by Max Adams
On our closing with one of their ships our fire was such that it is astonishing how she swam after it. They returned very little, and we sustained no injury of consequence.24
On the 30th, despite a strong swell, fog shrouded the two fleets for most of the day and it was all they could manage to stay in touch. On the 31st the ships on both sides were so enveloped that the two lines broke up, and were only able to reform towards the end of the day when the fog finally began to disperse. As a result of the action on the 29th, Howe’s fleet was now to windward and therefore had the weather-gage: he could bring on an action at the time and place of his choosing. The French could either wait for the attack, or flee downwind. They accepted battle. The two fleets were virtually equal in numbers. The French ships were larger and could bring a greater broadside weight to bear, but the British ships had a superior rate of gunfire, with crews who were sharper and more disciplined. Collingwood, with Barfleur near the centre of the line, opposite Le Juste of 84 guns, saw it like this:
After closing our line, and putting in order, between eight and nine the Admiral made the signal for each ship to engage that opposed in the enemy’s. Came close, and in an instant all the ships altering their course at the same time, down we went on them. ‘Twas a noble sight! Their fire soon began, we reserved ours until we were so near that it was proper to cloud our ships in smoke. However, we were determined not to fire until Lord Howe had, and he is not in the habit of firing soon. In three minutes our whole line was engaged, and a better fire was never. It continued with unabated fury for near two hours, when the French broke. When we had engaged for three-quarters of an hour they called from the forecastle that the ship to leeward of us was sinking. Up started all the Johnnies from their guns and gave three cheers.25
By the time both fleets, much shattered by the intensity of the action, withdrew to patch up their wounded, and jury-rig their wrecked masts and spars, the British were in possession of seven enemy ships, including Le Juste. One of them, Vengeur, sank that evening. The prizes had suffered more casualties (1,270 killed and wounded) than the entire British fleet (1,156).26 In all, there were nearly four thousand casualties on both sides. Even for a naval encounter these are extremely high figures. Barfleur had lost nine men killed, with twenty-two severely wounded, including her admiral.
It is easy to understand that a fleet which captures seven of the enemy without losing one of its own must portray that action as a victory. It was certainly seen as such at home where it brought much relief to the government, and indeed in purely military terms, against a numerically equal or even superior force, it was. Nevertheless, Villaret-Joyeuse had achieved a strategic success over the British: he had ensured the safe passage of the vital convoy, and had got away with the majority of his fleet intact.
Collingwood was in no doubt of the glory which attached to the officers and men of the Royal Navy, and to Howe in particular, whose skill he called ‘magic’. But, as was so often the case in action, victory was tinged with sorrow:
At the time we have so much to rejoice at, I have much to lament in the sufferings of my friends, particularly Admiral Bowyer, whose misfortune has quite checked joy in me. He is a brave and gallant man, and was so raised by the success of the day that he made his own misfortune of little consideration; and I believe he would have done himself material injury by his spirits if I had not at last shut him up and prohibited every body but the surgeon and necessary attendants going near him. We carried him on shore yesterday, and I hope he is in a favourable way. It was early in the action when he was wounded by a great shot [his leg was blown off], and I caught him in my arms before he fell to the deck.27
Collingwood, having taken effective command of a flagship after the early loss of his chief, and having been in the thick of the action throughout, might reasonably expect to have found favour with Lord Howe. What happened next left the bitterest taste in his mouth.
Howe’s official dispatch to the Admiralty was written the day after the battle. It was rushed to Whitehall by Sir Roger Curtis, his Chief of Staff, and very quickly published. The King was so pleased that he determined to visit the returning fleet in person. Howe praised the whole fleet, singling out for special mention Curtis himself, and his own flag captain in Queen Charlotte, Sir Andrew Douglas. However, he was prevailed upon to compose a second letter giving more details. It seems that Sir Roger Curtis drafted it. It caused outrage in the service.
The second letter began by indemnifying Howe against any possible charges of bias – an odd opening. It says that because the Commander-in-Chief had himself a narrow view of the battle, he had called for reports from his flag officers, ‘for supplying the defects of my observance’.28 He then goes on to list those officers ‘who have such particular claim to my attention’: Admirals Graves, Hood, Bowyer, Gardner and Pasley. Twelve captains are then mentioned, followed by two flag captains who had taken over command of their ships when their admirals were wounded. Three men were conspicuously left out. One was Captain Molloy of Caesar. His gross incompetence or possibly ‘shyness’ led to a court-martial and dismissal from the service; Admiral Caldwell, whose flagship Impregnable had not been among those most closely engaged; and Collingwood, who had taken command of Barfleur from very early in the action, and undoubtedly been in the thick of it as his ‘butcher’s bill’ indicated.
Collingwood was mortified, and so were many others on his behalf. Captain Pakenham, of Invincible, which had been virtually tethered to Barfleur throughout the action, was in a position to offer first-hand support. ‘If Collingwood has not deserved a medal, neither have I; for we were together the whole day.’29 Bowyer, too, gave him a ringing endorsement, but because of his serious injury and worries about his eventual recovery, it came perhaps too late, in a letter to Admiral Roddam:
I do not know a more brave, capable or a better officer, in all respects, than Captain Collingwood. I think him a very fine character; and I told Lord Chatham when he was at Portsmouth, that if ever he had to look for a first Captain to a Commander-in-chief, I hoped he would remember that I pledged myself that he would not find a better than our friend Collingwood.30
Collingwood, in one of a number of letters in which he vented his anger, thought he knew the reason for the omission:
The appearance of that letter had nearly broke my heart … I told Sr Roger that I considered the conduct of the Barfleur had merited commendation when commendation was given to zeal and activity and that an insinuation that either had been wanting was injurious and unjust … Lord Howe is less blamed for his letter than his Captain, who has ever been an artful, sneeking creature, whose fawning, insinuating manners creeps into the confidence of whoever he attacks … The letter … may be considered as a libel on the fleet.31
Collingwood was in no doubt whose door to lay the blame at. He confronted Curtis and remonstrated with him. Curtis’s excuse, that no slight had been intended, and that it was all an unfortunate mistake, Collingwood thought ‘an ill-told story’.32 When, some time later, he also had it out with Lord Howe, he began to believe that Howe heartily regretted the letter. Nevertheless, it rankled, and the pain was about to be made worse.
The medal referred to by Pakenham was an innovation on the King’s part. After visiting the fleet at Spithead, he presented Lord Howe with a commemorative sword and was then introduced to all the captains:
The King arrived on Thursday and we all attended in our barges to escort His Majesty, Queen etc. to Lord Howe’s ship, in great parade. There, I understand, great ceremonies passed of congratulations … In the evening we attended him on shore and it was notified that the King wou’d have a levée the following day on shore. The letter, and not being admitted on board His Majesty’s ship whilst his flag was flying, to pay our duty to him and witness the honours he was doing the Admiral, had soured the minds of every body, and while the nation were rejoicing in a great victory, those who had won it seemed alone dejected and sad.33
Collingwood’s temper was a little impro
ved by the King’s behaviour:
On Sunday had the honour to dine with the King, which was a much pleasanter day than I expected. His Majesty was gracious to all, and there was less ceremony than I looked for.34
He was also promised by the soon-to-retire First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Chatham, that when Barfleur’s new admiral should arrive, Collingwood would be given an ‘appropriate’ alternative ship. But the fact that a medal had been presented to all those named in Howe’s infamous letter, and not to Collingwood, wounded his pride very deeply. It would take three years to wipe the stain, as he saw it, from his character, though when he did, he did so in style. What he later called ‘the sharp point of misfortune’35 could not, he knew, be dealt with by brooding. Action was the thing.
Action he got, but more frustration, too. He decided that while he was waiting for his new ship to be ready, he would fly north to be with Sarah and little Sall, and for the first time see Mary Patience, now almost a year old. Kind letters from friends had, he said, helped him bear the ‘exquisite pain’; otherwise he would have ‘sunk from grief’.36 He was delighted with his daughters, predicting they would be a source of inexpressible joy. It was all too brief, but:
Short as my visit was, I was well-rewarded by finding them in great comfort, and my little daughters as fine children as ever the sun shone on. We had scarce time to express our joy at meeting before I received an order from the Admiralty to repair hither and take the command of my ship.37
Collingwood’s new ship Hector was a 74-gun two-decker, but was too short of men to sail with Howe’s squadron. In his obsession for fleet perfection Howe kept delaying the squadron’s departure, to the frustration of all captains, as news was arriving daily of British merchantmen being captured by the French. Hector’s manning problems were so acute (by October she only had 130 men) that Collingwood was offered another ship, one with a full complement. He accepted, and shifted his chest once more. But Alexander was captured by the French before she could get to Portsmouth. Now unluckily unemployed, Collingwood reverted to family considerations. He had heard that his father-in-law’s toe was getting better from some unspecified infection; Mary Patience had grown five inches in the year, and Sall about three and a half. Even though winter was now coming on, Collingwood was sufficiently downbeat about his employment prospects to risk heading north again. This time, he had nine days at home before fresh orders came for him to go to Plymouth (a journey of several days, all of them uncomfortable) to take command of Excellent, another 74-gun two-decker in which he was to spend the next four years. He was increasingly worried by the progress of the war (the allied armies were retreating in the Low Countries), and especially by the trajectory of events in France:
The torrent there seems irresistible, the Republicans, by dint of multitudes, drive all before them and will do so as long as they find means to subsist them. One wou’d think so great an Army wou’d destroy itself by ruining the country, wheresoever they come, but we have long thought so and still they go on. God knows how it will end, but I think if we had peace with them they would do the work themselves, by a civil war in France.38
Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise had been rapid. He had managed to ride various contradictory political waves as the terror ended and Robespierre and the leading Jacobins themselves fell victim to the guillotine. Napoleon was in Paris at the right time when, in the autumn of 1794, the mob rose against the revolutionary government. Given charge of defending the Tuileries, he ringed the palace with guns and fired grape-shot at the protesters, killing hundreds. He was to be rewarded with military command of the French invasion of Italy.
Back in Spithead Collingwood was also concerned about the state of the navy (as indeed he always was). In a letter to Dr Alexander Carlyle dated March 1795 he summed up his views on the bonds between men and officers, which he felt were under threat from tinkering administrators:
To make the best use of all the powers of a body of men it is necessary the officers shou’d know the characters and abilities of their people, and that the people shou’d feel an attachment to their officers, which can only exist when they have served some time together.39
In the same letter, on a much lighter note, he hoped to find that ‘Sall can swim like a frog. Why should a miss be more subject to drown by an accident than a master?’ Collingwood was itching to be in the thick of things, wistfully hoping he might be given a couple of frigates so he could harry French trade in the Channel. What he got was a convoy, to be escorted into the Mediterranean. Italy was about to become the centre of military attention on the continent, and Britain had embarked on an experimental union with the island of Corsica. Here, Collingwood was once again reunited with his old mess-mate and comrade, Horatio Nelson. Here too, he came under the command of Sir John Jervis.
6
Two thunderbolts of war
1795–1799
Corsica is a dramatically beautiful mountainous island with limited natural resources. It has been invaded countless times: the Roman General Scipio was neither the first nor the last. Like other larger islands of the Mediterranean its culture is fatalistic, and for centuries it has been famous more for its bloody vendettas and primeval economy and religion than its arts and sciences. Nevertheless, its geographical location was of strategic importance to the great maritime powers, as were its forests of high-quality timber. And in the late eighteenth century, in a surge of idealistic and political creativity, it gave birth to a remarkable democratic movement that presaged the revolutions of America and France.
In Collingwood’s day, and right up to the beginning of the twentieth century, the Corsican economy was transhumant: shepherds took their flocks of sheep and goats up to the high pastures in spring, and brought them back down to their villages in autumn. Their bread was made from chestnut flour. At night shamanic dream-hunters stalked human prey, and in spring the herbaceous scrub of the maquis draped the island with fragrance. The island’s infrastructure was almost non-existent, and although its soils are fertile, arable farming was underdeveloped. This was Collingwood’s ever-observant opinion:
The valleys are fertile and the sides of those mountains produce a fine grape, and were the natives less savage than they are it might abound in corn and wine and oil. But they are a curiosity in Europe. Surrounded by civilised nations, there seems to have been no improvement in their manners, nor their arts, since the Christian era. They plough with a crooked billet and pound their corn in a mortar …1
Corsica’s maritime economy was almost non-existent. Uniquely for an island, its people were inward-looking and its fishing harbours never capitalised on international trade. A succession of powers possessed the island up to the eighteenth century: France, the Papacy, Pisa, Genoa. Like Menorca and Sicily it lacked a hierarchy of landed nobility; when the island rose in revolt in 1729 it was representatives from village communes who organised a parliamentary assembly. In the face of a Genoese blockade and military intervention from Emperor Charles VI the rebellion stuttered, winning a few concessions and with sporadic fighting continuing for years, but lacking the economic and military resources necessary to achieve independence.
In 1736 a swashbuckling opportunist from Westphalia, Theodore von Neuhof, arrived with an army of mercenaries financed by Tunisian merchants. Declared king by a bemused parliament, his reign lasted eight months. For nearly twenty more years the rebellion simmered, as Genoa, Austria-Sardinia, France, and even Britain sought, in a manner familiar from the South-East Asia of the twentieth century, to dip their toes into Corsica’s hot waters.
From this unpromising cauldron an unlikely hero emerged: a statesman fit for the European stage. Pasquale Paoli was the exiled son of a refugee leader of the rebellions. In 1755 he was thirty, a captain in the army of Naples. The charismatic Corsican rebel leader Gian’ Pietru Gaffori had just been killed in a vendetta. Paoli was called back to the island and elected General of the Nation. He was given almost autocratic power, but with an ideological zeal tempered by plain sense an
d political nous, he set about dragging his countrymen into the eighteenth century and beyond. He introduced suffrage for males over twenty-five. He clamped down on the vendetta. He founded the University of Corte in the island’s mountain capital, and reformed the Assembly into something recognisable as the forerunner of the American Congress. He established a mint and printing press, and among ideological intellectuals of the enlightenment like Rousseau2 he was celebrated as a genius.
In 1768 Paoli was visited by James Boswell, Dr Johnson’s biographer, who was deeply impressed and sang his praises to London society. Boswell found Paoli reading Gulliver’s Travels and the Spectator and Tatler. He had even read John Wilkes’ anti-government North Briton before it was suppressed. To Paoli’s delight Boswell sang him Hearts of Oak and even translated David Garrick’s lyrics for him.3 But for all Paoli’s charisma and practical abilities his remarkable fourteen-year rule was about to end. Genoa had finally ceded her claims on the island to France, who sent a large force to take control of it. Paoli organised a campaign of what would later be called guerrilla warfare and held them off for a year. But in 1769 the Corsicans suffered a disastrous reverse at the battle of Ponte-Nuovo. Paoli left the island and went into more than twenty years of exile in London.