The war had begun with the revolt of some of the colonists in Massachusetts in 1775 and had developed into the bitter and hard-fought struggle which the British call the American War of Independence and which is usually referred to as the American Revolution on the other side of the Atlantic. France and Spain saw the war as a golden opportunity to revenge themselves for the setbacks of the Seven Years War of 1756-1763 during which France had lost all Canada, as well as several West Indian islands, to Britain. In 1778 France joined on the side of the Americans and declared war on Britain. Spain followed in 177.9 and laid siege to Gibraltar. The result was that Britain's navy was stretched to the limit: ships were needed on the east coast of America to provide support for the British troops fighting General Washington's forces; ships were needed in the West Indies to combat French attacks on St Lucia, Grenada and St Kitts; a fleet was sent to relieve Gibraltar; and a fleet was needed in the English Channel to guard against a threatened invasion.
A series of military disasters in America culminated in the surrender at Yorktown of a British army commanded by General Cornwallis. Britain abandoned her rule over the American colonies and in November 1782 she signed a peace treaty with a new nation, the United States of America. Three months later the Peace of Paris was signed at Versailles which brought an end to the war with France and Spain. For the next ten years the countries of western Europe remained in a state of uneasy truce. The Gentleman s Magazine summed up the situation in October 1786: 'Peace and war are suspended in equal balance, and it is not possible at present to determine on which side the scale will turn. The continental powers are busied in arranging their armies to be in readiness for war; and the maritime powers in increasing their marine.'
It was during this temporary suspension of hostilities between Britain and France that the Bellerophon was finally launched.
TWO
A Stormy Launch
1786
As with so many events in British history, the weather played a significant part in the launch of the Bellerophon. She should have been completed and in the water several weeks before the autumnal gales of 1786. In June of that year the Kentish Gazette announced that the ship would be launched in August. In September the newspaper contained a letter from Rochester dated 13 September which noted that, 'The Bellerophon, a beautiful ship of 74 guns, now building at Frinsbury for the use of the government, will be launched the 23 of this month.' For some reason she was not launched on the 23rd and it was arranged that she should be launched two weeks later, early in the afternoon of Saturday 1 October. High water that day at Chatham was at 12.05.
Commissioner Proby was invited to launch the new warship. He was a former naval captain and had been the Resident Commissioner of Chatham dockyard for the past fifteen years. Also invited to the launching ceremony were the Bishop of Rochester, the mayors of the three Medway towns and representatives of the Admiralty and Navy Board. An elaborate dinner was ordered from the landlord of the Crown Inn which was situated across the river from the shipyard and had rooms overlooking Rochester Bridge.
The weather had been blustery during September but in the first week of October southern England was hit by violent storms. On 5 October the wind blew hard from the north-west, uprooting trees and taking slates off rooftops. The next day the wind veered round to the south-west and on 7 October gale-force winds swept up the English Channel. At Shoreham a Danish timber ship was driven onto the beach and dashed into pieces in the surf with the loss of all her crew. A small house alongside the fish market at Brighton was washed into the sea by breaking waves, and the piers at Newhaven were so badly damaged that ships had difficulty getting in and out of the harbour. Sweeping across Kent and the Medway valley, the wind brought down fruit trees and hop poles, and nearly blew away a field of recently cut radishes. Several houses in eastern Kent lost their roofs and the top of the church spire of Minster in the Isle of Thanet was blown to the ground.
The Bellerophon was in a vulnerable position on the low-lying land of the Frindsbury peninsula. From the north she was partly sheltered by the chalk escarpment on which the church stood, but her massive hull was fully exposed to winds from the south and west. She was safe enough during her building because she was firmly supported by timber shores around her hull and her elm keel rested solidly on the wooden blocks of the slip. But during the summer of 1786 a launching cradle had been constructed to hold her upright as she moved towards the water; the slipway itself had been heavily greased with tallow, and many of the supporting shores had been removed. A drawing of the ship which was made shortly before her launch shows her towering over the surrounding buildings and sheds of the shipyard. She is depicted with huge flags flying from temporary flag staffs above her newly completed hulclass="underline" the red ensign flies at her stern, a small union flag at her bows; the Admiralty flag, the royal standard, and a large union flag fly from poles erected where her masts will be stepped after her launch. It was customary for these flags to be flown whenever a warship was launched in Britain to signify that the vessel was one of the King's ships and was under the immediate control of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. The flags had been made in the flag loft at Chatham and brought across from the dockyard.
As the wind howled down the Medway valley the flags strained at the poles, tugging like sails and causing the hull to shiver on her cradle. The wind continued to increase during the morning of Saturday 7 October and the Bellerophon began to rock dangerously as if anxious to be on her way. Some of the shores supporting her hull started to shift and then to collapse. After hurried consultations with his shipwrights Mr Nicholson decided that he had no alternative but to launch her prematurely. There was no time for speeches or ceremonial. He grabbed the bottle of port which Commissioner Proby was to have broken across the ship's bows, and hurled it at the ship. Whether he shouted above the wind 'Success to his Majesty's ship the Bellerophon we do not know. There were only the shipyard workers there to hear him and they were more concerned about seeing the result of their labours safely in the water than about recording the event.
In those days ship launches, like fairs and public executions, always attracted large crowds. The families and friends of all the men and boys concerned in the building of the ship came along. So did the local gentry and their servants. Contemporary paintings of ship launches on the Thames show the riverbanks lined with spectators, and dozens of yachts, barges, rowing boats and skiffs out on the river where their passengers and crews could get a grandstand view of the proceedings. A band would be hired for the occasion to play patriotic and martial tunes, and as the ship hit the water everyone cheered and waved and threw their hats in the air. But when Commissioner Proby, the Bishop of Rochester, the mayors and the sightseers from Rochester and the surrounding villages arrived that afternoon they found the Bellerophon already afloat. She was pulling at her anchor cables as the outgoing tide swept past her hull, the surface of the water whipped into short, steep waves by the fierce winds. She was little more than a bare hull with no masts and no rigging and she floated too high in the water because she had yet to be weighed down with guns, barrels of water, casks of provisions and some 300 tons of iron and shingle ballast. But although the weather had disrupted the proceedings the launch was considered a success. Commissioner Proby despatched a letter to the Admiralty to inform their lordships that 'His Majesty's Ship Bellerophon was safely launched from Mr Graves's Yard at Friendsbury this day,' and the following day the Rochester correspondent sent a report to the Kentish Gazette: