Admiral De Grasse and American Independence

By Charles Lee Lewis

The average American knows little or nothing of the great service rendered by Admiral de Grasse, a French admiral, to the cause of American independence in the battle off Cape Henry in 1781. The battle off Cape Henry had ultimate effects more important than those of Waterloo. De Grasse’s action entailed upon the British the final loss of the thirteen colonies in America. This biography by Charles Lee Lewis places this supremely important naval battle off the Virginia Capes in its proper historical perspective, and gives de Grasse the full credit for rendering the aid which made possible the capture of Cornwallis at Yorktown. Washington fully recognized this aid, when he wrote to de Grasse following the surrender of Cornwallis and expressed his gratitude “in the name of America for the glorious event for which she is indebted to you.” Without de Grasse’s victory all the military efforts on land made by Rochambeau, Lafayette, and Washington would have been in vain. The battle off Cape Henry was only one of numerous battles fought by this dashing Gallic sea captain. Over fifty years of his long life, 1722-1788, were spent in the service of Louis XV and Louis XVI, in the Mediterranean, in India, on the North American coast, and in the West Indies. He fought in all the wars of his day, the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years’ War, and the War of the American Revolution which developed into a general European struggle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Naval Institute Press
• Release date: Jun 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781612514734

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ADMIRAL DE GRASSE

AND AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

ADMIRAL FRANCOIS JOSEPH PAUL DE GRASSE

Courtesy of Alexander Wilbourne Weddell

ADMIRAL FRANCOIS JOSEPH PAUL DE GRASSE

From the portrait by Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse in the Musée de Versailles

This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

© 1945 by The United States Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First Naval Institute Press paperback edition published in 2014.

ISBN: 978-1-61251-473-4 (eBook)

Print editions meet the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

222120191817161514987654321

First printing

TO

MY FRENCH ANCESTORS

I consider myself infinitely happy to have been of some service to the United States (De Grasse to Washington, November 3, 1781).

I will only add, Sir, that your name will be ever dear to the good people of these States as long as gratitude is a virtue. Your wisdom, your attachment to the essential interests of this country, your effective completion of the wishes of your Sovereign, and your whole conduct justly endear you to us, and entitle you to every mark of honor that we can possibly confer upon you (Thomas McKean, President of Congress, to De Grasse, October 31, 1781).

Preface

THE AVERAGE American knows little or nothing of the great service rendered by Admiral de Grasse to the cause of American Independence. The name of Lafayette is generally known and honored, and some even remember that Rochambeau commanded the French army which aided Washington. But the name of the commander of the French fleet which defeated a British fleet off the Virginia Capes and thus made possible the capture of Cornwallis at Yorktown is comparatively unknown. It is no exaggeration to state that, without De Grasse’s timely assistance, all of the efforts of Washington, Lafayette, and Rochambeau would have been barren of decisive results in Virginia. The importance of this aid was fully acknowledged by Washington, by Thomas McKean, President of the Congress of the United States, and by other leading contemporary Americans, and it is one of the ironies of history that De Grasse, in the course of time, should have been so far forgotten in the country whose independence he so materially helped to establish as not to be honored by a single monument throughout the land. It is hoped that this biography may contribute to a wider knowledge of De Grasse’s aid in the American Revolution, and to a public recognition in the United States somewhat commensurate with that already given to Lafayette and Rochambeau.

De Grasse’s career in the French navy was long and colorful, covering the various wars in the eighteenth century between England and France down to the beginning of the French Revolution. The background of his biography is filled with thrilling events and fascinating characters. In that century the stakes were high in state-craft and in war. Whole continents were the prizes to be lost or won. In the life and death struggle between England and France, De Grasse played a gallant, and sometimes a heroic, role. Too frequently, perhaps, we have read the story of this conflict only as told from the British point of view. In this biography, the French side has also been given its day in court.

As indicated in the bibliography, the facts for this biography have been gathered from many books, magazines, newspapers, manuscripts, and other documents in many libraries. The book could not have been written during the present war, when it was impossible to examine the archives in England and in France, had it not been for the wealth of photostatic material in the Library of Congress. These photostats cover in great detail the French participation in the War of the American Revolution, and deal with military, naval, and diplomatic affairs. Many handwritten documents supplement the photostats. This rich collection of papers also includes a great mass of facsimiles from English archives; such as, the Public Record Office, British Museum, and House of Lords Library. For advising me in the use of this mine of research, I wish to express my thanks in particular to Miss Grace Gardner Griffin, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. To all the personnel of this library and the other libraries, too numerous indeed to list by name, I wish to express my deep appreciation for aid freely and courteously rendered.

Some persons, however, have given me individual assistance, which I take pleasure in acknowledging in a personal manner. Miss Amélie de Pau Fowler and Miss Alice Silvie Fowler of Baltimore, descendants of Admiral de Grasse, gave me valuable information and permitted me to use for illustrations the miniatures of Admiral de Grasse’s daughters in their possession. Mrs. George Durbin Chenoweth, Regent of the Comte de Grasse Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, Yorktown, Virginia, allowed me to examine in her home a very rare book, Histoire de la maison de Grasse by Marquis de Grasse, which had been presented to the Comte de Grasse Chapter by the Misses Fowler of Baltimore and deposited in the Old Custom House Museum in Yorktown. I am indebted also to Mr. Philip R. Dillon, Secretary of the Society of the Friends of De Grasse; Captain A. H. Miles, U.S. Navy (Retired); Miss C. W. Evans, Librarian, and Frederick F. Hill, Curator, The Mariners’ Museum, Newport News, Virginia; Mr. Louis H. Bolander, Associate Librarian, U.S. Naval Academy Library; Captain Harry A. Baldridge, U.S. Navy (Retired), Curator, U.S. Naval Academy; and my wife, Louise Quarles Lewis.

The monument to De Grasse, portrayed on a previous cover, is by Paul Maximilien Landowski. It was presented to the city of Paris by A. Kingsley Macomber and was erected in 1930 in the Gardens of the Trocadéro. A bust from the monument forms a part of the memorial to Admiral de Grasse on the Place du Château in Bar-sur-Loup, France, which was erected by the town and the Marquis de Grasse. The photograph of the coat of arms of De Grasse, on an earlier cover, was furnished to Naval Intelligence, Navy Department by Captain R. Drace White, U.S. Navy (Retired), while he was Naval Attaché in Paris. He received it from the Abbé Blain.

The frontispiece is from a photograph of the portrait of De Grasse by Jean Baptist Mauzaisse in the Museum of Versailles. The photograph was taken in Richmond, Virginia in 1929, when, through the assistance of Monsieur Claudel, the French Ambassador to the United States, the French government was induced to send the portrait to the United States to be displayed at the exhibition of Historical Portraits at Virginia House in Richmond, under the auspices of the Virginia Historical Society. A copy of the portrait by Charles X. Harris now hangs at Virginia House, the residence of Alexander W. Weddell. Another copy by Mathilda Leisenring was presented to the U.S. Naval Academy by Admiral de Grasse’s great grandson, Archibald Berklie. Still another copy hangs in the French Embassy in Washington.

Annapolis, Maryland

October, 1944

C. L. L.

Contents

I. THE CASTLE OF BAR

II. THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA

III. THE BATTLE OF TOULON

IV. THE BATTLE OFF FINISTERRE

V. THE HUMILIATION OF FRANCE

VI. THE EXPEDITION TO MOROCCO

VII. THE REBIRTH OF THE FRENCH NAVY

VIII. FRANCE DRIFTS INTO WAR

IX. THE ENGAGEMENT OFF USHANT

X. THE BATTLE OFF THE ISLAND OF GRENADA

XI. THE CAMPAIGN OFF MARTINIQUE

XII. DE GRASSE COMMANDS A FLEET

XIII. THE ENGAGEMENT WITH HOOD

XIV. THE STRATEGY OF YORKTOWN

XV. CONVERGING FORCES

XVI. THE ENGAGEMENT OFF THE VIRGINIA CAPES

XVII. THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN

XVIII. THE CAPTURE OF ST. KITTS

XIX. THE ENGAGEMENT OFF SAINTS PASSAGE

XX. THE WAR DRAGS ON

XXI. PEACE NEGOTIATIONS

XXII. THE SCAPEGOAT

SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

NOTES

INDEX

Illustrations

Admiral Francois Joseph Paul de Grasse

From the portrait by Mauzaisse in the Musée de Versailles

Ruins of the Castle of Bar

From an engraving in Admiral de Grasse by Max. Caron

Grand Master Vilhena with Two Pages

From the portrait in the Magistral Palace, Malta

Capture of a Turkish Ship

From a fresco in the Magistral Palace, Malta

Engagement between English and Franco-Spanish Fleets off Toulon, February 11, 1744

From a drawing by James Main in the Musée de Marine, Paris

The French Ship La Gloire, Captured by Anson’s Fleet, May 3,1747

From an engraving in the Life of Anson by Vernon Anson

Louis the Fifteenth in 1760

From the portrait by Carle van Loo

Le Duc de Choiseul

From a médaillon by Jacques Swebach de Fontaine

Engagement between French and English Fleets off Ushant, July 27, 1778

From a drawing in the Archives du Service historique de la Marine

Marie Antoinette

From an engraving by Morse after the portrait by Adolf Ulrik Werthmüller

Louis the Sixteenth

From an engraving by W. Wellstood

Battle between French and English Fleets off Grenada, July 6, 1779

From the painting by Jean Francois Hüe in the Musée de Marine, Paris

Le Comte d’Estaing

From an engraving in the Bibliothèque Nationale

Admiral John Byron

From an engraving in Town and County Magazine, 1773

Le Comte de Guichen

From a contemporary engraving in the Bibliothèque Nationale

Admiral George Brydges Baron Rodney

From the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

Model of the French Ship of the Line Ville de Paris

Presented to the U. S. Naval Academy in 1854 by Alexander Vattemare

Admiral de Grasse

From the pastel, attributed to Joseph Boze, in the Musée de Blérancourt

Le Marquis de Vaudreuil

From an engraving in the Bibliothèque Nationale

Louis Antoine de Bougainville

From an engraving in the Musée de Marine, Paris

Admiral de Grasse

From a miniature, owned by Miss Kate Osborn

Admiral Thomas Graves

From the portrait by James Northcote

Le Comte de Rochambeau

From a héliogravure typographique

Le Marquis de La Fayette

From an etching by Albert Rosenthal after the portrait by C. W. Peale, painted for Washington

The Visit of Washington on Board the Ville de Paris

From the painting by Percy Moran

The Surrender at Yorktown

From the painting by John Trumbull

The Yorktown Monument

From a photograph in the Yorktown Book, issued by the Yorktown Sesquicentennial Association

Admiral de Grasse

From the engraving by H. B. Hall and Sons after the engraving by Charles Michel Geoffroy

Admiral Samuel Hood

From the portrait by Benjamin West

Battle between French and English Fleets off St. Kitts, January 26, 1782

From an oil painting by Nicholas Pocock

Admiral de Grasse

From an engraving by Lemercier after the painting by Nicolas Eustache Maurin

Rodney Breaking De Grasse’s Line in the Battle of the Saints Passage

From the engraving by John Wells after the drawing by Thomas Walker

The Surrender of the Ville de Paris

From the engraving by Francis Chesham after the painting by Robert Dodd

De Grasse Surrendering His Sword, April 12, 1782

From the engraving by Fiegt after the drawing by Conrad Martin Metz

Admiral de Grasse

From the mezzotint engraving by James Walker after the drawing from life by John Miller

Admiral de Grasse

From the drawing from life by M. Jones

Admiral de Grasse

From the drawing in the London Magazine, August, 1782

The Bell Tower of the Church at Tilly

From a drawing by Gauthier

Amélie Rosalie Maxime de Grasse

From the miniature by Viol, owned by Amélie de Pau Fowler and Alice Silvie Fowler

Melanie Véronique Maxime de Grasse

From the miniature by Viol, owned by Amélie de Pau Fowler and Alice Silvie Fowler

Silvie Alexandrine Maxime de Grasse

From the miniature by Alice Silvie Fowler

The Transfer of Admiral de Grasse’s Heart from the Château to the Church at Tilly

From a photograph

The Monument to Admiral de Grasse by the Sculptor, Paul Maximilien Landowski

Presented to the city of Paris by A. Kingsley Macomber, and erected in 1930 in the Gardens of the Trocadéro

From a photograph in De Grasse à Yorktown by James Brown Scott

ADMIRAL DE GRASSE

AND AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

I

The Castle of Bar

1

IN THE YEAR 1722, a new chapter was about to begin in the history of France. The little twelve year old orphan, King Louis XV, moved in June of that year from the Tuileries to the Royal Palace at Versailles. He felt somewhat lost in the vast rooms formerly occupied by his great-grandfather, Louis XIV, and had a little library fitted up for himself looking out on the court. Here he could retire in quiet loneliness to write his Latin compositions or prepare his other lessons, and examine his magnificent collection of atlases. He still enjoyed kite-flying and other boyish sports, and delighted in watching the musketeers and the King’s Own Regiment at their drills. The next year he was to reach his legal majority, and assume the crown; thus was to end the eight years’ interlude of the regency, to be followed by Louis XV’s long and fateful reign of about half a century.¹

In 1722 the gates of Janus were closed. France had been at peace with England and the rest of Europe since the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 brought to a close the bitterly contested War of the Spanish Succession. In this struggle, which the British called Queen Anne’s War, the Duke of Marlborough had won fame and France had lost some territory and much prestige. In 1722 the Hanoverian George I, who spoke broken English and left the government largely to Prime Minister Walpole, was King of England. Two more English Georges would be required to span the long reign of Louis XV of France.

Queen Anne’s War had had its repercussions in distant India and also in North America. In the latter country at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the entire colonial population did not total more than 300,000 and the two largest towns, Boston and Philadelphia, each numbered less than 10,000 people.² Boston-born Ben Franklin, sixteen years old in 1722, arrived in Philadelphia the following year, and walked up Market Street, carrying a roll of bread under each arm and eating a third to the amusement of his future wife.³ Ten years were to elapse before George Washington was born in 1732. By 1775 the American colonists would so increase in population and develop such a desire for political freedom that they would begin the War of American Independence. With the aid of the French, old and revengeful enemies of the English, this struggle would be brought to a successful issue with the establishment of the United States of America. One of the French leaders who was to contribute decisively to the winning of our national independence was Francois Joseph Paul de Grasse. He was born in the year 1722 on the 13th of September.

2

De Grasse’s family was one of the oldest in France, having descended from Rodoard, Prince of Antibes in 993. There had been intermarriage with the royal houses of Sicily, Spain, and France. One ancestor of the family was the Captal de Buch, celebrated for his prowess in Sir John Froissart’s Chronicles.⁴ The name De Grasse had been borne since the eleventh century, and that of Rouville was added in 1676. The father of the Admiral was Francois de Grasse-Rouville, Marquis de Grasse.⁵ In February, 1709 he married Véronique de Villeneuve.⁶ Their fifth son⁷ and youngest child was Francois Joseph Paul, destined to reach the highest rank in the Royal Navy of France, though the father was a captain in the French Army.

The place of birth of the little Chevalier de Grasse was far from the Court of Louis XV, in fact, about as distant from Paris as one could be and still remain in France. He was born in the feudal Castle of Bar,⁸ which was surrounded by the picturesque village, Bar-sur-Loup. This was in the district of Provence in the southeastern corner of France, about six miles from the old town which bore the family name of Grasse. From the time of the Crusades the Castle of Bar with its two remarkable flanking towers had belonged to the noble family of De Grasse. This region of Provence, both in history and in geographical features, seemed almost like a foreign country, remarkable for its infinite variety of plants and flowers, variable climate, and rugged mountains and volcanic gorges, and for its mixture of races and a language evolved from a veritable babel of tongues.⁹

The young Chevalier developed into an unusually strong and vigorous lad, fond of hardy athletic sports and rambles with his youthful companions about the mountainous countryside. His tutor found the attractions of the out-of-doors much stronger for his pupil than his interest in books, and his attempts to force him to study only excited violent displays of temper by the headstrong boy. The discouraged teacher may have passed the same judgment on young De Grasse as Mme. Cornel did on a lad of the Rohan-Chabot family, who declared, He is well enough born, but has been insufficiently whipped.¹⁰

If the tutor had understood the pedagogy afterwards practised by Pestalozzi, he would have found ample material for instruction in the extraordinarily beautiful and interesting country around the Castle of Bar, a region rich in the history of Roman, Goth, and Saracen invasions and of centuries of civil strife and wars between rival kings who coveted the rich and lovely province. There was not a village, not a town, not a castle without its stories of heroism and romantic adventure. The town of Grasse, now the center of the perfumery industry and the manufacture of soaps, pomades, and oils, for which great plantations of roses are cultivated as well as fields of jasmine, tuberoses, lavender, lilies of the valley, carnations, and mignonette, and gardens of orange trees and groves of olives,¹¹ has long been noted for its fruits and flowers. One could hardly imagine a better place for the study of botany. Its varied topography afforded an excellent region for the study of geography. Other studies; such as, history and languages and literature could easily have been related to the out-of-doors of this unusual country. Perhaps, young De Grasse’s outbursts of temper were justified; perhaps, his tutor missed a great opportunity by not going on some rambles with the lad through that wonderful sweet-scented land of mountains, streams, gorges, and valleys, where lessons could have been learned from Nature’s book.

On account of the slow progress made by his son under a private tutor, the Comte de Grasse decided to secure an appointment for him as a Garde de la Marine, though he was then hardly eleven years old,¹² and to send him to Le Séminaire de la Marine in Toulon, an old school dating from the year 1686.¹³ The organization of the Gardes de la Marine for the purpose of educating young noblemen to become officers in the French Navy was commenced in 1670. They were to be trained at three ports, Brest, Rochefort, and Toulon. During the War of the League of Augsburg, or King William’s War, as the British called it, the young Gardes were mustered into active service and displayed great heroism. One of the company from Toulon, though wounded three times early in battle, remained with his battery until he was struck in the thigh with a cannon ball and fell, crying, Vive le roi!¹⁴

The instruction of the young Gardes in the Toulon naval school was largely in the hands of the priests of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits. The most distinguished of these professors, Father Hoste, published in 1693 Recueil des traités de mathématiques qui peuvent être nécessaires à un gentilhomme pour servir par mer et par terre, and four years later he brought out the first significant work on naval tactics, entitled L’Art des armées navales.¹⁵ Instruction was given in arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, navigation and piloting, hydrography, ship construction, and drills with muskets and cannon. Time was devoted also to writing, drawing, dancing, fencing, and swordsmanship. Short cruises afforded practical exercises in seamanship on shipboard.

No mention is made of the study of history, naval or otherwise; but the young lads must at least have been given some lectures on the colonial, maritime, and naval achievements of great Frenchmen; such as, Jacques Cartier in Canada, Armand de Maille-Brézé who defeated the Spaniards at Cadiz in 1640, Samuel de Champlain, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Abraham DuQuesne, Comte Jean D’Estrées, Duc de Vivonne, Ann-Hilarion de Tourville, Marquis de Châteaurenault, Jean Bart, Duguay-Trouin, Jacques Cassard, Marquis de Vauban, and others who had carried the French flag to America and India, and had fought the Moslems in the Mediterranean as well as the Spaniards, Dutch, and English to maintain the widespread empire.

The uniform of the Gardes was very striking in appearance. The long tailed coat was of blue woolen cloth, lined with scarlet serge; the cuffs were scarlet as were also the vest, knee breeches, and silk stockings; the blue cocked hat was decorated with gold lace, a strip of which was placed around the cuff of each sleeve; the buckles on the black shoes, the buckle of the elk-leather belt, and all the buttons were covered with gold; the garters were of gold lace; an epaulette was worn on each shoulder with an aiguillette or shoulder knot suspended from that on the right side. The Garde carried both a sword and a musket.¹⁶

De Grasse was influenced also by his surroundings, the sights and sounds of the waterfront and the harbor, which came to him through the windows of the school and on his walks along the cobbled streets of Toulon; such as, the forest of masts with rigging tracing patterns on the blue sky, the war vessels with names triumphant and triple rows of black cannon, sailors climbing over the yards, the sounds of fife and drum, and officers in gold lace and blue and scarlet uniforms trumpeting orders. In him was accordingly born the desire for martial adventure and love of glory which was never to leave him; then entered the heart of the young Garde de la Marine the heroic spirit of the warrior which remained with him to the end. In the harbor filled with sonorous noises and the flags flapping on the tall masts, the immense, the illimitable ocean thus opened its arms to him.¹⁷

Sooner than he had expected De Grasse was to answer the call of the sea. He was destined not to complete the course of study at the Toulon Séminaire de la Marine. He had applied himself so diligently and behaved himself so well that, after one year at the school, he was among the fortunate young sons of French noblemen to be appointed pages to the Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John on the Island of Malta.

II

The Knights of Malta

1

A LAD of the noble lineage of De Grasse could have become a page at Versailles at the Court of Louis XV. But there are several reasons why he was sent instead to join the famous religious order of knights on Malta. In the first place, the lad had by that time definitely made up his mind to become a naval officer. An elder brother was already serving in the fleet of the Knights of Malta.¹ His family was very religious, and he had been baptized the day after his birth in the church at Bar, after the usual custom followed by a Roman Catholic family. An ancestor in the female line had been canonized under the name of Sainte Maxime de Grasse², and given a feast day on May 16th. Her relics had been preserved and her memory had been venerated in the locality of Callian in the diocese of Frejus. Religion no doubt had much to do with the decision of the family to send two sons to Malta.

The historical situation at that time may have caused De Grasse’s father to take him out of school before he had finished the courses of study and to send him to the warrior knights. In 1734 the French Navy had recovered but little from the disasters of the War of the Spanish Succession and from the extravagance and waste of the Regency which followed. The morale of the navy was correspondingly low. But at this time the commanding officer of the naval forces of the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta was the Chevalier Jacques Francois de Chambray, who had come to Malta at the age of thirteen and risen in the service until he had gained an international reputation. Europe was well acquainted with his shaggy overhanging eyebrows and long, aggressive chin, as his pictures had been freely displayed in print-shops.³ During his career he fought thirty-one engagements, and captured eleven ships with a booty worth 400,000 livres. By 1732 he had received the Grand Cross of the Order because of his capture of the Turkish ship Sultana. It was probably the exploits of the Chevalier Chambray that induced De Grasse’s father to send him to Malta where he might have active service under such inspiring leadership. Indeed the ships of the Knights of Malta were long regarded as the best training schools in marine warfare and the etiquette of a gentleman to be found in Europe. In 1790, sixty officers of the French Navy were Knights of St. John, forty of whom had, like De Grasse, entered the Order as pages.⁴

Though young De Grasse had formed a strong desire to be a sailor, his heart must have sunk when, after tearful farewells were exchanged with his family, he found himself sailing out of Toulon and across the Mediterranean. This was a real flight from the nest,⁵ and he was then only twelve years old. His ship skirted the coast of Italy, and finally in the distance rose out of the waves the Island of Malta, rocky and bare. First were seen the long walls with towers, groups of palm trees and white houses; then the town of Valetta with its double harbor, little bays, jetties, and great chain of ramparts and bastions. Above rose the city like the seats of an amphitheatre with great flags floating from its towers and church steeples. It was a beautiful and strange scene.⁶

RUINS OF THE CASTLE OF BAR

RUINS OF THE CASTLE OF BAR

From an engraving in Admiral de Grasse by Max. Caron

GRAND MASTER VILHENA WITH TWO PAGES

GRAND MASTER VILHENA WITH TWO PAGES

From the portrait in the Magistral Palace, Island of Malta

De Grasse’s young eyes gazed with astonishment and considerable bewilderment at the many towers and massive walls of the fortifications inside which had been erected during the preceding two hundred years a city of castles, palaces, and churches. But it was not long until he began to feel at home in the Pagery, or school of the Grand Master’s pages, then limited to sixteen in number.⁷ He found his new uniform as gay and colorful as the one he had recently worn as a Garde in the naval school at Toulon. The coat for winter was of scarlet woolen cloth, lined with white serge; its trimmings and the vest were made of white velvet. His summer coat of red wool was lined with white taffeta, and its trimmings and vest were of white moire. The knee breeches were of material corresponding to that of the coats. Only plain white silk stockings were worn; embroidered stockings had been forbidden by the Grand Master long years before on penalty of four years in the service of the galleys. The page’s hat was decorated with a white plume, and his shoes had high red heels.⁸

De Grasse had his own outfit of table silver and napery and bedding. About 355 livres were required each year for clothes. The eight-pointed cross of gold and white enamel was expensive; the large one cost 85 livres and the small one 23 livres. There was an allowance also for riding lessons and drawing instruction and military exercises, and for his little pleasures for which he was supposed to pay like a gentleman. There were besides, among other incidentals, his dues of 87 livres to his club, or Langue, to which he belonged according to his language or nationality. The father of a page, Jean Paul de Chènerilles, in 1742 stated that he had expended about six hundred livres, not counting the passage money, for the honor of entering his son in this exclusive Order. It cost money to get a young heir well launched on the career of killing Moslems. But the wealthy De Grasse family could well afford this expense.⁹

2

The Grand Master of the Knights at that time was a Portuguese, named Antonio Manoel de Vilhena. The following inscription over the door of the Magistral Palace indicates the high estimation in which he was held:

"Antonio Emmanuel de Vilhena,

In whom Malta reveres a sovereign,

The Order of Jerusalem a Grand Master, Rome a Hero;

Whose name fills the earth,

Whose courage extends still further,

Whom Nature had created for great deeds,

Whom Faith has formed for the most courageous,

Whom Virtue has elevated to the most glorious,

Receives today from the Sovereign Pontiff Benedict XIII

The sacred Hat, the sacred Sword."¹⁰

It has been suggested that the Pope thus signally honored the Grand Master in 1725 because of the naval victories of the commander of his fleet, Chevalier de Chambray, rather than the achievements of the Grand Master himself. Indeed Chambray’s exploits constituted the afterglow of the setting sun of the military glory of the Knights of Malta. Great fame had been theirs since 1530, when they were driven from the Island of Rhodes by the Turks and obtained the grant of Malta from the Emperor Charles V of Spain. Since then they had turned the island, only seventeen and a half miles long by eight and a quarter miles at its greatest breadth, into a powerful fortress and a rich island kingdom.

Malta was strategically situated to protect the western Mediterranean from the ravages of the Moslems, for it was only 60 miles from Sicily and 180 miles from the mainland of Africa. The Turks tried in vain to conquer the island. In 1565, they besieged it for five months, and before they retired in defeat they lost more than 7000 killed, among whom was their leader Dragut. In 1571 a division of ships of the Knights of Malta fought side by side with the Christian League in the great battle of Lepanto, in which the Turks were decisively beaten. But the Moslems by no means ceased, after that, to trouble the Mediterranean and southern Europe. Corsairs swarmed out of the ports of Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco to prey upon Christian merchant ships, and often bore down on Spanish, French, and Italian coastal towns, capturing rich booty and carrying away women, men, and children to sell in the slave markets of North Africa. Rivalries between the kingdoms of Spain and France kept the Christians from uniting and sweeping these pirates from the seas and destroying them in their lairs. There remained, consequently, in the eighteenth century plenty of police work for the ships of the Knights of Malta in the beautiful Mediterranean which greed and cruelty had turned into a sea of blood and robbery.

Maltese ships escorted convoys of merchantmen from seaport to seaport. These cruises were called corsos or caravans. A page had to spend two years in study and preparation before he was permitted to go on one of these cruises, eight of which he had to take to qualify him as a Profès, or Knight of Justice.¹¹ These afforded that stiff training for naval service, which Jurien de La Gravière called the great school of war for the French Navy. He was of the opinion also that even in his day, late in the nineteenth century, a future admiral would find such a training quite worth while.¹²

There is a story that De Grasse was on one of these cruises when he was fifteen or sixteen years old. He gave an order to a soldier who refused to obey. De Grasse, then already of unusual size and strength, picked up the offender and threw him across the ship as though he were a projectile. Fearing he had hurt the man, he rushed over and picked him up, much relieved to find he had received only a few bruises. After that his orders were promptly obeyed.¹³

By the time De Grasse became a page at Malta, sailing ships had largely replaced galleys in the Grand Master’s navy. The Chevalier de Chambray gained his victories in sailing vessels, and when a junior officer he avoided service in the galleys in which, he said, They only thought about eating and drinking and sleeping and having a good time.¹⁴ In 1748 the Corps des Galères was discontinued in the French Navy, and a little later galleys ceased to be used at Malta.¹⁵ Only under sail did Chambray believe he could capture the Moslem sailing ships. His ships were of the type of Spanish galleon with lofty poop and three masts carrying great sails and the standard of St. John, the great cross of the Order. The great galleon St. John the Baptist cost 150,000 livres and carried 100 knights and 500 fighting men.¹⁶

Though the galleons were beautiful and romantic in appearance, perhaps the older galleys which they displaced were more picturesque, with their scarlet fluttering banners and pennants without number, scarlet oar-blades moving as one under the powerful stroking of unseen arms, scarlet-clad soldiers, knights, caravaners at the golden prow and in the lofty poop where gilded carvings gleamed above the slim black hull.¹⁷ Every galley was named after a saint and carried banners of Saint John on poop and prow and an image of the Virgin and Child on the yards.¹⁸ When the wind was favorable, its red and white striped sails were hoisted to aid the rowers.¹⁹

In the palace of the Grand Master and in the ships of the Knights of St. John, young De Grasse spent six years in the midst of these unusual surroundings where one was reminded on every hand by some great painting, some inscription, or some magnificent buildings of the glorious traditions of courage and sacrifice. The philosophy of these brave, passionate, and somewhat superstitious knights is summed up in this epitaph in memory of a Sienese knight of the Piccolomini family in St. Catherine’s Church in Valetta:

"Learn to die, thou that readest these words engraved upon my tomb,

And deeply impress upon thy heart my last words;

Thy only safety is to serve God; all else is vanity.

Do therefore now what thou wouldst wish to have done when about to die.

Eternity depends upon a moment; the tree lies where it falls;

Therefore I pray you, learn to die, learn to die!"²⁰

III

The Battle off Toulon

1

LATE IN THE YEAR 1739 the news reached Malta that war had broken out between England and Spain, a conflict which has sometimes been facetiously referred to as the War of Jenkins’ Ear. The brig Rebecca of Glasgow, commanded by Captain Richard Jenkins, was boarded by a Spanish man-of-war the previous year; the Spanish captain cut off one of Jenkins’ ears with this warning: Carry this home to the King, your master, whom, if he were present, I would serve in like fashion.¹ Though Jenkins may, as some authorities claim, have lost his ear in the pillory, he told his story to Parliament, and great indignation was aroused. Soon the long standing bitter commercial and colonial rivalry between the two nations developed into another bloody conflict.

Frenchmen also immediately began to prepare to fight, realizing that they would be drawn into the struggle on the side of their Bourbon ally and against the country which had so humiliated them in the Queen Anne’s War a generation before. This girding of the loins for the impending war led many of the French Knights of St. John to return home. Along with them went young De Grasse in 1740, then only eighteen but well prepared to fight for his country.

That same year Frederick the Great invaded Austria and the War of the Austrian Succession began, which developed into a general European War with England and Holland