EXPEDITIONS, CONVOY, AND THE PRIVATEERS
AUTHORITIES.—See last Chapter; _Memoirs of Forbin and Duguay-Trouin_;
Poulain, _La Course au 17^{me} Siècle_.
The second and larger division of the War of the League of Augsburg
can be most conveniently dealt with by subjects rather than in
chronological order. There were no great campaigns between equal forces
of sufficient interest to be taken by themselves. Throughout all these
years the overpowering fleets of the Alliance cruised unchecked on the
sea, hemming France in, harassing her coast, annihilating her commerce,
and rendering assistance to the armies operating against her. Detached
squadrons issued from England year after year to attack the French
possessions in the New World and defend our own. In the meantime, the
efforts of France on the sea were ever more strictly confined to the
cruises of her privateers.
The object before the allies when once they had vindicated their
superiority on the ocean was to harass the French coast and to
co-operate with the armies on shore wherever an opportunity presented
itself. The first duty was done with more barbarism than success. In
the November of 1693 a futile attack was made on St. Malo by Benbow.
Infernal machines, invented by one Meesters, a Dutchman in the English
service, were drifted in for the purpose of destroying the shipping.
They exploded too soon, and did no harm to the enemy. This attack on
St. Malo was both the beginning and the type of a kind of operation we
adhered to till the middle of the eighteenth century. Good powder and
shot, and the lives of men, were thrown away in one dab after another
at this or the other point on the French coast. It was very rarely that
the expedition succeeded in causing any serious destruction to the
enemy. When it did, the harm inflicted on France was never enough to
cripple her power, though the suffering caused to individuals was no
doubt cruel. The English Government hardly ever showed itself capable
of understanding that to assail unfortified towns does no good, and
that fortified towns must be attacked with sufficient resources. To
give more than a mere mention to such enterprises as these here would
be to overestimate their importance altogether.
In 1694 this work of harassing the French was taken in hand, with
results excellently calculated to show how a fleet ought to act, and
how it ought not. Russell was at sea at a reasonably early date, with
the intention to watch the Brest fleet and to endeavour to destroy that
port itself. If the French fleet remained in the harbour the whole of
his force would be needed for the purpose. If, however, Tourville had
gone south a detachment might be left to deal with Brest, and Russell
could go on. This recognition of the fact that the proper employment
of an English fleet was to follow the enemy was perfectly sound in
principle. So much cannot be said for the plan of attack on Brest.
It might be a very advantageous thing to destroy the great French
arsenal, but such a place was certain to be so strongly fortified as
to be impregnable to the sudden attack of a mere flying column. Yet
no greater force than can be fairly described by the name was put
under the command of Tollemache. As a matter of fact the expedition
was hopeless, for it had been betrayed to King Louis by some of King
William’s servants who were in communication with St. Germain. One of
the traitors was the great Marlborough.
As early as the 19th May, Russell learnt that Tourville had already
sailed for the south. Before starting in pursuit, the new Admiral
of the Fleet was able to deliver one effectual stroke at the enemy.
A large French convoy of merchant ships was lying in Berteaume Bay
under the protection of one French man-of-war. Russell dispatched a
light squadron under Captain Pritchard to destroy it. The work was
thoroughly done, and was followed up by the destruction of a number of
other vessels going south with provisions to Tourville. Then, on the
5th or 6th June, Russell sailed for the south, leaving Lord Berkeley
to carry out the attack on Brest. On the 7th of June Berkeley entered
the wide channel between the Pointe St. Mathieu and the Pointe du Raz,
called the Iroise. The entrance to the Bay of Brest, named Le Goulet,
or Gullet, is on the north-east corner of this channel. It is a narrow
passage which leads into the land-locked Bay of Brest. The bay is shut
off from the sea by a peninsula running south from the Goulet. The
western side of this peninsula, after running due north and south,
turns to the west with a curve to the end at the north, and forms the
anchorage known as the Roads or Bay of Camaret.
The object of the expedition was to land in Camaret Bay, seize the
peninsula on the western side of the harbour, and, using that as a
basis of operations, open the entry to the bay to the fleet; and then
destroy the arsenal of Brest. The French were on their guard; Camaret
Bay was bristling with batteries and lined with troops. To go on was an
act of folly, and so Carmarthen, who surveyed the bay, gave Tollemache
to understand; but the soldier, though an exceedingly brave man and a
good subordinate, was no general, and he was burning to distinguish
himself. He urged the naval officers on, and among them he found an
ally in Lord Berkeley. The result was that several ships were all but
battered to pieces by the French cannon, and Tollemache landed at the
southern corner of the bay with a few hundred men—an act of headlong
folly which cost him his life, and sacrificed the lives of many others.
Then the expedition came away.
There was a kind of wrong-headed magnanimity about the conduct of
Tollemache which extorts a certain respect, but the succeeding
operations are merely examples of how to combine the greatest possible
malignity of intention with a high degree of ineptitude in the
execution. Berkeley came back to St. Helens for refreshments, and
then returned to the coast of France to take revenge. What he did was
morally on a level with the desolation of the Palatinate, for which
King Louis had been so bitterly reproached by his enemies, and it
had this further disgrace attaching to it, that it was imbecile. The
English fleet only bombarded Dieppe and Havre, killing a certain number
of women, children, and unarmed men, and burning a few houses. Then
it threatened La Hogue and Cherbourg. This done, it came back to St.
Helens for refreshments. When invigorated by repose it returned to
Dunkirk, and exploded more infernal machines to no purpose.
In 1695 it was the same story. We made a demonstration at St. Malo,
then we burnt the little fishing town of Granvelle, and then we
achieved another failure at Dunkirk. In the following year these feats
were renewed at Calais and elsewhere, till the war died down and was
brought to a pause by the truce called the Peace of Ryswick in 1697.
When it was resumed, the Admiralty had learnt that these expeditions
were forms of waste, and we hear little or nothing of them during the
reign of Queen Anne. It is probable that Captain Pritchard did more
harm to the enemy by destroying the convoy in Berteaume Bay than was
inflicted in all these expeditions, and he did it at a thousandth part
of the cost.
More legitimate and fruitful than these attacks on the French coast
towns were other operations of the fleet, which may be classed under
two heads. First are the cruises of what our ancestors called “The
Grand Fleet”—that is to say, movements of great forces representing the
bulk of our effective naval power in Europe. Then contemporary to, but
apart from them, were the cruises of squadrons, designed to protect our
own colonial possessions or menace those of the French. These two kinds
of naval operations were so far independent of one another that it is
not necessary to tell them together. Again, many of them were so barren
in results that it is superfluous to tell them in detail. Yet the mere
fact that they took place shows the magnitude, the persistence, and
the coherence of our efforts to make full use of the fleet. It has
seemed to me most advisable to set them both forth briefly in parallel
columns, and give particular accounts of the more notable among them
afterwards.
Grand Fleets Small Squadrons
The year of Beachy Head. December 1689 to May 1690.—Captain
Lawrence Wright to the West Indies,
with ten ships and three small
vessels. Contemporary with this
cruise was the expedition of Sir W.
Phipps from New England against Nova
Scotia, then a French colony, and
Quebec.
Year of Russell’s first command 12th December 1690 to August
in the Channel. 1691.—Captain Ralph Wren to the West
Indies. He died of fever, and many of
his men with him. The squadron was
brought home by Boteler.
Year of La Hogue. In 1692 there was no colonial
expedition.
Disaster of Rooke’s convoy. January to August 1693.—Cruise of Sir
F. Wheeler to the West Indies, with
twelve sail and three fireships.
Russell in Channel. Goes to sea January to September 1695.—Captain
in May. Sails for Mediterranean Robert Wilmot to West Indies, with
in June. Enters Mediterranean in five ships and one fireship. Wilmot
July. Operations on coast of died of fever, and one vessel was
Catalonia. Winters at Cadiz. lost for want of hands.
Goes up Mediterranean again in
March 1695. Returns to England
in November of that year.
April 1696 to October 1697.—Cruise of
Vice-Admiral Nevil to West Indies.
This squadron was almost totally
destroyed by fever—only one captain
returned.
There was now a break of four years, due to the truce which followed
the Peace of Ryswick, 20th September 1697.
Grand Fleets Small Squadrons
1700.—Sir George Rooke sent into No colonial expedition.
Baltic to support Charles XII.
of Sweden against Denmark.
September 1701.—Benbow to the West
Indies, where he died on the 4th
November 1702 of wounds received in
action with Du Casse. The command
passed to Whetstone.
June to November 1702.—Rooke’s July to October 1702.—Sir John Leake
cruise to Cadiz, and attack on attacks French in Newfoundland.
treasure ships at Vigo, in
co-operation with the Dutch.
June to September 1703.—Cruise January to September 1703.—Rear-Admiral
of Sir C. Shovell into the Graydon’s cruise into West Indies to
Mediterranean. replace Benbow.
January to September No new expedition to colonies.
1704.—Shovell and Rooke in
Mediterranean; capture of
Gibraltar and battle of Malaga.
April to November 1705.—Shovell April 1705 to December 1706.—Sir
and Peterborough; taking of William Whetstone commanding in
Barcelona. West Indies. He left in command Kerr.
February to October 1706.—Sir October 1706 to April 1707.—Sir John
John Leake in command on coast Jennings in West Indies.
of Spain.
1707.—Sir C. Shovell to the March 1707 to November 1709.—Sir
Mediterranean. He was wrecked Charles Wager in the West Indies.
on the Scilly Isles when
returning from this cruise,
23rd October 1707.
March to October 1708.—Sir John
Leake to the Mediterranean.
1708 to October 1709.—Sir George September 1710.—Captain George Martin
Byng left behind by Leake, takes Port Royal, and Nova Scotia
winters at Minorca, taken by from the French.
Stanhope. He returned with
convoy in October 1709, leaving
Whitaker with a squadron.
Whitaker was succeeded by
Baker, and then by Norris,
till war ended.
April to October 1711.—Disastrous
expedition under Sir Hovenden
Walker against Quebec.
These two lists are not exhaustive. They do not include minor
operations against the French coast in the Channel, nor do they mention
all the subordinate parts of the colonial expeditions. It is also
necessary to bear in mind that the Grand Fleets were the fleets of the
allies, not of England alone. The Dutch always contributed a part of
the strength, and their share of the common force was nowise inferior
in spirit, or skill, to ours. In one of the elements which go to make
efficiency they were not rarely superior. Their health was too often
better, since, to the deep discredit of British administrations of that
time, we did not on the average feed our men as well as the Dutch. The
colonial expeditions were our own, and the work was done at an awful
cost of life by disease.
In these circumstances the cruises of the allied Grand Fleets could
only be the successive exercises of an overwhelming superiority,
directed against an enemy whose resistance must needs be passive, with
rare and fitful efforts at retaliation. Year after year the great
combined naval armaments of England and Holland sailed south in the
spring. Before the Peace of Ryswick (1697) they went once to aid the
Spaniards, who were contending feebly against the French in Catalonia.
After the renewal of the war, they went repeatedly to aid the Hapsburg
pretender, who was endeavouring to drive the Bourbon King of Spain,
Philip V., from the throne he occupied by right of inheritance and
the will of Charles II., the last of the Austrian dynasty. They
also served to cover the movements of English and Dutch commerce by
mewing up the only fleet which Louis XIV. endeavoured to maintain in
Toulon. Incidentally they enabled us to secure what Cromwell had hoped
for, and what our Charles II. endeavoured to obtain by his marriage
treaty—namely, a port of war near the Mediterranean, where an English
fleet could keep its stores, repair damages, and find a safe anchorage
without being dependent on the goodwill of an ally.
The interest of a conflict between strength and weakness cannot be
in proportion to the importance of its results. These campaigns must
therefore (considerations of space being also of much weight) “speak by
their foreman”; by the typical examples. None seem more representative
than the first great cruise into the Mediterranean in 1694, and that
expedition of ten years later which put us in possession of Gibraltar.
It has been said above that the Grand Fleet had gone to sea in the
spring of 1694 under the command of Russell. He was also the chief of
the “commission for executing the office of Lord High Admiral”—and
therefore combined the whole civil and military authority in his own
person. The fleet consisted of fifty-two English and forty-one Dutch
ships of the line, with their attendant fireships and small craft, when
all were collected at St. Helens. When he was sure that the French had
no fleet in Brest to assist in the defence, the admiral returned to St.
Helens on the 23rd May, and sailed with his whole force on the 29th.
On the 6th June the force designed to carry out the already mentioned
raid on Brest was detached, and Russell sailed for the south in pursuit
of the French with thirty English and twenty-two Dutch. He was off the
Rock of Lisbon on the 25th June. Here he was reinforced by ships both
English and Dutch, and his force was raised to sixty-three. A little
later he was burdened by the co-operation of nine very inefficient
Spaniards.
In July Russell entered the Mediterranean, to the great relief of
the palsied Spanish Government, now trembling in impotence before
the French army of invasion in Catalonia and the French fleet in the
Mediterranean. The enemy retired as the allies worked their way slowly
up the coast and finally took refuge in the roadstead of Hyères, to
the east of Toulon. Russell and his Dutch colleagues were then able to
cover the Spanish forces in Catalonia and the Spanish coast trade from
French attack. As autumn approached, they prepared to return; but King
William wisely came to the decision that there was no better way of
protecting English and Dutch naval interests at home than by keeping
the French fleet shut in the Mediterranean. Russell therefore received
orders to winter in Cadiz. He had to struggle with the unreasonable
requests of the Spanish Government, which expected its allies to do
everything for it, and could itself do little or nothing. Yet, as they
were well supplied with money, stores, and even artificers from home,
the allies passed the winter abroad at no greater cost than would have
been incurred in their own ports.
In the spring of 1695, English troops were sent out under Brigadier
Stewart, and a Dutch contingent under the Count of Nassau. The allies,
after delays attributed to the dilatory preparations of the Spaniards,
moved up the coast, and reached Barcelona on the 19th July. Stimulated
by Russell, the Spanish viceroy of Catalonia resolved to take the
offensive against the French, who were in possession of the northern
part of the principality. It was decided to besiege Palamos, a coast
town just south of Cape San Sebastian. English and Dutch soldiers
were landed to aid the Spaniards, who for their part signally failed
to keep the promises they had made to supply tents and tools for work
in the trenches. Yet the siege, which began on the 9th of August, was
making fair progress, when it was suddenly broken up by the decision
of Russell himself. The Duke of Vendôme, who commanded the French army
in Catalonia, put false information in his way, to the effect that a
French fleet of sixty-five sail was fitting for sea at Toulon. Hereupon
Russell re-embarked his soldiers, advised the Spanish viceroy to
renounce all hope of retaking Palamos, and sailed to find the French.
This measure has been praised, in view of the danger that the fleet
from Toulon might have interfered with the siege. Yet if Russell was
confident of his capacity to meet King Louis’s ships in battle—and
if he was not it was a gross blunder to form the siege at all, and
another to sail for the purpose of meeting a superior fleet—he had it
in his power to force on an action by pressing the attack, and waiting
till the enemy came to interrupt him. By sailing in response to a mere
rumour, he enabled the French to effect their purpose of raising the
siege at no cost. Moreover, he did not secure the battle he sought.
The French having nothing to gain by an action, did not indulge him
with a meeting. The weather proved stormy, and in the end the allies
returned in September to Cadiz without Palamos, and without a battle.
Russell then sailed for home, and reached England after a prosperous
voyage early in November, leaving behind him a squadron under the
command of Rear-Admiral David Mitchell. The impotent conclusion of
the attack on Palamos leaves us in some doubt whether Russell was not
rather a fortunate than a spirited man. Yet his continuance abroad for
a year and a half, his wintering at Cadiz, and his two cruises in the
Mediterranean, did serve to prove that the allies had clearly gained
the upper hand at sea. They could not have remained for so long, nor
have cruised undisturbed, if the French had been in a position to use
their fleet.
The end of these operations was somewhat tame. Sir David Mitchell
had been left with sixteen ships of the line of the middle and lower
rates. On the 15th October Sir George Rooke arrived from England with
a squadron, and the total force of the allies was raised to thirty
sail, exclusive of the small craft. Information, no more accurate than
the false report which drew Russell away from Palamos, led Rooke to
believe that a powerful French fleet was coming to sea. He took refuge
in Cadiz harbour, and there spent the winter. Sir David Mitchell was
once sent out in search of some French vessels said to be lying in
Lagos Bay, but they were not found, and the allies were otherwise
quiescent. Meanwhile, King Louis was indeed preparing to make an
attack, or rather a double attack, on King William. During the early
days of 1696 Sir John Fenwick’s assassination plot was hatching in
England, to the knowledge and with the approval of the French sovereign
and the exiled King James. Troops were collected at Calais to be pushed
over so soon as the murder of King William was known to have been
achieved. In the meanwhile a fleet of fifty-one sail was being prepared
at Toulon with considerable difficulty, partly through the penury
of the French Government, partly because of the pertinacity of its
sailors in resisting or evading service. The object of this armament
was to provide a force which should be at hand to take advantage of
the confusion expected to ensue on the violent death of King William.
It is known to all that this complicated scheme of combined murder
and military operations broke down. Fenwick’s plot was revealed to
the Government. The great ships which had come home with Russell in
the autumn were hurried to sea in February, and the French coast was
patrolled and orders were sent to Rooke to return at once.
These orders reached him at a time when his mind was much exercised
by reports of the approach of the French fleet from Toulon. He put to
sea in the early days of March. The enemy had already sailed under the
command of Châteaurenault. It is one more illustration of the rather
modest standard of efficiency expected from the ship of the time,
that to send a fleet to sea so early as March was counted hazardous.
The result went to show that the estimate was not wholly unjust.
Both fleets were scattered in a storm, and suffered damage. They
returned to port, but again put to sea so soon as their injuries were
made good. Rooke, who had the start, reached home on the 22nd April.
Châteaurenault ran into Brest about a fortnight later—not unobserved,
but unopposed. This escape of his fleet was added to the list of naval
miscarriages of which Parliament was constantly complaining. Rooke
and Mitchell were called to account, but no blame appears to have
been thought to attach to them. Indeed, the error lay mainly in the
Government. It ought to have kept a more powerful force in the Straits
if it wished to prevent the French from leaving the Mediterranean.
Fenwick’s plot was the last resolute effort made by the enemy against
the Government established by the Revolution. Peace was becoming an
absolute necessity for France, and it was made at Ryswick in 1697.
For a brief space both sides took breath, and then the struggle began
again—the main cause being the resolution of the allies to prevent
Louis XIV. from establishing a grandson of his own on the Spanish
throne on terms which would practically have annexed the vast
possessions of the Spanish monarchy to the crown of France. England was
drawn into the struggle with reluctance, and was in fact only provoked
to fight when the French King, subordinating his duties as a sovereign
to his feelings as a gentleman, recognised the son of the exiled James
II. as King of England.
The accession of Queen Anne brought one change to the government of the
navy. It had been the intention of King William in the last days of
his rule to re-establish a Lord High Admiral. The Earl of Pembroke was
chosen for the place, and the admirals who were to act as his advisers
were named. By the king’s death all commissions were annulled, but his
intention was carried out, though with a change of persons. The office
of Lord High Admiral was revived in favour of the queen’s husband,
Prince George of Denmark, who was provided with a council. Some fault
was found with the legality of this measure, but it passed without
serious opposition—thanks to the popularity of the queen, and the fact
that public attention was turned elsewhere.
The war, though essentially a continuation of the former struggle, was
begun, in so far at least as the naval side of it was concerned, in
somewhat changed conditions. A grandson of King Louis now sat on the
throne of Spain. It was the object of the allies, by whom, however,
he had been at first recognised, to compel him to resign. Therefore
it was sure that he would be their enemy to the extent of his power.
An inevitable consequence of this change was that the allied English
and Dutch fleets could no longer rely on being allowed to use Spanish
ports. One of the earliest measures taken by the Queen’s Government was
to send an officer, Captain Loades, to Cadiz to bring away the naval
stores kept there for the use of our ships serving in the Straits and
the Mediterranean. It shows to what an extent we had made use of this
port, that the stores left there amounted to more than Loades could
stow in the vessels with him. He was therefore compelled to sell part
of them to the Spaniards at a loss. Two hulks belonging to us, and used
for the purpose of “heaving down,” that is, lightening, and pulling
on one side ships which it was necessary to clean when they returned
foul from a cruise, were towed out to sea and sunk. An experience of
this kind must have quickened our desire to obtain possession of a port
entirely our own.
Though Philip V. had been accepted by the Spaniards as their king, a
party in favour of the Hapsburg dynasty was known to exist, and to be
strong in the coast provinces. So upon the outbreak of the war in 1702,
a fleet of fifty sail, of which thirty were English and twenty were
Dutch, was sent to Cadiz under Rooke, carrying with it a strong force
of soldiers under the Duke of Ormonde. It cleared the Channel on the
21st July, and after looking into Corunna went on to the south. On the
12th August it left Lisbon, which, since the Spanish ports were shut
to us, and the King of Portugal was among the allies, had become our
house of call and store magazine, as it had been in the Commonwealth
wars. Very shortly the fleet was before Cadiz. The work to be done
required, above all things, tact. It was the duty of the expedition
to assail the Spaniards in so far as they were the armed supporters
of King Philip V., but to propitiate them in so far as they were the
potential supporters of the Hapsburg party. The chiefs so managed
matters that they took no effectual steps against the armed forces
of King Philip, while they allowed grievous wrong to be inflicted on
the people of the country. Cadiz was bombarded to the injury of the
inhabitants. Meanwhile the Puerto de Santa Maria, on the other side of
the bay, was occupied by the English and Dutch, who applied themselves
to drunkenness, the rape of women, and deliberate insults to the Roman
Catholic religion—three kinds of violence exquisitely adapted to excite
the scorn and hatred of the people of Andalusia. After a month and a
little more of wrangling with one another, the chiefs, who could agree
on nothing else, agreed to come away.
On the way home, information was received that several Spanish treasure
galleons returning from America under protection of a French squadron
commanded by Châteaurenault had put into Vigo. Here was a definite
object offering a plain aim both to public spirit and private greed.
Dissensions ceased. Sailor and soldier united in vigorous co-operation.
There is a spacious outer bay at Vigo, and a convenient, though
smaller, inner anchorage reached through a narrow entry. A boom had
been laid across this, and the French and Spaniards were anchored
within. On the 12th October, the allies, led by Admiral Hopson,
dashed at the boom while soldiers landed for the purpose turned the
fortifications on shore. The French warships and Spanish galleons were
either destroyed by the allies or by their own crews. The Government
treasure had been disembarked and was far inland, but a good deal of
miscellaneous pillage no doubt fell to the squadron and the troops. On
the 19th the expedition sailed away, and reached England on the 7th
November. Its doings added another chapter to the dreary history of
parliamentary debates on “naval miscarriages.”
In 1703 a Grand Fleet went out to the Mediterranean under command
of Cloudesley Shovell. It swept the coasts of Spain and Provence,
endeavouring to quicken the Hapsburg party in Spain and to send help
to the Protestants of the Cevennes, who were in revolt against King
Louis—with no success in either case. But the following year saw
operations of another order, forming a fruitful campaign—movements of
large hostile armaments over a great area, a balance of forces, and a
clash of conflict leaving permanent results.
At the close of 1703 the Archduke Charles, the Hapsburg claimant of
the Spanish throne, was brought over to this country by Rooke from
Holland. It was the purpose of the Government to send him south with
such a force as would enable him to vindicate his rights. After delays
caused by bad weather he sailed under the protection of Rooke on the
12th February 1704. The English admiral had with him only ten sail of
the line, five English and five Dutch, but was accompanied by a swarm
of transports and trading ships. He did not reach Lisbon till the 25th
February. On the 2nd March reinforcements reached him under command
of Sir John Leake, and on the 9th he went to sea in order to cruise
for the outgoing Spanish trading fleet bound to the West Indies, which
he did not meet though he took several other prizes. Orders were sent
him to proceed up the Mediterranean for the purpose of forwarding
the Hapsburg cause and aiding the coast towns of our ally the Duke
of Savoy. Rooke left Lisbon with thirty-seven sail, but no troops,
and was off Cape St. Vincent on the 29th April. He now went on to
the Mediterranean. On the 8th May he was off Cape Palos, north-east
of the Spanish port of Carthagena. Here a small squadron of French
ships was seen and chased. They were on their way to Cadiz. Complaints
were made that though they were overtaken they were not attacked, and
strong blame was thrown on Captain Andrew Leake for the failure. On
the 10th the detached squadron rejoined the admiral, and on the 19th
the fleet was off Barcelona. The Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, who was
with Rooke, had been governor of the province for King Charles II.,
and he was convinced, rightly enough as subsequent events proved, that
the sympathies of the townsmen were with the Hapsburg cause. He wished
to make an effort to induce them to rise, but Barcelona was held for
King Philip by a strong garrison under the command of Don Francisco
de Velasco, a man of rigorous character. The Catalans, like our own
ancestors whether Whig or Jacobite, were too prudent to rise against
regular soldiers till they were assured of solid support. This Rooke
could not give. He had no troops with him, and he held himself bound to
go on to the Riviera to aid the Duke of Savoy. A few hundred English
and Dutch marines were landed, but no movement followed in the town,
and they were re-embarked. Rooke therefore left the coast of Catalonia,
and steered towards Provence.
The French fleet had left Brest early in May. It consisted of
twenty-three vessels, under the command of the Count of Toulouse, a
bastard son of the king’s, and a simple-minded honest man of no great
faculty. The strain on the French king’s resources had not allowed him
to equip great fleets in 1702 and 1703, but the events of those years
showed him that an effort must be made. In 1704 he ordered squadrons
to be prepared both in Brest and Toulon. The object was to unite them
in the Mediterranean, where they could cut short further intrigues
with the insurgent Huguenots, and give both moral and material support
to his grandson in Spain. The English Government was aware of the
preparations, and in April a strong fleet was collected in the Channel
under Shovell. He had orders to retire up Channel, bringing with him
the store ships loaded for the squadron at Lisbon, if the enemy came
on in great force. If, however, he heard that Toulouse had gone to the
Mediterranean, he was to follow with not more than twenty-two sail,
taking care to leave a sufficient force for the protection of trade in
the home waters. On the 12th May Shovell obtained information that the
French had gone south, and he therefore detached Sir Stafford Fairborn
with light ships to Kinsale to act as a trade guard, and followed the
enemy to the coast of Portugal.
The Count of Toulouse had a long start, and was nearing the
neighbourhood of Rooke by the time Shovell reached Lisbon. In the
latter days of May the position was this. On the 25th Rooke was joined
by frigate, with the news that a French fleet had passed the Rock of
Lisbon steering to the south. The frigate passed through the enemy
at sea, and knew that they had entered the Mediterranean. Rooke also
learnt from other sources that the towns of the Duke of Savoy were in
no danger. A council of war was held, and it was resolved to return
to the Straits. If the French fleet was met on the way it was to be
engaged. The Count of Toulouse, with twenty-three sail of the line, was
cutting across the route of the allies and heading for Toulon. Another
French squadron was getting ready in that port somewhat tardily.
Shovell was still distant, but was making his way out to join and put
himself under the orders of Rooke. All these forces were converging by
devious routes to a final clash of battle.
Important events were to take place before they met. On the 27th of May
the ships of Toulouse were sighted by the look-out vessels of Rooke’s
fleet. But the abounding caution of the commanders of that generation
was shown once more. The average speed of the French ships was better
than that of the allies, yet it would have been possible to bring them
to action by ordering all the ships to sail at their best rate of
speed in a “general chase,” when the quickest of the allies could have
overtaken the slowest of the French. But to do this appeared dangerous
to the flag officers of 1704, since it might subject them to attack
in detail, and they pursued in a body, regulating their speed by that
of the slowest sailer among them. Thus the Count of Toulouse kept and
improved his lead. On the 29th the allies were within ninety miles of
Toulon. Then, fearing that all the French forces would unite and put
them at a disadvantage, they returned down the Mediterranean. On the
14th June Rooke and Shovell united their forces in the Straits.
So far nothing very brilliant had been done, and the escape of Toulouse
with his far inferior fleet was even discreditable to the allies.
But now strong pressure was put on Rooke and his colleagues to act.
Hitherto the conduct of the naval war had been of a somewhat peddling
order. The buccaneering achievement at Vigo stood alone as a feat of
any brilliancy. In the beginning of the war the failure of an officer
named Munden (brother of him who retook St. Helena from the Dutch) to
stop some French ships at Corunna, and his acquittal by a somewhat
complacent court martial, had roused fierce anger in the country. There
had since been a shameful business in the West Indies. The nation was
becoming thoroughly tired of “naval miscarriages,” and the ministry
was resolute that something should be done. Something doable lay at
the very hand of the allied fleet. After hesitation, and discussions
in the inevitable councils of war, it was resolved to make an attempt
on Gibraltar, which Cromwell had indicated as a good post for us to
hold half a century before. Though Rooke only acted under pressure,
his conduct now compares very favourably with that of Russell in 1695.
If he was slow and very cautious, at least he was resolute and exact.
He did not allow the mere wind of the French fleet at Toulon to draw
him off, but stood on guard with the bulk of his force, and sent in
a squadron under George Byng to bombard the town, while a body of
marines was landed under command of the Prince of Hesse, on the neck
of the peninsula, to cut the garrison off from relief, at any rate,
by small parties. Gibraltar even then was strong. Its fortification
mounted a hundred guns, but its garrison of 150 men was ridiculously
inadequate. On the 23rd the bombardment took place—the Spaniards making
such reply as was possible to 150 men. The mole was swept by the fire
of the ships’ guns, and then stormed by the sailors. An explosion,
either deliberately caused by the Spaniards, or produced by one of our
own men who dropped a light into a magazine, did considerable harm to
the stormers, and for a moment there was a panic. But the Spaniards
were too few to take advantage of the chance, or indeed to man the
walls. Next day the governor promised to surrender, and the town was
delivered on the 25th. The total loss of the allies was 60 killed and
217 wounded, nearly twice the number of the Spanish garrison, and
almost all English. They shed their blood honourably and profitably in
adding this noble fortress to the “patrimony of St. George”—happier men
than the thousands of their comrades who perished miserably in these
wars, fever stricken in filthy ships, rotten with scurvy, starved, or
poisoned by bad food.
Gibraltar newly taken, and shattered by the attack, was not as yet
capable of serving as a port of war for the fleet. Not even water
could be found in sufficient quantities. Twelve hundred marines were
landed to form a garrison capable of repelling any sudden attack from
the land, and a magazine was made up out of the stores of the ships.
Then the allies stood over to Tetuan, and sought for provisions and
water among the Moors. On the 9th August they had obtained what they
wanted, when the captain of the =Centurion=, who had been on the watch
to the eastward, came in with the news that the French fleet was at
hand. Though the course to be followed in the event of such a foreseen
occurrence as this might have been maturely considered already, a
council of war had to be held. It was decided to work up towards the
enemy, and give battle. If the Count of Toulouse, who, being to the
eastward, had the weather-gage in the easterly wind blowing at the
time, had been well advised, he would have forced on battle at once.
But he manœuvred to avoid action, and even fell back towards Malaga.
This gave the allies time to re-embark half the marines they had landed
at Gibraltar. The meeting of the fleets was delayed till the 13th
August. By that date the allies had got to windward of the French who
were now between them and the fortress. Both fleets were heading to the
south. At ten o’clock in the morning the allied line bore down on the
French. Sir Cloudesley Shovell and Leake led the van. Rooke commanded
in the centre with Dilkes and Wishart. The Dutch formed the rear of
the line. In number of guns and ships the two fleets were fairly
equal, but the allies were short handed, and in want of ammunition.
The course of the battle presented little of interest. Van was opposed
to van, centre to centre, and rear to rear. They hammered each other
with their guns, and the valour shown was great. Sir John Leake, if his
Life is to be trusted, did wish to do more than fire and be fired into.
He commanded the leading squadron in the allied line and was opposed
to the French admiral, the Marquis de Villette Mursay. The French
officer’s ship, the _Intrépide_, caught fire in the poop, and he bore
out of the line to extinguish the flames. This movement was understood
as a signal by the ships of his squadron, and they followed him to
leeward. Leake now wished to pursue and break through the French line,
but that fatal article in the Fighting Instructions, which prescribed
the maintenance of one order throughout the action, interfered. He was
told to remain where he was—and was reduced to be a spectator of the
rest of the action, which took the form of a persevering exchange of
blows between the centre and rear divisions of the two fleets. They
separated at four in the afternoon, both much damaged. The battle of
Malaga was one of the most bloody ever fought at sea. Nearly 3000 men
fell in the allied line, and the loss of the French, who however only
acknowledged 1500, cannot well have been much less. On their side, too,
an extraordinary number of officers of distinction were slain.
For two days the fleets remained near one another. The wind shifted to
the west, and gave the French the weather-gage, but they made no use of
it to renew the battle. In the allied line many ships already depleted
by the bombardment of the 23rd July, and the drafts made upon them to
supply the Prince of Hesse with a magazine, had fired away almost all
their powder. Some had run short in the action. They were prepared to
accept battle if it was forced upon them, with the resolution to board
the enemy, and settle it with cold steel since they could not use their
guns. But in their hearts they were relieved—and no shame to them,
and no credit to him—when Toulouse filed away northward to Toulon.
Then they returned to Gibraltar Bay, where they remained till the 24th
of August. The marines drawn from the garrison were again landed and
damages made good as far as might be. On that day Rooke sailed. On the
26th he told off a squadron to remain on the coast of Portugal with
Leake, and sailed with his battered ships and sorely tried crews for
England, which he reached on the 25th September.
Gibraltar having been taken was to be held, and as it was not yet
sufficiently settled to be able to rely for long on its own strength,
its salvation depended on Leake’s squadron. Sir John was hardly a great
commander, yet from the day that he relieved Londonderry his conduct
was always marked by a certain alacrity in action. During the winter of
1704-05, he stood by Gibraltar loyally and with energy. The Spaniards
had collected an army to retake the town, and early in October the
Prince of Hesse called for help. Leake came at once from Lagos with
stores and encouragement. On hearing that a French naval force was
approaching, he put to sea. Uncertainty as to the strength of the
enemy and some damage received by bad weather induced him to return to
Lisbon to refit, but he was back reinforced by the 29th October and
had the deserved good luck to capture three French warships. Leake now
remained by Gibraltar till the 21st December. On both these visits
his guns relieved the pressure on the town by firing into the camp of
the besiegers. Then he again went back to Lisbon. During his absence
a French squadron under M. de Pointis arrived to form a blockade.
On the 10th March, Leake was back again, and this time he destroyed
five Frenchmen including the flagship in Gibraltar Bay. The remainder
of Pointis’ ships fled to Toulon. Leake now remained till March.
The besieging army broke up its camp in despair, and Gibraltar was
safe. Leake was able to sail for England and reached it in April. As
Gibraltar had been taken, so it was saved by the fleet, for the sake of
which we hold it, and on which in the last resort it depends.
It is a striking coincidence that the year of the taking of Gibraltar
was also the year of Blenheim. The superiority passed to the allies on
land as well as on sea. Henceforth the French king could do less and
less with his navy. Year after year the Grand Fleets poured out of the
Channel in spring, and swept like a great tidal wave round the coasts
of the Peninsula, and into the Gulf of Lyons. They made the capture of
Barcelona, and its relief, possible. It was they who enabled General
Stanhope to take Port Mahon which, together with Gibraltar, remained
in our hands at the end of the war. They kept the Hapsburg cause alive
in Spain for a space. Yet their operations present only a repetition
of similar incidents, and enforce always the same lessons: that where
the road lies over the sea, the ships only can stop it for an invader,
or open it for invasion—an obvious but apparently an easily forgotten
truth.
Writing in 1704, Josiah Burchett, the Secretary of the Admiralty, had
occasion to acknowledge the ill success of an expedition sent to the
West Indies during the reign of King William; “but,” he went on, “when
had we an opportunity, or at least when was there any attempt made by
us from the beginning of the last war, to this very time, where the
advantage proved in any degree equal to the charge and inconveniences
that did attend it? The injuries we did to the French when Sir Francis
Wheeler commanded in the West Indies were inconsiderable, and what have
our successes been before and after that expedition? I doubt it was
found that our squadrons came home in a much worse condition than when
they set forth, both as to men, and all other circumstances; and not
having the good fortune to do any sensible injuries to our enemy, they
(_i.e._ the enemy) had the satisfaction of knowing what inconveniences
we involved ourselves in.” The cruises carried out after 1704 might
be summed up in much the same terms. As we were then engaged against
the Spaniards as well as the French, a change was made in the scope of
our operations. The peculiar character of Spanish trade with the new
world, in which the most valuable portion of the home-coming cargoes
was the bullion brought from the mines of Mexico and Peru, gave us
an opportunity to achieve one success of a kind highly profitable to
the officers and men engaged. In 1709, Sir Charles Wager captured a
treasure ship, and he also inflicted loss on her companion ships, which
was most injurious to the Spaniards. But this action stands almost
apart in a long series of cruises of little interest, and no important
result.
The nature of these operations can be shown by a brief account of
the first. When the war began in 1689 it was felt that the French
plantations in America, and more especially those in Hispaniola,
represented a portion of the enemy’s resources which it was desirable
to diminish. The English officers in America were ordered to molest the
French to the utmost of their ability. In order that they might be the
better able to perform this duty they were reinforced by a squadron
from Europe. It consisted of one third rate, seven fourth rates, one
fifth rate, and of two fireships, and was commanded by Captain Lawrence
Wright, an officer of some five-and-twenty years’ standing, who had
been in the West Indies before. His orders were to ship the Duke of
Bolton’s regiment of foot at Plymouth, and to sail for the Leeward
Islands, that is the more northerly of the Lesser Antilles which
stretch from the Virgin Islands to Dominica. Here he was to co-operate
with Colonel Codrington, the governor, whose headquarters were at
Antigua. The governor was to add what forces he could, and attacks were
then to be made upon the French. Elaborate directions were given to
Wright—that he was to be guided by a council of war, to act in so far
as operations on shore were concerned, under the general direction of
the military officers, to spare what sailors he could for operations on
land, and not to send ships from his squadron without consent of the
governor and council, lest the islands should be “exposed to insults.”
Thus directed, and with these limited powers, Captain Wright sailed
from Plymouth on the 8th March 1690 with a number of merchant ships
under his protection. Storms scattered the convoy immediately after it
left the Channel, but it arrived safe at Madeira on the 2nd of April.
On the 11th May it reached Barbadoes. Though only two months had passed
since the squadron had left England, and it had stopped at Madeira,
the crews were so sickly, presumably from scurvy, that Captain Wright
was compelled to land many of his men to be cured, and could not sail
till the 27th May. On the 30th of the month he reached Antigua. Colonel
Codrington joined him with some soldiers, and a series of buccaneering
operations was begun against the French at St. Christopher, and St.
Eustatius to the west of Antigua, and at no great distance. Men were
landed, forts taken, plantations plundered and burnt, negroes carried
off. No attempt was made to hold the French islands, and this form of
purely destructive warfare went on till about the middle of July. The
hurricane months (July, August, and September) were now upon them,
both sailors and soldiers were sickly, and the expedition returned to
Antigua. Wright went out to Barbadoes, and there remained till the 6th
October. The island lies out of the usual track of the hurricane, and
that danger is considered to be “all over” in October, though there
have been some notable and destructive exceptions to these rules.
On the 6th October, Wright again sailed to join Codrington at Antigua,
and a plan was laid for attacking the French island of Guadaloupe. It
is to be noted that Wright’s crews having been sorely diminished by
sickness, he had been compelled to press sailors from the merchant
ships at Barbadoes. While the English squadron was collected for the
purpose of attacking St. Christopher, the French privateers sailing
from Hispaniola, Martinique and Guadaloupe, had been very busy. They
were known to have captured numbers of our merchant ships, and the
trade was threatened with ruin. Some of them cruised at their ease
within sight of the shore at Barbadoes, taking the small vessels
employed to bring from Virginia the bacon and maize which were the
provisions needed for the negro slaves. There was even danger of
famine. At Antigua, Wright was called off by orders to sail for
England, and did actually come back as far as Barbadoes. Here, however,
counter-orders were sent him to remain, and promises of reinforcements.
In January of 1691 store ships, and one man-of-war, reached him. This
addition to his force, small as it was, was yet welcome, for he had
been compelled to detach vessels on convoy service, doubtless in answer
to the loud outcries of the merchants. In February he again joined
Codrington, and the scheme of attacking Guadaloupe was resumed. On the
27th of that month, Marie Galante, a little outlying island just south
of Guadaloupe, was raided with the usual details of plunder and arson.
Then a landing was effected on Guadaloupe, but in May these unworthy
operations were brought to an end by the report that a French squadron
had reached Martinique from Europe, and was coming on. At once the
troops were re-embarked, not without signs of panic, and a council of
war decided to return to Barbadoes. Wright and Codrington had come
to open quarrel. At Barbadoes the naval chiefs health broke down. He
resigned his command, and sailed for home. Some of the ships followed
him with a convoy. Others remained in the West Indies.
Wright, who left Barbadoes amid a chorus of jeers and accusations of
cowardice, may fairly be considered to have had hard measure. He was
never again employed at sea, though he held some dock-yard posts.
There is nothing to show that he was a man to rise above adverse
circumstances, but the bare narrative of the events of the cruise given
above is his best excuse. Let us look at the facts, bearing meanwhile
in mind that what is to be said of them applies in different degrees,
but always to some extent, to every expedition we sent to the West
Indies from the beginning of the war in 1689 down to the peace of
Utrecht. In the first place the material force given to the commander
was inadequate to the work he had to do. It was not sufficient to
capture the principal French posts, yet he was ordered to make attacks
on the enemy’s territory. The inevitable result was that, while he had
his ships concentrated for miserable burning and plundering raids, the
French privateers cruised unchecked. The blame for this rests mainly
on the Government. It repeated in the West Indies the very mistake of
ordering attacks on coast towns with insufficient forces, which as
we have seen it was also making in the Channel. Then these material
forces, too weak in themselves to begin with, suffered from causes
serious enough to have paralysed greater powers. It was a brutal and
greedy generation, callously indifferent to the well-being of the
men. The younger Hawkins, and Lancaster—the captain of the East India
Company—had shown how to keep crews healthy on long voyages even in the
tropics. We had the example of the Dutch to guide us. Yet the chiefs of
the navy allowed their men to rot from scurvy and perish by fever, not
from want of knowledge, which they could have acquired at once if they
had looked for it, but from mere hardness of heart and selfishness. The
destruction of life by disease in our fleets was everywhere great, and
in the West Indies it was enormous. Of the superior officers who sailed
with Admiral Nevill in 1696-1697 only one captain lived to return home.
The pestiferous squalor of the lower deck avenged the sailors. At the
close of Captain R. Wilmot’s expedition of 1695 one vessel was lost on
the reefs of Florida, from sheer want of men to handle her sails. The
sailors followed the example set them, and were affected by the spirit
of their time. They found consolation for the hardships of life afloat
in excesses on shore. Burchett assures us that the harbours of the West
Indies were more fatal to the men than the sea.
In this atmosphere, as of a town smitten by plague where men hasten
to enjoy while they can, sailors and soldiers were sent to plunder.
Each soon began to suspect the other of attempting to defraud, and
the passions of disappointed gamblers were added to the professional
rivalry of men who in that generation were rarely honest enough to
subordinate their passions to the general good of “the king’s service.”
The fierce feuds of sailor and soldier flamed up in these expeditions,
but the case of Admiral Benbow shows that a British admiral of that
generation could not always rely on loyal and honest support even from
his subordinates. Add to this, that jarring soldier and sailor elements
were constantly called upon to combine in councils, and that they were
both subjected to a vague check by the governors and councils of the
islands. In such conditions effective operations were not possible.
While the Grand Fleets were cruising, often unopposed and never
effectually checked by the French, while the colonial expeditions
sailed year after year to fail, or at the best to achieve half
successes, by their own defects rather than from the strength of their
enemy, the allies suffered severely at sea from the enterprise of
the corsairs who won for France nearly all the glory and profit she
gained from these naval wars. This side of the struggle is of peculiar,
indeed it may be said to be of contemporary, interest. French writers
are fond of dwelling on the success of their privateers in the later
seventeenth, and early eighteenth centuries. They argue that it proves
their national aptitude for swift destructive attacks on trade, and
draw the deduction that if ever war breaks out again between them and
us, they must revert to the methods of the men who, if they could not
disturb the movements of the great allied fleets, did at least make the
conflict costly to English and Dutch commerce. It is their belief that
if they can only do what those adventurers did on a somewhat larger
scale, then England, which is far more dependent on trade than she then
was, and is now under the obligation to import large quantities of
food, which was not then the case, will find her superiority in fleets
of no avail. We are looking then at what concerns us directly when we
turn our attention to the doings of the French corsairs between 1689
and 1712.
Owing to a combination of circumstances the _guerrillero_, or partisan
war of the sea, was then conducted in exceptionally favourable
conditions. When they have been detailed, and the results reached
have been summed up, we shall be in a position to judge how far those
conditions, favourable as they were to the corsairs, were also of
advantage to our enemy. This failure of the French fleet had a double
effect. French coasting trade conducted in small vessels, fitted
to hug the shore and take refuge under coast batteries, went on,
disturbed, but not destroyed. But French oversea commerce was almost
wholly suspended. Thus numbers of men were thrown out of employment,
and the shipowners were driven to look elsewhere for profit. Both were
inevitably turned to privateering. We had seen the same consequence
ensue in Elizabeth’s reign, when the Spanish war interrupted our chief
oversea trade. Again, so soon as the great fleets had no longer to
be manned for cruising, the king had a strong motive to find other
employment for his sailors and his officers. Therefore he allowed
them to go on privateering voyages, and even hired out his vessels
for the purpose or entered into partnership with the owners. Here
again our own Elizabethan precedent was closely, if unconsciously,
followed. Similar causes produced similar results, and as Elizabeth
became the partner of “adventurers” on plundering expeditions to the
West Indies, or to Cadiz, so King Louis entered into contracts with
his _armateurs_ for similar ventures. Finally, the French leaders of
that generation were of much the same stamp as our Elizabethans. M. de
Pointis, the Chevalier de Saint Pol, the Count de Forbin, Jean Bart,
and Duguay-Trouin were the French equivalents of Raleigh, Cumberland,
Drake, Frobisher, and Hawkins. Some of them won their way to social
position, and the royal service, by good fighting in the privateers.
Others were king’s officers lent for the work.
While Tourville kept the sea, the share of the privateers in the war
was small, and the harm they did very trifling in comparison to the
injury inflicted on the Smyrna convoy by the French fleet in 1693. Only
a part of their total later activity in the war directly concerned
us. Jean Bart, a Fleming of the Flemish town of Dunkirk, cruised
mainly against the Dutch in the North Seas. The two greatest single
achievements of the French privateers, the capture of Carthagena by
M. de Pointis in the reign of King William (1697), and the capture of
Rio de Janeiro by Duguay-Trouin in the reign of Queen Anne (1711),
were directed against the Spaniards and the Portuguese respectively.
They were very similar to Drake’s raid on the West Indies in 1585.
The Dunkirk privateers preyed on our commerce after their town had
become French, as they had done while it formed part of the Low Country
possessions of the King of Spain. We blockaded it with indifferent
success. Other ports also sent out their corsairs. Our chief interest
is with the Breton town of St. Malo, and with the activity of its
hero Réné Duguay-Trouin. He used other ports, Dunkirk or Rochelle
occasionally, and Brest often. He co-operated with other men, notably
with the Count of Forbin, but St. Malo was his headquarters and also
the typical corsair town, while he was the central dominating figure of
the corsair war. Jean Bart died in the middle of the conflict. Forbin
had other activities. Saint Pol, Nesmond, and many more who could be
named, were subordinate. Following the scheme of this book, I take him
as the characteristic illuminative example.
The Breton town of St. Malo stands on the northern coast of the Duchy
towards the eastern end, and close to Normandy. It is on the eastern
end and at the mouth of the Rance. At that time it was still an island,
not yet turned into a peninsula by a causeway. It was surrounded by
ancient mediæval walls of less extent than the present fortifications.
The population were seamen, traders in peace, corsairs in war. There
were local leaders, burgesses not counted as nobles, but in the odd old
French phrase “living nobly” as merchants and shipowners, not by retail
trade, nor manual labour. The approach to the Rance is dangerous,
through reefs and over a bar, but there is good anchorage inside. The
privateers of St. Malo had been recognised as a useful force, and their
organisation had been controlled by the crown since the fifteenth
century. It had been finally fixed by Colbert. The captains sailed with
a recognised commission and large powers, extending even to life and
death, for the maintenance of discipline. The crews were recruited by
free enlistment, and received wages, which might go to fifteen crowns
for the _course_ or cruise of four months. Custom, embodied in royal
ordinances, regulated the division of the prize. After payment of legal
expenses, and of ten per cent. to the Admiralty of Brittany (a separate
office from the Admiralty of France), two-thirds belonged to the owner,
and the remaining third was divided among the officers on a fixed
scale, while the men were rewarded at discretion by gifts in addition
to their wages. When the king lent the ship he took a fifth of the
prize, after the deduction of legal expenses, and admiral’s fees. The
adventurers who helped to fit the vessel out, with their officers and
the crew, divided the remainder.
Among the _armateurs_, merchants, and shipowners of St. Malo “living
nobly,” the family of Trouin had a conspicuous place. Luc Trouin de
la Barbinais, father of the corsair, had himself served against the
Dutch and Spaniards. Réné, who afterwards added Duguay to his name to
distinguish himself from his elder brother, was a younger son of a
large household. His parents had intended him for a priest, and he had
some schooling from the Jesuits at Rouen. But he was not made for the
church. When the war opened in 1689 he was seventeen years old, and his
family allowed him to follow his natural bent. He began his career as
a volunteer in one of the ships of the firm. These were light craft,
provided with guns, but relying mainly on their large crews. It was
not their interest to destroy their prize, so whether she was a small
warship (a large one they would naturally avoid) or a merchant vessel,
their method was always the same, namely, to run alongside, or to run
the bowsprit over the waist of their opponent, and to carry her at a
rush. A very short apprenticeship was considered enough for one of
the owners’ family. In his second year the young Réné was already in
command of a light cruiser. In 1692 he captured an English convoy. In
1693 he cruised at the mouth of the Channel in the _Hercule_, 30, and
took two rich English prizes. In 1694 he commanded the _Diligente_,
36, and after some success was captured by an English squadron. He was
carried as prisoner to Plymouth, but escaped by the help of a pretty
shop girl who had a lover among the gaolers. At that time he was in
peril of severe treatment, for he had broken the laws of war, out of
bravado, by firing a derisive shot at a heavy English vessel before
hoisting his own flag and sailing off. After his escape his brother
gave him the _Francois_, 48. In this vessel he took part in the capture
of an English convoy protected by two men-of-war, the =Sanspareil= and
the =Boston=. Here we have to note that a change—a very significant
change—came over the corsair war about this time.
In the first three years of the war the privateers cruised alone,
picking up what straggling merchant ships they met. But the allies
answered by sending their trade under protection of warships in
convoys. It therefore became necessary to make the attack with forces
capable of overcoming the guard. So the corsairs began to cruise in
well-appointed squadrons of four, six, or ten ships, in part commonly
supplied by the king. These forces flew at far higher game than
the straggling merchant ship. Their course was identical with that
following in the ensuing century by Hawke, when he assailed Desherbiers
de l’Etenduère, namely, to fall upon the warships first. When the
French were in sufficient numbers both to throw a superior force on
the men-of-war, and to spare vessels to capture the merchant ships at
once, they did so; when this was not the case they disposed of the
armed guard. They made no attempt to form a precise order themselves,
but swept down on the guardships of the convoy, attacking always by
two or more against one, and overpowering their enemy in detail. The
protecting English and Dutch ships made many gallant fights, but they
showed little readiness to meet attack by counter-attack. It was their
custom to form a line and wait to be assailed. This passive attitude
left the Frenchman free to make his arrangements as he pleased.
Duguay-Trouin, and his colleagues, still relied much upon large crews,
and upon boarding. Yet an alert, well-handled ship could often avoid
being grappled. For instance, we often hear how a French corsair swept
down on the side of some Englishman or Dutchman, but failed to grapple
because the wary opponent had “thrown all aback,” that is to say, had
pulled the yards round so as to present the front of the sails to the
wind. This would stop his motion, and begin to make him move backwards.
If now the attacking ship, which by the necessity of the case would be
going with the impetus of high speed, ranged up alongside she might
miss her aim, or the large iron hooks called grappling-irons, which
she threw out to take hold of her prey, might not get fixed; or again
they might, but the ropes to which they are fastened broke under the
strain of the diverging masses. Then the assailant would shoot ahead,
and the vessel attacked would have a chance to cross her path, and
sweep her with a broadside. In order to have something more than the
boarders to rely on, the corsairs increased the size of their vessels
and broadsides, till they sailed with ships of fifty-six guns. Still
the favourite method of the corsairs was to rush to close quarters, on
both sides at once when they could, and throw an irresistible force of
boarders on the enemy’s deck.
Many hot fights of this kind took place in both divisions of the war.
One of the most desperate was fought in 1697 between Duguay-Trouin and
the Dutch Bilbao convoy under Baron Wassenaer. The years from 1693 to
1697 were, on the whole, at least in so far as we were concerned, the
most profitable to the corsairs. Our navy was still staggering from the
administrative vices of King Charles’s reign, and the Government was
hampered by financial embarrassments. The merchants complained that the
protection was insufficient, and was supplied late, so that they lost
the season, and the market, and were put to heavy expense while waiting
for their guard. Officials replied that they did what they could, and
accused the merchant captains of bringing misfortunes on themselves
by leaving the protection of the warships, to hurry on as they neared
home. There was truth on both sides. It is certain that merchant
skippers both then, and for long afterwards, were often tempted to run
risks by the hope of getting in early, and well ahead of competitors
in the market. Yet the constant successes of the privateers show that
the navy was not well handled.
We renewed the war in more favourable conditions, and with a better
experience. On the whole, the corsairs had far less success.
Nevertheless, even in this period, Duguay-Trouin hit us some shrewd
blows. In 1705 he took a large English man-of-war, the =Elisabeth=. In
1707 he sailed in combination with Forbin, at the head of a squadron
of twelve vessels. Their orders were to intercept a convoy of military
stores which the English Government was sending to Spain under the
protection of three large men-of-war, the =Devonshire=, 80, the
=Cumberland=, 80, and the =Royal Oak=, 74, with the =Chester= and the
=Ruby= of 50 guns. It was met, and scattered off the Lizard on the 10th
October after very hard fighting. The English captains fought most
bravely, but no more can be said in their favour. Though our squadron
was outnumbered it contained three vessels far superior in strength
to any among the French. Moreover, they were divided when the action
was begun by Duguay-Trouin who rushed straight at us. Yet Captain
Richard Edwards who commanded did not attempt to do more than present a
defensive barrier between the merchant ships and the oncoming French,
who were thus able to concentrate as they pleased, and crush him in
detail. As a captain he did his duty manfully, fighting his ship, the
=Cumberland=, till she was dismasted, and unable to resist further.
The =Chester= and =Ruby= were also taken. The =Devonshire= fought till
evening, when she blew up with the loss of all her crew, except three,
and of three hundred soldiers she was carrying out to Spain. While this
fierce conflict was in progress, the transports and merchant ships made
their escape, and most of them reached Lisbon.
Here we might leave Duguay-Trouin, for his later services did not
greatly concern us. Yet it belongs to our story to record that in the
following year he cruised with ten ships, hired by, or belonging to,
himself and his brothers. No prize was met, and the expense of keeping
so many vessels at sea to no purpose nearly brought the house of Trouin
to ruin. This fact in his career supplies an opportunity for summing up
the corsair war. It brought him, we see, fame but not profit, and it
may be added that this is what it did for France. Looking at it as a
whole we note that it gives no support to the often-renewed contention,
that attacks by cruisers on sea-borne trade can of themselves bring a
maritime power to submission. The work, often tried, has never been
better done, and we may feel sure never will be better done than by
Duguay-Trouin, and the men he represents here. Yet we see that it
did not stop the march of the Grand Fleets of the allies for a day,
nor did it ever dam up the main stream of their commerce. Again, the
achievements of this famous corsair do by no means prove that single
ships, however swift, can destroy commerce. It was while trying to prey
on our shipping single-handed that Duguay-Trouin became a prisoner at
Plymouth. Precisely the same experience befell Jean Bart, and Forbin
at Portsmouth. Their successes were gained in well-appointed squadrons
able to meet the shock of battle. The moral of the story is that a
maritime power can always defeat the attacks of single ships on its
trade by giving convoy. The protecting squadron can only be overpowered
by a force like itself, and we come at once to operations of war far
beyond the power of the mere corsair or commerce destroyer who relies
on his speed only. Success in these operations must finally fall to
whichever side possesses the most numerous, and the best-appointed
squadrons.