THE SEVEN YEARS’ WAR TILL 1758
AUTHORITIES.—See Chapter IV.; Mr. J. Corbett, _Seven Years’ War_;
Barrow, _Anson_ and _Howe_.
It may appear that I have given undue prominence to the corruption and
bad spirit of the navy in these years. But the insistence has been
deliberate, for the great work which had to be done from 1744 onwards,
for a generation, was to raise the standard of conduct expected from
officers, not only by public opinion working from without, but by their
own code of honour working within the ranks of the service. This would
only be effected by bringing forward new men. If rules and regulations
could have saved the navy from discredit and mismanagement, it had
all it needed in the code of the Duke of York. The evil lay not in
the laws but the men. Till they were better there was no real hope of
reform. That one was wanted was beyond all question. In 1749 Sandwich,
now First Lord, acting perhaps at the instigation, and certainly with
the hearty approval, of Anson, made an Admiralty visitation of the
dockyards. It was the first ever held by the Lords of the Admiralty or
even by the administrative officers of the Navy Board. According to
Sir John Barrow, who condensed the report in his life of Anson, they,
_i.e._ the Lords of the Admiralty, “found the men generally idle,
the officers ignorant, the stores ill-arranged, abuses of all kinds
overlooked, the timber ill-assorted, that which was longest in store
being undermost, the Standing Orders neglected, the ships in ordinary
in a very dirty and bad condition, filled with women and children,
and that the officers of the yard had not visited them, which it was
their duty to do; that men were found borne and paid as officers who
had never done duty as such, for which their Lordships reprimanded the
Navy Board through the comptroller; that the store-keepers’ accounts
were many years in arrear, and, what was most extraordinary, that
the Navy Board had never required them;—in short, gross negligence,
irregularities, waste, and embezzlement were so palpable, that their
Lordships ordered an advertisement to be set in the various parts of
the yards, offering encouragement and protection to such as should
discover any misdemeanours, committed either by the officers or
workmen, particularly in employing workmen or labourers, on their
private affairs, or in any other abuse whatever.”
The abuses noted, and for a time amended by the Commission of James I.
and by James II., had sprung up again to their old height under the
favour of negligence and self-seeking at headquarters. It was idle to
hope to deal with these evils by sporadic visitations and encouragement
to the common informer. What was wanted was constant watching, and it
was long before this was supplied. Lord Sandwich’s visitation was not
repeated, and it was not till 1770 that Sir Edward Hawke ordered one
to be held every two years. Even this measure proved of little effect,
and the first years of the nineteenth century were reached before the
old element of slovenly corruption had become intolerable and Lord St.
Vincent was able to begin a thorough reform.
The preliminary to cleaning out the dockyards was the bringing of the
navy’s combatant branches up to the due level. It was a matter of life
and death for England that this should be done. The great weakness of
France at sea and the decadence of Spain, allowed us to escape disaster
in the War of the Austrian Succession. The same conditions were
repeated in the war which began in 1755. But if we had met the great
American War in 1778 with the navy in the condition in which it was in
1739, and then had been called upon to face the revived naval power of
France, the somewhat improved navy of Spain and the Dutch, irreparable
disaster must have followed. We could not have endured that strain with
Mathews, Lestock, Vernon, Knowles, Griffin, Peyton, Cornelius Mitchell,
Watson, and Elton.
In 1746 the Government took steps to regulate promotion to flag rank.
It had hitherto been the custom to select the officers for the higher
commands from any place in the list of captains, though they were
naturally taken from towards the top. The captains passed over were
left in the same rank and on their scanty half pay of ten or eight
shillings a day. Though the state was undoubtedly entitled to take
competent men where it could find them, it was felt that this practice
of passing over old officers who might have to serve under juniors, or
were left in poverty, inflicted a hardship. It also had the obvious
drawback that it left the list of captains crowded with men who were
beyond work. An Order in Council, issued on the 3rd June 1747, decided
that when old officers in the rank of captain were passed over by the
promotion of the younger men to flag rank, they were to “be appointed
by commissions from the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to be
rear-admirals in general terms.” The effect of the order was this.
The active list of admirals consisted of those who belonged to one of
the squadrons—Red, White, or Blue. When then a captain was meant to
serve at sea he was promoted Rear-Admiral of the Blue. The captains
senior to him were named merely rear-admirals. This gave them no right
to command. They were superannuated with a rear-admiral’s pension,
in order that they might “retire with honour and have a competent
subsistence in their old age.” It was the introduction of the modern
system of allowing men to retire with a rank above that which they
hold when their active service ends. The benefits of the order were
limited to old officers who had served at sea since the beginning of
the war with Spain in 1739, but the hardship inflicted on those not so
qualified was confined to one generation. In future the old officer
who was passed over because of his “great age and other infirmities”
knew that he would “retire with honour.” The disadvantage of the system
was that when the state wished to reach some capable officer well down
on the list it had to make a great addition to what is now called the
non-effective vote, that is to the pensioned men who are doing no work.
But the advantages of putting a stop to an old grievance, of giving
security and content to the officers, and of enabling the Admiralty to
bring on younger men, were cheaply bought at this price.
Another piece of work taken in hand was the improvement of the quality
of the ships. The inferiority of our vessels was seen so soon as they
came to be compared with the Spanish and French. Inquiry showed that
though schemes had been drawn up in 1706 and 1719, and attempts had
been made to improve the ships later, they had all been habitually
neglected. Our vessels had been built, not only on bad principles, but
not on any regular scale, so that vessels of the same rate were of
different sizes, and the fittings of one could not be used for another.
Here as elsewhere there was waste. A new scheme was made in 1746 and
modified in 1751 without bringing complete amendment.
The scandals of the navy had also shown the necessity for a revision of
the laws regulating the discipline of the service. Hitherto the Navy
Discipline Act had been that passed in the thirteenth year of Charles
II. (1661). It conferred the right of holding courts martial, but under
inconvenient limitations. The jurisdiction of the court was confined
to offences committed on the high seas, and in the main rivers of His
Majesty’s possessions below bridges. There was thus no power to punish
offences committed ashore or in foreign countries. This was conferred
in 1720, and some further amendments were made in 1745 and 1748. The
worst defects of the old system remained and they were serious. The
power to hold a court martial was given only to the commander-in-chief,
that is the admiral or captain acting as commodore, with a separate
command. If he died, or was compelled to come home by bad health,
another commission had to be sent out to his successor. When Vernon
came home from the West Indies, his successor, Sir Chaloner Ogle, was
left for a whole year without power to hold a court martial, as the
first vessel sent out with his commission was captured. Neither could
the power be delegated by the commander-in-chief to any officer whom
he detached. It was alleged in the course of the debates in Parliament
in 1749 that, during the late war, a captain serving on the coast of
Portugal had put his first lieutenant in irons. He went into Lisbon
where there were several other warships, and the imprisoned officer
applied for a court martial, but as the commander-in-chief was not
present none could be held. The vessel left for England with the first
lieutenant still in irons. On her way a French man-of-war was met. The
captain then gave such visible proofs of derangement of mind, that the
other officers shut him in his cabin and released the first lieutenant
who took command of the ship. When she reached home an inquiry was
made, and it was found that the captain was insane.
In another respect there was room for amendment. The commander-in-chief
was himself president of the court, which consisted of all the
post-captains in sight when the court-martial flag was hoisted.
The want of a limitation in the number made the tribunal often
of a most unwieldy size. It was also obviously in the power of a
commander-in-chief to pack a court, by sending away all the captains
whom he could not trust to acquit or condemn “by order.” As he was the
only authorised president he was there to give the order himself. When
it is remembered that every admiral had then, and afterwards, a number
of “followers,” officers who had served under him, and whom he always
made interest to have with him, and who for their part looked to him
to push their fortunes, when too we remember the brutal temper of such
men as Mathews, Lestock, and Griffin, it will be seen that this was no
imaginary danger, indeed bitter complaints were made of the partiality
of the courts martial.
The new act of 1749—the 22nd George II.—corrected these defects. It
provided that the right to hold courts martial should go with the
command, thereby removing the risk of such a break as occurred in the
case of Vernon and Ogle, and that it could be delegated to officers
commanding detachments. Further, it took away the right to act as
president from the commander-in-chief and gave it to the second in
command. It limited the number of officers sitting in the court to not
less than five, or more than thirteen. It also limited the court’s
power of inflicting imprisonment for any offence to two years, and for
contempt to a month. The cases of the master of the =Northumberland=
and of Lieutenant Frye of the Marines had no doubt their share in
bringing about this change.
The most famous of the alterations made in 1749 was that inserted
in the 12th and 13th articles of the Articles of War which were
incorporated in the Act. The 12th article provides the punishment to
be inflicted “on Every Person in the Fleet who through Cowardice,
Negligence, or Disaffection, shall in Time of Action withdraw or
hold back, or not come into the fight or Engagement, or shall not do
his utmost to take or destroy every ship which it shall be his Duty
to engage, and to assist and relieve all and every of his Majesty’s
Ships or those of his Allies which it shall be his duty to assist and
relieve.” The 13th Article deals with him who hangs back in chase or
does not “relieve or assist a known Friend in View to the utmost of his
Power.” Originally the court had a discretion, but by the terms of the
new Act the only punishment a court martial could inflict was death. At
a later period the severity of this penalty was considered excessive,
and in 1779 the power to inflict a lesser penalty was restored to the
court martial, but in 1749 Parliament had just heard from the mouth
of Vernon that the savage punishment of poor young Baker Philipps was
just, and it knew how austere the court had been with humble James
Dixon, the master of the =Northumberland=. It also knew what bowels of
compassion had been found for the captains of Toulon and for Lestock
and Mitchell. If Parliament was resolved that what was law for obscure
and friendless men should also be law for the chiefs of the navy, it
may have been stern but it was not unjust. The Bill was introduced by
ministers who had the advice of Anson, and we may fairly conclude that
he did not disapprove of the change.
From 1748 to 1756 the country remained at peace, but it was of the
kind compatible with continuous “military operations.” Both in the
East Indies and on the continent of North America and among the
islands of the West Indies, the British Government of that time had
to deal with a more violent version of what we have seen happen in
our day in the valleys of the Nile and the Congo. The main outlines
of the struggle were given at the beginning of the last chapter. On
the frontier of Nova Scotia the two states were in peculiar contact
of irritation. The frontier had never been clearly marked, and the
French strove to delimit it in their own favour by a characteristic
mixture of pertinacious diplomatic pettifogging and violence. In
the East the intrigues of Dupleix with the native princes of the
Carnatic aimed at ruining the commerce of the English company by
cutting off the establishments on the coast of Coromandel from access
to the interior. On the continent of America the seventy thousand
or so French in Canada and Louisiana were incessantly endeavouring,
not only to recover the greater part of Nova Scotia, but to bar the
million and a half of English settlers from access to the valleys
of the Ohio and the Mississippi. Resolute action on the part of the
British Government would probably have averted war, but the Duke of
Newcastle, who was the prevailing politician of the day, was intent on
Parliamentary management. The king too was rendered nervous by fears
for his hereditary dominions in Hanover. From sheer want of vigorous
direction on our own part we drifted, through a succession of small
conflicts, into open though unavowed war in 1755, and into formally
declared war in 1756. The situation was that of 1739, with differences.
Then we had begun with the Spaniards, and had only come into collision
with the French later on. Spain, in this case, did not intervene till
the very close, and in an hour of folly. Once again, too, France became
entangled in a great European land war, and was unable to devote her
whole attention to the sea. We engaged in the land war as allies of
Frederick of Prussia and in defence of Hanover, but our main attention
was devoted to the sea and to our colonies.
The first serious hostile movement made by the British Government was
directed towards the East. The India Company had soon occasion to
regret that it had parted so easily with Boscawen’s squadron. In 1753
it was calling on the Government for naval help, and in February 1755
a squadron was despatched under the command of Rear-Admiral Charles
Watson. It was delayed at Kinsale by a storm, and two vessels were
seriously damaged. They were replaced, and Watson reached Bombay in
November with four sail of the line, and two small vessels. He brought
a reinforcement of troops and Colonel Clive. His first piece of
service was not against the French. The Royal Navy was now beginning
to take permanent hold on the Eastern seas. No more pressing duty
awaited it than to put a stop to piracy. This had always flourished
on the western or Malabar coast of India, and had never been
effectually checked by the Portuguese, the Dutch, or by ourselves.
By far the most formidable of these pirates belonged to a branch of
the Mahrattas, which had gained possession of the island of Geriah,
had become independent, and had transferred its native practice of
robbery from the land to the sea. These pirate Mahrattas infested
the coast in vessels called “grabs” and “gallivats”—the first a
species of magnified lighter armed with guns, the second light rowing
and sailing galleys. Sporadic attacks had been made on them by the
company, and by occasional ships of the Royal Navy. Mathews had served
against them. But hitherto nothing effectual had been done. In 1755
the presence of a well-appointed squadron and of a disposable body of
troops encouraged the company’s agents at Bombay to make an effort to
root out the pirates of Geriah. On the 7th of February 1756 Watson
sailed from Bombay, carrying the soldiers under command of Clive with
him, and in co-operation with a body of Mahratta troops supplied by
one of the princes of that nation, who wished to reduce Angria, the
chief of the pirate state, to obedience. They proved to be of little
value, for they were chiefly intent on plunder, and had secretly more
sympathy with their piratical kinsmen than with their allies. Angria
showed little spirit. The vigour of Admiral Watson who battered down
the fortifications of Geriah on the 12th February, and the firmness of
Clive who took possession of the place, disappointed the Mahrattas. Our
squadron and the troops divided £150,000 of prize money.
On the 30th April Watson and Clive went on from the coast of Malabar to
that of Coromandel on the east. By the 20th June they reached Madras.
The French Government, not being as yet ready for war, had recalled
Dupleix and had brought a pause in the conflict of the companies.
Watson’s next service was to carry Clive to Bengal to revenge the
Black Hole of Calcutta, and to begin the conquest of India. But as
this service became rapidly connected with the war against France, and
as the operations in the eastern seas lay very much apart, I shall
turn from them till they can be taken up again, and connected with the
general movements of the world-wide conflict.
While Admiral Watson’s squadron was recruiting from its long voyage at
Bombay, warlike operations, the forerunners of open war, were beginning
on the Atlantic. The appeals of the colonists who found themselves
unable to expel the French from the post they had established on
the Ohio—Fort Duquesne on the site of what is now Pittsburg—had at
last induced the British Government to take action. In December 1754
Commodore Keppel, a gentleman of the Albemarle family, who had sailed
as midshipman with Anson and was destined to play a prominent part in
coming years, left the Downs with a body of troops under command of
Braddock. The expedition reached Hampton Roads by the 20th February
1755. Its disastrous end, in an ill-planned and worse-directed attack
on Fort Duquesne in July of this year, is a well-known episode of
our colonial history. The sending of Braddock stimulated the French
Government to reinforce its garrisons in Canada. On the 3rd May of
1755 the Lieutenant-General Count de Macnémara sailed from Brest with
nine sail of the line fully armed and seven frigates. He had under his
protection eleven sail of the line fitted as transports and full of
troops. These vessels were armed with 24 or 22 guns only, or as the
French expression has it, _en flûte_. To be armed _en flûte_ was to be
armed like a flyboat with guns only on the upper deck. Macnémara saw
his charge well out into the ocean, and then returned to Brest with six
of the liners and three of the frigates. The other warships and the
transports held on to Canada under the command of Dubois de Lamotte.
Meanwhile the news that the French were in motion stirred the British
Government to counter action. Boscawen was ordered to sail for America
with instructions to intercept the French by force. He left on the
27th April, with eleven sail of the line, and two small vessels. After
he had gone the cabinet received further reports which gave them an
exaggerated idea of the French strength. Admiral Holburne was ordered
to follow Boscawen with six sail of the line, and a frigate. He left
on the 11th May, and joined his chief on the banks of Newfoundland on
the 20th June. But Boscawen had already failed to stop the French.
When Dubois de Lamotte approached Newfoundland he divided his squadron
and convoy into two. One division was steered to enter St. Lawrence
by the Straits of Belleisle, on the north of Newfoundland. The other
took the commonly used route to the south between Cape Ray and Cape
Breton. Boscawen had stationed himself off Cape Ray. On the 9th June
the French were sighted, but the weather was foggy and covered them
soon from view. Next day the fog lifted for a space, and three of the
French ships were seen. They were the _Alcide_, 64, the _Lys_, armed
_en flûte_ with 22 guns, and the _Dauphin Royal_, another of the
man-of-war transports. The _Alcide_ was commanded by M. d’Hocquart who
had already been twice prisoner of war to Boscawen. In 1744, when he
was captain of the _Medée_, 26, he had been taken by the =Dreadnought=.
This was Boscawen’s first ship, and from it he got his name of “Old
Dreadnought” among the sailors. Again M. d’Hocquart had struck to
Boscawen in Anson’s battle of 3rd May 1747. When the English officer
commanded the =Namur= and he himself the _Diamant_, M. d’Hocquart’s
ill fortune pursued him. The _Alcide_ was overhauled, hailed by Howe
in the =Dunkirk=, 60, and told to stop. The French captain asked
whether it was peace or war, and was told that he had better prepare
for war. D’Hocquart made all the defence he could, but the =Dunkirk=
was reinforced by Boscawen’s ship, the =Torbay=, 74, and he became a
prisoner for the third time. The _Lys_ was taken by the =Defiance=, and
the =Fougueux=. The _Dauphin Royal_ escaped in the fog. No other prizes
were taken, so that Dubois de Lamotte carried two fully armed liners,
three frigates, and ten transports with their men and stores safe into
the French American ports. Boscawen’s expedition was therefore, in the
main, a failure. The jail fever was raging in his squadron. It had
been manned, according to old custom, in haste on the approach of war,
by the press, from the slums and the prisons. Boscawen took his ships
to Halifax in the hope of restoring the health of his crews, but with
the result that he infected the town. Meanwhile the French commanders,
finding the coast clear, sailed for home on the 15th August and reached
Brest on the 21st September. Boscawen returned in the autumn, reaching
England in November.
While fighting had begun in America we were at home in a state of
war which was no war. The Duke of Newcastle was driven by dread
of unpopularity to appear to do something. The country, thoroughly
persuaded that the time had come when it must make the decisive fight
for its trade and colonies, was burning for war. But continental
complications, and above all his own vacillating timid character, made
Newcastle shrink from vigorous action. There was indeed an immense
bustle of preparation. Ships were ordered into commission by the
score from the beginning of the year, and the work of putting the
fleet on a war footing was accompanied by the inseparable offers of
bounty and press-warrants. On the 23rd January 1755 there came out
one proclamation offering a bounty of thirty shillings to every able
seaman between twenty and fifty years of age who would volunteer, and
twenty shillings to every ordinary seaman. On the 8th February another
followed recalling all seamen serving abroad, and raising the bounties
to £3 and £2, while the common informer was stimulated by rewards of
£2 to whomsoever would tell where an able seaman was in hiding, and of
£1, 10s. to the betrayer of an ordinary. A hot press went on in all
the ports. The war was a merchants’ war, and the traders of London
and the outports offered bounties in addition to those given by the
state. By this combination of persuasion and force the fleet was manned
after a fashion. Yet the mere fact that the competition for men sent
up the wages of merchant seamen by leaps and bounds made the work
of filling up the warships very difficult. It was necessary to have
recourse to the prisoners in the jails, who were allowed to volunteer
into the navy, or were sent there as punishment. Parliament suspended
the provisions of the Navigation Laws, which limited the number of
foreigners who could serve in a British ship to one-fourth. It even
tempted them to serve under our flag by allowing them to obtain letters
of naturalisation at the end of two years, instead of the usual limit
of eight. By this act the Crown was empowered to suspend the manning
clauses of the Navigation Laws whenever war should break out in future.
The dire need for men led to the adoption of two measures, one of
private enterprise, which did good work in its time, one administrative
of which we feel the benefit to this day. In 1756 was founded the
Marine Society. This body was formed to take charge of destitute
boys, whom it fed, clothed, and sent into the navy, where they were
trained as seamen. The spring of 1755 is a notable epoch in the history
of the Royal Navy, for it saw the foundation of the present corps of
Marines. The regiments raised hitherto had always been “disbanded”
or “broken” at the end of the wars. They had never held a properly
settled position, and there had been a constant tendency to rob the
force of its best men by rating them as able seamen so soon as they
had been long enough at sea to learn the business. At the end of the
War of the Austrian Succession the Duke of Cumberland had recommended
the formation of a permanent military corps to be placed entirely
under the authority of the Admiralty. Nothing, however, was done till
the 3rd April 1755, when the Lords Justices, who governed during the
absence of the king in Hanover, issued a warrant authorising the
formation of fifty companies of one hundred men each, which were to
have their headquarters at Chatham, Portsmouth, and Plymouth. The value
of the Marines (the title Royal was not granted till 1802) was rapidly
demonstrated, and their numbers were increased. Thirty companies were
added before the end of 1755. Twenty more were ordered to be raised in
July 1756, and another thirty in March 1757. Two years later, on 3rd
March 1759, one lieutenant, one corporal, one drummer, and twenty-three
privates were added to every company. By the end of the war the total
strength of the force was 18,000.
All this stress of preparation was presided over by mere infirmity
of will. In July the Ministry, still guided by Newcastle, sent Sir
Edward Hawke to sea with twenty-one sail of the line, but with no
definite orders to begin hostilities. He was told to intercept a French
squadron from the West Indies and to capture French merchant ships.
The squadron put into Cadiz, got warning which enabled it to avoid the
English fleet, and reached Brest safely. But 300 merchant ships manned
by 8000 men were taken, and carried into our ports. This seizure of
trading ships in a time of nominal peace gave the French Government
an opportunity to denounce us to Europe as pirates. Many Englishmen
thought it would have been more for our honour to make war openly,
since we were about making it at all. Yet the French had little right
to complain after the example they had set in India and America. The
vessels were not condemned as prize, and as they were largely loaded
with fish their cargoes rotted, so that it was necessary to tow them
out to sea and sink them. Hawke returned to port, ill pleased with the
work he had been set to do, and was replaced in the Channel command
by Admiral Byng. Then Byng was sent out to convince the country that
something was being done. He took a French line-of-battle ship, the
_Esperance_, but still war was not proclaimed. The French Government
professed a wish to keep the peace. Yet at the end of 1755 and the
beginning of 1756 it marched troops down to the Channel. As the Duke of
Newcastle had succeeded for a time in infecting the nation with his own
cowardice, we were thrown into an unutterably shameful panic by fear
of invasion, though we had a powerful fleet in commission at home, and
the French had not the means of fitting out a dozen ships at Brest.
Under cover of this diversion the French invaded Minorca in April. Then
at last the Government was brought to confess that war was war. Our
proclamation appeared on the 17th May, and was answered by the French
on the 9th of June.
The panic of the country in the early months of 1756 was to some extent
justified. Yet its underlying belief, that if it could only find a
man to rule it had the strength to assert its maritime and colonial
supremacy, was well founded. In point of mere material force the navy
was far superior to the French. At the beginning of 1756 we had,
including the 50-gun ships which were still counted as fit to lie in
a line of battle, 142 liners. The smaller vessels were 125, taking
frigates and sloops together. When the bombs, fireships, and other
craft such as hospital ships were included, the total was 320. The
quality of our vessels, though still not all it ought to have been, had
improved greatly under the new establishment of 1745. The discipline of
the navy had bettered with the vessels. Some of the old leaven still
remained, and in one respect much was left to be done. We had yet to
learn how shameful it was that a fine squadron should be paralysed by
disease as Boscawen’s had been. But we were on the right path. The
intellect of the navy was awake, and was beginning to apply itself to
improving its armament and its discipline. There was as yet no revolt
against the Fighting Orders.
Want of numbers was the least of the evils which weighed on our enemy.
In 1754 the navy of France included only 60 line-of-battle ships. Of
these, 8 were in need of thorough repair, and 4 were still in the
stocks. During the brief administration of M. de Rouille efforts
were made to reinforce this list. Fifteen new line-of-battle ships
were launched by 1756. We may suppose that they included the vessels
building in 1754. If the eight in need of repair were thoroughly
overhauled by the same date, this would give France 71 line-of-battle
ships. But the French did not include the 50-gun ships, of which they
had 10, in the list, and they had therefore about 81 vessels to oppose
to our 142. Of ships of 20 to 44 guns they had only some 40 to oppose
to our 83. Their navy was therefore about one-half as numerous as ours.
It must be remembered that at this time France still held Canada and
important stations on the coast of Coromandel. She was under the same
obligations as ourselves to scatter her forces all over the world, and
that with the prospect of being everywhere outnumbered. With such a
task to overcome, the French had need of the very highest efficiency in
every branch of the naval service. But their navy had as much to seek
in quality as in quantity. The corrupt and careless government of Louis
XV. had allowed the storehouses to become nearly empty. During the
years of peace no attempt had been made to give the officers practice.
In 1756 it was calculated that of 914 officers 700 had nothing to do
except mount guard for twenty-four hours in the dockyards eight or
ten times a year. The old feud between the Pen and the Sword—that is,
the civil and military branches of the navy—raged furiously. On the
ships there was mutual hostility between the officers of the regular
corps and the supplementary officers taken in on the outbreak of war,
and known as _officiers bleus_. None of the corporations of the old
French monarchy was more aristocratic or more jealous than the _Corps
de la marine_. The so-called despotic King of France had far less
power of choosing his officers than the constitutional King of Great
Britain. M. de Rouille endeavoured to revive the professional spirit
of the officers, dulled by years of dawdling about the dockyards, by
establishing the Académie de la marine, with the well-known writer on
tactics, Bigot de Morogue, as its first head. But it was years before
this could bear fruit, and France began the Seven Years’ War with all
the conditions internal and external against her. How came it, then,
that her navy was not mewed up in port at once? The answer is easy.
Because the British Navy had its arms tied behind its back by the
incapacity of the men who ruled, till Pitt freed it.
The first great operation of the war was conducted under a fatal
combination of administrative stupidity in London and of the old
leaven in the fleet. Reports that the French were preparing a powerful
squadron at Toulon began to reach England before the end of 1755. The
orders to prepare had been given in August, but in the destitution
of the French dockyards eight months passed before it was ready. The
boasted _classes_ failed to produce men, and the French were driven to
offers of bounty, and to attempts to recruit Italian sailors at Genoa.
It was long before the urgent representations of our Consul at Genoa,
and of General Blakeney at Minorca, could make the Ministry see that
the island was in danger. Blakeney was a gallant old Anglo-Irishman
born in 1672, who had fought against the Rapparees in 1690, and served
under King William and Marlborough, had been at Carthagena with Vernon,
and had defended Stirling Castle against the Jacobites in the ’45. He
commanded the place, though bedridden with gout, in the absence of Lord
Tyrawley the Governor, who according to the easy practice of the day
drew his salary at home. It was not less characteristic of the time
that many officers of this threatened garrison were absent on leave
when the French invaded the island.
Richelieu landed with 14,000 men at Ciudadela on the 19th April. After
many delays and much confusion, the Ministry had at last been brought
to see that Minorca was in danger, and a squadron of ten ships had
sailed to relieve it on the 6th April. The command of the squadron was
given to an officer whose name has a tragic interest unique in the long
list of British admirals. John Byng was the fourth son of that George
Byng, Viscount Torrington, whose active subordinate share in the
Revolution of 1688, and command in the Mediterranean in 1718, have been
already mentioned. The son was born in 1704, and had gone to sea at
the age of thirteen. He served under his father at the battle of Cape
Passaro, and became post-captain at the age of twenty-three. He had
gained no distinction, nor had he sought any, on those remote unhealthy
stations where the most arduous work of the navy was being done. His
portrait is that of a handsome, refined, but plump and easy-going young
man, and compares ill with his father’s. George Byng has the lean,
eager face of one who though of gentle birth had to climb by his own
efforts. John Byng has the air of one whose father was born before
him, and who did not rise, but was carried up with no effort of his
own by the fortune another had made. He had sat in Parliament, and had
not escaped the corrupting influence of the factious, selfish, jobbing
spirit of the political world of his generation.
Byng was selected to carry the reliefs to Minorca on the 11th March,
but nearly a month passed before he sailed. Though we had a great fleet
commissioned and commissioning, much difficulty was found in manning
the ten ships assigned him for the service. The Admiralty refused to
draft men from well-manned vessels on the ground that they were needed
at home. Some part of the blame for this must be put on Anson and
Boscawen, who were on the Board. The great responsibility lay on the
mere politicians and borough-mongers whose folly was paralysing the
strength of England, but it must be confessed that Anson in dealing
with political chiefs and colleagues did not show the courage he had
never failed to display in fighting the storm or the broadsides of the
enemy. As Byng was to reinforce the garrison of Minorca, he carried
with him both the officers who were at home on leave and Lord Robert
Bertie’s regiment of foot. By a piece of blundering, for which Anson
cannot be held blameless, the marines were landed to make room for the
soldiers. If now they were landed in Minorca, the squadron, already ill
manned, would have been dangerously weakened. As the French were known
to have a fleet at sea, Byng was thus put at a serious disadvantage,
and an angry sense of ill-treatment rankled in his mind, not
unnaturally, but fatally, for it had a share in causing him to adopt a
line of conduct which brought discredit to his country and a shameful
death to himself. It never occurred to him that if he beat the enemy’s
fleet soundly he could safely land the soldiers who had taken the place
of his marines.
His orders were dated the 1st April. He was told to sail to the Straits
of Gibraltar. If on arriving there he heard that the French had sent
vessels into the Atlantic bound for America, he was to detach part of
his squadron under his second in command, Rear-Admiral Temple West, to
follow them, and proceed with the remainder to Minorca. If he found
that the island was being attacked, he was to render what help he
could, and if not, then to blockade Toulon. There is a certain futility
in these orders, for they take no notice of the contingency that even
if Byng was able to beat off the French warships, or found none to
fight, the relief he brought might not be sufficient to enable Blakeney
to resist the troops already landed under Richelieu. But he would do
much if he could cut the French off from Toulon, and however feeble the
measures of ministers may have been, it was not the less his duty to do
his utmost. Byng, unhappily for himself, and for us, drew the strange
deduction, that since he was not supplied with the means of relieving
the garrison altogether, he was justified in making a feeble use of his
ships. Orders were also sent to General Fowke, who was in command at
Gibraltar, to spare a part of his garrison for Minorca if he felt that
he could part with them safely.
The voyage out to Gibraltar was tedious. It was not till the 2nd May
that Byng reached the Rock, where he was joined by Commodore Edgcumbe
with the =Princess Louisa=, 60, and the =Fortune= sloop, part of a
small squadron which had been cruising in the neighbourhood of Minorca
when it was invaded. The =Deptford=, 50, and the =Portland=, 50, joined
shortly afterwards. At Gibraltar Byng also heard of the landing of
the French, of their strength, and of the distressed position of the
English garrison shut up in Fort St. Philip, at the mouth of Mahon
Harbour. On the 4th May he sent off a dispatch which is of extreme
importance as illustrating the state of mind he was in, and as
explaining his conduct. In it he says:—
“If I had been so happy as to have arrived at Mahon before the French
had landed, I flatter myself I would have been able to have prevented
their setting foot on that island; but, as it has so unfortunately
turned out, I am firmly of opinion, from the great force they have
landed, and the quantity of provisions, stores and ammunition of all
kinds they have brought with them, that the throwing men into the
castle, will only enable it to hold out a little longer time, and add
to the number that must fall into the enemy’s hands; for the garrison
in time will be obliged to surrender, unless a sufficient number of
men could be landed to dislodge the French or raise the siege.”
After thus declaring that all efforts must be useless, he promised to
go on to Minorca to do what he could, and in case it should turn out
to be nothing, then he would return to Gibraltar to cover that place.
This letter, which was sent home overland, gives the measure of the
man. It may be compared with the letter which Herbert had sent up
to London on first sighting Tourville’s fleet off the Isle of Wight
in 1690. Both men were plainly under the influence of a mischievous
delight on contemplating the embarrassment which a national disaster
would be likely to bring on the ministers who had sent them out with
insufficient fleets. Herbert had the excuse that he was in the presence
of a much superior force. Byng makes no mention of inability to fight
the French fleet. He was prepared to retire without a battle if he
could not get security that the French troops would also be driven off
by the reinforcement he had brought, and this he had already declared
to be impossible. In the same letter he speaks of the chance that the
French would come on to Gibraltar when they had got all the vessels
ready they possibly could. He neither contemplated the possibility of
attempting to beat them in detail before they were all ready, nor the
effect likely to be produced on Richelieu if his communications with
France were cut. Yet a strong fort open to relief from the sea might
have made a prolonged defence, and could have given time for further
reinforcements from England. When they arrived, the total surrender of
the French would be inevitable. It was natural that when this letter
reached England the Ministry concluded that Byng did not mean to exert
himself to relieve Minorca, and that foreseeing a disaster, they took
measures to turn popular rage against the admiral. They would have been
more than human if they had not, and Byng was a foolish man indeed if
he did not know that they were very basely human.
The squadron, now increased from ten to thirteen sail, left Gibraltar
on the 8th May. General Fowke, with a weakness equal to Byng’s,
declined to part with more than 250 men. There had been councils and
confabulations of weak men, all ending in agreement that the enterprise
was hopeless. So Byng reluctantly approached “the post of the foe.”
On the 19th he was in sight of Minorca at the south-easterly point
where St. Philip stands at the mouth of the long land-locked harbour
of Mahon. The French fleet was not then in sight. The =Phœnix= frigate
commanded by Captain Hervey, with the =Chesterfield= and =Dolphin=,
were sent on ahead with the officers belonging to the garrison, and
orders to communicate with General Blakeney. Before they could reach
the harbour mouth the French fleet was sighted to the south-east,
and Byng recalled the frigates. It was an unnecessary measure, due
to excess of caution, for the frigates were not indispensable to the
fighting power of the fleet, and the military officers they carried
would have been of great value to the garrison.
The rest of the day passed in manœuvres, and without a battle. Byng’s
squadron was outsailed, but he showed no zeal to force on an action,
and confined himself to endeavouring to remain to windward. During
the night the fleets parted, and at daybreak were not in sight of one
another. They were from 30 to 40 miles off the island. It was hazy,
but cleared up about ten, when the enemy was seen a long way off to
the south-east. The wind was from the south-west. By midday the two
fleets were approaching one another, both close hauled, the French on
the port, the English on the starboard tack, in two lines forming an
obtuse angle. About one we weathered the head of the French line, and
Byng afterwards boasted of having gained the weather-gage. If he did it
by fair sailing, his ships cannot have been so inferior in quality to
the enemy as he pleaded they were when he had to excuse himself. As
the French habitually preferred to engage to leeward, which left their
line of retreat open, it is probable that he attributed to his own
skill what was the deliberate act of the enemy. About two o’clock the
English had passed to windward, and to the south of La Galissonière,
our last vessel being nearly abreast of his first. We were thirteen of
the line, and the French twelve. Being now in the position to force on
a battle, Byng brought his fleet round, all ships turning together, so
that we headed in the same general direction as the French, and ordered
the =Deptford= to leave the line so that we might be ship to ship
with the enemy. It was a strange action in an admiral who complained
bitterly of the inferiority of his fleet, but was doubtless due to mere
pedantry. Byng, who was a martinet in the fopperies of his profession,
had no idea of fighting a battle except by the orthodox pattern, van to
van, centre to centre, rear to rear, and having one ship more than his
opponent, did not know what to do with her. Here are the two fleets in
the order in which they engaged:—
ENGLISH
=Defiance= 60 Capt. Andrews.
=Portland= 50 " Baird.
=Lancaster= 60 " Edgcumbe.
=Buckingham= }
(flagship of } 68 " Everitt.
Admiral West) }
=Captain= 64 " Catford.
=Intrepid= 64 " Young.
=Revenge= 64 " Cornwall.
=Princess Louisa= 60 " Noel.
=Trident= 64 " Durell.
=Ramillies= (flagship} 90 " Gardiner.
of Byng) }
=Culloden= 74 " Ward.
=Kingston= 60 " Parry.
FRENCH
_Lion_ 64 Capt. de Saint-Aignan.
_Triton_ 64 " de Mercier.
_Redoutable_ }
(flagship of }
Commodore } 74 " de Vilarzel.
de Glandèvez)}
_Orphée_ 64 " de Raymondis.
_Fier_ 50 " d’Herville.
_Guerrier_ 74 " Villars de
Labrosse.
_Foudroyant_ }
(flagship of } 80 " Froger de
La Galissonière) } l’Eguille.
_Téméraire_ 74 " de Beaumont
Lemaître.
_Hippopotame_ 50 " Rochemore.
_Content_ 64 " de Sabran
Grammont.
_Couronne_ (flagship }
of Commodore } 74 " Gabanous.
de La Clue) }
_Sage_ 64 " Durevest.
When the order to engage was given, the fleets were not parallel, but on
lines converging to form an acute angle ahead of them. Thus the leading
English ship was nearer the leading ship of the French than the rear
was to their rear. So if each bore down on the Frenchman opposite to
it at the time, the vessels in the van would come into action first,
and would be exposed to a converging fire, while it would depend on the
enemy’s decision to stay still and be attacked, whether the centre and
rear of the English fleet ever got into action at all.
Admiral West came down on the Frenchmen briskly, and then hauled up
with the heads of his ships in the same direction as theirs. Meanwhile
the other English vessels were steering to come into action while
carefully preserving their relative positions to the vessels in the
van. In the French line vessels here and there stood out, and ran to
leeward. Our men cheered, thinking they had forced the enemy to flee,
but the movement was the result of design. As these vessels ran to
leeward, those astern “let all draw” and shot ahead. Thus a movement
in advance was given to the whole French line, and the distance which
the English ships of the centre and rear had to cover before reaching
their proper opponents was constantly increased. In any case, the
French admiral would almost certainly have succeeded in filing past the
leading English vessels, crippling their rigging, and then running down
to form a new line to leeward. But he was helped by a piece of bungling
in our squadron. The =Intrepid=, the sixth ship, lost her foretop-mast.
As she was before the wind, this ought to have been no great disaster,
but she was so badly steered that she came right round and lay across
the path of the following ship—the =Revenge=. According to all rule,
tradition, and honour, the =Revenge= ought to have passed between the
crippled =Intrepid= and the enemy—that is to leeward. But she tried to
pass to windward, could not do so, and then backed her topsail to stop
her way and prevent a collision. The vessels behind did the same thing,
and thus our fleet broke in two. The five ships ahead of the =Intrepid=
followed the enemy with Admiral West, while the others remained behind.
It was about this time that the flag-captain, Gardiner, pointed out
to Byng that if he stood out of his line he could bring the Frenchman
then running past him to closer action. The admiral answered that
Mathews had been broken for not taking his fleet down in a body, and
that he would not incur the same fate. Rather than offend against the
superstition of the line of battle, he would let the enemy get off
unhurt. La Galissonière did get off with little damage, leaving us with
three ships badly crippled in their rigging, and the whole fleet in
scandalous disorder.
So ended the battle of the 20th May. It was first and foremost an
example of what must happen so long as our navy continued to be bound
by the stupid pattern set up in the Fighting Instructions for all
actions against an enemy of equal, or approximately equal, force—so
long, in fact, as we continued to engage to windward, ship to ship,
leaving the enemy his line of retreat open, and depriving ourselves of
the power to push the attack home, by making it a rule to adhere to the
formation in which we began the fight. In these conditions decisive
results were not to be achieved. But Byng did ill even according to
this stupid model. He ought to have arranged his fleet parallel to the
enemy before he bore down, and he ought not to have begun firing, as
he did, when at such a distance that he could do no harm. Yet the lame
and impotent conclusion of the battle and his own bungling might both
have been forgiven, or even passed unnoticed, but for what followed.
The fleet was satisfied that it had made the enemy run, and the nation
would have been satisfied too, if there had been any effort to help
Fort St. Philip in the days following the battle. There was none.
For four days Byng loitered near the scene of the action, repairing
the vessels crippled on the 20th. He said it was not easy to do, and
indeed, from first to last, showed a marked disinclination to attempt
anything that was not “easy.” Then a council of war came to the
conclusion, which is always so welcome to weak men weakly led, that
nothing more could be done. The fleet returned to “cover” Gibraltar,
leaving Minorca to its fate. Before the complacent dispatch in which
Byng announced his decision could reach home, the news of the failure
had been given by La Galissonière’s boastful letter to his own king. It
was published in Paris, and sent on from thence. In truth the French
admiral was very nervous, constantly expecting the reappearance of the
English in superior force, and was only kept from retiring to Toulon by
the incessant driving of Richelieu. The honour both of the defence and
of the attack in this campaign belongs wholly to the soldiers. When the
result of the meeting of the two fleets was known, there burst out a
storm of rage of which the echoes can be heard to this day. It is not
pleasant to hear a people howling for the life of a man, whether he be
the great and terrible Strafford or poor, weak, self-satisfied John
Byng. The manifestations, too, were vulgar. The mob hanged the admiral
in effigy, the City of London sent deputations asking for his life, the
Prime Minister gabbled promises that he should be punished. Meanwhile
Byng had returned to Gibraltar on the 19th June. He found there a
reinforcement of five line-of-battle ships under Commodore Brodrick,
who had arrived on the 15th from England. Preparations were being made
to return to Mahon when Hawke came into Gibraltar to take command and
also to send Byng home for trial together with the witnesses. Fowke was
also recalled. The admiral heard of his supersession with unaffected,
or at any rate with remarkably well-simulated, indignation. He wrote
a furious self-laudatory letter on the 4th July, all but claiming a
statue for his exertions. On the 9th July he sailed a prisoner in the
=Antelope=, and reached England on the 19th August.
He was first imprisoned at Greenwich, and then sent to Portsmouth for
trial. In the sentimental reaction of coming years, it was said that he
could not expect fair treatment in the prevailing rage of the nation,
and that he was made a sacrifice by base-minded politicians. But nobody
can read the minutes of the court martial without seeing that the
admiral had a perfectly fair trial, and was condemned on his merits,
while the politicians who had an interest in securing his condemnation
had left office before the court martial began, and remained out till
after his execution. Newcastle had been replaced by the first short
administration of Pitt. The court martial began to sit on the 17th
December 1756, and sentence was given on the 28th February 1757. The
court found that the admiral had offended against the 12th Article in
that he had not done his utmost against the enemy. Therefore, though
it acquitted him of cowardice or disaffection, it found him guilty of
negligence, and condemned him to the only punishment it was authorised
to inflict, which was death. Attempts were made to save his life. The
House of Commons even passed a Bill to relieve the officers forming the
court martial from the obligation to preserve secrecy as to what had
passed in their private decision on the sentence. It was hoped that
they might have something to say which would avail the prisoner, but
when questioned by the House of Lords they could answer nothing to the
purpose. The Upper House rejected the Bill, and the admiral was shot
to death on the deck of the =Monarque= on the 14th March 1757. He died
with dignity, and protesting to the last he had been made a victim.
In the changes of things and in the usual reaction by which Englishmen
habitually atone for the fury of their rage, he came indeed to be
thought of as a victim, yet the sentence was just. Coward, in the sense
that he suffered from the pitiable cowardice which makes a man sick and
giddy at the approach of personal danger, he was not. Neither was he
disaffected, in the sense that he was scheming to upset the Government
he served. As these were the forms of cowardice and disaffection
contemplated by the Act, the court very properly acquitted him under
these heads. But he was a coward in the intellectual sense. Having a
dangerous piece of work to do, and one in which the very errors of
the Government rendered it only the more incumbent on him to make all
wants good by his own exertions, he thought chiefly of doing it at
the least risk, and was resigned to failure. The excuses he made were
pitiable. All through he insisted on the inferiority of his fleet.
Yet he had thirteen ships to twelve. It is true that the French were
better vessels, the _Foudroyant_ with her 80 guns, for instance, being
superior in real strength to the =Ramillies= with her 90. Yet the
_Foudroyant_ afterwards surrendered to a much smaller ship than the
=Ramillies=. He harped on the lesser weight of his guns, and it is true
that the 42-pounders carried on the lower deck of some French ships
were heavier than any of ours. Yet he had 834 guns to the Frenchman’s
806, and the 42-pounder was afterwards rejected from our navy as too
lumbering for ship-work. All through he kept insisting on the risk of
doing this or that, till he brought upon himself the scathing answer
of Blakeney: “I have served these sixty-three years, and I never knew
any enterprise undertaken without some danger; and this might have been
effected with as little danger as any I ever knew.” It was monstrous
that men should think they could make war without hazard. Therefore
the court justly found Byng guilty of “negligence,”—that is to say,
all that deficiency to do enough, all that hanging back from strenuous
effort, which are due to want of spirit, to a selfish regard of what
the soft-minded man thinks are the interests of his safety, to the
moral cowardice which falls short of mere physical poltroonery, and the
disaffection which stops on this side of deliberate treason. The law
had been made stern after the experience of the last war. Byng knew the
conditions of his servitude. They were in the Act by which he exercised
his own authority, and he sinned against the light.
Brutal as the wrath of the nation was, it was founded on a sound
sentiment. If England was to take her place in the world, there had to
be an end of Mathews and Lestock, of Peyton, Griffin, and Cornelius
Mitchell. Voltaire’s famous jest that the English shot an admiral to
encourage the others suffers from the worst defect a scoff can have.
He meant it for a _reductio ad absurdum_. It was a perfectly accurate
statement of fact. The shooting of Byng did encourage the others.
Henceforward there might be errors and stupidities, and failures here
and there. So there always will be while men remain men, but a service
is to be judged by its general spirit, and by the view it takes of
errors and failures. Nobody who looks critically at the history of
the British Navy in the eighteenth century can fail to note a vast
difference between the years before and those after 1757. And we insult
the memory of the seamen of the eighteenth century if we suppose that
this is so only because the wrath of the nation drove them to greater
exertion, or that they did not think the execution of Byng just. Some
did not. His second in command, Temple West, resigned rather than
continue to serve if he was to be liable to punishment for “an error of
judgment.” West by the use of that phrase gave currency to a sophism
which has often been used to obscure the real significance of this
great sacrifice. But the navy had not protested against the change in
the Naval Discipline Act of 1749. The officers who tried Byng did not
shrink from applying the law though it cut them to the heart to send a
brother in arms to a shameful death. If they had been dishonest men,
they might have acquitted him of negligence, but they saw the truth
and they did their terrible duty. There is nothing to show that the
seamen, whether on the quarter-deck or before the mast, did, as a body,
think the sentence unjust. Indeed, the whole navy was now burning with
a spirit which asked for nothing better than to be relieved of such
leadership as Byng’s.
Three months after the admiral met his fate, the great administration
of the elder Pitt was formed. At last the power of England was about
to be directed, not by pettifogging and parliamentary intrigue, but by
genius and passion. Yet the full effect of the change could not be felt
for a space, and until 1758 was well advanced the work of Newcastle
may be said to overlap that of Pitt. We may look for a moment at the
interval before the power of the navy was fully free to act.
When Hawke superseded Byng in July 1756 it was too late to save
Minorca, and no means were at hand for its recovery. He cruised
unopposed by the French till December, and then returned home, leaving
the command to Admiral Saunders. The interest on both sides was
centred now in North America. The French had to reinforce and support
their colonies. Our aim was to intercept their succours, and to make
ourselves masters of the French port at the mouth of the St. Lawrence,
as preparatory to the conquest of Canada. At home our Channel fleet
was to watch Brest, and our Mediterranean fleet to keep a check on
Toulon; while in America preparations were making to attack Cape Breton
upon the arrival of a naval force from England. The work of watching
the French ports was not uniformly well done. In April a squadron of
four sail under the command of M. Durevest escaped Saunders in the
Straits of Gibraltar after a slight brush, and held on to America. In
May, Vice-Admiral Henry Osborn came out with reinforcements, and took
over the command. The total force was thirteen of the line and two
50-gun ships, a much larger force than the French ships at Toulon could
hope to face in open battle. Osborn was a good representative of that
large body of naval officers whose names are associated with no single
action of great renown, but who did much and varied service, and who
contributed to the glory of more fortunate rivals by weary cruising
and vigilant watch far away from the scene where more brilliant
reputations were being earned. He was also a very typical officer of
his time, when the life of the chief was one of stern solitude, and
his exercise of authority was harsh. By nature Osborn was of a cold,
saturnine disposition. He made no friends, and if he did not actively
make enemies his hand weighed on all under his command with oppressive
severity. But his vigilance, his strenuous discharge of duty, and
his severe exaction of their utmost from his subordinates fitted him
admirably for the work he had to do in the Mediterranean, in 1757 and
the early months of 1758.
The loss of Minorca imposed a heavy disadvantage on the British admiral
who had to watch Toulon. The nearest port at which vessels could be
docked was Gibraltar, and this was a serious consideration before
the use of copper sheathing had been introduced, and when ships grew
rapidly foul. In December, when Osborn was at the Rock, M. de la Clue
left Toulon with five sail of the line and one 50-gun ship, in the
hope that he might elude his opponent and follow Durevest to America.
But Osborn was on the watch in the Straits, and La Clue put into the
Spanish port of Carthagena. Here he was watched rather than blockaded.
Two more liners and a frigate succeeded in slipping in and joining him.
On the 5th February 1758 he put out to meet reinforcements promised
him from Toulon, and went as far as Palos; but his friends did not
appear, and fearing to have the whole British squadron on his hands,
he returned to Carthagena. On the 25th February a reinforcement did
appear off the port. It consisted of the _Foudroyant_, 80, commanded
by Captain Duquesne, who had with him the _Orphée_, 64, and the
_Oriflamme_, 50. Duquesne declined to come within the island of
Escombrera, which lies at the mouth of Carthagena harbour, and waited
outside to be joined by La Clue. A squall drove him to sea, where
his little squadron was sighted, scattered, and chased by Osborn. The
_Orphée_ struck to the =Revenge= and the =Berwick=. The _Oriflamme_
was driven on shore, but succeeded in getting off and joining La Clue
in Carthagena. A noble story is connected with the fortunes of the
_Foudroyant_.
Among the ships under Admiral Osborn’s command was the =Monmouth=, 64,
a poor little liner of our starved model, but a quick sailer. She was
commanded by Arthur Gardiner, who had been flag-captain to Byng in
the miserable battle of Minorca, and his first lieutenant was Robert
Carkett, one of those officers who rose from before the mast. Little
is known of Gardiner, save that he had been chosen by Byng to be his
flag-captain, which implies that he was a “follower” of his admiral and
was under obligations to him. In the battle he had given Byng good and
manly advice, and in the court martial his evidence had told severely
against his chief. The memory of that day had rankled in Gardiner’s
mind. Now La Galissonière’s flag had flown in the _Foudroyant_ in
the battle, and the English captain had come to regard her with a
concentrated hatred. He is reported to have said that whenever he
met her he would attack her, at all odds, and either take her or
perish. Charnock, to whom the traditions of the navy of that time came
directly, quotes a letter telling how “Two days before he left his port
(viz. Gibraltar) being in company with Lord Robert Bertie, and other
persons, he with great anguish of soul told them, that my Lord Anson
had reflected on him, and said he was one of the men who had brought
disgrace upon the nation; that it touched him excessively, but it
ran strongly in his mind, that he should have an opportunity shortly
to convince his lordship how much he had the honour of the nation at
heart, and that he was not culpable.”
When now, on the morning of the 28th February 1758, Gardiner found
himself among the chasing ships of Osborn’s squadron, and saw the
French ships in flight, he singled out the mighty _Foudroyant_, and
crowded sail in pursuit. The =Swiftsure= and the =Hampton Court=
accompanied him, but they were heavy sailers and soon fell behind.
The chase began early in the morning, and was prolonged till evening,
when the _Foudroyant_ and the =Monmouth= were alone. As he pressed
on the chase, Captain Gardiner, so tradition recorded by Charnock
tells, said to a military officer who was with him, “Whatever becomes
of you and me, this ship (pointing presumably at the _Foudroyant_)
must go into Gibraltar.” Also he called his crew aft, and said, “That
ship must be taken, she appears above our match, but Englishmen are
not to mind that, nor will I quit her while this ship can swim, or
I have a soul left alive.” Finding that he could not shake off his
pursuer, and feeling not unreasonably confident that the other English
ships were too far off to act against him, Captain Duquesne turned
on the =Monmouth=. If M. Troude, the most careful historian of the
French Navy, is right, the _Foudroyant_ suffered from a weakness which
was infinitely dishonourable. Her crew was so mutinous that Captain
Duquesne could not use the guns of his second deck. The men ran below
very soon after the action began. This goes far to explain the action.
The _Foudroyant_, a larger vessel than our three-deckers of the time,
carried a broadside at least twice as heavy as the =Monmouth’s=,
and ought, if properly handled, to have made a wreck of her in two
broadsides. The bad conduct of Duquesne’s men does not diminish in any
way the credit due to Captain Gardiner, who could not know how ill
his opponent would be supported, and it does go to prove the moral
inferiority of the French Navy at that period. The engagement began
about seven o’clock between these two opponents so ill matched in
material strength, and lasted till about midnight before help came to
the =Monmouth=. Her mizen-mast was shot away and about a hundred of her
men fell killed or wounded, but the mainmast of the bulky Frenchman
was brought down on the fore, and he became an unmanageable wreck. At
last the =Swiftsure= and the =Hampton Court= came up, guided by the
sound of the cannon, and at one in the morning Duquesne surrendered,
insisting, with chivalrous politeness, on giving up his sword to the
officer commanding the =Monmouth=. This was not now Captain Gardiner.
He had been wounded early in the action, but refused to leave the
deck. Later he was mortally struck, and handed over the command to
Lieutenant Carkett with a last exhortation not to let go his hold of
the Frenchman. He died with the supreme consolation of knowing that no
one could ever again accuse him of disgracing his country.
La Clue remained at Carthagena till he found an opportunity to slip
out and escape to Toulon in April. The attempt to send help to North
America had broken down before the watch of the English admiral. It
was Osborn’s last service. An attack of paralysis reduced him to the
necessity of coming home in July. He was thanked by the House of
Commons, and acknowledged its thanks in the words which sound best in
the ears of Englishmen, protesting that he had done no more than his
duty, and hoping that his services might be “the most inconsiderable
that shall be thus honoured.” The command in the Mediterranean devolved
on Admiral Brodrick, but the war in that sea died down till it revived
in the _annus mirabilis_ of 1759.
The share of the work thrown on the Channel fleet was not so
successfully done. Until the superiority of the navy had been more
fully established, and St. Vincent had organised his system of
sleepless blockade, winter and summer, Brest was a bad port to watch,
opening as it does on the wide and stormy Atlantic, not, as Toulon
does, on the fierce and fickle but not formidable Mediterranean. In
January of 1757 M. de Beauffremont left Brest for America with a
squadron. It was too early to venture to enter the St. Lawrence, and
he sailed first for the West Indies. Thence he made his way to Cape
Breton in June, carrying with him a large convoy of merchant ships. At
Cape Breton he found M. Durevest with the four vessels which had eluded
Admiral Saunders in April. Another reinforcement joined him under
the command of M. Dubois de Lamotte, who had left Brest on the 3rd
May with nine sail of the line. The total force under Beauffremont’s
command now amounted to eighteen sail of the line and five frigates.
An admirable opportunity was offered him of doing some service, but
he effected nothing of the active order. His mere presence on the
coast had put a stop for the time to a scheme of Lord Loudoun for an
attack on Louisbourg. In so far he did some good to his side in a
passive way, and with that he was content. And with that he continued
to be content. Admiral Holburne sailed from St. Helen’s on the 16th
April, picked up some troops at Cork, and reached Halifax in July.
His purpose was to join with Lord Loudoun and the colonial forces in
an attack on Louisbourg. But the French were judged to be in too great
strength to allow of success, and the combined operation was given up.
Admiral Holburne, with his fleet of sixteen sail of the line and three
frigates, paraded past Louisbourg in August and dared Beauffremont
to battle. But the Frenchman would not come out. Holburne returned
to Halifax, was reinforced by four sail of the line, and resumed the
blockade of Louisbourg, but on the 24th of September a hurricane of
extraordinary violence scattered his fleet, and he was blown home. The
most severely damaged vessels were sent back at once. The admiral came
on with the others, and the trade from Halifax. When the coast was
clear Beauffremont came out at the end of October, and reached Brest in
November.
We are now at the end of the preliminary period of the Seven Years’
War, and on the eve of the great campaigns which left the Royal Navy
the uncontested mistress of the seas, and Great Britain the dominating
power in Asia and America. A few words may be devoted to the moral and
intellectual qualities of the two navies opposed to one another. It
will be seen that from 1755 till well in 1758 our operations had not
on the whole been successfully conducted. But when we look close it
appears that, except in the notorious case of Byng, the fault lay with
the rulers who did not use the fleet with vigour. In one respect the
navy had still a good deal to learn. Its blockades were not maintained
with the severity of later times. Our admirals, or perhaps it was
rather My Lords at the Admiralty, shrank from the risks of a blockade
of Brest in winter and spring. But even in the Mediterranean the method
of conducting a blockade inevitably diminished its effect. A fleet
was kept together outside an enemy’s port till it was all in want of
water and a refit. Then it was taken back in a body, with the result
that for the time being the blockade was raised. In the Mediterranean
this was of less importance, because there always remained the chance
of catching the enemy in the Straits. Yet the temporary absence of
our fleet allowed M. de la Clue to escape first from Toulon, and then
from Carthagena. On the ocean this periodical raising of the blockade
rendered any effectual watch in Brest impossible. Yet our navy did,
in the main, endeavour to keep close to the enemy’s ports in order to
be in a position to attack him whenever he came out, and the aim it
steadily pursued was to bring on battle with the French and beat their
squadrons at sea. So it gained steadily in skill by prolonged cruising,
and it grew no less steadily in confidence and daring.
When we turn to the French we find a great difference. With them the
constant aim was to fight as little as might be when fighting was
necessary, and to achieve their purpose without fighting, if possible.
La Galissonière did not follow up his success against Byng, though
he had ocular demonstration of the clumsiness and timidity of his
opponent. Beauffremont had declined battle with Holburne, though
numbers were on his side. Yet the French spoke of the glory of La
Galissonière, and Beauffremont was held to have done right. It would
be a very silly national vanity which sought the explanation of the
difference in any want of personal courage among the French. Though a
nervous and excitable they are a valiant people, and the history of
their navy is full of the heroic fights of individual ships against
long odds. What explains their inferiority in enterprise is the
principle upon which they acted. It has been stated with simplicity
by one of their writers on the art of war at sea, Ramatuelle. He says
gravely that the French Navy did not aim at destroying a few of the
enemy’s ships, but at a more serious object, namely, the execution
of its mission. On the face of it this seems absurd, for what more
serious object can any fleet have than to defeat its opponent and make
itself master at sea? The French answered, that given the great number
of the English warships it was idle to suppose that they would ever
be destroyed wholly in battle, and that they themselves would be worn
out long before a decisive result could be obtained. Therefore when a
French admiral sailed to relieve a colony, or save some particular post
from attack, or land men to be used against a British possession, he
was to avoid battle as far as he could, and if forced to fight then to
engage to leeward, cripple as many as he could of the enemy’s spars,
and slip away. In short, his aim was always to keep his own fleet
intact, and not to destroy the enemy’s. There is a superficial air of
ingenuity about all this, but it was in the long run a fatal method of
conducting wars. It left us free to direct our blows where we pleased.
It made it certain that our fleets would never be seriously crippled.
It made it inevitable that sooner or later we would break down the
French defence, since that which attacks and wears away will always in
the end break through a passive opposition. But its worst consequence
was the degrading moral effect it had. The French Navy was taught that
to be brought to battle was a misfortune, and thus it came to have a
predisposition to give way, to avoid, to seek shelter, to run. We grew
accustomed to look upon our opponent as one who feared our blows, and
to take it for granted that the French would never stand in the face
of an equal force. The working of these two widely different ideals of
conduct will be seen in the following years of the war.