Types of Naval Officers Part 6

Gibraltar was then at the beginning of the three years siege, and his intended departure was utilized to give him command of the first of the three great expeditions for its relief, which were among the characteristic operations of this war. He sailed from Plymouth on the 29th of December, 1779, having under him twenty-two sail-of-the-line, of which only four were to continue with him to the West Indies. With this great fleet, and its attendant frigates, went also a huge collection of storeships, victuallers, ordnance vessels, troop ships, and merchantmen; the last comprising the "trade" for Portugal and the West Indies, as the other cla.s.ses carried the reinforcements for the Rock.

On January 7th, the West India trade parted company off Cape Finisterre, and the next day began the wonderful good fortune for which Rodney's last command was distinguished. It is no disparagement to his merit to say that in this he was, to use Ball's phrase about Nelson, "a heaven-born admiral." A Spanish convoy of twenty-two sail, seven of which were ships of war, the rest laden with supplies for Cadiz, were sighted at daylight of the 8th, and all taken; not one escaped. Twelve loaded with provisions were turned into the British convoy, and went on with it to feed the Gibraltar garrison. A prince of the blood-royal, afterwards King William IV., was with the fleet as a midshipman. One of the prizes being a line-of-battle ship, Rodney had an opportunity to show appositely his courtliness of breeding. "I have named her the _Prince William_, in respect to His Royal Highness, in whose presence _she had the honor to be taken_."

Repeated intelligence had reached the admiral that a Spanish division was cruising off Cape St. Vincent. Therefore, when it was sighted at 1 P.M. of January 16th, a week after the capture of the convoy, he was prepared for the event. A brief attempt to form line was quickly succeeded by the signal for a general chase, the ships to engage to leeward as they came up with the enemy, who, by taking flight to the southeast, showed the intention to escape into Cadiz. The wind was blowing strong from the westward, giving a lee sh.o.r.e and shoals to the British fleet in the approaching long hours of a wintry night; but opportunity was winging by, with which neither Rodney nor the Navy could afford to trifle. He was already laid up with an attack of the gout that continued to hara.s.s him throughout this command, and the decision to continue the chase was only reached after a discussion between him and his captain, the mention of which is transmitted by Sir Gilbert Blane, the surgeon of the ship, who was present professionally. The merit of the resolution must remain with the man who bore the responsibility of the event; but that he reached it at such a moment only after consultation with another, to whom current gossip attributed the chief desert, must be coupled with the plausible claim afterwards advanced for Sir Charles Douglas, that he suggested the breaking of the enemy's line on April 12th. Taken together, they indicate at least a common contemporary professional estimate of Rodney's temperament. No such anecdote is transmitted of Hawke. The battle of Cape St. Vincent, therefore, is not that most characteristic of Rodney's genius. Judged by his career at large, it is exceptional; yet of all his actions it is the one in which merit and success most conspicuously met. Nor does it at all detract from his credit that the enemy was much inferior in numbers; eleven to twenty-one. As in Hawke's pursuit of Conflans, with which this engagement is worthy to be cla.s.sed, what was that night dared, rightly and brilliantly dared, was the dangers of the deep, not of the foe. The prey was seized out of the jaws of disaster.

The results were commensurate to the risk. The action, which began at 4 P.M., lasted till two the following morning, the weather becoming tempestuous with a great sea, so that it was difficult to take possession of the captured vessels. Many of the heavy British ships continued also in danger during the 17th, and had to carry a press of sail to clear the shoals, on which two of their prizes were actually wrecked. One Spanish ship-of-the-line was blown up and six struck, among them the flag-ship of Admiral Langara, who was taken into Gibraltar.

Only four escaped.

Two such strokes of mingled good fortune and good management, within ten days, formed a rare concurrence, and the aggregate results were as exceptional as the combination of events. Sandwich congratulated Rodney that he had already "taken more line-of-battle ships than had been captured in any one action in either of the two last preceding wars."

Militarily regarded, it had a further high element of praise, for the enemy's detachment, though in itself inferior, was part of a much superior force; twenty-four allied ships-of-the-line besides it being at the moment in Cadiz Bay. It is the essence of military art thus to overwhelm in detail. A technical circ.u.mstance like this was doubtless overlooked in the general satisfaction with the event, the most evident feature in which was the relief of the Government, who just then stood badly in need of credit. "The ministerial people feel it very sensibly,"

Lady Rodney wrote him. "It is a lucky stroke for them at this juncture."

Salutes were fired, and the city illuminated; the press teemed with poetical effusion. Sandwich, somewhat impudently when the past is considered, but not uncharacteristically regarded as an officeholder, took to himself a large slice of the credit. "The worst of my enemies now allow that I have pitched upon a man who knows his duty, and is a brave, honest, and able officer.... I have obtained you the thanks of both houses of Parliament." The letter does not end without a further caution against indiscreet talking about the condition of his ships. It all comes back on the Government, he laments. What Rodney may have said to others may be uncertain; to his wife, soon after reaching his station, he wrote, "What are the ministers about? Are they determined to undo their country? Is it fair that the British fleet should be so inferior to the French, and that the British officers and men are always to be exposed to superior numbers? What right had the administration to expect anything but defeat?" Then he pa.s.ses on to remark himself, what has been alluded to above, the change in his personal position effected by his successes. "Thank G.o.d, I now fear no frowns of ministers, and hope never again to stand in need of their a.s.sistance. I know them well. All are alike, and no dependence is to be placed on their promises." It is to be feared his sense of obligation to Sandwich did not coincide with the latter's estimate.

In his official report Rodney gave much credit to his officers for the St. Vincent affair. "The gallant behaviour of the admirals, captains, officers and men, I had the honour to command, was conspicuous; they seemed animated with the same spirit, and were eager to exert themselves with the utmost zeal." Here also, however, he was biding his time for obvious reasons; for to his wife he writes, "I have done them all like honour, but it is because I would not have the world believe that there were officers slack in their duty. Without a thorough change in naval affairs, the discipline of our navy will be lost. I could say much, but will not. You will hear of it from _themselves_;" that is, probably, by their mutual recriminations. Such indulgent envelopment of good and bad alike in a common mantle of commendation is far from unexampled; but it rarely fails to return to plague its authors, as has been seen in instances more recent than that of Rodney. He clearly had told Sandwich the same in private letters, for the First Lord writes him, "I fear the picture you give of the faction in your fleet is too well drawn. Time and moderation will by degrees get the better of this bane of discipline. I exceedingly applaud your resolution to shut your ears against the illiberal language of your officers, who are inclined to arraign each other's conduct." In this two things are to be remarked: first, the evident and undeniable existence of serious cause of complaint, which was preparing Rodney for the stern self-a.s.sertion soon to be shown; and, second, that such imputations are frequent with him, while he seems in turn to have had a capacity for eliciting insubordination of feeling, though he can repress the act. It is a question of personal temperament, which explains more than his relations with other men. Hawke and Nelson find rare fault with those beneath them; for their own spirit takes possession of their subordinates. Such difference of spirit reveals itself in more ways than one in the active life of a military community.

If there was joy in England over Rodney's achievement, still more and more sympathetic was the exultation of those who in the isolation of Gibraltar's Rock, rarely seeing their country's flag save on their own flagstaff, witnessed and shared the triumph of his entrance there with his train of prizes. The ships of war and transports forming the convoy did not indeed appear in one body, but in groups, being dispersed by the light airs, and swept eastward by the in-drag of the current from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean; but the presence of the great fleet, and the prestige of its recent victory, secured the practical immunity of merchant vessels during its stay. Of the first to come in, on January 15th, an eye-witness wrote, "A ship with the British flag entering the Bay was so uncommon a sight that almost the whole garrison were a.s.sembled at the southward to welcome her in; but words are insufficient to describe their transports on being informed that she was one of a large convoy which had sailed the latter end of the preceding month for our relief." The admiral himself had been carried beyond and gone into Tetuan, in Morocco, whence he finally arrived on January 26th, having sent on a supply fleet to Minorca, the garrison of which was undergoing a severance from the outer world more extreme even than that of Gibraltar. Upon the return thence of the convoying ships he again put to sea, February 13th, with the entire fleet, which accompanied him three days sail to the westward, when it parted company for England; he with only four ships-of-the-line pursuing his way to his station. On March 27th he reached Santa Lucia, where he found seventeen of-the-line, composing his command. Three weeks later he met the enemy; barely three months, almost to a day, after the affair at St. Vincent.

The antecedent circ.u.mstances of the war, and the recent history of the French navy, gave a singular opportuneness of occasion, and of personal fitness, to Rodney's arrival at this moment. The humiliations of the Seven Years War, with the loss of so much of the French colonial empire, traceable in chief measure to naval decadence, had impressed the French government with the need of reviving their navy, which had consequently received a material development in quality, as well as in quant.i.ty, unparalleled since the days of Colbert and Seignelay, near a century before. Concomitant with this had been a singular progress in the theory of naval evolutions, and of their handmaid, naval signalling, among French officers; an advance to which the lucid, speculative, character of the national genius greatly contributed. Although they as yet lacked practice, and were numerically too few, the French officers were well equipped by mental resources, by instruction and reflection, to handle large fleets; and they now had large fleets to handle. No such conjunction had occurred since Tourville; none such recurred during the Revolution.

The condition was unique in naval history of the sail period. To meet it, a.s.suming an approach to equality in contending fleets, was required, first, a commander-in-chief, and then a competent body of officers. The latter the British had only in the sense of fine seamen and gallant men.

In courage there is no occasion to inst.i.tute comparisons between the two nations; in kind there may have been a difference, but certainly not in degree. The practical superiority of seamanship in the British may be taken as a set-off to the more highly trained understanding of military principles and methods on the part of their enemy. For commander-in-chief, there were at this time but two, Howe and Rodney, whose professional equipment, as shown in practice, fitted them to oppose the French methods.

Of these Rodney was the better, because possessed of a quicker power of initiative, and also of that personal severity required to enforce strict conformity of action among indifferent or sullen subordinates.

Rodney has therefore a singularly well defined place among British naval chiefs. He was to oppose form to form, theory to theory, evolution to evolution, upon the battle ground of the sea; with purpose throughout tactically offensive, not defensive, and facing an adversary his equal in professional equipment. Had he arrived a year before he would have met no fair match in D'Estaing, a soldier, not a sailor, whose deficiencies as a seaman would have caused a very different result from that which actually followed his encounter with Byron, who in conduct showed an utter absence of ideas and of method inconceivable in Rodney.

The French were now commanded by De Guichen, considered the most capable of their officers by Rodney, whose recent abode in Paris had probably familiarized him with professional reputations among the enemy.

Everything therefore conspired to make the occasion one eminently fitted to his capacities. Such are the conditions--the man _and_ the hour--that make reputations; though they do not form characters, which are growths of radically different origin.

De Guichen put to sea from Martinique on April 15th, with a convoy for Santo Domingo which he intended to see clear of British interference.

Rodney, whose anchorage was but thirty miles away, learned instantly the French sailing and followed without delay. On the evening of April 16th, the two fleets were in sight of each other to leeward of Martinique, the British to windward; an advantage that was diligently maintained during the night. At daylight of the 17th the two enemies were twelve to fifteen miles apart, ranged on nearly parallel lines, the British twenty heading northwest, the French twenty-three southeast. The numerical difference represents sufficiently nearly the actual difference of force, although French vessels averaged more powerful than British of the same rates.

At 6.45 A.M. Rodney signalled that it was his intention to attack the enemy's rear with his whole force. This was never annulled, and the purpose governed his action throughout the day. This combination--on the rear--is the one generally preferable to be attempted when underway, and the relative situations of the fleets at this moment made it particularly opportune; for the British, in good order, two cables interval between the ships, were abreast the rear centre and rear of the enemy, whose line was in comparison greatly extended,--the result probably of inferior practical seamanship. To increase his advantage, Rodney at 7 ordered his vessels to close to one cable, and at 8.30, when the antagonists were still heading as at daybreak, undertook to lead the fleet down by a series of signals directive of its successive movements.

In this he was foiled by De Guichen, who by wearing brought what was previously his van into position to support the extreme threatened. "The different movements of the enemy," wrote Rodney, "obliged me to be very attentive and watch every opportunity of attacking them at advantage;" a sentence that concisely sums up his special excellencies, of which the present occasion offers the most complete ill.u.s.tration. It may be fully conceded also that it would have vindicated his high t.i.tle to fame by conspicuous results, had the intelligence of his officers seconded his dispositions.

The forenoon pa.s.sed in manoeuvres, skilfully timed, to insure a definite issue. At 11.50 Rodney considered that his opportunity had arrived.

Both fleets were then heading in the same direction, on the starboard tack, and he had again succeeded in so placing his own that, by the words of his report, he expected to bring "the whole force of His Majesty's fleet against the enemy's rear, and of course part of their centre, by which means the twenty sail of British ships would have been opposed to only fifteen sail of the enemy's, and must in all probability have totally disabled them before their van could have given them any a.s.sistance." It would be difficult to cite a clearer renouncement of the outworn "van to van," ship to ship, dogma; but Rodney is said to have expressed himself in more emphatic terms subsequently, as follows: "During all the commands Lord Rodney has been entrusted with, he made it a rule to bring his whole force against a part of the enemy's, and never was so absurd as to bring ship against ship, when the enemy gave him an opportunity of acting otherwise." Though not distinctly so stated, it would seem that his first movement on the present occasion had failed because of the long distance between the fleets permitting the enemy to succor the part threatened, before he could close. He was now nearer, for at this second attempt only an hour proved to be needed for the first British ship to open fire at long range. It may be for this reason, also, that he at this stage threw himself upon his captains, no longer prescribing the successive movements, but issuing the general signal to bear down, each vessel to "steer," according to the 21st Article of the _Additional_ Fighting Instructions, "for the ship of the enemy which from the disposition of the two squadrons it must be her lot to engage, notwithstanding the signal for the line ahead will be kept flying: making or shortening sail in such proportion as _to preserve the distance a.s.signed by the signal for the line_, in order that the whole squadron may, as near as possible, come into action at the same time."

Unfortunately for his manoeuvre, the Admiral here ran up against the stolid idea of the old--and still existing--Fighting Instructions concerning the line-of-battle in action, embodied in a typical representative in the senior captain of his fleet. This gentleman, Robert Carkett, had risen from before the mast, and after a lieutenancy of thirteen years had become post in 1758, by succeeding to the command when his captain was killed, in one of the most heroic single-ship fights of the British navy. Unluckily, his seniority gave him the lead of the fleet as it was now formed on the starboard tack, and he considered that the signal for attacking the enemy's rear was annulled by the present situation. "Both fleets," he stated in a letter to the Admiralty, "were at 11.15 parallel to and abreast of each other. As I was then the leading ship, it became my duty to engage the leading ship of the French fleet, as this signal disannulled all former ones relative to the mode of attack." The word "abreast," critically used, would imply that the fleets were abreast, ship to ship, van to van; but there appears no reason to question Rodney's statement of the facts made to Carkett himself: "Forgetting that the signal for the line was only at two cables length distance from each other, the van division was by you led to more than two leagues distance from the centre division, which was thereby exposed to the greatest strength of the enemy, and not properly supported." Rodney, in short, meant by opposite the enemy's ship opposite at the moment the signal was made; and he also expected that the movements of his ships would be further controlled by the words of the 21st Article, "preserve the distance a.s.signed by the signal for the line," which distance was to be taken from the centre; or, as sometimes worded in the Instructions, "the distance shall be that between the admiral and the ships next ahead and astern of him." Carkett conceived that he was to attack the ship opposite him in numerical order, that is, the leader of the enemy, and that the remaining British would take distance from him.

Why the rest of the van should also have been led thus astray can be explained only on the ground that Carkett's general views were shared by the divisional commander, a rear-admiral, who, as was proved a year later, possessed high courage of the pure game-c.o.c.k order, but was wholly thoughtless of gaining an unfair advantage, two against one, by tactical ingenuity. The result was that the van as a body left the centre to itself, and thereby not only wrecked the concentration at which Rodney aimed, but was out of hand to support his flag and his division, when badly battered by the enemy's fire. This was the great tactical blunder which brought to nought Rodney's patient, wary manoeuvres of the past six hours. To it especially, but not to it alone, he referred in the stinging words of his despatch: "'T is with concern inexpressible, mixt with indignation, that the duty I owe my sovereign and country obliges me to acquaint their Lordships that, during the action with the French fleet on the 17th instant [and] His Majesty's, the British flag was not properly supported." To the specific error of the van was added a widespread disregard of the order for close action, despite the example of the commander-in-chief, who pressed the enemy so hard that towards the end his flag-ship was to leeward of De Guichen's wake. "Perceiving several of our ships engaging at a distance, I repeated the signal for close action. With truth, but sorrow, I must say it was little attended to." It is noticeable that one of the ships thus censured, the _Cornwall_, next ahead of Rodney, lost as heavily in killed and wounded as did the flag-ship herself; one of many instances showing that distance lessened efficiency without increasing safety. The forwardness of Rodney's flag on this occasion proves clearly enough his consciousness that tactics, to succeed, must be more than a veil for timidity; that hard hitting is as essential as skilful leading.

This combination of steady, patient, wary, skilful guidance, with resolute and tenacious personal leadership, const.i.tuted the firm tissue of Rodney's professional character, and at no time received such clear ill.u.s.tration as in the case before us; for no like opportunity recurred.

One experience was enough for De Guichen; he did not choose again to yield the advantage of the weather gage, and he had the tactical skill necessary to retain it in his future contacts with this adversary. The battle of April 12, 1782, upon which Rodney's fame has rested, was rather an accident than an achievement, and as a revelation of character its most conspicuous feature is wariness exaggerated into professional timidity. He himself has weighed the relative professional value of the two affairs. A letter published in 1809, anonymous, but bearing strong internal evidence of being written by Sir Gilbert Blane, long on a trusted physician's terms of intimacy with Rodney, states that he "thought little of his victory on the 12th of April." He would have preferred to rest his reputation upon this action with De Guichen, and "looked upon that opportunity of beating, with an inferior fleet, such an officer, whom he considered the best in the French service, as one by which, but for the disobedience of his captains, he might have gained an immortal renown."

The misconduct of his officers brought out in full vigor the severity which was a salient feature of Rodney's professional character. In the St. Vincent business he may have been partly actuated to spare, by the reflection that the offenders were not his own captains; that they were about to quit him finally. Moreover, there had been then a very considerable tangible success; results cover a mult.i.tude of sins. No such extenuations applied here. The wreck of his reasonable hopes of personal distinction coincided with failure towards the nation itself.

Rodney's hand came down heavy upon the offenders; but so far as seen it was the hand always of a gentleman. In private letters his full feelings betrayed themselves in vehemence; but in public they were measured to austerity. To Carkett, when questioned concerning the rumored expressions in his despatch, he is withering in the pointed enumeration of varied shortcomings; but he never lapses into a breach of professional decorum of utterance. The unfortunate man represented to the Admiralty his view of the matter,--already cited; but it bears no indors.e.m.e.nt to show that it had pa.s.sed under Rodney's eye. Captain, ship, and ship's company, were swept away a few months later in the memorable hurricane of October, 1780.

The despatch specified no other delinquent by name; but the selection of five captains to receive personal commendation, and the persistent refusal of the same to all other subordinates, including the junior flag-officers, made censure sufficiently individual; and the admiral's subsequent line of conduct emphasized rebuke bitterly. The cruise was not yet finished; for the French having taken refuge at Guadaloupe, it was important to prevent them from regaining Martinique, their chief depot and place of repairs. To intercept them there, Rodney at first took station off Fort Royal, and when compelled for a moment to return to Santa Lucia, kept lookouts to warn him betimes of the enemy's appearance. So, when De Guichen approached from the windward side of the islands, on May 9th, he found the British getting underway to meet him.

From that time until the 20th--eleven days--the fleets were manoeuvring in sight of one another, beating to windward; the British endeavoring to force action, the French to avoid it. De Guichen's orders from home were "to keep the sea, so far as the force maintained by England in the Windward Islands would permit, _without too far compromising_ the fleet entrusted to him." Such instructions compelled him to defensive tactics; as Rodney's views, and those traditional in his service, impelled him to attack. Hence ensued a struggle of sustained vigilance, activity, and skill, profoundly interesting professionally, but which does not lend itself to other than technical narrative. "For fourteen days and nights," wrote Rodney, "the fleets were so near each other that neither officers nor men could be said to sleep. Nothing but the goodness of the weather and climate could have enabled us to endure so continual a fatigue. Had it been in Europe, half the people must have sunk under it.

For my part, it did me good." No evidence of professional aptness could be given clearer than the last words. A man is easy under such circ.u.mstances only when they fit him. De Guichen asked to be superseded; "my health cannot endure such continual fatigue and anxiety." Twice the wary Frenchman was nearly caught, but the wind did not favor Rodney long enough to give him the weather position, the only sure one for offence.

But, while thus unable to compa.s.s results, he gave conclusive evidence of the quickness of his eye, the alertness of his action, and the flexibility which he was enabled to impress upon his fleet by sheer force of personal character. The contest resembled that of two expert swordsmen; more intermittent doubtless, but also much more prolonged.

There can be no trifling with such conditions. A moment's relaxation, or inaptness, may forfeit opportunity, offered only by chance and not to be regained by effort. Rodney was fixed that no such slip should occur through the neglect of others, and his stern supervision, as represented by himself to his wife, was that of a slave driver, lash in hand. "As I had given public notice to all my captains, etc. that I should hoist my flag on board one of my frigates, and that I expected implicit obedience to every signal made, under the certain penalty of being instantly superseded, it had an admirable effect, as they were all convinced, after their late gross behaviour, that they had nothing to expect at my hands but instant punishment to those who neglected their duty. My eye on them had more dread than the enemy's fire, and they knew it would be fatal. No regard was paid to rank,--admirals as well as captains, if out of their station, were instantly reprimanded by signals, or messages sent by frigates: and, in spite of themselves, I taught them to be what they had never been before--_officers_: and showed them that an inferior fleet, properly conducted, was more than a match for one far superior."

Making allowance for exaggeration in the irresponsible utterances of family life, the above is eminently characteristic of temperament. It must be added, as equally characteristic of an underlying justice which Rodney possessed, that in his official account of these last manoeuvres he gave credit to his subordinates as a whole. "I must inform their Lordships, in justice to the commanders and officers of the fleet under my command, that since the action of the 17th of April, and during the pursuit of the enemy's fleet, and in the two rencontres with them, all my officers, of every rank and denomination, were obedient and attentive to orders and signals, and, I am convinced, if the enemy had given them an opportunity, they would have done their duty to their King and Country." The claims of justice against its own strict requirements he also recognized to Carkett. "Nothing but the former service you had done your King and Country, and my firm belief of your being a brave man, could have induced me, as commander of a great fleet, to overlook." It will not escape attention that this exact observance of credit, where due, lends increased weight to censure, when inflicted.

To the pursuit of the French fleet, relinquished forty leagues eastward of Martinique after the brush of May 19th, succeeded a period marked only by the routine administrative cares attendant upon an admiral charged with the defence of a lengthy, exposed chain of islands, and an extensive trade, against enemies numerically much superior. The details serve to show the breadth of intelligence, the sound judgment, and clear professional conceptions that characterized Rodney in small things as well as great; but it would be wearisome to elaborate demonstration of this, and these qualities he had in common with many men otherwise inferior to himself. Reaction from the opening strain of the campaign, with the relaxation of vigor from the approach of the hot rainy season, now began to tell on his health; and to this contributed the hara.s.sment of mind due to the arrival of a large Spanish fleet, while reinforcements promised him unaccountably failed to appear.

Nevertheless, his personal efficiency was not impaired, and towards the end of July he resolved to execute a project which he had long entertained, of carrying the ma.s.s of his fleet from the islands to the Continental waters of North America.

During the year between his return from Paris and his present appointment, he had laid before the Admiralty two papers, containing an admirable summary of the leading strategic conditions of the whole scene of war in the western hemisphere, with suggestions for action amounting to a plan of campaign. One feature of this was based upon the weather differences, which rendered cruising dangerous in the West Indies when most favorable to the northward, and unsure in North America when most certain among the islands. He proposed to utilize this alternation of seasons, by shifting a mobile reinforcement suddenly and secretly from one end to the other of the long front of operations. This is a common enough expedient in military art, but had rarely received the convincing formulation which he gave it; while that such a conception was a novelty to the average naval mind of the day, may be inferred from the startled wrath of the admiral in North America at Rodney's unexpected intrusion upon his bailiwick.

Sandwich, however, had entertained the project, and in October, 1779, just as Rodney's appointment issued, a vessel sailed from England with letters to Admiral Arbuthnot in New York, directing him to send several ships-of-the-line to the West Indies for the winter campaign. The vessel lost a mast, kept off to Na.s.sau in the Bahamas, and after arrival there her captain, while spending some months in repairs, did not think to send on the despatches. Arbuthnot, therefore, received them only on March 16, 1780; too late, doubtless, to collect and equip a force in time to reach Rodney before the affair of April 17th.

At the end of July, 1780, the conditions in the West Indies were that the allied French and Spanish fleets had gone to leeward from Martinique; to Havana, and to Cap Francois, in Hayti. At the latter port was a.s.sembling a large trade convoy--three hundred ships, according to Rodney's information. He reasoned that this must go to Europe, but would not require the full strength of the French fleet; therefore, transferring his own insight to the enemy's mind, he convinced himself that a part of their vessels would seek Narragansett Bay, to reinforce the seven ships-of-the-line that had reached there on July 12th, under De Ternay, of whose arrival Rodney now knew. Great possibilities might be open to such a combination, skilfully handled against the inferior numbers of Arbuthnot. "As it plainly appeared to me that His Majesty's territory, fleet, and army, in America were in imminent danger of being overpowered by the superior force of the public enemy, I deemed it a duty inc.u.mbent upon me to forego any emoluments that might have accrued by the enterprise intended by General Vaughan and myself during the hurricane months, and without a moment's hesitation flew with all despatch possible to prevent the enemy's making any impression upon the continent before my arrival there." The protestation of disinterestedness here is somewhat intrusive, and being wholly unnecessary excites rather criticism than confidence.

Although reasonable precautions had been taken for the security of his own station, and all circ.u.mstances carefully weighed, there was in this step of Rodney's an a.s.sumption of responsibility,--of risk,--as in his similar action of 1762, before noted. This, as well as the military correctness of the general conception, deserves to be noted to the credit of his professional capacity. Making the land about Charleston, South Carolina, he swept along the coast to the northward, until he anch.o.r.ed off Sandy Hook, September 14th. The following day he issued an order to Admiral Arbuthnot, directing him to put himself under his command and to obey his instructions.

Rodney's coming was a grievous blow to Washington, who instead had hoped, as Rodney had feared, the arrival of De Guichen, or at the least of a strong French naval division. The enemy's disappointment is perhaps the best proof of sagacity in a military movement, but Sandwich's clear approval was also forthcoming. "It is impossible for us to have a superior fleet in every part; and unless our commanders-in-chief will take the great line, as you do, and consider the King's whole dominions as under their care, our enemies must find us unprepared somewhere, and carry their point against us." Arbuthnot, nevertheless, saw only personal injury to himself; a natural feeling, but one which should not be allowed display. Rodney had given various particular orders, and had suggested that it would be better that the commander-in-chief on the station should keep headquarters at New York, leaving the blockade of Ternay, a hundred and thirty miles distant, to a junior admiral; also, he intimated the opinion that such a blockade would be better conducted underway than anch.o.r.ed in Gardiner's Bay, fifty miles from the enemy's port. Though suggestion did not override discretion, Arbuthnot resented it in all its forms. After explaining his reasons, he added, "How far, Sir, your conduct (similarly circ.u.mstanced as you are) is praiseworthy and proper, consequences must determine. Your partial interference in the conduct of the American War is certainly incompatible with principles of reason, and precedents of service. The frigates attending on a cruising squadron you have taken upon you to counter-order, (a due representation of which and other circ.u.mstances I shall make where it will have every possible effect), and thus I have been for some time without even a repeater of signals."

Though Rodney's step was unusual, his position as Arbuthnot's superior officer, locally present, was impregnable. He nevertheless kept his temper under provocation, and the dignified restraint of his reply is notable; indeed, the only significant feature of this incident, from the biographical point of view. "No offence to you was intended on my part.

Every respect due to you, as an officer and a gentleman, my inclination as well as my duty led me to pay you in the strictest sense." He leaves no doubt, however, that he does not intend to allow his functions to lapse into a mere official primacy,--that he will rule, as well as reign. "Duty, not inclination, brought me to North America. I came to interfere in the American War, to command by sea in it, and to do my best endeavours towards the putting an end thereto. I knew the dignity of my own rank ent.i.tled me to take the supreme command, which I ever shall do on every station where His Majesty's and the public service may make it necessary for me to go, unless I meet a superior officer, in which case it will be my duty to obey his orders." He then proceeds to exercise his authority, by explicit directions and some criticism of existing arrangements.

Afterwards, in submitting the papers to the Admiralty, Rodney wrote, "I am ashamed to mention what appears to me the real cause, and from whence Mr. Arbuthnot's chagrin proceeds, but the proofs are so plain that prize-money is the occasion that I am under the necessity of transmitting them. I can solemnly a.s.sure their Lordships that I had not the least conception of any other prize-money on the coast of America but that which would be most honourably obtained by the destruction of the enemy's ships of war and privateers--but when prize-money appeared predominant in the mind of my brother officer, I was determined to have my share of that bounty so graciously bestowed by His Majesty and the public." Nelson's retort to Arbuthnot's successor, two years later, may be recalled. "You have come to a good station for prize-money." "Yes, but the West Indies is the station for honour."

The visit to continental waters was on this occasion productive of little result. Contrary alike to Rodney's antic.i.p.ations and those of Washington, De Guichen's whole fleet had returned to Europe. Some slight redistribution of cruisers, the more frequent capture of privateers, with increased security to the trade of New York and incidental support to some rather predatory land operations, were all that Rodney could show of tangible consequence from his presence. Arbuthnot alone was superior to Ternay if neither received reinforcements. Rodney's health felt the keener atmosphere, so that he had to go ash.o.r.e in New York, and he accepted the views of Arbuthnot as to the strength of the French fleet's position in Newport, without examining it himself. Had he done so, however, it is unlikely that he would have formed more strenuous purposes. The disposition of the enemy's squadron there was so imposing that only the genius of a Nelson, mindful as at Revel of the moral influence of a great blow at a critical period of the war, could have risen to the necessity of daring such a hazard. His phrase was there applicable, "Desperate affairs require desperate remedies." There is no indication of this supreme element in Rodney's composition. It is interesting to note, however, that personal observation had given conviction of success at Newport to the officer who was afterwards Nelson's gallant second at Copenhagen,--Sir Thomas Graves.

This paucity of results in no way lessens the merit of the movement from the West Indies to the continent. It was indubitably correct in idea, and, as has been pointed out, the conception was Rodney's own, the possibilities were great, the risk in many ways undeniable; when these can be affirmed of a military action, failure to obtain results, because conditions take an improbable direction, does not detract from credit.

Nor should the obviousness of this measure hide the fact that the suggestion appears to have been original with him, occurring fully developed in his memorandum of May, 1778, to the Admiralty; whether written in Paris or England does not appear. The transfer of Hotham's squadron to the southward in the following December, 1779, enabling Barrington to conquer Santa Lucia,--a place insisted upon in the same memorandum as of the first importance,--may not improbably be attributed to this fruitful paper. In the next year, 1781, a detachment was again sent to New York, and had Rodney been able to accompany it in person there is no room to doubt that he would have saved Cornwallis; reversing issues, at least momentarily, certainly prolonging the war, possibly deciding the contest otherwise than as befell.

Rodney's return to the West Indies in December, 1780, concluded the most eventful and ill.u.s.triously characteristic year of his life. The destruction of Langara's fleet in January, the brilliant tactical displays of April 17th, and of the chase manoeuvres in May, the strategic transference in August of a large division, unawares to the enemy, from one point of the field of action to another, are all feats that testify to his great ability as a general officer. Nor should there be left out of the account the stern dignity of conduct which a.s.sured his personal control of the fleet, his certainty of touch in the face of an enemy. Thus considered, it was a year full of events, successful throughout as regards personal desert, and singularly significant of ability and temperament.

The year 1781 was far less happy, nor does the great victory, which in 1782 crowned his career with glory, contribute to the enhancement of his professional distinction; rather the contrary. Upon reaching Barbados, December 5th, he found the island shorn to the ground by the noted hurricane, which in the previous October had swept the Caribbean, from the Lesser Antilles to Jamaica. Eight of the division left by him in the West Indies had been wrecked,--two being ships-of-the-line; and the efficiency of the whole fleet was grievously impaired by the widespread injury to vessels.

An event charged with more serious consequences to himself soon followed. On the 27th of January, 1781, at Barbados, despatches from the Admiralty notified him that Great Britain had declared war against Holland, and directed him to proceed at once against the Dutch shipping and West Indies. First among the enumerated objects of attack was the small island of St. Eustatius. This, having enjoyed the advantages of neutrality at a time when almost the whole Caribbean was in hostilities, had become a depot for the acc.u.mulation and distribution of stores, commercial and warlike. Ostensibly, it served all parties, giving to and receiving from Europe, America, and the Caribbean alike. The political sympathies of Holland, however, and it may be added those of the West Indies in general, even of the British islands themselves, were rather adverse to Great Britain in the current struggle; and this, combined with the greater self-sufficingness of the British naval and commercial administration, had made the neutral support of St. Eustatius more benevolent, and much more useful, to the enemies of Great Britain, including the revolted colonists, than it was to the mother country.

Rodney a.s.serted that help from there was readily forthcoming to supply French and Spanish requirements, while professions of inability abounded whenever his fleet made a demand in occasional emergencies.

He was therefore full of gall against the island and its merchants, the more so because he suspected that British subjects, unpatriotically ardent for gain, were largely concerned in maintaining conditions thus hurtful to their country; and, when the orders to act came, it needed but three days for himself and General Vaughan to sail on an errand of which they probably had previous intimations. On the 3d of February they arrived off St. Eustatius, which in the face of their imposing force submitted at once. They took possession of the island, with goods stored to the estimated value of 3,000,000,--an immense spoil in those days. A Dutch ship-of-war, with a hundred and fifty sail of traders of various nationalities, were also seized; while a convoy of thirty merchant ships, which had sailed thirty-six hours before, was pursued and captured by a British detachment,--the Dutch admiral commanding the ships-of-war being killed in the attendant action.

From one point of view this was an enormous success, though unproductive of glory. It destroyed at a blow a centre of commerce and supply powerfully contributive to the maintenance of the enemies of Great Britain; both to their hostile operations, and to the indirect but no less vital financial support that trade gives to national endurance,--to the sinews of war. Besides this, however, there was the unprecedented immediate booty, transferable as so much a.s.set to the conquerors. It was upon this present tangible result that Rodney's imagination fastened, with an engrossment and tenacity that const.i.tute a revelation of character. It perverted his understanding of conditions, and paralyzed his proper action as commander-in-chief. It is needless in this connection to consider whether it was the matter of personal profit, through legitimate prize-money, that thus influenced him,--an effect to some extent pardonable in a man who had long suffered, and still was suffering, from pecuniary straitness,--or whether, as he loudly protested, it was the interest to the nation that made his personal superintendence of the proceeds imperative. In either case the point to be noted is not a palpable trait of covetousness,--if such it were, --but the limitation to activity occasioned by preoccupation with a realized, but imperfect, success. The comparatively crude impression of greediness, produced by apparent absorption in a mere money gain, has prevented the perception of this more important and decisive element in Rodney's official character, revealed at St. Eustatius and confirmed on the evening of the 12th of April. What he had won, he had won; what more he might and should do, he would not see, nor would he risk.

His discontent with his junior flag-officers in the West Indies, and the peculiar demoralization of professional tone at the moment, had made it difficult for the Admiralty to provide him a satisfactory second in command. In order to do this, they had "to make a promotion," as the phrase went; that is, in order to get the man wanted, the seniors on the captains' list were promoted down to and including him. The choice had fallen on Sir Samuel Hood,--in later days Nelson's honored Lord Hood,--than which none could have been happier in respect of capacity.

It has been truly said that he was as able as Rodney, and more energetic; but even this falls short of his merit. He had an element of professional--as distinguished from personal--daring, and an imaginative faculty that penetrated the extreme possibilities of a situation, quickened by the resolve, in which Rodney was deficient, to have all or nothing; and these invaluable traits were balanced by the sound and accurate judgment of a thorough seaman, without which imagination lures to disaster. The man who as a junior formed the idea of seizing De Gra.s.se's anchorage in the Chesapeake in 1781, to effect the relief of Cornwallis, and who in 1782, when momentarily in chief command, ill.u.s.trated the idea by actual performance under similar conditions in the West Indies, rose to heights of conception and of achievement for which we have no equivalent in Rodney's career. Unfortunately for him, though thus mighty in act, opportunity for great results never came to him. The hour never met the man.

Hood with eight ships-of-the-line and a large convoy arrived on the station in January, 1781, and was at St. Eustatius with the commander-in-chief when Rodney received a report, which proved to be false, that eight to ten French ships-of-the-line, with a numerous supply-fleet, had been sighted in European waters evidently bound for the West Indies. He thereupon detached Hood, on February 12th, and directed him with seventeen of-the-line to await the enemy to windward of Martinique, their probable destination. A month later he ordered the position to be shifted to leeward of the island, in front of the French a.r.s.enal port, Fort Royal. Hood dissented from this, remonstrating vigorously, and the event proved him right; but Rodney insisted, the more injudiciously in that he was throwing the tactical burden upon his junior while fettering thus his tactical discretion. Meantime, twenty French ships-of-the-line did sail on March 22d for Martinique, under Count De Gra.s.se: beginning then the campaign which ended in the great disaster of April 12, 1782, but not until it had been signalized by the surrender of Cornwallis, due to this fleet, as Washington said. On the 28th of April it came in sight of Hood; but, owing to the leewardly position insisted upon by Rodney, the English commander could not prevent the junction to it of four French ships then in the port. A battle followed next day, of eighteen British--one having just joined--against twenty-four enemies; odds which, combined with the weather gage held by the French, should have insured them a decisive victory. This result was prevented by the tentative action of De Gra.s.se, encountering the tactical capacity and imperturbable self-possession of Hood.

Rodney could not have bettered Hood's management, though he of course attributed to him the blame for results. It is evident, however, that for various reasons the commander-in-chief should have been with the body of his fleet. Even barring certain and timely information of the French coming, which Hood at least did not have, there was every reasonable probability that such an expedition would arrive at about the season it did. Hood's insight, which was adequate to divining possibilities as well as to dealing with ascertained conditions, had taught him that the latter half of April--and not sooner--was the time by which the British should be refitted, provisioned and watered full, and in all respects ready for prolonged operations against a powerful enemy; as well as concentrated to windward. He reasoned thus from the fact that the French navy, to the number of forty odd,--being the combined fleets of D'Estaing from Brest and De Guichen from the West Indies,--had been a.s.sembled in Cadiz towards the end of 1780, and did not return to Brest until January, 1781. To refit, sail, and reach Martinique again, would in his judgment postpone arrival to the middle of April, and this respite should be improved by getting the British ships into the best campaigning condition, so as not to be hampered in subsequent movements by necessities of repair and supply. With this persuasion he became eager, by the first of the month, for the admiral's presence; the more so because confident that, if he were on the spot, he would see the necessity of changing position from leeward to windward.

"I begin to be extremely impatient for the honour of being and acting immediately under your flag, as I do not find myself pleasant in being to leeward; for should an enemy's fleet attempt to get into Martinique, and the commander of it inclines to avoid battle, nothing but a skirmish will probably happen, which in its consequences may operate as a defeat to the British squadron, though not a ship is lost and the enemy suffer most."

This is a clear case in which events that actually befell were foreseen; not by supernatural illumination, but by the clear light of unbia.s.sed reason acting upon evident considerations. There _was_ but a skirmish, the British _did_ suffer badly, and the consequences _were_ equivalent to defeat; for, had the whole British force of the line been present to windward, it would have prevented the junction of the French, and therefore have been so nearly equal to the main body as to have a.s.sured an action inflicting very serious injury, incapacitating the enemy for the attacks upon Santa Lucia and Tobago, before which the latter fell, and not improbably deterring De Gra.s.se from the expedition to the Chesapeake which forced the capitulation of Cornwallis. Such deductions are of course dependent upon the contingencies inseparable from warfare.

They are not certainties, indeed; but they are inferences of very great probability. So much hinged upon the presence of an officer with the full discretion denied to Hood; of the officer primarily responsible for the fleet, which was intrusted to him and not to another.