netherlands institute for art history
Naval Battle in the Bay of Vigo, 23 October 1702. Episode from the War of Spanish Succession. Anonymous, ca. 1705. In this painting made just a few years after the battle, allied ships crowd into the bay while the Duke of Ormond’s troops land in longboats. It was seemingly a good choice. More than 500 nautical miles north of Cádiz, Vigo Bay extends twenty-two miles inland on the northwestern Spanish coast just above the Portuguese border, one of a series of such features between there and Cape Finisterre known locally as rías. Its mouth is two miles wide and partially obscured from the open Atlantic by the rocky Cíes Islands, which attain a height of 647 feet. Low hills mantle the bay’s perimeter. The town of Vigo proper, situated on the south shore well inside the entrance, was only a small fishing hamlet in 1702, with a population of fewer than 2,000 souls. A few miles northeast of town the bay narrows down to only 600 yards, a section known as the Rande Stretch, before opening again into pocketed San Simón Bay. The village of Redondela sits on the southeastern shore of this inner harbor. It was in San Simón that the FrancoSpanish fleet sought refuge. When King Philip learned of its safe arrival, he immediately dispatched bureaucrats and carts to unload the treasure as fast as possible— the silver first. This was a herculean task. Offloading treasure ships required sophisticated administrative and logistical support, none of which was in place at distant 20
Vigo. As many as 1,500 oxcarts, clunky contraptions with solid wooden wheels, converged from all across northern Spain, their drivers promised a ducat a league. San Simón Bay is deeper along its southern and western portions, and it was possible for the big galleons to anchor close to shore, which made unloading manageable despite the lack of wharves, warehouses, or heavy cranes. For weeks men scrambled over the ships, lifting boxes, barrels, crates, and sacks from the holds, stacking them into carts and sending them inland with armed escorts. There was the inevitable graft, as well as some banditry in the countryside, but by and large, the endeavor was a success. Even as the galleons were unloaded, Château-Renault did all in his power to make the anchorage as secure as possible. The towns of Vigo and Redondela boasted a few gun positions, while the Stretch featured a battery on the north side and Fort Rande on the south. The fort wasn’t much—an old tower and some wooden gun platforms. The French strengthened it with naval guns and men, the latter unreliable local militia. Most significantly, a giant boom nine feet in circumference fashioned of chains, hawsers, barrels, masts, spars, and outsized junk was drawn
across the strait, anchored at either end by a 70-gun ship of the line. Just inside the boom, five ships lay at anchor, their formidable broadsides facing out. Beyond them, more ships of the line were arranged in an open crescent formation to protect the galleons. Rooke learned of the silver fleet by happy accident on 6 October. One of his captains, Thomas Hardy in command of the Pembroke, had put into the Portuguese port of Lagos to take on fresh water. During the two-day layover, the ship’s chaplain stayed with the French consul there, whose “blabbing vanity,” as described by one English officer, revealed that a powerful fleet lay safely anchored at nearby Vigo. The chaplain repaired at once to the Pembroke, where he awakened his captain with the intelligence. Hardy made haste to catch Rooke, then breasting foul weather off Cape Finisterre. After he got the news, the admiral ordered a council of war on board his flagship. Given the recent Cádiz debacle, everyone agreed that smashing the Franco-Spanish fleet would be an “honor and advantage” and resolved “that we make the best of our way to the port of Vigo, and insult them immediately with our whole line.” They arrived on 21 October and, partially obscured by fog, glided into the bay “almost to the chain,” according to Rooke. A few desultory shots from Vigo had no effect. It was time for another council of war. Rooke concluded that the entire Anglo-Dutch fleet could not make the attack without “great hazard of being in a huddle” and instead determined to send fifteen British and ten Dutch ships of the line accompanied by fireships straight at the boom. Concurrently, the army, backed by several frigates, would land and assault the fortifications. Given the realities as he found them, Rooke’s battle plan was considered and sagacious. October 23rd dawned gloomy with but little wind. Long boats landed the Duke of Ormand and 2,500 men, including a contingent of the Coldstream Guards, on a sandy beach between Vigo and Fort Rande. They met no opposition. From thence Ormond divided his men into two columns, one to move along the shore and one farther inland over higher ground. SEA HISTORY 177, WINTER 2021–22