The day after Pasley was rowed ashore some men arrived from the dockyard to examine the extent of the damage to the Bellerophon's hull, masts and rigging, but there were so many demands on the dockyard's facilities that five weeks were to pass before she was hauled alongside the sheer hulk in the dockyard for repairs to be carried out. Meanwhile the celebrations over Lord Howe's victory continued unabated and came to a climax with a review of the fleet by the King. This was a surprisingly rare event. Charles II and his brother James, Duke of York, had both taken a keen interest in the navy back in the 1660s and Pepys's diary records their various visits to the fleet. Since then, British monarchs had preferred to follow the fortunes of the navy from a distance. However King George III was a warm admirer of Lord Howe. The moment he heard the news of the 1 June victory he wrote to Howe's wife, telling her that 'nothing can give me more satisfaction than that it has been obtained by the skill and bravery of Earl Howe,' and he was determined to pay his respects to Howe, his officers and men in person.
The King and the rest of the royal family arrived at Portsmouth on Friday 27 June. At noon they were rowed out to the anchored fleet in Howe's barge, the red and gold colours of the royal standard flying from a flag staff at the stern. A procession of barges followed in their wake, carrying the Lords of the Admiralty and all the admirals and captains of the Channel fleet. Once again the deafening boom of guns echoed across the waters of the Solent as all the forts and all the anchored warships fired a royal salute. On the deck of the Royal Charlotte the King presented Howe with a magnificent sword set with diamonds. It was characteristic of Howe that he should later arrange for the sword to be shown to all the sailors on every ship in the fleet, together with a message to be read out from their commander-in-chief to the effect that the sword was proof of the King's admiration for all their exertions. The sailors were delighted by this gesture and Howe's message was greeted with three cheers from every ship.
The royal celebrations continued for the next four days and the festive atmosphere was greatly helped by a spell of fine and sunny weather. The King held a levee in the Commissioner's House to which all the naval officers were invited and he officiated at the launch of a first-rate ship in the dockyard. He and his family attended Sunday morning service in the dockyard church, and then boarded the frigate Aquilon and sailed across to Cowes and back. The following day they sailed from Portsmouth to Southampton, where they boarded their carriage and headed back to London.
One of the highlights of the King's visit was his inspection of the French prizes which were then anchored off the harbour entrance at Spithead but were later towed into the dockyard to be surveyed and then repaired for service in the British Navy. They attracted a lot of local attention and were painted and drawn by several marine artists who showed their decks crowded by sightseers, and the union flag flying above the French tricolour at the stern. Four of the ships were 74s and two of them were 80-gun ships. Although dismasted and mauled by gunshot, they were still an impressive sight and no doubt helped to underline the importance of Howe's victory in British eyes. And yet the French never regarded the First of June as a defeat because they had succeeded in their primary aim of safeguarding the vast grain convoy. Reporting to the Committee of Public Safety in Paris on 16 June, Barere presented the battle as a heroic victory by the sailors of the Republic over a superior British force. An ear of corn was produced as a symbol of the good news.
'The convoy of one hundred and sixteen vessels coming from America, has entered our ports,' announced Barere, 'and brings us subsistence of all kinds.' He told them that the English had united all their forces to capture the rich convoy but they had been foiled by the French fleet who had fought a battle which had been one of the most glorious and bloody that ever occurred. This was indeed the case, but he then indulged in some shameless propaganda, claiming that the French fleet was fourteen ships inferior in number to the British, that one of the British three-deckers had been sunk and that the British had been obliged to abandon to the French the scene of the action. 'Let Pitt then boast of this victory to his nation of shopkeepers,' he concluded to loud applause.
The Bellerophon spent the rest of the summer of 1794 in the vicinity of Portsmouth, recovering from her recent ordeal. She was hauled alongside one of the sheer hulks and a gang of workmen from the dockyard lifted out her damaged masts, replaced them with new masts, and set up the rigging. She was heeled over and had the weed scraped and scrubbed from her copper bottom. Rafts of heavy timbers were floated alongside her and secured with lines. These were used as working platforms by teams of caulkers who hammered oakum into the seams between her planks and then filled the seams with hot tar. The caulkers were followed by painters who used the rafts to slap paint on the ship's sides. Heavy working boats came alongside loaded with barrels of beef and ship's biscuit which were swung aboard using the blocks and tackles on the ship's yard-arms. The same system was used to lift aboard the barrels of gunpowder brought across from the powder store at Priddy's Hard.
At the end of August she left the sheltered waters of the harbour and sailed across the Solent to the anchorage at St Helen's. The sailors, most of whom had not been allowed shore leave in case they should desert the ship, became increasingly restive. Captain Hope decided to make an example of the worst offenders. On Saturday 23 August he assembled the crew on deck and ordered James Aldridge to be flogged with twenty-four lashes for disobedience and David Pugh with forty-eight lashes for drunkenness. Ten days later they put to sea and sailed to Torbay with a fleet of thirty ships of the line. From there they sailed down the Channel and once again resumed the task of patrolling the seas between Ushant and the Scilly Isles, keeping a lookout for French ships. This continued until the end of November when she returned to Spithead. On 1 December Captain Hope handed over command of the Bellerophon to another captain. He had been presented with a gold medal for his part in the Battle of the Glorious First of June and he continued to enjoy a distinguished career in the navy. He was knighted in 1815, was a Vice-Admiral by 1819 and the following year became a Lord of the Admiralty. Three of his four sons followed him into the navy.
SEVEN
Lord Cranstoun and Billy Blue
1794-7
The new captain of the Bellerophon was a Scottish aristocrat who had the most glittering background of all the men who would command the ship during her eventful life. The Right Honourable James, the eighth Baron Cranstoun, was a descendant of the Lord of Teviotdale, and was born at the family seat at Crailing on the Scottish Borders. He entered the navy at an early age, was a lieutenant by 1776, and was in command of a frigate on the West Indies station during the American War of Independence. He was present at the battle of St Kitts in 1782 and three months later he was Admiral Rodney's flag captain at the Battle of the Saints. He boarded the French flagship Ville de Paris after her surrender and received the sword of the Comte de Grass on behalf of Rodney.
Lord Cranstoun was now aged thirty-nine, and recently married. His previous ship was the 64-gun Raisonable. On learning of his new command, he arranged for the clerk, the master's mates, the midshipmen and thirty seamen from that ship to be transferred to the Bellerophon. As he explained in his letter to the Admiralty, 'I brought them into the Service and they would prefer sailing with me without any rating to going with any other.' This was a common practice and helps to account for the strong bond of loyalty which often existed between captains and their crews. However in this instance it did nothing to improve the morale of the rest of the ship's company which began to deteriorate following the departure of Admiral Pasley and Captain Hope. Whether this was the fault of Lord Cranstoun or was a symptom of the general discontent with pay and conditions which was to lead to the notorious fleet mutinies of 1797 is hard to determine from the surviving documents.