Sir John Jervis, after leaving Lisbon on January 18, 1797, had convoyed to the westward some Portuguese merchant ships bound to Brazil, and then beaten back towards his station off Cape St. Vincent. On the 6th of February he was joined by a re-enforcement of five ships, which were sent from England as soon as the scare about Ireland had passed. With these fifteen he cruised off the Cape, knowing that he there must meet any squadron, from either the Mediterranean or the Atlantic, bound to Cadiz. At 5 A.M. of February 14, the frigate "Niger," which had kept sight of the Spanish fleet for some days, joined the admiral, and informed him that it was probably not more than ten or twelve miles distant, to the southward and westward. The wind, which had been strong south-easterly for several days, had changed during the night to west by south, enabling the Spaniards to head for Cadiz, after the weary battling of the past week; but this otherwise fortunate circumstance became a very dangerous incident [139] to a large, ill-officered, and ill-commanded body of ships, about to meet an enemy so skilful, so alert, and so thoroughly drilled as Jervis's comparatively small and manageable force. At daybreak, about 6.30, the Spaniards were seen, stretching on the horizon from south-west to south in an ill-defined body, across the path of the advancing British. Their distance, though not stated, was probably not less than fifteen to twenty miles. The British fleet being close hauled on the starboard tack, heading from south to south by west, while the Spaniards, bound for Cadiz, were steering east-south-east, the two courses crossed nearly at right angles. At this moment there was a great contrast between the arrays presented by the approaching combatants. The British, formed during the night in two columns of eight and seven ships respectively, elicited the commendation of their exacting chief "for their admirable close order." [140] The Spaniards, on the contrary, eager to get to port, and in confusion through the night shift of wind and their own loose habits of sailing, were broken into two bodies. Of these the leading one, as all were sailing nearly before the wind, was most to leeward. It was composed of six ships, the interval between which and the other twenty-one was probably not less than eight miles. Even after the British fleet was seen, no attempt was for some time made to remedy this fatal separation; a neglect due partly to professional nonchalance and inefficiency, and partly to misinformation concerning the enemy's force, which they had heard through a neutral was only nine ships-of-the-line. [141]

The weather being hazy and occasionally foggy, some time passed before the gradually approaching enemies could clearly see each other. At 9 A.M. the number and rates of the Spaniards could be made out from the masthead of the British flag-ship, so that they were then probably distant from twelve to fifteen miles. At half-past nine Jervis sent three ships ahead to chase, and a few minutes later supported them with three others. This advanced duty enabled these six to take the lead in the attack. About ten [142] the fog lifted and disclosed the relative situations. The British, still in two columns, were heading fair for the gap in the Spanish order. The six lee ships of the latter had realized their false position, and were now close to the wind on the port tack, heading about north-north-west, in hopes that they could rejoin the main body to windward, which still continued its course for Cadiz. Jervis then made signal to form a single column, the fighting order of battle, and pass through the enemy's line. It soon became evident that the lee Spanish ships could not cross the bows of the British. For a moment they wavered and bore up to south-east; but soon after five of them resumed their north-west course, with the apparent purpose of breaking through the hostile line whose advance they had not been able to anticipate. [143] The sixth continued to the south-east and disappeared.

The weather division of the Spaniards now also saw that it was not possible for all its members to effect a junction with the separated ships. Three stood on, and crossed the bows of the advancing enemy; the remainder hauled up in increasing disorder to the northward, steering a course nearly parallel, but directly opposite, to the British, and passing their van at long cannon shot. At half-past eleven the "Culloden," Captain Troubridge, heading Jervis's column, came abreast the leading ships of this body, and opened fire. Sir John Jervis now saw secured to him the great desire of commanders-in-chief. His own force, in compact fighting order, was interposed between the fractions of the enemy, able to deal for a measurable time with either, undisturbed by the other. Should he attack the eighteen weather, or the eight lee ships, with his own fifteen? With accurate professional judgment he promptly decided to assail the larger body; because the smaller, having to beat to windward, would be kept out of action longer than he could hope if he chose the other alternative. The decision was in principle identical with that which determined Nelson's tactics at the Nile. The signal was therefore made to tack in succession, in pursuit of the weather ships. Troubridge, anticipating the order, had already hoisted at the masthead his answering flag of recognition, rolled up after the manner of the sea, needing but a turn of the wrist to unloose it. Quick as the admiral's signal flew the reply fluttered out, and the "Culloden's" sails were already shaking as she luffed up into the wind. "Look at Troubridge," shouted Jervis, in exultation: "he handles his ship as if the eyes of all England were upon him! and would to God they were!" The rear of the Spaniards was just passing the "Culloden" as she thus went round. Ship after ship of the British line tacked in her wake and stood on in pursuit; while those still on the first course, south by west, interposed between the two Spanish divisions. Of these the lee, led by a hundred-gun ship under a vice-admiral's flag, headed towards Jervis's flag-ship, the "Victory," the seventh in the British order, as though to go through the line ahead of her. The "Victory" was too prompt; and the Spaniard, to avoid collision, went about close under the British broadsides. In doing this he was exposed to and received a raking fire, which drove him out of action, accompanied by his consorts. The "Victory," which had backed a topsail a moment to aim more accurately, then stood on and tacked in the wake of the "Culloden," followed by the rest of the British column.

It was now nearly one o'clock. The action so far had consisted, first, in piercing the enemy's line, cutting off the van and greater part of the centre from the rear; and, second, in a cannonade between two columns passing on opposite parallel courses,—the Spanish main division running free, the British close to the wind. Naval history abounds in instances of these brushes, and pronounces them commonly indecisive. Jervis, who had seen such, [144] meant decisive action when he ordered the "Culloden" to tack and follow the enemy. But a stern chase is a long chase, and the Spanish ships were fast sailers. Some time must pass before Troubridge and his companions could overtake them; and, as each succeeding vessel of the British line had to reach the common point of tacking, from which the Spaniards were steadily receding, the rear of Jervis's fleet must be long in coming up. That it was so is proved by the respective losses incurred. It has, therefore, been suggested that the admiral would have done well to tack his whole fleet, or at least the rear ships together, bringing them in a body on the Spanish van. The idea is plausible, but errs by leaving out of the calculation the Spanish lee division, which was kept off by the British rear ships. Those eight lee ships are apt to be looked on as wholly out of the affair; but in fact it was a necessary part of Jervis's combination to check them, during the time required to deal with the others. Admiral Parker, commanding in the van, speaks expressly of the efforts made by the Spanish lee division to annoy him, and of the covering action of the British rear. [145]

Thus, one by one, the British ships were changing their course from south by west to north-north-east in pursuit of the Spanish main division, and the latter was gradually passing to the rear of their enemy's original order. When they saw the sea clear to the south-east, about one o'clock, they bore up, altering their course to east-south-east, hoping to pass behind the British and so join the lee division. Fortunately for Jervis, Nelson was in the third ship from the rear. Having fully divined his chief's purpose, he saw it on the point of defeat, and, without waiting for orders, wore at once out of the line, and threw the "Captain," alone, in front of the enemy's leading ships. In this well-timed but most daring move, which illustrates to the highest degree the immense difference between a desperate and a reckless action, Nelson passed to the head of the British column, crossing the bows of five large Spanish vessels, and then with his seventy-four engaged the "Santisima Trinidad," of one hundred and thirty guns, the biggest ship at that time afloat. The enemy, apparently dashed by this act of extraordinary temerity, and as little under control as a flock of frightened sheep, hauled up in a body again to north-north-east, resuming what can only be described as their flight.

Their momentary change of course had, however, caused a delay which enabled the British leaders to come up. Troubridge in the "Culloden" was soon right behind Nelson, to whom he was dear beyond all British officers, and three other ships followed in as close array as was consistent with the free use of their guns. The Spaniards, never in good order, lay before them in confusion, two or three deep, hindering one another's fire, and presenting a target that could not easily be missed. This closing scene of the battle raged round the rear ships of the Spanish main body, and necessarily became a mêlée, each British captain acting according to his own judgment and the condition of his ship. A very distinguished part fell to Collingwood, likewise a close associate of Nelson's, whose ship, the "Excellent," had brought up the rear of the order. Having, probably from this circumstance, escaped serious injury to her spars, she was fully under her captain's control, and enabled him to display the courage and skill for which he was so eminently distinguished. Passing along the enemy's rear, he had compelled one seventy-four to strike, when his eye caught sight of Nelson's ship lying disabled on the starboard side, and within pistol shot, of the "San Nicolas," a Spanish eighty; "her foretopmast and wheel shot away, not a sail, shroud, or rope, left," [146] and being fired upon by five hostile ships. With every sail set he pressed ahead, passing between the "Captain" and her nearest enemy, brushing the latter at a distance of ten feet, and pouring in one of those broadsides of which he used to assure his practised crew that, if they could fire three in five minutes, no vessel could resist them. The "San Nicolas," either intentionally or from the helmsman being killed, luffed and fell on board the "San Josef," a ship of one hundred and twelve guns, while the "Excellent," continuing her course, left the ground again clear for Nelson. The latter, seeing the "Captain" powerless for continued manœuvre, put the helm to starboard; the British ship came up to the wind, fetched over to the "San Nicolas," and grappled her. Nelson, having his men ready on deck, rushed at their head on board the Spaniard, drove her crew below, and captured her. The "San Josef," which was fast to the "San Nicolas" on the other side, now opened a fire of musketry; but the commodore, first stationing sentinels to prevent the "San Nicolas's" men regaining their deck, called upon his own ship for a re-enforcement, with which he boarded the three-decker and carried her also. On her quarter-deck, surrounded by his followers still hot from the fight, he received the swords of the Spanish officers.

This dramatic ending to the distinguished part played by him, and the promptitude of his previous action, by which, while assuming a great responsibility, he saved the success of the day, have made Nelson the most striking figure in the battle of Cape St. Vincent; or, as it is sometimes called, of St. Valentine's Day. This splendid movement of his genius in no way detracts from the credit due to the commander-in-chief; as it was no lessening of Nelson's own fame that the leader of the van at the Nile conceived on the moment the happy thought of passing inside the French line. To Jervis alone belongs the honor of attacking such heavy odds, as well as of the correct and sufficient combination by which he hoped to snatch victory from superior numbers. He was happy, indeed, in having such a lieutenant, so right a man in so right a place, and at so critical a moment; but the whole responsibility and the whole original plan was his, and no man can take it from him. To him, too, was primarily due the admirable efficiency of his fleet, which removed from his enterprise the reproach of rashness to bestow upon it the praise of daring. A yet higher meed of glory is due to this bold admiral. As the dull morning light showed him the two fleets, he was heard to say, "A victory is very essential to England at this moment." Honor to the chief who can rise above his own anxieties and his local responsibilities to think of the needs of his country, and who is willing to risk his own reputation to support her credit.

Four Spanish ships were now in the possession of the British, and the great "Santisima Trinidad" was without fore or mizzen mast,—some said she had struck; but the lee division of the enemy was at last coming up, and many of the weather were still uninjured. Jervis, therefore, about four in the afternoon formed his fleet in line on the starboard tack, interposing it between the enemy and his prizes. This ended the battle. It has been thought that further pursuit of a fleet so disgracefully beaten would have increased the British triumph; but Jervis was not the man to risk a substantial success, securely held, for a doubtful further gain. The victory essential to Great Britain was won; the worthlessness of the Spanish navy was revealed,—it could no longer be accounted a factor in the political situation. In the opinion of the author, Jervis was right not to expose this, the great and attained result of Valentine's Day, to those chances of mishap that cannot be excluded from the operations of war.

Among the numerous rewards bestowed for this action, the admiral was advanced to the peerage as Earl St. Vincent, while upon Nelson was bestowed the then distinguished honor of Knight of the Bath. On the 20th of February he was made a rear-admiral. The captains of the fleet received medals, and the senior lieutenant of each ship was promoted.

Jervis had well said that Great Britain was then in essential need of a victory; and never was one better timed for political effect. Deep gloom prevailed throughout the country, and in every quarter the horizon was black with clouds, when, on the 3d of March, the bearer of the dispatches reached the admiralty. Since Bonaparte had seized the line of the Adige and cut off Mantua, three distinct attempts had been made by the Austrians in superior force to dislodge him and relieve the city; and in all three they had been beaten with heavy loss. The news was but lately come that Mantua had capitulated, leaving Bonaparte free to assume the offensive and advance, as he shortly did. The British fleet had been forced to abandon Corsica and the Mediterranean. Peace negotiations, begun with the republic, had ended by the British envoy being peremptorily ordered to leave France in forty-eight hours; and although the government had not expected a favorable issue, the effect on the people was disheartening. Consols fell to 51, a depression greater than any reached during the American Revolution. [147] The expedition of the French against Ireland had indeed failed; but so little share had the Channel fleet borne in their defeat, that the country was forced to ascribe to the direct interposition of Divine Providence a deliverance, which it would have preferred to see wrought through the instrumentality of the navy. That trusted arm of the national defence seemed palsied in every quarter. Finally, among the greater of many discouraging circumstances, specie payments were stopped by the Bank of England on the 26th of February, in obedience to an order of the government. The profuse subsidies paid to continental states, and the demands for coin to meet the expenses of the navy in all parts of the world, were the chief causes of a drain against which the bank directors had frequently remonstrated during two years as threatening ruin. To these causes for scarcity was added at this time another, temporary in its character and arising in great part from loss of confidence in the navy's efficiency,—the fear, namely, of invasion. People had begun to call for and to hoard coin against an evil day. Such was the outlook as Jervis's captain posted from Falmouth, where he landed, to London, keeping the secret of his good news within his breast. The frigate which had borne him went on to Plymouth with the viceroy of Corsica, returning with his suite from his lost principality. When they landed on the 5th of March, news had just reached the town of the suspension of cash payments, and, as they told of the great achievement off Cape St. Vincent, people at first refused to believe that the tide had turned. They were expecting to hear of a junction between the French and Spanish fleets, and an approaching invasion. So great was the financial panic, that fifteen guineas were with difficulty collected among government officials to pay the expenses of Elliott's journey to London. [148]

The revulsion was great, and was proved by the profusion with which rewards were distributed. The Spanish navy had been but a bugbear, but as a bugbear it was great. The veil that covered its rottenness was stripped away, and at the same time were revealed to the nation, which feared it had no naval chiefs, the striking and brilliant figures of Jervis and Nelson. In vain did the Opposition, in the true spirit of faction, seek to turn men's eyes from the brilliant achievements of the warriors to the imbecility affirmed of the government, which had opposed fifteen ships to twenty-seven. Thinking men realized that the administration could not be held responsible for Mann's unauthorized return at Christmas-tide, nor for the extraordinary series of misfortunes by which five more of the Mediterranean fleet were in one short month incapacitated. They saw, too, that no popular government would have dared to replace Mann's ships so long as the fate of Ireland, then in the balance, was uncertain. But most men did not care to think. It was enough for them that fifteen British ships had dashed into the midst of twenty-seven enemies, had collared and dragged out four of the biggest and severely handled the rest. It was enough to hear that the crew of one British seventy-four, headed by a man whom few out of the navy yet knew, had, sword in hand, carried first a Spanish eighty and then another of one hundred and twelve guns. With such men to rule the fleet, and with Pitt at the helm of state, they thanked God and took courage. Speculation is often futile; yet it is hard to see how the country could have borne the approaching crisis of the mutinies, on top of its other troubles, had not the fear of the Spanish navy been removed and the hope of better naval leaders been afforded. That the hope was well founded is no speculation. With St. Vincent began a series of victories and achievements which have thrown the great deeds of earlier years into undeserved obscurity.

Immediately after the battle the Spanish fleet entered Cadiz, and Jervis returned to Lisbon to refit his ships. On the 31st of March, having received further re-enforcements, he left Lisbon with twenty-one ships-of-the-line and took position off Cadiz, where the Spaniards had twenty-six of the same class. After cruising for six weeks under sail, he anchored the fleet for a long blockade, and this disposition continued with little intermission for two years,—until May, 1799, when the successful sortie of Admiral Bruix from Brest, related in another place, [149] and the consequent chase by the British blockading force, gave the Spaniards the opportunity to slip out. This tedious watching was unfruitful in events of military interest; but the burden of the commander-in-chief was increased by the spirit of mutiny, rife throughout the whole period, which triumphed temporarily in the Channel and North Sea fleets, and was by Jervis kept down only by a stern vigilance of which few but he were capable. Stamped out time and again by his unflinching energy, it was continually renewed by the fresh ships sent out from home, under officers of temper inferior to his captains, and with seamen who knew not yet by experience the indomitable will which they sought to bend. Execution followed execution; but never once did the old man's courage quail nor his determination falter. Seaman and officer alike were made to feel that while his flag flew his authority should prevail; and with such backing the officers showed themselves incapable of the weaknesses too often manifested in the home ports. [150] It is probable too that a strong nucleus of support existed among the crews that fought at St. Vincent,—due to admiration for the admiral himself, and for Nelson, Collingwood, Troubridge, Saumarez and others, who there distinguished themselves.

While these various events were transpiring at sea, from the evacuation of Corsica to the battle of St. Vincent, Bonaparte in Italy was still holding the line of the Adige and blockading Mantua. His posture therefore was essentially one of defence. The vigor and sagacity with which he resorted to offensive movements the instant the enemy drew down from the Tyrol to attack him, and the brilliant character of the victories won by him, obscure to most the fact that he was really on the defensive; holding on, amid risks and discouragements, to the conquests already made, and unable to attempt more until Mantua fell. The glories of Castiglione, Arcola, Rivoli, conceal this crucial feature of his situation, and the consequently important bearing of the presence of the British fleet, encouraging the dispositions of Naples and the Pope, which were distinctly hostile to the French. Nothing less than Bonaparte's energy and genius could have grappled successfully with such a situation; and his correspondence betrays his fear that, by the co-operation of the fleet, these dangers in the rear might become too great even for him. When Mantua capitulated on the 2d of February, Bonaparte turned first upon the Pope, whom he accused of violating the armistice concluded the previous June. His Holiness at once submitted, and on the 19th of February signed a peace, abandoning his right to his northern provinces,—Bologna, Ferrara and the Romagna,—and ceding to France, until the end of the war, Ancona, a good seaport on the Adriatic.

On the 10th of March, having completed all the dispositions that seemed necessary to secure his rear, Bonaparte advanced against the Austrians. The young Archduke Charles, whom the campaign of 1796 on the Danube had revealed to Europe as gifted with military talents of a very high order, had been sent to oppose him; but it was too late to resist on the plains of Italy, or even on the Italian side of the mountains. The French crossed the Tagliamento on March 16, and pushed up through the gorges of that stream and of the Isonzo into the eastern Alps. On the 23d Trieste was occupied. The Archduke retired continuously, barely disputing difficult positions with the enemy. His mind was fixed not to fight until he had drawn the French far into Germany, and had collected his own resources,—a decision whose wisdom Bonaparte sealed with his own commendation. "If the enemy had committed the folly of awaiting me," he wrote to the Directory, "I should have beaten them; but if they had continued to fall back, had joined a part of their forces from the Rhine, and had overwhelmed me, then retreat would have been difficult, and the loss of the Army of Italy might entail that of the republic. We must not shut our eyes to the fact that, though our military position was brilliant, we have not simply dictated the conditions." [151] Italy, too, was fermenting behind him. The moral effect, however, of this unopposed advance through the mountains of Carinthia brought the House of Austria to terms; and on the 18th of April preliminaries of peace were signed at Leoben, only sixty miles from Vienna. Though the formal treaty was not concluded until six months later, this transaction marked, for that time, the end of hostilities between Austria and France, which had then lasted five years,—from April, 1792, to April, 1797.

The preliminaries of Leoben stipulated a mutual cessation of hostilities between the republic and the emperor, and extended this provision to all the states of the German Empire, as well as to the particular dominions of the emperor himself. Austria surrendered definitively the Netherlands (Belgium), and "recognized the limits of France as decreed by the laws of the French Republic." In this phrase was imbedded the rock upon which negotiations with Great Britain split. The republic, on its part, undertook to furnish to the emperor at the final peace a "just and suitable compensation" for the provinces he lost.

The "suitable compensation," thus mysteriously alluded to, was defined in the "secret preliminary agreements," contracted at the same moment. It was furnished by depriving the republic of Venice, with which Bonaparte had reasons for serious discontent, of all its possessions on the mainland of Italy, as well as of Istria and Dalmatia on the east coast of the Adriatic. The provinces thus taken were divided: Austria receiving all east of the Oglio and north of the Po, with Istria and Dalmatia. The country between the Oglio and the Adda, previously owned by Venice, was taken to constitute a new, independent republic; into which were also incorporated all possessions of Austria west of the Oglio conquered by the French in the recent campaign. This was to be known as the Cisalpine Republic. Thus the lords of the Adriatic were shorn of their glory, and brought to the brink of the precipice from which, six months later, at the final peace, the Corsican conqueror hurled them headlong. For the moment there were spared to them their ancient city and the Ionian Islands; and the legations of Bologna, Ferrara, and the Romagna, taken from the Pope, were given to them,—a like transient possession.

Such, in brief outline, were the principal terms of the preliminaries of Leoben. The great and significant feature does not ostensibly appear among the articles. Bonaparte, in diplomacy, had achieved the great end at which he aimed in his plans of campaign. He had separated his enemies. "The French Republic," wrote he, "in granting at Leoben preliminaries so advantageous to his Imperial Majesty, had as its principal end the conclusion of a separate peace with his Majesty, in order to be in a position to turn all its forces against England, and oblige her to a prompt peace." He alone made and signed the preliminaries, and this quotation gives the strategy and policy of his life in a nutshell. [152] The crucial fact at Leoben was that Austria then, as Sardinia a year before, treated alone,—without her ally. This Great Britain, to her honor, absolutely refused to do in 1796, and as long as her ally stood by her. There is, of course, a great difference between the position of a state which finds a victorious enemy in the heart of its territories, and that of an island empire; and great allowance must be made for Austria, even though the calm retrospect of history sees that she failed rightly to appreciate the extreme hazard of Bonaparte's situation. But this allowance merely emphasizes the important truth, that the imposing attitude maintained by Great Britain throughout this tremendous contest depended absolutely and wholly upon the control of the sea,—upon Sea-Power.