Part 4 (1/2)
Howe's squadron had been const.i.tuted in 1776 with reference to the colonial struggle only, and to shallow water, and therefore was composed, very properly, of cruisers, and of s.h.i.+ps of the line of the smaller cla.s.ses; there being several fifties, and nothing larger than a sixty-four. When war with France threatened, the Ministry, having long warning, committed an unpardonable fault in allowing such a force to be confronted by one so superior as that which sailed from Toulon, in April, 1778. This should have been stopped on its way, or, failing that, its arrival in America should have been preceded by a British reinforcement. As it was, the government was saved from a tremendous disaster only by the efficiency of its Admiral and the inefficiency of his antagonist. As is not too uncommon, grat.i.tude was swamped by the instinct of self-preservation from the national wrath, excited by this, and by other simultaneous evidences of neglect. An attempt was made to disparage Howe's conduct, and to prove that his force was even superior to that of the French, by adding together the guns in all his s.h.i.+ps, disregarding their cla.s.ses, or by combining groups of his small vessels against d'Estaing's larger units. The instrument of the attack was a naval officer, of some rank but slender professional credit, who at this most opportune moment underwent a political conversion, which earned him employment on the one hand, and the charge of apostasy on the other. For this kind of professional arithmetic, Howe felt and expressed just and utter contempt. Two and two make four in a primer, but in the field they may make three, or they may make five. Not to speak of the greater defensive power of heavy s.h.i.+ps, nor of the concentration of their fire, the unity of direction under one captain possesses here also that importance which has caused unity of command and of effort to be recognised as the prime element in military efficiency, from the greatest things to the smallest. Taken together, the three elements--greater defensive power, concentration of fire, and unity of direction--const.i.tute a decisive and permanent argument in favor of big s.h.i.+ps, in Howe's days as in our own. Doubtless, now, as then, there is a limit; most arguments can be pushed to an _absurdum_, intellectual or practical. To draw a line is always hard; but, if we cannot tell just where the line has been pa.s.sed we can recognise that one s.h.i.+p is much too big, while another certainly is not. Between the two an approximation to an exact result can be made.
On his return to New York on September 11th, Howe found there Rear-Admiral Hyde Parker[37] with six s.h.i.+ps of the line of Byron's squadron. Considering his task now accomplished, Howe decided to return to England, in virtue of a permission granted some time before at his own request. The duty against the Americans, lately his fellow-countrymen, had been always distasteful to him, although he did not absolutely refuse to undertake it, as did Admiral Keppel.
The entrance of France into the quarrel, and the coming of d'Estaing, refreshed the spirits of the veteran, who moreover scorned to abandon his command in the face of such odds. Now, with the British positions secure, and superiority of force insured for the time being, he gladly turned over his charge and sailed for home; burning against the Admiralty with a wrath common to most of the distinguished seamen of that war. He was not employed afloat again until a change of Ministry took place, in 1782.
[Footnote 19: Charles H., Comte d'Estaing. Born, 1729. Served in India under Lally Tollendal, 1758. After having been taken prisoner at Madras in 1759, exchanged into the navy. Commanded in North America, 1778-80. Guillotined, 1794. W.L.C.]
[Footnote 20: Grandfather of the poet.]
[Footnote 21: The Secretary of Lloyd's, for the purposes of this work, has been so good as to cause to be specially compiled a summary of the losses and captures during the period 1775-1783. This, so far as it deals with merchantmen and privateers, gives the following results.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- | BRITISH VESSELS | ENEMY'S VESSELS |---------------------------------+---------------------------------- | Merchantmen | Privateers | Merchantmen | Privateers |----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------- | |Re-taken| |Re-taken| |Re-taken| |Re-taken | Taken |or Ran- | Taken |or Ran- | Taken |or Ran- | Taken |or Ran- | [22] | somed | [22] | somed | [22] | somed | [22] | somed -----+-------+--------+-------+--------+-------+--------+-------+--------- 1775 | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- 1776 | 229 | 51 | --- | --- | 19 | --- | 6 | --- 1777 | 331 | 52 | --- | --- | 51 | 1 | 18 | --- 1778 | 359 | 87 | 5 | --- | 232 | 5 | 16 | --- 1779 | 487 | 106 | 29 | 5 | 238 | 5 | 31 | --- 1780 | 581 | 260 | 15 | 2 | 203 | 3 | 34 | 1 1781 | 587 | 211 | 38 | 6 | 277 | 10 | 40 | --- 1782 | 415 | 99 | 1 | --- | 104 | 1 | 68 | --- 1783 | 98 | 13 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 2 | 3 | --- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Footnote 22: Including those re-taken or ransomed. W.L.C.]
[Footnote 23: A spring is a rope taken usually from the quarter (one side of the stern) of a s.h.i.+p, to the anchor. By hauling upon it the battery is turned in the direction desired.]
[Footnote 24: The leader, the _Leviathan_, was excepted, evidently because she lay under the Hook, and her guns could not bear down channel. She was not a fighting s.h.i.+p of the squadron, but an armed stores.h.i.+p, although originally a s.h.i.+p of war, and therefore by her thickness of side better fitted for defence than an ordinary merchant vessel. Placing her seems to have been an afterthought, to close the gap in the line, and prevent even the possibility of the enemy's s.h.i.+ps turning in there and doubling on the van. Thus Howe avoided the fatal oversight made by Brueys twenty years later, in Aboukir Bay.]
[Footnote 25: It may be recalled that a similar disposition was made by the Confederates at Mobile against Farragut's attack in 1864, and that it was from these small vessels that his flags.h.i.+p _Hartford_ underwent her severest loss. To sailing s.h.i.+ps the odds were greater, as injury to spars might involve stoppage. Moreover, Howe's arrangements brought into such fire all his heavier s.h.i.+ps.]
[Footnote 26: A letter to the Admiralty, dated October 8th, 1779, from Vice-Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot, then commander-in-chief at New York, states that ”at spring tides there is generally thirty feet of water on the bar at high water.”]
[Footnote 27: These four s.h.i.+ps were among the smallest of the fleet, being one 74, two 64's, and a 50. D'Estaing very properly reserved his heaviest s.h.i.+ps to force the main channel.]
[Footnote 28: _Flora_, 32; _Juno_, 32; Lark, 32; _Orpheus_, 32; _Falcon_, 16.]
[Footnote 29: I have not been able to find an exact statement of the number; Beatson gives eight regiments, with a reinforcement of five battalions.]
[Footnote 30: It may be interesting to recall that this was the s.h.i.+p on the books of which Nelson's name was first borne in the navy, in 1771.]
[Footnote 31: Troude attributes d'Estaing's sortie to a sense of the insecurity of his position; Lapeyrouse Bonfils, to a desire for contest. Chevalier dwells upon the exposure of the situation.]
[Footnote 32: For the respective force of the two fleets see pp. 66, 67, 71.]
[Footnote 33: This account of the manoeuvres of the two fleets is based upon Lord Howe's dispatch, and amplified from the journal of Captain Henry Duncan of the flags.h.i.+p _Eagle_ which has been published (1902) since the first publication of this work. See ”Navy Records Society, Naval Miscellany.” Vol. i, p. 161.]
[Footnote 34: At the mouth of Delaware Bay.]
[Footnote 35: _Ante_, p. 62.]
[Footnote 36: Chevalier: ”Marine Francaise,” 1778.]
[Footnote 37: Later Vice-Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, Bart., who perished in the _Cato_ in 1783. He was father of that Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, who in 1801 was Nelson's commander-in-chief at Copenhagen, and who in 1778 commanded the _Phoenix_, 44, in Howe's fleet. (_Ante_, pp. 39, 46.)]
CHAPTER V
THE NAVAL WAR IN EUROPE. THE BATTLE OF USHANT
1778
During the same two months that saw the contest between d'Estaing and Howe in America the only encounter between nearly equal fleets in 1778 took place in European waters. Admiral Keppel, having returned to Spithead after the affair between the _Belle Poule_ and the _Arethusa_,[38] again put to sea on the 9th of July, with a force increased to thirty s.h.i.+ps of the line. He had been mortified by the necessity of avoiding action, and of even retiring into port, with the inadequate numbers before under his command, and his mind was fixed now to compel an engagement, if he met the French.
The Brest fleet also put to sea, the day before Keppel, under the command of Admiral the Comte d'Orvilliers. It contained thirty-two s.h.i.+ps of the line. Of these, three--64, a 60, and a 50--were not considered fit for the line of battle, which was thus reduced to twenty-nine sail, carrying 2098 guns. To these the British opposed an aggregate of 2278; but comparison by this means only is very rough.