Throughout all Hawke kept his head, and made no serious mistake; but he accepts no unmerited censures. Seeing that the transports are not enough for the healthful carriage of the troops, he so represents it. The government, already impatient at any report of defects, hopes that things are now arranged to his satisfaction. "I am astonished at this expression," he says, "it is my duty to represent defects, but I am satisfied with any decision you make." Again, "I have received your letter signifying His Majesty's directions to use the utmost diligence in embarking the troops and getting to sea. As I cannot doubt my letter of Sunday being immediately communicated to you, I should have expected that before yours was sent His Majesty would have been fully satisfied that I needed no spur in executing his orders." As Hawke and Anson—the First Lord—were friends, there can be little doubt that we see here a firm protest against the much lauded tone to which the efficiency of the British army and navy under Pitt has been too exclusively attributed. It was in the civil administration, the preparation that underlies military success, which being at home was under his own eye, that Pitt's energy was beneficially felt, and also in his prompt recognition of fit instruments; but he had no need to discover Hawke or Boscawen. He might as well be thought to have discovered the sun.

In discharging his part of the expedition Hawke's course is consistent and clear. It must in the first place be recognized that such enterprises are of secondary importance, and do not warrant the risks which are not only justifiable but imperative when a decisive issue is at stake. Hawke's heroic disregard of pilotage difficulties at Quiberon, in 1759, would have been culpable temerity at Basque Roads, in 1757. But, save delays on this account, no time is lost by him. When the decision to land is reached, he is clear as to the possibility of landing; but when the generals think it impossible to effect certain results, he replies that is their business, on which he does not pretend to judge. In his evidence before the Court afterwards, he said, "Whether they should land or not, he constantly thought it the part of the generals to determine. He could not but suppose they were infinitely better judges of their own business than he could be." Their conduct was marked by vacillations strange to him, and which apparently displeased him; the troops being, on one occasion, embarked in the boats for some hours, and yet returning to the ships without proceeding. He then addressed a formal letter to the commanding general, saying that if he had no further operation to propose the fleet would return at once to England, and he declined to attend a Council of War to decide either of these points. The Army should decide, alone, whether it could effect anything by landing; if not, he, without asking counsel, would stay no longer. On October 7th he reached Spithead.

Pitt, who had espoused Byng's cause against the previous administration, followed its precedent in throwing the blame on the military and naval leaders. In Parliament, he "declared solemnly his belief that there was a determined resolution, both in the naval and military commanders, against any vigorous exertion of the national power." For far less than this accusation Byng had been condemned; but in fact the fault at Rochefort lay clearly on those who issued the orders,—upon the Cabinet; upon the character of the expedition itself,—a great risk for a secondary and doubtful object; upon the inconsiderate haste which disregarded alike the season and the inadequate knowledge; upon defective preparation in the broadest sense of the words. Diversions, in truth, are feints, in which the utmost smoke with the least fire is the object. Carried farther, they entail disaster; for they rest on no solid basis of adequate force, but upon successful deception. Pitt's angry injustice met with its due rebuke the next year at St. Cas. It can scarcely be doubted that words such as those quoted were responsible, in part at least, for the disastrous issue of that diversion, the story of which belongs, if to the navy at all, to the life of Howe.

That Hawke resented this language can scarcely be doubted, and none the less that he evidently himself felt that something might have been attempted by the troops. He was clear of fault in his own consciousness; but in the general censure he was involved with his associates—known, so to say, by his friends, implicated in the meshes of a half-truth, where effort to clear one's self results in worse entanglement. He had the manly cast of character which will not struggle for self-vindication; but his suppressed wrath gathered force, until a year later it resulted, upon occasion of official provocation, in an explosion that has not a close parallel in naval history.

He had hoisted his flag again on February 28, 1758. His first service was directed against a French squadron of five ships-of-the-line, fitting at Rochefort to convoy troops for the relief of Louisburg, in Cape Breton Island, then about to be besieged by British and colonial forces. Hawke's observations of the previous year had ascertained the hitherto unknown facilities of Basque Roads for occupation by a fleet and consequent effectual interception of such an expedition. Upon making the land the French vessels were found already in the Roads, therefore soon to sail; but before this superior force of seven ships they cut their cables, and fled across the shoals up the river Charente, on which Rochefort lies. Hawke, instructed by his previous experience, had earnestly but fruitlessly demanded fire-ships and bomb-vessels to destroy the enemy in case they grounded on the flats; which they did, and for some hours lay exposed to such an attack. Not having these means, he had to watch helplessly the process of lightening and towing by which they at last made their escape. He then returned to England, having frustrated the relief expedition but, through defective equipment, not destroyed the vessels. The Admiralty, upon receiving his report of the transaction, made no acknowledgments to him.

Pitt had profited by Hawke's ineffectual request for small vessels and his suffering from the want of them; but he utilized the suggestions in a manner that robbed their author of any share in the results. A squadron of that sort was to be constituted, to operate on the French coast in diversions like that of 1757; but it was to be an independent command, under an officer chosen by the Government without consulting the admiral. To the main fleet was assigned the necessary, but in credit very secondary, office of cruising off Brest, to prevent interruption by the French ships there; to play, in short, the inconspicuous role of a covering force, while the light squadron had the brilliant part of fighting. The officer selected for the latter was Howe, deservedly a favorite of Hawke's, but not therefore acceptable to him as a supplanter in his honors.

The admiral had been for some time superintending the equipment of the vessels for the light division, when, on May 10, 1758, Howe reported to him, bringing his orders. Hawke boiled over at once; and, in a heat evidently beyond his will to control, despatched the following letter, three hours after Howe's arrival.

Portsmouth, 7 o'clock p.m. 10th May, 1758.

Sir,—About 4 o'clock arrived here Captain Howe, and delivered me their Lordships' order of the 9th. In last September I was sent out to command an expedition under all the disadvantages one could possibly labor under, arising chiefly from my being under the influence of land-officers in Councils of War at sea.[4] Last cruise (March-April, 1758) I went out on a particular service, almost without the least means of performing it. Now every means to ensure success is provided; another is to reap the credit; while it is probable that I, with the capital ships, might be ordered to cruise in such a manner as to prevent his failing in this attempt. To fit out his ships for this service I have been kept here,[5] and even now have their Lordships' directions, at least in terms, to obey him. He is to judge of what he wants for his expedition; he is to make his demands, and I am to comply with them. I have therefore directed my flag immediately to be struck, and left their Lordships' orders with Vice-Admiral Holburne. For no consequence that can attend my striking it without orders shall ever outbalance with me the wearing it one moment with discredit.

I am, etc. E. HAWKE.

It is impossible to justify so extreme a step as abandoning one's command without permission, and especially under circumstances that permitted the orderly course of asking for detachment. Nevertheless, Hawke did well to be angry; and, as is sometimes the case, an injudicious and, in point of occasion, unseemly loss of temper, doubtless contributed to insure for him in the future, to a degree which forbearance or mere remonstrance would not have assured, the consideration essential to his duties. Many will remember the effect produced by Plimsoll's unparliamentary outbreak. The erroneous impression, that admirals and generals fit to be employed at all were to be ridden booted and spurred, needed correction. Hawke had misapprehended the intention of the Government, in so far as believing that the light squadron was to be employed in Basque Roads, the scene of last year's failure; but he was right in thinking that intrusting the enterprise to another, on that occasion his junior, would be a reflection upon himself, intensified by making the command practically independent, while he was limited to the covering duty. Under these circumstances, erroneously imagined by him, the squadron should have been attached to his command, and the particular direction left to him; the Government giving to him, instead of to Howe, the general orders which it issued, and arranging with him beforehand as to the command of the detached squadron.

But even under the actual conditions, of an intention to operate on the western Channel coast of France, it would have been graceful and appropriate to recognize Hawke's eminent past, and recent experience, by keeping under his command the ships he had himself fitted for the service, and directing him to despatch Howe with the necessary instructions. It was as in the Nile campaign, where the general directions were sent to St. Vincent, with a clear expression of the Government's preference for Nelson as the officer to take charge. The intended scene of Howe's operations, if not formally within Hawke's district, was far less distant from Brest than Toulon and Italy were from Cadiz, where St. Vincent covered Nelson's detachment. In the wish for secrecy, perhaps, or perhaps through mere indifference to the effect produced upon Hawke, as a man assumed to need curb and spur, he was left in ignorance, to imagine what he pleased; and this action, succeeding previous neglects and Pitt's imputations of the previous year, elicited an outburst which, while it cannot be justified in its particular manifestation, was in spirit inevitable. A man submissive to such treatment as he had good cause to suspect, would be deficient in the independence of character, and sensitive regard to official reputation, without which he was unfit to command the Channel Fleet.

Hawke was summoned at once to the Admiralty, and in the interview which ensued, as shown by the minutes endorsed on his own letter, his misconception as to the quarter in which Howe was to act afforded standing ground for a compromise. Hawke having committed himself officially, and upon a mistaken premise, the Admiralty had him technically at their mercy; but such a triumph as they could win by disciplining him would be more disastrous than a defeat. He disclaimed resentment towards any person, and reiterated that his action was intended merely to defend his character and honor, which he said—to quote the minute exactly—"were not so much touched as he apprehended when the suspicion he had of Mr. Howe's going to Basque Roads arose—from the Lords asking him some days since for a draft of the Roads." The italics are the present writer's; but the words as they stand would indicate that he did not yield his view of the matter in general, nor leave hearers under any doubt as to how far he could safely be treated with contumely or slight. There can be little doubt that the substantial result was to strengthen his position in the exacting duty that lay before him in the following year.

The whole business was then salved over by the First Lord, Anson, taking command of the Channel Fleet for the particular occasion. Hawke accompanied him as second in command, while Howe went his way with the light squadron and the troops. Both divisions sailed on the 1st of June. On the 18th our admiral was so unwell with a severe fever and cold—a complaint to which he was much subject—that he had to ask to be sent into port. He went ashore before the end of the month, and remained unemployed till the following May.

The year 1759 is the culminating epoch of Hawke's career. In it occurred the signal triumph of Quiberon Bay, the seal of his genius, significant above all as demonstrating that the ardor of the leader had found fulfilment in his followers, that the spirit of Hawke had become the spirit of the Navy. This year also yielded proof of his great capacity as a seaman and administrator, in the efficient blocking of Brest, prolonged through six months of closest watching into the period of the winter gales, in face of which it had hitherto been thought impossible to keep the sea with heavy ships massed in fleets; for, as he most justly said, in explaining the necessity of maintaining the rendezvous fixed by him, "A single ship may struggle with a hard gale of wind when a squadron cannot. In working against a strong westerly gale in the Channel, where it cannot make very long stretches,"—because it finds shores and shoals on either side,—"it must always by wearing lose ground, but more especially if it should so blow as to put it past carrying sail." The method used by Hawke was not only an innovation on all past practice, but, as has before been said, constituted the pattern whereon were framed the great blockades of the Napoleonic period, which strangled both the naval efficiency and the commercial and financial resources of the Empire. These were but developments of Hawke's fine achievement of 1759; the prestige of originality belongs to him. Even their success, with better ships and the improvement of detail always accompanying habit, is foreshadowed by his. "I may safely affirm that, except the few ships that took refuge in Conquet, hardly a vessel of any kind has been able to enter or come out of Brest for four months,"—ending October 10th. "They have been obliged to unload near forty victuallers at Quimperley and carry their cargoes by land to Brest. It must be the fault of the weather, not ours, if any of them escape."

It was suitable indeed that so strenuous and admirable an exhibition of professional ability,—of naval generalship,—alike in strategic combination, tactical disposition, and administrative superintendence, should terminate in a brilliant triumph, at once its fruit and its crown; wherein sedulous and unremittent readiness for instant action, comprehended by few, received a startling demonstration which none could fail to understand. As Nelson was pursued by ignorant sneers before the Nile, so Hawke was burned in effigy by the populace, at the very moment when laborious effort was about to issue in supreme achievement. The victory in either case is less than the antecedent labor, as the crown, after all, is less than the work, the symbol than the fact symbolized.

A brief account of preceding conditions, and of the dispositions maintained to meet them, is therefore necessary to due appreciation of the victory of Quiberon Bay. Although the diversions of 1758 had not very materially aided Frederic of Prussia, they had inflicted distinct humiliation and harassment upon France. This, added to defeat upon the Continent and in North America, had convinced the French Government, as it convinced Napoleon a half-century later, that a determined blow must be struck at England herself as the operative centre upon which rested, and from which proceeded, the most serious detriment to their cause and that of their allies. It was resolved, therefore, to attempt an invasion of England; to the threat of which the English people were always extremely sensitive.

From local conditions the French preparations had to be made in several separate places; it was the task of the British Navy to prevent the concentration of these different detachments in a joint effort. The troops must embark, of course, from some place near to England; their principal points of assembly were on the Channel, whence they were to cross in flat-boats, and in the Biscay ports, from Brest to the mouth of the Loire. The Bay of Quiberon, from which Hawke's action takes its name, lies between the two latter points. It is sheltered from the full force of the Atlantic gales by a peninsula of the same name, and by some shoals which prolong the barrier to the southward of the promontory.

To cross safely, it was necessary to provide naval protection. To this end squadrons were equipped in Toulon and in Brest. Combined at the latter point, and further strengthened by divisions expected to return from North America, they would constitute a force of very serious consideration in point of numbers. Rochefort also was an element in the problem, though a minor one; for either the small force already there might join the concentration, or, if the port were unwatched, the American or other divisions might get in there, and be at least so much nearer to Brest, or to a neighboring point of assembly, as Quiberon Bay.

As the French Navy was essential to the French crossing, as its junction was essential to action, as the point of junction was at or near Brest—for there was the district near which the troops were assembling—and as by far the largest detachment was already in Brest, that port became the important centre upon blocking which depended primarily the thwarting of the invasion. If the French Navy succeeded in concentrating at Brest, the first move in the game would be lost. Hawke therefore had the double duty of not allowing the squadron there to get out without fighting, and of closing the entrance to reinforcements. The latter was far the more difficult, and could not be assured beyond the chance of failure, because an on-shore gale, which would carry his fleet into the Channel to avoid being driven on the French coast, would be fair for an outside enemy to run into the port, friendly to him. This actually occurred at a most critical moment, but it could only happen by a combination of circumstances; that is, by the hostile squadron chancing to arrive at a moment when the British had been blown off. If it approached under ordinary conditions of weather it would run into the midst of foes.

The great names of the British Navy were then all afloat in active command. Rodney was before Havre, which he bombarded in the course of the summer, doing a certain amount of damage, harassing the local preparations for invasion, and intercepting vessels carrying supplies to the Brest fleet and coastwise. Boscawen, second only to Hawke, was before Toulon, to hold there the dozen ships-of-the-line under De la Clue, as Hawke was charged to stop the score under Conflans.

In broad conception, Hawke's method was simple and can be easily stated; the difficulty lay in carrying it out. The main body of his force had a rendezvous, so chosen that in violent weather from the westward it could at worst drift up Channel, but usually would have a fair wind for Torbay, a roadstead on the British coast about a hundred miles distant. To the rendezvous the fleet was not tied under ordinary circumstances; it was merely a headquarters which admitted of cruising, but where despatches from home would always find the admiral in person, or news of his whereabouts. Near Brest itself was kept an inshore squadron of three or four ships, which under ordinary circumstances could see the enemy inside, noting his forwardness; for the cannon of the day could not molest a vessel more than a mile from the entrance, while the conditions within of spars and sails indicated to a seaman the readiness or intention to move, to a degree not ascertainable with ships dependent on steam only.

With these dispositions, if a westerly gale came on, the fleet held its ground while it could, but when expedient to go put into Torbay. Owing to the nearness of the two places, the weather, when of a pronounced character, was the same at both. While the wind held to the westward of south, or even at south-southeast, a ship-of-the-line could not beat out from Brest; much less a fleet. The instant the wind went east, fair for exit, the British left Torbay, with certainty of not being too late; for, though the enemy might get out before their return, the east wind would not suffer them to close with the French coast at another point soon enough to avoid a meeting. While in Torbay the time was improved by taking on board stores and provisions; nor was the night's rest at anchor a small consideration for seamen worn with continual cruising.

The practical merits displayed by Hawke in maintaining this simple but arduous service were, first and supremely, the recognition of its possibility, contrary to a tradition heretofore as commonly and as blindly accepted as those of the line-of-battle, and of the proper methods for fleet attack before described. It must be remembered also that in these wars, 1739-1763, for the first time the British Navy found the scene of action, in European waters, to be the Biscay coast of France. In the former great wars of the seventeenth century, French fleets entered the Channel, and pitched battles were fought there and in the North Sea. Thence the contest shifted to the Mediterranean, where the great fleets operated in the later days of William III., and the reign of Anne. Then, too, the heavy ships, like land armies, went into winter quarters. It was by distinguished admirals considered professionally criminal to expose those huge yet cumbrous engines of the nation's power to the buffetings of winter gales, which might unfit them next year to meet the enemy, snugly nursed and restored to vigor in home ports during the same time. The need of periodical refitting and cleaning the bottoms clinched the argument in favor of this seasonable withdrawal from the sea.

With this presumed necessity, attention had not been paid to developing a system of maintenance and refit adapted to the need of a fleet performing what Hawke undertook. In this, of course, there cannot be assigned to him the individuality of merit that may belong to a conception, and does belong to the man who initiates and assumes, as he did, the responsibility for a novel and hazardous course of action. Many agents had to contribute to the forwarding of supplies and repairs; but, while singleness of credit cannot be assumed, priority is justly due to him upon whose shoulders fell not only all blame, in case his enterprise failed, but the fundamental difficulty of so timing the reliefs of the vessels under his command, so arranging the order of rotation in their going and coming as to keep each, as well as the whole body, in a constant condition of highest attainable efficiency—in numbers, in speed, and in health—for meeting the enemy, whose time of exit could not be foreknown. Naturally, too, the man on whom all this fell, and who to the nation would personify success or failure, as the event might be,—terms which to him would mean honor or ruin,—that man, when professionally so competent as Hawke, would be most fruitful in orders and in suggestions to attain the desired end. In this sense there can be no doubt that he was foremost, and his correspondence bears evidence of his preoccupation with the subject.

Into particulars it is scarcely necessary to go. Administrative details are interesting only to specialists. But one quality absolutely essential, and in which most men fail, he manifested in high degree. He feared no responsibility, either towards the enemy, or towards the home authorities. Superior and inferior alike heard plainly from him in case of defects; still more plainly in case of neglect. "It is a matter of indifference to me whether I fight the enemy, should they come out, with an equal number, one ship more, or one ship less." "I depend not on intelligence from the French ports; what I see I believe, and regulate my conduct accordingly;" a saying which recalls one of Farragut's,—"The officers say I don't believe anything. I certainly believe very little that comes in the shape of reports. They keep everybody stirred up. I mean to be whipped or to whip my enemy, and not to be scared to death." Agitation, to a very considerable degree, was the condition of Hawke's superiors; to say the least, anxiety strained to the point of approaching panic. But Hawke could have adopted truly as his own Farragut's other words, "I have full confidence in myself and in my judgment,"—that is, of course, in professional matters; and he spoke reassuringly out of the firmness of his self-reliance. "Their Lordships will pardon me for observing that from the present disposition of the squadron I think there is little room for alarm while the weather continues tolerable." Again, a few days later, "Their Lordships may rest assured there is little foundation for the present alarms. While the wind is fair for the enemy's coming out, it is also favorable for our keeping them in; and while we are obliged to keep off they cannot stir." This was in October, when the weather was already wild and the days shortening.

With equally little hesitancy, though without breach of subordination, he overbears the Admiralty when they wish to pay what he considers exaggerated care to cleaning the bottoms, traceable, no doubt, to the prejudices of the Sea Lords. "If the ships take up a month by cleaning, from the time they leave me to their return, it will be impossible for me to keep up the squadron. The only practicable way is to heel, etc., and confine them to ten days in port for the refreshment of their companies in case they should miss the spring tide." "Their Lordships will give me leave to observe that the relief of the squadron depends more on the refreshment of the ships' companies than on cleaning the ships. By the hurry the latter must be performed in, unless the ship continues a month or five weeks in port, which the present exigency will by no means admit of, the men would be so harassed and fatigued that they would return to me in a worse condition than when they left me.... However, I shall endeavor to comply with all their Lordships' directions in such manner as, to the best of my judgment, will answer their intentions in employing me here." The words italicized strike the true note of subordination duly tempered with discretion.

To the Navy Board, a civil adjunct to the Admiralty, but possessed of considerable independent power to annoy officers in active military service, he took a more peremptory tone. He had discharged on his own authority, and for reasons of emergency, a mutinous surgical officer. For this he was taken to task, as Nelson a generation later was rebuked by the same body. "I have to acquaint you," he replied, "that there was no mistake in his being ordered by me to be discharged." He then gives his reasons, and continues, "For the real good of the service I ordered him to be discharged, and his crime noted on his list of pay, for your information. I shall not enter into any dispute with you about my authority as a Commanding Officer, neither do I ever think of inconveniences or prejudices to myself, as a party, according to your insinuations, where the good of the service is concerned." It must be added that to subordinates he was as liberal with praise as he was with censure, where either was merited; nor did he fail in kindly personal intervention upon due occasion for deserving or unfortunate men. More reserved, apparently, than Nelson, he seems to have been like him sympathetic; and hence it was that, as before observed, it was his spirit that he communicated to the navy rather than a system, admirable as was the strategic system embodied in his methods of blockade. It was by personal influence rather than by formulated precept that Hawke inspired his service, and earned a just claim to be reckoned the greatest force of his century in naval development.

The general conditions being as described, the fighting in the naval campaign of 1759 began in the Mediterranean. On June 8th Boscawen, having driven two French frigates into a fortified bay near Toulon, attacked them with three ships-of-the-line. The attack failed, and the British ships were badly injured; a timely lesson on the general inexpediency of attacking shore batteries with vessels, unless for special and adequate reasons of probable advantage. In July he returned to Gibraltar, to refit and for provisions. In the absence of details, positive criticism is unwarranted; but it is impossible not to note the difference between this step, during summer weather, and the Toulon blockades of Lord St. Vincent, who, when before Brest, modelled his course upon that of Hawke. The port being thus left open, De la Clue sailed on the 5th of August for Brest. On the 17th he was near the straits of Gibraltar, hugging the African coast, and falling night gave promise of passing unseen, when a British lookout frigate caught sight of his squadron. She hauled in for Gibraltar at once, firing signal guns. Boscawen's ships were in the midst of repairs, mostly dismantled; but, the emergency not being unforeseen, spars and sails were sent rapidly aloft, and within three hours they were underway in pursuit. The French division separated during the night. Five ships put into Cadiz. The British next morning caught sight of the remaining seven, among which was the admiral, and a sharp chase resulted in the destruction of five. From August 18th the Toulon fleet was eliminated from the campaign; though the vessels in Cadiz remained to the end a charge upon Hawke's watchfulness, similar to that caused by the enemy's divisions expected from America.

That one of the latter was already on its way home, under the command of Commodore Bompart, was notified to our admiral on September 21st by a despatch from England. He immediately sent a division of heavy ships to reinforce the light squadron to the southward. "If the alarm is great now," he said, "it will be much greater if he get into Rochefort." Further information from the West Indies contradicted the first report, and on October 10th Hawke recalled the ships-of-the-line, apparently at the wish of the Admiralty; for he expresses his regret at doing so, and asks for more of the "many ships" then in England, that Rochefort may be blocked as well as Brest. The incident has now little importance, except as indicating the general national nervousness, and the difficulty under which he labored through force inadequate to the numerous and exacting duties entailed by constant holding the sea in war. From this point of view it bears upon his conduct.

That Bompart was coming proved to be true. On November 10th Hawke anchored with the fleet in Torbay, after three days of struggle against a very heavy westerly storm. "Bompart, if near, may get in," he wrote the Admiralty, "but no ship can get out from any port in the Bay." The weather had then moderated, but was still too rough for boating, even in the sheltered roadstead; hence he could get no reports of the state of the ships, which shows incidentally the then defective system of signalling. On the 12th he sailed, on the 13th was again forced into Torbay by a south-wester, but on the 14th got away finally. On the afternoon of the 16th the fleet was twenty-five miles from the Island of Ushant, near Brest, and there learned from transports, returning from the light division off Quiberon, that the French fleet had been seen the day before, seventy-five miles northwest of Belleisle; therefore some fifty or sixty miles southeast of the point where this news was received. Conflans had sailed the same day that the British last left Torbay, but before his departure Bompart had opportunely arrived, as Hawke had feared. His ships were not able to go at once to sea on so important a mission, but their seasoned crews were a welcome reinforcement and were distributed through the main fleet, which numbered twenty-one ships-of-the-line. Hawke had twenty-three.

Concluding that the enemy were bound for Quiberon, Hawke carried a press of sail for that place. He knew they must be within a hundred miles of him and aimed to cut them off from their port. During the 17th the wind, hanging to the south and east, was adverse to both fleets, but on the 18th and 19th it became more favorable. At half-past eight on the morning of the 20th, one of the lookout frigates ahead of the British made the signal for sighting a fleet. It was then blowing strong from the west-northwest, and Belleisle, which is ten miles west of Quiberon Bay, and south of which the fleets must pass, was by the English reckoning forty miles distant. A course of some fifty or sixty miles was therefore to be run before the enemy could close the land, and there remained about eight hours of sun.

Hawke's day had come. Towards ten o'clock he had the enemy sufficiently in view to see that they were intent upon securing their arrival, rather than fighting. He therefore made signal for the seven ships nearest them "to chase and draw into a line-of-battle ahead of me, and endeavour to stop them till the rest of the squadron should come up, who also were to form as they chased that no time might be lost in the pursuit." The French "kept going off under such sail as all their squadron could carry and yet keep together, while we crowded after him with every sail our ships could bear." The words italicized sum up the whole philosophy of a general chase. The pursued are limited to the speed of the slowest, otherwise he who cannot but lag is separated and lost; the pursuer need slacken no whit, for his friends are ever coming up to his aid. Overtaking is inevitable, unless the distance is too short.

At half-past two firing began between the French rear and the leading British. Of the two foremost in the chase, who thus opened the fight, one was the same Dorsetshire which in Mathews's battle had played the laggard. Her captain, who thus rose to his opportunity, was one of the two to whom Hawke addressed the enthusiastic compliment that they had "behaved like angels." Hawke himself was at this moment south of Belleisle, with several ships ahead of him; while the French admiral was leading his fleet, in order better to pilot them over dangerous ground, and by his own action show more surely than was possible by signal what he wished done from moment to moment. At the southern extreme of the shoals which act as a breakwater to Quiberon Bay are some formidable rocks, known as the Cardinals. Around these M. de Conflans passed soon after the firing began, his rear being then in hot action.

Hawke himself was without a pilot, as were most of his captains. The sailing master of the flag-ship was charged with that duty for the fleet, but had of the ground before him no exact personal knowledge; nor could reliance be placed upon the imperfect surveys of a locality, which it was not the interest of an almost constant enemy to disclose. Enough, however, was known to leave no doubt of the greatness of the risks, and it was the master's part to represent them. The occasion, however, was not one of a mere diversion, of a secondary operation, but of one vital to the nation's cause; and Hawke's reply, stamped with the firmness of a great officer, showed how little professional timidity had to do with his laudable care of his fleet in Basque Roads two years before. "You have done your duty in warning me," he replied; "now lay us alongside the French Commander-in-chief." So amid the falling hours of the day the British fleet, under the unswerving impulse of its leader, moved steadfastly forward, to meet a combination of perils that embraced all most justly dreaded by seamen,—darkness, an intricate navigation, a lee shore fringed with outlying and imperfectly known reefs and shoals, towards which they were hurried by a fast-rising wind and sea, that forbade all hope of retracing their steps during the long hours of the night.

"Had we but two hours more daylight," wrote Hawke in his official report, "the whole had been totally destroyed or taken; for we were almost up with their van when night overtook us." His success would have been greater, though not more decisive of issues than the event proved it; but nothing could have added to the merit or brilliancy of his action, to which no element of grandeur was wanting. This was one of the most dramatic of sea fights. Forty-odd tall ships, pursuers and pursued, under reefed canvas, in fierce career drove furiously on; now rushing headlong down the forward slope of a great sea, now rising on its crest as it swept beyond them; now seen, now hidden; the helmsmen straining at the wheels, upon which the huge hulls, tossing their prows from side to side, tugged like a maddened horse, as though themselves feeling the wild "rapture of the strife" that animated their masters, rejoicing in their strength and defying the accustomed rein.

The French admiral had flattered himself that the enemy, ignorant of the ground, would not dare to follow him round the Cardinals. He was soon undeceived. Hawke's comment on the situation was that he was "for the old way of fighting, to make downright work with them." It was an old way, true; but he had more than once seen it lost to mind, and had himself done most to restore it to its place,—a new way as well as an old. The signals for the general chase and for battle were kept aloft, and no British ship slacked her way. Without ranged order, save that of speed, the leaders mingled with the French rear; the roar and flashes of the guns, the falling spars and drifting clouds of smoke, now adding their part to the wild magnificence of the scene. Though tactically perfect in the sole true sense of tactics, that the means adopted exactly suited the situation, this was a battle of incidents, often untold,—not one of manoeuvres. As the ships, rolling heavily, buried their flanks deeply in the following seas, no captain dared to open his lower tier of ports, where the most powerful artillery was arrayed—none save one, the French Thesee, whose rashness was rebuked by the inpouring waters, which quickly engulfed both ship and crew. The Superbe met a like fate, though not certainly from the same cause. She sank under the broadside of the Royal George, Hawke's flag-ship. "The Royal George's people gave a cheer," wrote an eye witness, "but it was a faint one; the honest sailors were touched at the miserable state of so many hundreds of poor creatures." Americans and English can couple this story of long ago with Philip's ejaculation off Santiago de Cuba, but three years since: "Don't cheer, boys, those poor devils are dying."

By five o'clock two French ships had struck, and two had been sunk. "Night was now come," wrote Hawke, "and being on a part of the coast, among islands and shoals of which we were totally ignorant, without a pilot, as was the greatest part of the squadron, and blowing hard on a lee shore, I made the signal to anchor." The day's work was over, and doubtless looked to him incomplete, but it was effectually and finally done. The French Navy did not again lift up its head during the three years of war that remained. Balked in their expectation that the foe's fear of the beach would give them refuge, harried and worried by the chase, harnessed to no fixed plan of action, Conflans's fleet broke apart and fled. Seven went north, and ran ashore at the mouth of the little river Vilaine which empties into Quiberon Bay. Eight stood south, and succeeded in reaching Rochefort. The fate of four has been told. Conflans's flag-ship anchored after night among the British, but at daybreak next morning cut her cables, ran ashore, and was burned by the French. One other, wrecked on a shoal in the bay, makes up the tale of twenty-one. Six were wholly lost to their navy; the seven that got into Vilaine only escaped to Brest by twos, two years later, while the Rochefort division was effectually blocked by occupying Basque Roads, the islands of which and of Quiberon were cultivated as kitchen gardens for the refreshment of British crews.

Of the British, one ship went on a shoal during the action, and on the following day another coming to her assistance also grounded. Both were lost, but most of their people were saved. Beyond this Hawke's fleet suffered little. "As to the loss we have sustained," wrote he, "let it be placed to the account of the necessity I was under of running all risks to break this strong force of the enemy."

A contemporary witness assigns to Hawke's own ship a large individual share in the fighting. Of this he does not himself speak, nor is it of much matter. That all was done with her that could be done, to aid in achieving success, is sufficiently assured by his previous record. Hawke's transcendent merit in this affair was that of the general officer, not of the private captain. The utmost courage shown by the commander of a single ship before the enemy's fire cannot equal the heroism which assumes the immense responsibility of a doubtful issue, on which may hang a nation's fate; nor would the admiral's glory be shorn of a ray, if neither then nor at any other time had a hostile shot traversed his decks.

The night of the 20th passed in anxieties inseparable from a situation dangerous at best, but still more trying to an admiral upon whom, after such a day, night had closed without enabling him to see in what case most of his ships were. "In the night," he reports, "we heard many guns of distress fired, but, blowing hard, want of knowledge of the coast, and whether they were fired by a friend or an enemy, prevented all means of relief." In the morning he resumed his activity. Little, however, could be done. The continuing violence of the wind, and ignorance of the ground, prevented approach within gun-shot to the ships at the mouth of the Vilaine, while they, by lightening and favor of the next flood tide, warped their way inside through the mud flats.

Hawke remained nearly two months longer, returning to England January 17, 1760. He had then been thirty-five weeks on board, without setting foot on shore. At the age of fifty-four, and amid such manifold cares, it is not to be wondered at that he should need relief. Rather must he be considered fortunate that his health, never robust in middle life, held firm till his great triumph was achieved. Boscawen succeeded him temporarily in the command.

He was received in England with acclamations and with honors; yet the most conspicuous mark of approval conferred on admirals before and after, the grant of the peerage, was not given to him, who had wrought one of the very greatest services ever done for the country. Recent precedent—that of Anson—demanded such recognition; and popular enthusiasm would have applauded, although the full military merit of the man could scarcely be appreciated by the standards of his generation. That no such reward was bestowed is most probably attributable to Hawke's own indifference to self-advancement. If demanded by him, it could scarcely have been refused; but he never pushed his own interests. His masculine independence in professional conduct, towards superiors and inferiors, found its root and its reflection in personal unconcern—as well antecedent as subsequent—about the results from his actions to his fortunes. To do his own part to the utmost, within the lines of the profession he knew, was his conception of duty. As he would not meddle with the land officers' decision as to what they should or should not do, so he left to the politicians, in whose hands the gifts lay, to decide what they would, or should, accord to a successful admiral. Pitt, the Great Commoner, left Hawke a commoner. Possibly he recognized that only by stretch of imagination could Hawke be reckoned one of the creations of a great Minister's genius.

Little remains to tell. On September 3, 1762, the admiral's flag was hauled down for the last time. He never went to sea again. In 1766, when Pitt came back to power as Lord Chatham, Hawke became First Lord of the Admiralty, and so remained till 1771. It was a time of unbroken peace, succeeding a period of continuous wars extending over a quarter of a century; consequently there was in naval and military matters the lassitude usual to such a period. Hawke is credited with formulating the principle that "the British fleet could only be termed considerable in the proportion it bore to that of the House of Bourbon;" that is, to the combined navies of France and Spain, over which that House then reigned. The maxim proves that he had some claim to statesmanship in his view of affairs outside his service; and his manifested freedom from self-seeking is the warrant that no secondary political motives would divert his efforts from this aim. That he succeeded in the main, that he was not responsible for the fallen condition of the fleet when war again arose in 1778, is evidenced by a statement, uncontradicted, in the House of Lords in 1779, that when he left office the navy had 139 ships-of-the-line, of which 81 were ready for sea.

In 1765 Hawke, who was then already a full admiral, wearing his flag at the mainmast head, was made Vice-Admiral of Great Britain; an honorary position, but the highest in point of naval distinction that the nation had to give. As one who held it three-quarters of a century later wrote, "It has ever been regarded as the most distinguished compliment belonging to our profession." The coincidence is significant that upon Hawke's death Rodney succeeded him in it; affirming, as it were, the consecutiveness of paramount influence exercised by the two on the development of the Navy. In 1776 the peerage was at last conferred; seventeen years after his great victory, and when, having passed three score and ten, a man who had ever disdained to ask must have felt the honor barren to himself, though acceptable for his son.

His last recorded professional utterances are in private letters addressed in the summer of 1780 to the commander-in-chief of the Channel Fleet—Francis Geary—who had served with him in the Bay of Biscay, though he missed Quiberon. He recommends the maintenance of his old station off Brest, and says, "For God's sake, if you should be so lucky as to get sight of the enemy, get as close to them as possible. Do not let them shuffle with you by engaging at a distance, but get within musket shot if you can. This will be the means to make the action decisive." In these words we find an unbroken chain of tradition between Hawke and Nelson. One of Hawke's pupils was William Locker; and Locker in turn, just before Hawke's death, had Nelson for a lieutenant. To him Nelson in after years, in the height of his glory, wrote, "To you, my dear friend, I owe much of my success. It was you who taught me,—'Lay a Frenchman close and you will beat him.'"

Hawke died October 16, 1781. On his tomb appear these words, "Wherever he sailed, victory attended him." It is much to say, but it is not all. Victory does not always follow desert. "It is not in mortals to command success,"—a favorite quotation with the successful admirals St. Vincent and Nelson. Hawke's great and distinctive glory is this,—that he, more than any one man, was the source and origin of the new life, the new spirit, of his service. There were many brave men before him, as there were after; but it fell to him in a time of great professional prostration not only to lift up and hand on a fallen torch, but in himself to embody an ideal and an inspiration from which others drew, thus rekindling a light which it is scarcely an exaggeration to say had been momentarily extinguished.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] For the account of Mathews's action, including Hawke's personal share in it, see ante, pp. 21-47.

[4] By express orders from the Ministry Councils of War had to be held.

[5] An application for four days' leave for private business had been refused.



RODNEY

1719-1792

Unlike Hawke, Rodney drew his descent from the landed gentry of England, and had relatives among the aristocracy. The name was originally Rodeney. We are told by his son-in-law and biographer that the Duke of Chandos, a connection by marriage, obtained the command of the Royal yacht for the admiral's father, Henry Rodney. In one of the trips which George I. frequently made between England and Hanover, he asked his captain if there were anything he could do for him. The reply was a request that he would stand sponsor for his son, who accordingly received the name of George; his second name Brydges coming from the family through which Chandos and the Rodneys were brought into relationship. The social position and surroundings resulting from such antecedents contributed of course to hasten the young officer's advancement, irrespective of the unquestionable professional merit shown by him, even in early years; but to them also, combined with narrow personal fortune, inadequate to the tastes thus engendered, was probably due the pecuniary embarrassment which dogged him through life, and was perhaps the moving incentive to doubtful procedures that cast a cloud upon his personal and official reputation.

Rodney was born in February, 1719, and went to sea at the age of thirteen; serving for seven years in the Channel Fleet. Thence he was transferred to the Mediterranean, where he was made lieutenant in 1739. In 1742 he went again to the Mediterranean with Admiral Mathews, who there gave him command of a "post" ship, with which he brought home the trade,—three hundred merchant vessels,—from Lisbon. Upon arriving in England his appointment by Mathews was "confirmed" by the Admiralty. Being then only twenty-four, he anticipated by five years the age at which Hawke reached the same rank of post-captain, the attainment of which fixed a man's standing in the navy. Beyond that, advancement went by seniority; a post-captain might be "yellowed,"—retired as a rear admiral,—but while in active service he kept the advantage of his early promotion.

When Rodney was in later years commander-in-chief in the West Indies, he made his son a post-captain at fifteen; an exercise of official powers which, though not singular to him, is too characteristic of the man and the times to be wholly unmentioned. His own promotion, though rapid, was not too much so for his professional good; but it is likely that neither that consideration, nor the good of the service, counted for much alongside of the influence he possessed. He appears, however, to have justified from the first the favor of his superiors. His employment was continuous, and in a military point of view he was more fortunate than Hawke was at the same period of his career. Within two years, when in command of a forty-gun ship, he fought and took a French privateer of the same nominal force, and with a crew larger by one hundred than his own. Thence he was advanced into the Eagle, sixty, in which, after some commerce-destroying more lucrative than glorious, he bore an extremely honorable part in Hawke's battle with L'Etenduere, already related. The Eagle was heavily engaged, and was one of the three small ships that on their own initiative pursued and fought, though unsuccessfully, the two escaping French vessels. Rodney shared Hawke's general encomium, that "as far as fell within my notice, the commanders, their officers, and ships' companies, behaved with the greatest spirit and resolution." Rodney came under his close observation, for, the Eagle's "wheel being shot to pieces and all the men at it killed, and all her braces and bowlines gone," she drove twice on board the flag-ship. This was before her pursuit of the two fliers.

In the subsequent trial of Captain Fox,—the minutes of which the present writer has not seen,—it appears, according to the biographer of Lord Hawke,[6] that it was Captain Saunders's and Captain Rodney's "sense of being deserted by Fox, and of the two French ships having escaped through his failure of duty, which forms the chief feature of the Court-Martial. Rodney especially describes his being exposed to the fire of four of the enemy's ships, when, as he asserted, Fox's ship might well have taken off some of it." The incident is very noteworthy, for it bears the impress of personal character. Intolerance of dereliction of duty, and uncompromising condemnation of the delinquent, were ever leading traits in Rodney's course as a commander-in-chief. He stood over his officers with a rod, dealt out criticism unsparingly, and avowed it as his purpose and principle of action so to rule. It is not meant that his censures were undeserved, or even excessive; but there entered into them no ingredient of pity. His despatches are full of complaints, both general and specific. When he spared, it was from a sense of expediency,—or of justice, a trait in which he was by no means deficient; but for human weakness he had no bowels. Hawke complains of but this one captain, Fox, and towards him he seems not to have evinced the strong feeling that animated his juniors. Each man has his special gift, and to succeed must needs act in accordance with it.

There are those who lead and those who drive; Hawke belonged to the one class, Rodney to the other.

In direct consequence of this difference of temperament, it will be found, in contrasting the schools of which Hawke and Rodney are the conspicuous illustrations, that the first represents the spirit, and the second the form, which were the two efficient elements of the progress made during the eighteenth century. The one introduces into a service arrested in development, petrified almost, by blindly accepted rules and unintelligent traditions, a new impulse, which transforms men from within, breaking through the letter of the law in order to realize its forgotten intent; the other gives to the spirit, thus freed from old limitations, a fresh and sagacious direction, but needs nevertheless to impose its own methods by constraint from without. It is the old struggle, ever renewed, between liberty and law; in the due, but difficult, combination of which consist both conservation and progress.

And so in the personality of the two great admirals who respectively represent these contrasting schools of practice; while we find in both these two elements, as they must exist in every efficient officer, yet it is to be said that the one inspires and leads, the other moulds and compels. The one, though seemingly reserved, is in character sympathetic, and influences by example chiefly; the other, austerely courteous, is towards associates distant and ungenial, working by fear rather than by love. For these broad reasons of distinction it is Mathews's battle that best measures the reaction of which Hawke is the type, for there was especially illustrated defect of spirit, to cover which the letter of the law was invoked; whereas in Byng's action, extremely bad form, in the attempt to conform to the letter of the Instructions, emphasizes the contrast with Rodney's methods, precise and formal unquestionably, but in which form ceases to be an end in itself and is reduced to its proper function as the means to carry into effect a sound military conception. Of these two factors in the century's progress, it needs hardly to be said that the one contributed by Hawke is the greater. In spirit and in achievement he, rather than Rodney, is the harbinger of Nelson.

A short time after the action with L'Etenduere the cruise of the Eagle came to an end. When she was paid off Rodney was presented at Court by Anson, the First Lord of the Admiralty; a merited and not unusual honor after distinguished service in battle. The King was struck by his youthful appearance, and said he had not known there was so young a captain in the Navy. As he was then nearly thirty, and had seen much and continuous service, it is singular that his face should not have borne clear traces of the facts. Anson replied that he had been a captain for six years, and it was to be wished that His Majesty had a hundred more as good as he. Making allowance for courtly manners and fair-speaking, the incident may be accepted as showing, not only that aptitude for the service which takes its hardships without undue wear and tear, but also an official reputation already well established and recognized.

Professional standing, therefore, as well as family influence, probably contributed to obtain for him in 1749 the appointment of Commodore and Commander-in-chief on the Newfoundland station; for he was still junior on the list of captains, and had ten years more to run before obtaining his admiral's flag. He remained in this post from 1749 to 1752. They were years of peace, but of peace charged full with the elements of discord which led to the following war. Canada was still French, and the territorial limits between the North American possessions of the two nations remained a subject of dispute and intrigue. The uncertain state of political relations around the Gulf of St. Lawrence added to the responsibility of Rodney's duty, and emphasized the confidence shown in assigning him a position involving cautious political action.

Explicit confirmation of this indirect testimony is found in a private letter to him from the Earl of Sandwich, who had succeeded Anson as First Lord in 1748. "I think it necessary to inform you that, if the Governor of Nova Scotia should have occasion to apply to you for succor, and send to you for that purpose to Newfoundland, it would be approved by Government if you should comply with his request. It is judged improper, as yet, to send any public order upon a business of so delicate a nature, which is the reason of my writing to you in this manner; and I am satisfied that your prudence is such as will not suffer you to make any injudicious use of the information you now receive. There are some people that cannot be trusted with any but public orders, but I shall think this important affair entirely safe under your management and secrecy." Language such as this undoubtedly often covers a hint, as well as expresses a compliment, and may have done so in this instance; nevertheless, in after life it is certain that Rodney gave proof of a very high order of professional discretion and of independent initiative. It is therefore perfectly reasonable to suppose that he had thus early convinced the Government that he was a man competent and trustworthy under critical conditions, such as then characterized the intercolonial relations of the two states. The particular incident is farther noteworthy in connection with the backwardness, and even reluctance, of the Government to employ him in the War of the American Revolution, though Sandwich was again First Lord, and Rodney a strong political supporter of the party in power. The precise cause for this is probably not ascertainable; but it is a matter of perfectly reasonable inference that the early promise of the young officer had meanwhile become overclouded, that distrust had succeeded to confidence, for reasons professional, but not strictly military. Rodney's war record continued excellent from first to last; one not good only, but of exceptional and singular efficiency.

In October, 1752, Rodney returned to England, having been elected to Parliament. The Seven Years War, which, after two years of irregular hostilities, began formally in 1756, found him still a captain. With its most conspicuous opening incident, the attempted relief of Minorca, and the subsequent trial and execution of the unsuccessful commander, Admiral Byng, he had no connection, personal or official; nor was he a member of the Court-Martial, although he seems to have been in England at the time, and was senior to at least one of the sitting captains. The abortive naval engagement off Port Mahon, however, stands in a directly significant relation to his career, for it exemplifies to the most exaggerated degree, alike in the purpose of the admiral and the finding of the Court, the formal and pedantic conception of a correctly fought fleet action, according to the rules and regulations "in such cases prescribed" by the Fighting Instructions.[7] It was Rodney's lot to break with this tradition, and to be the first to illustrate juster ideas in a fairly ranged battle, where the enemy awaited attack, as he had done at Malaga in 1704, and at Minorca in 1756. Precisely such an opportunity never came to Hawke; for, although L'Etenduere waited, he did so under conditions and dispositions which gave the ensuing affair a nearer analogy to a general chase than to a pitched battle. Though the British approach then was in a general sense parallel to the enemy's line, it was from the rear, not from the beam; and through this circumstance of overtaking, and from the method adopted, their vessels came under fire in succession, not together. This was perfectly correct, the course pre-eminently suited to the emergency, and therefore tactically most sound; but the conditions were not those contemplated by the Fighting Instructions, as they were in the case of Byng, and also in the battle most thoroughly characteristic of Rodney—that of April 17, 1780. The contrast in conduct between the two commanders is strikingly significant of progress, because of the close approach to identity in circumstances.

Rodney accompanied the Rochefort expedition of 1757, under Hawke, some account of which is given in the life of that admiral; and he commanded also a ship-of-the-line in Boscawen's fleet in 1758, when the reduction of Louisburg and Cape Breton Island was effected by the combined British and colonial forces. After this important service, the necessary and effectual antecedent of the capture of Quebec and the fall of Canada in the following year, he returned to England, where on the 19th of May, 1759, he was promoted to Rear Admiral; being then forty. He was next, and without interval of rest, given command of a squadron to operate against Havre, where were gathering boats and munitions of war for the threatened invasion of England; with the charge also of suppressing the French coastwise sailings, upon which depended the assembling of the various bodies of transports, and the carriage of supplies to the fleet in Brest, that Hawke at the same time was holding in check. The service was important, but of secondary interest, and calls for no particular mention beyond that of its general efficiency as maintained by him.

In 1761, Rodney was again elected to Parliament, and, with a certain political inconsequence, was immediately afterwards sent out of the country, being appointed to the Leeward Islands Station, which embraced the smaller Antilles, on the eastern side of the Caribbean Sea, with headquarters at Barbados; Jamaica, to the westward, forming a distinct command under an admiral of its own. He sailed for his new post October 21, 1761, taking with him instructions to begin operations against Martinique upon the arrival of troops ordered from New York. These reached Barbados December 24th, a month after himself, and on the 7th of January, 1762, the combined forces were before Martinique, which after a month of regular operations passed into the possession of the British on the 16th of February. Its fall was followed shortly by that of the other French Lesser Antilles,—Grenada, Santa Lucia, and St. Vincent. Guadaloupe had been taken in 1759, and Dominica in June, 1761.

Up to this time the contest on the seas had been between Great Britain and France only; but on March 5th a frigate reached Rodney with instructions, then already nine weeks old, to begin hostilities against Spain, whose clearly inimical purpose had induced the British Government to anticipate her action, by declaring war. The same day another vessel came in with like orders from the admiral at Gibraltar, while a third from before Brest brought word that a French squadron of seven ships-of-the-line, with frigates and two thousand troops, had escaped from that port at the end of the year. With these circumstances before him Rodney's conduct was like himself; prompt and officer-like. Lookout ships were stationed along the length of the Caribbees, to windward, to bring timely intelligence of the approach of the enemy's squadron; and as its first destination was probably Martinique, the fall of which was not yet known in Europe, he concentrated his fleet there, calling in outlying detachments.

So far there was nothing in his course markedly different from that of any capable officer, dealing with well ascertained conditions within the limits of his own command. Occasion soon arose, however, to require more exceptional action, and thus to illustrate at once the breadth of view, and the readiness to assume responsibility, which already raised Rodney conspicuously above the average level. On the 9th of March two lookout vessels came in with news that they had sighted a fleet, corresponding in numbers to the Brest division, fifteen miles to windward of Martinique and standing to the southward; the trade wind making it generally expedient to round the south point of the island in order to reach the principal port on the west side,—Fort Royal. The British squadron at once weighed anchor in pursuit; but the enemy, having ascertained that the surrender was accomplished, had turned back north, and were soon after reported from Guadaloupe as having passed there, standing to the westward.

Rodney at once inferred that they must be gone to Santo Domingo. To follow with the object of intercepting them was hopeless, in view of the start they had; but the direction taken threatened Jamaica, the exposed condition of which, owing to inadequate force, had been communicated to him by the military and naval authorities there. His measures to meet the case were thorough and deliberate, as well as rapid; no time was lost either by hesitancy or delay, nor by the yet more facile error of too precipitate movement. Orders for concentration were already out, but the point on which to effect it was shifted to Antigua, where, although inferior in natural resources to Martinique, the established British naval station with its accumulated equipment was fixed; and the work of provisioning and watering, so as to permit long continuance at sea unhampered by necessity of replenishing, there went on apace. It was the admiral's intention to leave his own command to look out for itself, while he took away the mass of his fleet to protect national interests elsewhere threatened.

Such a decision may seem superficially a commonplace matter of course; that it was much more is a commonplace historical certainty. The merit of Rodney's action appears not only in the details of execution, but in its being undertaken at all; and in this case, as in a later instance in his career, his resolution received the concrete emphasis that a sharp and immediate contrast best affords. Prior to the enemy's arrival he had laid the conditions before his colleague in service, General Moncton, commanding the forces on shore, and asked a reinforcement of troops for destitute Jamaica, if necessity arose. The result is best told in his own words; for they convey, simply and without egotistic enlargement, that settled personal characteristic, the want of which Jervis and Nelson in their day noted in many, and which Rodney markedly possessed. This was the capacity, which Sandwich eighteen years later styled "taking the great line of considering the King's whole dominions under your care;" an attribute far from common, as Moncton's reply showed. "I acquainted him that I should certainly assist them with all the naval force that could possibly be spared from the immediate protection of His Majesty's Caribbee islands. I have again solicited the General for a body of troops, since the enemy left these seas, and must do him the justice to say, that he seems much concerned at the present distress of Jamaica, but does not think himself sufficiently authorized to detach a body of troops without orders from England. I flatter myself their Lordships will not be displeased with me if I take the liberty to construe my instructions in such a manner as to think myself authorized and obliged to succor any of His Majesty's colonies that may be in danger; and shall, therefore, without a moment's loss of time, hasten to the succor of Jamaica, with ten sail-of-the-line, three frigates and three bombs."[8]

It was not because, in so doing this, the obligation was absolute, and the authority indisputable, that Rodney's course was professionally meritorious. In such case his action would have risen little above that obedience to orders, in which, as Nelson said, the generality find "all perfection." The risk was real, not only to his station, but to the possible plans of his superiors at home; the authority was his own only, read by himself into his orders—at most their spirit, not their letter. Consequently, he took grave chance of the penalty—loss of reputation, if not positive punishment,—which, as military experience shows, almost invariably follows independent action, unless results are kind enough to justify it. It is, however, only the positive characters capable of rising to such measures that achieve reputations enduring beyond their own day. The incident needs to be coupled with Sandwich's compliment just quoted, as well as with the one paid him when on the Newfoundland command. Taken together, they avouch a personality that needs only opportunity to insure itself lasting fame.

As it happened, Rodney not only took the responsibility of stripping his own station to the verge of bareness in favor of the general interest, but in so doing he came very near traversing, unwittingly, the plans of the general government by his local action, laudable and proper as that certainly was. He was, however, professionally lucky to a proverb, and escaped this mischance by a hair's breadth. The purposed detachment had already started for Jamaica, and he was accompanying it in person, when there joined him on March 25th, off the island of St. Kitt's, not far from Antigua, a frigate bearing Admiralty despatches of February 5th. These required him to desist from any enterprises he might have in hand, in order to give his undivided attention to the local preparations for an expedition, as yet secret, which was shortly to arrive on his station, under the command of Admiral Pocock, with ultimate destination against Havana.

To be thus arrested at the very outset of a movement from which he naturally expected distinction was a bitter disappointment to Rodney. Several years later, in 1771, he wrote to Sandwich, who was not the First Lord when Pocock was sent out, "I had the misfortune of being superseded in the command of a successful fleet, entrusted to my care in the West Indies, at the very time I had sailed on another expedition against the enemy's squadron at Santo Domingo, and was thereby deprived of pursuing those conquests which so honorably attended upon another, and which secured him such great emoluments,"—for Havana proved a wealthy prize. His steps, however, upon this unexpected reversal of his plans, were again characterized by an immediateness, most honorable to his professional character, which showed how thoroughly familiar he was with the whole subject and its possible contingencies, and the consequent readiness of his mind to meet each occasion as it arose; marks, all, of the thoroughly equipped general officer. The order as to his personal movements being not discretional, was of course absolutely accepted; but his other measures were apparently his own, and were instantaneous. A vessel was at once sent off to Barbados to notify Admiral Pocock that the best place in the West Indies for his rendezvous was Fort Royal Bay, in the newly acquired Martinique. The ten sail-of-the-line, accompanied by two large transports from St. Kitt's, were then sent on to Jamaica to move troops from there to join Pocock; the command of the detachment being now entrusted to Sir James Douglas, who received the further instruction to send back his fastest frigate, with all the intelligence he could gather, directing her to keep in the track Pocock would follow, in order to meet him betimes. The frigate thus sent, having first made a running survey of the unfrequented passage north of Cuba, by which the expedition was to proceed, joined Pocock, and, by the latter's report, acted as pilot for the fleet. "Having taken sketches of the land and cayos on both sides, Captain Elphinstone kept ahead of the fleet, and led us through very well." This service is claimed to the credit of Rodney's foresight by his biographer. This may very well be, though more particular inquiry and demonstration by his letters would be necessary to establish specific orders beyond the general instructions given by him. It is, however, safe to say that such particularity and minuteness of detail would be entirely in keeping with the tenor of his course at this period. His correspondence bears the stamp of a mind comprehensive as well as exact; grasping all matters with breadth of view in their mutual relations, yet with the details at his fingers' ends. The certainty of his touch is as obvious as the activity of his thought.

In accordance with the spirit of his instructions, Rodney went in person to Martinique, the spot named by him as best for the rendezvous, there to superintend the preparations; to sow the seed for a harvest in which he was to have no share. Incidental mention reveals that the sending of the ships-of-the-line with Douglas had reduced him to three for his own command; and also that Moncton, having now superior authority to do so, found himself able to spare troops for Jamaica, which were afloat in transports by the time Pocock came. In the same letter the admiral frankly admits his anxiety for his station, under the circumstances of the big detachment he had made; a significant avowal, which enhances the merit of his spontaneous action by all the credit due to one who endures a well-weighed danger for an adequate end.

The despatch of Pocock's expedition, which resulted in the fall of Havana, August 13, 1762, practically terminated Rodney's active service in the Seven Years War. In a career marked by unusual professional good fortune in many ways, the one singular mischance was that he reached a foremost position too late in life. When he returned to England in August, 1763, he was in his full prime, and his conduct of affairs entrusted to him had given clear assurance of capacity for great things. The same evidence is to be found in his letters, which, as studies of official character and competency, repay a close perusal. But now fifteen years of peace were to elapse before a maritime war again broke out, and the fifteen years between forty-five and sixty tell sorely upon the physical stamina which need to underlie the mental and moral forces of a great commander. St. Vincent himself staggered under the load, and Rodney was not a St. Vincent in the stern self-discipline that had braced the latter for old age. He had not borne the yoke in his youth, and from this time forward he fought a losing fight with money troubles, which his self-controlled contemporary, after one bitter experience, had shaken off his shoulders forever.

The externals of Rodney's career during the period now in question are sufficiently known; of his strictly private life we are left largely to infer from indications, not wholly happy. He returned to England a Vice-Admiral of the Blue, and had advanced by the successive grades of that rank to Vice-Admiral of the Red, when, in January, 1771, he was appointed Commander-in-chief at Jamaica. At this time he had been for five years Governor of Greenwich Hospital, and he took it hard that he was not allowed to retain the appointment in connection with his new command, alleging precedents for such a favor; the latest of which, however, was then twenty-five years old. The application was denied by Sandwich. From the earnest tone in which it was couched, as well as the comparatively weak grounds upon which Rodney bases his claims to such a recognition, it can scarcely be doubted that pecuniary embarrassment as well as mortification entered into his sense of disappointment. It is the first recorded of a series of jars between the two, in which, although the external forms of courtesy were diligently observed, an underlying estrangement is evident.

The Jamaica Station at that day required, in an even greater degree than Newfoundland before the conquest of Canada, a high order of political tact and circumspection on the part of the naval commander-in-chief. The island lies in the centre of what was then a vast semi-circular sweep of Spanish colonies—Porto Rico, Santo Domingo, Cuba, Mexico, Central America, and the mainland of South America from the Isthmus to the Orinoco. Over this subject empire the mother country maintained commercial regulations of the most mediaeval and exclusive type; outraging impartially the British spirit of commercial enterprise, and the daily needs of her own colonists, by the restrictions placed upon intercourse between these and foreigners. Smuggling on a large scale, consecrated in the practice of both parties by a century of tradition, was met by a coast-guard system, employing numerous small vessels called guarda-costas, which girt the Spanish coasts, but, being powerless to repress effectually over so extensive a shore line, served rather to increase causes of vexation. The British government, on the other hand, not satisfied to leave the illicit trade on which Jamaica throve to take care of itself, sought to increase the scope of transactions by the institution of three free ports on the island,—free in the sense of being open as depots, not for the entrance of goods, but where they could be freely brought, and transshipped to other parts of the world by vessels of all nations; broker ports, in short, for the facilitation of general external trade.

To this open and ingenuous bid for fuller advantage by Spanish resort, Spain replied by doubling her custom-house forces and introducing renewed stringency into her commercial orders. The two nations, with France in Hayti for a third, stood on ceaseless guard one against the other; all imbued with the spirit of exclusive trade, and differing only in the method of application, according to their respective day-to-day views of policy. The British by the free-port system, instituted in their central geographical position, hoped to make the profits of the middleman. Rodney reported that the effect had been notably to discourage the direct Spanish intercourse, and to destroy carriage by British colonial vessels in favor of those of France, which now flocked to Jamaica, smuggled goods into the island, and apparently cut under their rivals by the greater benevolence shown them in Spanish ports. "Commerce by British bottoms has totally ceased." Herewith, he added, disappeared the opportunities of British seamen to become familiar with the Spanish and French waters, while their rivals were invited to frequent those of Jamaica; so that in case of war—which in those days was periodical—the advantage of pilotage would be heavily on the side of Great Britain's enemies. He also stated that the diminution of employment to British merchant vessels had greatly impaired his means of obtaining information from within Spanish ports; for British ships of war were never allowed inside them, even when sent with a message from him. The French permitted them indeed to enter, but surrounded them throughout their visits with flattering attentions which wholly prevented the making of observations.

Under these conditions of mutual jealousy between the governments and officials, with the subjects on either side straining continually at the leashes which withheld them from traffic mutually beneficial, causes of offence were quick to arise. Rodney, like Sandwich, was a pronounced Tory, in full sympathy with traditional British policy, as well as an officer naturally of haughty temper and sharing all the prepossessions of his service; but he found himself almost at once involved in a difference with his superiors in his political party, which throws a good deal of side light on personal as well as political relations. The British man-of-war schooner Hawke was overhauled off the Venezuelan coast by two Spanish guarda-costas and compelled to enter the harbor of Cartagena, under alleged orders from the Governor of the colony. After a brief detention, she was let go with the admonition that, if any British ships of war were found again within twelve leagues of the coast, they would be taken and their crews imprisoned.

Rodney's course was unimpeachable, as far as appears. He wrote a civil letter to the Governor, and sent it by a ship of war, the captain of which was directed to deliver it in person. He was confident, he wrote, that the Governor would disavow the action by calling to strict account the officers concerned, and would also confirm his own belief that it was impossible such a menace could have proceeded from any adequate authority. A sufficient intimation of what would follow an attempt to carry out the threat was conveyed by the words: "The British officer who has dishonoured his King's colours by a tame submission to this insult has been already dismissed the service."

It is difficult to see what less could have been done; but the British government was at the moment extremely reluctant to war, and sensitive to any step that seemed to make towards it. Spain was thought to be seeking a quarrel. She had entered the Seven Years War so near its termination as not to feel exhaustive effects; and the capture of Havana and Manila, with the pecuniary losses involved, had left her merely embittered by humiliation, prone rather to renew hostilities than to profit by experience. At the same time the foreign policy of Great Britain was enfeebled by a succession of short ministries, and by internal commotions; while the discontent of the American continental colonies over the Stamp Act emphasized the weakness of her general position. Barely a year before the Hawke incident the insult by Spain at the Falkland Islands had brought the two nations to the verge of rupture, which was believed to have been averted only by the refusal of Louis XV., then advanced in years, to support the Spanish Bourbons at the cost of another war.

Under these circumstances Rodney's report of the occurrences at Cartagena filled the ministry with apprehensions, and brought him from Sandwich an expression of dissatisfaction little removed from a reprimand. The communication is remarkable rather for what it intimates, and from the inferences naturally deducible, than for its direct utterances. "I cannot help cautioning you, as a friend, to be upon your guard, to avoid by every justifiable means the drawing this country into a war, which, if it comes on too speedily, I fear we shall have cause to lament." The warning is renewed in a later part of the letter, but in itself has little significance compared with other hints, rather personal than official. "I cannot conceal from you, that many people have industriously spread stories here, that, among the foreign ministers and others, you have expressed your wishes for a Spanish war." Such expressions—if used—were asserted of the time succeeding his appointment to Jamaica, and near his departure for it; for Sandwich adds, "This sort of declaration is too little founded on your instructions, and too indiscreet, to allow me to give them the least credit." It is clear, however, that he thought them not improbable,—a Spanish war was popular with seamen for the prize-money it brought, and Rodney was poor,—for he adds, "I shall discredit the idea till I have received your answer to this letter." He concludes with a warning, not to be misunderstood, that a war, so far from helping Rodney, would probably cause his supersession. "I will add one word more: Upon a declaration of war larger squadrons must be sent out, and, very probably, senior officers to most of our stations in foreign parts." In face of an intimation thus thinly veiled, one scarcely needs to be told what was being said round the table of the Cabinet.

That Rodney would have welcomed war for reasons personal as well as professional, for money and for glory, can readily be believed; but his measures in this case give no ground for such an innuendo as Sandwich conveyed. Therefore, after making full allowance for the panic of ministers ready to fear the worst, and to throw blame on anybody, it is the more significant that he should have been suspected of an unworthy personal motive underlying a worthy official act. It is an indication of reputation already compromised by damaging association with pecuniary embarrassments; an evidence of latent distrust easily quickened into active suspicion. An officer of his rank and service, so far from home, and with the precedents of his day, could scarcely be faulted for what he had done to uphold the honor of the country; and his manner of doing it was dignified and self-restrained, as well as forcible. There was no violence like that of Hawke at Gibraltar, less than twenty years before, which that admiral had boldly vindicated to Pitt himself; but there were no weak joints in Hawke's armor. In the particular instance, time and cooler judgment set Rodney right in men's opinion; but subsequent events showed that his general reputation did not recover, either then, or through his Jamaica career.

After immediate apprehension had subsided, Rodney's action was justified by the government. Sandwich wrote him, a little later, that no commander-in-chief stood upon a better footing, and assured him that his private interests were safe in his hands. Sandwich, however, was an extremely practical politician, who had much personal use for his own patronage; and Rodney's necessities were great. Fulfilment therefore fell far short of promise. Employment was necessary to the admiral, and his hopes fixed upon a colonial governorship when his present appointment should expire; Jamaica being his first choice. Sandwich renewed assurances, but advised a personal application also to the Prime Minister and other Cabinet officers. New York was mentioned, but nothing came of it all. After three years Rodney was superseded, with permission to remain in the island instead of returning to England. This he declined. "I cannot bear to think of remaining here in a private station, after commanding in chief with the approbation of the whole island." How far this approbation was universal, or unqualified, is perhaps doubtful; but the letters quoted by his biographer from his correspondence bear continuous evidence, in this peace employment, of the activity and perspicacity of mind characteristic of his more strictly military proceedings.

In September, 1774, Rodney landed again in England, a disappointed man and in embarrassed circumstances. Professional occupation was almost hopeless, for in peace times there were few positions for an officer of his rank; and, although recognized for able, he had not then the distinction by which he is known to us. It is also evident, from subsequent events, that he just now lacked the influence necessary to obtain a preference over rivals in quest of employment. Under the circumstances, his debts determined his action, and to escape harassments he before long passed over into France and settled in Paris. In that capital, as in London, he mixed with the best society; and there, as before, the mode of life among his associates led him beyond his means and involved him in further distresses. Consequently, when war between France and Great Britain became imminent, in 1778, the vigilance of his creditors prevented his going home in person to offer his services. In February of that year, however, he made formal application to the Admiralty to be sent at a moment's warning on any enterprise. To this Sandwich, who was still First Lord, despite his previous assurances of friendship, paid no attention beyond the formal customary acknowledgment given to all such letters when they came from officers of Rodney's standing. No indication was shown of intention, or even of wish, to employ him.

Rodney was therefore compelled to look on idly while others, of well-earned reputation indeed but as yet of less experience than himself in high command, were preferred before him. Howe had already been sent to North America in 1776, on a mission at once diplomatic and military; and there he still was when war began. As it became imminent, Keppel was appointed to the Channel Fleet, and Byron to the North American command, from which Howe had asked to be relieved. All these were junior to Rodney; and, as though to emphasize the neglect of him, rear-admirals were sent to the two West India stations, Jamaica and the Leeward Islands, which he had formerly commanded, and to which it would seem, from one of his letters, that he desired to return. He had, too, now reached the rank, the want of which had formed the burden of Sandwich's warning that he was in danger of supersession at Jamaica; for in a general flag promotion in January, 1778, he had become Admiral of the White Squadron, than which no higher then obtained, commissions as Admirals of the Red not being issued. For this persistent ignoring of an officer of his unquestionable ability there were necessarily reasons more controlling than appears on the surface; for the naval conditions and the national emergency called for men of demonstrated high capacity. Such Rodney was professionally; and although his age—he was now in his sixtieth year—was against him, this consideration did not in those days weigh; nor should it, unless accompanied by probable indication of powers sapped.

The conclusion is inevitable that the objection lay in personal record as bearing upon military efficiency. The Administration, responsible for results, knew Rodney's capacity, though its full extent was yet to be revealed; the question in their minds clearly must have been, "Can we depend upon its exertion, full, sustained, and disinterested?" Sandwich, despite the coldness with which he had received Rodney's application,—going so far as to refuse to support it actively,—was apparently in a minority among his colleagues in believing that they could. He declared in the House of Lords that, "When it was first proposed in the Council to employ Sir George, I, who knew him from a very young man, declared that Rodney once afloat would do his duty." Naval officers will recognize a familiar ring in these words, and will recall instances where high professional ability has been betrayed by personal foible. Nor does Sandwich stand alone in offering a clue to the hesitation of the Government. Rodney's biographer and son-in-law quotes without reprobation the account of Mr. Richard Cumberland, who professed to have interested himself warmly for Rodney's employment and to have secured the support of the Secretary for War, Lord George Germaine. "The West India merchants had been alarmed, and clamoured against the appointment so generally and so decidedly as to occasion no small uneasiness in my friend and patron, Lord George, and drew from him something that resembled a remonstrance for the risk I had exposed him to. But in the brilliancy of the capture of Langara's squadron all was done away, and past alarms were only recollected to contrast the joy which this success diffused." The opposition of the commercial class in the West Indies might arise from an officer's over-faithfulness to duty, as Nelson found to his cost; but it seems clear that in this case distrust rested upon personal observation, which raised doubts as to the singlemindedness of Rodney's administration of a command. Of the particulars of observation or experience from which the feeling sprang, we have no information; but St. Eustatius was destined to show that apprehension was not wholly unfounded.

A summons to active employment would at once have silenced Rodney's creditors by the assurance of increase of means, both through regular income and probable prize-money; Admiralty neglect left him in fetters. Lady Rodney returned to England to negotiate the means for his liberation; but the matter dragged, and in the end he owed his release to the friendly intervention of a French nobleman, the Marechal Biron, who volunteered in warm terms to make him an advance to the amount of L2,000. This chivalrous offer was for some time declined; but finally conditions became so threatening, and his position so intolerable, that he accepted a loan of about a thousand louis. "Nothing but a total inattention to the distressed state I was in," he wrote to his wife, "could have prevailed upon me to have availed myself of his voluntary proposal; but not having had, for a month past, a letter from any person but Mr. Hotham and yourself, and my passport being expired, it was impossible for me to remain in this city at the risk of being sued by my creditors, who grew so clamorous it was impossible to bear it; and had they not been overawed by the Lieutenant of police, would have carried their prosecutions to the greatest length. Their demands were all satisfied this day,"—May 6th, 1778. Friends in England enabled him to repay Biron immediately after his return.