RODNEY'S ACTIONS AGAINST DE GUICHEN 749 He had reached St Lucia (28 March) only a week behind de Guichen. On 13 April de Guichen left Martinique with twenty-three of the line carrying 3000 troops, hoping to reach Barbados while Rodney was still to leeward. But from St Lucia Martinique was easily watched and Rodney promptly got to sea, and by skilful seamanship gained the weather gage. On 17 April he was bearing down with his whole fleet concentrated against de Guichen's rear, the latter's van being to leeward and impotent to help. But Rodney's highly skilful tactics were too novel for some of his subordinates, whose ideas were fettered by the "Fighting Instructions", and their failure to understand his signals spoilt a brilliant manœuvre. The attack became hopelessly disjointed, and de Guichen realising his danger quickly broke off the action. His casualties were double Rodney's, but his fleet was intact, whereas had Rodney's orders been properly executed de Guichen must have been badly beaten. Twice more (15 and 19 May) Rodney managed to engage him: he had drilled his fleet now and there was no misunderstanding of orders, but de Guichen was a wary tactician and a good seaman, and, greatly aided on 15 May by a timely shift of wind,1 persistently evaded close action. In June a Spanish fleet reached Guadeloupe from Cadiz with 10,000 troops intended for the capture of Jamaica, but the Spaniards were hopelessly ineffective owing to epidemics and went tamely on to Havana; when the hurricane season de Guichen, deaf to Washington's appeals, sailed for Europe with two-thirds of his fleet (16 August). If he had preserved his fleet, Rodney had effectually checked his designs on the British islands. Rodney's arrival at New York was a bitter blow to Washington who had been hoping instead to see de Guichen appear. It established the British naval supremacy solidly on the American coast and put an end to any danger to New York. It shows Rodney at his best as a strategist: looking beyond the local needs of his own command, and rightly disregarding its technical limits, he had carried his ships to the place where he judged that they were most needed. Unfortunately for England, when it came to being ready to sacrifice ships in forcing the passage into Newport Harbour in order to destroy de Ternay, Rodney flinched. Rochambeau had made Newport so strong that Young, Rodney's flag captain, wrote, "The favourable opportunity has been lost. I am heartily sorry we were not on the coast a fortnight sooner". Still, the passage had been wide enough for d'Estaing, while de Ternay's destruction must have involved Rochambeau's surrender and was well worth the loss of several ships.4 A successful combined naval and military attack might have changed the fate of the war, but Rodney would not risk it, and Clinton was always too weak to afford heavy casualties. 1 N.R.S. XXXII, 58. • Ibid. 2 Ibid. XXXII, 79. Rodney returned to the West Indies (November 1780) to find that an unusually violent hurricane season had cost both British and French three battleships and swept the islands bare, greatly delaying any resumption of active operations. In December, however, news arrived of the British declaration of war against Holland (December). This was the chief outcome of the recent formation of the Armed Neutrality to oppose the British doctrines as to the right of search, contraband of war and other disputed points. Holland, no longer formidable at sea, was less troublesome as a declared enemy than as a very nominal neutral.1 For months past the Dutch island of St Eustatius had been the centre from which both French and Americans had conducted an extensive trade under cover of the Dutch flag, and its capture (3 February 1781) yielded an enormous booty and revealed how flagrantly Dutch neutrality had been abused. Rodney exulted over" the severest blow that could have been given America", but St Eustatius led him to his most serious professional blunder. De Grasse was known to be coming out with reinforcements, and had Rodney concentrated all his twenty-one sail of the line to windward of Martinique, where the French would probably make their landfall, he might have beaten them before they could join their small squadron in Fort Royal. But instead, Rodney remained at St Eustatius with several ships and kept the remainder under Hood off Fort Royal3 to prevent the Fort Royal ships from descending on St Eustatius. "Never", wrote Hood, "was squadron so unmeaningly stationed." Outnumbered and to leeward he could do little when on 28 April de Grasse appeared. De Grasse might have crushed Hood's inferior force but avoided close action and contented himself with reaching Fort Royal, whereupon Hood drew off to rejoin Rodney. De Grasse had been lucky already. As he was leaving Brest (22 March 1781) with twenty-six sail of the line, Darby with twenty-eight was on his way to Gibraltar, now in serious straits for food," while the Spaniards had recently converted their blockade on the landward side into a definite attack. Darby and de Grasse passed within 100 miles without either attempting to seek the other out, when a victory might have decided far more than the fate of their immediate errands. Darby indeed apparently deliberately avoided meeting de Grasse lest he should drive him to join Cordova, then covering the attack on Gibraltar from Cadiz with thirty-six of the line. Cordova, however, remained inert while Darby brought his victuallers and store-ships into Gibraltar on 12 April, returning thereafter uneventfully to England. Meanwhile de Grasse, who had detached a squadron 1 Dartmouth MSS, ш, 246; Renaut, F. P., Les Provinces Unies et la Guerre d'Amérique (1924), chaps. vii-xv. s Ibid. 5 N.R.S. XXXII, 93. "Drinkwater, Siege of Gibraltar, chaps. iv and v. • N.R.S. XXXII, 33. CORNWALLIS'S OPERATIONS IN THE SOUTH 751 under Suffren to the Cape and East Indies (29 March), made an unusually rapid passage to Martinique, where his safe arrival not merely challenged Rodney's supremacy in West Indian waters but was to prove a turning point in the war. The crisis in America was indeed at hand. Washington was hard pressed to keep his army together and maintain the struggle. There had been two serious mutinies among his "Continentals", whose pay was many months in arrears and whose clothing and equipment were in a deplorable state. He had no money, he was short of supplies and ammunition; desertion had thinned his ranks. Rochambeau's inactivity had caused disappointment and grumbling, though his presence at Newport had imposed a severe restraint on Clinton and prevented him from profiting by Washington's difficulties, while the position of de Ternay's squadron justified Arbuthnot in disobeying Rodney's orders to detach ships to the West Indies, Clinton insisting that the army's situation would not allow of it.1 Even so Washington wrote, in April 1781, "we are at the end of our tether, now or never our deliverance must come".2 The movement from which the decision resulted started in the south. After his retreat in October 1780 Cornwallis remained inactive for some weeks, considerably harassed by the guerrillas whom success at King's Mountain had greatly emboldened. Moreover Greene, Washington's ablest subordinate, had superseded the discredited Gates, had rallied and reorganised the remains of his army, and, while avoiding action, had prevented Cornwallis from setting systematically about suppressing the guerrillas. In December Cornwallis was joined by 2500 men under Leslie whom Clinton had sent to the Chesapeake in October to serve as a diversion to favour Cornwallis and to carry on the policy, already proving effective, of destroying the enemy's resources.3 Cornwallis had, however, summoned Leslie to Carolina, intending on his arrival to resume the offensive. Clinton, meanwhile, having abandoned hopes of decisive action in the north, after Major André's capture had disclosed the plot with Arnold, spared no effort to assist Cornwallis, and not only approved Leslie's transfer, but further diminished the New York garrison by sending 1600 men under Arnold to the Chesapeake. Arnold landed at Jamestown on 20 December, raided Richmond and did so much damage generally that Washington sent Lafayette with 1200 men to tackle him and persuaded Rochambeau to detach 1200 Frenchmen to support Lafayette. To carry them thither Destouches, who had succeeded de Ternay, left Newport (8 March), but was followed and overtaken by Arbuthnot. Tactically, their encounter off the Chesapeake (16 March) was indecisive, for Destouches, who was being worsted, managed to break off, but his retreat to Newport left 1 Cf. Clinton to Germain, 16 Dec., C.O. v, 101. 3 Stevens, 1, 270. Works, vm, 7. ▲ Ibid. 1, 294. the British in control of the coastal communications and allowed another 2500 men to be sent to Virginia. Still Clinton was deter mined not to embark on "solid" operations in Virginia, unless assured of naval supremacy and strongly reinforced,1 and his instructions definitely limited the raiding and produce-destroying detachments he had already sent there2 to occupying a station in the Chesapeake as a local base for the Navy. But it was to "solid" operations in Virginia that the British were to be committed. Cornwallis had advanced northwards in January to intercept a force under Morgan which was threatening the British posts west of Camden. Morgan promptly retreated, closely pursued by Tarleton and the light troops, who overtook him at Cowpens (17 January 1781) and seemed to have beaten him when an unexpected counter-stroke caught the British troops disordered by success and changed their victory into defeat. Cornwallis narrowly missed retrieving Cowpens by catching Morgan, who just evaded him and rejoined Greene. Though thus deprived of his light troops, Cornwallis nevertheless continued his projected invasion of North Carolina and, forcing the passage of the Catawba (1 February), advanced boldly north-east, Greene conducting a skilful retreat into Virginia without being brought to action. Cornwallis, his men exhausted by their exertions, retired to Hillsborough and endeavoured rather unsuccessfully to gather recruits from the local Loyalists. Greene meanwhile collected large reinforcements from Virginia and ventured to advance, thinking to catch Cornwallis at a disadvantage. His challenge was promptly accepted and on 15 March a desperately contested action at Guildford saw Greene well beaten, though he had been strongly posted and had double Cornwallis's numbers. Greene's defeat was a great achievement, but left Cornwallis so crippled by casualties that he had reluctantly to retreat. Rather, however, than admit failure by retiring into South Carolina he moved south-east to Wilmington, exposing South Carolina to Greene who instead of pursuing him marched promptly into that province. Cornwallis had been specifically instructed to do nothing to imperil Charleston and in deciding, despite Greene's invasion of South Carolina, to push on into Virginia he was incurring a grave responsibility. He had come to the conclusion that Virginia was the key to the final subjugation of the Carolinas and that to invade it would be the best parry to Greene's move: while Germain, over-confident as usual, assumed that Cornwallis had quite secured the Carolinas and could safely proceed to Virginia, from the reduction of which he anticipated decisive results. Accordingly, on 25 April, Cornwallis 2 Ibid. 1, 347. 1 Stevens, 1, 341, 373, 390. * Rawdon to Clinton, 23 March 1780, Royal Institution MSS, 11, 260. 5 Cornwallis to Clinton, 10 April, to Germain, 18 April, Stevens, 1, 395, 414. CORNWALLIS'S MOVE TO VIRGINIA 753 left Wilmington and on 20 May joined Arnold at Petersburg. But having reached Virginia he hardly made the most of his chances. He considerably outnumbered his immediate opponent, Lafayette, for Clinton, though strongly disapproving of Cornwallis's leaving the Carolinas,1 had sent another 1700 men to Virginia, increasing Cornwallis's force to over 7000. However, Cornwallis neither brought Lafayette to action nor intercepted 1000 men who reinforced him early in June. He had sneered at Clinton's policy of destroying hogsheads of tobacco and bales of cotton, but he himself accomplished little more. His operations certainly had no effect on Greene who, though defeated by Rawdon in a desperate struggle at Hobkirk's Hill near Camden (25 April), made steady progress in South Carolina where many inhabitants joined him, while Rawdon, whose scanty force was quite unequal to protecting so extensive an area, could not prevent the fall of post after post and was hard pressed to cover Charleston.2 3 Clinton had always realised that operations in the Chesapeake could "no longer be secure than whilst we are superior at sea", but in June letters from Washington to Lafayette were intercepted' which showed that Washington was contemplating an attack on New York to profit by the large detachments Clinton had made. Clinton thereupon ordered Cornwallis to send him back all the troops he could spare after securing the post in the Chesapeake which the Navy considered essential.5 Cornwallis accordingly retired towards Portsmouth, but managed to trap Lafayette into attacking his rearguard (6 July), and beat him soundly, though Lafayette escaped destruction by retreating. After reaching Portsmouth Cornwallis received further letters from Clinton which permitted him to retain his whole force in Virginia and left him quite free to select a defensive position." In making this change Clinton was influenced by Germain's definite instructions of 2 May, which he had just received, not to withdraw any troops from Virginia: he therefore acquiesced in Cornwallis's remaining there during the sickly season, after which he intended going to Virginia himself with every available man." Accordingly, Cornwallis, preferring Yorktown to any other station, moved thither and by 22 August was preparing a defensive position. A week later twenty-eight French sail of the line entered the Chesapeake and anchored in Lynnhaven Bay, promptly disembarking 3000 troops to reinforce Lafayette. The new-comers were de Grasse's fleet. He had spent the summer in foiling Rodney's efforts to bring him to action, and, though repulsed from St Lucia, had snapped up the less important Tobago 1 Clinton to Germain, 22 May, Stevens, 1, 478. ♦ Ibid. 1, 500, 505. 7 Ibid. II, 53. CHBE I Ibid. 11, 63. 3 Stevens, 1, 497. 48 |