The Atlantic, 1796-1801.—The Brest Blockades.—The French Expeditions Against Ireland.

THE decision taken by the French executive in the latter part of 1795,—after the disastrous partial encounters of Martin with Hotham in the Mediterranean and of Villaret Joyeuse with Bridport in the Bay of Biscay,—to discontinue sending large fleets to sea, and to rely upon commerce-destroying, by single cruisers or small squadrons, to reduce the strength of Great Britain, remained unchanged during the following years, and was adopted by Bonaparte when the Consular government, in 1799, succeeded that of the Directory. This policy was in strict accord with the general feeling of the French nation, as well naval officers as unprofessional men, by which the action of the navy was ever subordinated to other military considerations, to "ulterior objects," as the phrase commonly ran,—a feeling that could not fail to find favor and expression in the views of the great director of armies who ruled France during the first fourteen years of this century. It amounted, however, simply to abandoning all attempt to control the sea. Consequently, whenever any enterprise was undertaken which required this to be crossed, resort was necessarily had to evasion, more or less skilfully contrived; and success depended, not upon the reasonable certainty conferred by command of the water, by the skilful massing of forces, but upon a balance of chances, which might be more or less favorable in the particular instance, but could never be regarded as reaching the degree of security which is essential, even in the hazardous combinations of the game of war. This formal relegation of the navy to a wholly inferior place in the contest then raging, was followed, under the embarrassments of the treasury, by a neglect of the material of war, of the ships and their equipments, which left France still at Great Britain's mercy, even when in 1797 and 1798 her Continental enemies had been shaken off by the audacity and address of Bonaparte.

Thrice only, therefore, during the six years in question, ending with the Peace of Amiens in 1802, did large French fleets put to sea; and on each occasion their success was made to depend upon the absence of the British fleets, or upon baffling their vigilance. As in commerce-destroying, stealth and craft, not force, were the potent factors. Of the three efforts, two, Bonaparte's Egyptian expedition and Bruix's escape from Brest in 1799, have been already narrated under the head of the Mediterranean, to which they chiefly—-the former wholly—belong. The third was the expedition against Ireland, under the command of Hoche, to convoy which seventeen ships-of-the-line and twenty smaller vessels sailed from Brest in the last days of 1796.

The operations in the Atlantic during this period were accordingly, with few exceptions, reduced to the destruction of commerce, to the harassment of the enemy's communications on the sea, and, on the part of the British, to an observation, more or less vigilant, of the proceedings in the enemy's naval ports, of which Brest was the most important. From the maritime conditions of the two chief belligerents, the character of their undertakings differed. British commerce covered every sea and drew upon all quarters of the world; consequently French cruisers could go in many directions upon the well known commercial routes, with good hope of taking prizes, if not themselves captured. British cruisers, on the other hand, could find French merchant vessels only on their own coast, for the foreign traffic of France in ships of her own was destroyed; but the coasting trade, carried on in vessels generally of from thirty to a hundred tons, was large, and in the maritime provinces took in great measure the place of land carriage. The neutrals who maintained such foreign trade as was left to the enemies of Great Britain, and who were often liable to detention from some infraction, conscious or unconscious, of the rules of international law, were naturally to be found in greatest numbers in the neighborhood of the coasts to which they were bound. Finally, the larger proportion of French privateers were small vessels, intended to remain but a short time at sea and to cruise in the Channel or among its approaches, where British shipping most abounded. For all these reasons the British provided for the safety of their distant commerce by concentrating it in large bodies called convoys, each under the protection of several ships of war; while their scattered cruisers were distributed most thickly near home,—in the English Channel, between the south coast of Ireland and Ushant, in the waters of the bay of Biscay, and along the coasts of Spain and Portugal. There they were constantly at hand to repress commerce-destroying, to protect or recapture their own merchantmen, and to reduce the coasting trade of the enemy, as well as the ability of his merchants to carry on, under a neutral flag, the operations no longer open to their own. The annals of the time are consequently filled, not with naval battles, but with notes of vessels taken and retaken; of convoys, stealing along the coast of France, chased, harassed and driven ashore, by the omnipresent cruisers of the enemy. Nor was it commerce alone that was thus injured. The supplying of the naval ports, even with French products, chiefly depended upon the coasting vessels; and embarrassment, amounting often to disability, was constantly entailed by the unflagging industry of the hostile ships, whose action resembled that which is told of the Spanish guerillas, upon the convoys and communications of the French armies in the Peninsular War. [305]

The watch over the enemy's ports, and particularly over the great and difficult port of Brest, was not, during the earlier and longer part of this period, maintained with the diligence nor with the force becoming a great military undertaking, by which means alone such an effort can be made effective in checking the combinations of an active opponent. Some palliation for this slack service may perhaps be found in the knowledge possessed by the admiralty of the condition of the French fleet and of the purposes of the French government, some also in the well-known opinions of that once active officer, Lord Howe; but even these circumstances can hardly be considered more than a palliation for a system essentially bad. The difficulties were certainly great, the service unusually arduous, and it was doubtless true that the closest watch could not claim a perfect immunity from evasion; but from what human efforts can absolute certainty of results be predicted? and above all, in war? The essential feature of the military problem, by which Great Britain was confronted, was that the hostile fleets were divided, by the necessities of their administration, among several ports. To use these scattered divisions successfully against her mighty sea power, it was needed to combine two or more of them in one large body. To prevent such a combination was therefore the momentous duty of the British fleet; and in no manner could this be so thoroughly carried out as by a close and diligent watch before the hostile arsenals,—not in the vain hope that no squadron could ever, by any means, slip out, but with the reasonable probability that at no one period could so many escape as to form a combination threatening the Empire with a crushing disaster. Of these arsenals Brest, by its situation and development, was the most important, and contained usually the largest and most efficient of the masses into which the enemies' fleets were divided. The watch over it, therefore, was of supreme consequence; and in the most serious naval crisis of the Napoleonic wars the Brest "blockading" fleet, as it was loosely but inaccurately styled, by the firmness of its grip broke up completely one of the greatest of Napoleon's combinations. To it, and to its admiral, Cornwallis, was in large measure due that the vast schemes which should have culminated in the invasion of England, by one hundred and fifty thousand of the soldiers who fought at Austerlitz and Jena, terminated instead in the disaster of Trafalgar. Yet it may be said that had there prevailed in 1805 the system with which the names of Howe and Bridport are identified, and which was countenanced by the Admiralty until the stern Earl St. Vincent took command, the chances are the French Brest fleet would have taken its place in the great strategic plan of the Emperor.

This far-reaching combination, so tremendous in its risks and in its issues that men have doubted, and always will doubt, whether Napoleon seriously meant to carry it through, was but the supreme example of the dangers to which Great Britain was exposed, and from which her fleets had to shield her. It was aimed, with the true insight of genius, directly at her heart; and except from occasional assertions of the emperor, whose words can never be implicitly believed, there is really little cause for doubt that he was prepared to take many chances of ruin in order to execute an enterprise which, both in conception and details, was so clearly stamped with the characteristics of his intellect and temperament. But the widely scattered dominions of Great Britain offered many points, besides the British islands themselves, to the blows of an enemy; and her navy had to protect not merely the heart but the extremities, each and all of which were threatened, in proportion to their value and their means of resistance, when a hostile squadron was loose upon the sea. How, then, should this service be performed? By dividing the fleet among the points threatened, and establishing the line of defence close before the region to be defended? Not so should the true maxim, that the British navy was the first line of defence, have been interpreted. As in all military campaigns, the front of operations of a powerful fleet should be pushed as far towards the enemy as is consistent with the mutual support of the various detachments, and with secure communication with their base. By so doing, not only are the great national interests placed more remote from the alarms of war, but the use of the region behind the front of operations, in this case the sea, is secured to the power that can afford to maintain its fighting line close to the enemy's positions.

Not merely to check great combinations threatening great disasters, but to protect as far as possible minor but important interests, and for the security of commerce itself, the true station for the British fleets, superior in temper if not in numbers to the enemy, was before the hostile ports and as close to them as might be. There, though their function was defensive, as in the last analysis that of the British Empire also was, they were ever ready, did opportunity offer, to assume the offensive. "Every opportunity will be given to the Toulon squadron to put to sea," wrote Nelson, "for it is on the sea that we hope to realize the expectations of our country,"—a hope which it was given him to fulfil at Trafalgar, where the greater designs of Napoleon were forever crushed. This hope of Nelson's was, however, based upon a close watch of his port, to establish which by constant cruising before it he avowed his purpose; [306] and the enforced abandonment of this plan, from the crazy condition of several of his ships, was the first cause of the perplexities which pursued him through the campaign. Did an enemy's division escape, as from Toulon and at other times, the general policy was not invalidated by such occasional failure. The first line of defence had been pierced at a single point; there still remained the other lines, the fortified ports and the soldiers behind them, or, in a maritime region like the West Indies, a detachment of ships more or less adequate to contest the ground until re-enforced.

A wisely co-ordinated system of defence does not contemplate that every point is to hold out indefinitely, but only for such time as may be necessary for it to receive the support which the other parts of the whole are intended to supply. That the navy is the first line of defence, both in order and in importance, by no means implies that there is or should be no other. This forced and extravagant interpretation, for which naval officers have been largely responsible, of the true opinion that a navy is the best protection for a sea frontier, has very much to do with that faulty strategy which would tie the fleet, whatever its power, to the home ports, and disseminate it among them. Navies do not dispense with fortifications nor with armies; but when wisely handled, they may save their country the strain which comes when these have to be called into play,—when war, once remote, now thunders at the gates, and the sea, the mother of prosperity, is shut off. This kindly office did British seamen for Great Britain in the days of Napoleon, and mainly through those close blockades of which St. Vincent set the pattern before Toulon in the Mediterranean, [307] and afterwards before Brest, when he took command of the Channel fleet.

The port of Brest, regarded as the principal hostile arsenal round which must centre the operations of a great part of the British navy, has to be considered under two sets of conditions: 1st, as to its position, relatively to the British bases of operations and to points of British territory open to attack; 2d, as to its own immediate surroundings, how far they facilitated the action of the French navy, and what dispositions of the British fleet were necessary in order best to impede that action. The former question is strategic in its character, the latter tactical.

At the end of the peninsula which forms the north-western extremity of France, there is a deep recess in the land, between two capes which lie nearly in the same north and south line, and are called Pointe St. Mathieu and Pointe du Raz. The former is the more northerly, and the distance separating the two is seventeen miles. A promontory making out from the bottom of the recess divides it into two bays of unequal dimensions, of which the southern is known as the Bay of Douarnenez and the northern as that of Brest. The entrance to the former is five miles wide and unobstructed, so that only partial shelter is obtained; it gives, however, a safe though rough anchorage, even in westerly gales. The Bay of Brest, of smaller surface, is entered by a passage three miles long and only one wide, called the Goulet. With such an approach, and further favored by the configuration of the surrounding land, perfect security is found there, as well as facility for carrying on the work of a fleet, when it would be impossible at the more exposed anchorage of Douarnenez. From the Goulet to Pointe St. Mathieu the distance is seven miles; and immediately outside the former are two open roadsteads, Bertheaume to the north and Camaret to the south, frequently occupied by French ships prior to a final start on an expedition, or when waiting for a wind.

Had these features constituted the whole of the hydrographic surroundings of Brest Harbor, the task of a British admiral would have been simpler. A singular combination of dangers conspired to force him, even in favorable weather, to a station much further from the coast, and at the same time tended to facilitate the exit of the French. From both Pointe St. Mathieu and Pointe du Raz a strip of foul ground, comparatively narrow, extends for fifteen miles directly out to sea. That from St. Mathieu trends west-north-west and terminates in the island of Ushant; [308] while from Pointe du Raz a succession of reefs, shoals, and low islands, the whole known as the ChaussÉe de Sein, stretches nearly due west to a point due south of Ushant and distant from it twenty-two miles. Between these two long, low barriers lay the principal approach to Brest, the Iroise Channel,—fifteen miles long and of a width varying from seventeen to twenty-two, nearly double that of the Straits of Gibraltar,—in which it was not possible to maintain a body of heavy vessels, particularly the three-decked ships, of ninety guns and over, which formed a large fraction of the Channel fleet and were singularly wanting in weatherly qualities. Their short, high hulls and heavy top-hamper caused them to drift rapidly in bad weather; and they needed plenty of open sea to leeward for this reason, and also that they might run before the wind, if too violent. To try to keep these formidable but unhandy vessels in the Iroise during the heavy westerly gales which prevail in the Bay of Biscay, [309] with no refuge from the sea save the enemy's port under their lee, was to court destruction.

To keep the English Channel open in case of very heavy weather was therefore essential to the British fleet. The Island of Ushant, as favoring this object and also as a conspicuous, easily recognized off-shore position, became the strategic centre around which the movements of the main body of the fleet revolved, and to which all dispositions made to ensure the watching of Brest must have regard, as to their natural point of reference.

Given the superiority of force which the British navy usually possessed, a superiority none too great to bear the tremendous strain imposed by the dangerous weather and coasts it had to encounter, the supreme strategic factor was the wind. Brest is farther west than any English Channel port except Falmouth, which is on the meridian of Ushant. Falmouth, however, did not stand well as a port in the general naval opinion of the day, though it had warm advocates; [310] and it was undoubtedly wanting in room for a number of heavy ships to anchor together. East of Falmouth there were available the anchorages of Plymouth, Torbay, and Spithead, distant from Ushant respectively 120, 135, and 210 miles, Falmouth being only 100; but with the exception of Spithead, they were not secure in all winds. Plymouth Sound was exposed to the point of danger in south-west gales. Torbay, though safe in westerly weather, was at times dangerous, as well as difficult to leave, in the south-easterly storms, which were, however, exceptional.

Spithead was secure, and was moreover the roadstead of a great naval arsenal, as was also Plymouth Sound; but its distance, a hundred miles east of Torbay, with the wind prevailing three-fourths of the time from the westward, should have been considered an insuperable strategic objection to sailing ships destined to watch Brest, and especially to fleets. A sailing ship of fair qualities, proceeding against a dead head wind, makes good only one third of the distance she actually sails. With such a wind a port one hundred miles distant is actually three hundred, and with fleets progress is even slower. To this was added at Spithead a difficulty seemingly trivial, yet so insuperable as to be humiliating. With a south-east wind, favorable to go down Channel, three-decked ships could not get from the anchorage to St. Helen's (the outer roads only three miles distant), whence they could sail with a fair wind.

The whole theory of the blockade of Brest rested on the fact that the French fleet could not sail in such westerly weather as forced the British to take refuge in port, [311] and upon the expectation that the latter by diligence could regain their station with the first of the east wind, in time to prevent the enemy's escape. This expectation depended upon the greater rapidity of the British movements and consequently upon the distance of the point of refuge. For this reason Spithead was singularly unfit to be the rendezvous of the fleet; yet it was chosen and maintained by both Howe and Bridport during the seven years of their consecutive commands. To this they added the practice of keeping the main body of the fleet in port during the winter months. The Admiralty, doubtless, was ultimately responsible; but, even with the sharp lessons of the Irish expedition and Bruix's escape, it needed the advent of an admiral of St. Vincent's sagacity and temper to insure the adoption of a more rational and vigorous system. In his words to the second in command,—when the wild winter weather and his own declining years compelled him to withdraw from the flag-ship,—"You are on no account to authorize any ships to go to Spithead, unless you receive special orders from the Admiralty or from me," [312] is summed up the simple, yet fundamental, difference between his policy and that of his predecessors. All his other careful arrangements to expedite the refitting of ships, and prolong their stay on the station, are but detailed instances of the same effort to save time, to keep his fleet concentrated at the decisive point, and in the largest mass possible.

After Howe finally retired from the command, Bridport established his headquarters at Spithead, where during the winter and early spring the main body of the fleet was commonly assembled. The commander-in-chief seems himself to have lived ashore, being in April, 1796, created general port-admiral with liberal appointments. Squadrons of seven or eight ships-of-the-line, about a fourth of the total force, cruised to the westward of Ushant, "in the soundings," during the winter, for periods of two or three months, returning to Spithead when relieved. Thus was practically realized Lord Howe's policy, to economize the ships and depend upon vessels kept in good order by staying in port to follow the French, when information of their sailing was received. This also was the general plan at the time of the French expedition against Ireland in the winter of 1796-1797.

The widespread discontent in Ireland, especially in the Protestant North, was well known to the Directory, with which, through the French minister at Hamburg, Irish agents had been in communication as early as April, 1796. Another, the somewhat celebrated Wolfe Tone, had in the first months of the year arrived in Paris from the United States with a similar mission. To their efforts was added the powerful influence of General Hoche, who had in other fields of action shown military ability of the highest order; and who, having established his claims upon the gratitude of his country by the pacification of La VendÉe and Brittany, was now in command of the army in that quarter. In all directions circumstances seemed favorable. Bonaparte was in the midst of his great Italian successes; and the reverses inflicted upon Jourdan and Moreau in Germany by the Archduke Charles were neutralized, for the winter at least, by the necessity of drawing upon his troops to renew the Austrian armies in Italy. Spain had declared war against Great Britain; and there were hopes, destined to be frustrated by the lethargy of her movements and by the battle of Cape St. Vincent, that the Spanish fleet could be made to combine with the French for the purposed invasion. The mission of Lord Malmesbury, although the British government held its head high, seemed to indicate failing confidence; and the British navy, however successful in seizing the colonial possessions of its enemies in all parts of the world, had been unable, through the retirement of the French fleets from the sea, to win any of those brilliant victories which restore the courage of nations. St. Vincent, Camperdown, and the Nile were still in the future.

The proposed invasion was consequently resolved. It depended avowedly upon the co-operation of the disaffected inhabitants; but Hoche did not make the mistake of trusting to them for the most serious part of the work. No less than twenty thousand troops were to be embarked; and as the general recognized that the difficulties would by no means be over when Ireland was reached,—that the British navy, if successfully eluded by the expedition, would nevertheless seriously interfere with subsequent supplies,—he insisted upon carrying with him as much of these, and consequently as many ships, as could be had in Brest. Efforts were made to increase the force in that port. Five ships under Admiral Villeneuve were ordered round from Toulon; [313] Richery's squadron was expected from North America, [314] and the Spaniards were also called upon. These efforts, however, only caused delay, and contributed but two of Richery's ships to swell the expedition, the others being found too shaken to be sent at once to sea. Villeneuve did not arrive in time, and the Spaniards remained in the Mediterranean.

The number of seamen at the disposal of the government was limited, owing to many causes; among which the principal were discontent with the navy, and the superior attractions of privateering, which had led not merely to their choosing that service, but also to many being captured at sea and so lost to their country. This deficiency imposed a proportionate limit to the number of ships that could be fitted. There was a dearth likewise of good watch officers. Besides these controlling circumstances, there were also some manifest advantages in reducing to the smallest numbers the vessels composing an expedition, which was to avoid action, to make a short passage at the stormiest season of the year, and which it was all important should keep united and arrive together. For these reasons it was decided that the troops should be embarked on the ships-of-war to their fullest capacity. Each ship-of-the-line carried six hundred soldiers, making with her crew a ship's company of thirteen hundred souls. The frigates received about two hundred and fifty each. Although in this particular instance the arguments in favor of transporting the army in the ships-of-war outweighed those against, there is always a grave disadvantage to the handling and fighting of vessels encumbered by so many useless and generally sea-sick men.

Never, however, was a great expedition, destined to encounter extraordinary risks and to brave one of the stormiest of seas, more favored than this at the first was by the elements and by the mismanagement of its enemies. For nearly six weeks before it sailed the winds prevailed from the east; and during the passage, in mid-winter, fine weather with favorable winds lasted until the bulk of the fleet reached the Irish coast. Nor was an enemy's vessel met, to take advantage of the crowded and inefficient condition of the French ships. Like Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt, though from other causes, Hoche's ships passed to their destination unseen by any foe powerful enough to molest. To the enfeebled state of the French navy, to the decay of its material, to the want of seamen, to the disappearance of the trained officers, and to the consequent disinclination of the superiors to undertake the expedition, is to be attributed the failure of an attempt in which their sympathies had never been enlisted. Hoche, who had supreme command of both army and navy, [315] found by bitter experience the delays which incompetent or ill-affected subordinates can impose, especially in a branch of service of which the commander-in-chief has not particular knowledge. Villaret Joyeuse, first appointed to command the fleet, being keenly aware of its defects, was averse from an enterprise which, in all reasonable probability, would lead to a meeting at once with the British and with excessively bad weather. He wished, as did also Truguet, the Minister of Marine, to take a heavy squadron of eight ships to India; whereby, if the first encounter with the enemy were evaded, a long passage with much good weather would permit the crews to be trained, while in the Indian seas they would be superior in force to their opponents. Truguet, however, harmonized this object with the proposed expedition by purposing to send the ships to India after their return from Ireland; while Villaret, who had spent in the ports the years which the minister had passed in Paris, and knew intimately the deplorable state of both men and ships, had little hope of the latter coming back in any state to undertake his favorite project.

The hardly concealed bias of the admiral, and the apathy of the naval officers generally, inspired Hoche with doubts of Villaret's faithfulness to his task; and upon his urgent remonstrance Morard de Galles, who fifteen years before had been like Villaret among the bravest captains of the great Suffren, succeeded to the command. The new admiral brought to his duty the submissive devotion of a military man, and had not, as Villaret had, any counter-project of his own; but the radical defects of an organization, vitiated by years of neglect and false standards, could not be overcome by a man already advanced in years in the few short days of hurried preparation. Such as the French navy had become, through the loss of its heads and the vagaries of the legislature, such it sailed on the expedition to Ireland. "God keep me from having anything to do with the navy!" wrote Hoche. "What an extravagant compound! A great body whose parts are disunited and incoherent; contradictions of all kinds, indiscipline organized in a military body. Add to that, haughty ignorance and foolish vanity, and you have the picture filled out. Poor Morard de Galles! he has already aged twenty years; how I pity him!" [316]

The administrative difficulties, caused by poverty of resources, conspired with the non-arrival of Richery and Villeneuve to delay the expedition. Fixed first for the early autumn and then for the first of November, it was not able to sail till the middle of December. Richery had reached the anchorage of Île d'Aix [317] on the 5th of November with five ships-of-the-line; but not till the 8th of the following month could his vessels, racked by their long cruise, sail for Brest. On the 11th they entered the port, where upon examination two only of them were found fit for the Irish voyage; and the wait for these entailed a delay which had a singular effect upon the fortunes of the undertaking.

On the 15th of December the whole body of ships, except Richery's two, got under way, stood through the Goulet, and anchored that evening in Bertheaume and Camaret roads, ready for a start,—the wind still fair as fair could be, at east. The British, under the lax and cautious system pursued by Bridport and his lieutenants, had then no ships-of-the-line close up to the port, but only two or three frigates, and these Morard de Galles drove off with a small detached squadron, hoping thus to deprive the enemy of precise knowledge of his movements. Sir Edward Pellew, the senior officer of the frigates, sent one of them, the "Phoebe," to Admiral Colpoys, commanding the division of Bridport's fleet then cruising; which, in consequence of the preparations known to be going on in Brest, had been increased to fifteen sail-of-the-line, double the usual winter squadron. Contrary to Lord St. Vincent's sound maxim, "Well up with Ushant in an easterly wind," Colpoys's rendezvous was about eight leagues to the west of the island, and thither the frigate went to seek him; but his force, composed largely of three-deckers, having let go the shelter of the land, had been driven farther still to leeward, and being nearly fifty miles from Ushant was not found by the "Phoebe" till the 19th, three days after the French finally sailed.

Pellew, one of the most active frigate captains of the time, retired but a short distance from his pursuers, and next day, the 16th, again stood in for the French anchorage with his own ship,—well named the "Indefatigable,"—and the "RÉvolutionnaire." At noon the enemy were again sighted, and not long after, Pellew's vigilance was rewarded by seeing them get under way. Richery's two ships, "PÉgase" and "RÉvolution," came through the Goulet towards noon, and all the expedition began at once to lift their anchors between two and three P. M. of the short winter day. Dispatching the "RÉvolutionnaire" to the admiral, Pellew himself remained to watch the course taken by the enemy.

The imperative need of the French being to escape meeting the British, and to reach Ireland with force undiminished either by capture or straggling, Morard de Galles' first object was to avoid Colpoys's fleet. This was known to be in the direction of Ushant, having been seen on more than one occasion from the island, and by Richery when entering Brest. If the departure were unperceived, the uncertainty of the enemy as to the destination might be counted on to favor the further movements of the expedition. The French admiral therefore determined to use the advantage, inestimable to a naval port, which Brest possesses in a double entrance. Between the Pointe du Raz and the ChaussÉe de Sein [318] there is a channel known as the Passage du Raz. It is narrow, being less than three miles wide in one part, and is sown with dangers, formidable above all in the night season, during which it must be passed if the enemy were to be kept in ignorance; but with a fair wind and good pilots the thing could be done. Morard de Galles therefore gave the order to the fleet to head, upon getting under way, for the Passage du Raz, and informed the captains that, after clearing it, he intended to steer west for one hundred miles. Having provided for keeping the fleet together so far, each commanding officer was also given a sealed packet, directing him what to do in case of separation. It may be said here that these packets,—which were not to be opened unless in case of parting company,—directed to make Cape Mizen Head on the south coast of Ireland, near the entrance of Bantry Bay, the anchorage whence the landing was to be made. There the separated vessels were to cruise five days, waiting for orders.

At three o'clock the whole fleet was under sail, the sun was sinking fast, the weather gloomy and squally; and the vessels, unable to form from the inexperience of their officers, were running disorderly for the dangerous pass, the entrance to which, being fifteen miles from the anchorage they were leaving, could not be reached before dark. The flag-officers, except Richery, had quitted their own ships-of-the-line and gone aboard frigates, the two commanders, Hoche and Morard de Galles, being together on board the "FraternitÉ." As night fell, the wind hauled to the southward, threatening to become foul, under which conditions the passage of the Raz would be impossible. Moved by the danger, and considering that Colpoys was not within sight, the admiral by signal countermanded his order, and directed the fleet to put before the wind and run out by the Iroise channel. In the confusion and growing darkness this order was not understood. Morard's own ship and half a dozen more, one only of which was of the line, obeyed; but all the others continued for the Passage du Raz. Thus, at the very moment of starting, the two principal officers were separated from their command. In vain did Morard send a corvette to enforce his order by voice or by signal,—she was not understood; and the confusion was increased by Pellew, who, attaching himself to the leading ships, kept on with them through the Iroise, and by burning rockets and blue lights, and firing guns, rendered utterly incoherent the attempts of the French admiral to convey by similar means his meaning to his fleet. [319] In the midst of the turmoil the "SÉduisant," of seventy-four guns, ran on a rock which lies across the entrance to the passage, and was totally wrecked, her guns and signals of distress adding to the uproar. [320] At half-past eight, the "Indefatigable" saw the ships with which she had kept company pass round the outer end of the ChaussÉe de Sein and steer to the southward, with the hope, doubtless, of rejoining their consorts. Pellew then made sail for Falmouth, where he arrived on the 20th of December. Had this port then been the rendezvous of the Channel fleet, or even of a strong detachment, there would still have been time, for the French did not reach Bantry Bay till the 22d; the wind was east, and the distance but two hundred and fifty miles.

On the morning of the 17th of December, the French were divided into three bodies out of sight of each other. With the two commanders-in-chief were one ship-of-the-line and three frigates. Rear-Admiral Bouvet, the second in command, had with him eight ships-of-the-line and nine other vessels. In accordance with his orders he continued to steer west during the 17th and 18th. On the 19th, having opened his sealed instructions and reached the longitude of Mizen Head, he changed the course to north, and the same day was joined by the third section of the expedition, thus concentrating under his command fifteen ships-of-the-line, and, with three unimportant exceptions, all the other vessels except those with Hoche and Morard. Grouchy, second to Hoche, was with Bouvet; so that the admiral now had with him practically the whole body of the expedition. Unfortunately the soul, the young, gallant, and skilful Hoche, the emulous rival of Bonaparte's growing glory, who saw in the Irish expedition the great hope of restoring the brilliancy of his own star, paling before that of his competitor,—Hoche was absent.

With a brief exception of southwesterly weather, the wind continued from the eastward during the whole of Bouvet's passage; and notwithstanding a good deal of fog, at times very dense, [321] all those who were with him on the 19th—thirty-five out of the forty-three which composed the expedition—found themselves on the early morning of December 21st together, and in full sight of the Irish coast. "It is most delicious weather," wrote the eager, restless Irishman, Wolfe Tone, who was on board one of the ships, "with a favorable wind and everything we can desire, except our missing comrades. At the moment I am writing we are under easy sail, within three leagues at most of the coast, so that I can discern patches of snow upon the mountains. What if the general do not join? If we cruise here five days according to our instructions, the English will be upon us and all will be over. Nine o'clock (P. M.). We are now at the rendezvous appointed; stood in for the coast till twelve (noon), when we were near enough to toss a biscuit ashore. At twelve tacked and stood out again, so we have now begun our cruise of five days in all its forms.... We opened Bantry Bay; and in all my life rage never entered so deep into my heart as when we turned our backs. Continue making short tacks; the wind foul." [322]

The wind was now foul, not because of its own change, but because from the entrance of Bantry Bay to its head the direction is east-north-east. The wind that had been favorable for leaving Brest and for the passage was for the short remaining distance, not over thirty miles at the most, nearly dead ahead. Unfortunately, also, in sailing north along the meridian of Bantry Bay, the east wind had set the fleet imperceptibly to the westward, so that the land first seen was not Mizen Head, at the eastern side of the entrance, but Dursey Island, at the western. [323] Had the intended landfall been made, the ships might, by hauling close round Mizen Head, have fetched a point at least twelve miles inside of Dursey Island and there anchored. Now that fortune ceased to waft them with favoring gales, the weaknesses of the expedition became painfully apparent. Crews composed mainly of landsmen, with a very small sprinkling of able seamen, crowded and impeded at every turn by the swarming mass of soldiery, were ill able to do the rapid handling of ropes and canvas necessitated by a dead beat of thirty miles, against a strong head wind in a narrow bay, where every rod lost tells, and requires three or four rods of sailing to be regained; where sails must be reefed or hoisted, set or furled, at a moment's notice, and the canvas spread varies from half-hour to half-hour. Such a tug tasks the skill, as it proclaims the excellence, of the smartest single ship, though she find the channel clear of other vessels; but to a fleet of thirty-five, manned and equipped as those of Bouvet, and compelled to give way continually as they crossed each other's paths, it proved impossible to reach the head of Bantry Bay, where shelter would have been found from the east winds, which for the following week blew with relentless fury.

Through the night of the 21st and all day of the 22d, the fleet continued turning to windward; and toward nightfall the admiral anchored with eight of-the-line and seven other vessels off Bear Island, still twelve miles from the head of the bay. The other twenty ships remained outside under way. All the 23d it blew hard from the eastward, and nothing was done. On the 24th the weather moderated, and it was decided to attempt a landing, although no more ships had come in,—the twenty outside having been blown to sea. Those at the anchorage got under way, but made no progress. "I believe," wrote the exasperated Wolfe Tone, "that we have made three hundred tacks, and have not gained a hundred yards in a straight line." At sunset the division again anchored; and during the night the wind rose to a gale, which continued all the 25th and prevented any boat work. Several ships dragged, and some cables parted. Soon after nightfall the cable of Bouvet's flag-ship gave way, and the "ImmortalitÉ" began to drive upon Bear Island. A second anchor failing to hold her, the admiral cut both cables and put to sea, signalling the other vessels to do likewise and hailing to the same effect those near whom he passed, among others the ship on board which Wolfe Tone was. This, however, held on—her captain becoming the senior naval officer present—till the 27th. The wind then falling, a council of war was held, and decided that as there were but four thousand soldiers in the bay, and as neither cannon, ammunition nor provisions necessary for the landing remained at the anchorage, the attempt must be abandoned. The wind now changing to south-west and threatening a storm, this little division, reduced to six ships-of-the-line and four smaller vessels, sailed for Brest, where they arrived on the 12th of January. Rear-Admiral Bouvet had long preceded them, having reached Brest on the 1st of the month. [324] By the 14th, four weeks and a day after sailing from Brest, thirty-five of the expedition had returned safe, though greatly battered, to French ports, after various adventures not necessary to relate. Five, including the "SÉduisant," wrecked on the night of sailing, had been lost or destroyed by their officers, and six captured [325] by the British.

The one still to be accounted for closed dramatically the adventure, which, having begun by the wreck of one ship-of-the-line, ended with the yet more deplorable destruction of another. This, called by the good revolutionary name "Droits de l'Homme," had clung tenaciously to the Irish coast till January 5th; but, finding herself alone and no hope remaining, started then to return to Brest. On the 13th she fell in with two British frigates, one the "Indefatigable," Pellew's ship. The two closed with her, and just before nightfall the French vessel carried away her fore and main topmasts. The wind was blowing hard from the westward, and her captain, fearing momentarily to meet enemy's ships of greater force and numbers, decided to run steadily for his own coast. At half-past five the "Indefatigable," whose sail power was untouched, drew up, and the battle began. An hour later her consort, the "Amazon," came within range. Through the long night, with a few intermissions at the choice of the uncrippled British frigates, the strife went on,—the embarrassed condition of the "Droits de l'Homme" being increased by the fall of her mizzen mast at half-past ten. The sea was running so high that the crews of the frigates fought up to their middles in water, while the ship-of-the-line could not use her lower tier of guns; and at the end the "Indefatigable," the sole survivor of the conflict, had four feet of water in her hold. At half-past four on the morning of the 14th, land, for which a lookout had been anxiously kept, was suddenly seen. The two British ships were then holding positions a little ahead, and on either bow, of the "Droits de l'Homme." Each hauled to the wind on its own side of the enemy; the "Indefatigable" to the south, the "Amazon" to the north. All three were embayed in Audierne Bay, an unsheltered beach thirty-five miles south of Brest, between Pointe du Raz and the Penmarck rocks. By strenuous efforts the "Indefatigable," after wearing twice, cleared the latter by three quarters of a mile. As she passed them in broad daylight, the "Droits de l'Homme" lay on her side at the bottom of the bay, the surf beating over her. The "Amazon," whose situation had allowed too little time for skill to play, was also aground two miles to the northward. Here, however, the resemblance ceased. The trained and disciplined British crew got safe to land. The unfortunate French ship, crowded to repletion with men for the most part wholly unaccustomed to the sea, had had the further misfortune to take the bottom on a bank at a great distance from the beach. Three days of awful exposure, without food or water, followed. Not till the 17th did the subsidence of the gale allow relief from shore, and only on the 18th did the last survivor quit the wreck. Out of thirteen hundred men on board her when the battle began, two hundred and sixty were killed and wounded, and two hundred and seventeen lost their lives through the wreck.

The singular circumstance that, despite the first separation of the fleet on the night of sailing, the disconnected units were yet for the most part brought together and together reached the coast of Ireland, and yet that from this happy meeting the most important vessel of all, carrying the two commanders-in-chief, was excepted, creates a legitimate curiosity as to the movements of the "FraternitÉ" during these critical days. On the 17th, this ship had with her two frigates and one ship-of-the-line,—the "Nestor." On the 20th the other frigates had disappeared, the "Nestor" alone remaining; but it was found, from subsequent examination of the logs, that had the fog which then covered the ocean lifted, the "FraternitÉ" would have been in sight of the main body, which then, under Bouvet, was steering north to make Mizen Head. That night the "Nestor" parted company. On the 24th of December the "FraternitÉ" was pursuing her course for Bantry Bay, where the main body had already arrived, when a ship resembling a ship-of-the-line was seen. As the stranger did not reply to the signals made, the "FraternitÉ" took flight to the westward, and, finding herself outsailed, threw overboard some of her guns. During the night the pursuer was thrown off, and the frigate again shaped her course for Bantry Bay; but the same easterly gale which drove Bouvet from the anchorage was now blowing in her teeth. On the 29th Hoche and Morard fell in with the first of the expedition they had seen since the "Nestor" left them, and a sad meeting it was. One, the "Scevola," was sinking; the other, the "RÉvolution," which had been badly injured by a collision in Bantry Bay, was saving the "Scevola's" crew. In the dangerous condition of the "RÉvolution," now having twenty-two hundred souls on board, with provisions for but eight days, and having learned the dispersal of the vessels in Bantry Bay, Hoche and Morard determined to return. The two ships reached Rochefort on the 13th of January. Whether Hoche, with his military ardor, the high prestige of his fame, and the intense personal interest felt by him in the success of the expedition, could have triumphed over the material obstacles which defeated the lukewarm energies of Bouvet, may be questioned; but it was certainly an extraordinary circumstance that, of the whole large body of ships, the one containing the two commanders was almost alone in her failure to reach the Irish coast.

From the preceding account, it is evident that the success or failure of the French landing depended entirely upon their ability to make the thirty miles intervening between the entrance and the head of Bantry Bay. Whatever may be thought of their prospects of ultimate success in the conquest or deliverance of Ireland,—a matter of pure speculation, dependent upon many conditions rather political and economical than military,—it cannot be questioned that they had succeeded in crossing the sea and reaching almost their point of destination, not only despite the British navy but without even seeing it. On December 21st the bulk of the expedition was at the mouth of Bantry Bay. Not till the 22d did Colpoys, commanding the fleet watching, or rather detailed to watch, off Brest, know they had actually sailed; and then he did not know in what direction. Bridport at Portsmouth received the news on the same, or possibly on the previous day, through Pellew's diligence and forethought. Not till the 31st of December was it known in London that the enemy had actually appeared off the Irish coast, and at that time Bridport's fleet had not even sailed. Only continued bad weather, and that ahead, prevented the landing which even Bouvet would not have hesitated to make under better conditions. Had no other harm resulted, the capture of Cork, only forty-five miles distant, was certain. "We propose to make a race for Cork as though the devil were in us," wrote Wolfe Tone in his journal; and how severe the blow would have been may be imagined, for in that place were collected stores and supplies to the value of a million and a half sterling, including the provisions for feeding the navy during the next year. Ireland was then the great source from which naval provisions were drawn.

Such a failure on the part of the British navy, with its largely superior forces, can scarcely be called less than ignominious, and invites now, as it did then, an examination into the causes. The outcry raised at the time by panic and disappointment has long ceased; but the incident affords a fruitful field for study, as to how far the disposition of the Channel fleet conformed to a reasonable interpretation of the principles of war, as applied to the sea.

It must be obvious to any one stopping to think, that, for a fleet charged with thwarting the combinations of an enemy's navy, there can be no point so well adapted as one immediately before the port from which the greatest fraction must sail. Once away, to an unknown destination, the position to be taken becomes a matter of surmise, of guess, which may be dignified by the name of sagacity if the guess prove right, but which should not be allowed to cover the original fault of disposition, if it could have been avoided. To multiply instances would be tedious; but reference may be made to two detailed elsewhere in this work, viz: Bridport, upon the escape of Bruix in 1799, [326] and Nelson after the escape of Villeneuve in 1805, [327] though in the latter case the admiral's reasons for not cruising before Toulon were not only adequate, but imperative.

A similar perplexity existed in the closing months of 1796. The government and the admiral of the Channel fleet knew that a large expedition was preparing in Brest, and they had reason to fear the co-operation with it of the Spaniards. Opinion was somewhat divided as to the objective; according to reports industriously circulated by the French government, it might be Portugal the ally, Gibraltar the outpost, or Ireland the dependency, of Great Britain. One thing only was certain, that the surest and largest component of the undertaking was in Brest. There soldiers were gathering, and there also arms were being shipped largely in excess of the troops, [328] pointing to a hope of co-operation by inhabitants at the point of landing. Such conditions dictated certainly three things: 1, a force before Brest superior to that of the enemy inside; 2, inasmuch as the heavier ships must keep the channel open, against the danger of violent westerly gales, there should be an advance squadron of handier vessels close in with the port, powerful enough to hold its ground if the enemy came out and to keep touch with him if he sailed; 3, since Ireland was by far the most important of the interests threatened, the government should have indicated it to the admiral as the point to be covered, in case he did lose knowledge of the hostile fleet. The first of these provisions sums up the main strategic requirement, to effect which all other strategic dispositions should conduce. The second is tactical in character, relating to the disposition of the force upon the ground to which strategic considerations assign it. The third presents the alternative, the second line of defence, upon which, in case the first is forced, the defending fleet falls back.

Colpoys's fleet of fifteen sail was certainly not superior to the French. It might be considered adequate to frustrate the expedition, if met, but not sufficient to inflict the crushing blow that the policy and needs of Great Britain imperatively demanded. Moreover, a military body is not an inanimate object, like a rock, which once placed abides unchanged for years. It is rather a living organism, depending on daily nourishment, subject to constant waste, and needing constant renewal. If to station a competent force before Brest met the chief strategic requirement, its maintenance there embraced a number of subordinate strategic provisions, which in terms of land warfare are called communications. Ships meet with accidents; they degenerate by wear and tear; they consume water and provisions, their crews diminish by illness and need rest by occasional returns to port. These communications were not threatened by the French; but they were open to injury by insufficient forethought and by excessive distance, and from both they suffered. A division like Colpoys's may be renewed in two ways. Either it may be relieved by a body of similar number and go home; or it may be continually receiving fresh ships and continually sending old ones to the rear for rest. It need scarcely be said that the latter is by far the better, preserving a continuity of life and administration which the former breaks. Not only so; but the other system presupposes a squadron in port equal to that cruising, a reserve equal to the body in the field,—a fantastic proportion, which sacrifices every principle of warfare, and divides the available force into two masses, which do not even pretend to support but merely to replace each other.

A fleet charged with duty like that before Brest needs to be fixed at the highest number the resources of the nation can supply and supported by a reserve so proportioned that, by a constant coming and going, no ship at the front should ever be suffering from an exhaustion, either of condition or of supplies, against which diligent human forethought could have provided. The station of this reserve is obviously a matter of the utmost importance. It should, of course, be as near as possible to the main body, and, for sailing ships, favorably situated with reference to prevailing winds; for a head wind meant not merely the loss of time caused by itself, but often the loss of an opportunity which passes with the time. Thus, on this very occasion, when the wind blew fresh from the eastward, fair to go from Portsmouth to Ireland, Bridport's ships were unable to use it, because they could not make the stretch of three miles from Spithead to St. Helen's. Nor is the nearness of a dockyard a controlling condition for the reserve, though it may be admitted that dockyards should be placed with reference to probable theatres of war. On the contrary, a yard is the last place to which to send an active ship. Naval officers knew then, as they know now, that vessels at dockyards become valetudinarians, whose doctors, like some others, flatter the ailments of their patients to increase their practice. An available reserve is one thing, a ship needing dockyard repairs quite another; and no countenance should be given to any confusion of the two by keeping the reserve at, or close by, a yard. Properly, the reserve should be simply that portion of the active force which, for the benefit of the whole, is for a moment resting, but is ready at once to proceed.

How very little the government of the day and the then admiral of the Channel fleet realized these principles, is evident by a few facts. The reserve was at Spithead, a roadstead over two hundred miles distant. It was equal in force to the division before Brest. "The government thought it the wisest plan," said its authorized defender in the Commons, "to separate the fleet into different divisions. One fleet was off Brest to watch the enemy and intercept the sailing of the expedition; and another at home to relieve the fleet off Brest, if necessary, or to pursue the enemy, if he should sail." [329] When the French had escaped, Colpoys received the news December 22d. His orders did not cover the contingency, and in his uncertainty he first decided to keep his station, [330] than which nothing could be more satisfactory to the French, who had made a long circuit to avoid that particular spot. Like all men in the dark, however, the admiral soon changed his mind and concluded to go off the Lizard, a cape near Falmouth, where he might receive information. [331] Here, in the entrance to the Channel, he found several ships in want of necessaries, and the weather such that he could not provide them from others. [332] This statement was disputed by the Admiralty, which, however, admitted that some of these ships had not water in abundance. [333] With a properly worked reserve, a few ships might have been short,—those, that is, whose turn was to go in next,—but it is evident that a very disproportionate number were here affected; for the explanation of these short ships being still out was, that Curtis's squadron of seven ships was to have relieved them, but had been delayed for certain causes. [334] Whatever the reason, the important conclusion was that Colpoys, a good officer under a bad system, put his helm up and ran into Spithead, where he arrived December 31st, more than a week after the French reached Bantry Bay.

While the subordinate was thus badgered by the inadequate measures of his government and his chief, the latter was leisurely preparing to relieve him off Brest. On the 21st or 22d, he was spurred up by news of the French sailing, and replied that in four days he would be ready,—a truly handy reserve with the British Islands about to be invaded. On the 25th he got under way, and demonstrated at once the fitness of Spithead as a station for the reserve. Eight ships only succeeded in getting to St. Helen's that day, a sudden change of wind to south-east supervening; "which, although favorable for his getting to sea, was directly on the bows of the ships coming to join him from Spithead." [335] It was not thought prudent to sail with only eight ships, and through the delay of waiting for the others Bridport did not get away from St. Helen's (Portsmouth) until January 3, 1797,—the day before the last of the French abandoned Bantry Bay,—when he sailed with fourteen of-the-line, a mass equal to Colpoys's division which had just returned. An inadequate force at the decisive point, inadequately maintained, and dependent upon a reserve as large as itself, but unready and improperly stationed,—such were the glaring faults of the strategic disposition.

The tactical mistakes are equally apparent. The main fleet was stationed so far at sea as to derive no shelter from easterly storms. It contained several three-decked ships, [336] whose poor sailing qualities exaggerated to the last degree the drift consequent upon bad weather. As a result, at the critical moment, Colpoys, instead of being, according to St. Vincent's maxim, "close in with Ushant in an easterly wind," was over forty miles west of it, "working up against a fresh east-south-east wind," [337] and the next day was driven to the northward by southerly weather. Under such conditions any lookouts in the "Iroise" were almost a vain show. It is of the essence of such a lookout, however, that it should not be driven from its post by a detachment so small that the enemy does not weaken himself by making it. Of what consequence in this way were three or four frigates, which the French could and should have driven off by a half dozen, backed by two sail-of-the-line? Properly to watch Brest required a strong detachment of line-of-battle-ships of the medium class, which were handy and weatherly, and whose grip could only be loosened by fighting. The correlative, however, of such a big detachment is the main body close up, ready to support it. The whole theory hangs together. The advanced detachment close up, else it cannot watch; big enough, else it cannot stay; the main body also close up, else the advance guard is hazarded.

Under all these circumstances it is not strange that the careful British chronicler, James, has to record that "during the three or four weeks the French ships were traversing in every direction the Irish and English Channels, neither of the two British fleets (Bridport's nor Colpoys's), appointed to look after them, succeeded in capturing a single ship;" and "the principal losses by capture sustained by the enemy arose from the diligence and activity of a sixty-four-gun ship and four or five frigates, which, on the 29th of December, were lying in the harbor of Cork." [338] Yet, after satisfying himself that the French had gone back to Brest, Bridport returned to Spithead, and the old system was resumed. In Parliament the ministry strongly maintained that they had done all that could be expected; and the First Lord went so far as to say that even an inquiry would be considered an unmerited censure. [339]

It is no more than just to note, in this slack and shiftless conduct of the war, the same sluggish spirit that, after making all allowances for the undeniable grievances of the seamen, was also responsible for the demoralization of discipline in the Channel fleet, which soon after showed itself openly,—among the crews in the mutinies of 1797, and among the officers, at a later day, in the flagrant insubordination with which St. Vincent's appointment was greeted. Both show a lax hand in the chief naval commander; for, while a government is responsible for its choice of the latter, it must, especially in so technical a profession as the navy then was, depend upon him for the enforcement of discipline and for the choice of measures, at once practicable and adequate, to compass the ends of the war. Upon him, more than upon any other, must fall the responsibility of failure; for he knows, or should know, better than the government, what the fleet can be made to do, what the state of discipline really is, and what his own capacity to carry out the one and support the other. Only through him can the government act. When it disregards or overrides, without displacing him, mischief ensues; but the correlative of the generous confidence and hearty support it owes to him is, on his part, unceasing intense effort, or resignation.

It is a relief, and instructive, to turn to the methods of Earl St. Vincent. Having returned from the Mediterranean in August, 1799, he was chosen to succeed Bridport upon the latter's resignation in the following April. It is told that, when his appointment became known, one of the naval captains, at the table of the former commander-in-chief, gave the toast, "May the discipline of the Mediterranean never be introduced into the Channel fleet." If, as is said, the admiral (presumably Lord Bridport) suffered this to pass unrebuked, no words could depict more forcibly than the simple incident the depths to which his own dignity and control had sunk. [340] It is, perhaps, needless to say that St. Vincent met this temper with the same unbending firmness that he had shown in his former command.

It is not, however, in his discipline, but in his management of the Brest blockade, and the Channel fleet for the support of that blockade, that we are here interested. The force before Brest was largely increased, consisting at this time of never less than twenty-four sail-of-the-line, and, until ordered by the Admiralty to be reduced, was maintained by St. Vincent at thirty. [341] The rendezvous, or central station round which the main body was to revolve, and where, if possible, it was always to be found, was changed from eight leagues west of Ushant to "well in with Ushant in an easterly wind." How the commander-in-chief understood this order is shown by his instructions to his second in command, when the fleet was for a time turned over to him. "I recommend you in the strongest manner never to be farther than six or eight leagues from Ushant with the wind easterly; and if westerly to make the Saintes (ChaussÉe de Sein) as often as the weather will permit; and when the wind is such as to permit the French to slip out of Brest, to stand in on the first of the flood so far as to see the inshore squadron." [342] In another letter to the same he says: "The principle on which the squadron acts, with the wind easterly, is to wear ... during the night, so as to be within a couple of leagues of Ushant at daylight." [343] So constant was this practice during the summer and early autumn months, while he himself remained on board, that in one hundred and twenty-one days there was but one, and then owing to fog, in which the main body did not communicate by signal with the inshore squadron stationed between Ushant and Brest. [344]

To sustain the ships in the greatest and most constant efficiency, in other words to maintain the communications, his care and watchfulness are incessant; and, though not expressly so stated, it is evident from the general tenor of his correspondence that the ships went in to refit and rest not in large numbers, but singly, or in small groups. "I am at my wits' end," he writes, "to compose orders to meet every shift, evasion, and neglect of duty. Seven-eighths of the captains who compose this fleet are practising every subterfuge to get into harbor for the winter." [345] A constant pressure is kept upon all officers of the fleet, and especially upon those stationed to supervise at the anchorages for refittal and taking in stores, that vessels should lose no time and should come back as full as possible. The time for remaining "in Plymouth Sound or Cawsand Bay never ought to exceed six days, unless a mast is to be shifted, and in that event not more than ten days." [346] "A thousand thanks are due you," he writes to Rear-Admiral Whitshed, "for the pains you have taken to dispatch the ships which were necessarily sent into Cawsand Bay. Without such powerful aid, all my endeavors to fulfil the wishes of the Cabinet would be vain." [347] It was for this purpose he gave the order, so bitterly resented, that no officer, from the captain down, should sleep out of his ship, or go more than three miles from the beach.

Throughout he strove, according to his own practice and that of Suffren and Nelson, [348] to make the ships self-dependent, and to keep them out of the dockyards and on the station to the last moment. "Under the present impending storm from the North of Europe," wrote he in January, 1801, "and the necessity there is of equipping every ship in the royal ports that can swim, no ship under my command must have anything done to her at Plymouth or Portsmouth that can be done at this anchorage." [349] The question of wind and distance weighed heavily with him. Torbay and Cawsand Bay, an anchorage in Plymouth Sound, were made the ordinary resorts of ships going in to refit; and his orders to the second in command, when left in charge off Brest, were "on no occasion to authorize any ships to go to Spithead, unless by special orders from the Admiralty or from me." Finally, when his health compelled him to abandon the immediate command afloat, he again, as at Gibraltar during his Mediterranean career, took up his station at the point of next importance to the efficiency of the Brest fleet, settling himself in a house near Torbay, overlooking the anchorage, whence he directly supervised the refitting and speedy dispatch of the ships sent in for repair and refreshment. In short, when unable to be with the main body, he made a point of seeing personally to the reserve and to the supplies.

To mass the fleet before Brest,—to maintain it in a high state of efficiency, by the constant flow of supplies in transports and the constant exchange between worn and fresh ships,—and to fix a rendezvous which assured its hold upon the enemy,—such were the strategic measures adopted and enforced by St. Vincent. The disposition of the ships when before the port, with a view to prevent the evasion which was the height of French naval ambition, and to compel the enemy to battle if he came out, may be more properly called tactical. It may be given nearly in his own words. "A squadron of five ships-of-the-line is always anchored during an easterly wind between the Black Rocks and Porquette Shoal" (about ten miles from the entrance). "Inside, between them and the Goulet, cruise a squadron of frigates and cutters plying day and night in the opening of the Goulet; and outside, between the Black Rocks and Ushant, three sail-of-the-line cruise to support the five anchored." [350] A group of eight line-of-battle ships was thus always on the lookout,—a force too strong to be driven off without bringing on the general engagement which was the great object of the British, and so disposed that, if not the inner, at least the outer members could be signalled every day by the main body. The mutual support of all parts of the fleet was thus assured. "Unless this is done," wrote St. Vincent, "the ships appointed to that important service may not feel the confidence necessary to keep them in their post,—a failure in which has frequently happened before I was invested with this command." [351]

The seamanlike care with which, as a general officer, he studied his ground, is also evidenced by his remarks, some of which have already been quoted. "I never was on a station so readily, and with so little risk maintained as that off Ushant with an easterly wind" (with which alone the enemy could get out), "owing to the length and strength of flood-tide;" [352] and he adds, in another place, "If the flood flows strong, you will find much shelter between Ushant and the Black Rocks during the day." [353] The investment of Brest was completed by stationing detachments, amounting in all to from two to four ships-of-the-line with numerous frigates, to the southward of the Passage du Raz and thence to Quiberon Bay, forming a chain of lookouts to intercept vessels of all kinds, but especially the coasters upon which the port depended for supplies; while other cruisers were stationed all along the shores of the Bay of Biscay, from the mouth of the Loire to Cape Finisterre, and their captains specially incited and encouraged to approach and scour the coast. In the various "cutting out" expeditions engaged in by these, the numerous small vessels captured are usually stated to have been loaded with stores for the Brest fleet. By this means, if the enemy did not come out and fight to break up the blockade, he must soon be reduced to impotence by exhaustion of the commonest supplies. As there were in Brest, in 1800, forty-eight ships-of-the-line, French and Spanish, a combination resulting from Bruix's cruise of the year before, this end was soon obtained, as French accounts abundantly testify. [354]

The immediate adoption and enforcement of these measures, after St. Vincent succeeded to the command, illustrate clearly the inevitable dependence of the government upon the admiral of the Channel fleet, and its inability to conceive or enforce the system by which alone so necessary yet hazardous a service could be effectually performed. Only a thorough seaman, and of exceptional force of character, could both devise and execute a scheme demanding so much energy and involving so heavy a responsibility. It was hard to find a man of St. Vincent's temper to carry out his methods; and the government was further handicapped by a tradition requiring a certain rank for certain commands. So strong was the hold of this usage that even St. Vincent, in 1801, yielded to it, lamenting that Nelson, "of whom he felt quite sure, had not rank enough to take the chief command" of the vitally important expedition to Copenhagen; which was entrusted to Sir Hyde Parker, "of whom he could not feel so sure, because he had never been tried." [355] Later, when First Lord of the Admiralty, Earl St. Vincent was fortunate enough to find in Admiral Cornwallis a man who, whatever his intellectual grasp, possessed all the nerve and tenacity of his predecessor; but the necessary rank was too apt to bring with it a burden of years, accompanied by the physical weakness which, in lesser men, led to failing energy and shrinking from responsibility, and by actual prostration drove even St. Vincent ashore in the winter weather. His predecessor, Lord Bridport, had been well on in the seventies, and his first successor, Sir Hyde Parker, announced his intention "not to risk staying with the whole fleet off Brest at this season [winter], when it blows hard from west or west-south-west," [356]—a decision which may have been no more than prudent, but the open avowal of which, taken with Nelson's opinion of him, [357] seems to show that, though a brave and good officer, he was not equal to the stern work demanded.

Lord St. Vincent, though perfectly satisfied with his own arrangements, doubtless never cherished the vain hope that no evasion of them could ever be practised. On the contrary, he had at the very outset of his command, and in the comparatively genial month of May, the experience of a terrific hurricane, which drove his fleet headlong to Torbay, and rejoiced the hearts of the cavilling adherents of the old system. That the fleet must at times be blown off, he knew full well; and also that the escape of the enemy, in whole or in part, before its return, was possible, though it ought not to be probable. To provide against this contingency, he recommended the government to give to the officer commanding the inshore squadron, who would remain, special orders in a sealed packet to be opened only in case the enemy got out. [358] The failure to provide Colpoys with such specific directions had been charged by the Opposition, and most justly, as a grave fault of the government in 1796. [359] It is right and wise to leave great discretion to the officer in command on the spot,—minute instructions fetter rather than guide him; but a man in Colpoys's situation, bewildered as to the enemy's objects, aware only that the first line of defence is forced, but ignorant where the second will be assailed, is entitled to know precisely what the government considers the most important among the interests threatened. This decision is one for the statesman rather than the seaman. Not only, in 1796, was Ireland distinctly the most vulnerable point, but the ministers had information, almost to certainty, that there was the enemy's aim.

In 1800, as when Bruix escaped in 1799, circumstances were somewhat different. The disaffection, or at least the disloyalty, of the Irish had been shown to be a broken reed for the enemy to lean on; while in the Mediterranean the French had acquired, in Egypt and Malta, interests peculiarly dear to the First Consul. Those valuable possessions were in deadly straits, and the attempt to relieve them was more probable than another attack on Ireland. St. Vincent, therefore, wrote to the then head of the Admiralty, saying with perfect propriety that it became him, "in the situation I stand at this critical period, to suggest to your lordship any ideas for the good of the public service," and suggesting that Sir James Saumarez, commanding the inshore squadron, should have specific orders that, "if the combined fleets get out before I can return to the rendezvous, he should in that case push for Cadiz with the eight ships-of-the-line stationed between me and the Goulet; for I," he added, "shall have sufficient force to protect England and Ireland, without counting upon his eight sail." Such instructions completed the scheme; precise, but not detailed, they provided for the second line, in case the careful precautions for guarding the first were foiled.

The dispositions adopted by St. Vincent remained the standard to which subsequent arrangements for watching Brest were conformed. From Commander-in-Chief of the Channel fleet he became, in February, 1801, First Lord of the Admiralty. In this position he naturally maintained his own ideas; and, as has before been said, found in Cornwallis a man admirably adapted to carry them out. In May, 1804, the ministry with which he was connected resigned; but, although as an administrator he provoked grave criticism in many quarters, and probably lost reputation, his distinguished military capacity remained unquestioned, and the methods of the Brest blockade were too sound in principle and too firmly established to be largely modified. During the strenuous months from 1803 to 1805, when Great Britain and France stood alone, face to face, in a state more of watchful tension than of activity, the Channel fleet kept its grip firm on the great French arsenal. Nelson's justly lauded pursuit of Villeneuve would have been in vain, but for the less known tenacity of Cornwallis; which, by preventing the escape of Ganteaume, was one of the most potent factors in thwarting Napoleon's combinations. Wherever else the great naval battle which has immortalized the name of Trafalgar might have been fought, the campaign would have taken a different form but for the watch over Brest conducted on St. Vincent's lines.

The result of this strict blockade and of the constant harrying of the French coasts from Dunkirk on the North Sea to the Spanish border, was to paralyze Brest as a port of naval equipment and construction, as well as to render very doubtful the success of any combination in which the Brest fleet was a factor. This result has been, historically, somewhat obscured; for abortive attempts to get out obtained no notoriety, while an occasional success, being blazoned far and wide, made an impression disproportioned to its real importance. When Ganteaume, for instance, in January, 1801, ran out with seven ships-of-the-line,—the blockading fleet having lost its grip in a furious north-east gale,—more was thought of the escape than of the fact that, to make it, advantage had to be taken of weather such that six of the seven were so damaged they could not carry out their mission. Instead of going to Egypt, they went to Toulon. The journals of the day make passing mention of occasional sorties of divisions, which quickly returned to the anchorage; and Troude, in a few condensed sentences, under the years 1800 and 1801, [360] vividly shows the closeness of the watch and the penury of the port. Remote from the sources of naval supplies in the Baltic and the Mediterranean, with the sea approaches to both swarming with enemy's cruisers, and in a day when water carriage, always easier and ampler than that by land, was alone adequate to the transport in sufficient quantity of the bulky articles required for ship building and equipment, it became impossible to fill the storehouses of Brest.

Partly for this reason, yet more because his keen military perceptions—at fault only when confronted with the technical difficulties of the sea—discerned the danger to Great Britain from a hostile navy in the Scheldt, Napoleon decided to neglect Brest, and to concentrate upon Antwerp mainly his energies in creating a navy. In later years this prepossession may have partaken somewhat of the partiality of a parent for a child; and he himself has said that there was a moment, during his receding fortunes in 1814, when he could have accepted the terms of the allies had he been able to bring himself to give up Antwerp. In close proximity to the forests of Alsace, Lorraine, and Burgundy; able to draw from the countries bordering on the Rhine and its tributaries flax and hemp, and from the mines of Luxemburg, Namur and LiÈge iron, copper and coal,—the naval resources of Antwerp could be brought to her on the numerous streams intersecting those countries, and were wholly out of reach of the British. Many were the difficulties to be overcome,—docks to be excavated, ships to be built, seamen gathered and trained, a whole navy to be created from nothing; but the truth remained that the strategic position of Antwerp, over against the mouth of the Thames and flanking the communications of Great Britain with the Baltic, was unequalled by any other single port under the emperor's control.

The expedition against Ireland, thwarted by the elements in 1796, was never seriously renewed. It remained, to the end of his short life, the dream of Hoche. Transferred from the army of the Ocean to that of the Sambre and Meuse, his career there was cut short by the preliminaries of Leoben, by which Bonaparte extricated himself from the dangers of his advance into Carinthia. Sacrificed thus, as he felt, to the schemes of a rival, Hoche supported with all the weight of his interest an expedition of fifteen thousand men, who, under the pressure of the Directory, were gathered in the Texel in the summer of 1797 for an invasion of Ireland under convoy of the Dutch navy. Here again Wolfe Tone for two months fretted his heart out, waiting for the fleet to sail; but, though the period seemed most propitious, through the mutinies in the British fleet and the cessation of hostilities on the continent, a peculiar combination of wind and tide were wanting to cross the bar, and that combination did not come. In October the Dutch ships-of-war, numbering sixteen small ships-of-the-line, put to sea by themselves, and on the 11th met the fleet of Admiral Duncan, of equal numbers but distinctly superior in broadside force. The British, having the wind, bore down and attacked—passing when possible through the enemy's line, so as to cut off his retreat to the Dutch coast, then less than ten miles distant. The battle, known by the name of Camperdown, from a village on the adjoining shore, was fought with all the desperation that in every age has marked the meetings of the British and the Dutch. It closed with the defeat of the latter, who left nine ships-of-the-line and some frigates in their enemy's hands. This put an end to the Texel expedition. Hoche had died a few weeks before, on the 18th of September; and with him passed away the strongest personal interest in the invasion of Ireland, as well as the man most able to conduct it.

The following year, 1798, open rebellion existed in Ireland, and the Directory undertook to support it with troops and arms; but the equipment of Bonaparte's Egyptian expedition absorbed the energies of the Ministry of Marine, and there was no Hoche to give the enterprise the development and concert essential to a great success. A small division of four frigates sailed from Rochefort on the 6th of August, carrying twelve hundred troops under General Humbert, who had served in the expedition of 1796 and shared the shipwreck of the Droits de l'Homme. This squadron escaped observation, landed its detachment on the 21st of the month, and returned safely to France; but the small corps, unsupported by regular troops, again demonstrated the imprudence of trusting to the co-operation of insurgents. On the 8th of September Humbert was obliged to surrender with the bulk of his force.

A week later, before the news reached France, a ship-of-the-line, appropriately called the "Hoche," and eight frigates, under the command of Commodore Bompart, sailed from Brest, carrying a second division of three thousand troops. Though they escaped the eyes of Bridport's vessels, if there were any in the neighborhood, by running through the Passage du Raz, they were seen on September 17, the day after sailing, by three British frigates; one of which, after ascertaining that the French were really going to sea, went to England with the news, while the others continued to dog the enemy, sending word to Ireland of the approaching danger as opportunity offered. On the 4th of October, in a gale of wind, the enemies separated, and the French commodore then made the best of his way towards his destination, in Lough Swilly, at the north end of Ireland; but the news had reached Plymouth on the 23d of September, and when he drew near his port he found the way blocked by three British ships-of-the-line and five frigates, which had sailed at once for the insurgent district. An engagement followed, fought on the 12th of October, under circumstances even more disadvantageous than that of mere numbers, for the "Hoche" shortly before the action had lost some of her most important spars. Of the little squadron, she and three frigates were compelled to surrender that day, and three more were intercepted later by British vessels, so that only two of the expedition regained a French port. The enthusiastic and unfortunate Irishman, Wolfe Tone, was on board the "Hoche" and wounded in the action. He shortly afterwards committed suicide in prison. A third French division had sailed from Rochefort on the very day the "Hoche" was captured. It succeeded in reaching Ireland; but learning the fate of Bompart's squadron, returned without landing the troops. This was the last of the expeditions against Ireland that sailed from French ports. Other interests and other rulers combined with the pronounced naval ascendency of Great Britain to give a different direction to the efforts of the republic.

END OF VOL. I.

[1] Martin, Histoire de France, vol. xix. p. 370.