HAWKE

1705-1781

The first great name in British naval annals belonging distinctively to

the eighteenth century rather than to the seventeenth, is that of Edward

Hawke. He was born in 1705, of a family of no marked social distinction,

his father being a barrister, and his grandfather a London merchant. His

mother's maiden name was Bladen. One of her brothers held an important

civil office as Commissioner of Trade and Plantations, and was for many

years a member of Parliament. Under the conditions which prevailed then,

and for some generations longer, the influence attaching to such

positions enabled the holder to advance substantially the professional

interests of a naval officer. Promotion in rank, and occupation both in

peace and war, were largely a matter of favor. Martin Bladen naturally

helped his nephew in this way, a service especially valuable in the

earlier part of a career, lifting a man out of a host of competitors and

giving him a chance to show what was in him. It may readily be believed

that Hawke's marked professional capacity speedily justified the

advantage thus obtained, and he seems to have owed his promotion to

post-captain to a superior officer when serving abroad; though it is

never possible to affirm that even such apparent official recognition

was not due either to an intimation from home, or to the give and take

of those who recognized Bismarck's motto, "Do ut des."

However this may have been, the service did not suffer by the favors

extended to Hawke. Nor was his promotion unduly rapid, to the injury of

professional character, as often happened when rank was prematurely

reached. It was not till March 20, 1734, that he was "made post," as the

expression went, by Sir Chaloner Ogle into the frigate _Flamborough_, on

the West India Station. Being then twenty-nine years old, in the prime

of life for naval efficiency, he had reached the position in which a

fair opportunity for all the honors of the profession lay open to him,

provided he could secure occupation until he was proved to be

indispensable. Here also his uncle's influence stood good. Although the

party with which the experienced politician was identified had gone out

of power with Sir Robert Walpole, in 1742, his position on the Board

dealing with Colonial affairs left him not without friends. "My

colleague, Mr. Cavendish," he writes, "has already laid in his claim for

another ship for you. But after so long a voyage" (he had been away over

three years) "I think you should be allowed a little time to spend with

your friends on shore. It is some consolation, however, that I have some

friends on the new Board of Admiralty." "There has been a clean sweep,"

he says again, "but I hope I may have some friends amongst the new Lords

that will upon my account afford you their protection."

This was in the beginning of 1743, when Hawke had just returned from a

protracted cruise on the West India and North American stations, where

by far the greater part of his early service was passed. He never again

returned there, and very shortly after his uncle's letter, just quoted,

he was appointed to the _Berwick_, a ship-of-the-line of seventy guns.

In command of her he sailed in September, 1743, for the Mediterranean;

and a few months after, by his decided and seamanlike course in

Mathews's action, he established his professional reputation and

fortunes, the firm foundations of which had been laid during the

previous years of arduous but inconspicuous service. Two years later, in

1746, Martin Bladen died, and with him political influence, in the

ordinary acceptation, departed from Hawke. Thenceforth professional

merit, forced upon men's recognition, stood him in stead.

He was thirty-nine when he thus first made his mark, in 1744. Prior to

this there is not found, in the very scanty records that remain of his

career, as in that of all officers of his period while in subordinate

positions, any certain proof that he had ever been seriously engaged

with an enemy. War against Spain had been declared, October 19, 1739. He

had then recently commissioned a fifty-gun ship, the _Portland_, and in

her sailed for the West Indies, where he remained until the autumn of

1742; but the inert manner in which Spain maintained the naval contest,

notwithstanding that her transmarine policy was the occasion of the

quarrel, and her West Indian possessions obviously endangered, removed

all chance of active service on the large scale, except in attacking her

colonies; and in none of those enterprises had the _Portland_ been

called upon to share.

Meantime, a general European war had begun in 1740, concerning the

succession to the Austrian throne; and, in the political combinations

which followed, France and Great Britain had as usual ranged themselves

on opposite sides, though without declaring war upon each other.

Further, there had existed for some time a secret defensive alliance

between France and Spain, binding each party to support the other, under

certain conditions, with an effective armed force, to be used not for

aggressive purposes, but in defence only. It was claimed, indeed, that

by so doing the supporting country was not to be considered as going to

war, or even as engaged in hostilities, except as regarded the

contingent furnished. This view received some countenance from

international law, in the stage of development it had then reached; yet

it is evident that if a British admiral met a Spanish fleet, of strength

fairly matching his own, but found it accompanied by a French division,

the commander of which notified him that he had orders to fight if an

attack were made, friendly relations between the two nations would be

strained near to the breaking point. This had actually occurred to the

British Admiral Haddock, in the Mediterranean, in 1741; and conditions

essentially similar, but more exasperated, constituted the situation

under which Hawke for the first time was brought into an action between

two great fleets.

On the 11th of January, 1744, when the _Berwick_ joined the British

fleet, it had rendezvoused at the Hyères Islands, a little east of

Toulon, watching the movements of twelve Spanish ships-of-the-line,

which had taken refuge in the port. As these were unwilling to put to

sea trusting to their own strength, the French Admiral De Court was

ordered to accompany and protect them when they sailed. This becoming

known, Admiral Mathews had concentrated his fleet, which by successive

reinforcements--the _Berwick_ among others--numbered twenty-eight

of-the-line when the allies, in about equal force, began to come out on

the 20th of February.

The action which ensued owes its historical significance wholly to the

fact that it illustrated conspicuously, and in more than one detail, the

degenerate condition of the official staff of the British navy; the

demoralization of ideals, and the low average of professional

competency.[3] That there was plenty of good metal was also shown, but

the proportion of alloy was dangerously great. That the machinery of the

organization was likewise bad, the administrative system culpably

negligent as well as inefficient, had been painfully manifested in the

equipment of the ships, in the quality of the food, and in the

indifferent character of the ships' crews; but in this respect Hawke had

not less to complain of than others, having represented forcibly to the

Admiralty the miserable unfitness of the men sent him. Nevertheless,

despite all drawbacks, including therein a signalling system so

rudimentary and imperfect as to furnish a ready excuse to the unwilling,

as well as a recurrent perplexity to those honestly wishing to obey

their orders, he showed that good will and high purpose could not only

lead a man to do his full duty as directed, but guide him to independent

initiative action when opportunity offered. Under all external

conditions of difficulty and doubt, or even of cast-iron rule, the

principle was as true then as when Nelson formulated it, that no captain

when in doubt could do very wrong if he placed his ship alongside an

enemy. That Hawke so realized it brought out into more glaring relief

the failure of so many of his colleagues on this occasion.

But the lesson would be in great part lost, if there were to be seen in

this lapse only the personal element of the delinquents, and not the

widespread decline of professional tone. Undoubtedly, of course, it is

true that the personal equation, as always, made itself felt, but here

as intensifying an evil which had its principal source elsewhere.

Hawke carried Nelson's maxim into effect. Upon the signal for battle he

took his own ship into close action with the antagonist allotted to him

by the order of the fleet; but after beating her out of the line he

looked round for more work to do. Seeing then that several of the

British vessels had not come within point-blank, but, through

professional timidity, or over-cautious reverence for the line of

battle, were engaging at long range a single Spaniard, he quitted his

own position, brought her also to close quarters, and after an obstinate

contest, creditable to both parties, forced her to surrender. She was

the only ship to haul down her flag that day, and her captain refused to

surrender his sword to any but Hawke, whom alone he accepted as his

vanquisher.

A generation or two later Hawke's conduct in this matter would have

drawn little attention; it would not have been exceptional in the days

of St. Vincent and Nelson, nor even in that of Howe. At the time of its

occurrence, it was not only in sharp contrast with much that happened

on the same field of battle, but it was somewhat contrary to rule. It

possessed so far the merit of originality; and that on the right

side,--the side of fighting. As in all active life, so in war a man is

more readily pardoned for effecting too much than too little; and it was

doubly so here, because it was evident from the behavior of his peers

that he must expect no backing in the extra work he took upon himself.

Their aloofness emphasized his forwardness; and the fact that through

the withdrawal of his admiral for the night, the prize was ultimately

retaken, together with an officer and seamen he had placed on board,

fixed still further attention upon the incident, in which Hawke's action

was the one wholly creditable feature.

The effect of the battle upon his fortunes was summed up in a phrase.

When his first lieutenant was sent to report the loss of the prize-crew

to Rear-Admiral Rowley, the commander of the division, the latter

replied, among other things, that "he had not been well acquainted with

Captain Hawke before, but he should now be well acquainted with him from

his behavior." Like Nelson at St. Vincent, Hawke was now revealed, not

to the navy only but to the nation,--"through his behavior." Somewhat

exceptionally, the king personally took knowledge of him, and stood by

him. George II. paid most interested attention to the particulars

elicited by the Courts-Martial,--a fact which doubtless contributed to

make him so sternly unyielding in the case of Byng, twelve years later.

To the king Hawke became "my captain;" and his influence was directly

used when, in a flag promotion in 1747, some in the Admiralty proposed

to include Hawke in the retirement of senior captains, which was a

common incident in such cases. "I will not have Hawke 'yellowed,'" was

the royal fiat; a yellow admiral being the current phrase for one set

aside from further active employment.

Such were the circumstances under which Hawke first received experience

of the fighting conditions of the navy. Whatever his previous attitude

towards accepted traditions of professional practice, this no doubt

loosened the fetters; for they certainly never constrained him in his

subsequent career. He remained in the Mediterranean fleet, generally

upon detached services in command of divisions of ships, until the end

of 1745. Returning then to England, he saw no further active service

until he became a Rear-Admiral--of the White--on July 15, 1747.

The promotions being numerous, Hawke's seniority as captain carried him

well up the list of rear-admirals, and he was immediately employed;

hoisting his flag July 22d. He then became second to Sir Peter Warren,

commander-in-chief of the "Western Squadron." This cruised in the Bay of

Biscay, from Ushant to Finisterre, to intercept the naval divisions,

and the accompanying convoys of merchant and transport ships, with

which the French were then seeking to maintain their colonial empire in

North America and in India: an empire already sorely shaken, and

destined to fall finally in the next great war.

Hawke was now in the road of good luck, pure and unadulterated. His

happy action in capturing the _Poder_ illustrates indeed opportunity

improved; but it was opportunity of the every day sort, and it is the

merit that seized it, rather than the opportunity itself, that strikes

the attention. The present case was different. A young rear-admiral had

little reason to hope for independent command; but Warren, a well-tried

officer, possessing the full confidence of the First Lord, Anson,

himself a master in the profession, was in poor health, and for that

reason had applied for Hawke to be "joined with him in the command,"

apparently because he was the one flag-officer immediately available. He

proposed that Hawke should for the present occasion take his place, sail

with a few ships named, and with them join the squadron, then at sea in

charge of a captain. Anson demurred at first, on the ground of Hawke's

juniority,--he was forty-two,--and Warren, while persisting in his

request, shares the doubt; for he writes, "I observe what you say about

the ships abroad being under so young an officer. I am, and have been

uneasy about it, though I hope he will do well, _and it could not then

be avoided_." Anson, however, was not fixed in his opposition; for

Warren continued, "From your letter I have so little reason to doubt his

being put under my command, that I have his instructions all ready; and

he is prepared to go at a moment's notice." The instructions were issued

the following day, August 8th, and on the 9th Hawke sailed. But while

there was in this so much of luck, he was again to show that he was not

one to let occasion slip. Admiral Farragut is reported to have said,

"Every man has _one_ chance." It depends upon himself whether he is by

it made or marred. Burrish and Hawke toed the same line on the morning

of February 22d, and they had had that day at least equal opportunity.

Hawke's adequacy to his present fortune betrayed itself again in a

phrase to Warren, "I have nothing so much at heart as the faithful

discharge of my duty, and in such manner as will give satisfaction both

to the Lords of the Admiralty and yourself. This shall ever be my utmost

ambition, and _no lucre of profit, or other views_, shall induce me to

act otherwise." Not prize-money; but honor, through service. And this in

fact not only ruled his thought but in the moment of decision inspired

his act. Curiously enough, however, he was here at odds with the spirit

of Anson and of Warren. The latter, in asking Hawke's employment, said

the present cruise was less important than the one to succeed it, "for

the galleons"--the Spanish treasure-ships--"make it a general rule to

come home late in the fall or winter." Warren by prize-money and an

American marriage was the richest commoner in England, and Anson it was

that had captured the great galleon five years before, to his own great

increase; but it was Hawke who, acknowledging a letter from Warren, as

this cruise was drawing to its triumphant close, wrote, "With respect to

the galleons, as it is uncertain when they will come home and _likewise

impossible for me to divide my force in the_ present necessitous

condition of the ships under my command, I must lay aside all thoughts

of them during this cruise." In this unhesitating subordination of

pecuniary to military considerations we see again the temper of Nelson,

between whom and Hawke there was much community of spirit, especially in

their independence of ordinary motives and standards. "Not that I

despise money," wrote Nelson near the end of a career in which he had

never known ease of circumstances; "quite the contrary, I wish I had a

hundred thousand pounds this moment;" but "I keep the frigates about me,

for I know their value in the day of battle, and compared with that day,

what signifies any prizes they might take?" Yet he had his legal share

in every such prize.

The opening of October 14th, the eighth day after Hawke's letter to

Warren just quoted, brought him the sight of his reward. At seven that

morning, the fleet being then some four hundred miles west of La

Rochelle in France, a number of sails were seen in the southeast. Chase

was given at once, and within an hour it was evident, from the great

crowd of vessels, that it was a large convoy outward-bound which could

only be enemies. It was in fact a fleet of three hundred French

merchantmen, under the protection of eight ships-of-the-line and one of

fifty guns, commanded by Commodore L'Etenduère. The force then with

Hawke were twelve of-the-line and two of fifty guns. Frigates and

lighter vessels of course accompanied both fleets. The average size and

armament of the French vessels were considerably greater than those of

the British; so that, although the latter had an undoubted superiority,

it was far from as great as the relative numbers would indicate.

Prominent British officers of that day claimed that a French sixty-gun

ship was practically the equal of a British seventy-four. In this there

may have been exaggeration; but they had good opportunity for judging,

as many French ships were captured.

When L'Etenduère saw that he was in the presence of a superior enemy, he

very manfully drew out his ships of war from the mass, and formed them

in order of battle, covering the convoy, which he directed to make its

escape accompanied by one of the smaller ships-of-the-line with the

light cruisers. He contrived also to keep to windward of the approaching

British. With so strong a force interposed, Hawke saw that no

prize-money was easily to be had, but for that fortune his mind was

already prepared. He first ordered his fleet to form order of battle;

but finding time was thereby lost he changed the signal to that for a

general chase, which freed the faster sailers to use their utmost speed

and join action with the enemy, secure of support in due time by their

consorts as they successively came up.

Half an hour before noon the leading British reached the French rear,

already under short canvas. The admiral then made signal to engage, and

the battle began. As the ships under fire reduced sail, the others

overtook them, passed by the unengaged side and successively attacked

from rear to van. As Hawke himself drew near, Rodney's ship, the

_Eagle_, having her wheel and much of her rigging shot away, was for the

time unmanageable and fell twice on board the flag-ship, the

_Devonshire_, driving her to leeward, and so preventing her from close

action with the French flag-ship _Tonnant_, of eighty guns, a force far

exceeding that of the _Devonshire_, which had but sixty-six. "This

prevented our attacking _Le Monarque_, 74, and the _Tonnant_, within any

distance to do execution. However we attempted both, especially the

latter. While we were engaged with her, the breechings of all our

lower-deck guns broke, and the guns flew fore and aft, which obliged us

to shoot ahead, for our upper guns could not reach her." The breaking

of the breechings--the heavy ropes which take the strain of the guns'

recoil--was doubtless accelerated by the undue elevation necessitated by

the extreme range. The collision with the _Eagle_ was one of the

incidents common to battle, but it doubtless marred the completeness of

the victory. Of the eight French ships engaged, six were taken; two, the

_Tonnant_ and her next astern, escaped, though the former was badly

mauled.

Despite the hindrance mentioned, Hawke's personal share in the affair

was considerable, through the conspicuous activity of the flag-ship.

Besides the skirmish at random shot with the _Tonnant_, she engaged

successively the _Trident_, 64, and the _Terrible_, 74, both which were

among the prizes. He was entirely satisfied also with the conduct of all

his captains,--save one. The freedom of action permitted to them by the

general chase, with the inspiring example of the admiral himself, was

nobly used. "Captain Harland of the _Tilbury_, 60, observing that the

_Tonnant_ fired single guns at us in order to dismast us, stood on the

other tack, _between her and the Devonshire_, and gave her a very smart

fire." It was no small gallantry for a 60 thus to pass close under the

undiverted broadside of an 80,--nearly double her force,--and that

without orders; and Hawke recognized the fact by this particular notice

in the despatch. With similar initiative, as the _Tonnant_ and

_Intrépide_ were seen to be escaping, Captain Saunders of the Yarmouth,

64, pursued them on his own motion, and was accompanied, at his

suggestion, by the sixty-gun ships of Rodney and of Saumarez. A detached

action of an hour followed, in which Saumarez fell. The enemy escaped,

it is true; but that does not impeach the judgment, nor lessen the

merits, of the officers concerned, for their ships were both much

smaller and more injured than those they attacked. Harland and Saunders

became distinguished admirals; of Rodney it is needless to say the same.

In his report of the business, Hawke used a quaint but very expressive

phrase, "As the enemy's ships were large, _they took a great deal of

drubbing_, and (consequently) lost all their masts, except two, who had

their foremasts left. This has obliged me to lay-to for these two days

past, in order to put them into condition to be brought into port, as

well as our own, which have suffered greatly." Ships large in tonnage

were necessarily also ships large in scantling, heavy ribbed,

thick-planked, in order to bear their artillery; hence also with sides

not easy to be pierced by the weak ordnance of that time. They were in a

degree armored ships, though from a cause differing from that of to-day;

hence much "drubbing" was needed, and the prolongation of the drubbing

entailed increase of incidental injury to spars and rigging, both their

own and those of the enemy. Nor was the armor idea, directly, at all

unrecognized even then; for we are told of the _Real Felipe_ in

Mathews's action, that, being so weakly built that she could carry only

twenty-four-pounders on her lower deck, she had been "fortified in the

most extraordinary surprising manner; her sides being lined four or five

foot thick everywhere with junk or old cables to hinder the shot from

piercing."

It has been said that the conduct of one captain fell under Hawke's

displeasure. At a Council of War called by him after the battle, to

establish the fitness of the fleet to pursue the convoy, the other

captains objected to sitting with Captain Fox of the _Kent_, until he

had cleared himself from the imputation of misbehavior in incidents they

had noticed. Hawke was himself dissatisfied with Fox's failure to obey a

signal, and concurred in the objection. On the subsequent trial, the

Court expressly cleared the accused of cowardice, but found him guilty

of certain errors of judgment, and specifically of leaving the _Tonnant_

while the signal for close action was flying. As the _Tonnant_ escaped,

the implication of accountability for that result naturally follows. For

so serious a consequence the sentence only was that he be dismissed his

ship, and, although never again employed, he was retired two years after

as a rear-admiral. It was becoming increasingly evident that error of

judgment is an elastic phrase which can be made to cover all degrees of

faulty action, from the mistakes to which every man is liable and the

most faithful cannot always escape, to conduct wholly incompatible with

professional efficiency or even manly honor.

The case of Fox was one of many occurring at about this period, which,

however differing in detail between themselves, showed that throughout

the navy, both in active service before the enemy, and in the more

deliberate criteria of opinion which influence Courts-Martial, there was

a pronounced tendency to lowness of standard in measuring officer-like

conduct and official responsibility for personal action; a misplaced

leniency, which regarded failure to do the utmost with indulgence, if

without approval. In the stringent and awful emergencies of war too much

is at stake for such easy tolerance. Error of judgment is one thing;

error of conduct is something very different, and with a difference

usually recognizable. To style errors of conduct "errors of judgment"

denies, practically, that there are standards of action external to the

individual, and condones official misbehavior on the ground of personal

incompetency. Military standards rest on demonstrable facts of

experience, and should find their sanction in clear professional

opinion. So known, and so upheld, the unfortunate man who falls below

them, in a rank where failure may work serious harm, has only himself to

blame; for it is his business to reckon his own capacity before he

accepts the dignity and honors of a position in which the interests of

the nation are intrusted to his charge.

An uneasy consciousness of these truths, forced upon the Navy and the

Government by widespread shortcomings in many quarters--of which

Mathews's battle was only the most conspicuous instance--resulted in a

very serious modification of the Articles of War, after the peace. Up to

1748 the articles dealing with misconduct before the enemy, which had

been in force since the first half of the reign of Charles II., assigned

upon conviction the punishment of "death, or other punishment, as the

circumstances of the offence shall deserve and the Court-Martial shall

judge fit." After the experiences of this war, the last clause was

omitted. Discretion was taken away. Men were dissatisfied, whether

justly or not, with the use of their discretion made by Courts-Martial,

and deprived them of it. In the United States Navy, similarly, at the

beginning of the Civil War, the Government was in constant struggle with

Courts-Martial to impose sentences of severity adequate to the offence;

leaving the question of remission, or of indulgence, to the executive.

These facts are worthy of notice, for there is a facile popular

impression that Courts-Martial err on the side of stringency. The

writer, from a large experience of naval Courts, upon offenders of many

ranks, is able to affirm that it is not so. Marryat, in his day, midway

between the two periods here specified, makes the same statement, in

"Peter Simple." "There is an evident inclination towards the prisoner;

every allowance and every favor granted him, and no legal quibbles

attended to." It may be added that the inconvenience and expense of

assembling Courts make the executive chary of this resort, which is

rarely used except when the case against an accused is pretty clear,--a

fact that easily gives rise to a not uncommon assertion, that

Courts-Martial are organized to convict.

This is the antecedent history of Byng's trial and execution. There had

been many examples of weak and inefficient action--of distinct errors of

conduct--such as Byng was destined to illustrate in the highest rank and

upon a large scale, entailing an unusual and conspicuous national

disaster; and the offenders had escaped, with consequences to themselves

more or less serious, but without any assurance to the nation that the

punishment inflicted was raising professional standards, and so giving

reasonable certainty that the like derelictions would not recur. Hence

it came to pass, in 1749, not amid the agitations of war and defeats,

but in profound peace, that the article was framed under which Byng

suffered:

"Every person in the fleet, who through cowardice, negligence, or

disaffection, shall in time of action, ... not do his utmost to take

or destroy every ship which it shall be his duty to engage; and to

assist all and every of His Majesty's ships, or those of His

allies, which it shall be his duty to assist and relieve, ... being

convicted thereof by sentence of a Court-Martial, shall suffer

death."

Let it therefore be observed, as historically certain, that the

execution of Byng in 1757 is directly traceable to the war of 1739-1747.

It was not determined, as is perhaps generally imagined, by an obsolete

statute revived for the purpose of a judicial murder; but by a recent

Act, occasioned, if not justified, by circumstances of marked national

humiliation and injury. The offences specified are those of which

repeated instances had been recently given; and negligence is ranked

with more positive faults, because in practice equally harmful and

equally culpable. Every man in active life, whatever his business, knows

this to be so.

At the time his battle with L'Etenduère was fought, Hawke was actually a

commander-in-chief; for Warren, through his disorder increasing upon

him, had resigned the command, and Hawke had been notified of the fact.

Hence there did not obtain in his case the consideration, so absurdly

advanced for limiting Nelson's reward after the Nile, that he was acting

under the orders of a superior several hundred miles away. Nevertheless,

Hawke, like Nelson later, was then a new man,--"a young officer;" and

the honor he received, though certainly adequate for a victory over a

force somewhat inferior, was not adequate when measured by that given

to Anson, the First Lord of the Admiralty, for a much less notable

achievement six months before. Anson was raised to the peerage; Hawke

was only given the Order of the Bath, the ribbon which Nelson coveted,

because a public token, visible to all, that the wearer had done

distinguished service. It was at that period a much greater distinction

than it afterwards became, through the great extension in numbers and

the division into classes. He was henceforth Sir Edward Hawke; and

shortly after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, signed April 30, 1748,

another flag-promotion raised him to the rank of Vice-Admiral, of the

Blue Squadron.

Such rank, accompanied by such recognized merit, insured that he should

thenceforth always command in chief; and so it was, with a single brief

interval due to a very special and exceptional cause to be hereafter

related. During the years of peace, from 1748 to 1755, his employment

was mainly on shore, in dockyard command, which carried with it

incidentally a good deal of presiding over Courts-Martial. This duty, in

his hands, could hardly fail to raise professional standards, with all

the effect that precedents, established by the rulings and decisions of

Courts, civil and military, exert upon practice. Such a period, however,

affords but little for narration, either professional or personal,

except when the particular occupations mentioned are the subject of

special study. General interest they cannot be said to possess.

But while thus unmarked on the biographical side, historically these

years were pregnant with momentous events, which not only affected the

future of great nations then existing, but were to determine for all

time the extension or restriction of their social systems and political

tendencies in vast distant regions yet unoccupied by civilized man, or

still in unstable political tenure. The balance of world power, in

short, was in question, and that not merely as every occurrence, large

or small, contributes its something to a general result, but on a grand

and decisive scale. The phrase "world politics," if not yet invented,

characterizes the issues then eminently at stake, though they probably

were not recognized by contemporaries, still blinded by the traditions

which saw in Europe alone the centre of political interests.

To realize the conditions, and their bearing upon a future which has

become our present, we should recall that in 1748 the British Empire, as

we understand the term, did not exist; that Canada and Louisiana--

meaning by the latter the whole undefined region west of the

Mississippi--were politically and socially French; that between them the

wide territory from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi was claimed by

France, and the claim vigorously contested not only by Great Britain

herself, but by the thirteen British colonies which became the United

States of America; that in India the representatives of both mother

countries were striving for mastery, not merely through influence in the

councils of native rulers, but by actual territorial sway, and that the

chances seemed on the whole to favor France.

In the great struggle for Anglo-Saxon predominance, which had begun

under William III., but was now approaching its crisis and final

decision in the Seven Years War, the determining factor was to be the

maritime strength of Great Britain. It is, therefore, the distinctive

and distinguished significance of Hawke's career that during so critical

a period he not only was the most illustrious and able officer of her

navy--the exponent of her sea-power--but that by the force of his

personality he chiefly shaped the naval outcome. He carried on the

development of naval warfare, revolutionized ideas, raised professional

standards, and thereby both affected the result in his own time, and

perpetuated an influence, the effect of which was to be felt in the

gigantic contests of later days. In this eminent particular, which

involves real originality, no sea officer of the eighteenth century

stands with him; in this respect only he and Nelson, who belongs rather

to the nineteenth, are to be named together.

In the years of nominal peace, 1748-1755, the Navy of Great Britain was

permitted by a politically cautious Government to decline much in

power; but there was compensation in the fact that that of France

drooped equally. In both countries there was then, as there has been

ever since, a party opposed to over-sea enterprise. "The partisans of

the Ministry," wrote Walpole in 1755, "d----n the Plantations [Colonies],

and ask if we are to involve ourselves in a war for them." The French

government underwent a like revulsion of feeling as regarded India, and

in 1754 recalled Dupleix in mid-career, in order to quiet the

remonstrances of Great Britain. It would be irrelevant, were it not

signally instructive, to remark that both nations passed under the

influence of the same ideas a hundred years later. In the middle of the

nineteenth century, the preponderant expression in England was that the

colonies were unprofitable incumbrances, and, if occasion arose, should

be encouraged to separate rather than urged to remain; while France,

through whatever motive, at a critical moment abandoned the field in

Egypt, by refusing joint action. It is, therefore, probably the result

of a true national genius, asserting itself above temporary aberrations,

that the close of the nineteenth century saw France wholly excluded,

politically, from Egypt, as she had before been from India, and Great

Britain involved in an expensive war, the aim of which was the

preservation of the imperial system, in the interest not only of the

mother country, but of the colonies as well.

And that it was in the interest of her colonies was precisely the all

important part which differentiated the Seven Years War in its day, and

the South African War in our day, from the struggle, so disastrous to

the Empire, that is known as the American Revolution. "There is no

repose for our thirteen colonies," wrote Franklin a hundred and fifty

years ago, "so long as the French are masters of Canada." "There is no

repose for British colonists in South Africa," was the virtual assertion

of Natal and the Cape Colony, "so long as the Boer political methods are

maintained in the Transvaal with the pledged support of the Orange Free

State." Irreconcilable differences of political and social systems, when

brought into close contact, involve irrepressible conflict, and admit of

no lasting solution except the subjugation and consequent submersion of

one or the other.

Such a final settlement was attained in North America and in India by

the Seven Years War. The full results thereof even we of this day have

not yet seen; for who can yet predict the effect upon the question of

the Pacific and of China, that by this war was assured the dominance of

the Anglo-Saxon political and legal tradition over the whole American

continent north of the tropics, and that the same tradition shall, for a

future yet indeterminate, decisively shape the course of India and the

Philippines? The preceding war, 1739-1748, had been substantially

inconclusive on the chief points at issue, because European questions

intervening had diverted the attention of both France and Great Britain

from America and from India; and the exhaustion of both had led to a

perfunctory compact, in which the underlying contention was

substantially ignored in order to reach formal agreement. That the

French conquest of Madras, in India, was yielded in exchange for

Louisburg and Cape Breton Island, which the American colonists had won

for England, typifies concisely the _status quo_ to which both parties

were willing momentarily to revert, while they took breath before the

inevitable renewal of the strife, with added fury, a few years later;

but then upon its proper scene, the sea and the over-sea regions in

dispute.

In this great arbitrament Hawke was at once called forth to play his

part. In 1754 diplomatic contention had become acrimonious, and various

events showed that the moment of open conflict was approaching. The

squadron in India was then considerably increased. In the beginning of

1755 Hawke was again afloat to command the Channel Fleet, the operations

of which extended ordinarily from the Channel, over the Bay of Biscay,

to Cape Finisterre. A naval force was collecting at the same time at

Portsmouth, under Boscawen, to counteract the preparations the French

were known to be making in North America. It sailed soon afterwards,

with orders to intercept a squadron convoying reinforcements for

Canada; and on the 8th of June two of these ships were captured off the

mouth of the St. Lawrence, the remainder escaping under cover of a fog.

In July Hawke went out, with instructions to take any French

ships-of-the-line that he might meet; and in August he was further

directed to send into port French ships of every kind, merchant and

other, that he might encounter. Before the end of the year three hundred

trading vessels, valued at $6,000,000, had been thus seized. War had not

yet been declared, but the captured vessels were held, as on other

occasions before and after, as hostages to await the settlement of

existing difficulties.

The French government protested of course, and recalled its ambassador,

but it did not proceed to formal hostilities. A great stroke was in

preparation at Toulon, which could be covered for a while by diplomatic

correspondence, coupled with angry demonstrations on the Atlantic and

Channel coasts. On the 10th of April, 1756, twelve French

ships-of-the-line and fifteen thousand troops sailed for Minorca, then a

British possession, and in the absence of a hostile fleet effected a

landing without opposition. The British cabinet having taken alarm too

late, Admiral Byng had sailed from Portsmouth, with ten ships, only

three days before the French left Toulon; when he arrived off Port

Mahon, six weeks later, a practicable breach in the works had already

been made. The French fleet was cruising outside in support of the

siege, and Byng, whose force had been increased to thirteen ships,

engaged it on May 20. The action was in itself indecisive; but, upon the

opinion of a council of war that nothing more could be done, Byng

retired to Gibraltar. The result to him personally is well known. Port

Mahon surrendered on June 28. War had by this been declared; by Great

Britain on the 17th of May, and by France June 20, 1756.

When the news of Byng's retreat was received in England, Hawke was sent

out to supersede him. He went only personally, accompanied by a second

in command, but with no fleet, and with sealed instructions. Opening

these when he reached Gibraltar, he found orders to send home Byng and

his second in command, and to institute an inquiry into the conduct of

the captains, suspending any one found "not to have acted with due

spirit and vigor." An investigation of this kind would enable him to

form an opinion of Byng's own conduct even more exact and authentic than

his other official opportunities for personal intercourse with the chief

actors, but he must have refrained with much discretion from expressing

his judgment on the affair in such way as to reach the public ear. It

was stated in the "Gentleman's Magazine," in 1766, that an inquiry was

provoked in the House of Commons, shortly after these events, by Pitt,

who took Byng's side; but that Hawke, being a member of the House,

denied some of Pitt's allegations as to the inadequacy of Byng's fleet,

on the strength of his own personal observation after taking over the

command. Thereupon, so the account says, the categorical test question,

the _argumentum ad hominem_, was put to him whether with Byng's means he

could have beat the enemy; and the manner of the first Pitt, in thus

dealing with an opponent in debate, can be imagined from what we know of

him otherwise. Whether the story be true or not, Hawke was not a man to

be so overborne, and the reply related is eminently characteristic, "By

the grace of God, he would have given a good account of them." Whatever

the reason, there seems little doubt that Pitt did not like Hawke; but

the latter was at once too independent to care, and too necessary to be

discarded.

He remained in the Mediterranean only six months, returning to England

in January, 1757. His tenure of this command was marked by an incident

which exemplifies the vigorous exercise of power frequent in naval

commanders, in the days when neither steam nor telegraph existed to

facilitate reference home for instructions; when men with their strong

right arms redressed on the spot what they thought a wrong. A British

ship carrying supplies to Gibraltar, where Hawke was then lying, was

captured by a French privateer and taken into the Spanish port of

Algeciras, on the opposite side of the bay. Her surrender was demanded

from the governor of the port, Spain being then neutral; but, being

refused, the admiral sent the boats of the squadron and cut her out.

This being resisted by the Spanish forts, a hundred British seamen were

killed or wounded. On the admiral's return home, Pitt is reported to

have told him that he thought he would himself have acted in the same

way, but would have made some concession afterwards. Hawke replied that

his duty, having the country's force in his hands, was to act as he

had,--not to make concessions; but that the Ministry could deal with the

case subsequently as it thought fit. In other words, as in joint

operations with the army, later in the year, he took the ground that the

land officers were the judges of their own business, but that he would

see them put safe on shore, as a first step; so in a matter affecting

national honor, as he conceived it, he would do the seaman's part and

redress the injury, after which the civil authority could arrange with

the other party. The known details of this transaction are not full

enough to permit a decided opinion as to how far the admiral was

justified in his action, judged even by the international law of the

day. It was not necessarily a breach of neutrality to admit a

belligerent with her prize; but it would have been, had the French ship

gone out from Algeciras, seized her prey, and returned with it. Whatever

the facts, however, the episode illustrates interestingly the spirit of

Hawke himself, and of the service of that day, as well as his

characteristic independence towards superiors when he felt himself

right.

From this time forward Hawke's service was confined to the Channel

Fleet. This was, during that war, the post for the most capable of

British officers; for, while the matter at stake was over-sea

predominance and conquest, yet both these depended upon the

communications of the French colonies and distant possessions with the

mother country. The source of all their strength, the one base

indispensable to their operations, was the coast of France; to close

exit from this was therefore to strike at the root. This was much less

true for the colonies of Great Britain, at least in America; their

numbers, and resources in every way, were so far superior to those of

Canada that they needed only to be preserved from interference by the

navy of France,--an end also furthered by the close watch of the French

ports. This blockade, as it is often, but erroneously, styled, Hawke was

the first to maintain thoroughly and into the winter months; and in so

doing he gave an extension to the practice of naval warfare, which

amounted to a veritable revolution in naval strategy. The conception was

one possible only to a thorough seaman, who knew exactly and practically

what ships could do; one also in whom professional knowledge received

the moral support of strong natural self-confidence,--power to initiate

changes, to assume novel responsibility, through the inner assurance of

full adequacy to bear it.

All this Hawke had. The method, therefore, the holding the sea, and the

exposure of heavy ships to weather before thought impossible, was well

within the range of his ability,--of his native and acquired faculties;

but it is due to him to recognize the intellectual force, the

originality, which lifted him above the accepted tradition of his

predecessors, and by example transmitted to the future a system of

warfare that then, as well as in his own hands, was to exercise a

decisive effect upon the course of history. It is also to be remembered

that he took this weighty step with instruments relatively imperfect,

and greatly so. The bottoms of ships were not yet coppered; in

consequence they fouled very rapidly, the result of which was loss of

speed. This meant that much greater power, press of canvas, was needed

to force them through the water, and that they had to be sent frequently

into port to be cleaned. Thus they were less able than ships of later

days to overtake an enemy, or to keep off a lee shore, while more

intricate administration and more ships were required to maintain the

efficiency of the squadron by a system of reliefs. Hawke noted also

another difficulty,--the fatigue of the crews in cleaning their ships'

bottoms. It was even more important to success, he said, to restore the

seaman, worn by cruising, by a few days quiet and sleep in port, than to

clean thoroughly at the expense of exhausting them. "If the enemy should

slip out and run," he writes, "we must follow as fast as we can."

Details such as these, as well as the main idea, must be borne in mind,

if due credit is to be given to Hawke for one of the most decisive

advances ever made in the practice of naval campaigning.

Some time, however, was to elapse before the close watch of the French

ports became a leading feature in the naval policy of the government.

The early disasters of the war had forced the king, after much

resistance, finally to accept the first Pitt as the leading minister of

the Crown, in June, 1757. Pitt's military purpose embraced two principal

objects: 1, the establishment of the British colonial system by the

destruction of that of France, which involved as a necessary precedent

the control of the sea by a preponderant navy; and, 2, the support of

Frederic of Prussia, then engaged in his deadly contest with the

combined armies of France, Austria, and Russia. Frederic's activity made

a heavy drain upon the troops and the treasure of France, preventing her

by just so much from supporting her colonies and maintaining her fleet;

but, heavily outnumbered as he was, it was desirable to work all

possible diversion in his favor by attacks elsewhere. This Pitt proposed

to do by a series of descents upon the French coast, compelling the

enemy to detach a large force from before the Prussian king to protect

their own shores.

As far as the home naval force was concerned, the years 1757 and 1758

were dominated by this idea of diversion in favor of Frederic the

Great. From the general object of these enterprises, the army was

necessarily the principal agent; but the navy was the indispensable

auxiliary. Hawke's association with them is interesting chiefly as

illustrative of professional character; for there was little or no room

for achievement of naval results. The first expedition in which he was

concerned was that against Rochefort in 1757. This, though now long

forgotten, occasioned by its failure a storm of contemporary

controversy. Whatever chances of success it may under any circumstances

have had were lost beforehand, owing to the lateness of the

season--June--in which Pitt took office. Preparation began at the moment

when execution was due. The troops which should have sailed in early

summer could not, from delays apparently unavoidable under the

conditions, get away before September 10. Hawke himself hoisted his

flag--assumed active command--only on August 15. The previous

administration was responsible for whatever defect in general readiness

increased this delay; as regards the particular purpose, Pitt's

government was at fault in attempting at all an undertaking which, begun

so late in the year, could not expect success under the notorious

inadequacy of organization bequeathed to him by his predecessors. But

there will always be found at the beginning of a war, or upon a change

of commanders, a restless impatience to do something, to make a showing

of results, which misleads the judgment of those in authority, and

commonly ends, if not in failure, at least in barren waste of powder and

shot.

Not the least of the drawbacks under which the enterprise labored was

extremely defective information--especially hydrographic. The character

of the coast, the places suited for landing, the depths of water, and

the channels, were practically unknown. Hence a necessity for

reconnoissances, pregnant of indefinite delay, as might have been

foreseen. Among Hawke's memoranda occur the words, "Not to undertake

anything without good pilots." The phrase is doubly significant, for he

was not a man to worry needlessly about pilots, knowing that pilots look

not to military results, but merely to their own responsibility not to

take the ground; and it shows the total ignorance under which labored

all who were charged with an undertaking that could only succeed as a

surprise, executed with unhesitating rapidity. Hawke himself was

astounded at finding in Basque Roads, before Rochefort, "a safe spacious

road in which all the navy of England, merchant ships included, may ride

without the least annoyance. Before I came here, the place was

represented as very difficult of access, and so narrow that ships could

not lie in safety from the forts--nay, _the pilots made many baulks

before we came in_." In fact, want of good pilotage summed up the fault

of the expedition, from its inception in the Cabinet throughout all the

antecedent steps of consultation and preparation. Pitt's impetuosity

doubtless acted as a spur to laggards, but it was accompanied by a

tendency to overbearing insolence that not infrequently browbeats

cautious wisdom. When applied to a man like Hawke, strong in natural

temper and in conscious mastery of his profession, the tone

characteristic of Pitt provokes an equally resolute self-assertion, as

far removed from subjection as it is from insubordination; but

friendship becomes impossible, and even co-operation difficult.

Throughout all Hawke kept his head, and made no serious mistake; but he

accepts no unmerited censures. Seeing that the transports are not enough

for the healthful carriage of the troops, he so represents it. The

government, already impatient at any report of defects, hopes that

things are now arranged to his _satisfaction_. "I am astonished at this

expression," he says, "it is my duty to represent defects, but I am

_satisfied_ with any decision _you_ make." Again, "I have received your

letter signifying His Majesty's directions to use the utmost diligence

in embarking the troops and getting to sea. As I cannot doubt my letter

of Sunday being immediately communicated to you, I should have expected

that _before yours was sent_ His Majesty would have been fully satisfied

that I needed no spur in executing his orders." As Hawke and Anson--the

First Lord--were friends, there can be little doubt that we see here a

firm protest against the much lauded tone to which the efficiency of the

British army and navy under Pitt has been too exclusively attributed. It

was in the civil administration, the preparation that underlies military

success, which being at home was under his own eye, that Pitt's energy

was beneficially felt, and also in his prompt recognition of fit

instruments; but he had no need to discover Hawke or Boscawen. He might

as well be thought to have discovered the sun.

In discharging his part of the expedition Hawke's course is consistent

and clear. It must in the first place be recognized that such

enterprises are of secondary importance, and do not warrant the risks

which are not only justifiable but imperative when a decisive issue is

at stake. Hawke's heroic disregard of pilotage difficulties at Quiberon,

in 1759, would have been culpable temerity at Basque Roads, in 1757.

But, save delays on this account, no time is lost by him. When the

decision to land is reached, he is clear as to the possibility of

landing; but when the generals think it impossible to effect certain

results, he replies that is their business, on which he does not pretend

to judge. In his evidence before the Court afterwards, he said, "Whether

they should land or not, he constantly thought it the part of the

generals to determine. He could not but suppose they were infinitely

better judges of their own business than he could be." Their conduct was

marked by vacillations strange to him, and which apparently displeased

him; the troops being, on one occasion, embarked in the boats for some

hours, and yet returning to the ships without proceeding. He then

addressed a formal letter to the commanding general, saying that if he

had no further operation to propose the fleet would return at once to

England, and he declined to attend a Council of War to decide either of

these points. The Army should decide, alone, whether it could effect

anything by landing; if not, he, without asking counsel, would stay no

longer. On October 7th he reached Spithead.

Pitt, who had espoused Byng's cause against the previous administration,

followed its precedent in throwing the blame on the military and naval

leaders. In Parliament, he "declared solemnly his belief that there was

a determined resolution, both in the naval and military commanders,

against any vigorous exertion of the national power." For far less than

this accusation Byng had been condemned; but in fact the fault at

Rochefort lay clearly on those who issued the orders,--upon the Cabinet;

upon the character of the expedition itself,--a great risk for a

secondary and doubtful object; upon the inconsiderate haste which

disregarded alike the season and the inadequate knowledge; upon

defective preparation in the broadest sense of the words. Diversions, in

truth, are feints, in which the utmost smoke with the least fire is the

object. Carried farther, they entail disaster; for they rest on no solid

basis of adequate force, but upon successful deception. Pitt's angry

injustice met with its due rebuke the next year at St. Cas. It can

scarcely be doubted that words such as those quoted were responsible, in

part at least, for the disastrous issue of that diversion, the story of

which belongs, if to the navy at all, to the life of Howe.

That Hawke resented this language can scarcely be doubted, and none the

less that he evidently himself felt that something might have been

attempted by the troops. He was clear of fault in his own consciousness;

but in the general censure he was involved with his associates--known,

so to say, by his friends, implicated in the meshes of a half-truth,

where effort to clear one's self results in worse entanglement. He had

the manly cast of character which will not struggle for

self-vindication; but his suppressed wrath gathered force, until a year

later it resulted, upon occasion of official provocation, in an

explosion that has not a close parallel in naval history.

He had hoisted his flag again on February 28, 1758. His first service

was directed against a French squadron of five ships-of-the-line,

fitting at Rochefort to convoy troops for the relief of Louisburg, in

Cape Breton Island, then about to be besieged by British and colonial

forces. Hawke's observations of the previous year had ascertained the

hitherto unknown facilities of Basque Roads for occupation by a fleet

and consequent effectual interception of such an expedition. Upon

making the land the French vessels were found already in the Roads,

therefore soon to sail; but before this superior force of seven ships

they cut their cables, and fled across the shoals up the river Charente,

on which Rochefort lies. Hawke, instructed by his previous experience,

had earnestly but fruitlessly demanded fire-ships and bomb-vessels to

destroy the enemy in case they grounded on the flats; which they did,

and for some hours lay exposed to such an attack. Not having these

means, he had to watch helplessly the process of lightening and towing

by which they at last made their escape. He then returned to England,

having frustrated the relief expedition but, through defective

equipment, not destroyed the vessels. The Admiralty, upon receiving his

report of the transaction, made no acknowledgments to him.

Pitt had profited by Hawke's ineffectual request for small vessels and

his suffering from the want of them; but he utilized the suggestions in

a manner that robbed their author of any share in the results. A

squadron of that sort was to be constituted, to operate on the French

coast in diversions like that of 1757; but it was to be an independent

command, under an officer chosen by the Government without consulting

the admiral. To the main fleet was assigned the necessary, but in credit

very secondary, office of cruising off Brest, to prevent interruption by

the French ships there; to play, in short, the inconspicuous rôle of a

covering force, while the light squadron had the brilliant part of

fighting. The officer selected for the latter was Howe, deservedly a

favorite of Hawke's, but not therefore acceptable to him as a supplanter

in his honors.

The admiral had been for some time superintending the equipment of the

vessels for the light division, when, on May 10, 1758, Howe reported to

him, bringing his orders. Hawke boiled over at once; and, in a heat

evidently beyond his will to control, despatched the following letter,

three hours after Howe's arrival.

Portsmouth, 7 o'clock p.m. 10th May, 1758.

Sir,--About 4 o'clock arrived here Captain Howe, and delivered me

their Lordships' order of the 9th. In last September I was sent out

to command an expedition under all the disadvantages one could

possibly labor under, arising chiefly from my being under the

influence of land-officers in Councils of War at sea.[4] Last

cruise (March-April, 1758) I went out on a particular service,

almost without the least means of performing it. Now every means to

ensure success is provided; another is to reap the credit; while it

is probable that I, with the capital ships, might be ordered to

cruise in such a manner as to prevent his failing in this attempt.

To fit out his ships for this service I have been kept here,[5] and

even now have their Lordships' directions, at least in terms, to

obey him. He is to judge of what he wants for his expedition; he is

to make his demands, and I am to comply with them. I have

therefore directed my flag immediately to be struck, and left their

Lordships' orders with Vice-Admiral Holburne. For no consequence

that can attend my striking it without orders shall ever outbalance

with me the wearing it one moment with discredit.

I am, etc.

E. HAWKE.

It is impossible to justify so extreme a step as abandoning one's

command without permission, and especially under circumstances that

permitted the orderly course of asking for detachment. Nevertheless,

Hawke did well to be angry; and, as is sometimes the case, an

injudicious and, in point of occasion, unseemly loss of temper,

doubtless contributed to insure for him in the future, to a degree which

forbearance or mere remonstrance would not have assured, the

consideration essential to his duties. Many will remember the effect

produced by Plimsoll's unparliamentary outbreak. The erroneous

impression, that admirals and generals fit to be employed at all were to

be ridden booted and spurred, needed correction. Hawke had

misapprehended the intention of the Government, in so far as believing

that the light squadron was to be employed in Basque Roads, the scene of

last year's failure; but he was right in thinking that intrusting the

enterprise to another, on that occasion his junior, would be a

reflection upon himself, intensified by making the command practically

independent, while he was limited to the covering duty. Under these

circumstances, erroneously imagined by him, the squadron should have

been attached to his command, and the particular direction left to him;

the Government giving to him, instead of to Howe, the general orders

which it issued, and arranging with him beforehand as to the command of

the detached squadron.

But even under the actual conditions, of an intention to operate on the

western Channel coast of France, it would have been graceful and

appropriate to recognize Hawke's eminent past, and recent experience, by

keeping under his command the ships he had himself fitted for the

service, and directing him to despatch Howe with the necessary

instructions. It was as in the Nile campaign, where the general

directions were sent to St. Vincent, with a clear expression of the

Government's preference for Nelson as the officer to take charge. The

intended scene of Howe's operations, if not formally within Hawke's

district, was far less distant from Brest than Toulon and Italy were

from Cadiz, where St. Vincent covered Nelson's detachment. In the wish

for secrecy, perhaps, or perhaps through mere indifference to the effect

produced upon Hawke, as a man assumed to need curb and spur, he was left

in ignorance, to imagine what he pleased; and this action, succeeding

previous neglects and Pitt's imputations of the previous year, elicited

an outburst which, while it cannot be justified in its particular

manifestation, was in spirit inevitable. A man submissive to such

treatment as he had good cause to suspect, would be deficient in the

independence of character, and sensitive regard to official reputation,

without which he was unfit to command the Channel Fleet.

Hawke was summoned at once to the Admiralty, and in the interview which

ensued, as shown by the minutes endorsed on his own letter, his

misconception as to the quarter in which Howe was to act afforded

standing ground for a compromise. Hawke having committed himself

officially, and upon a mistaken premise, the Admiralty had him

technically at their mercy; but such a triumph as they could win by

disciplining him would be more disastrous than a defeat. He disclaimed

resentment towards any person, and reiterated that his action was

intended merely to defend his character and honor, which he said--to

quote the minute exactly--"were not _so much_ touched as he apprehended

when the suspicion he had of Mr. Howe's going to Basque Roads

arose--from the Lords asking him some days since for a draft of the

Roads." The italics are the present writer's; but the words as they

stand would indicate that he did not yield his view of the matter in

general, nor leave hearers under any doubt as to how far he could safely

be treated with contumely or slight. There can be little doubt that the

substantial result was to strengthen his position in the exacting duty

that lay before him in the following year.

The whole business was then salved over by the First Lord, Anson, taking

command of the Channel Fleet for the particular occasion. Hawke

accompanied him as second in command, while Howe went his way with the

light squadron and the troops. Both divisions sailed on the 1st of June.

On the 18th our admiral was so unwell with a severe fever and cold--a

complaint to which he was much subject--that he had to ask to be sent

into port. He went ashore before the end of the month, and remained

unemployed till the following May.

The year 1759 is the culminating epoch of Hawke's career. In it occurred

the signal triumph of Quiberon Bay, the seal of his genius, significant

above all as demonstrating that the ardor of the leader had found

fulfilment in his followers, that the spirit of Hawke had become the

spirit of the Navy. This year also yielded proof of his great capacity

as a seaman and administrator, in the efficient blocking of Brest,

prolonged through six months of closest watching into the period of the

winter gales, in face of which it had hitherto been thought impossible

to keep the sea with heavy ships massed in fleets; for, as he most

justly said, in explaining the necessity of maintaining the rendezvous

fixed by him, "A single ship may struggle with a hard gale of wind when

a squadron cannot. In working against a strong westerly gale in the

Channel, where it cannot make very long stretches,"--because it finds

shores and shoals on either side,--"it must always by wearing lose

ground, but more especially if it should so blow as to put it past

carrying sail." The method used by Hawke was not only an innovation on

all past practice, but, as has before been said, constituted the pattern

whereon were framed the great blockades of the Napoleonic period, which

strangled both the naval efficiency and the commercial and financial

resources of the Empire. These were but developments of Hawke's fine

achievement of 1759; the prestige of originality belongs to him. Even

their success, with better ships and the improvement of detail always

accompanying habit, is foreshadowed by his. "I may safely affirm that,

except the few ships that took refuge in Conquet, hardly a vessel of any

kind has been able to enter or come out of Brest for four

months,"--ending October 10th. "They have been obliged to unload near

forty victuallers at Quimperley and carry their cargoes by land to

Brest. It must be the fault of the weather, not ours, if any of them

escape."

It was suitable indeed that so strenuous and admirable an exhibition of

professional ability,--of naval generalship,--alike in strategic

combination, tactical disposition, and administrative superintendence,

should terminate in a brilliant triumph, at once its fruit and its

crown; wherein sedulous and unremittent readiness for instant action,

comprehended by few, received a startling demonstration which none could

fail to understand. As Nelson was pursued by ignorant sneers before the

Nile, so Hawke was burned in effigy by the populace, at the very moment

when laborious effort was about to issue in supreme achievement. The

victory in either case is less than the antecedent labor, as the crown,

after all, is less than the work, the symbol than the fact symbolized.

A brief account of preceding conditions, and of the dispositions

maintained to meet them, is therefore necessary to due appreciation of

the victory of Quiberon Bay. Although the diversions of 1758 had not

very materially aided Frederic of Prussia, they had inflicted distinct

humiliation and harassment upon France. This, added to defeat upon the

Continent and in North America, had convinced the French Government, as

it convinced Napoleon a half-century later, that a determined blow must

be struck at England herself as the operative centre upon which rested,

and from which proceeded, the most serious detriment to their cause and

that of their allies. It was resolved, therefore, to attempt an invasion

of England; to the threat of which the English people were always

extremely sensitive.

From local conditions the French preparations had to be made in several

separate places; it was the task of the British Navy to prevent the

concentration of these different detachments in a joint effort. The

troops must embark, of course, from some place near to England; their

principal points of assembly were on the Channel, whence they were to

cross in flat-boats, and in the Biscay ports, from Brest to the mouth of

the Loire. The Bay of Quiberon, from which Hawke's action takes its

name, lies between the two latter points. It is sheltered from the full

force of the Atlantic gales by a peninsula of the same name, and by some

shoals which prolong the barrier to the southward of the promontory.

To cross safely, it was necessary to provide naval protection. To this

end squadrons were equipped in Toulon and in Brest. Combined at the

latter point, and further strengthened by divisions expected to return

from North America, they would constitute a force of very serious

consideration in point of numbers. Rochefort also was an element in the

problem, though a minor one; for either the small force already there

might join the concentration, or, if the port were unwatched, the

American or other divisions might get in there, and be at least so much

nearer to Brest, or to a neighboring point of assembly, as Quiberon Bay.

As the French Navy was essential to the French crossing, as its junction

was essential to action, as the point of junction was at or near

Brest--for there was the district near which the troops were

assembling--and as by far the largest detachment was already in Brest,

that port became the important centre upon blocking which depended

primarily the thwarting of the invasion. If the French Navy succeeded in

concentrating at Brest, the first move in the game would be lost. Hawke

therefore had the double duty of not allowing the squadron there to get

out without fighting, and of closing the entrance to reinforcements. The

latter was far the more difficult, and could not be assured beyond the

chance of failure, because an on-shore gale, which would carry his fleet

into the Channel to avoid being driven on the French coast, would be

fair for an outside enemy to run into the port, friendly to him. This

actually occurred at a most critical moment, but it could only happen by

a combination of circumstances; that is, by the hostile squadron

chancing to arrive at a moment when the British had been blown off. If

it approached under ordinary conditions of weather it would run into the

midst of foes.

The great names of the British Navy were then all afloat in active

command. Rodney was before Havre, which he bombarded in the course of

the summer, doing a certain amount of damage, harassing the local

preparations for invasion, and intercepting vessels carrying supplies to

the Brest fleet and coastwise. Boscawen, second only to Hawke, was

before Toulon, to hold there the dozen ships-of-the-line under De la

Clue, as Hawke was charged to stop the score under Conflans.

In broad conception, Hawke's method was simple and can be easily stated;

the difficulty lay in carrying it out. The main body of his force had a

rendezvous, so chosen that in violent weather from the westward it could

at worst drift up Channel, but usually would have a fair wind for

Torbay, a roadstead on the British coast about a hundred miles distant.

To the rendezvous the fleet was not tied under ordinary circumstances;

it was merely a headquarters which admitted of cruising, but where

despatches from home would always find the admiral in person, or news of

his whereabouts. Near Brest itself was kept an inshore squadron of three

or four ships, which under ordinary circumstances could see the enemy

inside, noting his forwardness; for the cannon of the day could not

molest a vessel more than a mile from the entrance, while the conditions

within of spars and sails indicated to a seaman the readiness or

intention to move, to a degree not ascertainable with ships dependent on

steam only.

With these dispositions, if a westerly gale came on, the fleet held its

ground while it could, but when expedient to go put into Torbay. Owing

to the nearness of the two places, the weather, when of a pronounced

character, was the same at both. While the wind held to the westward of

south, or even at south-southeast, a ship-of-the-line could not beat out

from Brest; much less a fleet. The instant the wind went east, fair for

exit, the British left Torbay, with certainty of not being too late;

for, though the enemy might get out before their return, the east wind

would not suffer them to close with the French coast at another point

soon enough to avoid a meeting. While in Torbay the time was improved by

taking on board stores and provisions; nor was the night's rest at

anchor a small consideration for seamen worn with continual cruising.

The practical merits displayed by Hawke in maintaining this simple but

arduous service were, first and supremely, the recognition of its

possibility, contrary to a tradition heretofore as commonly and as

blindly accepted as those of the line-of-battle, and of the proper

methods for fleet attack before described. It must be remembered also

that in these wars, 1739-1763, for the first time the British Navy found

the scene of action, in European waters, to be the Biscay coast of

France. In the former great wars of the seventeenth century, French

fleets entered the Channel, and pitched battles were fought there and in

the North Sea. Thence the contest shifted to the Mediterranean, where

the great fleets operated in the later days of William III., and the

reign of Anne. Then, too, the heavy ships, like land armies, went into

winter quarters. It was by distinguished admirals considered

professionally criminal to expose those huge yet cumbrous engines of the

nation's power to the buffetings of winter gales, which might unfit them

next year to meet the enemy, snugly nursed and restored to vigor in

home ports during the same time. The need of periodical refitting and

cleaning the bottoms clinched the argument in favor of this seasonable

withdrawal from the sea.

With this presumed necessity, attention had not been paid to developing

a system of maintenance and refit adapted to the need of a fleet

performing what Hawke undertook. In this, of course, there cannot be

assigned to him the individuality of merit that may belong to a

conception, and does belong to the man who initiates and assumes, as he

did, the responsibility for a novel and hazardous course of action. Many

agents had to contribute to the forwarding of supplies and repairs; but,

while singleness of credit cannot be assumed, priority is justly due to

him upon whose shoulders fell not only all blame, in case his enterprise

failed, but the fundamental difficulty of so timing the reliefs of the

vessels under his command, so arranging the order of rotation in their

going and coming as to keep each, as well as the whole body, in a

constant condition of highest attainable efficiency--in numbers, in

speed, and in health--for meeting the enemy, whose time of exit could

not be foreknown. Naturally, too, the man on whom all this fell, and who

to the nation would personify success or failure, as the event might

be,--terms which to him would mean honor or ruin,--that man, when

professionally so competent as Hawke, would be most fruitful in orders

and in suggestions to attain the desired end. In this sense there can be

no doubt that he was foremost, and his correspondence bears evidence of

his preoccupation with the subject.

Into particulars it is scarcely necessary to go. Administrative details

are interesting only to specialists. But one quality absolutely

essential, and in which most men fail, he manifested in high degree. He

feared no responsibility, either towards the enemy, or towards the home

authorities. Superior and inferior alike heard plainly from him in case

of defects; still more plainly in case of neglect. "It is a matter of

indifference to me whether I fight the enemy, should they come out, with

an equal number, one ship more, or one ship less." "I depend not on

intelligence from the French ports; what I see I believe, and regulate

my conduct accordingly;" a saying which recalls one of Farragut's,--"The

officers say I don't believe anything. I certainly believe very little

that comes in the shape of reports. They keep everybody stirred up. I

mean to be whipped or to whip my enemy, and not to be scared to death."

Agitation, to a very considerable degree, was the condition of Hawke's

superiors; to say the least, anxiety strained to the point of

approaching panic. But Hawke could have adopted truly as his own

Farragut's other words, "I have full confidence in myself and in my

judgment,"--that is, of course, in professional matters; and he spoke

reassuringly out of the firmness of his self-reliance. "Their Lordships

will pardon me for observing that from the present disposition of the

squadron I think there is little room for alarm while the weather

continues tolerable." Again, a few days later, "Their Lordships may rest

assured there is little foundation for the present alarms. While the

wind is fair for the enemy's coming out, it is also favorable for our

keeping them in; and while we are obliged to keep off they cannot stir."

This was in October, when the weather was already wild and the days

shortening.

With equally little hesitancy, though without breach of subordination,

he overbears the Admiralty when they wish to pay what he considers

exaggerated care to cleaning the bottoms, traceable, no doubt, to the

prejudices of the Sea Lords. "If the ships take up a month by cleaning,

from the time they leave me to their return, it will be impossible for

me to keep up the squadron. The only practicable way is to heel, etc.,

and confine them to ten days in port for the refreshment of their

companies in case they should miss the spring tide." "Their Lordships

will give me leave to observe that the relief of the squadron depends

more on the refreshment of the ships' companies than on cleaning the

ships. By the hurry the latter must be performed in, unless the ship

continues a month or five weeks in port, which the present exigency will

by no means admit of, the men would be so harassed and fatigued that

they would return to me in a worse condition than when they left me....

However, I shall endeavor to comply with all their Lordships' directions

in such manner as, _to the best of my judgment, will answer their

intentions in employing me here_." The words italicized strike the true

note of subordination duly tempered with discretion.

To the Navy Board, a civil adjunct to the Admiralty, but possessed of

considerable independent power to annoy officers in active military

service, he took a more peremptory tone. He had discharged on his own

authority, and for reasons of emergency, a mutinous surgical officer.

For this he was taken to task, as Nelson a generation later was rebuked

by the same body. "I have to acquaint you," he replied, "that there was

no mistake in his being ordered by me to be discharged." He then gives

his reasons, and continues, "For the real good of the service I ordered

him to be discharged, and his crime noted on his list of pay, for your

information. I shall not enter into any dispute with you about my

authority as a Commanding Officer, neither do I ever think of

inconveniences or prejudices to myself, as a party, according to your

insinuations, where the good of the service is concerned." It must be

added that to subordinates he was as liberal with praise as he was with

censure, where either was merited; nor did he fail in kindly personal

intervention upon due occasion for deserving or unfortunate men. More

reserved, apparently, than Nelson, he seems to have been like him

sympathetic; and hence it was that, as before observed, it was his

spirit that he communicated to the navy rather than a system, admirable

as was the strategic system embodied in his methods of blockade. It was

by personal influence rather than by formulated precept that Hawke

inspired his service, and earned a just claim to be reckoned the

greatest force of his century in naval development.

The general conditions being as described, the fighting in the naval

campaign of 1759 began in the Mediterranean. On June 8th Boscawen,

having driven two French frigates into a fortified bay near Toulon,

attacked them with three ships-of-the-line. The attack failed, and the

British ships were badly injured; a timely lesson on the general

inexpediency of attacking shore batteries with vessels, unless for

special and adequate reasons of probable advantage. In July he returned

to Gibraltar, to refit and for provisions. In the absence of details,

positive criticism is unwarranted; but it is impossible not to note the

difference between this step, during summer weather, and the Toulon

blockades of Lord St. Vincent, who, when before Brest, modelled his

course upon that of Hawke. The port being thus left open, De la Clue

sailed on the 5th of August for Brest. On the 17th he was near the

straits of Gibraltar, hugging the African coast, and falling night gave

promise of passing unseen, when a British lookout frigate caught sight

of his squadron. She hauled in for Gibraltar at once, firing signal

guns. Boscawen's ships were in the midst of repairs, mostly dismantled;

but, the emergency not being unforeseen, spars and sails were sent

rapidly aloft, and within three hours they were underway in pursuit. The

French division separated during the night. Five ships put into Cadiz.

The British next morning caught sight of the remaining seven, among

which was the admiral, and a sharp chase resulted in the destruction of

five. From August 18th the Toulon fleet was eliminated from the

campaign; though the vessels in Cadiz remained to the end a charge upon

Hawke's watchfulness, similar to that caused by the enemy's divisions

expected from America.

That one of the latter was already on its way home, under the command of

Commodore Bompart, was notified to our admiral on September 21st by a

despatch from England. He immediately sent a division of heavy ships to

reinforce the light squadron to the southward. "If the alarm is great

now," he said, "it will be much greater if he get into Rochefort."

Further information from the West Indies contradicted the first report,

and on October 10th Hawke recalled the ships-of-the-line, apparently at

the wish of the Admiralty; for he expresses his regret at doing so, and

asks for more of the "many ships" then in England, that Rochefort may be

blocked as well as Brest. The incident has now little importance,

except as indicating the general national nervousness, and the

difficulty under which he labored through force inadequate to the

numerous and exacting duties entailed by constant holding the sea in

war. From this point of view it bears upon his conduct.

That Bompart was coming proved to be true. On November 10th Hawke

anchored with the fleet in Torbay, after three days of struggle against

a very heavy westerly storm. "Bompart, if near, may get in," he wrote

the Admiralty, "but no ship can get out from any port in the Bay." The

weather had then moderated, but was still too rough for boating, even in

the sheltered roadstead; hence he could get no reports of the state of

the ships, which shows incidentally the then defective system of

signalling. On the 12th he sailed, on the 13th was again forced into

Torbay by a south-wester, but on the 14th got away finally. On the

afternoon of the 16th the fleet was twenty-five miles from the Island of

Ushant, near Brest, and there learned from transports, returning from

the light division off Quiberon, that the French fleet had been seen the

day before, seventy-five miles northwest of Belleisle; therefore some

fifty or sixty miles southeast of the point where this news was

received. Conflans had sailed the same day that the British last left

Torbay, but before his departure Bompart had opportunely arrived, as

Hawke had feared. His ships were not able to go at once to sea on so

important a mission, but their seasoned crews were a welcome

reinforcement and were distributed through the main fleet, which

numbered twenty-one ships-of-the-line. Hawke had twenty-three.

Concluding that the enemy were bound for Quiberon, Hawke carried a press

of sail for that place. He knew they must be within a hundred miles of

him and aimed to cut them off from their port. During the 17th the wind,

hanging to the south and east, was adverse to both fleets, but on the

18th and 19th it became more favorable. At half-past eight on the

morning of the 20th, one of the lookout frigates ahead of the British

made the signal for sighting a fleet. It was then blowing strong from

the west-northwest, and Belleisle, which is ten miles west of Quiberon

Bay, and south of which the fleets must pass, was by the English

reckoning forty miles distant. A course of some fifty or sixty miles was

therefore to be run before the enemy could close the land, and there

remained about eight hours of sun.

Hawke's day had come. Towards ten o'clock he had the enemy sufficiently

in view to see that they were intent upon securing their arrival, rather

than fighting. He therefore made signal for the seven ships nearest them

"to chase and draw into a line-of-battle ahead of me, and endeavour to

stop them till the rest of the squadron should come up, who also were

_to form as they chased that no time might be lost_ in the pursuit." The

French "kept going off under such sail as all their squadron could

carry and _yet keep together_, while we crowded after him _with every

sail our ships could bear_." The words italicized sum up the whole

philosophy of a general chase. The pursued are limited to the speed of

the slowest, otherwise he who cannot but lag is separated and lost; the

pursuer need slacken no whit, for his friends are ever coming up to his

aid. Overtaking is inevitable, unless the distance is too short.

At half-past two firing began between the French rear and the leading

British. Of the two foremost in the chase, who thus opened the fight,

one was the same _Dorsetshire_ which in Mathews's battle had played the

laggard. Her captain, who thus rose to his opportunity, was one of the

two to whom Hawke addressed the enthusiastic compliment that they had

"behaved like angels." Hawke himself was at this moment south of

Belleisle, with several ships ahead of him; while the French admiral was

leading his fleet, in order better to pilot them over dangerous ground,

and by his own action show more surely than was possible by signal what

he wished done from moment to moment. At the southern extreme of the

shoals which act as a breakwater to Quiberon Bay are some formidable

rocks, known as the Cardinals. Around these M. de Conflans passed soon

after the firing began, his rear being then in hot action.

Hawke himself was without a pilot, as were most of his captains. The

sailing master of the flag-ship was charged with that duty for the

fleet, but had of the ground before him no exact personal knowledge; nor

could reliance be placed upon the imperfect surveys of a locality, which

it was not the interest of an almost constant enemy to disclose. Enough,

however, was known to leave no doubt of the greatness of the risks, and

it was the master's part to represent them. The occasion, however, was

not one of a mere diversion, of a secondary operation, but of one vital

to the nation's cause; and Hawke's reply, stamped with the firmness of a

great officer, showed how little professional timidity had to do with

his laudable care of his fleet in Basque Roads two years before. "You

have done your duty in warning me," he replied; "now lay us alongside

the French Commander-in-chief." So amid the falling hours of the day the

British fleet, under the unswerving impulse of its leader, moved

steadfastly forward, to meet a combination of perils that embraced all

most justly dreaded by seamen,--darkness, an intricate navigation, a lee

shore fringed with outlying and imperfectly known reefs and shoals,

towards which they were hurried by a fast-rising wind and sea, that

forbade all hope of retracing their steps during the long hours of the

night.

"Had we but two hours more daylight," wrote Hawke in his official

report, "the whole had been totally destroyed or taken; for we were

almost up with their van when night overtook us." His success would

have been greater, though not more decisive of issues than the event

proved it; but nothing could have added to the merit or brilliancy of

his action, to which no element of grandeur was wanting. This was one of

the most dramatic of sea fights. Forty-odd tall ships, pursuers and

pursued, under reefed canvas, in fierce career drove furiously on; now

rushing headlong down the forward slope of a great sea, now rising on

its crest as it swept beyond them; now seen, now hidden; the helmsmen

straining at the wheels, upon which the huge hulls, tossing their prows

from side to side, tugged like a maddened horse, as though themselves

feeling the wild "rapture of the strife" that animated their masters,

rejoicing in their strength and defying the accustomed rein.

The French admiral had flattered himself that the enemy, ignorant of the

ground, would not dare to follow him round the Cardinals. He was soon

undeceived. Hawke's comment on the situation was that he was "for the

old way of fighting, to make downright work with them." It was an old

way, true; but he had more than once seen it lost to mind, and had

himself done most to restore it to its place,--a new way as well as an

old. The signals for the general chase and for battle were kept aloft,

and no British ship slacked her way. Without ranged order, save that of

speed, the leaders mingled with the French rear; the roar and flashes

of the guns, the falling spars and drifting clouds of smoke, now adding

their part to the wild magnificence of the scene. Though tactically

perfect in the sole true sense of tactics, that the means adopted

exactly suited the situation, this was a battle of incidents, often

untold,--not one of manoeuvres. As the ships, rolling heavily, buried

their flanks deeply in the following seas, no captain dared to open his

lower tier of ports, where the most powerful artillery was arrayed--none

save one, the French _Thésée_, whose rashness was rebuked by the

inpouring waters, which quickly engulfed both ship and crew. The

_Superbe_ met a like fate, though not certainly from the same cause. She

sank under the broadside of the _Royal George_, Hawke's flag-ship. "The

_Royal George's_ people gave a cheer," wrote an eye witness, "but it was

a faint one; the honest sailors were touched at the miserable state of

so many hundreds of poor creatures." Americans and English can couple

this story of long ago with Philip's ejaculation off Santiago de Cuba,

but three years since: "Don't cheer, boys, those poor devils are dying."

By five o'clock two French ships had struck, and two had been sunk.

"Night was now come," wrote Hawke, "and being on a part of the coast,

among islands and shoals of which we were totally ignorant, without a

pilot, as was the greatest part of the squadron, and blowing hard on a

lee shore, I made the signal to anchor." The day's work was over, and

doubtless looked to him incomplete, but it was effectually and finally

done. The French Navy did not again lift up its head during the three

years of war that remained. Balked in their expectation that the foe's

fear of the beach would give them refuge, harried and worried by the

chase, harnessed to no fixed plan of action, Conflans's fleet broke

apart and fled. Seven went north, and ran ashore at the mouth of the

little river Vilaine which empties into Quiberon Bay. Eight stood south,

and succeeded in reaching Rochefort. The fate of four has been told.

Conflans's flag-ship anchored after night among the British, but at

daybreak next morning cut her cables, ran ashore, and was burned by the

French. One other, wrecked on a shoal in the bay, makes up the tale of

twenty-one. Six were wholly lost to their navy; the seven that got into

Vilaine only escaped to Brest by twos, two years later, while the

Rochefort division was effectually blocked by occupying Basque Roads,

the islands of which and of Quiberon were cultivated as kitchen gardens

for the refreshment of British crews.

Of the British, one ship went on a shoal during the action, and on the

following day another coming to her assistance also grounded. Both were

lost, but most of their people were saved. Beyond this Hawke's fleet

suffered little. "As to the loss we have sustained," wrote he, "let it

be placed to the account of the necessity I was under of running all

risks to break this strong force of the enemy."

A contemporary witness assigns to Hawke's own ship a large individual

share in the fighting. Of this he does not himself speak, nor is it of

much matter. That all was done with her that could be done, to aid in

achieving success, is sufficiently assured by his previous record.

Hawke's transcendent merit in this affair was that of the general

officer, not of the private captain. The utmost courage shown by the

commander of a single ship before the enemy's fire cannot equal the

heroism which assumes the immense responsibility of a doubtful issue, on

which may hang a nation's fate; nor would the admiral's glory be shorn

of a ray, if neither then nor at any other time had a hostile shot

traversed his decks.

The night of the 20th passed in anxieties inseparable from a situation

dangerous at best, but still more trying to an admiral upon whom, after

such a day, night had closed without enabling him to see in what case

most of his ships were. "In the night," he reports, "we heard many guns

of distress fired, but, blowing hard, want of knowledge of the coast,

and whether they were fired by a friend or an enemy, prevented all means

of relief." In the morning he resumed his activity. Little, however,

could be done. The continuing violence of the wind, and ignorance of

the ground, prevented approach within gun-shot to the ships at the mouth

of the Vilaine, while they, by lightening and favor of the next flood

tide, warped their way inside through the mud flats.

Hawke remained nearly two months longer, returning to England January

17, 1760. He had then been thirty-five weeks on board, without setting

foot on shore. At the age of fifty-four, and amid such manifold cares,

it is not to be wondered at that he should need relief. Rather must he

be considered fortunate that his health, never robust in middle life,

held firm till his great triumph was achieved. Boscawen succeeded him

temporarily in the command.

He was received in England with acclamations and with honors; yet the

most conspicuous mark of approval conferred on admirals before and

after, the grant of the peerage, was not given to him, who had wrought

one of the very greatest services ever done for the country. Recent

precedent--that of Anson--demanded such recognition; and popular

enthusiasm would have applauded, although the full military merit of the

man could scarcely be appreciated by the standards of his generation.

That no such reward was bestowed is most probably attributable to

Hawke's own indifference to self-advancement. If demanded by him, it

could scarcely have been refused; but he never pushed his own interests.

His masculine independence in professional conduct, towards superiors

and inferiors, found its root and its reflection in personal

unconcern--as well antecedent as subsequent--about the results from his

actions to his fortunes. To do his own part to the utmost, within the

lines of the profession he knew, was his conception of duty. As he would

not meddle with the land officers' decision as to what they should or

should not do, so he left to the politicians, in whose hands the gifts

lay, to decide what they would, or should, accord to a successful

admiral. Pitt, the Great Commoner, left Hawke a commoner. Possibly he

recognized that only by stretch of imagination could Hawke be reckoned

one of the creations of a great Minister's genius.

Little remains to tell. On September 3, 1762, the admiral's flag was

hauled down for the last time. He never went to sea again. In 1766, when

Pitt came back to power as Lord Chatham, Hawke became First Lord of the

Admiralty, and so remained till 1771. It was a time of unbroken peace,

succeeding a period of continuous wars extending over a quarter of a

century; consequently there was in naval and military matters the

lassitude usual to such a period. Hawke is credited with formulating the

principle that "the British fleet could only be termed considerable in

the proportion it bore to that of the House of Bourbon;" that is, to the

combined navies of France and Spain, over which that House then reigned.

The maxim proves that he had some claim to statesmanship in his view of

affairs outside his service; and his manifested freedom from

self-seeking is the warrant that no secondary political motives would

divert his efforts from this aim. That he succeeded in the main, that he

was not responsible for the fallen condition of the fleet when war again

arose in 1778, is evidenced by a statement, uncontradicted, in the House

of Lords in 1779, that when he left office the navy had 139

ships-of-the-line, of which 81 were ready for sea.

In 1765 Hawke, who was then already a full admiral, wearing his flag at

the mainmast head, was made Vice-Admiral of Great Britain; an honorary

position, but the highest in point of naval distinction that the nation

had to give. As one who held it three-quarters of a century later wrote,

"It has ever been regarded as the most distinguished compliment

belonging to our profession." The coincidence is significant that upon

Hawke's death Rodney succeeded him in it; affirming, as it were, the

consecutiveness of paramount influence exercised by the two on the

development of the Navy. In 1776 the peerage was at last conferred;

seventeen years after his great victory, and when, having passed three

score and ten, a man who had ever disdained to ask must have felt the

honor barren to himself, though acceptable for his son.

His last recorded professional utterances are in private letters

addressed in the summer of 1780 to the commander-in-chief of the

Channel Fleet--Francis Geary--who had served with him in the Bay of

Biscay, though he missed Quiberon. He recommends the maintenance of his

old station off Brest, and says, "For God's sake, if you should be so

lucky as to get sight of the enemy, get as close to them as possible. Do

not let them shuffle with you by engaging at a distance, but get within

musket shot if you can. This will be the means to make the action

decisive." In these words we find an unbroken chain of tradition between

Hawke and Nelson. One of Hawke's pupils was William Locker; and Locker

in turn, just before Hawke's death, had Nelson for a lieutenant. To him

Nelson in after years, in the height of his glory, wrote, "To you, my

dear friend, I owe much of my success. It was you who taught me,--'Lay a

Frenchman close and you will beat him.'"

Hawke died October 16, 1781. On his tomb appear these words, "Wherever

he sailed, victory attended him." It is much to say, but it is not all.

Victory does not always follow desert. "It is not in mortals to command

success,"--a favorite quotation with the successful admirals St. Vincent

and Nelson. Hawke's great and distinctive glory is this,--that he, more

than any one man, was the source and origin of the new life, the new

spirit, of his service. There were many brave men before him, as there

were after; but it fell to him in a time of great professional

prostration not only to lift up and hand on a fallen torch, but in

himself to embody an ideal and an inspiration from which others drew,

thus rekindling a light which it is scarcely an exaggeration to say had

been momentarily extinguished.