CHAPTER VII

THE AMERICAN WAR TILL 1780

AUTHORITIES.—See authorities for previous years; Mundy’s _Life

and Correspondence of Lord Rodney_; Barrow’s _Life of Howe_;

Chevalier, _Histoire de la Marine Française pendant la guerre

d’independence Americaine_; _Parliamentary History_; _Annual

Register_.

The interval of fifteen years which separates the end of the Seven

Years’ War from the beginning of the American War in 1778 saw no

change in the organisation of the navy. An improvement in their

half pay was given to the captains in 1773. In 1715 the right to

enjoy half pay when not on active service, which had hitherto been

limited to twenty-five officers of this rank, was extended to all.

The amount had come to appear insufficient by 1773, and the captains

petitioned Parliament for relief. Their case was stated by Howe, who

was then member for Dartmouth. Lord North, the Prime Minister, began

by opposing the motion, on the ground that it affected the revenue,

and ought therefore to have been made by a minister. But the sympathy

of the house was with Howe and his clients. A committee of inquiry

was appointed, and on its report Parliament decided that the increase

ought to be granted. A sum of £7000 was finally voted, and the scale

of half pay was fixed at 10s. a day for 50 captains, 8s. for 30, and

6s. for all the others, in their order of seniority. Howe and the more

fortunate naval officers, who were members of the House of Commons

and who gave him support, acted an honourable part on behalf of their

brothers in arms. They would have done still better if they had gone on

to represent the far more cruel grievances of the men. Had they acted

with spirit for those fellow-seamen who did not belong to their own

class, they might have secured a hearing, and have saved the navy from

the long list of mutinies which were to disgrace the coming war. But so

much magnanimity and foresight was perhaps not to be expected in those

years of the eighteenth century. Nothing was done for the sailors. The

isolated mutinies were sometimes suppressed with severity, but were

sometimes concealed from public knowledge, and condoned. A long course

of neglect and weakness, with now and then a spasm of ferocity, bore

its natural fruit in the combined mutiny at Spithead in 1797.

The discipline of the navy continued to benefit by the admirable

work done in the Seven Years’ War by the great chiefs and the less

famous officers whom they inspired. Their influence and example went

on bearing good fruit, and have indeed never ceased to be felt, but

have been carried from one generation to another of their successors.

Remote from the corruption of the dockyards and the fury of political

factions on shore, on solitary voyages, in long cruises, in blockades,

in battle and storm, the admirals and captains who were trained in the

schools of Anson and Hawke, Pocock and Boscawen, and were themselves

to train the admirals and captains of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic

Wars, went on perfecting the seamanship and fighting efficiency of the

fleet. An anonymous officer, who wrote in 1788, could declare in answer

to those who boasted of the ancient discipline of the navy, that “if

we compare the past practices and methods, as they have been explained

to us thirty years ago by old seamen in the service, with the present,

we shall find, that in no one thing under the British Government has

there been so much improvement as in the art of fighting, sailing,

and navigating a British ship of War.” The reason he gives is full of

instruction, and deserves to be quoted at length:—

“The old method of enforcing discipline was without method, by

main strength and the frequent use of the rattan, without which no

officer, from the captain down to the youngest midshipman, ever went

upon deck. Even twenty years ago there was much of this discipline

(if it can be called by the name) remaining in the service. Last war

[_i.e._ between 1778 and 1783] there is no doubt that the internal

discipline of His Majesty’s ships in general was brought to as great

a degree of perfection, almost, as it is capable of receiving; I say

in general. There were indeed exceptions; but in captains bigoted

to the old customs, and whose ships might always be distinguished by

their awkwardness and inactivity and by the indifferent figure they

cut in action, though commanded with bravery. This general improvement

proceeded from a method adopted in every branch of an officer’s and

sailor’s duty, by dividing and quartering the officers with the men,

and making them responsible for the performance of that portion of the

duty allotted them, without noise, or the brutal method of driving

sailors like cattle with sticks. Whether it were to make or shorten

sail, to manœuvre the ship, to keep the men clean clothed, clean

bedded, and berthed, this method was practised.”

The writer attributes the efficiency of the crews and the good

health they enjoyed even in the West Indies, while under the command

of Rodney and Hood, to this more humane and intelligent system. He

claims that there were cases when out of twenty-two sail of the line

cruising together, there were not twenty-two men who could not come to

quarters. The reader who compares this with the terrible ravages made

by fever and scurvy in the naval expeditions of Queen Anne’s reign and

the beginning of the Seven Years’ War will see how vast had been the

change for the better. The example of Captain Cook and the exertions

of Rodney’s doctor, Gilbert Blane, brought about improvements in the

diet of the men which saved thousands for the service of their country,

who would have been thrown to the sharks in former times. All this

reform was the spontaneous work of the navy. There was so little about

it of Admiralty system that no universal system of quartering men and

dividing work was established till far into the nineteenth century.

Captains followed the practice of the officers under whom they had

first served, with improvements of their own. The perfected discipline

of the navy was the result of the labours of hundreds of officers, many

of whom are completely forgotten, thinking, experimenting, and toiling,

each in his own sphere, but all with the same noble love of good work.

Therefore it had, and has, a grand life of its own, incomparably

higher, and far more enduring than the mechanical order enforced by

a minister or king. “It is the service” was the most emphatic praise

a naval officer could give, and “It is not the service” his most

severe condemnation. “The Service” was the formula standing for that

combination of smartness, of cleanliness, of precision of movement, of

exactness of stroke, of resolution to endure, and of intrepidity to

venture, which is the glory of the navy, its strength, and the real

explanation of its triumphs. It is of this too that the nation has

the best reason to be proud. There is something rather servile and

more than rather blind in the habit of attributing all success to the

commander. In the long run the Roman Legion will wear down Hannibal,

and it is a greater feat for any people to produce the organism which

is animated by the virtue of tens of thousands of its sons, than the

exceptional leader, whose genius does not always last even for the

whole of his own life. We do well to put up monuments to Nelson, and

it would be to our honour to remember other admirals more fully than

we do. The navy itself is the living memorial raised to the generation

of forgotten men whose names have passed into forgetfulness, but whose

work lives to this day on the quarter-decks and forecastles of every

ship flying the cross of St. George.

While the seamen were steadily perfecting the discipline of the navy,

their rulers on shore were allowing the administration to drift back to

the corruptions of Walpole’s time. The cause of this unhappy reaction

is easily stated. George III. came to the throne with the determination

to be king. This meant that he would not consent to be a puppet in the

hands of the Whig oligarchy of Revolution families, who had dominated

his grandfather. He could not crush them by the use of force, and was

consequently compelled to fight them with their own weapons, which were

interest and corruption. Interest meant that he bought the obedience of

Members of the House of Commons by bribery. Every branch of the public

service, and the Royal Household also, suffered because places were

given to buy votes, and no reform could be effected without losing the

support of members of Parliament who profited by the abuse. The evil

was particularly bad in the navy. Parliamentary boroughs and dockyard

seats were regularly filled with henchmen of the king’s ministers, on

the understanding that they gave their help to suppress inquiry. Money

voted with a great appearance of precision for specific purposes was

not applied to the ends for which it was in theory granted. What became

of it nobody was ever able to discover. On paper the system of accounts

was so rigid that fraud might have appeared to be impossible, but its

very severity made it cumbersome, and the men in office were not even

honest. When taxed with misuse of the nation’s money they were in the

habit of boasting that they did not take it for themselves. It is

probable that they did not put it directly into their own pockets, but

their defence was sophistical. Corruption was needed to keep them in

place—and place was lucrative. Every department had its own treasury.

The money paid out by the Exchequer was put to the account of the

minister. The bankers paid interest on it, and this interest was the

perquisite of the members of the ministry. It was their interest to

delay payments and conceal the actual use made of the funds. Brougham

repeats a story which illustrates the spirit of the politicians of that

generation. When Lord North was appointed Paymaster of the Forces he

found that he had to divide the emoluments with another politician. His

disgust was great, and he revenged himself by a characteristic jest. A

dog made a mess in the passage outside his room. Lord North sent for

one of the servants, ordered him to carry the offensive matter away,

and take care that his colleague received his due share, for said he,

“Mr. Cooke is to have half of everything that comes into the office.”

When the war with France came in 1778 the mischief had been in full

swing for seven years under the administration of Lord Sandwich, which

began in 1771. During that period he had received for the building and

equipping of the navy £6,472,072, besides large sums charged on the

debt. This was nearly twice as much as had been voted between 1755 and

1762, and considerably more than a million beyond the votes of 1763 to

1771. These sums did not cover the whole expense of maintaining the

navy. The supplies were voted under three heads. There was the Ordinary

of the Navy, which meant the maintenance of the dockyards, care of the

ships not in commission, and half pay. Then there was the Extraordinary

of the navy, the “building, rebuilding, and repairs” and all “extra

works over and above what was meant to be done upon the heads of wear

and tear in ordinary.” The third vote was for so many men at £4 a head

per month of twenty-eight days. Of this sum £1, 16s. was for wages of

all ranks, 19s. for rations, and the balance covered current expenses

in replacing rigging and ammunition. This was naturally the largest

sum of all. The votes for 1779 for example were respectively: for the

Ordinary, £369,882, 6s. 1d.; for the Extraordinary, £579,187; and

for 70,000 men “for 13 months, including ordnance,” £3,640,000. The

£6,472,072 supplied to Sandwich between 1771 and 1778 did not include

the vote for men. Though the sum was so considerable, the Admiralty was

unable to find fifty line-of-battle ships for sea in the summer of 1778.

Why so much money produced such unsatisfactory results was well shown

in the course of a discussion in the Commons on the 13th January of

this year. Mr. Temple Luttrell quoted figures to show that as much

had been voted for the repairs of the =Namur=, the =Defence=, and the

=Arrogant=, as would have built them new from the keel at the most

extravagant rate. Yet they were not fit for service. An even more

scandalous case was that of the =Dragon=, 74. She had been launched in

1760 in the heat of the Seven Years’ War, and was one of the vessels

then hastily constructed of green timber to meet a pressing need. They

were rotten by 1771, and Sandwich was in the habit of taking credit

to himself for his exertion to replace them by better ships. What had

happened with the =Dragon= was this—that between 1771 and 1778 the

Admiralty came to Parliament for successive sums, amounting to £27,000,

for her repairs, and £10,273 for her stores. Yet in the latter year

she was notoriously lying in a rotten state at the head of Portsmouth

Harbour, and not one penny of this money had ever been spent upon her.

The facts were not disputed. All that the Sea Lords, who answered

for the Admiralty, could say was, that they had not pilfered the

money themselves, and that this sort of thing had always been done.

The answer was, that it was directly contrary to the representation

of the House of Commons in 1711. It was on this occasion that Burke

threw the book of the estimates across the Speaker’s table, knocking

over a candle, and all but breaking the shins of the Treasurer of

the Navy, Welbore Ellis. He said, that it was “treating the House

with the utmost contempt, to present them with a fine gilt book of

estimates, calculated to the last farthing, for purposes to which

the money granted was never meant to be applied.” Burke was right,

but the Whig Opposition had done nothing to amend the evil in its

days of power, and had little right to take a lofty moral line with

its successors. Contempt was the exact word for the attitude taken

towards all criticism by Sir Hugh Palliser and Lord Mulgrave, the

naval representatives of the Admiralty in the Lower House. Palliser

was arrogant and laconic, lying as to the state of the fleet with a

burly assurance. Lord Mulgrave, the Irish peer, better remembered as

the Captain Constantine Phipps, with whom Nelson made his early voyage

to Spitzbergen, was fluent, jocular, and insolent. A docile majority

supported them by voting “the previous question” as the most convenient

way of stifling inquiry.

Indignant contemporary critics declared that accounts made in this

fashion were in fact deliberately designed to “envelope in utter

darkness the true appropriation of the immense sums they (the Ministers

to wit) extort thereupon from the public.” The respective shares of

deliberate design and mere convenient use and wont in producing the

disorder present a nice question. What is beyond dispute is, that when

the gilt book of the estimates showed the expenditure of such and such

sums for repairs and stores, and when the money was devoted to other

purposes, and the vessels named were lying rotten and unfit for sea,

it must have been impossible even for the best informed officials

to know the effective strength of the navy. Indeed, nothing is more

difficult than to find what was the real available force of the fleet

at this crisis. The common printed authorities, Beatson’s _Naval and

Military Memoirs_, Schomberg’s _Chronicle_, and Derrick’s _Memoirs of

the Royal Navy_ (all good books in their different ways), contradict

one another. It is only natural they should, for there were no accurate

sources of information. It was not till 1773 that the Admiralty itself

began to try to take stock of its vessels. In that year it was ordered

that a return, to be known as the “Progress of the Dockyards,” should

be made every week, showing what ships of all classes were under the

care of the officials. There was also a monthly list of ships in full

sea pay. It ought to have been possible to make an exact return of the

strength of the navy by adding the one to the other. But these papers

were avowedly untrustworthy. A ship in full sea pay, or commission,

might go into the dockyard for repairs. She would then appear in the

Weekly Progresses, and if the totals alone were looked to, she would be

counted twice. Then a vessel was considered to be in full sea pay when

her captain was appointed, but months might pass before he joined her,

and in the meantime she lay unmanned. So she, again, would be included

twice. The Weekly Progresses were drawn up by the clerks of the Navy

Office, and the monthly lists by the Admiralty officials. They were

independent and might not agree. Some allowance must be made for mere

blunders. It is obvious, too, that the dockyards returned such rotten

hulks as H.M.S. =Dragon= among the ships under their charge, while

the fact that a man-of-war was in full sea pay hardly established a

presumption that she was manned, rigged, or as much as in good repair.

These official papers are therefore but blind guides. When the great

reform of the navy administration was begun in the early years of the

nineteenth century, a manuscript book called the “Progress of the Navy

from 1765 to 1806” was compiled in the Admiralty. The author warns all

who may use it that his sources were untrustworthy, but he professes to

have done his best to get at the truth and to have made the necessary

deductions. It may be accepted as giving the nearest attainable

approach to an exact statement of the paper strength of the navy during

the years which it covers.

According to this authority, the total nominal force of the Royal Navy

in January 1778 was 399 vessels, of which 274 were in full sea pay, or

commission, while 125 were in ordinary, or reserve. The usual phrase of

the time was “lying by the walls”—that is to say, in the dockyards. The

advance during the war will be seen from the following list:—

+------------------+---------------+--------------+

| | Vessels in | Total of all |

| | Full Sea Pay. | Vessels. |

+------------------+---------------+--------------+

| 1st January 1778 | 274 | 399 |

| " " 1779 | 317 | 432 |

| " " 1780 | 364 | 481 |

| " " 1781 | 396 | 538 |

| " " 1782 | 398 | 551 |

| " " 1783 | 430 | 608 |

+------------------+---------------+--------------+

This, however, is paper strength. It includes battered hulks fit only

for harbour duty, prizes needing a refit, yachts and ships building.

Even at the very end of the war such authorities as Keppel and Howe

could not agree as to the number of vessels really available for

service. Ships were put into commission simply in order to please

supporters by conferring professional favours on them, their relations,

or clients. A great display of pennants might be made by this device,

but it was a show out of all proportion to the effective strength.

Then, as in much later times, it was the dishonest official practice

to include vessels building in the list of the navy. Thus, in the

last year of the war, it was said that we had four first-rates of 100

guns. In reality there had been three, which were reduced to two by

the sinking of the =Royal George= at Spithead. Another was ordered to

replace her, and a fourth, the =Queen Charlotte=, which afterwards

carried Howe’s flag on the 1st June, was also begun. They were not

ready for years, but they were counted in to make up the tale of four.

Where our evidence is confessedly not sound, it is idle to make

confident assertions about the strength of the fleet. But the sea pay

lists represent what was the utmost claimed by the Government as ready

for immediate service. The figures for the beginning and the end of

1778 will show what was the disposition of the fleet, and also what was

the first effect of the outbreak of hostilities with France.

January 1778. December 1778.

Station. Number. Station. Number.

East Indies 6 East Indies 5

Jamaica 22 Jamaica 21

Leeward Islands. 19 Leeward Islands 10

North America 92 North America 85

Mediterranean 6 Mediterranean 5

Newfoundland 13 Newfoundland 15

Convoy and Cruising 22 Convoy and Cruising 36

Ships at home 94 Ships at home 97

—— Western Squadron 43

274 ——

317

The difference between the two lists is partly accounted for by

transfer of vessels from one station, or duty, to another. The high

figure of the North American station came from the use of numbers

of small craft to co-operate with the troops employed against the

insurgents from 1775 onwards. In the main, however, the second list

differs from the first by the addition of the Western Squadron—that

is, the great force of battleships collected under Keppel to meet the

French at Brest.

It will be seen that there is an increase in the vessels employed on

“Convoy and Cruising.” We tell only half the service of a navy in war

when we confine ourselves to the movements of the squadrons and the

battles. The other half consists in the patrol duty done to protect

trade and keep down the enemy’s attacks on commerce. To explain it

by narrative would be tedious and confusing to the reader, but the

following list of the warships of various classes employed in this way

at and about home when the war began will help the reader to realise

how the duty was provided for:—

CRUISERS

Ship. Guns. Disposition.

=Thetis= 32 To come to Plymouth. }

=Actæon= 44 " Spithead. } Channel

=Seaford= 20 " Falmouth. } Islands.

=Hyæna= 20 " Spithead .}

=Cygnet= 16 }

=Grasshopper= 14 } To the Downs.

=Pheasant= 8 }

=Boston= 28 To cruise between Belfast Lough and the Mull of Cantyre.

=Stag= 28 To cruise in the Irish Channel.

=Squirrel= 20 To cruise between the Dodman and the Land’s End.

=Harpy= 18 } To convoy the trade from

=Wolf= 8 } Ireland to England.

=Wasp= 8 At Plymouth.

=Beaver’s Prize= 14 To cruise between Flambro’ Head and Yarmouth.

=Merchant A. S.= 20 } To cruise from Flambro’ Head to Shields.

=Content A. S.= 20 }

=Queen A. S.= 20 North Shields.

=Heart of Oak A. S.= 20 Liverpool.

=Three Sisters A. S.= 20 } Leith.

=Leith A. S.= 20 }

=Three Brothers A. S.= 20 Bristol.

=Satisfaction A. S.= 20 Greenock.

Cutter =Meredith= 6·10 To cruise from Beachy Head to Portland.

Cutter =Sherburne= 6·8 To cruise from Portland to Ram Head.

CONVOY

Ship. Guns. Disposition.

=Belleisle= 64 To proceed to St. Helena to

convoy the East India trade

home.

=Jupiter= 50} To cruise on coast of Spain

} and Portugal till the 20th

=Medea= 28} October, and return with the

} trade.

=Warwick= 50 To convoy the trade to Canada

from Cork, and return to

Spithead.

=Chatham= 50} To cruise between Stromness

=Portland= 50} and the isle of Bona, for the

=Jason= 28} protection of the Hudson’s

} Bay trade, and repair with

=Atalanta= 16} it to the Nore.

=Montreal= 32 To convoy trade to the Mediterranean

and repair to Spithead.

=Hussar= 28 To cruise between Oporto and

Lisbon.

=Pelican= 24 To cruise between Finisterre

and Lisbon.

=Fly= 14 To convoy trade to Holland

and return with it to the

Nore.

=Savage= 14 To proceed to New York with

dispatches and return to

Spithead.

=Hawke= 10 To proceed to Newfoundland

with dispatches and return

to Plymouth

=Endeavour= 10 To proceed with dispatches to

Jamaica.

=Ranger= 8 To attend the Yarmouth Herring

Fishery and return to

the Nore.

=Resolution= 12·12″}

=Discovery= 8·8″ } In remote parts.

The letters A.S. stand for “Armed Ship.” These were merchant craft

bought into or hired for the navy, and armed with small guns. The

=Resolution= and =Discovery= were the ships of Captain Cook, then on

his last voyage. It must be remembered that these lists represent the

cruisers and convoy ships at home or sent directly from home. On every

station the admiral would detail part of his command for such duties as

these.

The manning of the navy continued to present the old difficulties,

aggravated by the fact that we had lost the services of the thousands

of American seamen who had been found in our ships in the last war.

They were now manning the privateers which preyed on our commerce as

far abroad as the Channel and the Mediterranean. All the old complaints

were heard of the cruelty, the unconstitutional character, and the

inefficiency of the press. A Bill to abolish it was introduced and

favourably received in the House of Commons, but went no further. The

fact is that the press was indispensable. We would not train men in

peace. The merchant seamen would never enlist of their free will in

the navy, and were the less likely to do so because the first effect

of a war was to send up wages in the trading-ships. But the press was

not only needed for the sailors. They indeed were sought by it with

particular zeal, because their skill was indispensable in the ships

as riggers and to set an example to other men in handling masts and

sails in all conditions of weather. It was on them, too, that the

captain relied in the greater perils of navigation. But they never

formed the bulk of the crews of our warships, nor was it possible they

should. In a debate on the Bill to abolish the Press, held on 11th

March 1777, Lord Mulgrave declared that the total number of seamen

in the country was only 60,000, while the number required for the

navy in war had sometimes risen to 80,000. If the whole body of our

merchant seamen had been swept into the navy and their places in our

trading-ships taken by foreigners who swarmed in to earn the high war

wages, there would still have been a deficiency. In truth we never

secured all the merchant sailors. The list of men rated as seamen was

made up by taking landsmen, who either volunteered or were impressed,

and were not uncommonly vagabonds and jail-birds. Though all might

be known officially by the same name, a wide distinction was always

made among the crews themselves, and in the opinion of the officers,

between the “prime seamen” who had served their apprenticeship in the

long sea voyages and could turn their hand to anything, and the mere

“man-of-warsman,” who had not been bred to the sea and had only been

taught the work of his particular station. It was inevitable that in

crews composed in this fashion there should have been wide differences

of quality and that some of their elements were worthless and criminal.

Neither was it denied by the representatives of the Admiralty that

this was the case. On the 11th November of 1777, Mr. Temple Luttrell

said in the Commons, “Your bounties procure few good seamen, and your

press warrants, though enormously expensive, fewer still, while great

numbers are daily deserting from your ships and hospitals to commit

robberies and murders in the interior counties.... I am assured that

fifty have lately deserted from the =Monarch= while in dock, forty

from the =Hector=, and twenty-five from the =Worcester=, six of these

are confined at Winchester for felonies, and there are two committed

to Exeter jail on a charge of murder.” Lord Mulgrave’s answer was that

fifty men had indeed deserted, from the =Monarch=, because Captain

Rowley was humanely unwilling to treat his men as slaves, and that the

deserters were not to be regretted, because “the health of the rest

was preserved, as the service was freed from a number of men not to be

depended on.” No reply was given on other points. Lord Mulgrave’s tone

of jaunty flippancy was characteristic of the incompetent Government

which led the country unprepared into the most disastrous of its wars.

Yet in 1777 the navy was beginning to reap the benefit of the General

Press warrant issues in October 1776, when the king and his ministers

were at last forced to recognise that the rebellion in America was very

serious. It was now possible to lay hands on good men by force. Until

this was the case, our ships were not uncommonly manned in the fashion

described in the following letter from Captain Price of the =Viper=

sloop on the North American station in 1775, as quoted by Beatson in

his _Naval and Military Memoirs_:—

“I am very much distressed for Petty officers, as well as Warrants. My

Carpenter infirm and past duty, my Gunner made from a livery servant,

neither seaman nor gunner; my Master a man in years, never an officer

before, made from a boy on board one of the guardships, he then

keeping a public house at Gosport. Petty officers I have but one, who

owns himself mad at times. A Master’s Mate I have not, nor anyone I

can make a Boatswain’s mate. I have not one person I could trust with

the charge of a vessel I might take to bring her in.”

What complication of slovenliness and jobbery there was behind that

master who had been borne as a boy on a guardship and yet kept a

public-house at Gosport, we do not know, but it must be allowed that

H.M.S. =Viper= differed vastly from the smart British man-of-war with

her crew of fine seamen which is supposed to have represented the navy

of the eighteenth century. It is probable, however, that she only

differed in degree from the average vessel in commission at a time when

jobbery was common, and there was no press at work to sweep in the

thoroughbred seamen.

When our navy was weakened by corrupt administration and political

faction, it was about to be matched against more formidable foes

than it had met since the Dutch wars of the seventeenth century. The

Americans were only privateers, but they were active and skilful. The

French joined battle with us in 1778, the Spaniards in the following

year, and the Dutch in 1780. Of these the first and second were not

only more numerous but far more efficient than they had been in the two

previous struggles. The disasters of the Seven Years’ War had stung the

pride and patriotism of the French, and they had made serious efforts

to restore their strength at sea. Public subscriptions had been opened

to supply ships, and though the money promised was not always paid,

they did something to supply the Government with funds. Choiseul, who

was minister at the end of the war, tried hard to restore the naval

service. Some of his changes and intended reforms were fantastic and

could not last. Yet he did not a little to provide ships and to give

the officers opportunities for practice. When he was driven from office

by the king’s fear that he meant to provoke another war with England,

his work was for a time lost. But after the death of Louis XV. and

the accession of Louis XVI. the French Navy became again an object

of attention to the Government. With the encouragement of the young

king, two able ministers, Turgot and M. de Sartine, strove hard to

make it worthy of the rank of France among nations. These efforts were

greatly increased as the progress of the American insurrection began to

afford hope that an opportunity would be found to take revenge for the

disasters of past years. In 1778 the French Navy consisted, according

to official papers, of 122 vessels, of which 73 were of the line. A

very large proportion of these were new, and were admirably built. The

French naval officers had studied hard, and were animated by pride,

both patriotic and professional, and the desire to retrieve their

reputation.

Spain was a nerveless power, as Burke said years afterwards, and

had not recovered even in the mere number of her population, still

less in intellect and character, from the terrible exhaustion of the

seventeenth century. Yet her king, Charles III., had tried seriously

to supply his dominions with a navy. Happily for us, he was a man of

limited intelligence, and made the common mistake of supposing that

numbers constituted strength. In 1778 his navy presented a list of

141 vessels, in all of which 62 were of the line. Though his liners

were with few exceptions two-deckers of 60 and 70 guns, they were

fine ships. Some of them had been built by English shipwrights in

the Spanish service. If Charles III. had been content with forty

line-of-battle ships, and had spent the money economised on the

building vote on giving practice to his squadrons and on forming a

good corps of seaman gunners, his navy would have been a more serious

opponent than it was. Still, the addition of the sixty-two Spanish

liners with all their defects to the French seventy-three constituted a

combination able to try the resources of our navy to the utmost.

The Dutch Navy had fallen far below the standard of its great days. In

1780, when the United Provinces joined the alliance against us, they

had only twenty-six line-of-battle ships of from 50 to 76 guns, and

twenty-nine lesser vessels. Great efforts were made to add to this

short list during the course of the war, but the additions were made

too late to have any considerable effect. Holland, too, though it had

not withered to the same extent as its old enemy Spain, had sunk from

its former energy. Yet the seamanlike skill of the Dutch crews, their

steady gunnery and phlegmatic valour, made them rank higher in the

opinion of our navy than the French, and far higher than the Spaniards.

The best contested battle of the war took place between an English and

a Dutch squadron.

The beginning of the great naval war with France in the spring of 1778

was preceded by three years of warlike operations. They were mainly

of an ancillary character, and the scope of this book does not allow

them to be told in detail. It must suffice to say that they may be

divided into two classes. On the Atlantic seaboard and the American

lakes our officers and men were engaged in supporting the military

forces employed to subdue the insurgents, or to repel inroads on

Canada. Captains Douglas and Pringle did good and gallant service

both in aiding Sir Guy Carleton to repel the invasion of Montgomery

and Arnold, and in clearing the way for Burgoyne’s advance into the

valley of the Hudson during the autumn of 1777. Here it was possible

to force the enemy to action with the advantage of better discipline

and larger resources in our favour. Less success was achieved along

the far-stretched seacoast of the plantations. The fault lay to a

very great extent with the Ministry, which would not recognise the

magnitude of its task. It estimated the case so ill that in 1775, the

year of Lexington and Bunker Hill, and of the publication, on the 23rd

August, of the proclamation for “Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition

in North America,” it reduced the establishment of the navy. The vote

for men was cut down by 2000, and the total estimate was lowered from

£2,104,917 to £1,674,059. From this figure it rose to £5,001,895 in

1778. In October 1776 the General Press warrant was issued. The bounty,

though raised to twelve guineas, failed to draw volunteers. At that

date there were on the muster books at home 8933 men. By the December

of 1778, and under the strain of stern compulsion, the complements of

our ships had been collected, at least on paper, on an adequate scale.

The return for the 1st January 1778 is 62,719, and from that level the

navy advanced to the 107,446 men borne on its books on 1st January 1783.

During the three years from 1775 to 1778 the admirals successively

commanding on the American station, Samuel Graves, Shuldham, and Howe,

were endeavouring to overawe hundreds of miles of seacoast swarming

with active seamen who were thrown out of work by the interruption

of trade. In the summer of 1775 Graves had at his disposal four

line-of-battle ships and twenty-one smaller vessels. If he had been

able to make free use of all of them, they still would have been

inadequate to the work to be done, but he was compelled to keep the

bulk of them together at Boston to support General Gage. Reinforcements

gradually brought the station up to the nine liners, 64- and 50-gun

ships, and eighty or so small craft of all kinds which were under the

flag of Howe, who assumed command in July 1776. But he was bound to

attend mainly to the duty of helping his brother, Sir William Howe,

during the advance to, and occupation of, Philadelphia.

The result was precisely what any competent naval adviser would have

predicted. Our admirals were always able to cover the movements of

troops and to carry out punitive expeditions against seaports. Of

these there were many, and they were justified by the attacks made by

the inhabitants on our boats’ crews and small cruisers. But they were

wretched expedients, for they exasperated the enemy without crushing

him into submission. Meanwhile American armed vessels intercepted

supplies, cut off our boats, and captured transports—all the more

easily because these last usually sailed without convoy. On one

occasion, in August 1775, the insurgents actually landed in Bahama, and

carried off a hundred barrels of gunpowder—a very seasonable supply to

General Washington.

Out of this weakness at home came the second task thrown on the navy.

Quick-sailing American privateers were soon swarming all over the

Atlantic. The French and Spanish Governments professed to maintain

strict neutrality, and did occasionally take measures to stop the use

of their ports by the Americans, when the king’s Ambassadors were

energetic in protesting, and could quote a definite instance. But

they saw our growing embarrassments with glee, and encouraged the

privateers under hand. With this secret support to help them, and the

even more effectual aid due to the unprepared condition of our navy,

the privateers cruised with signal success. In 1777 they did heavy

damage in the West Indies, and it was found necessary to appoint a

convoy for the Irish linen trade with England—a precaution we had never

been compelled to adopt in the Seven Years’ War. It was calculated in

February 1778 that the insurgent corsairs had then taken 739 British

ships. Of these, 174 had been released or recaptured, but the net loss

was £2,600,000.

Counter captures of American ships engaged on the coast and West

India trade were made to about equal numbers, but the loss and the

retaliation were alike injurious to the commerce of the empire. The

number of American privateers known to exist was 173, carrying 2556

guns and about 14,000 men. We had captured 34, but they were promptly

replaced, and were reinforced by Frenchmen who fitted out their ships

almost without disguise in French ports.

On the 13th March 1778, the Marquis de Noailles, then French Ambassador

in London, made the momentous but not unforeseen announcement, that

his master had signed a treaty of commerce and friendship with the

United States, which he considered as already in possession of their

independence. He added the ironical diplomatic expression of a hope

that this alliance with the king’s American rebels, as our ministers

were bound to consider them, would not disturb the friendly relations

between the countries; but both sides knew that war was come. If the

fighting did not begin immediately, the explanation of the delay is

simply that M. de Sartine had not yet been able to bring the French

Navy into thorough order, while King George’s ministers were, if I may

use an expression which some of their successors have not scrupled to

apply to themselves with a strange inverted pride, “muddling through.”

Had the house of Bourbon which ruled in France and Spain, and was

resolved to abate the power of England, been in a position to adopt the

most effectual method of attack, it would have thrown an overwhelming

force into the Channel at once, thereby paralysing us all the world

over. But King Louis XVI. was hardly ready, and Spain, according to

her custom, was not ready at all. King Charles III. maintained a show

of neutrality till the following year, and was allowed to do so by the

British Government, which continued till the last moment to profess the

belief that he would not intervene. Had Lord North and his colleagues

been ready to meet a danger foreseen by everybody else, one British

fleet would have been promptly off Brest, while another would have been

detached to the Mediterranean to blockade Toulon. Neither side having

its squadrons fit for immediate use, there was an interval of pause.

One French fleet was prepared at Brest under the Comte D’Orvilliers,

a very old officer who had commanded the training squadron during

peace, and had in that position proved himself a good instructor and

a shrewd judge of character. Its purpose was to menace us at home,

and so limit the force which could be detached to America. Our answer

was the formation of the Western Squadron. The command was given to

Keppel under pressure of public opinion. This admiral was then the

most distinguished survivor of the leaders of the Seven Years’ War.

Lord Hawke, Boscawen, Pocock, and Saunders were dead or in retirement.

Rodney, who was as yet comparatively unknown, had ruined himself by

gambling and electioneering, and had taken refuge from his creditors in

Paris, where he had accumulated a new load of debt. The character and

position of Keppel had an important influence on the early stages of

the war. He was by family connection a strong Whig. Burke, who loved

him, has recorded in the “Letter to a Noble Lord,” that “though it was

never shown in insult to any human being, Lord Keppel had something

high. It was a wild stock of pride on which the tenderest of all hearts

had grafted the milder virtues.”

From early in 1777 Sartine had begun to prepare a squadron at Toulon.

It was got ready with difficulty, for the Treasury was always in

straits, and the _classes_ then, as ever, worked ill. The purpose it

was to serve was to carry help to the Americans. The command was given

to the Comte d’Estaign, a great noble of the Rouergue, now known as

the department of Rodez. D’Estaign had been bred a soldier, had served

in the East Indies, and had held a governorship in the West Indies. He

was accused by us of having shown sharp practice when a prisoner of

war to the East India Company. His bold, undertaking disposition had

induced his sovereign to impose him on the corps of naval officers,

which was discredited by the failures of La Clue and Conflans in

1759, and the timidity of D’Aché. That he was our ostentatious enemy

was another strong recommendation. From his conduct in command we

may gather that his daring was born of a heat of the blood, and

not of a settled resolution of mind. He was therefore subject to

fits of depression under the weight of responsibility. D’Estaign,

whose destination was well known, was allowed to sail unmolested.

Reinforcements were sent to Howe under the command of Admiral Byron.

Byron, the grandfather of the poet, had all the knightly virtues of

his brilliant cavalier house. He had sailed with Anson, had shared

the wreck of the =Wager= to the south of Chiloe, had recorded his

adventures of starvation among savages, or in friendship and love among

the Spaniards of Chili, in a fine narrative, and had been the commander

of a voyage of circumnavigation singularly barren of discovery. He was

a brave, steady officer, but without original faculty for the higher

parts of war, and so persistently unfortunate in meeting storms that

the sailors had nicknamed him “Foul Weather Jack.”

The first movement was made by D’Estaign, who left Toulon on the 13th

April with a squadron of twelve sail of the line and four frigates.

Baffling winds, the unskilfulness of his crews which contained few

seamen, and the bad sailing qualities of some of his ships delayed his

progress, and it was not till the 15th May that he was able to clear

the Straits of Gibraltar. The series of operations which opened with

his appearance off the Delaware on the 9th July was long, and ranged

from New England to the southern limit of the West Indies. While it

was beginning, the main fleets of England and France were coming to

battle in the Channel. It will tend to make a narrative which runs

the danger of being confused from the number of contemporary events

somewhat clearer if we turn to the first meeting between Keppel and

D’Orvilliers, noting only that Byron left Plymouth with thirteen

sail of the line and a frigate on the 9th June to reinforce Howe, and

therefore race D’Estaign across the Atlantic in a parallel and more

northerly course. How he lost the race we shall see.

Amid delays and the wrangling of opposition with ministerial orators,

the grand home fleet, or Western Squadron, was slowly made ready. On

the 12th June, Keppel sailed from Plymouth with twenty sail of the

line, and was joined later by two more. When on his way to his station

off Brest, and at a distance of some twenty miles to the west of the

Lizard, he met the French frigates _Belle Poule_ and _Licorne_. There

was as yet no formal declaration of war, but the absence of this mere

ceremony only served to give an air of irregularity to his actions.

The French frigates were ordered to come under the admiral’s lee. The

_Licorne_ being overtaken by the =Hector= 74, obeyed, but not without

firing a broadside as she hauled her flag down—a mean demonstration

very much on a level with our exercise of the rights of war while we

denied that war as yet existed. The _Belle Poule_ was summoned by

the frigate =Arethusa=, a vessel of equal strength. Her captain, La

Clochetterie, naturally refused to obey an order which Captain Samuel

Marshal of the =Arethusa= had no right to give. A smart action ensued.

The =Arethusa= rigging was cut to pieces, and the _Belle Poule_ made

off on the approach of fresh British ships.

Keppel returned to St. Helens on the 27th June, having learnt that the

French fleet at Brest was stronger than his own. On the 9th July, the

very day by the calendar on which D’Estaign was seen off the Delaware,

he again went to sea with thirty sail of the line and six frigates.

His second in command was Sir Robert Harland, and his third was Sir

Hugh Palliser, the member of Sandwich’s Board of Admiralty who has been

already named. D’Orvilliers had left Brest on the previous day with

thirty-two sail of the line and fourteen frigates. He was endowed with

large powers to punish or reward, and carried energetic instructions

from Sartine to repair the misfortunes and errors of the past. The

minister gave him clearly to understand that the king might pardon his

officers for being beaten, but not for failing to fight hard.

On the 23rd July the fleets sighted one another 90 miles W.N.W. of

Ushant in a westerly wind. We were between the enemy and the land,

and therefore to leeward. The French admiral did not avail himself

of his windward position to force on a battle, but followed the

cautious tradition of his service and kept aloof. Four days of thick

unsettled weather followed, hiding the opponents from one another. In

this interval two of D’Orvilliers’ ships, the _Bourgoyne_, 80, and

the _Alexandre_, 64, had separated and returned to Brest. Thus he was

reduced to equality of numbers with Keppel, and to real inferiority

of force, for one of his ships was of only 56 guns—a tolerably sharp

warning of what may happen to officers who miss opportunities. At 9

a.m. on the 27th the French were seen eight miles to the W.S.W. with

the wind at S.W. They were on the port tack, and heading to seaward.

Keppel at once pressed in chase, while D’Orvilliers brought his fleet

round to the starboard tack, and continued to hold his wind as if

wishing to avoid battle. It was Keppel’s object to bring one on, and he

headed for the rear of the French line. His own rear showed the usual

tendency of a long line to straggle, and signals were made to Palliser,

who commanded, to urge him on. Shortly after ten we were coming close

on the rear of the French. A squall of both mist and rain swept over

both fleets, hiding them from one another. When it cleared, the French

admiral was seen to have turned his fleet again, and was heading to

the west, still to windward, but so close that he would pass within

cannon shot on the opposite tack. To Keppel this was a disappointment,

for he actually avowed his belief that if the Frenchman meant to fight

seriously he would have remained where he was. In other words he was of

opinion that D’Orvilliers ought, as a man of honour, to have allowed

his rearguard ships to be overtaken one after another, and crushed by

the fire of the English as they came up in succession. By taking this

absurdity for granted, Keppel gave the measure of his own intelligence

as an admiral, and of his inferiority to D’Orvilliers as a manœuvrer.

The much debated battle of Ushant was in fact little more than a feeble

parade. The fleets were going at the rate of five miles an hour, or at

a combined speed of ten miles; allowing 150 feet for the average length

of a ship this meant that each individual vessel would be abreast of

the passing enemy for about a minute. A little more than an hour was

employed by the whole of the two forces in sweeping alongside from end

to end. During this brief period of cannonading, made up as it was

of much briefer flashes of combat between their component parts, the

French gunners did more execution than ours. They pierced some of our

ships on the water line where they were exposed as they lay over to

leeward, and seriously crippled the rigging of many of them. As the

two lines began to pass clear, D’Orvilliers ordered his van, nominally

commanded by the Duc de Chartres afterwards known to infamy as Philippe

Egalité, to turn and engage Keppel’s rear division on the lee side,

meaning to turn his centre and rear at the same time, thus putting Sir

Hugh Palliser between two fires. But he was ill obeyed by the Duc de

Chartres, whom common fame accused of cowardice, and finding that his

plan could not be executed, he ran down to leeward and formed his fleet

on the starboard tack heading to the east, and in the same direction as

ours. Keppel had wished to turn his fleet also, but many of his ships

were severely crippled in hull and rigging, and the order could not be

executed. One of the most injured was the =Formidable=, 90, flagship

of Sir Hugh Palliser. We therefore remained on the same tack. With

both heading in the same direction, and we to windward, an opportunity

might appear to have offered itself for our favourite manœuvre of

bearing down, and engaging from end to end. But in the course of these

twistings and turnings, the van and centre, which were less injured

than the rear, had gone further to leeward and were nearer the French.

Palliser found the =Formidable= unmanageable, and his division remained

about him. Thus Keppel could not get his whole force together, and

would not attack with a part. When night fell D’Orvilliers left two

quick sailing vessels to show a light in order to produce the erroneous

impression that he was still there, and steered for Brest where he

anchored on the 29th. Keppel, concluding on reflection that he had many

ships injured, that the enemy was better able to repair damage than

he was, and that Brest was a dangerous lee shore, decided to return

home, and anchored in Plymouth on the 31st July. On the 23rd August

he was at sea once more, and on the 28th October back at Spithead.

D’Orvilliers came out on the 18th August and was home again at Brest on

30th September. Our fleet took several French prizes, but there was no

meeting, while our trade was fortunate in escaping French cruisers. And

this was the summer campaign of 1778 in home waters.

I would prefer to say nothing of the shameful service and national

quarrel which arose out of this poor battle, but it is too full of

warning, and had too much influence on the history of the coming years

to be passed over. We know from a letter of Samuel Hood, who was then

Commissioner of Portsmouth dockyard, that as early as the 4th of August

it was common knowledge that the chiefs of the fleet were on bad terms.

Keppel, in his public letter, had praised both Harland and Palliser,

but in truth he was fiercely angry with the second, whom he accused

in his heart of having deliberately prevented the action of the 27th

from becoming a real victory. It is obvious from his recorded words

and his whole tone, that he believed Sir Hugh Palliser had acted as

the agent of Sandwich in the execution of a conspiracy for his ruin.

The solitary dignity of his quarterdeck left him unchecked to brood

over this imagination till he was in the state of mind of some unhappy

victim of the mania of persecution. I fear we must add that there were

sycophants under his command who fed his delusions. We still possess a

toadying acrid letter from no less a man than John Jervis, then captain

of the =Foudroyant=, and at all times a strong Whig, which shows him

busy in the mean work of making bate. Being answered according to his

folly, Keppel grew so wise in his conceit that he reached the point

where he became convinced that there was a plot to cause the overthrow

of the British fleet, in order to discredit such an eminent Whig as

himself, that Sandwich was the author, and Palliser the agent thereof.

It was not sane, and it was the kind of insanity to which only a dull

intelligence would have been liable when exasperated by soured vanity.

But “the spirit of faction” was so rampant in England at the time, and

had so thoroughly aroused one of the worst faults of our character, a

tendency to loud-mouthed and contentious hectoring, that he did not

want kindred spirits to fool him to the top of his bent.

The press, animated as it was by the malignant spirit of Junius, whose

voice had only just fallen silent, took up the tale. Whigs bragged

that their admiral had saved the state from the ministerial treason

of Sandwich. Ministerial papers replied that their vice-admiral had

baffled the Whig traitor. Charge and counter-charge came thick and grew

more specific. On the 15th October the _Morning Intelligencer_ made

a poisonous attack on Palliser, fortified by details which must have

come from Keppel’s partisans, and would not have been given without

his approval. Sir Hugh, being hot-headed, by no means a clever man,

and probably ill advised, called upon Keppel for a contradiction. He

ought to have been silent or to have sued the paper for libel, and

to have produced his admiral in the witness box. Keppel, who shirked

taking responsibility all through, would not write an answer. In an

interview he took a high and mighty tone, and spoke of the dignity of

despising the press. Sir Hugh, again most foolishly, made a public

answer to _The Intelligencer_, and allowed himself to be entangled in a

controversy with “the bronzed and naked gentlemen of the press.” Both

men were members of Parliament, and they met in the debate of the 2nd

December. Palliser spoke to vindicate himself, Keppel to injure his

subordinate. He got over the question why he praised Sir Hugh in his

public letter, by saying that he meant only to refer to his personal

courage, which was undoubted, and that this was the most important

quality of an officer. If we could suppose that he meant what he

said, these words might again be quoted as giving the measure of his

intelligence. But his excuse was a subterfuge. For the rest he would

say nothing definite. He would sneer. He would insinuate. He would give

to be understood. He would do anything except show candour. He wished

Sir Hugh to be condemned for gross misconduct, and while forwarding

the condemnation with cunning, he wished to maintain a fine attitude

of magnanimity and of regard for the king’s service, thus escaping the

inconvenience of having to prove his charges at a court martial.

To suppose that Sandwich wished to produce his own utter ruin by

causing the defeat of the Western Squadron, would be to put ourselves

on the moral and intellectual level of Keppel, his sycophants in

the fleet, and his friends of the opposition. But the First Lord was

as pure an intriguer as many of them. There can be little doubt that

he encouraged, and none that he allowed, Palliser to bring his chief

to a court martial on charges of mismanagement of the fleet in the

battle. Keppel had shown the poorest commonplace of the dull tactics

of the time, but he had been orthodox in a brainless way. The hope,

no doubt, was that public opinion would be turned against the Whig.

The exact contrary result followed. First a body of admirals headed by

the veteran Lord Hawke, now nearly at the end of his honourable life,

protested against the decision of the Admiralty to allow an inferior to

accuse a superior. It is a necessary consequence of the respect which

all disciplined men have for authority, that the higher ranks must

always be protected from being proved to be in the wrong by the lower,

lest the indispensable spirit of subordination should suffer. That the

chief is in error is to be deplored, but not demonstrated. Then the far

from ignoble sympathy of the mass of Englishmen for a supposed victim

was aroused on behalf of Keppel. His court martial, which lasted from

the 7th January to the 11th February 1779, ended inevitably in his

acquittal. His friends made much of his sufferings from persecution,

but they were allowed to make his poor health the excuse for a private

bill to exempt him from the necessity of being tried on the flagship in

Portsmouth. His triumph took place in the more comfortable surroundings

of the governor’s house. The London mob, always ready for riot in

the 18th century, celebrated the finding of the Court by rabbling

the houses of Palliser and Lord North, and burning the gates of the

Admiralty in Whitehall, under the leadership of the Duke of Ancaster

and, as it is said, of the youthful William Pitt.

Palliser resigned and demanded a court martial. Though Keppel still

refused to appear as accuser, the trial was held on the flagship

between the 12th April and 3rd May. It ended in an acquittal with the

qualification that Palliser ought to have made the admiral acquainted

with the condition of the =Formidable=. Sir Hugh retired to the

Governorship of Greenwich Hospital. Keppel was so popular that the

Admiralty did not dare to remove him. But he was now in love with his

parts of martyr and factious politician. He began to wrangle over

orders, and to find offence where none was. At last he was allowed to

haul down his flag at his own request. In his place in Parliament he

was not ashamed to sneer at a brother officer, who, in the course of

1779, had to retire up Channel in face of an enemy twice his strength,

and to insinuate that he himself would have been bolder in such a

pass than he was with the equal fleet of D’Orvilliers, and the coast

of Brest under his lee in July 1778. For a time he, with the help

unhappily of Howe, an incomparably better man, set the disgraceful

example of refusing to serve because what they were pleased to call

their honour was not safe with Sandwich. His tar barrel popularity

was clamorous for a space, and he succeeded Vernon on many tavern

signboards, but by 1783 Rodney and Hood had arisen, and the patriot

hero of 1779 had become the “Cautious Leeshore.”

While the battle of Ushant was being half fought, and the subsequent

quarrel was dragging its slow length along, a brilliant campaign

was being conducted on the coasts of America. D’Estaign, it will be

remembered, had cleared the Straits of Gibraltar on the 16th May. His

squadron consisted of the _Languedoc_, 80 (Flagship), _Tonnant_, 80,

_César_, 74, _Zélé_, 74, _Hector_, 74, _Marseilles_, 74, _Protecteur_,

74, _Guerrier_, 74, _Vaillant_, 64, _Provence_, 64, _Fantasque_, 64,

and _Sagittaire_, 64, with the frigates _Chimère_, _Engageante_,

_Alcmène_ and _Aimable_. Some of them were bad sailers, and as the

crews had been completed by drafting soldiers, they were awkward. The

neglect of the past weighed on the French fleet, and the nerve of the

Admiral. D’Estaign spent much time in practising his raw crews, a wise

precaution no doubt, but one which was fatal to rapidity of movement.

He added gratuitously to the causes of delay by turning aside to chase

prizes. On the 8th July he reached the Delaware, and landed M. Gérard

de Rayneval, the French Minister to Congress, whom he had brought with

him. Even then he would not make haste to begin his attack on the

British squadron. On his way north to New York, and on the 10th July,

he actually lost sight of his fleet because he employed his mighty

flagship, the _Languedoc_, in chasing a trumpery British vessel named

the =York=, of 10 guns and 60 men. These were not the methods to

employ against the wary, resolute, and thorough antagonist he was about

to encounter.

Howe had been informed early in May of the coming intervention of

France. Her entry on the scene made it absolutely necessary to withdraw

our troops from Philadelphia and concentrate at New York. Of the total

force of eleven ships of the line and sixty-eight smaller craft under

the admiral’s command, some were at our naval port Halifax, others

were at New York, and others in Rhode Island, then held by a body of

British troops under General Pigott. Howe called all the ships which

could be spared from local duties to his flag, and set about covering

the retreat of the army now led by Sir Henry Clinton. Transport to

convey the troops by sea were wanting, and it was also thought to be

the more dignified course to march through the Jerseys. On the 18th

June the army had crossed the Delaware under cover of the squadron,

and made its way to Navesink, harassed, but not seriously impeded by

Washington. Howe reached Sandy Hook on the 29th June, and waited to

cover the entry of Clinton into New York. Here he was informed of the

sailing of D’Estaign, and of the reinforcements destined for himself,

which had left Plymouth under Byron so late as the 9th June. On the

30th June Clinton’s army appeared on the heights and was passed over to

New York by the 5th July. Barely was the passage concluded when Captain

Gardner, of the =Maidstone= frigate, sent a lieutenant with the news

that D’Estaign had been seen to enter the Delaware. On the 11th July

the =Zebra= sloop ran in with the news that the Frenchman was close at

hand. If D’Estaign had taken less than nearly two months to make the

run from Toulon, the concentration of our forces at New York would have

been defeated, for Howe was far too weak to give battle, and must have

been shut up in the Delaware.

The force actually with Howe consisted of six 64-gun ships, three

of 50, two of 40, frigates, and small vessels. The 40-gun ships

being wholly unfit to lie in a line of battle, Howe was practically

outnumbered in the proportion of two to one by the fine squadron of

D’Estaign. Outnumbered as he was, he had no resource but to stand on

the defensive, and the anchorage at Sandy Hook happily afforded him

an admirable position. Sandy Hook had once been a peninsula, but

the sea having broken through the narrow isthmus connecting it with

Navesink, it was already an island running due north and south, and

so forming a natural mole to the anchorage. Outside it is the Middle

Bank, and to the north is the East Bank. There are two entries from

the sea to the roadstead—one between the Middle Bank and Sandy Hook,

which is too shallow for big ships at the northern end, and the other

between the Middle Bank and East Bank, which is rendered uncertain by

a bar. Batteries were thrown up at the north end of Sandy Hook. The

squadron was then anchored in a line from the extremity of Sandy Hook

to the west, in this order. The =Leviathan=, a store ship turned into a

floating battery, =Ardent=, =Nonsuch=, =Trident=, =Somerset=, =Eagle=

(Flagship), and =Isis=. Frigates were brought inside to the south,

while the =Vigilant=, =Phœnix=, and =Preston= were posted behind the

bar between the Middle and East Banks. Fireships and gunboats were

placed where they could threaten the flank of the French fleet if it

crossed the bar. The ships in the line were anchored with a spring on

the cable—that is, with a cable carried out from the stern and fastened

to the cable of the anchor so that their broadsides could be worked

round to bear on an approaching enemy. If then D’Estaign attacked,

every means possible had been provided to crush his ships in detail as

they cleared the Middle Bank, and came under the fire of the batteries

at the extremity of Sandy Hook and of Howe’s line. Our squadron was

short-handed, but the deficiency was promptly made good by the eager

zeal of the sailors in the merchant ships and transports. Though they

habitually avoided the press when they could, there was no hanging

back at this crisis, and the volunteers outnumbered the call made by

the admiral. As many of them must have served at one time or another,

and all were “sailormen” able to set up rigging and splice ropes, they

were not mere raw recruits. The officers and men of Clinton’s army came

forward readily to serve as marines.

The hazard before D’Estaign was not trifling. Yet had he attacked

at once when he appeared off Sandy Hook on the 12th July, he would

have found Howe’s dispositions still incomplete. Even later he ought

beyond all question to have stood in. The total destruction of Howe’s

squadron would have given so severe a blow to the material strength

and the prestige of England that it would have been cheaply purchased

by the sacrifice of half D’Estaign’s ships. So would have reasoned his

subordinate the captain of the _Fantasque_, Suffren. But again the past

weighed on the unstable mind of D’Estaign. He anchored four miles from

Sandy Hook, off Shrewsbury, and remained till the 21st examining the

bar, and communicating with the Americans. The risk of grounding on

the bar seemed too great to him to be run, and in all probability he

asked himself, what would happen if the British reinforcements arrived

and found him amid the wreck of Howe’s ships with a crippled squadron?

On the 22nd he made a show of falling on, and then sailed away to the

south. A small convoy fell into his hands, and he had the satisfaction

of blockading a British port for ten days.

Howe at once dispatched frigates to watch the enemy. Observation and

rumour led him to believe, rightly, that D’Estaign meant to proceed

to co-operate with an American force in an attack on Sir R. Pigott

on Rhode Island. But for some days he was too weak to move. On the

26th July the =Renown=, 50, joined him from the West Indies. She had

passed through the French squadron on her way, unmolested and perhaps

unobserved. Misled by bad information from home, Howe had been under

the impression that Byron was bound for Halifax. He had sent thither

for news, and on the 26th his messenger returned with the report

that nothing was known there of the reinforcements, but that the

Commissioner, Captain Fielding, was sending on the =Raisonable=, 64,

and =Centurion=, 50, which had refitted. They joined the flag at Sandy

Hook safely. On the 30th July the =Cornwall=, 74, came in from Byron’s

squadron with a depressing story.

The admiral had met his accustomed fortune in weather when he was least

able to contend with his implacable enemy. He had left Plymouth on

the 9th June with one 90-gun ship, eleven 74, one of 64, and a single

frigate. If numbers were all in war, while speed and efficiency were

little, his squadron had been more than enough to sweep D’Estaign

from the coast of America. But Byron sailed late, and his ships were

ill provided in all ways. The crews had been made up by drafts

of prisoners who brought the jail fever with them. So bad was the

condition of the fleet that it was unable to contend with a summer

storm which broke on it in the middle of the North Atlantic on the 3rd

July. Some of the ships returned home, and all were scattered. Byron

himself struggled on alone toward Sandy Hook till the 18th August, when

he sighted the French fleet, and turned back to Halifax, where he found

one only of his command. Except the =Cornwall=, none reached Howe’s

flag in time to be of service. Those which limped in later, and by

degrees, were crippled in rigging, and foul with putrid fevers.

On the 29th July, the day before the =Cornwall= joined his flag, Howe

heard that D’Estaign had been sighted off Rhode Island, to the east

of New York. The object of the Frenchman was manifestly to co-operate

with the insurgents in attacking the British force then occupying the

island, under the command of General Pigott. Howe was the last man in

the world to be deterred by mere inferiority of numbers from exerting

himself in the king’s service, and outmatched as he still was, he

prepared to support General Pigott. Contrary winds detained him at New

York till the 6th August. On the 9th he was off the southern end of

Rhode Island. Rhode Island is one of several which nearly block up a

great oblong bay opening to the south in the coast, which here runs

nearly due east and west. It is separated from the mainland on the east

by the Sakonnet Channel, and from the island of Conanicut on the west,

by the Eastern Passage. The Western Passage divides Conanicut from the

mainland, and leads to the land-locked waters of Narragansett Bay. The

town of Newport stands nearly at the south-western end of Rhode Island,

and here General Pigott had concentrated his troops when the American

general, Sullivan, passed over from the mainland to attack him.

D’Estaign had anchored within Brenton’s Ledge, at the south-western

point of Rhode Island, on the 29th July. He sent two frigates up the

Sakonnet Channel and two liners up the Western Passage to Narragansett

Bay, and then entered the Eastern Passage on the 8th August, anchoring

above the town of Newport, at Goat Island, between Conanicut and Rhode

Island. His appearance in overwhelming strength sufficed to gain him a

naval success without fighting. A small British flotilla, consisting

of the frigates and sloops =Orpheus=, =Lark=, =Juno=, =Flora=, and

=Falcon=, was caught at hopeless disadvantage, and was burnt by the

commanding officer, Captain Brisbane, to prevent it from falling into

the hands of the French. The crews were added to the garrison of

Newport.

Howe was off Brenton Point on the 9th. He had a difficult game to play,

for he was still inferior to his opponent by a third, and he had to

take the offensive. Everything depended on precision of movement, and

the British admiral transferred his flag to a frigate in order that

he might keep his whole squadron always under his eye. The question

whether the proper place for an admiral was in the midst of a battle

or outside of it was argued in the eighteenth century, and has been

debated since. It really resolves itself into the other question,

whether the admiral is best employed in setting an example or in

directing the operations of which he must needs lose sight from the

moment that his flagship is involved in the fire and smoke of battle.

Tradition and the point of honour dictated the first course. Sound

judgment agrees with them—whenever the example is of more moment than

the direction. But there are times when it is not, and the early days

of August 1778 off Rhode Island was one of them. Yet only an officer of

Howe’s established reputation for cool intrepidity could have afforded

to break away from old usage, and it is said that he was so far

impressed by the fear of being thought shy that he intended to return

to his flagship if a battle had to be fought.

D’Estaign credited his opponent with more energy than he had himself

shown at Long Island. He was seriously afraid of being attacked by

fireships at anchor—and indeed they had been prepared, and would have

been used. When, therefore, the wind shifted from south to north-east

on the morning of the 10th, he came at once to sea, cannonading

Pigott’s batteries at Newport as he passed, and calling in the two

liners sent to Narragansett Bay. Though he had numbers and the wind

in his favour, he made no attempt to force on a battle, and manœuvred

to keep the weather-gage. Howe strove to win it, intending to fall on

the Frenchman and to use his fireships. He succeeded, but a furious

gale scattered both fleets on the 11th, and they were not rallied

till the 17th. In the interval, the French had suffered more from the

storm than our ships. Three of them, the _Languedoc_, _Marseilles_, and

_César_, were attacked while crippled by the =Renown=, =Preston=, and

=Isis=, smaller vessels, but under complete command. None of them were

taken, thanks to the timely arrival of help. Howe reunited his squadron

at Sandy Hook, and then returned to Rhode Island on hearing that the

Frenchman had reappeared. But D’Estaign had lost all confidence, and

was oppressed by a sense of the need for stores and repairs. He sailed

away to Boston. Sullivan withdrew from Rhode Island, exploding against

his ally in terms of rude and taunting reproach. Howe found the French

too strongly posted in Boston to be assailed, and after reconnoitring

their position on the 30th, returned to New York. Byron’s scattered

ships now began to drop in, but Howe’s service was over for the time

being. On the 25th September he handed over his command to Gambier, and

sailed for home. On his return he refused to serve under Sandwich, who

had supported him so ill. The reason was a bad one, and was not excused

by the fact that the minister’s hacks endeavoured to throw blame on the

admiral. An officer who pleads a personal offence as an excuse for not

fighting his country’s enemies sets an example which is only just short

of mutinous.

Gambier was soon superseded by the arrival of his superior Byron.

“Foul Weather Jack” made haste to refit his ships at New York, and on

the 18th October went to look into Boston. Storms blew him about, he

lost vessels, and was forced to take refuge in Newport, Rhode Island.

D’Estaign in the meantime had been striving with the ill-will of the

Bostonians, a people described by the English historian Beatson as of

“a sour, morose, and sullen temper.” They were very angry with the

French for not giving more support to Sullivan at Rhode Island, and

showed their ill-will by making riotous attacks on the sailors of their

allies. One of D’Estaign’s officers, M. de Saint Sauveur, was actually

killed in a savage conflict between the townsmen and the French boats’

crews. The admiral was nevertheless able to refit his squadron mainly

with our own naval stores, captured and brought into port by the active

American privateers. The approach of winter made campaigning hazardous

on the stormy Northern coast, and on the 4th November D’Estaign sailed

for the West Indies, where the French wished to recover their losses in

the previous war. All through this war the main fleets will be found

leaving the Antilles when the hurricane months begin in July, and the

summer favours them in the North. Then, as winter approaches, and the

hurricane season is over in October, they will be found streaming

back to take part in the defence or conquest of the islands round the

Caribbean Sea. The change in the scene of conflict had been foreseen

by us. On the 4th November, the very day that D’Estaign left Boston,

Hotham sailed from New York with two 64-gun ships, three of 50, and

three frigates, carrying 5000 men of the army in North America, which

was already too weak for its work. They were destined for Barbadoes

first, and then for the general protection of the Sugar Islands. So

close did Hotham and D’Estaign come to one another on the passage

that a Newfoundland dog belonging to an English officer, which fell

overboard, is said to have been picked up swimming by the French

flagship the _Languedoc_, but there was no meeting.

Though to follow the cruise of D’Estaign and Byron to its close will

compel us to overlap contemporary operations elsewhere, an even

greater degree of confusion would be created by making an arbitrary

break in the narrative of one continuous series of movements. Yet it

is necessary to go back for a brief space to explain what the rival

admirals found waiting for them, when they came escaping from the

snowstorms and icy cold of the North to the unfailing easterly trade

winds, the baffling land breezes, the sun, and the purple seas of the

West Indies.

The French possessions in those waters consisted of part of San

Domingo, of Guadaloupe, Martinique, and Marie Galante. Dominica,

between Martinique and Guadaloupe, was in our hands. Next to the

South came Santa Lucia, a French island, and beyond it St. Vincent

and Grenada, English possessions. The whole of the Lesser Antilles

constituted the Leeward Station, so called because they lie to leeward

of Barbadoes. The reader may be reminded that as the easterly trade

wind is permanent in the West Indies, and is therefore called “the true

breeze,” to leeward always means to westward, and to windward is to

eastward for the Creole and the seafaring man. During the early months

of 1778 there had been the usual examples of breaches of the law of

nations on both sides, and the consequent mutual accusations, very loud

and very futile. The French had no naval force at hand except a few

frigates and sloops. Our own squadron consisted of one 74-gun ship, one

70, with frigates and sloops to the number of fourteen. From the month

of June onwards they were under the command of Samuel Barrington, a

member of the well-known Irish family. Barrington remained at Barbadoes

waiting to see what the French would do. In September he discovered.

The Marquis de Bouillé, Governor of Martinique, collected a flotilla

of frigates, sloops, and trading-craft, embarked troops and Creole

volunteers, and soused down on Dominica. It fell at once, and the

history of its fall is highly characteristic of our management in

those days. Forts had been built and guns landed for the defence of

the island. Nothing was wanting except a garrison. There was no force

in Dominica save parts of two companies of the 48th and a handful of

artillerymen—not enough to hold a small fort. Having nothing else to

do, they surrendered. Barrington complained that he was misinformed as

to the strength of the enemy. If he had not kept his line-of-battle

ships idle at Barbadoes, he could have found out for himself, and one

of them cruising round Martinique would have stopped Bouillé. It was

quite in keeping with this sloth and this dependence on information

supplied by governors that Barrington joined the noble band of officers

who refused to serve in responsible places under Sandwich because their

honour was not safe with him. Having allowed Dominica to go for want of

support, he left Barbadoes in order to see after the safety of Antigua,

to the north of Guadaloupe. It was our naval dockyard in the Leeward

Islands. Antigua having a competent garrison was in no danger. Then

he returned to Barbadoes, and waited till he was joined on the 10th

December by Hotham with the ships and soldiers from New York.

The combined squadrons at once proceeded to give the French a Roland

for their Oliver by seizing Santa Lucia. The French island was not much

better prepared for defence than Dominica, and when it was attacked

on the 13th and 14th of December the Governor retired to one of the

hills in the interior, while the coast fell into our hands. Barrington

anchored in the Cul de Sac, a bay on the western side of the island

opening on to the Caribbean Sea, while the troops besieged the French

Governor. Next day D’Estaign appeared with his more powerful squadron.

He had anchored at Fort Royal, in Martinique, on the 9th December, and

it had been his intention to assail Barbadoes. The danger of Santa

Lucia compelled him to change his plans. He shipped Bouillé and his

troops, and on the 15th made his effort to rescue the island. It proved

but feeble. Barrington had placed his seven ships across the mouth of

the Cul de Sac, throwing up shore batteries to cover his flanks. If

he was wanting in foresight and enterprise, he was stout. D’Estaign

behaved as he had done at Sandy Hook, making mere shows of attack, and

excusing himself by pleading that the treacherous breezes under the

land hampered his movements. They presented real difficulties, but in

the opinion of D’Estaign’s best officers he was too easily disconcerted

by such obstacles. Bouillé landed with his troops, but failed to shake

the hold of the British troops on their positions. Then D’Estaign heard

by a privateer that Byron was on his way from North America. Instead of

judging as his countryman Mahé de la Bourdonnais had done at Madras,

that the approach of relief for his enemy was a reason for making an

instant and strenuous effort, he re-embarked the troops on the 28th,

and next day anchored at Fort Royal in one of the fits of depression

and self-pity which alternated with his outbursts of energy. M. Micoud,

the French Governor of Santa Lucia, surrendered on the 30th, he having

also nothing else to do, and the island remained with us, to serve as

Rodney’s headquarters in the great crisis of the war.

Byron had indeed left Newport in Rhode Island, on the 14th December,

after a desperate struggle with his old enemy the storms, which very

nearly drove one of his liners on shore, and did considerable damage to

the spars of others. With twelve sail of the line he struggled through

the winter weather, and reached Barbadoes on the 7th January 1779. Then

he pushed on to Santa Lucia, which he made his headquarters for the

watch on D’Estaign at Fort Royal. The French admiral now outnumbered,

was cautious, and would risk nothing. He only came out to go in again.

In February Byron was reinforced by Rear-Admiral Rowley. Though this

officer was stationed to windward of Martinique, to intercept any

reinforcements coming to D’Estaign, he failed. The French admiral

was successively joined by the Comte de Grasse, Rodney’s opponent on

a future date, from Brest, by Vaudreuil from the coast of Africa,

and by La Motte Picquet from Toulon. They brought his strength up to

twenty-five sail of the line and twelve frigates, which gave him a

distinct superiority of numbers over Byron.

The next passage in the naval campaign illustrated at once some of

the burdens laid on our admirals, Byron’s poorness of judgment in

the greater operations of war, and the miserable character of the

principles on which the French were content to act. In June the

West India convoys were collected for their return to Europe. The

meeting-place of the ships was St. Christopher, to the north-west of

Guadaloupe. Commerce was so essential to England that no admiral could

have neglected to give it protection. Nor could the country, which was

suffering severely from the strain of the war, have endured the entire

stoppage of the West Indian trade for the year in order to leave the

fleet free—a measure occasionally taken by the military and autocratic

Government of France. But Byron could have secured the convoy from

danger by blockading the French at Fort Royal. He did not know of the

arrival of La Motte Picquet, and had every reason to believe himself

still superior to D’Estaign. Even if he were not, and the Frenchman

came out to give battle, this was precisely what an English admiral

ought to have desired. But Byron sailed away to Saint Christopher to

mother the convoy, leaving the road open to his enemy. If D’Estaign had

been a truly bold man, and not only a gentleman of showy daring in “the

imminent deadly breach,” which indeed he was, he would have sought out

Byron at once after the junction of La Motte Picquet’s squadron. But

he was content to dwell in the traditional French policy of avoiding

battle and grabbing at ports. Freed from Byron’s watch, he swooped on

small game. St. Vincent was carried by an expedition of irregulars

under a bold partisan of the name of Trolong de Rumain, a lieutenant in

the French Navy. Trolong was helped by the Caribs, and even more by a

quarrel then raging between the English Governor and his Council. St.

Vincent having been secured, D’Estaign on the 2nd July fell on Grenada

with his great fleet and Bouillé’s troops.

Byron having seen the convoy on its way home, returned to Santa Lucia

on the 1st July—to learn that St. Vincent was gone, that D’Estaign was

at sea, and that some other of our possessions was menaced. He was ill

informed as to the strength of his opponent, and remained in doubt for

two or three days as to what the Frenchman was doing. While preparing

to attempt the recapture of St. Vincent, he heard of the danger of

Grenada, and came down to its assistance—too late. On the 6th July a

battle was fought off the island which marks the very nadir of the

pompous futile tactics developed under the old Instructions. Byron

had with him twenty-one ships to his opponent’s twenty-five, and was

to windward. D’Estaign, at anchor when the Englishman appeared, stood

out, keeping to leeward, and waiting to be attacked. We came down in

a slanting line, the leading English ship steering for the leading

Frenchman. Of course our van came into action unsupported, and was

cut to pieces. Then D’Estaign made no attempt to push his advantage,

but whisked round, and returned to his anchorage. Byron picked up

the fragments, and seeing that Grenada was gone, sailed away to St.

Christopher again. A few weeks of mere parade followed. D’Estaign made

motions as if to force on a battle, but did nothing effectual. Byron

was ready to fight again, if his opponent would provide him with a

battle. In August he left for home, handing over the command to Admiral

Parker. D’Estaign, after touching at San Domingo, sailed for the coast

of America to join General Lincoln, in the unsuccessful attempt to

retake Savannah, occupied by us during the previous autumn. The siege

was raised in October, and the French admiral left for home followed by

the growls of the discontented Americans.

While these operations were running their course on the American coast

and in the West Indies with various fortunes and no striking display

of ability, in the later months, an amazing example of the essential

weakness of England’s enemies was being given at home. Spain joined

France in the summer of 1779, bringing to the aid of her allies the

unwieldy bulk of her nerveless fleet. The Courts of Paris and Madrid

came to the decision to attempt an invasion under the protection of

their united squadrons. French troops and transports were collected

at Havre and St. Malo. On the 3rd June, D’Orvilliers sailed south to

meet the Spaniards with twenty-eight of the line, nine frigates, and

eight small vessels, and by direction of his Government stationed

himself at the Sisargas, twenty miles west of Corunna. Slothful and

unready as ever, the Spaniards had not fully joined till the 26th July,

and four days more were spent in settling signals and other details

of business. D’Orvilliers had no confidence in the success of the

lumbering armament he was called upon to direct. He thought that the

sixty-six liners of which it was composed made too large a force to

be manœuvred. The Spaniards might be brave and willing, but were in

his opinion neither officers nor seamen. Don Luis de Córdoba, their

commander-in-chief, a man of seventy-five, is described as having “no

personal existence,” and as having seen no service except against the

Moors. His individuality was displayed only in senile obstinacy and

vanity. Provisions were ill supplied, the health of the fleet was bad

and grew worse. D’Orvilliers’ heart was broken by the death of his only

son, an officer in the flagship, who fell a victim to the pest. In

these miserable conditions, material, moral, and mental, the new Armada

sailed from the coast of Galicia.

On one side reinforcements had been sent to North America under

Arbuthnot in the early months of the year, and an attack on the Channel

Islands had been beaten off. Sir Charles Hardy, an old officer, was

drawn from retirement and appointed to succeed Keppel, when he and

other admirals refused to serve. Hardy sailed with the grand fleet of

thirty-five sail to the West on the 16th June, and remained at sea

covering the trade and watching for the enemy. With bolder management

he might easily have delivered a crushing stroke at D’Orvilliers at the

Sisargas during the fifty mortal days while the French were waiting

for the lagging Spaniards. D’Orvilliers and Córdoba reached as high as

Plymouth on the 14th August, and their presence caused a lively panic

in the country. But nothing came of it all, except the capture of the

=Ardent=, 64, which fell into their hands by the bad management of her

captain. First the allies were paralysed by calms, then the wind turned

easterly on the 17th, and blew them out westward. They sighted Hardy,

but failed to bring him to action or to prevent him reaching Spithead,

and by the 14th September had broken up and had turned back to their

respective homes. The four days’ command of the Channel for which

Napoleon was to sigh had been theirs, but they did nothing with the

opportunity.