The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 Part 24

The embarra.s.sment of the British army was now very great. The supply-ships on which it had depended fled before the action of the 20th, and the result of course made it impossible for them to return.

The sultan's light cavalry hara.s.sed their communications by land. On the 25th, the general commanding wrote that his "mind was on the rack without a moment's rest since the departure of the fleet, considering the character of M. de Suffren, and the infinite superiority on the part of the French now that we are left to ourselves." From this anxiety he was relieved by the news of the conclusion of peace, which reached Cuddalore on the 29th by flag-of-truce from Madras.

If any doubt had remained as to the relative merits of the two sea-commanders, the last few days of their campaign would have removed them. Hughes alleges the number of his sick and shortness of water as his reasons for abandoning the contest. Suffren's difficulties, however, were as great as his own;[192] and if he had an advantage at Trincomalee, that only shifts the dispute a step back, for he owed its possession to superior generalship and activity. The simple facts that with fifteen ships he forced eighteen to abandon a blockade, relieved the invested army, strengthened his own crews, and fought a decisive action, make an impression which does not need to be diminished in the interests of truth.[193] It is probable that Hughes's self-reliance had been badly shaken by his various meetings with Suffren.

Although the tidings of peace sent by Hughes to Bussy rested only upon unofficial letters, they were too positive to justify a continuance of bloodshed. An arrangement was entered into by the authorities of the two nations in India, and hostilities ceased on the 8th of July. Two months later, at Pondicherry, the official despatches reached Suffren.

His own words upon them are worth quoting, for they show the depressing convictions under which he had acted so n.o.ble a part: "G.o.d be praised for the peace! for it was clear that in India, though we had the means to impose the law, all would have been lost. I await your orders with impatience, and heartily pray they may permit me to leave. War alone can make bearable the weariness of certain things."

On the 6th of October, 1783, Suffren finally sailed from Trincomalee for France, stopping at the Isle of France and the Cape of Good Hope.

The homeward voyage was a continued and spontaneous ovation. In each port visited the most flattering attentions were paid by men of every degree and of every nation. What especially gratified him was the homage of the English captains. It might well be so; none had so clearly established a right to his esteem as a warrior. On no occasion when Hughes and Suffren met, save the last, did the English number over twelve ships; but six English captains had laid down their lives, obstinately opposing his efforts. While he was at the Cape, a division of nine of Hughes's ships, returning from the war, anch.o.r.ed in the harbor. Their captains called eagerly upon the admiral, the stout Commodore King of the "Exeter" at their head. "The good Dutchmen have received me as their savior," wrote Suffren; "but among the tributes which have most flattered me, none has given me more pleasure than the esteem and consideration testified by the English who are here." On reaching home, rewards were heaped upon him. Having left France as a captain, he came back a rear-admiral; and immediately after his return the king created a fourth vice-admiralship, a special post to be filled by Suffren, and to lapse at his death. These honors were won by himself alone; they were the tribute paid to his unyielding energy and genius, shown not only in actual fight but in the steadfastness which held to his station through every discouragement, and rose equal to every demand made by recurring want and misfortune.

Alike in the general conduct of his operations and on the battlefield under the fire of the enemy, this lofty resolve was the distinguishing merit of Suffren; and when there is coupled with it the clear and absolute conviction which he held of the necessity to seek and crush the enemy's fleet, we have probably the leading traits of his military character. The latter was the light that led him, the former the spirit that sustained him. As a tactician, in the sense of a driller of ships, imparting to them uniformity of action and manoeuvring, he seems to have been deficient, and would probably himself have admitted, with some contempt, the justice of the criticism made upon him in these respects. Whether or no he ever actually characterized tactics--meaning thereby elementary or evolutionary tactics--as the veil of timidity, there was that in his actions which makes the _mot_ probable. Such a contempt, however, is unsafe even in the case of genius. The faculty of moving together with uniformity and precision is too necessary to the development of the full power of a body of ships to be lightly esteemed; it is essential to that concentration of effort at which Suffren rightly aimed, but which he was not always careful to secure by previous dispositions. Paradoxical though it sounds, it is true that only fleets which are able to perform regular movements can afford at times to cast them aside; only captains whom the habit of the drill-ground has familiarized with the shifting phases it presents, can be expected to seize readily the opportunities for independent action presented by the field of battle. Howe and Jervis must make ready the way for the successes of Nelson. Suffren expected too much of his captains. He had the right to expect more than he got, but not that ready perception of the situation and that firmness of nerve which, except to a few favorites of Nature, are the result only of practice and experience.

Still, he was a very great man. When every deduction has been made, there must still remain his heroic constancy, his fearlessness of responsibility as of danger, the rapidity of his action, and the genius whose unerring intuition led him to break through the traditions of his service and a.s.sert for the navy that princ.i.p.al part which befits it, that offensive action which secures the control of the sea by the destruction of the enemy's fleet. Had he met in his lieutenants such ready instruments as Nelson found prepared for him, there can be little doubt that Hughes's squadron would have been destroyed while inferior to Suffren's, before reinforcements could have arrived; and with the English fleet it could scarcely have failed that the Coromandel coast also would have fallen. What effect this would have had upon the fate of the peninsula, or upon the terms of the peace, can only be surmised. His own hope was that, by acquiring the superiority in India, a glorious peace might result.

No further opportunities of distinction in war were given to Suffren.

The remaining years of his life were spent in honored positions ash.o.r.e. In 1788, upon an appearance of trouble with England, he was appointed to the command of a great fleet arming at Brest; but before he could leave Paris he died suddenly on the 8th of December, in the sixtieth year of his age. There seems to have been no suspicion at the time of other than natural causes of death, he being exceedingly stout and of apoplectic temperament; but many years after a story, apparently well-founded, became current that he was killed in a duel arising out of his official action in India. His old antagonist on the battlefield, Sir Edward Hughes, died at a great age in 1794.

FOOTNOTES:

[168] This Commodore Johnstone, more commonly known as Governor Johnstone, was one of the three commissioners sent by Lord North in 1778 to promote a reconciliation with America. Owing to certain suspicious proceedings on his part, Congress declared it was incompatible with their honor to hold any manner of correspondence or intercourse with him. His t.i.tle of Governor arose from his being at one time governor of Pensacola. He had a most unenviable reputation in the English navy. (See Charnock's Biog. Navalis.)

[169] This plate is taken almost wholly from Cunat's "Vie de Suffren."

[170] Page 299.

[171] La Serre: Essais Hist. et Critiques sur la Marine Francaise.

[172] The question of attacking the English squadron at its anchors was debated in a council of war. Its opinion confirmed Suffren's decision not to do so. In contrasting this with the failure of the English to attack the French detachment in Newport (p. 394), it must be borne in mind that in the latter case there was no means of forcing the ships to leave their strong position; whereas by threatening Trincomalee, or other less important points, Suffren could rely upon drawing Hughes out. He was therefore right in not attacking, while the English before Newport were probably wrong.

[173] The dependence of Trincomalee upon the English fleet in this campaign affords an excellent ill.u.s.tration of the embarra.s.sment and false position in which a navy finds itself when the defence of its seaports rests upon it. This bears upon a much debated point of the present day, and is worthy the study of those who maintain, too unqualifiedly, that the best coast defence is a navy. In one sense this is doubtless true,--to attack the enemy abroad is the best of defences; but in the narrow sense of the word "defence" it is not true. Trincomalee unfortified was simply a centre round which Hughes had to revolve like a tethered animal; and the same will always happen under like conditions.

[174] Plate XIV., Fig. D, shows the order of battle Suffren intended in this action. The five rear ships of the enemy would each have two opponents close aboard. The leading French ship on the weather side was to be kept farther off, so that while attacking the sixth Englishman she could "contain" the van ships if they attempted to reinforce the rear by tacking.

[175] Troude: Batailles Navales.

[176] Between four and five hundred yards.

[177] The English and French flag-ships are denoted in the plan by their exceptional size.

[178] The "Victory," Nelson's ship at Trafalgar, a 100-gun ship, lost 57 killed and 102 wounded; Hughes's ship, a 74, lost 59 killed and 96 wounded. Collingwood's ship, the "Royal Sovereign," also of 100 guns, lost 47 killed and 94 wounded; the "Monmouth," a 64, in Hughes's action lost 45 killed and 102 wounded.

[179] Troude: Batailles Navales; Chevalier: Hist. de la Marine Francaise.

[180] This remark seems too self-evident to need emphasis; yet it may be questioned whether naval men generally carry it in their stock of axioms.

[181] As always.

[182] That is turned their side to the enemy instead of approaching him.

[183] Chevalier.

[184] Annual Register, 1782.

[185] The British account differs materially as to the cause of the distance separating the two rears. "In this action it did not fall to the 'Monmouth's' lot to sustain a very considerable share, the enemy's rear being so far to leeward that the ships of the British rear could not, even whilst the wind was favorable, close with them without considerably breaking the order of their own line" (Memoir of Captain Alms, Naval Chronicle, vol. ii). Such contradictions are common, and, except for a particular purpose, need not to be reconciled. Alms seems to have been not only a first-rate seaman, but an officer capable of resolute and independent action; his account is probably correct.

[186] Troude: Batailles Navales. It was seen from Suffren's ship that the "Severe's" flag was down; but it was supposed that the ensign halliards had been shot away. The next day Hughes sent the captain of the "Sultan" to demand the delivery to him of the ship which had struck. The demand, of course, could not be complied with. "The 'Sultan,'" Troude says, "which had hove-to to take possession of the 'Severe,' was the victim of this action; she received during some time, without replying, the whole fire of the French ship."

[187] Annual Register, 1782.

[188] Cunat: Vie de Suffren.

[189] The curves in (B) represent the movements of the ships _after_ the shift of wind, which practically ended the battle. The ships themselves show the order in fighting.

[190] The enemy formed a semicircle around us and raked us ahead and astern, as the ship came up and fell off, with the helm to leeward.--_Journal de Bord du Bailli de Suffren._

[191] See page 435. He added: "It is frightful to have had four times in our power to destroy the English squadron, and that it still exists."

[192] There was not a single ship of Suffren's which had more than three-fourths of her regular complement of men. It must be added that soldiers and sepoys made up half of these reduced crews.--_Chevalier_, p. 463.

[193] You will have learned my promotion to commodore and rear-admiral. Now, I tell you in the sincerity of my heart and for your own ear alone, that what I have done since then is worth infinitely more than what I had done before. You know the capture and battle of Trincomalee; but the end of the campaign, and that which took place between the month of March and the end of June, is far above anything that has been done in the navy since I entered it. The result has been very advantageous to the State, for the squadron was endangered and the army lost.--_Private Letter of Suffren, Sept. 13, 1783; quoted in the "Journal de Bord du Bailli de Suffren."_

CHAPTER XIII.

EVENTS IN THE WEST INDIES AFTER THE SURRENDER OF YORKTOWN--ENCOUNTERS OF DE GRa.s.sE WITH HOOD.--THE SEA BATTLE OF THE SAINTS.--1781, 1782.

The surrender of Cornwallis marked the end of the active war upon the American continent. The issue of the struggle was indeed a.s.sured upon the day when France devoted her sea power to the support of the colonists; but, as not uncommonly happens, the determining characteristics of a period were summed up in one striking event. From the beginning, the military question, owing to the physical characteristics of the country, a long seaboard with estuaries penetrating deep into the interior, and the consequent greater ease of movement by water than by land, had hinged upon the control of the sea and the use made of that control. Its misdirection by Sir William Howe in 1777, when he moved his army to the Chesapeake instead of supporting Burgoyne's advance, opened the way to the startling success at Saratoga, when amazed Europe saw six thousand regular troops surrendering to a body of provincials. During the four years that followed, until the surrender of Yorktown, the scales rose and fell according as the one navy or the other appeared on the scene, or as English commanders kept touch with the sea or pushed their operations far from its support. Finally, at the great crisis, all is found depending upon the question whether the French or the English fleet should first appear, and upon their relative force.

The maritime struggle was at once transferred to the West Indies. The events which followed there were antecedent in time both to Suffren's battles and to the final relief of Gibraltar; but they stand so much by themselves as to call for separate treatment, and have such close relation to the conclusion of the war and the conditions of peace, as to form the dramatic finale of the one and the stepping-stone of transition to the other. It is fitting indeed that a brilliant though indecisive naval victory should close the story of an essentially naval war.

The capitulation of Yorktown was completed on the 19th of October, 1781, and on the 5th of November, De Gra.s.se, resisting the suggestions of Lafayette and Washington that the fleet should aid in carrying the war farther south, sailed from the Chesapeake. He reached Martinique on the 26th, the day after the Marquis de Bouille, commanding the French troops in the West Indies, had regained by a bold surprise the Dutch island of St. Eustatius. The two commanders now concerted a joint expedition against Barbadoes, which was frustrated by the violence of the trade winds.

Foiled here, the French proceeded against the island of St.

Christopher, or St. Kitt's (Plate XVIII.). On the 11th of January, 1782, the fleet, carrying six thousand troops, anch.o.r.ed on the west coast off Ba.s.se Terre, the chief town. No opposition was met, the small garrison of six hundred men retiring to a fortified post ten miles to the northwest, on Brimstone Hill, a solitary precipitous height overlooking the lee sh.o.r.e of the island. The French troops landed and pursued, but the position being found too strong for a.s.sault, siege operations were begun.

The French fleet remained at anchor in Ba.s.se Terre road. Meanwhile, news of the attack was carried to Sir Samuel Hood, who had followed De Gra.s.se from the continent, and, in the continued absence of Rodney, was naval commander-in-chief on the station. He sailed from Barbadoes on the 14th, anch.o.r.ed at Antigua on the 21st, and there embarked all the troops that could be spared,--about seven hundred men. On the afternoon of the 23d the fleet started for St. Kitt's, carrying such sail as would bring it within striking distance of the enemy at daylight next morning.

The English having but twenty-two ships to the French twenty-nine, and the latter being generally superior in force, cla.s.s for cla.s.s, it is necessary to mark closely the lay of the land in order to understand Hood's original plans and their subsequent modifications; for, resultless as his attempt proved, his conduct during the next three weeks forms the most brilliant military effort of the whole war. The islands of St. Kitt's and Nevis (Plates XVIII. and XIX.) being separated only by a narrow channel, impracticable for ships-of-the-line, are in effect one, and their common axis lying northwest and southeast, it is necessary for sailing-ships, with the trade wind, to round the southern extremity of Nevis, from which position the wind is fair to reach all anchorages on the lee side of the islands. Ba.s.se Terre is about twelve miles distant from the western point of Nevis (Fort Charles), and its roadstead lies east and west. The French fleet were anch.o.r.ed there in disorder (Plate XVIII., A), three or four deep, not expecting attack, and the ships at the west end of the road could not reach those at the east without beating to windward,--a tedious, and under fire a perilous process. A further most important point to note is that all the eastern ships were so placed that vessels approaching from the southward could reach them with the usual wind.

Hood, therefore, we are told, intended to appear at early daylight, in order of and ready for battle, and fall upon the eastern ships, filing by them with his whole fleet (a, a'), thus concentrating the fire of all upon a few of the enemy; then turning away, so as to escape the guns of the others, he proposed, first wearing and then tacking, to keep his fleet circling in long procession (a', a'') past that part of the enemy's ships chosen for attack. The plan was audacious, but undeniably sound in principle; some good could hardly fail to follow, and unless De Gra.s.se showed more readiness than he had hitherto done, even decisive results might be hoped for.[194]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pl. XVIII. HOOD & DE GRa.s.sE. JAN. 25 & 26, 1782.]

The best-laid plans, however, may fail, and Hood's was balked by the awkwardness of a lieutenant of the watch, who hove-to (stopped) a frigate at night ahead of the fleet, and was consequently run down by a ship-of-the-line. The latter also received such injury as delayed the movement, several hours being lost in repairing damages. The French were thus warned of the enemy's approach, and although not suspecting his intention to attack, De Gra.s.se feared that Hood would pa.s.s down to leeward of him and disturb the siege of Brimstone Hill,--an undertaking so rash for an inferior force that it is as difficult to conceive how he could have supposed it, as to account for his overlooking the weakness of his own position at anchor.

At one P.M. of the 24th the English fleet was seen rounding the south end of Nevis; at three De Gra.s.se got under way and stood to the southward. Toward sundown Hood also went about and stood south, as though retreating; but he was well to windward of his opponent, and maintained this advantage through the night. At daybreak both fleets were to leeward of Nevis,--the English near the island, the French about nine miles distant (Plate XIX.). Some time was spent in manoeuvring, with the object on Hood's part of getting the French admiral yet more to leeward; for, having failed in his first attempt, he had formed the yet bolder intention of seizing the anchorage his unskilful opponent had left, and establishing himself there in an impregnable manner. In this he succeeded, as will be shown; but to understand the justification for a movement confessedly hazardous, it must be pointed out that he thus would place himself between the besiegers of Brimstone Hill and their fleet; or if the latter anch.o.r.ed near the hill, the English fleet would be between it and its base in Martinique, ready to intercept supplies or detachments approaching from the southward. In short, the position in which Hood hoped to establish himself was on the flank of the enemy's communications, a position the more advantageous because the island alone could not long support the large body of troops so suddenly thrown upon it.