MARITIME WAR IN EUROPE, 1779-1782.
The last chapter closed with the opinions of Washington, expressed in
many ways and at many times, as to the effect of sea power upon the
struggle for American independence. If space allowed, these opinions
could be amply strengthened by similar statements of Sir Henry
Clinton, the English commander-in-chief.[157] In Europe the results
turned yet more entirely upon the same factor. There the allies had
three several objectives, at each of which England stood strictly upon
the defensive. The first of these was England herself, involving, as a
preliminary to an invasion, the destruction of the Channel fleet,--a
project which, if seriously entertained, can scarcely be said to have
been seriously attempted; the second was the reduction of Gibraltar;
the third, the capture of Minorca. The last alone met with success.
Thrice was England threatened by a largely superior fleet, thrice the
threat fell harmless. Thrice was Gibraltar reduced to straits; thrice
was it relieved by the address and fortune of English seamen, despite
overpowering odds.
After Keppel's action off Ushant, no general encounter took place
between fleets in European seas during the year 1778 and the first
half of 1779. Meantime Spain was drawing toward a rupture with England
and an active alliance with France. War was declared by her on the
16th of June, 1779; but as early as April 12, a treaty between the two
Bourbon kingdoms, involving active war upon England, had been signed.
By its terms the invasion of Great Britain or Ireland was to be
undertaken, every effort made to recover for Spain, Minorca,
Pensacola, and Mobile, and the two courts bound themselves to grant
neither peace, nor truce, nor suspension of hostilities, until
Gibraltar should be restored.[158]
The declaration of war was withheld until ready to strike; but the
English government, doubtless, should have been upon its guard in the
strained relations of the two countries, and prepared to prevent a
junction of the two fleets. As it was, no efficient blockade of Brest
was established, and twenty-eight French sail-of-the-line went out
unopposed[159] June 3, 1779, under D'Orvilliers, Keppel's opponent of
the year before. The fleet steered for the coasts of Spain, where it
was to find the Spanish ships; but it was not till the 22d of July
that the full contingent joined. Seven precious summer weeks thus
slipped by unimproved, but that was not all the loss; the French had
been provisioned for only thirteen weeks, and this truly great armada
of sixty-six ships-of-the-line and fourteen frigates had not more than
forty working-days before it. Sickness, moreover, ravaged the fleet;
and although it was fortunate enough to enter the Channel while the
English were at sea, the latter, numbering little more than half their
enemies, succeeded in passing within them. The flabbiness of
coalitions increased the weakness due to inefficient preparation; a
great and not unnatural panic on the English Channel coast, and the
capture of one ship-of-the-line, were the sole results of a cruise
extending, for the French, over fifteen weeks.[160] The
disappointment, due to bad preparation, mainly on the part of Spain,
though the French ministry utterly failed to meet the pressing wants
of its fleet, fell, of course, upon the innocent Admiral d'Orvilliers.
That brave and accomplished but unfortunate officer, whose only son, a
lieutenant, had died of the pestilence which scourged the allies,
could not support the odium. Being of a deeply religious character,
the refuge which Villeneuve after Trafalgar found in suicide was
denied him; but he threw up his command and retired into a religious
house.
The scanty maritime interest of the year 1780, in Europe, centres
round Cadiz and Gibraltar. This fortress was invested by Spain
immediately upon the outbreak of war, and, while successfully
resisting direct attack, the supply of provisions and ammunition was a
matter of serious concern to England, and involved both difficulty and
danger. For this purpose, Rodney sailed on the 29th of December, 1779,
having under his command twenty ships-of-the-line with a large convoy
and reinforcements for Gibraltar and Minorca, as well as the West
India trade. The latter parted company on the 7th of January, under
the care of four frigates, and the following morning the fleet fell in
with and captured a Spanish squadron of seven ships-of-war and sixteen
supply-ships. Twelve of the latter being laden with provisions were
carried on to Gibraltar. A week later, at one P.M. of the 16th, a
Spanish fleet of eleven sail-of-the-line was seen in the southeast.
They held their ground, supposing the approaching vessels to be only
supply-ships for Gibraltar, without a strong force of men-of-war,--an
unfortunate error from which they did not awake until too late to
escape, owing to the yet more unfortunate oversight of having no
lookout frigates thrown out. When the Spanish admiral, Don Juan de
Langara, recognized his mistake, he attempted to escape; but the
English ships were copper-bottomed, and Rodney making the signal for a
general chase overtook the enemy, cut in between him and his port,
regardless of a blowy night, lee shore, and dangerous shoals, and
succeeded in capturing the commander-in-chief with six ships-of-the-line.
A seventh was blown up. The weather continuing very tempestuous, one of
the prizes was wrecked, and one forced into Cadiz; several of the
English ships were also in great danger, but happily escaped, and
within a few days the entire force entered Gibraltar Bay. The convoy
for Minorca was at once despatched, and immediately after the return of
the ships-of-war guarding it, on the 13th of February, Rodney sailed
for the West Indies with four ships-of-the-line, sending the rest of
his force, with the prizes, to England under Admiral Digby.
The state of politics and parties in England at this time was such
that, combined with the unavoidable inferiority of the Channel fleet,
it was difficult to find an admiral willing to accept the chief
command. An admirable officer, Barrington, the captor of Sta. Lucia,
refused the first place, though willing to serve as second, even to a
junior.[161] The allied fleet, to the number of thirty-six
sail-of-the-line, assembled at Cadiz. Their cruises, however, were
confined to the Portuguese coast; and their only service, a most
important one, was the capture of an entire convoy, largely laden with
military stores, for the East and West Indies. The entrance of sixty
English prizes, with nearly three thousand prisoners, into Cadiz, was
a source of great rejoicing to Spain. On the 24th of October, De
Guichen, returning from his contest with Rodney, came into the same
port with his West Indian squadron, of nineteen ships-of-the-line; but
the immense armament thus assembled did nothing. The French ships
returned to Brest in January, 1781.
While thus unproductive of military results in Europe, the war in 1780
gave rise to an event which cannot wholly be passed over by any
history of sea power. This was the Armed Neutrality, at the head of
which stood Russia, joined by Sweden and Denmark. The claim of England
to seize enemy's goods in neutral ships bore hard upon neutral powers,
and especially upon those of the Baltic and upon Holland, into whose
hands, and those of the Austrian Netherlands, the war had thrown much
of the European carrying-trade; while the products of the Baltic,
naval stores and grain, were those which England was particularly
interested in forbidding to her enemies. The declarations finally put
forth by Russia, and signed by Sweden and Denmark, were four in
number:
1. That neutral vessels had a right, not only to sail to unblockaded
ports, but also from port to port of a belligerent nation; in other
words, to maintain the coasting trade of a belligerent.
2. That property belonging to the subjects of a power at war should be
safe on board neutral vessels. This was the principle involved in the
now familiar maxim, "Free ships make free goods."
3. That no articles are contraband, except arms, equipments, and
munitions of war. This ruled out naval stores and provisions unless
belonging to the government of a belligerent.
4. That blockades, to be binding, must have an adequate naval force
stationed in close proximity to the blockaded port.
The contracting parties being neutral in the present war, but binding
themselves to support these principles by a combined armed fleet of a
fixed minimum number, the agreement received the name of the Armed
Neutrality. The discussion of the propriety of the various
declarations belongs to International law; but it is evident that no
great maritime State, situated as England then was, would submit to
the first and third as a matter of right. Policy only could induce her
to do so. Without meeting the declarations by a direct contradiction,
the ministry and the king determined to disregard them,--a course
which was sustained in principle even by prominent members of the
bitter opposition of that day. The undecided attitude of the United
Provinces, divided as in the days of Louis XIV. between the partisans
of England and France, despite a century of alliance with the former,
drew the especial attention of Great Britain. They had been asked to
join the Armed Neutrality; they hesitated, but the majority of the
provinces favored it. A British officer had already gone so far as to
fire upon a Dutch man-of-war which had resisted the search of
merchant-ships under its convoy; an act which, whether right or wrong,
tended to incense the Dutch generally against England. It was
determined by the latter that if the United Provinces acceded to the
coalition of neutrals, war should be declared. On the 16th of
December, 1780, the English ministry was informed that the
States-General had resolved to sign the declarations of the Armed
Neutrality without delay. Orders were at once sent out to Rodney to
seize the Dutch West India and South American possessions; similar
orders to the East Indies; and the ambassador at the Hague was
recalled. England declared war four days later. The principal effect,
therefore, of the Armed Neutrality upon the war was to add the
colonies and commerce of Holland to the prey of English cruisers. The
additional enemy was of small account to Great Britain, whose
geographical position effectually blocked the junction of the Dutch
fleet with those of her other enemies. The possessions of Holland fell
everywhere, except when saved by the French; while a bloody but wholly
uninstructive battle between English and Dutch squadrons in the North
Sea, in August, 1781, was the only feat of arms illustrative of the
old Dutch courage and obstinacy.
The year 1781, decisive of the question of the independence of the
United States, was marked in the European seas by imposing movements
of great fleets followed by puny results. At the end of March De
Grasse sailed from Brest with twenty-six ships-of-the-line. On the
29th he detached five under Suffren to the East Indies, and himself
continued on to meet success at Yorktown and disaster in the West
Indies. On the 23d of June De Guichen sailed from Brest with eighteen
ships-of-the-line for Cadiz, where he joined thirty Spanish ships.
This immense armament sailed on the 22d of July for the Mediterranean,
landed fourteen thousand troops at Minorca, and then moved upon the
English Channel.
The English had this year first to provide against the danger to
Gibraltar. That beset fortress had had no supplies since Rodney's
visit, in January of the year before, and was now in sore want, the
provisions being scanty and bad, the biscuits weevilly, and the meat
tainted. Amid the horrors and uproar of one of the longest and most
exciting sieges of history, the sufferings of the combatants were
intensified by the presence of many peaceful inhabitants, including
the wives and families of soldiers as well as of officers. A great
fleet of twenty-eight ships-of-the-line sailed from Portsmouth on the
13th of March, convoying three hundred merchant-ships for the East and
West Indies, besides ninety-seven transports and supply-ships for the
Rock. A delay on the Irish coast prevented its falling in with De
Grasse, who had sailed nine days after it. Arriving off Cape St.
Vincent, it met no enemy, and looking into Cadiz saw the great Spanish
fleet at anchor. The latter made no move, and the English admiral,
Derby, threw his supplies into Gibraltar on the 12th of April,
undisturbed. At the same time he, like De Grasse, detached to the East
Indies a small squadron, which was destined before long to fall in
with Suffren. The inaction of the Spanish fleet, considering the
eagerness of its government about Gibraltar and its equal if not
superior numbers, shows scanty reliance of the Spanish admiral upon
himself or his command. Derby, having relieved Gibraltar and Minorca,
returned to the Channel in May.
Upon the approach of the combined fleet of nearly fifty sail in August
following, Derby fell back upon Torbay and there anchored his fleet,
numbering thirty ships. De Guichen, who held chief command, and whose
caution when engaged with Rodney has been before remarked, was in
favor of fighting; but the almost unanimous opposition of the
Spaniards, backed by some of his own officers, overruled him in a
council of war,[162] and again the great Bourbon coalition fell back,
foiled by their own discord and the unity of their enemy. Gibraltar
relieved, England untouched, were the results of these gigantic
gatherings; they can scarcely be called efforts. A mortifying disaster
closed the year for the allies. De Guichen sailed from Brest with
seventeen sail, protecting a large convoy of merchantmen and ships
with military supplies. The fleet was pursued by twelve English ships
under Admiral Kempenfeldt, an officer whose high professional
abilities have not earned the immortality with which poetry has graced
his tragical death. Falling in with the French one hundred and fifty
miles west of Ushant, he cut off a part of the convoy, despite his
inferior numbers.[163] A few days later a tempest dispersed the
French fleet. Only two ships-of-the-line and five merchantmen out of
one hundred and fifty reached the West Indies.
The year 1782 opened with the loss to the English of Port Mahon, which
surrendered on the 5th of February, after a siege of six months.--a
surrender induced by the ravages of scurvy, consequent upon the lack
of vegetables, and confinement in the foul air of bombproofs and
casemates, under the heavy fire of an enemy. On the last night of the
defence the call for necessary guards was four hundred and fifteen,
while only six hundred and sixty men were fit for duty, thus leaving
no reliefs.
The allied fleets assembled this year in Cadiz, to the number of forty
ships-of-the-line. It was expected that this force would be increased
by Dutch ships, but a squadron under Lord Howe drove the latter back
to their ports. It does not certainly appear that any active
enterprise was intended against the English coast; but the allies
cruised off the mouth of the Channel and in the Bay of Biscay during
the summer months. Their presence insured the safe arrival and
departure of the homeward and outward bound merchantmen, and likewise
threatened English commerce; notwithstanding which, Howe, with
twenty-two ships, not only kept the sea and avoided an engagement, but
also succeeded in bringing the Jamaica fleet safe into port. The
injury to trade and to military transportation by sea may be said to
have been about equal on either side; and the credit for successful
use of sea power for these most important ends must therefore be given
to the weaker party.
Having carried out their orders for the summer cruise, the combined
fleets returned to Cadiz. On the 10th of September they sailed thence
for Algesiras, on the opposite side of the bay from Gibraltar, to
support a grand combined attack by land and sea, which, it was hoped,
would reduce to submission the key to the Mediterranean. With the
ships already there, the total rose to nearly fifty ships-of-the-line.
The details of the mighty onslaught scarcely belong to our subject,
yet cannot be wholly passed by, without at least such mention as may
recognize and draw attention to their interest.
The three years' siege which was now drawing to its end had been
productive of many brilliant feats of arms, as well as of less
striking but more trying proofs of steadfast endurance, on the part of
the garrison. How long the latter might have held out cannot be said,
seeing the success with which the English sea power defied the efforts
of the allies to cut off the communications of the fortress; but it
was seemingly certain that the place must be subdued by main force or
not at all, while the growing exhaustion of the belligerents foretold
the near end of the war. Accordingly Spain multiplied her efforts of
preparation and military ingenuity; while the report of them and of
the approaching decisive contest drew to the scene volunteers and men
of eminence from other countries of Europe. Two French Bourbon princes
added, by their coming, to the theatrical interest with which the
approaching drama was invested. The presence of royalty was needed
adequately to grace the sublime catastrophe; for the sanguine
confidence of the besiegers had determined a satisfactory _dénouement_
with all the security of a playwright.
Besides the works on the isthmus which joins the Rock to the mainland,
where three hundred pieces of artillery were now mounted, the chief
reliance of the assailants was upon ten floating batteries elaborately
contrived to be shot and fire proof, and carrying one hundred and
fifty-four heavy guns. These were to anchor in a close north-and-south
line along the west face of the works, at about nine hundred yards
distance. They were to be supported by forty gunboats and as many bomb
vessels, besides the efforts of the ships-of-the-line to cover the
attack and distract the garrison. Twelve thousand French troops were
brought to reinforce the Spaniards in the grand assault, which was to
be made when the bombardment had sufficiently injured and demoralized
the defenders. At this time the latter numbered seven thousand, their
land opponents thirty-three thousand men.
The final act was opened by the English. At seven o'clock on the
morning of September 8, 1782, the commanding general, Elliott, began a
severe and most injurious fire upon the works on the isthmus. Having
effected his purpose, he stopped; but the enemy took up the glove the
next morning, and for four days successively poured in a fire from the
isthmus alone of six thousand five hundred cannon-balls and one
thousand one hundred bombs every twenty-four hours. So approached the
great closing scene of September 13. At seven A.M. of that day the ten
battering-ships unmoored from the head of the bay and stood down to
their station. Between nine and ten they anchored, and the general
fire at once began. The besieged replied with equal fury. The
battering-ships seem in the main, and for some hours, to have
justified the hopes formed of them; cold shot glanced or failed to get
through their sides, while the self-acting apparatus for extinguishing
fires balked the hot shot.
About two o'clock, however, smoke was seen to issue from the ship of
the commander-in-chief, and though controlled for some time, the fire
continued to gain. The same misfortune befell others; by evening, the
fire of the besieged gained a marked superiority, and by one o'clock
in the morning the greater part of the battering-ships were in flames.
Their distress was increased by the action of the naval officer
commanding the English gunboats, who now took post upon the flank of
the line and raked it effectually,--a service which the Spanish
gunboats should have prevented. In the end, nine of the ten blew up at
their anchors, with a loss estimated at fifteen hundred men, four
hundred being saved from the midst of the fire by the English seamen.
The tenth ship was boarded and burned by the English boats. The hopes
of the assailants perished with the failure of the battering-ships.
There remained only the hope of starving out the garrison. To this end
the allied fleets now gave themselves. It was known that Lord Howe was
on his way out with a great fleet, numbering thirty-four
ships-of-the-line, besides supply vessels. On the 10th of October a
violent westerly gale injured the combined ships, driving one ashore
under the batteries of Gibraltar, where she was surrendered. The next
day Howe's force came in sight, and the transports had a fine chance
to make the anchorage, which, through carelessness, was missed by all
but four. The rest, with the men-of-war, drove eastward into the
Mediterranean. The allies followed on the 13th; but though thus placed
between the port and the relieving force, and not encumbered, like the
latter, with supply-ships, they yet contrived to let the transports,
with scarcely an exception, slip in and anchor safely. Not only
provisions and ammunition, but also bodies of troops carried by the
ships-of-war, were landed without molestation. On the 19th the English
fleet repassed the straits with an easterly wind, having within a
week's time fulfilled its mission, and made Gibraltar safe for another
year. The allied fleet followed, and on the 20th an action took place
at long range, the allies to windward, but not pressing their attack
close. The number of ships engaged in this magnificent spectacle, the
closing scene of the great drama in Europe, the after-piece to the
successful defence of Gibraltar, was eighty-three of the
line,--forty-nine allies and thirty-four English. Of the former,
thirty-three only got into action; but as the duller sailers would
have come up to a general engagement, Lord Howe was probably right in
declining, so far as in him lay, a trial which the allies did not too
eagerly court.
Such were the results of this great contest in the European seas,
marked on the part of the allies by efforts gigantic in size, but
loose-jointed and flabby in execution. By England, so heavily
overmatched in mere numbers, were shown firmness of purpose, high
courage, and seamanship; but it can scarcely be said that the military
conceptions of her councils, or the cabinet management of her sea
forces, were worthy of the skill and devotion of her seamen. The odds
against her were not so great--not nearly so great--as the formidable
lists of guns and ships seemed to show; and while allowance must
justly be made for early hesitations, the passing years of indecision
and inefficiency on the part of the allies should have betrayed to her
their weakness. The reluctance of the French to risk their ships, so
plainly shown by D'Estaing, De Grasse, and De Guichen, the
sluggishness and inefficiency of the Spaniards, should have encouraged
England to pursue her old policy, to strike at the organized forces of
the enemy afloat. As a matter of fact, and probably from the
necessities of the case, the opening of every campaign found the
enemies separated,--the Spaniards in Cadiz, the French in Brest.[164]
To blockade the latter in full force before they could get out,
England should have strained every effort; thus she would have stopped
at its head the main stream of the allied strength, and, by knowing
exactly where this great body was, would have removed that uncertainty
as to its action which fettered her own movements as soon as it had
gained the freedom of the open sea. Before Brest she was interposed
between the allies; by her lookouts she would have known the approach
of the Spaniards long before the French could know it; she would have
kept in her hands the power of bringing against each, singly, ships
more numerous and individually more effective. A wind that was fair to
bring on the Spaniards would have locked their allies in the port. The
most glaring instances of failure on the part of England to do this
were when De Grasse was permitted to get out unopposed in March, 1781;
for an English fleet of superior force had sailed from Portsmouth nine
days before him, but was delayed by the admiralty on the Irish
coast;[165] and again at the end of that year, when Kempenfeldt was
sent to intercept De Guichen with an inferior force, while ships
enough to change the odds were kept at home. Several of the ships
which were to accompany Rodney to the West Indies were ready when
Kempenfeldt sailed, yet they were not associated with an enterprise so
nearly affecting the objects of Rodney's campaign. The two forces
united would have made an end of De Guichen's seventeen ships and his
invaluable convoy.
Gibraltar was indeed a heavy weight upon the English operations, but
the national instinct which clung to it was correct. The fault of the
English policy was in attempting to hold so many other points of land,
while neglecting, by rapidity of concentration, to fall upon any of
the detachments of the allied fleets. The key of the situation was
upon the ocean; a great victory there would have solved all the other
points in dispute. But it was not possible to win a great victory
while trying to maintain a show of force everywhere.[166]
North America was a yet heavier clog, and there undoubtedly the
feeling of the nation was mistaken; pride, not wisdom, maintained that
struggle. Whatever the sympathies of individuals and classes in the
allied nations, by their governments American rebellion was valued
only as a weakening of England's arm. The operations there depended,
as has been shown, upon the control of the sea; and to maintain that,
large detachments of English ships were absorbed from the contest with
France and Spain. Could a successful war have made America again what
it once was, a warmly attached dependency of Great Britain, a firm
base for her sea power, it would have been worth much greater
sacrifices; but that had become impossible. But although she had lost,
by her own mistakes, the affection of the colonists, which would have
supported and secured her hold upon their ports and sea-coast, there
nevertheless remained to the mother-country, in Halifax, Bermuda, and
the West Indies, enough strong military stations, inferior, as naval
bases, only to those strong ports which are surrounded by a friendly
country, great in its resources and population. The abandonment of the
contest in North America would have strengthened England very much
more than the allies. As it was, her large naval detachments there
were always liable to be overpowered by a sudden move of the enemy
from the sea, as happened in 1778 and 1781.
To the abandonment of America as hopelessly lost, because no military
subjection could have brought back the old loyalty, should have been
added the giving up, for the time, all military occupancy which
fettered concentration, while not adding to military strength. Most of
the Antilles fell under this head, and the ultimate possession of them
would depend upon the naval campaign. Garrisons could have been spared
for Barbadoes and Sta. Lucia, for Gibraltar and perhaps for Mahon,
that could have effectually maintained them until the empire of the
seas was decided; and to them could have been added one or two vital
positions in America, like New York and Charleston, to be held only
till guarantees were given for such treatment of the loyalists among
the inhabitants as good faith required England to exact.
Having thus stripped herself of every weight, rapid concentration with
offensive purpose should have followed. Sixty ships-of-the-line on the
coast of Europe, half before Cadiz and half before Brest, with a
reserve at home to replace injured ships, would not have exhausted by
a great deal the roll of the English navy; and that such fleets would
not have had to fight, may not only be said by us, who have the whole
history before us, but might have been inferred by those who had
watched the tactics of D'Estaing and De Guichen, and later on of De
Grasse. Or, had even so much dispersal been thought unadvisable, forty
ships before Brest would have left the sea open to the Spanish fleet
to try conclusions with the rest of the English navy when the question
of controlling Gibraltar and Mahon came up for decision. Knowing what
we do of the efficiency of the two services, there can be little
question of the result; and Gibraltar, instead of a weight, would, as
often before and since those days, have been an element of strength to
Great Britain.
The conclusion continually recurs. Whatever may be the determining
factors in strifes between neighboring continental States, when a
question arises of control over distant regions, politically
weak,--whether they be crumbling empires, anarchical republics,
colonies, isolated military posts, or islands below a certain
size,--it must ultimately be decided by naval power, by the organized
military force afloat, which represents the communications that form
so prominent a feature in all strategy. The magnificent defence of
Gibraltar hinged upon this; upon this depended the military results of
the war in America; upon this the final fate of the West India
Islands; upon this certainly the possession of India. Upon this will
depend the control of the Central American Isthmus, if that question
take a military coloring; and though modified by the continental
position and surroundings of Turkey, the same sea power must be a
weighty factor in shaping the outcome of the Eastern Question in
Europe.
If this be true, military wisdom and economy, both of time and money,
dictate bringing matters to an issue as soon as possible upon the
broad sea, with the certainty that the power which achieves military
preponderance there will win in the end. In the war of the American
Revolution the numerical preponderance was very great against England;
the actual odds were less, though still against her. Military
considerations would have ordered the abandonment of the colonies; but
if the national pride could not stoop to this, the right course was to
blockade the hostile arsenals. If not strong enough to be in superior
force before both, that of the more powerful nation should have been
closed. Here was the first fault of the English admiralty; the
statement of the First Lord as to the available force at the outbreak
of the war was not borne out by facts. The first fleet, under Keppel,
barely equalled the French; and at the same time Howe's force in
America was inferior to the fleet under D'Estaing. In 1779 and 1781,
on the contrary, the English fleet was superior to that of the French
alone; yet the allies joined unopposed, while in the latter year De
Grasse got away to the West Indies, and Suffren to the East. In
Kempenfeldt's affair with De Guichen, the admiralty knew that the
French convoy was of the utmost importance to the campaign in the West
Indies, yet they sent out their admiral with only twelve ships; while
at that time, besides the reinforcement destined for the West Indies,
a number of others were stationed in the Downs, for what Fox justly
called "the paltry purpose" of distressing the Dutch trade. The
various charges made by Fox in the speech quoted from, and which, as
regarded the Franco-Spanish War, were founded mainly on the expediency
of attacking the allies before they got away into the ocean
wilderness, were supported by the high professional opinion of Lord
Howe, who of the Kempenfeldt affair said: "Not only the fate of the
West India Islands, but perhaps the whole future fortune of the war,
might have been decided, almost without a risk, in the Bay of
Biscay."[167] Not without a risk, but with strong probabilities of
success, the whole fortune of the war should at the first have been
staked on a concentration of the English fleet between Brest and
Cadiz. No relief for Gibraltar would have been more efficacious; no
diversion surer for the West India Islands; and the Americans would
have appealed in vain for the help, scantily given as it was, of the
French fleet. For the great results that flowed from the coming of De
Grasse must not obscure the fact that he came on the 31st of August,
and announced from the beginning that he must be in the West Indies
again by the middle of October. Only a providential combination of
circumstances prevented a repetition to Washington, in 1781, of the
painful disappointments by D'Estaing and De Guichen in 1778 and 1780.
FOOTNOTES:
[157] The curious reader can consult Clinton's letters and notes, in
the "Clinton Cornwallis Controversy," by B.F. Stevens. London, 1888.
[158] Bancroft: History of the United States, vol. x. p. 191.
[159] Although the English thus culpably failed to use their
superiority to the French alone, the Channel fleet numbering over
forty of the line, the fear that it might prevent the junction caused
the Brest fleet to sail in haste and undermanned,--a fact which had an
important effect upon the issue of the cruise. (Chevalier, p. 159.)
[160] The details of the mismanagement of this huge mob of ships are
so numerous as to confuse a narrative, and are therefore thrown into a
foot-note. The French fleet was hurried to sea four thousand men
short. The Spaniards were seven weeks in joining. When they met, no
common system of signals had been arranged; five fair summer days were
spent in remedying this defect. Not till a week after the junction
could the fleet sail for England. No steps were taken to supply the
provisions consumed by the French during the seven weeks. The original
orders to D'Orvilliers contemplated a landing at Portsmouth, or the
seizure of the Isle of Wight, for which a large army was assembled on
the coast of Normandy. Upon reaching the Channel, these orders were
suddenly changed, and Falmouth indicated as the point of landing. By
this time, August 16, summer was nearly over; and Falmouth, if taken,
would offer no shelter to a great fleet. Then an easterly gale drove
the fleet out of the Channel. By this time the sickness which raged
had so reduced the crews that many ships could be neither handled nor
fought. Ships companies of eight hundred or a thousand men could
muster only from three to five hundred. Thus bad administration
crippled the fighting powers of the fleet; while the unaccountable
military blunder of changing the objective from a safe and accessible
roadstead to a fourth-rate and exposed harbor completed the disaster
by taking away the only hope of a secure base of operations during the
fall and winter months. France then had no first-class port on the
Channel; hence the violent westerly gales which prevail in the autumn
and winter would have driven the allies into the North Sea.
[161] Life of Admiral Keppel, vol. ii pp. 72, 346, 403. See also
Barrow: Life of Lord Howe, pp. 123-126.
[162] Beatson gives quite at length (vol. v. p. 395) the debate in the
allied council of war. The customary hesitation of such councils, in
face of the difficulties of the situation, was increased by an appeal
to the delusion of commerce-destroying as a decisive mode of warfare.
M. de Beausset urged that "the allied fleets should direct their whole
attention to that great and attainable object, the intercepting of the
British homeward-bound West India fleets. This was a measure which, as
they were now masters of the sea, could scarcely fail of success; and
it would prove a blow so fatal to that nation, that she could not
recover it during the whole course of the war." The French account of
Lapeyrouse-Bonfils is essentially the same. Chevalier, who is silent
as to details, justly remarks: "The cruise just made by the allied
fleet was such as to injure the reputation of France and Spain. These
two powers had made a great display of force which had produced no
result." The English trade also received little injury. Guichen wrote
home: "I have returned from a cruise fatiguing but not glorious."
[163] This mishap of the French was largely due to mismanagement by De
Guichen, a skilful and usually a careful admiral. When Kempenfeldt
fell in with him, all the French ships-of-war were to leeward of their
convoy, while the English were to windward of it. The former,
therefore, were unable to interpose in time; and the alternative
remedy, of the convoy running down to leeward of their escort, could
not be applied by all the merchant-ships in so large a body.
[164] "In the spring of 1780 the British admiralty had assembled in
the Channel ports forty-five ships-of-the-line. The squadron at Brest
was reduced to twelve or fifteen.... To please Spain, twenty French
ships-of-the-line had joined the flag of Admiral Cordova in Cadiz. In
consequence of these dispositions, the English with their Channel
fleet held in check the forces which we had in Brest and in Cadiz.
Enemy's cruisers traversed freely the space between the Lizard and the
Straits of Gibraltar." (Chevalier, p. 202.)
In 1781 "the Cabinet of Versailles called the attention of Holland and
Spain to the necessity of assembling at Brest a fleet strong enough to
impose upon the ships which Great Britain kept in the Channel. The
Dutch remained in the Texel, and the Spaniards did not leave Cadiz.
From this state of things it resulted that the English, with forty
ships-of-the-line, blocked seventy belonging to the allied powers."
(p. 265.)
[165] "A question was very much agitated both in and out of
Parliament; namely, Whether the intercepting of the French fleet under
the Count de Grasse should not have been the first object of the
British fleet under Vice-Admiral Darby, instead of losing time in
going to Ireland, by which that opportunity was missed. The defeat of
the French fleet would certainly totally have disconcerted the great
plans which the enemies had formed in the East and West Indies. It
would have insured the safety of the British West India islands; the
Cape of Good Hope must have fallen into the hands of Britain; and the
campaign in North America might have had a very different
termination." (Beatson's Memoirs, vol. v. p. 341, where the contrary
arguments are also stated.)
[166] This is one of the most common and flagrant violations of the
principles of war,--stretching a thin line, everywhere inadequate,
over an immense frontier. The clamors of trade and local interests
make popular governments especially liable to it.
[167] Annual Register, 1782.