now began to cut us short in the various items which contribute to the
daily bread of a government institution. We lived the year from hand
to mouth. From the repairs put on the building a twelvemonth before
there was left a lot of refuse scrap lying about. This we collected
and sorted, selling what was available, on the principle of
slush-money. Slush, the non-professional may be told, is the grease
arising from the cooking of salt provisions. By old custom this was
collected, barrelled, and sold for the benefit of the ship. The price
remained in the first lieutenant's hands, to be expended for the
vessel; usually going for beautifying. What we sold at the College we
thus used; not for beautifying, which was far beyond us, but to keep
things together. This proceeding was irregular, and for years I
preserved with nervous care the memoranda of what became of the money,
in case of being questioned; although I do not think the total went
much beyond a hundred dollars. It is surprising how much a hundred
dollars may be made to do. For our lectures the hydrographer again
made for the College two very large and handsome maps.
The session of 1887 was longer and more complete than the year before;
but specifically it increased our good report in the service and added
to us hosts of friends. Many were now ready to speak in our favor, if
asked; and some gave themselves a good deal of trouble to see this or
that person of importance. This was a powerful reinforcement for the
approaching struggle; but with the Secretary biassed against us, and
resolute opposition from the chairman of the committee, the odds were
heavy. Mr. Whitney showed me a frowning countenance, quite unlike his
usual _bonhomie_; and yielded only a reluctant, almost surly, "I will
not oppose you, but I do not authorize you to express any approval
from me." With that we began a still hunt; not from policy, but
because no other course was open, and by degrees we converted all the
committee but three. This was quite an achievement in its way; for, as
one of the members said to me, "It is rather hard to oppose the
chairman in a matter of this kind. Still, I am satisfied it is a good
thing, and I will vote for it." So we got our appropriation by a big
majority. Mr. Herbert was very nice about his discomfiture. That a set
of uninfluential naval officers should so unexpectedly have got the
better of him, in his position, had a humorous side which he was ready
to see; though it is possible we, on whose side the laugh was, enjoyed
it more. He afterwards, when Secretary of the Navy, came to think much
better of the College, which flourished under him.
I had soon to find that my mouth had more than one side on which to
laugh. Confident that we were out of the woods, I proceeded to halloo;
for in an address made at the opening of the session of 1888, alluding
to the doubt long felt about the appropriation, I said, "That fear has
now happily been removed." I reckoned without the Secretary, who
issued an order, a bolt out of the blue, depriving the College not
only of its building, but of its independent existence; transferring
it to the care of the commander of the Torpedo Station, on another
island in Narragansett Bay. This ended my official existence as
president of the College, and I was sent off to Puget Sound; one of a
commission to choose a site for a navy-yard there. I never knew, nor
cared, just why Whitney took this course, but I afterwards had an
amusing experience with him, showing how men forget; like my old
commodore his moment of despondency about the outcome of the war. In
later years he and I were members of a dining club in New York. I then
had had my success and recognition. One evening I chanced to say to
him, apropos of what I do not now recall, "It was at the time, you
know, that you sent Sampson to the Naval Academy, and Goodrich to the
Torpedo Station." "Yes," he rejoined, complacently; "and I sent you to
the War College." It was literally true, doubtless; his act, though
not his selection; but in view of the cold comfort and the petard with
which he there favored me, for Whitney to fancy himself a patron to
me, except on a Johnsonian definition of the word,[16] was as humorous
a performance as I have known.
So I went to Puget Sound, a very pleasant as well as interesting
experience; for, having a government tender at our disposal, we
penetrated by daylight to every corner of that beautiful sheet of
water, the intricate windings of which prepare a continual series of
surprises; each scene like the last, yet different; the successive
resemblances of a family wherein all the members are lovely, yet
individual. Then was there not, suburban to the city of Seattle, Lake
Washington, a great body of fresh water? Of this, and of its island,
blooming with beautiful villas, a delightful summer resort in easy
reach of the town by cars, we saw before our arrival alluring
advertisements and pictures, which were, perhaps, a little premature
and impressionist. How seductive to the imagination was the future
battle-ship fleet resting in placid fresh water, bottoms unfouled and
little rusted, awaiting peacefully the call to arms; upon which it
should issue through the canal yet to be dug between sound and lake,
ready for instant action! Great would have been the glory of Seattle,
and corresponding the discomfiture of its rival Tacoma, which
undeniably had no lake, and, moreover, lay under the stigma of having
tried, in such default, to appropriate by misnomer another grand
natural feature; giving its own name Tacoma to Mount Rainier, so
called by Vancouver for an ancient British admiral. A sharp Seattleite
said that a tombstone had thus been secured, to preserve the
remembrance of Tacoma when the city itself should be no more. The
local nomenclature affixed by Vancouver still remains in many cases.
Puget, originally applied to one only of the many branches of the
sound, was among his officers. Hood's Inlet was, doubtless, in honor
of the great admiral, Lord Hood; while Restoration Point commemorates
an anniversary of the restoration of Charles II. As regarded Lake
Washington, our commission was a little nervous lest an injury to the
canal might interfere at a critical moment with the fleet's freedom of
movement, leaving it bottled up, and wired down. We selected,
therefore, the site where the yard now stands, in a singularly
well-protected inlet on the western side of the main arm, with an
anchorage of very moderate depth and easy current for Puget Sound.
There, if my recollection is right, it is nearly equidistant from the
two cities. Our judgment was challenged and another commission sent
out. This confirmed our choice, but very much less land was secured
than we had advised.
XII
EXPERIENCES OF AUTHORSHIP
Before my return from Puget Sound a new administration had come in
with President Harrison, and the War College was once more in favor.
But its organization had been destroyed, and some time must elapse
before it could get again on its legs. In the summer of 1889 a course
was held at the Torpedo Station, where I lectured with others. The
following winter an appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars was
made for a College building; the old one being confirmed to the
training station, which continued, however, strongly to oppose any use
of its grounds for the new venture. In this it was overruled, and in
1892 the College started afresh in what has since been its constant
headquarters, two hundred yards from its original position.
In the mean time my first series of lectures had been published in
book form, under the title _The Influence of Sea Power upon History,
1660-1783_. This was in May, 1890. That it filled a need was speedily
evident by favorable reviews, which were much more explicit and hearty
in Europe, and especially in Great Britain, than in the United States.
The point of view apparently possessed a novelty, which produced upon
readers something of the effect of a surprise. The work has since
received the further indorsement of translation into French, German,
Japanese, Russian, and Spanish; I think into Italian also, but of this
I am not certain. The same compliment has, I believe, been paid to its
successor, which carried the treatment down to the fall of Napoleon.
Notably, it may be said that my theme has brought me into pleasant
correspondence with several Japanese officials and translators, than
whom none, as far as known to me, have shown closer or more interested
attention to the general subject; how fruitfully, has been
demonstrated both by their preparation and their accomplishments in
the recent war. As far as known to myself, more of my works have been
done into Japanese than into any other one tongue.
In 1890 and 1891 there was no session of the College. During this
period of suspended animation its activities were limited to my own
preparations for continuing the historical course through the wars of
the French Revolution and Empire, with a view to the resumption of
teaching. I was kept on this duty; and I think no one else was busy in
direct connection with the institution, though the former lecturers
were for the most part available. It is evident how particularly
fortunate such circumstances were to an author. For the two years that
they lasted I had no cares beyond writing; was unvexed by either
pecuniary anxieties or interference from my superiors. The College
slumbered and I worked. My results, after one season's use as
lectures, were published in two volumes, under the title _The
Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire_.
Of this work it may accurately be said that in order of composition it
was begun with its final chapter. The accumulation and digestion of
material had been spasmodic and desultory, for I had hesitated much
whether to pursue the treatment after 1783. The instability of the
College fortunes had irritated as well as harassed me. If the navy did
not want what I was doing, why should I persist? Nothing having been
given to the world, I had had no outside encouragement; and little
from within the profession, save the cordial approval of a very few
officers. However, during the two years of doubtful struggle I had
read quite widely upon the general history of the particular period,
as well as upon the effects of sea power in the Peloponnesian War;
together with such details as I could collect from Livy and Polybius
of naval occurrences while Hannibal was in Italy. My outlook was thus
enlarged; not upon military matters only, but by an appreciation of
the strength of Athens, broad based upon an extensive system of
maritime commerce. This prepared me to see in the Continental System
of Napoleon the direct outcome of Great Britain's maritime supremacy,
and the ultimate cause of his own ruin. Thus, while gathering matter,
a conception was forming, which became the dominant feature in my
scheme by the time I began to write in earnest. Coincidently with
these studies, and with my other occupations when at first president
of the College, two introductory chapters had been written; one
bridging the interval between 1783 and 1793, so as to hitch on to my
first book, the other dealing with the state of the navies at the
opening of the French Revolution.
There Mr. Whitney's action brought me up with a round turn. When I
resumed, late in 1889, I extended my reading by Jomini's _Wars of the
French Republic_, a work instructive from the political as well as
military point of view; concurrently testing Howe's naval campaign of
1794 by the principles advanced by the military author, which
commended themselves to my judgment. In connection with this study of
naval strategy, I reconstructed independently Howe's three engagements
of May 28th and 29th, and June 1st, from the details given by James,
Troude, and Chevalier, analyzing and discussing the successive
tactical measures of the opposing admirals; in the battle of June 1st
going so far as to trace even the tracks of the fifty-odd individual
ships throughout the action. This, the most complicated presentation I
ever attempted, was a needless elaboration, though of absorbing
interest to me when once begun. A comparison between it and the bare
conventional diagram of Trafalgar in the same volumes, which has been
criticised as not reproducing the facts, may serve to show how far
multiplicity of minutiae conduces to clearness of perception. From the
Trafalgar plan a reader, lay or professional, can grasp readily the
underlying conceptions upon which the battle was fought, and the
manner in which they were executed, as commonly received; but who ever
has tried to comprehend the movements of the vessels on June 1st, as I
elicited them? Assuming their correctness, it was a mere mental
diversion, in result rather confusing than illuminative to a student;
whereas ships arranged like beads on a string can give an impression
fundamentally correct, and to be apprehended at a glance. So far from
tending to lucidity, accumulation of detail in pursuit of minute
accuracy rather obscures. Nelson himself indicated his intentions
sufficiently by straight lines. One merit my June 1st plan may
possibly possess; the perplexing optical effect may convey better than
words the intricacy of a naval _melee_.
Coincidently with the study of military events, connoted by Howe's
campaign and Jomini, I of course did a good deal of reading which here
can be described only as miscellaneous; prominent amid which was
Thiers's _History of the Consulate and Empire_, Napoleon's
_Correspondence and Commentaries_, and the orations of Pitt and Fox.
From Thiers, confirmed by contemporary memoirs and pamphlets and other
incidental mention, I gained my conviction that the Continental System
was the determinative factor in Napoleon's fortunes after Tilsit.
Pitt's speeches, taken with his life, seemed to me conclusive as to
his policy, despite the evil construction placed upon his acts by
Frenchmen of his day, which Thiers has perpetuated. I saw clearly and
conclusively, as I thought, apparent in his public words and private
letters, a strong desire for peace, and a hand forced by a wilful
spirit of aggression which momentarily had lost the balance of its
reason. Making every allowance for the extravagances of the French
rulers, unpractised in government and driven by a burning sense of
mission to universal mankind, it was to me evident that their demands
upon other nations, and notably upon Great Britain, were subversive of
all public order and law, and of international security.
Pitt's proud resolution to withstand to the uttermost this tendency,
coupled with his evident passionate clinging to peace as the basis of
his life ambition, constituted to my apprehension a tragedy; of lofty
personal aim and effort wrestling with, and slowly done to death by,
opposing conditions too mighty for man. The dramatic intensity of the
situation was increased by the absence of the external dramatic appeal
characteristic of his father. It carried the force of emotion
suppressed. The bitter inner disappointment is veiled under the
reserve of his private life and the reticence of his public utterance,
which give to his personality a certain remoteness from usual joys and
sorrows; but, the veil once pierced by sympathy, the human side of the
younger Pitt stands revealed as of one who, without complaint, bore no
common burden, did no common work, and to whom fell no common share of
the suffering which arises from disappointment and frustration, in
ideals and achievement. The conflict of the two motives in the man's
steadfast nature aroused in me an enthusiasm which I did not seek to
check; for I believe enthusiasm no bad spirit in which to realize
history to yourself or others. It tends to bias; but bias can be
controlled. Enthusiasm has its place, not for action only, nor for
speaking, but in writing and in appreciation; quite as critical
analysis and judicial impartiality have theirs. To deny either is to
err. The moment of exaltation gone, the dispassionate intellect may
sit in judgment upon the expressions of thought and feeling which have
been prompted by the stirring of the mind; but without this there
lacks one element of true presentation. The height of full recognition
for a great event, or a great personality, has not been reached. The
swelling of the breast under strong emotion uplifts understanding.
Under such influence a writer is to the extent of his faculties on the
level of his theme. As for biography, I would no more attempt to write
that of a man for whom I felt no warm admiration, than I would
maintain friendship with one for whom I had no affection.
Doubtless there also was in Pitt's manner of speech, in the cast of
his sentences,--the style that is the man himself,--something which
appealed especially to me. Often, when reading in the Public Library
of New York a passage of unusual eloquence, I would be strongly moved
to rise on the spot and give three cheers; and I heartily subscribed
to a Latin motto on the title-page of the edition I was using: If you
could but have heard himself. But it was more than that. The story
increasingly impressed itself upon me. I saw him conscious of great
capacities for the administration of peace, an inner conviction of far
less ability for war; with a vision of Great Britain happy and
prosperous beyond all past experience under his enlightened guidance,
of which already the plans had been revealed and proof been given, and
over against this the palpable reality of a current too powerful to be
resisted, sweeping her into a conflict, the end of which, amid such
unprecedented conditions, could not be foreseen. Also, despite all his
deficiencies for a war ministry, as I read and studied the general
features of the situation with which he had to deal, I became
convinced that the broad lines of his policy coincided with the
military necessities of the case, to an extent that he himself very
possibly did not realize. For as the Directory outlined Napoleon's
Continental System, so Pitt, unknowingly perhaps, pursued the methods,
as he definitely predicted the means--exhaustion--by which his
successors brought to a stop the mischievous energies of France under
the great emperor.
Thus, before I began to write, my leading ideas for the historical
treatment of the influence of sea power during the period 1793-1814
rested upon an approval of the main features of Pitt's war policy, and
sympathy with his personal position; upon a clear conviction of the
weight of the Continental System as a factor in the general situation,
and of its being a direct consequence from British maritime supremacy;
and upon a sufficiently comprehensive acquaintance with the operations
of the land warfare up to the Peace of Amiens. Having as yet written
only the two introductory chapters, and Howe's campaign being strictly
episodical, the work as an organic whole was still before me when the
summer of 1890 arrived. It was then thought probable that the College
would at once resume, and in order to be at hand I settled my family
in Newport, there addressing myself to my new lectures. Considering
the mass of detail through which my hearers must be carried, I thought
advisable to begin with an outline statement of the general political
and military conditions, and of their sequences; a rudimentary figure,
a skeleton, the nakedness of which should render easy to understand
the mutual bearings of the several parts, and their articulations. So
most surely could the relation of sea power to the other members be
seen, and its influence upon them and upon the ultimate issue be
appreciated. Before I began, I remember explaining to a brother
officer my conception of the Continental System as the culmination of
the maritime struggle, which in a narrowly military sense had ended
with Trafalgar. The light thus cast would illuminate afterwards each
of the several sections of the history, treated circumstantially in
order of time. In short, I here applied to the whole the method of my
diagram for Trafalgar, and not of that for June 1st. The result was
the chapter last in the work, as it now stands, but the first to be
composed.
A few months before book publication this chapter appeared in the
_Quarterly Review_, under the title "Pitt's War Policy," chosen by me
to express my recognition that the grand policy was his; that in it he
was real as well as titular premier; and that in my judgment, despite
the numerous errors of detail which demonstrated his limited military
understanding, the economical comprehension of the statesman had
developed a political strategy which vindicated his greatness in war
as in peace. The article ended, as the chapter then did, with the
well-known quotation, particularly apt to my appreciation, "The Pilot
had weathered the storm." The few subsequent pages were added later.
By an odd coincidence, just as I had offered the paper to the
_Quarterly_, one under the same title, "by a Foxite," came out in
another magazine. Somewhat discomposed, I hurried to look this up; but
found, as from the _nom de plume_ might be presumed, that it did not
take my line of argument, but rather, as I recall, that of Pitt's
opponents, which Macaulay has developed with his accustomed
brilliancy, although to my mind with profound misconception and
superficial criticism. Fox's speeches had made upon me the impression
of the mere objector. Indeed, I felt this so strongly that I had
written of him as "the great, but factious, leader of the opposition."
In proofreading I struck out "factious;" as needless, and as a
generalization on insufficient premises.
It was not till the following December--1890--that I began the two
chapters next in order of composition, on "The Warfare against
Commerce." These occupied me late into the winter, covering as they
did the entire period 1793-1814, and embracing a great deal of
detail. Taken together, these three chapters, final but first written,
contain the main argument of the book. The naval occurrences,
brilliant and interesting as they were, are logically but the prelude
to the death grapple. Pitt's policy stood justified, because naval
supremacy, established by war, secured control of the seas and of
maritime commerce, and so exhausted Napoleon. Not till this
demonstration had been accomplished to my own satisfaction did I take
up the narrative and discussion of warfare, land and sea. Thus the
prelude followed the play. My memory retains associations which enable
me definitely to fix the progress of the work. Thus the chapter on
"The Brest Blockade," from its characteristics, long continuance, and
incidents, one of the most interesting of the purely naval operations,
was composed in the summer of 1891, at Richfield; while the campaign
and battle of Trafalgar, the last done of all, passed through my hands
in April, 1892, in Richmond, Virginia, where I then was on
court-martial duty.