SERVICE AS CAPTAIN TILL 1752
On his arrival in England Rodney’s post-rank was confirmed, and he was
appointed to the _Sheerness_. She was a much smaller ship than the
_Plymouth_, but a post-ship none the less--that is, a vessel large
enough to be commanded by a post-captain and not by a commander. Over
this intermediate rank, which every officer must now pass through on his
way from lieutenant to captain, Rodney appears to have skipped in the
free and easy way the time allowed to those who had luck or interest.
Interest Rodney certainly did not want. If his own words, written many
years later, are to be understood in their literal sense, it was the
best a man could then have--the interest of the Pelhams. In 1756 Rodney
declared in a letter to the famous electioneering Duke of Newcastle, the
“noodle” who would allow nobody to govern England without him, that he
owed all his preferment in the navy to His Grace. This statement was,
however, made in a private note, at a time when the writer was in lively
expectation of future electoral favours, and need not be taken as
rigidly accurate. It is at all events certain that Rodney did not want
for friends at Court, for he was in command of sea-going ships, mostly
on home stations, for the next ten years without a break. A man may use
interest in two ways. He can either get comfortable billets on shore, or
can avail himself of it to be put in the way of seeing service, and must
be judged by the use he makes of a good thing.
On the whole the use Rodney made of it was honourable. It is true that
he did not go to the East Indies, or to the Mediterranean, then the
scene of mere dull cruising, and not the model station as it became in
the Napoleonic wars. Neither did he go to the West Indies, which he was
to make the “station for honour” in future years. He stayed steadily at
home in the Channel doing such service as the nature of the war he was
engaged in permitted. This, it must be acknowledged, was for the most
part not brilliant. The war of Jenkins’ Ear, or of the Austrian
Succession, was the dullest we ever fought. At sea it was first and
foremost a privateer war. The navy was poorer in spirit than it ever had
or has been. Failures and courts-martial were numerous, and the
decisions of some of these last were so scandalous that Parliament was
driven into passing the drastic act which left the officers who tried
Byng no alternative but to condemn him to death for want of spirit. Part
of our sins was the fault of our enemies. They were never strong or
spirited enough to make us stretch ourselves. The Spaniard would never
fight unless his back was against a wall, and then to be sure, as we
found at Carthagena, he could make a desperate stand. Now and then a
Spanish liner would bear a tremendous amount of hammering before she
struck--witness the Glorioso, which kept a whole swarm of our warships
and privateers at work for days before they got her. But their fleets
were contemptible. Their courage and efficiency were of the passive
kind. The French fleet was at its lowest in strength if not in courage.
Cardinal Fleury had persistently neglected it, and France herself had
hardly begun to recover from the terrible exhaustion caused by the wars
of Louis the Fourteenth. Neither Spaniards nor Frenchmen could put our
fleets on their mettle, and so the natural tendency of a dull time was
unchecked.
From 1743 to 1747 Rodney was engaged on mainly routine duties in the
successive ships which he commanded--the _Sheerness_ of twenty guns, the
_Ludlow Castle_ of forty, the _Centurion_ of fifty, and the _Eagle_ of
sixty. He patrolled the North Sea in search of privateers, he protected
convoys, he took soldiers to and from the Low Countries. In the _Ludlow
Castle_ he took a large privateer from St. Malo. In the _Centurion_ he
helped to patrol the coast of Scotland during the Forty-Five on the
look-out for adventurers who might bring help to the Jacobites. When
bringing the _Centurion_ back from this service he had the ill-luck to
run on the Whiting Sand off Orfordness, and lose thirty feet of his
false keel and his rudder. The pilot was held very properly, no doubt,
to be responsible, and Rodney passed without loss of credit to the
command of the _Eagle_. The four years were useful to Rodney, no doubt;
they gave him experience in the handling of a ship, and they showed his
patrons that he was worth patronising. More need not, and indeed cannot,
be said about them.
In 1747 the lazy naval war flamed up for a moment--just before it was
ended by the uneasy truce called the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748.
France made a resolute effort both to help its forces in the East
Indies, and to protect the return of its convoys from the West. England
pulled herself together, and decided to defeat this intention. Early in
spring two squadrons were despatched--a strong one under Anson, to look
for the French on their way to the East Indies, and a small one under
Commodore Fox, to look for the home-coming French West India convoy.
Both were successful. Fortune, which was never tired of rewarding Anson
for so magnificently supporting the honour of the English flag in the
bad times when Vernon was failing at Carthagena and Mathews was
wrangling with Lestock in the Mediterranean, threw the East India convoy
in his way. He captured ten of them--thereby earning his peerage and a
second sackful of prize-money. Rodney served in the subordinate squadron
under Fox. His ship the _Eagle_ was one of the six which this commodore
had under him. To them also fortune was kind. In June, about a month
after Anson’s victory, the English squadron fell in, off Cape Ortugal,
with the West India convoy of one hundred and seventy sail of merchant
ships, under the guard of four war-ships. Men-of-war and merchant ships
scattered at the sight of them. The King’s ships got off, but Fox’s
squadron had a day of easy and lucrative work in snapping up the
merchant runaways, whereof they took forty-eight of 16,051 tons in all.
As they were laden with West Indian produce, the day’s work must have
been better than a year’s pay to at least every captain in the squadron.
Here Rodney had seen how a convoy ought not to be protected. It was the
clear duty of the four French captains to fight so long as fighting was
possible, to cover the escape of the unarmed ships. Before the year was
out he had an opportunity of seeing how that duty could be fulfilled in
the most noble manner. During the summer the French were collecting in
the Basque Roads a great convoy of outward-bound merchant ships. The
English Government resolved to intercept this also, and in the autumn
Lord Anson, who was at the head of the Admiralty, selected the best
officer he could have found in the navy to replace himself. A squadron
of fourteen sail, with the _Eagle_ among them, was collected at
Plymouth, and placed under the command of Rear-Admiral Edward Hawke. In
August Admiral Hawke sailed with orders to attack the convoy in the
roadstead; but when he was on Lord Anson’s cruising ground, off
Finisterre, he came at daybreak on August 14th upon the French at sea
under the protection of nine ships of war. There was on the English side
a superiority of five ships and more than two hundred guns, but the
French commander, Desherbiers de l’Etenduère, decided to make a fight.
He had approached the English under the impression that they were a
portion of his own convoy, which had parted in the night. So soon as he
saw his mistake he did his best to correct it. The convoy was sent off
under the care of the _Content_, sixty-four. Then, having weakened
himself for the sake of his charge, M. de l’Etenduère made ready to
sacrifice himself for it also. He formed his remaining eight ships into
a line of battle across the road of the English squadron, and, keeping
vigilantly on his guard, edged away after his flying convoy.
At the sight of the French, Hawke had at first formed his line of
battle; but as the day wore on he saw the extent of his own
superiority, and saw also that the French, being to windward of him,
would be able to keep their distance till dark if he continued to
approach them in the regular formation, which would necessarily mean at
something a little below the speed of the slowest of his fourteen ships.
He therefore hauled down the signal for the line of battle, and ordered
a general chase, which is the technical name of the simplest of all
possible manœuvres--going, namely, at the enemy as fast as wind,
tide, and the sailing powers of your ship would allow you. Hawke was
fond of attacking in this fashion, and about eleven years after this day
did so, under heroic circumstances, at the magnificent sea-fight off
Quiberon. In the battle with L’Etenduère there was less to do, but such
as it was, it was gallantly done. The first to come up with the enemy
was Captain Arthur Scott of the _Lion_, who, at about midday, as it
were, seized hold of them, and clung to their skirts till help came. It
was not delayed. Other English ships swarmed up fast--the _Eagle_ among
them--each getting into action as she could, and all pressing on the
Frenchmen. Six of the eight struck, but not till after hard fighting,
prolonged in the case of two of them till seven in the evening. There
was no manœuvring; it was all plain hammer-and-tongs work, in which
the _Eagle_ had her full share. Early in the fight she came under the
guns of the _Tonnant_, the French flag-ship, an eighty-gunner, and was
badly mauled. Her steering-gear being disabled, she fell on board of
Hawke’s own ship the _Devonshire_, and the two drifted out of the fight
before they could get clear of one another. This stop was only
temporary. Hawke soon got back into action, and Rodney made good his
damage. When at last L’Etenduère, having done enough for honour,
prepared to escape with his own ship the _Tonnant_, and the only other
survivor of his squadron the _Intrepide_, Rodney joined Saunders of the
_Yarmouth_ (he who afterwards helped Wolfe to conquer Quebec) and Philip
Saumarez of the _Nottingham_ in pursuing the only remains of the enemy.
The _Eagle_ and the _Yarmouth_ were soon left behind. The _Nottingham_
alone came up with the retreating Frenchmen. In this stage of the fight
the odds had shifted to the other side. The _Tonnant_ was an eighty-gun
ship; the _Intrepide_ a seventy-four. Against two such enemies the sixty
guns of the _Nottingham_ were too few. Captain Saumarez indeed fought
till he fell mortally wounded; but the officer who succeeded him gave up
the unequal conflict, and at dark Hawke hoisted the signal of recall.
The _Tonnant_ and the _Intrepide_ made their way back to port.
It was a very pretty fight altogether, and on L’Etenduère’s part a most
gallant and able one. His bravery and his judgment were equally
conspicuous. Not only did he save his honour, but he saved his convoy.
During those seven hours of fighting the merchant ships had escaped to
windward. When dark came down Hawke, with six shattered French prizes on
his hands, and several of his own ships greatly damaged in hull and
rigging, had nothing for it but to make his way back to England. On our
side again, though it was not one of the fights we should rank with
Quiberon or the Nile, it was a creditable piece of service. Good use was
made of our superior numbers, and as the French ships were larger than
our own, and the calibre of the guns somewhat heavier, the odds in our
favour were not so great as they look on a mere statement of numbers and
broadsides. One unhappy feature of the naval war of the time was not
wanting. There was a court-martial on Captain Fox of the
_Kent_--Rodney’s commodore in the cruise of the previous June--who was
accused of hanging back in the action. The charge was largely supported
by Rodney’s own evidence, and was held to be proved. Fox was dismissed
the service, and though afterwards restored by the King, was not again
employed. Rodney was thought to have borne somewhat hardly on the poor
man, being aggrieved by want of support when he felt he needed it in the
action. As we get more means of seeing Rodney’s character it will, I
think, become very credible that he would be especially harsh in his
condemnation of want of zeal when he had himself suffered from it. That
Fox had not behaved so well in the action as Rodney, Saunders, Saumarez,
or Scott is beyond question. It is also certain that the naval
courts-martial of that time were not, as a rule, remarkable for the
severity of their sentences, and we may rest content that substantial
justice was done.
The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle did not turn Rodney on shore. His interest
was good enough to save him from the too common fate of naval officers
in the days when the reduction of the establishment from a war to a
peace footing was carried out with but little regard to the claims of
those who could not make their voice heard loudly at Whitehall.
Moreover, he was now known as one who was well able to fulfil his side
of the bargain which is generally made, at least tacitly, between patron
and client. He was an officer whom it was a credit to push. When he
happened to be in London, just after the action with L’Etenduère, Anson
took him to the King. George the Second expressed his surprise at
Captain Rodney’s youth, which, by the way, would imply that His
Majesty’s acquaintance with his own post list was not exhaustive, for it
certainly contained several younger officers than the commander of the
_Eagle_. Then Anson, so says the story, replied by expressing a wish
that His Majesty’s Navy contained more young captains of the stamp of
Captain Rodney. This was high praise indeed from Anson, who was never
lavish of praise, and was indeed so cold that Smollett accused him of
raying out frost on all who came near him. The words of a First Lord,
and one who had a particular care in pushing on men whom he thought
worthy of promotion, were not likely to fall to the ground. In March,
1749, Rodney was appointed Governor of Newfoundland, and at the same
time Captain of H.M.S. _Rainbow_.
This was not a cumulation of offices. The governorship of Newfoundland
was then a naval post. We considered the place as a fishing-station, and
indeed it was little else. The fishermen and the fisheries were directly
under “Admirals of the Fisheries,” resident officers from whom there lay
an appeal to the officers of H.M. ships on the coast. Other settlers
were under justices, who however had no jurisdiction over the
fisher-folk. At the head of all was the chief naval officer on the
station. So completely were the Fisheries considered as the colony that
the Governor only stayed there during the season to protect them. For
the rest of the year he was doing convoy work, out and home, or was
lying in the Longreach. He had a regular round specified to him with
much precision by My Lords. In spring he was to drop down to the Downs
with his own ship and any others put under his command. From thence he
was to proceed down Channel looking in at Pool, Weymouth, Topsham,
Plymouth, and Falmouth. Sailing from this port he was to make the best
of his way to the Banks of Newfoundland with the Fishing Fleet, “And in
regard it has been represented to us that pirate ships did formerly lurk
about the Banks of Newfoundland and infest the ships fishing on that
coast, you are never to make any unnecessary stay in port, nor suffer
the _Boston_ (she was another vessel under his command) to do so, but
keep diligently cruising at sea, and so employ both ships as may most
effectually keep the pirates from those parts and protect the trade and
His Majesty’s subjects.” Here follow many instructions as to his duties
in those parts touching the assistance to be given to the Fishery
Admirals in keeping order, the care to be shown in excluding foreign
interlopers, and the vigilance to be exercised in preventing the
desertion of English sailors. It was not intended that the Fishery Fleet
should limit the supply of men for His Majesty’s Navy by carrying
emigrants to New England. Therefore Captain Rodney was to see that all
ships brought back the complement they took out “except in case of
death,” when some reasonable latitude would be allowed. On October 1st
Rodney was to collect his charge, now fully laden with stock-fish for
the Peninsula and the Mediterranean, and was to convoy them to Cadiz,
whence after a stay of not more than ten or twelve days he was to see
them and such other merchant ships as put themselves under his
protection to their respective parts “as high as Livorno.” After a stay
of not more than twenty days he was to return by Barcelona, Majorca,
Minorca, Alicante, and Cadiz. From thence, after another delay limited
to twelve days, he was to make his way, providing for the Lisbon and
Oporto trade in person or by deputy, to the Downs, “giving us an account
by all opportunities of your proceedings.” From the Downs he would come
up to the Thames, and there remain, unless ordered to convoy His Majesty
from Harwich, till such time as he had to sail for the Banks again.
This routine is worth recording for the illustration it affords of the
conditions under which trade was formerly carried on, and the contrast
it presents to the freedom and safety of the seas in our times. It was
also distinctly service, and Rodney, who served his apprenticeship in it
under Medley, must have known what work there was in it before taking
the billet. He did not therefore use his influence to shirk work. For
the rest the post was a good one--an all-round cruise and a winter in
England being much to be preferred to three consecutive years of a
foreign station. At a later period the experience must have been
invaluable to Rodney. When nearly twenty years later he sailed to
relieve Gibraltar, he must have found the value of the practice he had
had in taking convoys in and out of the Mediterranean.
In 1751 the regular round was relieved for him by a little piece of
surveying service. The Trinity House had in that year before them Mr.
William Otton and one Peter Ham his mate, sent by the Admiralty with a
circumstantial story of discovery. It was to the effect that on March
4th, 1749, these two mariners in their bark the _St. Paul_ did discover
an island in Latitude 49° 40´ N. and Longitude 24° 30´ west of the
Lizard. They saw it clearly, and were prepared to swear that it was six
or seven leagues long, lying S.S.E. and N.N.W., with a little flat
island at the east point of it. Also they swore that there was a great
surf, and that one point of the island was as high as Dunnose. On
cross-examination it appeared that Mr. Otton and Peter Ham did not cast
the lead. The Trinity House did not much believe these mariners who came
from a far country, but it thought the matter might be looked into, and
so the Admiralty instructed the commander of the Newfoundland convoy, on
whose route the supposed island lay, to look into it. Rodney did, and
had to report that the alleged island was not there--being either an
invention of Mr. Otton and Peter Ham of the _St. Paul_, or some Cape
Flyaway seen in a haze, which had solidified in their imaginations
between 1749 and 1751. Marryat was sent into the Atlantic on a similar
wild goose chase long afterwards, which facts show how long it was
before the ocean was so thoroughly surveyed as to make it appear
impossible that an undiscovered island should lie between Cape
Finisterre and Cape Race on the very track of the American trade.
At all times during this commission there was a possibility that Rodney
might have more serious work to do than the protecting fishermen from
lurking pirates, or assisting Fishery Admirals. The peace with France
never really extended either to America or India. In both there was
incessant underhand hostility, flaming now and then into actual
fighting. On the North American continent, all along the frontier of
New England and Nova Scotia, there was almost avowed war from the
first. Newfoundland was then to us a kind of outpost against the French
in Canada, and it was part of Rodney’s duty to keep an eye on their
agents, who were everywhere pushing, intriguing, insulting, in the style
which provoked the great storm of the Seven Years’ War. When Rodney
first took command of the Newfoundland station he was warned by Sandwich
to be on the outlook for the French aggression, which His Majesty’s
Ministers already expected on the very day after signing the Peace. The
letter is worded honourably for Rodney. Sandwich speaks of him as one
who can be trusted to act with judgment, and does not need precise
instructions. His reputation must therefore have been well established
at headquarters as a capable officer. The warning was not unnecessary,
for in 1751 Rodney had to despatch Captain Francis William Drake (the
brother of the Samuel Francis Drake who was to lead his van on the yet
distant April 12th, 1782--Drakes both of them of the blood of the
Elizabethan) to look into the proceedings of a French schooner reported
to have turned up at Trepassey Bay just below Cape Race. She “was
mounted with 14 carriage-guns besides a number of swivels. Man’d with
upwards of fifty men ‘she’ had put into that port, and erected tents on
shore, carrying with them a number of muskets, cuttlasses, and
ammunition, giving no other account of themselves than that they were
come to survey that part of the island, as likewise the harbour of
Trepassey, to know whether their draughts in that respect were correct;
the said schooner carrying a light in the night as if she expected other
vessels.”
The storm did not break in Rodney’s time, however. Mysterious French
schooners turned up with carriaged-guns and swivels, showing menacing
lights, but they vanished away again. French agents came and went on the
border, intriguing, vapouring, now and then murdering, maintaining
French influence in the usual way, till the measure was full, and they
were swept for ever from the country they could neither use themselves
nor would let others till in peace. Strange it is, and a poor proof of
our wisdom, that they still retain those fishing rights on the coast of
Newfoundland which it was part of Rodney’s duty to see that they did not
exceed.
The remnants--stained and tattered--of a letter-book kept by Rodney
during his command of the _Rainbow_, and still preserved by his
descendants, show him at work doing his duty as naval officer in peace
very much as his successors do to-day. He has to report on Dr. Knight’s
“Magnetic bars,” and to test a quick-firing brass gun, as we test and
experiment now. Touches here and there show that the Admiralty
administration was not of the best--complaints, for instance, that the
men’s clothes are worn out, so much so as to leave them in absolute need
of cover from the weather. Again, the food was but poor, to judge by the
frequent orders for survey, and by the condemnation of beef, bread, and
beer (for it was not till long after that rum became the standard drink
of the navy) which followed the surveys. Sailors of both services, naval
and merchant, will grumble at their food on small provocation, and
condemn it on trifling evidence; but one does not gather that Rodney was
too easily disposed to allow this weakness its way. The _Rainbow’s_
stores, when condemned as bad, were bad, we may be sure. He appears at
all times to have been careful of the health of his men, knowing that
their efficiency depended on it, being moreover naturally a gentleman,
and therefore anxious that the humbler folk dependent on him should be
comfortable according to the modest standard of their place.
It is a little detail not without interest that Rodney must have worn
his first uniform on this commission. Though we had had a regular corps
of naval officers since the beginning of the reign of Charles the
Second, when the first list was formed by James, then Duke of York
(whose merits as an administrator have never had full justice done
them), no uniform was ordered till 1749. Officers dressed as they
pleased, with a preference for red for show, and for gray, the colour of
the slops served to the men, for work. Gradually this omission became a
grievance to the naval mind. The officers considered it as in some sort
putting them below the soldiers, though they were, as their successors
are, very conscious that the navy is the senior service. At last some of
them petitioned for a uniform, and were told to choose. They asked for a
blue uniform with red facings, or a red uniform with blue facings. It
was for one fateful moment doubtful whether the “blue jacket” was to
come into existence or not. Happily while it was yet time George the
Second met the Duchess of Bedford in the Park wearing a riding habit of
blue with _white_ facings. It charmed him, and he gave the colour and
the facings to the navy, which was not the least wise thing George the
Second did in his time--the old navy uniform, the blue coat relieved
with white and gold, the white knee-breeches and stockings, was one of
the most becoming ever worn. At first apparently, though there is a
doubt, only captains and flag-officers were required to wear it. There
is a legend to the effect that when lieutenants were similarly honoured,
one uniform was kept in the ward-room, and worn by the officers in turn
when they were summoned on board the flag-ship, or sent ashore on duty.
Masters had no uniform, and on the Mediterranean station they bought the
cast-off red coats of the soldier officers at Gibraltar--trimming them
with black. Rum and the blue jacket, which have become inseparable from
our notions of the old navy, are both, it will be seen, very modern.
The _Rainbow_ was paid off at Woolwich in 1752. Rodney himself landed at
Portsmouth, leaving the vessel to be brought round to the river by his
First Lieutenant Du Bois. He had to hand her over to his subordinate on
the ground of ill health, being, as he pleaded to the Admiralty, very
ill and in charge of a physician. Ill health was destined to be only too
common with him for the rest of a long life, and he was probably already
suffering from the disease of the century--the gout, which in later
years first crippled and then killed him.