Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 Part 9

PART IV

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR

I. ENGLISH AND DUTCH ORDERS ON THE EVE OF THE WAR, 1648-52

II. ORDERS ISSUED DURING THE WAR, 1653-54

I

ENGLISH AND DUTCH ORDERS ON THE EVE OF THE WAR, 1648-53

INTRODUCTORY

From the foregoing examples it will be seen that at the advent of the Commonwealth, which was to set on foot so sweeping a revolution in the naval art, all attempts to formulate a tactical system had been abandoned. This is confirmed by the following extract from the orders issued by the Long Parliament in 1648. It was the time when the revolt of a part of the fleet and a rising in the South Eastern counties led the government to apprehend a naval coalition of certain foreign powers in favour of Charles. It is printed by Granville Penn in his _Memorials of Sir William Penn_ as having been issued in 1647, but the original copy of the orders amongst the Penn Tracts (_Sloane MSS._ 1709, f. 55) is marked as having been delivered on May 2, 1648, to 'Captain William Penn, captain of the a.s.surance frigate and rear-admiral of the Irish Squadron.' They are clearly based on the later precedents of Charles I, but it must be noted that Penn is told 'to expect more particular instructions' in regard to the fighting article. We may a.s.sume therefore that the admiralty authorities already recognised the inadequacy of the established fighting instructions, and so soon as the pressure of that critical time permitted intended to amplify them.

Amongst those responsible for the orders however there is no name that can be credited with advanced views. They were signed by five members of the Navy Committee, and at their head is Colonel Edward Mountagu, afterwards Earl of Sandwich, but then only twenty-two years old.[1]

Whether anything further was done is uncertain. No supplementary orders have been found bearing date previous to the outbreak of the Dutch war. But there exists an undated set which it seems impossible not to attribute to this period. It exists in the _Harleian MSS._ (1247, ff. 43b), amongst a number of others which appear to have been used by the Duke of York as precedents in drawing up his famous instructions of 1665. To begin with it is clearly later than the orders of 1648, upon which it is an obvious advance. Then the use of the word 'general' for admiral, and of the word 'sign' for 'signal'

fixes it to the Commonwealth or very early Restoration. Finally, internal evidence shows it is previous to the orders of 1653, for those orders will be seen to be an expansion of the undated set so far as they go, and further, while these undated orders have no mention of the line, those of 1653 enjoin it. They must therefore lie between 1648 and 1653, and it seems worth while to give them here conjecturally as being possibly the supplementary, or 'more particular instructions,' which the government contemplated; particularly as this hypothesis gains colour from the unusual form of the heading 'Instructions for the better ordering.' Though this form became fixed from this time forward, there is, so far as is known, no previous example of it except in the orders which Lord Wimbledon propounded to his council of war in 1625, and those were also supplementary articles.[2]

Be this as it may, the orders in question do not affect the position that up to the outbreak of the First Dutch War we have no orders enjoining the line ahead as a battle formation. Still we cannot entirely ignore the fact that, in spite of the lack of orders on the subject, traces of a line ahead are to be detected in the earliest action of the war. Gibson, for instance, in his _Reminiscences_ has the following pa.s.sage relating to Blake's brush with Tromp over the honour of the flag on May 9, 1652, before the outbreak of the war:[3] 'When the general had got half Channel over he could see the Dutch fleet with their starboard tacks aboard standing towards him, having the weather-gage. Upon which the general made a sign for the fleet to tack. After which, having their starboard tacks aboard (the general's ship, the Old James, being the southernmost and sternmost ship in the fleet), the rest of his fleet tacking, first placed themselves in a line ahead of the general, who after tacking hauled up his mainsail in the brails, fitted his ship to fight, slung his yards, and run out his lower tier of guns and clapt his fore topsail upon the mast.' If Gibson could be implicitly trusted this pa.s.sage would be conclusive on the existence of the line formation earlier than any of the known Fighting Instructions which enjoined it; but unfortunately, as Dr. Gardiner pointed out, Gibson did not write his account till 1702, when he was 67. He is however to some extent corroborated by Blake himself, who in his official despatch of May 20, relating the incident, says that on seeing Tromp bearing down on him 'we lay by and put ourselves into a fighting posture'--_i.e._ battle order--but what the 'posture' was he does not say. If however this posture was actually the one Gibson describes, we have the important fact that in the first recorded instance of the complete line, it was taken as a defensive formation to await an attack from windward.

The only other description we have of English tactics at this time occurs in a despatch of the Dutch commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, Van Galen, in which he describes how Captain Richard Badiley, then commanding a squadron on the station, engaged him with an inferior force and covered his convoy off Monte Christo in August 1652. When the fleets were in contact, he says, as though he were speaking of something that was quite unfamiliar to him, 'then every captain bore up from leeward close to us to get into range, and so all gave their broadsides first of the one side and then again of the other, and then bore away with their ships before the wind till they were ready again; and then as before with the guns of the whole broadside they fired into my flagship, one after the other, meaning to shoot my masts overboard.'[4] From this it would seem that Badiley attacked in succession in the time-honoured way, and that the old rudimentary form of the line ahead was still the ordinary practice.

The evidence however is far from strong, but really little is needed. Experience teaches us that the line ahead formation would never have been adopted as a standing order unless there had been some previous practice in the service to justify it or unless the idea was borrowed from abroad. But, as we shall see, the oft-repeated a.s.sertion that it was imitated from the Dutch is contrary to all the evidence and quite untenable. The only experience the framers of the order of 1653 can have had of a line ahead formation must have been in our own service.

The clearest proof of this lies in the annexed orders which Tromp issued on June 20, 1652, immediately before the declaration of war, and after he had had his brush with Blake, in which, if Gibson is to be trusted, Tromp had seen Blake's line. From these orders it is clear that the Dutch conception of a naval action was still practically identical with that of Lindsey's instructions of 1635, that is, mutual support of squadrons or groups, with no trace of a regular battle formation. In the detailed 'organisation' of the fleet each of the three squadrons has its own three flag officers--that is to say, it was organised, like that of Lord Wimbledon in 1625, in three squadrons and nine sub-squadrons, and was therefore clearly designed for group tactics. It is on this point alone, if at all, that it can be said to show any advance on the tactics which had obtained throughout the century, or on those which Tromp himself had adopted against Oquendo in 1639.

Yet further proof is to be found in the orders issued by Witte Corneliszoon de With to his captains in October 1652, as commander-in-chief of the Dutch fleet. In these he very strictly enjoins, as a matter of real importance, 'that they shall all keep close up by the others and as near together as possible, to the end that thereby they may act with united force ... and prevent any isolation or cutting off of ships occurring in time of fight;' adding 'that it behoved them to stand by and relieve one another loyally, and rescue such as might be hotly attacked.' This is clearly no more than an amplification of Tromp's order of the previous June. It introduces no new principle, and is obviously based on the time-honoured idea of group tactics and mutual support. It is true that De Jonghe, the learned historian of the Dutch navy, regards it as conclusive that the line was then in use by the Dutch, because, as he says, several Dutch captains, after the next action, were found guilty and condemned for not having observed their instructions. But really there is nothing in it from which a line can be inferred. It is all explained on the theory of groups. And in spite of De Jonghe's deep research and his anxiety to show that the line was practised by his countrymen as well as by the English in the first Dutch War, he is quite unable to produce any orders like the English instructions of 1653, in which a line formation is clearly laid down.

But whether or not we can accept De Jonghe's conclusions as to the time the line was introduced into the Dutch service, one thing is clear enough--that he never ventured to suggest that the English copied the idea from his own countrymen. It is evident that he found nothing either in the Dutch archives or elsewhere even to raise such an idea in his mind. But, on the other hand, his conspicuous impartiality leads him to give abundant testimony that throughout these wars thoughtful Dutch officers were continually praising the order and precision of the English tactics, and lamenting the blundering and confusion of their own. It may be added that Dr.

Gardiner's recent researches in the same field equally failed to produce any doc.u.ment upon which we can credit the Dutch admirals with serious tactical reforms. Even De Ruyter's improvements in squadronal organisation consisted mainly in superseding a multiplicity of small squadrons by a system of two or three large squadrons, divided into sub-Squadrons, a system which was already in use with the English, and was presumably imitated by De Ruyter, if it was indeed he who introduced it and not Tromp, from the well-established Commonwealth practice.[5]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The others were John Rolle, member for Truro, a merchant and politician, who died in November 1648, and who as early as 1645 had been proposed, though unsuccessfully, for the Navy Committee; and three less conspicuous members of Parliament: Sir Walter Earle (of the Presbyterian party), Giles Greene, and Alexander Bence. They were all superseded the following year by the new Admiralty Committee of the Council of State.

[2] _Supra_, p. 63. It may also be noted that these articles are intended for a fleet not large enough to be divided into squadrons--just such a fleet in fact as that in which Penn was flying his flag. The units contemplated, _e.g._ in Articles 2-4, are 'ships,' whereas in the corresponding articles of 1653 the units are 'squadrons.'

[3] Gardiner, _Dutch War_, i. 9.

[4] This at least is what Van Galen's crabbed old Dutch seems to mean.

'Alsoo naer bij quam dat se couden toe schieter dragen, de elcken heer onder den windt, gaven so elck hare laghe dan vinjt d'eene sijde, dan veer van d'anden sijde, hielden alsdan met haer schepen voor den vindt tal dat se weer claer waren, dan wast alsvooren met cannoneren van de heele lagh en in sonderheijt op mijn onderhebbende schip vier gaven van meeninge masten aft stengen overboort to schieten.' A copy of Van Galen's despatch is amongst Dr. Gardiner's _Dutch War_ transcripts.

[5] See De Jonghe's introduction to his Third Book on 'The Condition of the British and Dutch Navies at the outbreak of and during the Second English War,' _Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Zeewesen_, vol. ii.

part ii. pp. 132-141, and his digression on Tactics, pp. 290 _et seq._, and p. 182 note. De Witte's order is p. 311.

_PARLIAMENTARY ORDERS_, 1648.

[+Sloane MSS. 1709, f. 55. Extract+]

_Instructions given by the Right Honourable the Committee of the Lords and Commons for the Admiralty and Cinque Ports, to be duly observed by all captains and officers whatsoever and common men respectively in their fleet, provided to the glory of G.o.d, the honour and service of Parliament, and the safety of the Kingdom of England_. [_Fol._ 59.]

If any fleet shall be discovered at sea which may probably be conjectured to have a purpose to encounter, oppose, or affront the fleet in the Parliament's service, you may in that case expect more particular directions. But for the present you are to take notice, that in case of joining battle you are to leave it to the vice-admiral to a.s.sail the enemy's admiral, and to match yourself as equally as you can, to succour the rest of the fleet as cause shall require, not wasting your powder nor shooting afar off, nor till you come side to side.

_SUPPLEMENTARY INSTRUCTIONS, circa_ 1650.

[+Harleian MSS. 1247, 43b. Draft unsigned+.]

_Instructions for the better ordering and managing the fleet in fighting_.

1. Upon discovery of a fleet, receiving a sign from the general's ship, which is putting abroad the sign made for each ship or frigate, they are to make sail and stand with them so nigh as to gain knowledge what they are and of what quality, how many fireships and others, and what order the fleet is in; which being done the frigates or vessels are to speak together and conclude on the report they are to give, and accordingly report to the general or commander-in-chief of the squadron, and not to engage if the enemy's ships exceed them in number except it shall appear to them on the place that they have the advantage.

2. At sight of the said fleet the vice-admiral or he that commands in the second place, and the rear-admiral or he that commands in the third place, are to make what sail they can to come up with the admiral on each wing, as also each ship according to her quality, giving a competent distance from each other if there be sea-room enough.

3. As soon as they shall [see] the general engage, or [he] shall make a sign by shooting off two guns and putting a red flag on the fore topmast-head, that each ship shall take the best advantage they can to engage with the enemy next unto him.

4. If any ship shall happen to be over-charged and distressed the next ship or ships are immediately to make towards their relief and a.s.sistance upon signal given; which signal shall be, if the admiral, then a pennant in the fore topmast-head; the vice-admiral or commander in the second place, a pennant in the main topmast-head; and the rear-admiral the like.

5. In case any ship shall be distressed or disabled by loss of masts, shot under water, or otherwise so as she is in danger of sinking or taking, he or they are to give a signal thereof so as, the fleet having knowledge, they may be ready to be relieved. Therefore the flagships are to have a special care to them, that such provisions may be made that they may not be left in distress to the mercy of the enemy; and the signal is to be a weft[1] of the ensign of the ship so distressed.

6. That it is the duty of the commanders and masters of all the small frigates, ketches and smacks belonging to the fleet to know the fireships that belong to the enemy, and accordingly by observing their motion to do their utmost to cut off their boats (if possible), or if opportunity serve that they lay them on board, fire and destroy them; and to this purpose they are to keep to windward of the fleet in time of service. But in case they cannot prevent the fireships from coming on board us by coming between us and them, which by all means possible they are to endeavour, that then, in such a case, they show themselves men in such an exigent,[2] and shear aboard them, and with their boats, grapnels, and other means clear them from us and destroy them; which service, if honourably done, according to its merit shall be rewarded, and the neglect thereof strictly and severely called to account.

7. That the fireships belonging to the fleet endeavour to keep the wind, and they with the small frigate's to be as near the great ships as they can, and to attend the signal from the commander-in-chief and to act accordingly.

8. If any engagement shall happen to continue until night and the general please to anchor, that upon signal given they all anchor in as good order as may be, the signal being as in the instructions for sailing; and if the general please to retreat without anchoring, then the signal to be firing two guns so nigh one the other as the report may be distinguished, and within three minutes after to do the like with two guns more. And the commander of this ship is to sign copies of these instructions to all ships and other vessels of this fleet. Given on board the ----

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See note, p. 99.

[Transcriber's note: The text for this note reads: '_Waft_ (more correctly written _wheft_). It is any flag or ensign stopped together at the head and middle portion, slightly rolled up lengthwise, and hoisted at different positions at the after-part of a ship.'--Admiral Smyth (_Sailors' Word-Book_).]

[2] 'Exigent' = exigence, emergency. Shakespeare has 'Why do you cross me in this exigent?'--_Jul. Caes._ v. i.

_MARTEN TROMP, June_ 20, 1652.

[+Dr. Gardiner's First Dutch War, vol. i. p. 321. Extract+.]

_June_ 20/30, 1652. _The resolution of Admiral Tromp on the distribution of the fleet in case of its being attacked_.