Struggle for Sea Power : A Naval History of American Independence (9781782397403)

by Willis, Sam

  ‘This appears to be not only seamanship,’ he concluded, ‘but the brilliancy of it.’23 This was only one part of an all-round display, however. The effect of French gunnery had been so severe that, after Sandwich had inspected the fleet in Plymouth, he declared in Parliament he could not have believed the scale of the damage if he had not seen it himself, and the boatswains’ damage reports are eye-opening.24 Richard Kempenfelt, a British naval officer with a keen interest in signalling and tactics, was so frustrated by the evident gulf in performance that he was inspired to develop an entirely new signalling system for the Royal Navy.25

  Regardless of the battle’s result, this clear demonstration of competence, even of outright superiority, single-handedly changed the war. From that moment on the presence of any French fleet in European waters had to be taken very seriously indeed. The desire to win the war in America now had to be balanced with the necessity of keeping the French out at home, and the balance of naval power around the world had to be struck accordingly.

  * * *

  Some interpretations of the battle of Ushant see it as a potential turning point in the war on the basis that it was a failure, by the British, to utterly destroy the French Brest fleet. Such an argument, however, depends entirely on the assumption that such a victory was possible, when the potential of fleet battles to create such a clear-cut solution was clearly inadequate, particularly so when one admiral, who was both crafty and skilled, had orders to do everything he could to avoid it. The assumption that Keppel could somehow have ‘annihilated’ the French fleet and removed it permanently from the strategic equation is naïve. The best that could have been hoped for was for the French to become divided during the night, allowing the British to capture an isolated squadron of, say, six or seven French ships. But even then the French would still have had a fleet of twenty-three of the line in Brest, more than enough to continue to influence the shape of the war. The key advantage of the size of their fleet was that the French could measure its impact in the long term, and they knew it. ‘The great disadvantage the French have hitherto had in every naval war, arose from the beginning it with too small a force – The loss of one or two squadrons undid us,’ said the comte de Maurepas, a former naval minister and Louis XVI’s unofficial chief minister, ‘but that will not be the case now.’26

  The impact of naval battles, however, always has to be measured both at sea and ashore, and in this instance the impact ashore was immensely influential, far more so than the guns fired and musket-balls exchanged on that day. The nature of the war had already ensured that political divisions ran deep and the entry of the French into the war did nothing to unite the British politicians. In fact, quite the opposite happened and divisions deepened.27 Ushant was then used as ammunition to strike political blows against the incumbents, particularly the prime minister, Lord North, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Sandwich.

  The problems began in the press. In the weeks after the battle the British flag officers had been getting on very much as they had before, but now repairing their ships and focusing on the likelihood of the French fleet leaving Brest again. What happened next is a classic example of the politics of the period aggravating problems rather than initiating them.28

  An opposition newspaper suddenly piped up, blaming Palliser for Keppel’s inability to relaunch an attack on the French. Palliser, whose squadron had tasted most of the action and had been crippled by French gunnery, was understandably furious. The journalist responsible must have rubbed his hands with glee when Palliser rose to the bait and demanded that Keppel publicly refute the allegations, and Keppel refused.

  The navy had previous experience here. Something similar had happened in 1744 at the battle of Toulon, when Admiral Thomas Matthews had been unsupported in the face of the enemy by Richard Lestock. Those events, however, had been more clear-cut. Matthews and Lestock loathed each other; Keppel and Palliser did not. Neither Matthews nor Lestock was particularly well liked or respected, and neither had particularly impressive careers; both Keppel and Palliser were liked and respected, and both had impressive and lengthy careers. Although they were no doubt politically wary of each other, there is no evidence at all that they did not share a professional respect for each other, or that they had deliberately failed to help each other because of a personal or political feud.

  Palliser, whose reputation was on the line, had no choice but to react when Keppel refused to refute the public accusations, and here again is an interesting crossroads. Perhaps Palliser could have forced a public apology from Keppel by publishing his own version of events and encouraging others to do the same, but he chose to take a far more extreme route, and here a peculiar circumstance intervened which forced the confrontation in an unpleasant and unwanted direction. Palliser demanded a court martial of Keppel, his senior officer. Sandwich, loyal to Palliser as a fellow member of the Admiralty Board and a supporter of his policies, granted his wish. A different scenario – perhaps any different scenario – would have had a different impact. By supporting Palliser over the senior commanding officer of his Channel Fleet, Sandwich essentially threw Keppel to the wolves, severing an important bond of professional trust. It was a serious mistake.

  ‘Who’s in fault? NOBODY a view off Ushant. The Anatomists will have it that it can have no Heart, having no Body-but the Naturalists think if it has a Heart, it must surely lay in its Breeches.’

  And so the case went to court, to the utter outrage of most naval officers. Politicians, naval officers and the public were forced to split into camps, neatly known as the Montagus (for those who supported Palliser and his benefactor Sandwich, whose family name was Montagu) and the Capulets, a pun on Keppelites. The press produced some fantastic cartoons, including one which showed Keppel as nothing more than a head wobbling on top of some spindly legs, thus allowing the artist to claim that the indecisive action at Ushant was ‘nobody’s fault’ – no body’s fault – while firmly pointing the finger at Keppel. At the same time the artist could comment that such a peculiar-shaped being ‘can have no Heart having no Body – but the Naturalists think if it has a Heart, it must lay in its Breeches’. In the background Ushant was depicted as a confusion of smoke and sailcloth.

  Palliser had simply wanted Keppel to acknowledge that the public criticism of his second-in-command was unjust, but now Keppel was being tried, and make no mistake, he was being tried for his life: in 1756 Byng had been tried for failing to do his utmost to engage the French at Minorca, had been found guilty and had been executed on his own quarterdeck. These charges, however – and as everyone knew – were ridiculous. Keppel had done well to force an engagement at all, doggedly chasing to windward over four days and waiting for an opportunity. When that opportunity had arisen, he had taken it in the only way that he could, and had succeeded in bringing the French to an engagement. That the French were unwilling to stand and fight was certainly not his fault, nor was there much that he could have done about it. Every naval man knew that.

  Now there was another crossroads that further exploded this trial into the public consciousness. Uniquely, and by a special Act of Parliament, it was held on land, rather than on board ship, thus allowing large numbers of onlookers and reporters to witness the unfolding events. Naval court martial, usually professional, austere and private, thus became public political theatre. Public interest was unprecedented and journalists became heavily involved. This, also, was a significant change: hitherto the legitimacy of the war had been the main topic of discussion; after Ushant it was its conduct. Simultaneously, the Opposition sharpened its teeth.29

  Keppel was acquitted to riotous celebrations in a result that was interpreted as a strike against the government and against Sandwich. Mobs took to the streets. The issue at stake had evolved from seamanship to politics to human justice. Palliser was burned in effigy and his house destroyed; Lord North was forced to protect himself and his house with armed guards; the homes of Sandwich, Lord Lisburne, Lord Bute, Lord Mulgrave and Germain w
ere all attacked. The gates of the Admiralty were pulled down.30 A pro-Palliser song lamented:

  And is it thus, ye base and blind,

  And fickle as the shifting wind,

  Ye treat a warrior staunch and true,

  Grown old in combating for you?

  … Go learn of him whom ye adore,

  Whose name now sets you in a roar,

  Whom ye were more than half prepar’d

  To pay with just the same reward,

  To render praise where praise is due,

  To keep his former deeds in view

  Who fought and would have died for you.31

  Palliser felt that he had no choice but to demand a court martial of his own to clear his name, but his demand of a court martial on Keppel, his superior officer, had done more than enough to ruin his name in other, and perhaps more meaningful, ways. Palliser’s trial went ahead, but it was not conducted with anything like the razzmatazz that had been attached to Keppel’s. He was also acquitted. In fact it was found that he had acted with honour and courage and that his conduct was ‘in many instances highly exemplary and meritorious’.32 He was, however, chastised for failing to signal to Keppel that his flagship was disabled – a slap on the wrist that carried far more weight handed down in court than it otherwise would have done. Naval men knew that ships became damaged, that it was difficult to signal, that Palliser, had he not been damaged, would have joined with Keppel. They also knew that, if Keppel had been able to reunite his fleet, he would have tried once more to attack the French.

  The result of all this was that the British naval officer corps was gravely and unnecessarily damaged. At a time when the Royal Navy needed every knowledgeable officer it could get, neither Keppel nor Palliser, though both were reprieved, ever served afloat again, nor did some of their most experienced senior officers. It was extraordinarily difficult to gain experience of fleet battle and the British were throwing theirs in the bin. There was a very shallow pool from which to find replacements. A pro-Keppel pamphleteer concluded one tirade with the thoughtful and excellent line that he would ‘be lov’d, when he is lack’d’.33 All this tension, of course, filtered down to the lower decks. Victory and Formidable, the respective flagships of Keppel and Palliser, were berthed separately for fear that their crews would fight it out.34

  The Royal Navy thus did more damage to itself in the battle’s aftermath than the French had inflicted in the actual battle. The expectation of British naval success in home waters, so dominant in the run-up to battle and so necessary because of the repeated failures in America, burst. An American prisoner in a British gaol in Portsmouth noted:

  we have seen a vast number of men come in from the ships, in boats, whom we suppose to be wounded … This was England’s pride – the fleet that was to sweep the seas, and accomplish such wonders. Alas! Many of them are disappointed of their expectations, for in their first engagement, they were worsted.35

  Cornwallis’s wife Jemima summed up the change: ‘I am really so bilious as to think our army in America, Fleets everywhere, Possessions in the West Indies, &c., &c., &c., will be frittered away and destroyed in another Twelve months.’36

  The British were now in uncharted waters. Traditionally, the navy gave them security, safety, confidence and hope, but all of this had been stripped away by Ushant. To make matters worse, Jemima was right to fear for British possessions beyond the Channel. In the summer of 1778 not only had the French sent d’Orvilliers into British home waters, but they had also sent another squadron, under the fiery comte d’Estaing, to America. The 1778 campaign was a double strike. Would the British be able to fight off the French in America or would they fail as Jemima and many others now so feared?

  * They were changed to 32-pounders by Keppel in the summer of 1778.

  * When the fleets fought on 27 July, the French had lost two during the previous night’s manoeuvre, thus giving the British a slight numerical advantage.

  † Boscawen defeated de La Clue at the battle of Lagos in 1759 with eight ships of the line; George Anson defeated de la Jonquière with a squadron of fourteen ships of the line at the first battle of Finisterre in 1747; Edward Hawke defeated the marquis de l’Etanduère with fourteen ships of the line at the second battle of Finisterre in the same year. Only the battle of Quiberon Bay in 1759 stands out as a decisive action in which quite a large fleet was used in the attack, when Edward Hawke defeated Conflans with twenty-four ships of the line.

  * There were 133 dead and 373 wounded in the British fleet, compared to 161 dead and 513 wounded in the French. Clowes, Royal Navy, III, 422.

  14

  BRITISH SURVIVAL

  The first French warship to arrive in American waters, the first concrete evidence of significant French military aid, was the frigate Nymphe commanded by le chevalier de Sainneville, which arrived in Boston on 5 May 1778. A mere lieutenant, he was treated almost regally. Trailed by a crowd of all ages, Sainneville dodged the many and repeated questions fired at him by the Bostonians, like a wily politician on campaign, commenting on French intentions ‘but without saying anything’.1

  All American hopes had been placed on a French alliance but no one knew exactly what it would bring. The Americans were both joyous and wary; this meeting sparked both the release of tension and the birth of new concerns. Would the French come and drive the British from the sea in a dramatic clash between battle fleets? Would they land an army and fight the British on American soil? This odd breed of man also, of course, fascinated them. Some refused to believe the evidence of their eyes that Sainneville and his crew appeared quite normal and spread rumours that several had been caught hunting frogs in the pond at the bottom of Boston Common.2 The anticipation of French aid also had an interesting effect on the American economy because merchants rushed to take advantage of prices that would inevitably rise once the French and British both had large battle fleets in American waters. In turn, this halted the relentless depreciation of the American currency, which had been sliding downhill since 1776. Life in America was thus changed by French sea power before the French ships even arrived.

  * * *

  D’Estaing’s fleet leaving the Mediterranean, 16 May 1778.

  The first significant French force sent to America was d’Estaing’s naval squadron. His mission had been long in the planning; he had, in fact, left his base at Toulon for America on 13 April 1778, more than two months before the Belle Poule action was even fought and war between Britain and France was openly declared.

  He had kept his destination secret, only revealing it to his officers twenty leagues west of Cape St Vincent: the middle of the Atlantic was the only place safe from British spies. He also carried orders to begin hostilities against Britain when twenty leagues even further west, where he could act in the knowledge that no news would reach Britain for weeks, if not months.3

  D’Estaing’s primary responsibility was to cross the Atlantic to find and fight the British fleet, the first time in French naval history that a French squadron had been given such explicitly aggressive orders.4 He had been well equipped to do so, with twelve ships of the line and five frigates, more than a match for Admiral Howe’s higgledy-piggledy fleet of small ships scattered along the American coast. D’Estaing and his men, moreover, had been roundly encouraged to fight. Under a new law the French sailors would receive a significant prize, 600 livres per cannon for each enemy warship sunk or burned.5 D’Estaing overflowed with energy. One of his officers said he had the ‘enthusiasm and fire of a man twenty years of age’.6 He was actually forty-eight and time would tell if the appearance of youth alone would be enough to command a highly complex naval operation against a skilled enemy on an unknown shore thousands of miles from home. For one thing was certain: d’Estaing did not overflow with experience.

  In Britain worries about French sea power had reached fever pitch thanks to the talent of Lieutenant Clocheterie of the Belle Poule and Admiral d’Orvilliers, commander of the French fleet at Ushant. D’Estaing, howev
er, bore no comparison. He had begun his career in the army and had since transferred to the navy where, owing to close connections with the king, his promotion had been swift. Many of his fellow naval officers, experienced naval men all, were outraged.7 He was at heart a soldier with no knowledge of, or feel for, the sea. His courage was unquestioned, as was his experience of campaigning ashore, but he understood neither the whims and caprices of naval warfare nor the immense influence that a squadron could exert if used with great subtlety. To make this weakness worse, d’Estaing was often unwilling to seek counsel from those around him who had the knowledge that he lacked. The French performance at sea hitherto had created legitimate expectations of French sea power in and around the British coast. Considered use of both immense fleets and small squadrons had been allied with excellent execution and accurate firepower. By placing d’Estaing in command of the squadron sent to America, however, Vergennes had seriously undermined the tower of expectation that had been built in America, and the Americans had no idea at all that this was the case: when they saw d’Estaing’s topsails breaking the horizon and ships flying the distinctive white French naval ensigns, their hearts leapt. The idea that competence and operational effectiveness could vary to astonishing degrees within a navy was unthinkable to them. It was one of the most important lessons that they would learn in the coming war.

  The voyage was notable for its unusual length. D’Estaing took thirty-three days to travel from Toulon to Gibraltar and then another fifty-two days to cross the Atlantic.8 It is unclear why he took so long and the poor sailing qualities of the ships he was given must bear some responsibility, but the voyage was long enough for the network of merchants, naval ships and fishermen who populated the mid-Atlantic Ocean and were sympathetic to the British cause to send news westward faster than d’Estaing’s fleet could travel. One British packet-ship wheezed into Philadelphia with the horrific news.9 The news was received there particularly badly because, now staggering from the shock of having to wage a naval war with France as well as a land war with America, the Cabinet had decided to abandon Philadelphia, to free up troops for a campaign against French Caribbean colonies.10 They were now in no position at all to defend themselves from a hostile fleet.