Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 Part 12

II

MONCK, PRINCE RUPERT AND THE DUKE OF YORK

INTRODUCTORY

It has. .h.i.therto been universally supposed that the Dutch Wars of the Restoration were fought under the set of orders printed as an appendix to Granville Penn's _Memorials of Penn_. Mr. Penn believed them to belong to the year 1665, but recent research shows conclusively that these often-quoted orders, which have been the source of so much misapprehension, are really much later and represent not the ideas under which those wars were fought, but the experience that was gained from them.

This new light is mainly derived from a hitherto unknown collection of naval ma.n.u.scripts belonging to the Earl of Dartmouth, which he has generously placed at the disposal of the Society. The invaluable material they contain enables us to say with certainty that the orders which the Duke of York issued as lord high admiral and commander-in-chief at the outbreak of the war were nothing but a slight modification of those of 1654, with a few but not unimportant additions. Amongst the ma.n.u.scripts, most of which relate to the first Lord Dartmouth's cousin and first commander, Sir Edward Spragge, is a 'Sea Book' that must have once belonged to that admiral. It is a kind of commonplace book, the greater part unused, in which Spragge appears to have begun to enter various important orders and other matter of naval interest with which he had been officially concerned, by way of forming a collection of precedents.[1] Amongst these is a copy of the orders set out below, dated from the Royal Charles, the Duke of York's flagship, 'the 10th of April, 1665,' by command of his royal highness, and signed 'Wm. Coventry.' This was the well-known politician Sir William Coventry, the model, if not the author, of the _Character of a Trimmer_, who had been made private secretary to the duke on the eve of the Restoration, and was now a commissioner of the navy and acting as secretary on the duke's staff. So closely it will be seen do they follow the Commonwealth orders of 1653, as modified in the following year, that it would be scarcely worth while setting them out in full, but for the importance of finally establishing their true origin. The scarcely concealed doubts which many writers have felt as to whether the new system of tactics can have been due to the Duke of York may now be laid at rest, and henceforth the great reform must be credited not to him, but to Cromwell's 'generals-at-sea.'

Nevertheless the credit of certain developments which were introduced at this time must still remain with the duke and his advisers: Rupert, Sandwich, Lawson, and probably above all Penn, his flag captain. For instance, differences will be found in Articles 2 and 3, where, instead of merely enjoining the line, the duke refers to a regular 'order of battle,' which has not come down to us, but which no doubt gave every ship her station in the line, like those which Sandwich had prepared for his squadron a few months earlier, and which Monck and Rupert certainly drew up in the following year.[2] Then again the truculent Article 10 of 1653 and 1654 ordering the immediate destruction of disabled ships of the enemy after saving the crews if possible, which contemporary authorities put down to Monck, is reversed. At the end, moreover, two articles are added; one, numbered 15, embodying numbers 2 and 3 of Sandwich's orders of the previous year, with such modifications as were necessary to adapt them to a large fleet, and another numbered 16 enjoining 'close action.' Nor is this all. Spragge's 'Sea Book' contains also a set of ten 'additional instructions' all of which are new. They are undated, but from another copy in Capt. Robert Moulton's 'Sea Book' we can fix them to April 18th, 1665.[3] Their whole tenour suggests that they were the outcome of prolonged discussions in the council of war; and in the variously dated copies which exist of sections of the orders we have evidence that between the last week in March, when the duke hoisted his flag, and April 21st, when he put to sea, much time must have been spent upon the consideration of the tactical problem.[4]

The result was a marked advance. In these ten 'additional instructions,' for instance, we have for the first time a clear distinction drawn between attacks from windward and attacks from leeward. We have also the first appearance of the close-hauled line ahead, and it is enjoined as a defensive formation when the enemy attacks from windward. A method of attack from windward is also provided for the case where the enemy stays to receive it. Amongst less important developments we have an article making the half-cable's length, originally enjoined under the Commonwealth, the regular interval between ships, and others to prevent the line being broken for the sake of chasing or taking possession of beaten ships. Finally there are signals for tacking in succession either from the van or the rear, which must have given the fleet a quite unprecedented increase of tactical mobility. Nor are we without evidence that increased mobility was actually exhibited when the new instructions were put to a practical test.

It was under the old Commonwealth orders as supplemented and modified by these noteworthy articles of April 1665, that was fought the memorable action of June 3rd, variously known as the battle of Lowestoft or the Second Battle of the Texel. It is this action that Hoste cites as the first in which two fleets engaged in close hauled line ahead, and kept their formation throughout the day. After two days' manoeuvring the English gained the wind, and kept it in spite of all their enemy could do, and the various accounts of the action certainly give the impression that the evolutions of the English were smarter and more complex than those of the Dutch. It is true that about the middle of the action one of the new signals, that for the rear to tack first, threw the fleet into some confusion, and that later the van and centre changed places; still, till almost the end, the duke, or rather Penn, his flag captain, kept at least some control of the fleet. Granville Penn indeed claims that the duke finally routed the Dutch by breaking their line, and that he did it intentionally. But this movement is only mentioned in a hasty letter to the press written immediately after the battle. If the enemy's line was actually cut, it must have been an accident or a mere instance of the time-honoured practice of trying to concentrate on or 'overcharge'

a part of the enemy's fleet. Coventry in his official despatch to Monck, who was ash.o.r.e in charge of the admiralty, says nothing of it, nor does Hoste, while the duke himself tells us the object of his movement was merely to have 'a bout with Opdam.' Granville Penn was naturally inclined to credit the statement in the Newsletter because he believed the action was fought under Fighting Instructions which contained an article about dividing the enemy's fleet. But even if this article had been in force at the time--and we now know that it was not--it would still have been inapplicable, for it was only designed in view of an attack from leeward, a most important point which modern writers appear unaccountably to have overlooked.[5]

But although we can no longer receive this questionable movement of the Duke of York as an instance of 'breaking the line' in the modern sense, it is certain that the English manoeuvres in this action were more scientific and elaborate than ever before--so much so indeed that a reaction set in, and it is this reaction which gave rise to the idea in later times that the order in line ahead had not been used in Commonwealth or Restoration times. We gather that in spite of the victory there was a widespread conviction that it ought to have been more decisive. It was felt that there had been perhaps too much manoeuvring and not enough hard fighting. In the end the Duke of York and Sandwich were both tenderly relieved of their command, and superseded by Monck. He and Rupert then became joint admirals for the ensuing campaign. They had the reputation of being two of the hardest fighters alive, and both were convinced of their power of sweeping the Dutch from the sea by sheer hard hitting, a belief which so far at least as Monck was concerned the country enthusiastically shared. The spirit in which the two soldier-admirals put to sea in May 1666 we see reflected in the hitherto unknown 'Additional Instructions for Fighting' given below. For the knowledge of these remarkable orders, which go far to solve the mystery that has clouded the subject, we are again indebted to Lord Dartmouth. They are entered like the others in Sir Edward Spragge's 'Sea Book.' They bear no date, but as they are signed 'Rupert' and addressed to 'Sir Edward Spragge, Knt., Vice-Admiral of the Blue,' we can with certainty fix them to this time. For we know that Spragge sailed in Rupert's squadron, and on the fourth day of the famous June battle was raised to the rank here given him in place of Sir William Berkley, who had been killed in the first day's action.[6] What share Monck had in the orders we cannot tell, but Rupert, being only joint admiral with him, could hardly have taken the step without his concurrence, and the probability is that Rupert, who had been detached on special service, was issuing a general fleet order to his own squadron which may have been communicated to the rest of the fleet before he rejoined. It must at any rate have been after he rejoined, for it was not till then that Spragge received his promotion. Both Monck and Rupert must therefore receive the credit of foreseeing the danger that lay in the new system, the danger of tactical pedantry that was destined to hamper the action of our fleets for the next half century, and of being the first to declare, long before Anson or Hawke, and longer still before Nelson, that line or no line, signals or no signals, 'the destruction of the enemy is always to be made the chiefest care.'

In the light of this discovery we can at last explain the curious conversation recorded by Pepys, which, wrongly interpreted, has done so much to distort the early history of tactics. The circ.u.mstances of Monck's great action must first be recalled. At the end of May, he and Rupert, with a fleet of about eighty sail, had put to sea to seek the Dutch, when a sudden order reached them from the court that the French Mediterranean fleet was coming up channel to join hands with the enemy, and that Rupert with his squadron of twenty sail was to go westward to stop it. The result of this foolish order was that on June 1 Monck found himself in presence of the whole Dutch fleet of nearly a hundred sail, with no more than fifty-nine of his own.[7] Seeing an advantage, however, he attacked them furiously, throwing his whole weight upon their van. Though at first successful shoals forced him to tack, and his rear fell foul of the Dutch centre and rear, so that he came off severely handled. The next day he renewed the fight with forty-four sail against about eighty, and with so much skill that he was able that night to make an orderly retreat, covering his disabled ships with those least injured 'in a line abreadth.'[8] On the 3rd the retreat was continued. So well was it managed that the Dutch could not touch him, and towards evening he was able near the Galloper Sand to form a junction with Rupert, who had been recalled. Together on the 4th day they returned to the fight with as fierce a determination as ever. Though to leeward, they succeeded in breaking through the enemy's line, such as it was. Being in too great an inferiority of numbers, however, they could not reap the advantage of their manoeuvre.[9] It only resulted in their being doubled on, and the two fleets were soon mingled in a raging ma.s.s without order or control; and when in the end they parted after a four days' fight, without example for endurance and carnage in naval history, the English had suffered a reverse at least as great as that they had inflicted on the Dutch in the last year's action.

Such a terrific object lesson could not be without its effects on the great tactical question. But let us see how it looked in the eyes of a French eye-witness, who was naturally inclined to a favourable view of his Dutch allies. Of the second day's fight he says: 'Sur les six heures du matin nous apperc.u.mes la flotte des Anglais qui revenoit dans une ordre admirable. Car ils marchent par le front comme seroit une armee de terre, et quand ils approchent ils s'etendent et tournent leurs bords pour combattre: parce que le front a la mer se fait par le bord des vaisseaux': that is, of course, the English bore down on the Dutch all together in line abreast, and then hauled their wind into line ahead to engage. Again, in describing the danger Tromp was in by having weathered the English fleet with his own squadron, while the rest of the Dutch were to leeward, he says: 'J'ai deja dit que rien n'egale le bel ordre et la discipline des Anglais, que jamais ligne n'a ete tiree plus droite que celle que leurs vaisseaux forment, qu'on peut etre certain que lorsqu'on en approche il les faux [_sic_] tous essuer.' The very precision of the English formation however, as he points out, was what saved Tromp from destruction, because having weathered their van-ship, he had the wind of them all and could not be enveloped. On the other hand, he says, whenever an English ship penetrated the Dutch formation it fared badly because the Dutch kept themselves 'redoublez'--that is, not in a single line. As a general principle, then, he declares that it is safer to 'entrer dans une flotte d'Angleterre que de pa.s.ser aupres' (_i.e._ stand along it), 'et bien mieux de pa.s.ser aupres d'une flotte Hollandaise que se meler au travers, si elle combat toujours comme elle fit pour lors.' But on the whole he condemns the loose formation of the Dutch, and says it is really due not to a tactical idea, but to individual captains shirking their duty. It is clear, then, that whatever was De Ruyter's intention, the Dutch did not fight in a true line. Later on in the same action he says: 'Ruyter de son cote appliqua toute son industrie pour donner une meilleure forme a sa ligne ... enfin par ce moyen nous nous remismes sur une ligne parallele a celle des Anglais.'

Finally, in summing up the tactical lesson of the stupendous battle, he concludes: 'A la verite l'ordre admirable de leur [the English] armee doit toujours etre imite, et pour moi je sais bien que si j'etais dans le service de mer, et que je commanda.s.se des vaisseaux du Roi je songerois a battre les Anglois _par leur propre maniere et non par celle des Hollandoises, et de nous autres, qui est de vouloir aborder_.' In defence of his view he cites a military a.n.a.logy, instancing a line of cavalry, which being controlled 'avec regle' devotes itself solely to making the opposing force give way, and keeps as close an eye on itself as on the enemy. Supposing such a line engaged against another body of horse in which the squadrons break their ranks and advance unevenly to the charge, such a condition, he says, would not promise success to the latter, and the parallel he contends is exact.[10]

From this account by an accomplished student of tactics we may deduce three indisputable conclusions, 1. That the formation in line ahead was aimed at the development of gun power as opposed to boarding. 2. That it was purely English, and that, however far Dutch tacticians had sought to imitate it, they had not yet succeeded in forcing it on their seamen. 3. That the English certainly fought in line, and had reached a perfection in handling the formation which could only have been the result of constant practice in fleet tactics.

It remains to consider the precisely opposite impression we get from English authority. To begin with, we find on close examination that the whole of it, or nearly so, is to be traced to Pepys or Penn. The _locus cla.s.sicus_ is as follows from Pepys's _Diary_ of July 4th. 'In the evening Sir W. Penn came to me, and we walked together and talked of the late fight. I find him very plain, that the whole conduct of the late fight was ill.... He says three things must be remedied, or else we shall be undone by their fleet. 1. That we must fight in line, whereas we fight promiscuously, to our utter demonstrable ruin: the Dutch fighting otherwise, and we whenever we beat them. 2. We must not desert ships of our own in distress, as we did, for that makes a captain desperate, and he will fling away his ship when there are no hopes left him of succour. 3. That ships when they are a little shattered must not take the liberty to come in of themselves, but refit themselves the best they can and stay out, many of our ships coming in with very little disableness. He told me that our very commanders, nay, our very flag officers, do stand in need of exercising amongst themselves and discoursing the business of commanding a fleet, he telling me that even one of our flag men in the fleet did not know which tack lost the wind or kept it in the last engagement.... He did talk very rationally to me, insomuch that I took more pleasure this night in hearing him discourse than I ever did in my life in anything that he said.'

Pepys's enjoyment is easily understood. He disliked Penn--thought him a 'mean rogue,' a 'c.o.xcomb,' and a 'false rascal,' but he was very sore over the supersession of his patron, Sandwich, and so long as Penn abused Monck, Pepys was glad enough to listen to him, and ready to believe anything he said in disparagement of the late battle. Penn was no less bitter against Monck, and when his chief, the Duke of York, was retired he had sulkily refused to serve under the new commander-in-chief. For this reason Penn had not been present at the action, but he was as ready as Pepys to believe anything he was told against Monck, and we may be sure the stories of grumbling officers lost nothing when he repeated them into willing ears. That Penn really told Pepys the English had not fought in line is quite incredible, even if he was, as Sir George Carteret, treasurer of the navy, called him, 'the falsest rascal that ever was in the world.'

The fleet orders and the French testimony make this practically impossible. But he may well have expressed himself very hotly about the new instruction issued by Monck and Rupert which modified his own, and placed the destruction of the enemy above a pedantic adherence to the line. Pepys must clearly have forgotten or misunderstood what Penn said on this point, and in any case both men were far too much prejudiced for the pa.s.sage to have any historical value. Abuse of Monck by Penn can have little weight enough, but the same abuse filtered through Pepys's acrid and irresponsible pen can have no weight at all.[11]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] It is a folio parchment-bound volume, labelled 'Royal Charles Sea Book,' but this is clearly an error, due to the fact that the first order copied into it is dated from the Royal Charles, April 24, 1666.

The first entry, however, is the list of a ship's company which Spragge commanded in 1661-2, as appears from his noting the deaths and desertions which took place amongst the crew in those years. At this time he is known to have commanded the Portland. For some years the book was evidently laid aside, and apparently resumed when in 1665 he commissioned the Triumph for the Dutch War.

[2] See notes _supra_, pp. 108-9, and in the _Dartmouth MSS., Hist. MSS.

Com. Rep._ XI. v. 15.

[3] _Harleian MSS._ 1247. It contains orders addressed to Moulton and returns for the Centurion, Vanguard and Anne, the ships he commanded in 1664-6. At p. 52 it has a copy of the above 'Additional Instructions,'

but numbered 1 to 6, articles 1 to 5 of the Dartmouth copy being in one long article. At p. 50 it has the original articles as far as No. 6.

Then come two articles numbered as 7 and 8, giving signals for a squadron 'to draw up in line' and to come near the admiral. They are subscribed 'Royal James, Admiral.' The Royal James was Rupert's flagship in 1665, and the two articles may be squadronal orders of his. Then, numbered 9 to 12, come four 'additional instructions for sailing' by the Duke of York, relating to chasing, and dated April 24, 1665.

[4] Some of these articles are dated even as late as April 27, See in the _Penn Tracts, Sloane MSS._ 3232, f. 33, _infra_, p. 128.

[5] See _post_, p. 177. For the despatches, &c., see G. Penn, _Memorials of Penn_, II. 322-333, 344-350. He also quotes a work published at Amsterdam in 1668 which says: 'Le Comte de Sandwich separa la flotte Hollandaise en deux vers l'une heure du midi.' He explains that by the order for the rear to tack first, Sandwich was leading, forgetting Coventry's despatch (_ibid._ p. 328), which tells how by that time the duke had taken Sandwich's place and was leading the line himself, and that it was he, not Sandwich, who led the movement upon Opdam's ship in the centre of the Dutch line.

[6] Charnock, _Biographia Navalis_, i. 65.

[7] Pepys, it must be said, persuaded himself that this order was suggested and approved by the admirals. He traced it to Spragge's desire to get away with his chief on a separate command. Pepys however was clearly not sure about it, and he almost certainly would have been if the Duke of York was really innocent of the blunder. The truth probably can never be known.

[8] Vice-Admiral Jordan to Penn, June 5, _Memorials of Penn_, II. 389.

This is the first known instance of the use of the term 'line abreast.'

In the published account a different term is used. 'By 3 or 4 in the morning,' it says, 'a small breeze sprang up at N.E. and at a council of flag officers, his grace the lord general resolved to draw the fleet into a "rear line of battle" and make a fair retreat of it.' (_Brit.

Museum_, 816, m. 23(13), p. 5, and _S.P. Dom. Car. II_, vol. 158.) The French and Dutch called it the 'crescent' formation. See note, p. 94.

[9] See _post_, pp. 136-7.

[10] _Memoires d'Armand de Gramont, Comte de Guiche, concernant les Provinces Unis des Pays-Bas servant de supplement et de confirmation a ceux d'Aubrey du Maurier et du Comte d'Estrades_. Londres, chez Philippe Changuion, 1744. (The italics are not in the original.) _Cf._ the similar French account quoted by Mahan, _Sea Power_, 117 _et seq._

[11] _Cf._ a similar conversation that Pepys had on October 28 with a certain Captain Guy, who had been in command of a small fourth-rate of thirty-eight guns in Holmes's attack on the shipping at Vlie and Sh.e.l.ling after the 'St. James's Fight' and of a company of the force that landed to destroy Bandaris. The prejudice of both Pepys and Penn comes out still more strongly in their remarks on Monck's and Rupert's great victory of July 25, and their efforts to make out it was no victory at all. The somewhat meagre accounts we have of this action all point as before to the superiority of the English manoeuvring, and to the inability or unwillingness of the Dutch, and especially of Tromp, to preserve the line.

_THE DUKE OF YORK, April_ 10, 1665.

[+Sir Edward Spragge's Sea Book. The Earl of Dartmouth MSS.+]

_James, Duke of York and Albany, Earl of Ulster, Lord High Admiral of England and Ireland, &c, Constable of Dover Castle, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and Governor of Portsmouth.

Instructions for the better ordering his majesty's fleet in time of fighting_.

Upon discovery of a fleet receiving a sign from the admiral, which is to be striking of the admiral's ensign, and making a weft, one frigate appointed out of each squadron are to make sail and stand in with them so nigh as conveniently they may, the better to gain a knowledge of what they are and what quality, how many fireships and others, and in what posture the fleet is; which being done the frigates are to meet together and conclude on the report they are to give, and accordingly to repair to their respective squadrons and commanders-in-chief, and not engage if the enemy's ships exceed them in number, except it shall appear to them on the place that they have an advantage.

2. At the sight of the said fleet the vice-admiral, or he that commands in chief in the second place, and his squadron, and the rear-admiral, or he that commands in chief in the third place, and his squadron are to make what sail they can to come up and put themselves into the place and order which shall have been directed them before in the order of battle.

3. As soon as they shall see the admiral engage or shall make a signal by shooting off two guns and putting out a red flag on the fore topmast-head, that then each squadron shall take the best advantage they can to engage with the enemy according to the order prescribed.

4. If any squadron shall happen to be overcharged and distressed, the next squadron or ships are immediately to make towards their relief and a.s.sistance upon a signal given them: which signal shall be in the admiral's squadron a pennant on the fore topmast-head; if any ship in the vice-admiral's squadron, or he that commands in chief in the second place, a pennant on the main topmast-head; and the rear-admiral's squadron the like.[1]

5. If any ship shall be disabled or distressed by loss of masts, shot under water or the like, so as she is in danger of sinking or taking, he or the [ship] thus distressed shall make a sign by the weft of his jack and ensign, and those next to them are strictly required to relieve them.[1]

6. That if any ship shall be necessitated to bear away from the enemy to stop a leak or mend what else is amiss, which cannot otherwise be repaired, he is to put out a pennant on the mizen yard-arm or on the ensign staff, whereby the rest of the ship's squadron may have notice what it is for--and if it should be that the admiral or any flagships should do so, the ships of the fleet or of the respective squadrons are to endeavour to get up as close in a line between him and the enemy as they can, having always an eye to defend him in case the enemy should come to annoy him in that condition.

7. If the admiral should have the wind of the enemy and that other ships of the fleet are in the wind of the admiral, then upon hoisting up a blue flag at the mizen yard or mizen topmast, every such ship is then to bear up into his wake or grain upon pain of severe punishment.

If the admiral be to leeward of the enemy, and his fleet or any part thereof to leeward of him, to the end such ships may come up into a line with the admiral, if he shall put abroad a flag as before and bear up, none that are to leeward are to bear up, but to keep his or their ship or ships luff, thereby to gain his wake or grain.

8. If the admiral would have any of the ships to make sail or endeavour by tacking or otherwise to gain the wind of the enemy, he will put up a red flag upon the spritsail, topmast shrouds, forestay, or fore topmast-stay. He that first discovers this signal shall make sail, and hoist and lower his jack and ensign, that the rest of the ships may take notice thereof and follow.

9. If we put a red flag on the mizen shrouds or the mizen yard-arm, we would have all the flagships to come up in the wake or grain of us.

10. If in time of fight G.o.d shall deliver any of the enemy's ships into our power by their being disabled, the commanders of his majesty's ships in condition of pursuing the enemy are not during fight to stay, take, possess, or burn any of them, lest by so doing the opportunity of more important service be lost, but shall expect command from the flag officers for doing thereof when they shall see fit to command it.

11. None shall fire upon ships of the enemy that is laid on board by any of our own ships but so as he may be sure he doth not endamage his friends.