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

by Willis, Sam

  Barceló’s trap was well laid; he waited out in the bay with his warships to swoop on any British ship that might try to flee for safety.5 His plan was foiled, however. British sailors swarmed to their boats and, ‘notwithstanding the fierceness of the flames,’6 threw grappling hooks and pulled the fireships off their path. It was a feat of exceptional courage. One witness wrote:

  The navy on this occasion can not be too highly recommended for their courage, conduct and alertness. Their intrepidity overcame every obstacle; and though three of the ships were linked with chains and strong cables, and every precaution was taken to render them successful, yet, with uncommon resolution and activity, the British seamen separated the vessels, and towed them ashore with no other injury to themselves than a few burns and bruises.7

  The smouldering Spanish ships were then cut to pieces and used as fuel.8

  The fireship attack really caused the British a fright. One witness noted how ‘Everything here has been calculated upon a supposition we should always have a superiority at sea’,9 and they were forced to think anew. To protect the Mole they built a boom of masts joined by cables and held in position by anchors, and they moved the powder store to a safer location.10

  The Spanish also built gunboats and bomb-vessels in this period that were used to bombard British positions and civilian houses. This brought a new kind of terror to the Rock: the fear of the unexpected cannon-strike. The boats would creep into range at night and then fire wildly, bringing down houses, killing and maiming. The Spanish also tightened the blockade. They did this in two different ways. First, they bought the friendship of the sultan of Morocco. An enormous bribe gave them access to his three major ports and the sultan expelled all British citizens.11 A critical source of both supplies and intelligence was thus denied to the British. Second, they used a network of gunboats, oared vessels and warships to tighten up access to and from the bay:

  About ten of their armed cruizers are constantly under Cabritta, some at Tarifa, about eight near Tangier, three or four at Tetuan, some at Ceuta and several at the Gut’s mouth … the gun-boats and gallies form a chain every night from Cabritta to Europa point, and in the morning return to their anchorage.12

  This was quite a show of force compared with the Spanish ‘blockade’ at the start of the war, but these new ships were a shambles. ‘From the patched and disorderly appearance of their sails and rigging, it was conjectured that they were fitted up in haste’, wrote one unimpressed witness with a sailor’s eye. Another noted how they were ‘ill-finished’.13

  Goods continued to leak into Gibraltar, therefore, just as they had prior to Rodney’s relief. Merchantmen were still willing to run the blockade because they were lured by the attraction of the exceptionally high prices that Gibraltar offered. Bold merchants would nip silently past the Spanish xebecs and gunboats in the darkest of nights, hugging the great Rock – all well and good unless you were transporting a cargo of cockerels.14 Morocco was neatly replaced as a source of supplies by Minorca. It took a while for the route to be set up and for merchants to be attracted to it, but once established it began to work very well indeed. By 9 February 1781 one diarist could write: ‘Our supplies from the eastward were now pretty regular, and the boats and vessels in general very successful in their voyages.’15

  Fishermen, sailors, soldiers, civilians and children continued to fish the bountiful bay from the Rock itself or from small boats that could dart to safety if threatened. Occasionally a skilled and bold naval crew would nip out and capture a lone merchantman, sometimes right under the noses of the Spanish. On one occasion two British warships did exactly that, working together, leaving Barceló ‘baffled and disappointed’.16 As before, the gulf in seamanship between the British and the Spanish was unmistakable.

  The British in Gibraltar thus endured, but life was certainly miserable and the Gibraltarians began to suffer like sailors, as if they had been at sea for six months without fresh provisions. Scurvy became a major problem. Old fractures rebroke and old wounds reopened – classic symptoms of advanced scurvy. Smallpox ravaged the population, being particularly severe on children, who died in ghastly numbers. Nonetheless, the soldiers and sailors, as ever, had been prioritized over the civilians and the majority remained healthy.17 They seem to have spent much of their time focused on gunnery innovation and research into ballistics. One soldier described with excitement how

  Experiments of every contrivance are now in agitation. Art and ingenuity which have been long employed for the preservation and destruction of mankind, are now studying their annihilation. Quadrants, Spirit-levels, and instruments of various forms and machinery, adorn the batteries for the more exact and certain method of killing. Everyone seems anxious to find out the safest, quickest, and surest method of despatch, in the elevation and depression of the ordnance.18

  The Spanish were as far from taking Gibraltar as they had ever been. Nonetheless, the relief of Gibraltar dominated strategic thought back in London and, like an oarsman’s blister, it began to have a disproportionate effect on the course of the war. Another fleet would be sent to the relief of Gibraltar, but that would only happen at the expense of something else – something that could be far, far more important to the future of the war. And that something was the containment of French sea power.

  * * *

  In the new year of 1781 the combined French naval force in European waters was imposing. No fewer than forty-seven ships of the line bobbed in Atlantic ports, the majority in Brest where, by their presence alone, they would, in the words of John Adams, ‘keep the English in awe’.19 With so much naval strength located in a single location so close to British shores, it seemed rash to send a relief to Gibraltar simply because of the threat that the French posed. From an aggressive standpoint it was also an excellent opportunity for the British to force a decisive encounter or to keep their enemy, hitherto maddeningly elusive, bottled up. A decisive encounter was certainly on the cards because the French were utterly committed to making some significant use of this fleet. They knew that their time was running out. In the words of the canny Vergennes, ‘it is a war of hard cash, and if we drag it out the last shilling may not be ours’.20 This growing sense of crisis was felt in America. Both Washington and Adams assumed that, unless the French made a decisive intervention in the coming season, the war would be decided in a conference in Europe.

  But what would they do with their sea power? There were three major theatres in play. Rochambeau was well positioned in Newport, but his fleet and army were inadequate and needed reinforcement; the main Spanish fleet at Havana was pointed at Jamaica and would benefit from some help; and in spite of their losses at the start of the war, the Indian Ocean still presented some good opportunities for French imperial aggrandizement.

  Alert to these possibilities, Vergennes embraced them all.

  * * *

  On 22 March an enormous French armada consisting of three separate fleets left Brest after several days of light easterly winds: one under the comte de Grasse bound for the Caribbean, another under the bailli de Suffren bound for India – both were skilled and lifelong sailors with aggressive reputations – and a third bound for Boston.21 It was obvious weather for the French to leave harbour and perfect for maintaining a close blockade, but the British Channel Fleet was nowhere to be seen. The relief of Gibraltar had been prioritized over the containment of the French fleet, and Darby was then off the coast of Ireland, waiting to pick up a Gibraltar-bound convoy of victualling ships.

  Finally, after weeks of delay caused by the enormous logistical difficulties of organizing such a maritime relief at the height of a war when shipping had to be drawn from one distant theatre to be used in another, Darby headed south to Gibraltar and met nothing more than three Spanish frigates on his journey. The Spanish fleet in Cádiz, which outnumbered Darby by five ships of the line, made no move to confront the British. This was a disappointment in London, where the king was hopping around in anticipation of a repeat of the Moonlig
ht Battle: ‘I know the justice of our cause; I know the excellence of our fleet; therefore have reason to expect success.’22

  Now safely beyond Cádiz, Darby’s entry into Gibraltar was guaranteed because Barceló’s squadron was no match for such force. The fleet of Spanish gunboats, now some eighteen strong, rowed around firing frantically and the Spanish land batteries opened up on the British ships, but their sting was easily drawn, the British convoy ‘being perfectly well covered by the ships and frigates’.23 The Spanish vented their frustration by unleashing a staggering barrage onto the Rock, setting the town on fire with red-hot shot, ‘a truly grand and awful spectacle of war’. At the height of this bombardment it was estimated that the Spanish were firing 3,000 shot per day, and those who witnessed it believed it to be the heaviest cannonade in history.24 One witness offered a description:

  The varied repercussion from the Rock, of exploding shells, and the reiterated sound of cannon and mortars, were such as stunned the air, whilst the eye traced with pain the ravaging effect, and gazed with anguish on the continual flash of ordnance, spreading desolation in every direction.25

  Faced with such destruction, Darby’s squadron kept moving at all times, tacking backwards and forwards incessantly. It must have been exhausting for the crews, but it was very effective and kept the British ships entirely unharmed.26 Order within the town, meanwhile, disintegrated. ‘Such a scene of drunkenness, debauchery and destruction was hardly ever seen before’, wrote one witness.27 ‘Havock still continues!’ wrote another. He went on:

  Several of the inhabitants in endeavoring to save part of their property in town, have lost their lives. A corporal had his hand shot off as he was calling from a window to a man in the street. A soldier was found so miserably torn by a shell that he could not be known, only by part of his dress. A shot killed two soldiers this morning, one of whom was brushing his shoes for guard … a Genoese youth, endowed with every amiable qualification, on the point of nuptial celebration, was unfortunately killed.28

  Gibraltar was relieved again, therefore, though this time some of its inhabitants paid a terrible price for that relief. Many had failed to appreciate that the arrival of the British fleet would, by goading a Spanish response, bring their own destruction rather than their salvation.

  * * *

  Those who mourned the deaths of their husbands, wives, lovers and children in Gibraltar had no idea of the imperial cost that had yet to be paid for their relief. While they grieved, far out in the Atlantic the huge, combined, unopposed French fleet set off to change the war.

  29

  FRENCH ESCAPES

  Once clear of Brest and deep in the Atlantic, the French armada split into its three distinct fleets: one of six ships of the line under Suffren bound for India via the Cape of Good Hope; another of twenty ships of the line under de Grasse bound for the Caribbean; and a third bound for Boston under escort of a 90-gun ship. If their unchecked escape from Brest was not bad enough, in two subsequent operational failures both de Grasse and Suffren were allowed to escape all over again.

  * * *

  The first French escape happened on the way to Good Hope. The British were all too aware of the importance of the Cape, which for several reasons was a cornerstone of British imperial security in the east. First, as a Dutch possession, it was the warehouse that kept the French Indian Ocean squadron operational, just as St Eustatius had been the warehouse that had kept the French Caribbean squadron operational. If the French were denied access to Good Hope, they would be unable to prosecute any campaign of any strength or duration from their island base at Île de France (Mauritius), a barren island barely able to sustain itself in peacetime, let alone in war with thousands of hungry and thirsty French soldiers and sailors bobbing around in French battle fleets. If the British could secure the Cape, therefore, they could secure India.

  To secure Cape Town was also to secure the British island of St Helena. That hideous lump of Atlantic rock is famous as Napoleon’s last prison, but its role in British naval and imperial strategy is not so well known. All of the high-value convoys coming from the east required protection for their return to home waters. They therefore needed a safe, remote location where they could meet their naval escort. They also needed a base where they could rest, repair, water and revictual after several gruelling months at sea. One thousand miles off what is now known as Namibia’s Skeleton Coast, St Helena provided the perfect answer. It became, in the words of the chairman of the East India Company, ‘the key to and from the East Indies’,1 and the only location from where it was possible to launch an attack on St Helena was Cape Town.

  The attractiveness of Cape Town, moreover, was that it was clearly another soft target. The British and French were now, respectively, five and three years into the war and had armed forces at their fingertips in a way that the Dutch did not. Cape Town had more defences than the pathetic St Eustatius but none that could prevent a British or French army from landing. A British squadron of two ships of the line and three 50-gunners under Commodore George Johnstone was thus sent to Good Hope and became locked in a race with Suffren. The winner would be the man who could anchor his fleet in a strong defensive formation in Table Bay, secure the Dutch surrender and get any spare guns ashore to strengthen the weak Dutch defences.

  Suffren, by any account, was unpleasant and difficult. Grossly fat and horribly sweaty, he was often badly dressed. One witness described him appearing in ‘a coarse linen shirt entirely wet’ worn over ‘unbuttoned breeches, broken shoes, dirty stockings’. Renowned for being thoughtless and indiscreet, he was ‘a man with whom one could not live, difficult to command, not prone to obedience, very prone to criticize’, and he was a militant Provençal. He was, nonetheless, ‘admired and appreciated by all’ and had as much experience of warfare as any French naval officer.2 He had witnessed the value of impetuous and relentlessly violent attacks at the British naval victories at Finisterre in 1747 and Lagos in 1759, and had also been present at the French tactical victory at Minorca in 1756, in which the French had outmanoeuvred the British to protect their army ashore. Suffren, therefore, knew the value of both dash and patience.

  Command of the British squadron was given to Commodore George Johnstone, a man with barely any naval experience at all but with strong political connections. His appointment represents a significant shift of power in the British government away from Sandwich, who hitherto had done his best to match naval appointments with appropriate skill and experience, even if he had been given a very shallow pool from which to draw talent. Johnstone, however, was an accident waiting to happen.

  The British won the first leg of the race, from European waters to the safety of the neutral Portuguese Cape Verde islands, where it was traditional for ships to water and victual on the way south. The claustrophobia of sea routine was broken at Porto Praya (now Praia on the island of Santiago), where the fleet anchored, and was replaced by the magical promise of a tropical island. The decks were encumbered with barrels and livestock and many of the men went ashore. The lure of revelry was further increased by the presence of several East Indiamen, all of which carried civilian – and female – passengers. Captain Thomas Pasley of the 50-gun Jupiter, one of the finest British naval diarists of the period, knew himself to have a weakness for the promise of female company: ‘I delight to see a pretty face clothed in smiles’, he wrote in anticipation of a dinner that night.3 The war seemed thousands of miles away. Far enough south and close enough to Africa to appear entirely alien to any northern European, even today the Cape Verde islands seem utterly disconnected from the world around them. An experienced naval officer who had spent a life at sea in such places might not have been so easily distracted as the green Commodore Johnstone.

  Shortly after his arrival at Porto Praya Johnstone heard interesting and troubling news. ‘By the never-failing argument, Bribery’, he had procured a number of letters that had recently been left at Porto Praya by none other than the Serapis, the British ship captured
by John Paul Jones which had since become a French privateer. These letters told of ‘Six Sail of French Ships of the Line close at our heel, to call at this very Bay for Water and Refreshments’.4 It was said that this force consisted entirely of 74-gunners – far larger than the ships in Johnstone’s squadron and even more reason to prepare for attack.

  Scouts could have been sent out to survey the well-known approach route to the island; the officers and men could have been summoned back to their ships; the ships themselves could have been anchored in line, perhaps chained together, with anchors on their springs to allow for manoeuvrability. There was plenty of water in the bay for Johnstone to anchor his vulnerable ships inshore of, and thus protected by, his fleet.5

  But nothing – nothing at all – was done. In one of the most perplexing naval command decisions of the entire war, it is as if Johnstone had heard the news but dismissed it as untrustworthy or somehow irrelevant. There is some suggestion that he was seriously unwell.*

  That night the British officers held a great party, in which ‘high good humour reigned throughout’. They danced until after midnight and there was every expectation that the revelry would continue the next night. The following morning, 16 April, a ship on the edge of the British fleet made the signal for a sail, which would have made men stop their tasks and peer to the horizon. Then, with increasing dread, they would have seen the same ship make the same signal ten more times, for ten more ships. A pack of wolves had arrived at the edge of the forest. Johnstone, then in a rowing boat making his way through the anchored fleet, espied an East Indiaman that was slow on the uptake, her crew still cleaning the ship’s sides with a water pump. According to one witness – one with a suspiciously good memory – he unleashed a brilliant tirade: