THE TRAFALGAR CAMPAIGN TO THE SPANISH DECLARATION OF WAR. MAY,
1803—DECEMBER, 1804.
PREPARATIONS FOR THE INVASION OF ENGLAND.—THE GREAT
FLOTILLA.—NAPOLEON'S MILITARY AND NAVAL COMBINATIONS AND BRITISH NAVAL
STRATEGY.—ESSENTIAL UNITY OF NAPOLEON'S PURPOSE.—CAUSES OF SPANISH WAR.
Although Great Britain and France had each, up to the last moment,
hoped to retain peace upon its own terms, preparations for war had gone
on rapidly ever since the king's message of March 8. Immediately upon
issuing this, couriers were dispatched to the various sea-ports, with
orders to impress seamen for the numerous ships hastily ordered into
commission. Some details have come down giving a vivid presentment of
that lawless proceeding known as a "hot press," at this period when it
was on the point of disappearing. "About 7 P. M. yesterday," says the
Plymouth report of March 10, "the town was alarmed with the marching
of several bodies of Royal Marines in parties of twelve or fourteen
each, with their officers and a naval officer, armed. So secret were
the orders kept that they did not know the nature of the service on
which they were going, until they boarded the tier of colliers at the
new quay, and other gangs the ships at Catwater, the Pool and the
gin-shops. A great number of prime seamen were taken out and sent
on board the admiral's ship. In other parts of the town, and in all
the receiving and gin-shops at Dock, several hundreds of seamen and
landsmen were picked up. By returns this morning it appears that
upwards of four hundred useful hands were pressed last night. One gang
entered the Dock theatre and cleared the whole gallery except the
women." Parties of seamen and marines were placed across all roads
leading out of the towns, to intercept fugitives. In Portsmouth the
colliers were stripped so clean of men that they could not put to
sea; while frigates and smaller vessels swept the Channel and other
sea-approaches to the kingdom, stopping all merchant ships, and taking
from them a part of their crews. The whole flotilla of trawl-boats
fishing off the Eddystone, forty in number, were searched, and two
hands taken from each. Six East India ships, wind-bound off Plymouth
on their outward voyage, were boarded by armed boats and robbed of
three hundred seamen, till then unaware that a rupture with France was
near.[90]
Bonaparte on his side had been no less active, although he sought by
the secrecy of his movements to avert alarm and postpone, if possible,
the war which for his aims was premature. Orders were given that
re-enforcements for the colonies should go forward rapidly, ere peace
was broken. No ships-of-the-line or frigates should henceforth go with
them; and those already abroad were for the most part at once recalled.
Troops were concentrated on the coasts of Holland and Flanders; and
the flat-boats built in the last war with a view to invading England
were assembled quietly in the Scheldt and the Channel ports. Plans were
studied for the harassment of British commerce. On the 9th of April was
commanded the armament of the shores, from the Scheldt westward to the
Somme, a distance of one hundred and twenty miles, which afterwards
became, to use Marmont's vivid expression, "a coast of iron and
bronze." A few days later Elba and all the coasts and islands of France
were ordered fortified; and the first consul's aides-de-camp sped north
and east and west, to see and report the state of preparation in all
quarters.
One affair of great importance still remained to arrange. The
smaller French islands in the East and West Indies could be held in
subjection by a moderate number of troops, who could also resist for a
considerable time any attempt of the British, unless on a very large
scale. This was not the case with Haïti or Louisiana. In the former
the French, reduced by the fever, were now shut up in a few sea-ports;
communication between which, being only by water, must cease when the
maritime war broke out. Between the blacks within and the British
without, the loss of the island was therefore certain. Louisiana
had not yet been occupied. Whatever its unknown possibilities, the
immediate value to France of this possession, so lately regained, was
as a source of supplies to Haïti, dependent for many essentials upon
the American continent. With the fall of the island the colony on the
mainland became useless. Its cession by Spain to France had at once
aroused the jealousy, with which, from colonial days, the people of
the United States have viewed any political interference by European
nations on the American continent, even when involving only a transfer
from one power to another. In the dire straits of the Revolution, when
the need of help from abroad was so great, they had been careful to
insert in the Treaty of Alliance with France an express stipulation,
that she would not acquire for herself any of the possessions of Great
Britain on the mainland; having then in view Canada and the Floridas.
This feeling was intensified when, as now, the change of ownership was
from a weak and inert state like Spain to one so powerful as France,
with the reputation for aggressiveness that was fast gathering around
the name of Bonaparte.
The fear and anger of the American people increased with the reserve
shown by the French government, in replying to the questions of their
minister in Paris, who asked repeatedly, but in vain, for assurances
as to the navigation of the Mississippi; and the excitement reached
a climax when in November, 1802, news was received that the Spanish
authorities in New Orleans had refused to American citizens the right
of deposit, conceded by the treaty of 1795 with Spain. This was
naturally attributed to Bonaparte's influence, and the inhabitants of
the upper Mississippi valley were ready to resort to arms to enforce
their rights.
Such was the threatening state of affairs in America, while war with
Great Britain was fast drawing on. Bonaparte was not the man to
recede before a mere menace of hostilities in the distant wilderness
of Louisiana; but it was plain that, in case of rupture with Great
Britain, any possessions of France on the Gulf of Mexico were sure to
fall either to her or to the Americans, if he incurred the enmity of
the latter. It was then believed in Washington that France had also
acquired from Spain the Floridas, which contained naval ports essential
to the defence of Louisiana. On the 12th of April, 1803, arrived in
Paris Mr. Monroe, sent by Jefferson as envoy extraordinary, to treat,
in conjunction with the regular minister to France, for the cession of
the Floridas and of the island of New Orleans to the United States; the
object of the latter being to secure the Mississippi down to its mouth
as their western boundary. Monroe's arrival was most opportune. Lord
Whitworth had five days before communicated the message of the British
cabinet that, unless the French government was prepared to enter into
the required explanations, relations of amity could not exist, and at
the same time the London papers were discussing a proposition to raise
fifty thousand men to take New Orleans.[91] Three days later, April
10, the first consul decided to sell Louisiana;[92] and Monroe upon
his arrival had only to settle the terms of the bargain, which did
not indeed realize the precise object of his mission, but which gave
to his country control of the west bank of the Mississippi throughout
its course, and of both banks from its mouth nearly to Baton Rouge,
a distance of over two hundred miles. The treaty, signed April 30,
1803, gave to the United States "the whole of Louisiana as Spain had
possessed it," for the sum of eighty million francs. Thus the fear of
Great Britain's sea power was the determining factor[93] to sweep the
vast region known as Louisiana, stretching from the Gulf toward Canada,
and from the Mississippi toward Mexico, with ill-defined boundaries in
either direction, into the hands of the United States, and started the
latter on that course of expansion to the westward which has brought
her to the shores of the Pacific.
Having thus relinquished a position he could not defend, and, as far as
in him lay, secured the French possessions beyond the sea, Bonaparte
could now give his whole attention to the plans for subjugating the
British Islands which had long been ripening in his fertile brain.
It was from the first evident that Great Britain, having in the
three kingdoms but fifteen million inhabitants, could not invade the
territory of France with its population of over twenty-five millions.
This was the more true because the demands of her navy, of her great
mercantile shipping, and of a manufacturing and industrial system not
only vast but complex, so that interference with parts would seriously
derange the whole, left for recruiting the British armies a fraction,
insignificant when compared with the resources in men of France; where
capital and manufactures, commerce and shipping, had disappeared,
leaving only an agricultural peasantry, upon which the conscription
could freely draw without materially increasing the poverty of the
country, or deranging a social system essentially simple.
This seeming inability to injure France gave rise to the sarcastic
remark, that it was hardly worth while for a country to go to war
in order to show that it could put itself in a good posture for
defence. This, however, was a very superficial view of the matter.
Great Britain's avowed reason for war was the necessity—forced upon a
reluctant ministry and conceded by a bitter opposition—of resisting
encroachments by a neighboring state. Of these, on the Continent, part
had already occurred and were, for the time at least, irremediable; but
there had also been clearly revealed the purpose of continuing similar
encroachments, in regions whose tenure by an enemy would seriously
compromise her colonial empire. To prevent this, Great Britain, by
declaring war, regained her belligerent rights, and so resumed at
once that control of the sea which needed only them to complete. She
pushed her sway up to every point of her enemy's long coast-line; and
following the strategy of the previous war, under the administration
of the veteran seaman who had imparted to it such vigor, she prevented
her enemy from combining any great operation, by which her world-wide
dominion could be shaken or vital injury be inflicted at any point.
The British squadrons, hugging the French coasts and blocking the
French arsenals, were the first line of the defence, covering British
interests from the Baltic to Egypt, the British colonies in the four
quarters of the globe, and the British merchantmen which whitened every
sea.
This was the defensive gain in a war whose motive was essentially
defensive. Offensively Great Britain, by the suddenness with which she
forced the issue, dealt a blow whose weight none understood better
than Bonaparte. That he meant war eventually is most probable. His
instructions to Decaen, Captain-General of the French East Indies,
dated January 15, 1803, speak of the possibility of war by September,
1804; but how little the bravado of Sébastiani's report indicated a
wish for an immediate rupture, is shown by the secret message sent to
Andréossy in London, on the very day Whitworth left Paris. Despite
the bluster about his willingness to see Great Britain on Montmartre
rather than in Malta, he then wrote: "Direct General Andréossy that
when he is assured the accompanying note has been communicated to
the English government, he cause it to be understood through Citizen
Schimmelpenninck _or by any other indirect means_, that if England
absolutely rejects the proposition of giving Malta to one of the
guaranteeing powers, we would not here be averse from accepting that
England should retain Malta for ten years, and France should occupy
the peninsula of Otranto. _It is important, if this proposition has no
chance of success, that no communication be made leaving any trace_;
and that we here may always be able to _deny that this government could
have adhered to this proposition_."[94] Bonaparte understood perfectly
that Great Britain, by forcing his hand, had struck down the French
navy before it had begun to rise. "Peace," he said, "is necessary to
restore a navy,—peace to fill our arsenals empty of material, and
peace because then only the one drill-ground for fleets, the sea,
is open." "Ships, colonies, commerce," the wants he avowed later at
Ulm, were swept away by the same blow. How distressed the finances
of France, how devoid of credit, none knew better than he, who then,
as throughout his rule, was engaged in keeping up the quotations by
government manipulation; and the chief of all sources of wealth,
maritime commerce, was crushed by the sea power of Great Britain, which
thenceforth coiled closely and with ever tightening compression round
the coasts of France.
Bonaparte could not indeed realize the full extent of the injury that
would be done. Impatient of obstacles, he refused to see that the
construction of the flotilla to invade England would devour the scanty
material for ship-building, occupy all the workmen, and so stop the
growth of the real navy. Even when built, the ever-recurring demand
for repairs drained the dockyards of mechanics.[95] Nor could he
foresee how completely Great Britain, by reviving the Rule of 1756 in
all its rigor, and by replying to each blow from the land by one yet
heavier from the sea, would cut off the resources of France and destroy
her as a fortress falls by blockade. Unsparing ridicule has been heaped
upon Pitt for predicting the break-down of the French Revolution, in
its aggressive military character, by financial distress; but in fact
Pitt, though he underestimated the time necessary and did not look
for the vast system of spoliation which supplied the lack of regular
income, was a true prophet. The republic had already devoured an
immense capital;[96] and when the conquering spirit it ever displayed
reached its natural culmination in Bonaparte, the constantly recurring
need of money drove him on from violence to violence till it ended in
his ruin. This penury was caused directly by the maritime war, which
shut France off from commerce beyond the seas; and indirectly by the
general prostration of business in Europe and consequent poverty of
consumers, due to their isolation from the sea, enforced by Bonaparte
as the only means of wearing out Great Britain.
In 1798, when the Peace of Campo Formio had left France face to face
with Great Britain alone, the question of invading the latter had
naturally arisen; but Bonaparte easily convinced himself and the
Directory that the attempt was impossible with any naval force that
could at that time be raised. He then pointed out that there were two
other principal ways of injuring the enemy: one by occupying Hanover
and Hamburg, through which British trade entered the Continent; the
other by seizing Egypt as a base of operations against India. These two
were somewhat of the nature of a flank attack; and the former being
in the then state of the Continent inexpedient,—for both Hamburg
and Hanover were included in the North German neutrality under the
guarantee of Prussia, while Austria was by no means so reduced as in
1803,—the expedition against Egypt was determined. Whatever personal
motives may then have influenced Bonaparte, that undertaking, from the
military point of view and in the then condition of the Mediterranean,
was well conceived; and, while allowing for a large amount of good
luck, the measure of success achieved must be ascribed to the
completeness and secrecy of his preparations, as the final failure must
to the sea power of Great Britain.
In 1803 Bonaparte found himself no longer a simple general, under
a weak and jealous government upon whose co-operation he could not
certainly depend, but an absolute ruler wielding all the resources of
France. He resolved therefore to strike straight at the vital centre
of the British power, by a direct invasion of the British Islands. The
very greatness of the peril in crossing the Channel, and in leaving
it between him and his base, was not without a certain charm for his
adventurous temper; but, while willing to take many a risk for so great
an end, he left to chance nothing for which he himself could provide.
The plan for the invasion was marked by the comprehensiveness of view
and the minute attention to detail which distinguished his campaigns;
and the preparations were on a scale of entire adequacy, which he never
failed to observe when the power to do so was in his hands.
For these in their grandeur, however, time was needed; but the first
consul was ready to move at once, as far as was possible to land
forces, upon the two flanks of the British position. On the 26th of May
a corps under General Mortier entered Hanover; while a few days later
another corps, under General St. Cyr, passed through the Papal States
into the kingdom of Naples, and resumed possession of the peninsula
of Otranto with the ports of Brindisi and Taranto. From the latter
the Ionian islands, the Morea, and Egypt, were all threatened; and the
position kept alive, as in the deep strategy of Napoleon it was meant
to do, the anxiety of Nelson concerning those points and the Levant
generally. Upon this distraction of the greatest British admiral,
justified as it was by the enemy's undoubted purposes in the eastern
Mediterranean, depended a decisive part of Bonaparte's combination
against Great Britain.
In Hanover British trade was struck. This German electorate of George
III. bordered on both the Elbe and the Weser, in the lower part of
their course; by occupying it France controlled the two great rivers
and excluded from them all British goods. The act was censured as
infringing the neutrality of Germany. Bonaparte justified it by the
hostile character of the elector as king of Great Britain; but no
such plea could be advanced for the occupation of Cuxhaven, the port
of Hamburg, which lay on the Elbe outside Hanover. Triple offence was
given to Prussia. Her ambition to figure as the guardian of North
German neutrality was affronted, her particular wish to control Hanover
slighted, and her trade most injuriously affected. To the exclusion of
British goods Great Britain replied by blockading the mouths of the
rivers, suffering no ships to pass where her own were not allowed, and
holding Germany responsible for permitting a breach of its neutrality
injurious to herself. The commerce of Hamburg and Bremen was thus
stopped; and as they were the brokers who received and distributed the
manufactures of Prussia, the blow was felt throughout the kingdom. The
distress among the workmen was so wide-spread that the king had to
come to their relief, and many wealthy men lost half their incomes. In
addition to the advantages of position obtained in Hanover and Naples,
Napoleon threw on these two neutral states the charge of supporting
the corps quartered on them, amounting to some thirty thousand men in
Hanover and half that number in Naples. Holland, against which as the
ally of France[97] Great Britain also declared war, had to maintain
a somewhat larger force. By such expedients Bonaparte eased his own
finances at the expense of neutral or dependent countries; but he was
not therefore more beloved.
To invade Great Britain there had first to be concentrated round a
chosen point the great armies required to insure success, and the
very large number of vessels needed to transport them. Other corps,
more or less numerous, destined to further the principal movement by
diversions in different directions, distracting the enemy's attention,
might embark at distant ports and sail independently of the main
body; but for the latter it was necessary to start together and land
simultaneously, in mass, at a given point of the English coast. To this
principal effort Bonaparte destined one hundred and thirty thousand
men; of whom one hundred thousand should form the first line and
embark at the same hour from four different ports, which lay within a
length of twenty miles on the Channel coast. The other thirty thousand
constituted the reserve, and were to sail shortly after the first.
To carry any such force at once, in ordinary sea-going vessels of that
day, was impracticable. The requisite number could not be had, and
there was no French Channel port where they could safely lie. Even were
these difficulties overcome, and the troops embarked together, the mere
process of getting under way would entail endless delays, the vessels
dependent upon sail could not keep together, and the only conditions
of wind under which they could move at all would expose them to be
scattered and destroyed by the British navy, which would have the same
power of motion, and to which Bonaparte could oppose no equal force.
The very gathering of so many helpless sailing transports would betray
the place where the French navy must concentrate, and where therefore
the hostile ships would assemble at the first indication of a combined
movement. Finally, such transports must anchor at some distance from
the British coast and the troops land from them in boats, an additional
operation both troublesome and dangerous.
For these reasons the crossing must be made in vessels not dependent
upon sail alone, but capable of being moved by oars. They must
therefore be small and of very light draught, which would allow them
to shelter in the shallow French harbors and be beached upon reaching
the English coast, so that the troops could land directly from them. It
was possible that a number of such vessels once started, and favored
by fog or calm, might pass unseen, or even in defiance of the enemy's
ships-of-war, lying helpless to attack through want of wind. It was
upon this possibility that Bonaparte sought to fix the attention of the
British government. As the occupation of Taranto and the movements in
Italy were designed to divert Nelson's attention to the Levant, so the
ostentatious preparation of the great flotilla to pass unsupported was
meant to conceal the real purpose of supporting it. To concentrate the
apprehensions of the British authorities upon the flotilla, to draw
their eyes away from the naval ports in which lay the French squadrons,
and then to unite the latter in the Channel, controlling it for a
measurable time by a great fleet, was the grand combination by which
Bonaparte hoped to insure the triumphant crossing of the army and the
conquest of England. He kept it, however, in his own breast; a profound
secret only gradually revealed to the very few men intrusted with its
execution.
To create and organize the flotilla and the army of invasion was
the first task. Preparations so extensive and rapid demanded all the
resources of France. To build at the same time the thousand and more
of boats, each of which should carry from sixty to a hundred soldiers,
besides from two to four heavy cannon for its own defence, overpassed
the powers of any single port. Far in the interior of France, on the
banks of the numerous streams running toward the Channel and the Bay of
Biscay, as well as in all the little coast harbors themselves, hosts of
men were busily working. The North Sea and Holland were also required
to furnish their quota. At the same time measures were taken to
facilitate their passage in safety to the point of concentration, which
was fixed at Boulogne, and to harbor them commodiously upon arrival.
They could from their light draught run close along shore, and from
their construction be beached without harm. Within easy gunshot of the
coast, therefore, lay the road they followed in their passages, which
were commonly made in bodies of thirty to sixty, and from port to port,
till the journey's end. To support the movements, sea-coast batteries
were established at short intervals; under which, if hard pressed, they
could take refuge. In addition there were organized in each maritime
district batteries of field artillery, which stood ready to drive at
once to the scene of action in case the enemy attacked. "One field-gun
to every league of coast is the least allowance," wrote Bonaparte.
In the early months of the war great importance was attached by the
British to harassing these voyages and impeding the concentration, but
the attempt was soon abandoned. The boats, if endangered, anchored
under the nearest guns, infantry and horse-artillery summoned by the
coast-telegraph hurried to the scene, and the enemy's vessels soon
found the combined resistance too strong. Ordinarily, indeed, the
coastwise movement of a division of the flotilla was a concerted
operation, in which all the arms, afloat and ashore, assisted. In
extreme cases the vessels were beached, and British seamen fought hand
to hand with French soldiers for possession; rarely, however, with
success. "The cause of our flotilla not having succeeded in destroying
the gun-vessels of the enemy," wrote Lord St. Vincent, "did not arise
from their draught of water, but from the powerful batteries on the
coast." The concentration, though accomplished less swiftly than
Bonaparte's eagerness demanded, was little impeded by the British.
The port of Boulogne, near the eastern end of the English Channel, lies
on a strip of coast which runs due south from the Straits of Dover to
the mouth of the Somme, a distance of about fifty miles. It is a tidal
harbor, the mouth of a little river called the Liane, on the north side
of which the town is built. In it even boats of small draught then
lay aground at low water; and its capacity at high water was limited.
Extensive excavations were therefore ordered to be made by the soldiers
encamped in the neighborhood, who received extra wages for the work.
When finished, the port presented a double basin; the outer, oblong,
bordering the river bed on either side of the channel, which was left
clear; the inner of semi-circular form, dug out of the flats opposite
the town and connected with the former by a narrow passage. Both were
lined with quays, alongside which the vessels of the flotilla lay
in tiers, sometimes nine deep; and in July, 1805, when the hour for
the last and greatest of Napoleon's naval combinations was at hand,
and Trafalgar itself in the near distance, Boulogne sheltered over a
thousand gunboats and transports ready to carry forty thousand men to
the shores of England. North and south, not only the neighborhood of
the harbor but the whole coast bristled with cannon; and opposite the
entrance rose a powerful work, built upon piles, to protect the vessels
when going out and also when anchored outside. For here was one of the
great difficulties of the undertaking. So many boats could not pass
out through the narrow channel during one high water. Two tides at
the least, that is, twenty-four hours, were needed, granting the most
perfect organization and most accurate movement. Half of the flotilla
therefore must lie outside for some hours; and it was not to be
expected that the British cruisers would allow so critical a moment to
pass unimproved, unless deterred by the protection which the foresight
of Bonaparte had provided.
North of Boulogne and within five miles of it were two other much
smaller harbors, likewise tidal, called Vimereux and Ambleteuse; and
to the south, twelve miles distant, a third, named Étaples. Though
insignificant, the impossibility of enlarging Boulogne to hold the
whole flotilla compelled Bonaparte to develop these, and they together
held some seven hundred more gun-vessels and transports. From the
three, sixty-two thousand soldiers were to embark; and from each of
the four ports a due proportion of field artillery, ammunition and
other supplies were to go forward. Some six thousand horses were also
to be transported; but the greater part of the cavalry took only their
saddles and bridles, looking to find mounts in the enemy's country. In
the North Sea ports, Calais, Dunkirk, and Ostend, the flotilla numbered
four hundred, the troops twenty-seven thousand, the horses twenty-five
hundred. These formed the reserve, to follow the main body closely, but
apart from it. In the end they also were moved to the Boulogne coast;
and their boats, after some sharp fighting with British cruisers,
joined the main flotilla in the four Channel ports.
To handle such a mass of men upon the battle-field is a faculty to
which few generals, after years of experience, attain. To effect the
passage of a broad river with an army of that size, before a watchful
enemy of equal force, is a delicate operation. To cross an arm of
the sea nearly forty miles wide—for such was the distance separating
Boulogne and its sister ports from the intended place of landing,
between Dover and Hastings—in the face of a foe whose control of the
sea was for the most part undisputed, was an undertaking so bold that
men still doubt whether Napoleon meant it; but he assuredly did. For
success he looked to the perfect organization and drill of the army
and the flotilla, which by practice in embarking and moving should
be able to seize, without an hour's delay, the favorable moment he
hoped to provide by the great naval combination concealed in his
brain. This combination, modified and expanded as the months rolled
by, but remaining essentially the same, was the germ whence sprang
the intricate and stirring events recorded in this and the following
chapters,—events obscured to most men by the dazzling lustre of
Trafalgar.
[Between the penning and the publishing of this very positive
assertion of the author's convictions, he has met renewed
expressions of doubts as to Napoleon's purpose, based upon his
words to Metternich in 1810,[98] as well as upon the opinions
of persons more or less closely connected with the emperor. As
regards the incident recorded by Metternich—it is not merely
an easy way of overcoming a difficulty, but the statement of
a simple fact, to say that no reliance can be placed upon any
avowal of Napoleon's as to his intentions, unless corroborated
by circumstances. That the position at Boulogne was well chosen
for turning his arms against Austria at a moment's notice, is
very true; but it is likewise true that, barring the power of the
British navy, it was equally favorable to an invasion of England.
What then does this amount to, but that the great captain, as
always in his career, met a strategic exigency arising from the
existence of two dangers in divergent directions, by taking a
central position, whence he could readily turn his arms against
either before the other came up?
The considerations that to the author possess irresistible force
are: (1) that Napoleon actually did undertake the almost equally
hazardous expedition to Egypt; (2) that he saw, with his clear
intuition, that, if he did not accept the risk of being destroyed
with his army in crossing the Channel, Great Britain would in the
end overwhelm him by her sea power, and that therefore, extreme
as was the danger of destruction in one case, it was less than in
the other alternative,—an argument further developed in the later
portions of this work. (3) Inscrutable as are the real purposes
of so subtle a spirit, the author holds with Thiers and Lanfrey,
that it is impossible to rise from the perusal of Napoleon's
correspondence during these thirty months, without the conviction
that so sustained a deception as it would contain—on the
supposition that the invasion was not intended—would be impossible
even to him. It may also be remarked that the Memoirs of Marmont
and Ney, who commanded corps in the Army of Invasion, betray no
doubt of a purpose which the first explicitly asserts; nor does
the life of Marshal Davout, another corps commander, record any
such impression on his part.[99]]
[Illustration: North Atlantic Ocean.]
Meanwhile that period of waiting from May, 1803, to August, 1805, when
the tangled net of naval and military movements began to unravel, was
a striking and wonderful pause in the world's history. On the heights
above Boulogne, and along the narrow strip of beach from Étaples to
Vimereux, were encamped one hundred and thirty thousand of the most
brilliant soldiery of all time, the soldiers who had fought in Germany,
Italy, and Egypt, soldiers who were yet to win, from Austria, Ulm and
Austerlitz, and from Prussia, Auerstadt and Jena, to hold their own,
though barely, at Eylau against the army of Russia, and to overthrow
it also, a few months later, on the bloody field of Friedland.
Growing daily more vigorous in the bracing sea air and the hardy life
laid out for them, they could on fine days, as they practised the
varied manœuvres which were to perfect the vast host in embarking and
disembarking with order and rapidity, see the white cliffs fringing the
only country that to the last defied their arms. Far away, Cornwallis
off Brest, Collingwood off Rochefort, Pellew off Ferrol, were battling
the wild gales of the Bay of Biscay, in that tremendous and sustained
vigilance which reached its utmost tension in the years preceding
Trafalgar, concerning which Collingwood wrote that admirals need to
be made of iron, but which was forced upon them by the unquestionable
and imminent danger of the country. Farther distant still, severed
apparently from all connection with the busy scene at Boulogne, Nelson
before Toulon was wearing away the last two years of his glorious
but suffering life, fighting the fierce north-westers of the Gulf of
Lyon and questioning, questioning continually with feverish anxiety,
whether Napoleon's object was Egypt again or Great Britain really.
They were dull, weary, eventless months, those months of watching and
waiting of the big ships before the French arsenals. Purposeless they
surely seemed to many, but they saved England. The world has never
seen a more impressive demonstration of the influence of sea power
upon its history. Those far distant, storm-beaten ships, upon which
the Grand Army never looked, stood between it and the dominion of the
world. Holding the interior positions they did, before—and therefore
between—the chief dockyards and detachments of the French navy, the
latter could unite only by a concurrence of successful evasions, of
which the failure of any one nullified the result. Linked together as
the various British fleets were by chains of smaller vessels, chance
alone could secure Bonaparte's great combination, which depended
upon the covert concentration of several detachments upon a point
practically within the enemy's lines. Thus, while bodily present before
Brest, Rochefort, and Toulon, strategically the British squadrons lay
in the Straits of Dover barring the way against the Army of Invasion.
The Straits themselves, of course, were not without their own special
protection. Both they and their approaches, in the broadest sense of
the term, from the Texel to the Channel Islands, were patrolled by
numerous frigates and smaller vessels, from one hundred to a hundred
and fifty in all. These not only watched diligently all that happened
in the hostile harbors and sought to impede the movements of the
flat-boats, but also kept touch with and maintained communication
between the detachments of ships-of-the-line. Of the latter, five
off the Texel watched the Dutch navy, while others were anchored off
points of the English coast with reference to probable movements of the
enemy. Lord St. Vincent, whose ideas on naval strategy were clear and
sound, though he did not use the technical terms of the art, discerned
and provided against the very purpose entertained by Bonaparte, of a
concentration before Boulogne by ships drawn from the Atlantic and
Mediterranean. The best security, the most advantageous strategic
positions, were doubtless those before the enemy's ports; and never in
the history of blockades has there been excelled, if ever equalled,
the close locking of Brest by Admiral Cornwallis, both winter and
summer, between the outbreak of war and the battle of Trafalgar. It
excited not only the admiration but the wonder of contemporaries.[100]
In case, however, the French at Brest got out, so the prime minister
of the day informed the speaker of the House, Cornwallis's rendezvous
was off the Lizard (due north of Brest), so as to go for _Ireland, or
follow the French up Channel_, if they took either direction. _Should
the French run for the Downs_, the five sail-of-the-line at Spithead
would also follow them; and Lord Keith (in the Downs) would in addition
to his six, and six block ships, have also the North Sea fleet at his
command.[101] Thus provision was made, in case of danger, for the
outlying detachments to fall back on the strategic centre, gradually
accumulating strength, till they formed a body of from twenty-five to
thirty heavy and disciplined ships-of-the-line, sufficient to meet all
probable contingencies.
Hence, neither the Admiralty nor British naval officers in general
shared the fears of the country concerning the peril from the flotilla.
"Our first defence," wrote Nelson in 1801, "is close to the enemy's
ports; and the Admiralty have taken such precautions, by having such
a respectable force under my orders, that I venture to express a
well-grounded hope that the enemy would be annihilated before they get
ten miles from their own shores."[102] "As to the possibility of the
enemy being able in a narrow sea to pass through our blockading and
protecting squadron," said Pellew, "with all the secrecy and dexterity
and by those hidden means that some worthy people expect, I really,
from anything I have seen in the course of my professional experience,
am not much disposed to concur in it."[103] Napoleon also understood
that his gunboats could not at sea contend against heavy ships with
any founded hope of success. "A discussion was started in the camp,"
says Marmont, "as to the possibility of fighting ships of war with
flat boats, armed with 24- and 36-pounders, and as to whether, with
a flotilla of several thousands, a squadron might be attacked. It
was sought to establish the belief in a possible success; ... but,
notwithstanding the confidence with which Bonaparte supported this
view, he never shared it for a moment."[104] He could not, without
belying every military conviction he ever held. Lord St. Vincent
therefore steadily refused to countenance the creation of a large force
of similar vessels on the plea of meeting them upon their own terms.
"Our great reliance," he wrote, "is on the vigilance and activity of
our cruisers at sea, any reduction in the number of which, by applying
them to guard our ports, inlets, and beaches, would in my judgment
tend to our destruction." He knew also that gunboats, if built, could
only be manned, as the French flotilla was, by crippling the crews of
the cruising ships; for, extensive as were Great Britain's maritime
resources, they were taxed beyond their power by the exhausting demands
of her navy and merchant shipping.
It is true there existed an enrolled organization called the Sea
Fencibles, composed of men whose pursuits were about the water on
the coasts and rivers of the United Kingdom; men who in the last war
had been exempted from impressment, because of the obligation they
took to turn out for the protection of the country when threatened
with invasion. When, however, invasion did threaten in 1801, not
even the stirring appeals of Nelson, to whom was then entrusted the
defence system, could bring them forward; although he assured them
their services were absolutely required, at the moment, and on board
the coast-defence vessels. Out of a total of 2600 in four districts
immediately menaced, only 385 were willing to enter into training or
go afloat. The others could not leave their occupations without loss,
and prayed that they might be held excused.[105] When the French were
actually on the sea, coming, they professed their readiness to fly on
board; so, wrote Nelson, we must "trust to our ships being manned at
the last moment by this (almost) scrambling manner." In the present
war, therefore, St. Vincent resisted the re-establishment of the corps
until the impress had manned the ships first commissioned, and even
then yielded only to the pressure in the cabinet. "It was an item in
the estimates," he said with rough humor, "of no other use than to
calm the fears of the old ladies, both in and out." It was upon his
former system of close watching the enemy's ports that he relied for
the mastery of the Channel, without which Bonaparte's flotilla dared
not leave the French coast. "This boat business," as Nelson had said,
"may be a part of a great plan of invasion; it can never be the only
one."[106] The event did not deceive them.
In one very important particular, however, St. Vincent had seriously
imperilled the success of his general policy. Feeling deeply the
corruption prevailing in the dockyard and contract systems of that
day, as soon as he came to the head of the Admiralty he entered upon a
struggle with them, in which he showed both the singleness of purpose
and the harshness of his character. Peace, by reducing the dependence
of the country upon its naval establishments, favored his designs of
reform; and he was consequently unwilling to recognize the signs of
renewing strife, or to postpone changes which, however desirable,
must inevitably introduce friction and delay under the press of war.
Hence, in the second year of this war, Great Britain had in commission
ten fewer line-of-battle-ships than at the same period of the former.
"Many old and useful officers and a vast number of artificers had been
discharged from the king's dockyards; the customary supplies of timber
and other important articles of naval stores had been omitted to be
kept up; and some articles, including a large portion of hemp, had
actually been sold out of the service. A deficiency of workmen and of
materials produced, of course, a suspension in the routine of dockyard
business. New ships could not be built; nor could old ones be repaired.
Many of the ships in commission, too, having been merely patched up,
were scarcely in a state to keep the sea."[107] On this point St.
Vincent was vulnerable to the attack made upon his administration by
Pitt in March, 1804; but as regarded Pitt's main criticism, the refusal
to expend money and seamen upon gunboats, he was entirely right, and
his view of the question was that of a statesman and of a man of
correct military instincts.[108] Nor, after his experience with the
Sea Fencibles, can he be blamed for not sharing Pitt's emotion over "a
number of gallant and good old men, coming forward with the zeal and
spirit of lads swearing allegiance to the king," &c.[109]
These ill-timed changes affected most injuriously that very station—the
Mediterranean—upon which hinged Bonaparte's projected combination. Out
of the insufficient numbers, the heaviest squadrons and most seaworthy
ships were naturally and properly massed upon the Channel and Biscay
coasts. "I know," said Sir Edward Pellew, speaking of his personal
experience in command of a squadron of six of the line off Ferrol, "I
know and can assert with confidence that our navy was never better
found, that it was never better supplied and that our men were never
better fed or better clothed;"[110] and the condition of the ships
was proved not only by the tenacity with which Pellew and his chief,
Cornwallis, kept their stations, but by the fact that in the furious
winter gales little damage was received. But at the same time Nelson
was complaining bitterly that his ships were not seaworthy, that they
were shamefully equipped, and destitute of the most necessary stores;
while St. Vincent was writing to him, "We can send you neither ships
nor men, and with the resources of your mind, you will do without them
very well."[111] "Bravo, my lord!" said Nelson, ironically; "but," he
wrote a month later, "I do not believe Lord St. Vincent would have kept
the sea with such ships;"[112] and again, naming seven out of the ten
under his command, "These are certainly among the very finest ships in
our service, the best commanded and the very best manned, yet I wish
them safe in England and that I had ships not half so well manned in
their room; for it is not a store-ship a week that would keep them in
repair."[113]
Such weakness interfered seriously with the close watch of Toulon, in
face of the furious weather for which the Gulf of Lyon is noted; yet,
from the strategic conditions of the Mediterranean, in no station was
it more important to get the earliest news of an enemy's sailing and
to keep constant touch with him. With the Straits of Gibraltar at one
end, involving in case of escape several different possibilities, and
with Egypt fifteen hundred miles away at the other, the most sagacious
admiral might be misled as to the destination of a French squadron,
if once lost to sight. Upon this difficulty Bonaparte framed his
combination. In his first purpose the Toulon fleet was to be raised
to ten sail-of-the-line, and at the fitting moment was to sail with
a north-west wind, steering a course which, if seen by any British
lookout, would indicate an intention of going eastward. To strengthen
this presumption, General St. Cyr at Taranto was ordered to raise
batteries to shelter a fleet of ten sail, and to prepare half a million
rations; while the Minister of War was instructed that an extraordinary
operation in that direction was contemplated about the 20th of
November.[114] Simultaneously, twenty ships-of-the-line carrying twenty
thousand troops were to be ready in Brest for a descent upon Ireland,
and to be maintained in a state of readiness for instant sailing.
This would conduce to keep Cornwallis close to Brest and away from the
approaches to the Channel. The Toulon fleet, after losing sight of the
British, was to haul up for the Straits, be joined off Cadiz or Lisbon
by a squadron from Rochefort, raising its force to fifteen or sixteen
sail-of-the-line, and thence, passing midway between Ushant and the
Scilly islands, come about the middle of February off Boulogne; were
the first consul expected then to be ready for crossing with his one
hundred and thirty thousand men.
For the Toulon fleet, as the pivot on which all turned, Bonaparte
selected his boldest admiral, Latouche Tréville, and fixed the middle
of January, 1804, as the time of sailing. All the French authorities
were scrupulously deceived, except the admiral himself, the Minister
of Marine, and the maritime prefect at Toulon, Ganteaume, who had
divined the secret.[115] The orders to the latter, ostentatiously
confidential to deceive the office clerks, announced Martinique as
the real destination, but enjoined him to tell the general commanding
the troops that the squadron was going to the Morea, touching at
Taranto. At the same time staff-officers were sent to notify St. Cyr
that re-enforcements, which would raise his force to thirty thousand
men, were coming not only from Toulon but from other ports; and troops
throughout northern Italy began to move toward the sea-board.
It is not wonderful that Nelson was misled by such an elaborate scheme
of deception. To this day men doubt whether Bonaparte seriously
meant to invade England, and naval men then realized too keenly the
dangers of the undertaking not to suspect a feint in it. Under all
the conditions of the problem, Egypt and the Straits were equally
probable solutions, and Egypt was not the only possible objective
east of Toulon. Sicily and Sardinia, the Ionian Islands and the
Morea, were coveted by Bonaparte; both as forwarding his control of
the Mediterranean and as measurable advances towards Egypt and the
Levant, traditional objects of French ambition. Nelson also suspected
a secret understanding between France and Russia to divide the Turkish
Empire;[116] a suspicion justified in the past by Bonaparte's actions
and to be vindicated in the future by the agreements of Tilsit.
The perplexities of the British admiral were therefore simply the
inevitable uncertainties of the defence, the part assumed perforce by
the British Empire at large in this war. He had to provide against
widely divergent contingencies; and the question is not how far he
guessed[117] the inscrutable purposes of Bonaparte, but how well he
took measures for meeting either fortune.
Let it, however, be remarked in passing, that the great merit of St.
Vincent's strategy was that it minimized the evil resulting from a
single admiral's mis-step. To the success of the French scheme it was
necessary that, not only one but, all their detached efforts should
succeed. The strength of the British strategy lay not in hermetically
sealing any one port, but in effectually preventing a great combination
from all the ports. It was essential to Bonaparte not merely that his
scattered squadrons should, one at one time and another at another,
escape to sea, but that they should do so at periods so ordered, and
by routes so determined, as to insure a rapid concentration at a
particular point. Against this the British provided by the old and
sound usage of interior positions and lines. This advantage Bonaparte
recognized, and sought to overthrow by inducing them to diverging
operations—toward the Levant on one flank, toward Ireland on the other.
Both diverted from Boulogne.
To return to Nelson. During the first six months of his command he
believed that the Toulon fleet was bound out of the Mediterranean;[118]
and indeed, despite Bonaparte's wiles and the opinions of most of his
own friends, he continually reverted to that conviction up to the final
escape of Villeneuve. He could not, however, on the ground of his own
intuitions resist the facts reported to him. On December 12, 1803, he
writes: "Who shall say where they are bound? My opinion is, certainly,
out of the Mediterranean."[119] Again, January 16, 1804: "It is
difficult to say what may be the destination of the Toulon fleet, Egypt
or Ireland. I rather lean to the latter."[120] A week later, January
23, the effect of Bonaparte's feints begins to show: "Information just
received leads me to believe the French fleet is about to put to sea
bound to the eastward toward Naples and Sicily."[121] February 10:
"The French have thirty thousand men ready to embark from Marseilles
and Nice, and I am led to believe the Ferrol ships will push for the
Mediterranean. Egypt is Bonaparte's object."[122]
Against either contingency his course is perfectly clear,—never
to lose touch of the Toulon fleet. "My eyes are constantly fixed
on Toulon,"[123] he says. "I will not lose sight of the Toulon
fleet."[124] "It is of the utmost importance," he writes to his lookout
frigates, "that the enemy's squadron in Toulon should be most strictly
watched, and that I should be made acquainted with their sailing and
route with all dispatch."[125] But here the inadequacy of St. Vincent's
navy told heavily; and to that, not to Nelson, must be attributed the
mis-steps of the later campaign. "My crazy fleet," he writes. "If I
am to watch the French I must be at sea, and if at sea must have bad
weather; and if the ships are not fit to stand bad weather they are
useless."[126] "I know no way of watching the enemy but to be at sea,"
he tells St. Vincent himself, "and therefore good ships are necessary."
Under such conditions, with "terrible weather," in winter, not four
fine days in six weeks, and even in summer having a hard gale every
week,[127] it was impossible to keep his rickety ships close up against
Toulon, as Cornwallis kept against Brest. "I make it a rule not to
contend with the north-westers," he said. "Going off large or furling
all sail we escape damage by the constant care of the captains;" and he
not unjustly claimed equal credit with Cornwallis, in that with such
a fleet, to which nothing was sent, he kept the sea ten consecutive
months, "not a ship refitted in any way, except what was done at
sea."[128]
Though desirable for the battle-ships themselves to be near Toulon, it
would have been possible, in so narrow a sea, to dispense with that by
taking a central position, and keeping touch with the enemy by numerous
frigates; but here also the deficiencies of the navy interfered.
Among the Maddalena Islands, at the north end of Sardinia, was found
an admirable central anchorage, well sheltered, and having eastern
and western exits by which it could be left at a moment's notice in
all winds. Here the fleet could safely lie, ready for instant action,
within striking distance of any route taken by the enemy, and sure to
be found by lookout ships bringing tidings. Thither, therefore, as the
direction most favorable for intercepting the French,[129] Nelson went
in January, 1804, when informed they were about to sail; but he wrote:
"I am kept in great distress for frigates and smaller vessels at this
critical moment. I want ten more than I have, in order to watch that
the French should not escape me."[130] This but summed up the constant
worry of those anxious two years,[131] as it does also the results of
recent experience in the annual manœuvres of European navies. Under
such circumstances all depends upon the position taken by the main body
and the number of scouts it can throw out. Properly, these should move
in couples; one of which can carry information, while its consort keeps
touch of the enemy till it meets another of the lookouts scattered on
their different radii of action.
The situation of Nelson in the Mediterranean, the character of his
anxieties, and the condition of his ships have been given in some
detail, because upon the opposing Mediterranean fleets turns the chief
strategic interest of the intended invasion of England and of the
campaign which issued in Trafalgar. Lord St. Vincent left office with
the Addington Ministry in May, 1804, and under the energetic rule of
his successor, who threw his administrative system to the winds, the
condition of Nelson's fleet was somewhat bettered; but the change came
too late to remedy it altogether.
Various events meanwhile concurred to postpone the execution of
Bonaparte's project and so to prolong the watch of the British admiral.
The Boulogne flotilla itself was not as forward as had been expected;
but the drain made by it upon the French arsenals, for workmen and
materials, was a greater cause of delay, by retarding the equipment
of the ships meant to cover the crossing. In December only seven of
the line were ready in Toulon.[132] In the spring of 1804, the first
consul's attention was absorbed by the royalist plot, which led to the
arrest of Pichegru and Moreau, to the seizure of the Duc d'Enghien
on German soil and to his execution at Vincennes in March. This last
event had diplomatic consequences, in the attitude taken by Russia and
Prussia, which still farther engrossed him; and the invasion of Great
Britain was thus by successive delays put off to the summer of 1804.
On May 25, Napoleon, who had assumed the imperial title on the 18th
of that month, writes to Latouche[133] that on the ocean side all was
prepared, that the project was only postponed, not abandoned, and asks
if he will be ready by July. July 2 he writes again,[134] anticipating
his sailing from Toulon by the first of August, instructs him to pick
up at Cadiz one French ship-of-the-line which had taken refuge there,
thence to go to Rochefort, and finally to reach Boulogne, according to
the first plan, by passing through the Channel; or, if necessary, by
going north of the British islands. In all passages from port to port
he was to keep far out to sea to avoid detection. "Let us," he adds,
"be masters of the Strait for six hours and we shall be masters of the
world." On the 2d of August, however, Napoleon postpones the invasion
for some weeks, because some divisions of the flotilla had not yet
joined; and on the 20th of that month Latouche Tréville died.
This loss was serious, as there was not among the surviving French
admirals any who had shown himself fit for so important a task, except
perhaps Bruix. He, being already definitely associated with the
flotilla, could not well be displaced; and his health, moreover, was
very bad, so that he also died the following March. Of two others who
might possibly prove equal to high command, Rosily and Villeneuve,
Napoleon, after some hesitation and with much mistrust, chose the
latter. "All naval expeditions undertaken since I have been at the head
of the government," said he, "have always failed, because the admirals
see double, and have learned—where, I do not know—_that war can be
made without running risks_."[135] From this simple and undeniable
standpoint no choice more unfortunate than Villeneuve could have been
made. Accomplished, brave, and skilful, he saw the defects of the
French navy with a clearness which absolutely sapped his power to take
risks. Although capable of the utmost self-devotion, he was unable to
devote his command as the forlorn hope upon which might follow a great
achievement.
Doubting Villeneuve's resolution, Napoleon now changed the details of
his combination; giving to the Toulon fleet the inferior rôle of a
diversion, instead of the great part of covering the flotilla at the
chief centre of strategic action. The Brest fleet, during the life of
Latouche Tréville, had been destined to tie Cornwallis to the French
coast by the passive service of a mere demonstration. It was now given
the principal part. Its admiral, Ganteaume, had in 1801 been blamed for
not relieving Egypt; but Napoleon still felt for him the partiality
of close personal association, and knew him to be an able officer. In
the new plan, therefore, the Irish expedition passed definitively from
a demonstration to a resolve. To it were assigned eighteen thousand
troops under Marshal Augereau. Embarking them, Ganteaume should sail
with a fleet of twenty ships-of-the-line, pass far out into the
Atlantic to baffle pursuit, and then head for the north of Ireland
as though coming from Newfoundland. Having landed the soldiers, for
which only thirty-six hours were allowed, the fleet should sail for
the straits of Dover, either by the English Channel or by the north of
Scotland, according to the winds. Arriving near its destination two
courses were open, the choice between which would again depend on the
wind. Either the Grand Army at Boulogne would cross at once to England,
or a corps of twenty-five thousand assembled in Holland under General
Marmont, would sail under Ganteaume's convoy for Ireland. "With only
eighteen thousand men in Ireland," wrote Napoleon, "we would run great
risks; but whether they be increased to forty thousand, or I myself be
in England and eighteen thousand in Ireland, the gain of the war will
be ours."[136]
The Toulon and Rochefort squadrons were to favor these operations
by a powerful diversion. They were to sail separately for the West
Indies, the former numbering twelve of the line and the latter five.
Upon reaching the Atlantic two of the Toulon ships were to be directed
against St. Helena, which they were to seize and then cruise in its
neighborhood for three months against British commerce. The rest of
the division, carrying four thousand troops, was to retake Dutch
Guiana and re-enforce San Domingo,[137] if possible. The Rochefort
division, lately commanded by Villeneuve, but now by Missiessy, was
to seize the islands Santa Lucia and Dominica, re-enforce Martinique
and Guadaloupe and then join Villeneuve. Thus combined, all would
return to Europe, appear before Ferrol, releasing five French ships
which were there blockaded, and finally anchor at Rochefort. "Thus
attacked simultaneously in Asia, Africa, and America," wrote Napoleon,
"the English, long accustomed not to suffer from the war, will by
these successive shocks to their commerce feel the evidence of their
weakness. I think that the sailing of these twenty ships-of-the-line
will oblige them to dispatch over thirty in pursuit."[138] Villeneuve
was to sail by October 12, and Missiessy before November 1. The Irish
expedition should await the departure of the others, but it was hoped
might get away before November 23.
This second combination was more vast, more complicated and therefore
much more difficult than the first. It is interesting chiefly as
indicating the transition in the emperor's mind, from the comparatively
simple scheme laid down for Latouche Tréville to the grandiose
conception which ended in Trafalgar and claimed Villeneuve as its
victim. The course of events, mightier than the wills of sovereigns,
now intervened to change again Napoleon's purpose and restore to the
Toulon fleet the central part in the great drama. In December, 1804,
formal war broke out between Great Britain and Spain.
Spain since 1796 had been in defensive and offensive alliance with
France. By the treaty of San Ildefonso, then signed, she had bound
herself to furnish, upon the simple demand of the French government,
fifteen ships-of-the-line to re-enforce the French navy, as well
as a specified body of troops. Holland also had entered into a
similar covenant "forever" against Great Britain. At the outbreak of
hostilities, therefore, Bonaparte found on either flank a maritime
state formally obliged to aid him, whatever its present wish. Holland,
a small flat country near at hand, was easily dominated by his army.
It was rich, had a valid government and energetic people; and its
position admirably seconded his schemes against Great Britain. It
therefore suited him to have the Batavian republic join in the war.
Spain, on the contrary, being extensive and rugged, was with difficulty
controlled by an armed force, as Napoleon afterwards learned to his
cost. It was remote from the centre of his power and from the intended
operations; while effective military support could not be had from its
government, feeble to disorganization, nor from its people, indolent
and jealous of foreigners. One thing only was left to Spain of her
former greatness,—the silver poured into her treasury from her colonies.
Bonaparte therefore decided to allow the neutrality of Spain, and to
relinquish the stipulated aid in kind, upon condition of receiving an
equivalent in money. This he fixed at six million francs per month,
or about fourteen million dollars annually. Spain protested earnestly
against the amount, but the first consul was inexorable. He required
also that all levies of troops should cease, any land forces sent
into the provinces adjoining France, since September, 1801, should
be withdrawn, and the Spanish navy reorganized. Further, he demanded
that five French ships-of-the-line then in Ferrol, where they had
taken refuge from the British navy in July, 1803, when returning from
Haïti, should be by Spain repaired and got ready for sea. "Spain," said
Bonaparte, "has three alternatives: 1, she may declare war against
England; 2, she may pay the specified subsidy; 3, war will be declared
by France against Spain."[139]
When war began, the British minister at Madrid was instructed to ask
if Spain intended to furnish France the ships promised by the treaty.
If the answer was yes, he was to express no opinion, but say that any
excess over the stipulations would be regarded as a declaration of war.
Later, when it became known that Spain had signed a convention[140]
stipulating the payment of subsidies to France, the ministry took
the ground that this was a just cause of war, whenever Great Britain
chose so to consider it; though for the time she might pass it over.
"You will explain distinctly," ran the ambassador's instructions,
dated November 24, 1803, "that his Majesty can only be induced to
abstain from immediate hostilities in consequence of such a measure,
upon the consideration that it is a temporary expedient, ... and that
his Majesty must be at liberty to consider a perseverance in the
system of furnishing succors to France as, at any future period, when
circumstances may render it necessary, a just cause of war."[141] "I am
expressly enjoined to declare," wrote the British ambassador, in making
this communication, "that such payments are a war subsidy, a succor
the most efficacious, the best adapted to the wants and situation
of the enemy, the most prejudicial to the interests of his Britannic
Majesty's subjects, and the most dangerous to his dominions; in fine,
more than equivalent to every other species of aggression."[142]
Repeated inquiries failed to draw from the Spanish government any
official statement of the terms of its bargain, either as to the
amount of the subsidy, the period during which it should continue, or
other conditions of the agreement.[143] Such communication the French
ambassador positively over-ruled.[144]
Warning was therefore early given[145] that a condition essential to
postponement of action by Great Britain was the suspension of all
further arming in Spanish ports. This was repeated in the most formal
terms, and as an ultimatum, a few weeks later, on the 18th of February,
1804. "I am ordered to declare to you that the system of forbearance
on the part of England absolutely depends on the cessation of every
naval armament, and I am expressly forbidden to prolong my residence
here, if unfortunately this condition should be rejected."[146] It
was alleged and was incontrovertibly true, that, while Spain was so
evidently under Bonaparte's influence, armaments in her ports as
effectively necessitated watching, and so as greatly added to Great
Britain's burdens, as if war actually existed.[147] Another complaint
was that prizes made by French privateers were, by process of law,
condemned and sold in Spanish ports.[148] The same was doubtless
allowed to Great Britain; but in the strict blockade of the ports of
France the latter here derived a great benefit, while upon her enemy
was simply imposed an additional burden in scouring all the Spanish
coast, as though actually at war, in order to recapture inward-bound
prizes. Once condemned, the prize goods found their way to the French
ports by Spanish coasters. Independent of the difficulty of identifying
the property, the small size of these neutral carriers made seizure
inexpedient; for the costs of condemnation were greater than the value
of the prize.[149] The Spanish government claimed that the condemnation
and sale of prize goods in their ports was simply an act of authorized
commerce, free from all hostility.[150] Americans who recall the
cruises of the Alabama and her fellows will be disposed to think that,
whatever the technical accuracy of the plea, neutrality benevolent to
an enemy's cruisers constitutes a just cause of war, whenever policy so
advises.
The relations between the two countries continued in this strained and
critical condition during the greater part of 1804. Bonaparte insisted
that the Spanish dockyards should repair the French ships in Ferrol
and Cadiz,—which was indeed one of the conditions of the convention
of October 19, 1803, concealed from Great Britain,—and should permit
seamen to pass by land from one port of Spain to another, and from
France through Spain, to complete their crews. He consented indeed that
they should go in small bodies of thirty or forty, but the vigilance
of the British officials could not be deceived. The relations between
France and Spain at this time were not inaptly described in the letter
of Napoleon to the king, announcing his assumption of the imperial
dignity. He styled him therein "ally and confederate." In June, 1804,
an aide-de-camp of the emperor visited Ferrol and Madrid, charged to
ascertain the condition of the ships and demand their completion.[151]
The British minister could obtain no explanation of this mission, which
naturally aroused his attention.[152] Spain in truth was no longer
a free agent. On the 3d of July, Napoleon ordered his Minister of
Marine to send to Ferrol the men still needed to man the ships there;
and on the 19th of the month[153] the British admiral Cochrane, then
blockading the port, remonstrated with the governor of Galicia upon
this procedure as hostile to Great Britain. On the 3d of September, and
again on the 11th, Cochrane wrote to his government that Spanish ships
in Ferrol were fitting for sea, that three first-rates were expected
from Cadiz, and that no doubt remained that the French, Spanish, and
Dutch ships in the port were to act together. He had consequently found
necessary to concentrate his force.[154] Immediately upon receiving
this information, the British ministry notified the Spanish government
that orders had been sent to their admiral off Ferrol to prevent
any Spanish ships of war from entering or leaving that port. The
ambassador at Madrid was directed to require that the armaments should
be discontinued, and placed upon the same footing as before the war.
He was also to demand a clear explanation of the relations existing
between France and Spain. Unless satisfactory replies were given, he
was ordered to quit Madrid.
At the same time the ministry took a more questionable step.
Orders were sent to Cornwallis, to Cochrane, to Nelson, and to the
naval officer off Cadiz to detain and send to England all Spanish
treasure-ships; the intention being to keep them as a pledge until
satisfactory arrangements with Spain were made. In consequence of this,
on the 5th of October, four British frigates stopped, near Cadiz,
four Spanish vessels, of the same class but of inferior armament.
The disparity of force was not great enough to justify the Spanish
commodore in yielding; and an action followed in which one of his
frigates blew up. The other three surrendered and were taken to
England. Curiously enough, the news of this transaction had not reached
Madrid when the British representative, on the 10th of November, left
the city. The final discussions between him and the Spanish government
went on in complete ignorance of so decisive an event; but as he could
get no explanation of the agreements between France and Spain, he
persisted in demanding his passports. On the 12th of December, 1804,
Spain declared war.
That Great Britain had just cause for war can scarcely be denied. She
now for the first time came into contact with Napoleon's claim that it
was, not merely the interest, but the bounden duty of every maritime
state to join his attempt to crush her.[155] Upon this principle
he justified his policy of coercing all into such hostilities, and
formulated at a later day the maxim, "There are no neutrals." The
subsidy paid by Spain, calculated on British rates of expenditure, was
annually worth to France fifteen ships-of-the-line and two hundred
thousand troops;[156] but against Napoleon's further extension of his
principle, by suddenly calling into activity the Spanish navy, Great
Britain's only safeguard was to insist upon the latter's remaining
unarmed. The Spanish government, having promised not to arm, suddenly
and without explanation began to equip vessels in Ferrol,—an act
which, coinciding with the passage of French seamen through Spain to
that place, fairly excited alarm and justified the orders not to allow
Spanish ships to enter or leave the port.
The seizure of the treasure-ships is less easily excused, though
the obloquy attending it has been unduly heightened by the tragical
explosion. Its best palliation lies in Great Britain's previous
experience that, in the commercial decadence and poverty of Spain, the
treasures of the colonies were a determining factor in negotiations.
While they were on the sea, Spain temporized; when they arrived, she
stiffened. The purpose was to retain them as a pledge, to be restored
in case of a peaceable issue; as Swedish merchantmen were embargoed in
1801, and released when the Armed Neutrality dissolved. A Spanish naval
historian, while censuring other acts of Great Britain, says: "The mere
detention of the division from America, carrying specie which might be
used in behalf of French preparations, could have been overlooked as
an able and not very illegal means of bettering the prospects of the
English reclamations, in consequence of the scanty satisfaction they
obtained from our Court;" and again: "If all the circumstances are
impartially weighed, ... we shall see that all the charges made against
England for the seizure of the frigates may be reduced simply to want
of proper foresight in the strength of the force detailed to effect
it."[157] The action, nevertheless, was precipitate, and extenuated by
no urgent political necessity. Nelson, who certainly was not averse to
strong measures, directed his captains to disobey the order, which he
at first thought came only from Cornwallis; for, he said, "I am clearly
of the opinion that Spain has no wish to go to war with England."[158]