WAR BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND SPAIN, 1739.--WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN
SUCCESSION, 1740.--FRANCE JOINS SPAIN AGAINST GREAT BRITAIN,
1744.--SEA BATTLES OF MATTHEWS, ANSON, AND HAWKE.--PEACE OF
AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, 1748.
We have now reached the opening of a series of great wars, destined to
last with short intervals of peace for nearly half a century, and
having, amid many misleading details, one broad characteristic
distinguishing them from previous, and from many subsequent, wars.
This strife embraced the four quarters of the world, and that not only
as side issues here and there, the main struggle being in Europe; for
the great questions to be determined by it, concerning the world's
history, were the dominion of the sea and the control of distant
countries, the possession of colonies, and, dependent upon these, the
increase of wealth. Singularly enough it is not till nearly the end of
the long contest that great fleets are found engaging, and the
struggle transferred to its proper field, the sea. The action of sea
power is evident enough, the issue plainly indicated from the
beginning; but for a long time there is no naval warfare of any
consequence, because the truth is not recognized by the French
government. The movement toward colonial extension by France is wholly
popular, though illustrated by a few great names; the attitude of the
rulers is cold and mistrustful: hence came neglect of the navy, a
foregone conclusion of defeat on the main question, and destruction
for the time of her sea power.
Such being the character of the coming wars, it is important to
realize the relative positions of the three great powers in those
quarters of the world, outside of Europe, where the strife was to
engage.
In North America, England now held the thirteen colonies, the original
United States, from Maine to Georgia. In these colonies was to be
found the highest development of that form of colonization peculiar to
England, bodies of free men essentially self-governing and
self-dependent, still enthusiastically loyal, and by occupation at
once agricultural, commercial, and sea-faring. In the character of
their country and its productions, in its long sea-coast and sheltered
harbors, and in their own selves, they had all the elements of sea
power, which had already received large development. On such a country
and such a people the royal navy and army were securely based in the
western hemisphere. The English colonists were intensely jealous of
the French and Canadians.
France held Canada and Louisiana, a name much more extensive in its
application then than now, and claimed the entire valley of the Ohio
and Mississippi, by right of prior discovery, and as a necessary link
between the St. Lawrence and the Gulf of Mexico. There was as yet no
adequate occupation of this intermediate country, nor was the claim
admitted by England, whose colonists asserted the right to extend
indefinitely westward. The strength of the French position was in
Canada; the St. Lawrence gave them access to the heart of the country,
and though Newfoundland and Nova Scotia had been lost, in Cape Breton
Island they still held the key of the gulf and river. Canada had the
characteristics of the French colonial system planted in a climate
least suited to it. A government paternal, military, and monkish
discouraged the development of individual enterprise and of free
association for common ends. The colonists abandoned commerce and
agriculture, raising only food enough for immediate consumption, and
were given to arms and hunting. Their chief traffic was in furs. There
was so little mechanical art among them that they bought of the
English colonies part of the vessels for their interior navigation.
The chief element of strength was the military, arms-bearing character
of the population; each man was a soldier.
Besides the hostility inherited from the mother-countries, there was a
necessary antagonism between two social and political systems, so
directly opposed, and lying one alongside the other. The remoteness of
Canada from the West Indies, and the inhospitable winter climate, made
it, from the naval point of view, of much less value to France than
the English colonies to England; besides which the resources and
population were greatly inferior. In 1750 the population of Canada was
eighty thousand, that of the English colonies twelve hundred thousand.
With such disparity of strength and resources, the only chance for
Canada lay in the support of the sea power of France, either by direct
control of the neighboring seas, or by such powerful diversion
elsewhere as would relieve the pressure upon her.
On the continent of North America, in addition to Mexico and the
countries south of it, Spain held Florida; under which name were
embraced extensive regions beyond the peninsula, not accurately
defined, and having little importance at any period of these long
wars.
In the West Indies and South America, Spain held mainly what are still
known as Spanish American countries, besides Cuba, Porto Rico, and
part of Hayti; France had Guadeloupe, Martinique, and the western half
of Hayti; England, Jamaica, Barbadoes, and some of the smaller
islands. The fertile character of the soil, the commercial
productions, and the less rigorous climate would seem to make these
islands objects of particular ambition in a colonial war; but as a
matter of fact no attempt was made, nor, except as to Jamaica, which
Spain wished to recover, was any intention entertained of conquering
any of the larger islands. The reason probably was that England, whose
sea power made her the principal aggressor, was influenced in the
direction of her efforts by the wishes of the great body of Englishmen
on the North American continent. The smaller West India islands are
singly too small to be strongly held except by a power controlling the
sea. They had a twofold value in war: one as offering military
positions for such a power: the other a commercial value, either as
adding to one's own resources or diminishing those of the enemy. War
directed against them may be considered as a war upon commerce, and
the islands themselves as ships or convoys loaded with enemy's wealth.
They will be found therefore changing hands like counters, and usually
restored when peace comes; though the final result was to leave most
of them in the hands of England. Nevertheless, the fact of each of the
great powers having a share in this focus of commerce drew thither
both large fleets and small squadrons, a tendency aided by the
unfavorable seasons for military operations on the continent; and in
the West Indies took place the greater number of the fleet-actions
that illustrated this long series of wars.
[Illustration: PENINSULA OF INDIA AND CEYLON.]
In yet another remote region was the strife between England and France
to be waged, and there, as in North America, finally decided by these
wars. In India, the rival nations were represented by their East India
companies, who directly administered both government and commerce.
Back of them, of course, were the mother-countries; but in immediate
contact with the native rulers were the presidents and officers
appointed by the companies. At this time the principal settlements of
the English were,--on the west coast, Bombay; on the east, Calcutta
upon the Ganges, at some distance from the sea, and Madras; while a
little south of Madras another town and station, known generally to
the English as Fort St. David, though sometimes called Cuddalore, had
been established later. The three presidencies of Bombay, Calcutta,
and Madras were at this time mutually independent, and responsible
only to the Court of Directors in England.
France was established at Chandernagore, on the Ganges, above
Calcutta; at Pondicherry, on the east coast, eighty miles south of
Madras; and on the west coast, far to the south of Bombay, she had a
third station of inferior importance, called Mahé. The French,
however, had a great advantage in the possession of the intermediate
station already pointed out in the Indian Ocean, the neighboring
islands of France and Bourbon. They were yet more fortunate in the
personal character of the two men who were at this time at the head
of their affairs in the Indian peninsula and the islands, Dupleix and
La Bourdonnais,--men to whom no rivals in ability or force of
character had as yet appeared among the English Indian officials. Yet
in these two men, whose cordial fellow-working might have ruined the
English settlement in India, there appeared again that singular
conflict of ideas, that hesitation between the land and the sea as the
stay of power, a prophecy of which seems to be contained in the
geographical position of France itself. The mind of Dupleix, though
not inattentive to commercial interests, was fixed on building up a
great empire in which France should rule over a multitude of vassal
native princes. In the pursuit of this end he displayed great tact and
untiring activity, perhaps also a somewhat soaring and fantastic
imagination; but when he met La Bourdonnais, whose simpler and sounder
views aimed at sea supremacy, at a dominion based upon free and
certain communication with the home country instead of the shifting
sands of Eastern intrigues and alliances, discord at once arose.
"Naval inferiority," says a French historian who considers Dupleix to
have had the higher aims, "was the principal cause that arrested his
progress;"[88] but naval superiority was precisely the point at which
La Bourdonnais, himself a seaman and the governor of an island, aimed.
It may be that with the weakness of Canada, compared to the English
colonies, sea power could not there have changed the actual issue; but
in the condition of the rival nations in India everything depended
upon controlling the sea.
Such were the relative situations of the three countries in the
principal foreign theatres of war. No mention has been made of the
colonies on the west coast of Africa, because they were mere trading
stations having no military importance. The Cape of Good Hope was in
possession of the Dutch, who took no active part in the earlier wars,
but long maintained toward England a benevolent neutrality, surviving
from the alliance in the former wars of the century. It is necessary
to mention briefly the condition of the military navies, which were
to have an importance as yet unrealized. Neither precise numbers nor
an exact account of condition of the ships can be given; but the
relative efficiency can be fairly estimated. Campbell, the English
contemporary naval historian, says that in 1727 the English navy had
eighty-four ships-of-the-line, from sixty guns up; forty 50-gun ships,
and fifty-four frigates and smaller vessels. In 1734 this number had
fallen to seventy ships-of-the-line and nineteen 50-gun ships. In
1744, after four years of war with Spain alone, the number was ninety
ships-of-the-line and eighty-four frigates. The French navy at the
same time he estimates at forty-five ships-of-the-line and sixty-seven
frigates. In 1747, near the end of the first war, he says that the
royal navy of Spain was reduced to twenty-two ships-of-the-line, that
of France to thirty-one, while the English had risen to one hundred
and twenty-six. The French writers consulted are less precise in their
figures, but agree in representing not only that the navy was reduced
to a pitiful number of ships, but that these were in bad condition and
the dock-yards destitute of materials. This neglect of the navy lasted
more or less throughout these wars, until 1760, when the sense of the
nation was aroused to the importance of restoring it; too late,
however, to prevent the most serious of the French losses. In England
as well as in France discipline and administration had been sapped by
the long peace; the inefficiency of the armaments sent out was
notorious, and recalls the scandals that marked the outbreak of the
Crimean War; while the very disappearance of the French ships led, by
the necessity of replacing them, to putting afloat vessels superior
singly, because more modern and scientific, to the older ships of the
same class in England. Care must be had, however, in accepting too
easily the complaints of individual writers; French authors will be
found asserting that English ships are faster, while at the same
period Englishmen complain that they are slower. It may be accepted as
generally true that the French ships built between 1740 and 1800 were
better designed and larger, class for class, than the English. The
latter had the undoubted superiority both in the number and quality
of the seamen and officers. Keeping some fleets always afloat, whether
better or worse, the officers could not quite lose touch of their
profession; whereas in France it is said that not one fifth of the
officers were, in 1744, employed. This superiority was kept and
increased by the practice, which henceforth obtained, of blockading
the French military ports with superior force; the enemy's squadrons
when they put to sea found themselves at once at a disadvantage in
point of practical skill. On the other hand, large as was the number
of English seamen, the demands of commerce were so great that war
found them scattered all over the world, and part of the fleet was
always paralyzed for lack of crews. This constant employment assured
good seamanship, but the absence of so many men had to be supplied by
an indiscriminate press, which dragged in a class of miserable and
sickly men, sadly diluting the quality of the whole. To realize the
condition of ships' companies of that day, it will be necessary only
to read the accounts of those sent to Anson starting for a cruise
round the world, or to Hawke when fitting out for war service; the
statements are now almost incredible, and the results most deplorable.
It was not a question of sanitation only; the material sent was
entirely unfit to meet the conditions of sea life under the most
favorable circumstances. In both the French and English service a
great deal of weeding among the officers was necessary. Those were the
palmy days of court and political influence; and, moreover, it is not
possible, after a long peace, at once to pick out from among the
fairest-seeming the men who will best stand the tests of time and
exposure to the responsibilities of war. There was in both nations a
tendency to depend upon officers who had been in their prime a
generation before, and the results were not fortunate.
War having been declared against Spain by England in October, 1739,
the first attempts of the latter power were naturally directed against
the Spanish-American colonies, the cause of the dispute, in which it
was expected to find an easy and rich prey. The first expedition
sailed under Admiral Vernon in November of the same year, and took
Porto Bello by a sudden and audacious stroke, but found only the
insignificant sum of ten thousand dollars in the port whence the
galleons sailed. Returning to Jamaica, Vernon received large
reinforcements of ships, and was joined by a land force of twelve
thousand troops. With this increased force, attempts were made upon
both Cartagena and Santiago de Cuba, in the years 1741 and 1742, but
in both wretched failures resulted; the admiral and the general
quarrelled, as was not uncommon in days when neither had an
intelligent comprehension of the other's business. Marryatt, when
characterizing such misunderstandings by a humorous exaggeration,
seems to have had in view this attempt on Cartagena: "The army thought
that the navy might have beaten down stone ramparts ten feet thick;
and the navy wondered why the army had not walked up the same
ramparts, which were thirty feet perpendicular."
Another expedition, justly celebrated for the endurance and
perseverance shown by its leader, and famous both for the hardships
borne and singular final success, was sent out in 1740 under Anson.
Its mission was to pass round Cape Horn and attack the Spanish
colonies on the west coast of South America. After many delays, due
apparently to bad administration, the squadron finally got away toward
the end of 1740. Passing the Cape at the worst season of the year, the
ships met a series of tempests of the most violent kind; the squadron
was scattered, never all to meet again, and Anson, after infinite
peril, succeeded in rallying a part of it at Juan Fernandez. Two ships
had put back to England, a third was lost to the southward of Chiloe.
With the three left to him he cruised along the South American coast,
taking some prizes and pillaging the town of Payta, intending to touch
near Panama and join hands with Vernon for the capture of that place
and the possession of the isthmus, if possible. Learning of the
disaster at Cartagena, he then determined to cross the Pacific and
waylay the two galleons that sailed yearly from Acapulco to Manila.
In the passage across, one of the two ships now left to him was found
in such bad condition that she had to be destroyed. With the other he
succeeded in his last undertaking, capturing the great galleon with a
million and a half dollars in specie. The expedition, from its many
misfortunes, had no military result beyond the terror and consequent
embarrassment caused to the Spanish settlements; but its very
misfortunes, and the calm persistency which worked out a great success
from them all, have given it a well-deserved renown.
During the year 1740 happened two events which led to a general
European war breaking in upon that in which Spain and England were
already engaged. In May of that year Frederick the Great became king
of Prussia, and in October the emperor Charles VI., formerly the
Austrian claimant of the Spanish throne, died. He had no son, and left
by will the sovereignty of his estates to his eldest daughter, the
celebrated Maria Theresa, to secure whose succession the efforts of
his diplomacy had been directed for many years. This succession had
been guaranteed by the European powers; but the apparent weakness of
her position excited the ambitions of other sovereigns. The Elector of
Bavaria laid claim to the whole inheritance, in which he was supported
by France; while the Prussian king claimed and seized the province of
Silesia. Other powers, large and small, threw in their lot with one or
the other; while the position of England was complicated by her king
being also elector of Hanover, and in that capacity hurriedly
contracting an obligation of neutrality for the electorate, although
English feeling was strongly in favor of Austria. Meanwhile the
failure of the Spanish-American expeditions and the severe losses of
English commerce increased the general outcry against Walpole, who
resigned early in 1742. England under the new ministry became the open
ally of Austria; and Parliament voted not only a subsidy to the
empress-queen, but also a body of troops to be sent as auxiliaries to
the Austrian Netherlands. At the same time Holland, under English
influence, and bound like England by previous treaties to support the
succession of Maria Theresa, also voted a subsidy. Here occurs again
that curious view of international relations before mentioned. Both of
these powers thus entered the war against France, but only as
auxiliaries to the empress, not as principals; as nations, except the
troops actually in the field, they were considered to be still at
peace. Such an equivocal situation could in the end have only one
result. On the sea France had already assumed the same position of
auxiliary to Spain, in virtue of the defensive alliance between the
two kingdoms, while affecting still to be at peace with England; and
it is curious to see the gravity with which French writers complain of
assaults upon French by English ships, upon the plea that there was no
open war between the two States. It has already been mentioned that in
1740 a French squadron supported a division of Spanish ships on their
way to America. In 1741, Spain, having now entered the continental war
as an enemy of Austria, sent a body of fifteen thousand troops from
Barcelona to attack the Austrian possessions in Italy. The English
admiral Haddock, in the Mediterranean, sought and found the Spanish
fleet; but with it was a division of twelve French sail-of-the-line,
whose commander informed Haddock that he was engaged in the same
expedition and had orders to fight, if the Spaniards, though formally
at war with England, were attacked. As the allies were nearly double
his force, the English admiral was obliged to go back to Port Mahon.
He was soon after relieved; and the new admiral, Matthews, held at
once the two positions of commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean and
English minister at Turin, the capital of the King of Sardinia. In the
course of the year 1742 an English captain in his fleet, chasing some
Spanish galleys, drove them into the French port of St. Tropez, and
following them into the harbor burned them, in spite of the so-called
neutrality of France. In the same year Matthews sent a division of
ships under Commodore Martin to Naples, to compel the Bourbon king to
withdraw his contingent of twenty thousand troops serving with the
Spanish army in northern Italy against the Austrians. To the attempts
to negotiate, Martin replied only by pulling out his watch and giving
the government an hour to come to terms. There was nothing for it but
submission; and the English fleet left the harbor after a stay of
twenty-four hours, having relieved the empress of a dangerous enemy.
Henceforward it was evident that the Spanish war in Italy could only
be maintained by sending troops through France; England controlled the
sea and the action of Naples. These two last incidents, at St. Tropez
and Naples, deeply impressed the aged Fleuri, who recognized too late
the scope and importance of a well-founded sea power. Causes of
complaint were multiplying on both sides, and the moment was fast
approaching when both France and England must quit the pretence of
being only auxiliaries in the war. Before it came to that, however,
the controlling sea power and wealth of England again made itself felt
by attaching the King of Sardinia to the Austrian cause. Between the
dangers and advantages of the French or English alliance the king's
action was determined by a subsidy and the promise of a strong English
fleet in the Mediterranean; in return he engaged to enter the war with
an army of forty-five thousand men. This compact was signed in
September, 1743. In October, Fleuri being now dead, Louis XV. made
with Spain a treaty, by which he engaged to declare war against
England and Sardinia, and to support the Spanish claims in Italy, as
also to Gibraltar, Mahon, and Georgia. Open war was thus near at hand,
but the declaration was still deferred. The greatest sea fight that
took place occurred while nominal peace yet existed.
[Illustration: Pl. VII. MATTHEWS. FEB., 1744., Pl. VIIa. BYNG.
MAY, 1756.]
In the latter part of 1743 the Infante Philip of Spain had sought to
land on the coast of the Genoese Republic, which was unfriendly to the
Austrians; but the attempt had been frustrated by the English fleet,
and the Spanish ships forced to retreat into Toulon. They lay there
for four months, unable to go out on account of the English
superiority. In this dilemma the court of Spain applied to Louis XV.
and obtained an order for the French fleet, under the command of
Admiral de Court,--an old man of eighty years, a veteran of the days
of Louis XIV.,--to escort the Spaniards either to the Gulf of Genoa or
to their own ports, it does not clearly appear which. The French
admiral was ordered not to fire unless he was attacked. In order to
secure the best co-operation of the Spaniards, whose efficiency he
probably distrusted, De Court proposed, as Ruyter had done in days
long gone by, to scatter their ships among his own; but as the Spanish
admiral, Navarro, refused, the line-of-battle was formed with nine
French ships in the van, in the centre six French and three Spaniards,
in the rear nine Spanish ships; in all, twenty-seven. In this order
the combined fleets sailed from Toulon February 19, 1744. The English
fleet, which had been cruising off Hyères in observation, chased, and
on the 22d its van and centre came up with the allies; but the rear
division was then several miles to windward and astern, quite out of
supporting distance (Plate VII., r). The wind was easterly, both
fleets heading to the southward, and the English had the weather-gage.
The numbers were nearly equal, the English having twenty-nine to the
allied twenty-seven; but this advantage was reversed by the failure of
the English rear to join. The course of the rear-admiral has been
generally attributed to ill-will toward Matthews; for although he
proved that in his separated position he made all sail to join, he did
not attack later on when he could, on the plea that the signal for the
line-of-battle was flying at the same time as the signal to engage;
meaning that he could not leave the line to fight without disobeying
the order to form line. This technical excuse was, however, accepted
by the subsequent court-martial. Under the actual conditions Matthews,
mortified and harassed by the inaction of his lieutenant, and fearing
that the enemy would escape if he delayed longer, made the signal to
engage when his own van was abreast the enemy's centre, and at once
bore down himself out of the line and attacked with his flag-ship of
ninety guns the largest ship in the enemy's line, the "Royal Philip,"
of one hundred and ten guns, carrying the flag of the Spanish admiral
(a). In doing this he was bravely supported by his next ahead and
astern. The moment of attack seems to have been judiciously chosen;
five Spanish ships had straggled far to the rear, leaving their
admiral with the support only of his next ahead and astern, while
three other Spaniards continued on with the French. The English van
stood on, engaging the allied centre, while the allied van was without
antagonists. Being thus disengaged, the latter was desirous of tacking
to windward of the head of the English line, thus putting it between
two fires, but was checked by the intelligent action of the three
leading English captains, who, disregarding the signal to bear down,
kept their commanding position and stopped the enemy's attempts to
double. For this they were cashiered by the court-martial, but
afterward restored. This circumspect but justifiable disregard of
signals was imitated without any justification by all the English
captains of the centre, save the admiral's seconds already mentioned,
as well as by some of those in the van, who kept up a cannonade at
long range while their commander-in-chief was closely and even
furiously engaged. The one marked exception was Captain Hawke,
afterward the distinguished admiral, who imitated the example of his
chief, and after driving his first antagonist out of action, quitted
his place in the van (b), brought to close quarters (b') a fine
Spanish ship that had kept at bay five other English ships, and took
her,--the only prize made that day. The commander of the English van,
with his seconds, also behaved with spirit and came to close action.
It is unnecessary to describe the battle further; as a military affair
it deserves no attention, and its most important result was to bring
out the merit of Hawke, whom the king and the government always
remembered for his share in it. The general inefficiency and
wide-spread misbehavior of the English captains, after five years of
declared war, will partly explain the failure of England to obtain
from her undoubted naval superiority the results she might have
expected in this war--the first act in a forty years' drama--and they
give military officers a lesson on the necessity of having their
minds prepared and stocked, by study of the conditions of war in their
own day, if they would not be found unready and perhaps disgraced in
the hour of battle.[89] It is not to be supposed that so many English
seamen misbehaved through so vulgar and rare a defect as mere
cowardice; it was unpreparedness of mind and lack of military
efficiency in the captains, combined with bad leadership on the part
of the admiral, with a possible taint of ill will toward him as a rude
and domineering superior, that caused this fiasco. Attention may here
fitly be drawn to the effect of a certain cordiality and good-will on
the part of superiors toward their subordinates. It is not perhaps
essential to military success, but it undoubtedly contributes to the
other elements of that success a spirit, a breath of life, which makes
possible what would otherwise be impossible; which reaches heights of
devotion and achievement that the strictest discipline, not so
enkindled, cannot attain. Doubtless it is a natural gift. The highest
example of it possibly ever known among seamen was Nelson. When he
joined the fleet just before Trafalgar, the captains who gathered on
board the flag-ship seemed to forget the rank of their admiral in
their desire to testify their joy at meeting him. "This Nelson," wrote
Captain Duff, who fell in the battle, "is so lovable and excellent a
man, so kindly a leader, that we all wish to exceed his desires and
anticipate his orders." He himself was conscious of this fascination
and its value, when writing of the battle of the Nile to Lord Howe, he
said, "I had the happiness to command a band of brothers."
The celebrity attained by Matthews's action off Toulon, certainly not
due to the skill with which it was managed, nor to its results, sprang
from the clamor at home, and chiefly from the number and findings of
the courts-martial that followed. Both the admiral and his second, and
also eleven captains out of the twenty-nine, had charges preferred
against them. The admiral was cashiered because he had broken the
line; that is, because his captains did not follow him when he left it
to get at the enemy,--a decision that smacks more of the Irish bull
than of the Irish love of fighting. The second was acquitted on the
technical grounds already given; he avoided the fault of breaking the
line by keeping far enough away. Of the eleven captains one died, one
deserted, seven were dismissed or suspended, two only were acquitted.
Nor were the French and Spaniards better pleased; mutual
recriminations passed. Admiral de Court was relieved from his command,
while the Spanish admiral was decorated by his government with the
title of Marquis de la Victoria, a most extraordinary reward for what
was at best a drawn fight. The French, on the other hand, assert that
he left the deck on the plea of a very slight wound, and that the ship
was really fought by a French captain who happened to be on board.
To use a common expression, this battle, the first general action
since that off Malaga forty years before, "woke up" the English people
and brought about a healthful reaction. The sifting process begun by
the battle itself was continued, but the result was reached too late
to have its proper effect on the current war. It is rather by its
deficient action, than by such conspicuous successes as were attained
in earlier and later times, that the general value of England's sea
power is now shown; like some precious faculty, scarcely valued when
possessed, but keenly missed when withdrawn. Mistress now of the seas
rather by the weakness of her enemies than by her own disciplined
strength, she drew from that mastery no adequate results; the most
solid success, the capture of Cape Breton Island, in 1745, was
achieved by the colonial forces of New England, to which indeed the
royal navy lent valuable aid, for to troops so situated the fleet is
the one line of communication. The misconduct off Toulon was repeated
by officers high in command in the West and East Indies, resulting in
the latter case in the loss of Madras. Other causes concurred with the
effete condition of the naval officers to hamper the action of that
sea power which launches out far from home. The condition of England
itself was insecure; the cause of the Stuarts was still alive, and
though a formidable invasion by fifteen thousand troops under Marshal
Saxe, in 1744, was foiled, partly by the English Channel fleet, and
partly by a storm which wrecked several of the transports assembled
off Dunkirk, with the loss of many lives, yet the reality of the
danger was shown in the following year, when the Pretender landed in
Scotland with only a few men at his back and the northern kingdom rose
with him. His successful invasion was carried well down into England
itself; and sober historians have thought that at one time the chances
of ultimate success were rather with than against him. Another serious
fetter upon the full use of England's power was the direction given to
the French operations on land and the mistaken means used to oppose
them. Neglecting Germany, France turned upon the Austrian Netherlands,
a country which England, out of regard to her sea interests, was not
willing to see conquered. Her commercial preponderance would be
directly threatened by the passing of Antwerp, Ostend, and the Scheldt
into the hands of her great rival; and though her best check against
this would have been to seize valuable French possessions elsewhere
and hold them as a pledge, the weakness of her government and the
present inefficiency of the navy prevented her doing so. The position
of Hanover, again, controlled the action of England; for though united
only by the tie of a common sovereign, the love of that sovereign for
his continental dominion, his native country, made itself strongly
felt in the councils of a weak and time-serving ministry. It was the
disregard of Hanover by the first William Pitt, consequent upon his
strong English feeling, that incensed the king and led him so long to
resist the demands of the nation that he should be put at the head of
affairs. These different causes--dissension at home, interest in the
Netherlands, regard for Hanover--combined to prevent a subservient and
second-rate ministry, divided also among themselves, from giving a
proper direction and infusing a proper spirit into the naval war; but
a better condition of the navy itself, more satisfactory results from
it, might have modified even their action. As it was, the outcome of
the war was almost nothing as regards the disputes between England and
her special enemies. On the continent, the questions after 1745
reduced themselves to two,--what part of the Austrian possessions
should be given to Prussia, Spain, and Sardinia, and how peace was to
be wrenched by France from England and Holland. The sea countries
still, as of old, bore the expenses of the war, which however now fell
chiefly upon England. Marshal Saxe, who commanded the French in
Flanders throughout this war, summed up the situation in half a dozen
words to his king. "Sire," said he, "peace is within the walls of
Maestricht." This strong city opened the course of the Meuse and the
way for the French army into the United Provinces from the rear; for
the English fleet, in conjunction with that of Holland, prevented an
attack from the sea. By the end of 1746, despite the efforts of the
allies, nearly all Belgium was in the hands of the French; but up to
this time, although Dutch subsidies were supporting the Austrian
government, and Dutch troops in the Netherlands were fighting for it,
there was nominal peace between the United Provinces and France. In
April, 1747, "the King of France invaded Dutch Flanders, announcing
that he was obliged to send his army into the territory of the
republic, to arrest the protection granted by the States-General to
the Austrian and English troops; but that he had no intention of
breaking with it, and that the places and provinces occupied would be
restored to the United Provinces as soon as they gave proof that they
had ceased to succor the enemies of France." This was actual, but not
formal, war. Numerous places fell during the year, and the successes
of the French inclined both Holland and England to come to terms.
Negotiations went on during the winter; but in April, 1748, Saxe
invested Maestricht. This forced a peace.
Meanwhile, though languishing, the sea war was not wholly uneventful.
Two encounters between English and French squadrons happened during the
year 1747, completing the destruction of the French fighting navy. In
both cases the English were decidedly superior; and though there was
given opportunity for some brilliant fighting by particular captains,
and for the display of heroic endurance on the part of the French,
greatly outnumbered but resisting to the last, only one tactical lesson
is afforded. This lesson is, that when an enemy, either as the result
of battle or from original inequality, is greatly inferior in force,
obliged to fly without standing on the order of his flying, the regard
otherwise due to order must be in a measure at least dismissed, and a
general chase ordered. The mistake of Tourville in this respect after
Beachy Head has already been noted. In the first of the cases now under
discussion, the English Admiral Anson had fourteen ships against eight
French, weaker individually as well as in total number; in the second,
Sir Edward Hawke had fourteen against nine, the latter being somewhat
larger, ship for ship, than the English. In both cases the signal was
made for a general chase, and the action which resulted was a _mêlée_.
There was no opportunity for anything else; the one thing necessary was
to overtake the running enemy, and that can only certainly be done by
letting the fleetest or best situated ships get ahead, sure that the
speed of the fastest pursuers is better than that of the slowest of
the pursued, and that therefore either the latter must be abandoned or
the whole force brought to bay. In the second case the French
commander, Commodore l'Étenduère, did not have to be followed far. He
had with him a convoy of two hundred and fifty merchant-ships;
detaching one ship-of-the-line to continue the voyage with the convoy,
he placed himself with the other eight between it and the enemy,
awaiting the attack under his topsails. As the English came up one
after another they divided on either side of the French column, which
was thus engaged on both sides. After an obstinate resistance, six of
the French ships were taken, but the convoy was saved. The English had
been so roughly handled that the two remaining French men-of-war got
back safely to France. If, therefore, Sir Edward Hawke showed in his
attack the judgment and dash which always distinguished that remarkable
officer, it may be claimed for Commodore l'Étenduère that fortune, in
assigning him the glorious disadvantage of numbers, gave him also the
leading part in the drama, and that he filled it nobly. A French
officer justly remarks that "he defended his convoy as on shore a
position is defended, when the aim is to save an army corps or to
assure an evolution; he gave himself to be crushed. After an action
that lasted from mid-day till eight P.M. the convoy was saved, thanks
to the obstinacy of the defence; two hundred and fifty ships were saved
to their owners by the devotion of L'Étenduère and of the captains
under his orders. This devotion cannot be questioned, for eight ships
had but few chances of surviving an action with fourteen; and not only
did the commander of the eight accept an action which he might possibly
have avoided, but he knew how to inspire his lieutenants with trust in
him; for all supported the strife with honor, and yielded at last,
showing the most indisputable proofs of their fine and energetic
defence. Four ships were entirely dismasted, two had only the foremast
standing."[90] The whole affair, as conducted on both sides, affords an
admirable study of how to follow up an advantage, original or
acquired, and of the results that may be obtained by a gallant, even
hopeless defence, for the furtherance of a particular object. It may be
added that Hawke, disabled from further pursuit himself, sent a sloop
of war express to the West Indies, with information of the approach of
the convoy,--a step which led to the capture of part of it, and gives a
touch of completeness to the entire transaction, which cannot fail to
be gratifying to a military student interested in seeing the actors in
history fully alive to and discharging to the utmost their important
tasks.
Before bringing to a close the story of this war and mentioning the
peace settlement, an account must be given of the transactions in
India, where France and England were then on equal terms. It has been
said that affairs there were controlled by the East India companies of
either nation; and that the French were represented in the peninsula
by Dupleix, in the islands by La Bourdonnais. The latter was appointed
to his post in 1735, and his untiring genius had been felt in all the
details of administration, but especially in converting the Isle of
France into a great naval station,--a work which had to be built up
from the foundations. Everything was wanting; everything was by him in
greater or less measure supplied,--storehouses, dock-yards,
fortifications, seamen. In 1740, when war between France and England
became probable, he obtained from the East India Company a squadron,
though smaller than he asked, with which he proposed to ruin the
English commerce and shipping; but when war actually began in 1744, he
received orders not to attack the English, the French company hoping
that neutrality might exist between the companies in that distant
region, though the nations were at war. The proposition does not seem
absurd in view of the curious relations of Holland to France,
nominally at peace while sending troops to the Austrian army; but it
was much to the advantage of the English, who were inferior in the
Indian seas. Their company accepted the proffer, while saying that it
of course could bind neither the home government nor the royal navy.
The advantage won by the forethought of La Bourdonnais was thus lost;
though first, and long alone, on the field, his hand was stayed.
Meanwhile the English admiralty sent out a squadron and began to seize
French ships between India and China; not till then did the company
awake from its illusion. Having done this part of its work, the
English squadron sailed to the coast of India, and in July, 1745,
appeared off Pondicherry, the political capital of French India,
prepared to sustain an attack which the governor of Madras was about
to make by land. La Bourdonnais' time was now come.
Meanwhile, on the mainland of the Indian peninsula, Dupleix had been
forming wide views and laying broad foundations for the establishment
of French preponderance. Having entered the service of their company
at first in a subordinate clerical position, his ability had raised
him by rapid steps to be head of the commercial establishments at
Chandernagore, to which he gave a very great enlargement, seriously
affecting, it is said even destroying, parts of the English trade. In
1742 he was made governor-general, and as such removed to Pondicherry.
Here he began to develop his policy, which aimed at bringing India
under the power of France. He saw that through the progress and
extension of the European races over the seas of the whole world the
time had come when the Eastern peoples must be brought into
ever-increasing contact with them; and he judged that India, so often
conquered before, was now about to be conquered by Europeans. He meant
that France should win the prize, and saw in England the only rival.
His plan was to meddle in Indian politics: first, as head of a foreign
and independent colony, which he already was; and second, as a vassal
of the Great Mogul, which he intended to become. To divide and
conquer, to advance the French lines and influence by judicious
alliances, to turn wavering scales by throwing in on one side or the
other the weight of French courage and skill,--such were his aims.
Pondicherry, though a poor harbor, was well adapted for his political
plans; being far distant from Delhi, the capital of the Mogul,
aggressive extension might go on unmarked, until strong enough to
bear the light. Dupleix's present aim, therefore, was to build up a
great French principality in southeast India, around Pondicherry,
while maintaining the present positions in Bengal.
Let it be noted, however,--and the remark is necessary in order to
justify the narration of these plans in connection with our subject, a
connection perhaps not at first evident,--that the kernel of the
question now before Dupleix was not how to build up an empire out of
the Indian provinces and races, but how to get rid of the English, and
that finally. The wildest dreams of sovereignty he may have
entertained could not have surpassed the actual performance of England
a few years later. European qualities were bound to tell, if not
offset by the opposition of other Europeans; and such opposition on
the one side or the other depended upon the control of the sea. In a
climate so deadly to the white races the small numbers whose heroism
bore up the war against fearful odds on many a field must be
continually renewed. As everywhere and always, the action of sea power
was here quiet and unperceived; but it will not be necessary to
belittle in the least the qualities and career of Clive the English
hero of this time and the founder of their empire, in order to prove
the decisive influence which it exerted, despite the inefficiency of
the English naval officers first engaged, and the lack of conclusive
results in such naval battles as were fought.[91] If during the twenty
years following 1743, French fleets instead of English had controlled
the coasts of the peninsula and the seas between it and Europe, can it
be believed that the schemes of Dupleix would have utterly failed?
"Naval inferiority," justly says a French historian, "was the
principal cause that arrested the progress of Dupleix. The French
royal navy did not make its appearance in the East Indies" in his day.
It remains to tell the story briefly.
The English, in 1745, made preparations to besiege Pondicherry, in
which the royal navy was to support the land forces; but the effects
of Dupleix's political schemes were at once seen. The Nabob of the
Carnatic threatened to attack Madras, and the English desisted. The
following year La Bourdonnais appeared on the scene, and an action
took place between his squadron and that under Commodore Peyton; after
which, although it had been a drawn fight, the English officer
deserted the coast, taking refuge in Ceylon, and leaving the control
at sea with the French. La Bourdonnais anchored at Pondicherry, where
quarrels between him and Dupleix soon arose, and were aggravated by
the conflicting tone of their instructions from home. In September he
went to Madras, attacked by land and sea, and took the place, but made
with the governor the stipulation that it might be ransomed; and a
ransom of two million dollars was accordingly paid. When Dupleix heard
of this he was very angry, and claimed to annul the terms of
capitulation on the ground that, once taken, the place was within his
jurisdiction. La Bourdonnais resented this attempt as dishonorable to
him after the promise given. While the quarrel was going on, a violent
cyclone wrecked two of his ships and dismasted the rest. He soon after
returned to France, where his activity and zeal were repaid by three
years' imprisonment under charges, from the effects of which treatment
he died. After his departure Dupleix broke the capitulation, seized
and kept Madras, drove out the English settlers, and went on to
strengthen the fortifications. From Madras he turned against Fort St.
David, but the approach of an English squadron compelled him to raise
the siege in March, 1747.
During this year the disasters to the French navy in the Atlantic,
already related, left the English undisturbed masters of the sea. In
the following winter they sent to India the greatest European fleet
yet seen in the East, with a large land force, the whole under the
command of Admiral Boscawen, who bore a general's commission in
addition to his naval rank. The fleet appeared off the Coromandel
coast in August, 1748. Pondicherry was attacked by land and sea, but
Dupleix made a successful resistance. The English fleet in its turn
suffered from a hurricane, and the siege was raised in October.
Shortly after came the news of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, which
ended the European war. Dupleix, with his home communications
restored, could now resume his subtle and persevering efforts to
secure a territorial base which should, as far as possible, shelter
him from the chances of sea war. Pity that so much genius and patience
should have been spent in an effort wholly vain; nothing could protect
against that sea attack but a naval aid, which the home government
could not give. One of the conditions of the peace was that Madras
should be restored to the English in exchange for Louisburg, the prize
won by the North American colonists and released by them as
reluctantly as Madras was by Dupleix. This was indeed illustrating
Napoleon's boast that he would reconquer Pondicherry on the bank of
the Vistula; yet, although the maritime supremacy of England made
Louisburg in her hands much stronger than Madras, or any other
position in India, when held by the French, the gain by the exchange
was decidedly on the side of Great Britain. The English colonists were
not men to be contented with this action; but they knew the naval
power of England, and that they could do again what they had done
once, at a point not far distant from their own shores. They
understood the state of the case. Not so with Madras. How profound
must have been the surprise of the native princes at this surrender,
how injurious to the personality of Dupleix and the influence he had
gained among them, to see him, in the very hour of victory, forced, by
a power they could not understand, to relinquish his spoil! They were
quite right; the mysterious power which they recognized by its
working, though they saw it not, was not in this or that man, king or
statesman, but in that control of the sea which the French government
knew forbade the hope of maintaining that distant dependency against
the fleets of England. Dupleix himself saw it not; for some years more
he continued building, on the sand of Oriental intrigues and lies, a
house which he vainly hoped would stand against the storms that must
descend upon it.
The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, ending this general war, was signed
April 30, 1748, by England, France, and Holland, and finally by all
the powers in October of the same year. With the exception of certain
portions shorn off the Austrian Empire,--Silesia for Prussia, Parma
for the Infante Philip of Spain, and some Italian territory to the
east of Piedmont for the King of Sardinia,--the general tenor of the
terms was a return to the status before the war. "Never, perhaps, did
any war, after so many great events, and so large a loss of blood and
treasure, end in replacing the nations engaged in it so nearly in the
same situation as they held at first." In truth, as regarded France,
England, and Spain, the affair of the Austrian succession, supervening
so soon upon the outbreak of war between the two latter, had wholly
turned hostilities aside from their true direction and postponed for
fifteen years the settlement of disputes which concerned them much
more nearly than the accession of Maria Theresa. In the distress of
her old enemy, the House of Austria, France was easily led to renew
her attacks upon it, and England as easily drawn to oppose the
attempts of the French to influence or dictate in German affairs,--a
course the more readily followed from the German interests of the
king. It may be questioned whether the true policy for France was to
direct the war upon the heart of the Austrian Empire, by way of the
Rhine and Germany, or, as she finally did, upon the remote possessions
of the Netherlands. In the former case she rested on friendly
territory in Bavaria, and gave a hand to Prussia, whose military
power was now first felt. Such was the first theatre of the war. On
the other hand, in the Netherlands, whither the chief scene of
hostilities shifted later, France struck not only at Austria, but also
at the sea powers, always jealous of her intrusion there. They were
the soul of the war against her, by their subsidies to her other
enemies and by the losses inflicted on her commerce and that of Spain.
The misery of France was alleged to the King of Spain by Louis XV., as
forcing him to conclude peace; and it is evident that the suffering
must have been great to induce him to yield such easy terms as he did,
when he already held the Netherlands and parts of Holland itself by
force of arms. But while so successful on the continent, his navy was
annihilated and communication with the colonies thus cut off; and
though it may be doubted whether the French government of that day
cherished the colonial ambitions ascribed to it by some, it is certain
French commerce was suffering enormously.
While this was the condition of France, impelling her to peace,
England in 1747 found that, from disputes about trade in Spanish
America and through the inefficient action of her navy, she had been
led away into a continental war, in which she had met with disaster,
incurred nearly £80,000,000 of debt, and now saw her ally Holland
threatened with invasion. The peace itself was signed under a threat
by the French envoy that the slightest delay would be the signal for
the French to destroy the fortifications of the captured towns and at
once begin the invasion. At the same time her own resources were
drained, and Holland, exhausted, was seeking to borrow from her.
"Money," we are told, "was never so scarce in the city, and cannot be
had at twelve per cent." Had France, therefore, at this time had a
navy able to make head against that of England, even though somewhat
inferior in strength, she might, with her grip on the Netherlands and
Maestricht, have exacted her own conditions. England, on the other
hand, though driven to the wall on the continent, was nevertheless
able to obtain peace on equal terms, through the control of the sea by
her navy.
The commerce of all three nations had suffered enormously, but the
balance of prizes in favor of Great Britain was estimated at
£2,000,000. Stated in another way, it is said that the combined losses
of French and Spanish commerce amounted during the war to 3,434 ships,
the English to 3,238; but in considering such figures, the relation
they bear to the total merchant shipping of either nation must not be
forgotten. A thousand vessels were a very much larger fraction of
French shipping than of English, and meant more grievous loss.
"After the disaster to the squadron of L'Étenduère," says a
French writer, "the French flag did not appear at sea.
Twenty-two ships-of-the-line composed the navy of France, which
sixty years before had one hundred and twenty. Privateers made
few prizes; followed everywhere, unprotected, they almost always
fell a prey to the English. The British naval forces, without
any rivals, passed unmolested over the seas. In one year they
are said to have taken from French commerce £7,000,000 sterling.
Yet this sea power, which might have seized French and Spanish
colonies, made few conquests from want of unity and persistence
in the direction given them."[92]
To sum up, France was forced to give up her conquests for want of a
navy, and England saved her position by her sea power, though she had
failed to use it to the best advantage.
FOOTNOTES:
[88] Martin: History of France
[89] There is not in modern naval history a more striking warning to
the officers of every era, than this battle of Toulon. Coming as it
did after a generation of comparative naval inactivity, it tried men's
reputation as by fire. The lesson, in the judgment of the author, is
the danger of disgraceful failure to men who have neglected to keep
themselves prepared, not only in knowledge of their profession, but in
the sentiment of what war requires. The average man is not a coward;
but neither is he endowed by nature only with the rare faculty of
seizing intuitively the proper course at a critical moment. He gains
it, some more, some less, by experience or by reflection. If both have
been lacking to him, indecision will follow; either from not knowing
what to do, or from failure to realize that utter self-devotion of
himself and his command are required. Of one of the captains cashiered
it is said: "No man had ever lived with a fairer or more honorable
character previous to the unfortunate event which did such irreparable
injury to his reputation. Many of his contemporaries, men in the
highest popular estimation, who knew him well, could scarcely credit
what were indisputably established as facts, and declared, with the
utmost astonishment, 'they believed it next to impossible for Captain
Burrish to behave otherwise than as a man of gallantry and
intrepidity.'" He had been twenty-five years in service, and eleven
afloat as a captain (Charnock's Biographia Navalis). Others of the
condemned men bore fair characters; and even Richard Norris, who
absconded to avoid trial, had been of respectable repute.
[90] Troude: Batailles Navales de la France
[91] "Notwithstanding the extraordinary effort made by the French in
sending out M. Lally with a considerable force last year, I am
confident before the end of this [1759] they will be near their last
gasp in the Carnatic unless some very unforeseen event interpose in
their favor. The _superiority of our squadron_ and the plenty of money
and supplies of all kinds which our friends on that coast will be
furnished with from this province [Bengal], while the enemy are in
total want of everything, without any visible means of redress, are
such advantages as, if properly attended to, cannot fail of wholly
effecting their ruin in that as well as in every other part of India"
(Letter of Clive to Pitt, Calcutta, January 7, 1759; Gleig's Life of
Lord Clive). It will be remembered that the control and use of Bengal,
upon which Clive here counts, had only lately been acquired by the
English; in the days of Dupleix they did not possess them. As will be
seen later, Clive's predictions in this letter were wholly fulfilled.
[92] Lapeyrouse-Bonfils: Hist. de la Marine Française.