Chapter XIII (2)

Independently of the tactical handling of the two fleets, there were certain differences of equipment which conferred tactical advantage, and are therefore worth noting. The French appear to have had finer ships, and, class for class, heavier armaments. Sir Charles Douglas, an eminent officer of active and ingenious turn of mind, who paid particular attention to gunnery details, estimated that in weight of battery the thirty-three French were superior to the thirty-six English by the force of four 84-gun ships; and that after the loss of the "Zélé," "Jason," and "Caton" there still remained an advantage equal to two seventy-fours. The French admiral La Gravière admits the generally heavier calibre of French cannon at this era. The better construction of the French ships and their greater draught caused them to sail and beat better, and accounts in part for the success of De Grasse in gaining to windward; for in the afternoon of the 11th only three or four of the body of his fleet were visible _from the mast-head_ of the English flag-ship, which had been within gunshot of them on the 9th. It was the awkwardness of the unlucky "Zélé" and of the "Magnanime," which drew down De Grasse from his position of vantage, and justified Rodney's perseverance in relying upon the chapter of accidents to effect his purpose. The greater speed of the French as a body is somewhat hard to account for, because, though undoubtedly with far better lines, the practice of coppering the bottom had not become so general in France as in England, and among the French there were several uncoppered and worm-eaten ships.[213] The better sailing of the French was, however, remarked by the English officers, though the great gain mentioned must have been in part owing to Rodney's lying-by, after the action of the 9th, to refit, due probably to the greater injury received by the small body of his vessels, which had been warmly engaged, with greatly superior numbers. It was stated, in narrating that action, that the French kept at half cannon-range; this was to neutralize a tactical advantage the English had in the large number of carronades and other guns of light weight but large calibre, which in close action told heavily, but were useless at greater distances. The second in command, De Vaudreuil, to whom was intrusted the conduct of that attack, expressly states that if he had come within reach of the carronades his ships would have been quickly unrigged. Whatever judgment is passed upon the military policy of refusing to crush an enemy situated as the English division was, there can be no question that, if the object was to prevent pursuit, the tactics of De Vaudreuil on the 9th was in all respects excellent. He inflicted the utmost injury with the least exposure of his own force. On the 12th, De Grasse, by allowing himself to be lured within reach of carronades, yielded this advantage, besides sacrificing to an impulse his whole previous strategic policy. Rapidly handled from their lightness, firing grape and shot of large diameter, these guns were peculiarly harmful in close action and useless at long range. In a later despatch De Vaudreuil says: "The effect of these new arms is most deadly within musket range; it is they which so badly crippled us on the 12th of April." There were other gunnery innovations, in some at least of the English ships, which by increasing the accuracy, the rapidity, and the field of fire, greatly augmented the power of their batteries. These were the introduction of locks, by which the man who aimed also fired; and the fitting to the gun-carriages of breast-pieces and sweeps, so that the guns could be pointed farther ahead or astern,--that is, over a larger field than had been usual. In fights between single ships, not controlled in their movements by their relations to a fleet, this improvement would at times allow the possessor to take a position whence he could train upon his enemy without the latter being able to reply, and some striking instances of such tactical advantage are given. In a fleet fight, such as is now being considered, the gain was that the guns could be brought to bear farther forward, and could follow the opponent longer as he passed astern, thus doubling, or more, the number of shots he might receive, and lessening for him the interval of immunity enjoyed between two successive antagonists.[214] These matters of antiquated and now obsolete detail carry with them lessons that are never obsolete; they differ in no respect from the more modern experiences with the needle-gun and the torpedo.

And indeed this whole action of April 12, 1782, is fraught with sound military teaching. Perseverance in pursuit, gaining advantage of position, concentration of one's own effort, dispersal of the enemy's force, the efficient tactical bearing of small but important improvements in the material of war, have been dwelt on. To insist further upon the necessity of not letting slip a chance to beat the enemy in detail, would be thrown away on any one not already convinced by the bearing of April 9 on April 12. The abandonment of the attack upon Jamaica, after the defeat of the French fleet, shows conclusively that the true way to secure ulterior objects is to defeat the force which threatens them. There remains at least one criticism, delicate in its character, but essential to draw out the full teachings of these events; that is, upon the manner in which the victory was followed up, and the consequent effects upon the war in general.

The liability of sailing-ships to injury in spars and sails, in other words, in that mobility which is the prime characteristic of naval strength, makes it difficult to say, after a lapse of time, what might or might not have been done. It is not only a question of actual damage received, which log-books may record, but also of the means for repair, the energy and aptitude of the officers and seamen, which differ from ship to ship. As to the ability of the English fleet, however, to follow up its advantages by a more vigorous pursuit on the 12th of April, we have the authority of two most distinguished officers,--Sir Samuel Hood, the second in command, and Sir Charles Douglas, the captain of the fleet, or chief-of-staff to the admiral. The former expressed the opinion that twenty ships might have been taken, and said so to Rodney the next day; while the chief-of-staff was so much mortified by the failure, and by the manner in which the admiral received his suggestions, as seriously to contemplate resigning his position.[215]

Advice and criticism are easy, nor can the full weight of a responsibility be felt, except by the man on whom it is laid; but great results cannot often be reached in war without risk and effort. The accuracy of the judgment of these two officers, however, is confirmed by inference from the French reports. Rodney justifies his failure to pursue by alleging the crippled condition of many ships, and other matters incident to the conclusion of a hard-fought battle, and then goes on to suggest what might have been done that night, had he pursued, by the French fleet, which "went off in a body of twenty-six ships-of-the-line."[216] These possibilities are rather creditable to his imagination, considering what the French fleet had done by day; but as regards the body of twenty-six[217] ships, De Vaudreuil, who, after De Grasse's surrender, made the signal for the ships to rally round his flag, found only ten with him next morning, and was not joined by any more before the 14th. During the following days five more joined him at intervals.[218] With these he went to the rendezvous at Cap Français, where he found others, bringing the whole number who repaired thither to twenty. The five remaining, of those that had been in the action, fled to Curaçoa, six hundred miles distant, and did not rejoin until May. The "body of twenty-six ships," therefore, had no existence in fact; on the contrary, the French fleet was very badly broken up, and several of its ships isolated. As regards the crippled condition, there seems no reason to think the English had suffered more, but rather less, than their enemy; and a curious statement, bearing upon this, appears in a letter from Sir Gilbert Blane:--

"It was with difficulty we could make the French officers
believe that the returns of killed and wounded, made by our
ships to the admiral, were true; and one of them flatly
contradicted me, saying we always gave the world a false account
of our loss. I then walked with him over the decks of the
'Formidable,' and bid him remark what number of shot-holes there
were, and _also how little her rigging had suffered_, and asked
if that degree of damage was likely to be connected with the
loss of more than fourteen men, which was our number killed, and
_the greatest of any in the fleet_, except the 'Royal Oak' and
'Monarch.' He ... owned our fire must have been much better kept
up and directed than theirs."[219]

There can remain little doubt, therefore, that the advantage was not followed up with all possible vigor. Not till five days after the battle was Hood's division sent toward San Domingo, where they picked up in the Mona Passage the "Jason" and the "Caton," which had separated before the battle and were on their way to Cap Français. These, and two small vessels with them, were the sole after-fruits of the victory. Under the conditions of England's war this cautious failure is a serious blot on Rodney's military reputation, and goes far to fix his place among successful admirals. He had saved Jamaica for the time; but he had not, having the opportunity, crushed the French fleet. He too, like De Grasse, had allowed the immediate objective to blind him to the general military situation, and to the factor which controlled it.

To appreciate the consequences of this neglect, and the real indecisiveness of this celebrated battle, we must go forward a year and listen to the debates in Parliament on the conditions of peace, in February, 1783. The approval or censure of the terms negotiated by the existing ministry involved the discussion of many considerations; but the gist of the dispute was, whether the conditions were such as the comparative financial and military situations of the belligerents justified, or whether it would have been better for England to continue the war rather than submit to the sacrifices she had made. As regards the financial condition, despite the gloomy picture drawn by the advocates of the peace, there was probably no more doubt then than there is now about the comparative resources of the different countries. The question of military strength was really that of naval power. The ministry argued that the whole British force hardly numbered one hundred sail-of-the-line, while the navies of France and Spain amounted to one hundred and forty, not to speak of that of Holland.

"With so glaring an inferiority, what hopes of success could we
derive, either from the experience of the last campaign, or from
any new distribution of our force in that which would have
followed? In the West Indies we could not have had more than
forty-six sail to oppose to forty, which on the day that peace
was signed lay in Cadiz Bay, with sixteen thousand troops on
board, ready to sail for that quarter of the world, where they
would have been joined by twelve of the line from Havana and
ten from San Domingo.... Might we not too reasonably apprehend
that the campaign in the West Indies would have closed with the
loss of Jamaica itself, the avowed object of this immense
armament?"[220]

These are certainly the reasonings of an avowed partisan, for which large allowances must be made. The accuracy of the statement of comparative numbers was denied by Lord Keppel, a member of the same party, and but lately at the head of the admiralty, a post which he had resigned because he disapproved the treaty.[221] English statesmen, too, as well as English seamen, must by this time have learned to discount largely the apparent, when estimating the real, power of the other navies. Nevertheless, how different would have been the appreciation of the situation, both moral and material, had Rodney reaped the full fruits of the victory which he owed rather to chance than to his own merit, great as that undeniably was.

A letter published in 1809, anonymous, but bearing strong internal evidence of being written by Sir Gilbert Blane, the physician of the fleet and long on intimate terms with Rodney, who was a constant sufferer during his last cruise, states that the admiral "thought little of his victory on the 12th of April, 1782." He would have preferred to rest his reputation upon his combinations against De Guichen, April 17, 1780, and "looked upon that opportunity of beating, with an inferior fleet, such an officer, whom he considered the best in the French service, as one by which, but for the disobedience of his captains, he might have gained immortal renown."[222] Few students will be inclined to question this estimate of Rodney's merit on the two occasions. Fortune, however, decreed that his glory should depend upon a battle, brilliant in itself, to which his own qualities least contributed, and denied him success when he most deserved it. The chief action of his life in which merit and success met, the destruction of Langara's fleet off Cape St. Vincent, has almost passed into oblivion; yet it called for the highest qualities of a seaman, and is not unworthy of comparison with Hawke's pursuit of Conflans.[223]

Within the two years and a half which had elapsed since Rodney was appointed to his command he had gained several important successes, and, as was remarked, had taken a French, a Spanish, and a Dutch admiral. "In that time he had added twelve line-of-battle ships, all taken from the enemy, to the British navy, and destroyed five more; and to render the whole still more singularly remarkable, the 'Ville de Paris' was said to be the only first-rate man-of-war that ever was taken and carried into port by any commander of any nation." Notwithstanding his services, the party spirit that was then so strong in England, penetrating even the army and navy, obtained his recall[224] upon the fall of Lord North's ministry, and his successor, a man unknown to fame, had already sailed when news arrived of the victory. In the fallen and discouraging state of English affairs at the time, it excited the utmost exultation, and silenced the strictures which certain parts of the admiral's previous conduct had drawn forth. The people were not in a humor to be critical, and amid the exaggerated notions that prevailed of the results achieved, no one thought of the failure to obtain greater. This impression long prevailed. As late as 1830, when Rodney's Life was first published, it was asserted "that the French navy had been so effectually crippled and reduced by the decisive victory of the 12th of April, as to be no longer in a condition to contest with Great Britain the empire of the seas." This is nonsense, excusable in 1782, but not to the calm thought of after days. The favorable terms obtained were due to the financial embarrassment of France, not to her naval humiliation; and if there was exaggeration in the contention of the advocates of peace that England could not save Jamaica, it is probable that she could not have recovered by arms the other islands restored to her by the treaty.

The memory of De Grasse will always be associated with great services done to America. His name, rather than that of Rochambeau, represents the material succor which France gave to the struggling life of the young Republic, as Lafayette's recalls the moral sympathy so opportunely extended. The incidents of his life, subsequent to the great disaster which closed his active career, cannot be without interest to American readers.

After the surrender of the "Ville de Paris," De Grasse accompanied the English fleet and its prizes to Jamaica, whither Rodney repaired to refit his ships, thus appearing as a captive upon the scene of his intended conquest. On the 19th of May he left the island, still a prisoner, for England. Both by naval officers and by the English people he was treated with that flattering and benevolent attention which comes easily from the victor to the vanquished, and of which his personal valor at least was not unworthy. It is said that he did not refuse to show himself on several occasions upon the balcony of his rooms in London, to the populace shouting for the valiant Frenchman. This undignified failure to appreciate his true position naturally excited the indignation of his countrymen; the more so as he had been unsparing and excessive in denouncing the conduct of his subordinates on the unlucky 12th of April.

"He bears his misfortune," wrote Sir Gilbert Blane, "with
equanimity; conscious, as he says, that he has done his duty....
He attributes his misfortune, not to the inferiority of his
force, but to the base desertion of his officers in the other
ships, to whom he made the signal to rally, and even hailed them
to abide by him, but was abandoned."[225]

This was the key-note to all his utterances. Writing from the English flag-ship, the day after the battle, he "threw upon the greater part of his captains the misfortunes of the day. Some had disobeyed his signals; others, and notably the captains of the 'Languedoc' and 'Couronne,' that is to say his next ahead and astern, had abandoned him."[226] He did not, however, confine himself to official reports, but while a prisoner in London published several pamphlets to the same effect, which he sent broadcast over Europe. The government, naturally thinking that an officer could not thus sully the honor of his corps without good reason, resolved to search out and relentlessly punish all the guilty. The captains of the "Languedoc" and "Couronne" were imprisoned as soon as they reached France, and all papers, logs, etc., bearing upon the case were gathered together. Under all the circumstances it is not to be wondered at that on his return to France, De Grasse, to use his own words, "found no one to hold out a hand to him."[227] It was not till the beginning of 1784 that all the accused and witnesses were ready to appear before the court-martial; but the result of the trial was to clear entirely and in the most ample manner almost every one whom he had attacked, while the faults found were considered of a character entitled to indulgence, and were awarded but slight punishment. "Nevertheless," cautiously observes a French writer, "one cannot but say, with the Court, that the capture of an admiral commanding thirty ships-of-the-line is an historical incident which causes the regret of the whole nation."[228] As to the conduct of the battle by the admiral, the Court found that the danger of the "Zélé" on the morning of the 12th was not such as to justify bearing down for so long a time as was done; that the crippled ship had a breeze which was not then shared by the English, five miles away to the southward, and which carried her into Basse Terre at ten A.M.; that the engagement should not have been begun before all the ships had come into line; and finally, that the fleet should have been formed on the same tack as the English, because, by continuing to stand south, it entered the zone of calms and light airs at the north end of Dominica.[229]

De Grasse was much dissatisfied with the finding of the Court, and was indiscreet enough to write to the minister of marine, protesting against it and demanding a new trial. The minister, acknowledging his protest, replied in the name of the king. After commenting upon the pamphlets that had been so widely issued, and the entire contradiction of their statements by the testimony before the Court, he concluded with these weighty words:--

"The loss of the battle cannot be attributed to the fault of
private officers.[230] It results, from the findings, that you
have allowed yourself to injure, by ill-founded accusations, the
reputation of several officers, in order to clear yourself in
public opinion of an unhappy result, the excuse for which you
might perhaps have found in the inferiority of your force, in
the uncertain fortune of war, and in circumstances over which
you had no control. His Majesty is willing to believe that you
did what you could to prevent the misfortunes of the day; but he
cannot be equally indulgent to your unjust imputations upon
those officers of his navy who have been cleared of the charges
against them. His Majesty, dissatisfied with your conduct in
this respect, forbids you to present yourself before him. I
transmit his orders with regret, and add my own advice to
retire, under the circumstances, to your province."

De Grasse died in January, 1788. His fortunate opponent, rewarded with peerage and pension, lived until 1792. Hood was also created a peer, and commanded with distinction in the early part of the wars of the French Revolution, winning the enthusiastic admiration of Nelson, who served under him; but a sharp difference with the admiralty caused him to be retired before achieving any brilliant addition to his reputation. He died in 1816, at the great age of ninety-two.

FOOTNOTES:

[194] The curve, a, a', a'', represents the line which Hood proposed to follow with his fleet, the wind being supposed east-southeast. The positions B, B, B, refer to the proceedings of a subsequent day and have nothing to do with the diagram at A.

[195] When a fleet is in line ahead, close to the wind, on one tack, and the ships go about together, they will, on the other tack, be on the same line, but not one ahead of the other. This formation was called bow-and-quarter line.

[196] A spring is a rope taken from the stern or quarter of a ship at anchor, to an anchor properly placed, by which means the ship can be turned in a desired direction.

[197] In the council of war of the allied fleets on the expediency of attacking the English squadron anchored at Torbay (p. 408) an opponent of the measure urged "that the whole of the combined fleets could not bear down upon the English in a line-of-battle abreast, that of course they must form the line-of-battle ahead, and go down upon the enemy singly, by which they would run the greatest risk of being shattered and torn to pieces," etc. (Beatson, vol. v. p. 396).

[198] In war, as in cards, the state of the score must at times dictate the play; and the chief who never takes into consideration the effect which his particular action will have on the general result, nor what is demanded of him by the condition of things elsewhere, both political and military, lacks an essential quality of a great general. "The audacious manner in which Wellington stormed the redoubt of Francisco [at Ciudad Rodrigo], and broke ground on the first night of the investment, the more audacious manner in which he assaulted the place before the fire of the defence had in any way lessened, and before the counterscarp had been blown in, were the true causes of the sudden fall of the place. _Both the military and political state of affairs warranted this neglect of rules._ When the general terminated his order for the assault with this sentence, 'Ciudad Rodrigo _must_ be stormed this evening,' he knew well that it would be nobly understood" (Napier's Peninsular War). "Judging that the honour of his Majesty's arms, _and the circumstances of the war in these seas_, required a considerable degree of enterprise, I felt myself justified in departing from the regular system" (Sir John Jervis's Report of the Battle of Cape St. Vincent).

[199] By Kempenfeldt's attack upon De Guichen's convoy, and the following gale in December, 1781. See p. 408.

[200] Kerguelen: Guerre Maritime de 1778. Letter of De Grasse to Kerguelen, dated Paris. January 8, 1783. p. 263.

[201] See pp. 366, 426.

[202] See Map IV. of the Atlantic Ocean, p. 532.

[203] Weather quarter is behind, but on the windward side.

[204] April 29, 1781, off Martinique, twenty-four ships to eighteen; January, 1782, thirty to twenty-two; April 9, 1782, thirty to twenty.

[205] The difference of time from Trincomalee to the Saints is nine hours and a half.

[206] The account of the transactions from April 9 to April 12 is based mainly upon the contemporary plates and descriptions of Lieutenant Matthews, R.N., and the much later "Naval Researches" of Capt. Thomas White, also of the British Navy, who were eye-witnesses, both being checked by French and other English narratives. Matthews and White are at variance with Rodney's official report as to the tack on which the English were at daybreak; but the latter is explicitly confirmed by private letters of Sir Charles Douglas, sent immediately after the battle to prominent persons, and is followed in the text.

[207] Letter of Sir Charles Douglas, Rodney's chief-of-staff: "United Service Journal," 1833, Part I. p. 515.

[208] De Grasse calls this distance three leagues, while some of his captains estimated it to be as great as five.

[209] The French, in mid-channel, had the wind more to the eastward.

[210] The positions of the French ships captured are shown by a cross in each of the three successive stages of the battle, B, C, D.

[211] The distance of the weathermost French ships from the "Ville de Paris," when the signal to form line-of-battle was made, is variously stated at from six to nine miles.

[212] The other two French ships taken were the "Ville de Paris," which, in her isolated condition, and bearing the flag of the commander-in-chief, became the quarry around which the enemy's ships naturally gathered, and the "Ardent," of sixty-four guns, which appears to have been intercepted in a gallant attempt to pass from the van to the side of her admiral in his extremity. The latter was the solitary prize taken by the allied Great Armada in the English Channel, in 1779.

[213] Official letter of the Marquis de Vaudreuil. Guérin: Histoire de la Marine Française, vol. v. p. 513.

[214] See United Service Journal, 1834, Part II. pp. 109 and following.

[215] See letter of Sir Howard Douglas in United Service Journal, 1834, Part II. p. 97; also "Naval Evolutions," by same author. The letters of Sir Samuel Hood have not come under the author's eye.

[216] Rodney's Life, vol. ii. p. 248.

[217] There were only twenty-five in all.

[218] Guérin, vol. v. p. 511.

[219] Rodney's Life, vol. ii. p. 246.

[220] Annual Register, 1783, p. 151.

[221] Annual Register, 1783, p. 157; Life of Admiral Keppel, vol. ii. p. 403.

[222] Naval Chronicle, vol. xxv. p. 404.

[223] Page 404. Yet here also the gossip of the day, as reflected in the Naval Atalantis, imputed the chief credit to Young, the captain of the flag-ship. Sir Gilbert Blane stated, many years later, "When it was close upon sunset, it became a question whether the chase should be continued. After some discussion between the admiral and captain, at which I was present, the admiral being confined with the gout, it was decided to persist in the same course with the signal to engage to leeward." (United Service Journal, 1830, Part II. p. 479.)

[224] Rodney was a strong Tory. Almost all the other distinguished admirals of the day, notably Keppel, Howe, and Barrington, were Whigs,--a fact unfortunate for the naval power of England.

[225] Rodney's Life, vol. ii. p. 242.

[226] Chevalier, p. 311.

[227] Kerguelen: Guerre Maritime de 1778. Letter of De Grasse to Kerguelen, p. 263.

[228] Troude: Batailles Navales. It is interesting to note in this connection that one of the ships near the French admiral, when he surrendered, was the "Pluton," which, though the extreme rear ship, had nevertheless thus reached a position worthy of the high reputation of her captain, D'Albert de Rions.

[229] Troude, vol. ii. p. 147

[230] That is, commanders of single ships.