This story is worth telling for several reasons.

It is celebrated in song, an orchestral version of which - first of the Sea Songs in Henry Wood's fantasia - is played regularly on the Last Night of the Proms in Britain (in 2009 this item was omitted: only the last part of the fantasia, Rule Britannia, was featured).

It describes the engagement which brings France officially into the war, turning it decisively in favour of the American rebels.

It is the first outing of HMS Victory, 27 years before Trafalgar.

And the key figure in the story, Samuel Marshall, is near enough a neighbour of Henry Cort.

The British fleet commander, Admiral Keppel, has been warned that he has been given a poisoned chalice. His friends in Parliament don't trust the Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty.

He takes command in March 1778, selecting Victory as his flagship. He sails down the Channel on 13 June. Marshall's frigate, the Arethusa, is one of the fleet.

On the seventeenth they spot four French sail (keeping their distance rather than "bearing down"). They are still in view when day breaks on the eighteenth.

At 2.30 pm, the French group splits into two. Keppel orders the 74-gun Hector and the frigate Milford to pursue one pair, a frigate and an "armed brig." The brig gets away, but the frigate Licorne is successfully brought in.

The second pair, the Belle Poule (frigate) and Coureur (schooner) are chased by the Arethusa, accompanied by the Alert cutter. The song gives a false impression of the disparity in size between the two ships. If information on the web is correct, the Frenchman carries 30 guns against Arethusa's 32.

The French captain has no intention of being "lugged along" to meet the British admiral. When Arethusa fires a warning shot, he replies with a full broadside.

Dusk is gathering: flashes of gunfire can be seen by the British fleet, as both Arethusa and Alert are engaged. It seems the long-awaited hostilities between the two countries have broken out.

Licorne's captain draws the same conclusion. Secretly he loads his guns. When Keppel orders the fleet to tack, he holds his course. He replies to a warning shot from the America with a full broadside. Merely a gesture: he is surrounded by the enemy, and his opponent is bigger and better armed. Immediately his ship strikes her colours.

Meanwhile two ships of the line, Valiant and Monarch, peel off the British fleet and head towards the main engagement. Belle Poule heads off into the dusk, leaving her companion to the mercy of the British. Coureur hauls down her colours.

Arethusa (Admiralty documents reveal) has lost all her masts. Captain Marshall records eight of his company killed and 36 wounded. In his report, Keppel commends the captain and his crew for conducting themselves with "the greatest spirit and gallantry".

Valiant takes Arethusa in tow, while Monarch goes in search of the French frigate. A thick fog comes down. It does not disperse till the following morning, when she finds Belle Poule "forced back upon the strand" - or rather, anchored too close to the shore to be safely approached. (The "never to fight with Britons more" is wishful thinking: the British, in fact, manage to capture her two years later.)

So the die is cast. When another French frigate, the Pallas, is brought in, Keppel decides to keep the three ships the British have taken. Their captains obligingly reveal the size of the French fleet waiting to take to the Channel: too big for the admiral to engage at the moment. The British head back to port to repair their damaged ships and augment their fleet.

Accounts differ of French entry into the war. In one version, they make an official declaration on 10 July, although the British Admiralty isn't informed until the eighteenth. Still some time before the news can reach American waters.

The Arethusa

Come, all ye jolly sailors bold,

Whose hearts are cast in honour's mould,

While English glory I unfold -

Huzza to the Arethusa!

She is a frigate tight and brave

As ever stemm'd the dashing wave,

Her men are staunch

To their favourite launch.

And when the foe shall meet our fire

Sooner than strike we'll all expire

On board the Arethusa.

'Twas with the spring fleet she went out,

The English channel to cruise about,

When four French sail, in shore so about,

Bore down on the Arethusa.

The famed Belle Poule straight ahead did lie -

The Arethusa seem'd to fly;

Not a sheet or a tack

Or a brace did she slack;

Though the Frenchmen laugh'd, and thought it stuff;

But they knew not the handful of men how tough

On board the Arethusa.

On deck five hundred men did dance,

The stoutest they could find in France;

We with two hundred did advance

On board the Arethusa.

Our captain hail'd the Frenchman, 'Ho!'

The Frenchman then cried out, 'Hollo!'

'Bear down, d'ye see,

To our admiral's lee.'

'No, no!' says the Frenchman, 'that can't be.'

'Then I must lug you along with me.'

Says the saucy Arethusa.

The fight was off the Frenchman's land;

We forced them back upon the strand;

For we fought till not a stick would stand

Of the gallant Arethusa.

And now we've driven the foe ashore,

Never to fight with Britons more,

Let each fill a glass

To his fav'rite lass,

A health to the captain and officers true,

And all that belong to the jovial crew

On board the Arethusa.

From opera "The Lock and Key"

The following information on Belle Poule is taken from the Web.

Remarkable and unprecedented scenes followed the rising of the Court. Guns were fired, processions formed, people sported ribbons with 'Keppel' in gold letters which had been prepared by various peeresses, dinners and dances were given in Keppel's honour, the town was illuminated, and in London mobs attacked the houses of those they believed to be Keppel's enemies.

From James, The British Navy In Adversity.

RELATED TOPICS

Main sources of information

18th century politics

John Becher and the American War

Thomas Morgan and the American War

Dundas and Trotter

Sandwich and Middleton

Samuel Marshall

The 1782 Jamaica convoy

Sinking of the Royal George

Fact, error and conjecture