FOOTNOTES
[[1]] I have thought best to leave whatever it is needful to say about the internal history of the British Navy in these years until it can find a place in the account of the events of 1797.
[[2]] I omit all mention of the mutinies in single ships which began to occur about this time, thinking it more convenient, and more likely to tend to clearness, to treat them along with the general outbreak of 1797.
[[3]] We may stop for a moment to look at this list of accidents. Whenever an accident happens to the navy to-day there is an outcry over the decay of seamanship, and profuse assertions that such things did not occur in the good old days are made. Yet we see that, when Bridport started on his tardy pursuit of Morard de Galle, two collisions and one grounding took place in his fleet. Between the 10th December 1796 and the 12th February 1797 there were six accidents, two of them total losses in the fleet of Jervis—nine accidents in about eight weeks among the best forces we had. The losses of Villaret-Joyeuse in his disastrous winter cruise in 1794 were hardly greater. The grounding of the St. George was attributed to the Portuguese pilot. But the presence of a pilot does not remove the responsibility of the captain and his officers. Lisbon was as familiar to us as any English port. Would a navigating officer now need a pilot when entering or leaving Lisbon? And was the pilot responsible for blundering into the frigate?
[[4]] The times entered in the logs were taken from the watches of signal officers and masters. They were not chronometers, nor were the observations made by men engaged in calm scientific investigation. Discrepancies are frequent, and it is rarely, perhaps never, possible to be sure if the time at which any movement was made to within a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. Other discrepancies are frequent.
[[5]] The occupation of the Dutch Colonies will be told when the ancillary services of the navy are dealt with as a whole.
[[6]] Though I do not undertake to give a full account of the Commissions and their Reports, I will take leave to say a few words as to the general impression an examination of them has left on me. There was waste due:—1st, to the division of responsibility between the Admiralty Board and the Navy Office; 2nd, to the survival of the old belief that a man in a Government office committed no mortal sin if he “licked his fingers”; 3rd, to the fact that while the work of the Admiralty and Navy Board had increased enormously since 1793, there had been no proportionate increase in the administering and supervising staff. Pitt, who long clung to the belief that France would be reduced to submission by financial distress, and was by nature a rigid economist, was unwilling to add to the permanent expenses of Government, and accounts remained unchecked and unbalanced for want of hands to do the work. Money was lost, because expenditure could not be followed, and checked. Fallen mankind availed itself of the opportunity. Big men kept public money lying at their bankers, who gave them interest for it. Little men drew pay for work they never did. Contractors took illegitimate profits. All this was bad, but it may all be conceded, and yet we may find that we cannot accept the wholesale denunciations of the Navy Board made by St. Vincent, and by his men, notably his sycophantic secretary, Tucker. Such a story as that of the illegal—at least the tyrannical—impressment of D. E. Bartholomew speaks very ill for the spirit prevailing in the men about St. Vincent, and for him. The notorious case of Sir Home Popham is even worse. Sir Home was accused of having wasted public money on the repair of his ship in India. He was very capable of taking care of himself, and he forced an inquiry. It was proved to demonstration that in the accounts on which the accusation brought against him was based, the same sums had been counted several times over, and some of them were given in pounds sterling, and not in the correct currency—rupees. The total was in fact multiplied by ten, and a legitimate outlay of £7000 was swollen, either by deliberate dishonesty, or by carelessness amounting to dishonest negligence, to an enormous figure. How many officials were denounced on no better grounds than Sir Home Popham? No man is so unscrupulous in accusation as a passionate reformer convinced of his own virtue, unless it be a follower eager to earn the approval of his reforming patron by a display of zeal.
[[7]] I give all figures sous bénéfice d’inventaire. Nothing is better calculated to show how hard men find it to be accurate than the discrepancies between the list of ships given by different authorities in 1804, or at any time. James does not agree with Tucker (Life of St. Vincent), and neither agree with Captain Desbrière (Projets et Tentatives). It must be remembered, too, that at any given moment a squadron might be below its establishment owing to the absence of ships in need of repair or stores, or above it because ships joined the flag as reliefs or in transit.
[[8]] I am not unaware that Duncan’s ships bore down on the Dutch at Camperdown from windward, and that although they suffered a greater loss of life in proportion than the ships of Trafalgar, they were not sunk, or ruined beyond repair. But at Camperdown our ships were running before a strong breeze, on a rough sea, and were on an average heavier ships than their opponents. Therefore they crossed the belt of danger during their approach more rapidly, were better able to stand hammering, and were fired at from a more unsteady platform than was afforded by the almost becalmed ships of the Franco-Spaniards. Moreover, the Dutch deliberately reserved their fire.