MINORCA AND ST CHRISTOPHER 757 desperate contest ended in Parker bringing in his charge safely while the Dutch convoy abandoned its voyage. In August a combined fleet of forty-nine sail including thirty-one Spaniards appeared at the mouth of the Channel, compelling Darby who had only thirty to take refuge in Torbay; its commander, Cordova, would not venture to attack him there and the Spaniards soon departed for Cadiz (5 September). The sole use they had made of their naval superiority was to despatch to Minorca an expedition from Cadiz (August 1781), subsequently reinforced by 4000 Frenchmen. Minorca had only a tiny garrison under Murray, one of Wolfe's Quebec brigadiers, but it resisted stubbornly for seven months, succumbing (February 1782) to scurvy rather than to its besiegers. Harder to relieve than Gibraltar because farther away, Minorca might well have been evacuated when Rodney relieved it: its retention had not served, as did that of Gibraltar, to distract the naval forces of France and Spain from their true objective. More influential than the fate of Minorca was that of a convoy laden with troops and stores for the West Indies, which left Brest in December 1781, escorted by de Guichen with nineteen of the line. To intercept it Kempenfelt was sent out, though only twelve of the line could be found for him; for the lack of timber and other naval stores, both from New England and the Baltic lands, was by this time severely crippling the Navy.1 However, on encountering de Guichen (12 December), he found himself with the wind in his favour while de Guichen, who had negligently fallen to leeward, was impotent when Kempenfelt's prompt attack dispersed the convoy, taking fifteen ships with 1000 soldiers. Most of the rest returned to Brest with de Guichen, very few ever reaching their destination. It was a masterly stroke and deprived de Grasse of urgently needed stores. De Grasse had been back in the West Indies by 26 November, and, finding himself in considerable superiority, started operations against the British islands. De Bouillé had already recovered St Eustatius and was anxious to attack Barbados, but the French found it hard to beat to windward, so, changing their quarry, they descended upon St Christopher (9 January 1782). The little British garrison resisted stoutly at Brimstone Hill, and Hood, though he had only twenty-two of the line to de Grasse's twenty-nine, hurried to its help. By brilliant seamanship and daring tactics he drew de Grasse out of Basse Terre roads, and, going boldly in, took up an anchorage (25 January). He thus interposed between de Grasse and the French troops and could land a relieving force. But although considerable reinforcements had reached the West Indies in 1780 they had been scattered over the islands, and an unusually sickly season had thinned their numbers: Hood could oppose only 2400 men to de Bouillé's 6000, and they 1 N.R.S. xxxп, 351 seqq. and xxxviii, 75-6; Albion, R. G., Forests and Sea Power, chap. vii. were powerless to avert the garrison's surrender (23 February), whereupon Hood, who had repulsed several attacks on his anchored line, slipped out by night as neatly as he had got in. If he had not saved St Christopher's, his skill and daring had restored the confidence of his fleet.1 De Grasse had soon cause to regret his failure to crush Hood. On 19 February Rodney reached Barbados from England with twelve of the line, and though he failed to prevent an important convoy from Brest reaching Martinique with 6000 troops (20 March),2 he maintained a close watch on Fort Royal from St Lucia. Thus when, on 8 April, de Grasse put to sea with a large convoy for Cap François, there to unite with a Spanish contingent to attack Jamaica, nearly as much coveted by the Spaniards as Gibraltar, Rodney was after him at once. Hampered by his transports de Grasse could not give Rodney the slip, and on 9 April the fleets were in contact. A partial action followed; the French had a chance of catching the British van unsupported, but they played their usual game of avoiding close action, due partly to a well-grounded respect for British gunnery.a Two days later Rodney got his chance (12 April). To save a ship crippled in a collision de Grasse had to close, and as the fleets were passing on opposite tacks near the Saints, some islets near Dominica, the British being to leeward, a sudden shift of wind enabled them to break through the French line in two places and get to windward. Rodney's "breaking the line" was probably unpremeditated, indeed, the suggestion was almost certainly pressed upon him by Douglas, his flag-captain, but it was most effective. The French were separated into three disordered groups and suffered terribly from the British guns. De Grasse himself was taken with four other ships, and if Rodney's over-caution, so remorselessly criticised by Hood,5 allowed the rest to make Cap François with little further loss, when another dozen prizes must have rewarded a vigorous pursuit, the battle had shattered the nerve of the French and restored the British reputation, thus achieving decisive results. By the end of May the French had rallied twenty-five of the line at Cap François and recovered touch with their convoy, while fifteen Spaniards with 12,000 troops had joined them: however, recollections of 12 April deterred them from venturing to attack Jamaica, and in July the French fleet went off to the American coast to avoid the hurricanes, the British fleet also proceeding to New York. In November Carleton, who had replaced Clinton in May, decided to evacuate Charleston in order that the garrison might secure Jamaica against the expected transfer of Rochambeau's troops to the West Indies. Peace, however, came 6 THE RELIEF OF GIBRALTAR 759 without any further activities. Rodney's victory, if not complete, had prevented further British losses in the West Indies. Meanwhile the allies had suffered another rebuff which went far to secure Great Britain a satisfactory peace. Gibraltar, though harder pressed than before, was still defying its assailants who were preparing a special effort. But North's fall (February 1782) and the formation of Rockingham's Whig ministry had brought Lord Howe back to command, which led to far more skilful handling of the fleets in home waters. The Brest fleet's activities were curbed by a squadron under Kempenfelt: an important French convoy for the East Indies was intercepted and two battleships and many transports taken, and when in July the French and Spaniards from Cadiz reached the mouth of the Channel, Howe prevented the Dutch from joining them by a formidable demonstration off their ports. Then, sailing westward to meet the other allies, though too weak to venture an action, he held them skilfully in play, covering the arrival of a valuable convoy from Jamaica and paralysing their designs till in August they bore up for Cadiz to cover the grand attack on Gibraltar. This was delivered on 8 September 1782. For five days the Rock was violently bombarded, but the great floating batteries on which the Spaniards had pinned their faith were not proof against Elliot's red-hot shot and finally the completely baffled assailants had to convert the attack into a blockade. Directly the allies had left the Channel, Howe had received orders to proceed to Elliot's relief and on 11 September he sailed with thirty-four of the line and a vast convoy. His achievement in carrying his convoy into Gibraltar (19 October), despite Cordova's fifty sail which tried to bar his passage, and despite difficulties of navigation and the handicap of the convoy, was a masterpiece of seamanship and tactics. Having outwitted his enemies and accomplished the relief, he could not resist heaving-to off Cape Spartel, when clear of the narrow waters of the Straits, to offer them a fight (20 October). So roughly was their somewhat half-hearted attack received that they soon broke off the action, leaving Howe to return quietly to the Channel.1 The relief of Gibraltar, with which the main struggle virtually ended, is perhaps Howe's finest achievement and went far to restore public confidence and to show that mere numbers could not command success when inefficiently handled by officers imbued with false doctrines of strategy and tactics. It suggests too that, with a more efficient administration and a better use of the forces at the Admiralty's disposal, even the assistance of France and Spain might not have secured independence for the thirteen colonies. That their assistance decided the struggle is a platitude. The decisive element was not Washington's generalship. If his statesmanship, his tenacity and his power of keeping his forces together merit unqualified praise, his record in the field, apart from Trenton, is not 1 Hist. MSS Comm., Le Fleming MSS, p. 360. impressive. Decisive victories are not won by a merely defensive strategy, such as he followed after failing to destroy Clinton in July 1778, while the final success at Yorktown was mainly due to the French troops whose presence in America had restrained Clinton from attempting "solid" operations in the north during Washington's difficulties of 1780 and 1781. It was not even Germain's futile and credulous optimism, interference in details and undue dispersion of inadequate forces for whom he was always multiplying tasks, nor General Howe's lethargy and repeated failures to convert success into victory. Clinton's policy of waiting to let the rebellion collapse has been severely criticised, but if unenterprising it nearly succeeded, and his forces were never proportionate to their tasks: his weakness lay less in his head than in his heart, in his character, not in his strategy. Cornwallis must bear much of the responsibility for Yorktown, but he would have put himself within Washington's reach with impunity had not de Grasse's arrival deprived the British of that freedom of movement by sea which, as Clinton was always emphasising, superiority in naval force could alone guarantee. The correspondence of Grant and other generals in the West Indies shows how the only sound plan of operations in that theatre collapsed with the loss of the naval supremacy on which they had been taught to count. Failures and blunders in the British conduct of the war by land there certainly were, but the crucial failure lay in the Navy's inability to retain its challenged control of the seas. The Navy was not beaten, neither Ushant nor the Chesapeake, nor even Grenada, can be reckoned a victory for France, but in certain circumstances not to win a victory almost amounts to defeat, and so long as the allied fleets were not deprived of the initiative, the Army was liable to be paralysed because the Navy could not guarantee it freedom of movement. A signal system which was not equal to emancipating naval tactics from the trammels of an inelastic code of Fighting Instructions more than once robbed British admirals of victory, but graver evils lay in the state of things which prevented some of the Navy's ablest men from hoisting their flags with Sandwich at the Admiralty, and in the administrative inefficiency which bred delays and deficiencies at every turn. These, however, resulted largely from the loss of both of our chief sources for the supply of naval stores, so that Admiral Byam Martin declared there was not in the year 1783 "a sound ship in the fleet. Several returning home foundered on the Banks of Newfoundland".1 The Navy was faced by opponents more efficient and formidable than Nelson ever encountered, and instead of a Spencer at the Admiralty it had "Jemmy Twitcher". "Out Twitcher must...he will certainly annihilate the Navy if he stays in" was the cry after Palliser's trial. It says much for the Navy that if, with Sandwich in charge, it could not prevent the loss of America, it did prevent the further disruption of the Empire. 1 N.R.S. XIX, 379. • Pembroke MSS, p. 380. CHAPTER XXV THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND BRITISH POLITICS, 1776-1783 THE constitutional struggle had ended in war. Motley bands of marksmen and farmers marched to the battle-cry of "Liberty or Death" against the greatest naval and imperial Power in the world. Alliances with France and Spain and the blunders of British commanders were to help them to victory. But in truth it was not a case of colonists unanimous in rebellion opposing a kingdom unanimous in its determination to impose its will upon them. The conflict was not so much a struggle between England and America as a civil war in which the whole British race took sides. Whigs and Tories in Great Britain, Radicals and Conservatives in America, were divided upon the fundamental principles at stake, the relations of Parliament to the colonial legislatures and the unity of the Empire. The majority at home, Burke was obliged to admit, was, when war began, in favour of coercion.1 Opinion had hardened, as the violence and ever-increasing demands of the Americans and their rejection of each effort at conciliation seemed to point to a determination to throw off their allegiance. The greater part of the propertied and educated classes was definitely in favour of the King and his ministers. The landed interest, the Established Church and the Bar were almost wholly anti-American. The majorities in the Universities and in the great towns, except those most deeply involved in American trade, such as London, Bristol and Glasgow, favoured the Government. The Corporation of London, indeed, committed to opposition on other grounds, drew up an address strongly approving of the actions of the Americans, and resisted the press warrants. The trading community, however, was by no means united in its opposition, and soon found that openings in other directions more than compensated for the loss of American business. Lord Camden claimed that "the common people hold the war in abhorrence". Certainly the failure of recruiting showed that the people were loath to fight against their fellow-subjects and a cause identified with liberty. Many officers threw up their commissions in the army. Dissenters generally favoured the American cause. There were, of course, exceptions. John Wesley's pamphlet denouncing the pretensions of the colonists indicated the views of a large number of Methodists, whilst David Hume's sympathy with the attitude of the Rockingham Whigs suggests that Tories were not unanimous. The great majority of 1 Burke, E., Correspondence, 11, 48. 2 Annual Register, 1776, p. 38. 2 Walpole, Horace, Last Journals, 11, 90. A Chatham Corr. IV, 401. |