CHAPTER IV

THE TWO COLONIAL WARS

AUTHORITIES.—Beatson, _Military Memoirs_; Campbell’s _Lives of the Admirals_; Schomberg’s _Naval Chronology_; Burrows’ _Life of Hawke_.

From the signing of the Peace of Utrecht in 1713 till the beginning of the colonial war with Spain in 1739, the Royal Navy was used as an instrument in the hand of diplomacy to keep the peace, or as the police of the seas. Europe was disturbed in the North by the last stages of the struggle between Peter the Great of Russia and Charles XII. of Sweden, in the South by the foolish ambitions of Philip V., the first Bourbon king of Spain, and his second wife, Elizabeth Farnese. But the statesmen who controlled the policy of Western Europe during most of these years, Sir Robert Walpole in England and Cardinal Fleury in France, were unwearied in warding off another war. Once, in 1718, a strong fleet sent into the Mediterranean, to put a stop to one of the Italian ventures of Philip V., destroyed a much weaker and very ill-handled Spanish fleet off Cape Passaro, in Sicily. As a rule, the appearance of our ships was enough. Now and then an officer found some chance of distinction in service against the pirates, largely recruited among the privateers of the war, who swarmed in distant seas. The most signal example was the suppression of a noted adventurer of this class, named Roberts, by Sir Chaloner Ogle, on the West Coast of Africa in 1722. Meanwhile war on a vast scale was being prepared by two causes—on the Continent by the rivalries of France and Austria in Germany, and Spain and Austria in Italy, together with the ambition of the rising kingdom of Prussia and its great King Frederick; and on the sea by the collision of England with Spain and France in America, and with France in India. Great Britain was drawn into the Continental War by the Hanoverian interests of the royal family and the desire to maintain the balance of power. Here the navy played an indispensable but secondary part. But in the colonial struggle it was the foremost combatant, and exercised a decisive influence.

A common interest drew France and Spain into alliance against us, but the causes of hostility were various. As regards Spain, they go back to the reign of Charles II. From the time of our settlement in Jamaica it had been our constant wish to secure the right of trading with the Spanish colonies, while firmly refusing the Spaniards all access to our own. The buccaneer wars, in so far as they were more than plundering raids conducted by miscellaneous scoundrels, were the attempts of private adventurers to carry out this policy. By the Peace of Utrecht we secured the right to share in the trade of Spanish America. Agents were allowed to establish themselves at Carthagena on the Eastern, and Panama on the Western side. We secured an _asiento_, or contract for the supply of negroes. We were also authorised to send one trading ship of 500 tons burden laden with manufactured goods to the Spanish Main in each year. This arrangement led, as it was bound to lead, to much smuggling. As Spain revived, under the more intelligent administration of the Bourbon dynasty, the abuse of English treaty rights was resented. The Spaniards said that the treaty ship was continually supplied with fresh goods by tenders, and complained that other smugglers haunted their coast, and were guilty of many excesses. To protect themselves, they insisted on searching English vessels found near their coast, and condemning those they considered guilty, and Spanish adventurers retaliated by piracy. Hence arose a long angry conflict of claims and counter-claims between England and Spain, complicated by political disputes in Europe, and only prevented from ripening into war by the resolute peace policy of Walpole. The Parliamentary Opposition, composed largely of disappointed office-seekers, and, as they afterwards proved, incapable administrators, took up the cause of the West India traders. There was much general denunciation of the atrocities of the Spaniards. The best known instance given was that of a certain John Jenkins, master of a trading vessel called the =Rebecca= of Glasgow. Jenkins asserted that in 1730 his vessel had been boarded by a Spanish _guarda costa_, or revenue cutter, in the West Indies, and that the Spanish captain, who is habitually described as “the infamous Fandino,” had cut his ear off. His vessel was undoubtedly searched near Havana, but was allowed to proceed on her voyage, and there is no evidence for the story that his ear was cut off except his own word. As the country grew tired of the long predominance of Walpole, and was worked into a pugnacious mood by the Patriots, use was made of Jenkins’s case to appeal to popular sentiment. A theatrical scene was arranged before a Committee of the House of Commons, and the man was prompted to declare “that he had recommended his soul to god, and his cause to his country” when he was subject to the violence of Fandino. At last Walpole, seeing that the country was resolved on war, yielded, dishonestly, to what he believed to be a mistaken policy for the sake of keeping office. War with Spain was declared in July 1739.

The Colonial quarrel with France arose in another way—and one more honourable to us. The trade of her colonies was less worth striving for than the Spanish, and she was too strong to be hectored. The aggression came from her. In America her agents endeavoured to unite her possessions, in Canada and Louisiana, by annexing the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi, which were first explored by her brilliant and daring adventurers. The result would have been to confine the growing British colonies between the Alleghanies and the Atlantic. In India the French Company was bankrupt. It endeavoured to gain the means of expelling its prosperous English rival, by acquiring political power among the native princes. For a time the Colonial conflict with France was postponed by the great European war arising over the scramble for the heritage of the house of Austria on the death of Charles VI. It was our exceeding good fortune that, when the decisive struggle for trade colonies and supremacy at sea had to be fought out, the attention and the resources of France were mainly employed on an attempt to acquire a predominant position in Central Europe.

This was the happier for us because years were to pass before we could afford to dispense with any of the help fortune gave us. Never was the Government of England less able than during the fag end of Walpole’s rule and the administration of the so-called Patriots. Never, save during the last ignoble days of Charles II., was the navy less fit to meet the calls of a great war. Its paper strength was indeed imposing. There were 124 ships of the line—of from 100 to 50 guns each, and 104 of lesser rates—that is, of 40 guns each or less. The total was 228, and it exceeded the united navies of France and Spain in everything except the quality of the individual ships. But it was suffering from the moral and intellectual diseases spoken of in the previous chapter. The long peace had afforded no opportunity of testing the quality of officers. In the earlier years its chiefs were worn-out and commonplace, or brutal and noisy. All those years did for us was to bring forward the men who were to lead gloriously in after times. From the point of view of the navy, the struggle waged under various names, the Spanish War, the War of the Austrian Succession, and the Seven Years’ War from 1739 to 1763 with an eight years’ truce in the middle, was one and the same war. Fortunately for us, if we were bad, our enemies were worse. Spain was languid, brainless, and could only fight on the defensive. France was overtaxed, distracted by a multiplicity of aims, drifting to bankruptcy, corrupt at heart and frivolous. Great Britain was a mighty force, healthy, though afflicted by bad habits, but capable of reform, and even at its worst advancing on sound lines. Therefore it could bear its administrative scum as a mighty river carries driftwood and rubbish on its surface. This floating trash may make a block and delay the current for a short space, but the moving water flows below, and accumulates in irresistible pressure till one day it sweeps the obstruction out of its path.

In describing this struggle only a brief space need be given to the early years, and in them what is best worth looking at is the promise of better times. Vernon in the West Indies and Mathews and Lestock in the Mediterranean are the dominant figures of the first period—and the types of all the navy had to succeed in shedding, or to perish. Beside them we see the gradual rise of Anson and Hawke, and with their predominance the triumph of the good over the bad.

The Spanish War, or War of Jenkins’s Ear as it came to be called when the rage of the country was over, began by attacks on the possessions of Spain in the New World. A rigid blockade of our enemy’s ports at home and invasion of his territory in Europe would have brought him to terms more effectually. But we had no sufficient army, and the navy, besides being hardly yet fit for prolonged blockade in stormy seas, much preferred colonial expeditions rich in prize and plunder. To the country nothing seemed more likely to be effectual than the seizure of Spanish colonies—or more lucrative. During the long peace, in 1726, ’27, a powerful fleet had been sent to blockade the port of Porto Bello for the purpose of stopping the sailing of the treasure-ships, and so depriving King Philip V. of the means of being mischievous in Europe. Admiral Hozier who commanded, his successor, and many thousands of officers and men died miserably of fever. The memory of this sacrifice to Walpole’s peace policy rankled, and an expedition to Porto Bello was sure to be popular. It was the port of lading for the treasure from the South Seas, and the headquarters of the _guarda costas_ employed, as we said, to destroy our trade—but as the Spaniards put it, to stop our smuggling. An attack on it had been vehemently supported by the Patriots, and particularly by a sailor who was very conspicuous among them.

Edward Vernon had been a captain in the navy since 1706 and was the son of a Secretary of State. He owed his rapid rise to family influence, and no conspicuous service is recorded of him. During the peace he had been for several years member for Ipswich, and had been among the loudest-mouthed of those who first assailed the “profligate” administration of Sir R. Walpole, and then imitated him in everything except his love of peace and his admirable finance. The navy now and then produces a person who “has the gift of the gab ‘although’ he was bred to the sea,” and is continually playing the British seaman to the gallery. Vernon was the example of the type in his generation. He was as brave as any man, but too proud of what he ought to have taken for granted. He was clever, but far too conscious of his cleverness. Withal he was arrogant, had no control over his temper, and was afflicted with an insatiable vanity. Already he had boasted that he would take Porto Bello with six ships. When the war began, he was sent with nine vessels to keep his promise. Vernon left in July 1739, and reached Jamaica late in October. On the 20th November he sailed into Porto Bello with six ships, and took it almost without resistance. The fortifications were not complete, nor were all the guns mounted. The garrison was crippled by tropical fever and was seized by a panic. They ran from their guns under the fire of our ships, and the town was captured with less loss than has often accompanied the taking of a sloop. Vernon behaved with humanity when in possession of the place. This easy success threw the nation into a delirium of joy, and turned Vernon’s head completely. He became convinced that all fortifications could be taken by merely rushing at them. In the position of unchecked authority he held in his own squadron, surrounded by men who deferred to him in obedient silence even when they did not toady him, his arrogance and self-assertion swelled till they grew to the proportions of mania. Vernon made an idle demonstration off Carthagena on the 6th March 1740, but nothing else was done.

Meanwhile the country was preparing to follow up the first success. After changes of plan, hesitations, and much administrative confusion, it was finally decided to make a double attack on Spanish America. A small squadron under Anson was to go round Cape Horn and range the west coast of South America as far north as Panama, while a great expedition carrying a body of troops under command of Lord Cathcart was to sail to the West Indies, join Vernon, and other troops drawn from the British possessions in America, and then the whole was to fall on the Spaniards. The actual point of attack was left to the discretion of the chiefs. Anson’s justly famous voyage may be left aside for the present with the observation that as part of a combined operation it was a failure through the delays shown in dispatching the expeditions. According to the original plan, Lord Cathcart was to have reached the West Indies at the end of October 1740 under protection of six warships. But the Government heard that the Spaniards were sending out a fleet. France was also beginning to move for the purpose of supporting Spain. The Government delayed the expedition till a more powerful fleet could be collected. It left England under the care of 25 warships commanded by Sir C. Ogle on 26th October, at which date it ought to have been on the field of operations. On the 19th December it reached Dominica, where Lord Cathcart died, and was succeeded by General Wentworth. It was not at Jamaica till the 7th January. Meanwhile the enemy had not been idle. The attention of France, still nominally at peace with us, was drawn off by the death of the emperor and the opening of the Austrian Succession. Spain was left to her own resources, which, however, proved greater and were better handled than we had expected. Don Rodrigo de Torres sailed on the 10th July, reached the West Indies unmolested by us, sent part of his ships to reinforce Carthagena under Don Blas de Leso, and then went on, still unmolested by us, to Havana. It may be added that he finally brought the Spanish trade home unseen, and even unsought by us.

The great English expedition reinforced by troops from the North American colonies, and by negroes to do the work of the trenches, left Jamaica by the 26th January 1741, and after some further hesitation was led against Carthagena. It reached its destination on the 4th March. The town stands at the north end of lagoons, and can only be entered at the western end by large ships at the Boca Chica, or Small Mouth. It was not accessible from the sea front because of the shoal water and the heavy surf. The Boca Chica was well fortified, and there were other outworks dotted along the lagoons. These had to be beaten down before the body of the place, which was further defended by a strong outwork called the San Lazaro and a double wall, could be reached. From the 9th to the 26th March we were fighting up along the lagoons with good success. Vernon accused the military men of sloth and incompetence, and afterwards repeated his charges in a scolding pamphlet full of provable misstatements of fact. At Carthagena he pestered his military colleagues in a tone which revolted the pride of General Wentworth. Still, by the end of March we were close to the town, and on the 1st April, a fatal date, Vernon dispatched a vessel to England with a report of victory. It was soon followed by another with authentic tidings of disaster. The wet season begins at Carthagena at the end of March, and the troops were already very sickly. Their condition was aggravated by the fact that the admiral seized the only supply of good water for the fleet. At last Wentworth, who was plainly a weak man unfitted to contend with a bully, had the feebleness to allow himself to be badgered into making an attempt to storm the unbreached San Lazaro, and was repulsed with frightful loss. Vernon made no use of his ships against the town, though there was ample depth of water for them, as M. de Pointis had shown when he took the place in 1697.

It was now clear that Carthagena could not be taken without a regular siege, an operation at that season, and with our resources, impossible. A council of war was held in the cabin of the flagship. The soldiers when asked what they proposed to do answered that they must first learn what help they were to expect from the fleet. Vernon burst out in an explosion of abuse, and was firmly answered by Wentworth. Then he flung out of the cabin in a fit of shrewish rage, and remained during the rest of the council in the stern gallery, bawling occasional interruptions. There could be but one end to the debate. The expedition retired with shame, and the odd hits, and the loss of several thousand men.

Nor would there be any profit in going into the details of the war in the West Indies. Few conflicts have ever been more insipid. Operations similar in purpose to this at Carthagena but on a smaller scale were carried out by Vernon and Wentworth near St. Jago de Cuba in the autumn of 1741, and at Porto Bello in the spring of 1742. In 1743 a squadron under Sir Charles Knowles was beaten off with severe loss in attack on Puerto Cabello and La Guayra on the Main. Then the war died down to mere privateering for a time, to revive slightly towards the end. Knowles fought a moderately successful action with a Spanish force near Havana in September 1748. But he was disliked by some of his officers and accused of not doing enough, was tried by court martial, and reprimanded. A feud arose among his officers, who fought it out in duels. The West Indies in this war were destined to give us no glory, and very doubtful profit. The honour of the flag was deeply stained by Captain Cornelius Mitchell, who while in command of a superior English force showed mere cowardice in the presence of the French in August 1746. For this he was only dismissed the service by a very weak court martial. Some good did, however, come to the navy and the country from this scandal. In 1749, after the conclusion of the war, it helped to persuade Parliament to revise the Naval Discipline Act of Charles II. The rest of the war in the West Indies deserves no further notice. The Spaniards avoided battle except on the one occasion named, and applied themselves to bringing home their trade, with fair success. The French were too overtaxed elsewhere to appear in force. We not being put on our mettle, drowsed on in sloth, quarrels, and scandals. On both sides the privateers were active. Throughout the course of the war we took from the Spaniards 1249 ships, and they from us 1360. Our prizes included several treasure-ships, and were the more valuable. To conclude this side of the subject, it may be added that after France joined in the war against us we took from her 2185 ships, and she from us 1878. The balance in our favour was therefore 196.

Here also may be put what remains to be said of Vernon. It is to the honour of a man of whom little good can be told, that if he was insolent to colleagues and harsh to his officers, he showed an intelligent humanity to his crews. He reduced the excessive allowance of rum given to men in the West Indies, and introduced the custom of diluting it with water. The mixture is said by tradition to have got its name of “grog” from his nickname of “Old Grog,” given him for his practice of wearing a grogram boat-cloak. This is the only kindly trait (for we cannot praise him for not behaving like a buccaneer at Porto Bello) in an unamiable character. Vernon had offered to resign after the failure at Carthagena, but was flattered into remaining by ministers who were unwilling to see him among them till his tar-barrel popularity had waned, as they no doubt began to see it would soon do. He did return at the close of 1742. In 1744 his name was passed over in a promotion of admirals, and he resented the slight in a letter of incredible insolence to the Board. Yet in April 1745 he was promoted Admiral of the White, and appointed to a home command during the Jacobite rising. On service he began a course of violent wrangling with the Admiralty, and finally threw up his post in a pet. Then he appealed to the public in anonymous pamphlets with clap-trap titles, consisting largely of official letters which he had clearly no right to publish. When called to account for what was at the best a gross irregularity, he refused to acknowledge his responsibility, and was, by the king’s orders, struck off the list of admirals. He died on his estate at Nacton, in Suffolk, on the 30th October 1757, forgotten and obscure—an example of the worthlessness of mob popularity.

It is indeed a pleasure to turn from this story of loud talk and little performance to Anson’s immortal voyage. Not that it was without dark shades and disasters, not only because it ended in triumph, but because there was at the head of it a hero, and round him a band fit to follow a hero. Of Anson himself it may be said that in him English manhood gave itself a witness amid the vulgar crowd of Vernons, Knowleses, Mitchells, Mathews, and Lestocks. Stern but just, asking for no affection, but deserving it, and commanding absolute confidence, he was indeed “the flower and pattern of all bold mariners ... unchangeable of purpose, crafty of counsel, and swift of execution; in triumph most sober, in failure ... of endurance beyond mortal man.”

It had at first been intended to send two expeditions to the South Seas, one under Anson to Manila, and another under Captain Cornwall round the Horn. But the Government changed its mind. Anson alone sailed, and was directed not on Manila but on Panama. There was delay, as always at that time, and the squadron did not leave England till the 18th September 1740. It consisted of six ships:—

+--------------+-------+-------+--------------------------+ | | Guns. | Men. | | | +-------+-------+ | | =Centurion= | 60 | 400 | George Anson, commodore. | | =Gloucester= | 50 | 300 | Richard Norris. | | =Severn= | 50 | 300 | Honourable Edward Legge. | | =Pearl= | 40 | 250 | M. Mitchell. | | =Wager= | 28 | 160 | Dandy Kidd. | | =Trial= | 8 | 100 | Honourable G. Murray. | +--------------+-------+-------+--------------------------+

There were two victuallers, transports to carry stores—the =Anna= and =Industry=. The squadron was fairly provided, but was hampered by a number of so-called soldiers who were in fact Chelsea pensioners, sent on board in disregard of Anson’s protest. All who could walk deserted. The others died before the ships entered the Pacific; among them it is said that there was a veteran who had fought at the Boyne for King William. On the 25th October the squadron was at Madeira, and it reached St. Catherine, in Southern Brazil, on the 21st November. Already the scurvy had broken out, and Anson stopped to restore the health of his crews till the 18th January 1741. From St. Catherine the squadron fought its way South through storms to Port St. Julian, famous in the voyages of Magellan and of Drake. From thence it went on to the Pacific by the Straits of Le Maire and the Horn. It was a less dangerous route than the Straits of Magellan, but the incessant tempest made it perilous. Through one unbroken fury of wind and wave the squadron struggled on to the Pacific, but all did not reach it. The navigation of the time was rude, there were no chronometers, no means of finding the longitude. Two of the ships of the squadron, the =Severn= and the =Pearl=, came up on the wrong side of South America, and returned to England. Of the others the =Wager= rounded the Horn, but was wrecked in the Golfo de Peñas. Anson did not reach Juan Fernandez, the island of Robinson Crusoe, or at least of his original Alexander Selkirk, till 10th June, with his crew reduced to a mere handful by scurvy. The =Trial=, the =Gloucester=, and the =Anna= came in one after the other. The last was broken up, and her crew taken into the other vessels. It was September before the crews were sufficiently revived for service. During the last months of 1741 and the first of 1742, Anson remained on the coast taking prizes and capturing Paita. The =Trial= was condemned. His squadron was too weak to effect anything against Panama, and he missed the heavily laden ship, which came yearly from the Philippines to Acapulco, in Mexico. On the 28th April he left the American coast and stretched across the Pacific. Storms and scurvy raged round him again, and the =Gloucester= had to be sacrificed. The =Centurion= now alone remained. With her, Anson reached Canton, 21st November 1742, where he refitted. Then he took the sea once more to look for the Manila treasure-ship. On the 20th June 1743 he met and captured the _Nuestra Señora de Covadonga_, a prize of immense value, off Cape Espiritu Santo, in the Philippines. As a feat of war the achievement was naught, for the Spaniard had most of his guns dismounted, and fought at hopeless disadvantage. Anson’s greatness comes from this—that he conquered so much to be there at all. He returned with his prize to Canton, sailed for home on the 15th October 1743, and reached Spithead on the 15th June 1744.

The naval operations carried out against Spain in Europe were in themselves insignificant, and are only worth noticing because they led to war with France. The actual declaration of war was not made till 1744, by France on the 20th March, by England on the 31st, but it was a pure formality. Conflicts had already taken place on the sea between the ships of the two nations; the battle of Dettingen, in which English troops took part as allies of Maria Teresa, had been fought, and an attempt had been made to cover an invasion of England in the interests of the Jacobites. France was openly giving moral and material support to Spain before actually joining her. While the great expedition to the West Indies was preparing, Sir John Balchen was dispatched to the Spanish coast with a small squadron. It was characteristic of our half-hearted way of conducting the war that he was ordered out only to capture the treasure-ships. They, however, were warned in time, and so came safe home to Santander. Balchen was in some danger of falling in with a much superior force sent out by the Spaniards to look for him, and returned having effected nothing. Meanwhile Haddock was watching Cadiz, not so vigilantly, however, but that a Spanish squadron got away unimpeached by us, and reached Ferrol. The Spanish Government collected troops on the east coast as if to threaten Minorca, and on the north as if in preparation for an invasion of England, to be supported, it was hoped, by help from the Jacobites. The apparent danger of Minorca distracted Haddock, who was even short-handed till reinforced by a squadron under Lestock. At home a powerful force was collected under Sir John Norris to repel the threatened invasion. He sailed twice to watch Ferrol, but was driven back by storms in July and August. When 1740 ended, we had certainly done nothing proportionate to our immense numerical superiority. The Spanish fleets lay quiet in port, or slipped away to the West Indies, and the Basque privateers were active even in the Channel. In 1741 there was no change. Sir John Norris was again at sea in the Channel and Bay of Biscay, but to little purpose. Haddock, with his fleet reinforced by Rear-Admiral Lestock, continued to watch Don José Navarro at Cadiz. In December the English fleet had become very foul, and was compelled to go into Gibraltar and clean. Navarro at once put to sea, and entered the Mediterranean. Meanwhile a French fleet under M. de Court had left Toulon, and advanced south along the coast of Spain. So soon as he knew that the Spaniards had passed him, Haddock started in pursuit, but only came up in time to see the French and Spanish fleets join, and to find himself in the presence of a very superior force. It was notorious that M. de Court would support Navarro if attacked, but since France was still endeavouring to make war and keep peace at one and the same time, he would not attack us. Haddock was allowed to go on to Minorca. The allies covered the passage of some Spanish troops to Italy, and then went into Toulon. Here they remained till February 1744. Haddock, old and worn-out, resigned his command to Lestock at the close of 1741. In May 1742 Admiral Mathews came out with a commission not only to command the fleet but to be Minister at the court of Sardinia. It would have been difficult to make a worse choice. He was stupid, boorish, illiterate, and of a violent temper, which earned him in Italy the nickname of “Il Furibondo.” Moreover, he had a long-standing quarrel with Lestock, and had asked that this officer might be recalled. The Ministry did not consent, and Mathews revenged himself by coarse insolence to his subordinate. A proud man would have sought his own recall; but Lestock was only sulky and malignant.

During 1742 some service was done. In June a squadron of Spanish galleys was burnt at St. Tropez by fireships under the command of Captain Callis, who earned the last gold collar and badge given for this kind of service. In August a detached squadron under Captain Martin forced the Bourbon king of the Two Sicilies to withdraw the troops he had sent to serve against our ally the Queen of Hungary by threatening to bombard Naples. With these exceptions, 1742 and 1743 wore away, while Mathews was mostly at Turin, and his fleet lay at anchor without practice at sea. Some acts of violence on the coast of Italy are recorded against our captains. The British Minister at Florence, Sir Horace Mann, who looked upon them, with the sole exception of Captain Temple West, as “genteel porpoises,” asserts that when some of our men robbed a church of a cross and of the sacrament, Mathews hung the cross round the neck of his pet monkey, and stuck the consecrated wafer on the beast’s forehead. The tardy determination of France to take an active part on the sea gave a stimulus to the war in the early days of 1744.

In this year she acted with some vigour both in the Channel and in the Mediterranean. At the close of 1743 troops had been collected at Dunkirk for an invasion again, in the hope of causing a Jacobite rebellion. A fleet of twenty-four sail was armed at Brest, and put under the command of M. de Roquefeuil. He sailed at the end of January, was off the Eddystone on the 3rd February 1744, and had come as high as Dungeness by the 24th. The peril served for a moment to calm the feuds of the politicians, for the country was terribly frightened. English soldiers and foreign mercenaries were called in from abroad, and we applied to the Dutch for the contingent they were bound to supply by treaty. A fleet was collected under Sir John Norris in the Downs, and a battle seemed inevitable. But a succession of heavy gales from the east and north-east drove the French out of the Channel back to Brest, and the peril passed away.

While the wind and the inefficiency of the enemy were standing our friends in the Channel, a transaction was taking place in the Mediterranean which did us little honour and was the beginning of infinite bitterness. It was known by the end of 1743 that France was coming actively into the naval war. In January 1744 Mathews came down from Turin, where he had been acting as Minister, and resumed his functions of admiral. His fleet was at anchor in the roadstead of Hyères, between the mainland and the islands of Porquerolles, and there it remained till M. de Court and Don José Navarro put to sea from Toulon on the 19th February. It consisted of twenty ships of the line when he rejoined it, but was raised by reinforcements to twenty-nine. The allies numbered twenty-eight, twelve of them being Spaniards. One of the Spanish ships, the _Real Felipe_, carried 116 guns, and her fellows were fine ships. The French were somewhat inferior, and the weight of metal as well as of numbers was in favour of Mathews, but the battle which followed was a disgrace alike to the discipline, the intelligence, and, with a few exceptions, even to the manhood of the navy.

When the enemy was known to be at sea, we struggled out from Hyères, foul from long lying at anchor, and clumsy from want of practice. The code of signals, too, was arbitrary and poor. The same signal was found both in the fighting and the sailing orders, and meant different things in each. During the 10th February and the night of the 10th-11th Mathews’ fleet struggled towards the enemy in light breezes and baffling currents. On the morning of the 11th it had got between the enemy and Toulon. The van under Admiral Rowley and the centre where Mathews was himself, were in a position to force a battle on the allies, who lay in a line to the south and west of them, heading to the west with the French in the van and centre, and the Spaniards in the rear, and therefore nearest us. But the English rear under Lestock had drifted apart in the night, and was five miles astern. In the light breezes it could not come up in time to be of use. Yet Admiral Mathews decided to give battle. We bore down at one in the afternoon, so that the English van came into action with the French centre, and the English centre with the Spanish ships behind M. de Court. If the breezes had been stronger, or the French more alert, their van might have doubled back, and have put our leading ships between two fires. They did not, and Admiral Rowley maintained a lively cannonade with M. de Court till the French admiral turned in the evening to help the Spaniards, whom he believed to be hard pressed. At that part of the line there had been not only failure but shame. Admiral Mathews brought the Spaniards to an action. He would have made it close had several of his captains not been “shy.” He himself in the =Namur= showed the courage which is the redeeming quality of his type, and stood out of his line with the signal for the line still flying in order to come closer to the enemy. Captain Cornwall of the =Marlborough= fought the great _Real Felipe_ nobly, being himself mortally wounded, and his ship cut to pieces. Captain Edward Hawke in the =Berwick= set a fine example, and compelled the Spanish _Poder_ to strike. But with these exceptions nobody did brilliantly and several captains showed what, if it was not actual cowardice, was the kind of confusion and stupidity which keep a man well away from the enemy. These “cankers of a long peace” proved once more that a loud voice, a blustering manner, and a parade of brutality are no guarantees of courage. A notable feature of the battle was that it gives the last example of the old practice of using a fireship in action. One was sent down to burn the _Real Felipe_, but the result showed the limitations of this old-fashioned weapon. She was reduced to a sinking state by the well-directed fire of the Spaniard, who also sent out a boat to tow her clear. It was perhaps fortunate for us that she was shattered by an explosion, and went down, since the enemy might possibly have turned her against the =Marlborough=, then lying crippled where she had pushed in among their own ships. Night and the confusion of both sides ended the battle, but the allies had suffered some rough handling, and were chiefly intent on retreat. Mathews might well have renewed the action when he was at last joined by Lestock. He came, however, to the strange conclusion that he could not follow the enemy, because it was his duty to protect the coast of our allies in Italy—though it would surely have taxed a less torpid intellect than his to say what that coast was to be protected against, unless it were the very fleet he was refusing to pursue. The enemy was actually allowed to recover the _Poder_, which he abandoned, and to retire unmolested to Carthagena. The _Poder_ was then burnt by us. Mathews returned to Mahon, where he solaced his feelings by putting Admiral Lestock under arrest.

The failure off Toulon, coming as it did after a long succession of repulses in the West Indies, and futilities in Europe where nothing effectual had been done to intercept the Spanish fleets, stirred the country to deep anger. The news came slowly, and it was not until Lestock had returned under arrest, and Mathews had resigned and had come home, that their recriminations began to bring out the whole truth. Parliament took the matter up, and carried out a preliminary inquiry during April and March of 1745. Lestock and others were heard at the bar, and Mathews, who was a member, in his place. The debate left him, according to Horace Walpole, “in the light of a hot, brave, imperious, dull, confused fellow,” and it also left the House persuaded that a court martial must be held on the whole battle. On the 18th of April, the Commons with their Speaker waited on the king at St. James’s Palace with a petition that a “court martial may be held in the most speedy and solemn manner, to inquire into the conduct of Admiral Mathews, Vice-Admiral Lestock, Captains Burrish, Norris, Ambrose, Frogmore, and Dilk,” together with that of the lieutenants of the =Dorsetshire=, who were accused of misleading their captain, Burrish. The king granted the petition. The measure was somewhat irregular, and might be represented as trenching on the rights of the Admiralty,—it was so considered by Anson who was now on the Board,—but the case was exceptional, and it was by no means certain that the Admiralty would have acted if Parliament had not applied firm pressure. The action it took is one more reminder that, in the dullest times, the country has always been in earnest about its navy. It may, as Sir Charles Pasley has said, have played with the army, which it long regarded with jealous distrust and dislike, but where the navy was concerned it knew that its very existence was at stake. Therefore, though tolerant of much corruption in the naval, as in other branches of the administration, it was roused to wrath, and the resolve to have the whole truth out, by any failure on the sea.

A court martial, consisting of no less than twenty-four members, and presided over by Sir Chaloner Ogle, began to sit on the 11th September 1745. First it tried the four lieutenants of the =Dorsetshire=, whom their captain had accused in order to clear himself, and acquitted them. Then it tried Captain Burrish, and condemned him to be cashiered. Captain E. Williams of the =Royal Oak= was next tried and condemned, but with less severity on the ground that he was old and nearly blind. Captain John Ambrose of the =Rupert=, who had shown courage and zeal in single ship actions, was yet condemned for misconduct at Toulon, and sentenced to be cashiered during the king’s pleasure. He was restored in rank, but never again employed, and died a superannuated rear-admiral. Captain Dilk of the =Chichester= shared his fate. Captain Frogmore of the =Boyne= died before the trial. Captain Norris of the =Essex= did not dare to face a court martial. He fled into Spain from Gibraltar, and was never heard of more. Five supplementary trials were held on Captains Pelt, Sclater, Temple West, Cooper, and Lloyd. The last three named were sentenced to be cashiered, but the finding was generally considered unjust, and all three were restored. The sentence of the court in this case is worth noting. Temple West and his colleagues had been stationed in the van with Admiral Rowley, and had taken steps to prevent the French ships, which stretched ahead of our line, from doubling back and putting us between two fires. It is doubtful whether the enemy had any such design, though his movements seemed to show that he had, and the counter-measures of these captains were correct. But they had acted without the express orders of their superior. They were therefore to be punished, not for doing what was wrong, but for doing what was right without orders. Observe that the punishment inflicted on them for what at the worst was a pardonable, even an honourable error of judgment, was identical with the penalty imposed on Captain Burrish, who showed the white feather. We have to come to the conclusion that, according to the principles of a court martial at that time, it was better that an English fleet should be defeated than that an officer should disregard an order no longer applicable to the circumstances, or act with independent intelligence. If this rule had continued to prevail, Nelson would have been cashiered for his bold move at St. Vincent.

That some such rule did prevail in their dim minds is indeed obvious from the result of the two great trials which followed on these small ones. Vice-Admiral Lestock was tried in May 1746, and honourably acquitted. The charges against him were, in substance, that on the night before the battle, when the signal to form the line was flying, the admiral signalled the fleet to lie to for the night. At that moment Admiral Lestock’s squadron was separated from the main body of the fleet. On any intelligent interpretation of the orders it is clear that Lestock should first have joined the other ships, and should then have lain to with them. He preferred to lie to at once, and drifted still farther apart in the night. Next day he was five or six miles astern. He pleaded that he could not come up, and that as the signal for the line was flying he was bound to remain in a line even although that kept him out of the action. One thing is abundantly clear from his defence, and it is that whenever he saw a conflict of orders Lestock habitually preferred that one of the two which kept him away from his admiral, and well out of reach of the enemy. In after times Rodney, who served in this fleet before the battle, and who knew the men, recorded on the margin of Clerk’s _Naval Tactics_ his firm conviction that Lestock had betrayed his admiral. Rodney was headlong in his judgments, but his is the voice of one seaman of that time judging another, and shows what charges were not thought incredible. Certain it is that Lestock behaved like a man who was very glad of any excuse not to help a superior whom he hated. Yet he was honourably acquitted.

There now remained nothing to be done but to try Admiral Mathews. He appeared before a court martial in June 1746—and was sentenced to be cashiered. That he was a stupid man, and was equally unfit to be a minister plenipotentiary or an admiral, is true. In giving up the pursuit of the allies, and so losing his chance to renew the battle, he showed extreme dulness and even want of spirit. But in the action he had fought manfully, and if his example had been well followed the Spanish squadron would in all probability have been cut to pieces. His great sin in the opinion of the court was that he engaged in such a way as to make the maintenance of the line impossible while the signal to preserve it was flying. Again we have to arrive at the conclusion that, from the point of view of the court martial, it was better that the enemy should not be brought to action than that the line should be disordered. Such a result could only have been reached by men who had never spent an hour in thinking out the methods of fighting a battle to the best purpose, but had simply accepted the sixteenth article of the Fighting Orders with the docility of pedants. The consequence of their finding was to rivet the tyranny of a pedantic rule so firmly that it required forty years of war, and an extraordinary combination of happy circumstances at the end of them, to free the navy from its bonds.

In the course of these trials an incident took place which is of interest, because it settled the question of the subordination of the military to the civil courts. The President of the court martial formed to try Admiral Mathews was Perry Mayne, Rear-Admiral of the Blue. It happened that Admiral Mayne had sat on a court martial in the West Indies to try a lieutenant of marines named Frye, and had sentenced him to dismissal and imprisonment. Lieutenant Frye took proceedings against the members of the court in England for acting beyond their powers and for imprisoning him illegally. He gained his case, and £800 damages. In the course of these proceedings a writ was issued by Sir John Willes, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, against Perry Mayne and Captain Rentoul, another of Mathews’ judges, who also had sat on the court martial. The other members of the court were extremely angry at this interference with their President, and recorded a violent protest against the action of Sir John Willes, in which they were encouraged not only by the king, who was a German prince, and very ignorant of English ways to the end of his life, but by the Lords of the Admiralty and Corbet the Secretary, who ought to have known better. Sir John Willes at once asserted his authority by attaching all the members of the court for contempt. They were compelled to present a very humble and public apology.

While the failures of the chiefs who had risen during the long peace and their quarrels were filling the eyes and ears of the world, a great work was beginning to be done for the Royal Navy, quietly and within the walls of the Admiralty. It dated from December 1744, when Anson was appointed as a member of the new Board, with the Duke of Bedford as head. The duke was an indolent, great noble, who served the state because public life was proper to a man of his rank. But he was honest and sincerely patriotic. Though too much accustomed to a splendid and pleasure-seeking life to be a hard worker himself, he supported Anson steadily. Other politicians, and notably the Duke of Newcastle, were too incapable, and too completely devoted to jobbery, to give any

## active help, but self-interest made them understand that something

must be done for the navy. The country would not tolerate a repetition of the miscarriages of the early years of the war, and efforts must be made to bring about an improvement, if the eminent persons engaged in the parliamentary, and court, scuffling of kites and crows, were to be safe in their lives and estates. A good method of securing this desirable end was to obtain the services of a competent workman, and to let him labour unhampered. No better help could have been found than Anson’s. The great seaman’s connection with the administrative work of the navy began in 1744, and continued with brief interruptions till his death in 1762. Until 1751 he served as a subordinate under Bedford and Bedford’s successor, the Earl of Sandwich, who both trusted him. After that date he was himself First Lord, almost continually. Anson was not fitted to shine in the society of London. He could not shake off the silent retiring habits formed during long years of cruising in solitary command at a time when the chief was accustomed to keep all subordinates at an awful distance. He was proud and shy, a little hard too, and inclined to be grasping, as strenuous ambitious men commonly are. It is therefore not surprising that he excited a good deal of dislike, and laid himself open to the attacks of writers so different, and so well able to make their voices heard, as Horace Walpole and Smollett. We, whose ambitions he has not disappointed, and whose advances he did not snub, can judge him by another standard. We can remember that if he took care of his own fortunes, he also worked hard to improve the quality of our shipbuilding, and, what was even more important, to improve the quality of the senior ranks of the navy, while he did a great deal to promote inquiry into, and reform of, the corruptions of the dockyards.

Some years had to pass before the new spirit, hampered as it necessarily was by inherited evils, could produce much effect. A glance at the operations of 1744 will show from what a low level of energy the naval administration had to be raised. Though the retreat of M. de Roquefeuil before Sir John Norris and the February gales had shown the weakness of our enemy, we yet called upon the Dutch to send the twenty ships they were bound to supply by treaty. These vessels were duly sent. Nothing effectual was done with the large force now collected. In April and May Sir Charles Hardy with the Grand Fleet escorted the Mediterranean trade as far south as Lisbon. The French, after the failure of Roquefeuil’s cruise, had reverted to the plundering warfare of the former war. Fourteen vessels were sent out in twos and threes with orders to join at sea and attack our commerce, under the command of M. de Rochambeau. Admiral Hardy protected the trade against his attacks till it was safe in the Portuguese ports, and then returned home. The return voyage was marked by an incident which gives no high opinion either of the discipline of the fleet or of its intelligence. On the 8th May a sail was seen to the northward, and Captain Watson of the =Northumberland=, 74, was ordered to chase, but not to lose sight of the fleet. He did lose sight. A mist came on, but a gun was heard by the officers on deck, Captain Watson himself being in his cabin, and was understood to be a signal of recall. The captain came up, but continued to hold on, although a second signal was reported by the midshipman on the forecastle. In the afternoon the mist lifted, and the =Northumberland= was found to be close to two large French warships, the _Content_, 60, and the _Mars_, 68, which had a frigate, the _Venus_, 26, with them. At this time the =Northumberland= was not cleared for action, nor indeed was she ever in proper order throughout the fight. The master, James Dixon, implored the captain to get his ship into better condition, but no notice was taken. A midshipman named Best swore at the court martial that he heard the master say to the chaplain that it was sad Captain Watson should take the ship into

## action in the condition he was in. When asked what he understood by

this, he answered that he supposed the master to mean that captain “was in liquor.” The evidence was not tested, though both the master and chaplain were present. Captain Watson’s actions were certainly not those of a sober man. He bore down on the two Frenchmen, passing the _Content_, which was nearest and engaging the _Mars_, whereby he enabled both to fall on him at once. The =Northumberland= was cut to pieces. Captain Watson received first one wound and then a second. He staggered to the accommodation ladder, and stood holding to the railing and bleeding to death. The master, it was sworn, came on the quarter-deck “with his hands in his breeches and his hat on, seemingly in a surly mood.” He declared that there were no men to fight the ship, and indeed the crew were running from the guns, while all the marines on the poop who were not shot had escaped below. In these conditions the flag was hauled down. The master gave the command after appealing to the captain to surrender, in order to save the men from being killed “like cows.” The first lieutenant, Craven, made a motion to hoist it up again, and even spoke of blowing the ship up rather than surrender her to the enemy. But his heroism did not go beyond words, and indeed the =Northumberland= was in no condition to fight further. Yet he was the superior officer, and, if he had wished to repeat the heroism of Sir Richard Grenville, had all the necessary authority. The court martial acquitted the lieutenant honourably, but sentenced the master to imprisonment for life in the Marshalsea. It would have sentenced him to death, but took the more merciful course in consideration of the good advice he gave the captain, which, if it had been followed, would have prevented the loss of the ship.

Here, by way of illustration, may be taken the case of another vessel, lost in the following year. This was the =Anglesea=, 40, commanded by Captain Elton. She was cruising on the south coast of Ireland, and fell in, off the Old Head of Kinsale, with the _Apollo_, a French privateer of 56 guns. Captain Elton rushed into action with all the folly of Captain Watson. His decks were not cleared, nor his men properly at quarters. The gunner could not as much as get the key of the powder magazine till the last moment. So ill did Captain Elton handle his ship that he allowed the Frenchman, who was to windward, to cross his stern, rake him, and range up on the lee side. As the =Anglesea= was one of the crank ships then common in our navy, she heeled over so much that the water ran in at her ports. Thus she lay, with her upper deck exposed to the small-arm fire of the Frenchman, her hull and rigging at the mercy of a heavier broadside than her own. In twenty minutes she was a beaten ship. Captain Elton fell, shot through the body. Two of his men took him down to the surgeon, but on reaching the main-deck from the quarter-deck found he was dead, and so left him. The ship was surrendered by Lieutenant Baker Philipps. The court martial found that the chief cause of the loss of the vessel was the negligent and unofficerlike conduct of Captain Elton. Yet it sentenced Philipps to be shot, though with a recommendation to mercy in which all joined except the President. Baker Philipps was shot. Admiral Vernon afterwards quoted this as a proof that naval courts martial did their duty. The shocking contrast between the cruel severity shown to this young officer and the scandalously light sentences passed on greater offenders, had probably not a little to do with making Parliament see that the naval court martial had to be taken in hand.

Sir Charles Hardy’s own work was half done. He returned home, leaving M. de Rochambeau at sea. The Frenchman blockaded the merchant ships in Lisbon. Among them were vessels on their way out with stores for the garrisons and ships in the Mediterranean. The necessity for

## action was pressing, and a fleet was sent out. It is a proof of the

little confidence felt in the senior officers of the day that the work was entrusted to Sir John Balchen, a veteran of the wars of King William and Queen Anne, who had fought some forty years before as captain against Duguay-Trouin with more courage than success, and had lately been appointed Governor of Greenwich Hospital as a reward for long service. In spite of his great age (he was seventy-five), and his claim to exemption, Balchen left his well-earned rest, and took command of the fleet. He drove off Rochambeau, saw the trade safe to Gibraltar, and returned home in September. On the 4th October the fleet was scattered by a great storm at the entry to the Channel. Balchen’s flagship, the =Victory=, disappeared during the night of the 4th-5th October with her crew of a thousand men. She was considered an ill-built vessel and may have capsized, but Guernsey tradition asserted that the sound of minute guns was heard from the Casketts through the gale, and it was guessed that the =Victory= had been driven on the rocks. In one way or the other the sea took its own.

During 1745 the fleets cruised unopposed. In the Mediterranean Admiral Rowley, who had succeeded Mathews, blockaded the Spaniards at Carthagena. He was so superior that he was able to send ships to harass the French trade as far off as the West Indies, to watch Cadiz, and to act against those Italian states in alliance with France. In America a squadron sent from the Leeward islands under Commodore Warren, covered the expedition from New England, a partly patriotic and

## partly commercial speculation of the colonists, which took Louisbourg

in Cape Breton from the French in April, May, and June. Our enemies were so incapable and so unenterprising that our fleet had little to do. During the latter part of the year the interest of the country was mainly turned on the Jacobite rising. The share of the navy in this passage of our history was naturally important, since it had to prevent the French from sending help to the Jacobites. But no serious move was made by the French fleet, and no opportunity for service other than patrolling the coast, and capturing single ships which endeavoured to slip in with money and stores for the Prince, presented itself. The navy did indeed contribute materially to make the rising less serious than it might have been. Prince Charles had sailed from Nantes with two vessels, the _Doutelle_, a small craft in which he himself sailed, and the _Elizabeth_, a 64-gun ship employed to carry the bulk of his arms. When on the 47th parallel and thirty-nine leagues west of the Lizard, they were met by the =Lion=, 58, commanded by Piercy Brett. He had been one of Anson’s lieutenants, and had been appointed by him captain of the =Centurion= at Canton. As the commodore was not authorised to have a captain under him the Admiralty refused to confirm the commission. Anson, in great anger, had refused to accept promotion to the rank of the rear-admiral. The ministerial change of December 1744 had brought him back, and Brett, who had been made captain in the interval, was allowed to date his seniority from his appointment at Canton. He now attacked the _Elizabeth_, and the two fought one of the fiercest of recorded single ship actions. They were so well matched that they beat one another to a standstill, but the substantial fruits of victory remained with the =Lion=, for the _Elizabeth_ was compelled to put back. The _Doutelle_ went on and reached Scotland.

In 1746 the success of the Colonial expedition against Louisbourg, encouraged the Government to fit out an imitation of it to attack Quebec. Lestock, who retained a very ill-deserved reputation for capacity, was appointed to command the ships, and Lieutenant-General St. Clair, the troops, consisting of some engineers and artillery with six regiments of foot. The preparations were delayed till the season was passed for a voyage across the Atlantic. It was therefore sent to the French coast on raiding expedition. Nothing need be recorded of it save that it did not sail till the 14th of September, that troops were landed cleverly enough to the west of Port Louis on the southern coast of Brittany, and then re-embarked when it was found that they had no means of taking the town of L’Orient, which lies a little behind Port Louis and further up the river Blavet. L’Orient was the dockyard of the French East India Company, and its destruction was much desired by us. After failing at L’Orient, the expedition went on to Quiberon Bay, where it again landed soldiers, and again found that there was nothing to be done. Finally the transports carried the soldiers to Ireland, and Lestock returned to Portsmouth.

In the following year, 1747, the new spirit at the Admiralty began to tell. The fleet was employed with vigour on well-selected services, and was rewarded with proportionate success. It was no longer used to convey insufficient military expeditions to besiege towns they had not the means of taking, or to invade countries they were not numerous enough to occupy. The French Government was stung by the fall of Louisbourg, and by the news from India, into making efforts to use its fleet to better purpose, and the increase of activity on both sides gave an energy to the naval war it had not as yet possessed. In spring it was known that two squadrons were to sail from France together and were to divide at sea—one, commanded by M. de la Jonquière, was then to steer for America, and the other, of which M. St. George was the chief, was to sail for India. They were composed of eight king’s ships, and of six of the vessels of the French East India Company. Transports and merchant vessels were to go under their protection. A squadron of sixteen ships of from 40 to 90 guns were formed to intercept them, and Anson took the command while still retaining his seat on the Board. It is characteristic of the prevailing jobbery of the time that this force was not got together without the necessity of defeating an intrigue. Two of the vessels selected to serve under Anson were the =Defiance=, 60, Captain Grenville, and the =Bristol=, 50, of which William Montagu, commonly called Mad Montagu, a brother of Lord Sandwich, was captain. Neither of these officers was wanting in spirit. Grenville was killed in the action of the 3rd May, fighting most gallantly, and whatever could have been said against the sense of Mad Montagu, a noisy violent man of much deliberate eccentricity whose rôle it was to play the rattlepated Jack Tar, his courage was above dispute. But both would have preferred to cruise alone, and pick up prizes. Grenville belonged to the famous “cousinhood” of the name, and his cousin George Grenville, who was on the Board, attempted a little manœuvre on his behalf. An order to Anson not to keep the =Defiance= and =Bristol= with him for more than seven days was put into a letter which the Duke of Bedford was expected to sign without looking at it. The Duke did detect the trick, and refused to sign, declaring that “they should deserve to be hanged for it if it was done.”

Anson sailed for his station off Finisterre on the 9th April, sent his look-out sloops to watch Rochefort, and stretched his fleet out in a line abreast, each ship a mile from the other, in order to diminish the risk that the enemy would pass undiscovered. In the early morning of the 3rd May the =Falcon= sloop brought the news that she had seen the French the day before steering for the west. Anson called in all cruisers, collected his ships, and steered to cross the presumed route of the enemy. Between nine and ten the French squadron was seen to the S.W. It was at first not possible to estimate its strength, for warships and transports were all sailing together, and the one could not be distinguished from the other. Anson therefore kept his fleet in a body lest he should meet an equal enemy whom it would be rash to attack in disorder. As the space between the two fleets was reduced, it was seen that the French had divided. Nine vessels were formed in a line to meet our attack, while the others were making off to leeward. La Jonquière and St. George had, in fact, no more than that number of vessels fit to meet line-of-battle ships. When the inferiority of the enemy’s force was seen, Anson ordered a general chase. The English captains went into action at their best speed, attacking the enemy on both sides. The French fought brilliantly, but the superiority of force against them was so overwhelming that they could do no more than sacrifice themselves bravely in order to give their charge time to escape, which many of the merchant ships did succeed in doing. Six of the French king’s ships and four of the Company’s were taken. Yet the French sold their defeat dear. Five hundred and twenty men were killed and wounded in our ships. The loss of the enemy was about seven hundred. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when the first of the English ships—Anson’s old ship the =Centurion=, now commanded by his former lieutenant, Denis—came up with the rear of the French ships as they were edging away to leeward, and hoping to delay our attack by showing a firm front till the night should come. The action was over at seven. Anson was made a peer for the victory, which filled the country with well-grounded delight. Our superiority in numbers and weight of ships was great, and as a battle the action of the 3rd May was not glorious, but here was a success won by foresight, good management, and

## activity against a gallant enemy. It was the first time that so much

could be said since the war began in 1739, and it was the promise of greater things to come.

On the 21st-22nd June, some six weeks after Anson had ruined the French expeditions to America and India, Captain Thomas Fox, who was cruising with a small squadron on the 47th degree of North Latitude, met and scattered the valuable convoy coming home from San Domingo. Forty-eight prizes were taken by our ships, and the injury inflicted went beyond the material loss, for the disaster showed how little able the French were to protect their sea-borne commerce against the British Navy. They were too weak to keep the road open, in face of energetic direction given to our forces by the new Admiralty. Before the close of the year a third blow drove the lesson well home, and did a great deal to bring France to recognise the necessity for making peace. The outward bound trading ships to the French West Indies were collected at Rochelle. A strong squadron of eight line-of-battle ships of the French Royal Navy, and of one 64-gun ship belonging to the Indian Company, was told off to protect them. The Chef d’escadre, or Rear-Admiral, Desherbiers de l’Etanduère, was in command, with his flag flying in the _Tonnant_, 80, a noble vessel. Indeed l’Etanduère’s squadron was a stronger one than La Jonquière’s, and the vessels composing it were superior in build and strength to our ships of the same nominal force. A powerful squadron was prepared to intercept this convoy. What was wanted in quality of ships we made up in number, and fourteen vessels were sent to overpower the French nine. The command was given to Rear-Admiral Edward Hawke, the captain of the =Berwick=, whose gallantry had stood out brilliantly against a background of blundering and pusillanimity in the battle of Toulon five years before.

Being fixed by the necessity they were under of reaching the West Indies soon after the end of the hurricane season in October, the enemy’s time of sailing could be calculated. Hawke left England on the 9th August for his cruising ground, the latitude of from 46° to 48° N. The enemy was sighted on the 14th October. The ensuing action was an almost exact reproduction of Anson’s engagement with La Jonquière. Hawke has had an affectionate biographer in our time, and the glory he won twelve years after this meeting with the convoy reflects back on all his life. Therefore he has naturally been credited with displaying great originality, but the truth is that he followed the pattern given him by Anson six months before, down to the details. The English ships approached in order, till they were near enough to estimate the enemy’s inferior numbers. Then they went ahead in general chase, attacking on both sides, and crushing their opponent by weight of numbers. As l’Etanduère’s squadron was stronger than La Jonquière’s, it made a harder fight. The French flagship, the _Tonnant_, proved too much for any of our vessels, and in company with the _Intrépide_, commanded by the Count of Vaudreuil, broke her way through and escaped. Captain Philip Saumarez in the =Nottingham=, 60, who pursued the two for a time, was killed. But six of the eight French were taken. They did not surrender till they were thoroughly wrecked. As his own vessels were severely cut up, Hawke made his way home and reached port on the 31st October. Meanwhile the French merchant ships, protected by the _Content_ and a frigate, had continued their voyage and had escaped for the time being. Hawke, however, took the precaution to send a sloop to the West Indies with the news, and many of the French vessels were captured by our cruisers when nearing their destination.

It will be observed that on both these occasions the French officers secured the escape of the vessels put under their protection. The substantial victory may therefore, in a sense, be said to have been theirs, since they did what they were sent out to do. The question then arises whether Anson and Hawke could not have done better, since they were sent out to interrupt the enemy’s commerce, and since they had a superiority of nearly two to one in fighting ships. They might have detached four sail to pursue the trading vessels, and still have left themselves a superiority over the French squadron of twelve to nine on the 3rd May, and of ten to eight on the 9th October. Yet the policy of making the destruction of the fighting force of our enemy as near as might be a certainty was the sound one, since, if his fleet was once driven off the sea, his convoys could not sail at all. Moreover, it is to be remembered that in 1747 the general bad quality of our ships might well lead our admirals to think that they could not afford to dispense with any superiority of numbers over the French.

With Hawke’s victory the naval war in Europe came to an end. In the East Indies, however, it continued. One of the few relieving features in the dulness of this war—or these wars, the Spanish and the French—is the extension of the activity of our fleet into the remote east. Hitherto when the Royal Navy had gone to the Indian Seas it had been on particular missions, but from 1744 it acted there continuously, and in squadrons, for so long as the countries were at war in Europe. Not that anything the navy did there was very flattering to our pride. Rather the contrary, indeed, since the dispensation by which it was arranged that while we were bad, our enemy should be even worse, was nowhere more conspicuously to our advantage. Yet it marks one step in the growth of the navy that it is found taking over its duties on the other side of the world.

In 1744 a squadron of 4 ships, two of 60, one of 50, and one of 20 guns, was sent to the Eastern Seas under Commodore Curtis Barnett. Here at once there is occasion to note how well we were served by the folly of our opponent. A man was then at Paris who was admirably qualified to defeat any enterprise we might undertake against the French posts in India. This was Bertrand Mahé de la Bourdonnais, governor of the French islands of Bourbon and Mauritius. He had not been trained as a king’s officer, though the rank of Capitaine de Frégate was conferred upon him. He was a native of St. Malo, a merchant skipper and trader. But he had acquired all the knowledge needed to make a skilful naval commander, and had shown great faculty in his government. La Bourdonnais was convinced that England would attack the French settlements in the East, and he laid a scheme before the king’s ministers for forestalling us. His plan was accepted, and he was promised a squadron of five vessels. But La Bourdonnais, most happily for us, had excited the hostility of the French East Company by his self-assertive character, and his exposures of its corruptions, and his talent for scornful retort. The company opposed his scheme, and had influence enough to get it laid aside. It persuaded itself and the king’s ministers that it would be possible to maintain neutrality with the English East India Company. Neither thought fit to consider the probable action of the British Government, which might very well decline to be guided by the company. Being deprived of the force promised to him, La Bourdonnais was driven back on his own resources, and on those he could draw from the islands.

Commodore Barnett sailed from Spithead on the 5th May 1744, and after touching at Porto Praya in the Cape Verd islands, went on to the Indian Ocean. After rounding the Cape, he visited Madagascar, where fresh meat could always be got from the natives, and then stood over to the coast of Sumatra. He detached two of his vessels to take post in the Straits of Malacca, between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, and himself went through the Straits of Sunda, between Sumatra and Java, and took up his station in the Banca Straits, between Sumatra and Borneo. He was thus on the trade route between China and the European possessions on the coast of Coromandel. On the 25th January 1745 three French China ships of great value sailed right into his hands. In these far seas he did not trouble to look for an Admiralty Court, but carried his prizes into Batavia, sold them to the Dutch for £92,000, and divided the proceeds at the capstan head. Then he came across to Madras.

The relations between the English and the French Company did, to some extent, justify those who held that a neutrality could be maintained if the traders only were considered. The English Company was flourishing, and asked nothing better than to be allowed to trade in peace. The French Company was not so well off, and therefore was much more lean, hungry, and disposed to adventure. But it was not strong on land, and at sea had so far no force. A tacit arrangement was made by which the French promised to abstain from attacking us by land, so long as Barnett did not assail them from the sea. The Company persuaded the commodore to accept this arrangement, and 1745 passed in insignificant movements. Barnett died in the spring of 1746 at Fort St. Davids.

The command now fell to the senior captain, Edward Peyton, and its fortunes in his hands have caused the death of Barnett to be esteemed a misfortune. The arrival of reinforcements from home and arming of a prize taken from the French had raised the number of the squadron to six, one of 60, three of 50, one of 40, and one of 20 guns. It had, therefore, a total of 270 guns, and all the vessels, with the exception perhaps of the French prize, were built for war. The quality of the squadron must be taken into account in estimating what followed. While our ships were idly parading the Bay of Bengal, La Bourdonnais was straining every nerve to fit out a squadron at the Île de France, now Mauritius. In the spring of 1746 he had scraped together, by all kinds of devices and makeshifts, eight vessels, one of them being a man-of-war mounting 70 guns, and the others converted merchant ships of from 26 to 36 guns. The total was 292, and most of the pieces were small. The vessels were indeed full of men, but a large proportion of them were Lascars and Caffres. La Bourdonnais sailed on the 29th March, and after nearly suffering total shipwreck on Madagascar left it for the Coromandel coast in May, and arrived there in June. On the 25th of this month, before he had touched at any of the French settlements, he met the English squadron at sea between Fort St. Davids, at Cuddalore, and Negapatam, to the south of Pondicherry, the chief French port. Knowing his inferiority in artillery La Bourdonnais tried to come to close quarters and overpower the English by the number of his men. Peyton baffled this effort by keeping well to windward, and the encounter resolved itself into a distant cannonade, by which one of the French ships was crippled and very little harm was done to us. That little was enough to deprive Peyton of all desire to meet the French again. He held a council of war next morning, and by its advice sailed away to Trincomalee, leaving La Bourdonnais free to continue his voyage to Pondicherry. The decision was without excuse, for if Peyton had used his eyes at all during the cannonade of the day before, he must have learnt that he had to deal with ships of very inferior armament. But some of his own vessels were in no good condition, and he could think of nothing but of their defects, and of the excuse afforded him for a retreat.

La Bourdonnais anchored at Pondicherry on the 9th July, and began at once to prepare for attacks on our settlements. The history of his quarrels with Dupleix, the governor-general, does not concern the naval operations, since they did not prevent him for carrying out his attack on Madras. He was at sea again on the 4th August to look for Peyton, and met the English commander coming back from Ceylon. From the 8th to the 11th August the two squadrons were in sight of one another, but so convinced was Peyton of the inferiority of his squadron that he not only avoided action but sailed away to Bengal. La Bourdonnais now returned to Pondicherry, picked up soldiers, and sailed for Madras on the 15th August. The action of Peyton was again unpardonable, for even if he felt too weak to engage the French at sea, he could have contributed men and guns to the defence of Madras. The help his mere presence on the coast would have afforded is proved by the fact that when in the middle of the siege La Bourdonnais received a false report of the appearance of large English ships, he was preparing to re-embark his men. But the French commander was not one of those who are to be drawn off by mere rumours. He waited for confirmation, and when it did not come, he pushed the siege, and the place surrendered on the 29th September. This event and its consequences, the breach of the capitulation made by La Bourdonnais and the seizure of the town by Dupleix, were the beginning of the great fight between the two companies. At the change of the monsoon in October, which suspended naval operations for sailing ships, La Bourdonnais returned to his own government in the islands, and appeared no more in those seas. He was compelled to return home, was accused of corruption by his opponents of the company, and died ruined and broken-hearted. Once more our best help came from our enemy.

In the following year, 1747, Peyton was superseded by Rear-Admiral Griffin, who is accused of treating his predecessor with great brutality. It is very possible, for Griffin was one of the bad officers who then infested our navy, insolently tyrannical to his subordinates, and shy before the enemy. His own conduct was no better than Peyton’s, for he allowed M. de Bouvet, with a much inferior squadron from Mauritius, to revictual the French garrison of Madras, and did nothing against him either coming or going.

Now, however, the East Indies began to profit by the revival of energy and intelligence at the Admiralty. A squadron of ten ships, of which six were of the line, was sent out at the end of 1747 under the command of Edward Boscawen, one of the new race of officers who were being brought forward by Anson and Bedford. Boscawen owed much to family influence, for he was a brother of the Viscount Falmouth, who once cowed a recalcitrant secretary of state by significantly saying, “Remember, sir, we are seven,” that being the number of pocket boroughs owned by the Boscawen family. But the admiral was a man of ability, who would have won promotion at any time when it was to be won by merit. He sailed in November, but did not reach Fort St. Davids, which since the loss of Madras had become the Company’s chief station on the Coromandel coast, till the 29th July 1748. The length of the voyage was due partly to delay at the Cape to recruit the health of the crews and partly to an unsuccessful attempt to land at Mauritius. The force collected under Boscawen was the greatest seen as yet in eastern waters, for it consisted of ten English line-of-battle ships, and five smaller vessels, together with armed vessels belonging to our own Company and the Dutch. The French had nothing to oppose to this armament on the sea, and as the admiral had brought 1500 soldiers with him, it would seem that it ought to have been easy to sweep the French from the coast of Coromandel altogether. But the military forces were of inferior quality, consisting of independent companies raised for the service of the Company, and had as yet no military spirit. The scientific branches, and in particular the engineers who were of the first importance for siege work, were very poor. The siege of Pondicherry, undertaken in revenge for the capture of Madras, was badly managed, and turned out a complete failure. Boscawen, who directed the operations on shore, was no general, and was badly served by his engineers. A bombardment by the fleet took place on the 26th September, but it was little better than a farce, for the shallow water made it impossible for our ships to approach near enough for their fire to be effective. At a later period in the fighting in the Carnatic the Company’s soldiers found that they were being fired at with the cannon balls then wasted on Pondicherry. After lasting from the 8th August to the 30th September, after not a few panics among the raw soldiers of the army and the sailors landed to work the guns, the siege was raised with a loss of 1065 Europeans.

Peace had now been made in Europe, and Madras was restored in return for Louisbourg. The war indeed was only beginning between the Companies, but henceforward it was carried on ashore, and in the name of the native princes. Boscawen returned in the following year.

## CHAPTER V THE SEVEN YEARS’ WAR TILL 1758

AUTHORITIES.—See