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The Cambridge Manuals of Science and 
 Literature 
 
 THE ROYAL NAVY 
 
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 C. F. CLAY, Manager 
 
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 CatittiiUge : 
 
 PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 With the exception of the coat of arms at 
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 Cambridge printer, John Siberch, 1 5 2 1 
 
PREFACE 
 
 ONE object of this little Manual is to bring within 
 the compass of a few brief chapters a general 
 view of the nature, character and development of the 
 British Navy. A larger pm*pose is to shew the 
 influence of the Navy in safeguarding the indepen- 
 dence and security of the country, and the part it 
 has played in promoting the growth and upholding 
 the integrity of the Empire. 
 
 The influence of the sea pervades our history, and 
 has been instrumental in the shaping of our national 
 institutions and character. It is therefore pre- 
 eminently worthy of study. By our maritime 
 supremacy and our wardship of the seas the Empire 
 has come into being, and without that wardship the 
 Empire would have ceased to be. 
 
 Notwithstanding all that has been written during 
 recent years concerning the Navy, there is still a 
 want of imderstanding amongst the people at large 
 of these matters of fundamental importance. When 
 questions arise in relation to Imperial Defence, 
 opinions are formed which are based on imperfect 
 tiowledge of the principles which underhe our 
 maritime history. Even subjects which touch our 
 
 290477 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 island defence are handled with little reference to the 
 lessons of the past, which are the surest guide to the 
 pohcy of the future. We may read, in this history, 
 of safety won by the exercise of wise foresight in 
 maintaining the essentials for naval sufficiency, and 
 of advantages lost and interests imperilled by the 
 want of such foresight. 
 
 An outstanding and characteristic feature of naval 
 administration in the past has been its exhibition of 
 a strange ebb and flow in the provision of the prime 
 essentials for naval security, periods of development 
 and efficiency having been succeeded by periods of 
 decline and decay, in which sometimes Fortune has 
 favoured us by blinding or weakening our adversaries, 
 when our own preparations might not have availed. 
 That we must not, through neglect, entrust our 
 welfare to the favour of Fortune is a lesson which 
 shines forth plainly from all our history. 
 
 We learn, too, from naval history that we possess 
 advantages, by virtue of our island position and the 
 communications of the Empire being by sea, that 
 are not possessed by nations which are parts of the 
 continent, and are therefore influenced by the im- 
 perious demands of land power. We infer that there 
 is something really different in our national character 
 from that of continental nations, and that this 
 difference, combined with the advantages of our 
 geographical situation, has fitted us for success at 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 sea in a manner which has been denied to other 
 races. History warns us that we must guard our- 
 selves from throwing away or diminishing the 
 advantage which we enjoy in the fact that our 
 security and our influence are based upon power of 
 command at sea. 
 
 The lessons of this book are not insistently put 
 forward. Rather, it is left to the reader, with some 
 indications, to deduce the meaning of history from 
 its events and circumstances. The index will shew 
 where questions relative to invasion, blockade and 
 other conditions are illustrated. In the same way 
 he may discover the evils that have arisen, and may 
 arise, from naval and military misunderstandings, 
 and from disputations within the service itself. The 
 book shews how the Navy has on several occasions 
 been the essential factor in the success of mihtary 
 operations, in circumstances hardly alluded to in our 
 history books. 
 
 To bring before the reader these and other 
 essential things is the object of the Manual, but, in 
 suggesting the lessons of a philosophic study of naval 
 history, the instrument whereby maritime influence 
 has been exercised, and the incidents of its exercise, 
 occupy a large part of the book. The Navy itself 
 and its achievements are, indeed, in the foreground, 
 with something of the picturesqueness of naval 
 character, and, though the compass of the book is 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 but small, few aspects of naval history have been 
 altogether neglected. The ships of successive periods, 
 the personnel and the conditions of naval Ufe, the 
 great personahties of naval history, administration, 
 strategy, tactics, and the battles and events, with 
 brief indications of saUent features all these have 
 their place in the book. 
 
 The author expresses his indebtedness to many 
 volumes in the wide Hterature of naval and other 
 history. He gives in a short bibhography some 
 indication of the best books relating to successive 
 periods and subjects. It is gratifying that in the series 
 of manuals in which this book appears, is a volume 
 by Mr J. R. Thursifield deahng in a masterly manner 
 with some special branches of naval strategy. Finally 
 the author desires to place on record his especial 
 obUgations, for counsel and assistance in relation to 
 this book, to his old friend and colleague Commander 
 C. N. Robinson, R.N. 
 
 JOHN LEYLAND. 
 
 St George's Day, 1914. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 V 
 
 Preface 
 
 I. The Sea and the Making of England 
 
 II. The Conqueror's Sea Power . 
 
 III. How Medieval Battles were fought 
 
 IV. Ships and Men 
 
 V. The Age of Maritime Discovery and the Over 
 THROW OP Spain .... 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 11 
 
 18 
 
 24 
 
 VI. The Transition Navy. Tudors and Stuarts 33 
 
 VII. The New Contest for Dominion. The First 
 
 Dutch War 39 
 
 VIII. The Restoration Navy and the Close op the 
 
 Dutch Wars 48 
 
 IX. The Revolution of 1688. The Beginning op 
 
 the French Wars 57 
 
 X. Naval Supremacy and Fleet Decay . . 67 
 
 XI. Anson and Hawze. The Regenerated Navy 77 
 
 XII. The Seven Years' War and World Dominion 85 
 
 XIII. The War of American Independence . . 94 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 XIV. The French Revolution. Howe. Projects 
 OE Invasion and the Mutinies 
 
 XV. Nelson, the Mediterranean and 
 
 The Peace of Amiens 
 
 XVI. Ideas and Plans of Bonaparte 
 
 XVII. The Campaign of Trafalgar 
 XVIII. The Frxhts of Victory . 
 
 XIX. Conclusions 
 Bibliography 
 Index 
 
 the 
 
 Nile. 
 
 page 
 105 
 
 114 
 124 
 133 
 143 
 153 
 163 
 165 
 
f> - 
 
 
 5 >^-!r 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE SEA AND THE MAKING OF ENGLAND 
 
 Before we have advanced very far in this 
 book we shall discover that the influence of the 
 sea permeates our history deeply, and has in a 
 large measure determined our national develop- 
 ment and character. Whatever might be the 
 importance relatively to other countries of a small 
 island kingdom lying off the coast-line of the con- 
 tinent of Europe, its history must be most worthy 
 of study, because essentially different from that of 
 any part of that continent. The sea, which has 
 always been a barrier, passed with greater or less 
 difficulty, has for centuries also been a pathway, 
 and in these two features of sea influence the 
 barrier and the pathway lie the conditions which 
 have shaped and dominated our English nation, 
 and have given us our imperial heritage. 
 
 The sea has never, in its own nature, been an 
 impassable barrier. Hardy seamen in all ages have 
 traversed it. It has required organized forces for 
 
 L. R. N. 1 
 
2 ^ ' ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 its proper control and mastery, and, in early times, 
 when such forces did not exist, or existed only 
 intermittently, it was crossed according to the 
 measure of the skill, hardihood and good fortune 
 of the seamen who navigated it. When fleets 
 came into being, formed of ships of war, or ships 
 capable of fighting, as forces tending towards per- 
 manency, the barrier grew more secure, and seafaring 
 qualities alone did not suffice for the passage. There 
 were required fighting capacity and sufficient material 
 strength as well. 
 
 So secure did the barrier of the English seas 
 become, owing to the inherent difficulties of sea 
 transport, and the existence of sea forces to be 
 overcome, that never since the Norman Conquest 
 has it been passed by any body of enemies deserving 
 to be taken into account. Out of these condi- 
 tions have come some of our institutions and our 
 conception of the principles and means of defence. 
 There arose the view that our frontier should be 
 the enemy's coast-line, which Raleigh, Howard and 
 Drake expressed when they said that the enemy 
 must be defeated on his own coasts, or before 
 he could reach the English shore. Blake's view, 
 that the object of the fleet was to " keep foreigners 
 from fooling us," sprang from the same spirit and 
 idea. 
 
 We shall deal very briefly with some parts of 
 
I] THE BEGINNINGS 3 
 
 our earlier history, partly because the evidences 
 are few, but mainly because later times will claim 
 greater attention. Our Saxon ancestors were sea- 
 men before they were Englishmen. Issuing in 
 their " keels *' from the countries about the mouths 
 of the Elbe and the Weser, they were sea-wolves, 
 who captured what they could afloat, and carried 
 fire and sword into the countries they invaded and 
 afterwards occupied. The vessels in which they 
 came appear to have been from 70 to 100 feet 
 long, and from 16 to 18 feet wide, without decks, 
 and having a single mast and yard, with a large 
 square sail. Oars were used, and there was a 
 rudder or steering-oar over the right, or steer- 
 board side, or, as we now call it, the starboard, 
 much like a large paddle. Eventually England 
 was peopled by the new-comers, and how they 
 fought amongst themselves, how Augustine and 
 Christianity came, and how a single kingdom was 
 made out of many is in all our histories. 
 
 Offa is believed to have been the first English 
 ruler to build a considerable fleet, and it is said of 
 him that he left to his successors the maxim that 
 he who would be secure on land must be supreme 
 at sea. The danger came from Danes and Nor- 
 wegians, sea-rovers also, seeking better land than 
 their own, and plunder and outrage went where- 
 ever they sailed or strode. 
 
 12 
 
4 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 Alfred, the greatest of all our early kings, knew 
 that the sea could only be won by seafaring. He 
 sent Othere to examine the northern coasts of 
 Europe, who went as far as the White Sea, and 
 Wulfstan to explore the Baltic, and in storm and 
 tempest these early navigators and their comrades 
 learned or manifested the art and craft of the sea. 
 Alfred fought with the Danes in many a battle, and, 
 for the work of the sea, the very navy for his 
 purpose was to create. His " long ships " were an 
 advance upon anything seen before, and some of 
 them had more than sixty oars. They were better 
 " sea boats," as we should say nowadays, than 
 the earlier boats, as were the other types of vessels 
 which Alfred also built. He was never content 
 that they should be anything but better than the 
 ships of his enemies, and, with that object, paid 
 attention to the work at the ports, the selection 
 of the wood, and the training and feeding of the 
 men, thus creating a fleet that was capable of 
 keeping the sea from summer until autumn. 
 
 Alfred's immediate successors did not let the 
 naval forces decay, and Edgar greatly increased 
 them, so that his fleets cruising round the coasts 
 kept the sea clear of pirates, and it is related that 
 eight vassal kings rowed his boat on the Dee. 
 But when Edgar was dead, the wisdom of Off a and 
 Alfred was forgotten, and the name of Ethelred 
 
I] EARLY SHIPS 6 
 
 the Unready became a by- word. The English- 
 men quarrelled amongst themselves, the pirate 
 scourge was renewed, and ultimately England lay at 
 the feet of the seafaring Danes and Scandinavians 
 the Vik-ings, who, from every vie or wick in their 
 coasts, issued in war navies to seek the conquest 
 and spoil of England. 
 
 The northern ships were decked, and each bore 
 the emblem of her commander. They were carved 
 and adorned, and a device was at the prow, while, 
 carried externally round the bulwarks, were the 
 shields of the crew painted in many colours. 
 Canute^s ship, the Great Dragon, was shaped rather 
 like a sea-monster, and was about 200 feet long, 
 and is said to have carried 70 oarsmen, besides 
 a crowd of fighting men. A Vik-ing ship discovered 
 at Gokstad in southern Norway measured 78 feet 
 in length, with 16 feet 6 in. beam. She had oak 
 planking, and the prow, gunwale, and sternpost 
 were carved. There were 32 oars, and the ship 
 carried at least three small boats. The method 
 of fighting was for a vessel to endeavour to sink 
 her enemy by ramming, or to run alongside, and the 
 matter was settled by boarding with battle-axes and 
 swords. The navy in those times was never a fixed 
 organization. There was no real distinction be- 
 tween a fighting and a trading ship. The King's 
 ships were manned by forces maintained under 
 
6 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 the name of buscarles, and some of the great nobles 
 had fleets which were at the disposal of the Crown. 
 Canute, the Dane, gave peace to his English 
 people. Strong at sea beyond all his rivals, and 
 having with him the ships of English thanes, his 
 wars were abroad in the north, whUe prosperity 
 grew in England. The pirates were quelled^ and 
 across the guarded pathway of the sea traders 
 from Denmark and Scandinavia brought iron, skins, 
 and ropes and masts for ships to our ports, and from 
 other countries came silks, gold, silver, gems, wine, 
 oil, ivory, brass, copper, and many other wares of 
 use or necessity. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE conqueror's SEA POWER 
 
 We will pause to glance at one of the great 
 turning points Lq English history. Harold had 
 become king and had sworn an oath to William of 
 Normandy, or was said to have sworn it, whereby 
 WUliam claimed the crown. Why did William 
 become the Conqueror, and why was Harold over- 
 thrown ? 
 
 Harold, like his father Godwin, was a man 
 of ability, resource, activity and courage. As a 
 
II] HAROLD AND WILLIAM 7 
 
 soldier he displayed great qualities. He was both 
 an organiser and a fighter. Experience of the past 
 had shown him that a fleet must be his only means 
 of keeping his enemy without, and he had a fleet 
 which is said to have been the largest ever seen on the 
 English coasts. He had an equal match in WiUiam, 
 who knew also that for his purpose a fleet was the 
 one thing without which nothing else could avail. 
 The Normans were the descendants of Scandinavian 
 settlers who, in William's time, had become more 
 French than Scandinavian, but the piratical blood 
 was in them, and they were as hard fighters 
 as could be found anywhere. WiUiam was the 
 strongest and most indomitable of them- all. His 
 desperate courage, his fiery spirit, and the pitiless 
 tempest of his wrath made him a redoubtable 
 soldier and a foe to be feared. He shrank neither 
 from toil nor hardship. The soldier marched and 
 the pirate sailed in his blood. " So stark and fierce 
 was he," we read in the English Chronicle, " that 
 none durst resist his will." 
 
 But William had other qualities. Deep thought 
 was behind his sword. No sooner had his enter- 
 prise taken root in his mind than he began to lay 
 his plans and build his fleet. He bound his barons 
 and knights to him by promise of spoil. It was a 
 piratical undertaking he had in hand, but piracy 
 was a part of warfare. Bishops, priests, barons. 
 
S ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 burghers and others came forward to offer ships 
 which they owned or would build. Trees were 
 cut down, and men were busy in the ports shaping 
 planks, framing ships and raising masts. Norman 
 ladies worked at standards and adornments. In 
 William's own ship, the Mora, Matilda, the Duke's 
 wife, placed a golden figure of a boy blowing a horn, 
 with his finger " pointing towards England," and 
 in the Bayeux tapestry that figure may be seen, 
 though, instead of the pointing finger, there is a 
 flag in the boy's hand. That famous tapestry is 
 not wholly accurate, but it shows us that each 
 ship had a single mast and a yard to carry the sail, 
 while the steersman sat at the stem, with his steer- 
 ing-oar working over the side. As to the number 
 of vessels employed, it is variously computed at 
 from about 700 to 1500. No one knows how many 
 men came with William. Some say 60,000. Pro- 
 bably 20,000, with horses and stores, would be nearer 
 the mark. 
 
 Harold and William were not the only figures 
 in the struggle. Harald Hardrada of Norway had 
 an ambition for conquest also, and Tostig, Harold's 
 jealous and disappointed brother, was confederated 
 with him. If Hardrada and Tostig were not the 
 puppets who danced to William's piping, it is clear 
 that WilUam knew what Hardrada and the Earl 
 were about, and that they well served his turn. 
 
n] HAROLD AND WILLIAM 9 
 
 How could he hope to bring his vast, unwieldy, 
 overcrowded fleet across in the presence of the 
 large fleet which Harold had at his command ? 
 As we have seen, in those times fleets could only 
 be kept at sea or ready for sea in the summer, and 
 that was no easy task. There existed no real per- 
 manent force, most of the seamen being fishermen 
 or men engaged in the merchant trade of the sea, 
 who had their own affairs to look after. Others 
 seem to have been farmers, who had their crops 
 to garner. 
 
 William took advantage of this circumstance. 
 He appears to have encouraged Tostig to raid the 
 Isle of Wight and the south and east coasts of 
 England in the spring or early summer of 1066. 
 Tostig was then driven off the mouth of the Humber 
 by the northern Earls, and, in the meantime, Harold's 
 fleet was hastily got ready for sea, and was cruising 
 from May onward. WiUiam gathered his forces 
 by the middle of August in the River Dives, where 
 the chroniclers say he waited for what sailors call 
 a " slant of wind," to carry him across. But he 
 appears in reality to have been in no hurry. He 
 knew both when to wait and when to strike. About 
 the middle of September he moved up the coast to 
 8t-Valery-sur-Somme, and did not get a fair wind 
 until the evening of September 27th. 
 
 What had happened meantime on the English 
 
10 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 side ? Tostig had fled with twelve ships from the 
 Humber, and joined Hardrada, who was at the 
 Orkneys with a large force. They came south, 
 landed their men, defeated those who opposed them, 
 and seized York. Hearing this disastrous news, 
 Harold marched north, and, in a hard-fought battle, 
 on September 25th two days before William got 
 his slant of wind utterly defeated the northern 
 invaders at Stamford Bridge, where both Hardrada 
 and Tostig were slain. While this was going for- 
 ward Harold's fleet on the south-east coast, 
 somewhere between the 8th and 12th September, 
 had broken up and dispersed, the only barrier 
 between William and the English shore being thus 
 removed. 
 
 What was the cause of this failure ? We are 
 left in part to conjecture. It is said that the sea- 
 men could be held together no longer. They were 
 husbandmen, and had their harvests to gather. 
 They had been tossed about since the early summer, 
 which was a long time for the fleets of those days, 
 while William's men had been assembled only for 
 about six weeks. This was due to the raiding of 
 Tostig. Harold's personal influence was no longer 
 with his fleet. Tostig and Hardrada had drawn him 
 away. The upshot was that the fleet dispersed, and 
 that England was lost and won. 
 
 What a spectacle it must have been, looking 
 
Ill] MEDIEVAL BATTLES U 
 
 from Hastings Castle Hill, or the height of Beachy 
 Head, when the Norman Duke's vast fleet anchored 
 in Pevensey Bay ! Hundreds of vessels were crowded 
 along the vast curve of the shore. They drew 
 little water, and as the keels grounded on the 
 beach, the flapping sails came down, and the shouting 
 men jumped overboard and waded up to the dry 
 land. The horses were walked ashore, and the 
 arms and some food-stores were soon on the beach. 
 It was not long afterwards that Taillefer on 
 Senlac Hill threw up his sword and caught it, and 
 threw it and caught it again, as he sang the song 
 of Roland, and that the sanguinary struggle was 
 fought in which Harold fell. But if his fleet had 
 not broken up, the history of England would have 
 been written differently. The potent influence of 
 the sea had shaped anew the destiny of the land. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 HOW MEDIEVAL BATTLES WERE FOUGHT 
 
 The Norman expedition of 1066 and the failure 
 of Harold show clearly that in those times the sea 
 was not a region that could be continuously or 
 permanently controlled. Raiding could take place, 
 and for centuries did take place, from one side of 
 
12 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 the Channel or the other, as the wind blew from 
 the eastward or the westward. It was a barrier to 
 one and a pathway to the other. The wind that 
 enabled the Englishman to leave his ports kept 
 the Frenchman at home, and when the wind shifted 
 to the opposite quarter, the Frenchman could put to 
 sea for an enterprise while the Englishman could 
 with difficulty get his ships out of harbour. The 
 blockade of ports was impossible, and the problem 
 was to maintain fleets which might possess something 
 of the character of permanency in their chief duty 
 of being available at call as a Channel guard. 
 
 The warship was a merchant vessel equipped for 
 fighting, and therefore by organizing the resources 
 of the ports, it was possible to raise fleets with 
 economy, while obtaining for the King's service 
 the most experienced of seafaring men. In practice 
 this was done mainly by employing the masters 
 and men of the Cinque Ports. Shipping was taken 
 up at other places, but in early times there was 
 little of organization outside the fleets of the five 
 merchant and fishing towns of Hastings, Sandwich, 
 Dover, Romney and Hythe, to which Rye and 
 Winchelsea were afterwards added. These ports 
 possessed many men of hardy character skilled in 
 handling the long ships, " busses," " cogs " and 
 other vessels of those and later centuries. Various 
 privileges were conferred upon the Barons of the 
 
m] MEDLEVAL ORGANIZATION 13 
 
 ports in return for the services they rendered to 
 the Crown, and their ships became a kind of Royal 
 Navy, each of the ports being bound to provide a 
 given number of ships for fixed periods. 
 
 The ships were bluff-bowed and capacious, but 
 unhandy, and unable to advance except with the 
 wind astern or in some quarter abaft the beam. 
 They were decked and carried a single mast, with 
 a large square sail. The bowsprit appeared in the 
 13th century, being in reality a foremast stepped 
 well over the bow. The bow and stern curved 
 upward, and when fitted for fighting, carried 
 structures called castles whence our modern fore- 
 castle from which points of vantage, as well as 
 from nests or tops fixed on the masts, the fighting 
 men could discharge arrows or other missiles. The 
 navigator kept his course by the aid of the leads- 
 man or the loom of the land, and at night the Pole- 
 star was his mark and guide. In the Mediterranean 
 other classes of ships were developed, including 
 chiefly the swift galley, propelled by sail and the 
 power of many oars, and there, too, originated the 
 terrible Greek fire, being some kind of inflammable 
 oil discharged on the ships of an enemy. This kind 
 of attack seems rarely to have been used in the 
 north. Ships of greater size were built as time 
 went on, but all the early vessels were bigger than 
 representations in manuscripts might lead us to 
 
14 EOYAL NAVY [cH. 
 
 suppose. The Blanche Nef, or White Ship, in the 
 wreck of which, in 1120, Prince William and the 
 flower of the English nobility were lost, is recorded 
 to have pulled 50 oars, and to have had on board 
 some 300 persons all told. But there were much 
 bigger ships, and it is said that some pilgrim ships 
 in the Mediterranean could carry 800 persons. 
 This building of larger ships was coincident with 
 the gradual silting up of the Cinque Ports, whereby 
 Portsmouth, which had long been a port of assembly, 
 came into greater prominence, and Dartmouth and 
 Bristol were places of growing importance from 
 which ships came for the service of the King. 
 
 Richard Cceur de Lion was the first English 
 ruler to employ a fleet in a distant enterprise. This 
 was in the Crusade of 1190, and it was no easy task 
 to bring the huge flotilla through storm and tem- 
 pest from Dartmouth and some French ports to 
 Messina, where Richard joined the fleet, and then 
 to Acre, and the success of the operation was an 
 indication of the hardihood and seamanlike skill of 
 the mariners. It was off Acre that Richard, in his 
 long ship the Trenchemer, or as we should call her, 
 Shearwater, had a terrible encounter with a big 
 Saracen dromon. One chronicler calls her a great 
 " busse," and another says that only Noah's Ark 
 was bigger, for she carried 700 or 800 men under 
 seven emirs. Showers of arrows and stones, sheets 
 
in] FRENCH FLEET DESTROYED 15 
 
 of Greek fire, boarding and being driven back, 
 terrible hand-to-hand fighting, the fouling of the 
 dromon's rudder, and then the ramming of the 
 monster with the beaks of the galleys, whereby she 
 sank, were the features of the struggle. This was 
 a great victory of fighting seamanhood, for if the 
 Saracens had sunk the Trenchemer, the Crusaders 
 might never have taken Acre. It was in Richard's 
 time that the terribly severe code of naval discipline, 
 known as the Laws of Oleron, was introduced. 
 
 We can do little more than glance at four impor- 
 tant naval actions fought nearer home in the 13th 
 and 14th centuries, which are typical of the work 
 of the fleet in those times and show its influence upon 
 national security. The first of these was the de- 
 struction of the French and Flemish fleet at Damme 
 in 1213. This was in the reign of John, who had 
 made some approach towards a naval establishment 
 and had appointed a " keeper of the Kings' ships." 
 Philip of France and the Count of Flanders had 
 assembled their fleet with the object of invading 
 England for the King's overthrow, but John's half- 
 brother, WiUiam Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, 
 took a fleet over to Damme, and after much hard 
 fighting, the ships there were destroyed. Here it 
 may be remarked that the action of Longsword in 
 destroying the enemy's ships before they could leave 
 port was precisely that advocated and practised 
 
16 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 by Drake, more than three centuries later. By his 
 action the intended invasion came to nought. 
 
 Again, when the Barons were in revolt in 1217, a 
 seaman called Eustace the Monk, who had once been 
 in John's service, was aiding the French, and was 
 despatched with a convoy to help the Enghsh nobles. 
 His ships had been assembled at Calais and, with a 
 fair wind from the southward, he ran over towards 
 the English coast, with the intention of rounding 
 the North Foreland, and getting into the Thames. 
 Hubert de Burgh, King's Justiciary and Governor 
 of Dover Castle, prepared to intercept him, and, 
 saying " If these men once land England will be 
 lost," put to sea from Dover with the Cinque Ports 
 ships. He made as if he would fall upon Calais,, 
 but his evident object was to get clear of the land, 
 and gain what old seamen called the " weather gage,"^ 
 that is to bring the wind behind him, so that he 
 might be able to bear down upon his enemy. Having 
 held his way long enough, he altered course, and fell 
 upon the Frenchmen's rear. It weis fine seaman- 
 ship, in the first English sea action of which there 
 is sure record, and Hawke, Rodney, Howe or 
 Nelson could hardly have done better. Clouds of 
 arrows covered the French ships, and unslaked 
 lime was thrown into the air to the blinding of many. 
 Some ships were sunk and others carried by boarding 
 with sword and axe and taken into Dover. Once 
 
m] THE BATTLE OF SLUYS 17 
 
 more the enemy had been destroyed before he could 
 touch the land. Eustace paid the price, and his 
 head was carried on a pole. 
 
 Now we pass on to the days of Edward III, whose 
 gold noble shows the armed strength of England 
 based on the sea, and who further organized the 
 naval service and regulated the system of impressing 
 men for the fleet. There had previously been great 
 neglect, and the French had wrought havoc at 
 Sandwich, Winchelsea, Rye, Hastings, Southampton 
 and Portsmouth. They had even captured the 
 King's own ship, the great " cog " Christopher, 
 Their fleet was assembled at Sluys in 1340, and 
 Edward, with about 250 sail, stood over to the 
 Flemish coast, and the fleets met in mortal conflict, 
 in the estuary on Midsummer day. In the English 
 leading ships were posted archers, and in the French 
 van were the Christopher and three other cogs 
 captured from the EngHsh, all filled with Genoese 
 cross-bowmen. Again there was great slaughter, 
 for sea fighting in those days was peculiarly ferocious 
 and sanguinary. Ship after ship was carried, until 
 the enemy were almost completely destroyed, and 
 quarter was neither asked nor given. This great 
 victory gave Edward command of the sea for many 
 a day, and France was afterwards invaded and the 
 victory of Crecy won. 
 
 There was yet a sea action to fight, this time 
 
 L. B. N. 2 
 
18 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 with the Spaniards, for the King of Castile had gone 
 to the aid of the French with ships from Genoa, and 
 Basque seamen had ravaged the coasts. Then, in 
 1350, Carlos de la Cerda appeared with a fleet in 
 the Channel, and that battle was fought which was 
 known as " Les Espagnols sur Mer." Froissart has 
 filled a glowing page with the story, and tells of the 
 gallant bearing of the Black Prince and the flower 
 of English nobility, and of how the minstrels played 
 and Sir John Chandos sang to divert the mariners. 
 When the fleets met, there was sanguinary work 
 all along the line, and seventeen Spaniards were 
 taken, and the victory gave to England again the 
 security of the sea. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 SHIPS AND MEN 
 
 Now in a rapid course we will bridge a few 
 centuries, and see what things of interest we may 
 discover in our passage. The battle of Sluys and 
 that with the Spaniards marked the very height 
 of our sea power in mediaeval times. There was 
 neglect afterwards, in consequence of which the 
 French landed in the Isle of Wight, and Folkestone, 
 Rye, Hastings, Winchester and other places were 
 
IV] SHIPS AND MEN 19 
 
 again sacked or burnt. English seamen were as 
 brave as ever, but they could not serve the country- 
 well without the support of Kings and Parliaments. 
 Chaucer has given us the type of them. The Earl 
 of Pembroke was soundly beaten by the Spaniards 
 under Ambrosio Bocanegra at Eochelle in 1372. 
 Pirates roved the seas, and a Scotsman named 
 Mercer was defeated, not by the King's forces, 
 but by those of John Philpot, a London merchant. 
 Henry V paid more attention to his fleet, and was 
 able to invade France and achieve the great victory 
 of Agincourt in 1415. In the next year the Duke 
 of Bedford inflicted a severe disaster on the French 
 at Harfleur, after a desperate action much like those 
 I have described. It was not, however, until the 
 times of Henry VII and his successor that there 
 was any real revival of English sea power. The 
 ships used by Hubert de Burgh had differed little 
 from those in which Canute and Tostig had 
 sailed the seas. When Edward III was besieging 
 Calais in 1347, he had a fleet drawn from most of 
 the ports in the Kingdom, some also from Ireland, 
 Flanders and even from Spain and Bayonne, con- 
 sisting of 745 ships, and nearly 16,000 mariners, 
 besides fighting men. This wiU give an idea of the 
 enormous resources the country had even in those 
 days. Yarmouth, Fowey in Cornwall and Dartmouth 
 each sent more ships than London. Dependence 
 
 22 
 
20 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 upon the Cinque Ports had begun to pass away, 
 and the King's ships became more numerous. 
 Guns appear to have been first mounted, or at 
 least used, in ships by the Spaniards, in the battle 
 of 1372 when the Earl of Pembroke was defeated. 
 At first they were fired over the " gunwale," and 
 the cutting of port holes came much later. The 
 early guns were of indifferent value, firing stone 
 shot, and they were made of hooped iron bars. It 
 was a long time before they altogether displaced 
 " springalds," " mangonels " and other machines 
 for hurling masses of stone. Bows and arrows were 
 included amongst the stores of ships as late as the 
 reign of Elizabeth. 
 
 Some of the ships were brilliantly painted, and 
 had great square sails showing the royal arms or 
 the badges and devices of the nobles who sailed in 
 them. Generally in later times there were three 
 masts. The foremast leaned or " raked," as seamen 
 say, forward and was practically a bowsprit, while 
 the main mast carried a big square sail on a yard 
 to which it was furled, and the mizzen or after mast 
 was lateen rigged. National flags flew from the 
 mast heads, with long streamers and pennants, and 
 one red streamer was the sign of war and promised 
 mercy to none. 
 
 In the time of Henry V the " great ship " had 
 dethroned the cog from its position, but there 
 
IV] TUDOR SHIPS 21 
 
 were still cogs, as well as carracks, barges and balin- 
 gers. The Jesus has been described as a ship of 
 1000 tons, the Holy Ghost of 760 tons, and the 
 Trinity Royal of 540 tons. In all Henry had a 
 fleet of 1400 vessels in 1415, raised from every port 
 in the Kingdom, ranging down from the "great 
 ship " to vessels of 20 tons. 
 
 By the time of Henry VII ships were much 
 better built, but some of them looked more formid- 
 able than they actually were. One big ship, the 
 Regent, launched in Reding Creek on the Rother in 
 1489 or 1490, had four masts and a bowsprit, and 
 carried 225 small guns called serpentines. She was 
 burnt in action off Brest with a French carrack, the 
 Marie la Cordeliere, in 1512. Another ship built by 
 the seventh Henry, was the Sovereign, whose name 
 descended to the Royal Sovereign of modern days. 
 She was partly built under direction of Sir Reginald 
 Bray, architect of St George's Chapel, Windsor, 
 and |Henry VII's Chapel, Westminster, probably 
 from the remains of an older vessel, the Grace a 
 Dieu. 
 
 The most famous ship of Henry VIII was the 
 Henry Grace a Dieu, which was built or rebuilt at 
 Erith in 1514. She was probably begun as a reply 
 to|the Great Michael of the Scottish King, which was 
 built about 1506, and is described by Pitscottie as 
 having been 240 feet long over all and 36 feet broad 
 
22 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 within board, and as having " walls ten foot thick 
 in the wall and boards." The Henry Grace a Dieu 
 was a splendid vessel of imposing aspect, with two 
 lines of guns on her lower decks, and a third line on 
 her half deck and forecastle. Massive structures 
 rose high at the bow and the stern, and at the latter 
 position she had actually five tiers of giuis and 
 eight decks. Henry had also galleasses, and many 
 vessels of other ratings, some of them with three or 
 four masts and a bowsprit, mounting ten or a dozen 
 guns on the broadside. The guns of the time were 
 perhaps not far inferior to those which Nelson used. 
 In the days when ships were hired for war 
 purposes, the men came with them, and the 
 *' master," who was a seaman to the core, sailed the 
 ship, while the actual commander was the military 
 officer who embarked with men at arms and archers. 
 Admirals were appointed in Edward I's reign, and 
 the development of the ranks of officers was pro- 
 gressive through the centuries. As to the seamen, 
 when they were scarce they were seized and pressed 
 into the service. There was a good deal of adventiu'e 
 in the sea career, and the promise of much spoil, 
 but it was a hard life, with heavy punishments for 
 small faults, some of them most barbarous and cruel. 
 We should learn to love these men, for they suffered 
 in cold and hunger, with food of the vilest, ever 
 fighting with enemies, winds and waves, punished 
 
IV] ORGANIZATION 23 
 
 with brutality, and rewarded with little more than 
 what they could hope to win in the harvest of 
 capture at sea. 
 
 While ships were being built and manned by the 
 Tudors, administrative organization was progressing. 
 The dockyards at Portsmouth, Woolwich and 
 Deptford were considerably increased, and under 
 Henry VIII the Trinity House was established to 
 regulate buoys, beacons and lighthouses. A proud 
 consciousness of power was in the fleet. Ever since 
 the days of Edward III and earlier we had claimed 
 the sovereignty of the narrow seas a political rather 
 than a purely naval dominion. We had indeed 
 claimed the salute as early as an ordinance of John 
 in 1201. The thought that the sea must be " kept '* 
 is interwoven with our history. Originating in the 
 need of suppressing piracy, through the agency of 
 the mercantile ports, it assumed a larger meaning, 
 and gave us the watchword of our policy. Power 
 was inevitably bound up with jurisdiction, and even 
 when Philip came to woo Queen Mary, Howard 
 exacted the homage of the lowering of the Spanish 
 topsails, before he saluted the Spanish King. 
 
24 [CH. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE AGE OP DISCOVERY AND THE OVERTHROW 
 OF SPAIN 
 
 We have traced the origin of the Navy in the 
 centuries we have traversed, but if we would seek its 
 beginning, as we know it to-day, in the character of 
 an imperial Navy, we shall find it in the discoveries 
 of the old navigators, and the enterprises of the 
 merchants who followed them. In the ages we 
 have so far surveyed the sea was a region from whose 
 perils the mariners shrank, keeping within sight of 
 the coasts, if only, hke Shakespear's boatswain, 
 they might have " room enough," and dreading the 
 portents of the storms. But in the new age of dis- 
 covery and of scientific navigation the sea became 
 a pathway, and a means for the meetings and the 
 rivalries of men. Its great figures, as Professor 
 Seeley said, were not the Hotspurs of mediaeval 
 chivalry, nor the archers by whom Crecy was won, but 
 " the hero buccaneers, the Drakes and Hawkinses, 
 whose lives had been spent in tossing upon that ocean 
 which to their fathers had been an unexplored un- 
 profitable desert." 
 
 They were not Englishmen who led the vanj^in 
 the opening up of the world. We take proper pride 
 
V] THE SPIRIT OF EXPLORATION 25 
 
 in Sir Hugh Willoughby, who perished on the coast 
 of Lapland, Chancellor who followed him, Borough 
 who sailed between Novaya Zemlya and the main- 
 land, and Pett who penetrated the Kara Sea, and 
 we glory in the discoveries of Frobisher, Davis, 
 Hudson and many more whose names are written 
 on the maps of the great North-West. All were 
 seeking the riches and splendours of the Oriental 
 world. But they were the valiant captains of 
 Prince Henry of Portugal, the Navigator, who 
 pushed in successive voyages along the coasts of 
 Africa until Bartholomew Diaz doubled the Cape 
 of Storms, and Vasco da Gama was the first of 
 modern men to reach India by sea. It was 
 Amerigo Vespucci who gave his name to the 
 American continent, which Columbus and his 
 comrades and successors opened to the world 
 
 "Who pushed his prows into the setting sun, 
 And made West East, and sail'd the Dragon's Mouth, 
 And came upon the Mountain of the World, 
 And saw the rivers roll from Paradise ! " 
 
 It was Vasco Nunez de Balboa who first set eyes 
 upon the Pacific ; it was Magellan who clove his 
 way through the straits that bear his name ; and it 
 was Juan Sebastian del Cano who was the first of 
 these great old seamen to circumnavigate the globe. 
 Upon the races to which such men belonged it 
 seemed that the maritime heritage of the Phoenicians 
 
26 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 and of Carthage and Rome, had fallen, and they 
 drew their instincts and ambitions from the states 
 of Venice and Genoa, and the schools and harbours 
 of Portugal and Spain. From them we received 
 the science and the instruments of the new naviga- 
 tion. The great discoveries they made, with those 
 of the Dutch, who were before us in the East, and 
 the enterprises, riches and monopoHes that arose 
 therefrom, were the cause of an astonishing burst 
 of the spirit of maritime adventure and enterprise 
 among the seafarers and gentlemen of England. The 
 exercise of sea power was called for on a much 
 greater scale, and there resulted an immense develop- 
 ment in the seaman's art and craft, which exerted 
 its influence on shipbuilding, the construction of 
 better sea-keeping vessels, the development of ports, 
 and the organization of everything required for the 
 efficient service of the sea. In the course of events 
 that succeeded private enterprise and national 
 endeavour were inextricably confused. 
 
 There was a determination to break through 
 the exclusive commercial policy which the Spaniards 
 had established in their West Indian possessions, 
 and men like Drake and Hawkins were not to be 
 baulked in their search for treasure when it was to 
 be won at sea. Out of the resolute enterprise of 
 the Englishmen came the terrible incident of San 
 Juan de Ulloa, followed by Drake's enterprise of 
 
V] THE STRUGGLE WITH SPAIN 27 
 
 vengeance, in which he captured Nombre de Dios, 
 sacked Venta Cruz, laid hands on the silver mules 
 of Spanish grandees, and came home with more trea- 
 sure than ship had ever brought before ; followed 
 also by the famous navigation to the South Sea, in 
 which he captured many a Spanish town and ship, 
 set a girdle about the globe, and came home with 
 treasure, it is said, to the sterling value of a million 
 and a half. To the Spaniards Drake was a pirate 
 who deserved to be hanged, but Elizabeth knighted 
 him and kept the gold. Let this picture suffice to 
 call up the nature of the quarrel, complicated as it 
 was, no doubt, by the favour shown to the rebellious 
 subjects of Spain in the Low Countries, by the efforts 
 of the Spaniards to stir up rebellion in Ireland and 
 by many other things ; embittered too by the 
 religious breach, and by cruelties to English cap- 
 tives in Spain, and to Spanish captives in England. 
 
 As to the fleet of Elizabeth's time, it should be 
 noted that it fell very low in the early years of her 
 reign, causing uneasiness for its sufficiency, such as 
 had followed the loss of Calais in her sister's reign. 
 The regeneration began under the impulsion of a 
 commission appointed in 1583, consisting of the high 
 officers of State, including the Lord Admiral, and 
 sub-commissioners of sea experience Drake, Cotton, 
 Gorges, Frobisher, Bingham, Fulke Greville, Carew, 
 Raleigh, and others besides the four "principal 
 
28 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 officers of our ships '* ^Wynter, Hawkins, Holstock 
 and Borough the chief shipwrights, Pett, Chapman 
 and Baker, and two chief masters who were 
 practical navigators. The Mediterranean galley 
 type of vessel, propelled by oars and with end-on 
 gun-fire only, was of little value in the ocean ; 
 the galleasse which attempted to combine broad- 
 side fire was unsatisfactory ; and the problem was 
 to transform the deep-waisted single-decked cog 
 of the middle ages, with its cage-work and castles 
 at the bow and stern, as developed in the big ship 
 of Henry VIII, into a sailing warship of weatherly 
 character and sea endurance, mounting guns of 
 greater power on the broadside. How this was 
 accomplished cannot be told here. The " great 
 ships " Triumph of 1000 tons, carrying thirty-four 
 30 pounder guns and 16 light guns, the St Matthew, 
 1000 tons, the White Bear, 900 tons, and the Victory, 
 Mer Honour and Ark Royal, were the biggest ships 
 of the time. 
 
 As to the spirit of the fleet, we know that it had 
 been won in many a hard-fought battle with the 
 gale and in hunger and cold. On the great circum- 
 navigation, after the execution of Doughty, Drake 
 warned his men against mutiny and disagreement. 
 " For," he said, " I must have the gentleman to 
 haul and draw with the mariner and the mariner 
 with the gentleman," and he found none unwilling 
 
V] THE STRATEGY OF DRAKE 29 
 
 " to set his hand to a rope." Howard, waiting for 
 the Armada, wrote, " There shall be neither sick- 
 ness nor death which shall make us yield until this 
 service be ended ; I never saw nobler minds than 
 be here in our forces." If Drake had had his way, 
 the Armada would never have reached the Channel. 
 ** With fifty sail of shipping we shall do more good 
 upon their own coast than a great many more will 
 do here at home, and the sooner we are gone, the 
 better we shall be able to impeach them." Hawkins, 
 Frobisher and Fenner thought with him. It was 
 in this spirit that Drake had destroyed the shipping 
 and stores at Cadiz in 1587. The same thought 
 was in the mind of Raleigh when he would that the 
 enemy should be busied at home, and before they 
 could eat of " our Kentish capons." 
 
 Elizabeth had nearly 200 vessels of all classes, 
 with 17,000 or 18,000 men, but by far the greater 
 number were not fighting ships, and a great many 
 were not present in the fighting. Although the 
 Spaniards left the Tagus with 130 ships, it is doubt- 
 ful if more than 120 ever reached the Channel, with 
 24,000 men, in a sickly state and ill provided, and 
 half of the vessels were victuallers, and a great 
 many pinnaces and smaU craft. The big ships 
 were unwieldy, and no match for the more nimble 
 EngUsh vessels. Not many of their men knew the 
 stormy seas of the North Atlantic ; and most of 
 
30 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 them were far inferior to the hardy fellows who had 
 learned their trade in the Irish and Iceland fisheries, 
 and had sailed with Frobisher, Davis or Drake. 
 The Duke of Medina-Sidonia was in command, but 
 it was against his own will, for, on the death of Santa 
 Cruz, he had confessed his incompetence, and had 
 pleaded his ignorance of naval affairs. 
 
 The Spanish plan of action was to employ the 
 Duke of Parma's army in Flanders for the invasion 
 of England. The Armada was to bring other troops 
 in transports, and the English fleet was to be attacked 
 if met, and brought to close action, so that the 
 soldiers might play their part, but the principal 
 object was to get up Channel in order to cover the 
 movement of Parma's troops from Dunkirk, who 
 were to cross to England in flat-bottomed boats. 
 The huge Spanish armament was off the Lizard on 
 Saturday, the 20th of July, 1588, moving slowly 
 eastward with a light breeze. The same afternoon 
 Howard brought the English fleet out of Plymouth 
 Sound; and on the next day, having gained the wind 
 of his adversary, and his ships being better sailers, 
 fell upon the Spanish rear under Recalde, and so 
 mauled it, with a rain of shot for three hours, re- 
 fusing to let the Spaniards approach for close action, 
 that two great ships were taken. Still the English- 
 men hung on the rear of the speeding Spaniards, 
 and on the Tuesday there was hard fighting off 
 
V] SPANISH INVASION FRUSTRATED 31 
 
 Portland. By Thursday the enemy were off the 
 Isle of Wight, where Recalde's ship, the Santa Ana, 
 of 768 tons, was so severely damaged that she left 
 the fleet and was run ashore near Havre. Howard, 
 -jn the Ark Royal, husbanded his ammunition, 
 looking for a meeting with the squadron of the 
 Narrow Seas, under Lord Henry Seymour and 
 Sir William Winter. On Saturday afternoon the 
 Spaniards anchored under Cape Grisnez, with the 
 English a mile to windward, and there it was that 
 the reinforcement came. On Sunday night Howard 
 sent fireships amongst the Spaniards, seeing which, 
 in panic, they cut their cables, and drifted in con- 
 fusion to leeward through the Straits, the English 
 hanging on their rear. The San Lorenzo became 
 unmanageable and was captured off Calais, and mean- 
 while the Armada had arrived off Gravelines. 
 
 There, on Monday the 29th of July, was fought 
 the great battle in which the Spaniards were badly 
 beaten, and the whole purpose of their expedition was 
 frustrated. It is impossible to describe the action 
 here. The wings of their half -moon formation 
 were driven in on the centre, where ships fouled 
 one another, and three were sunk and four or five 
 driven ashore. There was great slaughter, and 
 Winter says of the Englishmen, " when every man 
 was weary with labour, and our cartridges spent, 
 and munitions wasted I think in some altogether 
 
32 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 we ceased, and followed the enemy." The Spanish 
 remnant was retreating along the coast across the 
 estuary of the Thames. " There was never anything 
 pleased me better," wrote Drake, "than to see the 
 enemy flying with a southerly wind to the northward." 
 
 The sufferings of the Spaniards in their long 
 navigation were terrible, for their ships were ill- 
 found ; they had been battered by the storms and 
 the English guns ; masts and rigging were shattered ; 
 food and water were scanty and bad. Many ships 
 were lost among the Scottish Islands and on the 
 coast of Ireland, and probably few of the vessels 
 that went north-about ever returned to Spain. 
 There had been hardships in the English ships also, 
 and there was sickness which the men attributed 
 to sour beer, and the food was insufficient and bad. 
 That, however, was too often the seaman's lot. 
 
 The defeat of the Invincible Armada that 
 description was not official, for the real title was 
 " Felicisima Armada " was one of the decisive 
 battles of the world. It not only once more pro- 
 tected England from invasion ; it put an end to 
 Spanish domination at sea, and removed the first 
 obstacle to the exercise of British influence and 
 ultimately the exertion of British power through the 
 world. The Spaniards had sought to make the sea 
 a pathway to their conquest, but they had found 
 it a barrier to their ambition. 
 
VI] ELIZABETH AND THE NAVY 33 
 
 This chapter may well close with a reference to 
 the heroic fight of gallant Grenville in the Revenge 
 against outnumbering Spanish foes at the Azores in 
 1591 a fight which showed the ardour and mettle 
 of our seamen, but which, as seamen know, was 
 useless to the English cause, and a sacrifice which 
 cooler judgment would hardly have approved. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE TRANSITION NAVY. TTJDORS AND STUARTS 
 
 The defeat of the Armada, though ultimately it 
 proved a most damaging blow to Spain, had not 
 brought to Elizabeth the immediate objects she 
 desired. She but dimly realized that a new world 
 had been discovered, and that her seamen were 
 breaking down the barriers by which its treasures 
 were withheld. She did not regard the Fleet as an 
 instrument to be used for what might be called 
 imperial purposes. It was her view or hope that 
 the operations in the Low Countries and France 
 would sap the life-blood of Spain, and Parma's 
 invasion of France in 1590 had entangled Philip in 
 another long and wasting war. She had asked her 
 seamen in 1588 how many Spanish ships had been 
 boarded, how much treasure had been captured, 
 
 L. R. N. 3 
 
34 ROYAL NAVY * [ch. 
 
 and how many prisoners taken ; on which matters 
 neither the Lord Admiral nor Drake had been able 
 to give very satisfactory answers. Had not the 
 main body of the Armada escaped to the northward, 
 and might it not refit in Denmark, and return ? 
 Such doubts and apprehensions as these had dis- 
 quieted the Queen, and her disappointment in- 
 fluenced her policy. The expedition of Drake and 
 Norreys to Lisbon, in retaliation for the Armada, 
 failed in some of its objects, and was marred by the 
 disagreements of its leaders. The enterprises to 
 the '* Isles " for the interception of Spanish supplies, 
 and the great stroke intended for the capture of 
 the enemy *s treasure at Panama in 1595-6, during 
 which expedition Hawkins and Drake died, as well 
 even as Essex's attack on Cadiz the famous Cadiz 
 voyage ^in 1596, did not produce the pecuniary 
 results desired for plunder was at that time an 
 object of war and they revealed disagreements 
 between the chiefs, and quarrels between seamen 
 and soldiers which marked the gradually growing 
 and necessary ascendancy of the former. 
 
 But in effect the pressure of sea control, and the 
 wasting canker in the Low Countries had together 
 created a sore situation in Spain, and the treasury 
 was empty. The cities, however, were patriotic, 
 and Philip, sitting at the Council table, exclaimed, 
 *' We will sell these candlesticks if other means of 
 
VI] JAMES I 35 
 
 raising money cannot be found ! " The Spanish 
 menace accordingly continued for several years. 
 There was a new threat in 1597 ; the Spaniards 
 were well established on the Brittany coast ; and 
 in 1601 Spanish soldiers, to the number of 3500, 
 were even landed in Ireland to assist Tyrone. Mean- 
 while Elizabeth, declaring that she would do only 
 what was necessary for defence, had not properly 
 defended Ireland, and was trusting to her diplomacy 
 and waiting for successes to be won vicariously by 
 the Dutch and French on the continent. Yet 
 exhaustion was falling upon both countries, and 
 ultimately it paralysed the power of Spain. 
 
 The real note of the period was the presence of 
 the English flag in every sea. Colonists were es- 
 tablishing themselves on the coasts of North America, 
 and before Elizabeth died, in 1603, merchants were 
 preparing to dispute with the Dutch the rich promise 
 of the eastern trade. 
 
 The reign of James I was undistinguished in the 
 annals of the Navy, though it was a period of great 
 importance. The old order had passed away, and 
 the fleet of James was a fleet divided into rates, 
 controlled on a system that still exists. The period 
 saw the King's ships employed in the keeping of the 
 vague area known as the '* Narrow Seas," or the 
 " Four Seas," by means of a " Summer Guard " and 
 sometimes a " Winter Guard." It was a maritime 
 
 32 
 
36 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 truce, during which new antagonisms were coming 
 into'^being. The English claim to the sovereignty 
 of the seas by the exaction of a salute as homage to 
 the flag, was becoming ever more irksome to the 
 Dutch. Their shipping was growing in volume, 
 and they feared a quarrel while they were still 
 embroiled with Spain. They were willing to show 
 respect, but they deeply resented anything that 
 might imply inferiority. Peace was also the great 
 desire of James, and the enterprise in 1614, of 
 Sir William Monson and Sir Francis Howard against 
 the pirates who infested the Scottish coasts was in 
 pursuance of the peace of the seas, as was Sir Robert 
 Hansel's expedition of 1620 against the Algerine 
 pirates. The latter was futile, but showed a new 
 spirit in the despatch of the King's ships for the 
 protection of foreign trade. 
 
 Shipbuilding entered upon a new development 
 in James's reign by the building of the Prince Royal, 
 in 1610, being a two-decked ship with quarter-deck 
 and forecastle, which, stripped of the lavish carvings 
 that adorned her, resembled generally the ships 
 built up to the close of the 18th century. Her 
 designer was the celebrated Phineas Pett, son of 
 Elizabeth's shipwright at Deptford, but she was 
 thought unsatisfactory, and a survey showed that 
 she had been built of unseasoned wood, whereby 
 after a few years she became useless for the service. 
 
VI] STUART ORGANIZATION 37 
 
 Experience, however, had been gained during her 
 construction, and in the next reign Pett attained 
 great success with the famous Sovereign of the Seas, 
 built in 1637, which was the first three-decker in 
 the Navy. Though good work was done, it was too 
 evident that the administration of the dockyards 
 had become exceedingly corrupt. An inquiry in 
 1608 had laid bare the evils, but little had been done 
 to amend them. Howard, the Lord High Admiral, 
 was too old to welcome reform and the service was 
 afflicted with every disease that could infect a navy. 
 Ten years later, however, Buckingham having now 
 succeeded Howard, the Board of Principal Officers 
 was dissolved, and a businesslike Council of Com- 
 missioners, after inquiry, carried on the work, puri- 
 fied to some extent the dockyard administration, 
 and built two ships each year for five consecutive 
 years. Ten years later again, in 1628, the Principal 
 Officers were once more raised to authority. 
 
 Flagrant corruption, waste, neglect and the decay 
 of maritime enterprise exercised a disastrous effect in 
 the reign of Charles I, and this is true although, like 
 all the Stuarts, he had a full sense of the importance 
 of maritime ascendancy in the presence of the 
 growing power of continental states. The Navy 
 was still in a transition stage, depending much upon 
 the mercantile marine, and the merchants came 
 unwillingly. There was the long quarrel with the 
 
38 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 Parliament, and the King never had money enough 
 for his purposes. Sir John Mervyn, commanding 
 in the Narrow Seas, described the deplorable state 
 of the ships in 1629, in which men were ill fed and 
 mutinous, while their petitions to Parliament re- 
 mained unread. " His majesty will lose the honour 
 of his seas, the love and loyalty of his sailors, and 
 his royal navy will droop." When the miserable 
 expedition returned from Cadiz four years earlier, 
 Sir John Pennington reported that most of the sea- 
 men were sick or dead. St Leger wrote " they 
 stink as they go, and the poor rags they have are 
 rotten and ready to fall off." Mervyn recorded 
 that " foul weather, naked bodies and empty bellies 
 made the seamen voice the King's service worse 
 than galley slavery." 
 
 There is little of interest to detain us in the 
 expeditions and cruises of Charles's reign, though 
 to that period may be traced the first movements 
 tending towards the establishment of our naval 
 position in the Mediterranean. Ship money was 
 an experiment which proved a disaster to the Crown, 
 and the Ship Money Fleet, though built to assert 
 our claim to the sovereignty of the Narrow Seas, 
 was not well employed for that purpose. Possibly, 
 however, it exercised a deterrent influence upon the 
 ambitions of Holland and France, and gave time 
 for the administrative reorganization of the Navy. 
 
vn] RIVALRY OF THE DUTCH 39 
 
 But it was not able to protect the national honour, 
 when the famous Dutch admiral, Marten Harpertsz 
 Tromp, in our own waters, defeated the Spaniards 
 in contemptuous disregard of a squadron which 
 Pennington had at Dover. The fleet which Charles 
 had built proved, indeed, the immediate cause of 
 his ruin. It went over to the Parliament, and re- 
 mained an instrument in the hands of his enemies 
 until, in 1648, a part of it revolted and was carried 
 over to Helvoetsluys, and placed by some of the 
 best men in the service at the disposal of the Prince 
 of Wales. What part the Commonwealth Navy 
 played in the Second Civil War cannot be related 
 here. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE NEW CONTEST FOR DOMINION. 
 THE FIRST DUTCH WAR 
 
 In aU this history, to use the words of John 
 Hollond, in his Brief Discourse of the Navy, 1638, 
 '' the naval part is the thread that runs through the 
 whole wooft, the burden of the song, the scope of 
 the text." What was true of the years before 1638 
 was more true of many years that followed. The 
 men who laid hands on power when Charles was 
 dead were men of a new mould, who gave a fresh 
 impress to the Navy, and some new vigour, though 
 
40 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 they could not remove all abuses. The marvellous 
 cruises and high courage of Prince Rupert and his 
 companions, first near home, and then in the 
 Mediterranean and the Atlantic, encountering or 
 eluding in succession Blake, Deane, Ayscue and 
 Penn (1649-1653) showed the seamanlike qualities 
 which were the great endowment of Englishmen, 
 whether Roundheads or Cavahers. 
 
 The fleet of the Commonwealth learned much of 
 its business in the chase of Rupert, which carried 
 Penn into the Mediterranean in 1651, being the first 
 English admiral since the Crusades to enter those 
 waters with any other object than the repression 
 of piracy. Blake, Popham and Deane, appointed 
 Admirals and Generals at Sea in February, 1649, 
 were soon discovered, with their comrades, using 
 the Fleet with vigour and skill, and giving whole- 
 some lessons thereby to Portuguese, Spaniards, 
 Dutch and French ; while crushing out the remnants 
 of Royalist opposition. And yet Blake, an Oxford 
 scholar, merchant, politician and army Colonel, had 
 never been at sea before the age of fifty. The first 
 object of the Commonwealth leaders had been to 
 set the administration in better order, and it was 
 brought under an Admiralty Committee of the 
 Parliament, with a Navy Board, which consisted of 
 the Treasurer, Surveyor, Comptroller and Clerk of the 
 Acts who conducted the civil business. These bodies 
 
vn] RIVALRY OF THE DUTCH 41 
 
 worked zealously, and by the year 1651, the strength 
 of the Navy had practically been doubled. The 
 fidehty of the officers was secured by appointmg 
 trusted men, and the content of the men by placing 
 over them officers after their own heart, and by 
 better pay, better food and better prize-money, with 
 much improved administration in home matters. 
 At the same time the organization of the Fleet was 
 advanced towards the making of a permanent force, 
 and the fleet tactics were put upon a new basis. 
 Efforts had been made in earHer years to formulate 
 tactical systems, but they were rudimentary, and 
 orders issued in 1653 for the line ahead formation, 
 which has since been used in all our wars and still 
 endures, were clearly based on previous experience 
 in the service. 
 
 Howard, writing in June, 1588, had laid down 
 a great strategic principle ^not, however, as we 
 have seen in a previous chapter, new with him 
 that he would not go to any place to offend or to 
 spoil, " but to seek out the great force and to fight 
 with them." This ruling principle began to re- 
 ceive its real exempUfication in the Dutch Wars, 
 which were not conducted by the adventures of 
 single ships or small forces, but by steady coherent 
 campaigns. The wars with the United Provinces 
 were inevitable. Raleigh could remember, when one 
 of Elizabeth's ships would " make forty Hollanders 
 
42 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 strike sail and come to an anchor," but now we were 
 to see how unwilling were they to submit to our 
 power. Their prosperity, like our own, was founded 
 upon commerce. From a race of herring-fishers 
 they had become a ruling mercantile power in the 
 world. They had preceded us in oversea trade and, 
 displacing the Portuguese, had founded a great 
 colonial dominion, even while they were holding 
 their own against all the armaments of Spain. It 
 was the massacre at Amboyna in 1623 that drove 
 back our traders on the Indian continent, and thus 
 indirectly led to the foundation of the Indian 
 Empire. Thus the wars with the Dutch were com- 
 mercial wars, and in a volume which is concerned 
 with the influence of the Navy on the growth of 
 Empire, it is important to lay stress on this fact. 
 The commercial character of the hostilities was 
 indicated by the Navigation Act of 1651, which was 
 intended to strike hard at the Dutch carrying trade. 
 There had as yet arisen no instinct for the use of 
 the fleet as a poHtical instrument. The objects 
 were direct and practical. 
 
 The immediate cause of the outbreak was the 
 state of undeclared hostilities which existed between 
 France and England, Dutch ships, as neutrals, 
 being searched, sometimes harshly treated by our 
 captains, and subjected to a law of prize which was 
 not their own. In May, 1652, Tromp with some 
 
VII] BLAKE AND TROMP 43 
 
 forty sail, was in the Straits of Dover, awaiting 
 valuable Dutch convoys which were coming up 
 Channel. He had no desire to bring about a con- 
 flict, but was quite ready for one. Off the Start 
 certain of the Dutch ships had been compelled to 
 strike their flags after a fight with Captain Young, 
 commanding the '' West Guard," and it was hardly 
 likely that if Tromp met the EngHshmen, they 
 would part without a battle. Rear- Admiral Bourne 
 was in the Downs with eight sail and Blake at Wye 
 with fifteen or sixteen. Tromp had orders to protect 
 the convoy, which had reached FairUght, and on 
 May 19th Blake, seeing the Dutchmen bearing down 
 towards him, Tromp leading in the Brederode, 
 thought they had " a resolution to engage." There 
 is a dispute as to which side fired the first broadside. 
 Tromp had the weather gage, that is the wind 
 behind him, and he made a fierce attack on Blake's 
 ship, the James, which was the weathermost of the 
 squadron. The battle raged for two hours, Tromp's 
 rear being engaged by Bourne, who came out from 
 the Downs, but the gunnery was ineffective, and 
 Tromp, though in overwhelming superiority, with- 
 drew. 
 
 This action caused a strong outburst of feeling 
 in both countries, and every available ship was 
 made ready for the coming struggle. Early in July 
 Blake was in the North Sea with fifty sail, preying 
 
44 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 upon the Dutch herring-fleets, by which the whole 
 fishery was lost for a year, and looking for Dutch 
 Indiamen coming north-about round Scotland, 
 while Ayscue was in the Downs with fifteen or sixteen 
 sail waiting for shipping from the Thames. Tromp, 
 with a great fleet, made no attempt to protect the 
 fisheries and failed to bring Ayscue to action, after 
 which he went north to seek Blake, but was driven 
 to his ports by storms. The gallant old ofiicer had 
 done ill in this business, and was compelled to re- 
 linquish his charge. 
 
 The attack and protection of commerce was the 
 main concern of the admirals, and De Ruyter and 
 Ayscue were both sent down Channel with this 
 object. A collision occurred on August 16th, which 
 was; inconclusive, but De Ruyter carried off his 
 convoy, eluding also Blake and Penn, who had come 
 down Channel, and the Dutch object of getting their 
 shipping home was attained. The Battle of the 
 Kentish Knock, fought on September 27th outside 
 the .Thames, between Blake and Penn on the one 
 side and Cornelius De With and De Ruyter on the 
 other, was the first action of the war not directly 
 concerned with the protection of convoys. It was 
 inconclusive ; but the Dutch had the worst of it. 
 They did not fight well, and some of the captains 
 behaved very badly, being apparently supporters 
 of Tromp, unwilling to support De With and De 
 
vn] THE THREE DAYS' BATTLE 45 
 
 Ruyter. The Dutch now prepared a great arma- 
 ment, and recalled Tromp to the command, as the 
 man of experience who inspired confidence. Tromp 
 got his huge convoy, about 400 sail, through the 
 Straits, and off Dungeness on November 30th, 
 having 80 ships to 40, inflicted a reverse upon Blake, 
 who was severely handled and lost two vessels. 
 
 This lesson was taken to heart, and a great fleet 
 of 70 or 80 ships, with Blake, Deane and Monk 
 executing the ofiice of Lord High Admiral in com- 
 mand at sea, was in the Channel in February, 1653, 
 and on the 18th again encountered Tromp, who had 
 80 or 90 men-of-war, and a cloud of merchantmen 
 behind him. The battle lasted three days and 
 extended from Portland to the Straits of Dover. 
 On the first day, the English were severely handled ; 
 the second day's fighting was inconclusive ; but on 
 the third day, in a close action, Penn, off Cape Grisnez, 
 broke through Tromp 's formation, and several men- 
 of-war and some 50 merchantmen were captured. 
 The Dutch admiral showed fine seamanship in es- 
 caping, and the action was really indecisive, for the 
 bulk of the convoy reached the Dutch ports. Both 
 Blake and Deane were wounded, there were heavy 
 losses among officers and seamen, and the victorious 
 fleet was reduced to a condition scarcely more battle- 
 worthy than that of its adversary. ] \ 
 
 But from this time onward superiority rested 
 
46 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 . 1 
 
 [ ' with the Englishmen. Their ships were better 
 
 I than the Dutch ships, and the men fought better. 
 
 . There was greater skill also in the handling of fleets. 
 / Operations were not resumed until May, 1653, 
 and on June 2nd and 3rd Deane and Monk, with 
 over 80 sail were once more engaged with Tromp 
 off the Gabbard Shoal outside the Thames. Seeing 
 his danger the latter accepted battle to leeward, so 
 that he could escape, which he did, keeping in the 
 shallows of the Flemish coast and reaching his 
 harbours. In this action there were severe losses, 
 and Deane was cut in two by a cannon shot in the 
 first broadside, but the defeat of the Dutch was 
 complete. This misfortune, which spread consterna- 
 tion throughout the United Provinces, was due in 
 i no measure to lack of courage or skill, but to the 
 
 ! inferiority of the Dutch ships, concerning which 
 
 i ( Tromp had protested to the States General. Out- 
 spoken as he always was, De With exclaimed, " The 
 Enghsh are at present masters of us and of the seas." 
 So dire was the situation that the Dutch sought 
 peace, but Cromwell's terms were too harsh, and 
 the States General would not submit to conditions 
 which were thought an outrage. 
 
 Thus came to be fought the last fight of the war, 
 the famous battle of 1653 off the Texel, in which 
 Monk was in command with Penn and Lawson as 
 
 / his colleagues. The Fleet had been kept off the 
 \/ 
 
VII] DUTCH INFERIORITY 47 
 
 Dutch coasts, engaged effectively in the new work 
 of blockade. It is impossible to describe the 
 desperate fight of July 31st, which was conducted 
 with the utmost fierceness and with heavy losses 
 on both sides. T he gre atest loss of all to the Dutch 
 was that of Tromp who was stricken down early in 
 the action, and was succeeded by Evertsen. " If 
 they should cast twenty John Evertsens and twenty 
 De Ruyters into one," said a writer of the time, 
 " they could not make one Tromp." There was no 
 shrinkage from action in this battle, no convoy to 
 protect, and all that courage and skill could do for 
 Holland was done, but the English victory was 
 decisive. The Dutch were inferior in ships and 
 crews, and most of all in discipline and fighting 
 power. They again sued for peace, which was 
 finally agreed upon some months later. 
 
 There was other fighting in this war, especially 
 between Badiley and Van Galen in the Mediter- 
 ranean, but it cannot be described here. We will, 
 however, observe certain points which are of im- 
 portance. In the early stage of the war, the idea of 
 seeking out and destroying the enemy's main fleet, 
 which became later the cardinal principle of strategy, 
 had scarcely been conceived. Everything turned 
 upon the protection of convoy. As the hostilities 
 progressed, the truer object of war necessarily 
 emerged. Then we must note the growing jveakness 
 
48 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 of the Dutch, who had been wasted by land 
 warfare, and also the increasing sense in England 
 of the need of higher fighting organization, and the 
 building of the right classes of ships for admirals 
 to handle. Next we may remark the advantage 
 resulting to this country in the war from undivided 
 organization and direction, as contrasted with the 
 divided counsels and divergent interests of the 
 United Provinces. Lastly we may see the effect 
 of the war the striking of what promised to be 
 a mortal blow at the prosperity of the Netherlands. 
 The British Isles, by their geographical situation, 
 were seated, as it were, athwart the Dutch lines of 
 communications, and by exerting the compression 
 of sea power, as Admiral Mahan has said, the 
 Fleet " caused the grass to grow in the streets of 
 Amsterdam.'* 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE RESTORATION NAVY AND THE CLOSE OF 
 THE DUTCH WARS 
 
 We are confronted, when we reach the Navy of 
 the Restoration, with a contrast between adminis- 
 trative wisdom on the one hand and the effects of 
 administrative failure on the other. Before Charles 
 
vm] THE RESTORATION NAVY 49 
 
 landed at Dover, he appointed as Lord High Admiral, 
 his brother James, Duke of York, afterwards James II, 
 whose name will always be remembered with those 
 of our greatest naval administrators. The large 
 committee appointed by the Rump ParHament to 
 manage the affairs of the Navy was swept away, 
 and the four " Principal Officers " were restored 
 Sir George Carteret, the Treasurer, a sea-officer of 
 great experience fully trusted, and, says Pepys, " a 
 most honest man " ; the Comptroller, Sir Robert 
 Slyngesbie, who from his childhood had been bred 
 up and employed in the Navy ; the Surveyor, 
 Sir William Batten, who had held the same office 
 before, and had served in active commands ; and 
 the Clerk of the Acts, Samuel Pepys himself, the 
 Diarist, whose Diary covers but a very small period 
 of his long and active service for the State. With 
 them were associated three commissioners, all men 
 of experience, and their successors were men of 
 experience also. These officers came to be called 
 the Navy Board, acting as the Lord High Admiral's 
 council of advice, and the Board continued to exist 
 as a Board long afterwards, when the office of Lord 
 High Admiral had been placed in Commission in 
 the hands of the Board of Admiralty. A great work 
 was rapidly accompHshed in firmly establishing the 
 code of naval discipline, and the Duke applied 
 himself particularly to the better ordering of the 
 
 L. B. N. 4 
 
50 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 " (Economy " of the Navy Office and the con- 
 stitution of an organized corps of naval officers. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the experience brought to 
 bear upon the business, deep disappointment 
 followed. " Back again to Spring Garden," wrote 
 Pepys, on the 3rd of June, 1667, " and then to 
 walk up and down the garden, reflecting upon the 
 bad management of things now, compared with 
 what it was in the late rebellious times, when men, 
 some for fear, and some for religion, minded their 
 business, which none now do, by being void of both." 
 No one knew better than Pepys that want of money 
 was at the root of the administrative failure, and 
 that the evil of private gain at the country's cost 
 seemed incurable. When the King came back the 
 situation had been deplorable. The Navy was even 
 then overwhelmed with debt, and the requirements 
 were ever increasing, and outgrowing the adminis- 
 trative machinery. During the Second Dutch War 
 the evil fruit ripened. " Did business, though not 
 much at the office '* ; wrote Pepys, 7th October, 
 1665, after the first battles, " because of the horrible 
 crowd and lamentable moan of the poor seamen 
 that lie starving in the streets for lack of money." 
 With the remark that as time passed on, good ad- 
 ministrative means began to bear better fruit, with 
 amendment at the dockyards and in the service, we 
 pass on to this new war with the Dutch, premising 
 
VIII] SECOND DUTCH WAR 51 
 
 that the Fleet was employed in 1662-3, agamst the 
 Barbary pirates, and in taking possession of Tangier, 
 part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza. 
 
 The Second Dutch War, 1665-7, arose from 
 the old commercial rivalry, embittered by political 
 exasperation. The English, as Monk frankly said, 
 " wanted a larger share in the trade of the Dutch," 
 which had greatly increased since the previous war, 
 mainly owing to the anti-Spanish operations of 
 Cromwell, which had thrown the Spanish trade 
 into their hands. The chartered trading companies, 
 by their rivalries, contributed to the unfriendhness ; 
 in the Mediterranean, Sir John Lawson, co-operating 
 against the pirates with De Ruyter, had exacted a 
 salute which he had refused to return ; and in his 
 well known cruise of 1663, Sir Robert Holmes had 
 dealt in a very hostile manner with the Dutch 
 possessions on the West Coast of Africa and at New 
 Amsterdam. The significant feature of the war 
 that followed was that the Dutch abandoned their 
 trade in order to fight for the essential command of 
 the sea. The fleets were organized on a great scale, 
 and, in May, 1665, the Duke of York, with nearly 
 a hundred sail, having with him Penn, Prince Rupert 
 and Sandwich, stretched over to the Dutch coast 
 but failed to force an action, and returned. The 
 Dutch had been unprepared, but they were soon 
 at sea, and Opdam, with reluctance due to a sense 
 
 42 
 
62 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 of inferiority, came over with a large fleet, which 
 was severely beaten in the battle off Lowestoft 
 (3rd June). Serious losses were inflicted on the 
 English ships in this action, especially among the 
 highly placed officers in immediate attendance upon 
 the Duke in the Royal Charles. The Earls of 
 Marlborough and Falmouth, Sir John Lawson, 
 perhaps the most ardent spirit in the fleet. Admiral 
 Sansum and Lord Muskerry were amongst the slain, 
 a fact which may account for the Duke's failure to 
 pursue his enemy. Some of the Dutch captains 
 had behaved very badly, and four of them were 
 afterwards shot. Probably their misconduct was 
 largely instrumental in Opdam's failure, for his 
 material losses did not exceed about fifteen sail. 
 De Ruyter was now the only man whom the Dutch 
 could trust, and Sandwich, in the North Sea, let 
 him slip by as he returned from a long cruise to the 
 West Indies greatly encumbered with the prizes in 
 his company. 
 
 The English fleet was in a bad state. It was ill 
 provided, pay was in arrear and the victualling 
 service was disorganized. With great difficulty a 
 fleet of some eighty-five sail was assembled in the 
 Downs in May, 1666, under command of Monk, for 
 Sandwich was discredited, while Rupert was in the 
 Channel looking for the French, who, it was feared, 
 would join the Dutch. De Ruyter, with Cornells 
 
VIII] THE FOUR DAYS' BATTLE 53 
 
 Evertsen and the younger Tromp, came over in 
 greatly superior force, and on June 1st the hard- 
 fought four days' battle of the Straits of Dover 
 began. The Swiftsure, Sir William Berkeley's 
 flagship, was cut off and captured, the admiral being 
 killed. Out of the struggle broke gallant Sir John 
 Harman, giving proof of grim and dauntless courage, 
 when deeply wounded, with his ship on fire and his 
 crew in a panic. 
 
 The second day's fighting was inconclusive, and 
 once more there was misconduct amongst the 
 Dutch captains. The English had shown them- 
 selves superior in manoeuvring and fighting power, 
 but were outnumbered, and on the third day Monk 
 found it necessary to retire to the Thames to make 
 good damage. The Dutch followed, and captured 
 the Prince, Sir George Ayscue's flagship, which had 
 stranded on the Galloper Sand. Fortunately, at 
 the moment, Rupert, who had been anxiously 
 awaited, appeared off the Foreland, whereupon 
 the Dutch made sail with their prize. But on the 
 next day valiant Monk was again at sea, and in a 
 fight which lasted many hours, his fleet got the worst 
 of it, but not without inflicting such damage upon 
 De Ruyter's ships that he could make no immediate 
 use of his success, and was obliged to retire to his 
 ports to refit. 
 
 There was evidence in all that had taken place, 
 
54 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 with abundant courage in the few and even in very 
 many, of a decline in the moral quality of the English 
 Fleet, and of the nation behind it. The pages of 
 Pepys's Diary bear evidence of an ominous change. 
 Yet in the last battle of the war, in a burst of shame- 
 ful resentment at what had occurred, a new spirit 
 was created, De Ruyter was forced from the station 
 which he had assumed at the mouth of the Thames, 
 and Monk and Rupert crossed to the Dutch coast, 
 driving shipping to shelter and capturing prizes, 
 while the operation known as "Sir Robert Holmes 
 his Bonefire " recalls how Holmes burned 160 sail 
 of merchantmen and two warships at Terschelling 
 (August 8th), and captured stores and destroyed 
 magazines, to the total value, it is said, of well over 
 a million sterling. 
 
 But the Dutch were neither beaten nor cowed, 
 and with stubborn courage within a month were at 
 sea again, looking for a junction with the French 
 fleet, which Rupert forestalled. The immediate 
 danger passed away, but the moral weakness and 
 decay alluded to asserted itself afresh. Penury 
 reduced Charles's fleet to impotence, and the cup 
 of shame was filled when the Dutch under De Ruyter 
 and Van Ghent entered the Thames and captured 
 and burned the ships at Chatham. Seven large 
 ships burned or taken, with many smaller, were the 
 toll of the Dutch success, and long after, the event 
 
vm] THIRD DUTCH WAR 65 
 
 at Chatham, De Ruyter remained master of Thames' 
 mouth and the south-eastern coasts of England. 
 
 Peace was signed at Breda, but it was of short 
 duration. Though the war was disKked in England, 
 the Dutch were still rivals too formidable to be 
 allowed to exist, and Sir Robert Holmes, therefore, 
 without declaration of war, was sent, in 1671, to 
 intercept the Dutch Smyrna convoy. There was a 
 sharp fight in the Channel, in which one Dutch war- 
 ship and several merchantmen were captured, but the 
 English ships were roughly handled, and to the 
 King's disappointment most of the intended prizes 
 escaped. War was declared in March, 1672. The 
 French were then our allies, for the Dutch had 
 opposed the conquest of the Spanish Netherlands. 
 Vice-Admiral Count d'Estrees was sent with a force 
 which constituted the white squadron in the Battle 
 of Solebay (Southwold), the 28th of May. This 
 squadron fell to leeward, and was held in check by the 
 Dutch admiral Bankert, while De Ruyter delivered a 
 furious attack on the EngHsh fleet, himself singling 
 out the Prince, which was the Duke of York's flag- 
 ship. She was terribly mauled, as was the St Michael , 
 to which the Duke transferred his flag. The Earl of 
 Sandwich gallantly perished in his flagship, the Royal 
 James, and Van Ghent, who attacked him was shot in 
 the heat of the battle. It was a furious fight, in 
 which De Ruyter obtained the victory, though his 
 
56 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 own forces suffered almost as severely. The last 
 action of the war was the hard-fought Battle of the 
 Texel, August 11th, 1673, which was not a victory 
 for our arms. 
 
 The Dutch admiral had once more saved his 
 country by his courage, foresight and tactical skill. 
 But the United Provinces could no longer hold their 
 place amid the growing power of their neighbours. 
 As with the Spaniards before them, their life-blood 
 was wasting in an exhausting struggle on land. They 
 had clung too long to the friendship of France ; but 
 Louis never forgave their resistance in the Spanish 
 Netherlands, and when his armies marched the 
 glare of its watch-fires was seen even in Amsterdam. 
 Then arose the old stubborn spirit, and William of 
 Orange, who became Stadholder after the assassina- 
 tion of De Witt, won province after province back 
 from the French. But the burden was too great, 
 and, if the Revolution of 1688, which was to make 
 the Dutch our friends, had not taken place, they 
 could never have held their position at sea in the 
 presence of the growing power and resources of 
 England. 
 
 But in England the malady of decay, the terrible 
 waste due to want of money and want of credit, 
 reduced the Navy to a shameful degree at the close 
 of Charles's reign. Yet there had been many ac- 
 tions that illuminated its story. The operations of 
 
IX] THE NAVY IN 1688 57 
 
 Harman in the West Indies, of Munden at St Helena, 
 and of others on the coasts of India and elsewhere, 
 showed how the building of empire was going on. 
 Much of the Dutch trade feU into our hands. Tangier 
 had been occupied, and Rooke, Marlborough, Shovell 
 and others had shown the true quaUties of our sea- 
 men in the Mediterranean. Tangier, however, that 
 outpost of power, at one of the gates of the world, 
 was abandoned in the impotence of 1684. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. THE BEGINNING 
 OF THE FRENCH WARS 
 
 It will have been observed in the preceding 
 chapters that the removal of the Spaniards and the 
 Dutch from the pathways of our enterprise and our 
 approaches to the position of a World Power, was 
 not brought about by the great engagements and 
 actions of the Navy in the wars. No battle we have 
 mentioned can in a real sense be spoken of as de- 
 cisive. It cannot be said that the defeat of the 
 Armada in 1588 reduced Spain to the impotence 
 to which she subsequently fell. No battle of the 
 Dutch wars brought about the decay of the Dutch 
 Republic. We must rather trace the causes of 
 
58 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 these changes in the relative positions of nations to 
 the all-pervading pressure of sea-power, not always 
 nor merely by the direct gripping of the avenues 
 of commerce or communications, but often by 
 the exhaustion which results from the wasting of 
 resources, the material and personal losses, the 
 destruction of industries, and convulsions in the 
 social state, called up by the loud voices of Faction 
 and Want. These things affected England as they 
 did Spain and the Netherlands, and their con- 
 sequences were disastrous for the social state ; but 
 we had not to bear the double burden of land and 
 sea, and we did not maintain great standing armies, 
 conduct vast military campaigns, or empty our 
 resources in covering the land with mighty fortresses 
 and entrenched camps. Here was the real cause 
 of our endurance of what others could not bear. 
 The fleets had protected us from invasion, and opened 
 the seas for us, and we were free to pursue alike our 
 industries within and our activities without. 
 
 ; Nevertheless, at the close of the reign of Charles I 
 the King was at the end of his resources, and few 
 ships were in commission ; the rest were out of 
 repair, and the magazines were almost empty. 
 James II therefore appointed a commission to 
 inquire into the affairs of the Navy, which con- 
 ducted its work until October, 1688. Much was 
 done for the betterment of the service, but not all 
 
IX] LANDING OF WILLIAM 59 
 
 the defects resulting from years of corruption could 
 be removed. Yet at the close of the period, there 
 existed an establishment of 173 vessels, including 
 9 first-rates, 11 second-rates and 39 third-rates, 
 besides 26 fireships and three yachts. Sir Roger 
 Strickland had a squadron of 20 sail in the Downs, 
 which was strengthened and placed imder command 
 of Lord Dartmouth. The new menace from the 
 Netherlands was discerned, and the Prince of Orange 
 was expected to attempt a landing. We all know 
 how that landing took place. It was not due to the 
 inability of an efficient and resolute Navy to pre- 
 vent invasion, but to the treason of officers and the 
 acquiescence of men who did not desire to avert 
 but to bring about the Revolution which put an 
 end to the Stuart dynasty. 
 
 The fleet which James had assembled, and the 
 system he had created were a valuable possession 
 for his successor. But the new King was a soldier, 
 who came looking for military objects, and re- 
 garded the Navy as a means for their immediate 
 accomplishment. He showed no large under- 
 standing of sea power, until later when he discerned 
 that it must be the chief agency in the diplomacy 
 of his grouping of the nations. His accession, 
 while it made the Dutch our aUies, opened on a 
 larger scale our secular hostiUty to France, and 
 \iltimately brought Spain and the House of Austria 
 
60 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 into a coalition against Louis XIV, which laid the 
 foundation of the new Grand Alliance. William's 
 immediate objects were to secure the Narrow 
 Seas, for invasion was an imminent danger, and 
 to maintain communications with Ireland, which 
 had to be conquered from James, who had 
 been landed in the island by French ships under 
 Gabaret. That the naval danger existed was 
 shown by Chateaurenault's success in landing a 
 small body of troops at Bantry Bay in despite of 
 a squadron under command of Herbert, afterwards 
 Earl of Torrington, an honour that officer received 
 in recognition of this, the first naval action of the 
 new reign. 
 
 Louis' real object was to secure such command 
 of the sea as would prepare the way for invasion, 
 and thereby bring about a rising for the restoration 
 of the Stuarts. The great minister Colbert had 
 provided and organized the Navy, and that fine 
 seaman Tourville was charged with the operation. 
 Torrington was in command of the fleet which was 
 to frustrate the attempt. At the Admiralty he 
 had protested against its insufficiency, and afloat, 
 knowing his inferiority, he desired to pursue a policy 
 of observation, and to keep his fleet " in being " 
 rather than to suffer defeat, which would imperil 
 the safety of the country and probably the stability 
 of the throne. Torrington's action has been the 
 
IX] THE "FLEET IN BEING" 61 
 
 subject of a good deal of discussion. His ideas 
 were prevalent at the time both in the French navy 
 and in our own. They resulted from experience of 
 the sailing navy in times when fleets could not keep 
 the seas in all weathers, and when, if they could be 
 maintained without encountering the enemy, they 
 might win time for reinforcement for a later cam- 
 paign. Queen Mary, acting as regent, or her 
 advisers, amongst whom was Russell, Torrington's 
 professional rival, objected however to his policy, 
 and peremptory orders were issued to him to fight. 
 Thus was brought about the Battle of Beachy Head, 
 30th June, 1690, wherein the Dutch van under 
 Evertsen suffered severely, being first engaged, 
 and Torrington, having, as he considered, carried 
 out his instructions, and knowing he had no chance 
 of success, withdrew to the Thames, as Monk had 
 done before him, though in different circumstances. 
 He was tried by court martial for his failure and 
 acquitted. The battle was reckoned a victory by 
 the French. 
 
 The consequences Torrington feared did not 
 immediately follow, but Louis gained great con- 
 fidence from the success, and in the next year 
 Tourville made, under instructions, what is known 
 as his " campagne au large," in which he was not to 
 fight, but to keep his fieet intact, to protect French 
 interests and the coasts, and if possible to capture 
 
62 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 the Smyrna convoy. He was forbidden to enter 
 the Channel. In the following year, 1692, all was 
 considered ready for the great expedition against 
 England. The soldiers had spoken the last word, 
 and it was for the Navy to carry out their behests. 
 Precisely the same situation arose a century later, 
 when other soldiers were ready for a like enter- 
 prise. Troops to the number of 20,000 were en- 
 camped near La Hougue, under command of 
 Marshal de Bellefonds, with whom was King James, 
 and cavalry and artillery were to be embarked at 
 Havre. But Colbert had died, and his successor 
 Seignelay was less than half-hearted in the duties 
 of his office. His record shows that he had no 
 appreciation of the essentials of sea power, and he 
 relinquished the affairs of the expedition into the 
 hands of King James, Bellefonds and the soldiers. 
 Tourville's list shows that he had only forty-four 
 sail with his flag. Prudence would have coun- 
 selled waiting for reinforcements which D'Estrees, 
 Chateaurenault and De la Porte could have brought, 
 raising the number of ships to eighty-eight. But 
 Tourville was allowed no discretion, and was con- 
 demned to play a role in an operation which, he 
 said, took account neither of naval nor military 
 difficulties. The King's caution of the previous 
 year had vanished. Tourville was very willing to 
 fight the allies, but had no relish for a rash 
 
IX] BATTLE OF BARFLEUR 63 
 
 enterprise. Like Torrington be would have liked to 
 await the preparation of a larger fleet, and mean- 
 while to keep his fleet " in being," and like Queen 
 Mary, King Louis would have none of his caution, 
 and issued orders that he must fight however strong 
 his opponents might be en quelque nombre quHls 
 soient. We thus observe how in both countries 
 soldiers and politicians overrode naval opinion 
 and even common discretion, and we see the danger 
 of such a method of conducting national affairs. 
 
 The allied fleet was under command of Admiral 
 Edward Russell, with whom were Sir Ralph Delaval, 
 Sir Cloudesley Shovell, Sir George Rooke and other 
 admirals, and in company were two Dutch squadrons 
 constituting a total strength of 99 vessels. The 
 opposing forces were in view of one another on the 
 19th May off Cape Barfleur. Tourville, who was 
 to windward, gave orders to attack, and bore down 
 upon the centre of the line. A fierce fight ensued, 
 in which the Soleil Royal, his flagship, was 
 seriously damaged. The admiral, like Torrington 
 in 1690, had carried out his instructions, and hoping 
 he had crippled his adversaries, made sail to the 
 westward in a fog which had stopped the firing. 
 There was very little wind, but the fog lifted and 
 his movement was discovered. Fortunately for 
 Russell he had with him, in the captain and master 
 of the fleet, David Mitchell and John Benbow, 
 
64 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 seamen from boyhood, who well knew the tides and 
 half tides round the French coast. The opposing 
 fleets drifted westward with the tide and anchored 
 when it was against them, and on the morning of 
 the 21st a number of the French ships rounded 
 Cape de la Hague, and ultimately found shelter at 
 St Malo. The Soleil Royal and two other crippled 
 ships had not weathered the Cape and were driven 
 ashore and burned near Cherbourg by Sir Ralph 
 Delaval. 
 
 Other French ships failing to anchor were driven 
 eastward before the wind between the shore and the 
 aUieSj and rounding Cape Barfleur, sought refuge in 
 the harbour of Saint Vaast de la Hougue. There, 
 in attacks with boats and fireships, under the conduct 
 of Rooke, on the 22nd and 23rd, thirteen ships were 
 destroyed. The long-drawn action thus ended in 
 brilliant fashion, and nothing of a like kind occurred 
 for many long years to follow. There were great 
 rejoicings in England, for had not the fleet saved 
 the country from invasion once more ? Peace was 
 signed in October, 1697. 
 
 Between this period and the Peace of Utrecht, 
 1713, there was a great deal of fighting which shall 
 not detain us here. Attacks which we had made 
 on the French Channel ports did little to affect the 
 situation. Tourville's exploit against the great 
 convoy at Lagos on the coast of Portugal, had struck 
 
IX] EXHAUSTION OF FRANCE 65 
 
 dismay in the hearts of London merchants. Much 
 might be written concerning the King's policy in 
 the Mediterranean. New combinations had arisen, 
 and the great Sea Power began to make her influence 
 felt on the states bordering the basin of old-world 
 dominion. War was declared afresh in 1702, and 
 an attack on Cadiz failed owing to dissensions 
 between seamen and soldiers. The capture of 
 Gibraltar by Kooke and Shovell in 1704 gave us 
 one of the great strategic keys of the world, in the 
 very year in which the victory of Blenheim detached 
 the Bavarians from the alliance with France ; and 
 in the sanguinary battle of Malaga nothiug was 
 accomplished to restore it to Spain. Four years 
 later Leake took Sardinia and Minorca, with the 
 valuable harbour of Port Mahon. We were thus 
 as strongly based in the western Mediterranean as 
 either France or Spain, and the French fleet did 
 not dare to leave Toulon. 
 
 The most significant feature of the war was 
 indeed the progressive ^thaustion of France, which, 
 combined with the unenlightenment of her Ministers, 
 brought about the withdrawal of her fleets from the 
 sea. It was the golden age of the great privateers, but 
 Jean Bart, Duguay-Trouin and the rest, do what 
 damage they might to commerce by their brilliant 
 deeds, could neither decrease the strain that was 
 stranghng France, nor affect the result of the war. 
 
 L. R. N. 5 
 
66 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 If it were necessary to make a catalogue of gallant 
 actions in our own service, we might think of Hop- 
 sonn breaking the boom at Vigo, 1702, of Benbow 
 valiantly fighting against Du Casse, but abandoned 
 by his captains in the same year, and of other hard- 
 fighting seamen. The betrayal of Benbow by his 
 captains is evidence of a moral failure in the fleet of 
 which something shall yet be said. 
 
 In this remarkable period, the fleets of the 
 alhance cruised unchecked, and hemmed France in, 
 injuring her coasts, annihilating her commerce at 
 sea, and rendering aid to the armies operating 
 against her. Squadrons were sent out year by year 
 to attack French possessions in the New World 
 and to defend our own. It was the period in which 
 the foundations of our world-empire, laid a century 
 before, were strengthened and deepened, and as 
 Mahan has written of the War of the Spanish Suc- 
 cession, " Before that war England was one of the 
 Sea Powers ; after it she was the Sea Power with- 
 out any exception." 
 
X] 67 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 NAVAL SUPREMACY AND FLEET DECAY 
 
 The Peace of Utrecht is one of the great 
 landmarks in European history. It affected an 
 astonishing aggrandisement of the position of 
 England in Europe, gave her commercial supremacy, 
 and opened wider way for her poUty and trade in 
 the New World. It marked, as the war which it 
 closed had determined, the decay of her ancient 
 rival, who had been her ally in the war. From 
 Spain we retained Gibraltar, Port Mahon and the 
 Isle of Minorca, and obtained the valuable privilege 
 called the " Asiento," or right to supply negro slaves 
 to the Spanish possessions in America, as well as 
 authority to send a ship laden with manufactured 
 goods once a year to the Spanish Main. France 
 surrendered to us Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and 
 the Hudson's Bay Territory. The Dutch were 
 deeply mortified at the result. The Spanish Nether- 
 lands had been saved from the hand of France, but 
 there was no share for them in the " Asiento," or 
 at Gibraltar or Port Mahon. They had, however, 
 taken no active part in the Mediterranean since 
 1706, and no heed was paid to their abstract claims 
 for colonies or stations. Through sheer exhaustion 
 they were declining. Their navy was shrinking 
 
 52 
 
68 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 from want of resources to maintain it, and they 
 gradually withdrew from the wars and the diplomacy 
 of Europe. 
 
 Although it would be impossible to estimate the 
 relative weight of the several factors ^naval, mili- 
 tary, economic and social which gave us the 
 supremacy we had attained, we may say with 
 certainty, in the words of John HoUond, quoted 
 in a previous chapter, that the naval part was the 
 thread that ran through the whole " wooft " of 
 the war. Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde and 
 Malplaquet have made more noise in the world. 
 But the controlling force in the whole war had been 
 our;dominance and the pervading influence of our 
 mastery of communications at sea. By this means 
 we carried on our industries and commerce un- 
 checked. By the one we gained riches at home, 
 supporting the demands of the war, and by the 
 other we won wealth and power from other lands, 
 which enabled us to establish our credit on an un- 
 assailable basis and to elevate the spirit of our people, 
 thus, as Macaulay says of the war, laying " the 
 deep and solid foundations on which was to rise 
 the most gigantic fabric of commercial prosperity 
 which the world has ever seen." Naval supremacy 
 is rooted in commercial prosperity, and without 
 the one the other cannot be maintained. 
 
 The peace of the seas which we had won, enabled 
 
X] THE PEACE OF THE SEAS 69 
 
 us to develop the enormous resources of our growing 
 Empire, and gave us means whereby to create the 
 commercial supremacy which was to enable us to 
 support the burden of the great wars that were to 
 come before the century closed. Walpole was a 
 peace minister. His object was to withhold the 
 country from the continental engagements which 
 threatened to entangle it, and he was enabled for 
 about a quarter of a century to pursue this policy 
 solely because the Navy was supreme at sea. 
 " Madam," he said to Queen Caroline one morning 
 in 1734, " there are fifty thousand men slain this 
 year in Europe, and not one Englishman." It was 
 naval supremacy alone that enabled a peaceful 
 alHance with France to be established in 1717, and 
 brought about the historic Quadruple AUiance of the 
 following year. 
 
 We may pass over a considerable period of un- 
 eventful character with a few observations, while 
 we recognize the great significance of the time. One 
 remarkable feature was a rapid revival of the Spanish 
 Navy, under the powerful inspiration of Alberoni, 
 but that new force had not ripened to the experi- 
 ence of our own. It was helpless, and was utterly 
 destroyed by Admiral George Byng, afterwards 
 Viscount Torrington, in the action off Cape Passaro, 
 on the 11th of August, 1718. Byng's secretary wrote 
 of the action that the EngHsh might be said rather 
 
70 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 " to have made a seizure than to have gotten a 
 victory." 
 
 Peace was maintained only by power, and English 
 naval power was used to impose peace upon Russia 
 in her struggle with Sweden in the Baltic, whence 
 we obtained naval stores, and where the balance 
 was being changed to our disadvantage. We must 
 observe also that peace was contributing rapidly to 
 the commercial and maritime prosperity of France 
 and French commerce and with it the development 
 of naval means in Louisiana, Guadeloupe and 
 Martinique, in the Mediterranean and Levant trade, 
 and in India and the East, where Pondicherry, 
 Chandernagore, the He Bourbon and the He de 
 France were outposts of enterprise and power, and 
 where a vast movement was inspired and directed 
 by those great statesmen and administrators Dupleix 
 and La Bourdonnais the latter a seaman possessing 
 a true instinct for sea power. 
 
 But, for the time being, France and England 
 were the great barrier against war, and for many 
 years were united in hostility to Spain. The fleet 
 maintained control in the Baltic, it protected 
 Gibraltar from a Spanish attack, and a detachment 
 under command of Admiral Hozier was sent to 
 Porto Bello, where it overawed the Spaniards, 
 though the ships were ravaged with pestilence, 
 and Hozier himself died (1726). Relations with 
 
X] VERNON AT PORTO BELLO 71 
 
 Spain were indeed becoming acute. Walpole might 
 strive for peace, but war was bound to come, and 
 it was declared in October, 1739. British commerce 
 had been subjected to impositions, searches and 
 stoppages in the Spanish possessions, and inhuman 
 cruelty was alleged by the West India merchants 
 to have been used towards the crews of English 
 ships. The case of *' Jenkins's Ear " Jenkins 
 was the master of a trading brig the ear that was 
 torn off, had created a prodigious sensation in this 
 country, and Walpole had been overborne. Spain 
 held Florida, Mexico and the countries to the south, 
 and Cuba, Porto Rico and part of Hayti, and we 
 held Jamaica, Barbadoes and other islands, besides 
 the thirteen American colonies extending from 
 Maine to Georgia. Admiral Vernon made an attack 
 upon the Spanish Central American possessions, 
 falling suddenly upon Porto Bello (Nov. 21st, 1739), 
 but he found little treasure at that port, whence the 
 silver galleons were accustomed to sail. He was 
 reinforced by ships under Sir Challoner Ogle, and 
 joined by 12,000 troops which came under the 
 command of Wentworth, but the attacks on 
 Cartagena and Santiago de Cuba were unsuccessful. 
 Smollett, who was surgeon's mate in one of the ships, 
 has given in Roderick Random a caustic account of 
 the events at Cartagena, where, as at Santiago, the 
 want of success was due to military failure. 
 
72 KOYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 Want of co-operation between naval and military 
 forces had led to Rooke's failure at Cadiz in 1702. 
 " We are here," Colonel Stanhope had written, 
 " not only divided sea against land, but land against 
 land and sea against sea." There had been bitter 
 jealousies during Peterborough's operations in Cata- 
 lonia in 1706. Of the situation at Cartagena in 
 1701, Vernon wrote that he hoped to have orders 
 to come home " being heartily sick of conjunct 
 expeditions with the Army." Later on it was 
 want of understanding between the naval and 
 military forces, represented by John Byng and 
 General Blakeney, that led to the loss of Minorca 
 and the execution of Byng. These failures might 
 be exemplified by other instances, and deserve 
 attention, because they have diminished the proper 
 influence and effect of sea power. 
 
 There was evidence also of a slow moral weaken- 
 ing within the Navy itself. There had grown up a 
 spirit of professional self-satisfaction, whence had 
 come no stimulus to efficiency, and no disposition 
 to welcome criticism from without. Hence had 
 arisen a tendency to unreality and formalism. The 
 long peace did not spur the Navy to progress 
 or change. Political embitterments affected it 
 adversely, and the limited use of the fleet had caused 
 its importance not to be realized. We were sub- 
 sidizing foreign soldiers to fight for causes that were 
 
X] OFFICERS AND SHIPS 73 
 
 only in part our own, and money and interest were 
 diverted from the naval service. The breath of 
 life and the inspiration of commanding minds was 
 wanting, and no standard existed of conduct nor 
 a prevailing spirit of honour to direct all men alike. 
 Some captains, like Hervey of the Superb in 1740, 
 were brutal, others were self-seekers, and a few were 
 men to whom patriotic loyalty to their chiefs and to 
 the nation's interests made no appeal. There was 
 corruption in administration, and the conditions of 
 pay resulted in fraud upon the men, and bad and 
 insufficient food, and harsh treatment filled the cup 
 of their misery. 
 
 Our ships were inferior to those of the French, 
 as was proved in the war. In 1719 the Navy Board 
 laid down a scale of dimensions which proved a bar 
 to progress, compelling shipwrights to observe formal 
 rules, while the French and Spaniards were making 
 many advances. Admiral Kjiowles wrote to the 
 Admiralty in 1745 that our 70-gun ships were little 
 superior to the French ships of 52 guns, and there 
 were bitter complaints that our ships were crank, so 
 that in blowing weather the lower-deck gun ports 
 could not be opened. The ships were also weak in 
 their scantling, which was a serious defect in winter 
 weather, and they were too light in broadside fire. 
 Fleets, moreover, were used in a manner that con- 
 tributed to ineffective action. To discuss tactics 
 
74 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 is impossible here, but the vigorous attack favoured 
 by Monk, De Ruyter and Tourville was out of favour, 
 and caution had taken its place. There was no con- 
 centration on any part of the line, and as far as 
 possible ship was opposed to ship from van to rear. 
 We ought not, however, to conclude that this rigid 
 system was always due to a reluctance to push things 
 to a finish. It sometimes arose from a reluctance 
 to accept risks. There was great fear that the end 
 of the line might be doubled on, and to forestall this 
 action the practice was to bear down rapidly together 
 in order to bring the whole fleet into action as soon 
 as possible. 
 
 The conditions which have been suggested bore 
 evil fruit in some of the events that followed. By 
 1743 the international weathercock had veered 
 round. The War of the Austrian Succession had 
 broken out. Spain had entered the continental 
 war and France was unofficially aiding her against 
 the Austrians in Italy. Before Fleury, the friend 
 of England, died, a treaty was signed between the 
 two countries for joint operations, but war between 
 them had not been declared when Mathews met 
 the allies off Toulon in February, 1744. Mathews 
 is described as "II Furibondo " in Horace Mann's 
 correspondence with Walpole, but he was a good, 
 though not a brilliant officer, and no coward. 
 Lestock, his rear-admiral, has been pictured in 
 
X] MATHEWS AND LESTOCK 75 
 
 unfavourable colours by historians. He was un- 
 conciliatory, austere in command, restless as a 
 subordinate, with few friends. Campbell says he 
 was " an artful, vindictive disciplinarian," and 
 Beatson asserts that he and Mathews " bore each 
 other a most rancorous hatred." Thus the con- 
 ditions were not favourable to success, and it is 
 worth while to note also that Mathews's age was 
 sixty-seven, and that of Lestock not much less, 
 while Nelson was only forty at the Nile and forty- 
 seven at Trafalgar. 
 
 The allied French and Spanish squadrons left 
 Toulon, with twenty-seven sail, on February 19th, 
 and Mathews, with twenty-nine ships, came up with 
 them three days later, but Lestock was several 
 miles to windward and to the rear. He made all 
 sail to join, but did not enter effectively into the 
 action. The Sailing Instructions had given sanc- 
 tion to his aloofness, and the Fighting Instructions 
 permitted him to make no use of his ships in 
 support of the Admiral. The signal for the line of 
 battle was flying when the signal to engage was 
 made, and he could not obey the latter without dis- 
 obeying the former ! In the van, in the Berwicky 
 was Captain Edward Hawke " the precursor of 
 Nelson " who compelled the Spanish ship Poder 
 to strike. In the centre, where some captains were 
 shaken by Lestock's inaction, were several gallant 
 
76 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 captains, and amongst them Edward Cornwall in 
 the Marlborough, who fell fighting with 22 of his 
 men. The allies were roughly handled, but the 
 action did not place either the discipline or the 
 intelligence of the Navy in a favourable hght, and 
 Mathews relinquished the pursuit. The "canker 
 of a long peace " had ravaged it. The business 
 ended in a series of courts martial, in which 
 Mathews was condemned to be cashiered, because 
 he had not pursued the aUies, while Lestock, who 
 had correctly observed regulations, was " honourably 
 acquitted." As to the captains, several of them 
 were awarded sentences according to their deserts. 
 There were other incidents at the time which 
 showed the state into which the Fleet had fallen. 
 HappUy this was the dark shadow that preceded 
 the dawn. The Northumberland, 74, was lost through 
 the unofficerlike conduct of her captain, Watson, 
 who was killed May 8th in 1744. Captain Elton of 
 the Anglesea, 44, suffered the same fate on April 22nd 
 in the next year, after rashly and disastrously engaging 
 a French privateer, to which his ship struck. Con- 
 fidence was lost. When Sir Charles Hardy left the 
 French at sea under De Rochambeau in 1744, the 
 Admiralty brought out from his retirement Sir John 
 Balchen, at the age of seventy-five, a veteran of 
 King William's wars, who drove the French to port, 
 and, as he returned, perished with his flagship, the 
 
XI] ANSON AND THE NEW SPIRIT 77 
 
 Victory and over a thousand men, in a great storm 
 in the Channel, on October 20th. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 ANSON AND HAWKE. THE REGENERATED NAVY 
 
 The decline which was noted in the last chapter 
 as preceding the dawn, forms a strange feature of 
 naval history, though one not inscrutable, and it 
 does not stand alone, for we shall find the same 
 disastrous influences operating later on. But 
 before the close of the War of the Austrian Suc- 
 cession in 1748, a new leaven was at work, which 
 was beginning to lift the Navy to a height then 
 unparalleled, though it could not save it from the 
 colossal failure associated with the name of Byng. 
 Anson and Hawke were the men of the new mould 
 Anson the great teacher, organizer and administrator, 
 and Hawke, whom Admiral Mahan has aptly de- 
 scribed as the " spirit " of the regenerated Navy. 
 
 Anson had shown great vigour in dealings with 
 pirates on the coast of South Carolina and in other 
 matters, and, when a commodore was required to 
 proceed against the Spanish shipping on the West 
 American coast, he was selected as one of the fore- 
 most seamen of the time. It has been said of him 
 
78 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 that he was " unchangeable of purpose, crafty of 
 counsel, in triumph most sober, in failures of 
 endurance beyond mortal man." In his memor- 
 able circumnavigation he had with him a band of 
 men who were fit to be comrades of a hero, men who 
 had no kinship with the Mathews, Lestocks and 
 others of their kind. With his flag in the Centurion, 
 60, he had in his company the Gloucester, 60, 
 Severn, 50, and three smaller vessels, and set sail 
 on the 18th of September, 1740, short of seamen, 
 and having 500 Chelsea pensioners in his ships, 
 instead of the young soldiers who were to have 
 formed part of his companj^ Scurvy broke out, 
 and bad weather, bad food and insufficient clothing, 
 with the effect of pestilential climates, afflicted his 
 squadron grievously. The ships separated in the 
 storms, some passing through Le Maire Strait and 
 some round Cape Horn, and when the Centurion 
 reached Juan Fernandez she had only 200 men alive 
 out of 400, and most of them were incapacitated by 
 disease and debility. The squadron was too weak 
 to do anything against Panama, and Anson, having 
 refitted his ships, encouraged his officers and men, 
 and determined to cross the Pacific. There he 
 intercepted the great Acapulco galleon on her way 
 to Manila. This vessel, being carried to Macao for 
 sale, proved to be worth more than 300,000, and 
 was the richest prize of the time. 
 
XI] ANSON'S SCHOOL OF SEAMANSHIP 79 
 
 After a long and adventurous cruise, the 
 Centurion reached Spithead on June 15th, 1744, 
 and Anson, promoted to be rear-admiral of the 
 white, went to the Admiralty before the close of 
 that year. Then and later he wrought a profound 
 change in administrative methods. The ships 
 which were built under his impulsion were not the 
 crank and lean-bowed craft of his recent experience, 
 but were improvements upon French models, and 
 the famous British " seventy -four " became the 
 established type. Anson's ships had been a school 
 of seamanship, several of his comrades rose to 
 distinction, and many of them rendered valuable 
 service to the State. His influence was felt through- 
 out the naval organism, and it will be always his 
 glory that he selected for high appointments officers 
 like Hawke, Boscawen, Saunders, Rodney, Howe, 
 and Keppel, and forged the weapons which most 
 of them were to wield. He was relentless and 
 remorseless in his efforts towards higher character 
 and true discipline, and keen resentment was 
 inevitably raised by the freedom with which he 
 subjected unfit officers to what was sarcastically 
 described as being " yellowed," that is appointed 
 to an imaginary " yellow squadron." 
 
 Anson had no opportunities of gaining fame in 
 great engagements, but when, as a vice-admiral, 
 he met De la Jonquiere off Cape Finisterre on 
 
80 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 the 3rd May, 1747, he wrought an important success 
 in masterly fashion. The capture of Louisbourg'in 
 Cape Breton by a Colonial expedition convoyed by 
 Commodore Warren in 1746, and danger in India, 
 had stung the French into great efforts, and De la 
 Jonquiere was to carry a strong force to America, and 
 detach Captain de Saint Georges, also with a strong 
 force, to India. Both squadrons sailed together, 
 fourteen vessels in aU, including Indiamen, with trans- 
 ports and merchant vessels, and they were to separate 
 at sea. Anson, with sixteen vessels, was to intercept 
 the squadrons, and by skilful handling he brought 
 them to action just as they were parting company. 
 He was in great superiority, for only nine of the 
 Frenchmen were fit to " He in a line " against him. 
 Anson formed no line of battle, but ordered a general 
 chase. The French fought most gallantly, and 
 inflicted serious loss upon us in officers and men, 
 but the victory was complete, six sail of the line 
 and four of the French India Company's ships 
 being taken, though many of the merchantmen 
 escaped. Thus a single action in European waters 
 near home prevented reinforcements reaching two 
 distant quarters of the world an example of the 
 all pervading influence of sea power. 
 
 The French, indeed, were unable to protect their 
 commerce at sea, and serious economic results 
 followed. Captain Thomas Fox, in June, 1747, 
 
XI] THE NEW LEAVEN AT WORK 81 
 
 commanding a small squadron, scattered the French 
 convoy from San Domingo, and captured forty- 
 eight prizes. The war had become world wide, and 
 from 1744 onward small squadrons were sent to 
 India, where the contest for power and commerce 
 was increasing. Very little was accomplished there 
 to our satisfaction, and even when Boscawen went 
 out one of the new race of officers with the most 
 powerful squadron ever seen in those waters, ten 
 sail of the line and five smaller vessels, he could do 
 little, because the soldiers failed him in the siege 
 of Pondicherry and he himself had no experience as 
 a general ashore. 
 
 The last important event of the war was Hawke's 
 brilHant action with De I'Etenduerp, on the 
 14th of October, 1747. A convoy of 250 mer- 
 chantmen for the West Indies was about to leave 
 Rochelle, and was to reach the destination after the 
 hurricane season. The French admiral had his 
 flag in the Tonnant, a splendid vessel of 80 guns, 
 superior to anything we had yet built, and with 
 him, to protect the large convoy, were seven other 
 ships of the line, and a 64-gun East Indiaman. 
 Hawke, whose conduct had shone brilliantly against 
 the spiritless background of Mathews's action, 
 was now a rear-admiral and had fourteen ships with 
 him, all inferior in individual strength to the 
 Frenchmen. 
 
 L B. N. 6. 
 
82 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 The admiral repeated the success of Anson 
 in the same way. When the strength of 
 L'Etenduere's squadron had been made out, a 
 general chase was ordered, and there followed a 
 desperate conflict, in which Hawke's ships were 
 much injured. The French admiral defended his 
 convoy nobly and successfully, and his captains 
 fought with great gallantry. L'Etenduere was 
 outnumbered, and six of his eight ships were 
 captured, much wrecked by our fire, but the 
 Tonnani was too powerful to be overcome, and broke 
 away with the Intrepide. The Nottingham, Captain 
 PhiUp Saumarez, and the ships of Captains Rodney 
 and Saunders, both to become famous admirals, 
 pursued, and Saumarez was killed. The French 
 merchantmen escaped, but without convoy, and 
 many of them were captured by our cruisers on 
 approaching their destination, for Hawke had 
 despatched a swift sloop to give tidings of their 
 coming. 
 
 Hawke has been styled the " precursor of 
 Nelson," and between these two great officers 
 there was certainly some kinship of temperament. 
 Nelson was possessed with a singleness of purpose 
 in pursuing his country's good that made him 
 regardless of self, and careless of prize money, 
 which was the reward of the service of many. The 
 same characteristics are found in Hawke who 
 
XI] THE PRECURSOR OF NELSON 83 
 
 might have detached some of his ships to deal with 
 the convoy, but preferred to keep his squadron 
 together for the purpose of defeating the striking 
 force of the enemy. " I have nothing so much at 
 heart as the faithful discharge of my duty ; this 
 shall ever be my utmost ambition, and no lucre of 
 profit or other views, shall induce me to act other- 
 wise." " As to myself it is a matter of indifference 
 to me whether, if I fight the enemy, they should 
 come out, with an equal number, one ship more 
 or one ship less.'* " If they can by any means be 
 destroyed, it shall be done." " For God's sake, if 
 you should be so lucky as to get sight of the enemy, 
 get as close to them as possible." These sayings 
 of Hawke's might have been said by Nelson, and 
 they illustrate the character of the great seaman, 
 whose commanding powers as a sea officer were yet 
 to be shown in the glorious action of Quiberon Bay. 
 Both nations had suffered disastrous losses to 
 their commerce, but the advantage, to the extent 
 of 2,000,000, rested with England. We had entered 
 upon the war badly, for the Navy had fallen from 
 its high estate, and if an enemy had had a powerful 
 fleet at sea, it would have gone very ill with us. 
 But, before the war closed, Anson, Hawke and 
 others, had added lustre to our naval annals. 
 Lapeyrouse-Bonfils, the French naval historian, 
 states that after the disaster to L'Etenduere, the 
 
 62 
 
84 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 French flag disappeared from the sea. Privateers 
 made a few prizes, and they almost always fell into 
 English hands. British naval forces passed the sea 
 without rivals. " And yet this sea power, which 
 might have seized French and Spanish colonies, 
 made few conquests from want of unity and per- 
 sistence in the directions given." 
 
 The inconclusive Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (April, 
 1748), left many questions unsettled, and gave 
 the promise of future trouble. Practically it left 
 the situation unchanged. France and England 
 relinquished the conquests they had made during 
 the war, and France abandoned the cause of the 
 Stuarts. Such a conclusion was perhaps inevitable 
 after the inconclusive character of the naval struggle. 
 There had been military defeat abroad, a Stuart had 
 landed on the coast of Scotland, and the hopes of 
 the Jacobites ran high. Exhaustion had fallen upon 
 the nations, and they hastened to make peace. In 
 effect it was only a truce. Were the fortunes of 
 the New World to be moulded by Englishmen or 
 Frenchmen ? Was India to be attached to the 
 dominions of England or France ? These were the 
 questions which the coming war was to settle, thus 
 shaping the destiny of mankind. 
 
XII] 85 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR AND WORLD DOMINION 
 
 The Seven Years* War, dating from 1756, began 
 actually in the previous year. There had been no 
 real peace, for no ferment had perturbed the world 
 by which we had not been stirred. The Channel, 
 the Ocean, the Mediterranean, India, the North 
 American coast, and the West Indies, all these 
 regions were, or became, the scenes of strife. 
 Inevitably we cannot here describe a world-wide 
 conflict. Our purpose must be rather to indicate 
 the general direction and character of the war, to 
 touch upon some salient features, and to arrive at 
 an understanding of certain lessons. 
 
 Men of progressive mind, of the mould of Anson 
 and Hawke, did not view the approach of war with 
 misgiving. They were in conflict with enormous 
 difficulties at home, in their work, and there were 
 some things in the camp of the enemy which they, 
 or some of them, did not know or fully realize. It 
 was not a system originated in peace that was to 
 be tested by the war. In the school of fighting the 
 reform of the fighting service began. In the lessons 
 of the fighting the need of better discipline had been 
 discerned. There must be no more failures like 
 
86 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 that of Mathews and Lestock. Thenceforth, under 
 the revised Articles of War, he who, through cowar- 
 dice, negligence or disaffection, failed to " relieve or 
 assist a known friend in view to the utmost of his 
 power " was adjudged, without alternative, to have 
 merited the penalty of death. The uniform first 
 established for officers in 1748 was not to be dis- 
 honoured, and the ferocity that was displayed 
 in the treatment of Byng was the grim measure of 
 the astonishment and indignation of the Government 
 and the service at this new instance of incapacity. 
 Anson's work had included the giving of a new 
 impulse to naval architecture and construction, 
 and though the dockyards were still in a sad state 
 of disarray, they were better administered. The 
 manning of the Navy was the most serious difficulty, 
 and extraordinary efforts were made to procure 
 men by the press rigorously applied, by bounties, 
 and even by accepting gaol-birds, and practically 
 to hold the rabble in awe, the Marines originating 
 in the Duke of York and Albany's Maritime Regiment 
 of Foot in 1666 were placed upon a permanent 
 footing in 1755 at the outbreak of the war. 
 
 The trouble began in North America in that 
 year. The French were expelling our colonists 
 from the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi, and 
 Fort Duquesne built at the fork of the former river, 
 on the spot whence the colonists had been driven, was 
 
xn] THE FRENCH IN NORTH AMERICA 87 
 
 the sign of their overthrow, made doubly despiteful 
 by the disastrous failure of Braddock to recapture 
 it. While our colonists were making their homes 
 in the coast region, Champlain and his comrades 
 had established settlements in Canada and Acadie, 
 and La Salle had carried his vessels from the great 
 lakes, by the Mississippi, to the Gulf of Mexico, where 
 the French were secure in the possession of Louisiana. 
 They were claiming all the country west of the 
 Alleghenies, and that great governor Montoalm 
 was laying his plans to cut off our colonists from 
 access to the west. Thus it was that when the 
 French sent out reinforcements under Dubois de 
 Lamotte, Boscawen had orders to intercept them. 
 He failed in his object, and captured on June 10th, 
 1755, only the Alcide, 64, and a smaller ship. This 
 act, with the seizure of the Esperance and some 
 trading vessels a little later, was denounced by the 
 French as piracy. Lord Hardwicke told the Duke 
 of Newcastle that we had done either too much or 
 too little. If we had meant to strike at all, we 
 ought to have struck hard. 
 
 Uncertain objects led to uncertain orders, and 
 Hawke at sea with sixteen sail, did not succeed in 
 preventing the return of De Lamotte to Brest, where 
 a squadron was being fitted for operations. Hawke 
 was recalled, and Admiral John Byng infdix 
 nomen ^replaced him. Boscawen*s squadron was 
 
88 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 paralysed by disease on the other side of the 
 Atlantic. Hawke had failed, and the French were 
 once more planning an invasion, this time under 
 command of Marshal Belleisle. A shameful panic 
 thereupon demoralized the land. Every French 
 port was bustling with armaments, and Newcastle's 
 government, denounced by Pitt, was ready to import 
 both Dutch and Hessians to defend us. The sea- 
 ward vocation of the country was forgotten. " The 
 clamours of the merchants," wrote Horace Walpole, 
 " sometimes reasonable, always self-interested, ter- 
 rified the Duke of Newcastle, and, while, to pre- 
 vent their outcries in the City of London, he minced 
 the navy of England into cruisers and convoys, 
 every other service was neglected." Newcastle's 
 fears did not infect Anson, but it is now impossible 
 properly to allocate responsibility for the distribution 
 of the fleet, though popular clamour seems to have 
 influenced it. Certain it is that the French were 
 not ready at Brest, that the invasion was an im- 
 possibihty, and that too large a force was maintained 
 in the Channel, while the position at Minorca, where 
 General Blakeney was calling for reinforcements 
 was neglected. 
 
 The result of all this was that 15,000 French 
 troops under command of the Due de Richelieu, 
 convoyed by that very able sea-officer the Marquis 
 de la Galissoniere, landed in Minorca, where Mahon 
 
XII] THE PENALTY OF BYNG 89 
 
 was blockaded by sea and land when Byng arrived 
 with a squadron of thirteen sail. He well knew 
 that sooner or later the place would fall unless men 
 could be landed, and he had no men available. 
 Therefore he had no choice but to bring De la 
 Galissoniere to action, which he did on the 20th May, 
 1756. The engagement has been much discussed. 
 It was inconclusive, and though the French lost 
 three ships, the main body escaped without serious 
 damage. There had been great bungling in the 
 handling of our ships, the naval fight had not been 
 fought to a finish, and then no help was extended 
 to the beleaguered citadel of Mahon. Instead, on 
 the advice of a council of war, that resource of 
 weak men, Byng left Minorca to its fate, and went 
 to Gibraltar lest an attack should be delivered there. 
 There followed a howl of indignation in England, 
 and a cry went up for a victim. Hawke had gone 
 out to replace Byng, who came home, and a court 
 martial on the 2nd February, 1757, found him 
 guilty of negligence, and condemned him to death 
 the only punishment authorized under the new 
 Articles of War. Byng was shot on the quarter-deck 
 of the Monarque in Portsmouth harbour on the 14th of 
 March. It was not without a pang that the members 
 of the court had condemned a brother officer to death ; 
 they would willingly have spared him the tragic 
 penalty of his failure ; but the service rebelled 
 
90 ROYAL NAVY [oh. 
 
 against the type of leadership which the unfor- 
 tunate admiral had exemplified. 
 
 It must be observed that events in Europe were 
 largely subsidiary or ancillary to the struggle for 
 dominion in the New World. Also that the 
 system of controlling an enemy by close blockade 
 had not at that time been perfected as it was later 
 by St Vincent. Intermittent watching not sufficing, 
 two several expeditions from Brest and Rochefort 
 and one from Toulon got to the westward, giving 
 the French commander-in-chief eighteen sail of the 
 line and five frigates. Pitt had succeeded New- 
 castle, and formed projects for the capture of 
 Louisbourg and Quebec, whereby French power in 
 North America might be destroyed. Accordingly 
 Boscawen, conveying Amherst with 13,000 troops, 
 in a hundred and fifty transports, sailed for Halifax, 
 and in July, 1758, Louisbourg was taken, the French 
 loss being four sail of the line burned and one captured. 
 Just a year later Vice- Admiral Saunders and General 
 Wolfe one of the happiest illustrations of complete 
 understanding between the two services in all our 
 annals left Spithead, and on the 17th February, 
 1759, Quebec feU before the dying hero in an action 
 which is glorious in all our military story, though 
 the essenjbial service of the Fleet is too often over- 
 looked by the historian. The mastery of the 
 seaman's art which Saunders displayed at that time. 
 
XII] THE NAVAL "ANNUS MIRABILIS" 91 
 
 a combination of daring caution, skill and command, 
 has rarely been surpassed. 
 
 The year 1769 was the annus mirabilis of the 
 century. It was the year in which the younger 
 Pitt was bom, and that witnessed not only the fall 
 of Quebec, but the victory of Minden, the capture 
 of Guadeloupe and Goree, and the third incon- 
 clusive action between Pocock and D'Ache on 
 the coast of Coromandel, which, combined with 
 the naval exhaustion of France, caused her to 
 abandon the East India Seas, and inevitably led to 
 the fall of French power in India. Still more, it 
 witnessed the sea victories of Boscawen and Hawke, 
 whereby England once again was saved. Thus we 
 have reached a " seamark " in our imperial history. 
 North America and India were slipping from the 
 hand of France, and the heart of the empire was 
 secure. But all this was not understood at the 
 time. The French plan was that Vice-Admiral de 
 Conflans should command the main fleet at Brest, 
 that De la Clue should join him from Toulon, and 
 that Thurot, a brave privateer with a squadron at 
 Dunkirk, should make a diversion against the coasts 
 of Scotland and Ireland. There came a time when 
 Thurot escaped to the Baltic and had to be watched 
 there, when Hawke was driven by storms off his 
 blockading station at Ushant, and when Conflans 
 put to sea. Panic stalked once more through the 
 
92 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 land, and Hawke was burned in effigy even on the 
 very day when he won imperishable fame. But 
 the first blow was struck on the 18th of August by 
 Boscawen, in a very fine action, equally gallant on 
 both sides, in which De la Clue was defeated, and 
 all hope of his joining Conflans came to an end. 
 
 A large body of troops for the intended invasion 
 under command of D'Aiguillon had been mustered 
 around Quiberon Bay, where transports were ready, 
 and Conflans was to issue from Brest, and escort 
 them to the intended place of disembarkation. 
 Hawke had been driven to Torbay by a great gale, 
 and the French admiral put to sea on November 14th. 
 The wind that favoured him also enabled Hawke to 
 get away from Torbay. Captain Duff, with a small 
 squadron, had been watching the transports in 
 Quiberon Bay, and only just escaped on the appear- 
 ance of Conflans, who had decided to remain in 
 the Bay, with the transports, until another gale 
 should blow Hawke from his station. He did not 
 know what manner of man Hawke was, nor foresee 
 the character of the attack. 
 
 Quiberon Bay lies about 150 miles south-east 
 from Ushant, protected from the west and south- 
 west by the Quiberon peninsula. Belle Isle, and 
 the rugged Cardinal rocks, with other dangerous 
 rocks and shoals, well known to the French, but 
 little to Englishmen in Hawke's time. It was on 
 
XII] HAWKE AT QUIBERON BAY 93 
 
 the 20th of November, with a gale from the westward 
 blowing, that Hawke sighted Conflans in his flag- 
 ship, the Soleil Royal, rounding the Cardinals. 
 Darkness was approaching, when Hawke in the 
 Royal George, 100 guns, " came swooping from the 
 west,'* and Conflans did not suppose that his 
 adversary would venture his fleet in those perilous 
 and uncharted waters, and attack at headlong speed, 
 in a heavy sea, with the wind driving him towards 
 a lee shore. But Hawke knew his ships and men, 
 and what risks he could run. His own sailing-master 
 remonstrated, but the Admiral was not to be held 
 back. " You have done your duty. Sir," he said, 
 " in showing the danger ; you have now to comply 
 with my order and lay me alongside the Soleil Royals 
 Thus was the battle gained, one of the most desperate 
 ever fought by a British fleet. The French ships 
 were scattered, many of them shattered by gun-fire, 
 some captured, others driven on shoals, and two sunk. 
 Conflans' flagship went ashore and was burned, with 
 another. Several other ships ran up the bay, threw 
 their guns overboard, and escaped into the Vilaine 
 river, where they remained for many months. Hawke 
 lost two ships on the rocks, but his victory was glorious 
 and decisive, and, night having fallen, he anchored the 
 fleet, " being on a part of the coast among islands 
 and shoals of which we were totally ignorant, without 
 a pilot, as was the greatest part of the squadron, and 
 
94 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 blowing hard on a lee shore." Hawke's name will 
 ever be immortalized by his magnificent victory over 
 men, the stormy seas and the perilous rocks off 
 \ Quiberon, whereby invasion was averted once more. 
 The victory was the Trafalgar of the time, without 
 precedent and without a successor for forty years to 
 come. 
 
 The Peace of Paris, November, 1762, did not 
 content the country, but it marked our triumph. 
 In North America, by cession from France and 
 Spain, we obtained an empire embracing Canada 
 and all the present United States east of the Missis- 
 sippi. We retained Tobago, Dominica, St Vincent, 
 and Grenada, in the West Indies ; and in India 
 the French military establishment was given up. 
 Louisiana passed to Spain. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 
 
 It has been said of the Seven Years' War that 
 while it continued the trade of England increased 
 every year, and that such national prosperity, 
 during a long, costly and bloody war had never 
 before been shown by any people in the world. The 
 French Navy had been practically annihilated, and 
 the main objection to the peace was that it left to 
 
xm] THE AMERICAN COLONISTS 95 
 
 France opportunities of buUding up her fleet anew. 
 They were opportunities of which she made good 
 use. The great work of the Due de Choiseul, which 
 ended in 1770, to be taken up later by M. de Sartine 
 and that able minister Turgot, was in effect to revive 
 and regenerate the Navy, in numbers, organization 
 and discipline, and to foster the alHance with Spain. 
 In England many causes led to a certain pause in 
 preparation for war, for which also there existed 
 an evident distaste, as when Corsica was given over to 
 France, being an aUenation which the veteran Admiral 
 Sir Charles Saunders would have made a casus belli. 
 The trouble with the American colonies began with 
 the Stamp Act of 1765, and was coming to a head 
 when Louis XV died in 1774. The great French 
 plan was to take advantage of our difficulties, and 
 again to threaten the heart of the empire, so that 
 power of resistance at its extremities might be 
 diminished. 
 
 Within the British service the war had borne 
 great fruit, and everything that conduced to fighting 
 efficiency was upon a better footing than before, 
 including the health of the seamen. All this was 
 shown in the infinit-ely better state of the squadrons 
 of Rodney and Hood, as, later, of St Vincent and 
 Nelson. The example of Captain Cook in fighting 
 scurvy and fever, and the work of Sir Gilbert Blane, 
 physician to the fleet in Rodney's time, and of others, 
 
96 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 efPected a wonderful change for the better. This was 
 the work of seamen, but under the rule of Lord 
 Sandwich, from 1771 onward, administration de- 
 cayed. Political corruption and jobbery again 
 worked their evil end, and money was voted which 
 was never applied to the purpose intended. Thus, 
 while in many respects the Navy was in a better 
 posture for fighting, there were serious defects, and 
 this at a time when, in 1778, it was to be matched 
 with the regenerated Navy of France, allied in 1779 
 with a respectable Spanish force, and in 1780 with 
 the small but efficient navy of the Dutch. Already 
 the admirals on the American station, where Howe 
 assumed command in July, 1776, had not been given 
 force sufficient to deal with the situation. American 
 privateers were ravaging commerce and cutting off 
 or menacing supplies, with the practical countenance 
 of France and Spain. In short we were about to be 
 presented with a situation analogous to that of 
 Spain in former times, with her great disjointed 
 empire, in a war which extended throughout the 
 world. 
 
 The surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, on the 
 17th of October, 1777, was the spark that kindled the 
 flame, and in February, 1778, the French recognised 
 the independence of the United States, and in March 
 the war began. As with the last war, so here we can 
 deal only with certain points of the conflict. The 
 
xm] WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPEISTDENCE 97 
 
 seizure of Pondicherry, and the arrival of Sir Edward 
 Hughes with eight sail of the line, followed three 
 years later by that great French officer Suffren, 
 marked the new conflict for dominance in India. In 
 home waters the situation was unfavourable, and when 
 Keppel encountered the French, under D'Orvilliers 
 off Ushant, in equal strength, on the 27th of July, an 
 inconclusive action followed in which neither fleet 
 suffered much damage. This effete performance was 
 followed by a very acrimonious wrangle between 
 Keppel and Sir Hugh Palliser, who was accused of 
 having prevented his chief from gaining a victory, and 
 Sandwich encouraged and permitted Palliser to bring 
 Keppel before a court martial . This fact is mentioned 
 in order to show how politics were influencing and 
 undermining discipline, as they too often do. 
 
 Meantime D'Estaing, with twelve sail of the line 
 and four frigates, had crossed the Atlantic, and ap- 
 peared off Sandy Hook on the 12th of July, finding 
 Howe at a great disadvantage . But, characteristically, 
 as a French officer, he withdrew rather than run great 
 risks, though the stroke might have justified bold 
 enterprise. Howe had pursued a masterly defensive, 
 and the French officer, on his part, showed no dis- 
 position to attack, so that the naval events of the 
 summer were inconclusive. Howe was relieved by 
 Byron and came home, with his brother the general, 
 resentful at the want of support that had been given 
 
98 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 to him during the trouble with the colonists. " He 
 had been deceived into his command, and he was 
 deceived while he retamed it." Political factions 
 and personal jealousies were undermining the spirit 
 of the Navy, and there was a saying that " if a naval 
 officer were to be roasted, another officer could always 
 be found to turn the spit." Sandwich's profligate 
 rule had disgusted and in some ways demoralized 
 the service. Howe was, he said, unwilling " to 
 trust the little reputation he had earned by forty 
 years' service, his personal honour and everything 
 else he held dear, in the hands of men who had 
 neither the ability to act on their own judgment, 
 nor the integrity and good sense to follow the advice 
 of others, who might know more of the matter." 
 So completely was the Navy sacrificed to party 
 that Barrington, a very distinguished officer, 
 refused to take command of a fleet. *'Who," 
 he wrote, " would trust himself in chief command 
 with such a set of scoundrels as are now in office ? " 
 These facts show that there existed a very serious 
 weakness in the service at a critical time. 
 
 Howe was succeeded by Byron known as 
 " Foul Weather Jack " from his ceaseless conflicts 
 with the elements and there was much inconclusive 
 manoeuvring, with the capture of islands in the West 
 Indies. It must not be supposed that the reluctance 
 of D'Estaing and other French admirals to engage 
 
xm] TRADITION AND PRACTICE 99 
 
 an enemy in the manner of Hawke, Howe and 
 Nelson, was due to cowardice. Their object was to 
 keep their fleets in being for some ulterior purpose, 
 such as attacking their enemy's possessions, ex- 
 hausting his resources, or weakening his commercial 
 and maritime power. Rodney, whose name was to 
 be raised to high fame in these waters, fresh from his 
 relief of Gibraltar, arrived on the West Indies station 
 at Santa Lucia on the 27th of March, 1780, and on the 
 17th of April to leeward that is west, for the east is 
 the persistent breeze of Dominica, having 20 sail, 
 met De Guichen, a brave and accomplished officer, 
 who had succeeded D'Estaing, and had 22 ships 
 with his flag. The French officer soon saw that his 
 opponent meant no formal parade, but a determined 
 attack with his whole force on the French rear. He 
 warded off the danger by turning his fleet, and both 
 fleets went north. Again the same opportunity 
 came to Rodney, but Captain Carkett, commanding 
 the leading ship, a bulldog seaman, failed to under- 
 stand, and, acting in the spirit of the old school, 
 made sail, followed by other ships, with the intention 
 of reaching De Guichen's van. Thus the action 
 became ineffective, and Rodney bitterly accused 
 his subordinates of deliberately wrecking the battle. 
 Carkett was unintelligent, but Rodney was reserved, 
 and appears never to have explained his intentions 
 to his captains, as Nelson did to his " band of 
 
 72 
 
100 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 brothers." After this action Rodney put his fleet 
 through a series of strenuous manoeuvres, and 
 twice came again into touch with De Guichen, 
 who, having the wind of him, declined to be brought 
 to action, and the operations remained inconclusive. 
 
 The pressure of the situation was now telHng 
 heavily upon our naval resources. * The capture, by 
 a French and Spanish force, of 63 sail of Indiamen, 
 transports and merchantmen, intended for the West 
 Indies, showed how commerce was menaced. When 
 the Dutch ranged themselves against us, the trade in 
 the North Sea had to be protected, and a squadron 
 of old vessels under command of Sir Hyde Parker 
 " Vinegar Parker " was engaged in the duties, and 
 had a sanguinary but inconclusive battle at the 
 Dogger Bank (5th August, 1781) with the Dutch 
 under Zoutman, each fleet fighting ship to ship in 
 the old style. 
 
 But the real scene of interest was across the 
 Atlantic, where the French were using their fleets 
 so intelligently that ultimately the independence 
 of the United States was estabUshed. Yet things 
 might have gone otherwise. The Comte de Grasse 
 was sent out from Brest with a great armament. 
 There was no blockade to prevent his issuing from 
 the port. So urgent and insistent were the demands 
 on the Navy that home waters were deprived of 
 an adequate force of ships of the Hne. There can 
 
XIII] RODNEY AND HeOD ^ 101 
 
 be little doubt that we lay under the shadow of 
 disaster. When Admiral Darby with a powerful 
 force was in the vicinity of De Grasse off the south 
 coast of Ireland, he did not strive to bring him to 
 action. He had other objects in view. Yet if 
 De Grasse had been destroyed there and then, the 
 history of North America might have been differently 
 written. On the other hand if De Grasse had an- 
 nihilated Darby, Gibraltar would not have been 
 relieved, a squadron and Indiamen for the Cape 
 of Good Hope might have been cut off, and a 
 reinforcement of ships and men might not have 
 reached the West Indies. 
 
 It was not easy for Sandwich to find a successor 
 to '* Vinegar Parker," who had been Rodney's second 
 in command. They had not agreed, and when Parker 
 had returned it was in high dudgeon. Samuel Hood 
 was chosen, one of our ablest sea officers, whom 
 Rodney knew weU, but a stern critic who had little 
 of admiration for his chief, or for some other officers 
 of the time. He thought Graves cunning and in- 
 competent, though posterity does more justice to 
 that officer. To Hood, Rowley was siUy, Pigot a 
 nonentity, and Douglas feeble to the verge of 
 imbecility. But as time went on Hood's chief 
 contempt was for his own chief, who, it must be 
 confessed, being a man much embarrassed bj^ want 
 of money, interested himself vastly in the huge 
 
102 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 booty at Saint Eustatius, which the Dutch declara- 
 tion of war had placed at his mercy, but of which 
 a large part was captured by the French under La 
 Motte Picquet on its way home. 
 
 The arrival of De Grasse did not bring the 
 results the French had looked for. He declined to 
 be entangled in an engagement with Hood on the 
 1st of May, 1781, and, as was customary, damaged 
 the English ships in masts and spars, reducing some 
 of them to temporary impotence. Later on he eluded 
 and baffled Rodney also. Graves, reinforced by 
 Hood, failed against the French at the Chesapeake, 
 and CornwaUis surrendered with his array at York- 
 town. Thus the independence of the United States 
 was won. 
 
 But the Navy could yet deal hard blows at the 
 enemy. While Hood was outmatched in the West 
 Indies, Kempenfelt, 160 miles west of Ushant, 
 practically annihilated a force which was to have 
 joined De Grasse. Kempenfelt is best known to 
 posterity because he was lost, with 800 souls, by the 
 capsizing of his old and rotten flagship, the Royal 
 George, at Spithead on the 29th of August, 1782. 
 
 "His sword was in its sheath. 
 His fingers held the pen. 
 When Kempenfelt went down. 
 With twice four hundred men." 
 
 It was well that he should die so, for the veteran 
 
xni] ACTION OF APRIL 12, 1782 103 
 
 ojBficer exercised with his pen a potent influence upon 
 the Navy, his insight and inspiration being a great 
 force in elevating its character and reforming its 
 tactics. 
 
 Rodney, in ill-health, had come home, but was 
 out with a fine squadron early in 1782. The French 
 squadron, to be joined by the Spaniards from Cuba, 
 and with troops from Martinique, was to faU upon 
 Jamaica, and the opportunity Rodney desired was 
 given into his hand. The French admiral was 
 hampered by his convoy of 150 sail, and had to 
 detach ships for its protection, so that on the great day 
 he had only 33 sail of the line with his flag, while 
 Rodney had 36 highly efficient and powerfully armed 
 ships. The light and unstable airs prolonged the 
 action. On the 8th of April De Grasse got to sea, and 
 on the 9th, recognizing his danger, he sent his convoy 
 into Guadeloupe, and was brought to action by the 
 necessity of saving two of his ships which had fallen 
 to leeward. He might have fallen upon the van 
 under Hood with superior force, but, with his ulterior 
 object in mind, he was content with a cannonade. 
 The great action took place on the 12th, and the 
 glory of the day was the crown of Rodney's career. 
 We cannot describe the breaking of the line, which 
 illuminated the new tactics of the fleet. The Ville 
 de Paris, flagship of De Grasse, with the admiral 
 on board, struck to the Barfleur, flying the flag of 
 
104 ROYAL NAVY [cii. 
 
 Sir Samuel Hood, and four other ships of the line 
 were taken. Much more might have been done. 
 Hood told Rodney that twenty ships might have been 
 captured, and would himself have liked to take up 
 the chase. " Come, we have done very handsomely 
 as it is," said Rodney. There was nothing in him 
 of Nelson's fiery resolve to destroy the enemy where- 
 ever he could be found. Sir Charles Douglas, 
 captain of the fleet, and Cornwallis and other captains 
 all deplored the failure to reap the full fruit of the 
 victory. Nelson afterwards expressed the same 
 view. 
 
 We conclude this record of the War of American 
 Independence with a reference to Howe's magnificent 
 relief of Gibraltar, long besieged, in 1782, and to 
 the five actions which Suiffren fought with Hughes 
 in Indian waters. In none of them did he take an 
 English ship, nor did he succeed in his main object, 
 but Frenchmen dweU with legitimate pride upon 
 his achievements, and we cannot but recognize that 
 Sufifren was a really great man and a fine seaman, 
 who inspired his fleet, and brought it within an ace 
 of victory. 
 
 We had been confronted in the war by the triple 
 alliance of France, Spain and Holland, at a time 
 when these powers were not embroiled in any con- 
 tinental complications, and we were at the same time 
 trying to subjugate our rebellious colonists. The 
 
XIV] RESULTS OF INSUFFICIENCY 105 
 
 French Navy was in a highly efficient state, while 
 our Navy had suffered relative decline. The cor- 
 ruption of the House of Commons, the virulent 
 bitterness of partizans, dissension in the Cabinet and 
 faction in the country, combined with the corrupt 
 administration of Sandwich, had undermined the 
 spirit of the service. We were outmatched in 
 numbers, and unable to defend what we had won. 
 But, though we lost the American Colonies, we 
 consolidated elsewhere our dominions, and the Navy 
 emerged the better from the struggle, which ended 
 in 1783, and already on the pathway to the period 
 of its greatest splendour. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. HOWE. PROJECTS 
 OP INVASION AND THE MUTINIES 
 
 Pitt, being a Peace Minister, strove hard to with- 
 stand the tempest that was driving us rapidly towards 
 war with Revolutionary France, but was swept into 
 the vortex when the Revolutionary army invaded 
 Holland, and the declaration of hostilities was 
 delivered in February, 1793. The army establish- 
 ments had been allowed to sink to the lowest degree of 
 weakness and inefficiency, but fortunately the Navy 
 continued upon the high level to which it had been 
 
106 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 raised. Throughout the long war its officers, with few 
 exceptions, were men of high capacity and courage 
 and not seldom of brilliant attainments, and though 
 the fleet carried within itself, on the lower deck, 
 seeds of disaffection which were to ripen into mutiny 
 four years later, its officers were able to lead it and 
 regenerate it, with the most advantageous results 
 for the country and the world. For a number of 
 years the miserable impotence of our efforts on land 
 was, in effect, matched with an unbroken record of 
 success at sea. 
 
 The French Navy had been greatly demoralized 
 by the Revolution. The monarchy had left behind 
 it the elements of a fine fleet in 75 ships with 6000 
 guns we had 115 ships with about 8700 guns but 
 the dockyards were in a shocking state, and bitter 
 rancour, and the memory of many hardships and 
 wrongs filled the ships with discontent or mutiny. 
 The old corps of officers had almost disappeared. 
 Its members were either emigres or had gone to the 
 scaffold, and with them had gone the spirit of dis- 
 cipline. Their successors were men who generally 
 received command because their civisme had been 
 declared or tried, and they eagerly donned the 
 republican cocarde. They were mostly drawn from 
 the mercantile marine, the habits of the trader 
 adhered to some of them, and many of them' gained 
 their first notions of naval tactics in the presence 
 
XIV] THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 107 
 
 of the enemy. Some of these officers were rank 
 cowards, and, even as late as the date of the Battle 
 of the Nile, Trullet, commanding the TimoUon, said 
 their poltroonery affected the men, and he had seen 
 them escaping from their ships when they ought 
 to have been fighting the enemy. In Humbert's 
 ships, in the disastrous expedition to Ireland (1798), 
 mutiny was rife, and when Bompard put to sea, his 
 unpaid men were in revolt, and he had to cut his 
 way through with his sword to see the ringleaders 
 put in irons. Yet as we shall see, the fighting spirit 
 was not dead. The French were, indeed, stimulated, 
 and not cowed by reverses. The spirit of the sea 
 eluded them, but on land they called a population 
 to arms, set a million men in array, and produced 
 perhaps the greatest military genius that the world 
 has ever known. Thus it was that Austria, Prussia, 
 Sardinia, Spain and Holland, which were at first 
 leagued with us against the Revolution, fell away 
 one after another from the alliance, until at last we 
 stood alone. 
 
 The great difficulty in 1793 was the raising of 
 men, which was effected by means of a very " hot 
 press " in aU the seaports. Every available seaman / 
 was caught in the naval net, and thereby a good deal " 
 of misery was caused, as also by the great rise in 
 the cost of provisions, which reduced the pay to 
 starvation level. Every vessel capable of service 
 
108 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 was made fit for her duties. The advantage of 
 coppering the ships had been fully recognized at the 
 beginning of the American War, and many went to 
 sea which would otherwise have rotted in harbour. 
 Three-decked ships were built in increasing numbers. 
 
 The strategy of the Admiralty and the Govern- 
 ment provided for the exertion of our naval power 
 chiefly in three regions of the world. In April and 
 May, twenty sail, under command of Lord Hood, 
 went to the Mediterranean. Before the close of the 
 year Sir John Jervis, the future Earl St Vincent 
 great sea officer and stem disciplinarian departed 
 with four sail of the line, and 7000 troops under 
 command of Sir C. Grey, to the West Indies where 
 Martinique, Santa Lucia, and Guadeloupe were 
 occupied, but the occupation was the work of 
 soldiers, and the chequered events did not affect the 
 results of the war. 
 
 In the Mediterranean, Hood, by agreement with 
 the Royalists, occupied Toulon, and the new garrison 
 also included Spaniards, Piedmontese and Neapoli- 
 tans. No counter-revolution resulted, as had been 
 expected, and the place being menaced by attack 
 on the land side, it was evacuated amid terrible 
 scenes, and Hood departed, carrying away some 
 French ships and crowds of refugees. Other ships 
 were destroyed, as well as the arsenal. At Toulon 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, then a young artillery officer, 
 
XIV] FRENCH MORAL RESTORED 109 
 
 for the first time set eyes upon the British fleet. 
 As we all know, in the coming years, to use a classic 
 phrase '' those far distant, storm-beaten ships, 
 upon which the Grand Army never looked, stood 
 between it and the dominion of the world." 
 
 In the Channel and ocean, where Howe was to 
 strike the first blow, the year 1793 was uneventful, 
 for the French were as yet powerless, though, under 
 command of Villaret-Joyeuse, extraordinary efforts 
 were made to prepare the main fleet at Brest. When 
 it put to sea on the 16th Ma}^, 1794, it was in a better 
 state than any French squadron we met during the 
 remainder of the war. Meantime Admiral Vanstabel 
 had escaped from Brest, in the previous December, 
 to cross the Atlantic, in order to convoy home a 
 huge fleet of grain ships, and Admiral Nielly in 
 April had also got away to meet him. Howe did 
 not maintain the close form of blockade which is 
 associated with the name of St Vincent. He had 
 not the same means, and he did not desire to keep 
 the French in Brest. Like Nelson, he wished to meet 
 them at sea. He had orders to intercept the grain 
 convoy, but Hke old British admirals, he knew that 
 the thing that really mattered was to destroy the 
 enemy's fighting fleet, and in effect Vanstabel's 
 convoy escaped him. 
 
 The two fleets were in sight of one another on 
 the 28th of May, and on that day and the next Howe 
 
no ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 made determined attacks on the French rear. On 
 the 28th the huge Revolutionnairej 110 guns, bore 
 the brunt, and having damaged some of her assail- 
 ants severely, made ojff to Brest. The following 
 two days were occupied in manoeuvring in light airs 
 and fogs, and on the morning of " the Glorious First 
 of June," the French were discovered ahead, on the 
 lee bow, with twenty-six sail, being one ship more 
 than Howe had with his flag. We shall not describe 
 the battle, much discussed as it has been. More 
 desirable it is to observe its salient features. It was 
 an exemplification, in its highest form, of the new 
 tactics of the fleet. Anson and Hawke, and Captain 
 Cornwall, who was killed in Mathews's action of 
 1744, had planted the seed, Kempenfelt had worked, 
 Clerk of Eldin (not a seaman) had written a book 
 on the new tactics, and Rodney had broken the 
 enemy's line on the 12th of April, 1782. But the 
 inspiration had come from France from the fleet 
 we were to beat from the teachings of Pere Hoste, 
 Bigot de Morogues, De Vilhuet, and Mahe de la 
 Bourdonnais. 
 
 [Howe revised the signals and removed the 
 tactical fetters, and on the " Glorious First of June," 
 made the action " close," by bearing down line^to 
 line with the object of breaking through at every 
 part,Vcutting off retreat, and making the enemy 
 fight the battle^out to the end. He had the wind, 
 
XIV] HOWE'S VICTORY 111 
 
 and passing through the line the ships were to 
 fight from " to leeward." " I don't want the ships 
 to be bilge to bilge," he said, " but if you can lock 
 the yard-arms so much the better ; the battle will 
 be the quicker decided." The order was not, and 
 perhaps could not have been obeyed in every part, but 
 the English ships were soon furiously engaged with 
 the Frenchmen. The most tragic incident was the 
 fight between the Brunswick and the Vengeur, which 
 was a desperate affair. Captain Harvey being mortally 
 wounded, and the Vengeur, after surrendering, 
 sinking with a great part of her company. We 
 captured six prizes, and if Howe had been a younger 
 man, might have captured more, but he was sixty- 
 eight, and worn out, though displaying an animation, 
 says an eye-witness, " of which, at his age, and after 
 such fatigue of body and mind, I should not have 
 thought him capable." 
 
 The effect of this splendid action, of other losses, 
 of Bridport's defeat of Villaret-Joyeuse on the 23rd 
 of June, 1795, and of the decay of the French fleet, 
 deprived it of power. The events described and others 
 in the Mediterranean then forced upon the French 
 mind the old idea, by evasion of the fleet, to strike a 
 blow at their enemy's heart, and projects of invasion 
 aboimded. The ridiculous Fishguard *' invasion," 
 under the notorious Tate, with 1600 liberated 
 criminals, who forthwith surrendered, was an 
 
112 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 absurdity and a comedy. The futile expedition of 
 Hoche to Bantry Bay, engendered in strife, and 
 dogged by misfortune, ended in perilous failure. 
 Villaret-Joyeuse quarrelled with Hoche, and Morard 
 de Galles was appointed, protesting that he possessed 
 none of the qualities necessary and that he was old, 
 ill and partially blind. " Another victory ! " wrote 
 the general, "he is the very man for the business ; 
 if his eyes are feeble we will see for him." But both 
 Admiral and General escaped by a miracle from an 
 English pursuing ship, and were not with their 
 friends when they landed at Bantry landed without 
 a guinea, a tent, or a horse to drag their four useless 
 guns. The Frenchmen who stole back to Brest were 
 thankful that nothing worse had happened to them. 
 There was a subsequent project of landing 
 70,000 men in England, under the aegis of the 
 French, Spanish and Dutch fleets for our former 
 alUes were now against us but Jervis's splendid 
 triumph off Cape St Vincent, on the 14th of February, 
 followed by Duncan's great and not sufficiently 
 appreciated victory at Camperdown, on the 1 1th of 
 October, 1797, put an end to the whole scheme. It 
 was revived, however, against Ireland in 1798, where 
 the rebellion seemed to promise results, but such was 
 the pressure of the British fleet that the expedition had 
 to be divided into six expeditions, of which five put to 
 sea, two being utter failures and two disasters, while 
 
XIV] THE GREAT MUTINIES 113 
 
 only one, that of Humbert, attained an impotent 
 measure of success. 
 
 We see, therefore, once again the Navy shielding 
 the Empire's heart, defeating its enemies at sea, and 
 extending its sway, for this was the period in which 
 we were enriched with the splendid acquisitions 
 of the Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon and other places 
 won from the enemy. The Mediterranean events 
 shall be dealt with in the next chapter. 
 
 But there is another side to the picture. The 
 seeds of disaffection which have been aUuded to, 
 were now breaking into the evil growth of mutiny, 
 and the year 1797, which opened so brilliantly, 
 became one of gloomy character for the country. 
 Finance was in a desperate condition, and the Bank 
 of England suspended its cash payments. In April 
 the seamen at Spithead became openly rebellious, 
 dismissed their officers, and hoisted the red flag. 
 Their grievances were many and real, their demands 
 were moderate and they maintained some of the forms 
 of discipline. When their claims had been granted, 
 with promise of an amnesty, the mutiny came to 
 an end. It broke out, however, with more menacing 
 and criminal features at the Nore, presenting the 
 appearance of revolution, and causing the seamen 
 at Spithead to declare that the conduct was a 
 " scandal to the name of British seamen." If it 
 had not been for good and capable officers, and 
 
 L. B. V. S 
 
114 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 chiefs like Howe and St Vincent, the situation 
 might have proved very dangerous. But Duncan's 
 victory at Camperdown showed that the malady of 
 mutiny was not really deep, and that the Navy was 
 sound at heart after all. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 NELSON, THE MEDITERRANEAN AND THE NILE. 
 THE PEACE OF AMIENS 
 
 The brilliant events in the Mediterranean, which 
 were made illustrious by the battle of the Nile, 
 were contemporary with some of the occurrences 
 that have been described. There were two theatres 
 of operations in the same war, for Bonaparte, while 
 shaping his great Mediterranean policy, which in- 
 volved the subjugation of the states of Italy, with 
 a splendid aspiration towards dominion in India, 
 was still seeking to weld into his combination 
 against us, the Spaniards, the Dutch and the 
 Northern Powers. Here in the Mediterranean we 
 meet Nelson, captain of the Agamemnon in 1793, an 
 officer not much known at that time, nor particu- 
 larly well liked, but destined to become the most 
 popular of captains and the greatest of admirals. 
 The profitless occupation of Corsica has obtained 
 
XV] THE SPIRIT OF NELSON 115 
 
 its chief celebrity owing to the fact that Nelson 
 contributed much to the success at Bastia and lost 
 his right eye at Calvi. Hotham had succeeded Hood, 
 and being an officer of the older type, he conducted 
 his action of March, 1795, in such an inconclusive 
 manner that the contempt of Nelson was evoked. 
 Nelson believed that not only the Qa Ira and Censeur, 
 which he had been chiefly instrumental in capturing, 
 would have fallen to us, but that the whole French 
 fleet would have been destroyed. Almost in the 
 words of Rodney, after the engagement of the 
 12th of April, 1782, Hotham said to him, "We 
 must be contented ; we have done very well " ; but 
 Nelson wrote to his wife, '' Now had we taken ten 
 sail, and had allowed the eleventh to escape, when 
 it had been possible to have got at her, I could never 
 have called it well done." 
 
 The French were reinforced by six sail of the 
 line, under command of Renaudin, the hero of the 
 Vengeur on the Glorious First of June a force 
 which the Admiralty had allowed to slip round from 
 Brest, to Nelson's surprise and Admiral Man came 
 out therefore with reinforcements. A second incon- 
 clusive action took place on July 13th, Hotham 
 recalling his ships from the chase. Knowing what 
 Nelson afterwards accomplished at the Nile, we may 
 say with certainty that a decisive victory might have 
 been attained, and then the history of the war would 
 
 82 
 
116 KOYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 have been written differently. The Riviera road 
 would have been made impassable to the French army, 
 the splendid actions of Bonaparte might never have 
 been fought, the whole history of Italy would have 
 been changed, and probably Spain would have kept 
 aloof from the French alliance. 
 
 Jervis replaced Hotham, and immediately im- 
 parted new vigour to the squadron, but the Spaniards 
 declared war on the 6th of October, 1796, Corsica 
 became untenable and was abandoned, and Admiral 
 Man, who was at Gibraltar, thinking an impossible 
 task had been imposed upon him, in orders received 
 from Jervis that he should proceed from Gibraltar 
 to join the flag at Elba, came home instead, to the 
 exasperation of the Admiral. Thus the abandon- 
 ment of the Mediterranean became necessary, so 
 unfortunate for us in its consequences, and " so 
 dishonourable to the dignity of England," said 
 Nelson, " whose fleets are equal to meet the world 
 in arms," and thus, too, the battle of the 14th Feb- 
 ruary, 1797, was fought off Cape St Vincent, instead 
 of in the inland sea. 
 
 That famous St Valentine's Day battle has been 
 many times described. Owing to a signal made by 
 Jervis, directing a faulty tactical movement, it 
 would not have proved decisive if Nelson had not 
 disobeyed the order, and taken upon himself to wear 
 out of the line, and stand down to meet the Spanish 
 
XV] ST VALENTINE'S DAY, 1797 117 
 
 admiral in the Santisima Trinidad, the largest 
 ship then afloat. Nelson's ship, the Captain, was 
 a 74, and after being engaged with the Spanish 
 flagship and others, came into close action with 
 the San Nicolas, 84, and the San Josef, 112, both of 
 which were captured by boarding. Nelson and his 
 comrades passing over from one ship to the other. 
 CoUingwood in the Excellent took a fine part in this 
 episode, as did Troubridge in the Culloden, in the 
 great result, but the glory of the day was Nelson's, 
 and Jervis gladly recognized the worth of such 
 splendid disobedience. The merit of the achieve- 
 ment was that Nelson had realized the small power 
 of resistance possessed by the Spaniards, and knew 
 what risks he could run. He had said, " The 
 Spanish fleet is ill-manned, and worse officered, 
 I fancy." The result of the victory has already been 
 indicated. It defeated the combined purpose of 
 the French and Spanish fleets, and destroyed all 
 immediate prospects of invading England. It was 
 on the 24th of July in the same year that Nelson lost 
 his right arm in the attack on Santa Cruz, Teneriffe, 
 an operation which ended in failure. 
 
 We come now to that remarkable illustration of 
 the imagination, the enterprise, the daring and the 
 moral courage of Bonaparte, the expedition to 
 Egypt in 1798. All his plans were laid during the 
 period when we had abandoned the Mediterranean, 
 
118 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 and when the pathway to Egypt and to his ambitions 
 in India lay open. It was known that a great 
 armament was preparing at Toulon, and that the 
 Spaniards had some twenty-five ships ready for an 
 enterprise at Cadiz. St Vincent was blockading 
 the latter port, but detached Nelson, anticipating 
 the views of the Admiralty, to observe Toulon. 
 Nelson, unfortunately having with him only three 
 sail of the line, three frigates and a sloop for the 
 previous administration had not provided enough 
 ships and St Vincent could spare no more looked 
 into Toulon on the 17th of May. 
 
 Then arose a gale in which his flagship, the 
 Vanguard, was dismasted. She was towed and 
 piloted by her consorts for shelter and repair to 
 San Pietro, Sardinia, while the three frigates and 
 the sloop had departed to Gibraltar and were not 
 seen by Nelson for months. By extraordinary 
 exertions, the Vanguard was refitted within four 
 days, but when the three ships came again off Toulon, 
 they found that the great French armament, which 
 they had seen, had departed. Admiral Brueys, with 
 twelve sail of the line, and a number of frigates, 
 accompanied by a cloud of transports, had put to 
 sea on the 19th, favoured by the wind that had 
 blown Nelson off, and after taking possession of 
 Malta and being joined by convoys from Genoa, 
 Ajaccio and Civita Vecchia, had proceeded on his 
 
XV] FRENCH EXPEDITION TO EGYPT 119 
 
 course to Egypt. We cannot resist the conclusion 
 that if St Vincent could have provided Nelson with 
 a sufficient force, it would have been easy to prevent 
 the several sections of the invading army from 
 joining forces. The reinforcement did not come 
 until the 7th of June, nearly three weeks after the 
 French had put to sea, Troubridge arriving with 
 tn 74's and the 50-gun ship Leander. 
 
 Now descended upon Nelson the grievous dis- 
 ability of the want of frigates to act as the eyes 
 and ears of his fleet. He had no swift cruisers or 
 destroyers, no aeroplane and no wireless telegraphy 
 to help him. Only the speechless sea surrounded 
 him, and he passed within the close vicinity of the 
 enemy without knowing it. The French were well 
 aware of the perils that surrounded them in this 
 stealthy enterprise. They were indeed within an 
 ace of terrible disaster. Sulkowski, who was in a 
 position to know the mind of Bonaparte, wrote in 
 alarm at the critical situation which would confront 
 the vast army if a superior enemy should appear, 
 and compel them to fight with their vessels encum- 
 bered with baggage and mihtary stores, and having 
 to defend a vast and incoherent convoy. 
 
 When the French arrived before Alexandria on 
 the 1st of July, and learned that Nelson had left the 
 port on the previous day, they thanked their stars 
 for escape from the perils that had menaced them. 
 
120 ROYAL NAVY [CH. 
 
 " The presence of the English had shadowed our 
 horizon," wrote Vivant Denon, who had gone ahead 
 of the fleet in the Junon ; " when I remembered 
 that three days before we had deplored the calms 
 that held us back, and that without them we 
 should have fallen amid the enemy's fleet, I vowed 
 myself thenceforward to fataUsm and commended 
 myself to the star of Bonaparte." 
 
 It was realized that Nelson might return at any 
 hour, and therefore the troops were sent precipi- 
 tately ashore, while the squadron, unable to enter 
 the port, and fearing the risk of going to Corfu, went 
 into Aboukir Bay, there to await the onslaught of 
 Nelson. Such was the invasion of Egypt, which 
 ended in the destruction of a fleet and the surrender 
 of an army. After^his visit to Alexandria, Nelson, 
 still seeking the French, had gone to Sjn^acuse, and 
 there, with the persuasion of force, and a letter 
 from Acton, the NeapoUtan Prime Minister, had 
 secured the revictualling of his fleet, notwithstanding 
 the Neapolitan treaty with France. It was during 
 this long cruise that he imparted to his captains 
 his " band of brothers," as he called them his ideas 
 as to his plan of action on meeting the enemy at 
 sea or at anchor. It was in the latter situation that 
 Nelson found the fleet of Admiral Brueys, lying in 
 an irregular line about three miles from the shore in 
 shallow water. The French fleet was nominally 
 
XV] BATTLE OF THE NILE 121 
 
 superior to the English, but in effect it was not so, 
 because Nelson's ships were in a state of hard dis- 
 cipline, while the reverse was the case with the 
 French. 
 
 The battle began on the 1st of August, just as the 
 sun touched the horizon. Nelson's plan was to 
 overpower the French van and centre, and, while 
 the Goliath, followed by four other ships, passed 
 inside the French line, raking the ships with a ter- 
 rific fire. Nelson in the Vanguard, followed 
 by several other ships passed outside. Thus by 
 a tempest of fire the French van was crushed. A 
 tremendous conflict took place in the centre, where 
 was the French admiral (who was kiUed) in the 
 Orient, 120, with the Franklin and Tonnant, both 
 80's. The Bellerophon and Majestic suffered very 
 severely, but the French flagship blew up, a terrible 
 disaster for the French. In this way the victory 
 was won. In addition to the Orient, the Timoleon, 
 being driven ashore, was burnt by her crew, and nine 
 sail of the line were captured. Never in modem war 
 had there been a victory so complete. The Guil- 
 laume Tell and Genereux were the only French line 
 ships that escaped, and both of them were subse- 
 quently captured. 
 
 Nelson arrived at Naples in a blaze of glory, 
 which had the result^of ^'placing him under a shadow, 
 the personal reasons for which must be sought in 
 
122 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 the biographies. It is impossible to regard the 
 subsequent handling of the fleet with much satis- 
 faction. If a strong force had been left in the 
 Eastern Mediterranean, the grip on the French army 
 in Egypt would have been tighter, and Napoleon 
 might not have returned. If the whole fleet had 
 been concentrated in the Western basin, there 
 might well have been no need for Trafalgar. Bruix, 
 with twenty-five sail of the line, including four of 
 110 guns and two of 80, left Brest, under the nose 
 of Bridport who, besides, had insufficient force 
 and appeared in the Mediterranean. But our ships 
 were scattered, and ho was not interfered with. 
 He reached Toulon, ranged along the Italian coast 
 to assist the French armies, and in due course re- 
 turned to Brest, carrying with him a somewhat 
 unwilling Spanish squadron. 
 
 Pitt was successful in creating a second coalition of 
 the Powers against France, and the year 1799 opened 
 with splendid prospects. But Austria wavered, 
 and when the Peace of Luneville was signed in 
 February, 1801, the great coalition came to an end, 
 leaving us without an ally on the continent. ^The 
 naval events of the period cannot detain us. They 
 were neither important nor decisive. Efforts were 
 scattered, but in the many combined operations, the 
 'Navy always did its duty well. It was sometimes 
 the object that was at fault, and the soldiery that 
 
XV] NELSON AT COPENHAGEN 123 
 
 failed. However, we took Malta, defended Elba, 
 and at length landed Sir Ralph Abercromby's army 
 to act effectively in Egypt. The Northern Coalition, 
 in which Russia, Prussia, Denmark and Sweden 
 were ranged against us, was in pursuit of Bona- 
 parte's aims of a " Continental System," which 
 should strike at our trade by closing the ports of 
 Europe against our ships. Therefore, in March, 1801, 
 Sir Hyde Parker, with Nelson as second in command, 
 went with a fleet to compel Denmark and Sweden 
 to desist from this exclusive policy. In the attack 
 on Copenhagen Nelson once more showed his 
 supreme qualities as a fighter of battles. Parker 
 relinquished the critical business to him, and issued 
 orders for recall, which Nelson might regard as 
 permissive if he desired. Nelson, looking with the 
 telescope to his blind eye, could not see the signal. 
 It was a desperate business, and Nelson having 
 taken possession of his prizes, hastened to withdraw. 
 The object was attained, and the Northern Coalition, 
 or Armed Neutrality as it was called, ceased to 
 exist. 
 
 There was one other engagement in the war to 
 which allusion may be made. This was the double 
 action of Sir James Saumarez, which defeated a 
 new scheme of naval concentration at Cadiz. Linois 
 coming from Toulon with three ships, and knowing 
 his opponent was before him in superior force, took 
 
124 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 refuge at Algeciras. There Saumarez attacked him 
 in most gallant style, and not without loss. Then 
 Linois, with a Spanish squadron in his company, 
 put to sea, and ran out into the ocean. There 
 Saumarez again attacked, and two big Spanish 
 ships were destroyed, with a loss of 2000 men. 
 
 The naval situation was hopeless for Bonaparte, 
 now First Consul. Everywhere triumphant on 
 the continent, the British Navy had proved both 
 sword and buckler to the Power which stood in the 
 pathway of his ambition beyond the sea. Respite 
 was sought by both countries from the terrible strain 
 of the war, an overmastering desire for peace existed 
 among the peoples, and after long negotiations 
 the transient Peace of Amiens was signed on the 
 27th of March, 1802. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 IDEAS AND PLANS OF BONAPARTE 
 
 The Peace of Amiens was merely a truce, and 
 there was yet need for a supreme effort on the part 
 of Bonaparte if all his projects against England were 
 not to fail. In this country few people were well 
 pleased with the settlement that had been arrived 
 at. Addington had succeeded Pitt, and the nation 
 was not satisfied to find that after so many sacrifices 
 
XVI] OBJECTS OF BONAPARTE 125 
 
 their enemy remained unshorn by reverses in the 
 war. France was, in fact, ringing with the noise of 
 a diplomatic triumph. Elba and Piedmont were 
 annexed ; the States of Parma were occupied ; the 
 Italian Republic was Bonaparte's ; Germany was 
 partitioned ; Holland was a vassal ; Austria was 
 crushed and broken ; Switzerland had been brought 
 under the protection of France ; and Louisiana had 
 been wrung from Spain. 
 
 There were, it is true, but few means for under- 
 taking maritime war. The remnant of the fleet was 
 dispersed, and the expedition to San Domingo had 
 exhausted many resources. The schemes in the West 
 Indies were unrealized ; and the finances were in a 
 shocking state. But nothing had occurred to darken 
 the First Consul's dream of a world dominion. 
 The Treaty of Luneville, which was not affected by 
 the Peace of Amiens, had freed him from continental 
 embarrassments. The political mission of Sebas- 
 tiani, and that of General Decaen as Captain-General 
 of the French forces in India, had revealed his 
 purposes. But he had realized that not for ten 
 years to come could he hope to muster a fleet that 
 could be fairly matched with the British. He 
 hoped to accomplish his purposes in alliance with 
 Spain and Holland, and in all his invasionary 
 schemes he had counted on rebellion in Ireland as 
 a chief factor for success. 
 
126 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 With the exception of Trinidad and Ceylon we 
 had surrendered our conquests, but the provision 
 that we should restore Malta to the Knights of 
 St John, virtually handing it over to France, was 
 peculiarly obnoxious to the nation and the Nav3^ 
 Whitworth, our ambassador in Paris, spoke of the 
 island as the " watch-tower of Egypt," and to Nelson 
 it was '* a most important out- work of India." 
 Neither Addington in 1803, nor Pitt after his return 
 to power in 1804, would tolerate the idea of surrender- 
 ing Malta. The First Consul knew how little cause 
 we had to be satisfied, and dreaded that we might 
 seize the initiative, which he regarded as the begin- 
 ning, middle and end of warfare. Peace, he said, 
 was only conditional so long as we could throw our 
 Navy and our gold into the scale. Most French 
 historians, including Thiers and Albert Sorel, lay 
 the responsibility for the new outbreak of war at our 
 door. 
 
 It is certain that the First Consul was exasperated 
 by what had occurred. It was reported to him that 
 the Navy, after its long efforts, was in a very bad 
 state. No one could remember seeing it in a con- 
 dition so deplorable. The vast expenditure on the 
 Army had diverted suppHes from it. The ships 
 were rotten and reeking with disease ; the officers 
 demoralized ; and the men mutinous and unpaid. 
 The ravages of revolution and the effects of disastrous 
 
XVI] CONDITION OF THE TWO FLEETS 127 
 
 war had wasted it. The Jacobin spirit ranged the 
 men against their officers, and the zealous few 
 strove long in vain to break through the tangle 
 of corruption and fraud. Toulon was exhausted, 
 and stores and magazines were empty. Wood was 
 wanting for the building of ships. Brest was in a 
 state almost equally deplorable, and there, through 
 treachery, a ship of the line, the Patriote, was burnt. 
 '' II manque de tout," said CaffareUi, the naval 
 prefect, and when war broke out everything re- 
 mained to be done. 
 
 The First Consul never understood well the 
 conduct of naval affairs. He thought it was possible 
 to dare, and yet not to risk. He strove with all his 
 might to replace sloth by energy and neglect by 
 activity, but he could neither give the fleet the will 
 to strike nor for many months conjure away the 
 profound maladies that afflicted it. 
 
 The British fleet had also gone through a trying 
 period, but its officers were men of high confidence, 
 and the cheery courage with which the winter 
 blockades were borne was proof enough of the 
 quality of the men. There was waste and corruption 
 in the dockyards, under the Navy Board, and St 
 Vincent brought about the appointment of a Royal 
 Commission to inquire into irregularities, frauds and 
 abuses, which was followed by another commission 
 " for Revising and Digesting the Civil Affairs of the 
 
128 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 Navy." But the Navy had been kept practically 
 on a war footing during the peace, and had never 
 been better found nor better supplied, nor had the 
 men ever been better fed or clothed. At the out- 
 break of war we had 39 sail of the line and many 
 frigates, while the French had only thirteen avail- 
 able, and those in a bad state. But our number 
 was insufficient, and when Lord Barham went to 
 the Admiralty in the next year, he was utterly aston- 
 ished at the little care there had been, in this material 
 matter, in " maintaining the empire of the sea." 
 
 Our conduct of the war was based on the sys- 
 tem of blockade, and the blockade extended from 
 Toulon to Flushing. Nelson was off Toulon with 
 nine sail of the line in July, 1803, and he had every- 
 thing to provide, including the establishment of a 
 base at Maddalena. Latouche-Treville, the French 
 admiral, was a man of surprising vigour and initia- 
 tive, and was rapidly reviving the fleet. Nelson's 
 principle was not to hold the French in Toulon, 
 but to get them out to sea, where he might defeat 
 them. At Brest, gallant Cornwallis rode out many 
 a gale at his station off the Black Rocks, bearing 
 up sometimes for Torbay for refit and repair, and 
 organizing a most efficient system of reliefs. Like 
 Nelson he would have liked to meet the French, 
 but in those narrow waters there was no better 
 method than a close blockade on St Vincent's 
 
XVI] FRENCH PROJECTED INVASION 129 
 
 system. Some French ships returning from San 
 Domingo got into Ferrol and Corunna, and those 
 ports were blockaded by the statesmanlike Pellew 
 and the vigilant Cochrane, and a close watch was 
 kept also upon Rochefort and Lorient. The blockade 
 was extended by Lord Keith in the Downs, who 
 watched the coasts from Havre to the Texel. 
 
 There was no certainty as to the actual purposes 
 of Bonaparte. Cornwallis thought every contin- 
 gency must be kept in view. Lord MelviUe, First 
 Lord of the Admiralty, feared that ships might 
 break out from the ocean ports, join the Toulon 
 squadron, and endeavour to crush Nelson. Nelson 
 also inclined to this view, though sometimes he 
 thought that a mission to Ireland was intended. 
 British officers never attached much importance 
 to the invasionary flotilla of flat-bottomed boats, 
 which was being assembled in the ports. They 
 did an immense amount of damage to it, by 
 courageous inshore attacks and cutting out ex- 
 peditions which constitute a dramatic page of the 
 romance of the Navy. Under the pressure of the 
 blockade Bonaparte's own plans constantly changed. 
 There was a time when he said, " Let us be masters 
 of the Channel for six hours and we shall be 
 masters of the world." Ganteaume, commanding 
 the squadron at Brest, told him this enterprise of 
 evasion would be " extremely bold and extremely 
 
 L. R. N. 9 
 
130 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 perilous." When Forfait wrote to the First Consul 
 describing the redoubtable character of the flotillas, 
 Admiral Decres, Minister of Marine, said his assertions 
 were monstrous and absurd paradoxes, coming from 
 one who had never left the shore nor heard the 
 whistle of a bullet. 
 
 In December, 1803, and again in 1804, Bonaparte 
 was urging Admiral Ijatouche-Treville to deceive 
 Nelson into thinking an expedition to Egypt was 
 intended, and then to come round and join forces 
 he was to release at Cadiz and Rochefort, and with 
 them to appear in the Channel. But Latouche- 
 Treville died in August, 1804, and Villeneuve, who 
 replaced him, had orders to leave Toulon, effect a 
 junction with the Rochefort squadron, cruise to 
 the West Indies, seize our colonies, proceed to 
 Surinam and return to relieve the blockade of Ferrol. 
 Fresh orders gave directions that the Toulon and 
 Rochefort squadrons should go westward inde- 
 pendently. Nelson foresaw these possibilities and 
 others, and said, " Whatever may be their des- 
 tination I shall certainly follow, be it even to the 
 East Indies." But on the 14th December, 1804, 
 Villeneuve wrote to Napoleon deploring the weakness 
 of his squadron, and declaring it to be unfit to go to 
 sea. The truth was that the stringency of the 
 blockade forbade the co-operation of the French 
 admirals owing to the doubt as to their escape 
 
XVI] MOVEMENTS OF THE FRENCH 131 
 
 and the time at which such escape might take 
 place. 
 
 The first move in the game was made in January, 
 1805, by Admiral Missiessy, who escaped from 
 Rochefort during the temporary absence of Sir 
 Thomas Graves, and went to the West Indies, 
 pursued by Admiral Cochrane. He saw nothing 
 of Villeneuve, and, without accomplishing anything, 
 returned, and had the good fortune to reach Rochefort 
 unchallenged. Villeneuve had meanwhile given 
 detailed instructions to his fleet, which promised 
 decisive action, and he essayed to leave his port on 
 the 18th of January, 1805. But the wind proved foul, 
 ships were damaged, and he returned, to write a 
 desponding letter to Napoleon. He said that ships 
 such as his, improperly manned, encumbered with 
 troops, losing masts, sails and rigging in any wind, and 
 occupied in repairing in fair weather the damage done 
 in foul, were useless for any enterprise. By this time 
 the Spaniards were against us, for Captain Graham 
 Moore, brother of Sir John Moore, had seized the Span- 
 ish treasure ships, on the 5th of October, 1804, and on 
 the 4th of January, 1805, Decres and Gravina signed 
 the secret convention between France and Spain. 
 
 Villeneuve's despondency appalled Napoleon, and 
 orders of 2nd March placed the whole intended opera- 
 tion under the orders of Ganteaume at Brest. That 
 admiral was to leave the port with twenty-one sail of 
 
 92 
 
132 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 the line and six frigates, to elude the blockading 
 squadron, attack Calder ofiE Ferrol, signal to Gourdon, 
 who was there, to join him with the French and 
 Spanish ships, to proceed to Martinique, where he 
 was to join Villeneuve and Missiessy, and then to 
 return with forty sail of the line, and appear off 
 Boulogne, where he would receive further orders. 
 Ganteaume was quite ready to issue from the port, 
 but the squadron of Cornwallis was outside, and he 
 was on the horns of a dilemma. " A victory in 
 these circumstances would lead to nothing. Have 
 but one object to execute your mission. Go out 
 without fighting." Such were Bonaparte's orders. 
 The Admiral remained in port and awaited the 
 opportunity that never came. His inability to get 
 away was the determining factor of the situation. 
 
 At Toulon Villeneuve was fortunate. On the 
 30th of March he issued from his port, and making a 
 fair passage, arrived at Martinique on the 14th May, 
 there to learn that Missiessy had returned and that 
 nothing had been seen of Ganteaume. Then orders 
 were issued to Villeneuve to assume chief command. 
 He was to wait thirty-five days at Martinique, and 
 if Ganteaume did not arrive, was to return, gather 
 to his flag fifteen French and Spanish ships from 
 Ferrol, and Ganteaume's twenty-one from Brest, 
 and thus assume command of a fleet of fifty-six sail 
 of the line. 
 
XVII] CRAIG'S EXPEDITION 133 
 
 Nelson's system of a loose form of blockade had 
 failed to keep the French at Toulon, which indeed 
 he had not desired. A greater failure had been 
 his inabiUty to bring them to action when they left 
 the port. But his movements must be judged in 
 the light of Pitt's policy at the time. The Minister 
 feared that Sicily might faU into the hands of the 
 French, and was despatching for its succour an 
 expedition, under Craig, which, when he heard of 
 it, constituted a grave embarrassment for Nelson's 
 position. Nelson's mind was turned to the East. 
 When, however, he definitely learned which course the 
 French admiral had taken, he immediately pursued 
 in a manner that was a triumph of seamanlike skiU. 
 It has sometimes been alleged that he was decoyed 
 away, but nothing could be further from the fact. 
 His object was to bring his adversary to action, and 
 he took his westward course with a well-defined 
 strategic object. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF TRAFALGAR 
 
 When Nelson went westward it was with a 
 definite knowledge of the course that ViUeneuve 
 had taken. The interest of a great commerce lay 
 in the West Indies, and it was necessary either to 
 
134 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 defeat the French in that region or to drive them 
 thence. Nelson said that if the islands fell, the people 
 would be so clamorous for peace that we should 
 humble ourselves. His force was numerically in- 
 ferior, and his adversary had a full month's start of 
 him, but he had weighed every point in the game. 
 At home great apprehension prevailed owing to 
 uncertainty as to the position and movements of 
 the fleets. Colonel Robert Craufurd told the 
 Commons that our naval forces might be drawn away 
 to the West Indies, and that the enemy, hastening 
 back to Europe, might gain temporary command 
 of the Channel, capture the anchorage in the Downs, 
 and bring the army over. It is recorded that Mr 
 Bragge, Secretary at War, smiled at the idea, and 
 certainly St Vincent and the sea officers entertained 
 no such apprehensions. They knew that strategy 
 and adequate force would make the operation im- 
 possible. Nevertheless there were sundry alarms, 
 and on one occasion a quantity of burning straw, 
 mistaken for a beacon, brought the forces of Derby- 
 shire and West Yorkshire under arms. 
 
 The protean character of Napoleon's plans has 
 been suggested in the last chapter. They followed 
 the lines of least resistance. Many of them were 
 dictated during his triumphant progress through 
 Italy, when he placed the iron crown of Lombardy 
 on his head, and, intoxicated with power, fancied 
 
XVII] FRENCH VIEWS ON INVASION 135 
 
 he could move his fleets like pieces on a chess-board. 
 Events like the return of Missiessy to Rochefort, 
 without having accomplished anything, though pro- 
 foundly disconcerting, never shook his optimism, 
 and he was ever ready with a new combination. 
 He made a constant appeal to the glories of a success- 
 ful campaign against England. " You hold in your 
 hands the destinies of the world," he wrote to 
 Ganteaume, and again, " We shall have avenged 
 six centuries of insults and shame ; never for a 
 greater object have my seamen and soldiers exposed 
 their lives." 
 
 Concerning Napoleon's mihtary preparations for 
 the famous descent upon England, there was a 
 division of opinion in the French army, and Berthier 
 considered the operation extremely risky. That was 
 the general opinion of the sea officers, who, however, 
 did not always dare to give utterance to their views. 
 By the losses the invasion flotilla had suffered during 
 its assembly, and the incapacity with which it had 
 been handled, the improbability of its ever serving 
 its purpose seemed to have been demonstrated. The 
 harbours had been improved, but it would have been 
 impossible for the flotilla to put to sea in less than 
 two tides. Although every detail was set forth on 
 paper, it is doubtful whether more than 90,000 troops 
 were ever assembled. Napoleon, in 1805, expressed 
 very uncertain views as to the time which would be 
 
136 ROYAL NAVY [cH. 
 
 required for the passage : to Decres, six hours (June), 
 twelve hours (August), fourteen days (September) ; 
 to Villeneuve, three days (May), four or five days 
 (July), twenty-four hours (August) ; to Ganteaume, 
 three days (July). But, in effect. Napoleon had 
 learned that a stealthy passage within a few hours 
 would be impossible, and the combination of fleets 
 upon a vast scale, directed to their concentration off 
 Boulogne, entered into his plans. 
 
 In his later years the Emperor was accustomed 
 to assert that he had never been in earnest in this 
 expedition, but it was usual with him thus to seek 
 escape from the obloquy of schemes which had failed. 
 There had come indeed a time when he had question- 
 ed the possibility of success. In such case, he said 
 to Bourrienne, '' I shall make my Army of England 
 the Army of the East and go to Egypt." Egypt was 
 the outpost of India. " Europe is a mere mole-hill : 
 it is only in the East, where there are 600,000,000 
 of human beings, that there have been vast empires 
 and mighty revolutions." Madame de Remusat, 
 Miot de Melito, General Hulot, Lucchesini and 
 Metternich all incline to doubt whether there was 
 any real intention of putting the plan of invasion 
 into execution. But -the great expenditure upon 
 preparations for the enterprise, the minute and ex- 
 haustive care displayed in many parts of the 
 organization, the vast importance that Napoleon 
 
XVII] THE NAPOLEONIC BREAMS 137 
 
 attached to success, the earnestness that breathes 
 in every line he wrote concerning the scheme, and 
 more than all the meaninglessness which otherwise 
 would have marked his plans, all forbid us to doubt 
 that, against England, he had staked everything 
 upon the success of the enterprise. The invasion 
 of England, which blocked the pathway to his world 
 ambition, was one of the great objects he had set 
 before himself, and we cannot question that the 
 flotilla was intended to transport to our shores those 
 troops which he hoped would dictate peace at the 
 capital. 
 
 The Navy was to shatter the fabric of the great 
 imperial dream. The situation was this. Corn- 
 wallis was blockading Brest, where Ganteaume had 
 twenty-one sail of the line, Rear-Admiral Stirling 
 off Rochefort was holding tight AUemand (who had 
 succeeded Missiessy), Sir Robert Calder was off 
 Ferrol blockading Gourdon and Grandallana, and 
 ColHngwood was off Cadiz, with some ships off Carta- 
 gena. When it became known, from despatches sent 
 home by Nelson in the Curieux brig, that the com- 
 bined fleets of France and Spain under command of 
 Villeneuve and Gravina were actually homeward 
 bound, Lord Barham, that most able administrator, 
 who had succeeded Lord Melville at the Admiralty, 
 and his colleagues ordered a certain redistribution of 
 forces. There was not an adequate strength for every 
 
138 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 station, and consequently Stirling was to leave his 
 post before Rochefort and reinforce Calder off Ferrol, 
 who thereupon, with fifteen sail of the line and other 
 vessels, was to stretch thirty or forty leagues to the 
 westward with the object of intercepting the enemy. 
 Stirling's departure released AUemand, who made a 
 most adventurous cruise with the object of meeting 
 Villeneuve, but the Didon, carrying Villeneuve's 
 despatches, was captured by the Phoenix, and the 
 meeting did not take place. 
 
 Calder met the combined squadron on the 22nd 
 July, about 49 leagues west of Ferrol, in a drifting 
 mist and endeavoured to engage the enemy's rear and 
 centre. This attack was parried, and then fog 
 descended upon the combatants. Two Spanish 
 ships, which had suffered a good deal, drifted into 
 the midst of Calder's fleet and were captured. The 
 action was creditable, though not either conclusive 
 or decisive. Calder thought weU of what he had 
 accomplished, but he failed to renew the action on 
 the following day, being under apprehension that 
 the ships at Ferrol would join Villeneuve and crush 
 him. " He appears," wrote Nelson, " to have had 
 the ships of Ferrol more in his head than the squadron 
 in sight." For this slackness Calder was greatly 
 blamed, and was subsequently tried by court martial, 
 *' for not having done his utmost to renew the said 
 engagement, and to take every ship of the enemy." 
 
xvn] CORNWALLIS'S STRATEGY 139 
 
 The latter he had not done, and could not have done. 
 After the action he proceeded to join Cornwallis off 
 Brest, while Villeneuve, having first found an an- 
 chorage at Vigo, entered the outer bay of Ferrol on 
 the 1st of August. The combined fleet had returned 
 in a terrible condition from the effects of scarcity, 
 bad weather and disease. The admiral was himself 
 ill, and was deeply impressed by the fact that Calder 
 had attacked him with inferior force, while his own 
 captains had known nothing of fleet tactics, and the 
 fleet was the laughing-stock of Europe. 
 
 Nelson had expected Villeneuve to proceed to 
 the Mediterranean, and therefore shaped his course 
 to Gibraltar, where he arrived on the 19th July, but 
 on hearing that the French were steering a more 
 northerly course, he proceeded, with eleven sail of the 
 line, to join Cornwallis off Brest, who gave him an 
 order to proceed to Spithead, where he struck his 
 flag. The situation had now become critical. 
 Napoleon was at Boulogne, and all seemed ready 
 for the great enterprise. Neither Lord Barham at 
 the Admiralty nor Cornwallis off Brest knew what was 
 the immediate object of Villeneuve. It was possible 
 that he might seek to enter the Mediterranean. 
 Accordingly Cornwallis, on the 16th August, in- 
 structed Sir Robert Calder to take under his 
 command twenty of the ships off Brest (where only 
 eighteen were left) and to proceed off Ferrol in order 
 
140 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 to prevent the combined fleet from putting to sea. 
 This division of the fleet has been adversely criticised, 
 and Napoleon described it as an insigne betise a 
 signal blunder but ComwaUis had measured the 
 risk, and knew that off Ferrol the squadron might 
 check the enemy whether he went south or north. 
 Napoleon himself was guilty of an insigne betise at 
 Marengo, where he divided his forces by detaching 
 Desaix and another general, and narrowly escaped 
 losing the battle. 
 
 But Villeneuve, with the great fleet, left Ferrol 
 before the squadron detached by Cornw^aUis could 
 reach the station. Napoleon told Ganteaume that 
 Villeneuve's apparent intention was to pass through 
 the Raz de Sein and enter Brest harbour, but 
 Ganteaume was given supreme authority. He was 
 to permit no such delay, but with 50 ships was to 
 proceed into the Channel and appear before Boulogne. 
 Villeneuve's fleet began to get under way from the 
 outer bay of Ferrol on the 10th of August, but was not 
 clear of the coast until the 14th. As is well known, 
 instead of doing what Napoleon had desired, the 
 dispirited and discouraged admiral turned to the south 
 and entered Cadiz. He had been alarmed at what he 
 thought the approach of Cornwallis, and declared 
 that he had no confidence in his own fleet, that he 
 believed he had freedom of action, that the situation 
 had changed since he had received his orders, and 
 
XVII] THE "NELSON TOUCH" 141 
 
 that he saw no prospect of success. In this supreme 
 moment of Napoleon's career, the pressure of British 
 sea power, the crushing weight of our superiority, 
 dashed the cup of success from his lips. It was the 
 most bitter moment of his career, and his exaspera- 
 tion at the failure was terrible to behold. " What a 
 fleet ! " he exclaimed, " What sacrifices for nothing ! 
 What an Admiral ! All hope is gone ! " Immedi- 
 ately he broke up his camp at Boulogne and marched 
 on the 28th of August for the Danube, to win his first 
 signal success against the Austrians at Ulm on the 
 very day on which his fleet was destroyed at Trafalgar. 
 Nelson left Spithead in the Victory on the 15th of 
 September, and assumed command of the fleet off 
 Cadiz on the 28th. He hoped for reinforcements. 
 *' Numbers only can annihilate," he wrote, *' and 
 therefore I hope the Admiralty will send the fixed 
 force as soon as possible." He estimated that the 
 allies would have forty-six sail of the line, and hoped 
 himself to have not less than forty, and with this 
 expectation issued to the fleet on the 9th of October 
 his famous and masterly Memorandum on the tactics 
 to be employed in the coming battle, which he had 
 discussed with his friends before leaving England. 
 This " Nelson touch," as he called it, is the most ad- 
 mirable exposition of tactical principles ever penned. 
 It would " bring forward a pell-mell battle, and 
 that is what I want." Mr J. R. Thursfield has 
 
142 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 very ably disengaged the great principles of the 
 plan, which, he says, " was an exceedingly subtle, 
 and not less original, combination of the several 
 ideas of concentration on the rear, of complete 
 freedom of action for the second in command 
 (CoUingwood), of containing the enemy's van and 
 centre until the business of twelve sail of the enemy 
 was seen to be so far advanced that its interruption 
 was no longer to be feared, and, above all, of the 
 concealment of his own intentions until the last 
 moment, so as to confuse the enemy's mind by not 
 letting him know where and how the attack of the 
 weather line was to be delivered." 
 
 The battle of Trafalgar, fought on the 21st of 
 October, cannot be described here. It was a 
 decisive and immortal victory the incidents of which 
 have been recounted by many pens, and whose 
 splendours are in all our histories. Nelson was 
 fortunate in his death, for he fell in the hour of his 
 triumph. The numbers were not what he had 
 expected, for the allies had thirty- three sail of the 
 line, and he only twenty-seven twelve in his own 
 weather line, and fifteen in the lee line of CoUing- 
 wood. The engagement was fought in light and 
 variable airs which made it impossible for the ships 
 to assume the definite formations which Nelson had 
 anticipated, and the allied line began to wear at the 
 beginning of the action, altering course to return to 
 
xvm] TRAFALGAR 143 
 
 Cadiz. But the principles which the famous seaman 
 had laid down were applied, and the great object 
 was won. Eighteen of the enemy's ships were 
 taken, of which three were recaptured on the 
 following days. The rest fled, but other captures 
 came to us, notably four ships under Dumanoir which 
 escaped and were brought to action by Sir Richard 
 Strachan on the 4th November off Cape Ortegal. In 
 all, 22 ships were lost to the allies, and of the eleven 
 which escaped into Cadiz, not one ever again went 
 to sea to serve as a ship of war. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE FRUITS OF VICTORY 
 
 The battle of Trafalgar gave us command of the 
 sea in the sense that thenceforward we possessed 
 the power to control our own sea communications, 
 and in a general, though not an absolute sense, to 
 control those of our adversaries. The allied fleet 
 had been annihilated, but in the age of wooden 
 sailing ships, as we have many times seen in the 
 preceding chapters, there existed a power of re- 
 cuperation from disasters, such as cannot exist in 
 times when ships of the line, or as we now call them 
 battleships or battle-cruisers, each cost much more 
 than 2,000,000. Napoleon, in effect, set about the 
 
144 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 building of many new ships of the line, not only in 
 France, but in the ports of the North Sea and Italy, 
 which came under his sway. They were not much 
 employed, because it was easier to build ships than 
 to provide capable officers and contented men, and, 
 many of the ships being constructed of green timber, 
 soon rotted into uselessness. 
 
 The Berlin Decree against our commerce was the 
 sign of the naval failure. It was not possible for 
 us to blockade every place which became a source 
 of danger to trade, and swarms of privateers issued 
 from the French ports, and from ports in the West 
 Indies and Mauritius, and the Dutch harbours of 
 Java and Sumatra. Thus a great strain was put 
 upon the Navy in many parts of the world, lasting 
 up to the very end of the long war. The result was 
 a considerable increase in the number of sea-going 
 ships, beginning in 1806, and the numbers remained 
 high in every year until 1815, when for the first time 
 they fell below the establishment of 1805 : 485, as 
 compared with 508. At the same time, the number 
 of ships building, which in 1805 had been 81, rose 
 to 131 in 1806, and the figure was 108 in 1807 and 
 111 in 1808. It did not fall below the figure of 1805 
 until 1810, and it rose to 110 in 1813. Necessarily 
 also, in the years following Trafalgar, the Navy 
 attained its greatest number of officers and men up 
 to the peace of 1815. 
 
xvm] AFTER TRAFALGAR 145 
 
 The attack upon our commerce by privateers and 
 light squadrons in those years caused trouble to our 
 merchants, but all experience shows that commerce- 
 destroying never has been and never can be a 
 primary object in war. During the twenty years 
 of fighting in the French Revolutionary and Napo- 
 leonic struggle our annual loss in shipping was only 
 about 2*36 per cent. We captured in privateers 
 41,000 seamen, and of war vessels engaged in com- 
 merce-destruction we took about five for every 21 
 merchant vessels lost. During this period the volume 
 of our maritime trade more than doubled, while the 
 French mercantile flag practically disappeared from 
 the seas. It would be wrong therefore to attach 
 high importance to the operations of commerce- 
 destroyers either before or after Trafalgar. 
 
 Some notes may be added upon the activity of 
 warships in the years subsequent to Trafalgar. The 
 Admiralty relaxed the strictness of the blockade of 
 Brest in the winter of 1805-6, and Vice-Admiral 
 Leissegues, with five sail of the line, and Rear- 
 Admiral Willaumez with six, slipped away, the 
 former to be defeated by Sir John Duckworth off 
 San Domingo on the 6th February, 1806, and the 
 latter, after an adventurous cruise in West Indian 
 and North Atlantic waters, to have his squadron 
 broken up in action with various British forces. 
 When Napoleon, in 1809, decided to venture a strong 
 
 L. R. N. 10 
 
146 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 squadron composed of ships from Brest and Roche - 
 fort on a cruise to the West Indies, the armament 
 was driven into the Basque Roads and there at- 
 tacked with fireships under the orders of Lord 
 Cochrane, afterwards Earl of Dundonald, and ruined, 
 though Lord Gambier, in superior command, mter- 
 fered to check the completeness of the operation. 
 That we were not always able to control the enemy's 
 communications was shown by the passage of Alle- 
 mand from Rochefort to Toulon, with five sail of the 
 line, in 1808, when Sir Richard Strachan, who was 
 blockading the former port, was away revictualling 
 at his rendezvous, and also by the cruise of Ganteaume, 
 who was then commanding at Toulon, to revictual 
 the garrison at Corfu, and his unimpeded return to 
 his port. 
 
 But our own communications were in every case 
 secure. Oversea possessions are the fruit of sea 
 power, though in nearly every case the fruit must 
 be gathered by the exercise of military force. When 
 war broke out in 1803 we re-occupied the Dutch West 
 Indian islands, which had been surrendered at the 
 peace, and in 1804 we occupied Surinam. The Cape 
 was re-occupied in 1806, and in the following years 
 Curagao, Martinique, Cayenne, Guadeloupe, Mauri- 
 tius, Amboyna, the Moluccas and Java fell into our 
 hands. 
 
 The sea power which had been won at Trafalgar 
 
XVIII] NAVY AND PENINSULAR WAR 147 
 
 was nowhere better exercised than during the 
 Peninsular War, where its potent influence was 
 " silent," to use Admiral Mahan's word, though 
 signally effective. If a superior hostile fleet had 
 stood in our pathway in the Channel, the Bay of 
 Biscay or on the coast of Portugal at the time, Spain 
 would have lain at the feet of the conqueror. It 
 was the fleet that gave strategical mobility to the 
 Army. Wellesley's expeditionary force reached the 
 Peninsula without let or hindrance, and was free 
 to land at Vigo, Oporto or Mondego Bay, as the 
 general might choose. Sir Charles Cotton's squadron 
 was the base for. its communications and support. 
 When Moore had advanced on Salamanca and the 
 upper Douro, finding his retirement on Portugal 
 cut off and his army endangered, he made his 
 heroic march through the mountains of Galicia to 
 reach the fleet, which lay at Coruna ready for the 
 embarkation of the troops. The Army was in the 
 Peninsula by virtue of sea power, and that power was 
 its refuge and its link with its home-base throughout 
 the war. The lines of Torres Vedras owed their endur- 
 ance to the sea power that was behind them, the 
 effect of which Wellesley had fully understood. In 
 the winter after Talavera and Busaco, when he was 
 forced upon the defensive, he established his im- 
 pregnable position behind these lines in the peninsula 
 which separates the lower Tagus from the Atlantic. 
 
 102 
 
148 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 The strength of Torres Vedras was rooted in the 
 support of the fleet in the Tagus, and the communi- 
 cations which that fleet maintained with England. 
 When at length the great advance began which 
 carried the Army from the basin of the Douro to 
 Gascony and Languedoc, Wellesley, finding that 
 " at each remove he dragged a lengthening chain," 
 shifted his base, by means of sea power, from the 
 Tagus to the Basque provinces. The transports 
 sailed round from Lisbon to Santander, furnishing 
 a fine illustration of the influence of sea command 
 in the creation of an alternative naval base, and a 
 great factor in military success. Up to the very 
 end of the war the fleet was the base for the opera- 
 tions of the Army. The admirals felt no such anxiety 
 for the safety of the transports as perturbed the soul 
 of Nelson, in the case of Craig's expedition, in the 
 times before Trafalgar, when the French were still 
 powerful and active at sea. 
 
 England was now the mistress of the seas, and 
 her prosperity grew by leaps and bounds, though 
 it was prosperity generally for the rich and not 
 always for the poor. On the continent, the French 
 armies were driven back across the Pyrenees and 
 the Rhine, the foemen advanced, Paris surrendered, 
 and the Emperor abdicated. But this series of 
 triumphs had been marred for us by the outbreak 
 of a new struggle across the Atlantic, which arose 
 
xvni] THE WAR OF 1812 149 
 
 from the Berlin and Milan Decrees of Napoleon, 
 the retaliatory Orders in Council, and the non- 
 intercourse policy of the United States. Some 
 incidents in the war of 1812 gave a rather rude 
 awakening to the British Navy, which, when war 
 was declared, was at the very zenith of its fame, 
 rich in the inherited experience of its overthrow of 
 the historic maritime Powers, and brought to a high 
 standard of efficiency by warfare that had con- 
 tinued almost without interruption for eighteen 
 years. 
 
 It seemed, in certain untoward events of this war, 
 as if a pigmy was wrestling successfully with a giant, 
 and the giant was aroused to a knowledge of his 
 deficiencies by his discomfitures. The story goes that 
 Nelson once saw an American squadron in European 
 waters ^perhaps that of Captain Richard Dale in 
 1801, Captain Richard Morris in 1802-3, or Captain 
 Edward Preble in 1803 and that he uttered a fore- 
 cast in these words : " There is in the handling of 
 these Transatlantic ships a nucleus of trouble for 
 the Navy of Great Britain." The trouble was, 
 indeed, in the handling of individual ships, usually 
 in frigate actions, for there was no general engage- 
 ment, and the impression created by a few mis- 
 fortunes was out of all proportion to their importance. 
 
 In a volume which is concerned with the building 
 up of the Empire through the influence of the Navy, 
 
150 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 and inferentially with its conservation by the same 
 means, some evidences of apparent weakening in 
 the spirit of the service may well deserve attention. 
 Possibly some slackness arose from over-confidence, 
 and may have been due in a measure to easy content 
 in great things achieved. The admirals at least 
 seem to have thought that Nelson's Memorandum 
 which not all of them understood was the last 
 word upon tactics. Some captains were probably 
 so intent upon the externals of efficiency that the 
 essentials escaped them, and gunnery declined. A 
 great body of the men were prime seamen, but they 
 had been rigorously treated, and a considerable 
 number of the class had gone over to America and 
 joined the United States Navy, to which they had 
 imparted a good deal of its efficiency. Those who 
 remained were brought into association, owing to 
 the enormous demand for men, with the offscourings 
 of gaols, gathered in by the press. "Convicts, 
 vagabonds, thieves not brought to justice from lenity, 
 smugglers, White Boys, suspected Irish during the 
 rebellion, all who from loss of character could not 
 procure employment, the idle and the worthless," 
 wrote Captain Anselm Griffiths '' all was fish that 
 came to the net." 
 
 History is rich in examples of defeats inflicted 
 upon old experience and tried capacity by anta- 
 gonists whose power has not been suspected. The 
 
XVIII] THE WAR TEST 151 
 
 vast fleet of Xerxes was annihilated at " rock bound 
 Salamis," and his seasoned veterans were utterly- 
 routed by their despised foe at Platsea. But 
 Lysander captured an Athenian fleet at ^Egos- 
 potami, and the Athenians never fully recovered 
 from the great naval disaster at Syracuse. The 
 military predominance of Sparta ended with the 
 defeat of her hardened legions at Leuctra. Rome 
 fell before the barbarians. The magnificent in- 
 fantry of Spain were routed at Rocroi. Burgoj^ne's 
 army surrendered at Saratoga. The model army of 
 Prussia, which had been trained in the military 
 methods of the great Frederick, was vanquished at 
 Jena. And coming to modern times, how few there 
 were who foresaw that the mighty army of Russia 
 would be worsted by the young army of Japan, 
 or that the forces of the Balkan States would over- 
 throw the formidable legions of the Turk ? These 
 facts have only a distant relation to our incidental 
 disasters in 1812-14, but they should be borne in 
 mind as warnings by maritime nations which may 
 be tempted into the complacent belief that they 
 may have a privilege of predominance at sea, or 
 may suffer themselves to decline from want of 
 stimulus, in the quietude of a long peace. 
 
 Of the events of the war with the United States 
 there is little room to speak. The Americans pos- 
 sessed no ships of the line, but they had three 
 
152 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 splendid 44-gun frigates, the United States, Con- 
 stitution and President, which were superior to any 
 frigates in the British Navy. On the 19th August, 
 1812, the Constitution, after a most desperate fight 
 with the British 38-gun frigate Guerriere, reduced 
 that vessel to helplessness by sheer weight of fire, 
 and captured her in such a condition that she had to 
 be destroyed. On the 25th October, the United States, 
 after a hard-fought action, captured the British 
 frigate Macedonian, to which in every respect save 
 speed she was greatly superior. Moreover she had 
 a first-rate captain in the person of Stephen Decatur. 
 Four days later the 38-gun frigate Java was captured 
 by the Constitution, and there were other captures. 
 The most famous action of the war was that of the 
 1st June, 1813, between the British frigate Shannon, 
 Captain Philip Broke, and the American frigate 
 Chesapeake, Captain James Lawrence, being vessels 
 of about equal power commanded by equally 
 valiant men ; an action which showed that the 
 fighting quality of the British Navy still existed 
 and still could dominate. The Shannon had been 
 brought to a high state of efficiency, and the Chesa- 
 peake, as her commander reported, had her crew 
 " in fine spirits." The victory of the British ship 
 was complete, and her antagonist was carried by 
 boarding. The gallant American captain was killed. 
 There was fighting on the great lakes with varying 
 
XIX] END OF THE FRENCH WAR 153 
 
 fortune, and the Navy played a large part in the 
 operations which brought about the surrender of 
 Washington, and in the attacks on Baltimore and 
 New Orleans, which were ineffective. Peace was 
 signed at Ghent on the 21st of December, 1814. 
 
 Our long struggle with the Revolution and the 
 Empire came to an end when Napoleon for the 
 second time surrendered, on board the BelleropJion, 
 Captain Maitland, and peace was concluded at Paris 
 in November, 1815. We had built up our Empire, 
 and had waged no war of aggression. We were 
 therefore content to see Holland released from her 
 subjection to the French yoke, and to retain for 
 ourselves, of all our captures, only Malta, Mauritius 
 (the He de France), Tobago and St Lucia. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 CONCLUSIONS 
 
 In this concluding chapter we shall make a brief 
 survey of the naval events which succeeded the great 
 peace of 1815, not, of course, to describe them, but 
 to ascertain their character, and the conditions which 
 ruled them and resulted from them, and then we 
 may draw a general conclusion from the whole. It 
 has been said accurately of the phrase, command of 
 
154 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 the sea, that it implies a state of war and has no 
 special application to a state of peace. In the 
 century which has elapsed since the great peace a 
 century in which our naval predominance has never 
 been challenged command of the sea, exercised 
 by ourselves and our allies, has been the atmosphere 
 in which certain things have been done. 
 
 The fighting of battles is not the common occupa- 
 tion of the Navy. Naval engagements are incidents 
 of great rarity, and since Navarino the British Navy 
 has not been concerned in one. This leads us to con- 
 sider that the Navy has a function in peace as well 
 as in war. As a modern organization it began with 
 the activities of the old navigators, and to the 
 names of Raleigh, Frobisher, Drake, Narborough, 
 Dampier, Cook and Vancouver, to mention but a 
 few, we add, in a very incomplete Hst, those of Ross, 
 Franklin, Parry, Liddon, McClure, McClintock, 
 Nares and lastly of Scott. The Navy has also taken 
 a great part in the work of hydrography, deep-sea 
 sounding and other branches of scientific investi- 
 gation, and the Lightning (1868), Porcupine (1868-70) 
 and Challenger (1872-76), were vessels which engaged 
 in important work in this department of naval 
 service. 
 
 In another sphere of activity the Navy, often 
 in conditions of hardship and difficulty which 
 are little known to the world, and often, too, in 
 
XIX] THE NAVY IN PEACE 155 
 
 circumstances illustrated by many brilliant fighting 
 episodes, has conducted a noble work for the good 
 of humanity in the suppression of the slave trade. 
 It maintained a long contest with piracy, and it 
 has enforced the peace and right use of the seas in 
 the severe repression of smuggling. On many 
 occasions it has protected and secured the rights of 
 Englishmen in foreign ports in times of civil broil 
 and revolution, and on not a few occasions it has 
 been present with its help to succour the victims of 
 earthquakes and distress. 
 
 The very first work of the Navy after the peace 
 of 1815 was, in the following year, to operate against 
 the pirate and slave-owning nation which was ruled 
 by the Dey of Algiers, and Lord Exmouth who, 
 as Sir Edward Pellew, had so greatly distinguished 
 himself in the war commanded an expedition which 
 had the effect of liberating slaves and abolishing 
 slavery. He enforced the Pax Britannica, which 
 replaced the anarchy of the sea. In the East, in 
 the Burmese wars, the Navy was largely instrumental 
 in laying the foundations of our rule in Burma. 
 
 When the tide in the great struggle of the Greeks 
 for independence had turned against them. Great 
 Britain was one of the powers which determined to 
 intervene, and in the Battle of Navarino, on the 20th 
 of October, 1827, the Turkish and Egyptian fleet was 
 destroyed, and thereby the freedom of Greece 
 
166 ROYAL NAVY [ch, 
 
 assured. But when the ambition of Mehemet Ali 
 threatened the integrity of Turkey, Great Britain 
 headed a coalition against him. France took no 
 action, but was opposed to us, and war threatened 
 at a time when the Navy had been neglected, when 
 comparatively few ships were in commission and the 
 rest in a bad state, when the personnel had been 
 reduced, and our influence rested probably more upon 
 prestige than upon the actual possession of power. 
 
 Never, however, was there a more complete 
 instance of the possession of sea power in an absolute 
 form than in the Russian War of 1854-5. The 
 world had never seen the like. The Russian fleet 
 was completely neutralized, and the transport of 
 troops through the Mediterranean and into the Black 
 Sea, even including the disembarkation in the Crimea, 
 was conducted almost as if it had been a peace 
 operation. We did not even attempt to cover the 
 landing of the troops by masking the Russian fleet 
 at Sevastopol. Russia was not accessible except 
 by sea, and the success of the whole of the operations 
 depended upon the possession of sea power. It was 
 the " atmosphere " in which they were conducted, 
 but it was as little recognized by many people at 
 the time (and since) as the atmosphere they breathed. 
 The responsibility for the safe arrival of the troops 
 was, of course, felt, but the worthlessness of the 
 Russian fleet was suspected, and so little were the 
 
XIX] THE RUSSIAN WAR, 1854-5 157 
 
 principles of naval warfare remembered, that the 
 transports were apparently thought capable of pro- 
 tecting themselves. But if the Russians had had 
 an effective fleet no soldier could ever have set foot 
 in the Crimea, or, having landed, would ever have 
 left it by sea. Yet, from the fact that the results 
 of the war were visibly attained by military forces, 
 it has been assumed that the Navy contributed 
 nothing to the result. 
 
 The operations in the Baltic have attracted less 
 notice than those in the Black Sea, but they also 
 were of great importance, and had the effect of im- 
 mobilizing large bodies of troops in Northern Russia 
 which might otherwise have been sent to the seat of 
 military activity. There can also be no doubt that 
 the presence of the aUied fleets in the Black Sea, 
 and the uncertainty felt as to the places where troops 
 might be landed, made it impossible for the Russians 
 to locate their forces in sufficient numbers in the 
 regions where the events proved they were actually 
 required. Here we notice a signal mark of the effect 
 of sea power, when, by the menace of its readiness 
 to convey troops to one or several of many places 
 on the enemy's coast, it paralyzes the enemy's action. 
 
 An immunity from interference or resistance at 
 sea, similar to that which existed in the Russian War, 
 was found in the operations for the suppression of 
 the Indian Mutiny, and in our wars in China, South 
 
158 ROYAL NAVY [cH. 
 
 Africa and New Zealand. In the South African War 
 of 1899-1902, sea power was again the condition 
 which was essential for success. Without command 
 of the sea, South Africa would have been lost to the 
 Empire. In those years the Navy was thoroughly 
 efficient for all its duties, and, by patrol and control, 
 the transport of troops, horses and war material was 
 conducted with the utmost smoothness and without 
 any interference. As in the Peninsular War, the 
 Navy gave mobility to the Army, established and 
 suppHed its bases, and it was ready with officers, men 
 and guns to take part in the fighting ashore. 
 
 We have seen in the course of this inquiry, 
 deeply graven in the pages of history, that the Navy 
 has ever protected the Mother Country from invasion, 
 and that it has also been the creator and bond of the 
 Empire, the means by which the Empire has grown 
 and must be maintained. It was at sea that we 
 vanquished the Armada, and at sea that we broke 
 the monopolies of Spain. Sea power gave us 
 victory in our long struggle with the Dutch, and 
 laid the foundations of a larger dominion. This 
 is the power which gave us the colonies which have 
 grown into the Empire, and against sea power the 
 ambition of Napoleon was broken and failed. 
 
 The immunity of the kingdom from attack by 
 virtue of sea sea barrier properly held, has established 
 
XIX] THE NAVY AND THE EMPIRE 159 
 
 a settled axiom of our policy. We know it in the 
 pages of Shakespeare. Earlier still we find it in the 
 poem entitled " The Libel (i.e. little book) of English 
 Policy^" (circa 1436) in the following remarkable 
 lines : 
 
 "Keep then the sea about in special 
 Which of England is the town-wall. 
 As though England were Hkened to a city, 
 And the wall environ were the sea. 
 Keep then the sea that is the wall of England; 
 And then is England kept by God's hand; 
 That is, for anything that is without, 
 England were at ease withouten doubt." 
 
 The fact that the Empire is based on sea supre- 
 macy arises from the physical condition that the sea 
 is all one. Wherever ships can freely go, the Empire 
 is secure. But the protection of distant possessions, 
 as we have seen during the long war with France, 
 may be assured by blows struck or fleets blockaded 
 nearer home. A fleet defeated in home waters may 
 mean the safety of Canada, South Africa or India. 
 A blow struck in the South Pacific may be the 
 salvation of Australia or New Zealand. For sea 
 communications are like streams, capable of being 
 controlled or diverted either near their sources or 
 at other points in their course. The strategic keys 
 of the world are the Straits of Dover and Gibraltar, 
 
 ^ T. Wright, Political Poems and Songs (Rolls Series), vol. ii. p. 202. 
 
160 ROYAL NAVY [ch. 
 
 the Suez Canal, and the Straits of Malacca. The 
 Panama Canal will be a key which we may use but 
 cannot hold. At and near these points and others, 
 hostile naval forces may be observed and controlled. 
 Unerring instinct and wise statesmanship, using the 
 Navy well, have caused us to seize and retain nearly 
 all the important strategical positions along the 
 communications of the world. 
 
 The great advantage possessed by this country 
 has been her position as a Sea Power alone. She 
 was never greatly concerned in the fighting on the 
 continent, except by her subsidies, until the time of 
 the Peninsular War, and in the campaign of Waterloo. 
 She has maintained her standing army upon a limited 
 basis almost wholly for the defence of her distant 
 possessions ; while the countries of the continent 
 have been turned into vast armed camps, absorbing 
 the interests, the lives and the wealth of their peoples. 
 The Spaniards, deeply involved in continental 
 strife, had no power to attain supremacy at sea. The 
 Dutch, embroiled in wars on land with a frontier 
 always threatened, and with a Navy which at one 
 time was every whit as good as our own, could not 
 maintain the fleets they had raised, and they faded 
 from the world-position they had won. The French, 
 having embarked on vast European enterprises, could 
 not withstand the wastage arising therefrom, which 
 reduced their strength at sea. 
 
XIX] CONCLUSION 161 
 
 Thug, if it should be said that we have had more 
 than our share of good fortune, that we have been 
 aided by something like luck when on some occasions 
 we have been endangered, and that, but for a chance 
 which has turned against our adversaries, we should 
 have been undone, we must remember that there is 
 really something essentially different from the 
 situation of other countries in the character of our 
 kingdom and dominions, placing means at our 
 disposal which rule and shape these things. It is 
 our preoccupation on the sea which has given us 
 our great seamen, for the Hawkes, Rodneys, Howes, 
 St Vincents and Nelsons are the products of a great 
 maritime nation, and not of one which is amphibious. 
 We have won the rewards of sound judgment and 
 sustained, though fluctuating, endeavour. 
 
 But we may notice also that the common ex- 
 perience of seamen has counselled us never to trust 
 merely to what we have achieved. The lessons which 
 we have learned have, in effect, been reahzed by 
 other nations, who are forming navies and training 
 them by the light of the doctrines we have taught. 
 Material strength is much, because it gives us the 
 machinery for action, but the action is taken by men, 
 who are more than the machines they direct and 
 control. Shovell and Nelson, and many other sea 
 officers, have said they would not fight with inferior 
 material strength if they could avoid it, but they 
 
 L E. N. 11 
 
162 ROYAL NAVY [ch. xix 
 
 have been much more anxious to secure the right 
 stamp of officer and man. 
 
 The lesson, then, is that if we would secure the 
 immimity from attack, which our forefathers have 
 enjoyed, and would retain the Empire they have won, 
 we must keep our Navy in both material and personal 
 respects on a level commensurate \vith our respon- 
 sibilities. For it is as true now, as when the words 
 were embodied in the Naval Discipline Act, that 
 " on the Navy, under the good Providence of God, 
 our wealth, prosperity and peace depend." 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 IS'or the. Oeneral Subject and the Early Period : 
 
 Sir Nicholas Harms Nicolas. A History of the Royal 
 
 Navy from the earliest times to (1422). 1847, 
 
 Rear-Admiral S. Eardley-Welmot. Our Navy for a 
 
 Thousand Years. 4th edition. 1911. 
 David Hannay. A Short History of the Royal Navy, 
 
 1217-1815. Vol. I, 1898. Vol. n, 1909, 
 Commander C. N. Robinson, R.N. The British Fleet : 
 
 the growth, achievements and duties of the Navy of 
 
 the Empire. 1894. 
 Commander C. N. Robinson, R.N. The British Tar in 
 
 Fact and Fiction. 1909. 
 
 For the Tudor, Stuart, and Commonwealth Periods : 
 
 Julian S. Corbbtt. Drake and the Tudor Navy. 1898. 
 
 The Successors of Drake. 1900. 
 
 Thomas Wemyss Fulton. The Sovereignty of the Sea. 
 1911. 
 
 Period up to the French Revoluiion : 
 
 Rear-Admiral A. T. Mahan. The Influence of Sea Power 
 
 upon History, 1660-1783. 1890. 
 Julian S. Corbett. England in the Mediterranean, 1603- 
 1713. 2 vols. 1904. 
 
 England in the Seven Years' War. 1907. 
 
164 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Period of the French Revolution and Empirey and the American 
 War : 
 William James. The Naval History of Great Britain, 
 
 1793-1820. 1822-24. 
 Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas. The Dispatches and 
 Letters of Vice- Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson. 1844- 
 46. 
 Sir J. K. Laughton. Letters and Dispatches of Horatio, 
 
 Viscount Nelson. 1886. 
 Rear- Admiral A. T. Mahan. The Influence of Sea Power 
 
 on the French Revolution and Empire. 1892. 
 C. DE LA JoNQUi^RE. L'Exp^dition d'jfigypte, 1798-1801. 
 
 {n.d.) 
 James R. Thursfield. Nelson and other Naval Studies. 
 
 1909. 
 Henry Newbolt. The Year of Trafalgar. 1905. 
 Julian S. Corbett. The Campaign of Trafalgar. 1910. 
 Edouard Desbri:;re. La Campagne Maritime de 1805 
 
 Trafalgar. 1907. 
 Edward Eraser. The Enemy at Trafalgar. 1906. 
 Theodore Roosevelt. The Naval War of 1812. 1889. 
 Rear- Admiral A. T. Mahan. Sea Power in its Relations to 
 
 the War of 1812. 2 vols. 1905. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Administration and Organisation, 
 Admiralty, 12, 23, 27, 37, 40, 
 49, 79, 85, 86, 96, 98, 127 
 
 Alfred's ships, 4 
 
 American Independence, War 
 of, 96-105 
 
 Anson, seaman and adminis- 
 trator, 77-80 
 
 Armada, Spanish, 30-34 
 
 Barfleur, Battle of, 63, 64 
 Beachy Head, Battle of, 61 
 Benbow, John, 63, 66 
 Blake, 40, 43-45 
 Blockade, 90, 128, 133 
 Boscawen, Sir Edward, 81, 87, 
 
 90, 92 
 Bridport, Lord, 111 
 Byng, Admiral John, 87, 89 
 
 Cadiz, 34, 65, 72, 140 
 Calder, Sir Robert, 138 
 Canute's naval power, 6 
 Channel, English, cross raiding, 
 
 18 
 Charles I, Navy of, 37-39 
 Chesapeake and Shannon, 152 
 China Wars, Navy and, 157 
 Cinque Ports Fleet, 12 
 I Commerce, attack and defence, 
 f 44, 65, 71, 109, 144, 145 
 
 Commonwealth Navy, 40-42 
 Copenhagen, Nelson at, 123 
 Craig's Expedition, Nelson's 
 anxiety, 133 
 
 Damme, French ships destroyed 
 
 at, 15 
 De Burgh, Hubert, 16 
 De Ruyter, 44, 47, 52-55 
 Discovery and sea power, 24-26 
 Drake, Sir Francis, 27-29, 32, 34 
 Duncan's victory, 112 
 Dutch Wars, see Netherlands 
 
 Egypt, French occupation, 117- 
 121 
 
 Elizabeth and her fleet, 27-29, 
 33-35 
 
 Empire, Navy and the growth of, 
 66-69, 94, 113, 146, 153, 158 
 
 England, causes of naval great- 
 ness, 58, 160, 161 
 
 Ethelred the Unready, 5 
 
 French Colonial Empire, 70 
 French Navy, effect of Revolu- 
 tion on, 106 
 
 Gibraltar, 65, 89, 99, 104 
 Greece, British Navy and Inde- 
 pendence of, 155 
 
 Harold's failure 1066, 10 
 Hawke, Lord, 75, 81-83, 92- 
 
 94 
 Hood, Lord, 101, 108 
 Howe, Lord, 97, 98, 109-111 
 
 Impressment of men, 107, 150 
 India the French decline, 91, 94 
 
166 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Invasion, attempted, frustrated. 
 16-17. 30-32, 64, 94. 113, 13?; 
 141, 158, 159 
 
 James I, Navy of, 35-37 
 James II. Navy of, 58-59 
 Jervis, Sir John, see St Vincent 
 
 Kempenfelt, his influence on the 
 
 Navy, 103 
 Keppel and Palliser, 97 
 
 Les Espagnols sur Mer, 18 
 Lestock and Mathews, 75 
 
 Mathews's action, 75 
 
 Monk, Duke of Albemarle, 44-46 
 
 Mutiny of 1797, 113 
 
 Napoleon, his plans, 125-126, 
 129-132; views on sea-craft, 
 127 ; his projected invasion, 
 136-137 
 
 Naval and militarv misunder- 
 standings, 72, 88,' 89 
 
 Naval decline, periods of, 72, 73, 
 76, 77, 150 
 
 Naval quarrels, 74, 75, 97 
 
 Navy in peace, 154 
 
 Navy, its high qualities. 29, 77, 
 83, 85, 93, 95, 106, 110, 127 
 
 Nelson, 99, 104, 114-123. 133, 
 138-142 
 
 Netherlands, 36, 39; First Dutch 
 War, 39-48 ; Second War, 51- 
 55 ; Third War, 55-56 ; causes 
 of naval decline, 48, 67 
 
 Nile, Battle of the, 121 
 
 Norman Invasion, 6-11 
 
 Officers and men, 22, 38. 40. 72, 
 73, 76 
 
 Peninsular War and sea power, 
 
 147, 148 
 Pepys, Samuel, 49, 60 
 Pett,. Phineas, 36 
 
 Quebec, fall of, and the Navy, 
 Quiberon Bay, Battle of, 93, 94 
 
 Restoration, Navy of, 48 
 Revolution of 1688, 57-59 
 Richard Coeur de Lion, 14 
 Rodney, 99, 103, 104 
 Russian War, 1854-56, Navy in, 
 156, 167 
 
 St Vincent, Earl, 112, 116, 117 
 Sandwich, Lord, his corrupt 
 
 administration, 98 
 Saumarez' action, 123 
 Saunders at Quebec, 90 
 Sea, as barrier and pathway, 1, 2, 
 
 12 
 Sea command, 147, 163, 166 
 Ships of war described, 3-5, 8, 
 
 12-14, 20-22, 28, 36, 73, 79 
 Sluys, Battle of, 17 
 Solebay, Battle of, 55 
 South African War, Navy and, 
 
 158 
 Sovereignty of the seas, 23, 36 
 Spain, causes of naval decline, 
 
 34, 69 
 Spain, the struggle with, 26-36 
 Strategical ideas and movements, 
 
 9, 10, 12, 15, 29-41 (Drake and 
 
 Howard), 60 (Torrington), 80, 
 
 95, 97, 101, 102, 108, 137-140, 
 
 156-168, 159 
 
 Tactics, 16, 17, 41, 74, 99, 110 
 Torrington. Herbert, Earl of, 
 60-61 
 
INDEX 
 
 167 
 
 Tostig's Raid 1066, 9 
 
 Tourville, 60-64 
 
 Trafalgar, campaign and battle, 
 
 133-142 
 Trinity House, 23 
 Tromp, Marten, 39, 43, 44 
 
 United Provinces, see Nether- 
 lands 
 
 United States, War of 1812, 149 
 153 
 
 Villeneuve, 130-132, 13^141 
 
 William the Conqueror, 7 
 
 York, Duke of, afterwards James 
 II, 49, 51, 59 
 
 ^ 
 
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 35 Rocks and their Origins. By Prof. Grenville A. J. Cole. 
 
 44 The Work of Rain and Rivers. By T. G. Bonney, Sc.D. 
 
 7 The Natural History of Coal. By Dr E. A. Newell Arber. 
 
 30 The Natural History of Clay. By Alfred B. Searle. 
 
 34 The Origin of Earthquakes. By C. Davison, Sc.D., F.G.S. 
 
 62 Submerged Forests. By Clement Reid, F.R.S. 
 72 The Fertility of the Soil. By E. J. Russell, D.Sc. 
 
 BOTANY 
 
 5 Plant- Animals : a Study in Symbiosis. By Prof. F. W. 
 
 Keeble. 
 }0 Plant- Life on Land. By Prof. F. O. Bower, ScD., F.R.S. 
 19 Links with the Past in the Plant-World. By Prof. A. C. 
 
 Seward, F.R.S. 
 
PHYSICS 
 
 52 The Earth. By Prof. J. H. Poynting, F.R.S. 
 
 53 The Atmosphere. By A. J. Berry, M.A. 
 
 81 The Sun. By Prof. R. A. Sampson. D.Sc, F.R.S. 
 65 Beyond the Atom. By John Cox, M.A. 
 
 55 The Physical Basis of Music. By A. Wood, M.A 
 
 71 Natural Sources of Energy. By Prof. A. H. Gibson, D.Sc 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 1 4 An Introduction to Experimental Psychology. By Dr C. S. 
 
 Myers. 
 45 The Psychology of Insanity. By Bernard Hart, M.D. 
 17 The Beautiful. By Vernon Lee. 
 
 INDUSTRIAL AND MECHANICAL SCIENCE 
 
 31 The Modern Locomotive. By C. Edgar Allen, A.M.I. Mech.E. 
 
 56 The Modern Warship. By E. L. Attwood. 
 
 17 Aerial Locomotion. By E. H. Harper, M.A., and Alleui 
 
 E. Ferguson, B.Sc. 
 
 18 Electricity in Locomotion. By A. G. Whyte, B.Sc. 
 
 63 Wireless Telegraphy. By Prof. C. L. Fortescue, M.A. 
 
 58 The Story of a Loaf of Bread. By Prof. T. B. Wood, M.A. 
 
 47 Brewing. By A. Chaston Chapman, F.I.C. 
 
 82 Coal-Mining. By T. C. CantriU. 
 
 83 Leather. By Prof. H. R. Procter. 
 
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 happy way a popular presentation of scientific truth along with the 
 accuracy of treatment which in such subjects is essential.... In their 
 general appearance, and in the quality of their binding, print, and 
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 which offer to the inquiring layman the hardly earned products of 
 technical and specialist research." Spectator 
 
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 ment of a good school as is an encyclopaedia.... We can conceive 
 no better series of handy books for ready reference than those 
 represented by the Cambridge Manuals." School World 
 
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