During September of 1782 Gibraltar received, and had repelled with ease, the last attack of the Spaniards and their French allies. Floating batteries, from which much had been expected, were brought against the fortress in vain. But as the allies were masters of the Straits, the garrison was in danger of being reduced by starvation. Reliefs of stores and men were urgently needed. The British Government was hard pressed to find ships for the service. A Dutch squadron was known to be ready for service in the Texel, and as the concentration of French and Spanish warships in front of Gibraltar made the employment of a large force necessary, the Ministry was in no small perplexity lest, while Gibraltar was being relieved, the coast of England should be attacked. But the Dutch were timid. The naval advisers of the Government, of whom Keppel, then at the head of the Admiralty, was one, convinced it that the risk was not great. Public opinion, too, would not have tolerated further delay. On the 11th September, two days before the final attack of the allies, Howe left Spithead with thirty-four sail of the line, eight frigates, and a number of fireships. He had under his protection a convoy of transports carrying provisions, military stores, and two regiments of infantry, the 25th and the 59th. Every effort had been made to provide the admiral with the best force the country could collect. But the navy was severely taxed to meet the calls made upon it. Many of the ships had been fitted out with difficulty, and though the best officers and men available were sent on the service, complaints were heard that the crews were made up by the inclusion of inferior elements. At a later period the condition of Howe’s fleet was the subject of an undignified squabble between him and Keppel.
Bad weather delayed the progress of the relieving fleet. Howe was off Faro on the 9th of October. Here he heard of the failure of the attack on Gibraltar, and that the fortress was safe so far. Skilful management was still required to carry the transports into the harbour in face of the superior numbers of the enemy, and the obstacles caused by currents and winds. His iron nerve, his seamanship, and his mastery of the details of a great fleet qualified Howe for the work admirably. Yet even he could not have succeeded at all against efficient opponents, nor against such enemies as he had, if he had not been to some extent beholden to fortune. The help fortune gave him came in a shape which in no way diminished the honour due to his fleet. On the night of the 10th October it blew a heavy gale from the west. The awkward French and the more than awkward Spaniards suffered severely at their station in Algeciras Bay. One Spaniard was driven ashore, and lost, under the guns of Gibraltar. Some were dismasted, others were swept into the Mediterranean. The good seamanship of Howe’s officers and men showed once more that the winds and waves are in favour of the more skilful navigator. They contended successfully with the gale. By the evening of the 11th October the transports had been brought to the entrance of Gibraltar Bay, and the warships were to windward of them for their protection. A few only entered. The great bulk of the transports, unable to bear up against the westerly wind and the current which sets into the Mediterranean, were “back-strapped”—that is to say, they were carried past Gibraltar into the inland sea. Howe had to follow his charge as far as Fuengirola on the 12th. He collected the transports at the Zaforina Islands, and placed his warships to protect them. Don Luis de Córdoba, the Spanish admiral who commanded the allies, followed the English into the Mediterranean, not to seek battle, but only to cover those of his ships which had been driven to the eastward. Fog, rain, and the heavy groundswell following on the storm put the seamanship of naval officers and skippers of the transports to a severe test, but they were equal to their task. The wind had shifted to the N.E. during the night of the 15th. By the 18th victuallers and transports were safe in Gibraltar. On the 19th the enemy were seen to windward. Having relieved the fortress, Howe did not think proper to accept battle in the narrow space between Ceuta and Europa Points. He stood into the Atlantic. Next day the allies, who were still to windward of him, made a feeble attack on the van and rear of his line. They then drew off. Howe, who had not absolute confidence in all his captains, and who was by nature rather resolute and exact than adventurous, played his game with caution. On the 21st the allies went off, and gave him no opportunity to strike with advantage. He remained cruising till the 28th October, when he detached Sir Richard Hughes with eight sail to the West Indies, and then steered home. He anchored at Spithead on the 14th November. He had done an admirable piece of service. If it was rather a triumph in the handling of a fleet and in seamanship than such a triumph in fighting as Nelson would have won twenty years later, we must remember that much had happened in the interval to give British officers a well justified confidence.
When the war died down on the Atlantic and in the West Indies, it was still being fiercely waged in the Bay of Bengal. In those waters it had flamed into energy only as it drew towards its final crisis and end elsewhere. Until 1782 the Eastern seas presented a languid scene. In 1778 England and France were alike feebly represented at sea to the east of the Cape. When the Company, hearing that war had begun in Europe, resolved to seize the French settlement of Pondicherry, it had a squadron at hand. One line-of-battle ship, the Ripon, 60, three small men-of-war of the Royal Navy, and one armed ship of the Company’s, constituted the whole force commanded by Sir Edward Vernon. The still weaker French squadron was at the Île de France. Vernon blockaded Pondicherry on the 8th August, in order to support Sir Hector Munro’s besieging army. On the 10th the French squadron appeared. It consisted of the Brillante, 64, two small ships of the king’s, and two armed merchant-vessels. A feebly conducted action ended by the separation of the combatants. The French commander, M. de Tronjolly, anchored at Pondicherry, and remained there till the 21st August. He brought no effective help, and when Vernon began to threaten him again, he slipped away, leaving Pondicherry to resist as it best could, till it was forced to surrender on honourable terms on the 16th October. The French had ceased to be rivals of England in the East Indies, and would in all probability never have reappeared there, if the Company had not found a new and a most formidable enemy in Hyder Ali, the great Sultan of Mysore. Their few ships remained, partly by necessity, but not a little by the free choice of their officers, at and about the Cythera of the French Navy, the Île de France. Tronjolly was replaced in 1779 by M. D’Orves, who brought a 74-gun ship with him, L’Océan. In January 1781, D’Orves made a transient appearance on the coast of Coromandel. His tardy arrival and prompt departure served only to disappoint and anger Hyder Ali.
Vernon’s successor, Sir Edward Hughes, who came out in 1779 in the Superb, 74, had no French enemy to consider; but when the Dutch joined the enemies of England he co-operated with the Company’s forces in capturing all their posts on the Coromandel coast. On the 11th January 1782 he aided in the taking of Trincomalee, in Ceylon, where a capture of Dutch trading-ships laid the foundation of the great fortune he won during his command. On the 8th February he was back at Madras, and on the following day he was joined by Captain Alms, who brought with him the Monmouth, 64, Hero, 74, and Isis, 50, and also the news that a new and unwonted opponent was about to intrude on the solitary reign of the British forces in the Bay of Bengal.
It has been noted above that when Admiral Darby sailed from Spithead on the 13th March 1781 to relieve Gibraltar he had with him a squadron and a convoy carrying troops which were to be sent on for more distant service. These were the eight men-of-war commanded by “Governor” Johnstone, and the transports carrying troops under General Meadows. Their immediate object was to conquer the Dutch settlement at the Cape. The Dutch, aware of their own weakness, had appealed to the French Government for support. The French, willing to support their allies, and also hoping to inflict a severe blow on England by co-operating with Hyder Ali, gave their aid. When the Comte de Grasse sailed for the West Indies from Brest on the 22nd March 1781 he had with him five ships of the line and transports carrying troops which were to be detached—in the first place to rescue the Cape, and then to aid Hyder Ali. The French squadron was commanded by the only officer of whom it can be said that he was the only “great captain” our navy had been called upon to meet since it had fought the Dutchman De Ruyter one hundred and ten years before.
Pierre André de Suffren de Saint-Tropez, born in 1729 at St. Cannat in Provence—in the modern department of the Bouches du Rhone—was the third son of the Marquis de Saint-Tropez. Like many other younger sons of Provençal families, he was provided for by being placed in the Order of Malta (i.e. St. John of Jerusalem), and also in the French Navy. He became a Garde de la marine in 1743, and from that day till 1781 had been in almost constant service either in the French Navy or in “the caravans of the Religion,” as the cruises of the galleys of Malta in the Levant and on the coast of Africa were officially called. He had taken part in nearly all the few successes and the most conspicuous disasters of the French Navy for some forty years. His reputation as a good practical seaman and vigorous officer was undisputed. His experience had given him a fiery scorn for the pedantic tactics of his generation. They were in his opinion merely decent cloaks for timidity. In 1781 he was still only Knight of the Order, and had not as yet received the dignified office of Bailli of Provence, from which came his popular name of “the Bailli.”
On the 29th March, Suffren parted from the main fleet of the Comte de Grasse when in the latitude of the Azores. He was soon aware that Commodore Johnstone was ahead of him. A Portuguese fishing-boat spoken by one of his squadron informed him that the English squadron had passed. It must have appeared very doubtful to Suffren whether he could hope to overtake and pass it. Several of his transports were heavy sailers, and some of his ships were in want of water. In order to procure more, it was necessary to make for the Portuguese island St. Iago, in the Cape de Verd Islands, and to anchor at Porto Praya, on the south side. On the 16th April the French squadron came round the south-east point of the island in straggling order. One of their ships was towing a transport. As the harbour came in sight the leading French vessel saw that it was full of ships and that several of them were men-of-war. Johnstone had, in fact, anchored at Porto Praya on the 11th of the month, in a slovenly and unofficerlike way, with his transports and warships confusedly mingled. If Suffren had been an orthodox French officer of the stamp of Guichen, he would have seen an excellent opportunity to “fulfil his mission,” and would have hurried on, prepared to risk suffering from want of water, in hope to reach the Cape first. Suffren reasoned as Hawke would have done. What he saw was an admirable opportunity to cripple Johnstone, and he attacked. That his own squadron was not in hand was to him a small matter. It was ten in the morning, and he calculated that many of the English sailors would be ashore in search of water and stores. The confusion of Johnstone’s squadron was obvious. Suffren saw that the rain was falling on the just and the unjust, and he struck his blow. For the neutrality of Portugal he showed no more respect than had been shown by Boscawen when he pursued La Clue into the waters of Lagos, where Suffren, then a lieutenant in L’Océan, had been taken prisoner.
The action of Porto Praya is one which is at once difficult to tell in detail but easily summed up. Five vessels composed his command—Le Héros, 74 (flagship), L’Annibal, 74, Le Vengeur, 64, L’Artésien, 64, and Le Sphinx, 64. When he stood in at the head of his squadron, L’Annibal and L’Artésien were close to Le Héros. Suffren could not lie to for the Vengeur and Sphinx, lest he should be carried to the leeward by wind and current. He struck in at once among the huddle of Johnstone’s squadron, composed of the Hero, 74, Monmouth, 64, Romney, 50 (flagship), Jupiter, 50, and Isis, 50, and three frigates, which were mixed with East Indiamen and transports. There was a wild scene of cannonading, collisions, boardings and attempts to board, in which the three ships which were closely engaged did, and suffered, much damage. They were not in force to overpower Johnstone, and the Sphinx and Vengeur not only came up late, but did not press their attack close. After a couple of hours’ hot work, Suffren cut his cables and left the anchor he had dropped to hold him in position during his attack. He was followed out by the Annibal and Artésien and the East Indiaman Hinchinbroke, which had been captured. Johnstone followed his opponent at leisure and timidly. The Hinchinbroke was retaken, but no zeal was shown to renew the action. Johnstone, a blustering, pamphleteering man of no reputation as an officer, made an attempt to conceal his own want of conduct and spirit by bringing Captain Sutton of the Isis to a court martial, by which he was honourably acquitted, and the two fought a series of lawsuits.
Though his attack failed to achieve victory, it showed the English naval officers that in Suffren they had an opponent of an enterprising spirit rare in the accomplished service to which he belonged. He had so far gained his object that Johnstone remained at Porto Praya repairing damages till the 1st May. In the meantime the French officer pushed on, and reached the Cape on the 21st June. The troops he landed under the command of Count Conway were sufficient to garrison the Dutch settlement against the English expedition. While Suffren was refitting at False Bay, the English squadron appeared on the coast. It made no attempt to assail the French squadron or the colony, but several Dutch East Indiamen which had anchored in Saldanha Bay were captured on the 22nd of July. After cruising for a time off the Cape, Johnstone sent Captain Alms to India, and went first to Saint-Helena, and then home. On the 26th August Suffren left the Cape for Port Louis, which he reached on the 25th October.
The French squadron, composed of the ships already in the islands and those brought out by Suffren, sailed from Port Louis on the 7th December 1781. It consisted of L’Orient, 74, Le Héros, 74, L’Annibal, 74, Le Sévère, 64, Le Bizarre, 64, Le Vengeur, 64, Le Sphinx, 64, L’Artésien, 64, L’Ajax, 64, Le Brillant, 64, Le Flamand, 64, together with seven frigates, sloops, and gunboats. The command was held by M. D’Orves; but Suffren, who though only capitaine de vaisseau, had local rank in the Indies as Chef d’escadre, was appointed to succeed on the death or resignation of his superior. D’Orves, whose health was ruined, broke down in the Bay of Bengal, resigned his command on the 3rd February 1782, and died on the 9th. On the 3rd, therefore, Suffren was again in command. His struggle with the naval power of England lasted till the news of the peace reached him on the 29th June 1783. During those seventeen months he fought the five actions on which the French dwell with pride, for they constitute the most glorious passage in the history of their navy. It is true that he took no English ship in any of them and that he failed to achieve the object he fought for. Yet we cannot but see the greatness of the man. “Brave Suffren must return from Hyder Ally and the Indian Waters; with small results; yet with great glory for six non defeats; which indeed, with such seconding as he had, one may reckon heroic.” Carlyle includes Porto Praya to make the tale of six, and he says the final word of any just judgment on “the Bailli.” If ever a man lived who justified Napoleon’s maxim that war is an affair not of men but of a man, it was he. It was by his personal merit that his squadron came to the very verge of winning a triumphant success. That he failed was due to the fact that the French Navy, in spite of the tardy efforts of the ministers of Louis XVI., was honeycombed by the intellectual and moral vices which were bringing France to the great Revolution—corruption, self-seeking, acrid class insolence, and skinless, morbid vanity. On its way from the islands the squadron fell in with and captured the English Hannibal, 50. One of her officers was placed as a prisoner on parole in the mess of the French Bizarre. An officer of the regiment of Austrasie, which was being carried by the squadron to aid Hyder Ali, the Chevalier de Mautort, says in his Memoirs that this officer was a cheerful young gentleman who did not speak four words of French, but made himself very pleasant. Withal he showed his professional zeal by keeping an alert watch on all that went on about him, and, adds the Frenchman, he cannot have been greatly impressed by the way our work was done. A man can gain no higher praise than this, that he raised the institution he belonged to above itself—and so much Suffren did. The English force opposed to him was to show how the virtues of an institution can atone for the deficiencies of a commonplace chief and baffle the genius of an enemy. When the great captain is found in command of the superior force, then we have the victories of Nelson.