Famous Fighters of the Fleet. By Edward Fraser. (Macmillan and
Co. 68.)—Mr. Fraser has put together here the story of six famous fighting ships : he begins with the Monmouth' at Chatham (when the Dutch were on the Medway), and he ends with the 'Condor' at Alexandria. There have been many 'Mini- mouths' in the Navy,—a ship is a more substantial entity than a regiment, but it suffers a greater penalty of change. The par- ticular ship which is the subject of the first narrative is 'Mon- mouth III.,' and the action described is her gallant fight with the Foudroyant,' a sixty-four to an eighty-four, with a broadside of 540 lb. to one of 1,136 lb. The Frenchman was the best ship in Xing Louis's navy, and had for its Captain one of the best of French sailors. The chase began at four, the close engagement at half-past eight. Five hours afterwards the 'Foudroyant ' ceased firing, though she did not surrender till the Swiftsure ' arrived on the scene. The Frenchman could not bring himself to surrender except to superior force. The second story is practi- cally an account of Rodney's great fight with De Grasse, and admirably forcible and clear. Here the 'Formidable' was the centre of the action. Even more interesting is the
story of the "Fighting Temeraire." The great day of this ship was at Trafalgar. Her last shotted guns were fired at a French battery at Hyeres, while her last salute was fired on the Corona- tion Day of Queen Victoria. Six weeks afterwards an economical Government sold her for .85,530. It was as she was going on this last voyage that Turner, who was in company with Clarkson Stansfield, saw her, and painted her in what has been well called "the most pathetic of all pictures not involving human pain." It is to be noted that of the six ships commemorated by Mr. Fraser, two bore French names. They represented old ships of war. It was a peculiarly unlucky thought to criticise, as did some writer in a London daily, the selection of "a blustering adjective" for the name of the battleship which is now so called. Imagine a man writing on naval matters who did not know the name of Rodney's flagship !
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