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

by David Hannay

That some such rule did prevail in their dim minds is indeed obvious from the result of the two great trials which followed on these small ones. Vice-Admiral Lestock was tried in May 1746, and honourably acquitted. The charges against him were, in substance, that on the night before the battle, when the signal to form the line was flying, the admiral signalled the fleet to lie to for the night. At that moment Admiral Lestock’s squadron was separated from the main body of the fleet. On any intelligent interpretation of the orders it is clear that Lestock should first have joined the other ships, and should then have lain to with them. He preferred to lie to at once, and drifted still farther apart in the night. Next day he was five or six miles astern. He pleaded that he could not come up, and that as the signal for the line was flying he was bound to remain in a line even although that kept him out of the action. One thing is abundantly clear from his defence, and it is that whenever he saw a conflict of orders Lestock habitually preferred that one of the two which kept him away from his admiral, and well out of reach of the enemy. In after times Rodney, who served in this fleet before the battle, and who knew the men, recorded on the margin of Clerk’s Naval Tactics his firm conviction that Lestock had betrayed his admiral. Rodney was headlong in his judgments, but his is the voice of one seaman of that time judging another, and shows what charges were not thought incredible. Certain it is that Lestock behaved like a man who was very glad of any excuse not to help a superior whom he hated. Yet he was honourably acquitted.

There now remained nothing to be done but to try Admiral Mathews. He appeared before a court martial in June 1746—and was sentenced to be cashiered. That he was a stupid man, and was equally unfit to be a minister plenipotentiary or an admiral, is true. In giving up the pursuit of the allies, and so losing his chance to renew the battle, he showed extreme dulness and even want of spirit. But in the action he had fought manfully, and if his example had been well followed the Spanish squadron would in all probability have been cut to pieces. His great sin in the opinion of the court was that he engaged in such a way as to make the maintenance of the line impossible while the signal to preserve it was flying. Again we have to arrive at the conclusion that, from the point of view of the court martial, it was better that the enemy should not be brought to action than that the line should be disordered. Such a result could only have been reached by men who had never spent an hour in thinking out the methods of fighting a battle to the best purpose, but had simply accepted the sixteenth article of the Fighting Orders with the docility of pedants. The consequence of their finding was to rivet the tyranny of a pedantic rule so firmly that it required forty years of war, and an extraordinary combination of happy circumstances at the end of them, to free the navy from its bonds.

In the course of these trials an incident took place which is of interest, because it settled the question of the subordination of the military to the civil courts. The President of the court martial formed to try Admiral Mathews was Perry Mayne, Rear-Admiral of the Blue. It happened that Admiral Mayne had sat on a court martial in the West Indies to try a lieutenant of marines named Frye, and had sentenced him to dismissal and imprisonment. Lieutenant Frye took proceedings against the members of the court in England for acting beyond their powers and for imprisoning him illegally. He gained his case, and £800 damages. In the course of these proceedings a writ was issued by Sir John Willes, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, against Perry Mayne and Captain Rentoul, another of Mathews’ judges, who also had sat on the court martial. The other members of the court were extremely angry at this interference with their President, and recorded a violent protest against the action of Sir John Willes, in which they were encouraged not only by the king, who was a German prince, and very ignorant of English ways to the end of his life, but by the Lords of the Admiralty and Corbet the Secretary, who ought to have known better. Sir John Willes at once asserted his authority by attaching all the members of the court for contempt. They were compelled to present a very humble and public apology.

While the failures of the chiefs who had risen during the long peace and their quarrels were filling the eyes and ears of the world, a great work was beginning to be done for the Royal Navy, quietly and within the walls of the Admiralty. It dated from December 1744, when Anson was appointed as a member of the new Board, with the Duke of Bedford as head. The duke was an indolent, great noble, who served the state because public life was proper to a man of his rank. But he was honest and sincerely patriotic. Though too much accustomed to a splendid and pleasure-seeking life to be a hard worker himself, he supported Anson steadily. Other politicians, and notably the Duke of Newcastle, were too incapable, and too completely devoted to jobbery, to give any active help, but self-interest made them understand that something must be done for the navy. The country would not tolerate a repetition of the miscarriages of the early years of the war, and efforts must be made to bring about an improvement, if the eminent persons engaged in the parliamentary, and court, scuffling of kites and crows, were to be safe in their lives and estates. A good method of securing this desirable end was to obtain the services of a competent workman, and to let him labour unhampered. No better help could have been found than Anson’s. The great seaman’s connection with the administrative work of the navy began in 1744, and continued with brief interruptions till his death in 1762. Until 1751 he served as a subordinate under Bedford and Bedford’s successor, the Earl of Sandwich, who both trusted him. After that date he was himself First Lord, almost continually. Anson was not fitted to shine in the society of London. He could not shake off the silent retiring habits formed during long years of cruising in solitary command at a time when the chief was accustomed to keep all subordinates at an awful distance. He was proud and shy, a little hard too, and inclined to be grasping, as strenuous ambitious men commonly are. It is therefore not surprising that he excited a good deal of dislike, and laid himself open to the attacks of writers so different, and so well able to make their voices heard, as Horace Walpole and Smollett. We, whose ambitions he has not disappointed, and whose advances he did not snub, can judge him by another standard. We can remember that if he took care of his own fortunes, he also worked hard to improve the quality of our shipbuilding, and, what was even more important, to improve the quality of the senior ranks of the navy, while he did a great deal to promote inquiry into, and reform of, the corruptions of the dockyards.

Some years had to pass before the new spirit, hampered as it necessarily was by inherited evils, could produce much effect. A glance at the operations of 1744 will show from what a low level of energy the naval administration had to be raised. Though the retreat of M. de Roquefeuil before Sir John Norris and the February gales had shown the weakness of our enemy, we yet called upon the Dutch to send the twenty ships they were bound to supply by treaty. These vessels were duly sent. Nothing effectual was done with the large force now collected. In April and May Sir Charles Hardy with the Grand Fleet escorted the Mediterranean trade as far south as Lisbon. The French, after the failure of Roquefeuil’s cruise, had reverted to the plundering warfare of the former war. Fourteen vessels were sent out in twos and threes with orders to join at sea and attack our commerce, under the command of M. de Rochambeau. Admiral Hardy protected the trade against his attacks till it was safe in the Portuguese ports, and then returned home. The return voyage was marked by an incident which gives no high opinion either of the discipline of the fleet or of its intelligence. On the 8th May a sail was seen to the northward, and Captain Watson of the Northumberland, 74, was ordered to chase, but not to lose sight of the fleet. He did lose sight. A mist came on, but a gun was heard by the officers on deck, Captain Watson himself being in his cabin, and was understood to be a signal of recall. The captain came up, but continued to hold on, although a second signal was reported by the midshipman on the forecastle. In the afternoon the mist lifted, and the Northumberland was found to be close to two large French warships, the Content, 60, and the Mars, 68, which had a frigate, the Venus, 26, with them. At this time the Northumberland was not cleared for action, nor indeed was she ever in proper order throughout the fight. The master, James Dixon, implored the captain to get his ship into better condition, but no notice was taken. A midshipman named Best swore at the court martial that he heard the master say to the chaplain that it was sad Captain Watson should take the ship into action in the condition he was in. When asked what he understood by this, he answered that he supposed the master to mean that captain “was in liquor.” The evidence was not tested, though both the master and chaplain were present. Captain Watson’s actions were certainly not those of a sober man. He bore down on the two Frenchmen, passing the Content, which was nearest and engaging the Mars, whereby he enabled both to fall on him at once. The Northumberland was cut to pieces. Captain Watson received first one wound and then a second. He staggered to the accommodation ladder, and stood holding to the railing and bleeding to death. The master, it was sworn, came on the quarter-deck “with his hands in his breeches and his hat on, seemingly in a surly mood.” He declared that there were no men to fight the ship, and indeed the crew were running from the guns, while all the marines on the poop who were not shot had escaped below. In these conditions the flag was hauled down. The master gave the command after appealing to the captain to surrender, in order to save the men from being killed “like cows.” The first lieutenant, Craven, made a motion to hoist it up again, and even spoke of blowing the ship up rather than surrender her to the enemy. But his heroism did not go beyond words, and indeed the Northumberland was in no condition to fight further. Yet he was the superior officer, and, if he had wished to repeat the heroism of Sir Richard Grenville, had all the necessary authority. The court martial acquitted the lieutenant honourably, but sentenced the master to imprisonment for life in the Marshalsea. It would have sentenced him to death, but took the more merciful course in consideration of the good advice he gave the captain, which, if it had been followed, would have prevented the loss of the ship.

Here, by way of illustration, may be taken the case of another vessel, lost in the following year. This was the Anglesea, 40, commanded by Captain Elton. She was cruising on the south coast of Ireland, and fell in, off the Old Head of Kinsale, with the Apollo, a French privateer of 56 guns. Captain Elton rushed into action with all the folly of Captain Watson. His decks were not cleared, nor his men properly at quarters. The gunner could not as much as get the key of the powder magazine till the last moment. So ill did Captain Elton handle his ship that he allowed the Frenchman, who was to windward, to cross his stern, rake him, and range up on the lee side. As the Anglesea was one of the crank ships then common in our navy, she heeled over so much that the water ran in at her ports. Thus she lay, with her upper deck exposed to the small-arm fire of the Frenchman, her hull and rigging at the mercy of a heavier broadside than her own. In twenty minutes she was a beaten ship. Captain Elton fell, shot through the body. Two of his men took him down to the surgeon, but on reaching the main-deck from the quarter-deck found he was dead, and so left him. The ship was surrendered by Lieutenant Baker Philipps. The court martial found that the chief cause of the loss of the vessel was the negligent and unofficerlike conduct of Captain Elton. Yet it sentenced Philipps to be shot, though with a recommendation to mercy in which all joined except the President. Baker Philipps was shot. Admiral Vernon afterwards quoted this as a proof that naval courts martial did their duty. The shocking contrast between the cruel severity shown to this young officer and the scandalously light sentences passed on greater offenders, had probably not a little to do with making Parliament see that the naval court martial had to be taken in hand.

Sir Charles Hardy’s own work was half done. He returned home, leaving M. de Rochambeau at sea. The Frenchman blockaded the merchant ships in Lisbon. Among them were vessels on their way out with stores for the garrisons and ships in the Mediterranean. The necessity for action was pressing, and a fleet was sent out. It is a proof of the little confidence felt in the senior officers of the day that the work was entrusted to Sir John Balchen, a veteran of the wars of King William and Queen Anne, who had fought some forty years before as captain against Duguay-Trouin with more courage than success, and had lately been appointed Governor of Greenwich Hospital as a reward for long service. In spite of his great age (he was seventy-five), and his claim to exemption, Balchen left his well-earned rest, and took command of the fleet. He drove off Rochambeau, saw the trade safe to Gibraltar, and returned home in September. On the 4th October the fleet was scattered by a great storm at the entry to the Channel. Balchen’s flagship, the Victory, disappeared during the night of the 4th-5th October with her crew of a thousand men. She was considered an ill-built vessel and may have capsized, but Guernsey tradition asserted that the sound of minute guns was heard from the Casketts through the gale, and it was guessed that the Victory had been driven on the rocks. In one way or the other the sea took its own.

During 1745 the fleets cruised unopposed. In the Mediterranean Admiral Rowley, who had succeeded Mathews, blockaded the Spaniards at Carthagena. He was so superior that he was able to send ships to harass the French trade as far off as the West Indies, to watch Cadiz, and to act against those Italian states in alliance with France. In America a squadron sent from the Leeward islands under Commodore Warren, covered the expedition from New England, a partly patriotic and partly commercial speculation of the colonists, which took Louisbourg in Cape Breton from the French in April, May, and June. Our enemies were so incapable and so unenterprising that our fleet had little to do. During the latter part of the year the interest of the country was mainly turned on the Jacobite rising. The share of the navy in this passage of our history was naturally important, since it had to prevent the French from sending help to the Jacobites. But no serious move was made by the French fleet, and no opportunity for service other than patrolling the coast, and capturing single ships which endeavoured to slip in with money and stores for the Prince, presented itself. The navy did indeed contribute materially to make the rising less serious than it might have been. Prince Charles had sailed from Nantes with two vessels, the Doutelle, a small craft in which he himself sailed, and the Elizabeth, a 64-gun ship employed to carry the bulk of his arms. When on the 47th parallel and thirty-nine leagues west of the Lizard, they were met by the Lion, 58, commanded by Piercy Brett. He had been one of Anson’s lieutenants, and had been appointed by him captain of the Centurion at Canton. As the commodore was not authorised to have a captain under him the Admiralty refused to confirm the commission. Anson, in great anger, had refused to accept promotion to the rank of the rear-admiral. The ministerial change of December 1744 had brought him back, and Brett, who had been made captain in the interval, was allowed to date his seniority from his appointment at Canton. He now attacked the Elizabeth, and the two fought one of the fiercest of recorded single ship actions. They were so well matched that they beat one another to a standstill, but the substantial fruits of victory remained with the Lion, for the Elizabeth was compelled to put back. The Doutelle went on and reached Scotland.

In 1746 the success of the Colonial expedition against Louisbourg, encouraged the Government to fit out an imitation of it to attack Quebec. Lestock, who retained a very ill-deserved reputation for capacity, was appointed to command the ships, and Lieutenant-General St. Clair, the troops, consisting of some engineers and artillery with six regiments of foot. The preparations were delayed till the season was passed for a voyage across the Atlantic. It was therefore sent to the French coast on raiding expedition. Nothing need be recorded of it save that it did not sail till the 14th of September, that troops were landed cleverly enough to the west of Port Louis on the southern coast of Brittany, and then re-embarked when it was found that they had no means of taking the town of L’Orient, which lies a little behind Port Louis and further up the river Blavet. L’Orient was the dockyard of the French East India Company, and its destruction was much desired by us. After failing at L’Orient, the expedition went on to Quiberon Bay, where it again landed soldiers, and again found that there was nothing to be done. Finally the transports carried the soldiers to Ireland, and Lestock returned to Portsmouth.