A Short History of the Royal Navy, 1217-1815. Volume II, 1689-1815

by David Hannay

On the way home, information was received that several Spanish treasure galleons returning from America under protection of a French squadron commanded by Châteaurenault had put into Vigo. Here was a definite object offering a plain aim both to public spirit and private greed. Dissensions ceased. Sailor and soldier united in vigorous co-operation. There is a spacious outer bay at Vigo, and a convenient, though smaller, inner anchorage reached through a narrow entry. A boom had been laid across this, and the French and Spaniards were anchored within. On the 12th October, the allies, led by Admiral Hopson, dashed at the boom while soldiers landed for the purpose turned the fortifications on shore. The French warships and Spanish galleons were either destroyed by the allies or by their own crews. The Government treasure had been disembarked and was far inland, but a good deal of miscellaneous pillage no doubt fell to the squadron and the troops. On the 19th the expedition sailed away, and reached England on the 7th November. Its doings added another chapter to the dreary history of parliamentary debates on “naval miscarriages.”

In 1703 a Grand Fleet went out to the Mediterranean under command of Cloudesley Shovell. It swept the coasts of Spain and Provence, endeavouring to quicken the Hapsburg party in Spain and to send help to the Protestants of the Cevennes, who were in revolt against King Louis—with no success in either case. But the following year saw operations of another order, forming a fruitful campaign—movements of large hostile armaments over a great area, a balance of forces, and a clash of conflict leaving permanent results.

At the close of 1703 the Archduke Charles, the Hapsburg claimant of the Spanish throne, was brought over to this country by Rooke from Holland. It was the purpose of the Government to send him south with such a force as would enable him to vindicate his rights. After delays caused by bad weather he sailed under the protection of Rooke on the 12th February 1704. The English admiral had with him only ten sail of the line, five English and five Dutch, but was accompanied by a swarm of transports and trading ships. He did not reach Lisbon till the 25th February. On the 2nd March reinforcements reached him under command of Sir John Leake, and on the 9th he went to sea in order to cruise for the outgoing Spanish trading fleet bound to the West Indies, which he did not meet though he took several other prizes. Orders were sent him to proceed up the Mediterranean for the purpose of forwarding the Hapsburg cause and aiding the coast towns of our ally the Duke of Savoy. Rooke left Lisbon with thirty-seven sail, but no troops, and was off Cape St. Vincent on the 29th April. He now went on to the Mediterranean. On the 8th May he was off Cape Palos, north-east of the Spanish port of Carthagena. Here a small squadron of French ships was seen and chased. They were on their way to Cadiz. Complaints were made that though they were overtaken they were not attacked, and strong blame was thrown on Captain Andrew Leake for the failure. On the 10th the detached squadron rejoined the admiral, and on the 19th the fleet was off Barcelona. The Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, who was with Rooke, had been governor of the province for King Charles II., and he was convinced, rightly enough as subsequent events proved, that the sympathies of the townsmen were with the Hapsburg cause. He wished to make an effort to induce them to rise, but Barcelona was held for King Philip by a strong garrison under the command of Don Francisco de Velasco, a man of rigorous character. The Catalans, like our own ancestors whether Whig or Jacobite, were too prudent to rise against regular soldiers till they were assured of solid support. This Rooke could not give. He had no troops with him, and he held himself bound to go on to the Riviera to aid the Duke of Savoy. A few hundred English and Dutch marines were landed, but no movement followed in the town, and they were re-embarked. Rooke therefore left the coast of Catalonia, and steered towards Provence.

The French fleet had left Brest early in May. It consisted of twenty-three vessels, under the command of the Count of Toulouse, a bastard son of the king’s, and a simple-minded honest man of no great faculty. The strain on the French king’s resources had not allowed him to equip great fleets in 1702 and 1703, but the events of those years showed him that an effort must be made. In 1704 he ordered squadrons to be prepared both in Brest and Toulon. The object was to unite them in the Mediterranean, where they could cut short further intrigues with the insurgent Huguenots, and give both moral and material support to his grandson in Spain. The English Government was aware of the preparations, and in April a strong fleet was collected in the Channel under Shovell. He had orders to retire up Channel, bringing with him the store ships loaded for the squadron at Lisbon, if the enemy came on in great force. If, however, he heard that Toulouse had gone to the Mediterranean, he was to follow with not more than twenty-two sail, taking care to leave a sufficient force for the protection of trade in the home waters. On the 12th May Shovell obtained information that the French had gone south, and he therefore detached Sir Stafford Fairborn with light ships to Kinsale to act as a trade guard, and followed the enemy to the coast of Portugal.

The Count of Toulouse had a long start, and was nearing the neighbourhood of Rooke by the time Shovell reached Lisbon. In the latter days of May the position was this. On the 25th Rooke was joined by frigate, with the news that a French fleet had passed the Rock of Lisbon steering to the south. The frigate passed through the enemy at sea, and knew that they had entered the Mediterranean. Rooke also learnt from other sources that the towns of the Duke of Savoy were in no danger. A council of war was held, and it was resolved to return to the Straits. If the French fleet was met on the way it was to be engaged. The Count of Toulouse, with twenty-three sail of the line, was cutting across the route of the allies and heading for Toulon. Another French squadron was getting ready in that port somewhat tardily. Shovell was still distant, but was making his way out to join and put himself under the orders of Rooke. All these forces were converging by devious routes to a final clash of battle.

Important events were to take place before they met. On the 27th of May the ships of Toulouse were sighted by the look-out vessels of Rooke’s fleet. But the abounding caution of the commanders of that generation was shown once more. The average speed of the French ships was better than that of the allies, yet it would have been possible to bring them to action by ordering all the ships to sail at their best rate of speed in a “general chase,” when the quickest of the allies could have overtaken the slowest of the French. But to do this appeared dangerous to the flag officers of 1704, since it might subject them to attack in detail, and they pursued in a body, regulating their speed by that of the slowest sailer among them. Thus the Count of Toulouse kept and improved his lead. On the 29th the allies were within ninety miles of Toulon. Then, fearing that all the French forces would unite and put them at a disadvantage, they returned down the Mediterranean. On the 14th June Rooke and Shovell united their forces in the Straits.

So far nothing very brilliant had been done, and the escape of Toulouse with his far inferior fleet was even discreditable to the allies. But now strong pressure was put on Rooke and his colleagues to act. Hitherto the conduct of the naval war had been of a somewhat peddling order. The buccaneering achievement at Vigo stood alone as a feat of any brilliancy. In the beginning of the war the failure of an officer named Munden (brother of him who retook St. Helena from the Dutch) to stop some French ships at Corunna, and his acquittal by a somewhat complacent court martial, had roused fierce anger in the country. There had since been a shameful business in the West Indies. The nation was becoming thoroughly tired of “naval miscarriages,” and the ministry was resolute that something should be done. Something doable lay at the very hand of the allied fleet. After hesitation, and discussions in the inevitable councils of war, it was resolved to make an attempt on Gibraltar, which Cromwell had indicated as a good post for us to hold half a century before. Though Rooke only acted under pressure, his conduct now compares very favourably with that of Russell in 1695. If he was slow and very cautious, at least he was resolute and exact. He did not allow the mere wind of the French fleet at Toulon to draw him off, but stood on guard with the bulk of his force, and sent in a squadron under George Byng to bombard the town, while a body of marines was landed under command of the Prince of Hesse, on the neck of the peninsula, to cut the garrison off from relief, at any rate, by small parties. Gibraltar even then was strong. Its fortification mounted a hundred guns, but its garrison of 150 men was ridiculously inadequate. On the 23rd the bombardment took place—the Spaniards making such reply as was possible to 150 men. The mole was swept by the fire of the ships’ guns, and then stormed by the sailors. An explosion, either deliberately caused by the Spaniards, or produced by one of our own men who dropped a light into a magazine, did considerable harm to the stormers, and for a moment there was a panic. But the Spaniards were too few to take advantage of the chance, or indeed to man the walls. Next day the governor promised to surrender, and the town was delivered on the 25th. The total loss of the allies was 60 killed and 217 wounded, nearly twice the number of the Spanish garrison, and almost all English. They shed their blood honourably and profitably in adding this noble fortress to the “patrimony of St. George”—happier men than the thousands of their comrades who perished miserably in these wars, fever stricken in filthy ships, rotten with scurvy, starved, or poisoned by bad food.

Gibraltar newly taken, and shattered by the attack, was not as yet capable of serving as a port of war for the fleet. Not even water could be found in sufficient quantities. Twelve hundred marines were landed to form a garrison capable of repelling any sudden attack from the land, and a magazine was made up out of the stores of the ships. Then the allies stood over to Tetuan, and sought for provisions and water among the Moors. On the 9th August they had obtained what they wanted, when the captain of the Centurion, who had been on the watch to the eastward, came in with the news that the French fleet was at hand. Though the course to be followed in the event of such a foreseen occurrence as this might have been maturely considered already, a council of war had to be held. It was decided to work up towards the enemy, and give battle. If the Count of Toulouse, who, being to the eastward, had the weather-gage in the easterly wind blowing at the time, had been well advised, he would have forced on battle at once. But he manœuvred to avoid action, and even fell back towards Malaga. This gave the allies time to re-embark half the marines they had landed at Gibraltar. The meeting of the fleets was delayed till the 13th August. By that date the allies had got to windward of the French who were now between them and the fortress. Both fleets were heading to the south. At ten o’clock in the morning the allied line bore down on the French. Sir Cloudesley Shovell and Leake led the van. Rooke commanded in the centre with Dilkes and Wishart. The Dutch formed the rear of the line. In number of guns and ships the two fleets were fairly equal, but the allies were short handed, and in want of ammunition. The course of the battle presented little of interest. Van was opposed to van, centre to centre, and rear to rear. They hammered each other with their guns, and the valour shown was great. Sir John Leake, if his Life is to be trusted, did wish to do more than fire and be fired into. He commanded the leading squadron in the allied line and was opposed to the French admiral, the Marquis de Villette Mursay. The French officer’s ship, the Intrépide, caught fire in the poop, and he bore out of the line to extinguish the flames. This movement was understood as a signal by the ships of his squadron, and they followed him to leeward. Leake now wished to pursue and break through the French line, but that fatal article in the Fighting Instructions, which prescribed the maintenance of one order throughout the action, interfered. He was told to remain where he was—and was reduced to be a spectator of the rest of the action, which took the form of a persevering exchange of blows between the centre and rear divisions of the two fleets. They separated at four in the afternoon, both much damaged. The battle of Malaga was one of the most bloody ever fought at sea. Nearly 3000 men fell in the allied line, and the loss of the French, who however only acknowledged 1500, cannot well have been much less. On their side, too, an extraordinary number of officers of distinction were slain.

For two days the fleets remained near one another. The wind shifted to the west, and gave the French the weather-gage, but they made no use of it to renew the battle. In the allied line many ships already depleted by the bombardment of the 23rd July, and the drafts made upon them to supply the Prince of Hesse with a magazine, had fired away almost all their powder. Some had run short in the action. They were prepared to accept battle if it was forced upon them, with the resolution to board the enemy, and settle it with cold steel since they could not use their guns. But in their hearts they were relieved—and no shame to them, and no credit to him—when Toulouse filed away northward to Toulon. Then they returned to Gibraltar Bay, where they remained till the 24th of August. The marines drawn from the garrison were again landed and damages made good as far as might be. On that day Rooke sailed. On the 26th he told off a squadron to remain on the coast of Portugal with Leake, and sailed with his battered ships and sorely tried crews for England, which he reached on the 25th September.

Gibraltar having been taken was to be held, and as it was not yet sufficiently settled to be able to rely for long on its own strength, its salvation depended on Leake’s squadron. Sir John was hardly a great commander, yet from the day that he relieved Londonderry his conduct was always marked by a certain alacrity in action. During the winter of 1704-05, he stood by Gibraltar loyally and with energy. The Spaniards had collected an army to retake the town, and early in October the Prince of Hesse called for help. Leake came at once from Lagos with stores and encouragement. On hearing that a French naval force was approaching, he put to sea. Uncertainty as to the strength of the enemy and some damage received by bad weather induced him to return to Lisbon to refit, but he was back reinforced by the 29th October and had the deserved good luck to capture three French warships. Leake now remained by Gibraltar till the 21st December. On both these visits his guns relieved the pressure on the town by firing into the camp of the besiegers. Then he again went back to Lisbon. During his absence a French squadron under M. de Pointis arrived to form a blockade. On the 10th March, Leake was back again, and this time he destroyed five Frenchmen including the flagship in Gibraltar Bay. The remainder of Pointis’ ships fled to Toulon. Leake now remained till March. The besieging army broke up its camp in despair, and Gibraltar was safe. Leake was able to sail for England and reached it in April. As Gibraltar had been taken, so it was saved by the fleet, for the sake of which we hold it, and on which in the last resort it depends.