The interest of a conflict between strength and weakness cannot be in proportion to the importance of its results. These campaigns must therefore (considerations of space being also of much weight) “speak by their foreman”; by the typical examples. None seem more representative than the first great cruise into the Mediterranean in 1694, and that expedition of ten years later which put us in possession of Gibraltar.
It has been said above that the Grand Fleet had gone to sea in the spring of 1694 under the command of Russell. He was also the chief of the “commission for executing the office of Lord High Admiral”—and therefore combined the whole civil and military authority in his own person. The fleet consisted of fifty-two English and forty-one Dutch ships of the line, with their attendant fireships and small craft, when all were collected at St. Helens. When he was sure that the French had no fleet in Brest to assist in the defence, the admiral returned to St. Helens on the 23rd May, and sailed with his whole force on the 29th. On the 6th June the force designed to carry out the already mentioned raid on Brest was detached, and Russell sailed for the south in pursuit of the French with thirty English and twenty-two Dutch. He was off the Rock of Lisbon on the 25th June. Here he was reinforced by ships both English and Dutch, and his force was raised to sixty-three. A little later he was burdened by the co-operation of nine very inefficient Spaniards.
In July Russell entered the Mediterranean, to the great relief of the palsied Spanish Government, now trembling in impotence before the French army of invasion in Catalonia and the French fleet in the Mediterranean. The enemy retired as the allies worked their way slowly up the coast and finally took refuge in the roadstead of Hyères, to the east of Toulon. Russell and his Dutch colleagues were then able to cover the Spanish forces in Catalonia and the Spanish coast trade from French attack. As autumn approached, they prepared to return; but King William wisely came to the decision that there was no better way of protecting English and Dutch naval interests at home than by keeping the French fleet shut in the Mediterranean. Russell therefore received orders to winter in Cadiz. He had to struggle with the unreasonable requests of the Spanish Government, which expected its allies to do everything for it, and could itself do little or nothing. Yet, as they were well supplied with money, stores, and even artificers from home, the allies passed the winter abroad at no greater cost than would have been incurred in their own ports.
In the spring of 1695, English troops were sent out under Brigadier Stewart, and a Dutch contingent under the Count of Nassau. The allies, after delays attributed to the dilatory preparations of the Spaniards, moved up the coast, and reached Barcelona on the 19th July. Stimulated by Russell, the Spanish viceroy of Catalonia resolved to take the offensive against the French, who were in possession of the northern part of the principality. It was decided to besiege Palamos, a coast town just south of Cape San Sebastian. English and Dutch soldiers were landed to aid the Spaniards, who for their part signally failed to keep the promises they had made to supply tents and tools for work in the trenches. Yet the siege, which began on the 9th of August, was making fair progress, when it was suddenly broken up by the decision of Russell himself. The Duke of Vendôme, who commanded the French army in Catalonia, put false information in his way, to the effect that a French fleet of sixty-five sail was fitting for sea at Toulon. Hereupon Russell re-embarked his soldiers, advised the Spanish viceroy to renounce all hope of retaking Palamos, and sailed to find the French. This measure has been praised, in view of the danger that the fleet from Toulon might have interfered with the siege. Yet if Russell was confident of his capacity to meet King Louis’s ships in battle—and if he was not it was a gross blunder to form the siege at all, and another to sail for the purpose of meeting a superior fleet—he had it in his power to force on an action by pressing the attack, and waiting till the enemy came to interrupt him. By sailing in response to a mere rumour, he enabled the French to effect their purpose of raising the siege at no cost. Moreover, he did not secure the battle he sought. The French having nothing to gain by an action, did not indulge him with a meeting. The weather proved stormy, and in the end the allies returned in September to Cadiz without Palamos, and without a battle. Russell then sailed for home, and reached England after a prosperous voyage early in November, leaving behind him a squadron under the command of Rear-Admiral David Mitchell. The impotent conclusion of the attack on Palamos leaves us in some doubt whether Russell was not rather a fortunate than a spirited man. Yet his continuance abroad for a year and a half, his wintering at Cadiz, and his two cruises in the Mediterranean, did serve to prove that the allies had clearly gained the upper hand at sea. They could not have remained for so long, nor have cruised undisturbed, if the French had been in a position to use their fleet.
The end of these operations was somewhat tame. Sir David Mitchell had been left with sixteen ships of the line of the middle and lower rates. On the 15th October Sir George Rooke arrived from England with a squadron, and the total force of the allies was raised to thirty sail, exclusive of the small craft. Information, no more accurate than the false report which drew Russell away from Palamos, led Rooke to believe that a powerful French fleet was coming to sea. He took refuge in Cadiz harbour, and there spent the winter. Sir David Mitchell was once sent out in search of some French vessels said to be lying in Lagos Bay, but they were not found, and the allies were otherwise quiescent. Meanwhile, King Louis was indeed preparing to make an attack, or rather a double attack, on King William. During the early days of 1696 Sir John Fenwick’s assassination plot was hatching in England, to the knowledge and with the approval of the French sovereign and the exiled King James. Troops were collected at Calais to be pushed over so soon as the murder of King William was known to have been achieved. In the meanwhile a fleet of fifty-one sail was being prepared at Toulon with considerable difficulty, partly through the penury of the French Government, partly because of the pertinacity of its sailors in resisting or evading service. The object of this armament was to provide a force which should be at hand to take advantage of the confusion expected to ensue on the violent death of King William. It is known to all that this complicated scheme of combined murder and military operations broke down. Fenwick’s plot was revealed to the Government. The great ships which had come home with Russell in the autumn were hurried to sea in February, and the French coast was patrolled and orders were sent to Rooke to return at once.
These orders reached him at a time when his mind was much exercised by reports of the approach of the French fleet from Toulon. He put to sea in the early days of March. The enemy had already sailed under the command of Châteaurenault. It is one more illustration of the rather modest standard of efficiency expected from the ship of the time, that to send a fleet to sea so early as March was counted hazardous. The result went to show that the estimate was not wholly unjust. Both fleets were scattered in a storm, and suffered damage. They returned to port, but again put to sea so soon as their injuries were made good. Rooke, who had the start, reached home on the 22nd April. Châteaurenault ran into Brest about a fortnight later—not unobserved, but unopposed. This escape of his fleet was added to the list of naval miscarriages of which Parliament was constantly complaining. Rooke and Mitchell were called to account, but no blame appears to have been thought to attach to them. Indeed, the error lay mainly in the Government. It ought to have kept a more powerful force in the Straits if it wished to prevent the French from leaving the Mediterranean. Fenwick’s plot was the last resolute effort made by the enemy against the Government established by the Revolution. Peace was becoming an absolute necessity for France, and it was made at Ryswick in 1697.
For a brief space both sides took breath, and then the struggle began again—the main cause being the resolution of the allies to prevent Louis XIV. from establishing a grandson of his own on the Spanish throne on terms which would practically have annexed the vast possessions of the Spanish monarchy to the crown of France. England was drawn into the struggle with reluctance, and was in fact only provoked to fight when the French King, subordinating his duties as a sovereign to his feelings as a gentleman, recognised the son of the exiled James II. as King of England.
The accession of Queen Anne brought one change to the government of the navy. It had been the intention of King William in the last days of his rule to re-establish a Lord High Admiral. The Earl of Pembroke was chosen for the place, and the admirals who were to act as his advisers were named. By the king’s death all commissions were annulled, but his intention was carried out, though with a change of persons. The office of Lord High Admiral was revived in favour of the queen’s husband, Prince George of Denmark, who was provided with a council. Some fault was found with the legality of this measure, but it passed without serious opposition—thanks to the popularity of the queen, and the fact that public attention was turned elsewhere.
The war, though essentially a continuation of the former struggle, was begun, in so far at least as the naval side of it was concerned, in somewhat changed conditions. A grandson of King Louis now sat on the throne of Spain. It was the object of the allies, by whom, however, he had been at first recognised, to compel him to resign. Therefore it was sure that he would be their enemy to the extent of his power. An inevitable consequence of this change was that the allied English and Dutch fleets could no longer rely on being allowed to use Spanish ports. One of the earliest measures taken by the Queen’s Government was to send an officer, Captain Loades, to Cadiz to bring away the naval stores kept there for the use of our ships serving in the Straits and the Mediterranean. It shows to what an extent we had made use of this port, that the stores left there amounted to more than Loades could stow in the vessels with him. He was therefore compelled to sell part of them to the Spaniards at a loss. Two hulks belonging to us, and used for the purpose of “heaving down,” that is, lightening, and pulling on one side ships which it was necessary to clean when they returned foul from a cruise, were towed out to sea and sunk. An experience of this kind must have quickened our desire to obtain possession of a port entirely our own.
Though Philip V. had been accepted by the Spaniards as their king, a party in favour of the Hapsburg dynasty was known to exist, and to be strong in the coast provinces. So upon the outbreak of the war in 1702, a fleet of fifty sail, of which thirty were English and twenty were Dutch, was sent to Cadiz under Rooke, carrying with it a strong force of soldiers under the Duke of Ormonde. It cleared the Channel on the 21st July, and after looking into Corunna went on to the south. On the 12th August it left Lisbon, which, since the Spanish ports were shut to us, and the King of Portugal was among the allies, had become our house of call and store magazine, as it had been in the Commonwealth wars. Very shortly the fleet was before Cadiz. The work to be done required, above all things, tact. It was the duty of the expedition to assail the Spaniards in so far as they were the armed supporters of King Philip V., but to propitiate them in so far as they were the potential supporters of the Hapsburg party. The chiefs so managed matters that they took no effectual steps against the armed forces of King Philip, while they allowed grievous wrong to be inflicted on the people of the country. Cadiz was bombarded to the injury of the inhabitants. Meanwhile the Puerto de Santa Maria, on the other side of the bay, was occupied by the English and Dutch, who applied themselves to drunkenness, the rape of women, and deliberate insults to the Roman Catholic religion—three kinds of violence exquisitely adapted to excite the scorn and hatred of the people of Andalusia. After a month and a little more of wrangling with one another, the chiefs, who could agree on nothing else, agreed to come away.