Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/426

 slipping through the Straits unperceived. He anchored in Gibraltar Bay on 4 Aug., and was still there on the evening of the 17th, when the Gibraltar frigate came in about half-past seven, making the signal that the enemy was in sight. Many of the English ships were still refitting, with topmasts struck or sails unbent; but before ten o'clock they were all at sea in pursuit. In point of material strength the two fleets were very nearly equal, for the French ships were larger, carried heavier guns and more men; but, by some error or negligence, five of them parted company during the night, leaving the admiral with only seven. The English also, in the hurry of putting to sea, had got somewhat separated; but the two divisions were at no great distance from each other, and were together before they overtook M. de la Clue's squadron about half-past one on the afternoon of 18 Aug. The brunt of the battle fell on the French rearmost ship, the Centaure, of 74 guns, commanded by M. de Sabran. Her defence was obstinate in the extreme: it lasted for fully three hours, and ended only when the ship was a wreck, and the captain and nearly half the ship's company had been killed. This stubborn resistance gave the other ships a chance of escaping; two of them did escape, and got clear off; De la Clue, with the four others, ran by the next morning into neutral waters in Lagos Bay, and imagined himself safe; but the neutrality, of Portugal, or of any state not in immediate position to enforce it, was then but lightly esteemed; and indeed the question had been raised (, Quæstionum Juris Publici Libri duo, 1737, p. 03) whether an enemv chased into neutral waters might not lawfully be attacked. At any rate, Boscawen did not hesitate. De la Clue, who was mortally wounded, ran his ship on shore and set fire to her; another was burnt in the same way. The Modeste and the Temeraire endeavoured to defend themselves, but were at once overpowered and taken. The scattered remnants of the fleet were driven into Cadiz, and were there blockaded by a detached squadron under Vice-admiral Brodrick; whilst Boscawen, having finished the work to which he had been appointed, returned to England, and anchored at Spithead on 1 Sept. The glaring violation of Portuguese neutrality was, of course, the subject of loud complaints and of special diplomacy (, Hist. of England, vol. iv. Appendix, p. xxxv;, Regles Internationales et Diplomatic de la Mer, ii. 316, 425); but as Boscawen's conduct was fully approved and accepted by the English government, the further question is indeed of national, but not of personal interest.

The eminent service which Boscawen had rendered in a time of great difficulty was rewarded by his appointment as general of marines, bringing with it a salary of 3,000l. a year, and he was also presented with the freedom of the city of Edinburgh. During a great part of the following year he commanded the fleet in Quiberon Bay, which by Hawke's victory, closely following on his own, had become, for the time and for the rest of the war, an anchorage for our fleet as commonplace as Spithead or Cawsand Bay. So secure indeed and undisturbed was it, that Boscawen took possession of a small island near the river Vannes, and had it cultivated as a vegetable garden for the use of the sick. It was the end of his service; after a short attack of bilious, or perhaps what is now called typhoid, fever, he died on 10 Jan. 1761, at Hatchlands Park, in Surrey, a seat which, in the words of his epitaph, 'he had just finished at the expense of the enemies of his country.' He was buried in the parish church of St. Michael Penkivel, in Cornwall, where there is a handsome monument to his memory, inscribed by 'his once happy wife, as an unequal testimony of his worth and of her affection.'

Boscawen's fame undoubtedly stood and stands higher than it otherwise would have done by reason of the opportune nature of his victory in Lagos Bay. Cold criticism is apt to say that there was nothing remarkable in fourteen ships winning a decisive victory over seven. But the enemy's fleet was in reality twelve; and that he had the good fortune to find it divided was apparently owing quite as much to Boscawen's prompt decision as to De la Clue's incapacity. And, in fact, it is his ready and decisive courage which has been handed down by tradition as the distinguishing feature of his character. He habitually carried his head cocked on one side, in consequence of which he was sometimes familiarly spoken of as 'Wry-necked Dick' (Naval Chronicle, xi. 100); but his true nickname, the name which the sailors who knew him and adored him delighted in, was 'Old Dreadnought.' There can be no question that this came directly from the ship which he commanded when a young captain, at the beginning of the French war, for it was and is the custom of seamen to give the name of the ship to the captain if the qualities agree. But the story told of Boscawen, possibly true, though unsupported by any evidence, is that whilst