Foreword
When I was a child, my father fed me a steady stream of sea stories. He was a former naval Officer in the Russian Imperial Navy and so had been his father and his brother. I was literally brought up on a diet of sea lore.
Between the two world wars, there was a lot of books, articles published, recounting the naval actions that took place between the various navies involved in the first war and they all found their way to our home.
I learned to live with anything to do with the sea and the various navies of the world and I promised myself that one day I too would become a sailor.
The epics of the German raider EMDEN of her sister ship KOENIGSBERG in the Indian Ocean, the sinking of the Russian cruiser PEARL, commanded by a relative of ours in Penang in the eastern end of the Indian Ocean, were stories that fascinated me and I always wanted to be a part of it.
At school together with a class friend, we decided to publish a small magazine. We were 12 years old. My section was to handle stories in a serial format. Each week or month, whenever we published our sheet, I would come with some epics of pirates in the West Indies. It seems that I shall continue in the same spirit in this novel. The paper died after 4-5 issues. It was fun though while it lasted.
During the Second World War, living in France occupied by the German army, I could not fulfill my wish to be admitted to the Naval Academy, since it was a military Institution, so I decided to join the French Merchant Navy as the best substitute for a career at sea.
Part of the second year curriculum was French Naval History. Some parts were rather boring and one sea campaign was very much the same as the other, but one period stood out and I became fascinated by the personality of the man who dominated that period: Admiral Count Bailli de SUFFREN.
By all accounts he probably was the best and most daring naval commander of the whole French Naval history and he has been best known for action at first in American waters during the American War of independence against the British Navy commanded by Admiral Cornwallis and later from 1780 onwards in the Indian Ocean, fighting the British Navy and helping the French troops and allies in India against the British conquest of the southern part of India.
The life of this man captivated my imagination and I read everything I could about him.
By a remarkable coincidence, when I sat for my second year exams for my officer foreign trade diploma, the history question was “Suffren campaign in India”. I could not believe my eyes and I had to read the text of the question over and over again to make sure I had it right. The test was lasting three hours and for the whole duration of the test I wrote and wrote and told everything I knew about, shall I say, my hero. I probably wrote some 15-16 pages of closely spaced wording and left the examination room quite confident that this, if nothing else, would see me through.
When the results came through, I was called aside by the head of the school and asked how it was possible to write such an essay on Suffren. I had obtained the best marks in France and had scored the maximum, far ahead of all the other aspiring officers.
I was asked if I had the opportunity of cribbing in a secret way and I could honestly answer that I had not and that it happened to be my favourite subject in naval history.
In my latter years and many decades after the memorable examination day that I have related earlier, I have set out on a new journey, the writing of this novel, which will have as a background the campaign of Suffren in India.
The story will be that of a young naval officer, who rapidly rose from being the third highest officer of a ship of the line to become the commander of a small flotilla, which sailed around the Indian Ocean from Isle de France to Ceylon and to Aceh in Sumatra in the search and destruction of enemy ships of the Bombay Marine in support of Suffren’s campaign in India.
In this novel, I have generally followed Suffren’s campaign in India, but for the convenience of the story, it has centered on the adventures of the main protagonist and some liberties have been taken with the historical and chronological events.
When I was a child, my father fed me a steady stream of sea stories. He was a former naval Officer in the Russian Imperial Navy and so had been his father and his brother. I was literally brought up on a diet of sea lore.
Between the two world wars, there was a lot of books, articles published, recounting the naval actions that took place between the various navies involved in the first war and they all found their way to our home.
I learned to live with anything to do with the sea and the various navies of the world and I promised myself that one day I too would become a sailor.
The epics of the German raider EMDEN of her sister ship KOENIGSBERG in the Indian Ocean, the sinking of the Russian cruiser PEARL, commanded by a relative of ours in Penang in the eastern end of the Indian Ocean, were stories that fascinated me and I always wanted to be a part of it.
At school together with a class friend, we decided to publish a small magazine. We were 12 years old. My section was to handle stories in a serial format. Each week or month, whenever we published our sheet, I would come with some epics of pirates in the West Indies. It seems that I shall continue in the same spirit in this novel. The paper died after 4-5 issues. It was fun though while it lasted.
During the Second World War, living in France occupied by the German army, I could not fulfill my wish to be admitted to the Naval Academy, since it was a military Institution, so I decided to join the French Merchant Navy as the best substitute for a career at sea.
Part of the second year curriculum was French Naval History. Some parts were rather boring and one sea campaign was very much the same as the other, but one period stood out and I became fascinated by the personality of the man who dominated that period: Admiral Count Bailli de SUFFREN.
By all accounts he probably was the best and most daring naval commander of the whole French Naval history and he has been best known for action at first in American waters during the American War of independence against the British Navy commanded by Admiral Cornwallis and later from 1780 onwards in the Indian Ocean, fighting the British Navy and helping the French troops and allies in India against the British conquest of the southern part of India.
The life of this man captivated my imagination and I read everything I could about him.
By a remarkable coincidence, when I sat for my second year exams for my officer foreign trade diploma, the history question was “Suffren campaign in India”. I could not believe my eyes and I had to read the text of the question over and over again to make sure I had it right. The test was lasting three hours and for the whole duration of the test I wrote and wrote and told everything I knew about, shall I say, my hero. I probably wrote some 15-16 pages of closely spaced wording and left the examination room quite confident that this, if nothing else, would see me through.
When the results came through, I was called aside by the head of the school and asked how it was possible to write such an essay on Suffren. I had obtained the best marks in France and had scored the maximum, far ahead of all the other aspiring officers.
I was asked if I had the opportunity of cribbing in a secret way and I could honestly answer that I had not and that it happened to be my favourite subject in naval history.
In my latter years and many decades after the memorable examination day that I have related earlier, I have set out on a new journey, the writing of this novel, which will have as a background the campaign of Suffren in India.
The story will be that of a young naval officer, who rapidly rose from being the third highest officer of a ship of the line to become the commander of a small flotilla, which sailed around the Indian Ocean from Isle de France to Ceylon and to Aceh in Sumatra in the search and destruction of enemy ships of the Bombay Marine in support of Suffren’s campaign in India.
In this novel, I have generally followed Suffren’s campaign in India, but for the convenience of the story, it has centered on the adventures of the main protagonist and some liberties have been taken with the historical and chronological events.
Chapter 1
Lieutenant Yves de Kergouat was riding post haste towards Lorient in South West Brittany. His home was in the Rhuys peninsula some 50 miles from Lorient. He had left the family manor early that morning after bidding good bye to his parents and his brothers and sisters. The night before he visited Jocelyn de la Marzelle, the young lady to whom he was engaged. The ‘good-bye’s’ had been painful and the poor lady was crying her heart out, knowing that it would be a long time before she saw her betrothed again, but King’s duty took precedence on everything else.
De Kergouat was hoping to reach the naval base of Lorient by the following evening. The chaise-poste rode thought Vannes where horses were changed then through Auray finally on to Hennebont and finally the naval base of Port Louis near Lorient.
He had been summoned by the chief of staff of the Admiralty in Paris to reach Lorient to take his function as lieutenant aboard the 74 gun ship of the line “Annibal”.
Paris was sending reinforcement to India to assist the revolt of Hyder Ali against the British, reinforcements in men and in supplies. For that purpose a convoy was assembled in all the French Atlantic ports, Brest, Lorient, Rochefort, which had to be escorted first to the Cape of Good Hope to assist the Dutch Allies and further to Isle de France and the Coromandel Coast of India. The Convoy was to assemble in La Corunna in Spain awaiting the arrival of the escort fleet of Count de Suffren who was sailing from the East Coast of the newly proclaimed United States of America.
The “Annibal” was to provide protection to the merchantmen sailing from Lorient assisted by two frigates and one corvette.
At the end of January 1781, the convoy leaving Lorient had finally assembled, all the supplies and men had been loaded on the merchant vessels, the King’s ships were all ready and awaiting the arrival of the Commodore who was to command the squadron.
Finally the commodore arrived and the squadron was now waiting for some favourable weather conditions to be able to sail away and free itself from the dangers of the Brittany coast.
The past week the wind had been blowing south westerly very hard reaching sometimes gale force and it was very difficult for the squadron to leave port sailing against the weather. The Commodore was waiting for a shift either to the North enabling the armada to sail free from land without running the risk of being blown against all the reefs and rocky shores along the coast surrounding Lorient. Finally early in February the wind veered first to the West and then to North West and the sailing signal was hoisted on the “Annibal” and all the ships anchored on the roads outside Lorient began their lumbering sailing on a close hauled starboard tack towards the open sea. At first they all sailed to the North of the Isle of Groix and then eased all sheets and began their run towards the Spanish coast across the Gulf of Biscay.
The commodore ordered the merchantmen to stay in line so as to enable the escort ships to sail along the line to protect them against any attack from windward: an attack from leeward was less likely since it would take a long time for an enemy ship to come within shooting distance of the squadron. Keeping the merchant vessels in line was a hard task, each ship having its own sailing qualities and shortcomings, some of the ships had good crews other had poor ones and to keep the line meant for the merchant masters to keep a constant attention to his neighbors up and own the line, to watch his sails, to shorten them if sailing too fast and overtaking the line: all of this convoy sailing being totally alien to the merchant masters accustomed to sail alone. A few collisions occurred, fortunately causing little damage, a flying bowsprit broken or some torn sails being the sum total of the events.
The two frigates and the corvette were running up and down the line instructing the merchantmen to speed up of to slow down. It took the best part of two days to get everybody more or less in a cohesive formation.
Captain de Tremignon was an able commander and the command of the ANNIBAL had been the culminating point of a long career at sea. He ran his ship with a very firm hand never allowing the crew to get out of hand and ensuring that all acts of insubordination or of derelict of discipline were handled justly and in a humane manner. Navies in the 18th century were not what one would call holiday resorts and the discipline was harsh often entailing some brutal and cruel punishment. De Tremignon was always reluctant in meting extreme punishment.
On account of his attitude towards the crew, he was well respected if not necessarily liked. Captains of men of wars had to stand aloof and detached from the officers and men they commanded, largely because of their position being “master after God”, having the right of life or death over everyone aboard their ship and partly because distancing themselves from the rest of the crew gave them an added aura as a holder of superior knowledge, power and possessors of secrets.
De Tremignon was assisted by captain of frigate Morard de Galles aged 35, also an able seaman, who had recently been transferred from a 40 gun frigate to take the position of second in command.
Yves de Kergouat, although having completed the same examinations as de Galles and technically having the same rank, but much younger, he was 30, was the second highest ranking officer after the captain. His appointment to the Hannibal was unusual, being so young, he would have normally been assigned to a much smaller ship like a corvette or a light frigate as a second officer, but the shortage of qualified and able officers in the King’s Navy had the effect of faster promotion for all officers. This sometimes resulted in incompetent officers being given posts that they could not properly handle and during Suffren’s campaign in India, the lack of competence and indecision of some of his captains was amply revealed.
- Chapter 2 -
The passage from Lorient to La Corunna took five days. Sailing conditions had been favourable with breezes from North-West, enabling the squadron to sail on a starboard reach. The weather was unusual for this time of the year but a high pressure zone prevailed over the North Atlantic.
The same conditions had brought Suffren from the East Coast of America a few days earlier. The Squadron under Suffren was now waiting for the arrival of the ships arriving from Brest and Rochefort. In the meantime all crews were preparing their ships for the long haul across the Atlantic and around Africa. During the crossing of the Gulf of Biscay, many shortcomings in the supplies and stowing of goods aboard the merchantmen and the inadequacy of quarters for the troops embarked in France had become apparent and every crew was busy remedying them.
Finally after waiting for another week, the whole squadron was assembled and Suffren hoisted the signal for setting sail.
With a favourable wind from the North, the men of wars and their charges set sail one by one and took formation as soon as they were free of the land. The next day the Trade Winds were caught off Lisbon and the whole squadron settled on a sailing routine. The trades were blowing hard and the whole flotilla was running with a quarterly breeze.
The squadron consisted of nine ships of the line, two 74 guns ships, three 64 guns ships, two 40 guns frigates, one 28 guns frigate and one 20 guns corvette. The five heavy ships were sailing slightly upwind of the merchantmen, ready to give full protection whilst the fast 28 guns frigate was sailing far ahead to reconnoiter waters before the main squadron arrived with the corvette in attendance to relay any information to the main body of the flotilla. The other two frigates were dispatched one to sail far to the west to cover any approach by an enemy vessel from the west and the last frigate was closing the convoy some 20 miles behind the main body of ships.
This deployment of the lighter and faster vessels enabled Suffren to cover the convoy and to give him enough time to organize himself and his squadron in the event of an enemy attack, the enemy being the British.
The French frigates at the end of the 18th century were probably the best and fastest vessels ever designed to that date. The naval Architect Sané had refined the lines and improved the rigging to such an extent that the frigates in particular were the pride of the French Navy and were causing envy and concern in the British Navy. The latter managed to capture one frigate and had all its lines copied in dry dock for future reference.
This class of ships was extensively used for carrying orders and dispatches to the various corners of the globe. They were fairly heavily armed and could engage a bigger ship of the line if done with confidence and diligence. Suffren appreciated the value of these ships and had placed them in positions where they could efficiently achieve their objectives of being the watch dogs of the squadron.
The whole convoy slowed down by the merchant vessels lumbered along the African coast and sighted the Canary Islands on the eighth day after leaving La Corunna.
Always worrying that the British were not far away, Suffren gathered his ships closer, placing them in two lines, the merchant vessels sailing closer to the African Coast, thus preventing the possibility of a British attack from that quarter and the ships of the line sailing parallel to them to protect from any attack from the Atlantic side. The scouts sailed through the Canary Islands without detecting any enemy ship.
The passage along the African coast was smooth, with the wind on the port quarter, the ships sailed comfortably, heaving with the swell and falling in the troughs at the same time rolling gently. When on watch at night, de Kergouat was fascinated by the phosphorescent spray along the sides of the ship, giving a feeling of sailing over a sea of green fire. His thoughts were alternating between sweet memories of his sweetheart and the thought of the dangers awaiting them in the East. An engagement with the enemy was always a sudden and unexpected affair and one had to be ready at all times.
For the purpose of being prepared, Suffren ordered his captains to carry gunnery drills every day for about a week, each ship practicing for about one hour. Most of the crews taken in France were poorly trained and had to be brought to the correct level of performance. The gun captains had to train the new comers to know what to do, fast and efficiently, to fire broadsides with all the guns firing either nearly at once or at close intervals one after another.
At first firing on all vessels was erratic and it was difficult to establish some form of coordination, but after two days of practicing and a large amount of yelled encouragements, the gun crews were able to deliver a broadside every four minutes.
Once that was established the time between two broadsides was gradually reduced and finally the required standard was achieved of two broadsides every five minutes.
De Kergouat particularly enjoyed the training of the gun crews. He was by training, besides being a good sailor and navigator, a gunnery officer and had studied under some of the best artillery men at the Naval College. He would be down in the lower battery urging the men and showing how to load the guns, roll them back in position
using block and tackle, helping the crews, pointing the gun and lighting the fuse.
For the purpose of the firing drill, a raft would be towed on a long tow by one of the ships not participating in the drill. The two ships sailed two cables from one another on parallel courses and as the target passed in its line of sight the gun was fired. At first results were noting to write home about, but after a few days the gun masters got their range and the correct elevation and the target was soon blown to bits.
From the Canary Islands the course was set towards the coast of Brazil to catch the Trades. Two days after leaving the Canary Islands, a report came from the “Artesien”, one of the 64 guns ships, that their water supply was low and that they would not be able to sail to the Cape of Good Hope without taking in fresh water soon. This was a major consideration and Suffren had to reconsider his options. The nearest watering possibility was the Canary Islands but these were now upwind and getting there would take all the squadron at least a week beating against the Trades, whereas the Cape Verde Islands were downwind some six sailing days away. The only problem was that these Islands belonged to Portugal who was a Neutral state and staying there for longer than 24 hours was impossible.
Before leaving European waters, Suffren had received intelligence that a British squadron convoying merchant ships, under the command of Commodore Johnstone had left for the Cape of Good Hope with the objective to dislodge the Dutch garrison established there and then to proceed to India to reinforce the British forces fighting the insurgency of Hyder Ali who was supported by the French.
The two Admirals had the same objective and both were determined to carry out their missions as fast and as efficiently as possible.
Lieutenant Yves de Kergouat was riding post haste towards Lorient in South West Brittany. His home was in the Rhuys peninsula some 50 miles from Lorient. He had left the family manor early that morning after bidding good bye to his parents and his brothers and sisters. The night before he visited Jocelyn de la Marzelle, the young lady to whom he was engaged. The ‘good-bye’s’ had been painful and the poor lady was crying her heart out, knowing that it would be a long time before she saw her betrothed again, but King’s duty took precedence on everything else.
De Kergouat was hoping to reach the naval base of Lorient by the following evening. The chaise-poste rode thought Vannes where horses were changed then through Auray finally on to Hennebont and finally the naval base of Port Louis near Lorient.
He had been summoned by the chief of staff of the Admiralty in Paris to reach Lorient to take his function as lieutenant aboard the 74 gun ship of the line “Annibal”.
Paris was sending reinforcement to India to assist the revolt of Hyder Ali against the British, reinforcements in men and in supplies. For that purpose a convoy was assembled in all the French Atlantic ports, Brest, Lorient, Rochefort, which had to be escorted first to the Cape of Good Hope to assist the Dutch Allies and further to Isle de France and the Coromandel Coast of India. The Convoy was to assemble in La Corunna in Spain awaiting the arrival of the escort fleet of Count de Suffren who was sailing from the East Coast of the newly proclaimed United States of America.
The “Annibal” was to provide protection to the merchantmen sailing from Lorient assisted by two frigates and one corvette.
At the end of January 1781, the convoy leaving Lorient had finally assembled, all the supplies and men had been loaded on the merchant vessels, the King’s ships were all ready and awaiting the arrival of the Commodore who was to command the squadron.
Finally the commodore arrived and the squadron was now waiting for some favourable weather conditions to be able to sail away and free itself from the dangers of the Brittany coast.
The past week the wind had been blowing south westerly very hard reaching sometimes gale force and it was very difficult for the squadron to leave port sailing against the weather. The Commodore was waiting for a shift either to the North enabling the armada to sail free from land without running the risk of being blown against all the reefs and rocky shores along the coast surrounding Lorient. Finally early in February the wind veered first to the West and then to North West and the sailing signal was hoisted on the “Annibal” and all the ships anchored on the roads outside Lorient began their lumbering sailing on a close hauled starboard tack towards the open sea. At first they all sailed to the North of the Isle of Groix and then eased all sheets and began their run towards the Spanish coast across the Gulf of Biscay.
The commodore ordered the merchantmen to stay in line so as to enable the escort ships to sail along the line to protect them against any attack from windward: an attack from leeward was less likely since it would take a long time for an enemy ship to come within shooting distance of the squadron. Keeping the merchant vessels in line was a hard task, each ship having its own sailing qualities and shortcomings, some of the ships had good crews other had poor ones and to keep the line meant for the merchant masters to keep a constant attention to his neighbors up and own the line, to watch his sails, to shorten them if sailing too fast and overtaking the line: all of this convoy sailing being totally alien to the merchant masters accustomed to sail alone. A few collisions occurred, fortunately causing little damage, a flying bowsprit broken or some torn sails being the sum total of the events.
The two frigates and the corvette were running up and down the line instructing the merchantmen to speed up of to slow down. It took the best part of two days to get everybody more or less in a cohesive formation.
Captain de Tremignon was an able commander and the command of the ANNIBAL had been the culminating point of a long career at sea. He ran his ship with a very firm hand never allowing the crew to get out of hand and ensuring that all acts of insubordination or of derelict of discipline were handled justly and in a humane manner. Navies in the 18th century were not what one would call holiday resorts and the discipline was harsh often entailing some brutal and cruel punishment. De Tremignon was always reluctant in meting extreme punishment.
On account of his attitude towards the crew, he was well respected if not necessarily liked. Captains of men of wars had to stand aloof and detached from the officers and men they commanded, largely because of their position being “master after God”, having the right of life or death over everyone aboard their ship and partly because distancing themselves from the rest of the crew gave them an added aura as a holder of superior knowledge, power and possessors of secrets.
De Tremignon was assisted by captain of frigate Morard de Galles aged 35, also an able seaman, who had recently been transferred from a 40 gun frigate to take the position of second in command.
Yves de Kergouat, although having completed the same examinations as de Galles and technically having the same rank, but much younger, he was 30, was the second highest ranking officer after the captain. His appointment to the Hannibal was unusual, being so young, he would have normally been assigned to a much smaller ship like a corvette or a light frigate as a second officer, but the shortage of qualified and able officers in the King’s Navy had the effect of faster promotion for all officers. This sometimes resulted in incompetent officers being given posts that they could not properly handle and during Suffren’s campaign in India, the lack of competence and indecision of some of his captains was amply revealed.
- Chapter 2 -
The passage from Lorient to La Corunna took five days. Sailing conditions had been favourable with breezes from North-West, enabling the squadron to sail on a starboard reach. The weather was unusual for this time of the year but a high pressure zone prevailed over the North Atlantic.
The same conditions had brought Suffren from the East Coast of America a few days earlier. The Squadron under Suffren was now waiting for the arrival of the ships arriving from Brest and Rochefort. In the meantime all crews were preparing their ships for the long haul across the Atlantic and around Africa. During the crossing of the Gulf of Biscay, many shortcomings in the supplies and stowing of goods aboard the merchantmen and the inadequacy of quarters for the troops embarked in France had become apparent and every crew was busy remedying them.
Finally after waiting for another week, the whole squadron was assembled and Suffren hoisted the signal for setting sail.
With a favourable wind from the North, the men of wars and their charges set sail one by one and took formation as soon as they were free of the land. The next day the Trade Winds were caught off Lisbon and the whole squadron settled on a sailing routine. The trades were blowing hard and the whole flotilla was running with a quarterly breeze.
The squadron consisted of nine ships of the line, two 74 guns ships, three 64 guns ships, two 40 guns frigates, one 28 guns frigate and one 20 guns corvette. The five heavy ships were sailing slightly upwind of the merchantmen, ready to give full protection whilst the fast 28 guns frigate was sailing far ahead to reconnoiter waters before the main squadron arrived with the corvette in attendance to relay any information to the main body of the flotilla. The other two frigates were dispatched one to sail far to the west to cover any approach by an enemy vessel from the west and the last frigate was closing the convoy some 20 miles behind the main body of ships.
This deployment of the lighter and faster vessels enabled Suffren to cover the convoy and to give him enough time to organize himself and his squadron in the event of an enemy attack, the enemy being the British.
The French frigates at the end of the 18th century were probably the best and fastest vessels ever designed to that date. The naval Architect Sané had refined the lines and improved the rigging to such an extent that the frigates in particular were the pride of the French Navy and were causing envy and concern in the British Navy. The latter managed to capture one frigate and had all its lines copied in dry dock for future reference.
This class of ships was extensively used for carrying orders and dispatches to the various corners of the globe. They were fairly heavily armed and could engage a bigger ship of the line if done with confidence and diligence. Suffren appreciated the value of these ships and had placed them in positions where they could efficiently achieve their objectives of being the watch dogs of the squadron.
The whole convoy slowed down by the merchant vessels lumbered along the African coast and sighted the Canary Islands on the eighth day after leaving La Corunna.
Always worrying that the British were not far away, Suffren gathered his ships closer, placing them in two lines, the merchant vessels sailing closer to the African Coast, thus preventing the possibility of a British attack from that quarter and the ships of the line sailing parallel to them to protect from any attack from the Atlantic side. The scouts sailed through the Canary Islands without detecting any enemy ship.
The passage along the African coast was smooth, with the wind on the port quarter, the ships sailed comfortably, heaving with the swell and falling in the troughs at the same time rolling gently. When on watch at night, de Kergouat was fascinated by the phosphorescent spray along the sides of the ship, giving a feeling of sailing over a sea of green fire. His thoughts were alternating between sweet memories of his sweetheart and the thought of the dangers awaiting them in the East. An engagement with the enemy was always a sudden and unexpected affair and one had to be ready at all times.
For the purpose of being prepared, Suffren ordered his captains to carry gunnery drills every day for about a week, each ship practicing for about one hour. Most of the crews taken in France were poorly trained and had to be brought to the correct level of performance. The gun captains had to train the new comers to know what to do, fast and efficiently, to fire broadsides with all the guns firing either nearly at once or at close intervals one after another.
At first firing on all vessels was erratic and it was difficult to establish some form of coordination, but after two days of practicing and a large amount of yelled encouragements, the gun crews were able to deliver a broadside every four minutes.
Once that was established the time between two broadsides was gradually reduced and finally the required standard was achieved of two broadsides every five minutes.
De Kergouat particularly enjoyed the training of the gun crews. He was by training, besides being a good sailor and navigator, a gunnery officer and had studied under some of the best artillery men at the Naval College. He would be down in the lower battery urging the men and showing how to load the guns, roll them back in position
using block and tackle, helping the crews, pointing the gun and lighting the fuse.
For the purpose of the firing drill, a raft would be towed on a long tow by one of the ships not participating in the drill. The two ships sailed two cables from one another on parallel courses and as the target passed in its line of sight the gun was fired. At first results were noting to write home about, but after a few days the gun masters got their range and the correct elevation and the target was soon blown to bits.
From the Canary Islands the course was set towards the coast of Brazil to catch the Trades. Two days after leaving the Canary Islands, a report came from the “Artesien”, one of the 64 guns ships, that their water supply was low and that they would not be able to sail to the Cape of Good Hope without taking in fresh water soon. This was a major consideration and Suffren had to reconsider his options. The nearest watering possibility was the Canary Islands but these were now upwind and getting there would take all the squadron at least a week beating against the Trades, whereas the Cape Verde Islands were downwind some six sailing days away. The only problem was that these Islands belonged to Portugal who was a Neutral state and staying there for longer than 24 hours was impossible.
Before leaving European waters, Suffren had received intelligence that a British squadron convoying merchant ships, under the command of Commodore Johnstone had left for the Cape of Good Hope with the objective to dislodge the Dutch garrison established there and then to proceed to India to reinforce the British forces fighting the insurgency of Hyder Ali who was supported by the French.
The two Admirals had the same objective and both were determined to carry out their missions as fast and as efficiently as possible.
