D’Estaign credited his opponent with more energy than he had himself shown at Long Island. He was seriously afraid of being attacked by fireships at anchor—and indeed they had been prepared, and would have been used. When, therefore, the wind shifted from south to north-east on the morning of the 10th, he came at once to sea, cannonading Pigott’s batteries at Newport as he passed, and calling in the two liners sent to Narragansett Bay. Though he had numbers and the wind in his favour, he made no attempt to force on a battle, and manœuvred to keep the weather-gage. Howe strove to win it, intending to fall on the Frenchman and to use his fireships. He succeeded, but a furious gale scattered both fleets on the 11th, and they were not rallied till the 17th. In the interval, the French had suffered more from the storm than our ships. Three of them, the Languedoc, Marseilles, and César, were attacked while crippled by the Renown, Preston, and Isis, smaller vessels, but under complete command. None of them were taken, thanks to the timely arrival of help. Howe reunited his squadron at Sandy Hook, and then returned to Rhode Island on hearing that the Frenchman had reappeared. But D’Estaign had lost all confidence, and was oppressed by a sense of the need for stores and repairs. He sailed away to Boston. Sullivan withdrew from Rhode Island, exploding against his ally in terms of rude and taunting reproach. Howe found the French too strongly posted in Boston to be assailed, and after reconnoitring their position on the 30th, returned to New York. Byron’s scattered ships now began to drop in, but Howe’s service was over for the time being. On the 25th September he handed over his command to Gambier, and sailed for home. On his return he refused to serve under Sandwich, who had supported him so ill. The reason was a bad one, and was not excused by the fact that the minister’s hacks endeavoured to throw blame on the admiral. An officer who pleads a personal offence as an excuse for not fighting his country’s enemies sets an example which is only just short of mutinous.
Gambier was soon superseded by the arrival of his superior Byron. “Foul Weather Jack” made haste to refit his ships at New York, and on the 18th October went to look into Boston. Storms blew him about, he lost vessels, and was forced to take refuge in Newport, Rhode Island. D’Estaign in the meantime had been striving with the ill-will of the Bostonians, a people described by the English historian Beatson as of “a sour, morose, and sullen temper.” They were very angry with the French for not giving more support to Sullivan at Rhode Island, and showed their ill-will by making riotous attacks on the sailors of their allies. One of D’Estaign’s officers, M. de Saint Sauveur, was actually killed in a savage conflict between the townsmen and the French boats’ crews. The admiral was nevertheless able to refit his squadron mainly with our own naval stores, captured and brought into port by the active American privateers. The approach of winter made campaigning hazardous on the stormy Northern coast, and on the 4th November D’Estaign sailed for the West Indies, where the French wished to recover their losses in the previous war. All through this war the main fleets will be found leaving the Antilles when the hurricane months begin in July, and the summer favours them in the North. Then, as winter approaches, and the hurricane season is over in October, they will be found streaming back to take part in the defence or conquest of the islands round the Caribbean Sea. The change in the scene of conflict had been foreseen by us. On the 4th November, the very day that D’Estaign left Boston, Hotham sailed from New York with two 64-gun ships, three of 50, and three frigates, carrying 5000 men of the army in North America, which was already too weak for its work. They were destined for Barbadoes first, and then for the general protection of the Sugar Islands. So close did Hotham and D’Estaign come to one another on the passage that a Newfoundland dog belonging to an English officer, which fell overboard, is said to have been picked up swimming by the French flagship the Languedoc, but there was no meeting.
Though to follow the cruise of D’Estaign and Byron to its close will compel us to overlap contemporary operations elsewhere, an even greater degree of confusion would be created by making an arbitrary break in the narrative of one continuous series of movements. Yet it is necessary to go back for a brief space to explain what the rival admirals found waiting for them, when they came escaping from the snowstorms and icy cold of the North to the unfailing easterly trade winds, the baffling land breezes, the sun, and the purple seas of the West Indies.
The French possessions in those waters consisted of part of San Domingo, of Guadaloupe, Martinique, and Marie Galante. Dominica, between Martinique and Guadaloupe, was in our hands. Next to the South came Santa Lucia, a French island, and beyond it St. Vincent and Grenada, English possessions. The whole of the Lesser Antilles constituted the Leeward Station, so called because they lie to leeward of Barbadoes. The reader may be reminded that as the easterly trade wind is permanent in the West Indies, and is therefore called “the true breeze,” to leeward always means to westward, and to windward is to eastward for the Creole and the seafaring man. During the early months of 1778 there had been the usual examples of breaches of the law of nations on both sides, and the consequent mutual accusations, very loud and very futile. The French had no naval force at hand except a few frigates and sloops. Our own squadron consisted of one 74-gun ship, one 70, with frigates and sloops to the number of fourteen. From the month of June onwards they were under the command of Samuel Barrington, a member of the well-known Irish family. Barrington remained at Barbadoes waiting to see what the French would do. In September he discovered. The Marquis de Bouillé, Governor of Martinique, collected a flotilla of frigates, sloops, and trading-craft, embarked troops and Creole volunteers, and soused down on Dominica. It fell at once, and the history of its fall is highly characteristic of our management in those days. Forts had been built and guns landed for the defence of the island. Nothing was wanting except a garrison. There was no force in Dominica save parts of two companies of the 48th and a handful of artillerymen—not enough to hold a small fort. Having nothing else to do, they surrendered. Barrington complained that he was misinformed as to the strength of the enemy. If he had not kept his line-of-battle ships idle at Barbadoes, he could have found out for himself, and one of them cruising round Martinique would have stopped Bouillé. It was quite in keeping with this sloth and this dependence on information supplied by governors that Barrington joined the noble band of officers who refused to serve in responsible places under Sandwich because their honour was not safe with him. Having allowed Dominica to go for want of support, he left Barbadoes in order to see after the safety of Antigua, to the north of Guadaloupe. It was our naval dockyard in the Leeward Islands. Antigua having a competent garrison was in no danger. Then he returned to Barbadoes, and waited till he was joined on the 10th December by Hotham with the ships and soldiers from New York.
The combined squadrons at once proceeded to give the French a Roland for their Oliver by seizing Santa Lucia. The French island was not much better prepared for defence than Dominica, and when it was attacked on the 13th and 14th of December the Governor retired to one of the hills in the interior, while the coast fell into our hands. Barrington anchored in the Cul de Sac, a bay on the western side of the island opening on to the Caribbean Sea, while the troops besieged the French Governor. Next day D’Estaign appeared with his more powerful squadron. He had anchored at Fort Royal, in Martinique, on the 9th December, and it had been his intention to assail Barbadoes. The danger of Santa Lucia compelled him to change his plans. He shipped Bouillé and his troops, and on the 15th made his effort to rescue the island. It proved but feeble. Barrington had placed his seven ships across the mouth of the Cul de Sac, throwing up shore batteries to cover his flanks. If he was wanting in foresight and enterprise, he was stout. D’Estaign behaved as he had done at Sandy Hook, making mere shows of attack, and excusing himself by pleading that the treacherous breezes under the land hampered his movements. They presented real difficulties, but in the opinion of D’Estaign’s best officers he was too easily disconcerted by such obstacles. Bouillé landed with his troops, but failed to shake the hold of the British troops on their positions. Then D’Estaign heard by a privateer that Byron was on his way from North America. Instead of judging as his countryman Mahé de la Bourdonnais had done at Madras, that the approach of relief for his enemy was a reason for making an instant and strenuous effort, he re-embarked the troops on the 28th, and next day anchored at Fort Royal in one of the fits of depression and self-pity which alternated with his outbursts of energy. M. Micoud, the French Governor of Santa Lucia, surrendered on the 30th, he having also nothing else to do, and the island remained with us, to serve as Rodney’s headquarters in the great crisis of the war.
Byron had indeed left Newport in Rhode Island, on the 14th December, after a desperate struggle with his old enemy the storms, which very nearly drove one of his liners on shore, and did considerable damage to the spars of others. With twelve sail of the line he struggled through the winter weather, and reached Barbadoes on the 7th January 1779. Then he pushed on to Santa Lucia, which he made his headquarters for the watch on D’Estaign at Fort Royal. The French admiral now outnumbered, was cautious, and would risk nothing. He only came out to go in again. In February Byron was reinforced by Rear-Admiral Rowley. Though this officer was stationed to windward of Martinique, to intercept any reinforcements coming to D’Estaign, he failed. The French admiral was successively joined by the Comte de Grasse, Rodney’s opponent on a future date, from Brest, by Vaudreuil from the coast of Africa, and by La Motte Picquet from Toulon. They brought his strength up to twenty-five sail of the line and twelve frigates, which gave him a distinct superiority of numbers over Byron.
The next passage in the naval campaign illustrated at once some of the burdens laid on our admirals, Byron’s poorness of judgment in the greater operations of war, and the miserable character of the principles on which the French were content to act. In June the West India convoys were collected for their return to Europe. The meeting-place of the ships was St. Christopher, to the north-west of Guadaloupe. Commerce was so essential to England that no admiral could have neglected to give it protection. Nor could the country, which was suffering severely from the strain of the war, have endured the entire stoppage of the West Indian trade for the year in order to leave the fleet free—a measure occasionally taken by the military and autocratic Government of France. But Byron could have secured the convoy from danger by blockading the French at Fort Royal. He did not know of the arrival of La Motte Picquet, and had every reason to believe himself still superior to D’Estaign. Even if he were not, and the Frenchman came out to give battle, this was precisely what an English admiral ought to have desired. But Byron sailed away to Saint Christopher to mother the convoy, leaving the road open to his enemy. If D’Estaign had been a truly bold man, and not only a gentleman of showy daring in “the imminent deadly breach,” which indeed he was, he would have sought out Byron at once after the junction of La Motte Picquet’s squadron. But he was content to dwell in the traditional French policy of avoiding battle and grabbing at ports. Freed from Byron’s watch, he swooped on small game. St. Vincent was carried by an expedition of irregulars under a bold partisan of the name of Trolong de Rumain, a lieutenant in the French Navy. Trolong was helped by the Caribs, and even more by a quarrel then raging between the English Governor and his Council. St. Vincent having been secured, D’Estaign on the 2nd July fell on Grenada with his great fleet and Bouillé’s troops.
Byron having seen the convoy on its way home, returned to Santa Lucia on the 1st July—to learn that St. Vincent was gone, that D’Estaign was at sea, and that some other of our possessions was menaced. He was ill informed as to the strength of his opponent, and remained in doubt for two or three days as to what the Frenchman was doing. While preparing to attempt the recapture of St. Vincent, he heard of the danger of Grenada, and came down to its assistance—too late. On the 6th July a battle was fought off the island which marks the very nadir of the pompous futile tactics developed under the old Instructions. Byron had with him twenty-one ships to his opponent’s twenty-five, and was to windward. D’Estaign, at anchor when the Englishman appeared, stood out, keeping to leeward, and waiting to be attacked. We came down in a slanting line, the leading English ship steering for the leading Frenchman. Of course our van came into action unsupported, and was cut to pieces. Then D’Estaign made no attempt to push his advantage, but whisked round, and returned to his anchorage. Byron picked up the fragments, and seeing that Grenada was gone, sailed away to St. Christopher again. A few weeks of mere parade followed. D’Estaign made motions as if to force on a battle, but did nothing effectual. Byron was ready to fight again, if his opponent would provide him with a battle. In August he left for home, handing over the command to Admiral Parker. D’Estaign, after touching at San Domingo, sailed for the coast of America to join General Lincoln, in the unsuccessful attempt to retake Savannah, occupied by us during the previous autumn. The siege was raised in October, and the French admiral left for home followed by the growls of the discontented Americans.
While these operations were running their course on the American coast and in the West Indies with various fortunes and no striking display of ability, in the later months, an amazing example of the essential weakness of England’s enemies was being given at home. Spain joined France in the summer of 1779, bringing to the aid of her allies the unwieldy bulk of her nerveless fleet. The Courts of Paris and Madrid came to the decision to attempt an invasion under the protection of their united squadrons. French troops and transports were collected at Havre and St. Malo. On the 3rd June, D’Orvilliers sailed south to meet the Spaniards with twenty-eight of the line, nine frigates, and eight small vessels, and by direction of his Government stationed himself at the Sisargas, twenty miles west of Corunna. Slothful and unready as ever, the Spaniards had not fully joined till the 26th July, and four days more were spent in settling signals and other details of business. D’Orvilliers had no confidence in the success of the lumbering armament he was called upon to direct. He thought that the sixty-six liners of which it was composed made too large a force to be manœuvred. The Spaniards might be brave and willing, but were in his opinion neither officers nor seamen. Don Luis de Córdoba, their commander-in-chief, a man of seventy-five, is described as having “no personal existence,” and as having seen no service except against the Moors. His individuality was displayed only in senile obstinacy and vanity. Provisions were ill supplied, the health of the fleet was bad and grew worse. D’Orvilliers’ heart was broken by the death of his only son, an officer in the flagship, who fell a victim to the pest. In these miserable conditions, material, moral, and mental, the new Armada sailed from the coast of Galicia.
On one side reinforcements had been sent to North America under Arbuthnot in the early months of the year, and an attack on the Channel Islands had been beaten off. Sir Charles Hardy, an old officer, was drawn from retirement and appointed to succeed Keppel, when he and other admirals refused to serve. Hardy sailed with the grand fleet of thirty-five sail to the West on the 16th June, and remained at sea covering the trade and watching for the enemy. With bolder management he might easily have delivered a crushing stroke at D’Orvilliers at the Sisargas during the fifty mortal days while the French were waiting for the lagging Spaniards. D’Orvilliers and Córdoba reached as high as Plymouth on the 14th August, and their presence caused a lively panic in the country. But nothing came of it all, except the capture of the Ardent, 64, which fell into their hands by the bad management of her captain. First the allies were paralysed by calms, then the wind turned easterly on the 17th, and blew them out westward. They sighted Hardy, but failed to bring him to action or to prevent him reaching Spithead, and by the 14th September had broken up and had turned back to their respective homes. The four days’ command of the Channel for which Napoleon was to sigh had been theirs, but they did nothing with the opportunity.