CHAPTER XIV.

CRITICAL DISCUSSION OF THE MARITIME WAR OF 1778.

The war of 1778, between Great Britain and the House of Bourbon, which

is so inextricably associated with the American Revolution, stands by

itself in one respect. It was purely a maritime war. Not only did the

allied kingdoms carefully refrain from continental entanglements,

which England in accordance with her former policy strove to excite,

but there was between the two contestants an approach to equality on

the sea which had not been realized since the days of Tourville. The

points in dispute, the objects for which the war was undertaken or at

which it aimed, were for the most part remote from Europe; and none of

them was on the continent with the single exception of Gibraltar, the

strife over which, being at the extreme point of a rugged and

difficult salient, and separated from neutral nations by the whole of

France and Spain, never threatened to drag in other parties than those

immediately interested.

No such conditions existed in any war between the accession of Louis

XIV. and the downfall of Napoleon. There was a period during the reign

of the former in which the French navy was superior in number and

equipment to the English and Dutch; but the policy and ambition of the

sovereign was always directed to continental extension, and his naval

power, resting on inadequate foundations, was ephemeral. During the

first three-quarters of the eighteenth century there was practically

no check to the sea power of England; great as were its effects upon

the issues of the day, the absence of a capable rival made its

operations barren of military lessons. In the later wars of the French

Republic and Empire, the apparent equality in numbers of ships and

weight of batteries was illusive, owing to the demoralization of the

French officers and seamen by causes upon which it is not necessary

here to enlarge. After some years of courageous but impotent effort,

the tremendous disaster of Trafalgar proclaimed to the world the

professional inefficiency of the French and Spanish navies, already

detected by the keen eyes of Nelson and his brother officers, and upon

which rested the contemptuous confidence that characterized his

attitude, and to some extent his tactics, toward them. Thenceforward

the emperor "turned his eyes from the only field of battle where

fortune had been unfaithful to him, and deciding to pursue England

elsewhere than upon the seas, undertook to restore his navy, but

without reserving to it any share in a strife become more than ever

furious.... Up to the last day of the Empire he refused to offer to

this restored navy, full of ardor and confidence, the opportunity to

measure itself with the enemy."[231] Great Britain resumed her old

position as unquestioned mistress of the seas.

The student of naval war will therefore expect to find a particular

interest in the plans and methods of the parties to this great

contest, and especially where they concern the general conduct of the

whole war, or of certain large and clearly defined portions of it; in

the strategic purpose which gave, or should have given, continuity to

their actions from first to last, and in the strategic movements which

affected for good or ill the fortunes of the more limited periods,

which may be called naval campaigns. For while it cannot be conceded

that the particular battles are, even at this day, wholly devoid of

tactical instruction, which it has been one of the aims of the

preceding pages to elicit, it is undoubtedly true that, like all the

tactical systems of history, they have had their day, and their

present usefulness to the student is rather in the mental training, in

the forming of correct tactical habits of thought, than in supplying

models for close imitation. On the other hand, the movements which

precede and prepare for great battles, or which, by their skilful and

energetic combinations, attain great ends without the actual contact

of arms, depend upon factors more permanent than the weapons of the

age, and therefore furnish principles of more enduring value.

In a war undertaken for any object, even if that object be the

possession of a particular territory or position, an attack directly

upon the place coveted may not be, from the military point of view,

the best means of obtaining it. The end upon which the military

operations are directed may therefore be other than the object which

the belligerent government wishes to obtain, and it has received a

name of its own,--the objective. In the critical consideration of any

war it is necessary, first, to put clearly before the student's eye

the objects desired by each belligerent; then, to consider whether the

objective chosen is the most likely, in case of success, to compass

those objects; and finally, to study the merits or faults of the

various movements by which the objective is approached. The minuteness

with which such an examination is conducted will depend upon the

extent of the work which the inquirer proposes to himself; but it will

generally conduce to clearness if an outline, giving only the main

features unencumbered by detail, should precede a more exhaustive

discussion. When such principal lines are thoroughly grasped, details

are easily referred to them, and fall into place. The effort here will

be confined to presenting such an outline, as being alone fitted to

the scope of this work.

The principal parties to the War of 1778 were, on the one hand, Great

Britain; on the other, the House of Bourbon, controlling the two great

kingdoms of France and Spain. The American colonies, being already

engaged in an unequal struggle with the mother-country, gladly

welcomed an event so important to them; while in 1780 Holland was

deliberately forced by England into a war from which she had nothing

to gain and all to lose. The object of the Americans was perfectly

simple,--to rid their country out of the hands of the English. Their

poverty and their lack of military sea power, with the exception of a

few cruisers that preyed upon the enemy's commerce, necessarily

confined their efforts to land warfare, which constituted indeed a

powerful diversion in favor of the allies and an exhausting drain upon

the resources of Great Britain, but which it was in the power of the

latter to stop at once by abandoning the contest. Holland, on the

other hand, being safe from invasion by land, showed little desire for

anything more than to escape with as little external loss as possible,

through the assistance of the allied navies. The object of these two

minor parties may therefore be said to have been the cessation of the

war; whereas the principals hoped from its continuance certain changed

conditions, which constituted their objects.

With Great Britain also the object of the war was very simple. Having

been led into a lamentable altercation with her most promising

colonies, the quarrel had gone on step by step till she was threatened

with their loss. To maintain forcible control when willing adhesion

had departed, she had taken up arms against them, and her object in so

doing was to prevent a break in those foreign possessions with which,

in the eyes of that generation, her greatness was indissolubly

connected. The appearance of France and Spain as active supporters of

the colonists' cause made no change in England's objects, whatever

change of objective her military plans may, or should, have undergone.

The danger of losing the continental colonies was vastly increased by

these accessions to the ranks of her enemies, which brought with them

also a threat of loss, soon to be realized in part, of other valuable

foreign possessions. England, in short, as regards the objects of the

war, was strictly on the defensive; she feared losing much, and at

best only hoped to keep what she had. By forcing Holland into war,

however, she obtained a military advantage; for, without increasing

the strength of her opponents, several important but ill-defended

military and commercial positions were thereby laid open to her arms.

The views and objects of France and Spain were more complex. The moral

incentives of hereditary enmity and desire of revenge for the recent

past doubtless weighed strongly, as in France did also the sympathy

of the _salons_ and philosophers with the colonists' struggle for

freedom; but powerfully as sentimental considerations affect the

action of nations, only the tangible means by which it is expected to

gratify them admit of statement and measurement. France might wish to

regain her North American possessions; but the then living generation

of colonists had too keen personal recollection of the old contests to

acquiesce in any such wishes as to Canada. The strong inherited

distrust of the French, which characterized the Americans of the

revolutionary era, has been too much overlooked in the glow of

gratitude which followed the effectual sympathy and assistance then

given; but it was understood at the time, and France felt, that to

renew those pretensions might promote, between people of the same race

only recently alienated, a reconciliation by just concessions, which a

strong and high-minded party of Englishmen had never ceased to

advocate. She therefore did not avow, perhaps did not entertain, this

object. On the contrary, she formally renounced all claim to any part

of the continent which was then, or had recently been, under the power

of the British crown, but stipulated for freedom of action in

conquering and retaining any of the West India Islands, while all the

other colonies of Great Britain were, of course, open to her attack.

The principal objects at which France aimed were therefore the English

West Indies and that control of India which had passed into English

hands, and also to secure in due time the independence of the United

States, after they had wrought a sufficient diversion in her favor.

With the policy of exclusive trade which characterized that

generation, the loss of these important possessions was expected to

lessen that commercial greatness upon which the prosperity of England

depended,--to weaken her and to strengthen France. In fact, the strife

which should be greater may be said to have been the animating motive

of France; all objects were summed up in the one supreme end to which

they contributed,--maritime and political superiority over England.

Preponderance over England, in combination with France, was also the

aim of the equally humbled but less vigorous kingdom of Spain; but

there was a definiteness in the injuries suffered and the objects

specially sought by her which is less easily found in the broader

views of her ally. Although no Spaniard then living could remember the

Spanish flag flying over Minorca, Gibraltar, or Jamaica, the lapse of

time had not reconciled the proud and tenacious nation to their loss;

nor was there on the part of the Americans the same traditional

objection to the renewal of Spanish sovereignty over the two Floridas

that was felt with reference to Canada.

Such, then, were the objects sought by the two nations, whose

interposition changed the whole character of the American

Revolutionary War. It is needless to say that they did not all appear

among the causes, or pretexts, avowed for engaging in hostility; but

sagacious English opinion of the day rightly noted, as embodying in a

few words the real ground of action of the united Bourbon Courts, the

following phrase in the French manifesto: "To avenge their respective

injuries, and to put an end to that tyrannical empire which England

has usurped, and claims to maintain upon the ocean." In short, as

regards the _objects_ of the war the allies were on the offensive, as

England was thrown upon the defensive.

The tyrannical empire which England was thus accused, and not

unjustly, of exercising over the seas, rested upon her great sea

power, actual or latent; upon her commerce and armed shipping, her

commercial establishments, colonies, and naval stations in all parts

of the world. Up to this time her scattered colonies had been bound to

her by ties of affectionate sentiment, and by the still stronger

motive of self-interest through the close commercial connection with

the mother-country and the protection afforded by the constant

presence of her superior navy. Now a break was made in the girdle of

strong ports upon which her naval power was based, by the revolt of

the continental colonies; while the numerous trade interests between

them and the West Indies, which were injured by the consequent

hostilities, tended to divide the sympathies of the islands also. The

struggle was not only for political possession and commercial use. It

involved a military question of the first importance,--whether a chain

of naval stations covering one of the shores of the Atlantic, linking

Canada and Halifax with the West Indies, and backed by a thriving

seafaring population, should remain in the hands of a nation which had

so far used its unprecedented sea power with consistent, resolute

aggressiveness, and with almost unbroken success.

While Great Britain was thus embarrassed by the difficulty of

maintaining her hold upon her naval bases, which were the defensive

element of her naval strength, her offensive naval power, her fleet,

was threatened by the growth of the armed shipping of France and

Spain, which now confronted her upon the field which she had claimed

as her own, with an organized military force of equal or superior

material strength. The moment was therefore favorable for attacking

the great Power whose wealth, reaped from the sea, had been a decisive

factor in the European wars of the past century. The next question was

the selection of the points of attack--of the principal _objectives_

upon which the main effort of the assailants should be steadily

directed, and of the secondary objectives by which the defence should

be distracted and its strength dissipated.

One of the wisest French statesmen of that day, Turgot, held that it

was to the interest of France that the colonies should not achieve

their independence. If subdued by exhaustion, their strength was lost

to England; if reduced by a military tenure of controlling points, but

not exhausted, the necessity of constant repression would be a

continual weakness to the mother-country. Though this opinion did not

prevail in the councils of the French government, which wished the

ultimate independence of America, it contained elements of truth which

effectually moulded the policy of the war. If benefit to the United

States, by effecting their deliverance, were the principal object, the

continent became the natural scene, and its decisive military points

the chief objectives, of operations; but as the first object of France

was not to benefit America, but to injure England, sound military

judgment dictated that the continental strife, so far from being

helped to a conclusion, should be kept in vigorous life. It was a

diversion ready made to the hand of France and exhausting to Great

Britain, requiring only so much support as would sustain a resistance

to which the insurgents were bound by the most desperate alternatives.

The territory of the thirteen colonies therefore should not be the

principal objective of France; much less that of Spain.

The commercial value of the English West Indies made them tempting

objects to the French, who adapted themselves with peculiar readiness

to the social conditions of that region, in which their colonial

possessions were already extensive. Besides the two finest of the

Lesser Antilles, Guadeloupe and Martinique, which she still retains,

France then held Sta. Lucia and the western half of Hayti. She might

well hope by successful war to add most of the English Antilles, and

thus to round off a truly imperial tropical dependency; while, though

debarred from Jamaica by the susceptibilities of Spain, it might be

possible to win back that magnificent island for an allied and weaker

nation. But however desirable as possessions, and therefore as

objects, the smaller Antilles might be, their military tenure depended

too entirely upon control of the sea for them to be in themselves

proper objectives. The French government, therefore, forbade its naval

commanders to occupy such as they might seize. They were to make the

garrisons prisoners, destroy the defences, and so retire. In the

excellent military port of Fort Royal, Martinique, in Cap Français,

and in the strong allied harbor of Havana, a fleet of adequate size

found good, secure, and well-distributed bases; while the early and

serious loss of Sta. Lucia must be attributed to the mismanagement of

the French fleet and the professional ability of the English admiral.

On shore, in the West Indies, the rival powers therefore found

themselves about equally provided with the necessary points of

support; mere occupation of others could not add to their military

strength, thenceforth dependent upon the numbers and quality of the

fleets. To extend occupation further with safety, the first need was

to obtain maritime supremacy, not only locally, but over the general

field of war. Otherwise occupation was precarious, unless enforced by

a body of troops so large as to entail expense beyond the worth of the

object. The key of the situation in the West Indies being thus in the

fleets, these became the true objectives of the military effort; and

all the more so because the real _military_ usefulness of the West

Indian ports in this war was as an intermediate base, between Europe

and the American continent, to which the fleets retired when the

armies went into winter quarters. No sound strategic operation on

shore was undertaken in the West Indies except the seizure of Sta.

Lucia by the English, and the abortive plan against Jamaica in 1782;

nor was any serious attempt against a military port, as Barbadoes or

Fort Royal, possible, until naval preponderance was assured either by

battle or by happy concentration of force. The key of the situation,

it must be repeated, was in the fleet.

The influence of naval power, of an armed fleet, upon the war on the

American continent has also been indicated in the opinions of

Washington and Sir Henry Clinton; while the situation in the East

Indies, regarded as a field by itself, has been so largely discussed

under the head of Suffren's campaign, that it needs here only to

repeat that everything there depended upon control of the sea by a

superior naval force. The capture of Trincomalee, essential as it was

to the French squadron which had no other base, was, like that of Sta.

Lucia, a surprise, and could only have been effected by the defeat,

or, as happened, by the absence of the enemy's fleet. In North America

and India sound military policy pointed out, as the true objective,

the enemy's fleet, upon which also depended the communications with

the mother-countries. There remains Europe, which it is scarcely

profitable to examine at length as a separate field of action, because

its relations to the universal war are so much more important. It may

simply be pointed out that the only two points in Europe whose

political transfer was an object of the war were Gibraltar and

Minorca; the former of which was throughout, by the urgency of Spain,

made a principal objective of the allies. The tenure of both these

depended, obviously, upon control of the sea.

In a sea war, as in all others, two things are from the first

essential,--a suitable base upon the frontier, in this case the

seaboard, from which the operations start, and an organized military

force, in this case a fleet, of size and quality adequate to the

proposed operations. If the war, as in the present instance, extends

to distant parts of the globe, there will be needed in each of those

distant regions secure ports for the shipping, to serve as secondary,

or contingent, bases of the local war. Between these secondary and the

principal, or home, bases there must be reasonably secure

communication, which will depend upon military control of the

intervening sea. This control must be exercised by the navy, which

will enforce it either by clearing the sea in all directions of

hostile cruisers, thus allowing the ships of its own nation to pass

with reasonable security, or by accompanying in force (convoying) each

train of supply-ships necessary for the support of the distant

operations. The former method aims at a widely diffused effort of the

national power, the other at a concentration of it upon that part of

the sea where the convoy is at a given moment. Whichever be adopted,

the communications will doubtless be strengthened by the military

holding of good harbors, properly spaced yet not too numerous, along

the routes,--as, for instance, the Cape of Good Hope and the

Mauritius. Stations of this kind have always been necessary, but are

doubly so now, as fuel needs renewing more frequently than did the

provisions and supplies in former days. These combinations of strong

points at home and abroad, and the condition of the communications

between them, may be called the strategic features of the general

military situation, by which, and by the relative strength of the

opposing fleets, the nature of the operations must be determined. In

each of the three divisions of the field, Europe, America, and India,

under which for sake of clearness the narrative has been given, the

control of the sea has been insisted upon as the determining factor,

and the hostile fleet therefore indicated as the true objective. Let

the foregoing considerations now be applied to the whole field of

war, and see how far the same conclusion holds good of it, and if so,

what should have been the nature of the operations on either

side.[232]

In Europe the home base of Great Britain was on the English Channel,

with the two principal arsenals of Plymouth and Portsmouth. The base

of the allied powers was on the Atlantic, the principal military ports

being Brest, Ferrol, and Cadiz. Behind these, within the

Mediterranean, were the dock-yards of Toulon and Cartagena, over

against which stood the English station Port Mahon, in Minorca. The

latter, however, may be left wholly out of account, being confined to

a defensive part during the war, as the British fleet was not able to

spare any squadron to the Mediterranean. Gibraltar, on the contrary,

by its position, effectually watched over detachments or

reinforcements from within the Straits, provided it were utilized as

the station of a body of ships adequate to the duty. This was not

done; the British European fleet being kept tied to the Channel, that

is, to home defence, and making infrequent visits to the Rock to

convoy supplies essential to the endurance of the garrison. There was,

however, a difference in the parts played by Port Mahon and Gibraltar.

The former, being at the time wholly unimportant, received no

attention from the allies until late in the war, when it fell after a

six months' siege; whereas the latter, being considered of the first

importance, absorbed from the beginning a very large part of the

allied attack, and so made a valuable diversion in favor of Great

Britain. To this view of the principal features of the natural

strategic situation in Europe may properly be added the remark, that

such aid as Holland might be inclined to send to the allied fleets had

a very insecure line of communication, being forced to pass along the

English base on the Channel. Such aid in fact was never given.

In North America the local bases of the war at its outbreak were New

York, Narragansett Bay, and Boston. The two former were then held by

the English, and were the most important stations on the continent,

from their position, susceptibility of defence, and resources. Boston

had passed into the hands of the Americans, and was therefore at the

service of the allies. From the direction actually given to the war,

by diverting the active English operations to the Southern States in

1779, Boston was thrown outside the principal theatre of operations,

and became from its position militarily unimportant; but had the plan

been adopted of isolating New England by holding the line of the

Hudson and Lake Champlain, and concentrating military effort to the

eastward, it will be seen that these three ports would all have been

of decisive importance to the issue. South of New York, the Delaware

and Chesapeake Bays undoubtedly offered tempting fields for maritime

enterprise; but the width of the entrances, the want of suitable and

easily defended points for naval stations near the sea, the wide

dispersal of the land forces entailed by an attempt to hold so many

points, and the sickliness of the locality during a great part of the

year, should have excepted them from a principal part in the plan of

the first campaigns. It is not necessary to include them among the

local bases of the war. To the extreme south the English were drawn by

the _ignis fatuus_ of expected support among the people. They failed

to consider that even if a majority there preferred quiet to freedom,

that very quality would prevent them from rising against the

revolutionary government by which, on the English theory, they were

oppressed; yet upon such a rising the whole success of this distant

and in its end most unfortunate enterprise was staked. The local base

of this war apart was Charleston, which passed into the hands of the

British in May, 1780, eighteen months after the first expedition had

landed in Georgia.

The principal local bases of the war in the West Indies are already

known through the previous narrative. They were for the English,

Barbadoes, Sta. Lucia, and to a less degree Antigua. A thousand miles

to leeward was the large island of Jamaica, with a dock-yard of great

natural capabilities at Kingston. The allies held, in the first order

of importance, Fort Royal in Martinique, and Havana; in the second

order, Guadeloupe and Cap Français. A controlling feature of the

strategic situation in that day, and one which will not be wholly

without weight in our own, was the trade-wind, with its accompanying

current. A passage to windward against these obstacles was a long and

serious undertaking even for single ships, much more for larger

bodies. It followed that fleets would go to the western islands only

reluctantly, or when assured that the enemy had taken the same

direction, as Rodney went to Jamaica after the Battle of the Saints,

knowing the French fleet to have gone to Cap Français. This condition

of the wind made the windward, or eastern, islands points on the

natural lines of communication between Europe and America, as well as

local bases of the naval war, and tied the fleets to them. Hence also

it followed that between the two scenes of operations, between the

continent and the Lesser Antilles, was interposed a wide central

region into which the larger operations of war could not safely be

carried except by a belligerent possessed of great naval superiority,

or unless a decisive advantage had been gained upon one flank. In

1762, when England held all the Windward Islands, with undisputed

superiority at sea, she safely attacked and subdued Havana; but in the

years 1779-1782 the French sea power in America and the French tenure

of the Windward Islands practically balanced her own, leaving the

Spaniards at Havana free to prosecute their designs against Pensacola

and the Bahamas, in the central region mentioned.[233]

Posts like Martinique and Sta. Lucia had therefore for the present war

great strategic advantage over Jamaica, Havana, or others to leeward.

They commanded the latter in virtue of their position, by which the

passage westward could be made so much more quickly than the return;

while the decisive points of the continental struggle were practically

little farther from the one than from the other. This advantage was

shared equally by most of those known as the Lesser Antilles; but the

small island of Barbadoes, being well to windward of all, possessed

peculiar advantages, not only for offensive action, but because it was

defended by the difficulty with which a large fleet could approach it,

even from so near a port as Fort Royal. It will be remembered that the

expedition which finally sat down before St. Kitt's had been intended

for Barbadoes, but could not reach it through the violence of the

trade-wind. Thus Barbadoes, under the conditions of the time, was

peculiarly fitted to be the local base and depot of the English war,

as well as a wayside port of refuge on the line of communications to

Jamaica, Florida, and even to North America; while Sta. Lucia, a

hundred miles to leeward, was held in force as an advanced post for

the fleet, watching closely the enemy at Fort Royal.

In India the political conditions of the peninsula necessarily

indicated the eastern, or Coromandel, coast as the scene of

operations. Trincomalee, in the adjacent island of Ceylon, though

unhealthy, offered an excellent and defensible harbor, and thus

acquired first-rate strategic importance, all the other anchorages on

the coast being mere open roadsteads. From this circumstance the

trade-winds, or monsoons, in this region also had strategic bearing.

From the autumnal to the spring equinox the wind blows regularly from

the northeast, at times with much violence, throwing a heavy surf upon

the beach and making landing difficult; but during the summer months

the prevailing wind is southwest, giving comparatively smooth seas and

good weather. The "change of the monsoon," in September and October,

is often marked by violent hurricanes. Active operations, or even

remaining on the coast, were therefore unadvisable from this time

until the close of the northeast monsoon. The question of a port to

which to retire during this season was pressing. Trincomalee was the

only one, and its unique strategic value was heightened by being to

windward, during the fine season, of the principal scene of war. The

English harbor of Bombay on the west coast was too distant to be

considered a local base, and rather falls, like the French islands

Mauritius and Bourbon, under the head of stations on the line of

communications with the mother-country.

Such were the principal points of support, or bases, of the

belligerent nations, at home and abroad. Of those abroad it must be

said, speaking generally, that they were deficient in resources,--an

important element of strategic value. Naval and military stores and

equipments, and to a great extent provisions for sea use, had to be

sent them from the mother-countries. Boston, surrounded by a thriving,

friendly population, was perhaps an exception to this statement, as

was also Havana, at that time an important naval arsenal, where much

ship-building was done; but these were distant from the principal

theatres of war. Upon New York and Narragansett Bay the Americans

pressed too closely for the resources of the neighboring country to be

largely available, while the distant ports of the East and West Indies

depended wholly upon home. Hence the strategic question of

communications assumed additional importance. To intercept a large

convoy of supply-ships was an operation only secondary to the

destruction of a body of ships-of-war; while to protect such by main

strength, or by evading the enemy's search, taxed the skill of the

governments and naval commanders in distributing the ships-of-war and

squadrons at their disposal, among the many objects which demanded

attention. The address of Kempenfeldt and the bad management of

Guichen in the North Atlantic, seconded by a heavy gale of wind,

seriously embarrassed De Grasse in the West Indies. Similar injury, by

cutting off small convoys in the Atlantic, was done to Suffren in the

Indian seas: while the latter at once made good part of these losses,

and worried his opponents by the success of his cruisers preying on

the English supply-ships.

Thus the navies, by which alone these vital streams could be secured

or endangered, bore the same relation to the maintenance of the

general war that has already been observed of the separate parts. They

were the links that bound the whole together, and were therefore

indicated as the proper objective of both belligerents.

The distance from Europe to America was not such as to make

intermediate ports of supply absolutely necessary; while if difficulty

did arise from an unforeseen cause, it was always possible, barring

meeting an enemy, either to return to Europe or to make a friendly

port in the West Indies. The case was different with the long voyage

to India by the Cape of Good Hope. Bickerton, leaving England with a

convoy in February, was thought to have done well in reaching Bombay

the following September; while the ardent Suffren, sailing in March,

took an equal time to reach Mauritius, whence the passage to Madras

consumed two months more. A voyage of such duration could rarely be

made without a stop for water, for fresh provision, often for such

refitting as called for the quiet of a harbor, even when the stores on

board furnished the necessary material. A perfect line of

communications required, as has been said, several such harbors,

properly spaced, adequately defended, and with abundant supplies, such

as England in the present day holds on some of her main commercial

routes, acquisitions of her past wars. In the war of 1778 none of the

belligerents had such ports on this route, until by the accession of

Holland, the Cape of Good Hope was put at the disposal of the French

and suitably strengthened by Suffren. With this and the Mauritius on

the way, and Trincomalee at the far end of the road, the

communications of the allies with France were reasonably guarded.

England, though then holding St. Helena, depended, for the refreshment

and refitting of her India-bound squadrons and convoys in the

Atlantic, upon the benevolent neutrality of Portugal, extended in the

islands of Madeira and Cape Verde and in the Brazilian ports. This

neutrality was indeed a frail reliance for defence, as was shown by

the encounter between Johnstone and Suffren at the Cape Verde; but

there being several possible stopping-places, and the enemy unable to

know which, if any, would be used, this ignorance itself conferred no

small security, if the naval commander did not trust it to the neglect

of proper disposition of his own force, as did Johnstone at Porto

Praya. Indeed, with the delay and uncertainty which then characterized

the transmission of intelligence from one point to another, doubt

where to find the enemy was a greater bar to offensive enterprises

than the often slight defences of a colonial port.

This combination of useful harbors and the conditions of the

communications between them constitute, as has been said, the main

strategic outlines of the situation. The navy, as the organized force

linking the whole together, has been indicated as the principal

objective of military effort. The method employed to reach the

objective, the conduct of the war, is still to be considered.[234]

Before doing this a condition peculiar to the sea, and affecting the

following discussion, must be briefly mentioned; that is, the

difficulty of obtaining information. Armies pass through countries

more or less inhabited by a stationary population, and they leave

behind them traces of their march. Fleets move through a desert over

which wanderers flit, but where they do not remain; and as the waters

close behind them, an occasional waif from the decks may indicate

their passage, but tells nothing of their course. The sail spoken by

the pursuer may know nothing of the pursued, which yet passed the

point of parley but a few days or hours before. Of late, careful study

of the winds and currents of the ocean has laid down certain

advantageous routes, which will be habitually followed by a careful

seaman, and afford some presumption as to his movements; but in 1778

the data for such precision were not collected, and even had they

been, the quickest route must often have been abandoned for one of the

many possible ones, in order to elude pursuit or lying-in-wait. In

such a game of hide-and-seek the advantage is with the sought, and the

great importance of watching the outlets of an enemy's country, of

stopping the chase before it has got away into the silent desert, is

at once evident. If for any reason such a watch there is impossible,

the next best thing is, not attempting to watch routes which may not

be taken, to get first to the enemy's destination and await him there;

but this implies a knowledge of his intentions which may not always be

obtainable. The action of Suffren, when pitted against Johnstone, was

throughout strategically sound, both in his attack at Porto Praya and

in the haste with which he made for their common destination; while

the two failures of Rodney to intercept the convoys to Martinique in

1780 and 1782, though informed that they were coming, show the

difficulty which attended lying-in-wait even when the point of arrival

was known.

Of any maritime expedition two points only are fixed,--the point of

departure and that of arrival. The latter may be unknown to the enemy;

but up to the time of sailing, the presence of a certain force in a

port, and the indications of a purpose soon to move, may be assumed to

be known. It may be of moment to either belligerent to intercept such

a movement; but it is more especially and universally necessary to the

defence, because, of the many points at which he is open to attack, it

may be impossible for him to know which is threatened; whereas the

offence proceeds with full knowledge direct to his aim, if he can

deceive his opponent. The importance of blocking such an expedition

becomes yet more evident should it at any time be divided between two

or more ports,--a condition which may easily arise when the facilities

of a single dock-yard are insufficient to fit out so many ships in

the time allowed, or when, as in the present war, allied powers

furnish separate contingents. To prevent the junction of these

contingents is a matter of prime necessity, and nowhere can this be

done so certainly as off the ports whence one or both is to sail. The

defence, from its very name, is presumably the less strong, and is

therefore the more bound to take advantage of such a source of

weakness as the division of the enemy's force. Rodney in 1782 at Sta.

Lucia, watching the French contingent at Martinique to prevent its

union with the Spaniards at Cap Français, is an instance of correct

strategic position; and had the islands been so placed as to put him

between the French and their destination, instead of in their rear,

nothing better could have been devised. As it was, he did the best

thing possible under the circumstances.

The defence, being the weaker, cannot attempt to block _all_ the ports

where divisions of the enemy lie, without defeating his aim by being

in inferior force before each. This would be to neglect the

fundamental principles of war. If he correctly decide not to do this,

but to collect a superior force before one or two points, it becomes

necessary to decide which shall be thus guarded and which

neglected,--a question involving the whole policy of the war after a

full understanding of the main conditions, military, moral, and

economic, in every quarter.

The defensive was necessarily accepted by England in 1778. It had been

a maxim with the best English naval authorities of the preceding era,

with Hawke and his contemporaries, that the British navy should be

kept equal in numbers to the combined fleets of the Bourbon

kingdoms,--a condition which, with the better quality of the

_personnel_ and the larger maritime population upon which it could

draw, would have given a real superiority of force. This precaution,

however, had not been observed during recent years. It is of no

consequence to this discussion whether the failure was due to the

inefficiency of the ministry, as was charged by their opponents, or to

the misplaced economy often practised by representative governments

in time of peace. The fact remains that, notwithstanding the notorious

probability of France and Spain joining in the war, the English navy

was inferior in number to that of the allies. In what have been called

the strategic features of the situation, the home bases, and the

secondary bases abroad, the advantage upon the whole lay with her. Her

positions, if not stronger in themselves, were at least better

situated, geographically, for strategic effect; but in the second

essential for war, the organized military force, or fleet, adequate to

offensive operations, she had been allowed to become inferior. It only

remained, therefore, to use this inferior force with such science and

vigor as would frustrate the designs of the enemy, by getting first to

sea, taking positions skilfully, anticipating their combinations by

greater quickness of movement, harassing their communications with

their objectives, and meeting the principal divisions of the enemy

with superior forces.

It is sufficiently clear that the maintenance of this war, everywhere

except on the American continent, depended upon the mother-countries

in Europe and upon open communication with them. The ultimate crushing

of the Americans, too, not by direct military effort but by

exhaustion, was probable, if England were left unmolested to strangle

their commerce and industries with her overwhelming naval strength.

This strength she could put forth against them, if relieved from the

pressure of the allied navies; and relief would be obtained if she

could gain over them a decided preponderance, not merely material but

moral, such as she had twenty years later. In that case the allied

courts, whose financial weakness was well known, must retire from a

contest in which their main purpose of reducing England to an inferior

position was already defeated. Such preponderance, however, could only

be had by fighting; by showing that, despite inferiority in numbers,

the skill of her seamen and the resources of her wealth enabled her

government, by a wise use of these powers, to be actually superior at

the decisive points of the war. It could never be had by distributing

the ships-of-the-line all over the world, exposing them to be beaten

in detail while endeavoring to protect all the exposed points of the

scattered empire.

The key of the situation was in Europe, and in Europe in the hostile

dock-yards. If England were unable, as she proved to be, to raise up a

continental war against France, then her one hope was to find and

strike down the enemy's navy. Nowhere was it so certainly to be found

as in its home ports; nowhere so easily met as immediately after

leaving them. This dictated her policy in the Napoleonic wars, when

the moral superiority of her navy was so established that she dared to

oppose inferior forces to the combined dangers of the sea and of the

more numerous and well-equipped ships lying quietly at anchor inside.

By facing this double risk she obtained the double advantage of

keeping the enemy under her eyes, and of sapping his efficiency by the

easy life of port, while her own officers and seamen were hardened by

the rigorous cruising into a perfect readiness for every call upon

their energies. "We have no reason," proclaimed Admiral Villeneuve in

1805, echoing the words of the emperor, "to fear the sight of an

English squadron. Their seventy-fours have not five hundred men on

board; they are worn out by a two years' cruise."[235] A month later

he wrote: "The Toulon squadron appeared very fine in the harbor, the

crews well clothed and drilling well; but as soon as a storm came, all

was changed. They were not drilled in storms."[236] "The emperor,"

said Nelson, "now finds, if emperors hear truth, that his fleet

suffers more in a night than ours in one year.... These gentlemen are

not used to the hurricanes, which we have braved for twenty-one months

without losing mast or yard."[237] It must be admitted, however, that

the strain was tremendous both on men and ships, and that many English

officers found in the wear and tear an argument against keeping their

fleets at sea off the enemy's coast. "Every one of the blasts we

endure," wrote Collingwood, "lessens the security of the country. The

last cruise disabled five large ships and two more lately; several of

them must be docked." "I have hardly known what a night of rest is

these two months," wrote he again; "this incessant cruising seems to

me beyond the powers of human nature. Calder is worn to a shadow,

quite broken down, and I am told Graves is not much better."[1] The

high professional opinion of Lord Howe was also adverse to the

practice.

Besides the exhaustion of men and ships, it must also be admitted that

no blockade could be relied on certainly to check the exit of an

enemy's fleet. Villeneuve escaped from Toulon, Missiessy from

Rochefort. "I am here watching the French squadron in Rochefort,"

wrote Collingwood, "but feel that it is not practicable to prevent

their sailing; and yet, if they should get by me, I should be

exceedingly mortified.... The only thing that can prevent their

sailing is the apprehension that they may get among us, as they cannot

know exactly where we are."[238]

Nevertheless, the strain then was endured. The English fleets girdled

the shores of France and Spain; losses were made good; ships were

repaired; as one officer fell, or was worn out at his post, another

took his place. The strict guard over Brest broke up the emperor's

combinations; the watchfulness of Nelson, despite an unusual

concurrence of difficulties, followed the Toulon fleet, from the

moment of its starting, across the Atlantic and back to the shores of

Europe. It was long before they came to blows, before strategy stepped

aside and tactics completed the work at Trafalgar; but step by step

and point by point the rugged but disciplined seamen, the rusty and

battered but well-handled ships, blocked each move of their

unpractised opponents. Disposed in force before each arsenal of the

enemy, and linked together by chains of smaller vessels, they might

fail now and again to check a raid, but they effectually stopped all

grand combinations of the enemy's squadrons.

The ships of 1805 were essentially the same as those of 1780. There

had doubtless been progress and improvement; but the changes were in

degree, not in kind. Not only so, but the fleets of twenty years

earlier, under Hawke and his fellows, had dared the winters of the Bay

of Biscay. "There is not in Hawke's correspondence," says his

biographer, "the slightest indication that he himself doubted for a

moment that it was not only possible, but his duty, to keep the sea,

even through the storms of winter, and that he should soon be able to

'make downright work of it.'"[239] If it be urged that the condition

of the French navy was better, the character and training of its

officers higher, than in the days of Hawke and Nelson, the fact must

be admitted; nevertheless, the admiralty could not long have been

ignorant that the number of such officers was still so deficient as

seriously to affect the quality of the deck service, and the lack of

seamen so great as to necessitate filling up the complements with

soldiers. As for the _personnel_ of the Spanish navy, there is no

reason to believe it better than fifteen years later, when Nelson,

speaking of Spain giving certain ships to France, said, "I take it for

granted not manned [by Spaniards], as that would be the readiest way

to lose them again."

In truth, however, it is too evident to need much arguing, that the

surest way for the weaker party to neutralize the enemy's ships was to

watch them in their harbors and fight them if they started. The only

serious objection to doing this, in Europe, was the violence of the

weather off the coasts of France and Spain, especially during the long

nights of winter. This brought with it not only risk of immediate

disaster, which strong, well-managed ships would rarely undergo, but a

continual strain which no skill could prevent, and which therefore

called for a large reserve of ships to relieve those sent in for

repairs, or to refresh the crews.

The problem would be greatly simplified if the blockading fleet could

find a convenient anchorage on the flank of the route the enemy must

take, as Nelson in 1804 and 1805 used Maddalena Bay in Sardinia when

watching the Toulon fleet,--a step to which he was further forced by

the exceptionally bad condition of many of his ships. So Sir James

Saumarez in 1800 even used Douarnenez Bay, on the French coast, only

five miles from Brest, to anchor the in-shore squadron of the

blockading force in heavy weather. The positions at Plymouth and

Torbay cannot be considered perfectly satisfactory from this point of

view; not being, like Maddalena Bay, on the flank of the enemy's

route, but like Sta. Lucia, rather to its rear. Nevertheless, Hawke

proved that diligence and well-managed ships could overcome this

disadvantage, as Rodney also afterward showed on his less tempestuous

station.

In the use of the ships at its disposal, taking the war of 1778 as a

whole, the English ministry kept their foreign detachments in America,

and in the West and East Indies, equal to those of the enemy. At

particular times, indeed, this was not so; but speaking generally of

the assignment of ships, the statement is correct. In Europe, on the

contrary, and in necessary consequence of the policy mentioned, the

British fleet was habitually much inferior to that in the French and

Spanish ports. It therefore could be used offensively only by great

care, and through good fortune in meeting the enemy in detail; and

even so an expensive victory, unless very decisive, entailed

considerable risk from the consequent temporary disability of the

ships engaged. It followed that the English home (or Channel) fleet,

upon which depended also the communications with Gibraltar and the

Mediterranean, was used very economically both as to battle and

weather, and was confined to the defence of the home coast, or to

operations against the enemy's communications.

India was so far distant that no exception can be taken to the policy

there. Ships sent there went to stay, and could be neither reinforced

nor recalled with a view to sudden emergencies. The field stood by

itself. But Europe, North America, and the West Indies should have

been looked upon as one large theatre of war, throughout which events

were mutually dependent, and whose different parts stood in close

relations of greater or less importance, to which due attention should

have been paid.

Assuming that the navies, as the guardians of the communications, were

the controlling factors in the war, and that the source, both of the

navies and of those streams of supplies which are called

communications, was in the mother-countries, and there centralized in

the chief arsenals, two things follow: First, the main effort of the

Power standing on the defensive, of Great Britain, should have been

concentrated before those arsenals; and secondly, in order to such

concentration, the lines of communication abroad should not have been

needlessly extended, so as to increase beyond the strictest necessity

the detachments to guard them. Closely connected with the last

consideration is the duty of strengthening, by fortification and

otherwise, the vital points to which the communications led, so that

these points should not depend in any way upon the fleet for

protection, but only for supplies and reinforcements, and those at

reasonable intervals. Gibraltar, for instance, quite fulfilled these

conditions, being practically impregnable, and storing supplies that

lasted very long.

If this reasoning be correct, the English dispositions on the American

continent were very faulty. Holding Canada, with Halifax, New York,

and Narragansett Bay, and with the line of the Hudson within their

grip, it was in their power to isolate a large, perhaps decisive, part

of the insurgent territory. New York and Narragansett Bay could have

been made unassailable by a French fleet of that day, thus assuring

the safety of the garrisons against attacks from the sea and

minimizing the task of the navy; while the latter would find in them a

secure refuge, in case an enemy's force eluded the watch of the

English fleet before a European arsenal and appeared on the coast.

Instead of this, these two ports were left weak, and would have fallen

before a Nelson or a Farragut, while the army in New York was twice

divided, first to the Chesapeake and afterward to Georgia, neither

part of the separated forces being strong enough for the work before

it. The control of the sea was thus used in both cases to put the

enemy between the divided portions of the English army, when the

latter, undivided, had not been able to force its way over the ground

thus interposed. As the communication between the two parts of the

army depended wholly upon the sea, the duty of the navy was increased

with the increased length of the lines of communication. The necessity

of protecting the seaports and the lengthened lines of communication

thus combined to augment the naval detachments in America, and to

weaken proportionately the naval force at the decisive points in

Europe. Thus also a direct consequence of the southern expedition was

the hasty abandonment of Narragansett Bay, when D'Estaing appeared on

the coast in 1779, because Clinton had not force enough to defend both

it and New York.[240]

In the West Indies the problem before the English government was not

to subdue revolted territory, but to preserve the use of a number of

small, fruitful islands; to keep possession of them itself, and to

maintain their trade as free as possible from the depredations of the

enemy. It need not be repeated that this demanded predominance at sea

over both the enemy's fleets and single cruisers,--"commerce-destroyers,"

as the latter are now styled. As no vigilance can confine all these to

their ports, the West Indian waters must be patrolled by British

frigates and lighter vessels; but it would surely be better, if

possible, to keep the French fleet away altogether than to hold it in

check by a British fleet on the spot, of only equal force at any time,

and liable to fall, as it often did, below equality. England, being

confined to the defensive, was always liable to loss when thus

inferior. She actually did lose one by one, by sudden attack, most of

her islands, and at different times had her fleet shut up under the

batteries of a port; whereas the enemy, when he found himself

inferior, was able to wait for reinforcements, knowing that he had

nothing to fear while so waiting.[241]

Nor was this embarrassment confined to the West Indies. The nearness

of the islands to the American continent made it always possible for

the offence to combine his fleets in the two quarters before the

defence could be sure of his purpose; and although such combinations

were controlled in some measure by well-understood conditions of

weather and the seasons, the events of 1780 and 1781 show the

perplexity felt from this cause by the ablest English admiral, whose

dispositions, though faulty, but reflected the uncertainties of his

mind. When to this embarrassment, which is common to the defensive in

all cases, is added the care of the great British trade upon which the

prosperity of the empire mainly depended, it must be conceded that the

task of the British admiral in the West Indies was neither light nor

simple.

In Europe, the safety of England herself and of Gibraltar was gravely

imperilled by the absence of these large detachments in the Western

Hemisphere, to which may also be attributed the loss of Minorca. When

sixty-six allied ships-of-the-line confronted the thirty-five which

alone England could collect, and drove them into their harbors, there

was realized that mastery of the Channel which Napoleon claimed would

make him beyond all doubt master of England. For thirty days, the

thirty ships which formed the French contingent had cruised in the Bay

of Biscay, awaiting the arrival of the tardy Spaniards; but they were

not disturbed by the English fleet. Gibraltar was more than once

brought within sight of starvation, through the failure of

communications with England; and its deliverance was due, not to the

power of the English navy suitably disposed by its government, but to

the skill of British officers and the inefficiency of the Spaniards.

In the great final relief, Lord Howe's fleet numbered only thirty-four

to the allied forty-nine.

Which, then, in the difficulties under which England labored, was the

better course,--to allow the enemy free exit from his ports and

endeavor to meet him by maintaining a sufficient naval force on each

of the exposed stations, or to attempt to watch his arsenals at home,

under all the difficulties of the situation, not with the vain hope of

preventing every raid, or intercepting every convoy, but with the

expectation of frustrating the greater combinations, and of following

close at the heels of any large fleet that escaped? Such a watch must

not be confounded with a blockade, a term frequently, but not quite

accurately, applied to it. "I beg to inform your Lordship," wrote

Nelson, "that the port of Toulon has never been blockaded by me; quite

the reverse. Every opportunity has been offered the enemy to put to

sea, for it is there we hope to realize the hopes and expectations of

our country." "Nothing," he says again, "ever kept the French fleet in

Toulon or Brest when they had a mind to come out;" and although the

statement is somewhat exaggerated, it is true that the attempt to shut

them up in port would have been hopeless. What Nelson expected by

keeping near their ports, with enough lookout ships properly

distributed, was to know when they sailed and what direction they

took, intending, to use his own expression, to "follow them to the

antipodes." "I am led to believe," he writes at another time, "that

the Ferrol squadron of French ships will push for the Mediterranean.

If it join that in Toulon, it will much outnumber us; but I shall

never lose sight of them, and Pellew (commanding the English squadron

off Ferrol) will soon be after them." So it happened often enough

during that prolonged war that divisions of French ships escaped,

through stress of weather, temporary absence of a blockading fleet, or

misjudgment on the part of its commander; but the alarm was quickly

given, some of the many frigates caught sight of them, followed to

detect their probable destination, passed the word from point to point

and from fleet to fleet, and soon a division of equal force was after

them, "to the antipodes" if need were. As, according to the

traditional use of the French navy by French governments, their

expeditions went not to fight the hostile fleet, but with "ulterior

objects," the angry buzz and hot pursuit that immediately followed was

far from conducive to an undisturbed and methodical execution of the

programme laid down, even by a single division; while to great

combinations, dependent upon uniting the divisions from different

ports, they were absolutely fatal. The adventurous cruise of Bruix,

leaving Brest with twenty-five ships-of-the-line in 1799, the rapidity

with which the news spread, the stirring action and individual

mistakes of the English, the frustration of the French projects[242]

and the closeness of the pursuit,[243] the escape of Missiessy from

Rochefort in 1805, of the divisions of Willaumez and Leissegues from

Brest in 1806,--all these may be named, along with the great Trafalgar

campaign, as affording interesting studies of a naval strategy

following the lines here suggested; while the campaign of 1798,

despite its brilliant ending at the Nile, may be cited as a case where

failure nearly ensued, owing to the English having no force before

Toulon when the expedition sailed, and to Nelson being insufficiently

provided with frigates. The nine weeks' cruise of Ganteaume in the

Mediterranean, in 1808, also illustrates the difficulty of controlling

a fleet which has been permitted to get out, unwatched by a strong

force, even in such narrow waters.

[Illustration: NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN.]

No parallel instances can be cited from the war of 1778, although the

old monarchy did not cover the movements of its fleets with the

secrecy enforced by the stern military despotism of the Empire. In

both epochs England stood on the defensive; but in the earlier war she

gave up the first line of the defence, off the hostile ports, and

tried to protect all parts of her scattered empire by dividing the

fleet among them. It has been attempted to show the weakness of the

one policy, while admitting the difficulties and dangers of the other.

The latter aims at shortening and deciding the war by either shutting

up or forcing battle upon the hostile navy, recognizing that this is

the key of the situation, when the sea at once unites and separates

the different parts of the theatre of war. It requires a navy equal in

number and superior in efficiency, to which it assigns a limited field

of action, narrowed to the conditions which admit of mutual support

among the squadrons occupying it. Thus distributed, it relies upon

skill and watchfulness to intercept or overtake any division of the

enemy which gets to sea. It defends remote possessions and trade by

offensive action against the fleet, in which it sees their real enemy

and its own principal objective. Being near the home ports, the relief

and renewal of ships needing repairs are accomplished with the least

loss of time, while the demands upon the scantier resources of the

bases abroad are lessened. The other policy, to be effective, calls

for superior numbers, because the different divisions are too far

apart for mutual support. Each must therefore be equal to any probable

combination against it, which implies superiority everywhere to the

force of the enemy actually opposed, as the latter may be unexpectedly

reinforced. How impossible and dangerous such a defensive strategy is,

when not superior in force, is shown by the frequent inferiority of

the English abroad, as well as in Europe, despite the effort to be

everywhere equal. Howe at New York in 1778, Byron at Grenada in 1779,

Graves off the Chesapeake in 1781, Hood at Martinique in 1781 and at

St. Kitt's in 1782, all were inferior, at the same time that the

allied fleet in Europe overwhelmingly outnumbered the English. In

consequence, unseaworthy ships were retained, to the danger of their

crews and their own increasing injury, rather than diminish the force

by sending them home; for the deficiencies of the colonial dock-yards

did not allow extensive repairs without crossing the Atlantic. As

regards the comparative expense of the two strategies, the question is

not only which would cost the more in the same time, but which would

most tend to shorten the war by the effectiveness of its action.

The military policy of the allies is open to severer condemnation than

that of England, by so much as the party assuming the offensive has by

that very fact an advantage over the defensive. When the initial

difficulty of combining their forces was overcome,--and it has been

seen that at no time did Great Britain seriously embarrass their

junction,--the allies had the choice open to them where, when, and how

to strike with their superior numbers. How did they avail themselves

of this recognized enormous advantage? By nibbling at the outskirts of

the British Empire, and knocking their heads against the Rock of

Gibraltar. The most serious military effort made by France, in sending

to the United States a squadron and division of troops intended to be

double the number of those which actually reached their destination,

resulted, in little over a year, in opening the eyes of England to the

hopelessness of the contest with the colonies and thus put an end to a

diversion of her strength which had been most beneficial to her

opponents. In the West Indies one petty island after another was

reduced, generally in the absence of the English fleet, with an ease

which showed how completely the whole question would have been solved

by a decisive victory over that fleet; but the French, though favored

with many opportunities, never sought to slip the knot by the simple

method of attacking the force upon which all depended. Spain went her

own way in the Floridas, and with an overwhelming force obtained

successes of no military value. In Europe the plan adopted by the

English government left its naval force hopelessly inferior in numbers

year after year; yet the operations planned by the allies seem in no

case seriously to have contemplated the destruction of that force. In

the crucial instance, when Derby's squadron of thirty sail-of-the-line

was hemmed in the open roadstead of Torbay by the allied forty-nine,

the conclusion of the council of war not to fight only epitomized the

character of the action of the combined navies. To further embarrass

their exertions in Europe, Spain, during long periods, obstinately

persisted in tying down her fleet to the neighborhood of Gibraltar;

but there was at no time practical recognition of the fact that a

severe blow to the English navy in the Straits, or in the English

Channel, or on the open sea, was the surest road to reduce the

fortress, brought more than once within measurable distance of

starvation.

In the conduct of their offensive war the allied courts suffered from

the divergent counsels and jealousies which have hampered the

movements of most naval coalitions. The conduct of Spain appears to

have been selfish almost to disloyalty, that of France more faithful,

and therefore also militarily sounder; for hearty co-operation and

concerted action against a common objective, wisely chosen, would have

better forwarded the objects of both. It must be admitted, too, that

the indications point to inefficient administration and preparation on

the part of the allies, of Spain especially; and that the quality of

the _personnel_[244] was inferior to that of England. Questions of

preparation and administration, however, though of deep military

interest and importance, are very different from the strategic plan or

method adopted by the allied courts in selecting and attacking their

objectives, and so compassing the objects of the war; and their

examination would not only extend this discussion unreasonably, but

would also obscure the strategic question by heaping up unnecessary

details foreign to its subject.

As regards the strategic question, it may be said pithily that the

phrase "ulterior objects" embodies the cardinal fault of the naval

policy. Ulterior objects brought to nought the hopes of the allies,

because, by fastening their eyes upon them, they thoughtlessly passed

the road which led to them. Desire eagerly directed upon the ends in

view--or rather upon the partial, though great, advantages which they

constituted their ends--blinded them to the means by which alone they

could be surely attained; hence, as the result of the war, everywhere

failure to attain them. To quote again the summary before given, their

object was "to avenge their respective injuries, and to put an end to

that tyrannical empire which England claims to maintain upon the

ocean." The revenge they had obtained was barren of benefit to

themselves. They had, so that generation thought, injured England by

liberating America; but they had not righted their wrongs in Gibraltar

and Jamaica, the English fleet had not received any such treatment as

would lessen its haughty self-reliance, the armed neutrality of the

northern powers had been allowed to pass fruitlessly away, and the

English empire over the seas soon became as tyrannical and more

absolute than before.

Barring questions of preparation and administration, of the fighting

quality of the allied fleets as compared with the English, and looking

only to the indisputable fact of largely superior numbers, it must be

noted as the supreme factor in the military conduct of the war, that,

while the allied powers were on the offensive and England on the

defensive, the attitude of the allied fleets in presence of the

English navy was habitually defensive. Neither in the greater

strategic combinations, nor upon the battlefield, does there appear

any serious purpose of using superior numbers to crush fractions of

the enemy's fleet, to make the disparity of numbers yet greater, to

put an end to the empire of the seas by the destruction of the

organized force which sustained it. With the single brilliant

exception of Suffren, the allied navies avoided or accepted action;

they never imposed it. Yet so long as the English navy was permitted

thus with impunity to range the seas, not only was there no security

that it would not frustrate the ulterior objects of the campaign, as

it did again and again, but there was always the possibility that by

some happy chance it would, by winning an important victory, restore

the balance of strength. That it did not do so is to be imputed as a

fault to the English ministry; but if England was wrong in permitting

her European fleet to fall so far below that of the allies, the latter

were yet more to blame for their failure to profit by the mistake. The

stronger party, assuming the offensive, cannot plead the perplexities

which account for, though they do not justify, the undue dispersal of

forces by the defence anxious about many points.

The national bias of the French, which found expression in the line of

action here again and for the last time criticised, appears to have

been shared by both the government and the naval officers of the day.

It is the key to the course of the French navy, and, in the opinion of

the author, to its failure to achieve more substantial results to

France from this war. It is instructive, as showing how strong a hold

tradition has over the minds of men, that a body of highly

accomplished and gallant seamen should have accepted, apparently

without a murmur, so inferior a rôle for their noble profession. It

carries also a warning, if these criticisms are correct, that current

opinions and plausible impressions should always be thoroughly

tested; for if erroneous they work sure failure, and perhaps disaster.

There was such an impression largely held by French officers of that

day, and yet more widely spread in the United States now, of the

efficacy of commerce-destroying as a main reliance in war, especially

when directed against a commercial country like Great Britain. "The

surest means in my opinion," wrote a distinguished officer,

Lamotte-Picquet, "to conquer the English is to attack them in their

commerce." The harassment and distress caused to a country by serious

interference with its commerce will be conceded by all. It is

doubtless a most important secondary operation of naval war, and is

not likely to be abandoned till war itself shall cease; but regarded

as a primary and fundamental measure, sufficient in itself to crush an

enemy, it is probably a delusion, and a most dangerous delusion, when

presented in the fascinating garb of cheapness to the representatives

of a people. Especially is it misleading when the nation against whom

it is to be directed possesses, as Great Britain did and does, the two

requisites of a strong sea power,--a wide-spread healthy commerce and

a powerful navy. Where the revenues and industries of a country can be

concentrated into a few treasure-ships, like the flota of Spanish

galleons, the sinew of war may perhaps be cut by a stroke; but when

its wealth is scattered in thousands of going and coming ships, when

the roots of the system spread wide and far, and strike deep, it can

stand many a cruel shock and lose many a goodly bough without the life

being touched. Only by military command of the sea by prolonged

control of the strategic centres of commerce, can such an attack be

fatal;[245] and such control can be wrung from a powerful navy only

by fighting and overcoming it. For two hundred years England has been

the great commercial nation of the world. More than any other her

wealth has been intrusted to the sea in war as in peace; yet of all

nations she has ever been most reluctant to concede the immunities of

commerce and the rights of neutrals. Regarded not as a matter of

right, but of policy, history has justified the refusal; and if she

maintain her navy in full strength, the future will doubtless repeat

the lesson of the past.

* * * * *

The preliminaries of the peace between Great Britain and the allied

courts, which brought to an end this great war, were signed at

Versailles, January 20, 1783, an arrangement having been concluded

between Great Britain and the American Commissioners two months

before, by which the independence of the United States was conceded.

This was the great outcome of the war. As between the European

belligerents, Great Britain received back from France all the West

India Islands she had lost, except Tobago, and gave up Sta. Lucia. The

French stations in India were restored; and Trincomalee being in the

possession of the enemy, England could not dispute its return to

Holland, but she refused to cede Negapatam. To Spain, England

surrendered the two Floridas and Minorca, the latter a serious loss

had the naval power of Spain been sufficient to maintain possession of

it; as it was, it again fell into the hands of Great Britain in the

next war. Some unimportant redistribution of trading-posts on the west

coast of Africa was also made.

Trivial in themselves, there is but one comment that need be made upon

these arrangements. In any coming war their permanency would depend

wholly upon the balance of sea power, upon that empire of the seas

concerning which nothing conclusive had been established by the war.

The definitive treaties of peace were signed at Versailles, September

3, 1783.

FOOTNOTES:

[231] Jurien de la Gravière: Guerres Maritimes, vol. ii. p. 255.

[232] See map of the Atlantic Ocean, p. 532.

[233] It may be said here in passing, that the key to the English

possessions in what was then called West Florida was at Pensacola and

Mobile, which depended upon Jamaica for support; the conditions of the

country, of navigation, and of the general continental war forbidding

assistance from the Atlantic. The English force, military and naval,

at Jamaica was only adequate to the defence of the island and of

trade, and could not afford sufficient relief to Florida. The capture

of the latter and of the Bahamas was effected with little difficulty

by overwhelming Spanish forces, as many as fifteen ships-of-the-line

and seven thousand troops having been employed against Pensacola.

These events will receive no other mention. Their only bearing upon

the general war was the diversion of this imposing force from joint

operations with the French, Spain here, as at Gibraltar, pursuing her

own aims instead of concentrating upon the common enemy,--a policy as

shortsighted as it was selfish.

[234] In other words, having considered the objects for which the

belligerents were at war and the proper objectives upon which their

military efforts should have been directed to compass the objects, the

discussion now considers how the military forces should have been

handled; by what means and at what point the objective, being mobile,

should have been assailed.

[235] Orders of Admiral Villeneuve to the captains of his fleet, Dec.

20, 1804.

[236] Letter of Villeneuve, January, 1805.

[237] Letters and Despatches of Lord Nelson.

[238] Life and Letters of Lord Collingwood.

[239] Burrows: Life of Lord Hawke.

[240] Of this Rodney said: "The evacuating Rhode Island was the most

fatal measure that could possibly be adopted. It gave up the best and

noblest harbor in America, from whence squadrons, in forty-eight

hours, could blockade the three capital cities of America, namely,

Boston, New York, and Philadelphia." The whole letter, private to the

First Lord of the Admiralty, is worth reading. (Life of Rodney, vol.

ii. p. 429.)

[241] The loss of Sta. Lucia does not militate against this statement,

being due to happy audacity and skill on the part of the English

admiral, and the professional incapacity of the commander of the

greatly superior French fleet.

[242] The plan of campaign traced by the Directory for Bruix became

impossible of execution; the delay in the junction of the French and

Spanish squadrons having permitted England to concentrate sixty ships

in the Mediterranean.--_Troude_, vol. iii. p. 158.

[243] The combined squadrons of France and Spain, under Bruix, reached

Brest on their return only twenty-four hours before Lord Keith, who

had followed them from the Mediterranean. (James: Naval History of

Great Britain.)

[244] The high professional attainments of many of the French officers

is not overlooked in this statement. The quality of the _personnel_

was diluted by an inferior element, owing to the insufficient number

of good men. "The _personnel_ of our crews had been seriously affected

by the events of the campaign of 1779. At the beginning of 1780 it was

necessary either to disarm some ships, or to increase the proportion

of soldiers entering into the composition of the crews. The minister

adopted the latter alternative. New regiments, drawn from the land

army, were put at the disposal of the navy. The corps of officers, far

from numerous at the beginning of hostilities, had become completely

inadequate. Rear-Admiral de Guichen met the greatest difficulty in

forming the complements, both officers and crews, for his squadron. He

took the sea, February 3, with ships 'badly manned,' as he wrote to

the minister." (Chevalier: Hist. de la Marine Française, p. 184.)

"During the last war [of 1778] we had met the greatest difficulty in

supplying officers to our ships. If it had been easy to name admirals,

commodores, and captains, it had been impossible to fill the vacancies

caused by death, sickness, or promotion among officers of the rank of

lieutenant and ensign." (Chevalier: Marine Française sous la

République, p. 20.)

[245] The vital centre of English commerce is in the waters surrounding

the British Islands; and as the United Kingdom now depends largely upon

external sources of food-supply, it follows that France is the nation

most favourably situated to harass it by commerce-destroying, on

account of her nearness and her possession of ports both on the

Atlantic and the North Sea. From these issued the privateers which in

the past preyed upon English shipping. The position is stronger now

than formerly, Cherbourg presenting a good Channel port which France

lacked in the old wars. On the other hand steam and railroads have made

the ports on the northern coasts of the United Kingdom more available,

and British shipping need not, as formerly, focus about the Channel.

Much importance has been attached to the captures made during the late

summer manoeuvres (1888) by cruisers in and near the English Channel.

The United States must remember that such cruisers were near their

home ports. Their line of coal-supply may have been two hundred miles;

it would be a very different thing to maintain them in activity three

thousand miles from home. The furnishing of coal, or of such

facilities as cleaning the bottom or necessary repairs, in such a

case, would be so unfriendly to Great Britain, that it may well be

doubted if any neighboring neutral nation would allow them.

Commerce-destroying by independent cruisers depends upon wide

dissemination of force. Commerce-destroying through control of a

strategic centre by a great fleet depends upon concentration of force.

Regarded as a primary, not as a secondary, operation, the former is

condemned, the latter justified, by the experience of centuries.

INDEX.

_Alberoni_, Cardinal, minister to Philip V. of Spain, 233;

naval and general policy of, 234-236;

failure of his schemes, 238;

dismissed, 239.

_Anson_, British Admiral, expedition to the Pacific, 261;

captures a French squadron, 271.

_Arbuthnot_, British Admiral, engagement with French fleet off the

Chesapeake, 385-387.

_Armed Neutrality_, the, of the Baltic powers, 405.

_Arnold_, Benedict, treason of, 382;

expedition to James River, 385.

_Barbadoes_, strategic value of, 348, 393, 518;

ineffectual attempt of the French against, 469.

_Barrington_, British Admiral, energy of, 365;

takes Sta. Lucia and resists an attack by superior French fleet, 366;

second in command at battle of Grenada, 368;

refuses the command of the Channel fleet, 404;

a whig in politics, 500.

_Battles_, Land, Austerlitz, 24, 47;

Blenheim, 213;

Boyne, 41, 185-187;

Camden, 382, 384;

Ciudad Rodrigo, storming of, 475 (note);

Jena, 47;

Metaurus, 19, 20;

Plassey, 306;

Savannah, assault on, 376;

Yorktown, capitulation of, 390.

_Battles_, Naval (_the list of the principal naval battles,

with plans, will be found on pp. xxiii, xxiv_),

Actium, 13;

Agosta, 165;

Boscawen and De la Clue, 299;

Byng off Minorca, 286,

_plan_ 265;

Cape Passaro, 63, 237;

Chesapeake. 372-374, 389, 391;

Copenhagen, 361;

La Hougue, 189-191,

_plan_ 183;

Lepanto, 13, 50;

Lowestoft, 108;

Malaga, 110, 211, 229;

Mobile, 287, 354, 355, 361;

Navarino, 13 (note);

New Orleans, 354-356;

Nile, 10, 11, 80, 81, 358, 361, 366, 533;

Pocock and D'Aché, 307-310,

_plan_ 162;

Port Hudson, 355, 361;

Rio de Janeiro, expedition against, 230;

Rodney and Langara, 404, 500 (and note);

Schoneveldt 152;

Sta. Lucia, 366, 425, 478;

St Vincent, 11, 356, 358, 476 (note),

_plan_ 146;

Suffren and Hughes, fifth action, 463;

Trafalgar, 9, 11, 12, 23 (note), 24, 47, 85, 353, 354, 357, 438;

Vigo galleons, 207.

_Benbow_, British Admiral,

sent to West Indies, 207;

treason of his captains, 207;

killed in battle. 207.

_Bickerton_, British Admiral,

conducts a powerful convoy to the East Indies, 452;

arrived in India, 458;

activity of, 458, 520;

effects of arrival of, 459, 461.

_Blane_, Sir Gilbert, physician to British fleet, letters of, 497, 499,

500(note), 501.

_Blockade_,

of French ports by English fleets, 23 (note), 30, 210, 296, 297, 383,

387, 402 (and note), 413, 525-527, 532, 533;

of Southern coast of United States, 43, 44, 87 (note);

Napoleon forces England to, 81;

with consequent effect on American privateering, 137;

definition of efficient, 85;

dangers to United States from, 86, 87;

offensive and defensive use of, 87 (note);

declaration of the Armed Neutrality concerning, 405;

position taken off an enemy's port not necessarily a blockade in

strict sense of the word, 532.

_Boscawen_, British Admiral,

expedition to India, failure of, 277;

intercepts French ships off the St. Lawrence, 284;

takes Louisburg, 294;

disperses or destroys French fleet from Toulon, 298.

_Burgoyne_, British General,

expedition from Canada, 343;

effect of his surrender, 346.

_Bussy_, French General,

second to Dupleix in India, 305;

intrigues with nabob of Bengal, 306;

invades Orissa, 307;

again sent to India during American Revolution, 459;

delayed _en route_, 460;

reaches India, 461;

besieged in Cuddalore by the English, 462;

relieved by Suffren, 463.