Again, on the 26th, he went ashore, returning with a French Navy officer, Captain d'lmbert of the seventy-four-gun Apollon, and the agreement was ratified. Toulon was theirs!
So now Cockerel was inside the Bay of Toulon, slowly heaving her way under a tops'l breeze from the south, beam-reaching towards the inner roads, just north of the peninsula which formed Cape Sepet, the southern guard of the great port, where before they would not have dared.
It helped that the revolutionary government in Paris had just proscribed Var and Provence, warning that troops and guillotines were coming if they did not immediately submit to the Republic.
The situation was what some might call interesting, to say the least. While a fair majority of Toulon was Royalist, declared for some prince now called Louis XVII, there was a moderately sized minority of Republicans, mostly the poor or the bitter, dead set against the aristocracy, the large landowners, and the merchant class. With opportunists on either hand, it went without saying. Yet the French Mediterranean Fleet held only a minority of Royalists, and a majority of Republicans. Rear-Admiral St. Mien, second-in-command, had seized forts facing the inner, Little Road of Toulon, with the crews of seven line-of-battle ships, about 5,000 men, disobeying orders of the staunchly royalist Rear Admiral, Comte de Trogoff, who actually commanded the port.
Early on the 27th, a force of 1,500 men, the greatest portion of two regiments embarked with Hood's fleet, reinforced by about 200 Marines and seamen, under the overall command of Captain George Keith Elphinstone of H.M.S. Robust, had landed at Fort La Malgue, on the right side of the spit of land that divided the Little and the Great Roads, high enough to overlook and dominate St. Julien's much-lower-set forts.
Elphinstone had sent a demand for St. Mien to surrender, and had warned that any vessel which did not enter Toulon 's inner basin, land its powder and send its crew ashore, would be taken under fire.
That was enough for St. Mien. His honour had been satisfied, by token resistance, so he had decamped. And now, Admiral Hood could sail in. Without a shot being fired, without a single casualty, they were in total possession of a French city, an entire French fleet, and a naval base with all its arsenals, powder mills and stocks, foundries for cannon and anchors, and immense quantities of naval stores.
"Hard to think of us taking all this, even were we fifty sail," Mister Dimmock spoke up, nodding to the Marine captain. "First, weather Cape Sepet, as we've done. And it's simply stiff with guns. There, young sirs-" he pointed out to the midshipmen with a ferrule in his hand, as they gathered about for a lesson-"near the end of the peninsula, on the highest hill of Cape Sepet, that's… what, Mister Spendlove?"
"C… Croix des Signaux, sir."
"Aye, the signals cross. That's fairly new. Semaphore tower." Dimmock beamed his approval. "The old one, the Great Tower, is further inside the harbour, near Fort La Malgue. Now, below Croix des Signaux, there's Batterie la Croix, north shore of the peninsula. Then west of that, there's Batterie des Freres… 'The Brothers'… go farther west and you come in range of Fort Mandrier, which commands the south side of the Great Road, next to the Infirmarie… sort o' like our Greenwich Naval Hospital back home, 'cross an inlet from Fort Mandrier, just at the thinnest shank of the peninsula, facin' the Golfe de la Veche. Mister Dulwer, would you anchor in the Bay of Toulon, sir?"
"Uhm… perhaps not, sir? Not all the time?"
"Don't sound too definite, will ye now, Mister Dulwer?" the sailing master sighed. "No, ye'd not. Too deep for the proper scope on cables, e'en do you weight 'em with gun barrels, and a rocky bottom. Levanter comes up, it throws a heavy sea from the east'rd, crost all that open water from Plage de la Garonne. Plage means beach, right, lads? Right. Now, between Batteries Croix and Freres, it's no more'n one sea mile to Cape Bran, on the north shore of the mainland. Batteries there, too… with forty-two-pounders. North tip o' Cape Sepet and Cape Brun squeeze in to mark the entrance to the Great Road. You have a little more shelter in the Great Road. It's still foul holding ground, but shallower'n the bay. West of Cape Bran, there're batteries on a high cliff, on this spit of land… here," he said, indicating the chart. "Can't rightly see it from the quarterdeck… all our fleet in the way, ha ha!"
The midshipmen made sure to sound appreciative of Dim-mock's jape.
"Then to the west of those batteries is Fort La Malgue, which we took this morning, on another steep headland. Little water-fort guards the foot of it, Fort St. Louis. West o' La Malgue, there's this peninsula… long, narrow, and steep, almost vertical cliffs. Great Tower on its tip, where it juts southerly, and pinches off the Great Road from the Little Road. Guns a'plenty there, too, mind. This narrow pass, not half a sea mile, from the Great Road to the Little. Le Goulet, Frogs call it… that's the Gullet, in real language. Across the Gullet is where the Frogs tried to make a stand this morning, northern side of the Golfe de la Veche, on Hauteur de Grasse. Big, round hilly thing just on our bows if ye care to look. Two little spurs on its tip. Southern has Fort de Balaguer… the northern Fort L'Eguillette. Lower than La Malgue, so we could've shot howitzers or mortars into them. So that's why the Frogs took French leave, ha ha!"
Another wave of laughter swept the quarterdeck, more sincere this time, over Mister Dimmock's pun, including the officers and seamen.
"The Little Road. Would you anchor there, Mister Dulwer?"
"Aye, sir," Dulwer shot back quickly.
"Aye, ye would," Dimmock agreed. "Very sheltered, fairly shallow. On the small side, though. Get out of the shallows along the shore and you don't have much room to swing. Maybe three or four ships may lie in the Little Road. Sou'west end, that's La Seyne… civilian harbour, so they take most of the available space. More batteries, unfortunately. Coverin' La Seyne is Fort Crayon. A very low shore battery in an inlet north of there is Dubrun. Then another, on the north side of the Little Road, that's Le Millaud. Powder mills there, too, I recall. Atop them all, west of town, above these marshes, is Fort Mal-bousquet, then Fort Missicy, at the foot of this other hill, below Malbousquet."
"So… where do they really keep their ships, Mister Dim-mock?" Spendlove asked, squirming with either boredom or confusion.
"Do you get past all this, into the Little Road, sir, you come about, hard t'starb'd and sail north. Through the pass in the channel booms… log and chain, stout as anything… and there's the Basin of Toulon. They can cram up to thirty sail of the line in there t'gether, bows or stern-to the quays, as most do in the Mediterranean. Fenders betwixt, so they won't chafe their gunn'ls off. Walk all day in shade along the quay, below their bowsprits… Not a stone's throw from warehouses and such. But…" Dimmock warned with a theatrical pause, "… to get into the basin, there's one damn-all tough nut still to crack, young sirs. There's the jetties, the breakwaters that make the basin. They're built so low to the water, it'd be like hitting a piece of driftwood. Laid out in a fleur d'eau… the very worst sort of coastal fort. They're hollow and bombproof, and stiff with guns. Entrance channel isn't a musket-shot wide, with forty-two-pounders to either beam. And the town's like an old king's castle. City walls are like a fort, with moats and drawbridges and gates… part of it they call Fort de France. And above it all… look up yonder, behind the town, sirs. Eighteen hundred feet high, that chain of hills are. A ravine on the nor'west… Gorge St. Antoine, and another narrow valley north. Steep, crumbly stuff. There's forts all over up yonder… with ovens for heating shot, high 'nough for accurate plungin' fire."