SUMMARY—THE FUNCTION OF SEA POWER AND THE POLICY OF GREAT BRITAIN IN
THE REVOLUTIONARY AND NAPOLEONIC WARS.
The outbreak of the French Revolutionary War found Great Britain
unprepared. For nearly ten years her course had been directed by the
second Pitt, who, though inheriting the lofty spirit and indomitable
constancy of his father, yet loved peace rather than war, and sought
the greatness and prosperity of his country through the development
of her commerce and manufactures and the skilful management of her
finances. He strove also consistently for the reduction of expenditure,
including that for the military, and even for the naval establishment.
As late as February 17, 1792, when the Revolution had already been
nearly three years in progress and France was on the eve of declaring
war against Prussia and Austria, he avowed his expectation of many
years of peace for the British empire; and the estimates provided
for only sixteen thousand seamen and marines. "Unquestionably," said
he, "there never was a time in the history of this country, when,
from the situation of Europe, we might more reasonably expect fifteen
years of peace than at the present moment." When the war with Germany
began, Great Britain proclaimed and steadily maintained an attitude of
neutrality; and the Minister asserted over and over again, to France
and to her enemies, the intention not to interfere with the internal
affairs of that country. This purpose continued unshaken through
the tremendous events of the succeeding summer and autumn; through
the assaults on the Tuileries on June 20 and August 10, through the
suspension of the king which immediately followed the latter date,
through the revolting massacres of September, finally through the
deposition of the King and the proclamation of the Republic. Doubtless
these events gave a series of shocks to public opinion in Great
Britain, alienating the friends and embittering the enemies of the
Revolution; doubtless whatever sympathy with the French advance towards
freedom the ministers felt was chilled and repelled by the excesses and
anarchy which marked its steps; but, whatever their personal feelings,
no indication appears, either in their public actions or in their
private correspondence as since revealed, of any intention to depart
from a strict, even though cold, neutrality, until near the end of the
year 1792.
The leaders of the party in France, which at this time was exerting
the greatest influence upon the course of the Revolution, had long
favored war with foreign nations, as the surest means to destroy the
monarchy and unite public feeling in favor of the Republic and of the
Revolution. The course of events had justified their forecast. Prussia
and Austria had given provocation; and, although the latter at least
would not have proceeded to extremes, war had been proclaimed and the
fall of the monarchy had followed. There was, however, one nation with
which the revolutionists imagined themselves to be in sympathy, and
which they thought also as a whole sympathized with them. That nation
was the English; between England and France there was to be friendship,
and concurrence of effort to a common end. Herein the French leaders
fatally misconceived the character of English freedom, and the nature
of its successive advances to the conditions in which it then stood,
and through which Englishmen hoped for yet further enlargement.
Reverence for the past, and, in the main, for the existing order of
things; profound regard for law and for an orderly method of making
needful changes; a constant reference to the old rights and customs
of the English people; respect for vested rights, for agreements, for
treaties,—such were the checks which had modified and controlled the
actions of the English, even when most profoundly moved. The spirit
which dominated the French Revolution was that of destruction. The
standard, by which all things human were to be tried, was a declaration
of human rights put forth by its leaders, which contained indeed many
noble, true, and most essential principles; but, if aught existing did
not at once square with those principles, the forces of the Revolution
were to advance against it and sweep it from the face of the earth.
No respect for the past, no existent prescriptive rights, no treaties
that seemed contrary to natural rights, were to control the actions
of the revolutionists. They were to destroy, and to rebuild from the
foundation, according to their own interpretation of what justice
demanded.
The courses and aims, therefore, of the two nations were wholly
divergent, and, as these were but the expression in either case of the
national temper, the hope of sympathy and concurrence was delusive;
but it was a natural delusion, fostered in the hearts of the sanguine
Frenchmen by the utterances of many warm-hearted friends of freedom in
the rival nation, and by the more violent words of a limited number of
revolutionary societies. The former of these were, however, quickly
alienated by the atrocities which began to stain the progress of the
Revolution; while the latter, being supposed by the French leaders to
represent the feeling of the British nation, as distinguished from its
Government, contributed to draw them further in that path of reckless
enmity to existing institutions which led to the war with Great
Britain.
Still, so long as the exponents of French public feeling confined
themselves to violent and irregular action within their own borders,
and to declamations, which did not go beyond words, against the
governments and institutions of other nations, the British ministry
remained quiet, though watchful. There are extant private letters,
written in the early part of November, 1792, by the Prime Minister, and
by his relative, Lord Grenville, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, which
indicate that they rejoiced in having maintained the neutrality of
Great Britain, and that they looked forward to its continuance, though
with anxiety. But on the 19th of that month the National Convention,
which then comprised within itself both the executive and legislative
functions of the French Government, adopted a declaration that it would
grant fraternity and succor to _all_ people who should wish to recover
their liberty;[471] and it charged administrative officers to give
republican generals the necessary orders to carry help to those people
and to defend their citizens who had been molested, or who might be
subject to molestation, on account of their devotion to the cause of
liberty. As if further to emphasize the scope of this decree, for such
in effect it was, it was ordered to be translated and printed in all
languages.
By this official action the French Government had taken a great and
important step, radically modifying its relations to all other states.
The decree did not mention the governments with which France was then
at war, limiting to their people the application of its terms. On the
contrary, when a member of the Convention, a month later, proposed
to insert words which should restrict its operation to those peoples
"against whose tyrants France was, or should hereafter be, at war,"
and gave, as his reason, to remove the uneasiness of Great Britain,
the motion found no support. The previous question was moved, and the
Convention passed on to other business.[472]
The men who then wielded the power of France had thus gone beyond a
simple inveighing against other governments, and the mere use of words
calculated to excite discontent among the people of other states, and
had announced an intention to interfere forcibly in their internal
affairs whenever called upon to do so by citizens who, in the opinion
of the French Government, were deprived of their just liberty or
molested in their efforts to recover it. The anarchist of our own
day, who contents himself with verbally attacking existing laws and
institutions, however vehemently, may remain untouched so long as he
confines himself to the expression and advocacy of his opinions; but
when he incites others to action in order to carry out his ideas, he
is held responsible for the effect of his words; and when he takes
measures leading to violence, he is open to arrest and punishment. Such
as this, among governments, was the step taken by France in November,
1792. She not only incited the citizens of other states to rebellion,
but announced her intention of supporting them, and gave to her
generals the necessary orders for carrying that purpose into effect.
Meanwhile the Austrian Netherlands was rapidly overrun and annexed
to the French Republic, which thus abandoned the lofty posture of
disinterestedness, and the disclaimers of all desire for conquest
which the leaders of the Revolution had made from the tribune of the
Convention. Soon after followed a decree declaring the navigation of
the Scheldt, the great artery of Belgium, open to the sea. This set
aside, without negotiation, the compacts of the previous owners of the
Netherlands, by which the navigation of the river from the sea was
reserved to Holland, within whose territory the mouth lay,—an agreement
consecrated by renewed treaties, and which, by long standing, had
become part of the public law of Europe. The act strikingly showed
the determination of the French leaders to disregard treaties which
conflicted with their construction of the natural rights of man; for
they were at peace with Holland, yet made no attempt to obtain their
end by negotiation.
The interests and the peace of Great Britain were now seriously
threatened. For over a century her statesmen had held, and held
rightly, that the possession of Belgium by France was incompatible
with her security. They had supported the legal, though iniquitous,
claim of the Dutch to the exclusive navigation of the Scheldt; and,
above all, the country was bound by a treaty of alliance to defend
Holland, whose rights as defined by treaty had been rudely set aside by
France. Moreover, on the 28th of November deputations from the British
revolutionary societies were received at the bar of the Convention, and
the President of the latter, in reply to their address, made a speech
strongly hostile to the British Government, affecting to distinguish
between it and the people over whom it ruled; a pretence which was
equally maintained in the United States of America, where the French
minister the following year dared to appeal openly to the people
against the policy of their government.
On the 1st of December the British Government issued a proclamation,
calling out the militia on account of seditions and insurrectionary
movements dangerous to the state, and at the same time, as required
by law, summoned Parliament to meet on the 15th. The hopes and the
patience of Pitt were alike exhausted; and although he still continued
to listen to any overtures that contained a promise of peace, he had
determined to exact guarantees, amounting to more than words, which
should assure the safety of Great Britain and her ally, Holland.
Meantime the British forces should be organized and got ready to act.
The French Government had proclaimed its intention of interfering in
the affairs and overthrowing the institutions of all states, when,
in its judgment, their citizens were molested in their efforts for
freedom. To await supinely the moment when it should please France to
act would be the decision of folly; nor was it possible, for one imbued
with English traditions, to view without distrust a government which
appeared to look for justice by disregarding law, and avowedly disowned
existing compacts and treaties in favor of a speculative somewhat
called the Rights of Man, concerning which, its own passions being the
judge, revelations as numerous might be expected as were vouchsafed to
Mahomet.
There are some who can only account for the different lines of
action followed by Pitt, before and after 1792, in both cases with
the indomitable tenacity of his race and lineage, by conceiving
two entirely different personalities in the same man,—a sudden and
portentous change, unprecedented save by miracle as in the case of
St. Paul. More truly may be seen in him the same man acting under
circumstances wholly different, and in the later instance unforeseen.
It was not given to Pitt to read the future of the French Revolution
with the prophetic eye of Burke. He had the genius, not of the seer,
but of the man of affairs; but that he had the latter in an eminent
degree is evident from the very rapidity of the change, when he was
at last forced to the conviction that external conditions were wholly
changed. He was at heart the minister of peace, the financier, the
promoter of commerce and of gradual and healthy reforms; but in a great
speech, delivered before he had begun to fear that peace would end in
his time, he impressed upon his hearers his own profound conviction
that all the blessings which England then enjoyed rested upon the union
of liberty with law. Having enumerated the material circumstances to
which the existing prosperity of the nation was to be ascribed, he
continued:—
"But these are connected with others more important. They are
obviously and necessarily connected with the duration of peace,
the continuance of which, on a secure and durable footing,
must ever be the first object of the foreign policy of this
country. They are connected _still more_ with its internal
tranquillity, and with the natural effects of a free but
well-regulated government.... This is the great and governing
cause, the operation of which has given scope to all the other
circumstances which I have enumerated. It is the union of liberty
with law, which, by raising a barrier equally firm against the
encroachments of power and the violence of popular commotion,
affords to property its just security, produces the exertion
of genius and labor, the extent and solidity of credit, the
circulation and increase of capital; which forms and upholds
the national character and sets in motion all the springs which
actuate the great mass of the community through all its various
descriptions.... On this point, therefore, let us principally
fix our attention; let us preserve this first and most essential
object, and every other is in our power."[473]
It was perfectly consistent with this position that, when Pitt saw
a neighboring state in convulsions from the struggle of a turbulent
minority for liberty without law; when that state had not only
proclaimed its purpose, but taken steps to promote a similar condition
in other nations; when societies representing a small, but active and
radical, minority in England were openly fraternizing with France;
when the great leader of the English Opposition had, from his seat in
Parliament, praised the French soldiery for joining the mobs,—it was
perfectly consistent with his past that Pitt should oppose with all his
powers a course of action which not only endangered the internal peace
upon which the prosperity of England rested, but also carried into the
realm of international relations the same disorganizing principles, the
same disregard for law, covenant, and vested right that had reduced
France to her then pitiful condition. Not only Great Britain, but
the European world was threatened with subversion. That Pitt did not
bewail aloud the wreck of his hopes, the frustration of his career,
the diversion of his energies from the path that was dearest to him,
shows the strength, not the instability, of the man. That he laid aside
the reforms he had projected, and discouraged all movements towards
internal change, which, by dividing the wills of the people, might
weaken their power for external action, proves but that concentration
of purpose which, sacrificing present gratification to future good,
achieves great ends. Never does the trained seaman appear greater,
has well said the naval novelist Cooper, than when, confronted with
unexpected peril, he turns all his energies from the path in which they
were before directed, to meet the new danger. "Never," writes Lanfrey
of the critical period between Essling and Wagram, "had the maxim
of sacrificing the accessory to the principal, of which Napoleon's
military conceptions afford so many admirable examples, _and which is
true in every art_, been applied with more activity and fitness....
The complications which he most feared were to him, for the moment, as
though they did not exist. No secondary event had power to draw him
off from the great task he had primarily assigned to himself."[474]
All instinctively recognize the courage as well as the wisdom of this
conduct in the dangers which the seaman and the soldier are called to
meet; why deny its application to the no less urgent, and at times
more momentous, issues presented to the statesman? If, as may fairly
be claimed, it is to the maritime power of Great Britain that Europe
owes the arrest of a subversive revolution, if to that maritime power
is due that a great, irresistible, and beneficent movement toward the
liberty and welfare of the masses survived a convulsion that threatened
its destruction, then to Pitt, as the master spirit who directed the
movements of the British nation, the gratitude of Europe is also due.
When Parliament met on the 15th of December, the king's speech
mentioned the disturbances that had taken place in the country and the
threatening state of affairs in Europe, and recommended an increase in
the land and sea forces of the kingdom. This measure was alleged, among
other grievances by France, as indicating an unfriendly feeling toward
her on the part of the British Government; but it has been reasonably
urged that she had already manned a fleet superior to that which Great
Britain had in commission, besides keeping ready for instant service a
large number of other ships, which could have no possible enemy except
the British navy. Viewed simply as measures of precaution, of the
necessity for which every state is its own judge, it is difficult to
criticise severely either government; but the fact remains that France
had been the first to arm her fleet, and that Great Britain did not do
the same until substantial grounds of offence had been given.
By a singular coincidence, on the same day that Parliament met, the
National Convention issued a second celebrated decree, yet more
decisive in its character than that of November 19, which it was
evidently meant to emphasize and supplement. The generals of the
Republic were now directed "in every country which the armies of the
French Republic shall occupy, to announce the abolition of all existing
authorities, of nobility, of serfage, of every feudal right and every
monopoly; to proclaim the sovereignty of the people and convoke the
inhabitants in assemblies to form a provisional government, to which
no officer of a former government, no noble, nor any member of the
former privileged corporations, shall be eligible." To this was
added the singular and most significant declaration that "the French
nation will treat as enemies any people which, refusing liberty and
equality, desires to preserve its prince and privileged castes, or to
make any accommodation with them." It was impossible to announce more
clearly that this was no mere war of opinions, but, on the contrary,
one of principles and methods fraught with serious and practical
consequences; nor could any despot have worded a more contemptuous
denial of the rights of a people concerning their form of government.
The revolutionary spirit, which underlay the frequent changes of men
in the French Government, showed how fixed was its purpose to alter
forcibly the institutions of other states, regardless of the habits
and affections of their citizens, by the systems imposed upon the
smaller neighboring nations, hammered all upon the anvil of French
centralization, in defiance of the wishes and the struggles of the
people concerned. Europe thus found itself face to face with a movement
as enthusiastic in its temper and as radical in its demands as the
invasions of the Mahometans.
To this fanatical, yet lofty, and in the masses of the French people
generous and devoted spirit, continental Europe had no equal force
to oppose. It is a common remark that the eighteenth century saw the
appearance of several ruling princes who were possessed with the
liberal views of the rising school of philosophers, and who sincerely
desired to effect the improvement and elevation of their people,—to
remove grievances, to lighten burdens, to advance the general welfare.
The wisdom or strength of these men had not been equal to the task
they had assumed. There still remained unjustifiable inequalities of
conditions, grievous abuses, a depression of the lower orders, and
a stagnation among the upper, which seemed to place insurmountable
obstacles in the way of advance, and made it impossible for the
masses to feel a living, national interest in governments which
contributed so little to their happiness. This good-will among the
sovereigns of the day was indeed a most encouraging symptom. It made
it possible to effect the needed changes and to advance without a
violent break with the past,—to have reform and progress without
revolution; but to achieve these ends was beyond the power of the ruler
alone: there was needed the voice and co-operation of all classes in
the state. This Louis XVI. had sought to obtain; but unfortunately,
not only for France but for Europe, the most numerous and important
of the orders of the States-General had met the difficulties of the
situation, the outcome of centuries, not with firmness, but with
impatience. From the beginning was shown the determination to break
with the past,—to proceed at a bound to the desired goal. No regard
was had to the fitness of the people for such sudden change, to the
immense conservative force of established custom, nor to the value of
continuity in the life of a nation. Nor was this all. Law, as well
as custom, was lightly set at nought. The first Assembly threw off
the fetters imposed by its instructions, and assumed powers which
had not been confided to it. By means of these usurped faculties the
Constituent Assembly radically changed the constitution of France.
The instantaneous effect upon the French people and upon the internal
condition of the state is well known. As the far-reaching character
of the movement, and its lack of efficient elements for self-control,
became evident, the anxieties of conservative men in other nations,
however desirous of steady progress in human liberty, could not fail to
be aroused. It was notorious, long before 1792, that ill-balanced as
was the new constitutional frame of government in France, and radical
as was the temper of the leading members of the Legislative Assembly,
the deliberations of the latter were overawed by the clubs and the
populace of Paris, and that government had practically passed into
the hands of the mob which was worked by the clubs and the radical
municipality of the city. The grotesque yet terrible scenes of June 20
and August 10, the hideous massacres of September, not merely showed
the frantic excesses of which a French mob is capable, but also and
more solemnly evinced how completely governmental control was swallowed
up in anarchy. Still, all these things were internal to France, and it
might be hoped would so remain until the French people had worked their
own solution of their troubles. The decrees of November 19 and December
15 blasted this hope, and formally announced that French beliefs and
methods were to be forcibly spread throughout Europe. How was the
assault to be met?
Few statesmen of that day expected that this mighty and furious spirit
of misrule would so soon bend its neck to an uncontrolled and energetic
despotism. The coming of the one man, Napoleon, was dimly seen in the
distance by the thoughtful, who knew that anarchy clears the way for
absolute power; but the speedy appearance and tyrannous efficiency of
the Committee of Public Safety, with its handmaid the Revolutionary
Tribunal, were not foreseen. The statesmen of 1793 saw the strength,
but were more impressed by the superficial exhibition of disorder in
the popular outburst. They expected to repress it, to drive it back
within the limits of France, and impose the guarantees necessary for
the security of Europe, by meeting it with numerous, well-organized
armies of veteran troops, and by a solid, orderly financial system,
wielding plentiful resources. In short, they thought to cope with a
mighty spirit by means of elaborate and powerful machinery. The means
were insufficient. The living spirit developed the rude but efficient
organism which was needed to direct its energies and which was in
sympathy with its aims; the elaborate machinery of armies and finances
failed, because not quickened by the life of the nations by whose
rulers it was wielded.
Fortunately for Europe and for freedom, another spirit, less
demonstrative but equally powerful, was already living and animating
another great nation, peculiarly fitted by position and by the
character of its power to grapple with and exhaust that which was
vicious and destructive in the temper of the French Revolution. As
already said, the great feature of English freedom was its respect for
law, for established authority, for existing rights; its conservative
while progressive character, in which it was directly opposed to the
subversive principles of the French. But the English temper, when once
aroused, was marked also by a tenacity of purpose, a constancy of
endurance, which strongly supported the conservative tendencies of the
race and were equally foreign to the French character. Once embarked in
the strife, and definitely committed for the time to the preservation,
rather than to the progress, of society, under leaders who strongly
embodied the national traits, hatred of the enemy's principles became
more conspicuous, superficially, than the love of freedom, which yet
retained its hold deep in the hearts of both rulers and people. War
does not live on the benevolent emotions, though it may be excited
by them. The position and the maritime power of England were great
factors, great determining factors in the final issue of the French
Revolutionary wars; but these were but the machinery of the British
power. The great gain to the cause of stability in human history was
made when the spirit of order and law, embodied in the great nation
which it had created, rose against the spirit of lawlessness and
anarchy, which had now possessed a people who for long years and by
nature had been submissively subject to external authority. Two living
forces had met in a desperate struggle, which was not indeed for life
and death, for both would survive; but from which should result the
predominance of the one that was compatible with reasonable freedom,
and the subjection of the other, which knew no mean between anarchy
and servile submission. Less ebullient, but more steadfast and deeply
rooted, the former wore out the latter; it forced it back through the
stage of prostration under absolute power until it had returned to the
point whence it started, there to renew its journey under conditions
that made it no longer a danger to the whole world.
Such being the profound nature of the strife, its course may be
regarded under two aspects, not necessarily opposed, but rather
complementary. First, and obviously, there is the policy of the leaders
on either side, the objects which they proposed to themselves, the
steps by which they sought to compass those objects, and the results of
their various movements. Secondly, there is the more obscure and wider
question as to the relative influence of the great elements of power
which entered as unconscious factors in the strife,—mighty forces,
wielded or directed by statesmen, and yet after all their masters. Of
these factors Sea Power was one, and among the most important.
The circumstances of the times had placed this force wholly in the
hands of Great Britain. She wielded it as absolute mistress. Its
action, like that of all the other forces in the strife, depended
in part upon the direction given it by the British leaders for the
purposes of war. From this point of view, its structure appears to
be simple and rudimentary; the related movements of a few principal
parts are open to inspection and susceptible of criticism. But from
another point of view, in its course and influence, this wonderful and
mysterious Power is seen to be a complex organism, endued with a life
of its own, receiving and imparting countless impulses, moving in a
thousand currents which twine in and around one another in infinite
flexibility, not quite defying the investigation which they provoke,
but rendering it exceedingly laborious. This Power feels and is moved
by many interests; it has a great history in the past, it is making a
great and yet more wonderful history in the present. Grown to the size
of a colossus, which overshadows the earth without a second,—unless it
be the new rival rising in the Western hemisphere,—it is now assailed
with a fury and virulence never before displayed. Attacked in every
quarter and by every means, sought to be cut off alike from the
sources and from the issues of its enterprise, it adapts itself with
the readiness of instinct to every change. It yields here, it pushes
there; it gives ground in one quarter, it advances in another; it bears
heavy burdens, it receives heavy blows; but throughout all it lives
and it grows. It does not grow because of the war, but it does grow in
spite of the war. The war impedes and checks, but does not stop, its
progress. Drained of its seamen for the war-fleets, it modifies the
restrictions of generations, throws open its ports to neutral ships,
its decks to neutral seamen, and by means of those allies maintains
its fair proportions, until the enemy proclaims that the neutral who
carries but a bale of British goods, even to his own country, ceases
thereby to be a neutral and becomes the enemy of France; a proclamation
which but precipitated the ruin of French commerce, without markedly
injuring that of its rival.
The maritime power and commercial prosperity of Great Britain sprang
essentially from the genius and aptitudes of her people, and were
exceptionally favored and developed by the peculiar situation of
the British Islands. To these natural advantages the policy of the
government added somewhat, as at times it also ignorantly imposed
obstacles; but the actions of statesmen only modified, for good or
ill, they did not create the impulses which originated and maintained
the maritime activity of the British people. The most celebrated
measure designed to foster that activity, Cromwell's Navigation Act,
had now been in operation for a century and a quarter; but, while its
superficial effects had secured the adherence of the British people and
the envy of foreign states, shrewder economists, even a century ago,
had come to regard it as an injury to the commercial prosperity of the
country. They justified it only as a means of forcing the development
of the merchant marine, the nursery of the naval force upon which the
safety of Great Britain must depend. Whatever the fluctuations of its
fortunes or the mistakes of governments in the past, the sea power of
Great Britain had at the opening of the French Revolution attained
proportions, and shown a tenacity of life, which carried the promise
of the vast expansion of our own day. Painfully harassed during the
American Revolution, and suffering from the combined attacks of France,
Spain, and Holland, seeing then large portions of its carrying trade
pass into the hands of neutrals, and bereft by the event of the war of
its most powerful colonies, it had not only survived these strains, but
by the immediate and sustained reaction of the peace had, in 1793, more
than regained its pre-eminence. Once more it stood ready, not only to
protect its own country, but to sustain, with its well-proved vitality,
the demands of the continental war; where the armies of her allies,
long untouched by the fires which breathed in France and England, were
but a part of the machinery through which the maritime power of the
latter energized.
How far the ministers of the day understood, and how wisely they used,
the sea power of Great Britain, is a question that will demand a
separate consideration. That is the question of military policy,—of the
strategy of the war. We have first to consider the influence of the
maritime power in itself, and the functions discharged by Great Britain
simply in consequence of possessing this great and unique resource.
The existence, powers, and unconscious working of a faculty obviously
offer a subject for consideration distinct from the intelligent use of
the faculty; though a correct appreciation of the former conduces to an
accurate criticism of the latter.
Because of the decay of the French navy during the early years of
the war, the Republic, after 1795, virtually abandoned all attempt
to contest control of the sea. A necessary consequence was the
disappearance of its merchant shipping, a result accelerated by the
capture of most of its colonies, and the ruin of its colonial system
by the outbreaks of the blacks. So great was this loss, due rather to
the natural operation of Great Britain's naval supremacy than to any
particular direction by the ministry, that the Executive Directory, in
a message to the Council of Five Hundred, January 13, 1799, could use
the expression, scarcely exaggerated, "It is unhappily too true that
there is not a single merchant vessel sailing under the French flag."
Two years later the Minister of the Interior reported to the Consular
Government that the commerce with Asia, Africa, and America was almost
naught, the importations direct from all those quarters of the globe
amounting to only 1,500,000 francs, while the exports to them were
but 300,000 francs. As the advancing tide of French conquest extended
the territory and alliances of the Republic, the commerce of its new
friends was involved in the same disaster that had befallen its own.
The shipping of Spain and Holland thus also disappeared from the sea,
and a large part of their colonies likewise passed into the hands of
Great Britain, to swell the commerce and to employ the shipping of the
latter. The navy of neither of these Powers exerted any effect upon the
control of the sea, except so far as they occupied the attention of
detachments of the British navy, so marked had the numerical and moral
superiority of the latter become.
The disappearance of so large a body of merchant shipping as that of
France, Holland, and Spain, could not, of course, imply the total
loss to commerce and to the world of the traffic previously done by
it. Much less could these three countries wholly dispense with the
supplies for which, during peace, they had chiefly depended upon the
sea. On the contrary, the necessity for importing many articles by sea
was increased by the general continental war, which not only created
a long hostile frontier, prohibitory of intercourse on the land side,
but also, by drawing great numbers of workers from their ordinary
occupations to the armies of all parties, caused a material diminution
in the products of Europe at large. In France, shut in both by land
and sea, with a million of men under arms, and confronted with the
stern determination of England to reduce her by starvation, the danger
and the suffering were particularly great; and had there not been a
singularly abundant and early harvest in 1794, the aim of her enemy
might then have been in great measure reached.
Such a condition of things offered of course a great opening to neutral
maritime states. They hastened to embrace it,—among others the United
States, whose carrying trade grew very rapidly at this time; but the
naval power of Great Britain during this period was so overwhelming,
and her purpose so strong, that she succeeded in imposing severe
restraints upon neutrals as well as enemies, in matters which she
considered of prime importance. Sweden and Denmark strenuously resisted
her claim to prevent the importation into France of provisions and
naval stores; but failing, through the hostile attitude of the Czarina
towards France, to receive the powerful support of Russia, as in
1780 they had done, they were forced to succumb to the Power of the
Sea. The United States likewise were constrained by their impotence
to yield, under protest, before the same overwhelming Power. While
reserving the principle, they in practice conceded naval stores to be
contraband, and on the subject of provisions accepted a compromise
which protected their own citizens without materially injuring
France. No serious attempt was made to change the existing rule of
international law, by which enemies' property on board neutral ships
was good prize. As seizure involved sending the ship into a port of
the captor, and a possible detention there during the adjudication
of suspected goods, the inconvenience of the process was a powerful
deterrent. The English courts also held that the produce of hostile
colonies was lawful prize if found in neutral bottoms; because, the
trade of those colonies being by the mother countries interdicted to
foreigners in peace, the concession of it in war was merely a ruse to
defraud the other belligerent of his just rights of capture,—a plea
uselessly contested by American writers. All these causes operated
to the injury of both hostile and neutral commerce, and to the same
extent, in appearance at least, to the benefit of the British; and they
are cited simply as illustrative of the natural working of so great a
force as the Sea Power of Great Britain then was. The results were due,
not to the skill with which the force was used or distributed, but to
sheer preponderance of existing brute strength.
By the destruction of the enemies' own shipping and by denying neutrals
the right to carry to them many articles of the first importance,
Great Britain placed the hostile countries in a state of comparative
isolation, and created within their borders a demand for the prohibited
merchandise which raised its price and made the supplying of it
extremely profitable. When commercial intercourse is thus refused its
usual direct roads, it seeks a new path, by the nearest circuitous
course, with all the persistency of a natural force. The supply will
work its way to the demand, though in diminished volume, through all
the obstacles interposed by man. Even the contracted lines about a
beleaguered city will thus be pierced by the ingenuity of the trader
seeking gain; but when the blockade is extended over a long frontier,
total exclusion becomes hopeless. In such cases the tendency of
commerce is to seek a centre near the line which it intends to cross,
and there to accumulate the goods which are to pass the hostile
frontier and reach the belligerent. That centre will usually be in a
neutral seaport, to which trade is free, and a clearance for which will
afford no pretext for seizure or detention by the opposite belligerent.
Thus, in the American Revolution, the neutral Dutch island of St.
Eustatius became the rendezvous and depot of traders who purposed to
introduce their goods, even contraband of war, into the West India
islands of either party to that contest; and it was asserted that upon
its capture by the British, in 1781, when war began with Holland, large
amounts of property belonging to English merchants, but intended for
French customers, were found there. So, in the American Civil War, from
1861 to 1865, the town of Nassau in the British Bahamas became a centre
at which were accumulated stores of all kinds intended to break through
the blockade of the Southern coast.
So again, in the wars of the French Revolution, as long as Holland
remained in alliance with Great Britain, that country was the centre
from which foreign goods poured into France and the continent of
Europe; but when the United Provinces had been overrun by French
troops, and a revolution in their government had attached them to
the French policy, commerce, driven from their now blockaded coast,
sought another depot farther to the eastward, and found it in Bremen,
Hamburg, and some other German ports,—of which, however, Hamburg was
by far the most favored and prosperous. Through Hamburg the coffee
and sugar of the West Indies, the manufactured goods of Great Britain,
the food products of America, the luxuries of the East, poured into
Germany; and also into France, despite the prohibitive measures of
French governments. An indication of this change in the course of
commerce is found in the fact that the imports from Great Britain alone
into Germany, which amounted to £2,000,000 in 1792, had in 1796, the
year after Holland became allied to France, increased to £8,000,000,
although the purchasing power of Germany had meanwhile diminished.
In the same time the tonnage annually clearing from Great Britain to
Germany increased from 120,000 to 266,000. Similar results, on a much
smaller scale, were seen at Gibraltar when Spain attempted to prevent
British goods entering her own ports; and again at Malta, when the
possession of that island offered British commerce a foothold far
advanced in the Central Mediterranean. Somewhat similar, likewise, were
the advantages of the islands of Ceylon and Trinidad with reference
to the mainlands of India and South America, which gave to them a
particular commercial as well as strategic value, and led England to
accept them as her compensations at the Peace of Amiens.
In such cases the temporary commercial centre not only reaps the
profits of the broker, but all classes of its community benefit by
the increase of employments, of floating capital, and of floating
population. Precisely analogous to these was the office which her
geographical position and unrivalled control of the sea enabled Great
Britain to discharge toward the European world during the French
Revolution. Her maritime power and commercial spirit, the gradual
though rapid growth of past generations, enabled her at once to become
the warehouse where accumulated the products of all nations and of all
seas then open to commerce, and whence they were transshipped to the
tempest-tossed and war-torn Continent. So also her watery bulwarks,
traversed in every direction by her powerful navy, secured her peaceful
working as the great manufactory of Europe, and thus fostered an
immense development of her industries, which had become more than ever
necessary to the welfare of the world, since those of Holland and
France were either crippled for want of raw material or isolated by
their impotence at sea. Great Britain impeded the direct admission of
tropical products to the Continent; but their re-exportation from her
own ports and the export of British manufactures became the two chief
sources of her singular prosperity. The favorable reaction produced
by this concentration within her borders of so much of the commercial
machinery of the civilized world, is evident. Activities of every
kind sprang up on all sides, increasing the employment of labor and
the circulation of capital; and, while it is vain to contend that war
increases the prosperity of nations, it must be conceded that such a
state of things as we have depicted affords much compensation to the
nation concerned, and may even increase its proportionate prosperity,
when compared with that of its less fortunate enemies. To quote the
words of Lanfrey: "The English nation had never at any time shown more
reliance upon its own resources than when Pitt, in 1801, retired after
eight years of war. The people bore without difficulty the heavy taxes
which the war imposed upon them, and what was more astonishing still,
Pitt had found no opposition in Parliament to his last Budget. The
immense increase in the industrial prosperity of England triumphantly
refuted the predictions of her enemies, as well as the complaints of
alarmists. As the effect of every fresh declaration of war upon the
Continent had been to diminish competition in the great market of
the world and to throw into her hands the navies and colonies of her
adversaries, the English had begun to look upon the loan of millions
and the subsidies as so much premium paid for the development of their
own resources."[475]
It is not, therefore, merely as a weapon of war in the hands of the
ministry that the sea power of Great Britain is to be regarded; nor
yet only as the fruitful mother of subsidies, upon whose bountiful
breasts hung the impoverished and struggling nations of the Continent.
Great as were its value and importance in these respects, it had yet
a nobler and more vital function. Upon it depended the vigorous life
of the great nation which supplied the only power of motive capable
of coping with the demoniac energy that then possessed the spirit of
the French. Great Britain, though herself unconscious of the future,
was in the case of a man called upon to undergo a prolonged period
of trial, exposure, and anxiety, severely testing all his powers,
physical and mental. However sound the constitution, it is essential
that, when thus assailed by adverse external influences, all its vital
processes should be protected, nourished, and even stimulated, or else
the bodily energies will flag, fail, and collapse. This protection,
this nourishment, the maritime power ministered to the body politic of
the state. Despite the undeniable sufferings of large classes among
the people, the ministry could boast from year to year the general
prosperity of the realm, the flourishing condition of commerce, the
progressive preponderance and control of the sea exerted by the navy,
and a series of naval victories of unprecedented brilliancy, which
stimulated to the highest degree the enthusiasm of the nation. Such a
combination of encouraging circumstances maintained in full tension the
springs of self-confidence and moral energy, in the absence of which no
merely material powers or resources are capable of effective action.
By the natural and almost unaided working of its intrinsic faculties,
the sea power of Great Britain sustained the material forces of
the state and the spirit of the people. From these we turn to the
consideration of the more striking, though not more profound, effects
produced by the use made of this maritime power by the British
ministry—to the policy and naval strategy of the war—in curtailing the
resources and sapping the strength of the enemy, and in compelling
him to efforts at once inevitable, exhausting, and fruitless. In
undertaking this examination, it will be first necessary to ascertain
what were the objects the ministers proposed to achieve by the
struggle in which they had embarked the nation. If these are found to
agree, in the main, with the aim they should have kept before them,
through realizing the character of the general contest, and Great
Britain's proper part in it, the policy of the war will be justified.
It will then only remain to consider how well the general direction
given to the naval and military operations furthered the objects
proposed,—whether the strategy of the war was well adapted to bring its
policy to a successful issue.
The sudden revulsion of feeling in the British ministry, consequent
upon the decrees of November 19 and December 15, has been mentioned.
It was then realized that not only the internal quiet of Great Britain
was endangered, but that the political stability of Europe was
threatened by a Power whose volcanic energy could not be ignored. There
was not merely the fear that extreme democratic principles would be
transmitted from the masses of one country to those of another still
unprepared to receive them. To say that the British Government went to
war merely to divert the interest of the lower orders from internal
to foreign relations is not a fair statement of the case. The danger
that threatened England and Europe was the violent intervention of the
French in the internal affairs of every country to which their armies
could penetrate. This purpose was avowed by the Convention, and how
sincerely was proved by the history of many an adjoining state within
the next few years. Although the worst excesses of the Revolution had
not yet occurred, enough had been done to indicate its tendencies,
and to show that, where it prevailed, security of life, property, and
social order disappeared.
Security, therefore, was from the first alleged as the great object of
the war by the Prime Minister, who undoubtedly was the exponent of the
government, as truly as he was the foremost man then in England. In his
speech of February 12, 1793, upon the French declaration of war, he
returns again and again to this word, as the key-note to the British
policy.
"Not only had his Majesty entered into no treaty, but no step
even had been taken, and no engagement formed on the part of our
Government, to interfere in the internal affairs of France, or
attempt to dictate to them any form of constitution. I declare
that the whole of the interference of Great Britain has been with
the general view of seeing if it was possible, either by our own
exertions or in concert with any other Power, to _repress this
French system of aggrandizement and aggression_, with the view of
seeing whether we could not re-establish the blessings of peace;
whether we could not, either separately or jointly with other
Powers, provide for the _security_ of our own country and _the
general security of Europe_."
It is only fair to Pitt to compare the thought underlying this speech
of February 12, 1793, with that of February 17, 1792, already quoted,
in order that there may be realized the identity of principle and
conviction which moved him under circumstances so diverse. This
position he continually maintained from year to year; nor did he, when
taunted by the leader of the Opposition with lack of definiteness in
the objects of the war, suffer himself to be goaded into any other
statement of policy. It was in vain that the repeated jeer was uttered,
that the ministry did not know what they were driving at; and when the
constant recurrence of allied disasters and French successes on the
Continent, preceding as they did the most brilliant successes of the
British navy, made yet more poignant the exultation of the Opposition,
Pitt still refused, with all his father's proud tenacity, to give any
other account of his course than that he sought security—peace, yes,
but only a secure peace. To define precisely what success on the part
of Great Britain, or what reverses suffered by France, would constitute
the required security, was to prophesy the uncertain fortunes of war,
and the endurance of that strange madness which was impelling the
French nation. When a man finds his interests or his life threatened
by the persistent malice of a powerful enemy, he can make no reply to
the question, how long or how far he will carry his resistance, except
this: that when the enemy's power of injury is effectually curtailed,
or when his own power of resistance ends, then, and then only, will he
cease to fight. It fell to Pitt's lot, at one period of the war, to be
brought face to face with the latter alternative; but the course of the
French Government—of the Directory as well as of Napoleon—justified
fully the presentiment of the British Government in 1793, that not
until the aggressive power of France was brought within bounds, could
Europe know lasting peace. Peace could not be hoped from the temper of
the French rulers.
Whatever shape, therefore, the military operations might assume,
the object of the war in the apprehension of the British minister
was strictly defensive; just as the French invasion of the Austrian
Netherlands, though an offensive military operation, was, in its
inception, part of a strictly defensive war. To the larger and more
general motive of her own security and that of Europe, there was also
added, for Great Britain, the special treaty obligation to assist
Holland in a defensive struggle,—an obligation which was brought into
play by the French declaration of war against the United Provinces.
It is necessary to note the two causes of war, because the relation
of Great Britain to the wider conflict was different from that which
she bore to the defence of Holland, and entailed a different line
of action. The treaty called upon her to contribute a certain quota
of land forces, and the character of her particular interest, in
both the Netherlands and Holland, made it expedient and proper that
British troops should enter the field for their protection; but after
the disastrous campaign of 1794 had subdued Holland to France, and
a revolution in its government had changed its relations to Great
Britain, the troops were withdrawn, and did not again appear on the
Continent until 1799, when favorable circumstances induced a second,
but futile attempt to rescue the Provinces from French domination.
The part borne by the troops of England in the earlier continental
campaigns was therefore but an episode, depending upon her special
relations to Holland, and terminated by the subjection of that country
to France. What was the relation of Great Britain to the wider
struggle, in which, at the beginning, almost all the nations of the
Continent were engaged? What functions could she discharge towards
curtailing the power of France, and so restoring to Europe that
security without which peace is but a vain word? Upon the answers to
these questions should depend the criticism of the use made by the
British ministry of the nation's power. To condemn details without
having first considered what should be the leading outlines of a
great design, is as unsafe as it is unfair; for steps indefensible in
themselves may be justified by the exigencies of the general policy.
It is not to be expected that, in a war of such vast proportions and
involving such unprecedented conditions, serious mistakes of detail
should not be made; but, if the great measures adopted bear a due
proportion both to the powers possessed and to the end aimed at, then
the government will have fulfilled all that can be demanded of it.
The sea power which constituted the chief strength of Great Britain
furnished her with two principal weapons: naval superiority, which
the course of the war soon developed into supremacy, and money. The
traditional policy of a strong party in the state, largely represented
in the governing classes, was bitterly adverse to a standing army; and
the force actually maintained was to a great extent neutralized by
the character of the empire, which, involving possessions scattered
over all quarters of the globe, necessitated dispersion instead of
concentrated action. The embarrassment thus caused was increased
by the dangerously discontented condition of Ireland, involving
the maintenance of a considerable permanent force there, with the
possibility of having to augment it. Furthermore, the thriving
condition of the manufactures and commerce of England, protected from
the storm of war ravaging the Continent and of such vital importance
to the general welfare of Europe, made it inexpedient to withdraw her
people from the ranks of labor, at a time when the working classes of
other nations were being drained for the armies.
For these reasons great operations on land, or a conspicuous share in
the continental campaigns became, if not absolutely impossible to Great
Britain, at least clearly unadvisable. It was economically wiser, for
the purposes of the coalitions, that she should be controlling the
sea, supporting the commerce of the world, making money and managing
the finances, while other states, whose industries were exposed to
the blast of war and who had not the same commercial aptitudes, did
the fighting on land. This defines substantially the course followed
by the ministry of the day, for which the younger Pitt has been most
severely criticised. It is perhaps impossible to find any historian of
repute who will defend the general military conduct of the Cabinet at
whose head he stood; while the brilliant successes of the Seven Years'
War have offered a ready text for disparagers, from his contemporary,
Fox, to those of our own day, to draw a mortifying contrast between
his father and himself. Yet what were the military enterprises
and achievements of the justly famed Seven Years' War? They were
enterprises of exactly the same character as those undertaken in the
French Revolutionary War, and as those which, it may be added, are so
constant a feature of English history, whether during times of European
peace or of European war, that it may reasonably be suspected there is,
in the conditions of the British empire, some constant cause for their
recurrence. Like the petty wars which occur every few years in our
generation, they were mixed military and naval expeditions, based upon
the fleet and upon the control of the sea, scattered in all quarters
of the world, employing bodies of troops small when compared to the
size of continental armies, and therefore for the most part bearing,
individually, the character of secondary operations, however much they
may have conduced to a great common end.
It is an ungracious task to institute comparisons; but, if just
conclusions are to be reached, the real facts of a case must be set
forth. The elder Pitt had not to contend with such a navy as confronted
his son at the outbreak of the French Revolution. The French navy, as
is avowed by its historians, had received great and judicious care
throughout the reign of Louis XVI.; it had a large and splendid body
of ships in 1793; it enjoyed the proud confidence of the nation,
consequent upon its actions in the war of 1778; and, although its
efficiency was fatally affected by the legislation of the National
Assembly and by the emigrations, it was still an imposing force. Not
until years of neglect had passed over it, and the fatal Battle of
the Nile had been fought, did its character and weight sink to the
same relative insignificance that the elder Pitt encountered in the
Seven Years' War. The elder, like the younger, shaped his system of
war upon the control of the sea, upon the acquisition of colonies,
upon subsidizing allies upon the Continent, and, as main outlines of
policy, these were undoubtedly correct; but the former had in his favor
heavy odds in the weak condition of the French navy, and in having
on his side the great military genius of the age. On the side of the
elder Pitt fought Frederick the Great, against a coalition, numerically
overwhelming indeed, but half-hearted, ill-knit, and led by generals
far inferior to their great opponent, often mere creatures of the most
corrupt Court favor. Against the younger Pitt arose a greater than
Frederick, at the very moment of triumph, when the combined effects
of the sea power of England, of the armies of Austria, and of the
incompetency of the Directory had brought the Revolution "to bay,"—to
use the words of a distinguished French naval officer and student.[476]
In 1796 and in 1799 Bonaparte, and Bonaparte alone, rescued from
impending destruction—not France, for France was not the object of
Pitt's efforts—but that "system of aggrandizement and aggression" to
which France was then committed.
The elder Pitt saw his work completed, though by weaker hands; the
younger struggled on through disappointment after disappointment, and
died under the shadow of Austerlitz, worn out in heart and mind by the
dangers of his country. Contemporaries and men of later generations,
British and foreigners, have agreed in attributing to him the leading
part in the coalitions against Revolutionary France; but they have
failed to admit the specific difficulties under which he labored, and
how nearly he achieved success. It is easy to indulge in criticism
of details, and to set one undertaking against another; to show the
failures of expeditions landed on the French coast in the Seven Years'
War; to point out that Wolfe's conquest of Canada in 1759, by freeing
the American colonies from their fear of France, promoted their revolt
against Great Britain, while Nelson in 1798, and Abercromby in 1801,
saved Egypt, and probably India also, to England; to say that the
elder Pitt did not regain Minorca by arms, while the younger secured
both it and Malta. Martinique fell to the arms of both; the Cape of
Good Hope, Ceylon, Trinidad, prizes of the later war, may fairly be
set against Havana and Manila of the earlier. In India, Clive, the
first and greatest of British Indian heroes, served the elder Pitt;
yet before the arms of the younger fell Mysore, the realm of Hyder Ali
and Tippoo Saib, the most formidable enemies that Britain had yet met
in the Peninsula. Such comparisons and arguments are endless; partly
because there is much to be said on both sides, but chiefly because
they concern details only, and do not touch the root of the matter.
The objects of the two Pitts were different, for the circumstances of
their generations were essentially diverse. The task of the one was
to extend and establish the great colonial system, whose foundations
had been laid by previous generations, and to sustain in Europe the
balance of power between rival, but orderly, governments; that of the
other was to steady the social order and political framework of Great
Britain herself, and of Europe, against a hurricane which threatened to
tear up both by the roots. Each in his day, to strengthen his country
and to weaken the enemy, pursued the same great line of policy, which
in the one age and in the other fitted the situation of Great Britain.
To extend and consolidate her sea power; to lay the world under
contribution to her commerce; to control the sea by an all-powerful
navy; to extend her colonial empire by conquest, thereby increasing her
resources, multiplying her naval bases, and depriving her enemy alike
of revenues and of points whence he could trouble English shipping;
to embarrass the great enemy, France, by subsidizing continental
allies,—such was the policy of both the Pitts; such, alike in the
Revolution and in the Seven Years' War, was the policy imposed by a due
recognition, not only of the special strength of Great Britain, but of
her position in relation to the general struggle. Frederick in the one
case, Austria in the other, needed the money, which only the sustained
commercial prosperity of England could supply. The difference in the
actual careers run by the two statesmen is that the son had to meet
far greater obstacles than the father, and that, so far as the part of
Great Britain herself was concerned, he achieved equal, if not greater,
successes. The father had to contend, not against the mighty fury of
the French Revolution, but against the courtier generals and the merely
professional soldiery of Louis XV. and his mistresses; he had an allied
America; he met no mutiny of the British fleet; he was threatened by
no coalition of the Baltic Powers; he encountered no Bonaparte. It was
the boast of British merchants that under his rule "Commerce was united
to and made to grow by war;" but British commerce increased during the
French Revolution even more than it did in the earlier war, and the
growth of the British navy, in material strength and in military glory,
under the son, exceeded that under the father.
In history the personality of the elder statesman is far more imposing
than that of the younger. The salient characteristic of the one was
an imperious and fiery impetuosity; that of the other, reserve. The
one succeeded in power a minister inefficient as an administrator,
weak in nerve, and grotesque in personal appearance; the striking
contrast presented by the first William Pitt to the Duke of Newcastle,
his aggressive temper, the firm self-reliance of his character, his
dazzling personality, around which a dramatic halo clung even in the
hour of his death, made a vivid impression upon the imagination of
contemporaries, and have descended as a tradition to our own days.
Save to a few intimate friends, the second Pitt was known to his
fellow-countrymen only on the benches of the House of Commons. A temper
as indomitable as his father's bore in silence the vastly greater and
more prolonged strain of a most chequered struggle; only a few knew
that the strain was endured with a cheerfulness, a calmness, and a
presence of mind, which of themselves betoken a born leader of men. In
the darkest hour, when the last ally, Austria, had forsaken England
and consented to treat with France, when the seamen of the fleet
had mutinied, and British ships of war, taken violently from their
officers, were blockading the approaches to London, Pitt was awakened
during the night by a member of the Cabinet with some disastrous news.
He listened quietly, gave his directions calmly and clearly, and
dismissed the messenger. The latter, after leaving the house, thought
it necessary to return for some further instruction, and found the
minister again sleeping quietly. The incident is a drama in itself.
In considering the use made of Great Britain's powers for war by
the administration of the second Pitt, the broad outlines should be
regarded, not as a simply military question,—such as the combinations
of a general officer in a campaign,—but as efforts of statesmanship,
directing arms in an attempt to compass by force the requirements
considered to be most decisive in a political situation. The office
of the statesman is to determine, and to indicate to the military
authorities, the national interests most vital to be defended, as
well as the objects of conquest or destruction most injurious to the
enemy, in view of the political exigencies which the military power
only subserves. The methods by which the military force will proceed
to the ends thus indicated to it—the numbers, character, equipment
of the forces to be employed, and their management in campaign—are
technical matters, to be referred to the military or naval expert by
the statesman. If the latter undertakes to dictate in these, he goes
beyond his last and commonly incurs misfortune.
It is not likely that such a division of labor, between the statesman,
the soldier, and the seaman, is ever formally made. It is enough if it
be practically recognized by the due influence of the military element
in deciding details, and by its cheerful obedience in carrying out the
views of the government whose servant it is. In criticising results it
is fair to assume, where not otherwise proved, that for the general
direction of the war the government is responsible, and that in the
particular management of military movements the advice of professional
men has had just weight. A somewhat striking illustration of this is
to be found in the change of naval strategy, within the limits of the
Channel fleet, when, without any change in the government, the positive
convictions and stringent methods of Lord St. Vincent set aside, in
1800, the traditions of Lord Howe and Lord Bridport.
What then was the general direction imparted to military movements
by a government which had announced its object in the war to be
the attainment of security, by "repressing the French system of
aggrandizement and aggression"?
Owing to the distracted condition of France, many confusing
cross-lights were at first cast upon that central theatre of European
disturbance, by movements whose force it was impossible rightly to
estimate. Such were the risings in La Vendée and Brittany, the revolt
at Lyon, the delivery of Toulon to the allied fleets. Experience
justifies the opinion that such insurgent movements, involving but a
part of a nation, are best left to themselves, supported only by money
and supplies. If, thus aided, they have not the vitality to make good
their cause, the presence of foreign troops, viewed ever with jealousy
by the natives, will not insure success. It is, however, the French
Revolution itself that furnishes the surest illustrations of this
truth, shedding upon it a light which Pitt did not have to guide him.
Such embarrassments of the French Government were naturally thought to
give opportunity for powerful diversions; the more so as the amount of
disaffection was much exaggerated, and the practice of partial descents
upon the French coasts had come down unquestioned from previous wars.
To this mistake, as natural as any ever made in war, and to the
treaty obligation to support Holland, is to be attributed much of
the misdirection given to the British army in the first two years
of the war. When the illusion was over, and Holland conquered, the
military effort of Great Britain was at once concentrated on its proper
objects of ruling the sea and securing positions that contributed to
naval control and commercial development. Even in 1793 a respectable
force had been sent to the West Indies, which in 1794 reduced all the
Windward Islands. Stretching its efforts too far, reverses followed;
but in 1795 a powerful fleet was sent with sixteen thousand troops
commanded by Sir Ralph Abercromby, the best general officer revealed by
the early part of the war. From the first, Pitt had seen the necessity
of controlling the West Indies. That necessity was twofold: first, by
far the greatest fraction of British trade, over one fourth of the
whole, depended upon them; and, second, the enemy's islands were not
only valuable as producing, they were above all the homes of cruisers
that endangered all commerce, neutral as well as British. To control
the whole Caribbean region was, among those objects that lay within the
scope of the British Government, the one most essential to the success
of the general war. To sneer at the attempt as showing merely a wish
for sugar islands is to ignore the importance of the West Indies to the
financial stability of Great Britain; upon whose solvency depended,
not only the maritime war, but the coalitions whose aid was needed to
repress "the system of French aggression."
Abercromby restored England's control over the lesser Antilles, except
Guadeloupe, and added to her possessions Trinidad and the Dutch
colonies on the mainland. Although unable to retain Haïti, whose
ports were for some time occupied, the British navy ensured its loss
to France and the final success of the negro revolt; and commercial
relations were established with the new government. During the same
period the Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, and other Dutch and French
possessions in India were reduced by similar expeditions. These not
only extended the sphere of British commerce; they contributed yet
more to its enlargement by the security resulting from the conversion
of hostile to friendly ports, and the consequent diminution of enemy's
cruisers.
It is a singular fact that neither the extraordinary commercial
prosperity secured by these successes, nor the immense development of
the navy during Pitt's administration, is mentioned in the celebrated
denunciation of his "drivelling" war policy by Macaulay. Of naval
administration the latter speaks, in order to assign the credit to
another; on commercial and naval expansion he is silent. Yet no
factors in the war were so important. The one sustained Great Britain,
on whose shoulders was upborne the whole resistance of Europe; the
other crushed France by a process of constriction which, but for
Bonaparte, would have reduced her at an early period, and to free her
from which Napoleon himself was driven to measures that ruined him.
These important results were obtained by lengthening the cords and
strengthening the stakes of British commerce, by colonial expansion
and safe-guarding the seas, and by the growth of the navy,—none of
which objects could have been accomplished without the hearty support
of the Prime Minister. From the co-operation of these causes, and the
restrictions placed on neutral trade, the commerce of Great Britain
increased by 65[477] per cent between 1792 and 1800, while the loss by
capture was less than 2½ per cent on the annual volume of trade.
The directly offensive use of Great Britain's maritime power made by
the ministry, in order to repress the French system of aggression,
consisted in throwing back France upon herself, while at the same time
cutting off her resources. The continental armies which begirt her on
the land side were supported by subsidies; and also when practicable,
as in the Mediterranean, by the co-operation of the British fleets, to
whose influence upon his Italian campaign in 1796 Bonaparte continually
alludes. To seaward the colonial system of France was ruined, raw
material cut off from her manufactures, her merchant shipping swept
from the sea. In 1797 the chief of the Bureau of Commerce in France
wrote: "The former sources of our prosperity are either lost or
dried up. Our agricultural, manufacturing, and industrial power is
almost extinct."[478] At the same time, while not denying the right
of neutrals to trade with ports not blockaded, every restriction
that could be placed upon such trade by stringent, and even forced,
interpretations of international law was rigorously imposed by a navy
whose power was irresistible. Even provisions (and it will be well for
Great Britain of the present day to recall the fact) were claimed to be
contraband of war, on the ground that, in the then condition of France,
when there was a reasonable hope of starving her into peace, to supply
them contributed to prolong hostilities.
So severe was the suffering and poverty caused by this isolation, that
in the moment of his greatest triumph, immediately after signing the
peace of Campo Formio, which left Great Britain without an ally, in
October, 1797, Bonaparte wrote: "Either our government must destroy
the English monarchy, or must expect to be itself destroyed by the
corruption and intrigue of those active islanders. Let us concentrate
all our activity upon the navy and destroy England." The Directory,
conscious that its navy was paralyzed and that its _guerre de course_,
pursued since 1795 against British commerce, had not seriously affected
the latter, although 1797 was the year of its lowest depression, could
see no further means of injuring England except by attacking the
neutral carriers of her wares. Affecting to regard them as accomplices
in Great Britain's crimes against humanity, it procured from the
Convention, in January, 1798, a decree that "every vessel found at
sea, having on board English merchandise as her cargo, in whole or in
part, shall be declared lawful prize, whosoever shall be the proprietor
of the merchandise, which shall be reputed contraband for this cause
alone, that it comes from England or her possessions." At the same time
orders were issued to confiscate property of British origin wherever
found on shore, and domiciliary visits were authorized to insure its
discovery. Napoleon was therefore perfectly justified in declaring in
later years that the Directory outlined the policy of his Continental
System, embodied in his Berlin and Milan decrees of 1806 and 1807.
To the Directory the attempt thus to destroy British prosperity worked
disaster. To Napoleon it brought ruin, owing to the greater vigor,
wider scope, and longer duration which he was able to impart to the
process. The aim of his Berlin and Milan decrees, like that of the
Directory, was to undermine British trade by depriving it of the
necessary concurrence of neutral carriers. As this alone would not be
enough, he determined to support the decrees by excluding Great Britain
from her principal market, to close the entire Continent to all goods
coming from her or her colonies, or even passing through her ports. For
this purpose—to carry out this gigantic project—edict after edict was
issued to France and her allied countries; for this purpose annexation
after annexation to the empire was made; for this purpose a double
cordon of French troops lined the shores of the Continent from France
to the Baltic; for this purpose British goods were not only seized but
publicly burned throughout his dominions; for this purpose demands
were made upon all neutral states to exclude British manufactures and
colonial produce; for this purpose the calamitous Spanish war was
incurred;[479] and finally, for this purpose reiterated and imperious
complaints were addressed to the czar on his failure to enforce the
exclusion, and, upon his persistence, the fatal invasion of Russia
followed.
The justice or wisdom of this course is not here in question. It
is enough to say that it nearly ruined Great Britain, but entirely
ruined Napoleon. The noticeable point, bearing upon the wisdom of
Pitt's military policy, is that Napoleon was forced into it by that
policy, because England was destroying him and he had no other means
of injuring her. Great Britain's success not only followed, but was
consequent upon steady adherence to the main features of Pitt's policy.
Military writers say that success on a battle-field is of slight
avail if the strategic line of operations is ill-chosen, and that
even a great defeat may be redeemed if the position has been taken in
accordance with the strategic conditions of the campaign. This amounts
to saying, in non-military language, that hard blows are useless if not
struck on the right spot. Numerous reverses attended the coalitions
against France, although few fell upon Great Britain herself; but none
was fatal because the general policy, begun by Pitt and continued by
his successors, was strategically sound with reference to the object in
view,—namely, "the repression of that system of aggression" which was
the very spirit of the French Revolution, formulated by the Convention,
adopted by the Directory, inherited and given its full logical
development by Napoleon.
It is the fashion with the political heirs of Fox, Pitt's greatest
opponent, to draw a marked contrast between the war which preceded
and that which followed the Peace of Amiens. In the former it is
Great Britain which, in a frenzy of hatred or panic fear toward the
French Revolution, becomes the wanton aggressor, and turns a movement
that, despite some excesses, was on the whole beneficent, into the
stormy torrent of blood that poured over Europe. In the second war,
Napoleon is the great culprit, the incarnate spirit of aggression,
violence, faithlessness, and insolence; with whom peace was impossible.
It is, however, notorious, and conceded by French writers, that the
French leaders in 1791 and 1792 wanted war on the Continent;[480] the
impartial conduct of the British Cabinet was admitted by the French
Government when acknowledging the recall of the British ambassador
six months before war broke out;[481] the decrees of November 19 and
December 15 are before the reader, as is the refusal of the Convention
to give the former a construction conciliatory to Great Britain; the
treaty rights of Holland had been set aside by the high hand without an
attempt at negotiation, and there can be little doubt that the purpose
was already formed to invade her territory shortly. Despite all this,
not Great Britain, but the Republic, declared war. The treatment,
by the Convention and the Directory, of the lesser states that fell
under their power,[482] their dealings with Great Britain, their
aggressiveness, insolence, and bad faith were identical in spirit with
the worst that can be said of Napoleon; the sole difference being that
for a weak, incompetent, and many-headed government was substituted
the iron rule of a single man of incomparable genius. Scruples were
known to neither. The Berlin and Milan decrees, in which was embodied
the Continental System that led Napoleon to his ruin, were, as he
himself said, but the logical development of the Directory's decree of
January, 1798,[483] against which even the long-suffering United States
of America rebelled. Both measures struck at Great Britain through the
hearts of allies and of neutrals, for whose rights and welfare, when
conflicting with the course France wished to take, they showed equal
disregard; both were framed in the very spirit of the first National
(Constituent) Assembly, which set aside institutions and conventions
that did not square with its own ideas of right; which sought justice,
as it saw it, by overleaping law.
It is, however, far more important to note, and clearly to apprehend,
that both measures were forced upon the rulers of France by the
strategic lines of policy laid down by the ministry of Pitt. The
decree of January, 1798, followed close upon the rupture of the peace
conferences of Lille, initiated by Pitt in 1797; a rupture brought on
by a display of arrogance and insolence on the part of the Directory,
similar to that shown by it towards the United States at the same
period, that can only be realized by reading the correspondence,[484]
and which is now known to have been due, in part at least, to the hope
of a bribe from the British ministry.[485] The Berlin decree, which
formally began the Continental System, was issued in November, 1806,
when Pitt had not been a year in his grave. Both were forced upon the
French leaders by the evident hopelessness of reaching Great Britain
in any other way, and because her policy of war was hurting France
terribly, while sustaining her own strength. In other words, Great
Britain, by the strategic direction she gave to her efforts in this
war, forced the French spirit of aggression into a line of action which
could not but result fatally.[486] But for Bonaparte, the result,
nearly attained in 1795 and again in 1799, would have followed then;
not even his genius could avert it finally.
It is related that a leader of antiquity once cried to his opponent,
"If you are the great general you claim to be, why do you not come
down and fight me?" and received the pertinent reply, "If you are the
great general you say, why do you not _make_ me come down and fight
you?" This was precisely what Great Britain effected. By the mastery
of the sea, by the destruction of the French colonial system and
commerce, by her persistent enmity to the spirit of aggression which
was incarnate in the French Revolution and personified in Napoleon,
by her own sustained and unshaken strength, she drove the enemy into
the battle-field of the Continental System, where his final ruin was
certain. Under the feeble rule of the Directory that ruin came on
apace; within a year it was evident that the only gainer by the system
was the foe whom it sought to overthrow, that France herself and her
allies, as well as neutral Powers, were but being broken down to
the profit of Great Britain. Despite the first failure, there was a
plausible attraction about the measure which led Napoleon, confident
in his strength and genius, to apply it again with the relentless
thoroughness characteristic of his reign. For a time it succeeded,
owing not only to the vigor with which it was used, but also to Great
Britain being exasperated into retaliatory steps which, by forbidding
the trade of neutrals to and between all the ports thus closed to
British commerce, stopped at its source the contraband trade, which
eluded Napoleon's blockade and kept open the way for British exports to
the Continent.
The strain, however, was too great to be endured by the great
composite political system which the emperor had founded, and through
which he hoped to exclude his enemy from every continental market.
The privations of all classes, the sufferings of the poorer, turned
men's hearts from the foreign ruler, who, in the pursuit of aims
which they neither sympathized with nor understood, was causing them
daily ills which they understood but too well. All were ready to fall
away and rise in rebellion when once the colossus was shaken. The
people of Spain, at one extremity of Europe, revolted in 1808; the
Czar of Russia, at the other, threw down the gauntlet in 1810, by a
proclamation which opened his harbors to all neutral ships bringing
colonial produce, the object of Napoleon's bitterest reclamations. In
the one case the people refused the ruler put over them to insure a
more vigorous enforcement of the continental blockade; in the other the
absolute monarch declined longer to burden his subjects with exactions
which were ruining them for the same object. The Spanish outbreak gave
England a foothold upon the Continent at a point most favorable for
support by her maritime strength and most injurious to the emperor,
not only from the character of the country and the people, but also
because it compelled him to divide his forces between his most remote
frontiers. The defection of the czar made a fatal breach in the line of
the continental blockade, opening a certain though circuitous access
for British goods to all parts of Europe. Incapable of anticipating
defeat and of receding from a purpose once formed, Napoleon determined
upon war with Russia. He, the great teacher of concentration, proceeded
to divide his forces between the two extremes of Europe. The results
are well known to all.
It was not by attempting great military operations on land, but by
controlling the sea, and through the sea the world outside Europe,
that both the first and the second Pitt ensured the triumph of their
country in the two contests where either stood as the representative of
the nation. Mistakes were made by both; it was the elder who offered
to Spain to give Gibraltar for Minorca, which the younger recovered
by force of arms. Mistakes many may be charged against the conduct
of the war under the younger; but, with one possible exception, they
are mistakes of detail in purely military direction, which cannot
invalidate the fact that the general line of action chosen and followed
was correct. To recur to the simile already borrowed from military art,
the mistakes were tactical, not strategic; nor, it may be added, to any
great degree administrative.
The possible exception occurred at the beginning of the war, in the
spring and summer of 1793. It may be, as has been claimed by many, that
a march direct upon Paris at that time by the forces of the Coalition
would have crushed all opposition, and, by reducing the mob of the
capital, have insured the submission of the country. It may be so; but
in criticising the action of the British ministers, so far as it was
theirs, it must be remembered that not only did men of the highest
military reputation in Europe advise against the movement, but that the
Duke of Brunswick, then second to none in distinction as a soldier,
had tried it and failed a few months before. For unprofessional men
to insist, against the best professional opinions at their command,
is a course whose propriety or prudence can only be shown by the
event,—a test to which the advance upon Paris, now so freely prescribed
by the wisdom of after-sight, was not brought. One consideration,
generally overlooked, may here be presented. To attempt so momentous
and hazardous an enterprise, when the leaders to whom its conduct must
be intrusted regard it as unwise, is to incur a great probability of
disaster. Even Bonaparte would not force his plans upon Moreau, when
the latter, in 1800, persisted in preferring his own. Yet this must
statesmen have done, had they in 1793 ordered their generals to advance
on Paris.
Once lost, the opportunity, if such it were, did not recur. It depended
purely upon destroying the resistance of France before it had time to
organize. Thenceforward there remained to encounter, not the policy of
a court, playing its game upon the chess-board of war, with knights
and pawns, castles and armies, but a nation in arms, breathing a fury
and inspired by passions which only physical exhaustion could repress.
Towards that exhaustion Great Britain could on the land side contribute
effectually only by means of allies, and this she did. On the side of
the sea, her own sphere of action, there were two things she needed to
do. The first was to sustain her own strength, by fostering, widening,
and guarding the workings of her commercial system; the second was to
cut France off from the same sources of strength and life. Both were
most effectually accomplished,—not, as Macaulay asserts, by the able
administration of Earl Spencer (whose merit is not disputed), but by
the general policy of the ministry in the extension of the colonial
system, in the wise attention paid to the support of British commerce
in all its details, and in the extraordinary augmentation of the
navy. Between 1754 and 1760, the period embracing the most brilliant
triumphs of the elder Pitt, the British navy increased by 33 per cent.
Between 1792 and 1800, under his son, the increase was 82 per cent.
How entirely the military management and direction of this mighty
force depended upon the sea-officers, and not upon the statesman, when
a civilian was at the head of the Admiralty, will be evident to any
one studying closely the slackness of the Channel fleet immediately
under the eye of Earl Spencer, or the paltry dispositions made in
particular emergencies like the Irish invasion of 1796, and contrasting
these with the vigor manifested at that very moment under Jervis in
the Mediterranean, or later, in the admirable operations of the same
officer in command of the Channel fleet.
Few indeed are the statesmen who are not thus dependent upon
professional subordinates. Pitt was no exception. He was not a general
or an admiral, nor does he appear so to have considered himself; but he
realized perfectly where Great Britain's strength lay, and where the
sphere of her efforts. By that understanding he guided her movements;
and in the final triumph wrought by the spirit of the British nation
over the spirit of the French Revolution, the greatest share cannot
justly be denied to the chief who, in the long struggle against wind
and tide, forced often to swerve from the direct course he would have
followed by unforeseen dangers that rose around the ship in her passage
through unknown seas, never forgot the goal "Security," upon which
from the first his will was set. Fit indeed it was that he should drop
at his post just when Trafalgar had been won and Austerlitz lost. That
striking contrast of substantial and, in fact, decisive success with
bewildering but evanescent disaster, symbolized well his troubled
career, as it superficially appears. As the helm escaped his dying
hands, all seemed lost, but in truth the worst was passed. "The pilot
had weathered the storm."
The death of Pitt was followed by the formation of a ministry of
somewhat composite character, centring round his relative and former
colleague, Lord Grenville, and his life-long rival, Fox. This held
office but for fourteen months; a period long enough for it to afford
Napoleon the pretext for his Berlin decree, but not sufficient to
impress any radical change upon the main lines of policy laid down by
Pitt. Upon its fall in March, 1807, his devoted personal friends and
political followers succeeded to power. Confronted almost immediately
by the threatening union between the empires of the East and West, of
which the known, if concealed, purpose was to divide between France
and Russia the control of the Continent, and to subdue Great Britain
also by commercial exhaustion, the ministry, both necessarily and by
tradition, opposed to this combination the policy transmitted to them
by their great leader. Colonial enterprises were multiplied, until
it could be said of colonies, as the French Directory had before
sorrowfully confessed concerning shipping, that not one was left under
a flag hostile to Great Britain. The navy, expanding to its greatest
numerical force in 1808, was maintained in equal strength, if in
somewhat diminished numbers, up to the termination of the struggle.
While unable to prevent the material growth of the French navy by
ship-building carried on in its ports, Great Britain continued to
impede its progress and cut off its supplies by the close watch
maintained over the French coast, by confining its fleets to their
harbors,—and so shutting them off from the one drill ground, the
sea,—and finally by frustrating Napoleon's project of increasing his
own power by violently seizing the vessels of smaller continental
states.
The secure tenure of the great common and highway of commerce—the
sea—was thus provided for. The enemy's navy was neutralized, his bases
abroad cut off, his possessions became the markets as well as the
sources of British trade. It was not enough, however, for commerce,
that its transit should be comparatively safe. Its operations of
exchange needed both materials and markets, both producers and
consumers. From these, as is known, Napoleon sought to exclude it by
the Continental System, which through the co-operation of Russia he
thought could be rendered effective. To this again the ministry of
Perceval and Canning opposed the Orders in Council, tempered by the
license system, with the double object of prolonging the resistance
of Great Britain and sapping that of her enemy; measures which but
reproduced, on a vaster scale, the Rule of 1756, with the modifications
introduced by Pitt, in 1798, for the same ends.
The question thus resolved itself, as has before been perhaps too
often said, into a conflict of endurance,—which nation could live the
longest in this deadly grapple. This brings us back again face to face
with the great consideration: Was the struggle which began in 1793 one
to be solved by a brilliant display of generalship, shattering the
organized forces of an ordinary enemy, and with it crushing the powers
of resistance in the state? Or had it not rather its origin in the
fury of a nation, against which all coercion except that of exhaustion
is fruitless? The aims, the tendencies, the excitement of the French
people had risen to a pitch, and had made demands, which defied
repression by any mere machinery or organization, however skilfully
framed or directed. When the movement of a nation depends upon—nay, is
the simple evidence of—a profound emotion permeating each individual of
the mass, the mighty impulse, from its very diffusion, has not those
vital centres of power, the destruction of which paralyzes the whole.
Not till the period of passion—necessarily brief, but for the time
resistless—has given place to the organization to which all social
movement tends, is a people found to have, as the tyrant of antiquity
wished, a single neck to be severed by a blow.
The frenzy of the French nation had spent itself, the period of
organization had set in, when Bonaparte appeared upon the scene;
but, as the tension of popular emotion slackened, there had not been
found, in the imperfect organization which sought to replace it, the
power to bear the burden of the state. No longer able to depend upon
a homogeneous movement of the millions, but only upon the efficient
working of the ordinary machinery of civil government and armies, in
her case most imperfectly developed, France now offered to the attacks
of her enemies those vital points, with which, when crushed, resistance
ceases. Military reverses and exhaustion by bad government brought her
in 1795, and again in 1799, to her last gasp. At both epochs Bonaparte
saved her.
The great captain and organizer not only brought victory with him
and restored the machinery of government; he supplied also a centre
around which popular enthusiasm and confidence might once more rally.
He became not only the exponent of national unity, but in a very real
sense the embodiment of those aspirations and aggressive tendencies,
which in the first days of the Revolution had bound Frenchmen together
as one man, but had afterwards evaporated and frittered away for want
of that definiteness of aim and sagacious direction which only a great
leader can impart. Under his skilful manipulation the lofty sentiments
of the early revolutionists became catchwords, which assured his hold
upon the imaginations and enthusiasm of the people, again swayed as one
man to follow him in his career of aggression. Metternich well said
that Bonaparte was to him simply the incarnation of the Revolution.[487]
It was with these two phases of one and the same condition that Europe
had to deal between 1793 and 1814. In the one instance a people
unified by a common passion and common aims, in the other the same
people concentrated into a common action by submission to the will of
a sovereign, apparently resistless in the council as in the field.
It is true that the affections of his subjects soon ceased to follow
him, except in the armies by whose power he ruled, but the result is
the same. All the energies of the nation are summed up in a single
overpowering impulse,—at first spontaneous, afterwards artificial,—to
which during the first half of Napoleon's career was given a guidance
of matchless energy and wisdom.
Such a combination is for the time irresistible, as the continent of
Europe proved during long and weary years. Absolute power, concentrated
force, central position, extraordinary sagacity and energy, all united
to assure to Napoleon the dazzling successes which are matters of
history. The duration and the permanent results of this startling
career depended, however, upon the staying power of the French nation
and upon the steadfastness of the resistance. Upon the Continent, the
latter in its actuality ceased. Potentially it remained,—men's hearts
swelled to bursting under the tyranny they endured; but before the
power and the genius of the great conqueror outward rebellion shrank
away. States dared not trust each other,—they could not act together;
and so men went silently in the bitterness of their spirits.
There remained one small group of islands, close on the flank of the
would-be ruler of the world, with a population numbering little
more than half that of his immediate dominions, whose inhabitants
deeply sympathized with sufferings and oppression they were powerless
directly to relieve. The resistance they had offered to the aggressive
fury of the Revolution they continued to oppose to its successor and
representative; but it was not by direct action in the field, but
only by operations aimed to abridge the resources and endurance of
France, that they could look forward to a possibility of success. For
seven years went on this final silent strife, whose outlines have been
traced in the preceding chapter of this work. During its continuance
Great Britain herself, while escaping the political oppression and
national humiliation undergone by the continental peoples, drank deep
of the cup of suffering. Her strength wasted visibly; but the mere
fact of her endurance and persistence compelled her enemy to efforts
more exhausting, to measures more fatal, than those forced upon
herself. And, while thus subjected to a greater strain, Napoleon was
by Great Britain cut off from that greatest of all sources of renewing
vitality—the Sea.
The true function of Great Britain in this long struggle can scarcely
be recognized unless there be a clear appreciation of the fact that
a really great national movement, like the French Revolution, or a
really great military power under an incomparable general, like the
French empire under Napoleon, is not to be brought to terms by ordinary
military successes, which simply destroy the organized force opposed.
Of the latter, the protracted and not wholly hopeless resistance, which
in 1813 and 1814 succeeded even the great Russian catastrophe, is a
signal instance; while to subvert such a power, wielded by such a man,
by any reverse less tremendous than it then underwent, is hopeless. Two
Napoleons do not co-exist. In the former case, on the other hand, the
tangible something, the decisive point against which military effort
can be directed, is wanting. Of this the struggle between the North
and South in the American Civil War affords a conspicuous example.
Few, probably, would now maintain that the capture of Richmond in the
first year of the war, when the enthusiasm of the Southern people was
at its height, their fighting force undiminished, their hopes undimmed
by the bitter disappointments of a four years' struggle, would have had
any decisive effect upon the high-spirited race. Positions far more
important fell without a sign of such result. No man could then have
put his finger here, or there, and said, "This is the key-stone of
resistance;" for in the high and stern feeling of the moment resistance
was not here nor there, but everywhere.
So was it in the early flush of the French Revolution. The "On to
Paris" of 1793 would probably have had no more decisive results
than the "On to Richmond" of 1861, had it been successful. Not
till enthusiasm has waned before sorrow, and strength failed under
exhaustion, does popular impulse, when deep and universal, acquiesce
in the logic of war. To such exhaustion France was brought when
Bonaparte took the helm. By his organizing genius he restored her
military strength, the material of which still remained, economized
such resources as the wastefulness of preceding governments had left,
and above all secured for her a further power of endurance by drawing
upon the life-blood of surrounding nations. So exhaustion was for the
time postponed; but, if the course of aggression which Bonaparte had
inherited from the Revolution was to continue, there were needed, not
the resources of the Continent only, but of the world. There was needed
also a diminution of ultimate resistance below the stored-up aggressive
strength of France; otherwise, however procrastinated, the time must
come when the latter should fail.
On both these points Great Britain withstood Napoleon. She shut him
off from the world, and by the same act prolonged her own powers of
endurance beyond his power of aggression. This in the retrospect of
history was the function of Great Britain in the Revolutionary and
Napoleonic period; and that the successive ministries of Pitt and his
followers pursued the course best fitted, upon the whole, to discharge
that function, is their justification to posterity. It is the glory of
Pitt's genius that as he discovered the object, "Security," so likewise
he foresaw the means, Exhaustion, by which alone the French propaganda
of aggression would be brought to pause. The eloquent derision poured
upon his predictions of failure from financial exhaustion, from
expenditure of resources, from slackening of enthusiasm, recoils
from the apprehension of the truth. He saw clearly the line of Great
Britain's action, he foresaw the direction of events, he foretold the
issue. How long the line would be, how the course of events would be
retarded, how protracted the issue, he could not foretell, because no
man could foresee the supreme genius of Napoleon Bonaparte.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See, for instance, his letter to Lady Hamilton, Oct. 3, 1798
(Disp., vol. iii. p. 140), which is but one of many similar expressions
in his correspondence.
[2] Nels. Disp., vol. iii. p. 177.
[3] In an entirely open country, without natural obstacles, there are
few or none of those strategic points, by occupying which in a central
position an inferior force is able to multiply its action against
the divided masses of the enemy. On the other hand, in a very broken
country, such as Switzerland, the number of important strategic points,
passes, heads of valleys, bridges, etc., are so multiplied, that either
some must be left unoccupied, or the defenders lose, by dissemination,
the advantage which concentration upon one or two controlling centres
usually confers.
[4] See ante, vol. i. p. 313.
[5] It is said that the old marshal on receiving these orders cried:
"This is the way armies are ruined."
[6] Jomini, Guerres de la Rév. Fran., livre xv. p. 124. Martin, Hist.
de France depuis 1789, vol. iii. p. 50. It was just at this moment
that Nelson sent a division to the Gulf of Genoa to co-operate with
Suwarrow. (Nels. Disp., vol. iii. p. 431.)
[7] The phrase is that of Thiers. Hist. de la Rév., vol. x. p. 353.
[8] A curious evidence of the insecurity of the highways is afforded
by an ordinance issued by Bonaparte a year after he became First
Consul (Jan. 7, 1801), that no regular diligence should travel without
carrying a corporal and four privates, with muskets and twenty rounds,
and in addition, at night, two mounted gendarmes. If specie to the
value of over 50,000 francs were carried, there must be four gendarmes
by day and night. (Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 697.)
[9] See _post_, Chapter XVII.
[10] Speech of February 18, 1801.
[11] Thiers, Cons. et Empire, vol. i., p. 332.
[12] See ante, p, 251.
[13] Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 410.
[14] Ibid., vol. vi. p. 497.
[15] "Voyant bien," says M. Thiers, Bonaparte's panegyrist, "que Malta
ne pouvait pas tenir longtemps." (Cons. et Emp., vol. ii. p. 92.)
[16] Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 498.
[17] Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 520.
[18] See vol. i. pp. 249, 256.
[19] Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 738, Jan. 21, 1801.
[20] Contrast Bonaparte's reliance upon the aggregate numbers of Baltic
navies with Nelson's professional opinion when about to fight them.
"During the Council of War (March 31, 1801) certain difficulties were
started by some of the members relative to each of the three Powers
we should have to engage, either in succession or united, in those
seas. The number of the Russians was in particular represented as
formidable. Lord Nelson kept pacing the cabin, mortified at everything
which savored either of alarm or irresolution. When the above remark
was applied to the Swedes, he sharply observed, 'The more numerous the
better;' and when to the Russians, he repeatedly said, 'So much the
better; I wish they were twice as many,—the easier the victory, depend
on it.' He alluded, as he afterwards explained in private, to the total
want of tactique among the Northern fleets." (Col. Stewart's Narrative;
Nelson's Dispatches, vol. iv. p. 301.)
James, who was a careful investigator, estimates the allied Russian,
Swedish, and Danish navies in the Baltic at fifty-two sail, of
which not over forty-one were in condition for service, instead of
eighty-eight as represented by some writers. "It must have been a
very happy combination of circumstances," he adds, "that could have
assembled in one spot twenty-five of those forty-one; and against that
twenty-five of three different nations, all mere novices in naval
tactics, eighteen, or, with Nelson to command, fifteen British sail
were more than a match." (Nav. Hist., vol. iii. p. 43; ed. 1878.)
[21] Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 747. To Talleyrand, Jan. 27, 1801.
[22] Nelson's Letters and Dispatches, vol. iv. p. 295.
[23] While this work was going through the press, the author was
gratified to find in the life of the late distinguished admiral
Sir William Parker an anecdote of Nelson, which, as showing the
military ideas of that great sea-officer, is worth a dozen of the
"go straight at them" stories which pass current as embodying his
precepts. "Throughout the month of October, 1804, Toulon was frequently
reconnoitred, and the frigates 'Phoebe' and 'Amazon' were ordered to
cruise together. Previous to their going away Lord Nelson gave to
Captains Capel and Parker several injunctions, in case they should
get an opportunity of attacking two of the French frigates, which now
got under weigh more frequently. _The principal one was_ that they
should not each single out and attack an opponent, but 'that both
should endeavor together to take _one frigate_; if successful, chase
the other; but, if you do not take the second, still you have won a
victory and your country will gain a frigate.' Then half laughing, and
half snappishly, he said kindly to them as he wished them good-by, 'I
daresay you consider yourselves a couple of fine fellows, and when you
get away from me will do nothing of the sort, but think yourselves
wiser than I am!'" ("The Last of Nelson's Captains," by Admiral Sir
Augustus Phillimore, K. C. B., London, 1891, p. 122.)
[24] Nels. Disp., vol. iv. p. 355. See also a very emphatic statement
of his views on the campaign, in a letter to Mr. Vansittart, p. 367.
[25] Nelson's Disp., April 9, 1801, vol. iv. pp. 339 and 341.
[26] The Danes were moored with their heads to the southward.
[27] If Nelson had an _arrière pensée_ in sending the flag, he
never admitted it, before or after, to friend or foe. "Many of my
friends," he wrote a month after the battle, "thought it a _ruse de
guerre_ and not quite justifiable. Very few attribute it to the cause
that I felt, and which I trust in God I shall retain to the last
moment,—_humanity_." He then enlarges upon the situation, and says that
the wounded Danes in the prizes were receiving half the shot fired by
the shore batteries. (Nels. Disp., vol. iv., p. 360.)
[28] April 20, 1801. Nels. Disp., vol. iv. p. 355, note.
[29] Jurien de la Gravière, Guerres Maritimes, vol. ii. p. 43, 1st
edition.
[30] Having destroyed Copenhagen, we had done our worst, and not much
nearer being friends.—_Nels. Disp._, vol. iv. p. 361.
[31] The second embargo was laid on Nov. 7, 1800, for the sole purpose
of enforcing the surrender of Malta to Russia. (Annual Register, 1800;
State Papers, p. 253.) It antedated by six weeks the declaration of
Armed Neutrality, by which the other powers, on the plea of neutral
rights, agreed to arm. (Ibid., p. 260.) In fact, the other powers
urged upon Great Britain that the Russian sequestration being on
account of Malta, they had no share in it, and so were not subjects
for retaliation; ignoring that they had chosen that moment to come to
Russia's support.
[32] Annual Register, 1801; State Papers, p. 246.
[33] Nels. Disp., vol. iv., pp. 349, 352.
[34] Ibid., p. 349; also see p. 379.
[35] Ibid., vol. iv. p. 416.
[36] Nels. Disp., vol. iv. p. 373.
[37] For the important bearings of this stipulation, which was made
as an additional and explanatory declaration to the main convention
(Annual Register, 1801; State Papers, p. 217), see _post_, Chapter XVI.
It was a matter in which Russia, not being a carrier, had no interest.
[38] For instance, Thiers, H. Martin, and Lanfrey.
[39] Corr. de Nap. vol. vii. p. 25.
[40] Corr. de Nap. vol. vii. p. 47.
[41] For full particulars of Bonaparte's views for the ships in Brest,
which then contained the large body of Spaniards brought back by Bruix
the previous August, see Corr. de Nap. vol. vi. pp. 181, 186. It must
be remembered that there was then practically no French line-of-battle
force in the Mediterranean.
[42] Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. pp. 262, 263.
[43] The advantage of the close watch is also shown by the perplexity
arising when an enemy's squadron did escape. In this case, seven
ships-of-the-line were detached from the Channel fleet in chase of
Ganteaume, but "owing to lack of information" they were sent to the
West Indies instead of the Mediterranean. (James, vol. iii. p. 73.) The
latter was sufficiently controlled by Keith with seven sail-of-the-line
in the Levant, and Warren with five before Cadiz, to which he joined
two more at Minorca.
[44] See _ante_, vol. i. p. 68, for particulars.
[45] In the above the attempt has been merely to summarize the rapid
succession of events, and the orders issuing from Bonaparte's intensely
active mind to meet the varying situations. Reference may be made by
the student to his correspondence, vol. vi. pp. 719, 729, 745; vol.
vii. pp. 4, 24-26, 69-73, 125, 144, 164, 197, 198.
[46] This ship, the "St. Antoine," was one of those ceded to France by
Spain.
[47] Ross's Life of Saumarez, vol. ii. p. 21.
[48] March 2, 1801. Corr. de Nap., vol. vii. p. 72.
[49] The treaty was signed June 6, and ratified June 16. (Ann. Reg.
1801; State Papers, p. 351.) Bonaparte received his copy June 15.
(Corr. de Nap., vol. vii. p. 215.)
[50] Corr. de Nap., vol. vii. p. 256.
[51] Ibid., p. 266.
[52] See ante, p. 60.
[53] Ann. Reg. 1801; State Papers, p. 257.
[54] Paul I. had particularly held to the preservation of Naples
and the restitution of Piedmont to the king of Sardinia. On April
12 the first consul heard of Paul's death, and the same day issued
an order making Piedmont a military division of France. This was
purposely antedated to April 2. (Corr. de Nap., vol. vii. p. 147.)
Talleyrand was notified that this was a first, though tentative, step
to incorporation. If the Prussian minister remonstrated, he was to
reply that France had not discussed the affairs of Italy with the king
of Prussia. (Ibid., p. 153.) Alexander was civilly told that Paul's
interest in the Italian princes was considered to be personal, not
political. (Ibid., p. 169.) The Russian ambassador, however, a month
later haughtily reminded Talleyrand that his mission depended upon the
"kings of Sardinia and the Two Sicilies being again put in possession
of the states which they possessed before the irruption of the French
troops into Italy." (Ann. Reg., 1801; State Papers, pp. 340-342)
Liguria (Genoa) was also made a military division of France by order
dated April 18. (Corr. de Nap., vol. vii. p. 162.)
[55] While refusing this in his instructions to the French negotiator,
the latter was informed he might yield it, if necessary. (Corr. de
Nap., vol. vii., pp. 255-258.)
[56] Corr. de Nap., vol. vii. p. 323.
[57] Parliamentary History, vol. xxxvi. p. 47.
[58] Commentaires de Napoléon, vol. iii. p. 377.
[59] Hist. de France depuis 1789, vol. i. p. 396.
[60] Speech of Nov. 3, 1801.
[61] Annual Register 1801, p. 280.
[62] See ante, p. 70.
[63] Am. State Papers, vol. ii. pp. 509, 511.
[64] Am. State Papers, vol. ii. p. 511.
[65] The slightest delay under these circumstances is very prejudicial,
and may be of great consequence to our squadrons and naval
expeditions.—_Corr. de Nap._, March 11, 1802.
[66] Corr. de Nap., March 12, 1802, vol. vii. p. 522.
[67] Ibid., April 3, 1802, vol. vii. p. 543.
[68] Corr. de Nap., July 1, 1802, vol. vii. p. 641.
[69] Ibid., April 13, 1801, vol. vii. p. 153.
[70] Ibid., April 18, 1801, vol. vii. p. 162.
[71] Corr. de Nap., August 2, 1802, vol. vii. p. 696.
[72] Ibid., vol. vii. pp. 528, 544.
[73] Ibid., vol. vii. p. 578.
[74] Decree of Nov. 19, 1792.
[75] Thiers, Cons. et Emp., livre xv. p. 38.
[76] Ibid., livre xv. pp. 50, 51.
[77] Ibid., xvi. p. 234.
[78] Note Verbale. Remonstrance addressed to the French government.
(Ann. Reg. 1802; State Papers, p. 675.)
[79] Lord Hawkesbury's speech; Parl. Hist., vol. xxxvi. p. 971.
[80] Parl. Hist., vol. xxxvi. p. 1380.
[81] Annual Register, 1803, p. 681.
[82] Secret Instructions to Lord Whitworth; Yonge's Life of Lord
Liverpool, vol. i. p. 93.
[83] Adams, Hist. of the United States, 1801-1817, vol. ii. pp. 13-21.
[84] The San Domingo expedition cost the lives of over twenty-five
thousand French soldiers.
[85] The British ambassador in Paris reached the same conclusion from
the instructions sent by Talleyrand to the French envoy in London. "It
appears from this note that this government is not desirous to proceed
to extremities; that is to say, it is not prepared to do so." (March
18; Parl. Hist., vol. xxxvi. p. 1315.) The United States minister in
Paris also wrote, March 24, "Here there is an earnest and sincere
desire to avoid war, as well in the government as the people." (Am.
State Papers, ii. 549.)
[86] Instructions to Duroc, March 12, 1803, Corr. de Nap., vol. viii.
pp. 307-311. It is noteworthy that these instructions were issued the
same day that was received in Paris information of the king's message
to Parliament of March 8, that "in consequence of military preparations
in the ports of France and Holland he had adopted additional measures
of precaution." Two days later the militia was called out.
[87] Corr. de Nap., vol. viii. p. 308.
[88] Parl. Hist., vol. xxxvi. p. 1293.
[89] Speech of May 23, 1803.
[90] Naval Chronicle, vol. ix. pp. 243, 247, 329, 330, 332, 491.
[91] Am. State Papers, vol. ii. p. 553.
[92] Ibid.
[93] In case of war, it was the purpose of the British government to
send an expedition to occupy New Orleans, as it did afterwards in 1814.
(Am. State papers, vol. ii. pp. 551, 557.)
[94] Napoleon to Talleyrand; Corr. de Nap., May 13, 1803.
[95] Thiers, Consulat et Empire, livre xx. p. 182.
[96] The French republic had devoured under the form of assignats an
immense amount of national property.—THIERS: _Cons. et Emp._, livre
xvii. p. 377.
[97] "Holland," says Thiers, "would have wished to remain neutral;
but the first consul had taken a resolution, _whose justice cannot be
denied_, to make every maritime nation aid in our strife against Great
Britain." (Cons. et Emp., livre xvii. p. 383.)
[98] Metternich's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 48, note.
[99] Chénier's Vie du Maréchal Davout, Paris, 1866.
[100] See Naval Chronicle, vol. x. pp. 508, 510; vol. xi. p. 81.
Nelson's Dispatches, vol. v. p. 438.
[101] Pellew's Life of Lord Sidmouth, vol. ii. p. 237.
[102] Nelson's Dispatches, vol. iv. p. 452.
[103] Parl. Debates, March 15, 1804.
[104] Mémoires du Duc de Raguse, vol. ii. p. 212.
[105] Nelson's Disp. and Letters, vol. iv pp. 444-447.
[106] Nelson's Disp., vol. iv. p 500.
[107] James, Nav. Hist., vol. iii. p. 212 (ed. 1878).
[108] See Cobbett's Reg., vol. v. pp. 442, 443, for some very sensible
remarks on Pitt's attack, written by Cobbett himself.
[109] Stanhope's Pitt, vol. iv. p. 94.
[110] Parl. Debates, 1804, p. 892.
[111] Nels. Disp., vol. v. p. 283.
[112] Ibid., p. 306.
[113] Ibid., p. 174. The following references also show conditions of
Nelson's ships: vol. v. pp. 179, 211, 306, 307, 319, 334; vol. vi. pp.
38, 84, 99, 100, 103, 134, 158.
[114] Corr. de Nap., vol. viii. p. 657.
[115] Corr. de Nap., vol. ix. p. 168.
[116] Nels. Disp., vol. v. pp. 115, 136.
[117] "It is at best but a guess," to use his own words, "and the world
attaches wisdom to him that guesses right." (Nels. Disp., vol. vi. p.
193.)
[118] See Nels. Disp., vol. v. pp. 179, 185, 247, 309, 374.
[119] Nels. Disp., vol. v. p. 309.
[120] Ibid., p. 374.
[121] Ibid., p. 388.
[122] Ibid., pp. 405, 411.
[123] Ibid., p. 498.
[124] Ibid., p. 411.
[125] Ibid., p. 300.
[126] Nels. Disp., vol. v. p. 306.
[127] Ibid., pp. 253, 254.
[128] Ibid., p. 438.
[129] Ibid., p. 388.
[130] Ibid., p. 395.
[131] See Nels. Disp., vol. v. pp. 145, 162, 413; vol. vi. pp. 84, 328,
329.
[132] Corr. de. Nap., vol. ix. p. 226.
[133] Corr. de Nap., vol. ix. p. 475.
[134] Ibid., p 513.
[135] Ibid., Sept. 12, 1804.
[136] Corr. de Nap., vol. ix. p. 700, Sept. 29, 1804.
[137] The former Spanish part of the island was still in the hands of
France.
[138] Corr. de Nap., Sept. 27 and 29, 1804.
[139] For Bonaparte's attitude toward Spain, see two letters to
Talleyrand, Aug. 14 and 16, 1803; Corr. de Nap. vol. viii. pp. 580-585.
[140] Signed Oct. 19, 1803. (Combate Naval de Trafalgar, by D. José? de
Couto, p. 79.)
[141] Parl. Debates, 1805, vol. iii. p. 70.
[142] Parl. Debates, 1805, vol. iii. p. 72.
[143] Ibid., p. 372.
[144] Ibid., p. 81.
[145] Jan. 24, 1804. Ibid., p. 85.
[146] Ibid., p. 89.
[147] Ibid.
[148] Ibid., pp. 85, 89.
[149] For some account of the advantages to French privateers arising
from this use of Spanish ports, with interesting particulars, see Naval
Chronicle, vol. xiii. p. 76. In March, 1804, Spain prohibited the sale
of prizes in her ports.
[150] Parl. Debates, 1805, vol. iii. p. 86.
[151] Corr. de Nap. vol. ix. p. 482.
[152] Parl. Debates, 1805, vol. iii. p. 93.
[153] Ibid., p. 122.
[154] Ibid., pp. 95, 122.
[155] Thiers, Cons. et Emp. livre xvii. pp. 383, 384.
[156] Pitt's Speech of February 11, 1805.
[157] D. José de Couto, Combate Naval de Trafalgar (Madrid, 1851), pp.
83, 89.
[158] Nels. Disp., vol. vi. p. 240. This letter was not sent, Nelson
soon after receiving the Admiralty's order.
[159] Jurien de la Gravière, Revue des Deux Mondes, Oct. 1887, p. 611.
[160] Correspondance de Napoléon, vol. x. pp. 79-97.
[161] Nelson's Dispatches, vol. vi. p. 333.
[162] After writing these words the author noted Nelson's opinion
to the same effect: "Had they not been crippled, nothing could
have hindered our meeting them on January 21, off the south end of
Sardinia." (Dispatches, vol. vi. p. 354.)
[163] For Villeneuve's opinion see Chevalier's Hist. de la Mar. Fran.
sous l'Empire, p. 134; for Nelson's, Disp. vol. vi. pp. 334, 339.
[164] Corr. de Nap., vol. ix. p. 701.
[165] Ibid., Jan. 16, 1805.
[166] Compare with Nelson's views on attacking Russian fleet, _ante_,
p. 46.
[167] Corr. de Nap., April 29, 1805, vol. x. p. 443.
[168] Letter to Pitt by Robert Francis; Castlereagh's Memoirs, vol. v.
p. 444. The whole letter is most suggestive, not to say prophetic. From
internal indications it is extremely probable that the writer of these
letters, signed Robert Francis, was Robert Fulton, though the fact is
not mentioned in any of his biographies.
[169] Mémoires du Duc de Raguse, vol. ii. p. 261.
[170] Thiers, Cons. et Emp., vol. v. p. 413.
[171] Barrow's Autobiography, p. 263.
[172] Ibid. Nav. Chron., vol. xiii. p. 328.
[173] The above account depends mainly upon the "Naval Chronicle" for
April 15, 1805; vol. xiii. pp. 365-367,—checked by James and other
sources.
[174] Corr. de Nap., vol. x. p. 227.
[175] So in the orders, Corr. de Nap., vol. x. p. 232. At a later date
this rendezvous is spoken of by Napoleon as in the Cape de Verde.
(Corr. de Nap., vol. xi. p. 50.) A singular confusion in such important
orders.
[176] Corr. de Nap., vol. x. p. 447.
[177] Ibid., 324.
[178] Nels. Disp., vol. vi. pp. 338-341.
[179] Nelson's Dispatches, vol. vi. p. 397.
[180] Chevalier, Mar. Fran. sous l'Empire, p. 142.
[181] Nelson's Dispatches, vol. vi. pp. 410, 411, 415.
[182] See _ante_, p. 142. Missiessy sailed from the West Indies in the
same week that Villeneuve sailed for them.
[183] Corr. de Nap., April 13, 1805, vol. x. p. 390.
[184] Ibid., April 20 and 23.
[185] Corr. de Nap., vol. x. p. 394.
[186] Ibid., p. 490.
[187] Ibid., p. 571.
[188] Ibid., p. 616.
[189] Ibid., p. 624.
[190] Corr. de Nap., vol. x. p. 708.
[191] For example, Thiers, Cons. et Emp., liv. xx. p. 178; Jurien de la
Gravière, Guerres Maritimes, vol. ii. p. 224 (first edition).
[192] Corr. de Nap., vol. xi. p. 162.
[193] Nels. Disp., vol. vi. p. 401. In a former work ("The Influence
of Sea Power upon History," p. 23), the author casually spoke of this
as a false step, into which Nelson had been misled. A closer study has
convinced him that the British admiral did quite right.
[194] Corr. de Nap., vol. x. p. 624. Compare this with Nelson's remark,
just quoted.
[195] Corr. de Nap., vol. x. p. 624.
[196] Ibid., June 22, 1805, p. 686.
[197] Nap. to Decrès, May 10, 1805.
[198] Corr. de Nap., June 9, p. 624.
[199] Annual Register, 1805, p. 225; Naval Chronicle, vol. xiii. p. 399.
[200] Naval Chronicle, vol. xiii. p. 484. The expression "_balayer
la Manche_"—sweep the Channel—is far stronger than the Chronicle's
translation, which is preserved in the quotation.
[201] Apparently a prize. (Nels. Disp., vol. vi. p. 410.)
[202] Nels. Disp., vol. vi. p. 411.
[203] Ibid., Sept. 6, 1804.
[204] Corr. de Nap., June 28, 1805, vol. x. p. 708.
[205] Ibid., p. 705.
[206] Nels. Disp., vol. vi. p. 457.
[207] Ibid., p. 45.
[208] Nels. Disp., vol. vi. p. 459.
[209] On this date is the first intimation of Nelson's sailing as known
to Napoleon. June 27, he writes, "I do not clearly see where Nelson has
been." (Corr. de Nap., vol. x. p. 701.)
[210] Corr. de Nap., vol. x. April 23 and May 4, 1805, pp. 420, 465.
[211] Ibid., May 24, p. 544.
[212] Ibid., May 29, pp. 563, 624.
[213] Corr. de Nap., vol. x. June 22, p. 686.
[214] Ibid., p. 545.
[215] See, for his reasoning, letter of June 16, three days after
leaving Antigua; and also, for his uncertainty after reaching Europe,
July 18. (Nels. Disp., vol. vi. pp. 457, 473.)
[216] Naval Chronicle, vol. xiv. p. 64.
[217] Napoleon to Decrès, July 18, 1805.
[218] Naval Chronicle, vol. xiv. p. 64.
[219] Barrow's Autobiography, pp. 276-290.
[220] See _ante_, p. 162.
[221] Napoleon to Berthier, Decrès, and Ganteaume, July 20, 1805.
[222] Napoleon to Decrès, July 27, 1805.
[223] Calder's Defence, Naval Chronicle, vol. xv. p. 167. The words
quoted, frequently repeated in different terms, embody the spirit of
the whole paper.
[224] Chevalier, Mar. Fran. sous l'Emp., p. 171. Couto (Combate de
Trafalgar, p. 107) gives a very serious account of the injuries
suffered by the four remaining Spanish ships.
[225] Nelson's Disp., vol. vi. p. 457.
[226] Nelson's Disp., vol. vii. p. 16.
[227] Corr. de Napoléon, July 16, 1805.
[228] The harbors of Ferrol, Coruña, and a third called Betanzos, are
inlets having a common entrance from the sea.
[229] See Napoleon's letters to Decrès, Allemand, and others, July 26,
1805.
[230] Napoleon to Decrès, August 29.
[231] Napoleon to Talleyrand, Dec. 18, 1799. "Frame your reply to Genoa
in such terms as to leave us free to incorporate the Ligurian Republic
with France, within a few months."
[232] Stanhope's Pitt, vol. iv. p. 318.
[233] Napoleon to Talleyrand, July 31, 1805.
[234] Ibid., August 13.
[235] Napoleon to Villeneuve, August 13.
[236] Napoleon to Decrès, August 14.
[237] Twenty-nine only of the line.
[238] Chevalier, Marine Française sous l'Empire, p. 180.
[239] Collingwood's Correspondence, August 21, 1805.
[240] Thiers, Cons. et Emp., livre xxii. pp. 125, 128.
[241] Thiers, Cons. et Emp., livre xxviii. p. 233.
[242] Napoleon to St. Cyr, Sept. 2, 1805.
[243] Napoleon to Decrès, Sept. 15.
[244] Ibid., Sept. 4.
[245] Nels. Disp., vol. vii. p. 80.
[246] Fyffe's History of Modern Europe, vol. i. p. 281.
[247] To the King of Wurtemburg, April 2, 1811; Corr., vol. xxii. p. 19.
[248] Life of Sir Wm. Parker, vol. i. p. 39. Ross's Life of Lord de
Saumarez, vol. ii. p. 214. Naval Chronicle, Plymouth Report, Dec. 10,
1800.
[249] Message of Directory to Council of Five Hundred, Jan., 1799;
Moniteur, An 7, p. 482.
[250] McArthur, Financial and Political Facts of the Eighteenth
Century, London, 1801, p. 308. Norman (Corsairs of France, London,
1887, App.) gives the number of French privateers taken in the same
period as 556.
[251] Sir J. Barrow, then a Secretary to the Admiralty, mentions in
a letter to J. W. Croker, July 18, 1810, that two colliers had been
captured in sight of Ramsgate, close under the North Foreland; and on
July 27 an ordnance hoy taken close under Galloper Light, in the face
of the whole squadron in the Downs, not one of which moved. (Croker's
Diary, vol. i. p. 33)
[252] Naval Chronicle, vol. xxiv. p. 327. For further curious
particulars concerning French privateering in the narrow seas, see Nav.
Chron., vol. xxii. p. 279; vol. xxiv. pp. 327, 448, 460-462, 490; vol.
xxv. pp. 32-34, 44, 203, 293; vol. xxvii. pp. 102, 237.
[253] See, for example, the account of the privateer captain, Jean
Blackeman Nav. Chron., vol. xii. p. 454.
[254] Naval Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 535; vol. iii. p. 151.
[255] In 1806, on the Jamaica station alone, were captured by the
British forty-eight public or private armed vessels, two of which were
frigates, the rest small. (Nav. Chron., vol. xvii. pp. 255, 337.)
[256] American State Papers, vol. ii. pp. 670, 771.
[257] James (Naval Hist., ed. 1878, vol. iii. p. 249) says that though
denominated 1,200-ton ships, the registered tonnage of most exceeds
1,300, and in some cases amounts to 1,500 tons.
[258] Nav. Chronicle, vol. vi. p. 251.
[259] Brenton's Naval Hist. (first ed.) vol. i. p. 346. Low's Indian
Navy, vol. i. 204.
[260] Low's Indian Navy, vol. i. 205. Milburn's Oriental Commerce, vol.
i. 405.
[261] The premium of insurance, which had in 1782 been fifteen guineas
per cent on ships engaged in the trade with China and India, did not
exceed half that rate at any period between the spring of 1793 and the
end of the struggle. (Lindsay's Merchant Shipping, vol. ii. 265. See
also Chalmer's Historical View, pp. 308-310.)
[262] Letter of Bombay merchants to Sir Edward Pellew; Nav. Chron.,
vol. xxiii. 107.
[263] Robert Surcouf, by J. K. Laughton; Colburn's United Service
Magazine, 1883, part i. pp. 331, 332.
[264] Milburn's Oriental Commerce, vol. i. p. xci.
[265] Naval Chronicle, vol. vii. 276.
[266] Naval Chronicle, vol. iv. pp. 150, 151, 326.
[267] Registration of vessels made in all ports of France (except the
newly acquired departments) from September 1793, to September 1796:—
Under 30 tons 3,351 (undecked)
Between 30 and 100 tons 1,897
" 100 and 200 tons 532
" 200 and 400 tons 193
Above 400 tons 55
‒‒‒‒‒
6,028
It should be explained that as all ships, old as well as new, had to
register, this gives the total of French shipping without deduction for
losses.
[268] Moniteur, 26 Floréal, An 9 (May 16, 1801).
[269] Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. iv. 359.
[270] Cobbett's Parl. Debates, March 15, 1804, p. 921.
[271] Naval Chronicle, vol. xvii. p. 369.
[272] Norman gives the total number of captures, 1793-1800, as 5,158
against Lloyd's 3,639. Through the kindness of Captain H. M. Hozier,
Secretary of Lloyd's, the author has received a list of British ships
taken, annually, 1793-1814. This list makes the numbers considerably
less than the earlier one used in the text. By it, between 1793 and
1800, both inclusive, only 3,466 British ships were captured.
[273] Moniteur, 16 Pluviôse, An 7 (Feb. 5, 1799), pp. 582, 583.
[274] Guérin gives the total number of captures by France from Great
Britain, from 1793 to the Peace of Amiens, March 25, 1802, including
both ships of war and merchant vessels, as 2,172; while the French
lost in all, from ships-of-the-line to fishing-boats, between 1,520
and 1,550. Of this total, 27 were ships-of-the-line and 70 frigates,—a
number considerably below that given by James, the painstaking
English naval historian. Allowing 150 as the number of smaller naval
vessels taken, there would remain, by Guérin's estimate, about 1,300
French trading vessels which fell into British hands. Of these a
large proportion must have been the chasse-marées that carried on the
coasting trade (as their expressive name implies); attacks on which
formed so frequent and lucrative a diversion from the monotony of
blockade service. (Hist. Mar de la France, vol. iii. p. 674.)
Guérin claims great carefulness, but the author owns to much distrust
of his accuracy. It is evident, however, from all the quotations, that
Fox's statement, May 24, 1795, that in the second year of the war
France had taken 860 ships, was much exaggerated. (Speeches, vol. v. p.
419. Longman's, 1815.)
[275] In this period of twenty-two years there were eighteen months of
maritime peace.
[276] Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. iv.
[277] Thus it is told of one of the most active of French
privateersmen, sailing out of Dunkirk, that "the trade from London to
Berwick, in the smacks, was his favorite object; not only from the
value of the cargoes, but because they required few hands to man them,
and from their good sailing were almost sure to escape British cruisers
and get safely into ports of France or Holland." Between 1793 and 1801
this one man had taken thirty-four prizes. (Nav. Chron., vol. xii. p.
454.)
[278] Returns of the coasting trade were not made until 1824. Porter's
Progress of the Nation, section iii. p. 77.
[279] The merchant vessels of that day were generally small. From
Macpherson's tables it appears that those trading between Great Britain
and the United States, between 1792 and 1800, averaged from 200 to 230
tons; those to the West Indies and the Baltic about 250; to Germany,
to Italy, and the Western Mediterranean, 150; to the Levant, 250 to
300, with some of 500 tons. The East India Company's ships, as has been
said, were larger, averaging nearly 800 tons. The general average is
reduced to that above given (125) by the large number of vessels in
the Irish trade. In 1796 there were 13,558 entries and clearances from
English and Scotch ports for Ireland, being more than half the entire
number (not tonnage) of British ships employed in so-called foreign
trade. The average size of these was only 80 tons. (Macpherson.) In
1806 there were 13,939 for Ireland to 5,211 for all other parts of the
world, the average tonnage again being 80. (Porter's Progress of the
Nation, part ii. pp. 85, 174.)
Sir William Parker, an active frigate captain, who commanded the same
ship from 1801 to 1811, was in that period interested in 52 prizes. The
average tonnage of these, excluding a ship-of-the-line and a frigate,
was 126 tons. (Life, vol. i. p. 412.)
In 1798, 6,844 coasters entered or left London, their average size
being 73 tons. The colliers were larger. Of the latter 3,289 entered
or sailed, having a mean tonnage of 228. (Colquhoun's Commerce of the
Thames, p. 13.)
[280] The returns for 1813 were destroyed by fire, and so an exact
aggregate cannot be given. Two million tons are allowed for that year,
which is probably too little.
[281] Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. iv. 368, 535.
[282] Porter's Progress of the Nation, part ii. p. 171.
[283] Chalmer's Historical View, p. 307.
[284] Porter, part ii. p. 173. The Naval Chronicle, vol. xxix. p.
453, gives an official tabular statement of prize-vessels admitted
to registry between 1793 and 1812. In 1792 there were but 609, total
tonnage 93,994.
[285] Chalmer's Historical View, p. 351.