Types of Naval Officers, Drawn from the History of the British Navy

Howe thus lost the man upon whom principally he must have relied for the more purely tactical development of the fleet, opportunity for which he anticipated in the necessarily slow and graduated progress of so large an assemblage.

The occasion was indeed one that called for deliberation as well as for calculated audacity, both controlled by a composure and ability rarely conjoined to the same great extent as in Howe. Circumstances were more imminent than in the two previous reliefs by Rodney and Darby; for the greatly superior numbers of the allies were now not in Cadiz, as before, but lying only four miles from the anchorage which the supply vessels must gain. True, certainly, that for these a certain portion of their path would be shielded by the guns of the fortress, but a much greater part would be wholly out of their range; and the mere question of reaching his berth, a navigational problem complicated by uncertain winds, and by a very certain current sweeping in from the Atlantic, was extremely difficult for the merchant skipper of the day, a seaman rough and ready, but not always either skilful or heedful. The problem before Howe demanded therefore the utmost of his seamanlike qualities and of his tactical capacity.

The length of the passage speaks for the deliberate caution of Howe's management, as his conduct at the critical moment of approach, and during the yet more critical interval of accomplishing the entrance of the supply ships, evinces the cool and masterful self-control which always assured the complete and sustained exertion of his great professional powers at a required instant. Thirty days were consumed in the voyage from Spithead to Gibraltar, but no transport was dropped. Of the huge convoy even, it is narrated that after a heavy gale, just before reaching Cape Finisterre, the full tally of 183 was counted. After passing that cape, the traders probably parted for their several destinations, each body under a suitable escort. The stoppages for the rounding-up of straying or laggard vessels, or for re-establishing the observance of order which ever contributes to regulated movement, and through it to success, were not in this case time lost. The admiral made of them opportunities for exercising his ships-of-the-line in the new system of signals, and in the simple evolutions depending upon them, which underlie flexibility of action, and in the day of battle enable the fleet to respond to the purposes of its commander with reasonable precision, and in mutual support.

Such drill was doubly necessary, for it not only familiarized the intelligence of the captains with ideas too generally neglected by seamen until called upon to put them into practice, and revealed to them difficulties not realized until encountered, but also enforced recognition of the particular qualities of each vessel, upon the due observance of which substantial accuracy of manoeuvre depends. The experience gained during this cruise, going and returning, probably opened the eyes of many officers to unsuspected deficiencies in themselves, in handling a ship under the exigencies of fleet tactics. Howe certainly was in this respect disappointed in his followers, but probably not greatly surprised. At the same time it is but fair to note that the service was performed throughout without any marked hitch traceable to want of general professional ability. A French writer has commented upon this. "There occurred none of those events, so frequent in the experiences of a squadron, which often oblige admirals to take a course wholly contrary to the end they have in view. It is impossible not to recall the unhappy incidents which, from the 9th to the 12th of April, of this same year, befell the squadron of the Count De Grasse. If it is just to admit that Lord Howe displayed the highest talent, it should be added that he had in his hands excellent instruments."

On the 10th of October the fleet and storeships drew nigh the Straits of Gibraltar. On that day it was rejoined by a frigate, which forty-eight hours before had been sent ahead to communicate the approach of the relief, and to concert action. She brought the cheering news of the victorious repulse by the British of the grand attack by sea and land upon September 13th, with the entire destruction of the trusted floating batteries. Under this flush of national triumph, and with a fair westerly wind, the great expedition entered the straits on October 11th, in ranged order for action. The convoy went first, because, sailing before the wind, it was thus to leeward of the ships of war, in position to be immediately defended, if attacked. Two squadrons of the fleet succeeded them, in line-of-battle ahead, formed thus for instant engagement, Howe leading in the Victory; while the third of the squadrons followed in reserve, in an order not stated, but probably in a line abreast, sweeping a broader belt of sea, and more nearly under the eye of the Commander-in-chief, who, for the purposes of the present operation, had left his traditional post in the centre. Howe's reasons for this change of position, if ever stated, have not come under the eyes of the writer; but analysis shows that he was there close to the storeships, whose safe entrance to the port was at once the main object of the enterprise and the one most critically uncertain of achievement, because of the general bad behavior of convoys. There he could control them more surely, and at the same time by his own conduct indicate his general purposes to subordinates, who, however deficient in distinctly tactical proficiency, had the seamanship and the willingness adequately to support him.

At 6 P.M. the supply ships were off the mouth of the bay, with the wind fair for their anchorage; but, although full and particular instructions had been issued to them concerning currents and other local conditions, all save four missed the entrance and were swept to the eastward of the Rock. The fleet of course had to follow its charge, and by their failure a new task confronted Howe's professional abilities and endurance. Fortunately he had an able adviser in the captain of the fleet, who had had long experience of the locality, invaluable during the trying week that ensued. The allies had not yet stirred. To move near fifty sail-of-the-line in pursuit of an enemy, inferior indeed, but ranged for battle, and the precise moment of whose appearance could not have been foreseen, was no slight undertaking, as Nelson afterwards said. It may be recalled that before Trafalgar over twenty-four hours were needed for the allied thirty-three to get out of Cadiz Bay. On the 13th, however, the combined French and Spaniards sailed, intent primarily, it would seem, not on the true and vital offensive purpose of frustrating the relief, but upon the very secondary defensive object of preserving two of their own numbers, which in a recent gale had been swept to the eastward. Thus trivially preoccupied, they practically neglected Howe, who on his part stripped for action by sending the supply vessels to the Zaffarine Islands, where the vagarious instincts of their captains would be controlled by an anchor on the bottom. On the 14th the allies bore north from the British, close under the Spanish coast, and visible only from the mastheads. On the 15th the wind came east, and the convoy and fleet began cautiously to move towards Gibraltar, the enemy apparently out of sight, and certainly to the eastward. On the evening of the 16th eighteen supply ships were at the mole, and on the 18th all had arrived. Gibraltar was equipped for another year's endurance.

We have less than could be wished of particulars touching this performance of Howe's, from the day of leaving England to that of fulfilment, five full weeks later. Inference and comment has to be built up upon incidents transmitted disconnectedly, interpreted in connection with the usual known conditions and the relative strength of the two opposing parties. To professional understanding, thus far supplemented, much is clear; quite enough, at the least, to avouch the deliberation, the steadiness, the professional aptitude, the unremitting exertion that so well supplies the place of celerity,—never resting, if never hasting,—the calculated daring at fit moments, and above all the unfailing self-possession and self-reliance which at every instant up to the last secured to the British enterprise the full value of the other qualities possessed by the Commander-in-chief. A biographical notice of Howe cannot be complete without quoting the tribute of an accomplished officer belonging to one of the navies then arrayed against him. "The qualities displayed by Lord Howe during this short campaign," says Captain Chevalier of the French service, "rose to the full height of the mission which he had to fulfil. This operation, one of the finest in the War of American Independence, merits a praise equal to that of a victory. If the English fleet was favored by circumstances,—and it is rare that in such enterprises one can succeed without the aid of fortune,—it was above all the Commander-in-chief's quickness of perception, the accuracy of his judgment, and the rapidity of his decisions that assured success."

Having accomplished his main object and landed besides fifteen hundred barrels of powder from his own ships, Howe tarried no longer. Like Nelson, at Gibraltar on his way to St. Vincent, he would not trifle with an easterly wind, without which he could not leave the Straits against the constant inset; neither would he adventure action, against a force superior by a third, amid the currents that had caused him so trying an experience. There was, moreover, the important strategic consideration that if the allied fleets, which were again in sight, followed him out, they would thereby be drawn from any possible molestation of the unloading of the supply ships, which had been attempted, though with no great success, on the occasion of the relief by Darby, in 1781. Howe therefore at once headed for the Atlantic. The allies pursued, and engaged partially on the afternoon and evening of October 20th; but the attack was not pushed home, although they had the advantage of the wind and of numbers. On the 14th of November the British fleet regained Spithead. It may be remarked that Admirals Barrington and Millbank both praised their captains very highly, for the maintenance of the order in their respective divisions during this action; the former saying it "was the finest close connected line I ever saw during my service at sea." Howe, who held higher ideals, conceived through earnest and prolonged study and reflection, was less well satisfied. It seems, however, reasonable to infer that the assiduity of his efforts to promote tactical precision had realized at least a partial measure of success.

Another long term of shore life now intervened, carrying the gallant admiral over the change-fraught years of failing powers from fifty-six to sixty-seven, at which age he was again called into service, in the course of which he was to perform the most celebrated, but, it may confidently be affirmed, not the most substantial, nor even the most brilliant, action of his career. During much of this intermediate period, between 1783 and 1788, Howe occupied the Cabinet position of First Lord of the Admiralty, the civil head and administrator of the Navy. Into the discharge of this office he carried the same qualities of assiduous attention to duty, and of close devotion to details of professional progress, which characterized him when afloat; but, while far from devoid of importance, there is but little in this part of his story that needs mention as distinctive. Perhaps the most interesting incidents, seen in the light of afterwards, are that one of his earliest appointments to a ship was given to Nelson; and that the cordiality of his reception at the end of the cruise is said to have removed from the hero an incipient but very strong disgust for the service. "You ask me," wrote the future admiral to his brother, "by what interest did I get a ship? I answer, having served with credit was my recommendation to Lord Howe. Anything in reason that I can ask, I am sure of obtaining from his justice."

At the outbreak of the French Revolution, Howe stood conspicuously at the head of the navy, distinguished at once for well-known professional accomplishments and for tried capacity in chief command. His rivals in renown among his contemporaries—Keppel, Barrington, and Rodney—had gone to their rest. Jervis, Duncan, Nelson, Collingwood, and their compeers, had yet to show what was in them as general officers. Lord Hood alone remained; and he, although he had done deeds of great promise, had come to the front too late in the previous war for his reputation to rest upon sustained achievement as well as upon hopeful indication. The great commands were given to these two: Hood, the junior, going to the Mediterranean with twenty ships-of-the-line, Howe taking the Channel Fleet of somewhat superior numbers.

The solid, deliberate, methodical qualities of the veteran admiral were better adapted to the more purely defensive rôle, forced upon Great Britain by the allied superiority in 1782, than to the continuous, vigilant, aggressive action demanded by the new conditions with which he now had to deal, when the great conflagration of the Revolution was to be hemmed in and stamped out by the unyielding pressure and massive blows of the British sea power. The days of regulated, routine hostilities between rulers had passed away with the uprising of a people; the time foretold, when nation should rise against nation, was suddenly come with the crash of an ancient kingdom and of its social order. An admirable organizer and indefatigable driller of ships, though apparently a poor disciplinarian, Howe lacked the breadth of view, the clear intuitions, the alacrity of mind, brought to bear upon the problem by Jervis and Nelson, who, thus inspired, framed the sagacious plan to which, more than to any other one cause, was due the exhaustion alike of the Revolutionary fury and of Napoleon's imperial power. Keenly interested in the material efficiency of his ships, as well as in the precision with which they could perform necessary evolutions and maintain prescribed formations, he sought to attain these ends by long stays in port, varied by formal cruises devoted to secondary objects and to fleet tactics. For these reasons also he steadfastly refused to countenance the system of close-watching the enemy's ports, by the presence before each of a British force adequate to check each movement at its beginning.

Thus nursing ships and men, Howe flattered himself he should insure the perfection of the instrument which should be his stay in the hour of battle. Herein he ignored the fundamental truth, plainly perceived by his successor, St. Vincent, that the effectiveness of a military instrument consists more in the method of its use, and in the practised skill of the human element that wields it, than in the material perfection of the weapon itself. It may justly be urged on his behalf that the preparation he sought should have been made, but was not, by the Government in the long years of peace. This is true; but yet the fact remains that he pursued his system by choice and conviction repeatedly affirmed; that continuous instead of occasional cruising in the proper positions would better have reached the ends of drill; and that to the material well being of his ships he sacrificed those correct military dispositions before the enemy's ports, instituted and maintained by Hawke, and further developed and extended by Jervis, who at the same time preserved the efficiency of the vessels by increased energy and careful prevision of their wants. The brilliant victory of the 1st of June has obscured the accompanying fact, that lamentable failure characterized the general strategic use of the Channel Fleet under Howe and his immediate successor.

Once in sight of the enemy, however, the old man regained the fire of youth, and showed the attainments which long study and careful thought had added to his natural talent for war, enabling him to introduce distinct advances upon the tactical conceptions of his predecessors. The battle of June 1, 1794, was brought about in the following manner. Political anarchy and a bad season had combined to ruin the French harvests in 1793, and actual famine threatened the land. To obviate this, at least partially, the Government had bought in the United States a large quantity of breadstuffs, which were expected to arrive in May or June, borne by one hundred and eighty merchant vessels. To insure the safety of this valuable convoy, the Brest Fleet was sent to meet it at a designated point; five ships going first, and twenty-five following a few days later. Robespierre's orders to the admiral, Villaret-Joyeuse, were to avoid battle, if possible, but at all hazards to secure the merchant fleet, or his head would answer for it.

About the same time, Howe, who had kept his vessels in port during the winter, sailed from the Channel with thirty-two ships-of-the-line. These he soon divided into two squadrons; one of which, numbering six, after performing a specific service, was not ordered to rejoin the main body, but to cruise in a different spot. These ships were sadly missed on the day of battle, when they could have changed a brilliant into a crushing victory. Howe himself went to seek the French, instead of taking a position where they must pass; and after some running to and fro, in which the British actually got to the westward of their foes, and might well have missed them altogether, he was lucky enough, on the 28th of May, some four hundred miles west of the island of Ushant, to find the larger of their two detachments. This having been meanwhile joined by one ship from the smaller, both opponents now numbered twenty-six heavy vessels.

The French were to windward, a position which gives the power of refusing or delaying decisive action. The average speed of any fleet, however, must fall below the best of some of the force opposed to it; and Howe, wishing to compel battle, sent out six of his fastest and handiest ships. These were directed to concentrate their fire upon the enemy's rear, which, from the point of view of naval tactics, was the weakest part of a line-of-battle of sailing ships; because, to aid it, vessels ahead must turn round and change their formation, performing a regular evolution, whereas, if the van be assailed, the rear naturally advances to its help. If this partial attack crippled one or more of the French, the disabled ships would drift towards the British, where either they would be captured, or their comrades would be obliged to come to their rescue, hazarding the general engagement that Howe wanted. As it happened, the French had in the rear an immense ship of one hundred and ten guns, which beat off in detail the successive attacks of her smaller antagonists; but in so doing she received so much injury that she left the fleet after nightfall, passing the British unmolested, and went back to Brest. One of her assailants, also, had to return to England; but, as the relative force of the units thus clipped from the respective opponents was as three to two, the general result was a distinct material gain for Howe. It is to be scored to his credit as a tactician that he let this single enemy go, rather than scatter his fleet and lose ground in trying to take her. He had a more important object.

The next morning, May 29th, the French by poor seamanship had lost to leeward, and were consequently somewhat nearer. Both fleets were heading southeasterly, with the wind at south-southwest; both, consequently, on the starboard tack. Howe saw that, by tacking in succession, his column would so head that several of his vessels in passing could bring the hostile rear under their guns, and that it was even possible that three or four might be cut off, unless reinforced; to attempt which by the enemy would involve also tactical possibilities favorable to the British. The necessary movement was ordered; and the French admiral, seeing things in the same light, was justly so alarmed for the result that he turned his head ships, and after them his whole column in succession, to run down to help the rear. Judicious, and indeed necessary, as this was, it played right into Howe's hands, and was a tribute to his tactical skill, by which it was compelled; for in doing this the French necessarily gave up much of their distance to windward, and so hastened the collision they wished to avoid. Although the attack upon their rear was limited to a few desultory broadsides, the two fleets were at last nearly within cannon shot, whereas the day before they had been eight or ten miles apart. Both were now on the port tack, running west in parallel lines.

Towards noon, Howe saw that the morning's opportunity of directing his whole column upon the enemy's rear again offered, but with a far better chance; that if his ships manoeuvred well half a dozen of the French must be cut off, unless their admiral, to save them, repeated his previous manoeuvre of running down to their assistance, which would infallibly entail the general engagement sought by the British. The signal to tack in succession was again made, and to pass through the enemy's line; but here Howe's purpose was foiled, as Rodney's on April 17th, by the failure of his leading vessel. Her captain, like Carkett, was of considerable seniority, having commanded a ship-of-the-line under Howe at New York, in 1778. His conduct during this brief campaign was so unfavorably noticed by his admiral that he asked a Court-Martial, which dismissed him from his ship, though clearing him of cowardice. Upon the present occasion he for some time delayed obedience; and, when he did go about, wore instead of tacking, which lost ground and caused confusion by going to leeward. The second ship acted well, and struck the French column some distance from its rear, proving Howe right in judging that the enemy's order could there be pierced. As this vessel was not closely supported, she received such injuries from successive fires, that, when she at last found an opening through which to pass, she was unable to manoeuvre.

Seeing that the van was failing him, Howe, whose flag-ship, the Queen Charlotte, was tenth from the head of his column, now took the lead himself, tacked his own vessel, though her turn was not yet come, and, accompanied by his next ahead and astern,—another striking instance of the inspiring influence of a high example,—stood straight for the hostile order. The three broke through astern of the sixth ship from the French rear, and cut off two of the enemy, which were speedily surrounded by others of the British. Villaret-Joyeuse then repeated his former evolution, and nothing could have saved a general engagement except the disorder into which the British had fallen, and Howe's methodical abhorrence of attacks made in such confusion as prevailed. Moreover, the decisive result of this last brush was that the French entirely lost the windward position, and the British admiral knew that he now had them where they could not escape; he could afford to postpone the issue. Accordingly, fighting ceased for the day; but the French had been so mauled that three more ships had to go into port, leaving them but twenty-two to the enemy's twenty-five.

To appreciate Howe's personal merit as a tactician, reflection should be bestowed upon the particulars of his conduct on these two days, with which the First of June is not to be compared; for in them culminated, so to speak, a long course of preparation in the study of tactical possibilities, and of the system of signals needed to insure necessary evolutions. His officers, as a body, do not appear to have deserved by their manoeuvring the encomium passed by Rodney upon his, during the long chase to windward in May, 1780; and, as Howe had now held command for a year, this failure may probably be assigned to lack of that punctilious severity to which Rodney attributed his own success. But in the matter of personal acquirement Howe shows a distinct advance upon Rodney's ideas and methods. There is not to be noted in Rodney's actions any foreshadowing of the judicious attack upon the enemy's rear, on May 28th, by a smart flying squadron. This doubtless presents some analogy to a general chase, but there is in it more of system and of regulated action; in short, there is development. Again, although Rodney doubtless tacked in succession repeatedly, between May 9th and May 20th, in his efforts to reach the enemy to windward, there does not then appear, nor did there appear on either of the two occasions when he succeeded in striking their column from to leeward, any intention, such as Howe on the 29th communicated by signal and enforced by action, of breaking through the enemy's line even at the cost of breaking his own. Not even on April 12th had Rodney, as far as appears, any such formulated plan. There is here, therefore, distinct progress, in the nature of reflective and reasoned development; for it is scarcely to be supposed that Howe's assiduity and close contact with the navy had failed to note, for future application, the incidents of Rodney's battles, which had been the subject of animated discussion and censure by eye-witnesses.

It will be recognized that the conception in Howe's mind, maintained unchangeably and carried consistently into effect during these two days, was to attack continually, as opportunity offered, the rear end of the enemy's column, which corresponds precisely with the attack upon the flank of a line of battle on shore. Merit does not depend upon result, but fortunate result should be noted for the encouragement and guidance of the future. In consequence of these sustained and judiciously directed movements, and of the steps found necessary by the French admiral because of injuries received, the enemy had lost from their line four ships, of which one was of one hundred and twenty guns, another of eighty; while of those retained one had lost all her spars save the lower masts, and had thenceforth to be towed in action. Against this was to be set only one British seventy-four, disabled on the 28th and returned to port; their other damaged vessels refitted at sea and stayed with the fleet. On the other hand, Howe's separated division of six remained separated, whereas four fresh French ships joined their main fleet on the 30th. Admirable tactics were thus neutralized by defective strategy; and therefore it may with substantial accuracy be said that Howe's professional qualities and defects were both signally illustrated in this, his last conspicuous service.

The French admiral on the evening of the 29th saw that he now must fight, and at a disadvantage; consequently, he could not hope to protect the convoy. As to save this was his prime object, the next best thing was to entice the British out of its path. With this view he stood away to the northwest; while a dense fog coming on both favored his design and prevented further encounter during the two ensuing days, throughout which Howe continued to pursue. In the evening of May 31st the weather cleared, and at daybreak the next morning the enemies were in position, ready for battle, two long columns of ships, heading west, the British twenty-five, the French again twenty-six through the junction of the four vessels mentioned. Howe now had cause to regret his absent six, and to ponder Nelson's wise saying, "Only numbers can annihilate."

The time for manoeuvring was past. Able tactician as he personally was, and admirable as had been the direction of his efforts in the two days' fighting, Howe had been forced in them to realize two things, namely, that his captains were, singly, superior in seamanship, and their crews in gunnery, to the French; and again, that in the ability to work together as a fleet the British were so deficient as to promise very imperfect results, if he attempted any but the simplest formation. To such, therefore, he resorted; falling back upon the old, unskilful, sledge-hammer fashion of the British navy. Arranging his ships in one long line, three miles from the enemy, he made them all go down together, each to attack a specified opponent, coming into action as nearly as might be at the same instant. Thus the French, from the individual inferiority of the units of their fleet, would be at all points overpowered. The issue justified the forecast; but the manner of performance was curiously and happily marked by Howe's own peculiar phlegm. There was a long summer day ahead for fighting, and no need for hurry. The order was first accurately formed, and canvas reduced to proper proportions. Then the crews went to breakfast. After breakfast, the ships all headed for the hostile line, under short sail, the admiral keeping them in hand during the approach, as an infantry officer dresses his company. Hence the shock from end to end was so nearly simultaneous as to induce success unequalled in any engagement conducted on the same primitive plan.

Picturesque as well as sublime, animating as well as solemn, on that bright Sunday morning, was this prelude to the stern game of war about to be played: the quiet summer sea stirred only by a breeze sufficient to cap with white the little waves that ruffled its surface; the dark hulls gently rippling the water aside in their slow advance, a ridge of foam curling on either side of the furrow ploughed by them in their onward way; their massive sides broken by two, or at times three, rows of ports, whence, the tompions drawn, yawned the sullen lines of guns, behind which, unseen, but easily realized by the instructed eye, clustered the groups of ready seamen who served each piece. Aloft swung leisurely to and fro the tall spars, which ordinarily, in so light a wind, would be clad in canvas from deck to truck, but whose naked trimness now proclaimed the deadly purpose of that still approach. Upon the high poops, where floated the standard of either nation, gathered round each chief the little knot of officers through whom commands were issued and reports received, the nerves along which thrilled the impulses of the great organism, from its head, the admiral, through every member to the dark lowest decks, nearly awash, where, as farthest from the captain's own oversight, the senior lieutenants controlled the action of the ships' heaviest batteries.

On board the Queen Charlotte, Lord Howe, whose burden of sixty-eight years had for four days found no rest save what he could snatch in an arm-chair, now, at the prospect of battle, "displayed an animation," writes an eye-witness, "of which, at his age, and after such fatigue of body and mind, I had not thought him capable. He seemed to contemplate the result as one of unbounded satisfaction." By his side stood his fleet-captain, Curtis, of whose service among the floating batteries, and during the siege of Gibraltar, the governor of the fortress had said, "He is the man to whom the king is chiefly indebted for its security;" and Codrington, then a lieutenant, who afterwards commanded the allied fleets at Navarino. Five ships to the left, Collingwood, in the Barfleur, was making to the admiral whose flag she bore the remark that stirred Thackeray: "Our wives are now about going to church, but we will ring about these Frenchmen's ears a peal which will drown their bells." The French officers, both admirals and captains, were mainly unknown men, alike then and thereafter. The fierce flames of the Revolution had swept away the men of the old school, mostly aristocrats, and time had not yet brought forward the very few who during the Napoleonic period showed marked capacity. The commander-in-chief, Villaret-Joyeuse, had three years before been a lieutenant. He had a high record for gallantry, but was without antecedents as a general officer. With him, on the poop of the Montagne, which took her name from Robespierre's political supporters, stood that anomalous companion of the generals and admirals of the day, the Revolutionary commissioner, Jean Bon Saint-André, about to learn by experience the practical working of the system he had advocated, to disregard all tests of ability save patriotism and courage, depreciating practice and skill as unnecessary to the valor of the true Frenchman.

As the British line drew near the French, Howe said to Curtis, "Prepare the signal for close action." "There is no such signal," replied Curtis. "No," said the admiral, "but there is one for closer action, and I only want that to be made in case of captains not doing their duty." Then closing a little signal book he always carried, he continued to those around him, "Now, gentlemen, no more book, no more signals. I look to you to do the duty of the Queen Charlotte in engaging the flag-ship. I don't want the ships to be bilge to bilge, but if you can lock the yardarms, so much the better; the battle will be the quicker decided." His purpose was to go through the French line, and fight the Montagne on the far side. Some doubted their succeeding, but Howe overbore them. "That's right, my lord!" cried Bowen, the sailing-master, who looked to the ship's steering. "The Charlotte will make room for herself." She pushed close under the French ship's stern, grazing her ensign, and raking her from stern to stem with a withering fire, beneath which fell three hundred men. A length or two beyond lay the French Jacobin. Howe ordered the Charlotte to luff, and place herself between the two. "If we do," said Bowen, "we shall be on board one of them." "What is that to you, sir?" asked Howe quickly. "Oh!" muttered the master, not inaudibly. "D——n my eyes if I care, if you don't. I'll go near enough to singe some of our whiskers." And then, seeing by the Jacobins rudder that she was going off, he brought the Charlotte sharp round, her jib boom grazing the second Frenchman as her side had grazed the flag of the first.

From this moment the battle raged furiously from end to end of the field for nearly an hour,—a wild scene of smoke and confusion, under cover of which many a fierce ship duel was fought, while here and there men wandered, lost, in a maze of bewilderment that neutralized their better judgment. An English naval captain tells a service tradition of one who was so busy watching the compass, to keep his position in the ranks, that he lost sight of his antagonist, and never again found him. Many a quaint incident passed, recorded or unrecorded, under that sulphurous canopy. A British ship, wholly dismasted, lay between two enemies, her captain desperately wounded. A murmur of surrender was somewhere heard; but as the first lieutenant checked it with firm authority, a cock flew upon the stump of a mast and crowed lustily. The exultant note found quick response in hearts not given to despair, and a burst of merriment, accompanied with three cheers, replied to the bird's triumphant scream. On board the Brunswick, in her struggle with the Vengeur, one of the longest and fiercest fights the sea has ever seen, the cocked hat was shot off the effigy of the Duke of Brunswick, which she bore as a figure-head. A deputation from the crew gravely requested the captain to allow the use of his spare chapeau, which was securely nailed on, and protected his grace's wig during the rest of the action. After this battle with the ships of the new republic, the partisans of monarchy noted with satisfaction that, among the many royal figures that surmounted the stems of the British fleet, not one lost his crown. Of a harum-scarum Irish captain are told two droll stories. After being hotly engaged for some time with a French ship, the fire of the latter slackened, and then ceased. He called to know if she had surrendered. The reply was, "No." "Then," shouted he, "d——n you, why don't you fire?" Having disposed of his special antagonist without losing his own spars, the same man kept along in search of new adventures, until he came to a British ship totally dismasted and otherwise badly damaged. She was commanded by a captain of rigidly devout piety. "Well, Jemmy," hailed the Irishman, "you are pretty well mauled; but never mind, Jemmy, whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth."

The French have transmitted to us less of anecdote, nor is it easy to connect the thought of humor with those grimly earnest republicans and the days of the Terror. There is, indeed, something unintentionally funny in the remark of the commander of one of the captured ships to his captors. They had, it was true, dismasted half the French fleet, and had taken over a fourth; yet he assured them it could not be considered a victory, "but merely a butchery, in which the British had shown neither science nor tactics." The one story, noble and enduring, that will ever be associated with the French on the 1st of June is in full keeping with the temper of the times and the enthusiasm of the nation. The seventy-four-gun ship Vengeur, after a three hours' fight, yardarm to yardarm, with the British Brunswick, was left in a sinking state by her antagonist, who was herself in no condition to help. In the confusion, the Vengeur's peril was for some time not observed; and when it was, the British ships that came to her aid had time only to remove part of her survivors. In their report of the event the latter said: "Scarcely had the boats pulled clear of the sides, when the most frightful spectacle was offered to our gaze. Those of our comrades who remained on board the Vengeur du Peuple, with hands raised to heaven, implored, with lamentable cries, the help for which they could no longer hope. Soon disappeared the ship and the unhappy victims it contained. In the midst of the horror with which this scene inspired us all, we could not avoid a feeling of admiration mingled with our grief. As we drew away, we heard some of our comrades still offering prayers for the welfare of their country. The last cries of these unfortunates were, 'Vive la République!' They died uttering them." Over a hundred Frenchmen thus went down.

Seven French ships were captured, including the sunk Vengeur. Five more were wholly dismasted, but escaped,—a good fortune mainly to be attributed to Howe's utter physical prostration, due to his advanced years and the continuous strain of the past five days. He now went to bed, completely worn out. "We all got round him," wrote an officer, Lieutenant Codrington, who was present; "indeed, I saved him from a tumble, he was so weak that from a roll of the ship he was nearly falling into the waist. 'Why, you hold me up as if I were a child,' he said good-humoredly." Had he been younger, there can be little doubt that the fruits of victory would have been gathered with an ardor which his assistant, Curtis, failed to show. The fullest proof of this is the anecdote, already quoted in the sketch of Rodney,[13] which has been transmitted by Admiral Sir Byam Martin direct from the sailing-master of the Queen Charlotte, afterwards Admiral Bowen; but his account is abundantly confirmed by other officers, eye and ear witnesses. Taken in connection with these, Codrington's story of his physical weakness bears the note, not of pathos only, but of encouragement; for the whole testifies assuredly to the persistence, through great bodily debility, of a strong quality diligently cultivated in the days of health and vigor. In truth, it was impossible for Howe to purpose otherwise. Having been continuously what he was in his prime, it could not be that he would not intend, with all the force of his will, to persevere to the utmost in the duty before him. The faithfulness of a lifetime does not so forsake a man in his end. What he lacked in that critical hour was not the willing mind, but the instrument by which to communicate to the fleet the impulse which his own failing powers were no longer able directly to impart.

Lord Howe's career practically ended with this battle and the honors that followed it. Infirmities then gained rapidly upon him, and it would have been well had his own wish to retire been granted by the Government. He remained in nominal command of the Channel Fleet, though not going to sea, until the occurrence of the great mutinies of 1797. The suppression—or, more properly, the composing—of this ominous outbreak was devolved upon him by the ministry. He very wisely observed that "preventive measures rather than corrective are to be preferred for preserving discipline in fleets and armies;" but it was in truth his own failure to use such timely remedies, owing to the lethargy of increasing years, acting upon a temperament naturally indulgent and unapprehensive, that was largely responsible for disorders of whose imminence he had warning. From the military standpoint, the process of settlement had much the air of opéra bouffe,—a consummation probably inevitable when just grievances and undeniable hardships get no attention until the sufferers break through all rules, and seek redress by force. The mutinous seamen protested to Howe the bitterness of their sorrow at the sense of wrong doing, but in the same breath insisted that their demands must be conceded, and that certain obnoxious officers must be removed from their ships. The demands were yielded, Howe gently explaining to the men how naughty they had been; and that, as to the unpopular officers, they themselves asked relief from so unpleasant a situation. In his curiously involved style, he wrote: "This request has been complied with, under the pretext of an equal desire on the part of the officers not to be employed in ships where exception, without specification of facts, has been taken to their conduct. However ineligible the concession, it was become indispensably necessary." Under this thin veil, men persuaded themselves that appearances were saved, as a woman hides a smile behind her fan. Admiral Codrington, a firm admirer of Howe, justly said: "It was want of discipline which led to the discontent and mutiny in the Channel Fleet. Lord Howe got rid of the mutiny by granting the men all they asked; but discipline was not restored until the ships most remarkable for misconduct had been, one after the other, placed under the command of Lord St. Vincent."

With the settlement of this mutiny Lord Howe's long career of active service closed. Immediately afterwards he retired formally, as he sometime before had actually, from the command of the Channel Fleet, and on the 5th of August, 1799, he died full of years and honors; having lived just long enough to welcome the rising star of Nelson's glory as it burst upon men's sight at Cape St. Vincent and the Nile.

JERVIS

The appearance of a prodigy like Nelson, however, is not an isolated event, independent of antecedents. It is the result of a happy meeting of genius and opportunity. The hour has come, and the man. Other men have labored, and the hero enters into their labors; not unjustly, for thereto he also has been appointed by those special gifts which fit him to reap as theirs fitted them to sow. In relation to Nelson and his career, the illustrious officer whose most distinguishing characteristics we have now to trace stood pre-eminent among many forerunners. It was he, above all others, who made the preparation indispensable to the approaching triumphal progress of the first of British naval heroes, so that his own work underlies that of his successor, as foundation supports superstructure. There is not between them the vital connection of root to branch, of plant to fruit. In the matter of professional kinship Nelson has far more in common with Hood. Between these there is an identity of kind, an orderly sequence of development, an organic bond, such as knits together the series of a progressive evolution. It is not so with Jervis. Closely conjoined as the two men long were in a common service, and in mutual admiration and sympathy, it would be an error to think of the elder as in any sense the professional progenitor of the younger; yet he was, as it were, an adoptive father, who from the first fostered, and to the last gloried in, the genius which he confessed unparalleled. "It does not become me to make comparisons," he wrote after Copenhagen; "all agree that there is but one Nelson." And when the great admiral had been ten years in his grave, he said of an officer's gallant conduct at the Battle of Algiers, "He seems to have felt Lord Nelson's eye upon him;" as though no stronger motive could be felt nor higher praise given.

John Jervis was born on the 20th of January, 1735, at Meaford, in Staffordshire. He was intended for his father's profession, the law; but, by his own account, a disinclination which was probably natural became invincible through the advice of the family coachman. "Don't be a lawyer, Master Jacky," said the old man; "all lawyers are rogues." Sometime later, his father receiving the appointment of auditor to Greenwich Hospital, the family removed to the neighborhood of London; and there young Jervis, being thrown in contact with ships and seamen, and particularly with a midshipman of his own age, became confirmed in his wish to go to sea. Failing to get his parents' consent, he ran away towards the close of the year 1747. From this escapade he was brought back; but his father, seeing the uselessness of forcing the lad's inclinations, finally acquiesced, though it seems likely, from his after conduct, that it was long before he became thoroughly reconciled to the disappointment.

In January, 1748, the future admiral and peer first went afloat in a ship bound to the West Indies. The time was inauspicious for one making the navy his profession. The war of the Austrian succession had just been brought to an end by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, and the monotonous discomfort of hard cruising, unrelieved by the excitements of battle or the flush of prize-taking, was the sole prospect of one whose narrow means debarred him from such pleasures as the station afforded and youth naturally prompted him to seek. His pay was little over twenty pounds a year, and his father had not felt able to give more than that sum towards his original outfit. After being three years on board, practising a rigid economy scarcely to be expected in one of his years, the lad of sixteen drew a bill upon home for twenty pounds more. It came back dishonored. The latent force of his character was at once aroused. To discharge the debt, he disposed of his pay tickets at a heavy discount; sold his bed, and for three years slept on the deck; left the mess to which he belonged, living forward on the allowance of a seaman, and making, mending, and washing his own clothes, to save expense. Doubt has been expressed as to the reality of these early privations, on the ground that his father's office at Greenwich, and the subsequent promotions of the young officer, show the existence of a family influence, which would have counteracted such extreme restriction in money matters. The particulars, however, have been so transmitted as to entitle them to acceptance, unless contradicted by something more positive than circumstantial inference from other conditions, not necessarily contradictory.

This sharp experience was singularly adapted to develop and exaggerate his natural characteristics, self-reliance, self-control, stern determination, and, it must be added, the exacting harshness which demanded of others all that he had himself accepted. His experience of suffering and deprivation served, not to enlarge his indulgence, but to intensify his severity. Yet it may be remarked that Jervis was at all periods in thorough touch with distinctively naval feeling, sympathizing with and respecting its sensibilities, sharing its prejudices, as well as comprehending its weaknesses. Herein he differed from Rodney, who in the matter of community of sentiment stood habitually external to his profession; in it, but in heart not of it; belonging consciously and willingly to a social class which cherished other ideals of life and action. His familiarity with the service quickened him to criticise more keenly and accurately than a stranger, to recognize failings with harsher condemnation; but there appears no disposition to identify himself with it further than as an instrument of personal advancement and distinction.

Upon Jervis's naval future, the results of his early ordeal were wholly good. Unable to pursue pleasure ashore, he stuck to sea-going ships; and the energies of a singularly resolute mind were devoted to mastering all the details of his profession. After six years in the Caribbean, he returned to England in the autumn of 1754. The troubles between France and Great Britain which issued in the Seven Years War had already begun, and Jervis, whose merit commanded immediate recognition from those under whom he served, found family influence to insure his speedy promotion and employment. Being made lieutenant early in 1755, he was with Boscawen off the Gulf of St. Lawrence when that admiral, although peace yet reigned, was ordered to seize the French fleet bearing reinforcements to Quebec. At the same time, Braddock's unfortunate expedition was miscarrying in the forests of Pittsburg. A year later, in 1756, Jervis went to the Mediterranean with Admiral Hawke, sent to relieve Byng after the fiasco at Minorca which brought that unhappy commander to trial and to death.

Before and during this Mediterranean cruise Jervis had been closely associated with Sir Charles Saunders, one of the most distinguished admirals of that generation, upon whom he made so favorable an impression that he was chosen for first lieutenant of the flag-ship, when Saunders, in 1758, was named to command the fleet to act against Quebec. The gallant and romantic General Wolfe, whose death in the hour of victory saddened the triumph of the conquerors, embarked in the same ship; and the long passage favored the growth of a close personal intimacy between the two young men, who had been at school together as boys, although the soldier was several years older than the sailor. The relations thus formed and the confidences exchanged are shown by a touching incident recorded by Jervis's biographer. On the night before the battle on the Heights of Abraham, Wolfe went on board the Porcupine, a small sloop of war to whose command Jervis had meanwhile been promoted, and asked to see him in private. He then said that he was strongly impressed with the feeling that he should fall on the morrow, and therefore wished to entrust to his friend the miniature of the lady, Miss Lowther, to whom he was engaged, and to have from him the promise that, if the foreboding proved true, he would in person deliver to her both the portrait and Wolfe's own last messages. From the interview the young general departed to achieve his enterprise, to which daring action, brilliant success, and heroic death have given a lustre that time itself has not been able to dim, whose laurels remain green to our own day; while Jervis, to whose old age was reserved the glory that his comrade reaped in youth, remained behind to discharge his last request,—a painful duty which, upon returning to England, was scrupulously fulfilled.

Although the operations against Quebec depended wholly upon the control of the water by the navy, its influence, as often happens, was so quietly exerted as to draw no attention from the general eye, dazzled by the conspicuous splendor of Wolfe's conduct. To Jervis had been assigned the distinguished honor of leading the fleet with his little ship, in the advance up river against the fortifications of the place; and it is interesting to note that in this duty he was joined with the afterwards celebrated explorer, James Cook, who, as master of the fleet, had special charge of the pilotage in those untried waters. Wolfe, Cook, and Jervis form a striking trio of names, then unknown, yet closely associated, afterwards to be widely though diversely renowned.

When the city fell, Commander Jervis was sent to England, probably with despatches. There he was at once given a ship, and ordered to return with her to North America. Upon her proving leaky, he put in to Plymouth, where, as his mission was urgent, he was directed to take charge of a sloop named the Albany, then lying at anchor near by, and to proceed in her. To this moment has been attributed an incident which, as regards time and place, has been more successfully impeached than the story of his early privations, in that no mention of it is found in the ship's log; and there are other discrepancies which need reconcilement. Nevertheless it is, as told, so entirely characteristic, that the present writer has no doubt it occurred, at some time, substantially as given by his biographer, who was son to a secretary long in close relations with him when admiral. It would be entirely in keeping with all experience of testimony that the old man's recollections, or those of his secretary, may have gone astray on minor circumstances, while preserving accurately the fundamental and only really important facts, which are perfectly consistent with, and illustrative of, the stern decision afterwards shown in meeting and suppressing mutiny of the most threatening description. The crew of the Albany, it is said, from some motives of discontent refused to sail. Jervis had brought with him a few seamen from his late command. These he ordered to cut the cables which held the ship to her anchors, and to loose the foresail. Daunted more, perhaps, by the bearing of the man than by the mere acts, the mutineers submitted, and in twenty-four days, an extraordinarily short passage for that time, the Albany was at New York. Here Jervis was unfortunately delayed, and thus, being prevented from rejoining Sir Charles Saunders, lost the promotion which a British commander-in-chief could then give to an officer in his own command who had merited his professional approval. It was not until October, 1761, when he was twenty-six, that Jervis obtained "post" rank,—the rank, that is, of full, or post, captain. By the rule of the British navy, an officer up to that rank could be advanced by selection; thenceforth he waited, through the long succession of seniority, for his admiral's commission. This Jervis did not receive until 1787, when he was fifty-two.

It was as a general officer, as an admiral commanding great fleets and bearing responsibilities unusually grave through a most critical period of his country's history, that Jervis made his high and deserved reputation. For this reason, the intervening years, though pregnant with the finished character and distinguished capacity which fitted him for his onerous work, and though by no means devoid of incident, must be hastily sketched. The Treaty of Paris, which in 1763 closed the Seven Years War, was followed by twelve years of peace. Then came the American Revolution, bringing in its train hostilities with France and Spain. During the peace, Jervis for nearly four years commanded a frigate in the Mediterranean. It is told that while his ship was at Genoa two Turkish slaves escaped from a Genoese galley, and took refuge in a British boat lying at the mole, wrapping its flag round their persons. Genoese officers took them forcibly from the boat and restored them to their chains. Jervis resented this, as being not only an insult to the British flag, but also an enforcement of slavery against men under its protection; and so peremptory was his tone that an apology was made, the two captives were given up on the frigate's quarter-deck, and the offending officers punished. The captain's action, however, was not sustained by his own government. It is curious to note that, notwithstanding his course in this case, and although he was not merely nominally, but strenuously, a Whig, or Liberal, in political faith, connected by party ties with Fox and his coterie of friends, Jervis was always opposed to the abolition of the slave trade and to the education of the lower orders. Liberty was to him an inherited worship, associated with certain stock beliefs and phrases, but subordination was the true idol of his soul.

In 1775 Captain Jervis commissioned the Foudroyant, of eighty-four guns, a ship captured in 1758 from the French, and thereafter thought to be the finest vessel in the British fleet. To this, her natural superiority, Jervis added a degree of order, discipline, and drill which made her the pride and admiration of the navy. He was forty when his pennant first flew from her masthead, and he held the command for eight years, a period covering the full prime of his own maturity, as well as the entire course of the American Revolution. It was also a period marked for him, professionally, less by distinguished service than by that perfection of military organization, that combination of dignified yet not empty pomp with thorough and constant readiness, which was so eminently characteristic of all the phases of Jervis's career, and which, when the rare moments came, was promptly transformed into unhesitating, decisive, and efficient action. The Foudroyant, in her state and discipline, was the type in miniature of Jervis's Mediterranean fleet, declared by Nelson to be the finest body of ships he had ever known; nay, she was the precursor of that regenerate British navy in which Nelson found the instruments of his triumphs. Sixty years later, old officers recalled the feelings of mingled curiosity and awe with which, when sent to her on duty from their own ships, they climbed on board the Foudroyant, and from the larboard side of her quarter-deck gazed upon the stern captain, whose qualities were embodied in his vessel and constituted her chief excellences.

During Jervis's command, the Foudroyant was continuously attached to the Channel Fleet, whose duty, as the name implies, was to protect the English Channel and its approaches; a function which often carried the ships far into the Bay of Biscay. Thus he took a prominent part in Keppel's battle off Ushant in 1778, in the movements occasioned by the entrance into the Channel of an overpowering Franco-Spanish fleet in 1779 and 1781, and in the brilliant relief of Gibraltar by Admiral Howe towards the end of 1782. His most distinguished service, however, was taking, single-handed, the French seventy-four Pégase, in the spring of the latter year. The capture was effected after an action of fifty minutes, preceded by a chase of twelve hours, running before a half-gale of wind. The Foudroyant was unquestionably superior in battery to her enemy, who, moreover, had but recently been commissioned; but, as has justly been remarked of some of the victories of our own ships over those of the British in the War of 1812, although there was disparity of forces, the precision and rapidity with which the work was done bore incontrovertible testimony to the skill and training of the captain and crew. Single combats, such as this, were rare between vessels of the size of the Foudroyant and Pégase, built to sail and fight in fleets. That one occurred here was due to the fact that the speed of the two opponents left the British squadron far astern. The exploit obtained for Jervis a baronetcy and the ribbon of the Order of the Bath.

Sir John Jervis did not serve afloat during the ten years of peace following 1783, although, from his high repute, he was one of those summoned upon each of the alarms of war that from time to time arose. Throughout this period he sat in Parliament, voting steadily with his party, the Whigs, and supporting Fox in his opposition to measures which seemed to tend towards hostilities with France. When war came, however, he left his seat, ready to aid his country with his sword in the quarrel from which he had sought to keep her.

Having in the mean time risen from the rank of captain to that of rear-and of vice-admiral, Jervis's first service, in 1794, was in the Caribbean Sea, as commander of the naval part of a joint expedition of army and navy to subdue the French West India islands. The operation, although most important and full of exciting and picturesque incident, bears but a small share in his career, and therefore may not be dwelt upon in so short a sketch as the present aims to be. Attended at first by marked and general success, it ended with some severe reverses, occasioned by the force given him being less than he demanded, and than the extent of the work to be done required. A quaintly characteristic story is told of the admiral's treatment of a lieutenant who at this period sought employment on board his ship. Knowing that he stood high in the old seaman's favor, the applicant confidently expected his appointment, but, upon opening the "letter on service," was stunned to read:—