Types of Naval Officers, Drawn from the History of the British Navy

by A. T. Mahan

It is to be regretted that the methods, or the opportunities, of naval biographers and historians of the past century have preserved to us little, in personal detail and anecdote, of a period the peculiarities of which, if not exactly picturesque, were at least grotesque and amusing. The humor of Smollett has indeed drawn in broad caricature some of the salient features of the seaman of his day, which was that of Howe's entrance into the navy; and those who are familiar with the naval light literature based upon the times of Nelson can recognize in it characteristics so similar, though evidently softened by advancing civilization and increased contact with the world, as to vouch for the accuracy of the general impression conveyed by the earlier novelist. It is, however, correct only as a general impression, in which, too, allowance must be made for the animus of an author who had grievances to exploit, and whose great aim was to amuse, even if exact truthfulness were sacrificed at the shrine of exaggerated portrayal. Though not wholly without occasional gleams of light, shed here and there by recorded incident and anecdote upon the strange life of the seamen of that period, the early personal experiences of individuals have had scant commemoration; and with the exception of St. Vincent, who fortunately had a garrulous biographer, we learn little of men like Hawke, Howe, Hood, and Keppel, until, already possessors of naval rank, they stand forth as actors in events rather historical than biographical.

Of Howe's first services, therefore, not much record remains except a bare summary of dates,—of promotions, and of ships to which he was attached,—until 1755, the beginning of the Seven Years War, when he was already a post-captain. Born in 1726, he entered the navy in 1739, at the outbreak of the war with Spain which initiated a forty years' struggle over colonies and colonial trade. With short intervals of peace, this contest was the prominent characteristic of the middle of the eighteenth century, and terminated in the conquest of Canada, the independence of the United States, and the establishment of British predominance in India and upon the ocean. This rupture of a quiet that had then endured a quarter of a century was so popular with the awakened intelligence of England, aroused at last to the imminent importance of her call to expansion by sea, that it was greeted by a general pealing of the bells, which drew from the reluctant prime minister, Walpole, that bitter gibe, "Ay, to-day they are ringing their bells, and to-morrow they will be wringing their hands." Howe embarked with Anson's squadron, celebrated for its sufferings, its persistence, and its achievements, to waste the Spanish colonies of the Pacific; but the ship in which he had started was so racked in the attempt to double Cape Horn that she was forced to return to England. The young officer afterwards served actively in the West Indies and in home waters. On the 1st of May, 1746, being then in command of a small sloop of war, he was severely wounded in action with a superior enemy's force off the coast of Scotland. A few days before that, on the 10th of April, he had been promoted post-captain, being barely turned twenty. Thus early he was securely placed on the road to the highest honors of his profession, which, however, were not to prove beyond the just claim of his already established personal merit.

During the first thirty months of the Seven Years War, Howe was closely engaged with, and at times in command of, the naval part of combined expeditions of the army and navy, fitted out to harass the French coasts. The chief, though not the sole aim in these undertakings was to effect diversions in favor of Frederick the Great, then plunged in his desperate struggle with the allied forces of Russia, Austria, and France. It was believed that the last would be compelled, for the defence of her own shores against those raids,—desultory, it is true but yet uncertain as to the time and place where the attack would fall,—to withdraw a number of troops that would sensibly reduce the great odds then overbearing the Prussian king. It is more than doubtful whether this direction of British power, in partial, eccentric efforts, produced results adequate to the means employed. In immediate injury to France they certainly failed, and it is questionable whether they materially helped Frederick; but they made a brisk stir in the Channel ports, their operations were within easy reach of England in a day when news travelled slowly, and they drew the attention of the public and of London society in a degree wholly disproportionate to their importance relatively to the great issues of the war. Their failures, which exceeded their achievements, caused general scandal; and their occasional triumphs aroused exaggerated satisfaction at this earlier period, before the round of unbroken successes under the first Pitt had accustomed men, to use Walpole's lively phrase, to come to breakfast with the question, "What new victory is there this morning?" The brilliant letter-writer's correspondence is full of the gossip arising from these usually paltry affairs; and throughout, whether in success or disaster, the name of Howe appears frequently, and always as the subject of praise. "Howe, brother of the lord of that name, was the third on the naval list. He was undaunted as a rock, and as silent, the characteristics of his whole race. He and Wolfe soon contracted a friendship like the union of cannon and gunpowder." "Howe," he says in another place, "never made a friendship except at the mouth of a cannon."

Of his professional merits, however, professional opinions will be more convincing. A Frenchman, who had acted as pilot of his ship, the Magnanime, when going into action, was asked if it were possible to take a lighter vessel, the Burford, close to the walls of another fort farther in. "Yes," he replied, "but I should prefer to take the Magnanime." "But why?" it was rejoined; "for the Burford draws less water." "True," he said, "mais le capitaine Howe est jeune et brave." Sir Edward Hawke, the most distinguished admiral of that generation, gave a yet higher commendation to the "young and brave" captain, who at this time served under his orders,—one that must cause a sigh of regretful desire to many a troubled superior. Several years later, when First Lord of the Admiralty, he nominated Howe, in October, 1770, to command a squadron destined to the Mediterranean, when hostilities with Spain were expected. The appointment was criticised on the ground that he was a junior admiral in the fleet, having been very recently promoted; but Hawke, doubtless mindful that the same objection had been made to him at a similar period of his career, answered, in the spirit of St. Vincent defending his choice of Nelson, "I have tried Lord Howe on most important occasions. He never asked me how he was to execute any service entrusted to his charge, but always went straight forward and did it." Some quaint instances are recorded of the taciturnity for which he was also noted. Amid the recriminations that followed the failure at Rochefort, Howe neither wrote nor said anything. At last the Admiralty asked why he had not expressed an opinion. In the somewhat ponderous style that marked his utterances, he replied, "With regard to the operations of the troops I was silent, as not being at that time well enough informed thereof, and to avoid the mention of any particulars that might prove not exactly agreeable to the truth." The next year, an army officer of rank, putting questions to him and receiving no answer, said, "Mr. Howe, don't you hear me? I have asked you several questions." Howe answered curtly, "I don't like questions,"—in which he was perhaps not peculiar.

It was during the continuance of these petty descents upon the French coast, in 1758, that Howe was directed to receive on board, as midshipman, and for service in the fleet, the Duke of York, a grandson of the reigning monarch; in connection with whom arose a saying that was long current, perhaps is still current, in the British navy. The young lad of nineteen, before beginning his routine duties, held a reception on board Commodore Howe's ship, at which the captains of the squadron were presented to him. The seamen, unpractised in ceremonial distinctions other than naval, saw with wonder that the midshipman kept on his hat, while the rest uncovered. "The young gentleman," whispered one, "isn't over civil, as I thinks. Look if he don't keep his hat on before all the captains!" "Why," another was heard to reply, "where should he learn manners, seeing as how he was never at sea before?"

It is likewise from this period of Howe's career that two of the rare personal anecdotes have been transmitted, illustrative of his coolness and self-possession under all circumstances of danger, as well as when under the enemy's fire; one of them also touched with a bit of humor,—not a usual characteristic of his self-contained reticence. The service involved considerable danger, being close in with the enemy's coast, which was indifferently well known and subject to heavy gales of wind blowing dead on shore. On one such occasion his ship had anchored with two anchors ahead, and he had retired to his cabin, when the officer of the watch hurriedly entered, saying, "My lord, the anchors are coming home,"—the common sea expression for their failure to grip the bottom, whereupon the ship of course drags toward the beach. "Coming home, are they?" rejoined Howe. "I am sure they are very right. I don't know who would stay abroad on such a night, if he could help it." Yet another time he was roused from sleep by a lieutenant in evident perturbation: "My lord, the ship is on fire close to the magazine; but don't be frightened; we shall get it under shortly." "Frightened, sir!" said Howe. "What do you mean? I never was frightened in my life." Then, looking the unlucky officer in the face, he continued, "Pray, Mr.——, how does a man feel when he is frightened? I need not ask how he looks."

The even, unaffected self-possession indicated by these anecdotes of the early prime of life remained with him to the end, as is shown by another incident collected by a biographer who knew many of his contemporaries. "When Howe was in command of the Channel Fleet, after a dark and boisterous night, in which the ships had been in some danger of running foul of each other, Lord Gardner, then the third in command, the next day went on board the Queen Charlotte and inquired of Lord Howe how he had slept, for that he himself had not been able to get any rest from anxiety of mind. Lord Howe said he had slept perfectly well, for as he had taken every possible precaution he could before dark, he laid himself down with a conscious feeling that everything had been done, which it was in his power to do, for the safety of the ships, and the lives of those intrusted to his care, and this conviction set his mind at ease." The apprehensiveness with which Gardner was afflicted "is further exemplified by an anecdote told by Admiral Sir James Whitshed, who commanded the Alligator, next him in the line. Such was his anxiety, even in ordinary weather, that, though each ship carried three poop lanterns, he always kept one burning in his cabin, and when he thought the Alligator was approaching too near he used to run out into the stern gallery with the lantern in his hand, waving it so as to be noticed." From Gardner's rank at the time, the conversation narrated must have occurred during the early years of the French Revolution, when Howe was over sixty-seven. As illustrative of character it is particularly interesting, for Gardner was not only a much younger man, but one whose gallantry and competence had been eminently proved as a captain in several hard fought battles, while as an admiral in chief command he later acquired considerable reputation as a tactician.

Composure under suspense is chiefly a matter of temperament; of the constitutional outfit with which Nature favors some, and does not others. It may be cultivated by its happy possessor; but when wanting, the sufferer can supply its place only by laborious self-control, the tension of which by itself expends the energies it seeks to maintain, and so imposes limitations of strength that are often insuperable obstacles to achievement, especially if prolonged. The strain of this endurance is prominent among those borne by commanders-in-chief, who can at no moment afford to be lax, nor yet precipitate; and it increases with time at compound interest. Howe's native imperturbability was therefore one of the chief factors in his great professional powers, making possible the full exercise of all the others. By dint of it principally he reached the eminence which must be attributed to him as a general officer; for it underlay the full, continuous, and sustained play of the very marked faculties, personal and professional, natural and acquired, which he had. It insured that they should be fully developed, and should not flag; for it preserved his full command over them by delivering him from the factitious burdens of the imagination.

This quality not only entered into his external professional life, but characterized the habitual temper of his mind. "He divested himself in a remarkable manner," says his biographer, "of every approach to a state of anger or resentment"—instancing herein, it may be noted, the improvement of a natural gift; "and he carefully abstained from all irritating language, whether in speaking or writing. In the perusal of the four hundred letters and upwards that have been mentioned, embracing opinions of, and unreserved discussions upon, the merits or otherwise of many and various characters, of all classes of individuals, it did not fail forcibly to strike the reader of them, how invariably, with one single exception, he takes the good natured and favorable side of every question. In the whole series, the harshest word employed is 'blockhead,' bestowed on his steward for not taking care of his own interests."

This equable frame of mind was thus a fundamental trait in Howe, private as well as public, personal as well as professional; not assumed for the moment, but constant in operation. He had none of the irritability attributed to genius, as also he gives no sign of its inspiration,—of originality. He is seen at his strongest in dealing stage by stage with difficult situations created for him, following step by step, and step by step checking, the lead of another; his action being elicited by successive circumstances, not deriving from some creative, far-reaching conception of his own. The temperament is one eminently practical, capable on due opportunity of very great deeds, as Howe showed; for, having improved much native capacity by the constant cultivation of professional knowledge, and with the self-confidence which naturally springs from such acquisition, he rose readily to the level of exertion demanded by any emergency not in excess of his abilities, and so long as the need lasted maintained himself there easily, without consciousness of exhaustive effort, or apprehension of improbable contingencies. "Never hasting, never resting," might be safely affirmed of him.