Chapter XI: The Reed Era 264 (4)

War was formally declared shortly after the fall of Minorca. No events of much moment marked the rest of the year 1756, but early in the following year, Calcutta, which had fallen to the natives, was recaptured by Clive, assisted by a naval force.

In 1758, the Navy consisted of 156 of the line and 164 lesser vessels. The _personnel_ was 60,000.

The situation at this time was that in North America the French colonies were being hotly pressed, Louisbourg being invested. The French had a species of double plan--to relieve Louisbourg directly, and also the usual invasion of England.

The relief of Louisbourg came to nought; a Toulon squadron which came out being driven back by Osborne, while Hawke destroyed the convoys in the Basque Roads. Louisbourg finally fell, four ships of the line that were lying there being burned, and one other captured, together with some smaller craft.

Nearer home, combined naval and military attacks were pressed upon the French coast, Anson wrecking havoc on St. Malo, while Howe destroyed practically everything at Cherbourg.

The invasion of England project remained, however. In 1759, the French had somewhere about twenty ships of the line, under De Conflans, at Brest, twelve at Toulon, under De la Clue, five with a fleet of transports at Quiberon, five frigates at Dunkirk with transports, a division of small craft and flat-bottomed boats at Havre, and a squadron of nine ships of the line with auxiliaries in the West Indies.

These were watched or blockaded by superior British squadrons in every case--the maintenance of blockades being mainly possible owing to the improved ventilation of the ships. Provisions were still bad and scurvy plentiful, but the blockade maintained was better and closer than anything that the French can have anticipated. This war, indeed, saw the birth of scientific blockade in place of the somewhat haphazard methods which had previously existed. In part, it arose from a better perception of naval warfare, the study of history and the growth of definite objectives. But since side by side with these improvements tactical ideas were nearly non-existent and ships in fighting kept a line of the barrack-ground type regardless of all circumstances,[33] improvements in naval architecture may claim at least as big a part as the wit of man. Ideas of blockading and watching were as old as the Peloponnesian War, but means to carry them into effect had hitherto been sadly lacking.

To resume, the French fleets being cornered by superior forces, had no option but to wait for lucky opportunity to effect the usual attempted junctions. This opportunity was long in coming, and meanwhile Rodney made an attack on the invading flotilla at Havre, bombarded it for fifty-two hours, and utterly destroyed the flat-bottomed boats which had been collected.

In July, 1759, Boscawen, having run short of water and provisions, had to withdraw from Toulon to Gibraltar, where he began to refit his ships, and De la Clue, learning of this, came out of Toulon in August, slipping through the straits at midnight, with the English fleet in pursuit shortly afterwards.

De la Clue had intended to rendezvous at Cadiz, but having altered his mind, made the almost inevitable failure of getting all his ships to comprehend it.[34] So it came about that daylight found him near Cape St. Vincent, with only six sail, and eight of Boscawen’s ships (which he at first took to be his own stragglers) coming up. In the action that followed, three of the French ships were captured, two burned and one escaped. The stragglers of the French fleet got into Cadiz as originally directed, and a few months later escaped back to Toulon.

Thurot, with a small squadron, slipped out from Dunkirk, in October, merely to intern himself in a Swedish harbour.

Hawke continued his blockade of Brest, being now and then driven off by gales, and during one of these absences, Bempart, with his nine West Indian ships, got into Brest. The Brest fleet was apparently very short-handed, or else the West Indian squadron in a very bad way; in any case the crews of the latter were distributed among the former, and De Conflans sailed with only twenty-one ships on November 14th.

The expeditionary force which he proposed to convoy lay at Quiberon, which place owing to weather he did not make till the 20th. There he sighted and gave chase to the blockading English frigates, and in doing so met Hawke’s fleet of twenty-three ships of the line.

In the battle of Quiberon which followed, the French lost six ships of the line. Eleven, by throwing their guns overboard, escaped into shallow water, the remainder reached safety at Rochefort. Two English ships ran aground, otherwise little damage was sustained.[35]

Out of these happenings the French fleet--which, in this year alone, lost thirty-one ships of the line--ceased to have any importance; while to the general naval activity of the English must be attributed the capture of Quebec, by Wolfe.

In 1760, the British ships of the line had sunk to 120 in number, though the _personnel_ rose to 73,000. Naval operations were mainly confined to the relief of Quebec and the consequent capture of the whole of Canada, and the suppression of privateering--over a hundred French corsairs being captured in 1760 alone.

The results of privateering have been put at 2,500 English merchant vessels being captured in the four years ending 1760; the French merchant-ship loss being little more than one-third. In 1761, when French naval power had practically ceased to exist, 812 English merchant ships were captured. It must, however, be borne in mind that every year saw great increases in English shipping. Heavy as the numerical losses were, they did not exceed ten per cent., and the bulk of vessels captured were coasters.

French mercantile losses were considerably smaller, but simply for the reason that France had fewer and fewer ships to lose, for her trade was being swept from the sea. English trade on the other hand grew and multiplied exceedingly. It may even be argued that so far from really injuring our trade, the _guerre de course_ in this war actually fostered it by the enhanced profits which safe arrival entailed, this attracting the speculative. But for the speculative the loss of larger vessels would have been smaller than it was. These were they, who, on a convoy nearing home waters, sailed on ahead, chancing attack in the hopes of the greatly increased profits to be made by early arrivals. Ships which obeyed the orders of the escorting warships were very rarely captured.

The following years saw the capture of Pondicherry, Dominica, a successful attack on Belle Isle and also a general loss of French colonial possessions. To quote Mahan, “At the end of seven years the Kingdom of Great Britain has become the British Empire.”

In 1762, Spain declared war. She had a fleet consisting nominally of eighty-nine sail, but joined in far too late to be of any assistance to France. No naval battle of importance took place.

Peace was signed early in 1763. By it England secured Canada from France, and Spain lost Florida.

During this war the usual complaints about ships’ bottoms were made, especially from the West Indian Station; and in October, 1761, the Admiralty ordered a frigate to be sheathed with thin sheets of copper as an experiment. This was at first found extremely successful, but after the lapse of a few years it was noted that chemical action had set up between the copper and the iron bolts at the ships’ bottom--most of these bolts being rusted away.

Experiments were, however, continued, since, though the life of a copper bottom was but three to four years, its general advantages were very great. Ultimately iron bolts were abandoned in favour of copper ones. The cost of this came to £2,272 for a ship of the first-rate, and was only relatively satisfactory.

Ever since the Treaty of Paris in 1763, friction had been growing between the Home Country and the North American Colonies. The causes which led to it concern the British Navy only in so far as it was used for the harsh enforcement of the regulations entailed by the Treaty in question--regulations which bore heavily on the Colonists. The rest of the story is merely the tale of political incapacity at home.

The American Colonists, in addition to a few fast sailing frigates which they handled with unexpected aptitude, possessed a so very considerable mercantile fleet that it was estimated that 18,000 of their seamen had served in the English ships in the late war with France. Consequently, the Colonists were in a position to fit our privateers, and with these, in the first eight years of the war, they captured nearly 1,000 English merchant ships. Their own losses were, however, greater, and it is probable that despite all the military blunders which characterised English conduct of the war, the Colonists would eventually have been worn down but for the active intervention of France in 1778, and Spain a little later.

As regards naval operations against the Americans themselves, these were mainly in the nature of sea transport. Where they were otherwise, they were of an inglorious nature, owing to the total inability of the Home Government to appreciate the position. The naval story of the war is, in the main, the story of frigates attempting difficult channels, and going aground in the attempt. It is of interest mainly because in 1776 one David Bushnell made the first submarine ever actually used in war, and attempted to torpedo the English flagship, _Eagle_ (64). He reached his quarry unsuspected, but the difficulties of attaching his “infernal machine” were such that he had to rise to the surface for air and abandon the enterprise. His subsequent fate was undramatic--he and his boat were captured at sea on board a merchant ship, which was carrying him elsewhere for further operations.

France, which had been rendering considerable secret assistance to the revolted Colonists, had, ever since the Treaty of Paris, been steadily building up her Navy, till she had eighty ships of the line and 67,000 men. The efficiency of the _personnel_ had been increased by the enrolment of a special corps of gunners, who practiced weekly. Efforts--which, however, were only moderately successful--had also been made to break down the serious class rivalries between those officers who were of the _noblesse_ and those who were tarpaulin seamen. But the majority of officers were skilled tactically, and special orders were issued that to seek out and attack the enemy was an objective.[36] Here, again, another weak point existed: d’Orvilliers, who commanded the main fleet, also received orders to be cautious--orders very similar in tenor to those by which his predecessors in previous wars were hampered.

The fleet of Great Britain, spread over many quarters of the world, including ships being fitted, consisted of about 150 ships of the line, besides auxiliaries; but the actual available force of Home water fleet with which Keppel sailed just before the opening of the war was twenty ships only!

Capturing two French frigates and learning from them that thirty-two ships were at Brest, Keppel got reinforcements of ten ships, and on the 27th of July, 1778, met d’Orvilliers, also with thirty ships, off Ushant. The battle lasted three hours, when the fleets drew apart without any material result having been achieved. The tactical ability lay with the French, and but for the inefficiency of the leader of one French division, the Duc de Chartres (the future “Phillipe Egalité”), would have done so still more. Yet, though Keppel had obviously done his best, public opinion in England had expected a great naval victory, and Keppel was the subject of a most violent controversy, which soon developed on political lines.

At and about the time of the battle of Ushant, D’Estaing, with twelve ships of the line and five frigates, reached the Delaware. The English fleet under Howe, which consisted of only nine inferior ships of the line, took refuge inside Sandy Hook. D’Estaing came outside and remained ten days in July, but then sailed away.

His failure to operate has been put down to the advice of pilots, but more probably, as pointed out by Admiral Mahan, he had secret instructions not to assist the Colonists too actively. The destruction of Hood’s fleet would have meant the capture of New York, peace between England and America, and a considerable force released for operations against France. Most of the subsequent movements of the year seem to have been coloured by a similar policy. In 1779, the West Indian islands of St. Vincent and Grenada fell into the hands of the French. Subsequently D’Estaing returned to the North American Coast, but no important operations took place there. Finally he returned with some ships to France, sending the others to the West Indies.

Spain declared war against England in 1780. Her fleet then consisted of nearly sixty ships of the line, which--like the French--were in a more efficient state than in previous wars. Her prime object was the recovery of Gibraltar.

A combined Franco-Spanish fleet of sixty-four ships of the line appeared in the Channel, causing an immense panic in England. The only available English fleet consisted of thirty-seven sail of the line, under Sir Charles Hardy, and this wandered away to the westward, leaving the Channel quite open to the allies, who, however, also wandered about without accomplishing anything. As usual with allies, there were divided councils, and in addition the French fleet, having had to wait long for the unwilling Spaniards, was badly incapacitated from sickness. Thus, and thus only, is their failure to invade to be explained: they had 40,000 men ready to be transported over, also a naval force ample to defeat any available English fleet, and able to cover landing operations as well.

When the war first began, there was in France an English admiral--that same Rodney who had destroyed the invading flotilla at Havre in the previous war--who by reason of his debts was unable to return to his own country. In private life he was a merry old soul of sixty or so, and at a dinner one night boasted that if he could pay his debts and go back to England, he would get a command and easily smash the French fleet. Hearing this, a French nobleman promptly paid his debts for him, and sarcastically told Rodney to go back and prove his words.

Rodney, who had the reputation of being an able officer, but nothing more, got home in 1779. In 1780, having secured a command for the West Indies, he left Portsmouth with twenty sail of the line and a convoy for the relief of Gibraltar. Off Finisterre, he captured a Spanish convoy carrying provisions to the besiegers. Off Cape St. Vincent he fell in with eleven Spanish ships and attacked them at night, in a gale, blowing up one, and capturing six. Thence he proceeded to Gibraltar, relieved it from all immediate danger, Minorca also; and then sailed for the West Indies. Here, on April 17th, some three weeks after arrival, he met the French under Guichen, and made the first attempt at that “breaking the line” associated with his name. The attempt was not a success, as his orders were misunderstood by several of his own captains and his intentions realised and foiled by his opponents.[37]

This action was indecisive; as also were two more that followed.

In this year (1780), Captain Horatio Nelson, then only twenty-two years old, made his first appearance in the _Hinchinbrook_ (28), in an attack on San Juan, Nicaragua. He succeeded, after terrible loss of _personnel_ from disease.

A Spanish squadron then joined the French, but an epidemic--that most fruitful of all sources for the upsetting of naval plans--overtook it. The Spaniards were incapacitated and the French returned home. Rodney went to New York, where his operations delayed the cause of the Colonists; then returning to the West Indies, operated against the Dutch, who had by now joined the French and Spaniards.

The general position of Great Britain, in 1781 and 1782, was well nigh desperate. Gibraltar was only held by a remarkable combination of luck and resolution. To quote Mahan, “England stood everywhere on the defensive.” She fought with her back to the wall. In the East Indies, Suffren kept the French flag flying: and things were generally at a very low ebb, when in 1782 Rodney “broke the line” in the victory of the Battle of the Saints.

On April 9th, the fleets had come into contact without much result on either side. On the 12th, De Grasse, being then in some disorder, with thirty-four ships, encountered the English with thirty-six in good order. Rodney and Hood broke the line in two places. Admiral Mahan has been at pains to show us that this result was much a matter of luck and change of wind, and that the victory was by no means followed up as it might have been. One French ship was sunk and five were taken, including De Grasse himself, whose losses in his flagship, the _Ville de Paris_, were greater than those in the entire English fleet.

To the nation at this juncture, however, anything savouring of victory was a thing to be made the utmost of, and Rodney has probably received more than his meed of merit over what was mainly a matter of luck.

Two features of special interest in connection with this battle are that, though up to it, British ships had recently, owing to coppering, proved better sailers than the French; in the sequel to this fight, the French proved equal to sail away. The rapid deterioration of coppering, already mentioned, may account for some of this, but in this battle there is also reason to believe that the French fleet instituted firing at the rigging. Contemporary statements exist as to the French having made a wonderful number of holes in English hulls without much material result, but these may be dismissed as pardonable temporary bluster. More germane is the fact that the English ships were supplied with carronades[38]--harmless at long range and deadly at short--for which reason the French tried to keep them at a distance, so that altogether superior efficiency with men and weapons would seem to have played a greater part than any tactical genius on the part of Rodney, in whom a dogged insistence to get at the enemy was ever the main characteristic rather than “thinking things out.” The Mahan estimate of him sorts better with known facts than the estimate of his accomplishment at the time.

As regards Rodney himself, it is interesting to record that Navy and Party were so synonymous at the time that he, being a strong Tory, had already been superseded by political influence when he won the battle that broke French power in the West Indies. It lies to the credit of the Whigs that both he and Hood, his second in command, received peerages; but the most difficult thing of all to understand to-day is, that in a life and death struggle such as this war was, the personal political element should have managed to find expression.

In 1782, Gibraltar, which had been twice relieved, was once more in grievous straits. The French had evolved floating batteries for the attack, similar in principle to those which, some seventy years later, were to figure so prominently in the Crimea.

Being merely armoured with heavy wood planks, however, they were easily set on fire with red-hot shot, and the great bombardment failed long before the relieving force, under Howe, arrived. The garrison, however, were in great straits for supplies, and their real relief was Howe’s fleet, which the combined Franco-Spanish squadrons did not dare to attack.

The Treaty of Versailles, in 1783, followed soon afterwards. By it the United States of America were recognised, Minorca was given up, but most of the captured West Indian islands restored to Great Britain.

Just before the close of the war, the relative naval strengths were assessed as follows:--[39]

==================+==========+=========+========+==========
Description of | Great | | |
Vessels. | Britain. | France. | Spain. | Holland.
------------------+----------+---------+--------+----------
Ships of the Line | 105 | 89 | 53 | 32
Fifty-gun Ships | 13 | 7 | 3 | 0
Large Frigates | 63 | 49 | 12 | { 28
Small Frigates | 69 | 54 | 36 | {
Sloops | 217 | 86 | 31 | 13
Cutters | 43 | 22 | 0 | 0
Armed Ships | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0
Bombs | 7 | 5 | 14 | 0
Fire-Ships | 9 | 7 | 11 | 6
Yachts | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0
+----------+---------+--------+----------
TOTAL | 555 | 319 | 160 | 79
==================+==========+=========+========+==========

In this list it is interesting to note the British inability to maintain even a Two-Power Standard in ships of the line, whereas in sloops and such like, an enormous preponderance prevailed. For the suppression of privateering on the coastal trade, these small craft proved very useful. Also worthy of note is the decline of the fire-ship as a naval arm.[40]

The figures as a whole suggest with much clarity that had the Allies been able to act together, Great Britain would never have emerged from the war so well as she did.

The ten years’ peace that followed was little more than a breathing space. War was constantly apprehended, and known improvement in French ships were such that they had to be carefully watched. The frigates built in England were made longer than before, with a view to keeping pace with French sailing qualities.

Considerable interest was taken in how far the country was self-supporting in the matter of timber for shipbuilding, a certain reliance on foreign supplies having previously existed. At, and about 1775, the cost of shipbuilding for the East India Company had exactly doubled in a few years. The home supply trouble arose, partly from the increased size of shipping, partly from the tendency of owners to fell trees as early as possible. Out of which special oak plantations were set up in the New Forest and elsewhere, though oak happened to cease to be of value for shipbuilding long before they had grown large enough for the larger timbers.

The question of repairs also came in for consideration, an average of twenty-five years’ repair totalling the cost of a new ship. At and about this time also, the building of ships by contract in peace time was first recommended on the grounds that thus the private yards would be better available in case of war.

Regular stores for ships in the dockyards were also instituted, with a view to the speedy equipment of ships in reserve.[41] It was mainly owing to this last provision, introduced by Lord Barham in 1783, that, though when the war of the French Revolution broke out in 1793 but twelve ships of the line and thirty lesser vessels were in commission, a few months later seventy-one ships of the line and 104 smaller craft were in service. The number of men voted in 1793 was 45,000.

VI.

THE GREAT FRENCH WAR.

The first incident of the war was connected with Toulon, which was partly Royalist and partly Republican. The story in full is to be found most dramatically rendered in _Ships and Men_, by David Hannay. Here it suffices to say that the Royalists and Moderates having coalesced at the eleventh hour, surrendered the town to Admiral Hood; that the British Government repudiated Hood’s arrangements, and that eventually in December, 1793, he was compelled to evacuate the place after doing such damage as he could and bringing away with him a few ships of the French navy.[42] The incident little concerns our naval history, the Navy being but a pawn in the political game of the moment. Indeed, it is mostly of some naval interest only because two figures, destined to bulk largely in future history, loomed up in it--Captain Horatio Nelson, of the _Agamemnon_, who laughed when the Spanish fleet excused its inaction by saying that it had been six weeks at sea and was disabled accordingly; and Napoleon, who, as much as anyone, served to hurry the English out.

Early in 1794 the British fleet had ninety-five ships of the line in commission, besides 194 lesser vessels. The _personnel_ amounted to 85,000.

The centre of interest was the French Brest fleet. Under Villaret-Joyeuse, a captain of the old Navy, made Admiral by the Terrorists, whose cause he had espoused, this fleet was by no means inefficient, like the undisciplined Toulon fleet had been. It carried on board the flagship Jean Bon St. André, the deputy of the State, who, whatever his faults, realised the meaning of “efficiency.” The bulk of the crew were men who had done well in America. Howe, on the other hand, commanded a somewhat raw fleet, hastily brought up to strength and still by no means “shaken down.”

Howe’s orders were threefold--to convoy a British merchant fleet; to destroy the French fleet; and to intercept a convoy of French grain coming from America.

From the 5th to the 28th May, Howe was keeping an eye on Brest and looking for the French convoy, the interception of which was more important than anything else, as France was dependent on these grain ships for the means to live.

On the 28th, the French fleet was sighted a long way out in the Atlantic. Villaret-Joyeuse, who was out to protect the grain convoy at all costs, drew still further out to sea, Howe following in pursuit.[43] Towards evening, the last French ship _Revolutionnaire_ (100), was come up with and engaged by six British (seventy-four’s), of which one, the _Audacious_, was badly crippled. The _Revolutionnaire_ herself was dismasted, but was towed away by a frigate in the night.

This particular incident is one of the most prominent examples of the power of the “monster” ship as compared with the “moderate dimension” ship[44] of the period. The six did not attack her simultaneously, and some were never closely engaged. She was magnificently fought also; but even when these elements are subtracted, the fact of the extraordinary resisting power exhibited remains. As only the _Audacious_, which attacked last, did much harm to the Frenchman, the explanation in this particular case probably lies in the stouter scantlings required for a ship of 110 guns, compared to smaller ships.

On the following day the action was renewed. Villaret-Joyeuse allowed his tail ships to drop into range of the leading British vessels with a view to crippling them. Howe cut the line, but being somewhat outmanœuvred by the French admiral, obtained no special advantage therefrom. Some of the French ships were, however, disabled, and had to be towed in the general action that was to follow later.

Two days’ fog now interrupted operations, but on Sunday, June 1st, battle was joined. The opposing fleets then consisted as follows:--

BRITISH. FRENCH.
3 of 100 guns. 1 of 120 guns.
4 of 98 guns. 2 of 100 guns.
2 of 80 guns. 4 of 80 guns.
16 of 74 guns. 19 of 74 guns.
-- --
25 26
-- --

This gives 2,036 British to 2,066 French guns, but as, at least, one Frenchman was considerably disabled, there was probably a slight British superiority.

Howe, more or less, arranged his heavy ships to correspond with the heavy ships of the enemy, and having hove-to half-an-hour for breakfast, flung the old fighting instructions[45] to the winds and bore right down into the enemy. In the _melee_ that ensued, some of the English failed to close, and seven of the French drifted to leeward out of action.

Of the French fleet, two eighty-gun and four seventy-four’s were badly mauled and eventually struck, while a seventh French ship, the _Vengeur_ (seventy-four) was sunk.[46] Four were badly disabled, but drifted to leeward out of the fight. On the British side a number of ships were badly damaged.

The fleets, having drawn apart, Villaret-Joyeuse succeeded in getting a portion of his fleet into some sort of order again, and threatened the disabled English ships. Howe protected these, but did not renew action; and the French, with the disabled ships in tow, made off.

Such was the battle of “the glorious First of June.” Howe has been greatly blamed since then for not having followed up his victory, but there are not wanting indications that the caution of Curtis, his captain of the fleet, who pleaded with Howe not to re-engage lest the advantage gained should be lost, was justified. Villaret-Joyeuse, the captain, hastily placed in command of a large fleet, was one of the most, if not the most, capable admirals France ever had against us. How badly all the French ships had suffered we now know, but the means of telling it were absent then. The all-important question of intercepting the grain convoy was also possibly present in Howe’s mind.

Be that as it may, the convoy was not intercepted. It reached France in safety, and all question of starving the Revolution into surrender was at an end. On that account the battle was reckoned as a victory by the French as well as in England.[47]

Other naval events of this year (1794) were the capture of Corsica, by Hood; and in the West Indies, the capture of Martinique and St. Lucia. Guadaloupe was also taken, but quickly re-captured. Among the prizes of the year was the French forty-gun frigate _Pomone_, which proved infinitely faster than anything in the English fleet. This led to much discussion in the House of Commons. A considerable party denied that any such superiority existed; others alleged that even if so, British ships were better and more strongly built. Others again attributed the circumstance to the heavy premiums awarded by the French Government to constructors who produced swift sailing ships.

Nothing of much moment came out of the discussion. Orders were issued that ships were to be built a little longer in future, and with the lower deck ports less near the water than heretofore, but the general tendency to over-gun ships in relation to their size still remained.

For the year 1795, the _personnel_ of the fleet was increased to 100,000, and provision was made for a very considerable increase of small craft. The Dutch declared war in January, but the year was not marked by any operations of much moment so far as they were concerned.

The principal theatres of naval operations were in the Mediterranean and the Channel. This year is marked by a curious indecisiveness, which had much to do with the formation of Nelson’s (who was serving in the Mediterranean as captain of the _Agamemnon_, sixty-four), subsequent character as an admiral.

The British fleet consisted of fifteen ships of the line, under Hotham. The French had got together fifteen sail at Toulon. These made for Corsica, in March, and on the way captured one of Hotham’s ships, the _Berwick_. With the remainder, Hotham put to sea, and on the 12th, off Genoa, he was sighted by the French. His fleet was in considerable disorder, and in the view of Professor Laughton, the incapacity of the French alone averted a disaster. In the desultory operations of the next two days, two prizes were taken and two English ships crippled. Nelson, who was mainly responsible for the prizes, urged Hotham to pursue and destroy the enemy, but the admiral refused.[48]

In July, Nelson, who was on detached service, was met and chased back to Genoa by the whole French fleet, which, however, drew off when Hotham’s fleet was sighted. Hotham, with a greatly superior fleet, came out, and eventually found the enemy off Hyeres. Chase was ordered and one French ship overhauled and captured; then, on the grounds that the shore was too near, Hotham hauled off.

These operations (or lack of them) on the part of Hotham, are important beyond most. In the view of Professor Laughton,[49] Hotham’s indecision was mainly responsible for the rise and grandeur of Napoleon’s career. Vigorous action on his part would have written differently the history of the world. As like as not, in addition to no Napoleon, there would also have been no Nelson, to go down as the leading figure in British naval history. The survival of the French fleet rendered possible that invasion of Italy which “made” Napoleon, and those sea battles which made Nelson our most famous admiral.

Villaret-Joyeuse (who had commanded the French fleet in the battle of the First of June) displayed considerable activity in 1795, capturing a frigate and a good many merchant ships. The weather, however, was against him, and he lost five ships of the line wrecked. He, notwithstanding, kept the sea with twelve ships of the line, and with these met Cornwallis with five, off Brest, on June 16th. Cornwallis retired, but was overhauled the next day, and his tail ship the _Mars_, (seventy-four) badly damaged, the French, as usual, firing at the rigging. Cornwallis, in the _Royal Sovereign_, (100) fell back to support the _Mars_, but was well on the way to be defeated when he adopted the clever ruse of sending away a frigate to signal to him that the Channel fleet was coming up. The code used was one known to have been captured by the French, and they, reading the signals, hastily abandoned the pursuit and made off.

Three days later, Villaret-Joyeuse did actually encounter the Channel fleet, under Hood (now Lord Bridport). He made off south, chased by Bridport, who had fourteen ships, mostly three-deckers, of which the French had but one. After a four days’ chase, Bridport came up with the tail of the enemy, off Lorient. A partial action ensued, in which three French ships were captured, after which Bridport withdrew. He gave as his reason the nearness to the French shore--exactly the reason that Hotham gave for neglecting a possible victory. In both cases, the reason was rather trivial. The practical assign it to the old age of the admirals concerned. To the imaginative, these two almost incomprehensible failures to take advantage of circumstances gave some colour to Napoleon’s theory of “his destiny.”

In this year, a number of East Indiamen were purchased for naval use. One of these, the _Glatton_, (fifty-six) was experimentally armed with sixty-eight pounder carronades on her lower deck, and forty-two pounders on the upper. On her way to join her squadron, she was attacked by six French frigates, of which one was a fifty-gun, and two were of thirty-six. She easily defeated the lot--another instance of the “big ship’s” advantage in minor combats. Despite this instance of what might be done, the heavy gun idea made no headway, and the _Glatton_ remained a unique curiosity, till many years later the Americans adopted it to our great disadvantage.

Towards the end of 1795 (December) Hotham was replaced in the Mediterranean by Sir John Jervis--an admiral of unique personality, who left upon the Navy a mark that easily endures to this day. Somewhat hyperbolically it has been said of him that he was the saviour of the Navy in his own day, and the main element towards its disruption in these times!

Jervis had made his mark in the War of American Independence, as captain of the _Foudroyant_. Discipline was his passion; and by means of it, he had made an easy capture of a French ship. Thereafter, he became a unique blend of martinet and genius.

He was the first openly to re-affirm Sir Walter Raleigh’s theory, quoted in an earlier chapter, that fortifications were useless against invasion, and that only on the water could an enemy be met successfully, combatting Pitt himself on this point. When the Great War broke out, his first employment was in the West Indies, where he achieved St. Lucia, Martinique and Guadaloupe. He went to the Mediterranean, at a time when France was numerically superior to us in the Channel, and when Spain was daily expected to declare war. The fleet to which he went was like all others, tending to a mutinous spirit, and finally he had to go out in the frigate _Lively_. In those days, for an admiral to take passage in anything less than a ship of the line was considered a most undignified thing. It rankled so with Jervis that he never forgot it, and years after harped upon it as a grievance. Of such character was the man who took command in the Mediterranean at the end of 1795.

In 1796, the _personnel_ of the Navy was increased to 110,000. Jervis, in the Mediterranean, did little beyond blockading Toulon, and training his fleet on his own ideas. Spain declared war in October; but her intentions being known beforehand, Corsica was evacuated, and at the end of the year the Mediterranean was abandoned also, Jervis with his entire fleet lying under the guns of Gibraltar. Nothing else was possible.

Elsewhere invasion ideas were uppermost in France, and 18,000 troops, convoyed by seventeen ships of the line and thirteen frigates, sailed from Brest for Bantry Bay, at the end of the year. Only eight ships of the line reached there; a gale dispersed the transports and nothing happened in the way of invasion. The only other event of the year was the capture of a Dutch squadron at the Cape of Good Hope. Matters generally were, however, so bad, that attempts were made to secure terms of peace from France. These attempts failed.

The year 1792 saw 108 ships of the line and 293 lesser vessels in commission. Something like sixty ships of the line were building or ordered, also 168 lesser craft. The first incident was the Battle of Cape St. Vincent (14th February, 1797). The Spaniards, having come out of Cartagena, were making for Cadiz, when sighted by Jervis.

The rival fleets were:--

BRITISH. SPANISH.
2 of 100 guns. 1 of 130 guns.
3 of 98 guns. 6 of 112 guns.
1 of 90 guns. 2 of 80 guns.
8 of 74 guns. 18 of 74 guns.
1 of 64 guns. --
-- 27
15 --
--

The battle is mainly of interest on account of Nelson’s part in it. The Spaniards were sailing in no order whatever, the bulk of them being in one irregular mass, the remainder in another. Jervis, in line ahead, proposed to pass between the two divisions, and destroy the larger before the smaller could beat up to assist them. The Spaniards, however inefficient they may have been in other ways, saw through this manœuvre, and their main body was preparing to join up astern of the British, when Nelson, in the _Captain_, flung himself across them and captured two ships by falling foul of them and boarding. Three other ships were captured, the rest escaped. In this battle, as in those of the year before, the same caution about following up the victory was observed, and the age of the admiral concerned has again been produced as the reason. But the thoughtful--taking the previous career of most of those concerned into consideration--may suspect the existence of some special secret orders about taking no risks, as yet unearthed by any historian. The only really workable alternative is Napoleon’s “destiny” theory already alluded to. Of the two, the secret order hypothesis is the more practical. Into the whole of these victories not properly followed up, it is also possible, though hardly probable, that the mutinous state of the _personnel_ entered.

In the battle of Cape St. Vincent, the Spaniards had an enormous four-decker, the _Santissima Trinidad_, of 130 guns. She was the first ship engaged by Nelson, and was hammered by most of the others closely engaged as well, but her size and power saved her from the fate of the rest of the ships that were with her.

It is difficult even now to assess the exact situation of the mutineers of 1797. The organised self-restraint of the Spithead Mutiny is hard to understand, when we remember the heterogeneous origin of the crews. “Jail or Navy” was an every-day offer to prisoners. Longshoremen, riff-raff, pressed landsmen, thieves, murderers, smugglers, and a few degraded officers, were the raw material of which the crews were composed. They were stiffened with a proportion of professional seamen, and it is these that must have leavened the mass, and kept the jail-bird element in check.

Pay was bad, ship life close akin to prison life, discipline and punishments alike brutal, and the food disgracefully bad. It was this last that brought about the mutiny. There is an old saying to the effect that you may ill-treat a sailor as you will, but if you ill-feed him, trouble may be looked for! One or two isolated mutinies, like that of the _Hermione_, were due to a captain’s brutality; but mainly and mostly bad food and mutiny were closely linked.

Commander Robinson[50] draws attention to the fact that the pursers themselves were hardly the unscrupulous rascals they were supposed to be on shore, and that the system and regulations of victualling were recognised by the seamen as at the bottom of the mischief.

The same authority quotes a contemporary:--

“The reason unto you I now will relate:
We resolved to refuse the purser’s short weight;
Our humble petition to Lord Howe we sent,
That he to the Admiralty write to present
Our provisions and wages that they might augment.”

Discontent had, of course, long been brewing, but the Admiralty seems to have been without any suspicions. They dismissed the petition as being in no way representative; later, having received reports to the contrary, ordered Lord Bridport’s fleet at Spithead to proceed to sea. On April 15th, when the signal to weigh anchor was made, the crews of every ship manned the rigging and cheered. No violence was offered to any officer; the men simply refused to work. Each ship supplied a couple of delegates to explain matters, and after an enquiry, their demands were granted and a free pardon given. Delays, however, ensued, and on May 7th, the fleet again refused to put to sea.

On this occasion, the officers were disarmed, confined to their cabins, and kept there, till a few days later a general pardon was proclaimed, when this mutiny ended. A similar mutiny at Plymouth was equally mild.

Of a very different character was the mutiny at the Nore, which broke out on May 13th, under the leadership of the notorious Richard Parker. Parker was a man of considerable parts, said to have been an ex-officer dismissed the service with disgrace, and to have entered as a seaman. He possessed undoubted ability and considerable ambition. He very clearly aimed at something more than the redress of grievances, since his first act was to put a rope round his own neck by instigating the crew of the _Inflexible_ to fire into a sister ship, on board which a court-martial was being held. Subsequently, delegates were sent to the Admiralty with extravagant claims, which--as Parker may have anticipated--were ignored.

Eleven ships of Admiral Duncan’s fleet (then blockading the Texel) had joined Parker by the first of June. Duncan was left with but two ships in face of the enemy. By showing himself much and making imaginary signals Duncan managed to conceal the facts from the Dutch: but he had considerable trouble to keep his two ships from joining the mutineers now blockading the Thames.

There is reason to believe that Parker was in touch with the Revolutionists in France and the dissatisfied Irish, but the bulk of the mutineers were altogether uninfluenced by political ideas. The mutiny began to waver. The ships at other home ports were unsympathetic, and Parker and his friends found men cooling off. In order to keep things together it was their custom to row round the fleet[51] and inspect ships suspected of being “cool,”--the side being piped for them. In one case, however, the boatswain’s mate refused to do so, and flung his call at their heads. On coming on board, they sentenced him to thirty-six lashes for “mutinous conduct!” On June 10th, despite this disciplinary system, two of the mutineer ships sailed away under fire from the others, and on the 14th, Parker’s own ship surrendered and handed him over to the authorities. He was hanged on June 29th.

In the Mediterranean fleet, mutiny broke out in two ships off Cadiz, but Jervis (now Earl St. Vincent), compelled the mutineers to hang their own ringleaders. In connection with this, Nelson, who was now rear admiral commanding the inshore squadron, wrote to St. Vincent--

“I congratulate you on the finish, as it ought, of the St. George’s
business, and I (if I may be permitted to say so) very much approve
of its being so speedily carried into execution, even although
it is Sunday. The particular situation of the service requires
extraordinary measures. I hope this will end all the disorders in
our fleet: had there been the same determined spirit at home, I do
not believe it would have been half so bad.”

It is noteworthy that in Nelson’s own ship there was no trouble whatever. The ship had had a reputation for insubordination, but shortly after Nelson joined her, a paper intimating that no mutiny need be feared was dropped on the quarter-deck. Nelson brought with him a reputation for taking a personal interest in his men. Then, as now, hard work and a dog’s life were not objected to, provided the personal equation were present.

St. Vincent proceeded to stamp out the embers of mutiny in his own fashion. He set himself to invest his rank with every circumstance of pomp, awe and ceremony. Every morning he appeared on the quarter deck in full dress uniform, paraded the Marines, and had “God save the King” played with all hats off. His regulations were catholic enough to embrace lieutenants’ shoe-laces. In all the pomp that he created the mutinous spirit was smothered.

To him is due the vast abyss between the quarter-deck and lower-deck which marks the Navy of to-day. Whether this, advantageous as it was a hundred odd years ago, is equally advantageous now, is another matter. It makes a barrier altogether different from that existing between officer and man in the Army--it is something closely akin to the racial differences mark in India; and this sorts ill with the democratic ideas of to-day, when class distinction is quite a different matter from what it was a hundred years ago.

There are still possible two views of the question. One is embodied in a letter I received some few years ago from a man from the lower-deck. He wrote, “When I was a boy in a training ship, my captain seemed to me something as far away and above me as God himself, and the impression thus created I have carried with me towards all officers ever since. Though in private life I might meet his brother with feeling of perfect equality, I could never be other than ill at ease meeting an officer in the same conditions.”

Here, at any rate, is the psychology of what St. Vincent aimed at. To-day, however, one is far more likely to hear about “the side of officers,” or that “officers, when cadets, are taught to regard the men with contempt!” The conditions are such, that despite mixed cricket and football teams, mutual sympathy between officers and men is well nigh impossible.

Of “the great God Routine” which St. Vincent set up, it is beyond question that it is to-day an irritating superfluity to both officers and men alike.

To resume. As the Spaniards obstinately refused to come out from Cadiz, St. Vincent sent Nelson in to bombard them with mortar boats; but this attempt to force them out did not succeed. Following upon this, Nelson, with three seventy-four’s, one fifty, three frigates and a cutter, was despatched to Santa Cruz. On the night of July 24th, he led a boat attack in person. Most of the boats missed the Mole and were stove in. Such as reached the Mole were met by a withering fire. Nelson was struck on the right elbow by a grape shot, and taken back to the _Theseus_, where his arm was amputated. Troubridge took command of the 300 odd men who had got ashore, and being surrounded by the Spanish, made terms, whereby the Spaniards found boats for his party to return to their ships. The squadron rejoined St. Vincent, and Nelson sailed for England to recover.

The blockade of the Texel had been vigorously maintained till October, when Duncan returned to Spithead to refit. He had no sooner done so than the Dutch, under De Winter, came out--presumably with a view to reaching Brest. Duncan’s frigates, however, promptly reported them, and sailing at once he met them off Camperdown, on October 11th.

The rival fleets were:--

BRITISH. DUTCH.

7 of 74 guns. 4 of 74 guns.
7 of 64 guns. 7 of 64 guns.
2 of 50 guns. 4 of 50 guns.
-- --
16 15
-- --

Duncan’s original plan was the old fashioned ship-to-ship system, but in the actual event, the Dutch line was broken. One of the Dutch fifty-gun ships fell back to avoid the _Lancaster_ (sixty-four), five others for some reason or other following her; the remaining nine fought desperately, till further resistance was impossible.

The prizes were:--two seventy-four’s, five sixty-four’s, two fifties, and a couple of frigates. Both the captured fifties were lost; the other ships were with great difficulty got to England. All were found to have been damaged beyond repair, and some of Duncan’s ships were in little better condition. His losses in _personnel_ were over 1,000 in killed and wounded. His crews, it is interesting to note, consisted mostly of Parker’s erstwhile mutineers.

During 1797, a few frigates only were lost. These included the _Hermione_, whose crew mutinied and handed her over to the enemy. The brutality of her captain, Pigot, whose idea of efficiency was to flog the last two men down from aloft, was the cause of this particular outbreak.[52]

In 1797, a large ninety-eight gun ship, the _Neptune_, was added to the Navy, also a seventy-four and a sixty-four. Private yards launched no less than forty-six frigates and smaller craft, and the total number of warships built, building and projected, was 696.[53]

For the year 1798, the _personnel_ voted was 100,000 seamen and 20,000 marines; and the total Naval Estimates amounted to £13,449,388.

In France, Buonaparte was forging to the front, and he threw himself into those schemes for the invasion of England which so appealed to the French mind and so terrified the British public. Ireland was selected as the most suitable spot, and two expeditions were prepared, one at Rochefort, the other at Brest. Of these, one, the Rochefort expedition, materialised in August, reached Killala Bay, in Ireland, and soon afterwards had to surrender to the English Army. The Brest expedition, escorted by a line of battle ship and a number of frigates, was more or less annihilated by Admiral Warren, on October 12th.

As already stated, the Mediterranean had become a species of Franco-Spanish lake. St. Vincent was outside Gibraltar, and he was still there when Nelson, in the _Vanguard_, arrived to join him as rear-admiral, at the end of April.

Nelson, with a small squadron, was at once despatched to discover what the French were doing at Toulon. Rumours of all kinds were current. He found fifteen ships of the line and a great many transports, news of which he sent to the Admiral. On the top of this came a gale, which dismasted the _Vanguard_. She was, however, towed into San Pietro, Sardinia, and hastily re-fitted, and four days later the ships were off Toulon again, only to find that the French had sailed.

Reinforced by ten sail of the line, under Troubridge, Nelson now sailed in search of the French fleet. Reaching Alexandria and finding nothing known there of the French, he worked back to Syracuse, where he revictualled in cheerful disregard of the neutrality remonstrances of the Governor. Thence he returned eastward, and having received information of where the French had last been seen, eventually found them anchored in Aboukir Bay, where he attacked them on the evening of August 1st, 1798.

The rival fleets were:--

BRITISH. FRENCH.

13 of 74 guns. 1 of 120 guns.
1 of 50 guns. 9 of 74 guns.
-- --
14 10, also 4 Frigates.
-- --

The French, under Brueys, were drawn across the Bay in a “defensive position.” They were in no way a very efficient force, some of the ships being old and short of guns, all of them rather short-handed, and even so, manned with many new-raised raw men. On the other hand, they were so sure of the safety of their position that their inshore guns were not cleared for action. By all the naval theory of the day this idea of impregnability was justified.

The battle itself was simple enough. Nelson came down with the wind on the French van, approximately putting two of his ships one on either side of each of the Frenchmen, and so on, the rear being unable to beat up to support them. The result was the practical annihilation of the French fleet. Of the thirteen ships of the line, only two escaped in company with two frigates.