DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70266#0243
ENGLISH HEROISM. 213
were general, but victory hovered over the British fleet,
while the French were running away at all points of the
compass | unfortunately for the Marlborough, the valour of
her crew had placed her so close to the disabled ships of
the enemy, that amidst the confusion of the battle, she
was taken by several English ships to be a Frenchman,
more particularly so, as the whole of her colours had
been shot away, but one white ensign, which was then
hoisted. This circumstance occasioned much destruction
on board, from the fire of those ships who fell into the mis-
take ; nor was the error discovered, until she was reduced
to a shattered hulk. Several of the Frenchmen that had
left the main body of their fugitive fleet, formed an
order of sailing to the windward, and were bearing down
in such a direction as to pass under the Marlborough’s stern,
the headmost of which, by a shot, carried array the Bri-
tish ensign 5 by this circumstance, the honour of Old Eng-
land, for a moment, appeared to suffer, from the impossi-
bility of replacing the colours, every flag having been shot
away; consequently it seemed as if they had struck to the
Frenchmen, an idea which operated so strongly on the mind
of the undaunted Appleford, that he loudly exclaimed,
(t The English colours shall never be dous’d where I am 1”
then casting his eyes round the deck, he perceived the dead
body of a marine, who had been shot through the head, he
instantly seized him, and stripping his red coat off, stuck
it on a boarding pike, and exalted it in the air, swearing
that Englishmen would not desert their colours, and that
when all the red coats were gone, they would hoist blue
jackets. The singularity of such conduct infused into the
hardy sons of Neptune, that valour and heroism with which
they fought to the glorious period when victory ended their
animated struggle.
British Press, January 19, 1803.
were general, but victory hovered over the British fleet,
while the French were running away at all points of the
compass | unfortunately for the Marlborough, the valour of
her crew had placed her so close to the disabled ships of
the enemy, that amidst the confusion of the battle, she
was taken by several English ships to be a Frenchman,
more particularly so, as the whole of her colours had
been shot away, but one white ensign, which was then
hoisted. This circumstance occasioned much destruction
on board, from the fire of those ships who fell into the mis-
take ; nor was the error discovered, until she was reduced
to a shattered hulk. Several of the Frenchmen that had
left the main body of their fugitive fleet, formed an
order of sailing to the windward, and were bearing down
in such a direction as to pass under the Marlborough’s stern,
the headmost of which, by a shot, carried array the Bri-
tish ensign 5 by this circumstance, the honour of Old Eng-
land, for a moment, appeared to suffer, from the impossi-
bility of replacing the colours, every flag having been shot
away; consequently it seemed as if they had struck to the
Frenchmen, an idea which operated so strongly on the mind
of the undaunted Appleford, that he loudly exclaimed,
(t The English colours shall never be dous’d where I am 1”
then casting his eyes round the deck, he perceived the dead
body of a marine, who had been shot through the head, he
instantly seized him, and stripping his red coat off, stuck
it on a boarding pike, and exalted it in the air, swearing
that Englishmen would not desert their colours, and that
when all the red coats were gone, they would hoist blue
jackets. The singularity of such conduct infused into the
hardy sons of Neptune, that valour and heroism with which
they fought to the glorious period when victory ended their
animated struggle.
British Press, January 19, 1803.