“I embrace this opportunity of sending you a few lines by a ship that I hope will arrive safe in England. We parted from Admiral Byron1 in a very hard gale of wind the 4th of this month. We and five more sail of 74 guns are in company. The Grafton and our ship have sprung our main-masts;2 Royal Oak, Admiral Parker, his top-masts;3 the Sultan her main-mast in two places, and lost all her top-masts;4 the Albion5 has lost her main-mast and all her top-masts, and has been seen steering for England. What has become of the rest of the fleet we know not, or how they have suffered.6 We are to rendezvous at New York. I am &c.”
The London Chronicle, 5–8 Sept. 1778.
1. On the make-up and mission of the squadron commanded by Vice Admiral John Byron see Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to Vice Adm. John Byron, 3 and 18 May, in NDAR 12: 654–55 and 705–6, and 5 June, above.
2. H.M.S. Grafton, Capt. Andrew Wilkinson, commander; H.M.S. Bedford, Capt. Edmund Affleck, commander.
3. H.M.S. Royal Oak, Rear Adm. Sir Hyde Parker Sr. commander.
4. H.M.S. Sultan, Capt. John Wheelock, commander.
5. H.M.S. Albion, Capt. Sir George Bowyer, commander.
6. There were eight additional ships in Byron’s squadron. It was 26 Sept. before this scattered squadron reassembled at Sandy Hook. When it reassembled, the squadron was missing two ships: H.M.S. Russell had returned to England because of storm damage and H.M.S. Invincible was lying crippled in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Moreover, all of Byron’s ships required extensive refitting, and it was not until 18 Oct. that the squadron was able to sail in search of the French fleet commanded by Vice-amiral comte d’Estaing. James, British Navy in Adversity, pp. 110–11.
