CHAPTER I

THE WAR WITH FRANCE TILL 1693

AUTHORITIES.—Burchett, _Memoirs of Transactions at Sea 1688-1697_; Lediard, _Naval History of England_; Colomb, _Naval Warfare_; Troude, _Batailles navales de la France_; Delarbre, _Tourville et la Marine de son temps_; Toudouze, _Bataille de la Hougue_; Lambert de Sainte-Croix, _Marine de France 1689-1792_; _Code des Armées Navales_; Crisenoy, _L’Inscription maritime_; Calmon-Maison, _Châteaurenault_; Martin Leake, _Life of Sir John Leake_; De Jonge, _Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Zeewesen_.

The Revolution of 1688 drew a line across the history of England, and marked the termination of the great struggle between King and Parliament. From that time forward it was settled beyond all dispute that when the two differed the last word was not to be with the king. Our sovereigns have ruled by a Parliamentary title, and the authority which conferred the Crown must always be superior in fact, if not in theory, to the Crown itself. Within Parliament the dominating body must necessarily be the House of Commons, which has the command of the purse. After 1688 the Crown, or the aristocracy, could only govern by securing the support, by means of pocket boroughs, by persuasion or corruption, of a majority of the Lower House. The navy, like the rest of the nation, was deeply affected by the change. From this time forward we hear little of the personal influence of the king. It was to the House of Commons that the navy appealed. Officers who wished to push their fortunes no longer thought of securing the goodwill of the sovereign or of a favourite. They became members of the House of Commons and earned promotion by serving a Parliamentary party. In one way the change was for the manifest good of the navy. It now had a master who might be unwilling to pay handsomely, but who both would and could pay whatever he chose to promise with a regularity far beyond the power of the king. In the years following the Revolution there were indeed complaints of wages in arrear and of necessities neglected. But this was only during the first period of strife. The increasing wealth of the nation supplied Parliament with ample means, and after a time the money was always regularly forthcoming. In another way the change was not so good. A great deal of party spirit was introduced into the navy, and there were times when Whig and Tory animosities interfered with the loyal discharge of duty.

The Revolution also dates, if it did not cause, an evolution in the navy. After 1688 the sea service was sharply marked off from the army. During the reign of King James it had not been uncommon to find men who had served alternately as soldiers and sailors, while some held double employments. Isolated cases of the kind may be met with later, but they became very rare, and soon disappeared altogether. The formation of a large standing army, and the participation of England in Continental wars, drew off the gentlemen volunteers who had been found in the fleets of Charles II. The stamp of man described in old plays as “a coxcomb but stout,” had a natural preference for the army. It did not take him off dry land, and the practice of retiring into winter quarters enabled him to combine a great deal of pleasure with his fighting. A ship was at all times but a prison, and in those it was a prison very much overcrowded and abounding in foul smells. The navy was left entirely to the tarpaulin who had been bred to the sea, and could endure its hardships.

The final victory of the tarpaulin element in the corps of naval officers brought with it both good and evil. The good lay in their seamanship. Even a bad seaman is better than an ignorant or careless landsman in command of a ship. The purely technical part of the navy’s work, that which consisted in the mere handling of the vessel, was better done in the years following the Revolution than had been the case before, except during the Interregnum, when also the sailors had been the predominant element. The evil which came was of a kind not to be wholly attributed to the disappearance of the military officer from the higher ranks of the fleet. It was that there was a distinct fall in the purely military spirit, and as a navy is a fighting as well as a navigating force, this was a misfortune. When we speak of a fallen military spirit, it is not meant that there was any sinking in the mere courage of the service, but only that the naval officer as he became at the Revolution and as he remained till far into the eighteenth century, was first and foremost a seaman, and that he had a tendency to discharge the military side of his duty in blind obedience to various rules of thumb. Two reasons may be assigned for this. Times of revolution are very often followed by times of lassitude. The seventeenth century had been very stormy, and it was to be expected that the Englishman of the following generations would be a less daring and original man than his ancestor of the Civil War time. The sailors shared in the general deadening and commonplaceness of their age. It was only natural that men who went to sea as boys, and were never asked to be more than sailors, should not have tried to be more. Then it was the misfortune of the navy that just at a time when it was tending to stupidity in military conduct, it was called upon by authority to obey a set of hard and fast rules.

Mention has already been made of the fighting orders drawn up by the admirals of the Commonwealth at the close of the First Dutch War, and reissued by Penn when he sailed on his expedition to San Domingo. It will be remembered that these rules established the line ahead as the regular formation for a fleet about to engage the enemy. After the Second Dutch War they were reissued by the Duke of York with certain additions of his own, and they became the orthodox pattern for the navy’s method of fighting. It is to them that we owe it that the line of battle passed from being the order adopted for the purpose of coming most effectually into action with the enemy, and grew to be regarded as an end in itself. The duke’s orders would not perhaps have hampered a more original generation; but they were sure to have a deadening effect upon men who felt no natural impulse to think. The admiral who conformed to the orders could always plead that he had obeyed authority, whereas if he departed from them, and his independence was not justified by a brilliant victory, he would be in considerable danger of being accused of insubordination. The harm done by these instructions arose mainly from two of the articles. No. VIII. lays it down that “if the enemy stay to fight (his majesty’s fleet having the wind), the headmost squadron of his majesty’s fleet shall steer for the headmost of the enemy’s ships.” No. XVI. contains the following peremptory instruction: “In all cases of fight with the enemy, the commanders of his majesty’s ships are to keep the fleet _in one line_, and (as much as may be) to preserve that order of battle which they have been directed to keep before the time of fight.” The duke had foreseen that an English fleet, being to leeward, might wish to force on a battle. In this case it was directed that the van upon obtaining a favourable position for the purpose, should tack and break through the enemy. So soon as it had broken through it was to turn, and attack from windward. In the meantime the centre and rear were to remain to leeward, and co-operate with the van. But this was a very difficult manœuvre to carry out against even a moderately efficient opponent. Ships performing it would be liable to lose spars and to drift to leeward towards their own centre. Moreover, an enemy who kept his wind and stood on might possibly file past, and so deliver the fire of all, or the greater part, of his ships into the unsupported English van. Article III., which prescribed this method of attack, remained a mere counsel of perfection, and was soon dropped out of the fighting orders. It was, I venture to affirm, never acted on except by Howe on the 29th of May 1794, and then with only partial success.

The course followed by English admirals was less complicated and risky than this, but also less likely to prove effectual when fully carried out. When they were to leeward and the enemy would not attack them, they manœuvred to gain the weather-gage. When they had the wind of the enemy, they came down on him with their fleet in line—the leading ship of the English steering for the leading ship of the enemy, and the others behind for their respective opponents. Thus the two fleets engaged van to van, centre to centre, rear to rear. To take “every man his bird” was the familiar naval image for a well-conducted action with an enemy who did not shirk. Of course this method only applied to the case where the two fleets were going in the same direction. If one turned, the two would pass one another, and then they must curl round again before the action could be resumed. The advantage of engaging the enemy from the leading ship to the last was this, that it prevented any portion of his ships from tacking, and so putting some of the English between two fires. The drawback was that if the two fleets were even not very unequal, no overwhelming superiority was developed on either side at a chosen point. The damage done was about equivalent, and the two separated without decisive result. This would not have been the case if the admirals after the Revolution had been as ready as the chiefs of the Dutch wars to depart from their line when once it had served its purpose of bringing them in contact with the enemy. If the captains had been allowed to steer through the hostile line wherever they could find or make an opening, a general mêlée must have ensued, and the battle would have been fought out. But here came in the influence of Article No. XVI., which prescribed the retention of the “same order” all through the battle. If an English captain stood out of the line to press through the enemy, it must necessarily be broken. But this was rigidly forbidden. Therefore the system of fighting adopted by our navy at the close of the seventeenth century made it inevitable that our admirals would attack from windward, would spread themselves all along the enemy’s line, that the damage done would be pretty equally divided between the two fleets, and that the enemy, having the road to leeward open, could retire whenever he pleased.

The Revolution brought no considerable alteration in the mere administrative machinery of the navy. From that time forward the office of Lord High Admiral was habitually put into commission, but the change was made for the purpose of finding the greatest number of places for Parliamentary supporters, and was in substance not very different from the method adopted by the Commonwealth, by Charles I., and by James I. It was of more importance that the reign of William III. saw the complete establishment of half pay. The later Stuarts had granted allowances to flag officers and a few captains, but the Parliament of the Revolution first regularly provided for the support of a body of officers of all commissioned ranks when not in active service. This also was inevitable if the country was to maintain a regular staff for the fleet. It was neither possible to maintain the navy continually on a war footing, nor to disband the whole corps of officers so soon as peace was signed, and trust to forming another when the need had arisen.

The establishment made by King James II. in 1686 fell with its maker. The handsome table-money allowance was not paid after the Revolution, and the officers were thus thrown back on the old scale of pay. This meant that the captain of a first-rate who had flattered himself with the hope of receiving £535, 18s. 4d. per annum found that he was in fact only entitled to £285, 18s. 4d. Captains of the lesser rates were disappointed in proportion. At the same time the regulations depriving them of convoy money, and restricting their chances of casual gains, were more strictly enforced. The trading classes had won great power by the Revolution, and could put pressure on the House of Commons, and they were not unnaturally eager to defend themselves against extortion. Their case was good, but the grievance of the naval officer was not the less genuine. Yet the loss of King James’s establishment was probably not much regretted by the navy at large, since it benefited the captains only. Other ranks had their grievances. The complaints of the sea officers were so loud and persistent that at last the Government was compelled to do them some justice. By an Order of the Commissioners of the Admiralty dated 14th February 1694, it was established that the sea pay “of the flag officers, commanders, lieutenants, masters and surgeons of their majesty’s ships be increased to as much more as it is at present.” As a set off to this the number of servants they were entitled to take to sea at the expense of the Crown was reduced. With this provision for the officers on active service came the formation of a half-pay list. It was somewhat arbitrarily constructed. The benefit was confined to “all flag officers and commanders of ships of the first, second, third, fourth and fifth rates, and of fireships, and also the first lieutenants and masters of the first, second and third rates who have served a year in ships of rates respectively, or have been in a general engagement with the enemy, and shall have performed their duties to the satisfaction of the Lord High Admiral of England or the Commissioners executing that office.” These were to “be allowed half pay during their being on shore in time of peace at home.”

This establishment was too good to last. When the Peace of Ryswick was made, the country was burdened with a heavy debt. The House of Commons was in an economical mood. It insisted upon disbanding a large part of the troops, and was only prevented from leaving the officers entirely without support by the strenuous exertions of the king. William III. made no effort to save the naval officers, for the House of Commons had no such jealousy of the fleet as of the army. The sea officers presented a petition stating their hard case. The petition was laid on the table in a busy session, and was for a time smothered, but in the following year the Commons took up the case of the naval officers, and the result was the establishment of April 1700. This new scheme cut down the rate of pay allowed during the last six years. According to a tolerably uniform practice, the reduction was less severe with the higher than with the lower ranks. While the Admiral of the Fleet was reduced from £6 to £5 per diem, a captain of a fifth-rate was reduced from 12s. to 8s. But while the House of Commons was thus economising the whole pay, it fully recognised the necessity of maintaining a “competent number of Experienced Sea Officers, supported on Shore, who may be within reach to answer any sudden or immergent Occasion; and therefore do humbly propose the number of Flag Officers, Captains, Lieutenants, and Masters following, to be always supported on Shore while out of Employment, by the Allowances against their Names exprest.” The scale drawn up by Parliament provided for 9 admirals at sums ranging from 17s. 6d. per diem for the Rear-Admiral to £2, 10s. for the Admiral of the Fleet. For 50 captains who had served during the “late war,” at 10s. a day for 20 and 8s. for 30. For 100 lieutenants who had seen service, in the following proportions: 40 at 2s. 6d. and 60 at 2s. For 30 masters, of whom one half were to receive 2s. 6d. and the other half 2s. per diem. The total half-pay charge of that time was only £18,113. No officer who took service with the merchants, or had other employment, was to be entitled to the allowance. As officers on the half-pay list died or were drawn for active service, an equal number of others who were duly qualified were to step into the enjoyment of the allowance. It will be seen that this was at best a half measure. Many men who deserved to be supported were left without provision, yet the House of Commons had adopted the principle of granting half pay, and that was a great step towards the complete establishment of the rule that all who served the State were entitled to be maintained at its expense, even when they were not immediately wanted. It is in this tentative way, not by great administrative schemes, but by small measures meant to meet a present necessity, that the whole of the organisation of our navy has grown. At the close of the reign of Queen Anne the right to half pay was made general.

One other great change directly affecting the navy was brought about by the Revolution. The expulsion of King James left England free to become the leader, and the main promoter, of the opposition to Louis XIV. From that time forward our enemy was always France. When we met the Spaniard or the Dutchman again, it was with very rare exceptions because they were allies of the French. The resistance to Louis XIV. grew into a general colonial and political rivalry between France and England. The fight was prolonged throughout the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth. Some knowledge of the navy we were to meet in every sea and in so many battles during a century and a quarter is necessary in any history of the Royal Navy.

The French Navy is marked off very sharply from our own by the fact that it was always, and solely, the handiwork of the Crown. In England necessity taught the nation that it must have a fleet, and the nation either forced attention to its wants on the Crown at times when the king was indifferent, or provided itself with a naval force when the royal authority was suspended or subordinate. France is admirably placed for commerce, but it has not the same need for trade as England. It is a great corn-growing and wine-producing country, and its inhabitants have grown rich by constant industry and thrift. They have rarely shown much faculty for trade on a great scale. In such conditions the navy fell into neglect, except when the ruler wished to possess one for political reasons. When Louis XIV. attained his majority vigorous efforts were made to form a powerful fleet. In 1669 the king restored the office of Admiral, which had been suspended by Richelieu, in favour of his natural son the Count of Vermandois. The Count was a child and the navy was governed in his name by a Minister of Marine and a Council. The Minister of Marine for some years was M. de Lyonne, who worked under the supervision of Colbert. This great administrator, who laboured hard to supply France with foreign commerce and colonies, applied an almost feverish activity to the work of creating a fleet. Five military ports were established, namely, Dunkirk, Havre, Brest, Rochefort, on the Channel and the Ocean, and Toulon on the Mediterranean. Dunkirk and Havre were too shallow for ships of great burden. The long stretch of coast from Brest to the frontier of Spain is ill provided with harbours. The old port of Brouage, which had been used in the Middle Ages, had become silted up, and was useless. Colbert was compelled to create a harbour and an arsenal at Rochefort, where there had formerly not even been a village, though the place has great natural aptitude. Yet Rochefort has always been of subordinate importance. The great naval station of France on the Ocean has been at the magnificent harbour of Brest. Toulon, the naval station of the Mediterranean, is also a fine natural harbour. The mechanical ingenuity of the French has always been shown in shipbuilding. It was comparatively easy for Colbert to provide fine vessels. Some of the noblest warships of the time were built under his directions. These were the ships which excited the admiration of Charles II. and his brother, when the Count D’Estrées brought his squadron to Portsmouth at the beginning of the Third Dutch War.

It was less easy to form a corps of officers and to collect crews. Although France possesses some excellent seamen in Normandy and Brittany, the maritime population has never been large. There were few experienced officers, either gentleman or tarpaulin, to command the king’s ships. The seamen of Dieppe, St. Malo, or Havre were daring. They had invaded the Spanish West Indies before Hawkins made his first voyage, but they were not numerous enough to supply the king with an equivalent for the large body of ship’s captains trained among ourselves by the Civil War and the wars with the Dutch. Besides, they were hardly the men to whom a king of France would have cared to entrust the honour of his flag. In the early years of the king’s reign it was found necessary to give the command of fleets and individual ships to mere gentlemen who were not only not seamen, but who looked down upon those who were, with all the contempt usually shown by the French _noblesse_ for mechanics. This partly accounts for the ineptitude shown by French naval officers during the naval campaigns of 1672 and 1673. The exertions of Colbert did much to remedy this defect. By twenty years of hard work and the most energetic driving, he formed a naval organisation. The orders issued for this purpose were so numerous that it was found necessary to reduce them to a Code. Colbert began the work, but did not live to finish it. On his death in 1683 he was succeeded by his son Colbert de Seignelay, who continued what his father had begun. The famous _Ordonnance_, or Code of Law of the old French Royal Navy, was at last completed, and by a curious coincidence it was promulgated in April 1689, in the month before the beginning of the war with England.

This body of laws, or regulations, was very French in its completeness, its air of logical coherence, and its excessive regulation, of every detail of the service. It was contained in twenty-three books. It divided the French Navy into four branches, three civil and one military. The three civil branches, collectively known as _La Plume_, or the Pen, were divided between the purchase, manufacture, and care of materials. The administration of the dockyards was in the hands of the Pen. At the head of each dockyard was a civil officer, called the _Intendant de la marine_. The military branch, called _L’Epée_, or the Sword, consisted of the naval officers. It was entrusted with the navigation and the fighting of the ships. Under the old organisation established by Richelieu, the control of the dockyards had been given to the Sword; but Colbert, who was a civilian, and who cherished a lively jealousy of the military officers, had reversed this arrangement. The Sword was never quite reconciled to its degradation, and its feuds with the Pen went on until the French Royal Navy was destroyed by the Revolution. While Colbert lived and the king was young, the central authority was strong enough to compel obedience, but in later years all the parade of precision in the language of the _Ordonnance_, and all the power of the king, could not keep the civil and military officials from quarrelling, from disobeying orders, and disputing the meaning of the most exactly worded regulations.

The head of the Sword was naturally the Admiral of France, who was a member of the royal family, and except in the case of the Count of Toulouse, a dignified figurehead, and not an effective chief. His administrative work was done by the Minister of Marine and the Council. Next to the Admiral came the two Vice-Admirals, _Du Levant_ the Mediterranean, and _Du Ponant_ the Ocean, who commanded in chief when he was absent, each in his own sea. The next rank was that of Lieutenant-General. We may say for purposes of comparison that the Admiral of France answered to our Lord High Admiral, and the Vice-Admirals to our Admirals, while the Lieutenants-General answered to our Vice-Admirals. Next came an officer happily unparalleled in our service. This was the _Intendant des armées navales_, who is not to be confounded with the _Intendant de marine_. He was a civilian who accompanied every French squadron, and had supreme authority over the _Commissaires_, or Pursers, and the civil work in all its branches. But he had also a right to sit on councils of war, and was authorised to report on the behaviour of the naval chief in action. The _Intendant des armées navales_ was in fact a French equivalent for the Dutch Field Deputies, and he acted in exactly the same way, by hampering the fighting chief when he was an energetic man, and by reducing him to submission when he was a weak one, and of course by irritating and exaggerating the jealousies of the Pen and the Sword. He was a spy whose word could make or mar the fortunes of a naval officer, and yet was not a competent judge of the naval officer’s work. That Colbert should have created such a rank, and that it should have been preserved by the very able men who succeeded him in the government of the French Navy, shows that they were all blinded by the professional jealousy of the civil official for the fighting man, and by the Frenchman’s mania for over-governing.

The next in rank was the Chef d’Escadre, Rear-Admiral or Commodore. Then we have another civil official, the _Commissaire Général à la suite des armées navales_, a subordinate of the _Intendant des armées navales_, who watched the Captain as his superior did the Admiral. The order of precedence in a French ship could not offer much novelty. There was the Capitaine du Vaisseau, or Post-Captain, and the Capitaine du Brûlot, or Captain of a fireship. The second in command was called the Major. He commanded the soldiers in the ship’s company, and all landing parties. Then came the Lieutenant, and after him the Enseigne. The recruiting of the corps of officers was provided for by the _Gardes de la marine_. There were three companies of the Gardes: one at Brest, one at Rochefort, and one at Toulon. They were mostly young men of gentle birth—that is, members of the _noblesse_ who had a right to a coat of arms and to the privileges of their caste,—but members of respectable families who had received the education of gentlemen were admitted. They were supposed to receive a very thorough professional training, and to be drafted into the ships when qualified. The fact did not always square with the theory. It was found that young gentlemen of good family and some influence were kept to their books with great difficulty. A certain number of them did no doubt attain to a level of book-knowledge very rare among our officers, but the whole history of the eighteenth century is at hand to prove that as a class they were inferior in practical capacity to the men brought up in the rough school of the English Navy.

The crews were raised by the _classes_, the predecessors of the _Inscription maritime_, a great system of naval conscription. Like so much else in France, this also was founded by Richelieu, but it was perfected by Lyonne and Colbert, and was finally established by the _Ordonnance_ of 1689. All Frenchmen engaged in working in ships or boats throughout the whole coast of France, and on the banks of rivers large enough to carry a lighter, were held to be subject to serve in the _classes_. They were divided into seven, which were to serve successively for periods of four years. All seafaring men, waterman or lighterman, were inscribed on the lists of the Commissioner of the District. During the four years of their liability to serve the king they were not allowed to engage with private employers. It was calculated that the total number subject to service was 60,000. The obligation began at the age of ten, and lasted till the man was too old to work. As a compensation for this unlimited obligation a retaining fee was promised to men not serving, and those who had served at sea were entitled to a small pension when their period of liability to service was over; while hospitals were established at all the ports, and employment in the dockyards was promised to all who were so severely hurt as to be unable to go to sea, but were still capable of doing some work. This famous institution exists in a modified form to-day, and has often been the subject of admiration among ourselves. On paper it no doubt possessed immense advantages over our rough-and-ready system, or no system, of raising crews by bounties and impressment. Yet whenever the French Crown endeavoured to use all the resources provided by the _classes_, the neatly constructed machine broke down. The seafaring population rebelled against its severity, and in practice the king was constantly driven to impress men very much in the English fashion, without regard to their class. In the last years of the reign of King Louis and until the Revolution, the financial distress of the French Government made it impossible to provide half pay, and the hospitals were neglected. The _classes_ was in fact a more uniform and grinding oppression than our own impressment, and was not more efficient in producing crews.

In truth, the merit of the French organisation was altogether more on paper than in reality. It looked very coherent and beautifully divided, but its distinctions and divisions answered to no natural classifications in the work to be done. For instance, to make the Sword responsible for fitting out the ships and yet to leave the control of the dockyards to the Pen was simply to provide for incessant conflicts of authority between the two, and to divide the responsibility. The English system of putting a retired naval officer at the head of the dockyard as Commissioner was incomparably simpler and better. It is needless to point out that nothing could be more fatal to the independence of character of an officer commanding a fleet than the presence of the _Intendant des armées navales_. But the spirit of the _Ordonnance_ is best shown by the article which forbade the captain to make any kind of changes in the armament of his ship. It was no doubt necessary to guard against mere eccentricity, but if such a regulation as this had been enforced in the English Navy it might never have had the carronade, and would certainly have had to do without the many improvements in gunnery introduced by Sir Charles Douglas in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. The _Ordonnance_ was full of that over-regulation which is the ruin of all independence of character and originality of mind. Other faults the French Navy had which arose out of the social condition of France. The officers were one of the many privileged corps which ended by destroying the French monarchy. They stood much on their rights, and were above all extremely jealous of the admission of colleagues who were not of noble birth.

When King William’s Government was able to settle down after the confusion of the Revolution, one of its first duties was the reconquest of Ireland, which was still holding out for King James. Louis XIV. was giving open support to his cousin, and war had really begun in March, two months before the formal declaration, when a French squadron under the command of Louis Gabaret landed King James at Kinsale. The material force at the disposal of the English Government was considerable. It consisted of 173 vessels of 101,892 tons, carrying 6930 guns, and requiring when fully manned 42,003 men. Of the 173 vessels 108 were rated. The rating of English ships, which had first been settled according to the number of their crews, was now based on the number of guns. There were six rates in all—the first carrying 90 guns and upwards, the sixth 18 guns or less; unrated ships were little craft such as sloops, ketches, smacks, yachts, etc. With the help of the Dutch fleet, this was more than enough to be a match for the French, but Parliament was justly persuaded of the necessity for increasing the Navy. In 1690 it voted £570,000, to be employed in the building of 17 ships of 80 guns and 10 ships of 60. Three of 70 were also ordered to be built, making the total addition of 30 vessels. The 80-gun ships of that time were three-deckers, and of a burden of 1100 tons. The 60-gun ships were of 900 tons. The time allowed for completing this list was four years. In spite of the wear and tear of the war, and the limited number of prizes we were able to take from the French, the additions made to the navy in the reign of William III. were very considerable. It increased from 108 to 174 rated ships, and in tonnage from 101,000 to 158,999. The increase was greatest in vessels of the fourth and fifth rates—that is, in vessels carrying from 30 to 60 guns. The political confusion of the early years of the king’s reign combined with corruption to neutralise the material strength of the navy to some extent. It was the policy of the king to divide employments between the two parties to which he looked for support, the Whigs, and those Tories who had accepted the Revolution. In pursuit of this policy his first Board of Admiralty was chosen from both. Arthur Herbert, who was a Tory, was made First Commissioner. Other members of the Board belonged to the same party, but it included William Sacheverell, who was a strong Whig. The presence of men belonging to different factions in the same governing body was sure to lead to dissensions, and it was not long before the quarrels of the Admiralty Board became very violent. In order to facilitate the manning of the fleet two new regiments of marines were raised. The admiral’s regiment had been disbanded because it was suspected of being too much attached to the deposed king. The new corps were formally established in 1690, but the work of recruiting them was begun in 1689. They were raised by Herbert, who had been created Earl of Torrington after an action about to be mentioned, and by the Earl of Pembroke, and were named, according to the custom of the time, after their colonels. By the first establishment they were to consist of 12 companies each of 200 men; but the number of companies was afterwards increased to 15.

As for the sailors, it is needless to say that they were raised in the usual manner. Although much was done for the officers in this reign, the men were no better paid than before. Their wages remained throughout the century at the figure fixed in the reign of Charles II., and were not increased till a rise was extorted by the mutinies of 1797. The main grievance of the seamen was not so much the amount as the irregular payment of their wages. In the earlier times after the Revolution they were kept waiting because the Government was in want of money, but the system of pay subjected them to long delays even when the resources at the disposal of the Government were ample. It had been the custom in the old days of the Winter and Summer Guard to pay the men only at the end of the commission. This was no hardship when the term of service lasted only a few months. But the practice was continued when we had begun to maintain fleets abroad for years together. In King William’s reign the injustice did not reach the height it was destined to attain later on, yet the men were often driven to sell their pay tickets at a heavy discount because the distresses of the Treasury, or the delays due to a complicated system of accounts, kept them waiting during months for their hard-earned wages.

The great bulk of the officers who had served King James passed over to his successor. A few, indeed, followed the exiled king, and among them was Sir Roger Strickland, who as a Roman Catholic was disqualified for office. Captain David Lloyd also adhered to his master, and was very busy during the years next ensuing in endeavouring to shake the new allegiance of his former brother-officers. In this, however, he had no success. In spite of discontent, and although some naval officers endeavoured to provide for their own safety in case of a restoration by sending promises to King James, the navy as a whole remained loyal.

The war now beginning lasted with an interval of truce between 1697 and 1702, until the signing of the Peace of Utrecht, in the reign of Queen Anne. It was in reality one continuous war waged by Europe in self-defence, and by France for the purpose of establishing the predominance of the house of Bourbon. The naval part of this struggle is divided into two periods. During the first, which lasted to the close of 1793, the French king kept great fleets at sea. After that date the exhaustion of his treasury through the calls made upon it by the land war rendered him incapable of meeting the allies at sea with equal forces. He was driven by penury to lay up his ships, and the war on the side of France was conducted by privateers. In this second period the allied fleets still kept the sea, swept the French coast, and co-operated with the armies.

When hostilities began in 1689, the first object of the French was to give assistance to King James in Ireland. The first duty of the English was to defeat his efforts, and then to cover the passage of our own forces. The Dutch had to protect their own commerce and to co-operate with us in the general purposes of the war.

The news that the French king was about to supply his cousin with the means of passing over to Ireland reached London early in March. A squadron was prepared to sail for the purpose of intercepting Gabaret, but it started too late. Herbert, who went in command without resigning his place as First Commissioner of the Admiralty, did not reach Cork until the 17th of April. All he could do now was to intercept whatever further help the French might be sending to the assistance of the Jacobites. He knew that a force was preparing at Brest under the command of the Count of Châteaurenault. Not finding any sign of this expedition on the coast of Ireland, Herbert stood over to Brest. Either at this time, or shortly afterwards, he detached George Rooke with a small squadron to the west of Scotland, for the double purpose of rendering what help he could to the Protestants of Ulster and preventing the French from sending help to the Scottish Jacobites. The wind was easterly on the coast of France, and Herbert failed to reach Brest in time, or to approach it close enough to prevent Châteaurenault from sailing with a fleet of vessels of from 40 to 60 guns, 5 fireships, and a number of transports carrying 6000 soldiers. Finding that the French had escaped him, Herbert returned to the south coast of Ireland, and was off Cork on the 29th April. The French fleet were seen in the neighbourhood of Kinsale, and Herbert stood in to place himself between them and the coast. Châteaurenault made no attempt to land at Kinsale, but steered west for Bantry. At Baltimore, Herbert obtained information of his enemy’s destination. He at once pursued, but on rounding Cape Clear caught sight of the Frenchmen heading for Bantry Bay. This was on the afternoon of the 30th of April. The day being far advanced, Herbert did not follow Châteaurenault at once, but lay to all the night. The force under his command is variously stated as nineteen and twenty-two ships of the line. The average size of the English ships was about the same as the French.

On the 1st of May the wind was blowing off the land. Châteaurenault had disembarked as many of the soldiers as were carried in the men-of-war on the previous evening. But the transports were still undischarged, and had not yet been able to work up to the town of Bantry. Seeing that the English were somewhat, though not much, inferior in number to himself, the French admiral came to the very proper decision to engage. He got under way about half-past eleven, and stood down the Bay. As he had the weather-gage, he had the choice of attack. Herbert lay to to receive him. At the moment of getting under way the French fleet was in order of convoy, that is, in three parallel columns; Châteaurenault himself in the middle, with the van division under the command of Gabaret on one side, and the rear commanded by Forant on the other. When the order to draw into a line of battle was given, Gabaret should have stood on ahead, leaving a sufficient space for the admiral’s division between himself and Forant. But he moved so slowly and kept his wind at such a distance from the enemy that Châteaurenault in a fit of impatience crowded on sail, ran between the van division and the English, and took the place of van himself, thus leaving Gabaret to fall in behind and form the centre. In consequence of these misunderstandings the French line was in considerable disorder, which was increased by the fact that the narrow water of Bantry Bay left little room for manœuvring, and that the fleet was speedily compelled to tack. It would appear that these conditions ought to have afforded Herbert an opportunity for working to windward and forcing a close

## action with the enemy. It is, indeed, asserted that he made an attempt

to gain the weather-gage, and could not do so because the French kept their wind so carefully. Thus the battle was confined to artillery fire at a considerable distance, and no great harm was done on either side. The French make an unfounded claim to have sunk an English ship. On the other hand, it is allowed that the French _Diamant_, Captain Coëtlogon, was set on fire. The biographer of Sir John Leake, who served in the battle as commander of the fireship =Firedrake=, claims the honour of this achievement for his hero. He says that the feat was performed by a “cushee piece” invented by Leake’s father, the Master-gunner of England. But the cushee piece was never heard of again, as Captain John Leake judged it to be as dangerous to its friends as its enemies, for which independence of judgment he was badly treated in the will of his indignant parent. The two fleets continued onwards in a disorderly way and firing at one another over a distance of twenty-one miles till they were off Dursey Head, then Châteaurenault, finding that he was being drawn out to sea, and remembering that he was answerable for the safety of the transports, returned to Bantry Bay. Herbert, satisfied that enough had been done, made for the general rendezvous of the fleet near the Scilly Isles, thereby leaving Châteaurenault free to complete the disembarkation of his soldiers, collect his transports, and return to Brest. His whole expedition had lasted only for eleven days, and was considered by the French a glorious success.

This estimate shows that the French took a modest view of what constituted success in naval operations. Châteaurenault, if he had pushed his attack home on Herbert, might have had some English prizes to show, and might have greatly encouraged the enemies of England, besides landing his soldiers and bringing off his transports. But he at least had some case. What is extraordinary, when we think what had been once the standard of the English navy, was that Herbert bragged of having gained a victory because he had not been routed by an enemy of slightly superior force, and that his countrymen, instead of laughing at him, or asking indignantly why he did not fight again, threw up their caps and huzzaed. The battle, and the praise given it, were melancholy signs of the poorness of spirit which had come over Englishmen since the Second Dutch War. It was the beginning of a dull method of doing work in the navy, happily never universal, but much too common, during the next half century or more. We see the French admiral intent on carrying out some operation other than attacking the English fleet, fighting a little, but with great care not to fight seriously. Opposite him is the English admiral, who has no idea that a decisive battle is possible unless the enemy is good enough to supply him with one, and perfectly ready to go off so soon as a few broken spars give him an excuse for saying enough has been done. Herbert went on from Scilly to Portsmouth. The king may not in his heart have thought much of the battle, but he knew the necessity of pleasing the naval officers and the great Tory party. He therefore professed himself satisfied, knighted two of the captains, John Ashby and Cloudesley Shovell, and made Herbert Earl of Torrington.

Rooke, on being detached by Herbert, had gone on at once to the west of Scotland. He was in the estuary of the Clyde in May, and for about a month was very active against King James’s partisan in the islands. On the 8th of June he was called off to escort Kirke, who had been detached with a body of troops for the purpose of raising the siege of Londonderry. Rooke’s squadron consisted of five vessels, one of which was the =Dartmouth=, now under the command of Leake, who had been promoted for his use of the cushee piece on the 1st of May. The squadron anchored in Rathlin Bay, and from thence went off to Lough Foyle, whence there is a clear waterway up to Londonderry. From what happened a month later, it may be taken for granted that nothing whatever prevented the smaller ships from being carried up to Londonderry, nothing, that is, except a want of goodwill and manhood on the part of Kirke and Rooke. Unfortunately, they were wanting. Rooke was indeed a brave man who did gallant service in later years. But his conduct in these weeks was not worthy of his later reputation. Kirke was a drunken, violent, foul-mouthed ruffian. It is idle to speculate what was passing in his head. He may not have been a mere coward, but he acted as if he had some hidden reason for not exerting himself. He held a council of war on board the =Swallow=, and it was decided that as there were not troops enough to operate against the enemy outside the town, nothing could be done, as if it would not have been much to carry provisions and a reinforcement of men into Londonderry. He retired to the Island of Inch, and there remained perfectly quiescent. Rooke in the meantime cruised in search of French privateers and Jacobite prizes. Whatever his motives may have been, his actions were those of a man who thought it no shame to fill his own pockets by prize-hunting while his countrymen were starving and fighting in desperation on the turf walls of Londonderry. At last, under the influence of pressing orders from England, it was decided to do something, and something was done in a way which covers with ignominy the memory of the officers who did not dare to act before. During the month of delay, due to their sloth or half-hearted treason, the besiegers had had time to throw up batteries on the banks of the Foyle, and to draw a boom across the river below Londonderry. The operation was therefore more difficult than it had been, and yet it was done with no great loss. On the 26th July the =Dartmouth= was told off to break the boom, and convoy two victuallers, the =Mountjoy= and the =Phœnix=, small vessels both belonging to Londonderry. Leake performed his work in a thoroughly officer-like fashion. So soon as the flood-tide began to run, and there was water enough to float the =Dartmouth= and victuallers, he stood into the mouth of the Foyle, with the =Mountjoy= and =Phœnix=, towing behind him the long boat of the =Swallow=. The Irish batteries opened fire, but the little squadron held on steadily, the =Dartmouth= giving all the cover she could to the merchant ships. Their progress was slow for the wind was light, and the tide was not yet running strongly. The =Mountjoy= reached the boom first, and was steered straight at it by her skipper Browning. The victualler had not enough way to break through the obstacle. She recoiled from the boom and tailed on shore, that is to say, she grounded stern first. The Irish raised a yell of gratification, and rushed down to the bank, where they opened a heavy fire on the =Mountjoy=. Browning was shot dead, but his men fired a broadside on the crowd. The shock, aided by the tide, floated the =Mountjoy=. In the meantime the long-boat towed by the =Dartmouth= had rowed up to the boom, and, undeterred by the musket fire from the banks, had cut through the ropes which held the spars together, and had made an opening. Then she towed the =Phœnix= in. The =Mountjoy= and the =Dartmouth= easily forced their way through the loosened spars. The disheartened besiegers broke up their camp and marched away. It was a gallant piece of work, well done by Leake and the merchant skippers, but the ease, and the trifling cost with which it was done, are lasting reproaches to Kirke and Rooke.

After the relief of Londonderry, Rooke had other important work to do in the Irish Sea. In August he covered the transport of Schomberg’s army to Ireland, and co-operated in the capture of Carrickfergus. Then he cruised down the coast, threatening the towns held for King James, and landing where the enemy was not too strong to be attacked. As the autumn drew on, and his ships became foul, Rooke came round to the Downs, and his squadron was laid up for the winter. In the meantime, the Grand Fleet of combined English and Dutch had cruised in the Channel under the command of Herbert, who was joined by Edward Russell. They looked into Brest, and cruised at the mouth of the Channel, going every now and then into Torbay for provisions. There were many complaints of the want of beer. At last, when the autumn had begun, the Grand Fleet also came back, and was laid up. It was still not thought prudent to keep the great ships out late in the autumn.

On a general survey of the operations of the year it cannot be said that either party had displayed much energy. The French fleet had done nothing proportionate to its pretensions and its paper strength. In 1692, the King of France was believed to possess 110 rated ships and 690 other vessels of war. This figure is of course absurd, unless we are to suppose that it included all the lighters and row boats employed in his harbours. The fleet carried 14,670 cannon, and was manned by 2500 officers and 97,500 men. We may presume that this estimate covers the dockyard workmen. Ninety-seven thousand five hundred men was more than the whole number of Frenchmen liable to be drawn by the _classes_, and it is very doubtful whether the French king ever had the service at sea of one-half of them at any given moment. Still, when all deductions are allowed for, this was a great force. It had done nothing in proportion to its size. There would have been no difficulty, considering that all Ireland except the north was in the hands of King James, in establishing a naval station at Bantry Bay, or even at Dublin, and from either of these ports the French could have done something effectual to stop the passage of Schomberg’s army. They were content to land their troops in Ireland, and then to return. But we certainly did very little to prevent them, and the feeble conduct of Herbert in the action of Bantry Bay promised very ill for the future.

The winter afforded the English Government an opportunity to prepare for a vigorous campaign, but it was neglected. The first joy over the Revolution was followed by a reaction. The two sections of the victorious party, the Whig and the Tory, began to quarrel and to struggle for predominance. These factions were nowhere more acutely felt than at the Admiralty. It is said by several authorities, and denied by nobody, that Herbert had fallen back into the dissolute habits of his early life. He was addicted to excesses which are ruinous to a man’s nerve and energy. It is certain that the work of the Admiralty was so badly done that the French privateers were very successful against our trade. In the new establishment of pay, made in 1694, it was said that the increase of salary was given in order that the officers might no longer be able to make their poverty an excuse for not doing their duty. Given the moral level of the Restoration and the Revolution, it is not incredible that captains, who were sulky at the loss of their table money, did refuse to exert themselves in defence of the merchant ships unless they were bribed. The old complaints of bad rations, bad pay, and bad beer were loud in the fleet. At last it was found necessary to make a change at headquarters. The existing Board of Admiralty was dissolved, and replaced by another with the Earl of Pembroke at its head. Torrington was very indignant, and threatened to resign the command of the fleet in the Channel. He was pacified with gifts, and then showed his zeal as an officer by staying in London to enjoy himself. He afterwards said that he had warned the Government that a larger fleet must be prepared, but did not take the effectual step of insisting upon resigning unless he was supplied with sufficient force.

A strong fleet was indeed necessary, for the French king had at last decided on making a serious attack in the Channel. His Toulon squadron was to be brought round from the Mediterranean, and was to join the Vice-Admiral _du Ponant_, the Count de Tourville, at Brest. Then the whole force, which was intended to reach the imposing figure of 78 ships of the line, 30 fireships, and 15 galleys, besides frigates and other attendant small craft, was to come into the Channel. The French Government, exaggerating the meaning of the discontent in England, was under the impression that a Jacobite rising would take place upon the appearance of the French fleet. On our side there was no understanding of the gravity of the coming crisis. In March Admiral Killigrew was dispatched with thirteen sail of the line and two fireships to protect the Mediterranean convoy. He was joined by some Dutch men-of-war. The combined squadron met with bad weather, and put into Cadiz on the 3rd of April. While lying here Killigrew received information that Châteaurenault was to be expected shortly on his way out to the ocean. Killigrew left Cadiz, and went into Gibraltar Bay, where he was joined by Captain Skelton, who was also on convoy duty with six ships. The combined force stood over to the Barbary coast to look for Châteaurenault, who might be supposed to be likely to hug the shore of Africa in order to escape observation. The common fate of our fleets at that time attended this operation. Killigrew was too late. On the 11th of May, Châteaurenault was seen outside the allied fleets. Killigrew pursued, but his ships were foul with long cruising, perhaps by neglect, for some of them had not been cleaned for seventeen months. The French squadron easily outsailed its pursuers. Killigrew then returned to Cadiz, and collected the trade before returning home. He reached England at the beginning of July and there heard of a disaster further up channel, which left him no resource but to carry his ship into the Hamoaze, and there take shelter behind batteries.

This disaster was the Battle of Beachy Head, which the French call the Battle of Bévisier, a corruption of Pevensey Bay. As the year grew on, the English Government became aware that a large French force might soon be expected in the Channel. The crisis was a very dangerous one, since the king had sailed for Ireland with all the best troops. There were few left in England, and the discontent of the Jacobites was notorious. The naval preparations made to meet an enemy were insufficient. When Torrington was at last sent down to Portsmouth on the 28th May there were but thirty-two English ships and eighteen Dutch collected.

Tourville had sailed from Brest on the 13th of June. The reinforcements brought him by Châteaurenault raised his fleet to something over seventy ships of the line, with thirty fireships and some small craft. He sailed into the Channel, and his approach was first known to Torrington on the 22nd. The English admiral was completely surprised by the appearance of the enemy. At a later period, when his conduct was called into question, he endeavoured to throw the blame for his want of knowledge on the ministers, who, as he complained, had not sent him down till the last of May, when it was too late for him to station look-out ships off Brest. It does not, however, appear why he thought it necessary to stay in London till he was driven out by a special order. After the change in the Admiralty Board he had no official duties in the capital, and if he stayed there till he earned from the sailors the nickname of Lord Tarry-in-Town, it was presumably because he did not wish to leave. Even so, he was with the fleet on the 30th of May, and might have detached look-out ships to the mouth of the Channel. He said he did, and then immediately afterwards said he did not, because all his frigates were engaged in shipping Lord Pembroke’s newly raised regiment of marines. The Dutch, to whom he entrusted the duty, without taking the trouble to see whether it were executed, were too busy shipping their stores to have leisure for anything else. The allied fleet, in fact, presented a picture of sloth and carelessness. When the enemy was known to be in the immediate neighbourhood, it weighed anchor, and dropped down to Dunnose. Here it was joined by two English and three Dutch ships of the line, which raised it to fifty-five. Torrington anchored and remained at anchor until the 25th. On that day he again weighed with the wind at N.E. and on the afternoon sighted the French to the south of the Isle of Wight. They were much scattered, and some of them were far to leeward. In such circumstances Monk would at once have attacked the enemy within striking distance in the hope of crippling him severely before he could be reinforced. Torrington drew his fleet into a line of battle and made towards the enemy. But he soon came to the conclusion that “they had enough in a body to have given us more than sufficient work.” He could not understand why they had not attacked him. It is probable that they abstained because he was to windward and they were scattered. To Monk the fact that the enemy was shy would have been an extra reason for attacking. To Torrington it only suggested dismal reflections as to what might happen if the French became enterprising, and therefore he retired. During the 26th he worked back from the south of the Isle of Wight to the N.E. A letter which he wrote on this day to the Council is marked on every line with glee over the embarrassment the crisis was likely to cause to his political opponents. He did indeed say that he would watch the enemy, and get to westward of them if he could; but before this he had expressed his opinion that the best course was to fall back to the Gunfleet, and then the ships from the west might come up to Portsmouth, and join him over the “Flats,” that is the shallows at the mouth of the Thames. The ships from the west were Killigrew’s squadron. Torrington knew that they had been cruising and must be foul, and it was certainly within his knowledge that they were less numerous than his own fleet. Yet he proposed to subject them to the risk of passing the French fleet, which he thought too great to be run by himself. This was not how Tromp had behaved when he united the fleets of the Maas and the Texel in defiance of Monk at the end of the First Dutch War.

It would seem that there are two types of fighting man. The first when in presence of the enemy instinctively thinks, “How can I strike with the most effect.” The great race are of this type. To it belong Blake and Monk, Hawke, Hood, Nelson, and their like, among our admirals; and, among our enemies, Tromp, De Ruyter, and Suffren. Then there is another kind of fighting man who may be brave enough personally, but who, when he is a commander, instinctively says, “How can I prevent the enemy from hurting me.” This kind of leader has fortunately been rare with us at sea, but Herbert was of the race, and so was Byng. Such men are always looking over their shoulders, always making the most of the enemy’s force, always exaggerating the defects of their own command. They seek for excuses to do nothing, and when they do come to the resolution to fight, the opposite determination to retreat forms itself underneath, as it were spontaneously. This was the natural tendency of Herbert as he had already shown in Bantry Bay, and it was strengthened by his wish to punish those political rivals in London who had refused to take his advice, and had turned him out of the Admiralty.

When his letter of the 26th reached the Council it was not unnaturally interpreted by them as indicating a wish to retire to the Gunfleet at once. This may have been a mistake, but an admiral who said that he had “heartily given God thanks” that the enemy declined battle, and added, “I shall not think myself very unhappy if I can get rid of them without fighting,” had no ground to complain if he was thought to be wanting in spirit. No member of the Council was more bitter against Herbert than his brother seaman Edward Russell, a rancorous man, and an extreme Whig. He was very probably moved by jealousy, but the queen and the civil members of the Council can hardly be severely blamed for not entirely trusting one admiral, when another admiral condemned him without stint. On general grounds the Council was justified in expecting more energy from Torrington. The danger was not that a great French army could land, this the queen’s counsellors knew to be impossible, but that a small corps of French troops might be thrown on shore which could act as a rallying point to the partizans of King James. It was a great object to rouse the general patriotic feeling of the country, and there was no more effectual method of doing that than a battle. The case was one in which it was better to fight, and be beaten, than not to fight at all. A letter was written in the queen’s name to Torrington. It was worded with no apparent want of confidence, and it left him free not to fight if he preferred; but it ordered him strictly not to lose sight of the French, to get to windward of them if he could, but to fight on the first advantage rather than to go to the Gunfleet.

The letter reached Torrington on the 29th of June. He called a council of war which agreed with him that it implied an order to fight on the first advantage. A previous council of war had confirmed his opinion that it was better not to fight. It may be laid down as a general rule that a council of war is a mere blind for the commander-in-chief. When it does not consist of his dependants it must still necessarily be full of his inferiors in rank, who have been trained by the habits of their life not to contradict the commanding officer. Besides, when he wants to fight, it looks cowardly to recommend retreat, and, when he wants to retreat, it looks like a reflection on his courage to insist upon fighting.

The fleet was now lying off Beachy Head some nine or ten miles to the south. The enemy again were some eighteen miles off to the S.W. The fleet weighed anchor at nine o’clock at night, and remained beating to and fro till daybreak. The wind was off the shore. The enemy also was under way at sundown, but at two o’clock in the morning Tourville was heard to fire guns as a signal to anchor. The sound was heard and understood in the English fleet. An opportunity now presented itself for slipping between the French and the land, and getting to the westward of them for the sake of joining Killigrew. Tromp would have made a push, but Torrington seems to have been in a dogged and stupid mood with no very fixed intention in his mind, save to make all the trouble he could for other people. At daybreak the fleet had not much altered its position. Beachy Head was still twelve miles to the N.E. and the French were visible at anchor to the south. At four o’clock the signal was made to form the line, and at eight o’clock the “bloody flag,” the red flag hoisted at the fore-topmast-head, which was the signal to engage the enemy, was run up in the flagship. Two vessels had joined Torrington since he left Dunnose. His total force now consisted of thirty-five English, and twenty-two Dutch. According to the order established for the fleet, the Dutch led when it was upon the starboard tack. As the wind was N.E. and the enemy to the South and West, the fleet bore down with the wind on the right quarter, the Dutch led. Torrington himself was in the centre with the Red Squadron, with Sir John Ashby between him and the Dutch, and Sir George Rooke between him and the Blue Squadron in the rear. Sir Ralph Delaval commanded the Blue Squadron. The fleet it must be understood was not perpendicular, but parallel to the enemy though a little behind him. Thus the ships of the allied fleet had to bear down on the French in a number of lines which struck upon them at an angle, but were parallel to one another. When the allied fleet was seen to be approaching, the French weighed anchor and lay with their heads pointing to N. of W. in a long concave line. The official French list gives seventy-two vessels present in the line, but the English counted that there were thirty-four ahead of the French admiral and forty-eight behind him. In this there was probably exaggeration, and perhaps downright lying. Tourville himself had his flag in the _Soleil Royale_, a magnificent ship of 110 guns. The van was commanded by the Lieutenant-General Châteaurenault and Lieutenant-General the Marquis de Villette Mursay. The rear was under the command of Count D’Estrées, Vice-Admiral _du levant_, and the Lieutenant-General Gabaret, who had been promoted after the action of Bantry Bay.

Fire began at nine o’clock when the Dutch ships under Admiral Cullemburg came into action with the French van. Owing to the inferiority of the allies in numbers there was a danger that as they could not stretch all along the line of the French fleet some of the ships in the French line would turn to windward, and put either the Dutch or the English, according to circumstances, between two fires. The danger was one which De Ruyter had had to face in the battles of 1672 and 1673, and he had provided for it by telling off a squadron to watch the enemy’s van and had then thrown the bulk of his own force on the rear. It shows how useless experience is to naturally stupid men, that although all the senior officers present had served either with, or against, De Ruyter, none of them thought of following his example. All the allied leaders could do was to endeavour to get as near as they could to stretching themselves out to the same length as the enemy by sending the van down against the French van; by keeping the Red Division opposite the enemy’s centre; and by leaving the attack on the rear to Sir Ralph Delaval. While they were bearing down, Herbert changed his mind once, or twice, as to the exact point of the enemy’s line he wished to reach, and altered the course of his ship accordingly. The result was that Sir John Ashby became puzzled as to the intentions of his commander-in-chief, and finally ended by attaching himself to the Dutch. In the end Torrington placed himself opposite the rear of the French centre so that there came a gap between him and Ashby. Being afraid that the French would stand out of their own line, in order to pass through this opening, Herbert kept his ships a good distance from the enemy so that he might be the better placed to head off such as attended this movement. As the French began to move ahead slowly, just as the allies came down, the Dutch could not get abreast of the leading ship, and struck on them at the ninth.

The Dutch began to fire at nine, Sir Ralph Delaval at half-past nine, and the centre at ten. At the two extremities the fighting was hot. Sir Ralph Delaval pressed eagerly on the squadron of Count D’Estrées, and pushed his attack with such energy that the enemy seemed to flinch. Sir John Ashby in the van found himself abreast of Tourville. He fired two guns in order to see whether the Vice-Admiral _du Ponant_ would be a “reasonable enemy.” Tourville disdained to strike first at his inferior in rank, and it was not until Ashby’s first broadside had been delivered that the _Soleil Royal_ opened fire. The wind, which had been strong in the early morning was still blowing a good breeze. It was used by the ships at the head of the French line to work to windward. Between eleven and twelve o’clock they succeeded in doubling on the Dutch and putting them between two fires. Admiral Cullemburg’s squadron fought gallantly but was overpowered. What had happened was seen on the centre and rear. Torrington’s attention was called to the movement by his flag-captain who asked if he also intended to allow himself to be weathered. He answered that he did not, and began at once to work up to windward. As Sir Ralph Delaval had pressed closely on D’Estrées, he had fallen to leeward of the commander-in-chief, and there was an “elbow” in the English line. By two o’clock the wind fell away to a dead calm and movement became restricted on either side to what could be done by towing, or drifting along with the tide. Cannonading went on between the two stationary fleets for some time. At last the ebb-tide set up a strong westerly current. The Dutch dropped anchor with all sails set. As the French were not seamen enough to do the same thing they drifted to the west. One Dutch ship which was too much damaged to anchor floated away, and became a prize. Then Herbert drifted down to the neighbourhood of the Dutch and anchored close by them. The allies remained at anchor, till the easterly current began to flow with the flood-tide in the evening. Then they got up anchor and tided eastwards towards the Thames. The pursuit of Tourville was timid. He followed next day, but in line of battle which limited the speed of his fleet to that of the slowest vessel in it. To this timidity Torrington owed his safety from complete destruction. A few of the more severely crippled Dutch and English vessels were set on fire, but the great bulk of the allied fleet got safely into the Thames.

The subsequent movements of Tourville may be dismissed in a few lines. He remained in the Channel until the early days of August, ranging at will up and down and of course paralysing commerce, but he did nothing more against our coast than burn the little town of Teignmouth in South Devon. There was nothing in fact that he could do. The Jacobite rising did not take place because he had no troops to land to help the country gentlemen, who were resolved not to move until they were secure against being attacked by the Government’s forces before they were sufficiently organised to offer any resistance. In August Tourville returned quietly to Brest. There had been a furious outbreak of anger in the country against Torrington and a great movement of patriotism which was unspeakably to the advantage of King William’s government. Yet when Torrington was brought to trial in December he was acquitted. The acquittal was intelligible. King William’s victory at the Boyne, gained just after the battle of Beachy Head, had put the country into good humour, and the admiral’s most bitter accusers were the Dutch who were not popular in England. But it was none the less a misfortune. Torrington had not done his utmost. His position indeed was a difficult one, but it was not worse than Monk’s in 1666, or De Ruyter’s in 1672, ’73, and he had not behaved as these men had done. When a court martial could find no fault with his management it lowered the whole standard of conduct expected of an English naval officer. It showed that a man who leaned to the side of timidity would not be condemned by other officers. Then, too, the court, which could see nothing to blame in his feeble effort of attack on the 30th June, must have been composed of men of a lower level of intelligence than the sea chiefs, whether Dutch, or English of the previous wars. It laid the foundation of that pedantic adherence to the line and the practice of engaging from van to rear which afterwards led to the monstrous sentence on Admiral Mathews, to the helpless weakness of Byng, and to the stupidity of Graves. Perhaps the ugliest feature of the whole transaction was this, that the English excused Torrington very largely on the ground that the chief sufferers in the battle had been the Dutch. There was something very base in the code of honour of people who did not think it ignoble to throw the burden of battle on an ally.

While Tourville was ranging the Channel the English government had fitted out a fresh armament. It was put under the combined command of Sir Richard Haddock, Sir John Ashby, and Admiral Killigrew. This fleet could, however, do little. The French were no longer at sea, and the great ships were laid up as usual before the beginning of autumn. Yet one good piece of service was done before the year was closed. Marlborough had suggested that an expedition might be sent to act against the partisans of King James in the south of Ireland. The scheme was approved by King William, and Marlborough sailed in September, under an escort of third and fourth rates commanded by the admirals. Cork was taken on the 29th September, and the bulk of the ships then returned to the Channel, leaving a few to co-operate with Marlborough in the attack on Kinsale. This completed the expedition. A separate squadron of ships had cruised during this year on the coast of Ireland, under the command of Sir Cloudesley Shovell, and had co-operated in the taking of Duncannon.

In this year the French had again made very little use of their naval force. In spite of Tourville’s victorious cruise in the Channel, the English cause had advanced as a whole. King James had been beaten from the north and east of Ireland, and deprived of two very important ports in the south. That this was so was due to the little help afforded him by the French navy. King Louis seems never to have thought of keeping a squadron permanently on the coast of Ireland, though it would have been easy and manifestly advantageous so to do. In the Channel, Tourville had really effected very little. He is perhaps not to be blamed for retiring in August. Nobody then thought of keeping the great ships out in autumn, and the French ports in the Channel are very poor. But he had shown undeniable want of enterprise against Torrington. His pursuit had been so feeble after Beachy Head that we may doubt whether he was the man to have taken advantage of the weather-gage of the change of wind which Herbert feared had occurred. His own countrymen were ill-satisfied with him. The famous epigram of Seignelay that he was _poltron de tête mais non de cœur_, is well known. If this was all the French could do when their powers were at the best it would be the fault of the allies if they did not some day turn the tables on their enemy.

The operations of 1691 were of a nature to confirm this belief. A powerful fleet was sent to sea by the allies under the command of Russell. Its movements throughout the summer were wearisome and unimportant. It went to and fro between May and the beginning of autumn. In the meantime Tourville was at sea with a fleet of eighty sail of the line. His cruise is rather a famous passage in French naval history. He contrived to keep the sea without allowing himself to be forced to battle—and at last, by making clever use of a shift of wind, managed to get into Brest untouched by the allied fleet. The pride of the French of the time with this achievement, and the satisfaction they have expressed at it since, are the condemnation of a navy, and a method of conducting war. Tourville was quite strong enough to fight the allies, yet his movements were directed to avoiding battle and to capturing merchant ships. As a matter of fact, he missed his great prize, the Smyrna convoy, and in the meantime Limerick, King James’s last stronghold in Ireland, was taken, and the country thoroughly subdued. The great French fleet had preserved itself, but the King of France had lost an ally who kept up a useful diversion of the resources of England. A fighting force which makes it a principal object to avoid battle is doomed to defeat when it comes across an enemy who makes it a steady rule to fight. But the French never took the view that if you wish to use the sea you must drive your enemy off it, and if you want to do that you must smash him. In the dullest times the English navy has always understood that the beating of the French navy was the preliminary to everything else. The French government, which was much distressed by lack of money, was angry with Tourville for missing the convoy, and accused him of timidity.

In 1692 the French at last learnt by a painful experience the truth of Bacon’s saying that “_Occasion turneth a bald noddle after she has presented her locks in front, and no hold taken_, or at least turneth the handle of the bottle first to be received and afterwards the belly which is hard to clasp.” After wasting three years either in delivering their blows wide, or hitting feebly when the direction was good, the French at last made a serious effort to strike England to the heart. But what they might have done with a fair prospect of success in ’89, ’90, or ’91, they attempted with insufficient means in ’92. Their deficiencies were due to causes which a little foresight would have made them understand were sure to operate sooner or later. The events of ’90 had taught the English Government the necessity for vigorous preparations. At the same time an accident, such as was always likely to occur, prevented a timely concentration of their own forces. The Toulon fleet, under Châteaurenault, ought to have joined Tourville at Brest early in the year, but it was delayed by bad weather. It was, and always has been, a cause of weakness to the French that their two seacoasts on the Mediterranean and the Atlantic are separated from one another by the Spanish Peninsula. An enemy who is in a position to occupy the Straits of Gibraltar with a strong naval force is admirably placed, to prevent one-half of the French fleet from uniting with the other. Even when there was no hostile squadron in the Straits, persistent bad weather might confine the French in the Mediterranean. At a later date, attempted concentrations of the French fleet broke down from these very causes. But this was a probability which ought to have been provided for. Louis XIV. ought either to have made his officers act with more spirit or not to have allowed an important part of his fleet to go back to the Mediterranean at the close of ’91. As it was, his effort to carry out a scheme of invasion with a part of his naval force, when the whole of them would not have been too many, ended, as it was bound to end, in disastrous failure.

The allied Dutch and English fleets were out early. Their Governments had a double motive for wasting no time. They were aware that an army of invasion, consisting in part of Irish regiments in the service of France, was being collected in Normandy for the invasion of England. In spite of many disappointments King James was still hopeful, and he had persuaded the King of France to make an effort to help the Jacobites in England. The army of invasion, some 30,000 strong, was collected in the Côtentin. They were quartered at La Hougue, on the eastern side of the Côtentin. Another object for which the allies had to provide was the safe return of the ships, Dutch and English, composing the Smyrna convoy. It was coming home under the protection of a squadron commanded by Sir Ralph Delaval. In order to discharge the double duty of covering the return of the convoy and watching the French, a detached squadron under the command of Rear-Admiral Carter cruised on the coast from Brest to Cape La Hague, the north-westerly point of the Côtentin. Delaval brought his convoy back in March and then joined Carter on the coast of France. In later times the English navy would have prepared to prevent the concentration of the French fleet by cruising off Brest, but at the end of the seventeenth century our officers had not yet acquired that confidence in their vessels, and the vessels had not been so far perfected, as to make cruising in spring on so dangerous a coast as that about Brest appear practicable for the great ships. The grand fleet was not in fact fully ready for sea till May, when Russell called in the detached squadrons, and united his whole force at St. Helens.

There was another reason for bringing the fleet together. The Government had decided on making a demonstration. During the last few months, as indeed at all times in King William’s reign, the Jacobite agents had been very busy. The great discontent undoubtedly existing among the naval officers, and partly due to the grievances as to their pay, had appeared to give the friends of the exiled king an opportunity. Captain David Lloyd had been running to and fro with great zeal. His old comrades were too much attached to him to betray him to the Government even when they were opposed to his party, and there were no doubt great numbers of English naval officers who were as well disposed as other Englishmen to restore the exiled king if only he would not be his own worst enemy. These men would not be shocked by arguments in his favour. As they had themselves been praised and in some cases rewarded for deserting King James, it would be unreasonable to expect that they should have been greatly offended when asked by an old brother officer to desert back to him from King William. The

## activity of Lloyd was perfectly well known to the English Government.

He had spoken to Carter, who had immediately reported the whole of the conversation to the queen. Lloyd himself does not appear to have taken all the grumblings he heard among his brother seamen very seriously, and the Council of Regency was probably not very frightened. But it wisely decided to bring all doubts to the test. On the 15th May a letter drawn up in the queen’s name by the Secretary, Nottingham, was sent down to the flag officers and captains of the fleet. In this letter the queen informed them that she had heard stories accusing them of disloyalty but she did not believe the accusations, and continued to repose the most complete confidence in their fidelity. This profession of a confidence it would have been wise to assume, even if it had not been sincerely felt, was at once communicated by Russell to his subordinates. It had the effect which had been hoped for. The fleet answered by unanimous expression of loyalty. An address expressing the perfect readiness of all the officers to venture their lives, with all imaginable “alacrity and resolution,” in defence “of the Government and of the religion and liberty of the country and against all Popish invaders whatsoever,” was drawn up and signed on behalf of the fleet by sixty-four flag officers and captains.

An opportunity was speedily given to these officers to show that they could be as good as their word. A council of war decided to take the initiative against the French. A body of troops was to be landed at St. Malo, while the allied fleet was to lie to the westward of that place in order to provoke a battle. On the 18th May, Russell sailed from St. Helens, and on the following day when he was about twenty miles off Cape Barfleur, the easterly corner of the Côtentin, the look-out ships to the westward of the fleet made the signal for seeing the enemy. In fact, while the allies had been talking of invading France, Tourville had sailed from Brest with the intention of covering an invasion of England, and after suffering some delay from the weather had come so far. The two fleets now opposed to one another were divided as follows, and consisted of the elements shown on these lists:—

+-------------------------+----------------------------------------------+ | THE DUTCH | THE ENGLISH | +-------------------------+-----------------------+----------------------+ | The White Squadron | Red Squadron | Blue Squadron | +-------------------------+-----------------------+----------------------+ | Guns | Guns | Guns | | _The Zealand_ 90 | =The Royal | =The Victory= 100 | | _Konig Wilhelm_ 92 | William= 100 | =Albemarle= 90 | | _Brandenburg_ 92 | =London= 100 | =Windsor Castle= 90 | | _West Friesland_ 84 | =Britannia= 100 | =Neptune= 90 | | _Printz_ 92 | =St. Andrew= 100 | =Vanguard= 90 | | _Printzess_ 92 | =Royal Sovereign= 100 | =Duchess= 90 | | _Bexhirmer_ 84 | =St. Michael= 90 | =Ossory= 90 | | _Casteel Medenblick_ 86 | =Sandwich= 90 | =Duke= 90 | | _Captain General_ 84 | =Royal Catherine= 90 | =Resolution= 70 | | _North Holland_ 68 | =Cambridge= 70 | =Monk= 60 | | _Erste Edele_ 74 | =Plymouth= 60 | =Expedition= 70 | | _Munickendam_ 72 | =Breda= 80 | =Royal Oak= 74 | | _Gelderland, A._ 72 | =Kent= 70 | =Northumberland= 70 | | _Stadt Meeyden_ 72 | =Swiftsure= 70 | =Lion= 60 | | _Etswout_ 72 | =Hampton Court= 70 | =Berwick= 70 | | _Printz Casimir_ 70 | =Grafton= 70 | =Defiance= 70 | | _Frisia_ 70 | =Restoration= 70 | =Montague= 60 | | _Riddershap_ 72 | =Eagle= 70 | =Warspight= 70 | | _De 7 Provintzen_ 76 | =Rupert= 60 | =Monmouth= 70 | | _Zurick Zee_ 60 | =Elizabeth= 70 | =Edgar= 70 | | _Gelderland, R._ 64 | =Burford= 70 | =Stirling Castle= 70 | | _Vere_ 62 | =Captain= 70 | =Dreadnought= 60 | | _Zealand, A._ 64 | =Devonshire= 80 | =Suffolk= 70 | | _Haerlem_ 64 | =York= 60 | =Cornwall= 80 | | _Leyden_ 64 | =Lenox= 70 | =Essex= 70 | | _Amsterdam_ 64 | =Ruby= 50 | =Hope= 70 | | _Velew_ 64 | =Oxford= 50 | =Chatham= 50 | | _Maegd van Dort_ 64 | =St. Albans= 50 | =Advice= 50 | | _Tergoes_ 54 | =Greenwich= 50 | =Adventure= 50 | | _Medenblick_ 50 | =Chester= 50 | =Crown= 50 | | _Gaesterland_ 50 | =Centurion= 50 | =Woolwich= 54 | | _Ripperda_ 50 | =Bonaventure= 50 | =Deptford= 50 | | _Schattershoff_ 50 | | | | _Stadden Land_ 52 | | | | _Hoorn_ 50 | | | | _Delft_ 54 | | | +-------------------------+-----------------------+----------------------+

The list of the French fleet given by Monsieur Troude is as follows:—

+-------------------+---------------------+------------------+ | Guns | Guns | Guns | | _Bourbon_ 64 | _Fort_ 60 | _Content_ 64 | | _Monarque_ 90 | _Henri_ 64 | _Souverain_ 84 | | _Aimable_ 68 | _Ambitieux_ 96 | _Illustre_ 70 | | _Saint Louis_ 60 | _Couronne_ 76 | _Modéré_ 52 | | _Diamant_ 60 | _Maure_ 52 | _Excellent_ 60 | | _Gaillard_ 68 | _Serieux_ 68 | _Prince_ 60 | | _Terrible_ 76 | _Courageux_ 58 | _Magnifique_ 76 | | _Merveilleux_ 94 | _Perle_ 56 | _Laurier_ 64 | | _Tonnant_ 76 | _Glorieux_ 64 | _Brave_ 58 | | _Saint-Michel_ 60 | _Conquerant_ 84 | _Entend_ 60 | | _Sans-Pareil_ 62 | _Soleil Royal_ 104 | _Triomphant_ 76 | | _Foudroyant_ 82 | _Saint-Philippe_ 84 | _Orgueilleux_ 94 | | _Brilliant_ 68 | _Admirable_ 90 | | +-------------------+---------------------+------------------+

It will be seen that the force of the two fleets was extremely unequal; the allies being in fact more than twice as strong as their enemy. If this was a surprise to the French, the information supplied to Louis XIV. by the Jacobites in England, and by his agents in the Low Countries, must have been far less accurate than is commonly supposed. If, on the other hand, he really did believe that the grumblers in the English fleet, and that Russell the admiral, who was undoubtedly in communication with the exiled court at St. Germain, would betray their country to its hereditary enemy on the field of battle, and under the eyes of all the world, he must have been singularly impervious to experience. Tourville received peremptory orders, dated the 26th March, and worded in a style insulting to him. He was told to go near enough to the enemy to see them for himself, and not to be misled into believing that merchant-ships were men-of-war, as he was accused of doing during the off-shore cruise of 1691. If on reaching La Hougue he found the allies already there, he was to attack them whatever their numbers might be. If victorious, he was to cover the passage of the army to England. If defeated, he was to save his fleet as he best could. Should the allies not be near La Hougue when he arrived, he was to transport the army without waste of time. If the allies attacked him during the passage, he was to fight with obstinacy, so as to give the army time to land. In case the allies appeared after the landing, he might avoid a battle if they exceeded in number by ten ships.

When the French were signalled by the guns of the look-out ships at three o’clock on the morning of the 19th, the weather was foggy. Fearing that the enemy might stretch past him to northward, Russell signalled to the rear to tack and close the space between him and the coast of England. At four o’clock the mist lifted and the enemy were seen to the westward with their heads pointing to the south. As this showed that they had no intention of attempting to turn him on the north side Russell countermanded the order to the Rear or Blue Division. The allied fleet was not in order of battle but scattered some ahead, some to windward, and some to leeward of the admiral. The wind was blowing from the S.W., and the French therefore had the weather-gage. The line was formed at eight o’clock with the Dutch or White Squadron in the van, and to the south of the Red Squadron which formed the centre, then came the Blue Squadron farthest to the north. There must have been a distance of many miles between the first and last ship of this great fleet of ninety-nine sail, and the Blue Squadron was still to leeward. Having made his simple disposition to meet the attack Russell lay with his topsail to the mast waiting for the enemy to come on. With a resolution of character which shows his innate superiority to Herbert, Tourville charged home. He directed his attack on the centre of the allied line, telling off a few ships in his van and rear to watch the van and rear of the allies, and prevent them from doubling on his own fleet.

The battle began about ten o’clock, and lasted till about five in the afternoon. The French ships engaged with the Red Division made no attempt to break through the English line. The battle was conducted entirely by cannonading at short ranges, and the English claimed that their fire was more rapid than the French. When the enemy’s attack was fully developed Russell ordered the van to tack for the purpose of getting to windward of the French, and putting them between two fires, and at the same time signalled to the Blue Division to come closer to the centre. Neither order could be obeyed, for the wind was very light so that the ships were unable to manœuvre. The real battle was always between the Red Squadron and the ships immediately around Tourville. About two o’clock in the afternoon the wind, after falling altogether, rose again, but from the N.W., thus giving the weather-gage to the allies, and by five o’clock Tourville began to draw off. He doubtless felt that enough had been done for honour, and he hoped that the Red Squadron had been sufficiently mauled to cripple it from pursuing him. The wind was light and variable. As the French ships drew away to the westward it fell calm and the mist arose again; then there was a short squall from the east. Sir Cloudesley Shovell with the rear division of the Red Squadron broke through the French in the interval between the centre and the ships which had been stretched out to observe the rear of the allies. Captain Hastings of the =Sandwich= was killed at this phase of the action. The two fleets became mingled in the fog, and drifted to the westward with the ebb-tide. Both anchored at the flood, but at this moment a portion of the Blue Squadron which had worked to the westward of the French drifted back through them in the mist and darkness. They were fired on as they came through, and Rear-Admiral Carter, whose division made this movement, was killed. The sound of the cannonading was heard by the rest of the allied fleet, but it could take no part in the action. When he saw that the enemy was in retreat Russell had ordered a general chase, that is to say he left each ship free to go at its utmost speed. But no great rapidity of movement was possible. The wind had fallen, and the fog made it impossible to see.

This was the end of what strictly speaking is called the battle of La Hogue, from the old spelling of La Hougue. The name is improperly used, for the actual battle was fought off Cape Barfleur. The battle of Barfleur was in fact the title commonly given by our ancestors, but it has been displaced by the name of the place which was the last scene of the four days’ pursuit following on the action. The pursuit began like a nightmare, in strenuous effort to act without the power to move. Both fleets had anchored during the night. When daylight came there was a thick haze and the French were invisible to the allied fleet. What little wind there was, was from the N.N.E. At about eight o’clock some of the Dutch ships caught sight of the enemy to the W.S.W. The pursuit was resumed, but, as the ships could not move more quickly than they were carried by the tide, the progress was very slow. At four o’clock in the afternoon the ebb-tide ceased, and both fleets again anchored, the French in order to avoid the risk of being carried among their pursuers, and the allies so that they should not lose ground. They had moved so little during the ebb-tide that they were still off Cape Barfleur, and at no great distance from the scene of the battle. As long as the tide was flowing it was useless to move, but at ten in the evening, when it turned, both fleets again got under way and began to drift to the west. About this time the fore-topmast of the =Britannia=, which had been seriously injured in the action, came down, and as Russell did not transfer his flag to another vessel, this delayed the Red Squadron under his immediate command. Many of them must have suffered in the action. Whether because they felt bound to remain about their admiral, or because they could not move any faster, the ships of the Red Squadron fell somewhat behind in the pursuit while the Blue and White pressed on ahead. At four in the morning of the 21st both fleets anchored again. They had now tided so far that they were almost off Cape La Hague. Both were much scattered. A part of the French had passed the Cape, the others had not. Among those which had failed to get beyond the headland was the _Soleil Royal_, Tourville’s flagship. She had suffered very severely in the action from the fire of the =Britannia= and the ships just ahead and astern. It has been said with some appearance of truth that if Tourville had had the resolution to set her on fire he might have brought the whole of his fleet round Cape La Hague. But she was the pride of the French Navy, and had been named from the king himself who was the royal sun of France, and the admiral could not make his mind up to sacrifice her. He had, however, transferred his flag to another ship the _Ambitieux_.

When the fleets were ordered to anchor, only a portion of the French was able to obey. Whether it was because they had slipped their cables on the previous night, and therefore could not anchor, or whether their anchors would not hold, it is certain that they were unable to stop themselves from being carried to the eastward towards the allies. The position then in the early hours of the 21st was this, one part of the French fleet was ahead, to the west another part was drifting eastward between the land and the allies. The best sailing ships of the White and Blue Squadrons were well ahead of Russell, who with the Red Squadron was furthest of all to the east. The inability of the ships immediately about him to anchor showed Tourville that it was useless to endeavour to keep his now divided fleet acting as one body any longer. If he summoned the ships to the west to his assistance he would bring the whole fleet into a trap between the land and the enemy, who was in overwhelming numbers. Since he could no longer exercise his powers as commander to any advantage there remained nothing for him but to abdicate. He therefore hauled down his flag of command from the main-topmast-head, as a signal that every captain was free to act as he thought best for the safety of his ship. The French fleet now split into fragments. One part, under the Chef d’escadre Pannetier made a push for the Channel between the coast of France and the island of Alderney. The easterly current of the flood-tide splits at Cape La Hague. While the main body flows up Channel a branch turns off, and runs with great speed between the west side of the Côtentin and the island of Alderney. This makes what we call the Race of Alderney, and the French the Raz Blanchard. The navigation is dangerous, and would, under ordinary circumstances, have been avoided by the heavy ships, but circumstances only left the French a choice of evils, and they ran through the Race to seek refuge under the guns of St. Malo.

Russell, seeing that the division of the French and the distress of the vessels drifting towards him made it no longer necessary to keep his fleet together, signalled to Ashby, and the Dutch to pursue Pannetier. Meanwhile he, with the Red Division and the laggards of the White and Blue, prepared to deal with those of Tourville’s ships which had failed to round La Hague. Ashby could not reach the enemy. Pannetier had time to get his ships over the bar of the Rance, and take refuge under the guns of the corsair town of St. Malo, before his pursuers reached him. Ashby returned next day and joined Sir Ralph Delaval, who, in the meantime, had done a good stroke of work at Cherbourg. When it became clear that they were trapped the ships of Tourville had no resource but to endeavour to fly to the eastward between Russell and the land, to round Cape Barfleur and to take refuge at La Hougue. Three of them were too crippled for further flight. These were the famous _Soleil Royal_, for whose sake so much had been risked, the _Admirable_, and the _Triomphant_. All three were run ashore at Cherbourg, and the others fled eastward. Russell left Sir Ralph Delaval to deal with the stranded ships, and followed the rest. Delaval could do nothing on the evening of the 21st, but on the following morning he sent in the boats and fireships, under the command of Captain Heath, Captain Greenaway, and Captain Foulis. The _Admirable_ and _Triomphant_ were burnt. But the fireship with which Captain Foulis endeavoured to burn the _Soleil Royal_ was sunk by the Frenchmen’s fire. Hereupon, Delaval hauled in as close as he could and opened fire on the great stranded flagship. When he had battered her for some time, and found that no further resistance was made, he took his boats and boarded her. Sir Ralph Delaval’s report contains a detail which is discreditable to King Louis’s navy. He says he found many men and wounded men in the _Soleil Royal_, but no officers. She was burnt by the English. When the work was done Sir Ralph was disturbed by thirty sail approaching him from the west. This, however, turned out to be Sir John Ashby’s squadron, and the two officers united their forces, and followed the admiral to the east. A few of the French ships under command of Nesmond escaped by sailing round the British Isles.

Russell pursued Tourville round Cape Barfleur. The French admiral ran as close as he could to La Hougue, with the thirteen vessels still about him. It was not until the evening of the 22nd, so light was the wind and so slow were the ships of that time amid tides and variable breezes, that Russell was able to anchor in the neighbourhood of the fugitives. On the 23rd he sent in the boats and fireships under Rooke, who burnt six of the enemy. On the 24th the work was completed by the destruction of the other seven. The French indeed were panic-stricken, and the resistance was trifling. Not more than ten men were killed in this piece of service, which if attempted against an alert and resolute enemy must needs have been very costly.

The battle pursuit and destruction spread over these five days, and included under the name of “La Hogue” make nearly the last passage of naval warfare of a brilliant decisive character which we shall meet for three-quarters of a century. The navy had work of vital importance to do, and a function of unusual importance to fulfil. But it was no longer to meet equal fleets at sea, except on rare occasions, and when it did its own method of fighting was dull. The French fleet very soon ceased to contend with the allies in the ocean and channel altogether, and in the Mediterranean its efforts were spasmodic. The great change has been attributed to the disaster of La Hogue, without sufficient reason. We have seen that the operations of the French in previous years had been very languid. Their weakness during the rest of the war was to be mainly attributed to the French king’s want of money. His resources were overburdened by the war on land against the League of Augsburg, and he could not afford to fit out great fleets. But to our ancestors the importance of the battle of La Hogue was naturally a subject of high gratification. The material loss inflicted on King Louis was considerable, and the blow to his prestige greater still. They could feel that the Channel was now safe, not indeed from privateers, but from great fleets sent out to cover an invasion of England. Besides, after the spiritless straggling operations of the last three years, the resolution of Russell and the vigour of his pursuit were an immense change for the better.

The decline of the French navy was not immediately visible. An attempt to attack St. Malo at the close of 1692 was given up as hopeless, and the ships under Pannetier’s command were able to make their way to Brest undisturbed. In 1693 the French even achieved a considerable measure of success, partly through their own good management, and

## partly by the help of mistakes of the English Government. Russell

was no longer at sea. The shifting politics of the time, and his own position as one of the leaders of the Whig party, combined with the king’s discovery of his intrigues with St. Germain to remove him from command. His place was taken by Killigrew, Delaval, and Shovell, who were combined in a joint commission as admiral. The practice of giving the command at sea to a committee was once more revived because the Government distrusted a single command. The result was to discredit for ever the appointment of several men to do work which most especially requires unity of will and authority.

The fleet was collected under the joint admirals in April. It was not manned without great difficulty. Crews had to be found by taking men out of the privateers and by embarking five regiments of soldiers to serve as marines. Neither the Government nor the admirals had any definite plan of operations for the year. But an object was found for them by the necessity of escorting the Mediterranean trade safe on its way. The French privateers had been very active, and the convoy work at least of the English navy very badly done. Ships had remained in port rather than face the risk of making a passage. The necessities of the English and Dutch revenue compelled the Government to forward the trade, and so a squadron was told off under the command of Rooke and the Dutch admiral Van der Goes, to carry the outward-bound Smyrna convoy into the Mediterranean. The twenty-three ships, Dutch and English, appointed to protect the convoy would have been insufficient to deal with the Brest fleet, and the admirals were therefore ordered to see Rooke and his Dutch colleague well past Ushant. In the latter days of May the whole force was collected and sailed with the merchant ship under its protection in the beginning of June. By an oversight, which reflects very little credit on their intelligence, the admirals omitted to find out whether the French were in Brest or not. They had been ordered to accompany the convoy thirty leagues past Ushant, and they reached that point on the 4th of June. Not being satisfied that enough had been done for safety they exceeded their instructions so far as to continue with the merchant ships till they were fifty leagues W.S.W. off the island of Ushant. Then they left them and returned to the Channel. It is an example of the vices still prevailing in our naval administration that though the fleet had only just been collected it was in want of provisions already. When the admirals had returned to Torbay they learnt what they ought to have been at the trouble to find out before, namely, that Tourville had left Brest. At the same time the English Consul at Leghorn forwarded information that the French Toulon fleet was ready to sail from Toulon. This report did not reach the admirals till the 13th June. When it was too late they realised the extent of the danger threatening Rooke. Tourville had in fact sailed south in May with orders to wait for the convoy. Messages were sent in hot haste to warn Rooke of his danger, but the disaster had happened before they could reach him.

While the admirals and Government were realising their mistake and were looking forward to the inevitable outcry in the City and House of Commons, the great convoy had been rolling southward at a speed regulated by the slowest of the merchant ships, happy if it made three miles an hour in favourable circumstances. It reached Cape St. Vincent on the 17th June. Here Rooke despatched a look-out vessel ahead, to see if there were any enemies in Lagos Bay, on the south coast of Portugal between Cape St. Vincent and Faro. The wind was very light, and the convoy made little progress. Next day the frigates discovered ten sail of French ships standing out of Lagos. The position was an extremely difficult one. With a large force of men-of-war so close at hand there was little hope of safety in flight for heavily laden merchant ships. It was decided to make a push for the friendly Spanish port of Cadiz. The wind from the N.N.W. was still light, and it might be that the French being to leeward would be unable to work up. But this course, though perhaps the best, where all were bad, led the convoy right into the jaws of Tourville’s fleet of eighty-six sail. Battle was hopeless, and flight not much better. Yet to run was all there was to do. The French advanced squadron had fallen back merely to draw the convoy on, and even if the bait had not succeeded there could have been but one end to the meeting. A hurry and a scurry such as may easily be imagined followed. Some of the small ships ran close in shore, by Rooke’s orders, and endeavoured to find a refuge in Faro, San Lucar, or Cadiz. By these we must understand very small craft from 40 to 100 tons. The heavier ships, meaning boats from 150 to 300 tons, the size of a large merchant ship of those times, did their best to shelter themselves behind Rooke and Van der Goes, and they all struggled to get away into the open sea. The Dutch warships were in more danger than our own, for being in the van they were to leeward and nearer the French. Tourville must have suffered from a constitutional inability to act with energy except by fits and starts. He now repeated, and with even less excuse, the very mistake he made after the battle of Beachy Head. His pursuit was slack. Some of the Dutch ships were overtaken and captured after a gallant resistance. But Rooke was able to carry a great part of the convoy to Madeira, and from thence home to Cork. He joined the admiral in the Channel in August. Tourville, after giving up the pursuit of Rooke too early, returned to the Straits where he spent his time in capturing or destroying the smaller merchant vessels. The total loss to the Dutch and English was put down at twenty-nine vessels taken and fifty destroyed.

This business of the Smyrna convoy may be said to be the turning-point of the war. Louis XIV. had sent Tourville to capture the Smyrna convoy mainly because he looked to gain money. In the following year he ordered the Brest fleet into the Mediterranean, and he made no serious attempt to contend with the allies in the western seas during the remainder of the war. At the time, and while the smart of the loss was fresh in England and Holland, this could not be known. The capture of the convoy led to a furious outcry against the Admiralty in England, and to violent inconclusive discussions in Parliament. Yet it was the direct cause of a great change for the better. The Government was fully waked up to the necessity of taking its fleet more seriously in hand. The effort to conduct a war by a committee was given up. Russell was restored to the command. At the same time, the officers were stimulated to do their work with a better heart by increase of pay and the establishment of the half-pay list. With sinking energy on the side of the French and increasing efficiency on our own the naval war took a new character. From this time forward there was an overwhelming superiority on the side of the allies. England came to contribute an increasing proportion of the naval force employed, for the land war was straining Holland to the utmost. When the struggle with Louis XIV. came to an end at the Peace of Utrecht, England was much the one unrivalled sea power as she was when Napoleon surrendered to Captain Maitland of the =Bellerophon=.

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