THE NAVY and ARMY JLLUSTRATED. Ooi
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May 2ist, 1897.] THE NAVY AND ARMY JLLUSTRATED. OOi going about, stood back out of the harbour, leaving the brunt of leading the attack to fall on Faulknor's little sloop, the " Zebra." The " Zebra" had been intended to move down on the batteries astern of the " Asia," covered by her, and a little in advance of the boats with the landing parties. After Capfam Foul knor leadind rrw? preliminarO assisting these in effecting their landing, the " Zebra's " men :•• • f attack" were to join the boat parties and back them up in the general : assault. The failure of the "Asia" to cover the boats gravely imperilled the chances of the attack, but in spite of that, the " Zebra," in forlorn hope fashion, pushed on, regardless of the cannonade from forts and batteries that HE story of how we came by our first " Undaunted " greeted her approach. Then suddenly it flashed on Faulknor is one that every Knglishman should know. It to attempt a coup de main by himself. The risk no doubt was is a tale of two-fold interest, with a finale all its terrible, for exposed as his little vessel already was, a single T own. As a fine fighting story of the triumphant shot at any moment might send her to the bottom. Suddenly facing of desperate odds, it is, on the one hand, the " Zebra" cast off the boats she had in tow, hoisted every hardly to be surpassed even in the annals of our own service; stitch of canvas her little masts could carry, and by herself on the other, for the special and unusual circumstances in dashed ahead. With scaling ladders lashed to the shrouds, which the name " Undaunted " was first bestowed on a British Faulknor's little ship shot forward and ran in single handed man-of-war, it may be said to be without parallel. No right under the walls of Fort Louis, until within less than five Admiralty Lord of high degree, in the comfortable surround yards of the embrasures, through which the gun muzzles of ings of a sanctum at Whitehall, made choice of or originated several heavy thirty-six pounders were storming forth round it; no lady fair, with customary libation of foaming wine shot and grape and canister. As the " Zebra" ran alongside on dockyard gala day, wished " God speed" to our first the walls the scaling ladders flew from the rigging, her own " Undaunted." Quite otherwise. Amid the clash of angry boats were shoved across to make a bridge,- and Captain steel, in the thick of a hard-fought fight, contested hand-to- Faulknor headed his men to scale the parapet and enter the hand with cutlass and bayonet and boarding pike, came the place. A French regiment—the 35TH of the line—faced them, first idea of the name; on the quarter-deck of a British flagship, drawn up between the inner and outer gates right across the as the last echoes of battle were dying away, was the name path of the sailors, from whose muskets burst a hailstorm of " Undaunted " first appointed and formally bestowed as a small shot as Faulknor's men came on. But no bullets could memorial of splendid heroism, with a ceremonial and circum check the rush of our Jacks. "Steady, men; forward! stance unique in the annals of our own navy or of any other. charge ! " called the British leader, and rushing straight on the It is in commemoration of the brilliant exploit of one of Frenchmen, cutlass in hand, Faulknor and his heroic band, the finest and most dashing officers who ever served afloat reinforced at the critical moment by a fresh landing party, under the British flag, Commander Robert Faulknor, at the forced the enemy to fling down their arms and cry for quarter. attack on Fort Royal, Martinique, by Sir John Jervis's The iron inner gates of the citadel next barred the way, but Squadron (conjointly with a military expedition) in these were burst in, and then rushing forward in spite of March, 1794, that the " Undaunted" received her name. fierce resistance, the seamen triumphantly made their way to Commander Faulknor first of all, with the boats of the British the topmost platform of the citadel, where the French flag was, squadron, led the preliminary attack on the French shore hauled it down, and hoisted the British instead amid batteries which barred the approaches to Fort St. Louis—the shouts of triumph from the armed boats now arrived under enemy's main stronghold at Fort Royal roing straight at the walls, from the squadron beyond, and from the soldiers of the batteries under a hot fire, forcing a landing in the face of the army who thus announced their arrival outside." It only desperate resistance, carrying the French entrenchments along remained to secure Fort Louis, and then Faulknor, having the shore by storm, and forcing the French soldiery manning meanwhile had a French frigate, the " Bien Venu," that lay them to beat a retreat to Fort Louis itself. Then, inspired moored in the roadstead near by, taken possession of, returned by the success of Faulknor's brilliant opening, the storming to the " Zebra " and made sail to rejoin the squadron. His of Fort Royal was decided on. Faulknor was now told off to reception is a story by itself. carry out the boat attack with the landing parties, who were to As the little "Zebra" stood under the stern of the attempt the assault of the sea front of Fort Louis, at the same " Boyne," Sir John Jervis's flagship, to regain her berth, the time that the French defences on the land side were " Boyne " manned rigging and yards and greeted her with attacked by soldiers of the expeditionary force. A seventy- vociferous cheers, the flagship's band at the same time four gun ship of the squadron, the " Asia; " it was planned in playing " See the conquering hero comes." That, though, the naval scheme of attack, was first to stand up Fort Royal was not all. The next minute a signal to the " Zebra" flew harbour, until close to the French waterside batteries, to at the flagship's masthead for Commander Faulknor to come cover the approach of the landing parties of seamen as the on board the "Boyne." While the order was being obeyed, boats pushed for the shore. The plan at the outset, however, as soon as the " Zebra's" boat was seen approaching, Sir John partially fell through. Owing to bad pilotage—our only Jervis directed all hands on board the flagship to be turned-up, available pilot for Fort Royal being a French ex-naval officer, and ordered the officers to assemble on the quarter-deck. a refugee royalist, who, in a fit of fright at what might happen Then, placing himself at their head, on Commander Faulknor's to himself if the French on shore caught him, lost his nerve, first step on the " Boyne's " quarter deck, the Admiral came the *' Asia " unexpectedly ceased to lead the boat flotilla, and forward to greet him with unusual warmth, handing Faulknor 338 THE NAVY AND ARMY ILLUSTRATED. [May 21st, 1897. as he did so a commission promoting him to Captain on the with the squadron under Sir Hugh Christian, Jervis's successor, spot. "Captain Faulknor," said Jervis, "by your daring in the West Indies, despatched to make counter attacks courage this day a French frigate has fallen into oui hands, among the West India islands against a French expedition I have ordered her to be taken into our service, ami here is sent out to attempt the recovery of the lost French possessions, your commission to command her, in which I have named and taking a principal part in acquiring for England the her, Sir, after yourself—4 The Undaunted.'" Dutch settlements of Demerara, Esequibo, and Berbice in In such exceptionally heroic circumstance was the name Guiana, in regard to the land frontiers of which our modern " Undaunted" first introduced on the roll of the British Venezuela difficulty has arisen, the " Undaunted," on the fleet. A more happily-chosen name in such case there 30th of August, 1795, by misadventure, was wrecked on surely could be none; better name for British fightin hip Morant Keys, an outlying shoal some miles off the coast of there surely could not be. Jamaica. Bad weather on the previous day caused the master " No language of mine," wrote Sir John Jervis, in his of the ship to mistake a distant headland in the south-east of despatch to the Admiralty that very afternoon, "can express the island for another part of the coast, with the result that the merit of Captain Faulknor upon this occasion; but as the " Undaunted," at three in the morning of the 30th August, every officer and man in the army and squadron bears suddenly ran herself hard and fast on Morant Keys. testimony, this incomparable action cannot fail of being Every effort was made to lighten the ship, but it was recorded in the page of history." found that the ship had bilged, and the captain and ship's One fulfilment of the Admiral's hope is the presence of company had to abandon her and leave her to break up, a the name " Undaunted " in our Navy List to-dav. ship in company taking them off safely. So after a short "The Idol of the career of a little more Squadron," "the Admira than nine 'months our tion of the whole Army," second " Undaunted " as Sir John Jervis also came to her end, in the spoke of Captain Faulknor, same waters where we sTiowever, only held the acquired our first.