During the night the two fleets continued standing to the eastward on the starboard tack. Next morning the French were seen to windward, about six miles off, on the starboard bow of the English. The Audacieux was standing across our route some distance ahead to join her admiral, who, as has just been stated, sent her off to help the Revolutionnaire. At seven o’clock Howe ordered his ships to tack in succession, and menace the rear of the enemy as on the day before. By this movement he also manœuvred to set to windward. At about eight o’clock the Cæsar, 74, and the Queen, 74, the leading ships of Howe’s line, now heading westward, began to cannonade the rear ships of the French who were still standing to the east. Villaret-Joyeuse, seeing his rear ships menaced, and being anxious lest some of them should be cut off as on the day before, wore his fleet in succession, turning them, that is to say, before the wind, and bringing them nearer the English. The result of this movement was to bring the French on to the same tack as the English, but nearer them though still to windward, and the two fleets stood on to the west, cannonading one another at some distance, for the French hung back from a close engagement. At half-past eleven Howe signalled to his fleet to tack in succession and pass through the enemy, but deciding, on consideration, that the order was premature he annulled it, and then repeated it at half-past twelve. The smoke made it difficult to see the order, and when it was seen it was ill obeyed. The leading ship of the English line, the Cæsar, was commanded by Captain Molloy, who had commanded the Intrepid, 64, in Graves’ action with Grasse, off the Chesapeake, in the previous war, and had then fought with signal gallantry. But in the actions of 1794 he suffered, according to his own account, from a persistent course of misfortunes, and, according to others, from a want of zeal, which brought on him great discredit in the fleet, and condemnation by a court martial. The Cæsar was too far from the enemy, and when she was ordered to tack, she wore, and so went further than before, running to leeward of her own friends. The Queen, 98, Captain John Hutt, the flagship of Rear-Admiral Alan Gardner, the ship next to the Cæsar, did tack and so did those immediately behind her, but partly because they were damaged in the rigging, and partly because the French line was well closed, they failed to break it at any point. They ran along it on the leeside between it and the centre and rear of the English fleet. The result of Howe’s manœuvre so far had been to throw his own fleet into confusion. Seeing that if he waited to tack till his turn came, he might be too late to reach the enemy, he tacked his flagship, the Queen Charlotte, 100, and broke through the French line ahead of the fifth ship from the rear. Then he tacked again and stood in the same direction as the French, who were now to leeward of him. He was followed by his fleet, but in a confused swarm. In the prevailing disorder and the smoke, the English could hardly tell whether their broadside would go into a friend or an enemy. Yet Howe gained the essential advantage he had aimed at. He forced to windward of the French fleet, and gained the weather gage. The two ships in the rear of the French line, the Indomptable, 80, Captain Lamesle, and the Tyrannicide, 74, Captain Dordelin, were cut off and surrounded. Seeing their peril Villaret-Joyeuse wore out of his line to support them. He was followed by the centre and rear of his fleet, and he rescued the two ships. He even threatened the Queen, which had been much mauled and had fallen behind. His van had followed him. The Queen was promptly supported. Both fleets were in much confusion, and at five o’clock the fire ceased.
The action of the 29th May had ended to the notable advantage of Howe. Though several of his ships were damaged, none were too disabled to serve. On the other hand Villaret-Joyeuse had lost the Indomptable, which was so much damaged that he felt constrained to send her home under escort of the Mont Blanc, 74. The Montagnard, 74, left the fleet without orders. The fleet which had sailed from Brest was therefore diminished by loss of four of its ships. Moreover, it had lost the weather gage, and with it the power to delay a decisive action. When the action of the 29th ended the French admiral wore again, but his fleet on the port tack rejoined his van and stood to the west followed by the English fleet. The Montagnard, which had separated from the fleet, fell in with Admiral Vanstabel and the convoy. On the day following the action, the 30th May, Vanstabel, with his grain-ships, sailed across the water where it had been fought, and while Howe, who had come out to intercept him, and the Brest fleet, which was there for his protection, were sailing to the west, continued on his way to France.
The wind was still south-westerly, but it had diminished in strength. The weather became foggy, and the hostile fleets not only lost sight of one another, but it was often not possible for the ships in each to see their friends. On the 30th May Villaret-Joyeuse had a piece of extraordinary good fortune. He was joined by the Trente-et-un Mai, 74, Captain Honoré Ganteaume, from Concale, and by Rear-Admiral Nielly, with the Sans Pareil, 80, Captain Courand; the Trajan, 74, Captain Dumourier; and the Téméraire, 94, Captain Henry Morel. His fleet was therefore again brought up to twenty-six sail. During the 30th and 31st May the two fleets continued sailing to the west, sighting one another in glimpses through the fog. By the evening of the 31st the air had cleared. The French were then to leeward of the English at a distance of four or five miles. It was somewhat of a surprise to Howe’s officers to find their opponent undiminished in numbers and so little damaged. Howe, who was no more inclined than before to fight a night battle, and who knew that the French could not now get away, was content to continue on the same tack with them during the night. At dark they were on his lee quarter. When full daylight had come on the 1st June they had so far gained on him that they were on his lee bow.
The battle now about to be fought is among the most important in the history of naval war. Its significance is to some extent obscured by the fact that we see it in the perspective of time—that is to say, across subsequent events of an apparently greater order, with which we naturally, though unfairly, make our comparisons. But the just comparison is with what went before. I have endeavoured to show how the British admirals of the eighteenth century had been compelled, and were for the most part content, to fight on the poor model provided by the Duke of York’s Fighting Instructions. They bore down on the enemy from windward, engaged van to van, centre to centre, rear to rear. And they complied with Instruction XVI.: “In all cases of fight with the enemy the commanders of his majesty’s ships are to keep the fleet in one line, and (as much as may be), to preserve that order of battle, which they have been directed to keep, before the time of fight.” The result had been to produce such formal and inconclusive actions as were fought by Pocock and D’Aché in the East Indies, by Keppel and D’Orvilliers off Ushant, and in many other places. About the time of the American War of 1778-1783 a general impatience had begun to be felt with this established system. A witty French minister declared that what a naval battle meant was the meeting of two fleets, a great expenditure of powder and shot, and a separation—after which the sea was never a whit the less salt.
Arbuthnot’s action with Destouches off the Capes of Virginia, Parker’s fight with Zoutman on the Dogger Bank had exasperated the navy. Then came Rodney’s victory off Dominica, when he broke his own line in defiance of Instruction XVI. and with brilliant results. We cannot say with certainty how far the speculations of Clerk influenced the minds of naval officers. They have commonly denied him any influence at all. His ingenious plans for forcing on decisive actions are open to the criticism of Captain White, who, in his notes on Rodney’s battle, said that Mr. Clerk would not have found it so easy to manœuvre real ships on real water, as to move his models on the dining-room table. The late Rear-Admiral May, when Captain of the College at Greenwich, once observed to me, while looking at Clerk’s scheme for an attack on the enemy’s rear from windward, that it was very pretty if the enemy was fool enough to let you carry it out. There are no bottes secrètes in war—no lunges which cannot be parried. Any attack is effective only when the better fighter tries it on the less good. And here we come to the root of the matter—to that dominating idea of Clerk’s book which remains sound whatever may be the value of his applications.
It is essential to know what that idea really was. I do not think that it is to be found in his ingenious plans for concentrating a superior number of ships on an inferior number of the enemy’s. Every such attempt to concentrate can be countered and baffled by an alert opponent. The real value of Clerk’s speculations lies in the truth of the hypothesis on which he reasoned, and the general recommendation, or exhortation, he founded thereupon. They are to be read in the introduction to his book on Tactics. He said to naval officers that they and their crews were superior in quality to their enemies, and had proved that superiority in single ship actions, yet their great battles had commonly led to no decisive result, and why? Because they allowed themselves to be tied by pedantic rules. These rules were useful to the side which wished to avoid a decisive action. To the stronger, who had every reason to wish for a chance to develop his strength, they were bonds and obstructions. Therefore, he urged, use your formation as a means of bringing your ships into action. Then it has served its purpose, and you can let it go, break into your enemy’s formation, and allow free play to your individual superiority. With or without his help, or spontaneously, and with stimulus from him, these opinions had been spreading in the navy. On the 1st June 1794 the time and the opportunity for their application had come. Howe’s claim to rank among the great captains is based on the fact that he did apply them.
He would hold his place, even if it could be shown that he did not do the best he could have done. The prevailing authorities are agreed that he did not, and the more friendly plead his sixty-eight years, and the strain which had been laid on him, as excuses. It had been severe since the 2nd May, and heavy indeed since the morning of the 28th. The obligatory remark that Nelson would have done far otherwise is rarely omitted. I shall not undertake to prove a negative. Being the younger man, Nelson might have had the strength to do more than Howe if he had ever met an opponent who had capacity and opportunity to manœuvre. Let us leave easy and barren assumptions aside, and see what were the facts with which Howe had to deal.
In the first place he knew, by his experience on the 29th, that the fleet on his lee-bow could and would manœuvre. Villaret-Joyeuse had shown, by wearing out of his line to extricate the Indomptable and the Tyrannicide, that he was not the man to lie idle while part of his fleet was assailed by superior numbers. The French admiral was quite capable of countering any attempt at concentration. On the other hand, Howe could not rely on the intelligent execution of his orders by all his captains. The simpler the task he set them the better would it be executed. Then he knew that while the manœuvring power of the French was not contemptible, their gunnery was bad. The loss of life in his fleet had been small, and none of his ships had been so disabled on the 29th as to be unable to take her place in the line on the 1st June. Therefore it followed that so long as the ships of the two fleets were fairly matched in size, a superior power would be developed by each English ship by virtue of her better gunnery. What was required was that the action should be close, and that the enemy should not be allowed to practise the favourite French manœuvre of firing to dismast, and then slipping away to leeward. The end could be obtained by bearing down on the enemy, van to van, centre to centre, rear to rear, not for the purpose of hauling up to windward and then keeping in the same order, while the enemy went off on his open line of retreat, but to break in on him, to pass through his line, to cut his retreat, and so to force him to fight it out. The process of breaking through would give opportunities to rake the enemy’s ships, a mêlée would be produced, and the individual superiority of the English ships would have free play. When Howe decided on this departure from tradition, he, with his sixty-eight years and his training in the strictest sect of the Pharisees, showed a greater daring, a greater originality, than was to be displayed by the men who followed him, who handled more practised fleets, who benefited by the confidence he had inspired, who fought enemies whose nerve he had broken. The battle of the 1st June was the foundation of the later superiority of the English fleet, and by far the most essential part of any building is its foundation.