stolid idea of the old--and still existing--Fighting Instructions
concerning the line-of-battle in action, embodied in a typical
representative in the senior captain of his fleet. This gentleman,
Robert Carkett, had risen from before the mast, and after a lieutenancy
of thirteen years had become post in 1758, by succeeding to the command
when his captain was killed, in one of the most heroic single-ship
fights of the British navy. Unluckily, his seniority gave him the lead
of the fleet as it was now formed on the starboard tack, and he
considered that the signal for attacking the enemy's rear was annulled
by the present situation. "Both fleets," he stated in a letter to the
Admiralty, "were at 11.15 parallel to and abreast of each other. As I
was then the leading ship, it became my duty to engage the leading ship
of the French fleet, as this signal disannulled all former ones
relative to the mode of attack." The word "abreast," critically used,
would imply that the fleets were abreast, ship to ship, van to van; but
there appears no reason to question Rodney's statement of the facts made
to Carkett himself: "Forgetting that the signal for the line was only at
two cables length distance from each other, the van division was by you
led to more than two leagues distance from the centre division, which
was thereby exposed to the greatest strength of the enemy, and not
properly supported." Rodney, in short, meant by opposite the enemy's
ship opposite at the moment the signal was made; and he also expected
that the movements of his ships would be further controlled by the words
of the 21st Article, "preserve the distance assigned by the signal for
the line," which distance was to be taken from the centre; or, as
sometimes worded in the Instructions, "the distance shall be that
between the admiral and the ships next ahead and astern of him." Carkett
conceived that he was to attack the ship opposite him in numerical
order, that is, the leader of the enemy, and that the remaining British
would take distance from him.
Why the rest of the van should also have been led thus astray can be
explained only on the ground that Carkett's general views were shared by
the divisional commander, a rear-admiral, who, as was proved a year
later, possessed high courage of the pure game-cock order, but was
wholly thoughtless of gaining an unfair advantage, two against one, by
tactical ingenuity. The result was that the van as a body left the
centre to itself, and thereby not only wrecked the concentration at
which Rodney aimed, but was out of hand to support his flag and his
division, when badly battered by the enemy's fire. This was the great
tactical blunder which brought to nought Rodney's patient, wary
manoeuvres of the past six hours. To it especially, but not to it alone,
he referred in the stinging words of his despatch: "'T is with concern
inexpressible, mixt with indignation, that the duty I owe my sovereign
and country obliges me to acquaint their Lordships that, during the
action with the French fleet on the 17th instant [and] His Majesty's,
the British flag was not properly supported." To the specific error of
the van was added a widespread disregard of the order for close action,
despite the example of the commander-in-chief, who pressed the enemy so
hard that towards the end his flag-ship was to leeward of De Guichen's
wake. "Perceiving several of our ships engaging at a distance, I
repeated the signal for close action. With truth, but sorrow, I must say
it was little attended to." It is noticeable that one of the ships thus
censured, the _Cornwall_, next ahead of Rodney, lost as heavily in
killed and wounded as did the flag-ship herself; one of many instances
showing that distance lessened efficiency without increasing safety. The
forwardness of Rodney's flag on this occasion proves clearly enough his
consciousness that tactics, to succeed, must be more than a veil for
timidity; that hard hitting is as essential as skilful leading.
This combination of steady, patient, wary, skilful guidance, with
resolute and tenacious personal leadership, constituted the firm tissue
of Rodney's professional character, and at no time received such clear
illustration as in the case before us; for no like opportunity recurred.
One experience was enough for De Guichen; he did not choose again to
yield the advantage of the weather gage, and he had the tactical skill
necessary to retain it in his future contacts with this adversary. The
battle of April 12, 1782, upon which Rodney's fame has rested, was
rather an accident than an achievement, and as a revelation of character
its most conspicuous feature is wariness exaggerated into professional
timidity. He himself has weighed the relative professional value of the
two affairs. A letter published in 1809, anonymous, but bearing strong
internal evidence of being written by Sir Gilbert Blane, long on a
trusted physician's terms of intimacy with Rodney, states that he
"thought little of his victory on the 12th of April." He would have
preferred to rest his reputation upon this action with De Guichen, and
"looked upon that opportunity of beating, with an inferior fleet, such
an officer, whom he considered the best in the French service, as one by
which, but for the disobedience of his captains, he might have gained
an immortal renown."
The misconduct of his officers brought out in full vigor the severity
which was a salient feature of Rodney's professional character. In the
St. Vincent business he may have been partly actuated to spare, by the
reflection that the offenders were not his own captains; that they were
about to quit him finally. Moreover, there had been then a very
considerable tangible success; results cover a multitude of sins. No
such extenuations applied here. The wreck of his reasonable hopes of
personal distinction coincided with failure towards the nation itself.
Rodney's hand came down heavy upon the offenders; but so far as seen it
was the hand always of a gentleman. In private letters his full feelings
betrayed themselves in vehemence; but in public they were measured to
austerity. To Carkett, when questioned concerning the rumored
expressions in his despatch, he is withering in the pointed enumeration
of varied shortcomings; but he never lapses into a breach of
professional decorum of utterance. The unfortunate man represented to
the Admiralty his view of the matter,--already cited; but it bears no
indorsement to show that it had passed under Rodney's eye. Captain,
ship, and ship's company, were swept away a few months later in the
memorable hurricane of October, 1780.
The despatch specified no other delinquent by name; but the selection
of five captains to receive personal commendation, and the persistent
refusal of the same to all other subordinates, including the junior
flag-officers, made censure sufficiently individual; and the admiral's
subsequent line of conduct emphasized rebuke bitterly. The cruise was
not yet finished; for the French having taken refuge at Guadaloupe, it
was important to prevent them from regaining Martinique, their chief
depot and place of repairs. To intercept them there, Rodney at first
took station off Fort Royal, and when compelled for a moment to return
to Santa Lucia, kept lookouts to warn him betimes of the enemy's
appearance. So, when De Guichen approached from the windward side of the
islands, on May 9th, he found the British getting underway to meet him.
From that time until the 20th--eleven days--the fleets were manoeuvring
in sight of one another, beating to windward; the British endeavoring to
force action, the French to avoid it. De Guichen's orders from home were
"to keep the sea, so far as the force maintained by England in the
Windward Islands would permit, _without too far compromising_ the fleet
entrusted to him." Such instructions compelled him to defensive tactics;
as Rodney's views, and those traditional in his service, impelled him to
attack. Hence ensued a struggle of sustained vigilance, activity, and
skill, profoundly interesting professionally, but which does not lend
itself to other than technical narrative. "For fourteen days and
nights," wrote Rodney, "the fleets were so near each other that neither
officers nor men could be said to sleep. Nothing but the goodness of the
weather and climate could have enabled us to endure so continual a
fatigue. Had it been in Europe, half the people must have sunk under it.
For my part, it did me good." No evidence of professional aptness could
be given clearer than the last words. A man is easy under such
circumstances only when they fit him. De Guichen asked to be superseded;
"my health cannot endure such continual fatigue and anxiety." Twice the
wary Frenchman was nearly caught, but the wind did not favor Rodney long
enough to give him the weather position, the only sure one for offence.
But, while thus unable to compass results, he gave conclusive evidence
of the quickness of his eye, the alertness of his action, and the
flexibility which he was enabled to impress upon his fleet by sheer
force of personal character. The contest resembled that of two expert
swordsmen; more intermittent doubtless, but also much more prolonged.
There can be no trifling with such conditions. A moment's relaxation, or
inaptness, may forfeit opportunity, offered only by chance and not to be
regained by effort. Rodney was fixed that no such slip should occur
through the neglect of others, and his stern supervision, as represented
by himself to his wife, was that of a slave driver, lash in hand. "As I
had given public notice to all my captains, etc. that I should hoist my
flag on board one of my frigates, and that I expected implicit obedience
to every signal made, under the certain penalty of being instantly
superseded, it had an admirable effect, as they were all convinced,
after their late gross behaviour, that they had nothing to expect at my
hands but instant punishment to those who neglected their duty. My eye
on them had more dread than the enemy's fire, and they knew it would be
fatal. No regard was paid to rank,--admirals as well as captains, if out
of their station, were instantly reprimanded by signals, or messages
sent by frigates: and, in spite of themselves, I taught them to be what
they had never been before--_officers_: and showed them that an inferior
fleet, properly conducted, was more than a match for one far superior."
Making allowance for exaggeration in the irresponsible utterances of
family life, the above is eminently characteristic of temperament. It
must be added, as equally characteristic of an underlying justice which
Rodney possessed, that in his official account of these last manoeuvres
he gave credit to his subordinates as a whole. "I must inform their
Lordships, in justice to the commanders and officers of the fleet under
my command, that since the action of the 17th of April, and during the
pursuit of the enemy's fleet, and in the two rencontres with them, all
my officers, of every rank and denomination, were obedient and attentive
to orders and signals, and, I am convinced, if the enemy had given them
an opportunity, they would have done their duty to their King and
Country." The claims of justice against its own strict requirements he
also recognized to Carkett. "Nothing but the former service you had done
your King and Country, and my firm belief of your being a brave man,
could have induced me, as commander of a great fleet, to overlook." It
will not escape attention that this exact observance of credit, where
due, lends increased weight to censure, when inflicted.
To the pursuit of the French fleet, relinquished forty leagues eastward
of Martinique after the brush of May 19th, succeeded a period marked
only by the routine administrative cares attendant upon an admiral
charged with the defence of a lengthy, exposed chain of islands, and an
extensive trade, against enemies numerically much superior. The details
serve to show the breadth of intelligence, the sound judgment, and clear
professional conceptions that characterized Rodney in small things as
well as great; but it would be wearisome to elaborate demonstration of
this, and these qualities he had in common with many men otherwise
inferior to himself. Reaction from the opening strain of the campaign,
with the relaxation of vigor from the approach of the hot rainy season,
now began to tell on his health; and to this contributed the harassment
of mind due to the arrival of a large Spanish fleet, while
reinforcements promised him unaccountably failed to appear.
Nevertheless, his personal efficiency was not impaired, and towards the
end of July he resolved to execute a project which he had long
entertained, of carrying the mass of his fleet from the islands to the
Continental waters of North America.
During the year between his return from Paris and his present
appointment, he had laid before the Admiralty two papers, containing an
admirable summary of the leading strategic conditions of the whole scene
of war in the western hemisphere, with suggestions for action amounting
to a plan of campaign. One feature of this was based upon the weather
differences, which rendered cruising dangerous in the West Indies when
most favorable to the northward, and unsure in North America when most
certain among the islands. He proposed to utilize this alternation of
seasons, by shifting a mobile reinforcement suddenly and secretly from
one end to the other of the long front of operations. This is a common
enough expedient in military art, but had rarely received the convincing
formulation which he gave it; while that such a conception was a novelty
to the average naval mind of the day, may be inferred from the startled
wrath of the admiral in North America at Rodney's unexpected intrusion
upon his bailiwick.
Sandwich, however, had entertained the project, and in October, 1779,
just as Rodney's appointment issued, a vessel sailed from England with
letters to Admiral Arbuthnot in New York, directing him to send several
ships-of-the-line to the West Indies for the winter campaign. The vessel
lost a mast, kept off to Nassau in the Bahamas, and after arrival there
her captain, while spending some months in repairs, did not think to
send on the despatches. Arbuthnot, therefore, received them only on
March 16, 1780; too late, doubtless, to collect and equip a force in
time to reach Rodney before the affair of April 17th.
At the end of July, 1780, the conditions in the West Indies were that
the allied French and Spanish fleets had gone to leeward from
Martinique; to Havana, and to Cap François, in Hayti. At the latter port
was assembling a large trade convoy--three hundred ships, according to
Rodney's information. He reasoned that this must go to Europe, but would
not require the full strength of the French fleet; therefore,
transferring his own insight to the enemy's mind, he convinced himself
that a part of their vessels would seek Narragansett Bay, to reinforce
the seven ships-of-the-line that had reached there on July 12th, under
De Ternay, of whose arrival Rodney now knew. Great possibilities might
be open to such a combination, skilfully handled against the inferior
numbers of Arbuthnot. "As it plainly appeared to me that His Majesty's
territory, fleet, and army, in America were in imminent danger of being
overpowered by the superior force of the public enemy, I deemed it a
duty incumbent upon me to forego any emoluments that might have accrued
by the enterprise intended by General Vaughan and myself during the
hurricane months, and without a moment's hesitation flew with all
despatch possible to prevent the enemy's making any impression upon the
continent before my arrival there." The protestation of
disinterestedness here is somewhat intrusive, and being wholly
unnecessary excites rather criticism than confidence.
Although reasonable precautions had been taken for the security of his
own station, and all circumstances carefully weighed, there was in this
step of Rodney's an assumption of responsibility,--of risk,--as in his
similar action of 1762, before noted. This, as well as the military
correctness of the general conception, deserves to be noted to the
credit of his professional capacity. Making the land about Charleston,
South Carolina, he swept along the coast to the northward, until he
anchored off Sandy Hook, September 14th. The following day he issued an
order to Admiral Arbuthnot, directing him to put himself under his
command and to obey his instructions.
Rodney's coming was a grievous blow to Washington, who instead had
hoped, as Rodney had feared, the arrival of De Guichen, or at the least
of a strong French naval division. The enemy's disappointment is perhaps
the best proof of sagacity in a military movement, but Sandwich's clear
approval was also forthcoming. "It is impossible for us to have a
superior fleet in every part; and unless our commanders-in-chief will
take the great line, as you do, and consider the King's whole dominions
as under their care, our enemies must find us unprepared somewhere, and
carry their point against us." Arbuthnot, nevertheless, saw only
personal injury to himself; a natural feeling, but one which should not
be allowed display. Rodney had given various particular orders, and had
suggested that it would be better that the commander-in-chief on the
station should keep headquarters at New York, leaving the blockade of
Ternay, a hundred and thirty miles distant, to a junior admiral; also,
he intimated the opinion that such a blockade would be better conducted
underway than anchored in Gardiner's Bay, fifty miles from the enemy's
port. Though suggestion did not override discretion, Arbuthnot resented
it in all its forms. After explaining his reasons, he added, "How far,
Sir, your conduct (similarly circumstanced as you are) is praiseworthy
and proper, consequences must determine. Your partial interference in
the conduct of the American War is certainly incompatible with
principles of reason, and precedents of service. The frigates attending
on a cruising squadron you have taken upon you to counter-order, (a due
representation of which and other circumstances I shall make where it
will have every possible effect), and thus I have been for some time
without even a repeater of signals."
Though Rodney's step was unusual, his position as Arbuthnot's superior
officer, locally present, was impregnable. He nevertheless kept his
temper under provocation, and the dignified restraint of his reply is
notable; indeed, the only significant feature of this incident, from the
biographical point of view. "No offence to you was intended on my part.
Every respect due to you, as an officer and a gentleman, my inclination
as well as my duty led me to pay you in the strictest sense." He leaves
no doubt, however, that he does not intend to allow his functions to
lapse into a mere official primacy,--that he will rule, as well as
reign. "Duty, not inclination, brought me to North America. I came to
interfere in the American War, to command by sea in it, and to do my
best endeavours towards the putting an end thereto. I knew the dignity
of my own rank entitled me to take the supreme command, which I ever
shall do on every station where His Majesty's and the public service may
make it necessary for me to go, unless I meet a superior officer, in
which case it will be my duty to obey his orders." He then proceeds to
exercise his authority, by explicit directions and some criticism of
existing arrangements.
Afterwards, in submitting the papers to the Admiralty, Rodney wrote, "I
am ashamed to mention what appears to me the real cause, and from
whence Mr. Arbuthnot's chagrin proceeds, but the proofs are so plain
that prize-money is the occasion that I am under the necessity of
transmitting them. I can solemnly assure their Lordships that I had not
the least conception of any other prize-money on the coast of America
but that which would be most honourably obtained by the destruction of
the enemy's ships of war and privateers--but when prize-money appeared
predominant in the mind of my brother officer, I was determined to have
my share of that bounty so graciously bestowed by His Majesty and the
public." Nelson's retort to Arbuthnot's successor, two years later, may
be recalled. "You have come to a good station for prize-money." "Yes,
but the West Indies is the station for honour."
The visit to continental waters was on this occasion productive of
little result. Contrary alike to Rodney's anticipations and those of
Washington, De Guichen's whole fleet had returned to Europe. Some slight
redistribution of cruisers, the more frequent capture of privateers,
with increased security to the trade of New York and incidental support
to some rather predatory land operations, were all that Rodney could
show of tangible consequence from his presence. Arbuthnot alone was
superior to Ternay if neither received reinforcements. Rodney's health
felt the keener atmosphere, so that he had to go ashore in New York, and
he accepted the views of Arbuthnot as to the strength of the French
fleet's position in Newport, without examining it himself. Had he done
so, however, it is unlikely that he would have formed more strenuous
purposes. The disposition of the enemy's squadron there was so imposing
that only the genius of a Nelson, mindful as at Revel of the moral
influence of a great blow at a critical period of the war, could have
risen to the necessity of daring such a hazard. His phrase was there
applicable, "Desperate affairs require desperate remedies." There is no
indication of this supreme element in Rodney's composition. It is
interesting to note, however, that personal observation had given
conviction of success at Newport to the officer who was afterwards
Nelson's gallant second at Copenhagen,--Sir Thomas Graves.
This paucity of results in no way lessens the merit of the movement from
the West Indies to the continent. It was indubitably correct in idea,
and, as has been pointed out, the conception was Rodney's own, the
possibilities were great, the risk in many ways undeniable; when these
can be affirmed of a military action, failure to obtain results, because
conditions take an improbable direction, does not detract from credit.
Nor should the obviousness of this measure hide the fact that the
suggestion appears to have been original with him, occurring fully
developed in his memorandum of May, 1778, to the Admiralty; whether
written in Paris or England does not appear. The transfer of Hotham's
squadron to the southward in the following December, 1779, enabling
Barrington to conquer Santa Lucia,--a place insisted upon in the same
memorandum as of the first importance,--may not improbably be attributed
to this fruitful paper. In the next year, 1781, a detachment was again
sent to New York, and had Rodney been able to accompany it in person
there is no room to doubt that he would have saved Cornwallis; reversing
issues, at least momentarily, certainly prolonging the war, possibly
deciding the contest otherwise than as befell.
Rodney's return to the West Indies in December, 1780, concluded the most
eventful and illustriously characteristic year of his life. The
destruction of Langara's fleet in January, the brilliant tactical
displays of April 17th, and of the chase manoeuvres in May, the
strategic transference in August of a large division, unawares to the
enemy, from one point of the field of action to another, are all feats
that testify to his great ability as a general officer. Nor should there
be left out of the account the stern dignity of conduct which assured
his personal control of the fleet, his certainty of touch in the face of
an enemy. Thus considered, it was a year full of events, successful
throughout as regards personal desert, and singularly significant of
ability and temperament.
The year 1781 was far less happy, nor does the great victory, which in
1782 crowned his career with glory, contribute to the enhancement of his
professional distinction; rather the contrary. Upon reaching Barbados,
December 5th, he found the island shorn to the ground by the noted
hurricane, which in the previous October had swept the Caribbean, from
the Lesser Antilles to Jamaica. Eight of the division left by him in the
West Indies had been wrecked,--two being ships-of-the-line; and the
efficiency of the whole fleet was grievously impaired by the widespread
injury to vessels.
An event charged with more serious consequences to himself soon
followed. On the 27th of January, 1781, at Barbados, despatches from the
Admiralty notified him that Great Britain had declared war against
Holland, and directed him to proceed at once against the Dutch shipping
and West Indies. First among the enumerated objects of attack was the
small island of St. Eustatius. This, having enjoyed the advantages of
neutrality at a time when almost the whole Caribbean was in hostilities,
had become a depot for the accumulation and distribution of stores,
commercial and warlike. Ostensibly, it served all parties, giving to and
receiving from Europe, America, and the Caribbean alike. The political
sympathies of Holland, however, and it may be added those of the West
Indies in general, even of the British islands themselves, were rather
adverse to Great Britain in the current struggle; and this, combined
with the greater self-sufficingness of the British naval and commercial
administration, had made the neutral support of St. Eustatius more
benevolent, and much more useful, to the enemies of Great Britain,
including the revolted colonists, than it was to the mother country.
Rodney asserted that help from there was readily forthcoming to supply
French and Spanish requirements, while professions of inability abounded
whenever his fleet made a demand in occasional emergencies.
He was therefore full of gall against the island and its merchants, the
more so because he suspected that British subjects, unpatriotically
ardent for gain, were largely concerned in maintaining conditions thus
hurtful to their country; and, when the orders to act came, it needed
but three days for himself and General Vaughan to sail on an errand of
which they probably had previous intimations. On the 3d of February they
arrived off St. Eustatius, which in the face of their imposing force
submitted at once. They took possession of the island, with goods stored
to the estimated value of £3,000,000,--an immense spoil in those days. A
Dutch ship-of-war, with a hundred and fifty sail of traders of various
nationalities, were also seized; while a convoy of thirty merchant
ships, which had sailed thirty-six hours before, was pursued and
captured by a British detachment,--the Dutch admiral commanding the
ships-of-war being killed in the attendant action.
From one point of view this was an enormous success, though unproductive
of glory. It destroyed at a blow a centre of commerce and supply
powerfully contributive to the maintenance of the enemies of Great
Britain; both to their hostile operations, and to the indirect but no
less vital financial support that trade gives to national endurance,--to
the sinews of war. Besides this, however, there was the unprecedented
immediate booty, transferable as so much asset to the conquerors. It was
upon this present tangible result that Rodney's imagination fastened,
with an engrossment and tenacity that constitute a revelation of
character. It perverted his understanding of conditions, and paralyzed
his proper action as commander-in-chief. It is needless in this
connection to consider whether it was the matter of personal profit,
through legitimate prize-money, that thus influenced him,--an effect to
some extent pardonable in a man who had long suffered, and still was
suffering, from pecuniary straitness,--or whether, as he loudly
protested, it was the interest to the nation that made his personal
superintendence of the proceeds imperative. In either case the point to
be noted is not a palpable trait of covetousness,--if such it were,
--but the limitation to activity occasioned by preoccupation with a
realized, but imperfect, success. The comparatively crude impression of
greediness, produced by apparent absorption in a mere money gain, has
prevented the perception of this more important and decisive element in
Rodney's official character, revealed at St. Eustatius and confirmed on
the evening of the 12th of April. What he had won, he had won; what more
he might and should do, he would not see, nor would he risk.
His discontent with his junior flag-officers in the West Indies, and the
peculiar demoralization of professional tone at the moment, had made it
difficult for the Admiralty to provide him a satisfactory second in
command. In order to do this, they had "to make a promotion," as the
phrase went; that is, in order to get the man wanted, the seniors on the
captains' list were promoted down to and including him. The choice had
fallen on Sir Samuel Hood,--in later days Nelson's honored Lord
Hood,--than which none could have been happier in respect of capacity.
It has been truly said that he was as able as Rodney, and more
energetic; but even this falls short of his merit. He had an element of
professional--as distinguished from personal--daring, and an imaginative
faculty that penetrated the extreme possibilities of a situation,
quickened by the resolve, in which Rodney was deficient, to have all or
nothing; and these invaluable traits were balanced by the sound and
accurate judgment of a thorough seaman, without which imagination lures
to disaster. The man who as a junior formed the idea of seizing De
Grasse's anchorage in the Chesapeake in 1781, to effect the relief of
Cornwallis, and who in 1782, when momentarily in chief command,
illustrated the idea by actual performance under similar conditions in
the West Indies, rose to heights of conception and of achievement for
which we have no equivalent in Rodney's career. Unfortunately for him,
though thus mighty in act, opportunity for great results never came to
him. The hour never met the man.
Hood with eight ships-of-the-line and a large convoy arrived on the
station in January, 1781, and was at St. Eustatius with the
commander-in-chief when Rodney received a report, which proved to be
false, that eight to ten French ships-of-the-line, with a numerous
supply-fleet, had been sighted in European waters evidently bound for
the West Indies. He thereupon detached Hood, on February 12th, and
directed him with seventeen of-the-line to await the enemy to windward
of Martinique, their probable destination. A month later he ordered the
position to be shifted to leeward of the island, in front of the French
arsenal port, Fort Royal. Hood dissented from this, remonstrating
vigorously, and the event proved him right; but Rodney insisted, the
more injudiciously in that he was throwing the tactical burden upon his
junior while fettering thus his tactical discretion. Meantime, twenty
French ships-of-the-line did sail on March 22d for Martinique, under
Count De Grasse: beginning then the campaign which ended in the great
disaster of April 12, 1782, but not until it had been signalized by the
surrender of Cornwallis, due to this fleet, as Washington said. On the
28th of April it came in sight of Hood; but, owing to the leewardly
position insisted upon by Rodney, the English commander could not
prevent the junction to it of four French ships then in the port. A
battle followed next day, of eighteen British--one having just
joined--against twenty-four enemies; odds which, combined with the
weather gage held by the French, should have insured them a decisive
victory. This result was prevented by the tentative action of De Grasse,
encountering the tactical capacity and imperturbable self-possession of
Hood.
Rodney could not have bettered Hood's management, though he of course
attributed to him the blame for results. It is evident, however, that
for various reasons the commander-in-chief should have been with the
body of his fleet. Even barring certain and timely information of the
French coming, which Hood at least did not have, there was every
reasonable probability that such an expedition would arrive at about the
season it did. Hood's insight, which was adequate to divining
possibilities as well as to dealing with ascertained conditions, had
taught him that the latter half of April--and not sooner--was the time
by which the British should be refitted, provisioned and watered full,
and in all respects ready for prolonged operations against a powerful
enemy; as well as concentrated to windward. He reasoned thus from the
fact that the French navy, to the number of forty odd,--being the
combined fleets of D'Estaing from Brest and De Guichen from the West
Indies,--had been assembled in Cadiz towards the end of 1780, and did
not return to Brest until January, 1781. To refit, sail, and reach
Martinique again, would in his judgment postpone arrival to the middle
of April, and this respite should be improved by getting the British
ships into the best campaigning condition, so as not to be hampered in
subsequent movements by necessities of repair and supply. With this
persuasion he became eager, by the first of the month, for the admiral's
presence; the more so because confident that, if he were on the spot, he
would see the necessity of changing position from leeward to windward.
"I begin to be extremely impatient for the honour of being and acting
immediately under your flag, as I do not find myself pleasant in being
to leeward; for should an enemy's fleet attempt to get into Martinique,
and the commander of it inclines to avoid battle, nothing but a skirmish
will probably happen, which in its consequences may operate as a defeat
to the British squadron, though not a ship is lost and the enemy suffer
most."
This is a clear case in which events that actually befell were foreseen;
not by supernatural illumination, but by the clear light of unbiassed
reason acting upon evident considerations. There _was_ but a skirmish,
the British _did_ suffer badly, and the consequences _were_ equivalent
to defeat; for, had the whole British force of the line been present to
windward, it would have prevented the junction of the French, and
therefore have been so nearly equal to the main body as to have assured
an action inflicting very serious injury, incapacitating the enemy for
the attacks upon Santa Lucia and Tobago, before which the latter fell,
and not improbably deterring De Grasse from the expedition to the
Chesapeake which forced the capitulation of Cornwallis. Such deductions
are of course dependent upon the contingencies inseparable from warfare.
They are not certainties, indeed; but they are inferences of very great
probability. So much hinged upon the presence of an officer with the
full discretion denied to Hood; of the officer primarily responsible for
the fleet, which was intrusted to him and not to another.
Probable also is Hood's solution of Rodney's persistence in remaining at
St. Eustatius, and keeping the squadron under the command of his second
to leeward of Martinique. He was possessed with the fancied paramount
necessity of protecting St. Eustatius against a sudden attack by the
enemy, which he imagined might be supported by the small division in
Fort Royal; and the value of the booty shut his eyes to every other
consideration. As on the evening of the 12th of April, the great day of
glory in his career, the captures already made assumed sufficiency in
his eyes, and co-operating with surmisings as to what the beaten and
scattered French might do deterred him from further action; so now the
prize already secured at St. Eustatius combined with the imaginative
"picture he made for himself"--to use Napoleon's phrase--of its possible
dangers, to blind him to the really decisive needs of the situation. It
is clear, however, that local naval provision for the safety of a petty
island was in point of difficulty, as of consequence, a secondary
matter, within the competence of many of his captains; and that the
primary factor, on which all depended, was the control of the sea, by
the British fleet predominating over the enemy's. Consequently the
commander-in-chief should have been where his second was, at the centre
of decisive action, where an enemy's fleet was to be expected.
This was the more incumbent because Rodney himself, writing to Admiral
Parker in Jamaica on April 16th, said, "As the enemy hourly expect a
great fleet in these seas, I have scarcely a sufficient number of
line-of-battle-ships to blockade the island of Martinique, or to engage
the enemy's fleet should they appear, if their number should be so large
as reported,"--twenty-four. This report came from French sources, and it
will be noted, from the date of his letter, was in his possession
twelve days before the enemy arrived. It was both specific and
antecedently probable, and should have determined the admiral's action.
Whether he had similar news from home does not appear. Sandwich writing
him on March 21st, the day before the French left Brest, professed
ignorance of their destination, but added, "the most prevailing and most
probable opinion is that they are to go to the West India Islands, and
afterwards to North America." Their number he estimated at twenty-five,
which tallied with Rodney's intelligence of twenty-four. The latter was
exact, save that four were armed _en flûte_; that is, as transports,
with their guns below, to be subsequently mounted. Despite everything,
the admiral remained at St. Eustatius until May 4th, when the arrival of
a crippled ship from Hood brought him the news of the skirmish. He was
attending, doubtless, to details pertaining to his command, but he was
chiefly occupied with the disposition of the property seized on the
island; a matter which he afterwards found to his cost would have been
much better committed to administrators skilled in the law. "Had they
abided by the first plan settled before I left them," wrote Hood, "and
not have interfered, but have left the management to the land and sea
folk appointed for that purpose, all would have gone smooth and easy."
However this might have proved, the immediate supervision of the island
and its spoils was no business for a commander-in-chief in active war
time; particularly when it entailed leaving the charge of his main
fleet, at a critical moment, to a junior admiral of very recent
appointment, and still unproved. It was not the separate importance of
the position intrusted to Hood that made it peculiarly the station for
the commander-in-chief. It might have been intrinsically as important,
yet relatively secondary; but actually it was the centre and key upon
which, and upon which alone, the campaign could turn and did turn.
Neither was the question one of the relative merits, as yet unknown, of
Rodney and Hood. A commander-in-chief cannot devolve his own proper
functions upon a subordinate, however able, without graver cause than
can be shown in this instance. The infatuation which detained Rodney at
a side issue can only be excused--not justified--by a temporary
inability to see things in their true proportion, induced on more than
one occasion by a temperamental defect,--the lack of the single eye to
military considerations,--which could find contentment in partial
success, and be indifferent to further results to be secured by
sustained action.
There is a saying, apt to prove true, that war does not forgive. For his
initial error Rodney himself, and the British campaign in general, paid
heavily throughout the year 1781. The French fleet in undiminished vigor
lay a dead weight upon all his subsequent action, which, like the
dispositions prior to its arrival, underwent the continued censure of
Hood; acrid, yet not undiscriminating nor misplaced. As already
observed, the surrender of Cornwallis can with probability be ascribed
to this loss of an opportunity afforded to strike a blow at the outset,
when the enemy was as yet divided, embarrassed with convoy, raw in
organization and drill, in all which it could not but improve as the
months passed. The results began at once to be apparent, and
embarrassments accumulated with time. Hood's ships, though no one was
wholly disabled, had suffered very considerably; and, while
indispensable repairs could temporarily be made, efficiency was
affected. They needed, besides, immediate water and supplies, as Rodney
himself stated--a want which Hood would have anticipated. To increase
difficulty, the French mounted the batteries of the vessels _en flûte_,
and so raised their total nominal force to twenty-eight. Hood was unable
to regain Santa Lucia, because his crippled ships could not beat against
the current. He therefore left it to itself, and bore away to the
northward, where he joined Rodney on May 11th, between St. Kitts and
Antigua. The campaign of 1781, destined to be wholly defensive for the
British, opened under these odds, the responsibility for which lies in
considerable measure on Rodney.
After the junction, the British fleet went to Barbados, where it arrived
May 18th. Meantime, the French had proceeded in force against Santa
Lucia, landing a considerable body of troops, and investing the island
with twenty-five sail-of-the-line, two of which with 1300 soldiers went
on to attempt the British Tobago. The attack on Santa Lucia failed, and
the French returned to Martinique; but learning there that Rodney was at
sea, heading southward, De Grasse became alarmed for his detachment at
Tobago, and moved to its support with his entire fleet. Rodney, knowing
of the detachment only, sent against it six ships under Rear Admiral
Drake; a half-measure severely censured by Hood, whose comments
throughout indicate either a much superior natural sagacity, or else the
clearer insight of a man whose eye dwells steadfastly on the military
situation, untroubled by conflicting claims. "What a wonderful happy
turn would have been given to the King's affairs in this country had Sir
George Rodney gone with his whole force to Tobago as soon as he might,
and in my humble opinion ought to have done. Nay, had he even gone when
Mr. Drake did, the island would have been saved. I laboured much to
effect it, but all in vain, and fully stated my reasons in writing as
soon as the intelligence came. Every ship there with all the troops must
have fallen into our hands two days before De Grasse got there with his
twenty-one sail;" to which Rodney, in full strength, would again have
opposed twenty. "_Now_ the enemy may do as they will;" for they were
united in Martinique, twenty-eight to twenty. In short, Rodney saw at
Tobago only the one French detachment; Hood saw therein the definition
of the enemy's purpose, the necessity laid on them to fly to the aid of
their exposed division, and the chance to anticipate them,--to gain an
advantage first, and to beat them afterwards.
Rodney's tentative and inadequate action was not improbably induced
partly by the "extreme want of water," which he reported in his
despatches; and this again was due to failure to prepare adequately
during the period of respite foreseen by Hood, but unnoted by his own
preoccupied mind. The result is instructive. Drake fell in with the main
body of the French, and of course had to retire,--fortunate in regaining
his commander-in-chief unmolested. De Grasse's movement had become known
in Barbados, and as soon as Drake appeared Rodney sailed with the fleet,
but upon arriving off Tobago, on June 5th, learned that it had
surrendered on the 2d. Its fall he duly attributed to local neglect and
cowardice; but evidently the presence of the British fleet might have
had some effect. He then returned to Barbados, and during the passage
the hostile fleets sighted each other on the 9th,--twenty British to
twenty-three French; but Rodney was unwilling to engage lest he might be
entangled with the foul ground about Grenada. As that island was then in
the enemy's hands, he could get no anchorage there, and so might be
driven to leeward of his opponent, exposing Barbados. It is perhaps
needless to point out that had he been to windward of Martinique when De
Grasse first arrived, as Hood wished, he would have been twenty to
twenty, with clear ground, and the antagonist embarrassed with convoy.
His present perplexities, in their successive phases, can be seen
throughout to be the result of sticking to St. Eustatius, not only
physically, but mentally.
And so it was with what followed. On reaching Barbados again, he had to
report that the French were back in Martinique, and now twenty-eight
through the arming of the ships _en flûte_. Despite their superiority,
"they do not venture to move," he said somewhat sneeringly, and
doubtless his "fleet in being" had an effect on them; but they were also
intent on a really great operation. On July 5th, De Grasse sailed for
Cap François in Hayti, there to organize a visit to the continent in
support of Washington's operations. Rodney, pursuant to his sagacious
plan of the previous years, sent also a detachment of fourteen ships
under Hood, which he endeavored, but unsuccessfully, to have increased
by some from Jamaica. That De Grasse would take his whole fleet to North
America, leaving none in the West Indies, nor sending any to Europe, was
a step that neither Rodney nor Hood foresaw. The miscalculation cannot
be imputed to either as an error at this time. It was simply one of the
deceptions to which the defensive is ever liable; but it is fairly
chargeable to the original fault whereby the French admiral was enabled
to enter Fort Royal uninjured in the previous April. From the time his
fleet was concentrated, the British had to accept the defensive with its
embarrassments.
Rodney had contemplated going in person with his ships, which Sandwich
also had urged upon him; but his health was seriously impaired, and the
necessity for a surgical operation combined to induce his return to
England. The final decision on this point he postponed to the last
moment of the homeward voyage, keeping a frigate in company in which to
go to New York, if able; but ultimately he felt compelled to give up.
This conclusion settled Cornwallis's fate, antecedently but finally.
That year Great Britain fell between two stools. In view of De Grasse's
known expressions, it may be affirmed with great confidence that he
would have seen reason to abandon the Chesapeake, leaving open the sea
road for Cornwallis to escape, had either Rodney or Hood commanded the
British fleet there in the battle of September 5th; but Rodney was away,
and Hood second only to an incompetent superior.
Rodney landed in England, September 19th, and was again afloat by
December 12th, although he did not finally sail for his station until
the middle of January, 1782. This brief period was one of the deepest
military depression; for during it occurred Cornwallis's surrender,
October 19th, under conditions of evident British inferiority, on sea
and shore alike, which enforced the conviction that the colonies must be
granted their independence. Not only so, but the known extensive
preparations of the Bourbon courts pointed to grave danger also for the
Caribbean colonies, the sugar and import trade of which counted largely
in the financial resources of the empire. Amid the general gloom Rodney
had his own special vexation; for, before he left, news was received of
the recapture of St. Eustatius by a small French expedition, prior to
the return of Hood to the West Indies from the unfortunate operations on
the continent. As in the case of Tobago, Rodney severely blamed the
local defence, and very possibly justly; but attention should not wander
from the effect that must have been produced upon all subsequent
conditions by preparation and action on the part of the British fleet,
in the spring of 1781, on the lines then favored by Hood.
Shortly before he had sailed for home, Rodney had written his wife, "In
all probability, the enemy, when they leave these seas, will go to
America. Wherever they go, I will watch their motions, and certainly
attack them if they give me a proper opportunity. The fate of England
may depend upon the event." The last sentence was in measure a prophecy,
so far, that is, as decisive of the original issue at stake,--the
subjugation or independence of the United Colonies; but, without further
laboring the point unduly, it may be permitted here to sum up what has
been said, with the remark that in the summer of 1781 control of events
had passed out of Rodney's hands. From the time of the original fault,
in suffering the French to meet Hood to leeward of Martinique, with an
inferior force, more and more did it become impossible to him to assure
conditions sufficiently favorable. With the highest personal courage, he
did not have eminent professional daring; nor, with considerable
tactical acquirement, was he gifted with that illuminative originality
which characterized Hood and Nelson. He therefore needed either a
reasonable probability of success, or the spur of imminent emergency, to
elicit the kind of action needed to save the British cause. The chances
to windward of Martinique would have been ninety out of a hundred; from
that time forward they diminished with continually increasing rapidity.
With such a situation he was not the man to cope.
On reaching Barbados, February 19, 1782, Rodney learned that the
garrison of St. Kitts was besieged in Brimstone Hill, and the island
itself beleaguered by the French fleet, thirty-three of-the-line, which
Sir Samuel Hood, with two thirds their number, had so far held in check
by a series of manoeuvres unusually acute in conception and brilliant
in execution. Proceeding immediately to Antigua, he there heard on the
23d that St. Kitts had capitulated on the 13th. Two days later he was
joined by Hood, and then took the united fleet to Santa Lucia, where he
was on March 5th. The knowledge of a large supply fleet expected for the
French, and essential to the known project of the allies against
Jamaica, carried the British fleet again to sea; but it failed to
intercept the convoy, and returned once more to Santa Lucia, where it
anchored in Gros Ilet Bay, thirty miles from Fort Royal, where the
French were lying. Various changes made the respective numbers, when
operations opened, British thirty-six of-the-line, French thirty-five,
with two fifty-gun ships; a near approach to equality.
Rodney's faculties were now all alert. He had had some needed repose,
and he was again under the stimulus of reputation to restore; for it
would have been vain to assert, even to himself, that he was entirely
clear, not merely of error, to which the most careful is liable, but of
serious fault in the previous year. Moreover, he had been sharply
assailed in Parliament for the transactions at St. Eustatius on the
civil side, distinct from his military conduct. To such ills there is no
plaster so healing as a victory; and the occasion about to arise proved,
in its successive stages,--until the last,--admirably adapted to his
natural and acquired qualifications. First, a series of manoeuvres
protracted over three or four days; and afterwards a hard fought battle,
converted by a happy yet by no means unusual accident into a decided and
showy success. Decided, but not decisive; for, like the soldier
desperate in deed before rewarded, but who, when summoned again, advised
that the chance be given to a man who had not a purse of gold, Rodney
preferred to pause on that personally safe side of moderation in
achievement which is rarely conducive to finality, and is nowhere so
ill-placed as in the aims of a commander-in-chief. The true prudence of
war,--as it is also its mercy, to friend and to foe,--is to strike
without cessation or slackness till power of future action is crushed.
De Grasse's immediate task was to protect a large convoy from Martinique
to Cap François (now Cap Haytien), in Hayti, a distance of about a
thousand miles. Cumbered with merchant vessels, and aware that Rodney
would be at once on his track, he could not go straight across the
Caribbean; the British fleet, not so hampered, would be sure to overtake
and destroy. He purposed, therefore, to skirt the Antilles, keeping
continually in reach of a port of refuge. Rodney, knowing the aim to be
Jamaica, had little doubt of overtaking in any case, if started
promptly. He therefore kept himself in signal touch of Fort Royal by a
chain of frigates, extending from its offing to his own anchorage.
On the 8th of April the French sailed. The British followed instantly,
and before sundown had them in sight, not only by lookout vessels, but
from the mastheads of the main fleet. At daybreak next morning they were
visible from the decks of the British van; a very marked gain. De Grasse
saw that at that rate, unless he got rid of the convoy, he would
certainly be overtaken, which it was his aim to elude in pursuance of
the usual French policy of ulterior purposes; so, being then north of
Dominica, he sent the merchant vessels into Guadaloupe, and undertook to
carry the ships-of-war through the passage between the two islands,
beating to windward. This would draw the British away from the convoy,
unless they were content to let the fleet go, which was not to be
expected.
Between 8 A.M. and 2 P.M. of April 9th, several sharp skirmishes took
place between the French and the British van, under Hood.[9] De Grasse
had here an opportunity of crushing a fraction of the enemy, but failed
to use it, thus insuring his own final discomfiture. Rodney, who was
becalmed with the centre and rear of his command, could do nothing but
push forward reinforcements to Hood as the wind served; and this he did.
Pursuit was maintained tenaciously during the following night and the
next two days,--April 10th and 11th; but in sustained chases of bodies
of ships, the chased continually drops units, which must be forsaken or
else the retreat of the whole must be retarded. So in this case, certain
of De Grasse's ships were either so leewardly or so ill handled that the
bulk of the fleet, which had gained considerably to windward, had to
bear down to them, thus losing the ground won. Under such circumstances
the chapter of accidents--or of incidents--frequently introduces great
results; and so it proved here.
At 2 A.M. of April 12th, De Grasse's flag-ship, the _Ville de Paris_,
and the seventy-four-gun ship _Zélé_, crossing on opposite tacks, came
into collision. The former received little damage, but the _Zélé_ lost
her foremast and bowsprit. De Grasse then ordered her into Guadaloupe,
in tow of a frigate. When day broke, about five o'clock, these two were
only about six miles from the British rear, under Hood, whose division
had been shifted from the van in consequence of injuries received on the
9th. The British column was then standing east-northeast, closehauled on
the starboard tack, the crippled vessel under its lee, but the French of
the main body well to windward. To draw them within reach, Rodney
signalled Hood to send chasers after the _Zélé_. De Grasse took the bait
and ran down to her support, ordering his ships to form line-of-battle
on the port tack, which was done hastily and tumultuously. The two lines
on which the antagonists were respectively advancing now pointed to a
common and not distant point of intersection, which the French, despite
the loss of ground already undergone, reached first, passing in front
and to windward of the head of the British column. Eight ships thus went
by clear, but the ninth arrived at the same moment with the leading
British vessel, which put her helm up and ran along close to leeward of
the French line towards its rear, followed in so doing by the rest of
her fleet.
The battle thus assumed the phase of two fleets passing each other in
opposite directions, on parallel lines; a condition usually unproductive
of results, and amounting to little more than a brush, as had been the
case in two rencounters between Rodney and De Guichen in the prolonged
chase of May, 1780. Chance permitted a different issue on this occasion.
The wind at the moment of first collision, shortly before 8 A.M., was
east, and so continued till five minutes past nine, when it shifted
suddenly to the southeastward, ahead for the French, abaft for the
British. The former, being already close to the wind, could keep their
sails full only by bearing away, which broke up their line ahead, the
order of battle as ranged for mutual support; while the British being
able to luff could stand into the enemy's line. Rodney's flag-ship, the
_Formidable_, 90, was just drawing up with the _Glorieux_, 74, nineteenth
from the van in the French order and fourth astern of the _Ville de
Paris_, De Grasse's flag-ship. Luffing to the new wind, she passed
through the French line at this point, followed by the five ships astern
of her; while the sixth astern, the _Bedford_, 74, luffing on her own
account, broke also through the French astern of the _César_ and the
_Hector_, 74's, eleventh and twelfth in their order. The twelve British
vessels in rear of the _Bedford_ followed in her wake. Hood was in one
of these, the _Barfleur_, 90. Of the ships ahead of Rodney the nearest
one imitated his example instantly and went through the line; the
remainder, sixteen in all, continued northward for a space.
These sudden and unexpected movements overpowered the _César_, _Hector_,
and _Glorieux_ under a weight of successive broadsides that completely
crushed them, separated De Grasse with six companion vessels from his
van and his rear, and placed the British main body to windward of the
French. Both sides were disordered, but the French were not only
disordered but severed, into three formless groups, not to be united
except by a good breeze and exceeding good management, neither of which
was forthcoming. Even to frame a plan operative under such conditions
requires in an admiral accuracy of judgment and readiness rarely
bestowed; but to communicate his designs and enforce execution upon
captains under such a staggering shock of disaster is even more uncommon
of accomplishment. During the remainder of the day light airs from the
eastward prevailed, interspersed with frequent calms; conditions
unfavorable to movement of any kind, but far more to the French,
deprived of concert of purpose, than to the British, whose general
course was sufficiently defined by the confusion of the enemy, and the
accident of a small group surrounding their commander-in-chief, to
capture whom was always a recognized principal object. The very
feebleness of the breeze favored them by comparison; for they had but to
go before it with all their light sails, while their opponents, in order
to join, were constrained to lateral movement, which did not allow the
same canvas.
There was, in short, during the rest of the day an unusual opportunity
for success, on such a scale as should be not only brilliant, but really
decisive of the future course of the war; opportunity to inflict a
maritime blow from which the enemy could not recover. Does it need to
say clearly that here the choice was between a personal triumph, already
secured for the successful admiral, and the general security of the
nation by the "annihilation"--the word is Nelson's--of the enemy? That
Rodney thus phrased the alternative to himself is indeed most unlikely;
but that he failed to act efficiently, to rise to an emergency, for the
possible occurrence of which he had had ample time as well as warning to
prepare, is but too certain. Even after the British had got to windward
of the enemy and seen their disorder, although the signal for the line
was hauled down, none was made for a general chase. That for close
action, hoisted at 1 P.M., was discontinued thirty minutes later, when
five full hours of daylight remained. Even in example the admiral was
slack, by Hood's account. "He pursued only under topsails (sometimes his
foresail set, and at other times his mizzen topsail aback) the greatest
part of the afternoon, though the flying enemy had all the sail set
their very shattered state would allow." Hood, curbed by his superior's
immediate presence, did what he could by putting all sail on the
_Barfleur_, and signalling the various ships of his personal command to
do the same; "not one but chased in the afternoon with studding sails
below and aloft." It was bare poetic justice, therefore, that the _Ville
de Paris_, the great prize of the day, though surrounded by numerous
foes, struck formally to him.
The _Hector_, _César_, and _Glorieux_, already paralyzed ere the chase
began, were the only results of this languid movement, except the French
flag-ship and the _Ardent_, 64. The latter was taken because,
notwithstanding her being an indifferent sailer, she gallantly tried to
pass from her own division, the van, to support her commander-in-chief
in his extremity. It was 6.29 P.M. when the _Ville de Paris_ struck;
sixteen minutes later, 6.45, Rodney made signal to bring-to for the
night--to give over pursuit. Only the _Ville de Paris_ and the _Ardent_
can be considered to have been secured by following, after the battle
proper closed.
Nor was any other attempt made to profit by the victory. On the 13th the
fleet began to move very slowly towards Jamaica, the local protection of
which had become imperative through the failure to annihilate the enemy,
who must now go to leeward--to Hayti; but after four hours Rodney
brought-to again, and on the 16th, according to Hood, was in "the exact
same spot off Guadaloupe. It has indeed been calm some part of the time,
but we might have been more than twenty leagues farther to the
westward." The _César_ having been accidentally burned on the night of
the battle, the prizes _Hector_ and _Glorieux_ were sent ahead in charge
of three ships-of-the-line. This was a questionable disposition, as they
were advancing in the direction of the enemy, without being covered by
the interposition of the main fleet. The _Ville de Paris_ Rodney kept
close by his own side, unable to tear himself from her; so at least said
Hood, who "would to God she had sunk the moment she had yielded to the
arms of His Majesty," for "we would then have had a dozen better ships
in lieu of her." Rodney was so tickled with her that he "can talk of
nothing else, and says he will hoist his flag on board of her."
On April 17th Hood, having vainly urged his commander to improve the
situation by more energetic action, represented to him that the small
detachment convoying the _Hector_ and _Glorieux_ might fall in with a
superior enemy, if not supported. Rodney then directed him to go ahead
with ten ships until as far as Altavela, midway on the south side of
Santo Domingo, where he was to await the main body. Hood gave a wide
construction to these orders, and pushed for the Mona Passage, between
Santo Domingo and Porto Rico, where on the 19th he intercepted two
sixty-four gun ships, and two smaller cruisers. In reporting this
incident to Rodney, he added, "It is a very mortifying circumstance to
relate to you, Sir, that the French fleet which you put to flight on the
12th went through the Mona Channel on the 18th, only the day before I
was in it." That sustained vigorous chase could not have been fruitless
is further shown by the fact that Rodney himself, deliberately as he
moved, apparently lying-to each night of the first half-dozen succeeding
the battle, reached Jamaica three days only after the main body of the
defeated French gained Cap François, though they had every motive to
speed.
Of the reasons for such lethargic action, wholly inconsistent with true
military principle, and bitterly criticised by Hood,--who affirmed that
twenty ships might have been taken,--Rodney drew up an express account,
which cannot be considered as adequate to his justification. In this he
argued that, if he had pursued, the enemy, who "went off in a close
connected body, might have defeated by rotation the ships that had come
up with them, and thereby exposed the British fleet, after a victory, to
a defeat." "They went off in a body of twenty-six ships-of-the-line, and
might, by ordering two or three of their best-sailing ships or frigates
to have shown lights at times, and by changing their course, have
induced the British fleet to have followed them, while the main of their
fleet, by hiding their lights, might have hauled their wind, have been
far to windward before daylight, and intercepted the captured ships, and
the most crippled ships of the English;" and he even conceived that, as
the main body of the British would at the same time have gone far to
leeward, the French, regaining their own ports in Guadaloupe and
Martinique, might have taken Antigua, Barbados, and Santa Lucia.
The principal impression produced by this formal summary of reasons is
that of unwisdom after the event, and that it was elicited by the
remonstrances of Hood to himself, which are known to have voiced
discontent prevalent in the fleet, and rendered some ready reply
expedient. The substance of them, when analyzed, is that war must be
rendered effective by not running risks, and that calculation to that
effect is to be made by attributing every chance and advantage to the
enemy, and none to one's self. Further, no account is to be taken of
that most notable factor, ultimate risk,--as distinguished from present
risk. This phantasm, of the sudden assumption of the offensive by a
beaten and disordered fleet, which, through the capture of its chief,
had changed commanders at nightfall, is as purely and mischievously
imaginative as the fiction, upon which it rests, of the close connected
body. Instead of being close-connected, the French were scattered
hopelessly, utterly disabled for immediate, or even proximate,
resistance to a well sustained chase and attack. During the next
twenty-four hours their new admiral had with him but ten ships; and only
five joined in the following twelve days, to April 25th, when he reached
Cap François, where four more were found. Six others had strayed to
Curaçao, six hundred miles distant, whence they did not rejoin the flag
until May. Neither in Rodney's surmises, nor in the actual facts of the
case, is to be found any reasonable excuse for failure to observe the
evident military duty of keeping touch with the enemy during the dark
hours,--"pursue under easy sail," to use Hood's words, "so as never to
have lost sight of the enemy in the night,"--with a view to resume the
engagement next day, at farthest. This, and to regain to windward, were
as feasible to the victor as to the vanquished.
A truer explanation of this grave negligence is to be found in Rodney's
more casual words recorded by Hood. "I lamented to Sir George on the
twelfth that the signal for a general chase was not made when that for
the line was hauled down, and that he did not continue to pursue so as
to keep sight of the enemy all night; to which he only answered, 'Come,
we have done very handsomely as it is.' I could therefore say no more
upon the subject." He did, however, resume the subject with Sir Charles
Douglas, the chief of staff. Douglas was of the same opinion as Hood,
and for making the suggestion at the proper moment had been snubbed by
Rodney, who had established over him a domination of manner which
precluded proper insistence, or even due representation, such as became
his office. "His answer was, 'Sir George chose to pursue in a body;'"
that is, in regular order, not by general chase. "'Why, Sir Charles,' I
replied, 'if that was Sir George's wish, could it have been more
effectually complied with than by the signal for a general chase, with
_proper attention_? Because, if a ship is too wide on the starboard
wing, you have a signal to make her steer more to port. If a ship is too
wide on the larboard wing, you have a signal to make her steer more to
starboard. If a ship is too far ahead, you can by signal make her
shorten sail,'" etc. This by daylight; while, "'if Sir George was
unwilling his ships should engage in the night, there is a signal to
call every ship in, and, that followed by the one for the form of
sailing, the fleet might have gone on in sight of the enemy all night in
the most compact and safe order for completing the business most
gloriously the next day.' Sir Charles walked off without saying another
word." There was in fact nothing to say. Hood's methods were not only
correct, but in no respect novel. Every capable officer was familiar
with them before, as well as after the battle. The trouble was that
Rodney was content with a present clear success, and averse from further
risk. He had reached his limitations. It is known now that Douglas
agreed with Hood, but he was too loyal to his chief to say so publicly,
then or afterwards; and especially, doubtless, to so irritable a talker.
As illustrative of Rodney's professional character the events of April
8th to 12th are therefore unfavorable rather than the reverse.
Concerning his stronger qualities their evidence is simply cumulative;
the new light thrown reveals defects, not unsuspected excellencies. The
readiness in which his fleet was held at Santa Lucia, the promptness
with which he followed, the general conduct of the chase as far as
appears, though doubtless open to criticism in detail as in the ever
censorious remarks of Hood,--all these show the same alert,
accomplished, and diligent officer, resolute to the utmost of his
natural and acquired faculties. It is the same after the battle joins,
so long as its progress does not transcend his accepted ideas,--which
were much in advance of the great mass of his contemporaries,--though
under the conditions he saw no chance to apply the particular methods
familiar to his thought.
But when sudden opportunity offered, of a kind he had not anticipated,
he is found unequal to it. Neither natural temper, nor acquired habit of
mind, respond to the call. To pass through the French line, when the
wind shifted, was an instigation too sudden and a risk too great for his
own initiative. The balance of evidence shows that it was due to the
suggestion, and even more to the pressure, of Sir Charles Douglas.
Carried beyond his habitual submission by the impulse of a great
thought, and unburdened by the ultimate responsibility which must remain
with the admiral, the Captain of the Fleet not only urged luffing
through the enemy's line, but--so the story runs--in the excitement of
the moment, and seeing the chance slipping past, even under the then
sluggish breeze, he ordered the helm down. The admiral, thus faced,
countermanded the order. A moment of silence followed, during which the
two men stepped apart, the admiral even entering the cabin, which would
be but a few paces from the wheel. Returning, he permitted Douglas to
have his way; an act which, whether done courteously or grudgingly, does
not bespeak professional conviction, but the simple acceptance of
another's will in place of one's own indecision.
The incident is in entire keeping with the picture of Rodney's
irresolution, and consequent uncertain course, drawn in successive
touches by Hood in the hours and days succeeding the victory. Events
had called him to deeds beyond his limitations. Age of course counted
for much; fatigue, after three days of doubtful chase and one of
prolonged battle, for more; but it may here be recalled that an older
man, after a more wearisome and doubtful exposure, willed of his own
motion to do what Rodney left undone. Sir Byam Martin has recorded,[10]
"After the battle of the 1st of June, Lord Howe was quite exhausted, as
well indeed he might, considering that they had been manoeuvring and
fighting for three days. Although feeble in body, and so exhausted as to
be obliged to sit down in a chair on deck, he expressed a wish to pursue
the flying enemy; but Sir Roger Curtis, the Captain of the Fleet (Chief
of Staff, as Douglas to Rodney) said, 'I vow to God, my lord, if you do
they will turn the tables upon us.' This anecdote I had from the late
Admiral Bowen, who was master of the _Queen Charlotte_ and a party to
the conversation." Under circumstances approaching similarity,--so far
as North Atlantic fogs and weather resemble West India climate,--Howe
was sixty-eight, Rodney sixty-three, at the moment of testing. The one
lost the support of the man--Curtis--upon whom he must chiefly rely for
observation and execution; the other was urged in vain by the officer
who held the same relation to him. Nelson once spoke slightingly of "a
Lord Howe's victory, take a part, and retire into port;" as a trait of
official character, however, Howe's purpose was far in advance of
Rodney's, as this was viewed by Nelson's ideal admiral, Hood. It is now
known, by a letter of Nelson's very recently published, that he held the
same opinion of Rodney's remissness in this instance, although he
cordially recognized the general obligation of the country and the navy
to that eminent seaman. Writing in 1804 to his intimate friend
Cornwallis, one of Rodney's captains, he used these words: "On the score
of fighting, I believe, my dear friend, that you have had your full
share, and in obtaining the greatest victory, _if it had been followed
up_, that our country ever saw."[11] It was a clear case of spirit being
brought into subjection to form.
Rodney's professional career may be reckoned to have ended with his
arrival at Jamaica on the 29th of April. The change of ministry
consequent upon Cornwallis's surrender brought into power his political
opponents, and in May the new Admiralty superseded him. News of the
victory reached England just too late to permit them to revoke the
order; his successor, Admiral Pigot, having already sailed. On the 22d
of July Rodney left Jamaica, and on the 15th of September landed at
Bristol. Although not so intended, his recall may be considered in line
with his proverbial good fortune. He left his successor to grapple with
difficulties, and with numbers, the continued existence of which was due
chiefly to his own neglect after April 12th, and by the burden of which
the conditions of peace were influenced adversely to Great Britain. To
quote again Hood's apt comment, "Had Sir George Rodney's judgment, after
the enemy had been so totally put to flight, bore any proportion to the
high courage, zeal and exertion, shown by every captain, officer, and
man under his command in battle, _all_ difficulty would now have been at
an end. We might have done just as we pleased, instead of being at this
hour (April 30th) upon the defensive." This is ultimate risk, which is
entailed by exaggerated concern for immediate apparent security, and
ends in sapping endurance.
The auspicious moment at which the news of the battle reached England,
and the surface brilliancy of the achievement,--especially the capture
of the enemy's commander-in-chief,--diverted attention from any
examination of possible shortcomings. Rodney received a vote of thanks
from Parliament, and was advanced to the peerage by the King. A pension
of £2,000 per annum was also voted, additional doubtless to a similar
sum granted after his destruction of Langara's squadron and relief of
Gibraltar. Other rewards and recognition had already attended his naval
career. He had been made a baronet in 1764, at the expiration of his
first tenure of the Leeward Islands Station; in 1780 the order of the
Bath was bestowed upon him,--the distinction being enhanced by not
awaiting a vacancy, but making him a supernumerary member,--and in 1781,
upon the death of Lord Hawke, he became Vice-Admiral of Great Britain,
the highest professional honor in the service.
After his return to England Rodney lived generally in retirement. His
latter years were harassed by law suits, growing chiefly out of his
proceedings at St. Eustatius, and the attendant expenses kept him poor.
He died in May, 1792, at the age of seventy-three.