Part 15 (1/2)

As the s.h.i.+ps' heads were north, the course of the action carried them in that direction. Suffren anch.o.r.ed next morning twenty-five miles north of Cuddalore. There he was sighted on the 22d by Hughes, who had remained lying-to the day after the fight. The British Vice-Admiral reported several s.h.i.+ps much disabled, a great number of his men--1,121--down with scurvy, and the water of the fleet very short.

He therefore thought it necessary to go to Madras, where he anch.o.r.ed on the 25th. Suffren regained Cuddalore on the afternoon of the 23d.

His return and Hughes's departure completely changed the military situation. The supply-s.h.i.+ps, upon which the British scheme of operations depended, had been forced to take flight when Suffren first approached, and of course could not come back now. ”My mind is on the rack without a moment's rest since the departure of the fleet,” wrote the commanding general on the 25th, ”considering the character of M.

de Suffren, and the infinite superiority on the part of the French now that we are left to ourselves.”

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The battle of June 20th, 1783, off Cuddalore, was the last of the maritime war of 1778. It was fought, actually, exactly five months after the preliminaries of peace had been signed on January 20th, 1783. Although the relative force of the two fleets remained unchanged, it was a French victory, both tactically and strategically: tactically, because the inferior fleet held its ground, and remained in possession of the field; strategically, because it decided the object immediately at stake, the fate of Cuddalore, and with it, momentarily at least, the issue of the campaign. It was, however, the triumph of one commander-in-chief over another; of the greater man over the lesser. Hughes's reasons for quitting the field involve the admission of his opponent's greater skill. ”Short of water,”--with eighteen s.h.i.+ps to fifteen, able therefore to spare s.h.i.+ps by detachments for watering, that should not have happened; ”injury to spars,”--that resulted from the action; ”1,121 men short,”--Suffren had embarked just that number--1,200--because Hughes let him communicate with the port without fighting. Notwithstanding the much better seamans.h.i.+p of the British subordinates, and their dogged tenacity, Suffren here, as throughout the campaign, demonstrated again the old experience that generals.h.i.+p is the supreme factor in war. With inferior resources, though not at first with inferior numbers, by a steady offensive, and by the attendant anxiety about Trincomalee impressed upon the British admiral, he reduced him to a fruitless defensive. By the seizure of that place as a base he planted himself firmly upon the scene of action. Able thus to remain, while the British had to retire to Bombay, he sustained the Sultan of Mysore in his embarra.s.sing hostility to the British; and in the end he saved Cuddalore by readiness and dexterity despite the now superior numbers of the British fleet. He was a great sea-captain, Hughes was not; and with poorer instruments, both in men and s.h.i.+ps, the former overcame the latter.

On the 29th of June a British frigate, the _Medea_, bearing a flag of truce, reached Cuddalore. She brought well-authenticated intelligence of the conclusion of peace; and hostilities ceased by common consent.

[Footnote 136: Now Mauritius.]

[Footnote 137: On the Malabar--western--coast.]

[Footnote 139: See _ante_, p. 163.]

[Footnote 140: I infer, from the accounts, that the _Monmouth_ was well east of the _Hero_, that the French had pa.s.sed her first, and that the _Heros_ was now on her port beam; but this point is not certain.]

[Footnote 141: Expressions in Johnstone's Report.]

[Footnote 142: Charnock, however, says that in 1762, immediately after receiving his post-commission, he commanded in succession the _Hind_, 20, and the _Wager_, 20. Moreover, before his appointment to the expedition of 1781, he had been Commodore on the Lisbon Station. But he had spent comparatively little time at sea as a captain.--W.L.C.]

[Footnote 143: See _ante_, pp. 79, 80.]

[Footnote 144: One being the captured British _Hannibal_, 50, which was commissioned by Captain Morard de Galles, retaining the English form of the name, Hannibal, to distinguish her from the _Annibal_, 74, already in the squadron.]

[Footnote 145: In the plan, Positions II and III, the second position is indicated by s.h.i.+ps with broken outlines. These show the two lines of battle in the engagement until the wind s.h.i.+fted to south-south-east. The results of the s.h.i.+ft const.i.tuted a third position, consecutive with the second, and is indicated by s.h.i.+ps in full outline.]

[Footnote 146: Previously the British East Indiaman, _Elizabeth_.]

[Footnote 147: Forty-five degrees.]

GLOSSARY

OF NAUTICAL AND NAVAL TERMS USED IN THE TEXT

(_This glossary is intended to cover only the technical expressions actually used in the book itself._)

ABACK. A sail is aback when the wind blows on the forward part tending to move the vessel astern.

ABAFT. Behind, towards the stern.

ABEAM. } ABREAST. } See ”Bearing.”

AFT. See ”Bearing.”