MDDM Ch. 4 "Poohpooh! Adieu!"

[jbor]

I think that Pynchon hints at various reasons why the captain and crew of
*l'Grand* decided to engage the *Seahorse* in battle in the first place,
only to refrain from finishing her off when they obviously could have.
Perhaps there was another British ship "some" of the sailors contended
later; and Wicks parenthetically suggests divine intervention of some sort.
(40) But, most prominently, there is the anonymous observation (it can't be
M or D or Wicks because they are all below-decks) from someone on board the
*Seahorse* of the way the French warship simply turns and sets sail away
from the beleaguered English frigate. (39.21) Contained within this
perception is the imagined (stereotyped, in English) conversation of the
Post-Captain and his Commandant. (39.27) It too is framed in the grammar of
possibility, indeterminacy ("What conversation may have passed ... " and,
"Had the Frenchman really signalled ... ")

But the most reasonable explanation for the French retreat is alluded to in
a snatch of historical exposition which follows in the text:

    A year before, Morale aboard the *l'Grand*, never that high to begin
    with, had seem'd to suffer an all but mortal blow with news of the
    disaster to the Brest fleet ... (40.7)

And so follows an extra-diegetic narrative excursus on trying to restore
wounded French pride, one which leads into a snappy ditty supposedly sung by
the French crew as they returned to port (something along the lines of "The
French don't make war against Science"), and a couple of "great Humorous
Naval Quotations" (40-41), including the one from John Paul Jones ("I have
not yet begun to fight", 23 Sept 1779, as his ship was sinking) and one from
David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty ("There's something wrong with our bloody
ships, today, Chatfield", at the Battle of Jutland, 1916, reported in
Winston Churchill's _The World Crisis 1916-1918_, published in 1927, pt. 1,
p. 129).

Here are some paintings, and primary and secondary accounts of The Battle of
Quiberon Bay, 1759:

http://www.digitalhistory.org/battle_of_quiberon_bay.htm

http://wargamer.com/aos/qb-cnd%20.asp

http://www.british-forces.com/rtw/conflicts/1701-1800/quiberonbay.html

http://museequiberon.port-haliguen.com/francais/BattlQuiberon.htm

http://www.hillsdale.edu/dept/History/Documents/War/Navy3/1759-Quiberon-Hawk
e.htm

This rout was apparently one of the decisive naval battles of the Seven
Years War (1756-63), which was a wide-ranging conflict involving Prussia,
Britain and Hanover fighting against Austria, Russia, France, Sweden and
Spain, over territory, colonies, a failed treaty &c. It was, in many
respects, a *World* War, and Pynchon often seems to dwell on these
relatively "forgotten" conflicts which in fact prefigure all those other
wars that the flag-wavers and finger-pointers most commonly crow about.

Interestingly, there is another quite significant tie-in between John Paul
Jones and Quiberon:

    Events were working up to the American Revolution. From his letters it
    can be seen that he was strongly on the colonists side. When Congress
    formed a 'Continental Navy' Paul Jones offered his services and he was
    commissioned as first lieutenant on 7th December 1775. His first ship
    was the Alfred. The American Navy at this time consisted of the ships
    *Alfred* and *Columbus*, the brigantines *Andrew Doria* and *Cabot* and
    the sloop *Providence*. Thirteen frigates were ordered to be built. As
    lieutenant of the Alfred and later a captain of the *Providence*, Jones
    gained useful experience of naval warfare. His reputation rose rapidly
    and he advised Congress on the drawing up of Navy regulations. In
    November 1777 he sailed in the *Ranger* for France where he struck up a
    rapport with the American Commissioner in Paris, Benjamin Franklin and,
    at Quiberon, forced the French to salute the American Flag - the first
    time it had been hoisted in a foreign harbour.

http://www.jpj.demon.co.uk/jpjlife.htm

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