood along our line to windward firing indiscriminately upon friend and foe', but they were soon driven off, 'leaving us compleat masters of the field and twenty sail of the line in our hands.'
In the head of action many humble deeds of heroism escaped attention. Isolated exceptions included a corporal in Victory who bound up the stump of his arm with Adair's sash to lead a boarding party, and the private Marine who lost his arm to a cannonball, but with the good soldier's aversion to leaving his weapon carried his firelock down to the surgeon's quarters in the cockpit. There was keen competition to avenge Nelson. Captain Hardy gave credit to Midshipman Pollard, but an officer in Euryalus (36) thought the mysterious marksman 'was immediately shot by a Corporal of Marines from the quarter-deck of Victory - a poor satisfaction'. A hilarious French bulletin claimed that Admiral Villeneuve, the French commander-in-chief, had personally shot Nelson, but admitted their man was also missing, after boarding HMS Victory, where a Marine guard of honour in full dress had presented arms as he came aboard a prisoner. Captain Atcherley RM had taken Villeneuve's surrender aboard Bucentaure (80), amidst carnage eclipsing that in Victory and Belleisle: the dead in heaps, mangled by repeated hits from raking shots, a single one of which had killed or disabled forty men. Lieutenant Owen of Belleisle found similar scenes in Argonauta (74), a confusion of wreckage and corpses across her deserted quarterdeck. Marines played a key role in securing the prizes. Atcherley had taken the magazine key and left just two sentries in Bucentaure as symbolic representatives of her captors. Many of the little prize parties must have perished in the storm that followed the battle. Among them was John Fernyhough, drowned in the surf, when El Rayo (100) was dismasted and lost in Cadiz Bay.
Those who escaped drowning found the battle's immediate aftermath an exhausting anti-climax. Victory 'had a very bad passage home with heavy Gales [in] a Leaky disabled Ship short of Water and Provisions', as most of the officers' stock had been thrown overboard before the action, and not replaced at Gibraltar, 'an uncommon dear place'. Roteley was 'not a little Proud of having had the Honour of Commanding the Marines on board Lord Nelson's ship the Junior Lieutenant', but honour was the only immediate reward for many. Captain Tummins' brevet majority was the only Marine promotion for Trafalgar, a miserable reward for a Corps which supplied an eighth of the manpower, but suffered a quarter of the casualties. Eighteen months after the battle Roteley found his Trafalgar prize money 'falls far short of my expectations'. He asked his father to invest it, 'that the money was too dearly earned to ever be spent. In the Navy there is little but Prize Money to be made when there is much fighting for it.' Noticed in his obituary as 'one of the last of the heroes of Trafalgar', Roteley gained his own majority as a mercenary in Venezuela. David Newton became an object of public charity, until a Marine General advised Newton's parish clergyman how to apply for a Greenwich Hospital pension of 1/6d a day.