THE END
When Rodney issued the order to cease action on the evening of April
12th, his active life had practically come to an end. He proceeded with
his fleet and his prizes to Jamaica, after despatching Hood, somewhat
tardily, in pursuit of the scattered French. Hood picked up two liners
and a few smaller craft in the Mona Channel between Porto Rico and San
Domingo. At Jamaica, Rodney was received with natural and well-deserved
enthusiasm by the people whom he had saved from a great danger. He
remained at Port Royal till the end of July. The work of refitting the
squadron occupied him much, and was not made lighter by the condition of
the dockyard, which had fallen into bad order since he had himself been
on the station in 1774. He looked forward to exercising his command for
some time longer--even to the end of the war. In a letter to his wife he
begs her to contradict all reports that he was coming home. If he had
wished to return after his victory, he might have done so with credit,
for his work was done and his health had again broken down. At Port
Royal he was so ill as to be compelled to hand over the command for a
time to his second. He still, however, clung to his great office, and
in the circumstances he cannot be blamed for being loath to retire in
the presence of the enemy.
Had he known what was passing in England while he was breaking up the
French fleet it is possible that a request to be relieved might have
accompanied the news of his victory in the despatch-box of Lord
Cranstoun, who gave up his immediate prospect of a ship in order to be
the bearer of good tidings to London. If the two documents had been
delivered together he would have scored a double victory over the
Ministry. At the very moment that he was pressing the pursuit of the
French, his recall was being decided on by the Ministry, and it would
have been something to have forestalled them. Lord North had been driven
from office in March, and a Whig administration had succeeded. The new
Cabinet resolved to recall the Tory admiral, and it is characteristic
that the officer they chose to succeed him was Admiral Pigot. Pigot was
a man of no distinction, of no experience in the command of fleets, and
he had been long on shore; but he had sat for years in the House and had
always voted steadily with the Whigs. For these services he was chosen
to bear out the laconic order which told Rodney to haul down his flag,
and to him it was given to succeed the most brilliantly successful
commander of the war.
By one of the most ironical pieces of ill-luck--and the best
merited--which ever overtook any Administration, the news of the great
victory reached England just after Pigot had sailed. Orders were at once
sent off to stop him, but it was too late. He was out of sight of land
on his way to the West Indies before the messenger could reach the
port. There was nothing for it but to stick to their guns, to retort on
their adversaries that the country had heard the news of the recall with
indifference however loudly it cried out _after_ receiving the news of
the victory (which was perfectly true), and to protest the utmost
respect for the Admiral. To do it justice, the Whig Cabinet executed
itself with a reasonably good grace. Burke declared in his figurative
classical way that if there was a bald spot on the head of the Admiral
he would gladly cover it with laurels. A committee which had been
appointed to inquire into the miscarriages at St. Eustatius was
discharged. It was decided that Rodney should have a barony and another
pension of £2000. Sandwich, who being now in Opposition could afford to
be generous, declared that a barony was not enough. His own ancestor,
the Admiral Montague who helped to restore Charles the Second, and was
slain at Solebay, had received an earldom and more money for less than
had been done by Rodney. There was truth in his criticism, but the
Ministry cannot be accused of niggardly conduct if judged by the
standard of the time. Titles were less lavishly given for service then
than they had been before or have been since. Hawke, for example,
received no title at all for the battle of Quiberon, which relieved the
country from the fear of actual invasion. His barony was given him years
afterwards. It does not appear that Rodney thought himself shabbily
treated. He took his title from Rodney Stoke, but he did not close with
the offer of the Duke of Chandos. Lady Rodney did not like the climate
of Somerset, and the Admiral himself seems to have had no sentimental
feelings in the matter. He was content with Hampshire, which had always
been his country-quarters in England.
Rodney left the West Indies in July and reached Bristol, after a stormy
passage, in September. His reception at home consoled him, if unmeasured
popular applause was a consolation in such a case, for his summary
recall. The country had not had many opportunities of welcoming
victorious commanders in the course of this war. The good work done (and
it had been much) had not been of the brilliant kind, and had too often
ended in disaster. In Rodney’s case there was now no doubt. He had taken
a Spanish, a Dutch, and a French admiral--the last in the midst of a
great fleet and on board the finest three-decker in the world. More
liners had struck to him than to any English admiral since the elder
Byng scattered the Spaniards off Cape Passaro nearly seventy years
before. There was no shadow on this glory, and the nation gave way to
one of those bursts of enthusiasm over it and the man who bore it, in
which the phlegm of the English melts like “snaw off a dyke.” From the
day of his landing at Bristol till he retired from Court surfeited with
praise, he was surrounded by cheering crowds; and when the applause died
away it left a solid admiration and gratitude which endured to the end.
Rodney survived his triumphant return nearly ten years, but it is to be
feared that there was more glory than ease in the end of his life. The
lawsuits which sprang out of those unlucky transactions at St. Eustatius
followed him almost to the grave--they or their consequences, which were
pecuniary embarrassments. His gout too grew upon him, and before the
close had begun, according to a not improbable report, to affect his
understanding. Much of his time was spent at spas at home or abroad. In
1787, when there was again a prospect of war with France, he volunteered
to go on service, in spite of age and infirmities, if the King had need
of him. The offer was acknowledged with fitting courtesy by Pitt, but it
could not have been considered more than a sign of the veteran’s
goodwill. In 1789 he had again to write to Pitt. The King’s first
publicly known attack of madness had just occurred, and Rodney had taken
what he believed to be the right side for one who was “bred a
Royalist”--he had in fact acted with those who wished to give the
regency without limitations to the Prince of Wales. Immediately
afterwards he was informed that his son, Captain John Rodney, was likely
to be refused a guardship appointment as a punishment for his own
Parliamentary action. He wrote to the Prime Minister in very natural
indignation--and indeed such an act done on such a motive would have
been sufficiently ignoble, though perfectly in keeping with the practice
of the time. It does not seem, however, that, as a matter of fact,
Captain John Rodney ever wanted for commands.
The Admiral died on May 23rd, 1792, in his eldest son’s house, the
corner house of Prince’s Street and Hanover Square, of gout. He had
fainted with pain, and when he revived for a moment Sir Walter Farquhar,
his doctor, asked him if he did not feel better, to which he replied, “I
am very ill indeed,” and so “expired without a sigh or a struggle.”
If we look, as it is fair to look, to the importance of the great
victory which he won in 1782, there can be no difficulty in assigning
Rodney his place among English admirals. He ranks next to Blake and to
Nelson. From the time that the admiral of the Commonwealth defeated
Tromp in the three days’ battle which raged from Portland to Calais, no
victory of equally vital consequence had been won. Until Trafalgar,
which finally ruined Napoleon’s efforts to cross us at sea, no such
other was to be won. It may even, in a sense, be said with accuracy that
of the two the fight off Dominica was more important than Trafalgar. If
Villeneuve had never left Cadiz, the immense superiority of the English
fleet would not have been diminished in the least. Napoleon had broken
up the camp at Boulogne and marched into Germany before Trafalgar was
fought. He had renounced his intention of invading England already; and
Trafalgar, though a magnificent victory, was valuable rather as proving
to us and to the world that England was safe than as adding to our
existing safety. Moreover, it may be very reasonably doubted whether,
without the encouraging example set by Rodney, our admirals of the
Revolutionary War would have manœuvred as boldly as they did. The
influence of that day is felt at once if we pass from any of the battles
fought before it to Howe’s victory on June 1st. Howe was by nature a
circumspect man. He had expressly stated after reading Clerk of Eldin
that, though it was all very ingenious, he for his part meant to keep to
the old way. Yet, as a matter of fact, he departed widely from the old
way, and won such a victory as would not have been possible if he had
stuck to it. The deduction that he was led by the example of Rodney is
irresistible. Indeed the battle of April 12th was a turning-point in the
history of naval warfare. From that time forward we hear nothing more
of the pedantic old fighting orders. Admirals manœuvred to beat the
enemy, and not to keep their own line intact.
A man who commanded on so great an occasion must for ever receive his
share of honour. Yet the devil’s advocate asks whether the occasion was
not greater than the man, and it cannot be denied that he has a case. As
Rodney himself said afterwards, with rare honesty and self-knowledge,
the victory was largely won by accident. It was not thought out and done
on a plan. His orders show that the Admiral meant to fight on the old
method. He departed from it because the wind had disordered the enemy
for him. He did not deliberately break the enemy up as Howe did on June
1st, as Nelson did at Trafalgar. He himself never showed any particular
pride in his great victory. Whatever evidence there is goes to prove
that he wished to be judged, not by the battle he won, but by the plan
he laid to defeat Guichen on April 17th, 1780. That battle, he felt,
would have been won by headpiece and not by luck. It was a very just
distinction, and Rodney’s glory will not be really affected if he is
judged by the test he preferred. The plan of battle for the 17th was a
good one, and shows that he was a tactician, though it also shows his
limitations. As a tactician his glory is that he endeavoured to use the
old tactics with intelligence. But he was not an innovator.
As a commander he ranks much higher. He could take the great line,
looking to what was for the best when the war was considered as a whole.
His watch was vigilant; his pursuit was close. He could select from
among the objects to be attained the most important, and could refuse to
be drawn off by the less vital. His measures were not uniformly well
taken, and for one interval of his life his spirit was dimmed; but, on
the whole, he was an energetic leader, differing in kind from such a man
as Arbuthnot, and in degree from such an officer as Hughes, the very
valiant, very tough, but, alas! very commonplace admiral who was pitted
against Souffren in the East Indies. Perhaps the most really honourable
to him of all his feats was the destruction of Langara’s squadron. He
had an overwhelming superiority of numbers, no doubt, but the
determination to pursue through the night and the storm on to a lee
shore, the resolution to run the risk for a sufficient object, were
worthy of his old leader Hawke--and more than that no man can say.
Personally Rodney was a very complete example of that aristocracy which
governed England through the eighteenth century--with much selfishness
and much corruption, no doubt, yet in the main with a high spirit, with
foresight, with statesmanship, and with glory. It would be absurd to say
that he was indifferent to place or money. He desired them both, and
avowed the desire frankly. He was not, in a favourite modern phrase,
sympathetic. There was about him a certain irritable promptitude to
assert his own dignity, and one gathers that he rather enjoyed inspiring
fear. Yet, like many men who are proud in place and office, he was kind
to those who were dependent on him--to his children, to his wife, and to
such friends as Gilbert Blane. He had that sense of the becoming in
manners which rarely fails an aristocracy. Whatever he may have said to
Douglas or of Hood in private, he gave them their praise before the
world in full measure. But the great redeeming quality in Rodney and in
all that aristocratic class to which he belonged was this, that they did
combine with their self-seeking a very high public spirit. They would
intrigue for place, and would in matters of detail allow the interest of
“the connection” to go before the good of the State; but when they spoke
for their country to the foreigner, then they thought only of the
greatness of England. For that greatness Rodney fought and would
willingly have died. For it, and at a time of dire need, he, at the head
of a force he helped to perfect, did a very great thing. For that his
name should never be forgotten by Englishmen.
THE END
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FOOTNOTES:
[A] The reader must be warned at this point that the battle of April
12th, 1782, has been the subject of a long and angry controversy. It
was promoted partly by the zeal of certain Scotchmen, partly by the
filial piety of General Sir Howard Douglas, the well-known writer on
gunnery, son of Sir Charles Douglas, who was Rodney’s captain of the
fleet. The matter in dispute was the respective claims of Clerk of
Eldin and Sir Charles Douglas to the credit of inspiring or guiding
the Admiral at the critical moment of the battle. As is usually the
case, the controversy has been marked by much angry contradiction,
much confusion between matters of fact and matters of opinion, much
lax use of words on both sides. Of the witnesses quoted, some are only
accessible at second hand, some were boys at the time of the battle
who gave their evidence years afterwards; one who was not a boy, and
told his story immediately afterwards, is suspected, because he had
reasons of a personal character to regard Rodney with animosity. I
have not thought it necessary to enter into the controversy in this
narrative, but have endeavoured to the best of my ability to make the
battle out from all the evidence, and tell it as, to me, it appears to
have passed. The bulk of the evidence will be found in the _Quarterly
Review_ for January 1830, the _Edinburgh Review_ for April 1830, the
_United Service Magazine_, vols. xi. and xiii., and in the various
_Statements_ of Sir Howard Douglas. Full accounts of the battle are to
be found in Beatson’s _Annals_, vol. vi., in Captain White’s _Naval
Researches_, and in Captain Matthews’ plans of the naval battles of
the war. These two officers were both present.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
cuttlasses, and amunition=>cuttlasses, and ammunition {pg 31}