SEVEN YEARS' WAR, 1756-1763.--ENGLAND'S OVERWHELMING POWER AND
CONQUESTS ON THE SEAS, IN NORTH AMERICA, EUROPE, AND EAST AND
WEST INDIES.--SEA BATTLES: BYNG OFF MINORCA; HAWKE AND CONFLANS;
POCOCK AND D'ACHÉ IN EAST INDIES.
The urgency with which peace was desired by the principal parties to
the War of the Austrian Succession may perhaps be inferred from the
neglect to settle definitely and conclusively many of the questions
outstanding between them, and notably the very disputes about which
the war between England and Spain began. It seems as though the powers
feared to treat thoroughly matters that contained the germs of future
quarrels, lest the discussion should prolong the war that then
existed. England made peace because the fall of Holland was otherwise
inevitable, not because she had enforced, or surrendered, her claims
of 1739 against Spain. The right of uninterrupted navigation in West
Indian seas, free from any search, was left undetermined, as were
other kindred matters. Not only so, but the boundaries between the
English and French colonies in the valley of the Ohio, toward Canada,
and on the land side of the Nova Scotian peninsula, remained as vague
as they had before been. It was plain that peace could not last; and
by it, if she had saved Holland, England surrendered the control of
the sea which she had won. The true character of the strife, shrouded
for a moment by the continental war, was revealed by the so-called
peace; though formally allayed, the contention continued in every part
of the world.
In India, Dupleix, no longer able to attack the English openly, sought
to undermine their power by the line of policy already described.
Mingling adroitly in the quarrels of surrounding princes, and
advancing his own power while so doing, he attained by rapid steps to
the political control, in 1751, of the southern extremity of India,--a
country nearly as large as France. Given the title of Nabob, he now
had a place among the princes of the land. "A merely commercial policy
was in his eyes a delusion; there could be no middle course between
conquest and abandonment." In the course of the same year further
grants extended the French power through extensive regions to the
north and east, embracing all the coast of Orissa, and made Dupleix
ruler of a third of India. To celebrate his triumphs, perhaps also in
accordance with his policy of impressing the native mind, he now
founded a town and put up a pillar setting forth his successes. But
his doings caused the directors of the company only disquietude;
instead of the reinforcements he asked for they sent him exhortations
to peace; and at about this time Robert Clive, then but twenty-six
years old, began to show his genius. The success of Dupleix and his
allies became checkered with reverses; the English under Clive's
leadership supported the native opponents of the French. The company
at home was but little interested in his political schemes, and was
annoyed at the failure of dividends. Negotiations were opened at
London for a settlement of difficulties, and Dupleix was summoned
home; the English government, it is said, making his recall an
absolute condition of continued peace. Two days after his departure,
in 1754, his successor signed a treaty with the English governor,
wholly abandoning his policy, stipulating that neither company should
interfere in the internal politics of India, and that all possessions
acquired during the war in the Carnatic should be given back to the
Mogul. What France thus surrendered was in extent and population an
empire, and the mortification of French historians has branded the
concession as ignominious; but how could the country have been held,
with the English navy cutting off the eagerly desired reinforcements?
In North America, the declaration of peace was followed by renewed
agitation, which sprang from and betokened the deep feeling and keen
sense of the situation had by the colonists and local authorities on
either side. The Americans held to their points with the stubbornness
of their race. "There is no repose for our thirteen colonies," wrote
Franklin, "so long as the French are masters of Canada." The rival
claims to the central unsettled region, which may accurately enough be
called the valley of the Ohio, involved, if the English were
successful, the military separation of Canada from Louisiana; while on
the other hand, occupation by the French, linking the two extremes of
their acknowledged possessions, would shut up the English colonists
between the Alleghany Mountains and the sea. The issues were apparent
enough to leading Americans of that day, though they were more
far-reaching than the wisest of them could have foreseen; there is
room for curious speculation as to the effect, not only upon America,
but upon the whole world, if the French government had had the will,
and the French people the genius, effectively to settle and hold the
northern and western regions which they then claimed. But while
Frenchmen upon the spot saw clearly enough the coming contest and the
terrible disadvantage of unequal numbers and inferior navy under which
Canada must labor, the home government was blind alike to the value of
the colony and to the fact that it must be fought for; while the
character and habits of the French settlers, lacking in political
activity and unused to begin and carry through measures for the
protection of their own interests, did not remedy the neglect of the
mother-country. The paternal centralizing system of French rule had
taught the colonists to look to the mother-country, and then failed to
take care of them. The governors of Canada of that day acted as
careful and able military men, doing what they could to supply defects
and weaknesses; it is possible that their action was more consistent
and well-planned than that of the English governors; but with the
carelessness of both home governments, nothing in the end could take
the place of the capacity of the English colonists to look out for
themselves. It is odd and amusing to read the conflicting statements
of English and French historians as to the purposes and aims of the
opposing statesmen in these years when the first murmurings of the
storm were heard; the simple truth seems to be that one of those
conflicts familiarly known to us as irrepressible was at hand, and
that both governments would gladly have avoided it. The boundaries
might be undetermined; the English colonists were not.
The French governors established posts where they could on the
debatable ground, and it was in the course of a dispute over one of
these, in 1754, that the name of Washington first appears in history.
Other troubles occurred in Nova Scotia, and both home governments then
began to awake. In 1755 Braddock's disastrous expedition was directed
against Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburg, where Washington had surrendered
the year before. Later in the year another collision between the
English and French colonists happened near Lake George. Although
Braddock's expedition had been first to start, the French government
was also moving. In May of the same year a large squadron of
ships-of-war, mostly armed _en flûte_[93], sailed from Brest with
three thousand troops, and a new governor, De Vaudreuil, for Canada.
Admiral Boscawen had already preceded this fleet, and lay in wait for
it off the mouth of the St. Lawrence. There was as yet no open war,
and the French were certainly within their rights in sending a
garrison to their own colonies; but Boscawen's orders were to stop
them. A fog which scattered the French squadron also covered its
passage; but two of the ships were seen by the English fleet and
captured, June 8, 1755. As soon as this news reached Europe, the
French ambassador to London was recalled, but still no declaration of
war followed. In July, Sir Edward Hawke was sent to sea with orders to
cruise between Ushant and Cape Finisterre, and to seize any French
ships-of-the-line he might see; to which were added in August further
orders to take all French ships of every kind, men-of-war, privateers,
and merchantmen, and to send them into English ports. Before the end
of the year, three hundred trading vessels, valued at six million
dollars, had been captured, and six thousand French seamen were
imprisoned in England,--enough to man nearly ten ships-of-the-line.
All this was done while nominal peace still existed. War was not
declared until six months later.
France still seemed to submit, but she was biding her time, and
preparing warily a severe stroke for which she had now ample
provocation. Small squadrons, or detachments of ships, continued to be
sent to the West Indies and to Canada, while noisy preparations were
made in the dock-yard of Brest, and troops assembled upon the shores
of the Channel. England saw herself threatened with invasion,--a
menace to which her people have been peculiarly susceptible. The
government of the day, weak at best, was singularly unfit for waging
war, and easily misled as to the real danger. Besides, England was
embarrassed, as always at the beginning of a war, not only by the
numerous points she had to protect in addition to her commerce, but
also by the absence of a large number of her seamen in trading-vessels
all over the world. The Mediterranean was therefore neglected; and the
French, while making loud demonstrations on the Channel, quietly
equipped at Toulon twelve ships-of-the-line, which sailed on the 10th
of April, 1756, under Admiral la Galissonière, convoying one hundred
and fifty transports with fifteen thousand troops, commanded by the
Duke of Richelieu. A week later the army was safely landed in Minorca,
and Port Mahon invested, while the fleet established itself in
blockade before the harbor.
Practically this was a complete surprise; for though the suspicions of
the English government had been at last aroused, its action came too
late. The garrison had not been reinforced, and numbered a scant three
thousand men, from which thirty-five officers were absent on leave,
among them the governor and the colonels of all the regiments.
Admiral Byng sailed from Portsmouth with ten ships-of-the-line only
three days before the French left Toulon. Six weeks later, when he
reached the neighborhood of Port Mahon, his fleet had been increased
to thirteen ships-of-the-line, and he had with him four thousand
troops. It was already late; a practicable breach had been made in the
fortress a week before. When the English fleet came in sight, La
Galissonière stood out to meet it and bar the entrance to the harbor.
The battle that followed owes its historical celebrity wholly to the
singular and tragic event which arose from it. Unlike Matthews's
battle off Toulon, it does afford some tactical instruction, though
mainly applicable to the obsolete conditions of warfare under sail;
but it is especially linked to the earlier action through the effect
produced upon the mind of the unfortunate Byng by the sentence of the
court-martial upon Matthews. During the course of the engagement he
repeatedly alluded to the censure upon that admiral for leaving the
line, and seems to have accepted the judgment as justifying, if not
determining, his own course. Briefly, it may be said that the two
fleets, having sighted each other on the morning of the 20th of May,
were found after a series of manoeuvres both on the port tack, with an
easterly wind, heading southerly, the French to leeward, between the
English and the harbor. Byng ran down in line ahead off the wind, the
French remaining by it, so that when the former made the signal to
engage, the fleets were not parallel, but formed an angle of from
thirty to forty degrees (Plate VIIa. A, A). The attack which Byng by
his own account meant to make, each ship against its opposite in the
enemy's line, difficult to carry out under any circumstances, was here
further impeded by the distance between the two rears being much
greater than that between the vans; so that his whole line could not
come into action at the same moment. When the signal was made, the van
ships kept away in obedience to it, and ran down for the French so
nearly head-on (B, B) as to sacrifice their artillery fire in great
measure; they received three raking broadsides, and were seriously
dismantled aloft. The sixth English ship, counting from the van, had
her foretopmast shot away, flew up into the wind, and came aback,
stopping and doubling up the rear of the line. Then undoubtedly was
the time for Byng, having committed himself to the fight, to have set
the example and borne down, just as Farragut did at Mobile when his
line was confused by the stopping of the next ahead; but according to
the testimony of the flag-captain, Matthews's sentence deterred him.
"You see, Captain Gardiner, that the signal for the line is out, and
that I am ahead of the ships 'Louisa' and 'Trident' [which in the
order should have been ahead of him]. You would not have me, as the
admiral of the fleet, run down as if I were going to engage a single
ship. It was Mr. Matthews's misfortune to be prejudiced by not
carrying down his force together, which I shall endeavor to avoid."
The affair thus became entirely indecisive; the English van was
separated from the rear and got the brunt of the fight (C). One French
authority blames Galissonière for not tacking to windward of the
enemy's van and crushing it. Another says he ordered the movement, but
that it could not be made from the damage to the rigging; but this
seems improbable, as the only injury the French squadron underwent
aloft was the loss of one topsail yard, whereas the English suffered
very badly. The true reason is probably that given and approved by one
of the French authorities on naval warfare. Galissonière considered
the support of the land attack on Mahon paramount to any destruction
of the English fleet, if he thereby exposed his own. "The French navy
has always preferred the glory of assuring or preserving a conquest to
that more brilliant perhaps, but actually less real, of taking some
ships, and therein has approached more nearly the true end that has
been proposed in war."[94] The justice of this conclusion depends upon
the view that is taken of the true end of naval war. If it is merely
to assure one or more positions ashore, the navy becomes simply a
branch of the army for a particular occasion, and subordinates its
action accordingly; but if the true end is to preponderate over the
enemy's navy and so control the sea, then the enemy's ships and fleets
are the true objects to be assailed on all occasions. A glimmer of
this view seems to have been present to Morogues when he wrote that at
sea there is no field of battle to be held, nor places to be won. If
naval warfare is a war of posts, then the action of the fleets must be
subordinate to the attack and defence of the posts; if its object is
to break up the enemy's power on the sea, cutting off his
communications with the rest of his possessions, drying up the sources
of his wealth in his commerce, and making possible a closure of his
ports, then the object of attack must be his organized military forces
afloat; in short, his navy. It is to the latter course, for whatever
reason adopted, that England owed a control of the sea that forced the
restitution of Minorca at the end of this war. It is to the former
that France owed the lack of prestige in her navy. Take this very case
of Minorca; had Galissonière been beaten, Richelieu and his fifteen
thousand troops must have been lost to France, cooped up in Minorca,
as the Spaniards, in 1718, were confined to Sicily. The French navy
therefore assured the capture of the island; but so slight was the
impression on the ministry and the public, that a French naval officer
tells us: "Incredible as it may seem, the minister of marine, after
the glorious affair off Mahon, instead of yielding to the zeal of an
enlightened patriotism and profiting by the impulse which this victory
gave to France to build up the navy, saw fit to sell the ships and
rigging which we still had in our ports. We shall soon see the
deplorable consequences of this cowardly conduct on the part of our
statesmen."[95] Neither the glory nor the victory is very apparent;
but it is quite conceivable that had the French admiral thought less
of Mahon and used the great advantage luck had given him to take, or
sink, four or five of the enemy, the French people would have
anticipated the outbreak of naval enthusiasm which appeared too late,
in 1760. During the remainder of this war the French fleets, except
in the East Indies, appear only as the pursued in a general chase.
The action imposed upon the French fleets was, however, consistent
with the general policy of the French government; and John Clerk was
probably right in saying that there is apparent in this action off
Minorca a tactics too well defined to be merely accidental,--a tactics
essentially defensive in its scope and aim.[96] In assuming the
lee-gage the French admiral not only covered Mahon, but took a good
defensive position, imposing upon his enemy the necessity of attacking
with all the consequent risks. Clerk seems to bring evidence enough to
prove that the leading French ships did, after roughly handling their
assailants, astutely withdraw (C) thus forcing the latter to attack
again with like results. The same policy was repeatedly followed
during the American war twenty years later, and with pretty uniform
success; so much so that, although formal avowal of the policy is
wanting, it may be concluded that circumspection, economy, defensive
war, remained the fixed purpose of the French authorities, based
doubtless upon the reasons given by Admiral Grivel, of that navy:--
"If two maritime powers are at strife, the one that has the
fewest ships must always avoid doubtful engagements; it must run
only those risks necessary for carrying out its missions, avoid
action by manoeuvring, or at worst, if forced to engage, assure
itself of favorable conditions. The attitude to be taken should
depend radically upon the power of your opponent. Let us not
tire of repeating, according as she has to do with an inferior
or superior power, France has before her two distinct
strategies, radically opposite both in means and ends,--Grand
War and Cruising War."
Such a formal utterance by an officer of rank must be received with
respect, and the more so when it expresses a consistent policy
followed by a great and warlike nation; yet it may be questioned
whether a sea power worthy of the name can thus be secured. Logically,
it follows from the position assumed, that combats between equal
forces are to be discouraged, because the loss to you is greater than
the loss to your opponent. "In fact," says Ramatuelle, upholding the
French policy, "of what consequence to the English would be the loss
of a few ships?" But the next inevitable step in the argument is that
it is better not to meet the enemy. As another Frenchman,[97]
previously quoted, says, it was considered a mishap to their ships to
fall in with a hostile force, and, if one was met, their duty was to
avoid action if possible to do so honorably. They had ulterior objects
of more importance than fighting the enemy's navy. Such a course
cannot be consistently followed for years without affecting the spirit
and tone of the officers charged with it; and it led directly to as
brave a man as ever commanded a fleet, the Comte de Grasse, failing to
crush the English under Rodney when he had the chance, in 1782. On the
9th of April of that year, being chased by the English among the
Windward Islands, it happened to him to have sixteen of their fleet
under his lee while the main body was becalmed under Dominica. Though
greatly superior to the separated ships, during the three hours that
this state of things lasted, De Grasse left them undisturbed, except
by a distant cannonade by his own van; and his action was justified by
the court which tried him, in which were many officers of high rank
and doubtless of distinction, as being "an act of prudence on the part
of the admiral, dictated to him by the ulterior projects of the
cruise." Three days later he was signally beaten by the fleet he had
failed to attack at disadvantage, and all the ulterior projects of the
cruise went down with him.
To return to Minorca; after the action of the 20th, Byng called a
council of war, which decided that nothing more could be done, and
that the English fleet should go to Gibraltar and cover that place
from an attack. At Gibraltar, Byng was relieved by Hawke and sent home
to be tried. The court-martial, while expressly clearing him of
cowardice or disaffection, found him guilty of not doing his utmost
either to defeat the French fleet or to relieve the garrison at
Mahon; and, as the article of war prescribed death with no
alternative punishment for this offence, it felt compelled to sentence
him to death. The king refused to pardon, and Byng was accordingly
shot.
The expedition against Minorca was begun while nominal peace still
lasted. On the 17th of May, three days before Byng's battle, England
declared war, and France replied on the 20th of June. On the 28th,
Port Mahon surrendered, and Minorca passed into the hands of France.
The nature of the troubles between the two nations, and the scenes
where they occurred, pointed out clearly enough the proper theatre of
the strife, and we should by rights now be at the opening of a sea
war, illustrated by great naval actions and attended with great
modifications in the colonial and foreign possessions of the two
powers. Of the two, England alone recognized the truth; France was
again turned aside from the sea by causes which will shortly be given.
Her fleets scarcely appeared; and losing the control of the sea, she
surrendered one by one her colonies and all her hopes in India. Later
in the struggle she drew in Spain as her ally, but it was only to
involve that country in her own external ruin. England, on the other
hand, defended and nourished by the sea, rode it everywhere in
triumph. Secure and prosperous at home, she supported with her money
the enemies of France. At the end of seven years the kingdom of Great
Britain had become the British Empire.
It is far from certain that France could have successfully contended
with England on the sea, without an ally. In 1756 the French navy had
sixty-three ships-of-the-line, of which forty-five were in fair
condition; but equipments and artillery were deficient. Spain had
forty-six ships-of-the-line; but from the previous and subsequent
performances of the Spanish navy, it may well be doubted if its worth
were equal to its numbers. England at this time had one hundred and
thirty ships-of-the-line; four years later she had one hundred and
twenty actually in commission. Of course when a nation allows its
inferiority, whether on land or sea, to become as great as that of
France now was, it cannot hope for success.
Nevertheless, she obtained advantages at first. The conquest of
Minorca was followed in November of the same year by the acquisition
of Corsica. The republic of Genoa surrendered to France all the
fortified harbors of the island. With Toulon, Corsica, and Port Mahon,
she now had a strong grip on the Mediterranean. In Canada, the
operations of 1756, under Montcalm, were successful despite the
inferiority of numbers. At the same time an attack by a native prince
in India took from the English Calcutta, and gave an opportunity to
the French.
Yet another incident offered a handle for French statesmanship to
strengthen her position on the ocean. The Dutch had promised France
not to renew their alliance with England, but to remain neutral.
England retaliated by declaring "all the ports of France in a state of
blockade, and all vessels bound to those ports liable to seizure as
lawful prize." Such a violation of the rights of neutrals can only be
undertaken by a nation that feels it has nothing to fear from their
rising against it. The aggressiveness, born of the sense of power,
which characterized England might have been used by France to draw
Spain and possibly other States into alliance against her.
Instead of concentrating against England, France began another
continental war, this time with a new and extraordinary alliance. The
Empress of Austria, working on the religious superstitions of the king
and upon the anger of the king's mistress, who was piqued at sarcasms
uttered against her by Frederick the Great, drew France into an
alliance with Austria against Prussia. This alliance was further
joined by Russia, Sweden and Poland. The empress urged that the two
Roman Catholic powers should unite to take Silesia away from a
Protestant king, and expressed her willingness to give to France a
part of her possessions in the Netherlands, which France had always
desired.
Frederick the Great, learning the combination against him, instead of
waiting for it to develop, put his armies in motion and invaded
Saxony, whose ruler was also King of Poland. This movement, in
October, 1756, began the Seven Years' War; which, like the War of the
Austrian Succession, but not to the same extent, drew some of the
contestants off from the original cause of difference. But while
France, having already on hand one large quarrel with her neighbor
across the Channel, was thus needlessly entering upon another
struggle, with the avowed end of building up that Austrian empire
which a wiser policy had long striven to humble, England this time saw
clearly where her true interests lay. Making the continental war
wholly subsidiary, she turned her efforts upon the sea and the
colonies; at the same time supporting Frederick both with money and
cordial sympathy in the war for the defence of his kingdom, which so
seriously diverted and divided the efforts of France. England thus had
really but one war on hand. In the same year the direction of the
struggle was taken from the hands of a weak ministry and given into
those of the bold and ardent William Pitt, who retained his office
till 1761, by which time the ends of the war had practically been
secured.
In the attack upon Canada there were two principal lines to be
chosen,--that by the way of Lake Champlain, and that by the way of the
St. Lawrence. The former was entirely inland, and as such does not
concern our subject, beyond noting that not till after the fall of
Quebec, in 1759, was it fairly opened to the English. In 1757 the
attempt against Louisburg failed; the English admiral being unwilling
to engage sixteen ships-of-the-line he found there, with the fifteen
under his own command, which were also, he said, of inferior metal.
Whether he was right in his decision or not, the indignation felt in
England clearly shows the difference of policy underlying the action
of the French and English governments. The following year an admiral
of a higher spirit, Boscawen, was sent out accompanied with twelve
thousand troops, and, it must in fairness be said, found only five
ships in the port. The troops were landed, while the fleet covered
the siege from the only molestation it could fear, and cut off from
the besieged the only line by which they could look for supplies. The
island fell in 1758, opening the way by the St. Lawrence to the heart
of Canada, and giving the English a new base both for the fleet and
army.
The next year the expedition under Wolfe was sent against Quebec. All
his operations were based upon the fleet, which not only carried his
army to the spot, but moved up and down the river as the various
feints required. The landing which led to the decisive action was made
directly from the ships. Montcalm, whose skill and determination had
blocked the attacks by way of Lake Champlain the two previous years,
had written urgently for reinforcements; but they were refused by the
minister of war, who replied that in addition to other reasons it was
too probable that the English would intercept them on the way, and
that the more France sent, the more England would be moved to send. In
a word, the possession of Canada depended upon sea power.
Montcalm, therefore, in view of the certain attack upon Quebec by the
river, was compelled to weaken his resistance on the Champlain route;
nevertheless, the English did not get farther than the foot of the
lake that year, and their operations, though creditable, had no effect
upon the result at Quebec.
In 1760, the English, holding the course of the St. Lawrence, with
Louisburg at one end and Quebec at the other, seemed firmly seated.
Nevertheless, the French governor, De Vaudreuil, still held out at
Montreal, and the colonists still hoped for help from France. The
English garrison at Quebec, though inferior in numbers to the forces
of the Canadians, was imprudent enough to leave the city and meet them
in the open field. Defeated there, and pursued by the enemy, the
latter nearly entered Quebec pell-mell with the English troops, and
trenches were opened against the city. A few days later an English
squadron came in sight, and the place was relieved. "Thus," says the
old English chronicler of the navy, "the enemy saw what it was to be
inferior at sea; for, had a French squadron got the start of the
English in sailing up the river, Quebec must have fallen." Wholly cut
off now, the little body of Frenchmen that remained in Montreal was
surrounded by three English armies, which had come, one by way of Lake
Champlain, the others from Oswego and from Quebec. The surrender of
the city on the 8th of September, 1760, put an end forever to the
French possession of Canada.
In all other quarters of the world, after the accession of Pitt to
power, the same good fortune followed the English arms, checkered only
at the first by some slight reverses. It was not so on the continent,
where the heroism and skill of Frederick the Great maintained with
difficulty his brilliant struggle against France, Austria, and Russia.
The study of the difficulties of his position, of the military and
political combinations attending it, do not belong to our subject. Sea
power does not appear directly in its effects upon the struggle, but
indirectly it was felt in two ways,--first, by the subsidies which the
abundant wealth and credit of England enabled her to give Frederick,
in whose thrifty and able hands they went far; and second, in the
embarrassment caused to France by the attacks of England upon her
colonies and her own sea-coast, in the destruction of her commerce,
and in the money--all too little, it is true, and grudgingly
given--which France was forced to bestow on her navy. Stung by the
constant lashing of the Power of the sea, France, despite the
blindness and unwillingness of the rulers, was driven to undertake
something against it. With a navy much inferior, unable to cope in all
quarters of the world, it was rightly decided to concentrate upon one
object; and the object chosen was Great Britain itself, whose shores
were to be invaded. This decision, soon apprehended by the fears of
the English nation, caused the great naval operations to centre for
some years around the coast of France and in the Channel. Before
describing them, it will be well to sum up the general plan by which
England was guided in the use of her overwhelming sea power.
Besides the operations on the North American continent already
described, this plan was fourfold:--
1. The French Atlantic ports were watched in force, especially Brest,
so as to keep the great fleets or small squadrons from getting out
without fighting.
2. Attacks were made upon the Atlantic and Channel coasts with flying
squadrons, followed at times by the descent of small bodies of troops.
These attacks, the direction of which could not be foreseen by the
enemy, were chiefly intended to compel him to keep on hand forces at
many points, and so to diminish the army acting against the King of
Prussia. While the tendency would certainly be that way, it may be
doubted whether the actual diversion in favor of Frederick was of much
consequence. No particular mention will be made of these operations,
which had but little visible effect upon the general course of the
war.
3. A fleet was kept in the Mediterranean and near Gibraltar to prevent
the French Toulon fleet from getting round to the Atlantic. It does
not appear that any attempt was seriously made to stop communications
between France and Minorca. The action of the Mediterranean fleet,
though an independent command, was subsidiary to that in the Atlantic.
4. Distant foreign expeditions were sent against the French colonies
in the West India Islands and on the coast of Africa, and a squadron
was maintained in the East Indies to secure the control of those seas,
thereby supporting the English in the Peninsula, and cutting off the
communications of the French. These operations in distant waters,
never intermitted, assumed greater activity and larger proportions
after the destruction of the French navy had relieved England from the
fear of invasion, and when the ill-advised entrance of Spain into the
war, in 1762, offered yet richer prizes to her enterprise.
The close blockade of the enemy's fleet in Brest, which was first
systematically carried out during this war, may be considered rather a
defensive than an offensive operation; for though the intention
certainly was to fight if opportunity offered, the chief object was to
neutralize an offensive weapon in the enemy's hands; the destruction
of the weapon was secondary. The truth of this remark is shown by the
outburst of fear and anger which swept over England when an
unavoidable absence of the blockading fleet in 1759 allowed the French
to escape. The effect of the blockade in this and after wars was to
keep the French in a state of constant inferiority in the practical
handling of their ships, however fair-showing their outward appearance
or equal their numerical force. The position of the port of Brest was
such that a blockaded fleet could not get out during the heavy
westerly gales that endangered the blockaders; the latter, therefore,
had the habit of running away from them to Torbay or Plymouth, sure,
with care, of getting back to their station with an east wind before a
large and ill-handled fleet could get much start of them.
In the latter part of 1758, France, depressed by the sense of failure
upon the continent, mortified and harassed by English descents upon
her coasts, which had been particularly annoying that year, and seeing
that it was not possible to carry on both the continental and sea wars
with her money resources, determined to strike directly at England.
Her commerce was annihilated while the enemy's throve. It was the
boast of London merchants that under Pitt commerce was united with and
made to flourish by war;[98] and this thriving commerce was the soul
also of the land struggle, by the money it lavished on the enemy of
France.
At this time a new and active-minded minister, Choiseul, was called
into power by Louis XV. From the beginning of 1759, preparations were
made in the ocean and Channel ports. Flat-boats to transport troops
were built at Havre, Dunkirk, Brest, and Rochefort. It was intended to
embark as many as fifty thousand men for the invasion of England,
while twelve thousand were to be directed upon Scotland. Two squadrons
were fitted out, each of respectable strength, one at Toulon, the
other at Brest. The junction of these two squadrons at Brest was the
first step in the great enterprise.
It was just here that it broke down, through the possession of
Gibraltar by the English, and their naval superiority. It seems
incredible that even the stern and confident William Pitt should, as
late as 1757, have offered to surrender to Spain the watch-tower from
which England overlooks the road between the Mediterranean and the
Atlantic, as the price of her help to recover Minorca. Happily for
England, Spain refused. In 1759, Admiral Boscawen commanded the
English Mediterranean fleet. In making an attack upon French frigates
in Toulon roads, some of his ships were so damaged that he sailed with
his whole squadron to Gibraltar to refit; taking the precaution,
however, to station lookout frigates at intervals, and to arrange
signals by guns to notify him betimes of the enemy's approach. Taking
advantage of his absence, and in obedience to orders, the French
commodore, De la Clue, left Toulon with twelve ships-of-the-line on
the 5th of August, and on the 17th found himself at the Straits of
Gibraltar, with a brisk east wind carrying him out into the Atlantic.
Everything seemed propitious, a thick haze and falling night
concealing the French ships from the land, while not preventing their
sight of each other, when an English frigate loomed up in the near
distance. As soon as she saw the fleet, knowing they must be enemies,
she hauled in for the land and began firing signal-guns. Pursuit was
useless; flight alone remained. Hoping to elude the chase he knew must
follow, the French commodore steered west-northwest for the open sea,
putting out all lights; but either from carelessness or
disaffection,--for the latter is hinted by one French naval
officer,--five out of the twelve ships headed to the northward and put
into Cadiz when on the following morning they could not see the
commodore. The latter was dismayed when at daylight he saw his forces
thus diminished. At eight o'clock some sails made their appearance,
and for a few minutes he hoped they were the missing ships. Instead
of that, they were the lookouts of Boscawen's fleet, which, numbering
fourteen ships-of-the-line, was in full pursuit. The French formed
their order on one of the close-hauled lines, and fled; but of course
their fleet-speed was less than that of the fastest English ships. The
general rule for all chases where the pursuer is decidedly superior,
namely, that order must be observed only so far as to keep the leading
ships within reasonable supporting distance of the slower ones, so
that they may not be singly overpowered before the latter can come up,
was by this time well understood in the English navy, and that is
certainly the fitting time for a _mélêe_. Boscawen acted accordingly.
The rear ship of the French, on the other hand, nobly emulated the
example of L'Étenduère when he saved his convoy. Overtaken at two
o'clock by the leading English ship, and soon after surrounded by four
others, her captain made for five hours a desperate resistance, from
which he could hope, not to save himself, but to delay the enemies
long enough for the better sailers to escape. He so far succeeded
that--thanks to the injury done by him and their better speed--they
did that day escape action at close quarters, which could only have
ended in their capture. When he hauled down his flag, his three
topmasts were gone, the mizzen-mast fell immediately after, and the
hull was so full of water that the ship was with difficulty kept
afloat. M. de Sabran--his name is worthy to be remembered--had
received eleven wounds in this gallant resistance, by which he
illustrated so signally the duty and service of a rearguard in
retarding pursuit. That night two of the French ships hauled off to
the westward, and so escaped. The other four continued their flight as
before; but the next morning the commodore, despairing of escape,
headed for the Portuguese coast, and ran them all ashore between Lagos
and Cape St. Vincent. The English admiral followed and attacked them,
taking two and burning the others, without regard to the neutrality of
Portugal. For this insult no amend was made beyond a formal apology;
Portugal was too dependent upon England to be seriously considered.
Pitt, writing to the English minister to Portugal about the affair,
told him that while soothing the susceptibilities of the Portuguese
government he must not allow it to suppose that either the ships would
be given up or the distinguished admiral censured.[99]
The destruction or dispersal of the Toulon fleet stopped the invasion
of England, though the five ships that got into Cadiz remained a
matter of anxiety to Sir Edward Hawke, who cruised before Brest.
Choiseul, balked of his main object, still clung to the invasion of
Scotland. The French fleet at Brest, under Marshal de Conflans, a sea
officer despite his title, numbered twenty sail-of-the-line, besides
frigates. The troops to be embarked are variously stated at fifteen to
twenty thousand. The original purpose was to escort the transports
with only five ships-of-the-line, besides smaller vessels. Conflans
insisted that the whole fleet ought to go. The minister of the navy
thought that the admiral was not a sufficiently skilful tactician to
be able to check the advance of an enemy, and so insure the safe
arrival of the convoy at its destination near the Clyde without
risking a decisive encounter. Believing therefore that there would be
a general action, he considered that it would be better to fight it
before the troops sailed; for if disastrous, the convoy would not be
sacrificed, and if decisively victorious, the road would then be
clear. The transports were assembled, not at Brest, but in the ports
to the southward as far as the mouth of the Loire. The French fleet
therefore put to sea with the expectation and purpose of fighting the
enemy; but it is not easy to reconcile its subsequent course with that
purpose, nor with the elaborate fighting instructions[100] issued by
the admiral before sailing.
About the 5th or 6th of November there came on a tremendous westerly
gale. After buffeting it for three days, Hawke bore up and ran into
Torbay, where he waited for the wind to shift, keeping his fleet in
readiness to sail at once. The same gale, while keeping back the
French already in Brest, gave the chance to a small squadron under M.
Bompart, which was expected from the West Indies, to slip in during
Hawke's absence. Conflans made his preparations with activity,
distributed Bompart's crews among his own ships, which were not very
well manned, and got to sea with an easterly wind on the 14th. He
stood at once to the southward, flattering himself that he had escaped
Hawke. The latter, however, had sailed from Torbay on the 12th; and
though again driven back, sailed a second time on the 14th, the same
day that Conflans left Brest. He soon readied his station, learned
that the enemy had been seen to the southward steering east, and
easily concluding that they were bound to Quiberon Bay, shaped his own
course for the same place under a press of sail. At eleven P.M. of the
19th the French admiral estimated his position to be seventy miles
southwest by west from Belle Isle;[101] and the wind springing up
fresh from the westward, he stood for it under short sail, the wind
continuing to increase and hauling to west-northwest. At daybreak
several ships were seen ahead, which proved to be the English squadron
of Commodore Duff, blockading Quiberon. The signal was made to chase;
and the English, taking flight, separated into two divisions,--one
going off before the wind, the other hauling up to the southward. The
greater part of the French fleet continued its course after the former
division, that is, toward the coast; but one ship hauled up for the
second. Immediately after, the rear French ships made signal of sails
to windward, which were also visible from aloft on board the
flag-ship. It must have been about the same moment that the lookout
frigate in advance of the English fleet informed her admiral of sails
to leeward. Hawke's diligence had brought him up with Conflans, who,
in his official reports, says he had considered it impossible that the
enemy could have in that neighborhood forces superior or even equal to
his own. Conflans now ordered his rear division to haul its wind in
support of the ship chasing to the southward and eastward. In a few
moments more it was discovered that the fleet to windward numbered
twenty-three ships-of-the-line to the French twenty-one, and among
them some three-deckers. Conflans then called in the chasing ships and
got ready for action. It remained to settle his course under
circumstances which he had not foreseen. It was now blowing hard from
the west-northwest, with every appearance of heavy weather, the fleet
not far from a lee shore, with an enemy considerably superior in
numbers; for besides Hawke's twenty-three of the line, Duff had four
fifty-gun ships. Conflans therefore determined to run for it and lead
his squadron into Quiberon Bay, trusting and believing that Hawke
would not dare to follow, under the conditions of the weather, into a
bay which French authorities describe as containing banks and shoals,
and lined with reefs which the navigator rarely sees without fright
and never passes without emotion. It was in the midst of these ghastly
dangers that forty-four large ships were about to engage pell-mell;
for the space was too contracted for fleet manoeuvres. Conflans
flattered himself that he would get in first and be able to haul up
close under the western shore of the bay, forcing the enemy, if he
followed, to take position between him and the beach, six miles to
leeward. None of his expectations were fulfilled. In the retreat he
took the head of his fleet; a step not unjustifiable, since only by
leading in person could he have shown just what he wanted to do, but
unfortunate for his reputation with the public, as it placed the
admiral foremost in the flight. Hawke was not in the least, nor for
one moment, deterred by the dangers before him, whose full extent he,
as a skilful seaman, entirely realized; but his was a calm and
steadfast as well as a gallant temper, that weighed risks justly,
neither dissembling nor exaggerating. He has not left us his
reasoning, but he doubtless felt that the French, leading, would serve
partially as pilots, and must take the ground before him; he believed
the temper and experience of his officers, tried by the severe school
of the blockade, to be superior to those of the French; and he knew
that both the government and the country demanded that the enemy's
fleet should not reach another friendly port in safety. On the very
day that he was thus following the French, amid dangers and under
conditions that have made this one of the most dramatic of sea fights,
he was being burnt in effigy in England for allowing them to escape.
As Conflans, leading his fleet, was rounding the Cardinals,--as the
southernmost rocks at the entrance of Quiberon Bay are called,--the
leading English ships brought the French rear to action. It was
another case of a general chase ending in a _mêlée_, but under
conditions of exceptional interest and grandeur from the surrounding
circumstances of the gale of wind, the heavy sea, the lee shore, the
headlong speed, shortened canvas, and the great number of ships
engaged. One French seventy-four, closely pressed and outnumbered,
ventured to open her lower-deck ports; the sea sweeping in carried her
down with all on board but twenty men. Another was sunk by the fire of
Hawke's flag-ship. Two others, one of which carried a commodore's
pennant, struck their colors. The remainder were dispersed. Seven fled
to the northward and eastward, and anchored off the mouth of the
little river Vilaine, into which they succeeded in entering at the top
of high water in two tides,--a feat never before performed. Seven
others took refuge to the southward and eastward in Rochefort. One,
after being very badly injured, ran ashore and was lost near the mouth
of the Loire. The flag-ship bearing the same name as that of Tourville
burned at La Hougue, the "Royal Sun," anchored at nightfall off
Croisic, a little to the northward of the Loire, where she rode in
safety during the night. The next morning the admiral found himself
alone, and, somewhat precipitately it would seem, ran the ship ashore
to keep her out of English hands. This step has been blamed by the
French, but needlessly, as Hawke would never have let her get away.
The great French fleet was annihilated; for the fourteen ships not
taken or destroyed were divided into two parts, and those in the
Vilaine only succeeded in escaping, two at a time, between fifteen
months and two years later. The English lost two ships which ran upon
a shoal (a), and were hopelessly wrecked; their losses in action were
slight. At nightfall Hawke anchored his fleet and prizes in the
position shown in the plate (b).
[Illustration: Pl. VIII.]
All possibility of an invasion of England passed away with the
destruction of the Brest fleet. The battle of November 20, 1759, was
the Trafalgar of this war; and though a blockade was maintained over
the fractions that were laid up in the Vilaine and at Rochefort, the
English fleets were now free to act against the colonies of France,
and later of Spain, on a grander scale than ever before. The same year
that saw this great sea fight and the fall of Quebec witnessed also
the capture of Guadeloupe in the West Indies, of Goree on the west
coast of Africa, and the abandonment of the East Indian seas by the
French flag after three indecisive actions between their commodore,
D'Aché, and Admiral Pocock,--an abandonment which necessarily led to
the fall of the French power in India, never again to rise. In this
year also the King of Spain died, and his brother succeeded, under the
title of Charles III. This Charles had been King of Naples at the time
when an English commodore had allowed one hour for the court to
determine to withdraw the Neapolitan troops from the Spanish army. He
had never forgotten this humiliation, and brought to his new throne a
heart unfriendly to England. With such feelings on his part, France
and Spain drew more readily together. Charles's first step was to
propose mediation, but Pitt was averse to it. Looking upon France as
the chief enemy of England, and upon the sea and the colonies as the
chief source of power and wealth, he wished, now that he had her down,
to weaken her thoroughly for the future as well as the present, and to
establish England's greatness more firmly upon the wreck. Later on he
offered certain conditions; but the influence of Louis's mistress,
attached to the Empress of Austria, prevailed to except Prussia from
the negotiations, and England would not allow the exception. Pitt,
indeed, was not yet ready for peace. A year later, October 25, 1760,
George II. died, and Pitt's influence then began to wane, the new
king being less bent on war. During these years, 1759 and 1760,
Frederick the Great still continued the deadly and exhausting strife
of his small kingdom against the great States joined against him. At
one moment his case seemed so hopeless that he got ready to kill
himself; but the continuance of the war diverted the efforts of France
from England and the sea.
The hour was fast approaching for the great colonial expeditions,
which made the last year of the war illustrious by the triumph of the
sea power of England over France and Spain united. It is first
necessary to tell the entirely kindred story of the effect of that sea
power in the East Indian peninsula.
The recall of Dupleix and the entire abandonment of his policy, which
resulted in placing the two East India companies on equal terms, have
already been told. The treaty stipulations of 1754 had not, however,
been fully carried out. The Marquis de Bussy, a brave and capable
soldier who had been a second to Dupleix, and was wholly in accord
with his policy and ambitions, remained in the Deccan,--a large region
in the southern central part of the peninsula, over which Dupleix had
once ruled. In 1756, troubles arose between the English and the native
prince in Bengal. The nabob of that province had died, and his
successor, a young man of nineteen, attacked Calcutta. The place fell,
after a weak resistance, in June, and the surrender was followed by
the famous tragedy known as that of the Black Hole of Calcutta. The
news reached Madras in August, and Clive, whose name has already been
mentioned, sailed with the fleet of Admiral Watson, after a long and
vexatious delay. The fleet entered the river in December and appeared
before Calcutta in January, when the place fell into English hands
again as easily as it had been lost.
The nabob was very angry, and marched against the English; sending
meanwhile an invitation to the French at Chandernagore to join him.
Although it was now known that England and France were at war, the
French company, despite the experience of 1744, weakly hoped that
peace might be kept between it and the English. The native invitation
was therefore refused, and offers of neutrality made to the other
company. Clive marched out, met the Indian forces and defeated them,
and the nabob at once asked for peace, and sought the English
alliance, yielding all the claims on the strength of which he had
first attacked Calcutta. After some demur his offers were accepted.
Clive and Watson then turned upon Chandernagore and compelled the
surrender of the French settlement.
The nabob, who had not meant to allow this, took umbrage, and entered
into correspondence with Bussy in the Deccan. Clive had full knowledge
of his various intrigues, which were carried on with the vacillation
of a character as weak as it was treacherous; and seeing no hope of
settled peace or trade under the rule of this man, entered into an
extensive conspiracy for his dethronement, the details of which need
not be given. The result was that war broke out again, and that Clive
with three thousand men, one third of whom were English, met the nabob
at the head of fifteen thousand horse and thirty-five thousand foot.
The disproportion in artillery was nearly as great. Against these odds
was fought and won the battle of Plassey, on the 23d of June,
1757,--the date from which, by common consent, the British empire in
India is said to begin. The overthrow of the nabob was followed by
placing in power one of the conspirators against him, a creature of
the English, and dependent upon them for support. Bengal thus passed
under their control, the first-fruits of India. "Clive," says a French
historian, "had understood and applied the system of Dupleix."
This was true; yet even so it may be said that the foundation thus
laid could never have been kept nor built upon, had the English nation
not controlled the sea. The conditions of India were such that a few
Europeans, headed by men of nerve and shrewdness, dividing that they
might conquer, and advancing their fortunes by judicious alliances,
were able to hold their own, and more too, amidst overwhelming
numerical odds; but it was necessary that they should not be opposed
by men of their own kind, a few of whom could turn the wavering
balance the other way. At the very time that Clive was acting in
Bengal, Bussy invaded Orissa, seized the English factories, and made
himself master of much of the coast regions between Madras and
Calcutta; while a French squadron of nine ships, most of which,
however, belonged to the East India Company and were not first-rate
men-of-war, was on its way to Pondicherry with twelve hundred regular
troops,--an enormous European army for Indian operations of that day.
The English naval force on the coast, though fewer in numbers, may be
considered about equal to the approaching French squadron. It is
scarcely too much to say that the future of India was still uncertain,
and the first operations showed it.
The French division appeared off the Coromandel coast to the southward
of Pondicherry on the 26th of April, 1758, and anchored on the 28th
before the English station called Fort St. David. Two ships kept on to
Pondicherry, having on board the new governor, Comte de Lally, who
wished to go at once to his seat of government. Meanwhile, the English
admiral, Pocock, having news of the enemy's coming, and fearing
specially for this post, was on his way to it, and appeared on the
29th of April, before the two ships with the governor were out of
sight. The French at once got under way and stood out to sea on the
starboard tack (Plate Va.), heading to the northward and eastward, the
wind being southeast, and signals were made to recall the ship and
frigate (a) escorting Lally; but they were disregarded by the latter's
order, an act which must have increased, if it did not originate, the
ill-will between him and Commodore d'Aché, through which the French
campaign in India miscarried. The English, having formed to windward
on the same tack as the French, made their attack in the then usual
way, and with the usual results. The seven English ships were ordered
to keep away together for the French eight, and the four leading
ships, including the admiral's, came into action handsomely; the last
three, whether by their own fault or not, were late in doing so, but
it will be remembered that this was almost always the case in such
attacks. The French commodore, seeing this interval between the van
and the rear, formed the plan of separating them, and made signal to
wear together, but in his impatience did not wait for an answer.
Putting his own helm up, he wore round, and was followed in succession
by the rear ships, while the van stood on. The English admiral, who
had good reason to know, gives D'Aché more credit than the French
writers, for he describes this movement thus:--
"At half-past four P.M. the rear of the French line had drawn
pretty close up to their flag-ship. Our three rear ships were
signalled to engage closer. Soon after, M. d'Aché broke the
line, and put before the wind; his second astern, who had kept
on the 'Yarmouth's' [English flag-ship] quarter most part of the
action, then came up alongside, gave his fire, and then bore
away; and a few minutes after, the enemy's van bore away also."
By this account, which is by no means irreconcilable with the French,
the latter effected upon the principal English ship a movement of
concentration by defiling past her. The French now stood down to their
two separated ships, while the English vessels that had been engaged
were too much crippled to follow. This battle prevented the English
fleet from relieving Fort St. David, which surrendered on the 2d of
June.
After the fall of this place, the two opposing squadrons having
refitted at their respective ports and resumed their station, a second
action was fought in August, under nearly the same conditions and in
much the same fashion. The French flag-ship met with a series of
untoward accidents, which determined the commodore to withdraw from
action; but the statement of his further reasons is most suggestive of
the necessary final overthrow of the French cause. "Prudence," a
writer of his own country says, "commanded him not to prolong a
contest from which his ships could not but come out with injuries very
difficult to repair in a region where it was impossible to supply the
almost entire lack of spare stores." This want of so absolute a
requisite for naval efficiency shows in a strong light the fatal
tendency of that economy which always characterized French operations
at sea, and was at once significant and ominous.
Returning to Pondicherry, D'Aché found that, though the injuries to
the masts and rigging could for this time be repaired, there was lack
of provisions, and that the ships needed calking. Although his orders
were to remain on the coast until October 15, he backed himself with
the opinion of a council of war which decided that the ships could not
remain there longer, because, in case of a third battle, there was
neither rigging nor supplies remaining in Pondicherry; and
disregarding the protests of the governor, Lally, he sailed on the 2d
of September for the Isle of France. The underlying motive of D'Aché,
it is known, was hostility to the governor, with whom he quarrelled
continually. Lally, deprived of the help of the squadron, turned his
arms inland instead of against Madras.
Upon arriving at the islands, D'Aché found a state of things which
again singularly illustrates the impotence and short-sightedness
characteristic of the general naval policy of the French at this time.
His arrival there was as unwelcome as his departure from India had
been to Lally. The islands were then in a state of the most complete
destitution. The naval division, increased by the arrival of three
ships-of-the-line from home, so exhausted them that its immediate
departure was requested of the commodore. Repairs were pushed ahead
rapidly, and in November several of the ships sailed to the Cape of
Good Hope, then a Dutch colony, to seek provisions; but these were
consumed soon after being received, and the pressure for the departure
of the squadron was renewed. The situation of the ships was no less
precarious than that of the colony; and accordingly the commodore
replied by urging his entire lack of food and supplies. The condition
was such that, a little later, it was necessary to make running
rigging out of the cables, and to put some of the ships on the bottom,
so as to give their materials to others. Before returning to India,
D'Aché wrote to the minister of the navy that he "was about to leave,
only to save the crews from dying of hunger, and that nothing need be
expected from the squadron if supplies were not sent, for both men and
things were in a deplorable state."
Under these circumstances D'Aché sailed from the islands in July,
1759, and arrived off the Coromandel coast in September. During his
year of absence Lally had besieged Madras for two months, during the
northeast monsoon. Both squadrons were absent, that season being unfit
for naval operations on this coast; but the English returned first,
and are said by the French to have caused, by the English to have
hastened, the raising of the siege. D'Aché, upon his return, was much
superior in both number and size of ships; but when the fleets met,
Pocock did not hesitate to attack with nine against eleven. This
action, fought September 10, 1759, was as indecisive as the two
former; but D'Aché retreated, after a very bloody contest. Upon it
Campbell, in his "Lives of the Admirals," makes a droll, but seemingly
serious, comment: "Pocock had reduced the French ships to a very
shattered condition, and killed a great many of their men; but what
shows the singular talents of both admirals, they had fought three
pitched battles in eighteen months without the loss of a ship on
either side." The fruits of victory, however, were with the weaker
fleet; for D'Aché returned to Pondicherry and thence sailed on the 1st
of the next month for the islands, leaving India to its fate. From
that time the result was certain. The English continued to receive
reinforcements from home, while the French did not; the men opposed to
Lally were superior in ability; place after place fell, and in
January, 1761, Pondicherry itself surrendered, surrounded by land and
cut off from the sea. This was the end of the French power in India;
for though Pondicherry and other possessions were restored at the
peace, the English tenure there was never again shaken, even under the
attacks of the skilful and bold Suffren, who twenty years later met
difficulties as great as D'Aché's with a vigor and conduct which the
latter at a more hopeful moment failed to show.
France having thus lost both Canada and India by the evident failure
of her power to act at a distance by sea, it would seem scarcely
possible that Spain, with her own weak navy and widely scattered
possessions, would choose this moment for entering the war. Yet so it
was. The maritime exhaustion of France was plain to all, and is
abundantly testified to by her naval historians. "The resources of
France were exhausted," says one; "the year 1761 saw only a few single
ships leave her ports, and all of them were captured. The alliance
with Spain came too late. The occasional ships that went to sea in
1762 were taken, and the colonies still remaining to France could not
be saved."[102] Even as early as 1758, another Frenchman writes, "want
of money, the depression of commerce given over to English cruisers,
the lack of good ships, the lack of supplies, etc., compelled the
French ministry, unable to raise large forces, to resort to
stratagems, to replace the only rational system of war, Grand War, by
the smallest of petty wars,--by a sort of game in which the great aim
is not to be caught. Even then, the arrival of four ships-of-the-line
at Louisburg, by avoiding the enemy, was looked on as a very fortunate
event.... In 1759 the lucky arrival of the West India convoy caused as
much surprise as joy to the merchants. We see how rare had become such
a chance in seas ploughed by the squadrons of England."[103] This was
before the disasters of La Clue and Conflans. The destruction of
French commerce, beginning by the capture of its merchant-ships, was
consummated by the reduction of the colonies. It can hardly,
therefore, be conceded that the Family Compact now made between the
two courts, containing, as it did, not only an agreement to support
each other in any future war, but also a secret clause binding Spain
to declare war against England within a year, if peace were not made,
"was honorable to the wisdom of the two governments." It is hard to
pardon, not only the Spanish government, but even France for alluring
a kindred people into such a bad bargain. It was hoped, however, to
revive the French navy and to promote an alliance of neutral powers;
many of which, besides Spain, had causes of complaint against England.
"During the war with France," confesses an English historian, "the
Spanish flag had not always been respected by British cruisers."[104]
"During 1758," says another, "not less than one hundred and
seventy-six neutral vessels, laden with the rich produce of the French
colonies or with military or naval stores, fell into the hands of the
English."[105] The causes were already at work which twenty years
later gave rise to the "armed neutrality" of the Baltic powers,
directed against the claims of England on the sea. The possession of
unlimited power, as the sea power of England then really was, is
seldom accompanied by a profound respect for the rights of others.
Without a rival upon the ocean, it suited England to maintain that
enemy's property was liable to capture on board neutral ships, thus
subjecting these nations not only to vexatious detentions, but to loss
of valuable trade; just as it had suited her earlier in the war to
establish a paper blockade of French ports. Neutrals of course chafed
under these exactions; but the year 1761 was ill-chosen for an armed
protest, and of all powers Spain risked most by a war. England had
then one hundred and twenty ships-of-the-line in commission, besides
those in reserve, manned by seventy thousand seamen trained and
hardened by five years of constant warfare afloat, and flushed with
victory. The navy of France, which numbered seventy-seven
ships-of-the-line in 1758, lost as prizes to the English in 1759
twenty-seven, besides eight destroyed and many frigates lost; indeed,
as has been seen, their own writers confess that the navy was ruined,
root and branch. The Spanish navy contained about fifty ships; but the
personnel, unless very different from the days before and after, must
have been very inferior. The weakness of her empire, in the absence of
an efficient navy, has before been pointed out. Neutrality, too,
though at times outraged, had been of great advantage to her,
permitting her to restore her finances and trade and to re-establish
her internal resources; but she needed a still longer period of it.
Nevertheless, the king, influenced by family feeling and resentment
against England, allowed himself to be drawn on by the astute
Choiseul, and the Family Compact between the two crowns was signed on
the 15th of August, 1761. This compact, into which the King of Naples
was also to enter, guaranteed their mutual possessions by the whole
power of both kingdoms. This in itself was a weighty undertaking; but
the secret clause further stipulated that Spain should declare war
against England on the 1st of May, 1762, if peace with France had not
then been made. Negotiations of this character could not be kept
wholly secret, and Pitt learned enough to convince him that Spain was
becoming hostile in intention. With his usual haughty resolve, he
determined to forestall her by declaring war; but the influence
against him in the councils of the new king was too strong. Failing to
carry the ministry with him, he resigned on the 5th of October, 1761.
His prevision was quickly justified; Spain had been eager in
professing good-will until the treasure-ships from America should
arrive laden with the specie so needed for carrying on war. On the
21st of September the Flota of galleons anchored safely in Cadiz; and
on the 2d of November the British ambassador announced to his
government that "two ships had safely arrived with very extraordinary
rich cargoes from the West Indies, so that all the wealth that was
expected from Spanish America is now safe in old Spain," and in the
same despatch reports a surprising change in the words of the Spanish
minister, and the haughty language now used.[106] The grievences and
claims of Spain were urged peremptorily, and the quarrel grew so fast
that even the new English ministry, though ardently desiring peace,
recalled their ambassador before the end of the year, and declared war
on the 4th of January, 1762; thus adopting Pitt's policy, but too late
to reap the advantages at which he had aimed.
However, no such delay on the part of England could alter the
essential inequality, in strength and preparation, between the two
nations. The plans formed by Pitt were in the main adopted by his
successor, and carried out with a speed which the readiness of the
English navy permitted. On the 5th of March, Pocock, who had returned
from the East Indies, sailed from Portsmouth, convoying a fleet of
transports to act against Havana; in the West Indies he was reinforced
from the forces in that quarter, so that his command contained
nineteen ships-of-the-line besides smaller vessels, and ten thousand
soldiers.
In the previous January, the West India fleet, under the well-known
Rodney, had acted with the land forces in the reduction of Martinique,
the gem and tower of the French islands and the harbor of an extensive
privateering system. It is said that fourteen hundred English
merchantmen were taken during this war in the West Indian seas by
cruisers whose principal port was Fort Royal in Martinique. With this
necessary base fell also the privateering system resting upon it.
Martinique was surrendered February 12, and the loss of this chief
commercial and military centre was immediately followed by that of the
smaller islands, Grenada, Sta. Lucia, St. Vincent. By these
acquisitions the English colonies at Antigua, St. Kitts, and Nevis, as
well as the ships trading to those islands, were secured against the
enemy, the commerce of England received large additions, and all the
Lesser Antilles, or Windward Islands, became British possessions.
Admiral Pocock was joined off Cape St. Nicholas by the West Indian
reinforcement on the 27th of May, and as the season was so far
advanced, he took his great fleet through the old Bahama channel
instead of the usual route around the south side of Cuba. This was
justly considered a great feat in those days of poor surveys, and was
accomplished without an accident. Lookout and sounding vessels went
first, frigates followed, and boats or sloops were anchored on shoals
with carefully arranged signals for day or night. Having good weather,
the fleet got through in a week and appeared before Havana. The
operations will not be given in detail. After a forty days' siege the
Moro Castle was taken on the 30th of July, and the city surrendered on
the 10th of August. The Spaniards lost not only the city and port, but
twelve ships-of-the-line, besides £3,000,000 in money and merchandise
belonging to the Spanish king. The importance of Havana was not to be
measured only by its own size, or its position as centre of a large
and richly cultivated district; it was also the port commanding the
only passage by which the treasure and other ships could sail from the
Gulf of Mexico to Europe in those days. With Havana in an enemy's
hands it would be necessary to assemble them at Cartagena and from
there beat up against the trade-winds,--an operation always difficult,
and which would keep ships long in waters where they were exposed to
capture by English cruisers. Not even an attack upon the isthmus would
have been so serious a blow to Spain. This important result could only
be achieved by a nation confident of controlling the communications by
its sea power, to which the happy issue must wholly be ascribed, and
which had another signal illustration in the timely conveying of four
thousand American troops to reinforce the English ranks, terribly
wasted by battle and fever. It is said that only twenty-five hundred
serviceable fighting men remained on foot when the city fell.
While the long reach and vigor of England's sea power was thus felt in
the West Indies, it was receiving further illustration in Portugal and
in the far East. The allied crowns in the beginning had invited
Portugal to join their alliance against those whom they had taken to
calling the "tyrants of the seas," reminding her how the English
monopoly of her trade was draining the country of gold, and recalling
the deliberate violation of her neutrality by the fleet under
Boscawen. The Portuguese minister of the day well knew all this, and
keenly felt it; but though the invitation was accompanied by the plain
statement that Portugal would not be allowed to continue a neutrality
she could not enforce, he judged rightly that the country had more to
fear from England and her fleet than from the Spanish army. The allies
declared war and invaded Portugal. They were for a time successful;
but the "tyrants of the seas" answered Portugal's call, sent a fleet
and landed at Lisbon eight thousand soldiers, who drove the Spaniards
over the frontiers, and even carried the war into Spain itself.
Simultaneous with these significant events, Manila was attacked. With
so much already on hand, it was found impossible to spare troops or
ships from England. The successes in India and the absolute security
of the establishments there, with the control of the sea, allowed the
Indian officials themselves to undertake this colonial expedition. It
sailed in August, 1762, and reaching Malacca on the 19th, was supplied
at that neutral port with all that was needed for the siege about to
be undertaken; the Dutch, though jealous of the English advance, not
venturing to refuse their demands. The expedition, which depended
entirely upon the fleet, resulted in the whole group of Philippine
Islands surrendering in October and paying a ransom of four million
dollars. At about the same time the fleet captured the Acapulco
galleon having three million dollars on board, and an English squadron
in the Atlantic took a treasure-ship from Lima with four million
dollars in silver for the Spanish government.
"Never had the colonial empire of Spain received such blows.
Spain, whose opportune intervention might have modified the fate
of the war, entered it too late to help France, but in time to
share her misfortunes. There was reason to fear yet more. Panama
and San Domingo were threatened, and the Anglo-Americans were
preparing for the invasion of Florida and Louisiana.... The
conquest of Havana had in great measure interrupted the
communications between the wealthy American colonies of Spain
and Europe. The reduction of the Philippine Islands now excluded
her from Asia. The two together severed all the avenues of
Spanish trade and cut off all intercourse between the parts of
their vast but disconnected empire."[107]
The selection of the points of attack, due to the ministry of Pitt,
was strategically good, cutting effectually the sinews of the enemy's
strength; and if his plans had been fully carried out and Panama also
seized, the success would have been yet more decisive. England had
lost also the advantage of the surprise he would have effected by
anticipating Spain's declaration of war; but her arms were triumphant
during this short contest, through the rapidity with which her
projects were carried into execution, due to the state of efficiency
to which her naval forces and administration had been brought.
With the conquest of Manila ended the military operations of the war.
Nine months, counting from the formal declaration by England in
January, had been sufficient to shatter the last hope of France, and
to bring Spain to a peace in which was conceded every point on which
she had based her hostile attitude and demands. It seems scarcely
necessary, after even the brief summary of events that has been given,
to point out that the speed and thoroughness with which England's work
was done was due wholly to her sea power, which allowed her forces to
act on distant points, widely apart as Cuba, Portugal, India, and the
Philippines, without a fear of serious break in their communications.
Before giving the terms of peace which ought to summarize the results
of the war, but do so imperfectly, owing to the weak eagerness of the
English ministry to conclude it, it is necessary to trace in outline
the effect of the war upon commerce, upon the foundations of sea power
and national prosperity.
One prominent feature of this war may be more strongly impressed upon
the mind by a startling, because paradoxical, statement that the
prosperity of the English is shown by the magnitude of their losses.
"From 1756 to 1760," states a French historian, "French
privateers captured from the English more than twenty-five
hundred merchantmen. In 1761, though France had not, so to
speak, a single ship-of-the-line at sea, and though the English
had taken two hundred and forty of our privateers, their
comrades still took eight hundred and twelve English vessels.
The explanation of the number of these prizes lies in the
prodigious growth of the English shipping. In 1760 it is claimed
that the English had at sea eight thousand sail; of these the
French captured nearly one tenth, despite escorts and cruisers.
In the four years from 1756 to 1760 the French lost only nine
hundred and fifty vessels."[108]
But this discrepancy is justly attributed by an English writer "to the
diminution of the French commerce and the dread of falling into the
hands of the English, which kept many of their trading-vessels from
going to sea;" and he goes on to point out that the capture of vessels
was not the principal benefit resulting from the efficiency of
England's fleets. "Captures like Duquesne, Louisburg, Prince Edward's
Island, the reduction of Senegal, and later on of Guadeloupe and
Martinique, were events no less destructive to French commerce and
colonies than advantageous to those of England."[109] The
multiplication of French privateers was indeed a sad token to an
instructed eye, showing behind them merchant shipping in enforced
idleness, whose crews and whose owners were driven to speculative
pillage in order to live. Nor was this risk wholly in vain. The same
Englishman confesses that in 1759 the losses of merchantmen showed a
worse balance than the ships-of-war. While the French were striving in
vain to regain equality upon the sea and repair their losses, but to
no purpose, for "in building and arming vessels they labored only for
the English fleet," yet, "notwithstanding the courage and vigilance of
English cruisers, French privateers so swarmed that in this year they
took two hundred and forty British vessels, chiefly coasters and small
craft." In 1760 the same authority gives the British loss in
trading-vessels at over three hundred, and in 1761 at over eight
hundred, three times that of the French; but he adds: "It would not
have been wonderful had they taken more and richer ships. While their
commerce was nearly destroyed, and they had few merchant-ships at
sea, the trading-fleets of England covered the seas. Every year her
commerce was increasing; the money which the war carried out was
returned by the produce of her industry. Eight thousand vessels were
employed by the traders of Great Britain." The extent of her losses is
attributed to three causes, of which the first only was preventable:
(1) The inattention of merchant-ships to the orders of the convoying
vessels; (2) The immense number of English ships in all seas; (3) The
enemy's venturing the whole remains of his strength in privateering.
During the same year, 1761, the navy lost one ship-of-the-line, which
was retaken, and one cutter. At the same time, notwithstanding the
various exchanges, the English still held twenty-five thousand French
prisoners, while the English prisoners in France were but twelve
hundred. These were the results of the sea war.
Finally, in summing up the commercial condition of the kingdom at the
end of the war, after mentioning the enormous sums of specie taken
from Spain, the writer says:--
"These strengthened trade and fostered industry. The remittances
for foreign subsidies were in great part paid by bills on
merchants settled abroad, who had the value of the drafts in
British manufactures. The trade of England increased gradually
every year, and such a scene of national prosperity while waging
a long, costly, and bloody war, was never before shown by any
people in the world."
No wonder, with such results to her commerce and such unvarying
success attending her arms, and seeing the practical annihilation of
the French navy, that the union of France and Spain, which was then
lowering on her future and had once excited the fears of all Europe,
was now beheld by Great Britain alone without the smallest fear or
despondency. Spain was by her constitution and the distribution of her
empire peculiarly open to the attack of a great sea people; and
whatever the views of the government of the day, Pitt and the nation
saw that the hour had come, which had been hoped for in vain in 1739,
because then years of peace and the obstinate bias of a great
minister had relaxed the muscles of her fleet. Now she but reached
forth her hand and seized what she wished; nor could there have been
any limit to her prey, had not the ministry again been untrue to the
interests of the country.
The position of Portugal with reference to Great Britain has been
alluded to, but merits some special attention as instancing an element
of sea power obtained not by colonies, but by alliance, whether
necessary or prudential. The commercial connection before spoken of
"was strengthened by the strongest political ties. The two kingdoms
were so situated as to have little to fear from each other, while they
might impart many mutual advantages. The harbors of Portugal gave
shelter as well as supplies to the English fleet, while the latter
defended the rich trade of Portugal with Brazil. The antipathy between
Portugal and Spain made it necessary for the former to have an ally,
strong yet distant. None is so advantageous in that way as England,
which in her turn might, and always has, derived great advantages from
Portugal in a war with any of the southern powers of Europe."
This is an English view of a matter which to others looks somewhat
like an alliance between a lion and a lamb. To call a country with a
fleet like England's "distant" from a small maritime nation like
Portugal is an absurdity. England is, and yet more in those days was,
wherever her fleet could go. The opposite view of the matter, showing
equally the value of the alliance, was well set forth in the memorial
by which, under the civil name of an invitation, the crowns of France
and Spain ordered Portugal to declare against England.
The grounds of that memorial--namely, the unequal benefit to Portugal
from the connection and the disregard of Portuguese neutrality--have
already been given. The King of Portugal refused to abandon the
alliance, for the professed reason that it was ancient and wholly
defensive. To this the two crowns replied:--
"The defensive alliance is actually an offensive one by the
situation of the Portuguese dominions and the nature of the
English power. The English squadrons cannot in all seasons keep
the sea, nor cruise on the principal coasts of France and Spain
for cutting off the navigation of the two countries, without the
ports and assistance of Portugal; and these islanders could not
insult all maritime Europe, if the whole riches of Portugal did
not pass through their hands, which furnishes them with the
means to make war and renders the alliance truly and properly
offensive."
Between the two arguments the logic of situation and power prevailed.
Portugal found England nearer and more dangerous than Spain, and
remained for generations of trial true to the alliance. This
relationship was as useful to England as any of her colonial
possessions, depending of course upon the scene of the principal
operations at any particular time.
The preliminaries of peace were signed at Fontainebleau, November 3,
1762; the definitive treaty on the 10th of the following February, at
Paris, whence the peace takes its name.
By its terms France renounced all claims to Canada, Nova Scotia, and
all the islands of the St. Lawrence; along with Canada she ceded the
valley of the Ohio and all her territory on the east side of the
Mississippi, except the city of New Orleans. At the same time Spain,
as an equivalent for Havana, which England restored, yielded Florida,
under which name were comprised all her continental possessions east
of the Mississippi. Thus England obtained a colonial empire embracing
Canada, from Hudson's Bay, and all of the present United States east
of the Mississippi. The possibilities of this vast region were then
only partially foreseen, and as yet there was no foreshadowing of the
revolt of the thirteen colonies.
In the West Indies, England gave back to France the important islands
of Guadeloupe and Martinique. The four so-called neutral islands of
the Lesser Antilles were divided between the two powers; Sta. Lucia
going to France, St. Vincent, Tobago, and Dominica to England, which
also retained Grenada.
Minorca was given back to England; and as the restoration of the
island to Spain had been one of the conditions of the alliance with
the latter, France, unable to fulfil her stipulation, ceded to Spain
Louisiana west of the Mississippi.
In India, France recovered the possessions she had held before Dupleix
began his schemes of aggrandizement; but she gave up the right of
erecting fortifications or keeping troops in Bengal, and so left the
station at Chandernagore defenceless. In a word, France resumed her
facilities for trading, but practically abandoned her pretensions to
political influence. It was tacitly understood that the English
company would keep all its conquests.
The right of fishing upon the coasts of Newfoundland and in parts of
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which France had previously enjoyed, was
conceded to her by this treaty; but it was denied to Spain, who had
claimed it for her fishermen. This concession was among those most
attacked by the English opposition.
The nation at large and Pitt, the favorite of the nation, were
bitterly opposed to the terms of the treaty. "France," said Pitt, "is
chiefly formidable to us as a maritime and commercial power. What we
gain in this respect is valuable to us above all through the injury to
her which results from it. You leave to France the possibility of
reviving her navy." In truth, from the point of view of sea power and
of the national jealousies which the spirit of that age sanctioned,
these words, though illiberal, were strictly justifiable. The
restoration to France of her colonies in the West Indies and her
stations in India, together with the valuable right of fishery in her
former American possessions, put before her the possibility and the
inducement to restore her shipping, her commerce, and her navy, and
thus tended to recall her from the path of continental ambition which
had been so fatal to her interests, and in the same proportion
favorable to the unprecedented growth of England's power upon the
ocean. The opposition, and indeed some of the ministry, also thought
that so commanding and important a position as Havana was poorly paid
for by the cession of the yet desolate and unproductive region called
Florida. Porto Rico was suggested, Florida accepted. There were other
minor points of difference, into which it is unnecessary to enter. It
could scarcely be denied that with the commanding military control of
the sea held by England, grasping as she now did so many important
positions, with her navy overwhelmingly superior in numbers, and her
commerce and internal condition very thriving, more rigorous terms
might easily have been exacted and would have been prudent. The
ministry defended their eagerness and spirit of concession on the
ground of the enormous growth of the debt, which then amounted to
£122,000,000, a sum in every point of view much greater then than now;
but while this draft upon the future was fully justified by the
success of the war, it also imperatively demanded that the utmost
advantages which the military situation made attainable should be
exacted. This the ministry failed to do. As regards the debt, it is
well observed by a French writer that "in this war, and for years
afterward, England had in view nothing less than the conquest of
America and the progress of her East India Company. By these two
countries her manufactures and commerce acquired more than sufficient
outlets, and repaid her for the numerous sacrifices she had made.
Seeing the maritime decay of Europe,--its commerce annihilated, its
manufactures so little advanced,--how could the English nation feel
afraid of a future which offered so vast a perspective?" Unfortunately
the nation needed an exponent in the government; and its chosen
mouthpiece, the only man, perhaps, able to rise to the level of the
great opportunity, was out of favor at court.
Nevertheless, the gains of England were very great, not only in
territorial increase, nor yet in maritime preponderance, but in the
prestige and position achieved in the eyes of the nations, now fully
opened to her great resources and mighty power. To these results, won
by the sea, the issue of the continental war offered a singular and
suggestive contrast. France had already withdrawn, along with
England, from all share in that strife, and peace between the other
parties to it was signed five days after the Peace of Paris. The terms
of the peace were simply the _status quo ante bellum_. By the estimate
of the King of Prussia, one hundred and eighty thousand of his
soldiers had fallen or died in this war, out of a kingdom of five
million souls; while the losses of Russia, Austria, and France
aggregated four hundred and sixty thousand men. The result was simply
that things remained as they were.[110] To attribute this only to a
difference between the possibilities of land and sea war is of course
absurd. The genius of Frederick, backed by the money of England, had
proved an equal match for the mismanaged and not always hearty efforts
of a coalition numerically overwhelming. What does seem a fair
conclusion is, that States having a good seaboard, or even ready
access to the ocean by one or two outlets, will find it to their
advantage to seek prosperity and extension by the way of the sea and
of commerce, rather than in attempts to unsettle and modify existing
political arrangements in countries where a more or less long
possession of power has conferred acknowledged rights, and created
national allegiance or political ties. Since the Treaty of Paris in
1763, the waste places of the world have been rapidly filled; witness
our own continent, Australia, and even South America. A nominal and
more or less clearly defined political possession now generally exists
in the most forsaken regions, though to this statement there are some
marked exceptions; but in many places this political possession is
little more than nominal, and in others of a character so feeble that
it cannot rely upon itself alone for support or protection. The
familiar and notorious example of the Turkish Empire, kept erect only
by the forces pressing upon it from opposing sides, by the mutual
jealousies of powers that have no sympathy with it, is an instance of
such weak political tenure; and though the question is wholly
European, all know enough of it to be aware that the interest and
control of the sea powers is among the chief, if not the first, of the
elements that now fix the situation; and that they, if intelligently
used, will direct the future inevitable changes. Upon the western
continents the political condition of the Central American and
tropical South American States is so unstable as to cause constant
anxiety about the maintenance of internal order, and seriously to
interfere with commerce and with the peaceful development of their
resources. So long as--to use a familiar expression--they hurt no one
but themselves, this may go on; but for a long time the citizens of
more stable governments have been seeking to exploit their resources,
and have borne the losses arising from their distracted condition.
North America and Australia still offer large openings to immigration
and enterprise; but they are filling up rapidly, and as the
opportunities there diminish, the demand must arise for a more settled
government in those disordered States, for security to life and for
reasonable stability of institutions enabling merchants and others to
count upon the future. There is certainly no present hope that such a
demand can be fulfilled from the existing native materials; if the
same be true when the demand arises, no theoretical positions, like
the Monroe doctrine, will prevent interested nations from attempting
to remedy the evil by some measure, which, whatever it may be called,
will be a political interference. Such interferences must produce
collisions, which may be at times settled by arbitration, but can
scarcely fail at other times to cause war. Even for a peaceful
solution, that nation will have the strongest arguments which has the
strongest organized force. It need scarcely be said that the
successful piercing of the Central American Isthmus at any point may
precipitate the moment that is sure to come sooner or later. The
profound modification of commercial routes expected from this
enterprise, the political importance to the United States of such a
channel of communication between her Atlantic and Pacific seaboards,
are not, however, the whole nor even the principal part of the
question. As far as can be seen, the time will come when stable
governments for the American tropical States must be assured by the
now existing powerful and stable States of America or Europe. The
geographical position of those States, the climatic conditions, make
it plain at once that sea power will there, even more than in the case
of Turkey, determine what foreign State shall predominate,--if not by
actual possession, by its influence over the native governments. The
geographical position of the United States and her intrinsic power
give her an undeniable advantage; but that advantage will not avail if
there is a great inferiority of organized brute-force, which still
remains the last argument of republics as of kings. Herein lies to us
the great and still living interest of the Seven Years' War. In it we
have seen and followed England, with an army small as compared with
other States, as is still her case to-day, first successfully
defending her own shores, then carrying her arms in every direction,
spreading her rule and influence over remote regions, and not only
binding them to her obedience, but making them tributary to her
wealth, her strength, and her reputation. As she loosens the grasp and
neutralizes the influence of France and Spain in regions beyond the
sea, there is perhaps seen the prophecy of some other great nation in
days yet to come, that will incline the balance of power in some
future sea war, whose scope will be recognized afterward, if not by
contemporaries, to have been the political future and the economical
development of regions before lost to civilization; but that nation
will not be the United States if the moment find her indifferent, as
now, to the empire of the seas.
The direction then given to England's efforts, by the instinct of the
nation and the fiery genius of Pitt, continued after the war, and has
profoundly influenced her subsequent policy. Mistress now of North
America, lording it in India, through the company whose territorial
conquests had been ratified by native princes, over twenty millions of
inhabitants,--a population larger than that of Great Britain and
having a revenue respectable alongside of that of the home
government,--England, with yet other rich possessions scattered far
and wide over the globe, had ever before her eyes, as a salutary
lesson, the severe chastisement which the weakness of Spain had
allowed her to inflict upon that huge disjointed empire. The words of
the English naval historian of that war, speaking about Spain, apply
with slight modifications to England in our own day.
"Spain is precisely that power against which England can always
contend with the fairest prospect of advantage and honor. That
extensive monarchy is exhausted at heart, her resources lie at a
great distance, and whatever power commands the sea, may command
the wealth and commerce of Spain. The dominions from which she
draws her resources, lying at an immense distance from the
capital and from one another, make it more necessary for her
than for any other State to temporize, until she can inspire
with activity all parts of her enormous but disjointed
empire."[111]
It would be untrue to say that England is exhausted at heart; but her
dependence upon the outside world is such as to give a certain
suggestiveness to the phrase.
This analogy of positions was not overlooked by England. From that
time forward up to our own day, the possessions won for her by her sea
power have combined with that sea power itself to control her policy.
The road to India--in the days of Clive a distant and perilous voyage
on which she had not a stopping-place of her own--was reinforced as
opportunity offered by the acquisition of St. Helena, of the Cape of
Good Hope, of the Mauritius. When steam made the Red Sea and
Mediterranean route practicable, she acquired Aden, and yet later has
established herself at Socotra. Malta had already fallen into her
hands during the wars of the French Revolution, and her commanding
position, as the corner-stone upon which the coalitions against
Napoleon rested, enabled her to claim it at the Peace of 1815. Being
but a short thousand miles from Gibraltar, the circles of military
command exercised by these two places intersect. The present day has
seen the stretch from Malta to the Isthmus of Suez, formerly without a
station, guarded by the cession to her of Cyprus. Egypt, despite the
jealousy of France, has passed under English control. The importance
of that position to India, understood by Napoleon and Nelson, led the
latter at once to send an officer overland to Bombay with the news of
the battle of the Nile and the downfall of Bonaparte's hopes. Even
now, the jealousy with which England views the advance of Russia in
Central Asia is the result of those days in which her sea power and
resources triumphed over the weakness of D'Aché and the genius of
Suffren, and wrenched the peninsula of India from the ambition of the
French.
"For the first time since the Middle Ages," says M. Martin,
speaking of the Seven Years' War, "England had conquered France
single-handed almost without allies, France having powerful
auxiliaries. She had conquered solely by the superiority of her
government."
Yes! but by the superiority of her government using the tremendous
weapon of her sea power. This made her rich, and in turn protected the
trade by which she had her wealth. With her money she upheld her few
auxiliaries, mainly Prussia and Hanover, in their desperate strife.
Her power was everywhere that her ships could reach, and there was
none to dispute the sea to her. Where she would she went, and with her
went her guns and her troops. By this mobility her forces were
multiplied, those of her enemies distracted. Ruler of the seas, she
everywhere obstructed its highways. The enemies' fleets could not
join; no great fleet could get out, or if it did, it was only to meet
at once, with uninured officers and crews, those who were veterans in
gales and warfare. Save in the case of Minorca, she carefully held her
own sea-bases and eagerly seized those of the enemy. What a lion in
the path was Gibraltar to the French squadrons of Toulon and Brest!
What hope for French succor to Canada, when the English fleet had
Louisburg under its lee?
The one nation that gained in this war was that which used the sea in
peace to earn its wealth, and ruled it in war by the extent of its
navy, by the number of its subjects who lived on the sea or by the
sea, and by its numerous bases of operations scattered over the globe.
Yet it must be observed that these bases themselves would have lost
their value if their communications remained obstructed. Therefore the
French lost Louisburg, Martinique, Pondicherry; so England herself
lost Minorca. The service between the bases and the mobile force
between the ports and the fleets is mutual.[112] In this respect the
navy is essentially a light corps; it keeps open the communications
between its own ports, it obstructs those of the enemy; but it sweeps
the sea for the service of the land, it controls the desert that man
may live and thrive on the habitable globe.
FOOTNOTES:
[93] That is, with the guns on board, but for the most part not
mounted on their carriages, in order to give increased accommodation
for troops. When the troops were landed, the guns were mounted.
[94] Ramatuelle: Tactique Navale.
[95] Lapeyrouse-Bonfils: Hist. de la Marine.
[96] Clerk: Naval Tactics.
[97] Jurien de la Gravière: Guerres Maritimes.
[98] Mahon: History of England.
[99] Mahon: History of England.
[100] For these, see Troude: Batailles Navales.
[101] See Plate VIII.
[102] Troude: Batailles Navales de la France.
[103] Lapeyrouse-Bonfils.
[104] Mahon: History of England.
[105] Campbell: Lives of the Admirals.
[106] Mahon: History of England.
[107] Martin: History of France.
[108] Martin: History of France.
[109] Campbell: Lives of the Admirals.
[110] See Annual Register, 1762, p. 63
[111] Campbell: Lives of the Admirals.
[112] These remarks, always true, are doubly so now since the
introduction of steam. The renewal of coal is a want more frequent,
more urgent, more peremptory, than any known to the sailing-ship. It
is vain to look for energetic naval operations distant from coal
stations. It is equally vain to acquire distant coaling stations
without maintaining a powerful navy; they will but fall into the hands
of the enemy. But the vainest of all delusions is the expectation of
bringing down an enemy by commerce-destroying alone, with no coaling
stations outside the national boundaries.