CHAPTER VITHE RELIEF OF GIBRALTAR

Rear-Admiral of the Blue—White—Red.Vice-Admiral of the Blue—White—Red.Admiral of the Blue—White.

The establishment of the Navy also provided that there should be one Admiral of the Fleet who flew the union at the main; but this was with few exceptions an honorary, and not an active, post.

The governorship of Greenwich Hospital, which Rodney, now Sir George, held from 1765 to 1771, was such a comfortable post as might very properly be given to a naval officer who had served with credit. If family tradition is to be trusted, and it is doubtless substantially correct, Rodney was a good-natured Governor to the pensioners. The Hospital was at that time a hotbed of the dirtiest conceivable jobbery and thieving of the lowesttype of the eighteenth century. A few years after Sir George had left it, Captain Baillie, who had become Lieutenant-Governor in 1773, published an account of its condition which led to a famous scandal, and a famous trial. From Baillie’s narrative and the evidence produced in support of it, and in his defence in Court, it was shown that the funds were habitually pilfered; that dependents of great political personages were foisted on an institution established for the benefit of seamen; that the pensioners were starved and neglected. In point of fact the sailors who did get in were looked upon as a technical excuse for drawing the funds of the hospital, which were then divided among a mob of placemen. To be named a minor official and authorised to deal with contractors was to be provided for for life. It seems to me superfluous to say that Rodney never so much as put out his little finger to amend this sort of thing. His own friend Sandwich was one of the worst sinners connected with it all. To expect that a gentleman who was in the way of meeting Sandwich frequently at dinner, was on his side in politics, and looked to an alliance with him as a means of obtaining promotion, was going to hurt his own prospects and disturb the comforts of social intercourse merely because the office he happened to hold—partly, too, by the goodwill of this same Sandwich—was reeking with corruption, precisely as every other office was, would have been foolish indeed. Rodney would, no doubt, have allowed that it was all very contemptible; but then, so were so many other things, and as public business could not be carried on without jobbery, this piece of jobbery must be taken in with the rest. What, however, he coulddo was to be good-natured to the individual pensioner; and this, it seems, he was. On the general principle that the least possible proportion of the funds of the Hospital should be devoted to the purpose for which they were originally assigned, it had been the rule that greatcoats should only be given to the men as a special favour. The Governor had power to grant this indulgence. Rodney was much too good-natured a man to refuse a favour—which cost him nothing—to a poor old sailor, and accordingly greatcoats soon became the rule, and not the exception, in Greenwich. The story also says that there was a naval Bumble, by the name of Boys, at the Hospital, who was outraged by this lavish treatment of paupers. He was Rodney’s Lieutenant-Governor, and himself a naval officer. At the weekly Board he expressed his surprise at his superior’s extravagance. An anonymous writer in theNaval Chroniclespeaks of the look which the Admiral was wont to put on when things were sprung on him. We can imagine it—a mixture of surprise, indignation, and contempt, all kept in order by the instinctive self-control of an English gentleman. Boys had the benefit of it now as he heard Sir George Rodney’s answer, which is reported as follows:—

I have the greatest respect for you as a man who, by the greatest merit, has raised himself from the station of a fore-mast man to the rank of an admiral—a circumstance which not only does you the highest honour, but would have led me to have expected you as an advocate instead of an opposer to such a necessary indulgence. Many of the poor men at the door have been your shipmates, and once your companions. Never hurt a brother sailor. And let me warn you against two things more: the first is in future not to interferebetween me and my duty as Governor; and the second is, not to object to these brave men having greatcoats whilst you are so fond of one as to wear it by the side of as good a fire as you are sitting by at present. There are very few young sailors that come to London without paying Greenwich Hospital a visit, and it shall be the rule of my conduct as far as my authority extends to render the old men’s lives so comfortable that the younger shall say when he goes away, “Who would not be a sailor to live as happy as a Prince in his old age?”

The form of this rebuke may owe something to the reporter, but Rodney was just the man to have said the substance. To do a good-natured thing, repel an intrusion on his authority, and remind an officer who had come in through the hawse-hole of the respect he owed his social superiors, while fully acknowledging his merit, was quite in the Admiral’s way. For the rest, Boys richly deserved his snubbing. Rodney also showed a wholesome dislike to useless dirt. He first established the practice of clearing away from the shore in front of the Hospital the garbage thrown up by the river. The administrative garbage he left alone, and perhaps it was as well for us that he did. If he had meddled with it he would certainly have come in contact with Sandwich, and the result of that collision would have been that he would have been left on shore throughout the American War, as both Duncan and Campbell were. They were the friends of Keppel, and therefore the enemies of Sandwich, and therefore also were left unemployed—at a time when England had need of every man—though known to be among the best officers in the service.

In 1768 Rodney stood, and was elected, for Northampton. The same arts that gained a power, mustmaintain it. It was necessary for him to keep that position in the House which had hitherto been so useful. But times had changed. He could no longer be “chosen member for Okehampton” by Newcastle, whose day was over—who indeed died in this very year. The King had set himself resolutely to fight the Whig oligarchy with its own weapons, and was doing it with success. Rodney took his place with the King’s friends, and did it this time at his own expense. The fight for Northampton was very severe, which, given the time and place, means that it was very costly. It gave Rodney his seat in the House, but it hung a load of debt round his neck from which he did not shake himself free for years. Nor was electioneering the only “method of evacuation” to which he had recourse, and perhaps it was not even the most effectual. He lived in the great and “fast” society of his time, which may safely be taken to be only another way of saying that he gambled. Between the one form of extravagance and the other he certainly impoverished himself.

In 1771 he was appointed to a command, and again sailed to the West Indies. The dispute about the Falkland Islands seemed likely in that time to lead to another war with Spain. If it had done so, the West Indian command would in all probability have made good the damage done to Rodney’s fortune by his seven years on shore. Money was now very important to him, and as has been already said, he made a claim to be allowed to retain his governorship while in command at sea. With the help of the double salary he might have been able to free himself from his liabilities. But the request was refused, and he sailed for his station, which was on thisoccasion Jamaica, and not the Leeward Islands. Here again disappointment awaited him. The quarrel with Spain blew over, and there was no war. In the early days of his command Rodney caused His Majesty’s ministers some considerable anxiety. Just after his arrival on the station there had arisen one of those periodical squabbles with the Spanish guardacostas which had been the fertile cause of quarrels and bloodshed in the West Indies. An English tender which was found “prowling with hostile keel,” as Mr. Bright would have said, too close to the Spanish main, was arrested by the Spanish cruisers. It doubtless appeared ominous to the officers of the Catholic king, who must have been perfectly well aware of the nature of the relations of the two countries at the time, that an armed English ship should have been just there just then. Rodney took a high tone, protested fiercely, and sent a line-of-battle-ship to look into Carracas. Technically he was in the right, but his superiors at home were far from pleased at his promptitude. There was no wish in England—not at least among those who were responsible for the government of the country—for a war with Spain. When, therefore, it was known that war-ships had been sent on a mission of remonstrance, and almost of menace, into a Spanish port, ministers who knew what a trick the cannon had of “going off by themselves” in the West Indies were greatly displeased. The Ministry suspected their Admiral of an intention to bring on a quarrel if he could. Rodney was sharply rebuked for sending a subordinate officer to a place where a little want of tact and temper might so easily produce a collision. Sandwich even took very strong measures. In a letter which is amodel of official reprimand he told Rodney quite plainly that if he thought a war in the West Indies would do him any good he was greatly mistaken. If war should unfortunately break out, said the Minister, it would be necessary to send out strong reinforcements, and in that case a superior officer would be sent in command. Rodney could be trusted to know what that meant. It was manifestly calculated that he had no wish to repeat his experience in 1762. How far the suspicions of the Ministry were founded no one can say. Probably they were not altogether baseless. No doubt Rodney, like other Englishmen in the West Indies, did long to give the Spaniards a lesson. Sandwich, measuring the corn of others by his own bushel, may have thought that an officer whom he must have known to be embarrassed in his affairs would risk much for the chance of a stroke at a Spanish port or the capture of a treasure-ship. Here, again, he was certainly not altogether wrong. Rodney’s need of, and desire for, place and money in those years was great, and was quite frankly avowed. He was, however, far too capable a man not to know that too much may be risked even for the greatest prize. To fall into disgrace at headquarters would be ruin. When therefore he distinctly understood what the Ministry wanted he conformed precisely to their wishes, and was soon rewarded by being told that the King was pleased with him.

The remainder of Rodney’s three years of command, then as now the fixed term of a commission, were passed in routine work. He showed his natural hatred of slovenly inefficiency by stamping out one scandalous little piece of jobbery. It had become the custom inJamaica to water the fleet by contract. There was no real need to do so. Good water had been obtained in the immediate neighbourhood of Port Royal by Vernon, and could be obtained again. Nothing more was needed to make it accessible than the construction of a small aqueduct to bring the water down to the beach. Under the pretence that it could only be obtained good in the high ground, a system had arisen of buying it from contractors, who sent it down to the beach in barrels. There it was taken by the ships’ boats. The system was thoroughly bad. It was costly; it imposed a great deal of hard beach work on the seamen, which was bad for their health in the tropics; it caused a great waste of time, the water supplied was inferior, and the length of time during which they were on shore afforded the sailors too many opportunities to get drunk. The one advantage the practice had was that it allowed of many mutually advantageous pecuniary transactions between the government officials and the contractors. On this pleasant commerce Rodney ruthlessly put his foot. In vain was it represented to him that nobody knew where Admiral Vernon had watered, that the spring had disappeared, that, in short, there were a dozen excellent reasons why the water must be brought down in barrels. The Admiral was not to be fooled. He hunted the spring up, and found that only a narrow slip of marshy ground separated it from the beach. After a tussle with red tape, he contrived to get a small aqueduct constructed, and so set up a rational watering-place. He was rewarded, as too many reformers have been, by the ingratitude of those for whom he worked. The sailors ended by hating the aqueduct. At first, indeed, theyblessed the Admiral, who had relieved them from the toil of rolling barrels down the beach and shipping them. But soon they discovered that if there was no more beach work there were no more opportunities of “sucking the monkey,” which, as Swinburn explained to Mr. Peter Simple, was the name given to the practice of sucking rum from cocoa-nuts. Then they d——d the Admiral in chorus. To that, however, Rodney was supremely indifferent. His aqueduct was made with notable results, both in economy of money and for the health of the men of the squadron. This story is more to Rodney’s credit than some others we have come across. If the watering contracts had been necessary for electioneering purposes he would doubtless have tolerated them as he did other corruptions—because Parliamentary government could not be carried on without them—and in that case the end would have justified the means. But where there was no such excuse, then Rodney could put himself to some trouble for the good of the service. This is what distinguishes him from meaner men. They would have lazily tolerated the old muddle, or have shared the gains of jobbery. Rodney was not a man of that stamp. When he did attain command he knew what things worked for efficiency, and would insist on having them done.

As his commission drew towards its end Rodney saw the approach of the time when he must return to England—to face his duns on half-pay. It was a disagreeable change, which he would fain have avoided. Nor was it difficult to fix on a method of escape. If he could have passed from the command of the station to the governorship of Jamaica he would be fairly wellextricated from this ugly pass. Sir W. Trelawney, the Governor in office when Rodney went out, was in ill health. The Admiral decided to offer himself as candidate for the vacancy, which everybody foresaw would soon be made by the West Indian climate. Some months before poor Trelawney’s shoes were empty—in the summer of 1772, in fact—Rodney was already bestirring himself to secure the friendly offices of Sandwich. It was a cause of bitter anger to the Admiral that these efforts were made in vain. He had very good claims to the office, both on the ground of his services as a naval officer and his knowledge of the West Indies. He must have felt, too, that he had claims of a kind even more deserving to be recognised than any based on service and knowledge, namely, the votes he had given in Parliament and the money he had spent in elections. Sandwich politely ignored both kinds of claim. The tone of his answers to Rodney is that of a politician writing to a gentleman from whom he does not expect useful support in future. His letters are civil, but fusionless, with here and there a point of irony. He begins with a dry remark that Sir W. Trelawney is still alive, and, so far as ministers know, is likely to live; but, of course, if a vacancy should occur it would be most proper that Sir George should have it; and he, Sandwich, writing as a friend, would advise him to stir his, Sir George’s, friends up to exert themselves. For the rest, Sandwich does not object to tell him in confidence that there is no rival in the field. Rodney knew his world too well to be in any doubt as to what that meant. Sandwich would give no effectual help. If he wanted the place for a partisan of his own hewould even oppose. The place was obviously wanted for somebody else, the partisan of Sandwich or of whomsoever else had the patronage. When Sir W. Trelawney died in 1773 he was succeeded by Sir Basil Keith. At the very close of this part of their correspondence Sandwich, to judge from a sentence in one of Rodney’s own letters, seems to have hinted that if the Admiral really could not return to England he had better stay in Jamaica as a private person. The suggestion was certainly made, and if it did come from Sandwich it more than trenched on impertinence. Rodney refused to stay on any such footing in a society which had seen him in a great command. When his three years were up he returned to England, and struck his flag at Portsmouth in September, 1774.

He returned to England an embittered and disappointed man, believing and saying that he had been treated with gross ingratitude. It is of course easy to say that this was absurd, that Rodney had held a succession of good commands, and that if he had embarrassed himself by gambling and electioneering, this want of judgment on his part did not entitle him to more places. To this, if it had been said in the society to which he belonged, Rodney might very properly have replied by asking the speaker either to cease his impertinence or clear his mind of cant. As between himself and Sandwich these embarrassments did constitute a claim. It was an understood thing that when a gentleman had spent his money for the right interest at elections he was entitled to compensation for it in the form of office or pensions. If he did not obtain recognition it was not because of any regard for the public service on the part of ministers,but because they felt they could drop him with impunity. At the close of his second West Indian command Rodney had, for the time, fallen into the class of those who can be dropped. He was too much indebted to be useful as a candidate for a borough which must be fought. Men of smaller claims could be found for pocket boroughs. His old political friends were all very sorry but really——! To be dropped as useless can be pleasant to no man, and therefore it is not wonderful that Rodney was savage, and cursed the ingratitude of politicians. For the moment, however, there was nothing for it but to beat a retreat. At the close of 1774, or very early in the following year, he did what many half-pay naval and military gentlemen have been compelled to do since—he betook himself to the Continent to economise, and set up his quarters in Paris.

It is of course needless to say that whatever he did in the capital of France he did not economise. A gentleman who has preserved profuse habits to the age of fifty-six, which Rodney had now attained, may indeed (total abstinence being easier to men of passionate temperaments than moderation) take up with the good old gentlemanly vice of avarice, but he will not economise. As he did not become avaricious, the Admiral naturally went on wasting money. By 1778 he had, without as it would seem shaking off his English claims, contracted French debts to a considerable amount. With these last is connected one of the most famous of all the stories told about him. By this year France and England were notoriously going to war. The House of Bourbon in France and Spain saw in the revolt of the American Plantations an opportunity torevenge the humiliations of the Seven Years’ War. Help was given underhand to the rebels. American naval adventurers were received in French ports. Some of them even found their way to Paris, where they swaggered in a fashion which, so he told Lady Rodney, convinced the Admiral they must be cowards. Finally came open war, the despatch of D’Estaing’s squadron to the coast of America and the West Indies, and the formation of the great French fleet at Brest. All this Rodney had to watch with longing. He went much into the best society in Paris (which helps to account for the fresh debt), and must have seen the growth of the hopes of the Court that at last the time was come in which the “proud islanders” were to be repaid for Quebec, Quiberon, Lagos, and much more. One story—one wild legend which can hardly have even a basis of fact—tells how Rodney was actually offered the command of the French fleet if he would betray his country. A more acceptable tale records his answer to a question from the Duc de Chartres, known to infamy as Philippe Égalité, as to what would happen if he, the Duke, met the English at sea off Brest—“That Your Highness will have an opportunity of learning English.” It was well to speak up with spirit for his country, but it would have been better to be in a position to fight for her. This, however, was what Rodney, tied to Paris by his debts, could not do. His creditors became clamorous. Thanks to the “protection of the Lieutenant of Police,” they were not allowed to proceed to extremities. A gentleman was a gentleman in France at that time, and was treated with consideration. If he was a foreigner there was all the more reason why he should be tenderly treated. Hisduns then were not allowed to imprison him, but they could not be prevented from dunning him, and until they were satisfied he could not leave Paris. Rodney applied for employment. A dry official acknowledgment of the application was the only answer. Lady Rodney returned to London, leaving the Admiral with his daughters in Paris, in the hope that friends might be induced to give help. It was all to no purpose. Rodney remained in Paris, and it seemed not impossible that he might be kept there by his debts all through the war—perhaps even be confined in prison as a debtor if ever the Lieutenant of Police were to withdraw his protection.

From this shameful disaster Rodney was saved by the magnanimity of old Maréchal Biron. The Maréchal had been much his friend, and in these days Rodney speaks in his letters to his wife of the old gentleman’s hospitality to himself and his daughters. At last the Frenchman offered to lend him enough to pay his debts and cover the expenses of the journey to England. Rodney was unwilling to accept the generosity of a national enemy, even though he were a personal friend. It was not until the offer had been three times repeated, until all hope of help from England had proved vain, that he at last took the helping hand held out to him. In May, 1778, he took the loan, paid his debts, and immediately left for London, coming himself by Dieppe. The last few days in Paris, he writes, “will be occupied in visiting all those great families from whom I have received so many civilities, and whose attention in paying me daily and constant visits in a great measure kept my creditors from being so troublesome as they otherwise would have been.” It was the best of theAncienRégimethat it did at least know how to behave itself like a gentleman.

The exact amount received by Rodney from Biron was 1000 louis. This being a debt of honour was repaid at once by the help of the Drummonds, the bankers. The children, who begin now to be constantly mentioned in his letters, returned under the charge of a servant by way of Calais, and the Admiral was at last able to push his claims at Court himself.

Rodneywas now sixty. In the June of this year 1778 he attained the rank of Admiral of the White Squadron. He had for some time been Rear-Admiral of England, an honorary rank, to which however a salary was attached. The Vice and Rear-Admirals of England were, and indeed are—for the titles are still to be seen in the navy lists—supposed to be second and third in command to the Lord High Admiral when there is one. In rank, therefore, he was at the head of his profession, but his reputation was still to make. The forty years or so of service which he had accomplished had gained him distinction, but not more than had been won by several of his contemporaries. When the American War broke out, Keppel, Byron, Barrington, and Howe were as well known as himself. Keppel at least was far more popular. It was the work of the next three years which secured him his unique position in his own generation. What has been recorded hitherto must be looked upon as introduction. What is coming is the real work of his life. Up till now his career has been divided by commissions and periods of years. The rest will be told in campaigns and days of battle.

It is therefore interesting to be able to see what kind of man he was, now when his great career was about to begin. His own deeds and letters have told something, and will tell more, as to his character, but one must go to his contemporaries for what he looked like, and what the world thought of him. Sir N. Wraxall took care to leave some knowledge on both points duly recorded in his reminiscences. Wraxall is no doubt a writer whom it is advisable to use with caution. Not being of opinion that it is worse to tell lies about Whigs than about other people, nor even convinced that every discreditable story told about a member of that virtuous party must needs be a lie, I do not know that theMendacium Wraxallianumdeserves particular condemnation. Still the book is largely composed of an old man’s reminiscences of other men’s tittle-tattle. Such an authority is only to be used safely by those who can distinguish and divide. When, for instance, Wraxall, under the attractive head of “Rodney’s Amours,” tells us that scandal associated the Admiral’s name with the frail reputation of very “exalted females,” we need not take his words as more than what they really are—evidence of what people said. This again is evidence of what was thought sufficiently credible to be worth repeating in that world and at that time. Society then did not think it manifest nonsense to whisper that this naval officer was the father of one of the limited number of royal bastards who are of royal blood on the mother’s side. Supposing the story true, it only proves what is otherwise abundantly known, namely, that Rodney—living as he did when not at sea in the pleasure-loving society of London, at a time when it did those thingswhich it always has done, perhaps more, and certainly more openly than it has done since—was not morally either better or worse than most men of the world.

For the rest, these days lay far behind Rodney in 1778. The heat of his youth had been tamed by age and pain and disappointment. His affection was now given to those to whom it belonged of right—to his second wife, and to his children by both his marriages. There is a reference to the death of his second son by his first marriage, in the shipwreck of theFerret, in one of his letters to Lady Rodney, which has a very genuine ring of grief. His eldest son, now an officer in the Guards, seems to have lived much apart, as was only natural, but from Lady Rodney’s letters it appears that he was on friendly terms with her and with his half-brother and sisters. This half-brother went to sea with the father, and was treated with the best of all forms of kindness—that namely which insisted on making a man of him, and refused him promotion till he knew his business. Lady Rodney herself had her husband’s affection and entire confidence. His letters to her put that beyond dispute. Collingwood himself, the most tender-hearted of men, did not write of and to his daughters more lovingly than Rodney. Their names occur constantly in his correspondence, and thoughts for them, their good, and their future, were never absent from his mind. The natural instinct, and sometimes the cant, of the moralist lead him at times to assert that these domestic virtues in later years are in themselves disproof of the truth of such stories as are told of Rodney’s earlier life. When that is not an affectation it is a very innocent belief. Whether it is better orworse for a man to go through the “mud bath” may be doubtful. What is certain is that many men do go through it and live to be clean. In 1778 the passion which remained strongest in Rodney was ambition.

Wraxall’s picture of the Admiral’s appearance and manner may be accepted without any interpretation. He says that he was slight with delicate features. In that Wraxall is borne out by Sir Joshua Reynolds’s fine portrait. The features are refined rather than strong, and are small. Having been taken when the Admiral was old, the face is that of a man who has suffered much pain. We do not need Wraxall to tell us that the Admiral’s manners were those of a gentleman and not of a tarpaulin. Given his birth and training, what else should they be? Again it is very credible that the Admiral was a copious talker, vehement in the expression of his likes and dislikes, not at all averse to talk about himself, nor even to boast. The sailor has always, perhaps to console himself for much compulsory silence at sea, been open to reproaches touching his loquacity on shore. Moreover, he is by tradition hearty, given to speaking out his mind, not so conscious as other Englishmen of the decency of reticence—whereby if he is a good friend he is also liable to make enemies. Rodney made many enemies, and the tone of his letters bears out Wraxall’s assertion that it was by the vigour with which he condemned what he thought worthy of condemnation.

Rodney’s age at the time of taking his great command is a fact to be kept in mind. His years had necessarily some effect on his energy. The state of his health, too, is not to be forgotten. He was older than his years.The sea life, always a wearing one, was particularly hard in those times. No man could have inhabited such a floating pest-house as theDublinwithout suffering for it. Besides, gout had made its home with Rodney long before this. He was liable to be laid up by it at any moment, and was so well aware of the danger that he took a doctor to sea with him to attend upon himself exclusively. It is no small drawback to the efficiency of a commander that he should be for ever compelled to struggle with an infirmity. There are no want of examples to prove that the misfortune is one which can be conquered. Rodney’s contemporary, Maurice of Saxony, beat or manœuvred the allies out of the Low Countries though he was a cripple with the same disease. Still, ill-health was a terrible addition to the difficulties of an otherwise trying position. Age and infirmity must be allowed for in his case, either for excuse or for honour. It will be necessary sometimes to remember that if he had been younger and stronger he might have done more, or that if he had not been old and sickly it would have been less honourable for him to have done as much as he did. His gout, too, had inevitably much influence on his relations to his officers. To say nothing of the notorious effect of this disease on the temper even of less nervous and passionate men than Rodney, it compelled him to seclude himself a great deal, and so intensified his natural disposition to hold himself aloof from his captains. His relations with his subordinates were rarely friendly, and this had, as it could not but have, effects which were not for the good of the service. One thing more must be noted, namely, the extent of his pecuniary embarrassments.This was at the time public property. All men knew, and Rodney himself never affected to deny, that command was necessary to him for the money’s sake. It will be seen that this impecuniosity was one of the excuses found for attacks on him at a later period. For the present it will be enough to remember that there was the need, and there was the general knowledge that it existed.

Throughout the second half of 1778 and the greater part of 1779 Rodney was established in London at lodgings in Cleveland Street, straining every nerve to secure a command. He pressed his claims and his views on the Ministry. His desire was to get back to the West Indies, which, as the enemy never made any but half-hearted attacks on us in the Channel, was destined to be the great scene of the war. Those seas were well known to him, and in a series of able papers he explained to Sandwich how, in his opinion, we could best conduct operations there so as not only to defend the islands, but to give the utmost possible help to the King’s forces on the northern continent. Later on, and after Rodney’s first successes, the minister hastened to claim credit for having listened to his arguments and secured his appointment. Rodney himself asserted emphatically that he owed his command to the King alone. It was to the King certainly that he applied. For a time he had necessarily to wait. All the great commands were filled when he returned from Paris. Neither his rank nor his wish allowed him to serve as a subordinate. He was therefore compelled to look on as a spectator at the first year and a half of the war. During that period events were working for him. The general course ofoperations was not of a nature to raise the reputation of other men to his detriment. On the North American coast, indeed, Howe beat off the superior force of D’Estaing stoutly and by dint of wary manœuvring. In the West Indies Barrington seized and held Santa Lucia—a position of immense value, as Rodney well knew—in the teeth of a far stronger French force. The whole subsequent course of the war was influenced in our favour by this timely capture. Still these successes were not of a kind to impose the victorious commander on the Ministry as a necessary man.

In the Channel the course of the war had removed a whole batch of formidable rivals from Rodney’s path. Keppel’s feeble action with D’Orvilliers off Ushant in July, 1778, was a bitter disappointment to the nation. It was followed by a series of quarrels and courts-martial more discreditable and more injurious to the country than a defeat could well have been. The Tory admiral, Sir George Palliser, was egged on by Sandwich to discredit the Whig admiral, Keppel. There followed court-martial and counter court-martial. The mob of London took sides for Keppel, sacked the houses of Palliser and Alexander Hood, and burned the gates of the Admiralty in Whitehall. The navy went by the ears in a Whig and Tory quarrel. In the mind of the King and minister there arose a determination to employ no more Whigs if it could be helped. When the excesses to which faction carried men in that time are remembered, the resolution can be fairly justified. Mean things were done by the Ministry, no doubt. It was scandalous, for instance, that Duncan—he who afterwards conquered at Camperdown—should have been lefton shore throughout the war, as punishment for the resolution he showed in securing fair play for his friend Keppel in the court-martial. Still, when it is remembered that the Whigs as a party were openly opposed to the coercion of the American colonists, and that they seldom scrupled to help the enemies of their country if their “connection” could profit thereby, it is only natural that the King should prefer not to employ them. If the work was to be done at all, it had better not be put in the hands of men who were half-hearted in the doing. Now, as this party had had the whole distribution of patronage for the greater part of the century, it follows, as the night the day, that the very great majority of admirals were Whigs. When to be a Whig became not an advantage but a disadvantage to the officer who was seeking command, great was the improvement in the position, and unaffected was the joy, of the admirals who were Tories.

Rodney was a Tory. At what period reflection and experience of public affairs brought him to these opinions I do not know. He can hardly have been a Tory when he was writing the letters quoted above to Newcastle. Probably he went to the side to which his instincts took him as soon as he saw that England had a king who meant to be king. For himself the conversion, if there was any conversion, was wholly for his good. I do not speak of his fortunes, but of his character. In future when he is found expressing devotion to a master it is not to a party manager, but to him to whom it was due of right—to his Sovereign. For his fortunes, too, his creed was advantageous. It must have been a real pleasure to George the Third to find an admiral who so thoroughlyagreed with himself as to the proper view to be taken of the American insurgents. There was no doubt about Rodney’s opinions. They were rebels, piratical rebels, who were to be hunted down and crushed. Through 1778 and 1779 his mobile face and eager eloquence must have been familiar at levees and drawing-rooms, as he explained with vehement eloquence that it ought to be done, how it was to be done, and who ought to do it.

In the autumn of 1779 the right officer was chosen. Rodney was appointed to the command in the West Indies to replace Byron. He was to have the supreme command in the Leeward Islands and Jamaica, with freedom to intervene on the American coast. On his way a preliminary piece of service was to be done. Since the beginning of the war Gibraltar had been besieged by land and sea. The many claims upon us, and above all the necessity of standing on our guard in the Channel against an attack by the immense fleet formed by the combination of the French under M. d’Orvilliers and the Spaniards under Don Luis de Cordova, had compelled us to leave our outposts in the Straits, and our other outpost at Minorca, to their own resources. The cruise of the combined fleets had done us little harm, owing partly to the diseases which devastated their ships’ companies, and partly to those qualities of the Spaniard which have at all times made him the most exasperating of all mankind in a co-operation. The allies separated with mutual reproaches, and we were left free to strike a counter-blow. A great convoy was collected in the Channel. Twenty-one line-of-battle ships were to protect it. Of this force Rodney was to have thecommand. His duties were to proceed to Gibraltar, relieve the fortress, send a convoy up the Mediterranean to Minorca, then go on himself to the West Indies with four ships, leaving his second in command, Rear-Admiral Digby, to bring back the empty transports, the sick and wounded from the garrisons.

From October till the end of the year Rodney was at Portsmouth with his flag flying in theSandwich, a ninety-gun ship, driving on the preparation of the fleet and the convoy. His hands were abundantly full. The dockyards as usual required incessant spurring and whipping up. An immense correspondence had to be attended to, legitimate and illegitimate. The official work was bad enough, and it was aggravated by appeals from all sorts and conditions of persons, from the anxious mother down to the First Lord of the Admiralty imploring him to take care of Dowb—to find places, promotion, and favourable attention for their sons and nephews, and the deserving offspring of important constituents. Rodney was driven wild by it all, and wrote almost passionately to his wife, instructing her to inform at least one most pertinacious acquaintance that Admiral of the White, Sir George Brydges Rodney, wasnota schoolmaster, and wouldnotstand inloco parentisto an indefinite number of hopeful small boys. Then the wind joined in the dance. When at last transports and war-ships were ready, and collected at the back of the Isle of Wight, the westerly gales settled down to it, and blew right up Channel, whirling rain and mist along, wrapping up headland and landmark in an impenetrable cloak of salt haze. To take a heavy convoy of clumsy sailing ships in the teeth of that wind,between the overlapping headlands which shut in the Channel, surpassed the resources of seamanship. There was nothing for it but to wait till it pleased the wind to blow from another point of the compass. In the meantime the Admiral had to pace the quarter-deck of theSandwich, or sit in her cabin, receiving and answering pathetic appeals from the First Lord imploring him to get to sea, for God’s sake to get to sea, and save not only Gibraltar, but his old friend, who will be driven rabid by questions in Parliament, and reproaches in places “to which he pays more attention,” from the King, to wit, if something is not done and that quickly. During these days the dockyards, the officers of the war-ships, and the masters of the transports were kept on the stretch by a rattling fire of orders and rebukes. The Admiral’s doctor also, Gilbert Blane, had his hands full, no doubt. This gentleman, for the rest, deserves more than passing notice, for he will be a conspicuous figure during the great years of Rodney’s life. He is, in the first place, one of the best of our authorities, and then he has an honourable place of his own in the history of the navy. With Rodney’s help and encouragement he did more than any man, except Cook, to drive the scurvy out of the fleet, and in so doing contributed very materially to the final victories by providing the admirals with healthy crews. It is to be noted that the circumstances of this struggle to be off in 1779 were so closely repeated when Rodney was going to sea on his last great cruise at the end of 1781, that some of his letters of the later date have been printed under the earlier in his published correspondence.

In the last days of December, 1779, the wind first fell and then shifted round to the east. With its help thegreat fleet got under way, and at last swept clear of the Channel. An immense feeling of relief must have come to Rodney when at last he saw the Land’s End sink below the horizon, and he knew that his priceless charge was clear of those narrow waters which, even in these days of steam, lighthouses, and fog-horns, the seaman navigates with that wise fear which is the mother of safety. His convoy consisted all told of over three hundred sail, and must have covered miles of sea from wing to wing. In the centre were the transports and merchant vessels. On either side of these sailed the line-of-battle ships. Ahead, and on the outlook for dangers, went the frigates, except a few told off to come behind the flock and bark at laggards. The wind continued fair and the great armament cleared Ushant, crossed the bay, and had passed Cape Finisterre, when the first of two well-deserved pieces of luck fell in the way of our fleet. The same change of wind which had released Rodney from the Channel had opened the way for a Spanish convoy from Ferrol. It consisted of sixteen vessels laden partly with merchandise and naval stores, partly with provisions destined for the Spanish force besieging Gibraltar. A sixty-four-gun ship, theGuipuzcoano, and six frigates or corvettes had been told off to protect it. Whether it was that luck or their own incorrigibly lazy habits were against them, the Spaniards were just too late in getting round Finisterre. As they turned to go south the English dropped right upon them at daybreak on January 9th, 1780. A general chase was at once ordered. A Spanish ship chased was a Spanish ship caught, according to a French naval officer of the time, and in a few hours every one of them was in possessionof an English prize crew. “Help from Spain comes late or never,” was a proverb in the days when the tercios in the Low Countries, or in Tunis, looked in vain for help from the procrastinating government of Philip the Second. It has proved true ever since. On this occasion the succour came never to the Spaniards in the camp at San Roque. The provision ships were carried on to Gibraltar for the use of Elliot and his garrison. The bale goods and naval stores went to England under charge of theAmericaand thePearl. In order that they might be the safer from recapture Rodney manned theGuipuzcoano, renamed her thePrince William, and sent her also to convoy to England what had been meant for the help of England’s enemies. The name was taken in honour of Prince William, afterwards King William the Fourth, who was serving in the fleet as a midshipman on Admiral Digby’s flag-ship.

A week later a greater capture fell into his hands. On the 16th the convoy turned Cape St. Vincent, and at one o’clock was at a distance of about four leagues to the south of it. Rodney knew that the Spaniards had a squadron at sea to intercept reliefs for the besieged fortress. He was prepared for them, and had his war-ships now in front. At one theBedfordsignalled that the enemy was visible in the south-east, ahead of the English between them and Gibraltar. At once the order was given to form in line abreast (side by side in land language), and approach the enemy. The wind was from the west or north-west, all in our favour now, and it rested with us to force the battle on. It was also our policy to force an action on, as we were in overwhelming superiority of force. The squadron now in front ofRodney consisted of eleven line-of-battle ships, one of eighty and ten of seventy guns, and two frigates. It was absurd to suppose that such a force could offer resistance to twenty-one line-of-battle ships containing three three-deckers. The Spaniards were commanded by Don Juan de Langara. With the extraordinary fatuity which has distinguished the modern Spanish admiral and general, he had—so he seems to have actually said himself—taken it for granted that the English would do the most imbecile thing possible in the circumstances. He knew that a convoy was on its way to Gibraltar, and he must have known how important it was for us that the garrison should be relieved. Yet he made his mind up that the convoy would not be protected by war-ships. In this belief he waited quietly below Cape St. Vincent till the English convoy was good enough to run into his jaws. He kept no frigates to windward; he did nothing but lie there and wait. When Rodney bore down on him he allowed an enemy of crushing superiority to come close upon him, while he wasted invaluable time in forming “a line of battle on the starboard tack,” with the intention apparently of going off in seemly order, instead of doing the only thing he could do at once, namely, put his ships’ heads on Cadiz, and fly under every stitch of canvas he could set without carrying his masts away. So much mismanagement had, could have, and deserved to have, but one end.

At four o’clock Rodney, seeing that he need not stand on ceremony with an enemy half his size, hauled down the signal for the line abreast, and hoisted that for a general chase. There was no time to lose, for in that latitude the twilight is short, and in that season ofthe year darkness was not far off at four o’clock in the afternoon. It was advisable to get to handgrips before it came on. The English ships were therefore ordered to go into action as fast as they could, and to take the lee-gauge. With the wind at west this would be on the eastern side of the Spaniard. This was for two reasons the best position. It would put the English between the enemy and his port of refuge at Cadiz, which lay to south of east of him; and it had this advantage, which at all conditions belonged to the lee-gauge, that if any of the Spaniards were crippled in the spars they would be driven by the wind among the English ships. But in the circumstances the course was a dangerous one, for it would necessarily bring the English close to the shore in the dark. The wind was rising, and there was every prospect of a stormy night. It was not without some hesitation, and after consultation with his flag-captain, Young, that Rodney finally decided to run the risk. Decide he did, however, and very shortly after four the quickest of the English ships were up with the slowest of the Spaniards, who were now—all futile attempts to keep order having been given up—flying for Cadiz “like a shoal of frightened porpoises a swarm of sharks pursue.” Ranging up on the eastern side of them, the leading English ships opened a fire which was answered with spirit, but, to judge from the very trifling loss in our fleet, with exceedingly bad aim. Our vessels did not loiter by the Spaniards they had caught up, but pressed on to those ahead, sure that the English behind would answer for the lagging enemy. The order to the sailing-master of theSandwichwas, that no attention was to be paid to small enemies; she was to besteered for the biggest—for the admiral if he could be discovered.

The action had not lasted half an hour when one of the Spaniards, theSan Domingo, of seventy guns, blew up. One mangled survivor was picked out of the water, but died before his English captors could carry him to Gibraltar. At six another of the Spaniards struck. The wind rose steadily, and the night came, but not the darkness. There was a brilliant moon, and by its light the English could follow the Spaniards, who struck one after another. By two in the morning theSandwichwas alongside of the leading Spanish ship, theMonarca. After a few broadsides she too struck. Then, knowing that the enemy was practically annihilated, and knowing, too, that the headlong pursuit had brought the dangerous shoals of San Lucar under his lee, Rodney signalled the order to stop pursuit, and lie to for the night. By this time the wind had risen to a gale. For the remainder of the night our squadron was hard at work. It had to keep off shore itself, and to secure its prizes by shifting the Spanish officers, and part at least of the men, which, in the midst of the storm and the darkness which came on at last, were not easy tasks. Thanks to the difficulties thrown on us by the wind and the want of light, two of the Spaniards slipped through our fingers after we had taken possession. One ran on shore with her prize crew, and became a total wreck. Another was retaken by the Spanish prisoners who remained on board, and was by them carried into Cadiz. Four of the liners and the two frigates got away before they could be compelled to strike. TheSan Domingo, as has been already said, had been blown up. There remained in Rodney’s possessionfour line-of-battle ships, including Don Juan de Langara’s own vessel theFenix, with the Don himself on board grievously wounded. The day following the battle was spent in laboriously working off shore. Several of our liners, theSandwichamong them, had got into shoal water in the battle and the darkness, and were in great danger, in Rodney’s own opinion. But the seamanship of officers and men was equal to the danger, and before night the war-ships were out of shoal water, and had rejoined the transports of the convoy, which had been kept out to sea.

The relief of Gibraltar had now been practically effected. The Spanish squadron had been swept out of the way, and no other was ready to replace it. The road therefore was open, but the winds and currents of the Straits presented difficulties of their own, and it was some days before the convoy got in—nor did it get in all at once. When the storm had blown itself out the wind fell, and the fleet was carried by the currents into the Mediterranean as far as Marbella. From thence Rodney wrote to Logie, the English Consul at Tangiers, to buy up cattle from the Moors to be carried over to the garrison, and sent word to Elliot of the victory. In Gibraltar however it was already known. A midshipman who was prize-master of one of the Spaniards taken from the Carracas convoy had brought his vessel into Gibraltar on the 17th. He had passed the fleets after the engagement began, and had actually seen the explosion of theSan Domingo. Then Rodney himself had been seen from the look-out on the Rock by the help of the flashes of lightning during the gale, before he was swept out of sight again to Cape Spartel. With their knowledge ofthe strength of the Spanish squadron, and what they learnt from the prize-master of the force under Rodney’s command, the garrison could have no fear as to the result. They waited in confidence for the plenty which was to replace their recent short commons. It soon came pouring in. First Admiral Digby arrived with the wounded Spanish admiral in his captured flag-ship, and part of the convoy. A few days later Rodney followed. He had sent his second in command on before, because he had pilots for the Straits with him and there were none on the flag. A few days later he came in himself from Tetuan.

He remained at Gibraltar till February 13th, when he sailed for the West Indies. In the interval there was much to be done. The part of the convoy destined for Minorca had to be sent on its way, and Rodney had to wait till the ships protecting it returned. Then in Gibraltar the squadron had to be looked after, preparations made for the next voyage, and a ticklish negotiation carried on with the Spaniards as to exchange of prisoners. It was all successfully done. Minorca was relieved, and the ships returned. After much correspondence, conducted with infinite courtly politeness between Rodney and Langara, the exchange of prisoners was at least partially arranged, and at last the English fleet got off. Two days later it divided at sea—Admiral Digby to return to the Channel with the bulk of the force and the homeward-bound convoy—Rodney to make his way with four ships to the West Indies.

The events of this month of January had completely altered Rodney’s position. When it began he was a distinguished officer like many others. When it endedhe was the first man in his profession, and the most popular man in England. The capture of the two convoys, the taking of an enemy’s admiral and four of his line-of-battle ships, and the relief of Gibraltar, were by far the most brilliant events of the war so far as it had yet gone. It was true that we had had the odds in our favour; but then after nearly two years of depressing dulness the country had begun to suspect that even when numbers were in their favour its admirals had not spirit to make use of them. The suspicion was unjust, and no doubt either Howe or Barrington would have done the work equally well. As for Byron, “Foul Weather Jack,” his ill luck was really so persistent that if he had been there the wind would probably have blown a gale from the east till he gave up attempting to get through the Gut altogether. But though others might have done the work, as a matter of fact it was Rodney who did do it, and he reaped the credit as a matter of course. Besides, although the odds were in our favour, the circumstances had been of a nature to somewhat redress the balance. The fiery pursuit of the Spanish fleet in the night and the gale, and on to a lee shore, had about it something of the “Quiberon touch”—a flavour of the old daring and seamanship. Here was a man of the old Blake and Hawke stamp—one who would not come back with a tale of a lee shore as an excuse for letting the enemy off.

With the King and the minister too the success had done Rodney infinite good. He had established a claim to their gratitude. That this timely piece of service should have been done by their Tory admiral was agreat point in their favour. There was something they could throw in the teeth of Keppel as he sat surrounded by the Whig connection in the House, snarling at the officers who succeeded him in the Channel command, and predicting disaster. From this time Sandwich’s letters become not only most cordial but at times almost submissive. He is quite eager that the Admiral should tell people that he, Sandwich, had the credit of making so good a selection of an officer to command. From that one may judge how pleased the King was. George the Third had chosen Rodney at least as much as the minister, and he assuredly believed in the justice of the war in which he was engaged. That his admiral should have scored a victory in his war was a most legitimate source of joy to the King. For King, minister, and people alike the substantial results of the cruise were undeniably admirable. The relief of Gibraltar had shown that if the Spaniards were to get back the Rock it would not be by starvation. If they were to get it by other weapons there would need to be a great change in their methods of attack. The garrison was indeed much less effectually relieved than the nation supposed; but the failure was the fault not of the Admiral, but of the Ministry, which had organised the convoy very ill.

Aftertouching at Barbadoes on his way, Rodney reached Santa Lucia on March 28th, and fought his first battle in those waters on April 17th. A variety of causes—some political, some physical—made the West Indies the great scene of naval fighting in the American War. France had been induced to help the insurgent colonists, partly from a desire for revenge, partly in the hope that she would be able to compensate herself for the losses imposed at the Peace of Fontainebleau by the conquest of the Lesser Antilles. Spain again had, not without reluctance, for it ill suited her to encourage the rebellion of colonists in America, been induced to join the alliance in the hope of recovering Jamaica and Florida, as well as of driving the English garrisons from Gibraltar and Minorca. Our possessions in the West Indies were therefore naturally an object of attack. The most effectual method of extorting both her Mediterranean outposts and her West Indian Islands would have been to attack England vigorously at home. As the allies were able to collect a fleet of over sixty sail at the mouth of the Channel in 1779, some such attack might, it would seem, have been made. The only forcewe could then oppose to them was about thirty line-of-battle. They had, in fact, what Napoleon longed for—the command of the Channel, and that not for twenty-four hours but for weeks; yet the capture of a stray sixty-four was all they could effect.

Why France, which has so often threatened to invade us before and since, made no attempt to do so when the enterprise had been feasible, and even easy, is a curious question. The failure of their purely naval operations is easily explained. The Spaniards, who formed nearly half the great fleet, were wretchedly inefficient; short of provisions, as ignorant of the navigation of the English Channel as they had been when Medina Sidonia blundered into it and out of it, they were, moreover, miserably sickly. They communicated the plague to their French friends, who lost four thousand men by it. Apart, however, from this particular reason for failure, there was a permanent one which weighed on our enemy. France possessed at that time no port of war on the Channel. Brest looks on to the ocean. As the prevailing winds of the Channel are from west and south-west, it behoved a fleet in the old sailing days to beware how it trusted itself inside of Portland Bill; for if it were crippled either by storm or battle it might not be able to get out. In that case there would be nothing for it but to follow the fatal route of the Armada—to steer for home round the north of Scotland and to the west of Ireland. The sea, as M. Michelet pathetically observes, hates France. It has worn her coast flat and provided England with two noble harbours right over against her, at Portsmouth and Plymouth. Looking at these unfavourable conditions, the French, from LaHogue downwards, have generally kept their fleets out of the Channel. Not being able to attack our heart, they have attacked our extremities. In the American War the particular extremity they selected was the West Indies.

To understand a general’s fighting it is necessary to get some idea of his field of battle. The lay historian commonly remembers this well enough when he is dealing with battles on shore, but whether because he does not understand them, or discourteously thinks his reader cannot, he takes no account of the conditions in sea-fights; yet they are every whit as important and as intelligible. What the hill, the river, and the wood were to Napoleon or Wellington, the wind, the current, and the lie of the land were to Rodney or Nelson. They were obstacles to be avoided or advantages to be used. Rodney’s field of battle lay in the Lesser Antilles, the long string of small islands stretching over six degrees of latitude from south to north which form the eastern division of the West Indies. The Antilles, great and less, are a vast broken reef which shuts in the gigantic lagoon called the Caribbean Sea. The eastern division, which reaches north to the Virgin Islands, has been broken small by the pressure of the ocean. From the Virgin Islands the reef turns sharp west, and its fragments become few and large—first Porto Rico is big, then San Domingo is bigger, then Cuba is the biggest. South of Cuba and in the Caribbean Sea is Jamaica. In 1780 Cuba and Porto Rico belonged to Spain, as they still do. She shared San Domingo with France, and longed to recover Jamaica from the hands of England. The Lesser Antilles were divided among England,France, and Holland. To them considerations, physical and political, limited the area of the war.

All through the year, except in the immediate neighbourhood of the land or when the hurricane is raging over them, the Antilles are swept by the easterly trade wind. According to the season of the year, or the hour of the day, the trade blows from north or south of east, but it always blows from the ocean over the Lesser Antilles and along the Greater. Narrow strips of water are shut out from it by mountains, and conflicting temperatures cause an alternation of sea breezes by day and land breezes by night in the neighbourhood of the larger islands. But the trade is the “true breeze,” the steady uniform force which in the days of sailing ships gave the law to war and to commerce. It even affected language, for in the West Indies men did not say east and west, but windward and leeward. The unceasing pressure of the wind on the water has established a surface current which flows to the west. Wind and wave together have worn the windward or easterly side of the Lesser Antilles bare. All the harbours are on the leeward or western side, looking into the Caribbean Sea. Thus wind and current alike tend to force all ships navigating the Antilles to the westward. When this pressure from the east is taken off it is by a force which suspends all his labours, whether of peace or war, and sends man crouching into the first place of safety he can find. From the end of July to the end of September are the hurricane months. While they last no sailing fleets cared to keep the sea. They lay in harbour or went elsewhere.

These physical conditions made the Lesser Antillesthe gates of the West Indies. Whoever held them could run down whenever he chose on the Western Islands, but ships coming from the west must work up into the wind by weary tacking, or by hugging the coasts of the islands to avail themselves of every varying puff of land and sea breeze, of every reset of the currents from the headlands. Whoever was to windward had the option of attack and the choice of his course. After a little reading of the accounts of old sea-fights, one can realise how appropriate is the use of the words “up” and “down” as applied to the leeward or windward position. He who was to leeward had literally to struggle up to his enemy as a man toils up a hill. He who was to windward could stand watching the foe till some such disorder in his line as is very likely to occur among a number of ships manœuvring together, or some fault in the course taken, gave him an opportunity to rush down and charge home. Then, too, the road to and from Europe lay through the Lesser Antilles. The heartbreaking shallows, reefs, and keys of the Bahamas make the approach to the West Indies from the north dangerous now; and in the eighteenth century, when surveys and lighthouses were not, they formed an almost impassable barrier. Therefore the conquest of the Lesser Antilles was looked upon as the necessary preliminary to an attack on the Greater, and so before the French would risk an attack on Jamaica, they must first drive us out of the positions of advantage to windward.

When Rodney reached Santa Lucia in March the adversaries in the coming duel were fairly equal in force and advantage of position. M. de Guichen had arrived at Martinique a few days before with reinforcements,which gave the French a slight numerical superiority. As the possession of the islands was divided there was no marked advantage on either side. The French held Guadaloupe and Martinique, which had been restored to them at the close of the former war. They had lately captured Dominica, which lies between the two. They had also snapped up Grenada far away to the south, under the very nose of Admiral Byron. On the other hand Barrington had seized Santa Lucia and had held it in defiance of D’Estaing. This was a satisfactory offset to the loss of Dominica and Grenada. Santa Lucia lies to the south of Martinique, and a little to windward of it. At the north-west end it possesses the admirable harbour of Gros Islet Bay. From this place the French naval headquarters at Fort Royal in Martinique could be easily watched. Santa Lucia was therefore a much better station for our ships than Antigua, far to the north, which they had hitherto used, or Barbadoes, which lies out in the ocean to the east. When Rodney and Guichen began their struggle they were, as duellists should be, on fairly equal terms as to ground and sun.

How far they were equally well supplied with weapons is a question not so easy to settle. In that respect Rodney ought, if our rather complacent belief in the natural superiority of the British navy is well grounded, to have had an overwhelming advantage. As a matter of fact, however, the superiority of our fleet was by no means what it became later on, and was to remain all through the next war. The French navy was at its best, and that best was very good. On all modern principles it should have been by far the betterof the two. It was much the more carefully organised and schooled. From just before the end of the Seven Years’ War till the beginning of this, the French Government had worked very hard at its fleet, and with very creditable results. The material strength of its navy was considerable. When in alliance with the Spanish, the combined force exceeded our own in mere number of available ships and guns. The education of the French naval officers was very thorough. They themselves were, for the most part,cadets de famille, younger sons of noble houses—gentlemen, in short, with the traditional gallantry of their class. Many of them belonged to families which had served “on the ships of the King” from father to son since Louis XIV established thegardes de la marine. Chateaubriand, in hisMémoires d’Outre-Tombe, has left a striking picture of the class from which the French naval officers were mainly drawn, the provincial nobles, who had kept all the pride of birth, but had not been corrupted by the Court. Their names read like a roll of those who defended the bastions of thelanguesof France or Auvergnes at Rhodes or Valetta. Indeed, they are often the same, for the connection between the order of Malta and the French navy was close. Service in the caravans of “the Religion” counted as service in the King’s ships. The nobles of Provence, who recruited the order largely, were numerous in the navy, and some of them served in both—the Bailli de Souffren, for instance, who was by far the ablest of the French officers who appeared in this war, was a Knight of St. John. So there is a ring of romance about their names which is somewhat lacking to our own sober Bowens, Cornishes, Thompsons,and Barbers, all of which sound but flat alongside of Buor de la Charoulière, Le Gardeur de Tilly, Visdelou de Liscouel, Carcaredec, Assas-Mondardier, or Tredern de Lengerec. Among these gallant gentlemen were some of the best officers who ever served any king. They had studied their profession hard, and had thought much more of the military part of it than English naval officers. It is a fact which the reader may think creditable or not, that the technical treatises, whether on seamanship or tactics, used by English officers were mostly translated from the French. The crews of the French ships were formed either of carefully drilled landsmen, or of the fishermen who were swept into the navy by theinscription maritime. At the beginning of the war they were very well drilled and efficient.

There were, however, several weak points in this force, one or two of them of a very fatal kind. The fact that the officers of the regular corps were all nobles had in some respects a bad effect. It limited their number for one thing, so that when the whole navy had in modern phrase to be mobilised, it was necessary to employ supplementary officers who did not belong to thegardes de la marineand were known asofficiers blues. The France of the eighteenth century would not have been what it was if these intruders had not been regarded with a certain amount of contempt and jealousy by the nobles. This led to one kind of dispute. Then again there were jealousies in the privileged corps itself between the port of Toulon and the port of Brest, between the division of the Mediterranean and that of the ocean—or, to put it in other words, between the nobles of Provence and those of Normandy and Brittany. Allthese men too were so conscious that they were nobles as to somewhat forget the fact that they were officers. They thought little of their rank as compared with their common nobility. They all messed together, they thee’d and thou’d one another in the friendly second person singular. This easy good-fellowship must have been socially more pleasant than the stern subordination of an English ship, on which the captain lived apart in solitary grandeur, and the midshipmen looked up with awe to the lieutenants. But of the two, ours was the better system for discipline. In the French navy the midshipman of sixteen quarterings made no scruple of giving his opinion to his brother noble the captain, and the lieutenant who was as good a gentleman as either differed from both. There was a great deal of discussion in their ships when in an English vessel an order would have been given and obeyed.

A defect of this kind could have been amended. It would not have been equally possible to make good the poverty of the maritime population of France. That weakness was fatal, and beyond remedy. By taking immense care to drill men in peace, and by sweeping the mass of its merchant sailors into its war-ships, the French Government was able to start with an excellently appointed fleet; but it had no reserve. As the war went on, and men fell by battle or disease, they could not be replaced. It is notorious that the French navy could never make good the loss of the four thousand well-trained men carried off by the plague during the cruise of the combined fleets in 1779. Thus there was a steady loss of efficiency in their ships which grew in proportion as the number of vessels in commission increased. It wasnot possible to find good men to man them or trained officers to command them. To take a single instance. At the very close of the war, Sir John Jervis, then captain of theFoudroyant, eighty, took a French seventy-four, thePegase, after a very feeble resistance. It was found that the French crew were mostly landsmen collected by hook and by crook, while she was so short of officers that anenseigne de vaisseau—a mate as we should have said then, a sub-lieutenant according to our present scale of ranks—a lad of nineteen, was the only officer on her first battery. And this was only an exceptionally bad example of what was going on all through the French navy. In the meantime the English navy, drawing its men from a vast maritime population, and entirely unlimited in its choice of officers, was steadily getting more efficient. Taken as usual somewhat unprepared at the beginning of the war, it gradually collected the flower of our seamen from merchant ships in all parts of the world. Its officers came to it in thousands, mostly from the middle class, and no consideration of birth stopped the promotion of competent men when they could be secured. Under the government of vigorous admirals the fleet was welded and trained into a ten times better force than it was when the first shot was fired. This was, however, but the natural result of the profound difference of kind which distinguished the navies. When the French King wished to have a powerful naval force, it grew because a resolute and intelligent administration built it laboriously up. A high-spirited and alert people supplied brave crews and gallant, ingenious gentlemen to command them. But the force had no native life of its own. It waswhat the State made it and no more. The English navy was a living force fed by the vitality of the nation. It was ever ahead of its rulers, and never passively submissive to the impulse from them. The immense advance in organisation and tactics, in armament, in gunnery, and construction, which took place in this war, was the work of the admirals and captains themselves—thought out by them, urged by them on their official masters at Whitehall, frequently made effective by them at their own risk and with their own money. The virtue which redeemed the many faults of the Admiralty was that it did leave to its commanders elbow-room and power. Between two such forces, one the mere work of the artificer, the other the living plant, there could be no doubt where the victory would ultimately rest.

That it was not decided sooner was due to the principles on which the French chose, and we were content, to fight. Whoever has taken even a slight interest in our eighteenth-century wars must have been struck by the inconclusive character of much of the naval fighting. Except where there was an overwhelming superiority of force, as in Hawke’s attack on L’Etenduère, and Rodney’s action with Don Juan de Langara, battles were mere cannonades at a less or greater distance, followed by the separation of the fleets without loss to either. At Quiberon, where our superiority in numbers was not so great, the French were flying before the storm, and in no order, when Hawke pounced on them. In this same American war there took place a round score of battles of which as much might be said. Now this was not due to want of will or spirit, but to the fact that officers on both sides played thegame according to rules which made effective fighting impossible.

With the French it was a settled thing that battles must not be decisive. They fought in a half-hearted way, not because they wanted courage, for braver men than Chadeau de la Clocheterie or D’Albert de Rions, or a hundred others, never walked a quarter-deck; nor because they wanted skill in tactics, for more ingenious manœuvrers than Aché or Guichen, or even Grasse, never hoisted a flag; but because they had always something other in view than the fighting of a battle. It was taken for granted among them that they must “fulfil their mission.” The phrase is incessantly turning up in their histories. What it meant was, that when an admiral was sent to take this island or relieve that town he must avoid getting his fleet crippled in a yard-arm to yard-arm fight. The Government habitually impressed on its admirals the necessity of keeping their fleets intact, and these officers very naturally so manœuvred as to avoid a really damaging action. Now this style of manœuvring, though it may be right in particular instances, is fatal as a general rule of strategy, because it overlooks the elementary fact that the most effectual of all ways of succeeding in an ultimate object is to smash the force which the enemy has collected to defeat you. Besides, it has this deadly moral consequence, that it induces a timid, passive state of mind, which leaves you at the mercy of the enterprising enemy who charges home.

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