A Famous Fight Between an English and a French Frigate

By Rev. W. H. Fitchett, LL. D.

One of the most famous frigate fights in British history is that
between the _Arethusa_ and _La Belle Poule_, fought off Brest
on June 17, 1778. Who is not familiar with the name and fame of
"the saucy _Arethusa_"? Yet there is a curious absence of detail
as to the fight. The combat, indeed, owes its enduring fame to two
somewhat irrelevant circumstances--first, that it was fought when
France and England were not actually at war, but were trembling on
the verge of it. The sound of the _Arethusa's_ guns, indeed, was
the signal of war between the two nations. The other fact is that
an ingenious rhymester--scarcely a poet--crystallised the fight into
a set of verses in which there is something of the true smack of the
sea, and an echo, if not of the cannon's roar, yet of the rough-voiced
mirth of the forecastle; and the sea-fight lies embalmed, so
to speak, and made immortal in the sea-song. The _Arethusa_ was a
stumpy little frigate, scanty in crew, light in guns, attached to
the fleet of Admiral Keppel, then cruising off Brest. Keppel had as
perplexed and delicate a charge as was ever entrusted to a British
admiral. Great Britain was at war with her American colonies, and
there was every sign that France intended to add herself to the
fight. No fewer than thirty-two sail of the line and twelve frigates
were gathered in Brest roads, and another fleet of almost equal
strength in Toulon. Spain, too, was slowly collecting a mighty
armament. What would happen to England if the Toulon and Brest
fleets united, were joined by a third fleet from Spain, and the
mighty array of ships thus collected swept up the British Channel?
On June 13, 1778, Keppel, with twenty-one ships of the line and
three frigates, was despatched to keep watch over the Brest fleet,
War had not been proclaimed, but Keppel was to prevent a junction
of the Brest and Toulon fleets, by persuasion if he could, but by
gunpowder in the last resort.

Keppel's force was much inferior to that of the Brest fleet, and
as soon as the topsails of the British ships were visible from
the French coast, two French frigates, the _Licorne_ and _La Belle
Poule_, with two lighter craft, bore down upon them to reconnoitre.
But Keppel could not afford to let the French admiral know his
exact force, and signalled to his own outlying ships to bring the
French frigates under his lee.

At nine o'clock at night the _Licorne_ was overtaken by the _Milford_,
and with some rough sailorly persuasion, and a hint of broadsides,
her head was turned towards the British fleet. The next morning,
in the grey dawn, the Frenchman, having meditated on affairs during
the night, made a wild dash for freedom. The _America_, an English
64--double, that is, the _Licorne's_ size--overtook her, and fired
a shot across her bow to bring her to, Longford, the captain of
the _America_, stood on the gunwale of his own ship politely urging
the captain of the _Licorne_ to return with him. With a burst of
Celtic passion the French captain fired his whole broadside into
the big Englishman, and then instantly hauled down his flag so as
to escape any answering broadside!

Meanwhile the _Arethusa_ was in eager pursuit of the _Belle Poule_;
a fox-terrier chasing a mastiff! The _Belle Poule_ was a splendid
ship, with heavy metal, and a crew more than twice as numerous
as that of the tiny _Arethusa_. But Marshall, its captain, was a
singularly gallant sailor, and not the man to count odds. The song
tells the story of the fight in an amusing fashion:--



"Come all ye jolly sailors
Whose hearts are cast in honour's mould,
While England's glory I unfold.
Huzza to the _Arethusa_!
She is a frigate tight and brave
As ever stemmed the dashing wave;
Her men are staunch
To their fav'rite launch,
And when the foe shall meet our fire,
Sooner than strike we'll all expire
On board the _Arethusa_.

"On deck five hundred men did dance,
The stoutest they could find in France;
We, with two hundred, did advance
On board the _Arethusa_.
Our captain hailed the Frenchman, 'Ho!'
The Frenchman then cried out, 'Hallo!'
'Bear down, d'ye see,
To our Admiral's lee.'
'No, no,' says the Frenchman, 'that can't be.'
'Then I must lug you along with me,'
Says the saucy _Arethusa_!"



As a matter of fact Marshall hung doggedly on the Frenchman's quarter
for two long hours, fighting a ship twice as big as his own. The
_Belle Poule_ was eager to escape; Marshall was resolute that it
should not escape, and, try as he might, the Frenchman, during that
fierce two hours' wrestle, failed to shake off his tiny but dogged
antagonist. The _Arethusa's_ masts were shot away, its jib-boom
hung a tangled wreck over its bows, its bulwarks were shattered,
half its guns were dismounted, and nearly every third man in its
crew struck down. But still it hung, with quenchless and obstinate
courage, on the _Belle Poule's_ quarter, and by its perfect seamanship
and the quickness and the deadly precision with which its lighter
guns worked, reduced its towering foe to a condition of wreck almost
as complete as its own. The terrier, in fact, was proving too much
for the mastiff.

Suddenly the wind fell. With topmasts hanging over the side, and
canvas torn to ribbons, the _Arethusa_ lay shattered and moveless
on the sea. The shot-torn but loftier sails of the _Belle Poule_,
however, yet held wind enough to drift her out of the reach of the
_Arethusa's_ fire. Both ships were close under the French cliffs;
but the _Belle Poule_, like a broken-winged bird, struggled into
a tiny cove in the rocks, and nothing remained for the _Arethusa_
but to cut away her wreckage, hoist what sail she could, and drag
herself sullenly back under jury-masts to the British fleet. But
the story of that two hours' heroic fight maintained against such
odds sent a thrill of grim exultation through Great Britain. Menaced
by the combination of so many mighty states, while her sea-dogs were
of this fighting temper, what had Great Britain to fear? In the
streets of many a British seaport, and in many a British forecastle,
the story of how the _Arethusa_ fought was sung in deep-throated
chorus:



"The fight was off the Frenchman's land;
We forced them back upon their strand;
For we fought till not a stick would stand
Of the gallant _Arethuml!_"