Chapter XI (2)

Colpoys's fleet of fifteen sail was certainly not superior to the French. It might be considered adequate to frustrate the expedition, if met, but not sufficient to inflict the crushing blow that the policy and needs of Great Britain imperatively demanded. Moreover, a military body is not an inanimate object, like a rock, which once placed abides unchanged for years. It is rather a living organism, depending on daily nourishment, subject to constant waste, and needing constant renewal. If to station a competent force before Brest met the chief strategic requirement, its maintenance there embraced a number of subordinate strategic provisions, which in terms of land warfare are called communications. Ships meet with accidents; they degenerate by wear and tear; they consume water and provisions, their crews diminish by illness and need rest by occasional returns to port. These communications were not threatened by the French; but they were open to injury by insufficient forethought and by excessive distance, and from both they suffered. A division like Colpoys's may be renewed in two ways. Either it may be relieved by a body of similar number and go home; or it may be continually receiving fresh ships and continually sending old ones to the rear for rest. It need scarcely be said that the latter is by far the better, preserving a continuity of life and administration which the former breaks. Not only so; but the other system presupposes a squadron in port equal to that cruising, a reserve equal to the body in the field,—a fantastic proportion, which sacrifices every principle of warfare, and divides the available force into two masses, which do not even pretend to support but merely to replace each other.

A fleet charged with duty like that before Brest needs to be fixed at the highest number the resources of the nation can supply and supported by a reserve so proportioned that, by a constant coming and going, no ship at the front should ever be suffering from an exhaustion, either of condition or of supplies, against which diligent human forethought could have provided. The station of this reserve is obviously a matter of the utmost importance. It should, of course, be as near as possible to the main body, and, for sailing ships, favorably situated with reference to prevailing winds; for a head wind meant not merely the loss of time caused by itself, but often the loss of an opportunity which passes with the time. Thus, on this very occasion, when the wind blew fresh from the eastward, fair to go from Portsmouth to Ireland, Bridport's ships were unable to use it, because they could not make the stretch of three miles from Spithead to St. Helen's. Nor is the nearness of a dockyard a controlling condition for the reserve, though it may be admitted that dockyards should be placed with reference to probable theatres of war. On the contrary, a yard is the last place to which to send an active ship. Naval officers knew then, as they know now, that vessels at dockyards become valetudinarians, whose doctors, like some others, flatter the ailments of their patients to increase their practice. An available reserve is one thing, a ship needing dockyard repairs quite another; and no countenance should be given to any confusion of the two by keeping the reserve at, or close by, a yard. Properly, the reserve should be simply that portion of the active force which, for the benefit of the whole, is for a moment resting, but is ready at once to proceed.

How very little the government of the day and the then admiral of the Channel fleet realized these principles, is evident by a few facts. The reserve was at Spithead, a roadstead over two hundred miles distant. It was equal in force to the division before Brest. "The government thought it the wisest plan," said its authorized defender in the Commons, "to separate the fleet into different divisions. One fleet was off Brest to watch the enemy and intercept the sailing of the expedition; and another at home to relieve the fleet off Brest, if necessary, or to pursue the enemy, if he should sail."[329] When the French had escaped, Colpoys received the news December 22d. His orders did not cover the contingency, and in his uncertainty he first decided to keep his station,[330] than which nothing could be more satisfactory to the French, who had made a long circuit to avoid that particular spot. Like all men in the dark, however, the admiral soon changed his mind and concluded to go off the Lizard, a cape near Falmouth, where he might receive information.[331] Here, in the entrance to the Channel, he found several ships in want of necessaries, and the weather such that he could not provide them from others.[332] This statement was disputed by the Admiralty, which, however, admitted that some of these ships had not water in abundance.[333] With a properly worked reserve, a few ships might have been short,—those, that is, whose turn was to go in next,—but it is evident that a very disproportionate number were here affected; for the explanation of these short ships being still out was, that Curtis's squadron of _seven_ ships was to have relieved them, but had been delayed for certain causes.[334] Whatever the reason, the important conclusion was that Colpoys, a good officer under a bad system, put his helm up and ran into Spithead, where he arrived December 31st, more than a week after the French reached Bantry Bay.

While the subordinate was thus badgered by the inadequate measures of his government and his chief, the latter was leisurely preparing to relieve him off Brest. On the 21st or 22d, he was spurred up by news of the French sailing, and replied that in _four_ days he would be ready,—a truly handy reserve with the British Islands about to be invaded. On the 25th he got under way, and demonstrated at once the fitness of Spithead as a station for the reserve. Eight ships only succeeded in getting to St. Helen's that day, a sudden change of wind to south-east supervening; "which, although favorable for his getting to sea, was directly on the bows of the ships coming to join him from Spithead."[335] It was not thought prudent to sail with only eight ships, and through the delay of waiting for the others Bridport did not get away from St. Helen's (Portsmouth) until January 3, 1797,—the day before the last of the French abandoned Bantry Bay,—when he sailed with fourteen of-the-line, a mass equal to Colpoys's division which had just returned. An inadequate force at the decisive point, inadequately maintained, and dependent upon a reserve as large as itself, but unready and improperly stationed,—such were the glaring faults of the strategic disposition.

The tactical mistakes are equally apparent. The main fleet was stationed so far at sea as to derive no shelter from easterly storms. It contained several three-decked ships,[336] whose poor sailing qualities exaggerated to the last degree the drift consequent upon bad weather. As a result, at the critical moment, Colpoys, instead of being, according to St. Vincent's maxim, "close in with Ushant in an easterly wind," was over forty miles west of it, "working up against a fresh east-south-east wind,"[337] and the next day was driven to the northward by southerly weather. Under such conditions any lookouts in the "Iroise" were almost a vain show. It is of the essence of such a lookout, however, that it should not be driven from its post by a detachment so small that the enemy does not weaken himself by making it. Of what consequence in this way were three or four frigates, which the French could and should have driven off by a half dozen, backed by two sail-of-the-line? Properly to watch Brest required a strong detachment of line-of-battle-ships of the medium class, which were handy and weatherly, and whose grip could only be loosened by fighting. The correlative, however, of such a big detachment is the main body close up, ready to support it. The whole theory hangs together. The advanced detachment close up, else it cannot watch; big enough, else it cannot stay; the main body also close up, else the advance guard is hazarded.

Under all these circumstances it is not strange that the careful British chronicler, James, has to record that "during the three or four weeks the French ships were traversing in every direction the Irish and English Channels, neither of the two British fleets (Bridport's nor Colpoys's), appointed to look after them, succeeded in capturing a single ship;" and "the principal losses by capture sustained by the enemy arose from the diligence and activity of a sixty-four-gun ship and four or five frigates, which, on the 29th of December, were lying in the harbor of Cork."[338] Yet, after satisfying himself that the French had gone back to Brest, Bridport returned to Spithead, and the old system was resumed. In Parliament the ministry strongly maintained that they had done all that could be expected; and the First Lord went so far as to say that even an inquiry would be considered an unmerited censure.[339]

It is no more than just to note, in this slack and shiftless conduct of the war, the same sluggish spirit that, after making all allowances for the undeniable grievances of the seamen, was also responsible for the demoralization of discipline in the Channel fleet, which soon after showed itself openly,—among the crews in the mutinies of 1797, and among the officers, at a later day, in the flagrant insubordination with which St. Vincent's appointment was greeted. Both show a lax hand in the chief naval commander; for, while a government is responsible for its choice of the latter, it must, especially in so technical a profession as the navy then was, depend upon him for the enforcement of discipline and for the choice of measures, at once practicable and adequate, to compass the ends of the war. Upon him, more than upon any other, must fall the responsibility of failure; for he knows, or should know, better than the government, what the fleet can be made to do, what the state of discipline really is, and what his own capacity to carry out the one and support the other. Only through him can the government act. When it disregards or overrides, without displacing him, mischief ensues; but the correlative of the generous confidence and hearty support it owes to him is, on his part, unceasing intense effort, or resignation.

It is a relief, and instructive, to turn to the methods of Earl St. Vincent. Having returned from the Mediterranean in August, 1799, he was chosen to succeed Bridport upon the latter's resignation in the following April. It is told that, when his appointment became known, one of the naval captains, at the table of the former commander-in-chief, gave the toast, "May the discipline of the Mediterranean never be introduced into the Channel fleet." If, as is said, the admiral (presumably Lord Bridport) suffered this to pass unrebuked, no words could depict more forcibly than the simple incident the depths to which his own dignity and control had sunk.[340] It is, perhaps, needless to say that St. Vincent met this temper with the same unbending firmness that he had shown in his former command.

It is not, however, in his discipline, but in his management of the Brest blockade, and the Channel fleet for the support of that blockade, that we are here interested. The force before Brest was largely increased, consisting at this time of never less than twenty-four sail-of-the-line, and, until ordered by the Admiralty to be reduced, was maintained by St. Vincent at thirty.[341] The rendezvous, or central station round which the main body was to revolve, and where, if possible, it was always to be found, was changed from eight leagues west of Ushant to "well in with Ushant in an easterly wind." How the commander-in-chief understood this order is shown by his instructions to his second in command, when the fleet was for a time turned over to him. "I recommend you in the strongest manner _never_ to be farther than six or eight leagues from Ushant with the wind easterly; and if westerly to make the Saintes (Chaussée de Sein) as often as the weather will permit; and when the wind is such as to permit the French to slip out of Brest, to stand in on the first of the flood so far as to see the inshore squadron."[342] In another letter to the same he says: "The principle on which the squadron acts, with the wind easterly, is to wear ... during the night, so as to be within a couple of leagues of Ushant at daylight."[343] So constant was this practice during the summer and early autumn months, while he himself remained on board, that in one hundred and twenty-one days there was but one, and then owing to fog, in which the main body did not communicate by signal with the inshore squadron stationed between Ushant and Brest.[344]

To sustain the ships in the greatest and most constant efficiency, in other words to maintain the communications, his care and watchfulness are incessant; and, though not expressly so stated, it is evident from the general tenor of his correspondence that the ships went in to refit and rest not in large numbers, but singly, or in small groups. "I am at my wits' end," he writes, "to compose orders to meet every shift, evasion, and neglect of duty. Seven-eighths of the captains who compose this fleet are practising every subterfuge to get into harbor for the winter."[345] A constant pressure is kept upon all officers of the fleet, and especially upon those stationed to supervise at the anchorages for refittal and taking in stores, that vessels should lose no time and should come back as full as possible. The time for remaining "in Plymouth Sound or Cawsand Bay _never_ ought to exceed six days, unless a mast is to be shifted, and in that event not more than ten days."[346] "A thousand thanks are due you," he writes to Rear-Admiral Whitshed, "for the pains you have taken to dispatch the ships which were necessarily sent into Cawsand Bay. Without such powerful aid, all my endeavors to fulfil the wishes of the Cabinet would be vain."[347] It was for this purpose he gave the order, so bitterly resented, that no officer, from the captain down, should sleep out of his ship, or go more than three miles from the beach.

Throughout he strove, according to his own practice and that of Suffren and Nelson,[348] to make the ships self-dependent, and to keep them out of the dockyards and on the station to the last moment. "Under the present impending storm from the North of Europe," wrote he in January, 1801, "and the necessity there is of equipping every ship in the royal ports that can swim, no ship under my command must have anything done to her at Plymouth or Portsmouth that can be done at this anchorage."[349] The question of wind and distance weighed heavily with him. Torbay and Cawsand Bay, an anchorage in Plymouth Sound, were made the ordinary resorts of ships going in to refit; and his orders to the second in command, when left in charge off Brest, were "on no occasion to authorize any ships to go to Spithead, unless by special orders from the Admiralty or from me." Finally, when his health compelled him to abandon the immediate command afloat, he again, as at Gibraltar during his Mediterranean career, took up his station at the point of next importance to the efficiency of the Brest fleet, settling himself in a house near Torbay, overlooking the anchorage, whence he directly supervised the refitting and speedy dispatch of the ships sent in for repair and refreshment. In short, when unable to be with the main body, he made a point of seeing personally to the reserve and to the supplies.

To mass the fleet before Brest,—to maintain it in a high state of efficiency, by the constant flow of supplies in transports and the constant exchange between worn and fresh ships,—and to fix a rendezvous which assured its hold upon the enemy,—such were the strategic measures adopted and enforced by St. Vincent. The disposition of the ships when before the port, with a view to prevent the evasion which was the height of French naval ambition, and to compel the enemy to battle if he came out, may be more properly called tactical. It may be given nearly in his own words. "A squadron of five ships-of-the-line is _always anchored_ during an easterly wind between the Black Rocks and Porquette Shoal" (about ten miles from the entrance). "Inside, between them and the Goulet, cruise a squadron of frigates and cutters plying day and night in the opening of the Goulet; and outside, between the Black Rocks and Ushant, three sail-of-the-line cruise to support the five anchored."[350] A group of eight line-of-battle ships was thus always on the lookout,—a force too strong to be driven off without bringing on the general engagement which was the great object of the British, and so disposed that, if not the inner, at least the outer members could be signalled every day by the main body. The mutual support of all parts of the fleet was thus assured. "Unless this is done," wrote St. Vincent, "the ships appointed to that important service may not feel the confidence necessary to keep them in their post,—a failure in which has frequently happened before I was invested with this command."[351]

The seamanlike care with which, as a general officer, he studied his ground, is also evidenced by his remarks, some of which have already been quoted. "I never was on a station so readily, and with so little risk maintained as that off Ushant with an easterly wind" (with which alone the enemy could get out), "owing to the length and strength of flood-tide;"[352] and he adds, in another place, "If the flood flows strong, you will find _much shelter_ between Ushant and the Black Rocks during the day."[353] The investment of Brest was completed by stationing detachments, amounting in all to from two to four ships-of-the-line with numerous frigates, to the southward of the Passage du Raz and thence to Quiberon Bay, forming a chain of lookouts to intercept vessels of all kinds, but especially the coasters upon which the port depended for supplies; while other cruisers were stationed all along the shores of the Bay of Biscay, from the mouth of the Loire to Cape Finisterre, and their captains specially incited and encouraged to approach and scour the coast. In the various "cutting out" expeditions engaged in by these, the numerous small vessels captured are usually stated to have been loaded with stores for the Brest fleet. By this means, if the enemy did not come out and fight to break up the blockade, he must soon be reduced to impotence by exhaustion of the commonest supplies. As there were in Brest, in 1800, forty-eight ships-of-the-line, French and Spanish, a combination resulting from Bruix's cruise of the year before, this end was soon obtained, as French accounts abundantly testify.[354]

The immediate adoption and enforcement of these measures, after St. Vincent succeeded to the command, illustrate clearly the inevitable dependence of the government upon the admiral of the Channel fleet, and its inability to conceive or enforce the system by which alone so necessary yet hazardous a service could be effectually performed. Only a thorough seaman, and of exceptional force of character, could both devise and execute a scheme demanding so much energy and involving so heavy a responsibility. It was hard to find a man of St. Vincent's temper to carry out his methods; and the government was further handicapped by a tradition requiring a certain rank for certain commands. So strong was the hold of this usage that even St. Vincent, in 1801, yielded to it, lamenting that Nelson, "of whom he felt quite sure, had not rank enough to take the chief command" of the vitally important expedition to Copenhagen; which was entrusted to Sir Hyde Parker, "of whom he could not feel so sure, because he had never been tried."[355] Later, when First Lord of the Admiralty, Earl St. Vincent was fortunate enough to find in Admiral Cornwallis a man who, whatever his intellectual grasp, possessed all the nerve and tenacity of his predecessor; but the necessary rank was too apt to bring with it a burden of years, accompanied by the physical weakness which, in lesser men, led to failing energy and shrinking from responsibility, and by actual prostration drove even St. Vincent ashore in the winter weather. His predecessor, Lord Bridport, had been well on in the seventies, and his first successor, Sir Hyde Parker, announced his intention "not to risk staying with the whole fleet off Brest at this season [winter], when it blows hard from west or west-south-west,"[356]—a decision which may have been no more than prudent, but the open avowal of which, taken with Nelson's opinion of him,[357] seems to show that, though a brave and good officer, he was not equal to the stern work demanded.

Lord St. Vincent, though perfectly satisfied with his own arrangements, doubtless never cherished the vain hope that no evasion of them could ever be practised. On the contrary, he had at the very outset of his command, and in the comparatively genial month of May, the experience of a terrific hurricane, which drove his fleet headlong to Torbay, and rejoiced the hearts of the cavilling adherents of the old system. That the fleet must at times be blown off, he knew full well; and also that the escape of the enemy, in whole or in part, before its return, was possible, though it ought not to be probable. To provide against this contingency, he recommended the government to give to the officer commanding the inshore squadron, who would remain, special orders in a sealed packet to be opened only in case the enemy got out.[358] The failure to provide Colpoys with such specific directions had been charged by the Opposition, and most justly, as a grave fault of the government in 1796.[359] It is right and wise to leave great discretion to the officer in command on the spot,—minute instructions fetter rather than guide him; but a man in Colpoys's situation, bewildered as to the enemy's objects, aware only that the first line of defence is forced, but ignorant where the second will be assailed, is entitled to know precisely what the government considers the most important among the interests threatened. This decision is one for the statesman rather than the seaman. Not only, in 1796, was Ireland distinctly the most vulnerable point, but the ministers had information, almost to certainty, that there was the enemy's aim.

In 1800, as when Bruix escaped in 1799, circumstances were somewhat different. The disaffection, or at least the disloyalty, of the Irish had been shown to be a broken reed for the enemy to lean on; while in the Mediterranean the French had acquired, in Egypt and Malta, interests peculiarly dear to the First Consul. Those valuable possessions were in deadly straits, and the attempt to relieve them was more probable than another attack on Ireland. St. Vincent, therefore, wrote to the then head of the Admiralty, saying with perfect propriety that it became him, "in the situation I stand at this critical period, to suggest to your lordship any ideas for the good of the public service," and suggesting that Sir James Saumarez, commanding the inshore squadron, should have specific orders that, "if the combined fleets get out before I can return to the rendezvous, he should in that case push for Cadiz with the eight ships-of-the-line stationed between me and the Goulet; for I," he added, "shall have sufficient force to protect England and Ireland, without counting upon his eight sail." Such instructions completed the scheme; precise, but not detailed, they provided for the second line, in case the careful precautions for guarding the first were foiled.

The dispositions adopted by St. Vincent remained the standard to which subsequent arrangements for watching Brest were conformed. From Commander-in-Chief of the Channel fleet he became, in February, 1801, First Lord of the Admiralty. In this position he naturally maintained his own ideas; and, as has before been said, found in Cornwallis a man admirably adapted to carry them out. In May, 1804, the ministry with which he was connected resigned; but, although as an administrator he provoked grave criticism in many quarters, and probably lost reputation, his distinguished military capacity remained unquestioned, and the methods of the Brest blockade were too sound in principle and too firmly established to be largely modified. During the strenuous months from 1803 to 1805, when Great Britain and France stood alone, face to face, in a state more of watchful tension than of activity, the Channel fleet kept its grip firm on the great French arsenal. Nelson's justly lauded pursuit of Villeneuve would have been in vain, but for the less known tenacity of Cornwallis; which, by preventing the escape of Ganteaume, was one of the most potent factors in thwarting Napoleon's combinations. Wherever else the great naval battle which has immortalized the name of Trafalgar might have been fought, the campaign would have taken a different form but for the watch over Brest conducted on St. Vincent's lines.

The result of this strict blockade and of the constant harrying of the French coasts from Dunkirk on the North Sea to the Spanish border, was to paralyze Brest as a port of naval equipment and construction, as well as to render very doubtful the success of any combination in which the Brest fleet was a factor. This result has been, historically, somewhat obscured; for abortive attempts to get out obtained no notoriety, while an occasional success, being blazoned far and wide, made an impression disproportioned to its real importance. When Ganteaume, for instance, in January, 1801, ran out with seven ships-of-the-line,—the blockading fleet having lost its grip in a furious north-east gale,—more was thought of the escape than of the fact that, to make it, advantage had to be taken of weather such that six of the seven were so damaged they could not carry out their mission. Instead of going to Egypt, they went to Toulon. The journals of the day make passing mention of occasional sorties of divisions, which quickly returned to the anchorage; and Troude, in a few condensed sentences, under the years 1800 and 1801,[360] vividly shows the closeness of the watch and the penury of the port. Remote from the sources of naval supplies in the Baltic and the Mediterranean, with the sea approaches to both swarming with enemy's cruisers, and in a day when water carriage, always easier and ampler than that by land, was alone adequate to the transport in sufficient quantity of the bulky articles required for ship building and equipment, it became impossible to fill the storehouses of Brest.

Partly for this reason, yet more because his keen military perceptions—at fault only when confronted with the technical difficulties of the sea—discerned the danger to Great Britain from a hostile navy in the Scheldt, Napoleon decided to neglect Brest, and to concentrate upon Antwerp mainly his energies in creating a navy. In later years this prepossession may have partaken somewhat of the partiality of a parent for a child; and he himself has said that there was a moment, during his receding fortunes in 1814, when he could have accepted the terms of the allies had he been able to bring himself to give up Antwerp. In close proximity to the forests of Alsace, Lorraine, and Burgundy; able to draw from the countries bordering on the Rhine and its tributaries flax and hemp, and from the mines of Luxemburg, Namur and Liège iron, copper and coal,—the naval resources of Antwerp could be brought to her on the numerous streams intersecting those countries, and were wholly out of reach of the British. Many were the difficulties to be overcome,—docks to be excavated, ships to be built, seamen gathered and trained, a whole navy to be created from nothing; but the truth remained that the strategic position of Antwerp, over against the mouth of the Thames and flanking the communications of Great Britain with the Baltic, was unequalled by any other single port under the emperor's control.

The expedition against Ireland, thwarted by the elements in 1796, was never seriously renewed. It remained, to the end of his short life, the dream of Hoche. Transferred from the army of the Ocean to that of the Sambre and Meuse, his career there was cut short by the preliminaries of Leoben, by which Bonaparte extricated himself from the dangers of his advance into Carinthia. Sacrificed thus, as he felt, to the schemes of a rival, Hoche supported with all the weight of his interest an expedition of fifteen thousand men, who, under the pressure of the Directory, were gathered in the Texel in the summer of 1797 for an invasion of Ireland under convoy of the Dutch navy. Here again Wolfe Tone for two months fretted his heart out, waiting for the fleet to sail; but, though the period seemed most propitious, through the mutinies in the British fleet and the cessation of hostilities on the continent, a peculiar combination of wind and tide were wanting to cross the bar, and that combination did not come. In October the Dutch ships-of-war, numbering sixteen small ships-of-the-line, put to sea by themselves, and on the 11th met the fleet of Admiral Duncan, of equal numbers but distinctly superior in broadside force. The British, having the wind, bore down and attacked—passing when possible through the enemy's line, so as to cut off his retreat to the Dutch coast, then less than ten miles distant. The battle, known by the name of Camperdown, from a village on the adjoining shore, was fought with all the desperation that in every age has marked the meetings of the British and the Dutch. It closed with the defeat of the latter, who left nine ships-of-the-line and some frigates in their enemy's hands. This put an end to the Texel expedition. Hoche had died a few weeks before, on the 18th of September; and with him passed away the strongest personal interest in the invasion of Ireland, as well as the man most able to conduct it.

The following year, 1798, open rebellion existed in Ireland, and the Directory undertook to support it with troops and arms; but the equipment of Bonaparte's Egyptian expedition absorbed the energies of the Ministry of Marine, and there was no Hoche to give the enterprise the development and concert essential to a great success. A small division of four frigates sailed from Rochefort on the 6th of August, carrying twelve hundred troops under General Humbert, who had served in the expedition of 1796 and shared the shipwreck of the Droits de l'Homme. This squadron escaped observation, landed its detachment on the 21st of the month, and returned safely to France; but the small corps, unsupported by regular troops, again demonstrated the imprudence of trusting to the co-operation of insurgents. On the 8th of September Humbert was obliged to surrender with the bulk of his force.

A week later, before the news reached France, a ship-of-the-line, appropriately called the "Hoche," and eight frigates, under the command of Commodore Bompart, sailed from Brest, carrying a second division of three thousand troops. Though they escaped the eyes of Bridport's vessels, if there were any in the neighborhood, by running through the Passage du Raz, they were seen on September 17, the day after sailing, by three British frigates; one of which, after ascertaining that the French were really going to sea, went to England with the news, while the others continued to dog the enemy, sending word to Ireland of the approaching danger as opportunity offered. On the 4th of October, in a gale of wind, the enemies separated, and the French commodore then made the best of his way towards his destination, in Lough Swilly, at the north end of Ireland; but the news had reached Plymouth on the 23d of September, and when he drew near his port he found the way blocked by three British ships-of-the-line and five frigates, which had sailed at once for the insurgent district. An engagement followed, fought on the 12th of October, under circumstances even more disadvantageous than that of mere numbers, for the "Hoche" shortly before the action had lost some of her most important spars. Of the little squadron, she and three frigates were compelled to surrender that day, and three more were intercepted later by British vessels, so that only two of the expedition regained a French port. The enthusiastic and unfortunate Irishman, Wolfe Tone, was on board the "Hoche" and wounded in the action. He shortly afterwards committed suicide in prison. A third French division had sailed from Rochefort on the very day the "Hoche" was captured. It succeeded in reaching Ireland; but learning the fate of Bompart's squadron, returned without landing the troops. This was the last of the expeditions against Ireland that sailed from French ports. Other interests and other rulers combined with the pronounced naval ascendency of Great Britain to give a different direction to the efforts of the republic.

END OF VOL. I.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Martin, Histoire de France, vol. xix. p. 370.

[2] Nineteenth Century Review, June, 1887, p. 922.

[3] Lord John Russell's Life of Fox, vol. ii. p. 137.

[4] Annual Register, vol. 27, p. 10.

[5] See Annual Register, 1769, pp. 2-4; 1770, pp. 27-41, 67, 71, 75.

[6] Annual Register, 1788, p. 59.

[7] King's Message, March 29, 1781.

[8] Fox's Speeches (London, 1815), vol. iv. p. 178.

[9] Parl. Hist., vol. xxix. pp. 75-79.

[10] Annual Register, 1791, p. 102.

[11] Annual Register, 1793; State Papers, p. 118.

[12] Annual Register, 1793; State Papers, pp. 127, 128.

[13] Chevalier, Mar. Fran. sous la République, p. 49.

[14] Nap. to Decrès, Aug. 29, 1805.

[15] Troude, Batailles Nav., vol. iii. p. 370.

[16] Moniteur, Jan. 19, 1790, p. 82.

[17] Chevalier, Mar. Fran. sous la République, p. 11.

[18] Ibid., p. 12.

[19] Guérin, Histoire de la Marine, vol. iii. p. 156 (1st ed.).

[20] Troude, Batailles Nav. de la France, vol. ii. p. 201.

[21] Guérin, Hist. Mar., vol. iii. p. 195 (1st ed.).

[22] Troude, Bat. Nav., vol. 2, p. 320.

[23] Guérin, vol. iii. p. 213.

[24] Guérin, vol. iii. p. 153.

[25] See Chevalier, Mar. Fran. sous la République, pp. 20-23.

[26] The decree of April 22 is in the Moniteur of the 23d. That of the 28th is not; but it will be found in the "Collection Générale des Décrets rendus par l'Ass. Nat." for April, 1791.

[27] The word _entretenu_, here rendered "paid," is difficult to translate. The dictionary of the French Academy explains it to mean an officer kept on pay, without necessarily being employed. Littré says that an officer "non entretenu" is one not having a commission. The word carries the idea of permanence. By the decree of April 28, "enseignes non entretenus" had no pay nor military authority, except when on military service; nor could they wear the uniform, except when so employed.

[28] Troude, Bat. Nav., vol. ii. p. 260.

[29] Troude, Bat. Nav., vol. ii. pp. 261, 262.

[30] Troude, Bat. Nav., vol. ii. p. 397.

[31] Troude, Bat. Nav., vol. ii. p. 396.

[32] Guérin, Hist. de la Mar., vol. iii. p. 411 (note). (Ed. 1848.)

[33] Chevalier, Mar. Fran. sous la Rép., p. 126.

[34] Chevalier, Mar. Fran. sous la Rép., p. 126.

[35] Jurien de la Gravière, Guerres Mar., vol. i. p. 138 (1st ed.).

[36] Ibid., vol. i. p. 139 (1st ed.).

[37] Chevalier, Mar. Fran. sous la Rép., pp. 51, 52.

[38] Chevalier, Mar. Fran. sous la Rép., pp. 97-101.

[39] Chevalier, p. 42.

[40] Chevalier, Rép. p. 219.

[41] Tronde, Bat. Nav., vol. ii. p. 423.

[42] Letter of the Ordonnateur de la Marine, Najac; Jurien de la Gravière, Guerres Mar. (4th ed. App.).

[43] Chevalier, Mar. Fran. sous le Consulat, p. 47.

[44] Ibid., p. 49.

[45] Troude, Bat. Nav., vol. iii. p. 337.

[46] La Gravière, Guerres Mar., p. 51.

[47] Chevalier, Rép., p. 132.

[48] See Chapter VI.

[49] Chevalier, Mar. Fran. sous le Consulat, p. 43.

[50] Collingwood's Correspondence, p. 48. (First American from fourth London edition.)

[51] Nelson's Dispatches, vol. vi. p. 480.

[52] Collingwood's Correspondence, pp. 265, 266.

[53] Collingwood's Correspondence, p. 208.

[54] Brenton's Naval History, vol. i. p. 415. (Ed. 1823.)

[55] Brenton's Naval History, vol. i. p. 455.

[56] James' Nav. Hist. vol. i. p. 53 (ed. 1878). This system had been adopted in France a century before by Colbert (Revue Mar. et Coloniale, September, 1887, p. 567).

[57] Brenton's Nav. Hist., vol. ii. p. 105.

[58] James' Nav. Hist., vol. i. pp. 57, 58.

[59] Guerres Mar., vol. i. p. 49 (1st ed.).

[60] James, vol. i. p. 55.

[61] Guerres Mar., vol. i. p. 164 (note).

[62] Nels. Disp. i. 309-311.

[63] Nels. Disp., i. p. 312.

[64] Ibid., ii. pp. 70, 77, 241.

[65] Life of Sir Jahleel Brenton.

[66] James' Nav. Hist., vol. i. p. 54. (Ed. 1878).

[67] For example, that any captain surrendering to a force less than double his own should suffer death; and if of a ship-of-the-line, to any number of enemies unless the vessel was actually sinking. The same fate awaited him who, in a fleet action, allowed the line to be broken. So also the decree not to give quarter. See Chevalier, Mar. Fran. sous la Rép., p. 128; Guérin, Hist. de la Mar., vol. iii. p. 395.

[68] The Peninsular War, so brilliant in many of its features and in the end so triumphantly successful, has some analogies to the smaller expeditions here criticised, and may be thought to refute the remarks in the text. The analogy, however, fails in some very decisive points. The landing and base of operations at Lisbon were in the territory of an ally of long standing; the projected advance was into a country in general insurrection against foreign rule; above all, the position of Lisbon and its distance from France imposed upon the French, in case they advanced against it in great force as they did in 1810, a long and very difficult line of communication, while the British had the sea open. Toulon, in 1793, was disadvantageous to the British as compared with Lisbon in 1809, because farther from England and in France. For remarks on Peninsular War see note at end of this chapter.

[69] For the strategic discussion of the British naval dispositions on the occasion of the Irish Expedition of 1796, see Chapter XI.

[70] Brenton's Life of St. Vincent, vol. i. p. 295.

[71] Of the thirty ships-of-the-line in Toulon when occupied by the allies, three or four had been sent to Rochefort without guns, carrying French prisoners whom it was inconvenient to keep.

[72] The author is keenly aware that this policy, of garrisoning several somewhat separated ports, is seemingly inconsistent with sound military principles as to concentration, as well as with what he himself has elsewhere said about the proper dispositions for maintaining military control of a maritime region. It is, therefore, well to explain that those principles and dispositions apply where the belligerent navies are so far equal as to create a real struggle. This was not the case in the French Revolution. Great Britain had undisputed naval supremacy in the West Indies, and the question before her was, not to beat the enemy's fleet, but to secure her own commercial routes. To this end it was necessary to disseminate, not concentrate her ships, and to provide them with convenient centres of refuge and supply along the routes. The case was analogous to the police arrangements of a city. In ordinary quiet times the police are distributed to cope with individual offenders; when a mob gathers and threatens the peace they are concentrated in large bodies.

[73] Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. iv. p. 454.

[74] Ardouin, Études sur l'Hist. de Haïti, vol. iv. p. 45.

[75] Account of Jamaica, London, 1808, pp. 51, 52.

[76] Troude, Bat. Nav., vol. ii. p. 326.

[77] Troude, Bat. Nav., vol. ii. p. 327. James says May 6.

[78] See _ante_ p. 101.

[79] A ship is said to be hove-to when some of the sails are so arranged as to move her ahead and others to force her astern,—the result being that she remains nearly in the same spot, but drifts slowly to leeward.

[80] Villaret had been joined on the 19th of May by a ship-of-the-line, which had separated from Nielly's squadron; this raised his force from twenty-five to twenty-six.

[81] A raking shot is one that passes from end to end, lengthwise, of a ship, instead of across, from side to side. It not only ranges through a greater space within, but attacks more vital parts, particularly about the stern, where were the rudder and the more important officers of a ship.

[82] Another advantage in engaging to leeward was that the lower-deck batteries, which contained the heaviest guns, were so near the water that a ship heeling over with a strong breeze could not always open her lee ports. The lee ship of two opponents, using her weather guns, would escape this inconvenience and have a proportionate advantage. On the First of June the weather was too moderate to affect the use of the lower-deck batteries; but on the 29th of May, the "Queen Charlotte," using her lee as well as her weather guns as she broke through the French line, had the lower deck full of water. One of her officers, Lieutenant (afterwards Admiral) Codrington, being knocked down by the recoil of a gun and thrown to the lee side of the deck, could, when leaning on his left arm, barely keep his head out of water. (Life of Admiral Codrington.)

[83] A whimsical incident is told as occurring in this grim scene of slaughter and destruction. "The 'Brunswick' had a large figurehead of the Duke, with a laced hat on. The hat was struck off by a shot during the battle. The crew of the ship sent a deputation to the quarter-deck to request that Captain Harvey would be pleased to order his servant to give them his laced cocked-hat to supply the loss. The captain, with great good-humor, complied, and the carpenter nailed it on the Duke's head, where it remained till the battle was finished." (Barrow's Life of Howe.)

[84] Official narrative of the loss of the "Vengeur," by the survivors. Troude, Bat. Nav., vol. ii. p. 355.

[85] The speech of Barrère in the National Convention was as follows: "Imagine the 'Vengeur' ship-of-the-line pierced with cannon shot, opening in all directions, and surrounded by English tigers and leopards, a crew composed of wounded and dying men, battling against the waves and the cannon. All at once the tumult of the action, the fear of danger, the pain-stricken cries of the wounded cease; all mount or are carried upon deck. Every flag, every pennant is hoisted. Cries of 'Vive la République!' 'Vive la Liberté et la France!' are heard on all sides; it is the touching and animated spectacle of a civic festival, rather than the terrible moment of a shipwreck. For a moment they must have thought upon their fate. But no, citizens, our brothers thought no more upon that, they see only the English and their country. They choose rather to be engulfed than to dishonor her by a surrender. They hesitate not an instant. Their last prayers are for liberty and for the Republic. They disappear."

[86] The French accounts state that he remained until eight P.M., during all which time he might have been attacked. The English on the contrary say that the whole French fleet was out of sight by quarter past six. The question is not material, for it is certain that Villaret did remain for some time, and that he would not have been attacked had he stayed longer.

[87] Life of Admiral (then Lieutenant) Codrington.

[88] Barrow's Life of Lord Howe, p 256. There are similar statements as to the bearing of Howe and Curtis made by Admiral Codrington.

[89] At noon of June 1, by the "Queen Charlotte's" log-book, the island of Ushant bore east one-half north, distant 429 miles.

[90] The carelessness with which naval affairs are too often described by general historians may be illustrated by the account of this battle given by one of the most distinguished. "Lord Howe gained so decisive a success from the adoption of the same principles which gave victory to Frederic at Leuthen, to Napoleon at Austerlitz, and to Wellington at Salamanca, viz.: _to direct an overwhelming force against one half of the enemy's force_, and making the attack obliquely, keeping the weather gage of the enemy, to render it impossible for the ships to leeward to work up to the assistance of those engaged. By this means he reduced one half of the enemy's fleet to be the passive spectators of the destruction of the other.... Had he succeeded _in penetrating the line at all points_, or had his captains implicitly obeyed his directions in that particular, and engaged the whole to leeward, he would have brought twenty ships-of-the-line to Spithead." (Alison's "History of Europe.") How an attack upon one half of the line is consistent with penetrating the same line at all points does not clearly appear; but the statement concerning Lord Howe's principle of action on the 1st of June is absolutely contrary to all the facts, although Alison had James's painstaking work before him and refers to it frequently. His statement is that of Jomini's "Guerres de la Révolution Française;" but the latter author writes only as a military man, introduces naval matters merely incidentally, and was doubtless misled in the scanty information attainable when he wrote.

[91] It is a curious coincidence, though not necessarily significant, that the number of men hit in each of these ships was nearly the same. The "Royal Sovereign" lost fifty-four, the "Queen" fifty-four, and the "Glory" fifty-two.

[92] Brenton, in his naval history of Great Britain, tells an amusing story of the captain of one of the ships a little to Howe's left, which at once characterizes a type of officer and illustrates the above remark. He was, Brenton says, so occupied with preserving his station by the azimuth compass that he lost sight of his intended antagonist, and in the smoke never found him.

[93] James, Nav. Hist., vol. i. p. 144. (Ed. 1878.)

[94] Troude says that he reached his station on the 21st of May. Bat. Nav., vol. ii. p. 330.

[95] Many years later Admiral Villaret was governor of Martinique. When that island was taken by the British in 1809, he went to England as a passenger in a ship commanded by Capt. E. P. Brenton. This officer in his naval history states that Villaret told him that Robespierre's orders were to go to sea, and that, if the convoy fell into Howe's hands, his head should answer for it. Therefore he avoided action so long, and endeavored to draw Lord Howe out of the track of the convoy. The loss of the ships taken was to him a matter of comparative indifference. "While your admiral amused himself refitting them, I saved my convoy, and I saved my head."

[96] Troude, Bat. Nav., vol. ii. p. 337. Chevalier, Hist. de la Mar. Fran. sous la Rép., p. 144.

[97] Ross's Life of Saumarez, vol. i. p. 146.

[98] Page 140.

[99] Martin, Hist. de France depuis 1789, vol. ii. p 240.

[100] Nels. Disp., ii., p. 32.

[101] Chevalier, Mar. Fran. sous la Rép. p. 216. Life of Adm. Codrington, vol. i. pp. 36, 37.

[102] See _post_, Chap. VIII., Martin's actions with Hotham.

[103] Jomini, Guerres de la Rév., livre viii. p. 74.

[104] Jomini, Guerres de la Rév., livre ix. p. 341.

[105] L'horrible route de la Corniche sous le feu des cannonières anglaises.—JOMINI, _Guerres de la Rév._, livre x. p. 62.

[106] Life of Lord Minto, vol. ii. p. 274.

[107] Chevalier, Mar. Fran. sous la Rép., p. 174.

[108] Nels. Disp., vol. ii. p. 26.

[109] Mar. Fran. sous La Rép., p. 186.

[110] Nels. Disp., vol. ii. p. 50.

[111] See _ante_, p. 176.

[112] "We cannot get another mast this side of Gibraltar." (Nels Disp., May 4, 1795.)

[113] James, vol. i. p. 297. Nelson says six. (Nels. Disp., vol. ii. p 47.)

[114] Jomini, Guerres de la Rév., livre viii. p. 75.

[115] The effects were, however, very severely felt in France. (Corr. de Nap., vol. i., pp. 65, 79, 95.)

[116] Nels. Disp., vol. ii. p. 84.

[117] The Austrian generals say, and true, they were brought on the coast at the express desire of the English to co-operate with the fleet, which fleet nor admiral they never saw.—_Nels. Disp._, vol. ii. p. 213.

[118] Nels. Disp., vol. ii. p. 98a. See also p. 110.

[119] Nels. Disp., June 6, 1800.

[120] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 64.

[121] For Nelson's complaints about the force under his command, see ibid., pp. 106-114.

[122] Nels. Disp., vol. ii. p. 118.

[123] Nels. Disp., vol. ii. p. 63.

[124] Commentaires de Nap., vol. i. p. 112.

[125] Chevalier, Mar. Fran. sous la Rép. p. 251.

[126] Comment. de Nap., vol. i. p. 71.

[127] Nels. Disp., vol. ii. p. 128.

[128] Corr. de Nap., vol. i. p. 465.

[129] For O'Hara's characteristics, see life of Lord Minto, vol. ii. pp. 190, 195.

[130] See Nelson's Disp., vol. ii. p. 258, note.

The letter of the Admiralty to Admiral Mann may possess some interest as an example of the official correspondence of the day, as well as an expression of disapprobation too profound for reproach:—

SIR,—I have received and communicated to my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty your letter to me of the 29th December, giving an account of your proceedings and of the severe [several?] occurrences which have taken place during your passage from Gibraltar, with the squadron under your command; and I have their Lordships' commands to acquaint you that they cannot but feel the greatest regret that you should have been induced to return to England with the squadron under your orders, under the circumstances in which you were placed.

I have their Lordships' further commands to acquaint you that orders will be to sent to you, either by this or to-morrow's post, to strike your flag and come on shore. I am, &c.,

EVAN NEPEAN,
_Secretary to the Admiralty_

Tucker's St. Vincent, vol. i. p. 216.

[131] Life of Lord Minto, vol. ii. p. 358.

[132] This was Jervis's opinion. (See Life of St. Vincent by Tucker, vol. i. p. 240; also Nelson's Dispatches, vol. ii. p. 294.)

[133] Napoleon's Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 76. See also generally pp. 73-80. The relief obtained by Bonaparte from the departure of the British crops out on every page.

[134] Life of Lord Minto, vol. ii. p. 373.

[135] The project of forcing the entrance to the Tagus by a squadron from Brest had been openly discussed in France. (Chevalier, Mar. Fran. sous la République, p. 258.)

[136] An exciting incident occurred during this chase. In the height of it a man fell overboard. A boat was lowered and picked him up; but the enemy's ships were so close it became doubtful whether the British frigate could afford to await her return. Nelson, always generous to the verge of rashness, backed a topsail, saying "I won't let Hardy go," and succeeded in carrying him off. The anecdote gains in interest when it is remembered that Hardy, who was taken in the prize of December 20, had just been released from Spain; and that, as captain of the flag-ship at Trafalgar, he was witness of Nelson's fall and death-scene.

[137] The distinguishing flag which shows a commodore is on board the ship.

[138] A favorite project with the Directory, as with Napoleon, was to mass the French and Spanish navies in one great body; as had several times been done under Louis XVI. during the American Revolution. Such a combination was hoped for the Irish expedition of 1796; and, though too late for that purpose, the movement from Cartagena to Cadiz was regarded by the Directory as a step toward uniting the fleets. This was one of the objects of Bruix's adventurous sortie from Brest in 1799, when he actually brought back to that port in his train fifteen Spanish ships,—nominal allies, actual hostages. The combination at Trafalgar is well known. Later on the Emperor sought to build up a patch-work fleet out of all the minor navies of the Continent, as he pieced together out of all the nations the immense army which was swallowed up in his Russian enterprise. But here, as usually, a homogeneous body, centrally placed, triumphed over an incongruous coalition.

[139] The stringent exactions of the close-hauled line-of-battle imposed upon a fleet, in the presence of an enemy, the tactical necessity of rectifying the order with any considerable change of wind,—an evolution whose difficulty increased in direct proportion to the number of the ships; and in a more than geometrical progression, when they were badly drilled.

[140] Tucker's Life of St. Vincent, vol. i. p. 255.