CHAPTER XI.

THE ATLANTIC, 1796-1801.—THE BREST BLOCKADES.—THE FRENCH EXPEDITIONS

AGAINST IRELAND.

The decision taken by the French executive in the latter part of

1795,—after the disastrous partial encounters of Martin with Hotham

in the Mediterranean and of Villaret Joyeuse with Bridport in the

Bay of Biscay,—to discontinue sending large fleets to sea, and to

rely upon commerce-destroying, by single cruisers or small squadrons,

to reduce the strength of Great Britain, remained unchanged during

the following years, and was adopted by Bonaparte when the Consular

government, in 1799, succeeded that of the Directory. This policy was

in strict accord with the general feeling of the French nation, as well

naval officers as unprofessional men, by which the action of the navy

was ever subordinated to other military considerations, to "ulterior

objects," as the phrase commonly ran,—a feeling that could not fail to

find favor and expression in the views of the great director of armies

who ruled France during the first fourteen years of this century. It

amounted, however, simply to abandoning all attempt to control the sea.

Consequently, whenever any enterprise was undertaken which required

this to be crossed, resort was necessarily had to evasion, more or less

skilfully contrived; and success depended, not upon the reasonable

certainty conferred by command of the water, by the skilful massing

of forces, but upon a balance of chances, which might be more or less

favorable in the particular instance, but could never be regarded

as reaching the degree of security which is essential, even in the

hazardous combinations of the game of war. This formal relegation of

the navy to a wholly inferior place in the contest then raging, was

followed, under the embarrassments of the treasury, by a neglect of

the material of war, of the ships and their equipments, which left

France still at Great Britain's mercy, even when in 1797 and 1798 her

Continental enemies had been shaken off by the audacity and address of

Bonaparte.

Thrice only, therefore, during the six years in question, ending

with the Peace of Amiens in 1802, did large French fleets put to

sea; and on each occasion their success was made to depend upon the

absence of the British fleets, or upon baffling their vigilance. As

in commerce-destroying, stealth and craft, not force, were the potent

factors. Of the three efforts, two, Bonaparte's Egyptian expedition

and Bruix's escape from Brest in 1799, have been already narrated

under the head of the Mediterranean, to which they chiefly—-the former

wholly—belong. The third was the expedition against Ireland, under

the command of Hoche, to convoy which seventeen ships-of-the-line and

twenty smaller vessels sailed from Brest in the last days of 1796.

The operations in the Atlantic during this period were accordingly,

with few exceptions, reduced to the destruction of commerce, to the

harassment of the enemy's communications on the sea, and, on the part

of the British, to an observation, more or less vigilant, of the

proceedings in the enemy's naval ports, of which Brest was the most

important. From the maritime conditions of the two chief belligerents,

the character of their undertakings differed. British commerce covered

every sea and drew upon all quarters of the world; consequently French

cruisers could go in many directions upon the well known commercial

routes, with good hope of taking prizes, if not themselves captured.

British cruisers, on the other hand, could find French merchant

vessels only on their own coast, for the foreign traffic of France

in ships of her own was destroyed; but the coasting trade, carried

on in vessels generally of from thirty to a hundred tons, was large,

and in the maritime provinces took in great measure the place of

land carriage. The neutrals who maintained such foreign trade as was

left to the enemies of Great Britain, and who were often liable to

detention from some infraction, conscious or unconscious, of the rules

of international law, were naturally to be found in greatest numbers in

the neighborhood of the coasts to which they were bound. Finally, the

larger proportion of French privateers were small vessels, intended to

remain but a short time at sea and to cruise in the Channel or among

its approaches, where British shipping most abounded. For all these

reasons the British provided for the safety of their distant commerce

by concentrating it in large bodies called convoys, each under the

protection of several ships of war; while their scattered cruisers were

distributed most thickly near home,—in the English Channel, between the

south coast of Ireland and Ushant, in the waters of the bay of Biscay,

and along the coasts of Spain and Portugal. There they were constantly

at hand to repress commerce-destroying, to protect or recapture their

own merchantmen, and to reduce the coasting trade of the enemy, as well

as the ability of his merchants to carry on, under a neutral flag, the

operations no longer open to their own. The annals of the time are

consequently filled, not with naval battles, but with notes of vessels

taken and retaken; of convoys, stealing along the coast of France,

chased, harassed and driven ashore, by the omnipresent cruisers of the

enemy. Nor was it commerce alone that was thus injured. The supplying

of the naval ports, even with French products, chiefly depended upon

the coasting vessels; and embarrassment, amounting often to disability,

was constantly entailed by the unflagging industry of the hostile

ships, whose action resembled that which is told of the Spanish

guerillas, upon the convoys and communications of the French armies in

the Peninsular War.[305]

The watch over the enemy's ports, and particularly over the great and

difficult port of Brest, was not, during the earlier and longer part of

this period, maintained with the diligence nor with the force becoming

a great military undertaking, by which means alone such an effort can

be made effective in checking the combinations of an active opponent.

Some palliation for this slack service may perhaps be found in the

knowledge possessed by the admiralty of the condition of the French

fleet and of the purposes of the French government, some also in the

well-known opinions of that once active officer, Lord Howe; but even

these circumstances can hardly be considered more than a palliation for

a system essentially bad. The difficulties were certainly great, the

service unusually arduous, and it was doubtless true that the closest

watch could not claim a perfect immunity from evasion; but from what

human efforts can absolute certainty of results be predicted? and

above all, in war? The essential feature of the military problem, by

which Great Britain was confronted, was that the hostile fleets were

divided, by the necessities of their administration, among several

ports. To use these scattered divisions successfully against her mighty

sea power, it was needed to combine two or more of them in one large

body. To prevent such a combination was therefore the momentous duty of

the British fleet; and in no manner could this be so thoroughly carried

out as by a close and diligent watch before the hostile arsenals,—not

in the vain hope that no squadron could ever, by any means, slip out,

but with the reasonable probability that at no one period could so many

escape as to form a combination threatening the Empire with a crushing

disaster. Of these arsenals Brest, by its situation and development,

was the most important, and contained usually the largest and most

efficient of the masses into which the enemies' fleets were divided.

The watch over it, therefore, was of supreme consequence; and in the

most serious naval crisis of the Napoleonic wars the Brest "blockading"

fleet, as it was loosely but inaccurately styled, by the firmness

of its grip broke up completely one of the greatest of Napoleon's

combinations. To it, and to its admiral, Cornwallis, was in large

measure due that the vast schemes which should have culminated in the

invasion of England, by one hundred and fifty thousand of the soldiers

who fought at Austerlitz and Jena, terminated instead in the disaster

of Trafalgar. Yet it may be said that had there prevailed in 1805

the system with which the names of Howe and Bridport are identified,

and which was countenanced by the Admiralty until the stern Earl St.

Vincent took command, the chances are the French Brest fleet would have

taken its place in the great strategic plan of the Emperor.

This far-reaching combination, so tremendous in its risks and in its

issues that men have doubted, and always will doubt, whether Napoleon

seriously meant to carry it through, was but the supreme example of

the dangers to which Great Britain was exposed, and from which her

fleets had to shield her. It was aimed, with the true insight of

genius, directly at her heart; and except from occasional assertions

of the emperor, whose words can never be implicitly believed, there is

really little cause for doubt that he was prepared to take many chances

of ruin in order to execute an enterprise which, both in conception

and details, was so clearly stamped with the characteristics of his

intellect and temperament. But the widely scattered dominions of Great

Britain offered many points, besides the British islands themselves,

to the blows of an enemy; and her navy had to protect not merely the

heart but the extremities, each and all of which were threatened,

in proportion to their value and their means of resistance, when a

hostile squadron was loose upon the sea. How, then, should this service

be performed? By dividing the fleet among the points threatened,

and establishing the line of defence close before the region to be

defended? Not so should the true maxim, that the British navy was

the first line of defence, have been interpreted. As in all military

campaigns, the front of operations of a powerful fleet should be pushed

as far towards the enemy as is consistent with the mutual support of

the various detachments, and with secure communication with their base.

By so doing, not only are the great national interests placed more

remote from the alarms of war, but the use of the region behind the

front of operations, in this case the sea, is secured to the power that

can afford to maintain its fighting line close to the enemy's positions.

Not merely to check great combinations threatening great disasters,

but to protect as far as possible minor but important interests, and

for the security of commerce itself, the true station for the British

fleets, superior in temper if not in numbers to the enemy, was before

the hostile ports and as close to them as might be. There, though their

function was defensive, as in the last analysis that of the British

Empire also was, they were ever ready, did opportunity offer, to

assume the offensive. "Every opportunity will be given to the Toulon

squadron to put to sea," wrote Nelson, "for it is on the sea that we

hope to realize the expectations of our country,"—a hope which it was

given him to fulfil at Trafalgar, where the greater designs of Napoleon

were forever crushed. This hope of Nelson's was, however, based upon

a close watch of his port, to establish which by constant cruising

before it he avowed his purpose;[306] and the enforced abandonment of

this plan, from the crazy condition of several of his ships, was the

first cause of the perplexities which pursued him through the campaign.

Did an enemy's division escape, as from Toulon and at other times, the

general policy was not invalidated by such occasional failure. The

first line of defence had been pierced at a single point; there still

remained the other lines, the fortified ports and the soldiers behind

them, or, in a maritime region like the West Indies, a detachment of

ships more or less adequate to contest the ground until re-enforced.

A wisely co-ordinated system of defence does not contemplate that

every point is to hold out indefinitely, but only for such time as

may be necessary for it to receive the support which the other parts

of the whole are intended to supply. That the navy is the first line

of defence, both in order and in importance, by no means implies

that there is or should be no other. This forced and extravagant

interpretation, for which naval officers have been largely responsible,

of the true opinion that a navy is the best protection for a sea

frontier, has very much to do with that faulty strategy which would tie

the fleet, whatever its power, to the home ports, and disseminate it

among them. Navies do not dispense with fortifications nor with armies;

but when wisely handled, they may save their country the strain which

comes when these have to be called into play,—when war, once remote,

now thunders at the gates, and the sea, the mother of prosperity, is

shut off. This kindly office did British seamen for Great Britain in

the days of Napoleon, and mainly through those close blockades of which

St. Vincent set the pattern before Toulon in the Mediterranean,[307]

and afterwards before Brest, when he took command of the Channel fleet.

The port of Brest, regarded as the principal hostile arsenal round

which must centre the operations of a great part of the British navy,

has to be considered under two sets of conditions: 1st, as to its

position, relatively to the British bases of operations and to points

of British territory open to attack; 2d, as to its own immediate

surroundings, how far they facilitated the action of the French navy,

and what dispositions of the British fleet were necessary in order

best to impede that action. The former question is strategic in its

character, the latter tactical.

[Illustration: Brest and Its Approaches.]

At the end of the peninsula which forms the north-western extremity of

France, there is a deep recess in the land, between two capes which

lie nearly in the same north and south line, and are called Pointe St.

Mathieu and Pointe du Raz. The former is the more northerly, and the

distance separating the two is seventeen miles. A promontory making

out from the bottom of the recess divides it into two bays of unequal

dimensions, of which the southern is known as the Bay of Douarnenez

and the northern as that of Brest. The entrance to the former is five

miles wide and unobstructed, so that only partial shelter is obtained;

it gives, however, a safe though rough anchorage, even in westerly

gales. The Bay of Brest, of smaller surface, is entered by a passage

three miles long and only one wide, called the Goulet. With such an

approach, and further favored by the configuration of the surrounding

land, perfect security is found there, as well as facility for carrying

on the work of a fleet, when it would be impossible at the more exposed

anchorage of Douarnenez. From the Goulet to Pointe St. Mathieu the

distance is seven miles; and immediately outside the former are two

open roadsteads, Bertheaume to the north and Camaret to the south,

frequently occupied by French ships prior to a final start on an

expedition, or when waiting for a wind.

Had these features constituted the whole of the hydrographic

surroundings of Brest Harbor, the task of a British admiral would

have been simpler. A singular combination of dangers conspired to

force him, even in favorable weather, to a station much further from

the coast, and at the same time tended to facilitate the exit of the

French. From both Pointe St. Mathieu and Pointe du Raz a strip of foul

ground, comparatively narrow, extends for fifteen miles directly out

to sea. That from St. Mathieu trends west-north-west and terminates

in the island of Ushant;[308] while from Pointe du Raz a succession

of reefs, shoals, and low islands, the whole known as the Chaussée de

Sein, stretches nearly due west to a point due south of Ushant and

distant from it twenty-two miles. Between these two long, low barriers

lay the principal approach to Brest, the Iroise Channel,—fifteen miles

long and of a width varying from seventeen to twenty-two, nearly double

that of the Straits of Gibraltar,—in which it was not possible to

maintain a body of heavy vessels, particularly the three-decked ships,

of ninety guns and over, which formed a large fraction of the Channel

fleet and were singularly wanting in weatherly qualities. Their short,

high hulls and heavy top-hamper caused them to drift rapidly in bad

weather; and they needed plenty of open sea to leeward for this reason,

and also that they might run before the wind, if too violent. To try

to keep these formidable but unhandy vessels in the Iroise during the

heavy westerly gales which prevail in the Bay of Biscay,[309] with no

refuge from the sea save the enemy's port under their lee, was to court

destruction.

To keep the English Channel open in case of very heavy weather was

therefore essential to the British fleet. The Island of Ushant, as

favoring this object and also as a conspicuous, easily recognized

off-shore position, became the strategic centre around which the

movements of the main body of the fleet revolved, and to which all

dispositions made to ensure the watching of Brest must have regard, as

to their natural point of reference.

Given the superiority of force which the British navy usually

possessed, a superiority none too great to bear the tremendous strain

imposed by the dangerous weather and coasts it had to encounter, the

supreme strategic factor was the wind. Brest is farther west than any

English Channel port except Falmouth, which is on the meridian of

Ushant. Falmouth, however, did not stand well as a port in the general

naval opinion of the day, though it had warm advocates;[310] and it

was undoubtedly wanting in room for a number of heavy ships to anchor

together. East of Falmouth there were available the anchorages of

Plymouth, Torbay, and Spithead, distant from Ushant respectively 120,

135, and 210 miles, Falmouth being only 100; but with the exception

of Spithead, they were not secure in all winds. Plymouth Sound was

exposed to the point of danger in south-west gales. Torbay, though safe

in westerly weather, was at times dangerous, as well as difficult to

leave, in the south-easterly storms, which were, however, exceptional.

Spithead was secure, and was moreover the roadstead of a great naval

arsenal, as was also Plymouth Sound; but its distance, a hundred miles

east of Torbay, with the wind prevailing three-fourths of the time from

the westward, should have been considered an insuperable strategic

objection to sailing ships destined to watch Brest, and especially to

fleets. A sailing ship of fair qualities, proceeding against a dead

head wind, makes good only one third of the distance she actually

sails. With such a wind a port one hundred miles distant is actually

three hundred, and with fleets progress is even slower. To this was

added at Spithead a difficulty seemingly trivial, yet so insuperable

as to be humiliating. With a south-east wind, favorable to go down

Channel, three-decked ships could not get from the anchorage to St.

Helen's (the outer roads only three miles distant), whence they could

sail with a fair wind.

The whole theory of the blockade of Brest rested on the fact that the

French fleet could not sail in such westerly weather as forced the

British to take refuge in port,[311] and upon the expectation that the

latter by diligence could regain their station with the first of the

east wind, in time to prevent the enemy's escape. This expectation

depended upon the greater rapidity of the British movements and

consequently upon the distance of the point of refuge. For this reason

Spithead was singularly unfit to be the rendezvous of the fleet; yet it

was chosen and maintained by both Howe and Bridport during the seven

years of their consecutive commands. To this they added the practice of

keeping the main body of the fleet in port during the winter months.

The Admiralty, doubtless, was ultimately responsible; but, even with

the sharp lessons of the Irish expedition and Bruix's escape, it needed

the advent of an admiral of St. Vincent's sagacity and temper to insure

the adoption of a more rational and vigorous system. In his words

to the second in command,—when the wild winter weather and his own

declining years compelled him to withdraw from the flag-ship,—"You are

on _no_ account to authorize any ships to go to Spithead, unless you

receive special orders from the Admiralty or from me,"[312] is summed

up the simple, yet fundamental, difference between his policy and that

of his predecessors. All his other careful arrangements to expedite

the refitting of ships, and prolong their stay on the station, are but

detailed instances of the same effort to save time, to keep his fleet

concentrated at the decisive point, and in the largest mass possible.

After Howe finally retired from the command, Bridport established his

headquarters at Spithead, where during the winter and early spring the

main body of the fleet was commonly assembled. The commander-in-chief

seems himself to have lived ashore, being in April, 1796, created

general port-admiral with liberal appointments. Squadrons of seven or

eight ships-of-the-line, about a fourth of the total force, cruised

to the westward of Ushant, "in the soundings," during the winter, for

periods of two or three months, returning to Spithead when relieved.

Thus was practically realized Lord Howe's policy, to economize the

ships and depend upon vessels kept in good order by staying in port to

follow the French, when information of their sailing was received. This

also was the general plan at the time of the French expedition against

Ireland in the winter of 1796-1797.

The widespread discontent in Ireland, especially in the Protestant

North, was well known to the Directory, with which, through the French

minister at Hamburg, Irish agents had been in communication as early

as April, 1796. Another, the somewhat celebrated Wolfe Tone, had in the

first months of the year arrived in Paris from the United States with a

similar mission. To their efforts was added the powerful influence of

General Hoche, who had in other fields of action shown military ability

of the highest order; and who, having established his claims upon the

gratitude of his country by the pacification of La Vendée and Brittany,

was now in command of the army in that quarter. In all directions

circumstances seemed favorable. Bonaparte was in the midst of his great

Italian successes; and the reverses inflicted upon Jourdan and Moreau

in Germany by the Archduke Charles were neutralized, for the winter

at least, by the necessity of drawing upon his troops to renew the

Austrian armies in Italy. Spain had declared war against Great Britain;

and there were hopes, destined to be frustrated by the lethargy of her

movements and by the battle of Cape St. Vincent, that the Spanish fleet

could be made to combine with the French for the purposed invasion. The

mission of Lord Malmesbury, although the British government held its

head high, seemed to indicate failing confidence; and the British navy,

however successful in seizing the colonial possessions of its enemies

in all parts of the world, had been unable, through the retirement of

the French fleets from the sea, to win any of those brilliant victories

which restore the courage of nations. St. Vincent, Camperdown, and the

Nile were still in the future.

The proposed invasion was consequently resolved. It depended avowedly

upon the co-operation of the disaffected inhabitants; but Hoche did

not make the mistake of trusting to them for the most serious part of

the work. No less than twenty thousand troops were to be embarked; and

as the general recognized that the difficulties would by no means be

over when Ireland was reached,—that the British navy, if successfully

eluded by the expedition, would nevertheless seriously interfere

with subsequent supplies,—he insisted upon carrying with him as much

of these, and consequently as many ships, as could be had in Brest.

Efforts were made to increase the force in that port. Five ships under

Admiral Villeneuve were ordered round from Toulon;[313] Richery's

squadron was expected from North America,[314] and the Spaniards were

also called upon. These efforts, however, only caused delay, and

contributed but two of Richery's ships to swell the expedition, the

others being found too shaken to be sent at once to sea. Villeneuve did

not arrive in time, and the Spaniards remained in the Mediterranean.

The number of seamen at the disposal of the government was limited,

owing to many causes; among which the principal were discontent with

the navy, and the superior attractions of privateering, which had led

not merely to their choosing that service, but also to many being

captured at sea and so lost to their country. This deficiency imposed

a proportionate limit to the number of ships that could be fitted.

There was a dearth likewise of good watch officers. Besides these

controlling circumstances, there were also some manifest advantages in

reducing to the smallest numbers the vessels composing an expedition,

which was to avoid action, to make a short passage at the stormiest

season of the year, and which it was all important should keep united

and arrive together. For these reasons it was decided that the troops

should be embarked on the ships-of-war to their fullest capacity. Each

ship-of-the-line carried six hundred soldiers, making with her crew

a ship's company of thirteen hundred souls. The frigates received

about two hundred and fifty each. Although in this particular instance

the arguments in favor of transporting the army in the ships-of-war

outweighed those against, there is always a grave disadvantage to the

handling and fighting of vessels encumbered by so many useless and

generally sea-sick men.

Never, however, was a great expedition, destined to encounter

extraordinary risks and to brave one of the stormiest of seas,

more favored than this at the first was by the elements and by the

mismanagement of its enemies. For nearly six weeks before it sailed the

winds prevailed from the east; and during the passage, in mid-winter,

fine weather with favorable winds lasted until the bulk of the fleet

reached the Irish coast. Nor was an enemy's vessel met, to take

advantage of the crowded and inefficient condition of the French ships.

Like Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt, though from other causes, Hoche's

ships passed to their destination unseen by any foe powerful enough to

molest. To the enfeebled state of the French navy, to the decay of its

material, to the want of seamen, to the disappearance of the trained

officers, and to the consequent disinclination of the superiors to

undertake the expedition, is to be attributed the failure of an attempt

in which their sympathies had never been enlisted. Hoche, who had

supreme command of both army and navy,[315] found by bitter experience

the delays which incompetent or ill-affected subordinates can impose,

especially in a branch of service of which the commander-in-chief

has not particular knowledge. Villaret Joyeuse, first appointed to

command the fleet, being keenly aware of its defects, was averse from

an enterprise which, in all reasonable probability, would lead to a

meeting at once with the British and with excessively bad weather. He

wished, as did also Truguet, the Minister of Marine, to take a heavy

squadron of eight ships to India; whereby, if the first encounter with

the enemy were evaded, a long passage with much good weather would

permit the crews to be trained, while in the Indian seas they would be

superior in force to their opponents. Truguet, however, harmonized this

object with the proposed expedition by purposing to send the ships to

India after their return from Ireland; while Villaret, who had spent

in the ports the years which the minister had passed in Paris, and

knew intimately the deplorable state of both men and ships, had little

hope of the latter coming back in any state to undertake his favorite

project.

The hardly concealed bias of the admiral, and the apathy of the

naval officers generally, inspired Hoche with doubts of Villaret's

faithfulness to his task; and upon his urgent remonstrance Morard de

Galles, who fifteen years before had been like Villaret among the

bravest captains of the great Suffren, succeeded to the command. The

new admiral brought to his duty the submissive devotion of a military

man, and had not, as Villaret had, any counter-project of his own; but

the radical defects of an organization, vitiated by years of neglect

and false standards, could not be overcome by a man already advanced

in years in the few short days of hurried preparation. Such as the

French navy had become, through the loss of its heads and the vagaries

of the legislature, such it sailed on the expedition to Ireland. "God

keep me from having anything to do with the navy!" wrote Hoche. "What

an extravagant compound! A great body whose parts are disunited and

incoherent; contradictions of all kinds, indiscipline organized in a

military body. Add to that, haughty ignorance and foolish vanity, and

you have the picture filled out. Poor Morard de Galles! he has already

aged twenty years; how I pity him!"[316]

The administrative difficulties, caused by poverty of resources,

conspired with the non-arrival of Richery and Villeneuve to delay the

expedition. Fixed first for the early autumn and then for the first of

November, it was not able to sail till the middle of December. Richery

had reached the anchorage of Île d'Aix[317] on the 5th of November with

five ships-of-the-line; but not till the 8th of the following month

could his vessels, racked by their long cruise, sail for Brest. On the

11th they entered the port, where upon examination two only of them

were found fit for the Irish voyage; and the wait for these entailed a

delay which had a singular effect upon the fortunes of the undertaking.

On the 15th of December the whole body of ships, except Richery's two,

got under way, stood through the Goulet, and anchored that evening in

Bertheaume and Camaret roads, ready for a start,—the wind still fair as

fair could be, at east. The British, under the lax and cautious system

pursued by Bridport and his lieutenants, had then no ships-of-the-line

close up to the port, but only two or three frigates, and these Morard

de Galles drove off with a small detached squadron, hoping thus to

deprive the enemy of precise knowledge of his movements. Sir Edward

Pellew, the senior officer of the frigates, sent one of them, the

"Phœbe," to Admiral Colpoys, commanding the division of Bridport's

fleet then cruising; which, in consequence of the preparations known to

be going on in Brest, had been increased to fifteen sail-of-the-line,

double the usual winter squadron. Contrary to Lord St. Vincent's sound

maxim, "Well up with Ushant in an easterly wind," Colpoys's rendezvous

was about eight leagues to the west of the island, and thither

the frigate went to seek him; but his force, composed largely of

three-deckers, having let go the shelter of the land, had been driven

farther still to leeward, and being nearly fifty miles from Ushant was

not found by the "Phœbe" till the 19th, three days after the French

finally sailed.

Pellew, one of the most active frigate captains of the time, retired

but a short distance from his pursuers, and next day, the 16th, again

stood in for the French anchorage with his own ship,—well named the

"Indefatigable,"—and the "Révolutionnaire." At noon the enemy were

again sighted, and not long after, Pellew's vigilance was rewarded

by seeing them get under way. Richery's two ships, "Pégase" and

"Révolution," came through the Goulet towards noon, and all the

expedition began at once to lift their anchors between two and three P.

M. of the short winter day. Dispatching the "Révolutionnaire" to the

admiral, Pellew himself remained to watch the course taken by the enemy.

The imperative need of the French being to escape meeting the British,

and to reach Ireland with force undiminished either by capture or

straggling, Morard de Galles' first object was to avoid Colpoys's

fleet. This was known to be in the direction of Ushant, having been

seen on more than one occasion from the island, and by Richery when

entering Brest. If the departure were unperceived, the uncertainty

of the enemy as to the destination might be counted on to favor the

further movements of the expedition. The French admiral therefore

determined to use the advantage, inestimable to a naval port, which

Brest possesses in a double entrance. Between the Pointe du Raz and the

Chaussée de Sein[318] there is a channel known as the Passage du Raz.

It is narrow, being less than three miles wide in one part, and is sown

with dangers, formidable above all in the night season, during which

it must be passed if the enemy were to be kept in ignorance; but with

a fair wind and good pilots the thing could be done. Morard de Galles

therefore gave the order to the fleet to head, upon getting under way,

for the Passage du Raz, and informed the captains that, after clearing

it, he intended to steer west for one hundred miles. Having provided

for keeping the fleet together so far, each commanding officer was also

given a sealed packet, directing him what to do in case of separation.

It may be said here that these packets,—which were not to be opened

unless in case of parting company,—directed to make Cape Mizen Head

on the south coast of Ireland, near the entrance of Bantry Bay, the

anchorage whence the landing was to be made. There the separated

vessels were to cruise five days, waiting for orders.

At three o'clock the whole fleet was under sail, the sun was sinking

fast, the weather gloomy and squally; and the vessels, unable to form

from the inexperience of their officers, were running disorderly for

the dangerous pass, the entrance to which, being fifteen miles from

the anchorage they were leaving, could not be reached before dark. The

flag-officers, except Richery, had quitted their own ships-of-the-line

and gone aboard frigates, the two commanders, Hoche and Morard de

Galles, being together on board the "Fraternité." As night fell,

the wind hauled to the southward, threatening to become foul, under

which conditions the passage of the Raz would be impossible. Moved

by the danger, and considering that Colpoys was not within sight,

the admiral by signal countermanded his order, and directed the

fleet to put before the wind and run out by the Iroise channel. In

the confusion and growing darkness this order was not understood.

Morard's own ship and half a dozen more, one only of which was of the

line, obeyed; but all the others continued for the Passage du Raz.

Thus, at the very moment of starting, the two principal officers were

separated from their command. In vain did Morard send a corvette to

enforce his order by voice or by signal,—she was not understood; and

the confusion was increased by Pellew, who, attaching himself to the

leading ships, kept on with them through the Iroise, and by burning

rockets and blue lights, and firing guns, rendered utterly incoherent

the attempts of the French admiral to convey by similar means his

meaning to his fleet.[319] In the midst of the turmoil the "Séduisant,"

of seventy-four guns, ran on a rock which lies across the entrance to

the passage, and was totally wrecked, her guns and signals of distress

adding to the uproar.[320] At half-past eight, the "Indefatigable"

saw the ships with which she had kept company pass round the outer

end of the Chaussée de Sein and steer to the southward, with the

hope, doubtless, of rejoining their consorts. Pellew then made sail

for Falmouth, where he arrived on the 20th of December. Had this port

then been the rendezvous of the Channel fleet, or even of a strong

detachment, there would still have been time, for the French did not

reach Bantry Bay till the 22d; the wind was east, and the distance but

two hundred and fifty miles.

On the morning of the 17th of December, the French were divided

into three bodies out of sight of each other. With the two

commanders-in-chief were one ship-of-the-line and three frigates.

Rear-Admiral Bouvet, the second in command, had with him eight

ships-of-the-line and nine other vessels. In accordance with his

orders he continued to steer west during the 17th and 18th. On the

19th, having opened his sealed instructions and reached the longitude

of Mizen Head, he changed the course to north, and the same day was

joined by the third section of the expedition, thus concentrating under

his command fifteen ships-of-the-line, and, with three unimportant

exceptions, all the other vessels except those with Hoche and Morard.

Grouchy, second to Hoche, was with Bouvet; so that the admiral now had

with him practically the whole body of the expedition. Unfortunately

the soul, the young, gallant, and skilful Hoche, the emulous rival of

Bonaparte's growing glory, who saw in the Irish expedition the great

hope of restoring the brilliancy of his own star, paling before that of

his competitor,—Hoche was absent.

With a brief exception of southwesterly weather, the wind continued

from the eastward during the whole of Bouvet's passage; and

notwithstanding a good deal of fog, at times very dense,[321] all those

who were with him on the 19th—thirty-five out of the forty-three

which composed the expedition—found themselves on the early morning

of December 21st together, and in full sight of the Irish coast. "It

is most delicious weather," wrote the eager, restless Irishman, Wolfe

Tone, who was on board one of the ships, "with a favorable wind and

everything we can desire, except our missing comrades. At the moment

I am writing we are under easy sail, within three leagues at most of

the coast, so that I can discern patches of snow upon the mountains.

What if the general do not join? If we cruise here five days according

to our instructions, the English will be upon us and all will be over.

_Nine o'clock_ (P. M.). We are now at the rendezvous appointed; stood

in for the coast till twelve (noon), when we were near enough to toss

a biscuit ashore. At twelve tacked and stood out again, so we have now

begun our cruise of five days in all its forms.... We opened Bantry

Bay; and in all my life rage never entered so deep into my heart

as when we turned our backs. Continue making short tacks; the wind

foul."[322]

The wind was now foul, not because of its own change, but because

from the entrance of Bantry Bay to its head the direction is

east-north-east. The wind that had been favorable for leaving Brest

and for the passage was for the short remaining distance, not over

thirty miles at the most, nearly dead ahead. Unfortunately, also, in

sailing north along the meridian of Bantry Bay, the east wind had set

the fleet imperceptibly to the westward, so that the land first seen

was not Mizen Head, at the eastern side of the entrance, but Dursey

Island, at the western.[323] Had the intended landfall been made, the

ships might, by hauling close round Mizen Head, have fetched a point

at least twelve miles inside of Dursey Island and there anchored. Now

that fortune ceased to waft them with favoring gales, the weaknesses

of the expedition became painfully apparent. Crews composed mainly of

landsmen, with a very small sprinkling of able seamen, crowded and

impeded at every turn by the swarming mass of soldiery, were ill able

to do the rapid handling of ropes and canvas necessitated by a dead

beat of thirty miles, against a strong head wind in a narrow bay, where

every rod lost tells, and requires three or four rods of sailing to

be regained; where sails must be reefed or hoisted, set or furled,

at a moment's notice, and the canvas spread varies from half-hour to

half-hour. Such a tug tasks the skill, as it proclaims the excellence,

of the smartest single ship, though she find the channel clear of other

vessels; but to a fleet of thirty-five, manned and equipped as those

of Bouvet, and compelled to give way continually as they crossed each

other's paths, it proved impossible to reach the head of Bantry Bay,

where shelter would have been found from the east winds, which for the

following week blew with relentless fury.

Through the night of the 21st and all day of the 22d, the fleet

continued turning to windward; and toward nightfall the admiral

anchored with eight of-the-line and seven other vessels off Bear

Island, still twelve miles from the head of the bay. The other twenty

ships remained outside under way. All the 23d it blew hard from the

eastward, and nothing was done. On the 24th the weather moderated,

and it was decided to attempt a landing, although no more ships had

come in,—the twenty outside having been blown to sea. Those at the

anchorage got under way, but made no progress. "I believe," wrote the

exasperated Wolfe Tone, "that we have made three hundred tacks, and

have not gained a hundred yards in a straight line." At sunset the

division again anchored; and during the night the wind rose to a gale,

which continued all the 25th and prevented any boat work. Several

ships dragged, and some cables parted. Soon after nightfall the cable

of Bouvet's flag-ship gave way, and the "Immortalité" began to drive

upon Bear Island. A second anchor failing to hold her, the admiral cut

both cables and put to sea, signalling the other vessels to do likewise

and hailing to the same effect those near whom he passed, among others

the ship on board which Wolfe Tone was. This, however, held on—her

captain becoming the senior naval officer present—till the 27th.

The wind then falling, a council of war was held, and decided that

as there were but four thousand soldiers in the bay, and as neither

cannon, ammunition nor provisions necessary for the landing remained

at the anchorage, the attempt must be abandoned. The wind now changing

to south-west and threatening a storm, this little division, reduced

to six ships-of-the-line and four smaller vessels, sailed for Brest,

where they arrived on the 12th of January. Rear-Admiral Bouvet had long

preceded them, having reached Brest on the 1st of the month.[324] By

the 14th, four weeks and a day after sailing from Brest, thirty-five

of the expedition had returned safe, though greatly battered, to

French ports, after various adventures not necessary to relate. Five,

including the "Séduisant," wrecked on the night of sailing, had been

lost or destroyed by their officers, and six captured[325] by the

British.

The one still to be accounted for closed dramatically the adventure,

which, having begun by the wreck of one ship-of-the-line, ended with

the yet more deplorable destruction of another. This, called by the

good revolutionary name "Droits de l'Homme," had clung tenaciously

to the Irish coast till January 5th; but, finding herself alone and

no hope remaining, started then to return to Brest. On the 13th she

fell in with two British frigates, one the "Indefatigable," Pellew's

ship. The two closed with her, and just before nightfall the French

vessel carried away her fore and main topmasts. The wind was blowing

hard from the westward, and her captain, fearing momentarily to meet

enemy's ships of greater force and numbers, decided to run steadily

for his own coast. At half-past five the "Indefatigable," whose sail

power was untouched, drew up, and the battle began. An hour later her

consort, the "Amazon," came within range. Through the long night, with

a few intermissions at the choice of the uncrippled British frigates,

the strife went on,—the embarrassed condition of the "Droits de

l'Homme" being increased by the fall of her mizzen mast at half-past

ten. The sea was running so high that the crews of the frigates fought

up to their middles in water, while the ship-of-the-line could not

use her lower tier of guns; and at the end the "Indefatigable," the

sole survivor of the conflict, had four feet of water in her hold. At

half-past four on the morning of the 14th, land, for which a lookout

had been anxiously kept, was suddenly seen. The two British ships

were then holding positions a little ahead, and on either bow, of the

"Droits de l'Homme." Each hauled to the wind on its own side of the

enemy; the "Indefatigable" to the south, the "Amazon" to the north. All

three were embayed in Audierne Bay, an unsheltered beach thirty-five

miles south of Brest, between Pointe du Raz and the Penmarck rocks. By

strenuous efforts the "Indefatigable," after wearing twice, cleared

the latter by three quarters of a mile. As she passed them in broad

daylight, the "Droits de l'Homme" lay on her side at the bottom of

the bay, the surf beating over her. The "Amazon," whose situation

had allowed too little time for skill to play, was also aground two

miles to the northward. Here, however, the resemblance ceased. The

trained and disciplined British crew got safe to land. The unfortunate

French ship, crowded to repletion with men for the most part wholly

unaccustomed to the sea, had had the further misfortune to take the

bottom on a bank at a great distance from the beach. Three days of

awful exposure, without food or water, followed. Not till the 17th did

the subsidence of the gale allow relief from shore, and only on the

18th did the last survivor quit the wreck. Out of thirteen hundred men

on board her when the battle began, two hundred and sixty were killed

and wounded, and two hundred and seventeen lost their lives through the

wreck.

The singular circumstance that, despite the first separation of the

fleet on the night of sailing, the disconnected units were yet for the

most part brought together and together reached the coast of Ireland,

and yet that from this happy meeting the most important vessel of

all, carrying the two commanders-in-chief, was excepted, creates a

legitimate curiosity as to the movements of the "Fraternité" during

these critical days. On the 17th, this ship had with her two frigates

and one ship-of-the-line,—the "Nestor." On the 20th the other frigates

had disappeared, the "Nestor" alone remaining; but it was found,

from subsequent examination of the logs, that had the fog which then

covered the ocean lifted, the "Fraternité" would have been in sight

of the main body, which then, under Bouvet, was steering north to

make Mizen Head. That night the "Nestor" parted company. On the 24th

of December the "Fraternité" was pursuing her course for Bantry Bay,

where the main body had already arrived, when a ship resembling a

ship-of-the-line was seen. As the stranger did not reply to the signals

made, the "Fraternité" took flight to the westward, and, finding

herself outsailed, threw overboard some of her guns. During the night

the pursuer was thrown off, and the frigate again shaped her course

for Bantry Bay; but the same easterly gale which drove Bouvet from

the anchorage was now blowing in her teeth. On the 29th Hoche and

Morard fell in with the first of the expedition they had seen since

the "Nestor" left them, and a sad meeting it was. One, the "Scevola,"

was sinking; the other, the "Révolution," which had been badly injured

by a collision in Bantry Bay, was saving the "Scevola's" crew. In the

dangerous condition of the "Révolution," now having twenty-two hundred

souls on board, with provisions for but eight days, and having learned

the dispersal of the vessels in Bantry Bay, Hoche and Morard determined

to return. The two ships reached Rochefort on the 13th of January.

Whether Hoche, with his military ardor, the high prestige of his fame,

and the intense personal interest felt by him in the success of the

expedition, could have triumphed over the material obstacles which

defeated the lukewarm energies of Bouvet, may be questioned; but it was

certainly an extraordinary circumstance that, of the whole large body

of ships, the one containing the two commanders was almost alone in her

failure to reach the Irish coast.

From the preceding account, it is evident that the success or failure

of the French landing depended entirely upon their ability to make the

thirty miles intervening between the entrance and the head of Bantry

Bay. Whatever may be thought of their prospects of ultimate success in

the conquest or deliverance of Ireland,—a matter of pure speculation,

dependent upon many conditions rather political and economical than

military,—it cannot be questioned that they had succeeded in crossing

the sea and reaching almost their point of destination, not only

despite the British navy but without even seeing it. On December 21st

the bulk of the expedition was at the mouth of Bantry Bay. Not till the

22d did Colpoys, commanding the fleet watching, or rather detailed to

watch, off Brest, know they had actually sailed; and then he did not

know in what direction. Bridport at Portsmouth received the news on

the same, or possibly on the previous day, through Pellew's diligence

and forethought. Not till the 31st of December was it known in London

that the enemy had actually appeared off the Irish coast, and at that

time Bridport's fleet had not even sailed. Only continued bad weather,

and that ahead, prevented the landing which even Bouvet would not have

hesitated to make under better conditions. Had no other harm resulted,

the capture of Cork, only forty-five miles distant, was certain. "We

propose to make a race for Cork as though the devil were in us," wrote

Wolfe Tone in his journal; and how severe the blow would have been may

be imagined, for in that place were collected stores and supplies to

the value of a million and a half sterling, including the provisions

for feeding the navy during the next year. Ireland was then the great

source from which naval provisions were drawn.

Such a failure on the part of the British navy, with its largely

superior forces, can scarcely be called less than ignominious, and

invites now, as it did then, an examination into the causes. The

outcry raised at the time by panic and disappointment has long ceased;

but the incident affords a fruitful field for study, as to how far

the disposition of the Channel fleet conformed to a reasonable

interpretation of the principles of war, as applied to the sea.

It must be obvious to any one stopping to think, that, for a fleet

charged with thwarting the combinations of an enemy's navy, there

can be no point so well adapted as one immediately before the port

from which the greatest fraction must sail. Once away, to an unknown

destination, the position to be taken becomes a matter of surmise, of

guess, which may be dignified by the name of sagacity if the guess

prove right, but which should not be allowed to cover the original

fault of disposition, if it could have been avoided. To multiply

instances would be tedious; but reference may be made to two detailed

elsewhere in this work, viz: Bridport, upon the escape of Bruix in

1799,[326] and Nelson after the escape of Villeneuve in 1805,[327]

though in the latter case the admiral's reasons for not cruising

before Toulon were not only adequate, but imperative.

A similar perplexity existed in the closing months of 1796. The

government and the admiral of the Channel fleet knew that a large

expedition was preparing in Brest, and they had reason to fear the

co-operation with it of the Spaniards. Opinion was somewhat divided

as to the objective; according to reports industriously circulated by

the French government, it might be Portugal the ally, Gibraltar the

outpost, or Ireland the dependency, of Great Britain. One thing only

was certain, that the surest and largest component of the undertaking

was in Brest. There soldiers were gathering, and there also arms were

being shipped largely in excess of the troops,[328] pointing to a hope

of co-operation by inhabitants at the point of landing. Such conditions

dictated certainly three things: 1, a force before Brest superior to

that of the enemy inside; 2, inasmuch as the heavier ships must keep

the channel open, against the danger of violent westerly gales, there

should be an advance squadron of handier vessels close in with the

port, powerful enough to hold its ground if the enemy came out and

to keep touch with him if he sailed; 3, since Ireland was by far the

most important of the interests threatened, the government should have

indicated it to the admiral as the point to be covered, in case he did

lose knowledge of the hostile fleet. The first of these provisions sums

up the main strategic requirement, to effect which all other strategic

dispositions should conduce. The second is tactical in character,

relating to the disposition of the force upon the ground to which

strategic considerations assign it. The third presents the alternative,

the second line of defence, upon which, in case the first is forced,

the defending fleet falls back.

Colpoys's fleet of fifteen sail was certainly not superior to the

French. It might be considered adequate to frustrate the expedition,

if met, but not sufficient to inflict the crushing blow that the

policy and needs of Great Britain imperatively demanded. Moreover,

a military body is not an inanimate object, like a rock, which once

placed abides unchanged for years. It is rather a living organism,

depending on daily nourishment, subject to constant waste, and needing

constant renewal. If to station a competent force before Brest met the

chief strategic requirement, its maintenance there embraced a number

of subordinate strategic provisions, which in terms of land warfare

are called communications. Ships meet with accidents; they degenerate

by wear and tear; they consume water and provisions, their crews

diminish by illness and need rest by occasional returns to port. These

communications were not threatened by the French; but they were open

to injury by insufficient forethought and by excessive distance, and

from both they suffered. A division like Colpoys's may be renewed in

two ways. Either it may be relieved by a body of similar number and go

home; or it may be continually receiving fresh ships and continually

sending old ones to the rear for rest. It need scarcely be said that

the latter is by far the better, preserving a continuity of life and

administration which the former breaks. Not only so; but the other

system presupposes a squadron in port equal to that cruising, a

reserve equal to the body in the field,—a fantastic proportion, which

sacrifices every principle of warfare, and divides the available force

into two masses, which do not even pretend to support but merely to

replace each other.

A fleet charged with duty like that before Brest needs to be fixed at

the highest number the resources of the nation can supply and supported

by a reserve so proportioned that, by a constant coming and going, no

ship at the front should ever be suffering from an exhaustion, either

of condition or of supplies, against which diligent human forethought

could have provided. The station of this reserve is obviously a matter

of the utmost importance. It should, of course, be as near as possible

to the main body, and, for sailing ships, favorably situated with

reference to prevailing winds; for a head wind meant not merely the

loss of time caused by itself, but often the loss of an opportunity

which passes with the time. Thus, on this very occasion, when the wind

blew fresh from the eastward, fair to go from Portsmouth to Ireland,

Bridport's ships were unable to use it, because they could not make

the stretch of three miles from Spithead to St. Helen's. Nor is the

nearness of a dockyard a controlling condition for the reserve, though

it may be admitted that dockyards should be placed with reference to

probable theatres of war. On the contrary, a yard is the last place to

which to send an active ship. Naval officers knew then, as they know

now, that vessels at dockyards become valetudinarians, whose doctors,

like some others, flatter the ailments of their patients to increase

their practice. An available reserve is one thing, a ship needing

dockyard repairs quite another; and no countenance should be given to

any confusion of the two by keeping the reserve at, or close by, a

yard. Properly, the reserve should be simply that portion of the active

force which, for the benefit of the whole, is for a moment resting, but

is ready at once to proceed.

How very little the government of the day and the then admiral of the

Channel fleet realized these principles, is evident by a few facts. The

reserve was at Spithead, a roadstead over two hundred miles distant.

It was equal in force to the division before Brest. "The government

thought it the wisest plan," said its authorized defender in the

Commons, "to separate the fleet into different divisions. One fleet

was off Brest to watch the enemy and intercept the sailing of the

expedition; and another at home to relieve the fleet off Brest, if

necessary, or to pursue the enemy, if he should sail."[329] When the

French had escaped, Colpoys received the news December 22d. His orders

did not cover the contingency, and in his uncertainty he first decided

to keep his station,[330] than which nothing could be more satisfactory

to the French, who had made a long circuit to avoid that particular

spot. Like all men in the dark, however, the admiral soon changed his

mind and concluded to go off the Lizard, a cape near Falmouth, where he

might receive information.[331] Here, in the entrance to the Channel,

he found several ships in want of necessaries, and the weather such

that he could not provide them from others.[332] This statement was

disputed by the Admiralty, which, however, admitted that some of these

ships had not water in abundance.[333] With a properly worked reserve,

a few ships might have been short,—those, that is, whose turn was to

go in next,—but it is evident that a very disproportionate number were

here affected; for the explanation of these short ships being still

out was, that Curtis's squadron of _seven_ ships was to have relieved

them, but had been delayed for certain causes.[334] Whatever the

reason, the important conclusion was that Colpoys, a good officer under

a bad system, put his helm up and ran into Spithead, where he arrived

December 31st, more than a week after the French reached Bantry Bay.

While the subordinate was thus badgered by the inadequate measures

of his government and his chief, the latter was leisurely preparing

to relieve him off Brest. On the 21st or 22d, he was spurred up by

news of the French sailing, and replied that in _four_ days he would

be ready,—a truly handy reserve with the British Islands about to be

invaded. On the 25th he got under way, and demonstrated at once the

fitness of Spithead as a station for the reserve. Eight ships only

succeeded in getting to St. Helen's that day, a sudden change of wind

to south-east supervening; "which, although favorable for his getting

to sea, was directly on the bows of the ships coming to join him from

Spithead."[335] It was not thought prudent to sail with only eight

ships, and through the delay of waiting for the others Bridport did

not get away from St. Helen's (Portsmouth) until January 3, 1797,—the

day before the last of the French abandoned Bantry Bay,—when he sailed

with fourteen of-the-line, a mass equal to Colpoys's division which had

just returned. An inadequate force at the decisive point, inadequately

maintained, and dependent upon a reserve as large as itself, but

unready and improperly stationed,—such were the glaring faults of the

strategic disposition.

The tactical mistakes are equally apparent. The main fleet was

stationed so far at sea as to derive no shelter from easterly storms.

It contained several three-decked ships,[336] whose poor sailing

qualities exaggerated to the last degree the drift consequent upon

bad weather. As a result, at the critical moment, Colpoys, instead of

being, according to St. Vincent's maxim, "close in with Ushant in an

easterly wind," was over forty miles west of it, "working up against a

fresh east-south-east wind,"[337] and the next day was driven to the

northward by southerly weather. Under such conditions any lookouts in

the "Iroise" were almost a vain show. It is of the essence of such

a lookout, however, that it should not be driven from its post by a

detachment so small that the enemy does not weaken himself by making

it. Of what consequence in this way were three or four frigates, which

the French could and should have driven off by a half dozen, backed

by two sail-of-the-line? Properly to watch Brest required a strong

detachment of line-of-battle-ships of the medium class, which were

handy and weatherly, and whose grip could only be loosened by fighting.

The correlative, however, of such a big detachment is the main body

close up, ready to support it. The whole theory hangs together. The

advanced detachment close up, else it cannot watch; big enough, else

it cannot stay; the main body also close up, else the advance guard is

hazarded.

Under all these circumstances it is not strange that the careful

British chronicler, James, has to record that "during the three or four

weeks the French ships were traversing in every direction the Irish

and English Channels, neither of the two British fleets (Bridport's

nor Colpoys's), appointed to look after them, succeeded in capturing

a single ship;" and "the principal losses by capture sustained by the

enemy arose from the diligence and activity of a sixty-four-gun ship

and four or five frigates, which, on the 29th of December, were lying

in the harbor of Cork."[338] Yet, after satisfying himself that the

French had gone back to Brest, Bridport returned to Spithead, and the

old system was resumed. In Parliament the ministry strongly maintained

that they had done all that could be expected; and the First Lord went

so far as to say that even an inquiry would be considered an unmerited

censure.[339]

It is no more than just to note, in this slack and shiftless conduct

of the war, the same sluggish spirit that, after making all allowances

for the undeniable grievances of the seamen, was also responsible for

the demoralization of discipline in the Channel fleet, which soon after

showed itself openly,—among the crews in the mutinies of 1797, and

among the officers, at a later day, in the flagrant insubordination

with which St. Vincent's appointment was greeted. Both show a lax hand

in the chief naval commander; for, while a government is responsible

for its choice of the latter, it must, especially in so technical a

profession as the navy then was, depend upon him for the enforcement

of discipline and for the choice of measures, at once practicable and

adequate, to compass the ends of the war. Upon him, more than upon

any other, must fall the responsibility of failure; for he knows, or

should know, better than the government, what the fleet can be made to

do, what the state of discipline really is, and what his own capacity

to carry out the one and support the other. Only through him can the

government act. When it disregards or overrides, without displacing

him, mischief ensues; but the correlative of the generous confidence

and hearty support it owes to him is, on his part, unceasing intense

effort, or resignation.

It is a relief, and instructive, to turn to the methods of Earl St.

Vincent. Having returned from the Mediterranean in August, 1799,

he was chosen to succeed Bridport upon the latter's resignation

in the following April. It is told that, when his appointment

became known, one of the naval captains, at the table of the former

commander-in-chief, gave the toast, "May the discipline of the

Mediterranean never be introduced into the Channel fleet." If, as is

said, the admiral (presumably Lord Bridport) suffered this to pass

unrebuked, no words could depict more forcibly than the simple incident

the depths to which his own dignity and control had sunk.[340] It is,

perhaps, needless to say that St. Vincent met this temper with the same

unbending firmness that he had shown in his former command.

It is not, however, in his discipline, but in his management of the

Brest blockade, and the Channel fleet for the support of that blockade,

that we are here interested. The force before Brest was largely

increased, consisting at this time of never less than twenty-four

sail-of-the-line, and, until ordered by the Admiralty to be reduced,

was maintained by St. Vincent at thirty.[341] The rendezvous, or

central station round which the main body was to revolve, and where,

if possible, it was always to be found, was changed from eight leagues

west of Ushant to "well in with Ushant in an easterly wind." How the

commander-in-chief understood this order is shown by his instructions

to his second in command, when the fleet was for a time turned over to

him. "I recommend you in the strongest manner _never_ to be farther

than six or eight leagues from Ushant with the wind easterly; and if

westerly to make the Saintes (Chaussée de Sein) as often as the weather

will permit; and when the wind is such as to permit the French to slip

out of Brest, to stand in on the first of the flood so far as to see

the inshore squadron."[342] In another letter to the same he says:

"The principle on which the squadron acts, with the wind easterly, is

to wear ... during the night, so as to be within a couple of leagues

of Ushant at daylight."[343] So constant was this practice during the

summer and early autumn months, while he himself remained on board,

that in one hundred and twenty-one days there was but one, and then

owing to fog, in which the main body did not communicate by signal with

the inshore squadron stationed between Ushant and Brest.[344]

To sustain the ships in the greatest and most constant efficiency, in

other words to maintain the communications, his care and watchfulness

are incessant; and, though not expressly so stated, it is evident from

the general tenor of his correspondence that the ships went in to

refit and rest not in large numbers, but singly, or in small groups.

"I am at my wits' end," he writes, "to compose orders to meet every

shift, evasion, and neglect of duty. Seven-eighths of the captains who

compose this fleet are practising every subterfuge to get into harbor

for the winter."[345] A constant pressure is kept upon all officers

of the fleet, and especially upon those stationed to supervise at the

anchorages for refittal and taking in stores, that vessels should

lose no time and should come back as full as possible. The time for

remaining "in Plymouth Sound or Cawsand Bay _never_ ought to exceed

six days, unless a mast is to be shifted, and in that event not more

than ten days."[346] "A thousand thanks are due you," he writes to

Rear-Admiral Whitshed, "for the pains you have taken to dispatch the

ships which were necessarily sent into Cawsand Bay. Without such

powerful aid, all my endeavors to fulfil the wishes of the Cabinet

would be vain."[347] It was for this purpose he gave the order, so

bitterly resented, that no officer, from the captain down, should sleep

out of his ship, or go more than three miles from the beach.

Throughout he strove, according to his own practice and that of Suffren

and Nelson,[348] to make the ships self-dependent, and to keep them

out of the dockyards and on the station to the last moment. "Under

the present impending storm from the North of Europe," wrote he in

January, 1801, "and the necessity there is of equipping every ship

in the royal ports that can swim, no ship under my command must have

anything done to her at Plymouth or Portsmouth that can be done at this

anchorage."[349] The question of wind and distance weighed heavily with

him. Torbay and Cawsand Bay, an anchorage in Plymouth Sound, were made

the ordinary resorts of ships going in to refit; and his orders to the

second in command, when left in charge off Brest, were "on no occasion

to authorize any ships to go to Spithead, unless by special orders

from the Admiralty or from me." Finally, when his health compelled him

to abandon the immediate command afloat, he again, as at Gibraltar

during his Mediterranean career, took up his station at the point of

next importance to the efficiency of the Brest fleet, settling himself

in a house near Torbay, overlooking the anchorage, whence he directly

supervised the refitting and speedy dispatch of the ships sent in for

repair and refreshment. In short, when unable to be with the main body,

he made a point of seeing personally to the reserve and to the supplies.

To mass the fleet before Brest,—to maintain it in a high state of

efficiency, by the constant flow of supplies in transports and the

constant exchange between worn and fresh ships,—and to fix a rendezvous

which assured its hold upon the enemy,—such were the strategic measures

adopted and enforced by St. Vincent. The disposition of the ships when

before the port, with a view to prevent the evasion which was the

height of French naval ambition, and to compel the enemy to battle if

he came out, may be more properly called tactical. It may be given

nearly in his own words. "A squadron of five ships-of-the-line is

_always anchored_ during an easterly wind between the Black Rocks and

Porquette Shoal" (about ten miles from the entrance). "Inside, between

them and the Goulet, cruise a squadron of frigates and cutters plying

day and night in the opening of the Goulet; and outside, between the

Black Rocks and Ushant, three sail-of-the-line cruise to support the

five anchored."[350] A group of eight line-of-battle ships was thus

always on the lookout,—a force too strong to be driven off without

bringing on the general engagement which was the great object of the

British, and so disposed that, if not the inner, at least the outer

members could be signalled every day by the main body. The mutual

support of all parts of the fleet was thus assured. "Unless this is

done," wrote St. Vincent, "the ships appointed to that important

service may not feel the confidence necessary to keep them in their

post,—a failure in which has frequently happened before I was invested

with this command."[351]

The seamanlike care with which, as a general officer, he studied

his ground, is also evidenced by his remarks, some of which have

already been quoted. "I never was on a station so readily, and with

so little risk maintained as that off Ushant with an easterly wind"

(with which alone the enemy could get out), "owing to the length and

strength of flood-tide;"[352] and he adds, in another place, "If the

flood flows strong, you will find _much shelter_ between Ushant and

the Black Rocks during the day."[353] The investment of Brest was

completed by stationing detachments, amounting in all to from two to

four ships-of-the-line with numerous frigates, to the southward of

the Passage du Raz and thence to Quiberon Bay, forming a chain of

lookouts to intercept vessels of all kinds, but especially the coasters

upon which the port depended for supplies; while other cruisers

were stationed all along the shores of the Bay of Biscay, from the

mouth of the Loire to Cape Finisterre, and their captains specially

incited and encouraged to approach and scour the coast. In the various

"cutting out" expeditions engaged in by these, the numerous small

vessels captured are usually stated to have been loaded with stores

for the Brest fleet. By this means, if the enemy did not come out and

fight to break up the blockade, he must soon be reduced to impotence

by exhaustion of the commonest supplies. As there were in Brest, in

1800, forty-eight ships-of-the-line, French and Spanish, a combination

resulting from Bruix's cruise of the year before, this end was soon

obtained, as French accounts abundantly testify.[354]

The immediate adoption and enforcement of these measures, after St.

Vincent succeeded to the command, illustrate clearly the inevitable

dependence of the government upon the admiral of the Channel fleet,

and its inability to conceive or enforce the system by which alone so

necessary yet hazardous a service could be effectually performed. Only

a thorough seaman, and of exceptional force of character, could both

devise and execute a scheme demanding so much energy and involving so

heavy a responsibility. It was hard to find a man of St. Vincent's

temper to carry out his methods; and the government was further

handicapped by a tradition requiring a certain rank for certain

commands. So strong was the hold of this usage that even St. Vincent,

in 1801, yielded to it, lamenting that Nelson, "of whom he felt quite

sure, had not rank enough to take the chief command" of the vitally

important expedition to Copenhagen; which was entrusted to Sir Hyde

Parker, "of whom he could not feel so sure, because he had never been

tried."[355] Later, when First Lord of the Admiralty, Earl St. Vincent

was fortunate enough to find in Admiral Cornwallis a man who, whatever

his intellectual grasp, possessed all the nerve and tenacity of his

predecessor; but the necessary rank was too apt to bring with it a

burden of years, accompanied by the physical weakness which, in lesser

men, led to failing energy and shrinking from responsibility, and by

actual prostration drove even St. Vincent ashore in the winter weather.

His predecessor, Lord Bridport, had been well on in the seventies, and

his first successor, Sir Hyde Parker, announced his intention "not to

risk staying with the whole fleet off Brest at this season [winter],

when it blows hard from west or west-south-west,"[356]—a decision which

may have been no more than prudent, but the open avowal of which,

taken with Nelson's opinion of him,[357] seems to show that, though a

brave and good officer, he was not equal to the stern work demanded.

Lord St. Vincent, though perfectly satisfied with his own arrangements,

doubtless never cherished the vain hope that no evasion of them could

ever be practised. On the contrary, he had at the very outset of his

command, and in the comparatively genial month of May, the experience

of a terrific hurricane, which drove his fleet headlong to Torbay,

and rejoiced the hearts of the cavilling adherents of the old system.

That the fleet must at times be blown off, he knew full well; and also

that the escape of the enemy, in whole or in part, before its return,

was possible, though it ought not to be probable. To provide against

this contingency, he recommended the government to give to the officer

commanding the inshore squadron, who would remain, special orders in

a sealed packet to be opened only in case the enemy got out.[358] The

failure to provide Colpoys with such specific directions had been

charged by the Opposition, and most justly, as a grave fault of the

government in 1796.[359] It is right and wise to leave great discretion

to the officer in command on the spot,—minute instructions fetter

rather than guide him; but a man in Colpoys's situation, bewildered as

to the enemy's objects, aware only that the first line of defence is

forced, but ignorant where the second will be assailed, is entitled

to know precisely what the government considers the most important

among the interests threatened. This decision is one for the statesman

rather than the seaman. Not only, in 1796, was Ireland distinctly the

most vulnerable point, but the ministers had information, almost to

certainty, that there was the enemy's aim.

In 1800, as when Bruix escaped in 1799, circumstances were somewhat

different. The disaffection, or at least the disloyalty, of the

Irish had been shown to be a broken reed for the enemy to lean on;

while in the Mediterranean the French had acquired, in Egypt and

Malta, interests peculiarly dear to the First Consul. Those valuable

possessions were in deadly straits, and the attempt to relieve them was

more probable than another attack on Ireland. St. Vincent, therefore,

wrote to the then head of the Admiralty, saying with perfect propriety

that it became him, "in the situation I stand at this critical period,

to suggest to your lordship any ideas for the good of the public

service," and suggesting that Sir James Saumarez, commanding the

inshore squadron, should have specific orders that, "if the combined

fleets get out before I can return to the rendezvous, he should in that

case push for Cadiz with the eight ships-of-the-line stationed between

me and the Goulet; for I," he added, "shall have sufficient force to

protect England and Ireland, without counting upon his eight sail."

Such instructions completed the scheme; precise, but not detailed,

they provided for the second line, in case the careful precautions for

guarding the first were foiled.

The dispositions adopted by St. Vincent remained the standard to

which subsequent arrangements for watching Brest were conformed. From

Commander-in-Chief of the Channel fleet he became, in February, 1801,

First Lord of the Admiralty. In this position he naturally maintained

his own ideas; and, as has before been said, found in Cornwallis a man

admirably adapted to carry them out. In May, 1804, the ministry with

which he was connected resigned; but, although as an administrator

he provoked grave criticism in many quarters, and probably lost

reputation, his distinguished military capacity remained unquestioned,

and the methods of the Brest blockade were too sound in principle and

too firmly established to be largely modified. During the strenuous

months from 1803 to 1805, when Great Britain and France stood alone,

face to face, in a state more of watchful tension than of activity,

the Channel fleet kept its grip firm on the great French arsenal.

Nelson's justly lauded pursuit of Villeneuve would have been in vain,

but for the less known tenacity of Cornwallis; which, by preventing the

escape of Ganteaume, was one of the most potent factors in thwarting

Napoleon's combinations. Wherever else the great naval battle which

has immortalized the name of Trafalgar might have been fought, the

campaign would have taken a different form but for the watch over Brest

conducted on St. Vincent's lines.

The result of this strict blockade and of the constant harrying

of the French coasts from Dunkirk on the North Sea to the Spanish

border, was to paralyze Brest as a port of naval equipment and

construction, as well as to render very doubtful the success of any

combination in which the Brest fleet was a factor. This result has

been, historically, somewhat obscured; for abortive attempts to get out

obtained no notoriety, while an occasional success, being blazoned far

and wide, made an impression disproportioned to its real importance.

When Ganteaume, for instance, in January, 1801, ran out with seven

ships-of-the-line,—the blockading fleet having lost its grip in a

furious north-east gale,—more was thought of the escape than of the

fact that, to make it, advantage had to be taken of weather such

that six of the seven were so damaged they could not carry out their

mission. Instead of going to Egypt, they went to Toulon. The journals

of the day make passing mention of occasional sorties of divisions,

which quickly returned to the anchorage; and Troude, in a few condensed

sentences, under the years 1800 and 1801,[360] vividly shows the

closeness of the watch and the penury of the port. Remote from the

sources of naval supplies in the Baltic and the Mediterranean, with the

sea approaches to both swarming with enemy's cruisers, and in a day

when water carriage, always easier and ampler than that by land, was

alone adequate to the transport in sufficient quantity of the bulky

articles required for ship building and equipment, it became impossible

to fill the storehouses of Brest.

Partly for this reason, yet more because his keen military

perceptions—at fault only when confronted with the technical

difficulties of the sea—discerned the danger to Great Britain from a

hostile navy in the Scheldt, Napoleon decided to neglect Brest, and

to concentrate upon Antwerp mainly his energies in creating a navy.

In later years this prepossession may have partaken somewhat of the

partiality of a parent for a child; and he himself has said that there

was a moment, during his receding fortunes in 1814, when he could have

accepted the terms of the allies had he been able to bring himself to

give up Antwerp. In close proximity to the forests of Alsace, Lorraine,

and Burgundy; able to draw from the countries bordering on the Rhine

and its tributaries flax and hemp, and from the mines of Luxemburg,

Namur and Liège iron, copper and coal,—the naval resources of Antwerp

could be brought to her on the numerous streams intersecting those

countries, and were wholly out of reach of the British. Many were the

difficulties to be overcome,—docks to be excavated, ships to be built,

seamen gathered and trained, a whole navy to be created from nothing;

but the truth remained that the strategic position of Antwerp, over

against the mouth of the Thames and flanking the communications of

Great Britain with the Baltic, was unequalled by any other single port

under the emperor's control.

The expedition against Ireland, thwarted by the elements in 1796,

was never seriously renewed. It remained, to the end of his short

life, the dream of Hoche. Transferred from the army of the Ocean to

that of the Sambre and Meuse, his career there was cut short by the

preliminaries of Leoben, by which Bonaparte extricated himself from

the dangers of his advance into Carinthia. Sacrificed thus, as he

felt, to the schemes of a rival, Hoche supported with all the weight

of his interest an expedition of fifteen thousand men, who, under the

pressure of the Directory, were gathered in the Texel in the summer of

1797 for an invasion of Ireland under convoy of the Dutch navy. Here

again Wolfe Tone for two months fretted his heart out, waiting for the

fleet to sail; but, though the period seemed most propitious, through

the mutinies in the British fleet and the cessation of hostilities on

the continent, a peculiar combination of wind and tide were wanting

to cross the bar, and that combination did not come. In October the

Dutch ships-of-war, numbering sixteen small ships-of-the-line, put to

sea by themselves, and on the 11th met the fleet of Admiral Duncan,

of equal numbers but distinctly superior in broadside force. The

British, having the wind, bore down and attacked—passing when possible

through the enemy's line, so as to cut off his retreat to the Dutch

coast, then less than ten miles distant. The battle, known by the

name of Camperdown, from a village on the adjoining shore, was fought

with all the desperation that in every age has marked the meetings of

the British and the Dutch. It closed with the defeat of the latter,

who left nine ships-of-the-line and some frigates in their enemy's

hands. This put an end to the Texel expedition. Hoche had died a few

weeks before, on the 18th of September; and with him passed away the

strongest personal interest in the invasion of Ireland, as well as the

man most able to conduct it.

The following year, 1798, open rebellion existed in Ireland, and

the Directory undertook to support it with troops and arms; but the

equipment of Bonaparte's Egyptian expedition absorbed the energies of

the Ministry of Marine, and there was no Hoche to give the enterprise

the development and concert essential to a great success. A small

division of four frigates sailed from Rochefort on the 6th of August,

carrying twelve hundred troops under General Humbert, who had served

in the expedition of 1796 and shared the shipwreck of the Droits de

l'Homme. This squadron escaped observation, landed its detachment on

the 21st of the month, and returned safely to France; but the small

corps, unsupported by regular troops, again demonstrated the imprudence

of trusting to the co-operation of insurgents. On the 8th of September

Humbert was obliged to surrender with the bulk of his force.