Part 9 (1/2)
Towards the end of 1780 the French Government, dissatisfied with the lack of results from the immense combined force a.s.sembled in Cadiz during the summer months, decided to recall its s.h.i.+ps, and to refit them during the winter for the more extensive and aggressive movements planned for the campaign of 1781. D'Estaing was sent from France for the purpose; and under his command thirty-eight s.h.i.+ps of the line, in which were included those brought by de Guichen from the West Indies, sailed on the 7th of November for Brest. Extraordinary as it may seem, this fleet did not reach its port until the 3d of January, 1781.
[Footnote 75: Parker's Report.]
[Footnote 76: Ibid.]
[Footnote 77: _Ante_, p. 115.]
[Footnote 78: Rodney's Report. The French authorities give their line of battle as twenty-two s.h.i.+ps of the line. There was no 90-gun s.h.i.+p among them--no three-decker; but there were two of 80 guns, of which also the British had none.]
[Footnote 79: A cable was then a.s.sumed to have a length of 120 fathoms,--720 feet.]
[Footnote 80: A properly formed line of twenty s.h.i.+ps, at two cables'
interval, would be about five miles long. Rodney seems to have been satisfied that this was about the condition of his fleet at this moment.]
[Footnote 81: Rodney's Report.]
[Footnote 82: Testimony of the signal officer at the court-martial on Captain Bateman.]
[Footnote 83: Singularly enough, this officer was afterwards court-martialled for misbehaviour, on the 1st of June, 1794, of precisely the same character as that from all share in which Rodney now cleared him.]
[Footnote 84: The words in Rodney's public letter, suppressed at the time by the Admiralty, agree with these, but are even more explicit.
”I cannot conclude this letter without acquainting their Lords.h.i.+ps that had Captain Carkett, who led the van, properly obeyed my signal for attacking the enemy, and agreeable to the 21st Article of the Additional Fighting Instructions, bore down instantly to the s.h.i.+p at that time abreast of him, instead of leading as he did to the van s.h.i.+p, the action had commenced much sooner, and the fleet engaged in a more compact manner....” This clearly implies that the _Additional_ Fighting Instructions prescribed the direction which Rodney expected Carkett to take. If these Additional Instructions are to be found, their testimony would be interesting.
Since this account was written, the Navy Records Society has published (1905) a volume, ”Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816,” by Mr. Julian Corbett, whose diligent researches in matters of naval history and warfare are appreciated by those interested in such subjects. The specific ”Additional Instructions” quoted by Rodney appear not to have been found. Among those given prior to 1780 there is none that extends to twenty-one articles. In a set issued by Rodney in 1782 an article (No. 17, p. 227) is apparently designed to prevent the recurrence of Carkett's mistake. This, like one by Hawke, in 1756 (p. 217), prescribes the intended action rather by directing that the line of battle shall not prevent each s.h.i.+p engaging its opponent, irrespective of the conduct of other s.h.i.+ps, than by making clear which that opponent was. Lucidity on this point cannot be claimed for either.]
[Footnote 85: Lapeyrouse Bonfils, ”Histoire de la Marine Francaise,”
iii, 132. Chevalier gives much smaller numbers, but the former has particularised the s.h.i.+ps.]
[Footnote 86: Chevalier, ”Marine Francaise,” 1778, p. 185.]
[Footnote 87: A lee current is one that sets to leeward, with the wind, in this case the trade-wind.]
[Footnote 88: Chevalier, p. 91.]
[Footnote 89: _Ante_, p. 115.]
[Footnote 90: Beatson, ”Military and Naval Memoirs.”]
CHAPTER IX
NAVAL CAMPAIGN IN WEST INDIES IN 1781. CAPTURE OF ST. EUSTATIUS BY RODNEY. DE GRa.s.sE ARRIVES IN PLACE OF DE GUICHEN. TOBAGO SURRENDERS TO DE GRa.s.sE
Rodney, returning to the West Indies from New York, reached Barbados on December 6th, 1780. There he seems first to have learned of the disastrous effects of the great October hurricanes of that year. Not only had several s.h.i.+ps--among them two of the line--been wrecked, with the loss of almost all on board, but the greater part of those which survived had been dismasted, wholly or in part, as well as injured in the hull. There were in the West Indies no docking facilities; under-water damage could be repaired only by careening or heaving-down. Furthermore, as Barbados, Santa Lucia, and Jamaica, all had been swept, their supplies were mainly destroyed. Antigua, it is true, had escaped, the hurricane pa.s.sing south of St. Kitts; but Rodney wrote home that no stores for refitting were obtainable in the Caribbee Islands. He was hoping then that Sir Peter Parker might supply his needs in part; for when writing from Santa Lucia on December 10th, two months after the storm, he was still ignorant that the Jamaica Station had suffered to the full as severely as the eastern islands. The fact shows not merely the ordinary slowness of communications in those days, but also the paralysis that fell upon all movements in consequence of that great disaster. ”The most beautiful island in the world,” he said of Barbados, ”has the appearance of a country laid waste by fire and sword.”
Hearing that the fortifications at St. Vincent had been almost destroyed by the hurricane, Rodney, in combination with General Vaughan, commanding the troops on the station, made an attempt to reconquer the island, landing there on December 15th; but the intelligence proved erroneous, and the fleet returned to Santa Lucia.
”I have only nine sail of the line now with me capable of going to sea,” wrote the Admiral on the 22d, ”and not one of them has spare rigging or sails.” In the course of January, 1781, he was joined by a division of eight s.h.i.+ps of the line from England, under the command of Rear-Admiral Sir Samuel Hood,--Nelson's Lord Hood. These, with four others refitted during that month, not improbably from stores brought in Hood's convoy of over a hundred sail, raised the disposable force to twenty-one s.h.i.+ps of the line: two 90's, one 80, fifteen 74's, and three 64's.
On the 27th of January, an express arrived from England, directing the seizure of the Dutch possessions in the Caribbean, and specifying, as first to be attacked, St. Eustatius and St. Martin, two small islands lying within fifty miles north of the British St. Kitts. St.