Chapter II: Expeditions, Convoy, and the Privateers (2)

Wright, who left Barbadoes amid a chorus of jeers and accusations of cowardice, may fairly be considered to have had hard measure. He was never again employed at sea, though he held some dock-yard posts. There is nothing to show that he was a man to rise above adverse circumstances, but the bare narrative of the events of the cruise given above is his best excuse. Let us look at the facts, bearing meanwhile in mind that what is to be said of them applies in different degrees, but always to some extent, to every expedition we sent to the West Indies from the beginning of the war in 1689 down to the peace of Utrecht. In the first place the material force given to the commander was inadequate to the work he had to do. It was not sufficient to capture the principal French posts, yet he was ordered to make attacks on the enemy’s territory. The inevitable result was that, while he had his ships concentrated for miserable burning and plundering raids, the French privateers cruised unchecked. The blame for this rests mainly on the Government. It repeated in the West Indies the very mistake of ordering attacks on coast towns with insufficient forces, which as we have seen it was also making in the Channel. Then these material forces, too weak in themselves to begin with, suffered from causes serious enough to have paralysed greater powers. It was a brutal and greedy generation, callously indifferent to the well-being of the men. The younger Hawkins, and Lancaster—the captain of the East India Company—had shown how to keep crews healthy on long voyages even in the tropics. We had the example of the Dutch to guide us. Yet the chiefs of the navy allowed their men to rot from scurvy and perish by fever, not from want of knowledge, which they could have acquired at once if they had looked for it, but from mere hardness of heart and selfishness. The destruction of life by disease in our fleets was everywhere great, and in the West Indies it was enormous. Of the superior officers who sailed with Admiral Nevill in 1696-1697 only one captain lived to return home. The pestiferous squalor of the lower deck avenged the sailors. At the close of Captain R. Wilmot’s expedition of 1695 one vessel was lost on the reefs of Florida, from sheer want of men to handle her sails. The sailors followed the example set them, and were affected by the spirit of their time. They found consolation for the hardships of life afloat in excesses on shore. Burchett assures us that the harbours of the West Indies were more fatal to the men than the sea.

In this atmosphere, as of a town smitten by plague where men hasten to enjoy while they can, sailors and soldiers were sent to plunder. Each soon began to suspect the other of attempting to defraud, and the passions of disappointed gamblers were added to the professional rivalry of men who in that generation were rarely honest enough to subordinate their passions to the general good of “the king’s service.” The fierce feuds of sailor and soldier flamed up in these expeditions, but the case of Admiral Benbow shows that a British admiral of that generation could not always rely on loyal and honest support even from his subordinates. Add to this, that jarring soldier and sailor elements were constantly called upon to combine in councils, and that they were both subjected to a vague check by the governors and councils of the islands. In such conditions effective operations were not possible.

While the Grand Fleets were cruising, often unopposed and never effectually checked by the French, while the colonial expeditions sailed year after year to fail, or at the best to achieve half successes, by their own defects rather than from the strength of their enemy, the allies suffered severely at sea from the enterprise of the corsairs who won for France nearly all the glory and profit she gained from these naval wars. This side of the struggle is of peculiar, indeed it may be said to be of contemporary, interest. French writers are fond of dwelling on the success of their privateers in the later seventeenth, and early eighteenth centuries. They argue that it proves their national aptitude for swift destructive attacks on trade, and draw the deduction that if ever war breaks out again between them and us, they must revert to the methods of the men who, if they could not disturb the movements of the great allied fleets, did at least make the conflict costly to English and Dutch commerce. It is their belief that if they can only do what those adventurers did on a somewhat larger scale, then England, which is far more dependent on trade than she then was, and is now under the obligation to import large quantities of food, which was not then the case, will find her superiority in fleets of no avail. We are looking then at what concerns us directly when we turn our attention to the doings of the French corsairs between 1689 and 1712.

Owing to a combination of circumstances the _guerrillero_, or partisan war of the sea, was then conducted in exceptionally favourable conditions. When they have been detailed, and the results reached have been summed up, we shall be in a position to judge how far those conditions, favourable as they were to the corsairs, were also of advantage to our enemy. This failure of the French fleet had a double effect. French coasting trade conducted in small vessels, fitted to hug the shore and take refuge under coast batteries, went on, disturbed, but not destroyed. But French oversea commerce was almost wholly suspended. Thus numbers of men were thrown out of employment, and the shipowners were driven to look elsewhere for profit. Both were inevitably turned to privateering. We had seen the same consequence ensue in Elizabeth’s reign, when the Spanish war interrupted our chief oversea trade. Again, so soon as the great fleets had no longer to be manned for cruising, the king had a strong motive to find other employment for his sailors and his officers. Therefore he allowed them to go on privateering voyages, and even hired out his vessels for the purpose or entered into partnership with the owners. Here again our own Elizabethan precedent was closely, if unconsciously, followed. Similar causes produced similar results, and as Elizabeth became the partner of “adventurers” on plundering expeditions to the West Indies, or to Cadiz, so King Louis entered into contracts with his _armateurs_ for similar ventures. Finally, the French leaders of that generation were of much the same stamp as our Elizabethans. M. de Pointis, the Chevalier de Saint Pol, the Count de Forbin, Jean Bart, and Duguay-Trouin were the French equivalents of Raleigh, Cumberland, Drake, Frobisher, and Hawkins. Some of them won their way to social position, and the royal service, by good fighting in the privateers. Others were king’s officers lent for the work.

While Tourville kept the sea, the share of the privateers in the war was small, and the harm they did very trifling in comparison to the injury inflicted on the Smyrna convoy by the French fleet in 1693. Only a part of their total later activity in the war directly concerned us. Jean Bart, a Fleming of the Flemish town of Dunkirk, cruised mainly against the Dutch in the North Seas. The two greatest single achievements of the French privateers, the capture of Carthagena by M. de Pointis in the reign of King William (1697), and the capture of Rio de Janeiro by Duguay-Trouin in the reign of Queen Anne (1711), were directed against the Spaniards and the Portuguese respectively. They were very similar to Drake’s raid on the West Indies in 1585. The Dunkirk privateers preyed on our commerce after their town had become French, as they had done while it formed part of the Low Country possessions of the King of Spain. We blockaded it with indifferent success. Other ports also sent out their corsairs. Our chief interest is with the Breton town of St. Malo, and with the activity of its hero Réné Duguay-Trouin. He used other ports, Dunkirk or Rochelle occasionally, and Brest often. He co-operated with other men, notably with the Count of Forbin, but St. Malo was his headquarters and also the typical corsair town, while he was the central dominating figure of the corsair war. Jean Bart died in the middle of the conflict. Forbin had other activities. Saint Pol, Nesmond, and many more who could be named, were subordinate. Following the scheme of this book, I take him as the characteristic illuminative example.

The Breton town of St. Malo stands on the northern coast of the Duchy towards the eastern end, and close to Normandy. It is on the eastern end and at the mouth of the Rance. At that time it was still an island, not yet turned into a peninsula by a causeway. It was surrounded by ancient mediæval walls of less extent than the present fortifications. The population were seamen, traders in peace, corsairs in war. There were local leaders, burgesses not counted as nobles, but in the odd old French phrase “living nobly” as merchants and shipowners, not by retail trade, nor manual labour. The approach to the Rance is dangerous, through reefs and over a bar, but there is good anchorage inside. The privateers of St. Malo had been recognised as a useful force, and their organisation had been controlled by the crown since the fifteenth century. It had been finally fixed by Colbert. The captains sailed with a recognised commission and large powers, extending even to life and death, for the maintenance of discipline. The crews were recruited by free enlistment, and received wages, which might go to fifteen crowns for the _course_ or cruise of four months. Custom, embodied in royal ordinances, regulated the division of the prize. After payment of legal expenses, and of ten per cent. to the Admiralty of Brittany (a separate office from the Admiralty of France), two-thirds belonged to the owner, and the remaining third was divided among the officers on a fixed scale, while the men were rewarded at discretion by gifts in addition to their wages. When the king lent the ship he took a fifth of the prize, after the deduction of legal expenses, and admiral’s fees. The adventurers who helped to fit the vessel out, with their officers and the crew, divided the remainder.

Among the _armateurs_, merchants, and shipowners of St. Malo “living nobly,” the family of Trouin had a conspicuous place. Luc Trouin de la Barbinais, father of the corsair, had himself served against the Dutch and Spaniards. Réné, who afterwards added Duguay to his name to distinguish himself from his elder brother, was a younger son of a large household. His parents had intended him for a priest, and he had some schooling from the Jesuits at Rouen. But he was not made for the church. When the war opened in 1689 he was seventeen years old, and his family allowed him to follow his natural bent. He began his career as a volunteer in one of the ships of the firm. These were light craft, provided with guns, but relying mainly on their large crews. It was not their interest to destroy their prize, so whether she was a small warship (a large one they would naturally avoid) or a merchant vessel, their method was always the same, namely, to run alongside, or to run the bowsprit over the waist of their opponent, and to carry her at a rush. A very short apprenticeship was considered enough for one of the owners’ family. In his second year the young Réné was already in command of a light cruiser. In 1692 he captured an English convoy. In 1693 he cruised at the mouth of the Channel in the _Hercule_, 30, and took two rich English prizes. In 1694 he commanded the _Diligente_, 36, and after some success was captured by an English squadron. He was carried as prisoner to Plymouth, but escaped by the help of a pretty shop girl who had a lover among the gaolers. At that time he was in peril of severe treatment, for he had broken the laws of war, out of bravado, by firing a derisive shot at a heavy English vessel before hoisting his own flag and sailing off. After his escape his brother gave him the _Francois_, 48. In this vessel he took part in the capture of an English convoy protected by two men-of-war, the =Sanspareil= and the =Boston=. Here we have to note that a change—a very significant change—came over the corsair war about this time.

In the first three years of the war the privateers cruised alone, picking up what straggling merchant ships they met. But the allies answered by sending their trade under protection of warships in convoys. It therefore became necessary to make the attack with forces capable of overcoming the guard. So the corsairs began to cruise in well-appointed squadrons of four, six, or ten ships, in part commonly supplied by the king. These forces flew at far higher game than the straggling merchant ship. Their course was identical with that following in the ensuing century by Hawke, when he assailed Desherbiers de l’Etenduère, namely, to fall upon the warships first. When the French were in sufficient numbers both to throw a superior force on the men-of-war, and to spare vessels to capture the merchant ships at once, they did so; when this was not the case they disposed of the armed guard. They made no attempt to form a precise order themselves, but swept down on the guardships of the convoy, attacking always by two or more against one, and overpowering their enemy in detail. The protecting English and Dutch ships made many gallant fights, but they showed little readiness to meet attack by counter-attack. It was their custom to form a line and wait to be assailed. This passive attitude left the Frenchman free to make his arrangements as he pleased. Duguay-Trouin, and his colleagues, still relied much upon large crews, and upon boarding. Yet an alert, well-handled ship could often avoid being grappled. For instance, we often hear how a French corsair swept down on the side of some Englishman or Dutchman, but failed to grapple because the wary opponent had “thrown all aback,” that is to say, had pulled the yards round so as to present the front of the sails to the wind. This would stop his motion, and begin to make him move backwards. If now the attacking ship, which by the necessity of the case would be going with the impetus of high speed, ranged up alongside she might miss her aim, or the large iron hooks called grappling-irons, which she threw out to take hold of her prey, might not get fixed; or again they might, but the ropes to which they are fastened broke under the strain of the diverging masses. Then the assailant would shoot ahead, and the vessel attacked would have a chance to cross her path, and sweep her with a broadside. In order to have something more than the boarders to rely on, the corsairs increased the size of their vessels and broadsides, till they sailed with ships of fifty-six guns. Still the favourite method of the corsairs was to rush to close quarters, on both sides at once when they could, and throw an irresistible force of boarders on the enemy’s deck.

Many hot fights of this kind took place in both divisions of the war. One of the most desperate was fought in 1697 between Duguay-Trouin and the Dutch Bilbao convoy under Baron Wassenaer. The years from 1693 to 1697 were, on the whole, at least in so far as we were concerned, the most profitable to the corsairs. Our navy was still staggering from the administrative vices of King Charles’s reign, and the Government was hampered by financial embarrassments. The merchants complained that the protection was insufficient, and was supplied late, so that they lost the season, and the market, and were put to heavy expense while waiting for their guard. Officials replied that they did what they could, and accused the merchant captains of bringing misfortunes on themselves by leaving the protection of the warships, to hurry on as they neared home. There was truth on both sides. It is certain that merchant skippers both then, and for long afterwards, were often tempted to run risks by the hope of getting in early, and well ahead of competitors in the market. Yet the constant successes of the privateers show that the navy was not well handled.

We renewed the war in more favourable conditions, and with a better experience. On the whole, the corsairs had far less success. Nevertheless, even in this period, Duguay-Trouin hit us some shrewd blows. In 1705 he took a large English man-of-war, the =Elisabeth=. In 1707 he sailed in combination with Forbin, at the head of a squadron of twelve vessels. Their orders were to intercept a convoy of military stores which the English Government was sending to Spain under the protection of three large men-of-war, the =Devonshire=, 80, the =Cumberland=, 80, and the =Royal Oak=, 74, with the =Chester= and the =Ruby= of 50 guns. It was met, and scattered off the Lizard on the 10th October after very hard fighting. The English captains fought most bravely, but no more can be said in their favour. Though our squadron was outnumbered it contained three vessels far superior in strength to any among the French. Moreover, they were divided when the action was begun by Duguay-Trouin who rushed straight at us. Yet Captain Richard Edwards who commanded did not attempt to do more than present a defensive barrier between the merchant ships and the oncoming French, who were thus able to concentrate as they pleased, and crush him in detail. As a captain he did his duty manfully, fighting his ship, the =Cumberland=, till she was dismasted, and unable to resist further. The =Chester= and =Ruby= were also taken. The =Devonshire= fought till evening, when she blew up with the loss of all her crew, except three, and of three hundred soldiers she was carrying out to Spain. While this fierce conflict was in progress, the transports and merchant ships made their escape, and most of them reached Lisbon.

Here we might leave Duguay-Trouin, for his later services did not greatly concern us. Yet it belongs to our story to record that in the following year he cruised with ten ships, hired by, or belonging to, himself and his brothers. No prize was met, and the expense of keeping so many vessels at sea to no purpose nearly brought the house of Trouin to ruin. This fact in his career supplies an opportunity for summing up the corsair war. It brought him, we see, fame but not profit, and it may be added that this is what it did for France. Looking at it as a whole we note that it gives no support to the often-renewed contention, that attacks by cruisers on sea-borne trade can of themselves bring a maritime power to submission. The work, often tried, has never been better done, and we may feel sure never will be better done than by Duguay-Trouin, and the men he represents here. Yet we see that it did not stop the march of the Grand Fleets of the allies for a day, nor did it ever dam up the main stream of their commerce. Again, the achievements of this famous corsair do by no means prove that single ships, however swift, can destroy commerce. It was while trying to prey on our shipping single-handed that Duguay-Trouin became a prisoner at Plymouth. Precisely the same experience befell Jean Bart, and Forbin at Portsmouth. Their successes were gained in well-appointed squadrons able to meet the shock of battle. The moral of the story is that a maritime power can always defeat the attacks of single ships on its trade by giving convoy. The protecting squadron can only be overpowered by a force like itself, and we come at once to operations of war far beyond the power of the mere corsair or commerce destroyer who relies on his speed only. Success in these operations must finally fall to whichever side possesses the most numerous, and the best-appointed squadrons.