Part 10 (2/2)

The mouth of the Chesapeake is about ten miles wide, from Cape Charles on the north to Cape Henry on the south. The main channel is between the latter and a shoal, three miles to the northward, called the Middle Ground. The British fleet, when the French were first seen from it, was steering south-west for the entrance, under foresails and topgallant sails, and it so continued, forming line as it approached.

The wind was north-north-east. At noon the ebb-tide made, and the French began to get under way, but many of their s.h.i.+ps had to make several tacks to clear Cape Henry. Their line was consequently late in forming, and was by no means regular or closed as they got outside.

At 1 P.M. Graves made the signal to form column on an east and west line, which with the wind as it was would be the close-hauled line heading out to sea, on the other tack from that on which his fleet still was. In this order he continued to head in for the entrance. At 2 P.M. the French van, standing out, three miles distant by estimate, bore south from the _London_, Graves's flags.h.i.+p, and was therefore abreast of the centre of the British line. As the British van came near the Middle Ground, at 2.13 P.M., the s.h.i.+ps wore together. This put them on the same tack as the French, Hood's division, which had been leading, being now the rear in the reversed order. The fleet then brought-to,--stopped,--in order to allow the centre of the enemy to come abreast of the centre of the British (aa, aa.) The two lines now were nearly parallel, but the British, being five s.h.i.+ps fewer, naturally did not extend so far as the rear of the French, which in fact was not yet clear of the Cape. At 2.30 Graves made the signal for the van s.h.i.+p (the _Shrewsbury_), to lead more to starboard (l)--towards the enemy. As each s.h.i.+p in succession would take her course to follow the leader, the effect of this was to put the British on a line inclined to that of the enemy, the van nearest, and as the signal was renewed three quarters of an hour later,--at 3.17,--this angle became still more marked (bb).[98] This was the original and enduring cause of a lamentable failure by which seven of the rear s.h.i.+ps, in an inferior force undertaking to attack, never came into battle at all. At 3.34 the van was ordered again to keep still more toward the enemy.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

At 3.46 the signal was made for s.h.i.+ps to close to one cable, followed almost immediately by that to bear down and engage the enemy,--the signal for the line still flying. Graves's flags.h.i.+p, the _London_, 98 (f), which was hove-to, filled and bore down. Under the conditions, the van s.h.i.+ps of course got first under fire, and the action gradually extended from them to the twelfth in the order, two s.h.i.+ps astern of the _London_. According to the log of the latter, at 4.11 the signal for the line ahead was hauled down, that it might not interfere with that for close action, but at 4.22 it was rehoisted, ”the s.h.i.+ps not being sufficiently extended.” The meaning of this expression may be inferred from Beatson's account:--

”The _London_, by taking the lead, had advanced farther towards the enemy than some of the s.h.i.+ps stationed immediately ahead of her in the line of battle; and upon luffing up (f') to bring her broadside to bear, they having done the same thing, her second ahead (m) was brought nearly upon her weather beam. The other s.h.i.+ps ahead of her were likewise too much crowded together.”

As the s.h.i.+p on the _London's_ weather beam could not fire upon the enemy unless she drew ahead, this condition probably accounts for the flags.h.i.+p being again hove-to, while firing, as Hood says that she was. The signal for the line was hauled down again at 4.27, by the _London's_ log, that for close action being up, and repeated at 5.20, when Hood (h) at last bore down with his division (h'), but the French s.h.i.+ps bearing up also, he did not near them. Firing ceased shortly after sunset. The loss of the British was 90 killed, 246 wounded; that of the French is given only in round numbers, as about 200 killed and wounded.

Hood's statement introduces certain important qualifications into the above account:--

”Our centre began to engage at the same time as the van, at four, but at a most _improper_ distance, and our rear, being barely within random shot, did not fire while the signal for the line was flying. The _London_ had the signal for close action flying, as well as the signal for the line ahead at _half a cable_ was under her topsails, with the main topsail to the mast,[99] though the enemy's s.h.i.+ps were pus.h.i.+ng on.”

As showing the improper distance at which the _London_ brought-to to fire, he says:--

”The second s.h.i.+p astern of her (of the _London_) received but trifling damage, and the third astern of her received no damage at all, which most clearly proves [at] how much too great a distance was the centre division engaged.”

The day after the action Hood made a memorandum of his criticisms upon it, which has been published. The gist of this is as follows. As the French stood out, their line was not regular or connected. The van was much separated from the centre and rear, and it appears also, from the French narratives, that it was to windward of the rest of the fleet.

From these causes it was much exposed to be attacked unsupported.

There was, by Hood's estimate, ”a full hour and a half to have engaged it before any of the rear could have come up.” The line of battle on the port tack, with the then wind, was east and west, and Graves had first ranged his fleet on it, as the French were doing; but afterwards, owing to his method of approach, by the van bearing down and the other s.h.i.+ps following in its wake, the two lines, instead of being parallel, formed an angle, the British centre and rear being much more distant from the enemy than the van was. This alone would cause the s.h.i.+ps to come into battle successively instead of together, a fault of itself; but the Commander-in-Chief, according to Hood, committed the further mistake that he kept the signal for the line of battle flying until 5.30 P.M., near to sunset. In Hood's understanding, while that signal flew the position of each s.h.i.+p was determined by that of Graves's flags.h.i.+p. None could go closer than the line through her parallel to the enemy. Hence Hood's criticism, which is marked by much acerbity towards his superior, but does not betray any consciousness that he himself needed any justification for his division not having taken part.

”Had the centre gone to the support of the van, _and the signal for the line been hauled down_, or the Commander-in-Chief had set the example of close action, _even with the signal for the line flying_, the van of the enemy must have been cut to pieces, and the rear division of the British fleet would have been opposed to those s.h.i.+ps the centre division fired at, and at the proper distance for engaging, or the Rear-Admiral who commanded it[100] would have a great deal to answer for.”[101]

So much for the tactical failure of that day. The question remained what next was to be done. Graves contemplated renewing the action, but early in the night was informed that several of the van s.h.i.+ps were too crippled to permit this. He held his ground, however, in sight of the French, until dark on the 9th, when they were seen for the last time.

They were then under a cloud of sail, and on the morning of the 10th had disappeared. From their actions during this interval, Hood had inferred that de Gra.s.se meant to get back into the Chesapeake without further fighting; and he implies that he advised Graves to antic.i.p.ate the enemy in so doing. Though some s.h.i.+ps were crippled aloft, the British batteries were practically intact, nor had men enough been disabled to prevent any gun in the fleet from being fought. Could but a single working day be gained in taking up an anchorage, a defensive order could be a.s.sumed, practically impregnable to the enemy, covering Cornwallis, and not impossibly intercepting the French s.h.i.+ps left in the Bay. In the case of many men such comment might be dismissed as the idle talk of the captious fault-finder, always to the fore in life; but in the case of Hood it must be received with deference, for, but a few months later, when confronted with greater odds, he himself did the very thing he here recommended, for an object less vital than the relief of Cornwallis. Having regard to the character of de Gra.s.se, it is reasonable to believe that, if he had found the British fleet thus drawn up at anchor in Chesapeake Bay, as he found Hood at St.

Kitts in the following January, he would have waited off the entrance for de Barras, and then have gone to sea, leaving Was.h.i.+ngton and Rochambeau to look at Cornwallis slipping out of their grasp.

On the 10th of September Graves decided to burn the _Terrible_, 74, which had been, kept afloat with difficulty since the action. This done, the fleet stood towards the Chesapeake, a frigate going ahead to reconnoitre. On the 13th, at 6 A.M., Graves wrote to Hood that the look-outs reported the French at anchor above the Horse Shoe (shoal) in the Chesapeake, and desired his opinion what to do with the fleet.

To this Hood sent the comforting reply that it was no more than what he had expected, as the press of sail the (French) fleet carried on the 9th, and on the night of the 8th, made it very clear to him what de Gra.s.se's intentions were. He ”would be very glad to send an opinion, but he really knows not what to say in the truly lamentable state [to which] we have brought ourselves.”[102] On the 10th de Barras had reached the Bay, where he was joined by de Gra.s.se on the 11th, so that there were then present thirty-six French s.h.i.+ps of the line. Graves, therefore, returned to New York, reaching Sandy Hook September 19th. On the 14th Was.h.i.+ngton had arrived before Yorktown, where he took the chief command; and the armies closed in upon Cornwallis by land as the French fleets had done already by water.

On the 19th of October the British force was compelled to surrender, seven thousand two hundred and forty-seven troops and eight hundred and forty seamen laying down their arms. During the siege the latter had served in the works, the batteries of which were largely composed of s.h.i.+ps' guns.

After Graves's return to New York, Rear-Admiral the Hon. Robert Digby arrived from England on the 24th of September, to take command of the station in Arbuthnot's place. He brought with him three s.h.i.+ps of the line; and the two which Sir Peter Parker had been ordered by Rodney to send on at once had also reached the port. It was decided by the land and sea officers concerned to attempt the relief of Cornwallis, and that it was expedient for Graves to remain in command until after this expedition. He could not start, however, until the 18th of October, by which time Cornwallis's fate was decided. Graves then departed for Jamaica to supersede Sir Peter Parker. On the 11th of November Hood sailed from Sandy Hook with eighteen s.h.i.+ps of the line, and on the 5th of December anch.o.r.ed at Barbados. On the 5th of November de Gra.s.se also quitted the continent with his whole fleet, and returned to the West Indies.

[Footnote 94: _Ante_, p. 153.]

[Footnote 95: See _ante_, p. 153.]

[Footnote 96: Along the north coast of Cuba, between it and the Bahama Banks.]

[Footnote 97: The _Ville de Paris_, to which Troude attributes 104 guns. She was considered the biggest and finest s.h.i.+p of her day.]

[Footnote 98: This reproduced the blunder of Byng, between whose action and the one now under discussion there is a marked resemblance.]

[Footnote 99: _I.e._ she had stopped.]

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