Blowing up Pirates, or
Beware the Black Sails of the “Infernal Machine”

Attack on the "nest of wasps" at Saint Malo, November 1693 (published 1694)

WHEN WAR BEGAN IN 1688, FRANCE UNLEASHED A PLAGUE OF STATE-SANCTIONED PIRATES UPON THE ENGLISH CHANNEL.  No merchant vessel along Europe’s northern shores was safe from these French privateers or “corsairs”.  To be sure, it was dangerous business being a corsair but that did not discourage a horde of French youth from taking to the seas. 

When René Duguay-Trouin left his home port of Saint-Malo in 1689 aboard an 18-gun corsair frigate, the Trinity, the sixteen-year-old had little knowledge of the life he had embarked upon.   Sea sickness, storms, and shipwreck welcomed the young sailor to the sea.  Then came battle. 

Cruising the Channel, the Trinity crossed paths with a Dutch ship of equal strength.  The two vessels immediately closed upon each other and boarding parties were made ready.  Armed with swords, daggers, blunderbusses and pistols, the crew of corsairs prepared for their chance to jump onto the Dutch ship. Initially enthusiastic, Duguay-Trouin turned cautious when he witnessed his boatswain misjudge the distance, fall, and was crushed between the colliding vessels.  So violent was the boatswain’s death, that Duguay-Trouin’s clothing was splattered with the poor sailor’s brains: “This object stopped me all the more as I reflected that, not having sea legs like him, it was morally impossible for me to avoid such a dreadful kind of death.”  Yet the young sailor with sword in hand boarded and received boarders while part of his ship was ablaze.

 
Hand to hand fighting at the Naval Battle of La Hogue, 1692 (Benjamin West)

When sixteen-year-old Duguay-Trouin returned victorious to his home of Saint-Malo, his experience did not dissuade him from a pirate’s life: “This campaign which had made me consider all the horrors of the shipwreck, and those of a bloody collision did not put me off.”   This was the French privateer's hardiness and fearlessness that the English and Dutch had to contend with.  Hundreds of ships fell prey to the corsairs and were towed triumphantly into the protected harbour of Saint-Malo.  The port’s taverns and brothels became rich from the ill-gotten gains of their privateer cliental.  Nestled behind its tall walls and the newly-improved harbour island forts, Saint-Malo was ideally situated for corsairs to pounce on any vessel entering the English Channel from the Atlantic, or skip across to the Irish Sea to reek havoc on commerce there.

Plan and profile of Saint Malo. (published 1700)

England’s merchants clamoured for action against the “nest of wasps” at Saint-Malo.  Far from ruling the waves, England lacked the strength to contend with the corsair threat on the high seas or in the waters close to home.  Looking for a solution, a 17^th century “nuclear option” was concocted.  Like the Manhattan project of WW2, the project was cloaked in secrecy.

At the wharf of the Tower of London a strange vessel was docked.  Black sails were mounted on its masts.  Hundreds of barrels were carefully rolled out on board. Wagons filled with explosive materiel and projectiles circled from the tower to the dark, port-less ship.   The English were building a floating bomb that the world had never seen before.  Its sole purpose was the complete annihilation of Saint-Malo.  It was a Hellburner.  It was an Infernal Machine.

 
Naval Ordnance Engineer Thomas Phillips in 1693 just prior to setting sail for Saint Malo (National Maritime Museum)

Its inventor was a French Huguenot by the name Fournier who had fled to England from religious persecution in his home country.   Fournier’s Infernal Machine was not a creature of half-measures.  Making Fournier’s plan come to life was navy ordinance engineer Thomas Phillips; and it would be Phillips who would light the fuse.  The 300-ton galleon was packed with destructive material to cause a hell of projectiles to rain down upon the French. 

 
The Infernal Machine (published 1697). Part of the ship was studied by French engineers who made this drawing.
 

At the base of its haul was a layer of sand to soak up any moisture and add ballast. (A on the above illustration)  The sand was covered with masonry on which over a 100 barrels of gunpowder were laid.(B)  Separated by two feet of masonry was the next level containing six hundred tarred-linen "carcasses and chests filled with grenades, cannon-balls, iron chains, loaded firearms, large pieces of metal wrapped up in tarpaulins, and other destructive missiles.”(C) When the ship exploded the carcasses would be launched into the air and land on houses or ships catching them on fire.  The grenades and loaded firearms would then explode or fire off randomly discouraging the French from fighting the fire caused by the carcass (learn more about carcasses here). Fifty barrels filled with projectiles and fireworks-like missiles composed the next level.(D)

On the deck was a pile of loaded cannon barrels, packed with gun powder and ball to explode.  As an additional measure if the cannon barrels fell into enemy hands intact, they were made useless by knocking off their trunnions.   Without trunnions, the barrels could not be mounted on a cannon carriage.  Along with the cannons were mortars loaded with fused exploding shells.

To make the ship explode several holes were drilled from the top deck down to the powder barrels below and quick match was laid.  There were a number of fuses, not just one as the illustration above suggests.  Crew member had to light the matches, scurry off the ship to a waiting boat and then row like mad. 

 
Dutch Flyte Ship (published 1677). Similar to the earlier galleon in cargo space but faster and with a shallower draft. The Infernal looked like this ship.

The Infernal had a shallow draft to allow it to pass through shallow waters and get close to Saint-Malo’s fortification where the garrison powder magazine was located.  That way when the infernal machine blew, the French powder magazine would feed the explosion and bring hell to the entire nest of pirates.

Captain John Benbow, 1701 by Godfrey Kneeler (National Maritime Museum) Benbow was one of the most determined officers in the Royal Navy in the war.  In his last battle he led his crew even after being wounded in the leg with chain-shot.

On November 13th, 1693 a fleet of twelve warships, twelve brigantines, four bomb vessels armed with mortars for shelling, and the Infernal set sail for Saint-Malo under the command of the gallant Captain John Benbow.  Benbow had oversaw the infernal ship project and was keen to see the results of the enterprise.    However Benbow’s objective was destroy Saint-Malo and the Infernal was only weapon in his arsenal.   On the afternoon of November 16th, the majority of the fleet drove towards Saint-Malo on a strong wind from the north riding a great swell and strong tide.  For hours the Royal Navy crews struggled in the swirling and treacherous waters to position their vessels to bombard the city. It was not until 10 o’clock at night that they were able to moor.  From that time until 4 o’clock in the morning the fleet bombarded Saint-Malo, lobbing mortar shells and flaming metal-banded carcasses over the city's walls.   With the tide going out, the fleet had to warp out of the bay or risk being grounded on the sand bars that surrounded Saint-Malo.  The pattern of bombardment continued for the next two days, with the bomb vessels firing hundreds of bombs and carcasses into the city.

The navigation around Saint Malo. The tan areas are the sand bars that appear when the tide is out. The English needed to come in with the tide to get close enough to bomb Saint-Malo.

With the arsenals of the bomb vessels almost expended, the Infernal was called forward on the evening of November 19^th . As a diversion, the fleet dispatched a landing party to overwhelm a small garrison and burn a convent on a nearby island.   Masked by this flaming spectacle on the horizon, the Infernal, with its black sails unfurled, moved in.  On board was Engineer Phillips and a skeleton crew to navigate the ship through the many rocks and shoals littering the approach to the walls of Saint-Malo’s old stone-towered citadel.  Under the cover of night the Infernal sailed closer and closer to its destination.  Just when the ship was almost in place the wind suddenly veered, driving the Infernal out and onto a rock.  Several attempts were made to clear the vessel from the rock but all were in vain.  Phillips soon discovered the haul had been punctured and water was leaking into the gunpowder hold.   With little options, Phillips lit the fuses and he and his crew made their escape.

Path of the Infernal Machine showing the impact of the change in wind. French historians believe it was much further from the Saint Malo and became ground on what is called les Pierres aux Anglais (see other map). This distance seems too far to hurl the ship's heavy capstan into the city.

Then hell opened up.  The ship went up in a deafening explosion that shook Saint-Malo like an earthquake.  Roofs were blown off houses, the protecting sea wall of the Citadel collapsed, the wind vanes of nearby windmills were ripped off, and the concussion “broke all the glass, china, and earthenware for three leagues round.”  Projectiles rained down all about.   Hundreds of bombs and grenades continually exploded sending the French population into a panic.  Flaming carcasses fell from the sky in every direction.  Miraculously part of the ship survived due probably to wet gunpowder in that part of the haul.

The Infernal Machine explodes (published 1694). Island buildings burn in the foreground.


Ship's Capstan worked by sailors (published 1700). The two-thousand-pound capstan of the Infernal landed in the Saint Malo's square destroying a house.

While it was an incredible spectacle causing substantial property damage and striking terror deep into the hearts of the people of Saint Malo, the infernal machine had failed. Saint Malo was damaged but was still intact. Possibly broken-hearted Thomas Phillips would fall ill and die three days later.  The only death noted by the French was a cat.  “Rue du Chat-qui-Danse” or street of the Dancing Cat in Saint-Malo was named after the unfortunate feline as a mockery of the English attempt to destroy their city. But behind the bravado was a deep fear of this new weapon. French ports scrambled for a solution to protect themselves from destruction.

Captain Benbow was not finished with the infernal machines and two more were ready and a new attack was made, this time on Dieppe.  However, French had adapted by blocking the harbour with sunken vessels and the infernal machines had little effect.  When the war ended in 1697, infernal machines were abandoned.  It would be over a hundred years before an infernal machine would be used to try and blow up another pirate nest.  

 

POSTSCRIPT

Debris rains down from the Halifax explosion.

On December 6th 1917, a French cargo ship filled with high explosives collided with another vessel in the harbour of Halifax, Nova Scotia.  The dangerous cargo ignited and the ship exploded.  All structures in the city for half a mile were levelled,  killing 2000 people and wounding 9000 others.  The concussion wave snapped trees and a resulting tsunami wave beached ships and washed away a Mi’kmaq village.  Parts of the French ship were found miles away from the explosion.  Twenty thousand people were left homeless when a winter blizzard hit the day after.   This accidental infernal machine shows the damage Saint Malo could have faced if the wind had not suddenly changed on November 19th, 1693.

The cloud from the Halifax explosion

------- A Description of the Maritime Parts of France. (London, 1774).
------- "Letters from Captain Benbow" London Gazette. Whitehall November 26, 1693.
------- "Bombs and Infernal Machines" Scientific American no. 965. (New York, 1894)
------- The Present State of Europe. Volume 5. (London, 1694).
Joseph Allen, Battles of the British Navy (London, 1852)
Arthur Le Moyne de La Borderie, Le bombardement et la machine infernale des Anglais contre Saint-Malo en 1693. (Nantes, 1885)
Surirey de Saint Remi, Memoires d'Artillerie Premier Tome. (Paris, 1697).
René Duguay-Trouin, Mémoires de Duguay-Trouin : 1689-1715, (Paris, 1820)
 

 

Author Robert Henderson enjoys unearthing and telling stories of military valour, heritage, and sacrifice from across the globe. Lest we forget.

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