Among the ships under Admiral Osborn’s command was the Monmouth, 64, a poor little liner of our starved model, but a quick sailer. She was commanded by Arthur Gardiner, who had been flag-captain to Byng in the miserable battle of Minorca, and his first lieutenant was Robert Carkett, one of those officers who rose from before the mast. Little is known of Gardiner, save that he had been chosen by Byng to be his flag-captain, which implies that he was a “follower” of his admiral and was under obligations to him. In the battle he had given Byng good and manly advice, and in the court martial his evidence had told severely against his chief. The memory of that day had rankled in Gardiner’s mind. Now La Galissonière’s flag had flown in the Foudroyant in the battle, and the English captain had come to regard her with a concentrated hatred. He is reported to have said that whenever he met her he would attack her, at all odds, and either take her or perish. Charnock, to whom the traditions of the navy of that time came directly, quotes a letter telling how “Two days before he left his port (viz. Gibraltar) being in company with Lord Robert Bertie, and other persons, he with great anguish of soul told them, that my Lord Anson had reflected on him, and said he was one of the men who had brought disgrace upon the nation; that it touched him excessively, but it ran strongly in his mind, that he should have an opportunity shortly to convince his lordship how much he had the honour of the nation at heart, and that he was not culpable.”
When now, on the morning of the 28th February 1758, Gardiner found himself among the chasing ships of Osborn’s squadron, and saw the French ships in flight, he singled out the mighty Foudroyant, and crowded sail in pursuit. The Swiftsure and the Hampton Court accompanied him, but they were heavy sailers and soon fell behind. The chase began early in the morning, and was prolonged till evening, when the Foudroyant and the Monmouth were alone. As he pressed on the chase, Captain Gardiner, so tradition recorded by Charnock tells, said to a military officer who was with him, “Whatever becomes of you and me, this ship (pointing presumably at the Foudroyant) must go into Gibraltar.” Also he called his crew aft, and said, “That ship must be taken, she appears above our match, but Englishmen are not to mind that, nor will I quit her while this ship can swim, or I have a soul left alive.” Finding that he could not shake off his pursuer, and feeling not unreasonably confident that the other English ships were too far off to act against him, Captain Duquesne turned on the Monmouth. If M. Troude, the most careful historian of the French Navy, is right, the Foudroyant suffered from a weakness which was infinitely dishonourable. Her crew was so mutinous that Captain Duquesne could not use the guns of his second deck. The men ran below very soon after the action began. This goes far to explain the action. The Foudroyant, a larger vessel than our three-deckers of the time, carried a broadside at least twice as heavy as the Monmouth’s, and ought, if properly handled, to have made a wreck of her in two broadsides. The bad conduct of Duquesne’s men does not diminish in any way the credit due to Captain Gardiner, who could not know how ill his opponent would be supported, and it does go to prove the moral inferiority of the French Navy at that period. The engagement began about seven o’clock between these two opponents so ill matched in material strength, and lasted till about midnight before help came to the Monmouth. Her mizen-mast was shot away and about a hundred of her men fell killed or wounded, but the mainmast of the bulky Frenchman was brought down on the fore, and he became an unmanageable wreck. At last the Swiftsure and the Hampton Court came up, guided by the sound of the cannon, and at one in the morning Duquesne surrendered, insisting, with chivalrous politeness, on giving up his sword to the officer commanding the Monmouth. This was not now Captain Gardiner. He had been wounded early in the action, but refused to leave the deck. Later he was mortally struck, and handed over the command to Lieutenant Carkett with a last exhortation not to let go his hold of the Frenchman. He died with the supreme consolation of knowing that no one could ever again accuse him of disgracing his country.
La Clue remained at Carthagena till he found an opportunity to slip out and escape to Toulon in April. The attempt to send help to North America had broken down before the watch of the English admiral. It was Osborn’s last service. An attack of paralysis reduced him to the necessity of coming home in July. He was thanked by the House of Commons, and acknowledged its thanks in the words which sound best in the ears of Englishmen, protesting that he had done no more than his duty, and hoping that his services might be “the most inconsiderable that shall be thus honoured.” The command in the Mediterranean devolved on Admiral Brodrick, but the war in that sea died down till it revived in the annus mirabilis of 1759.
The share of the work thrown on the Channel fleet was not so successfully done. Until the superiority of the navy had been more fully established, and St. Vincent had organised his system of sleepless blockade, winter and summer, Brest was a bad port to watch, opening as it does on the wide and stormy Atlantic, not, as Toulon does, on the fierce and fickle but not formidable Mediterranean. In January of 1757 M. de Beauffremont left Brest for America with a squadron. It was too early to venture to enter the St. Lawrence, and he sailed first for the West Indies. Thence he made his way to Cape Breton in June, carrying with him a large convoy of merchant ships. At Cape Breton he found M. Durevest with the four vessels which had eluded Admiral Saunders in April. Another reinforcement joined him under the command of M. Dubois de Lamotte, who had left Brest on the 3rd May with nine sail of the line. The total force under Beauffremont’s command now amounted to eighteen sail of the line and five frigates. An admirable opportunity was offered him of doing some service, but he effected nothing of the active order. His mere presence on the coast had put a stop for the time to a scheme of Lord Loudoun for an attack on Louisbourg. In so far he did some good to his side in a passive way, and with that he was content. And with that he continued to be content. Admiral Holburne sailed from St. Helen’s on the 16th April, picked up some troops at Cork, and reached Halifax in July. His purpose was to join with Lord Loudoun and the colonial forces in an attack on Louisbourg. But the French were judged to be in too great strength to allow of success, and the combined operation was given up. Admiral Holburne, with his fleet of sixteen sail of the line and three frigates, paraded past Louisbourg in August and dared Beauffremont to battle. But the Frenchman would not come out. Holburne returned to Halifax, was reinforced by four sail of the line, and resumed the blockade of Louisbourg, but on the 24th of September a hurricane of extraordinary violence scattered his fleet, and he was blown home. The most severely damaged vessels were sent back at once. The admiral came on with the others, and the trade from Halifax. When the coast was clear Beauffremont came out at the end of October, and reached Brest in November.
We are now at the end of the preliminary period of the Seven Years’ War, and on the eve of the great campaigns which left the Royal Navy the uncontested mistress of the seas, and Great Britain the dominating power in Asia and America. A few words may be devoted to the moral and intellectual qualities of the two navies opposed to one another. It will be seen that from 1755 till well in 1758 our operations had not on the whole been successfully conducted. But when we look close it appears that, except in the notorious case of Byng, the fault lay with the rulers who did not use the fleet with vigour. In one respect the navy had still a good deal to learn. Its blockades were not maintained with the severity of later times. Our admirals, or perhaps it was rather My Lords at the Admiralty, shrank from the risks of a blockade of Brest in winter and spring. But even in the Mediterranean the method of conducting a blockade inevitably diminished its effect. A fleet was kept together outside an enemy’s port till it was all in want of water and a refit. Then it was taken back in a body, with the result that for the time being the blockade was raised. In the Mediterranean this was of less importance, because there always remained the chance of catching the enemy in the Straits. Yet the temporary absence of our fleet allowed M. de la Clue to escape first from Toulon, and then from Carthagena. On the ocean this periodical raising of the blockade rendered any effectual watch in Brest impossible. Yet our navy did, in the main, endeavour to keep close to the enemy’s ports in order to be in a position to attack him whenever he came out, and the aim it steadily pursued was to bring on battle with the French and beat their squadrons at sea. So it gained steadily in skill by prolonged cruising, and it grew no less steadily in confidence and daring.
When we turn to the French we find a great difference. With them the constant aim was to fight as little as might be when fighting was necessary, and to achieve their purpose without fighting, if possible. La Galissonière did not follow up his success against Byng, though he had ocular demonstration of the clumsiness and timidity of his opponent. Beauffremont had declined battle with Holburne, though numbers were on his side. Yet the French spoke of the glory of La Galissonière, and Beauffremont was held to have done right. It would be a very silly national vanity which sought the explanation of the difference in any want of personal courage among the French. Though a nervous and excitable they are a valiant people, and the history of their navy is full of the heroic fights of individual ships against long odds. What explains their inferiority in enterprise is the principle upon which they acted. It has been stated with simplicity by one of their writers on the art of war at sea, Ramatuelle. He says gravely that the French Navy did not aim at destroying a few of the enemy’s ships, but at a more serious object, namely, the execution of its mission. On the face of it this seems absurd, for what more serious object can any fleet have than to defeat its opponent and make itself master at sea? The French answered, that given the great number of the English warships it was idle to suppose that they would ever be destroyed wholly in battle, and that they themselves would be worn out long before a decisive result could be obtained. Therefore when a French admiral sailed to relieve a colony, or save some particular post from attack, or land men to be used against a British possession, he was to avoid battle as far as he could, and if forced to fight then to engage to leeward, cripple as many as he could of the enemy’s spars, and slip away. In short, his aim was always to keep his own fleet intact, and not to destroy the enemy’s. There is a superficial air of ingenuity about all this, but it was in the long run a fatal method of conducting wars. It left us free to direct our blows where we pleased. It made it certain that our fleets would never be seriously crippled. It made it inevitable that sooner or later we would break down the French defence, since that which attacks and wears away will always in the end break through a passive opposition. But its worst consequence was the degrading moral effect it had. The French Navy was taught that to be brought to battle was a misfortune, and thus it came to have a predisposition to give way, to avoid, to seek shelter, to run. We grew accustomed to look upon our opponent as one who feared our blows, and to take it for granted that the French would never stand in the face of an equal force. The working of these two widely different ideals of conduct will be seen in the following years of the war.
CHAPTER VI
THE YEARS OF TRIUMPH
Authority.—See last Chapter.