Ships & Ways of Other Days

by E. Keble Chatterton

Apart altogether from the unsatisfactory kind of seamen which often made up the crews of the English Navy, matters were far from ideal among their officers. There was a spirit of decadence even here. When Benbow was sent to the Spanish Main to seize Cartagena, and fell in with the French, his own captains disobeyed orders, kept out of action, and allowed Benbow to fight the enemy practically single-handed. Similarly, when Matthews was in the Mediterranean attacking the combined Spanish-French fleets, he was basely betrayed by Lestock, who kept astern out of action. As the result of an inquiry, not only was Lestock not punished, but Matthews, who happened to sit in Parliament on the side of the Opposition, had his name struck off the Navy List. There are, unfortunately, too many instances of this kind of thing on record during this century. Some were loyal and straightforward, but none the less inefficient. The captains, wrote Admiral Keppel to Lord Hawke in August, 1778, “are indeed fine officers, and the ships are fine. Some of them, indeed, want more experience in discipline to do all that can be expected from them, but a complete fleet cannot be formed in a day. Our greatest want is petty officers, and that deficiency is general.” And then, you will remember, all the discontent among the seamen culminated in the year 1797, when a series of mutinies broke out. The first was at Spithead, when Lord Bridport was about to take his fleet to sea. He had made the signal to unmoor, when suddenly every ship’s company gave three cheers and refused to go until their pay was increased. They made one exception, however; if the French fleet were out then they would put to sea to fight them, otherwise they declined to go. Lieutenant Philip Beaver, who was serving on the Monarch, writing to his sister two days after this event, admits that with one exception all the crews behaved “with great prudence, decency, and moderation ... and obey their officers as before in the regular routine of ship’s duty—saying that they are not dissatisfied with their officers or the service, but are determined to have an increase of pay, because it has not been increased since the time of Charles the First, and that everything since that period has risen 50 per cent, that no attention had been paid to their petitions.” Eventually the statements of the men were found to be well substantiated, and they were pardoned. But there was another mutiny on May 7; six days later another broke out at the Nore, and in the same month among the men of Admiral Duncan’s fleet off the Texel, and even in Jervis’ fleet off Cadiz.

In no respect is the canker of the eighteenth century better shown than in the condition of tactics displayed by the admirals of this time. During the Anglo-Dutch wars, many a valuable and wholesome lesson had been learned by the English Navy, but the Battle of Malaga in 1704 showed that instead of tactical progress being made, the age had become—to quote an apt expression of Admiral Mahan—“the epoch of mere seamanship.” As soon as inspiration deserts art, we all know how valueless becomes mere technique. It was much the same with eighteenth-century tactics. There was not a breath of inspiration; it was a period of formality, of stiff insincerity both ashore and afloat. The curse of our policy in fighting naval battles was the fetish of the cast-iron tactics which no officer dared to modify. It was not till Hawke came swooping down that these lifeless, formal affairs began to improve. Till his time there was far greater respect for the letter than the spirit of tactics, so that a naval battle between the English and her enemy was just this: the English fleet came along in line-ahead, and then each ship laid herself alongside the corresponding ship of the enemy’s line, with the result that there was a series of duels.

Hawke’s idea was not that, but to concentrate his whole force against a part of the enemy’s fleet, and this idea was carried out by Rodney, when he defeated the French at the Battle of the Saints in 1782. It is true that the signal book then in use in the Royal Navy, plus the inefficient state of the service generally, caused Rodney’s signal to be misunderstood. But it turned out better than it might have done. In medieval times, the great idea was to lay your ship aboard the other ship and fight her to a finish. Then, the reader will remember, came the Cromwellian period, which altered all this. But instead of continuing this progress, the eighteenth century actually reverted to the medieval method, and this was the practice against which Hawke and Rodney set their faces determinedly.

The “Invincible” and “Glorioso.”

Showing the highly decorated sterns and poop-lanterns of the eighteenth century.

In the matter of tactics, as in shipbuilding, the French were decidedly our superiors. And our officers—or, at any rate, those who were keen and zealous for the service—recognised this. “I believe you will, with me, think it something surprising,” wrote Captain Kempenfelt to the Comptroller of the Navy, “that we, who have been so long a famous maritime power, should not yet have established any regular rules for the orderly and expeditious performance of the several evolutions necessary to be made in a fleet. The French have long since set us the example.... Oh, but ’tis said by several, our men are better seamen than the French. But the management of a private ship and a fleet are as different from each other as the exercising of a firelock and the conducting of an army.... The men who are best disciplined, of whatever country they are, will always fight the best.... In fine, if you will neither give an internal discipline for your ships, nor a system of tactics for the evolutions of your fleet, I don’t know from what you are to expect success.... We should, therefore, immediately and in earnest set about a reform; endeavours should be used to find out proper persons, and encouragement offered for such to write on naval tactics, as also to translate what the French have published on that subject. They should also enter into the plan of education at our marine academies.” The date of this letter was January 18, 1780, and in saying what he did Captain Kempenfelt was placing his finger on the real point of the matter.

It was two years after this that John Clerk published his “Essay on Naval Tactics.” British officers of this period had a supreme contempt for book learning, just as the simpler sort of seaman has to-day. But it was not till Clerk published the above book that officers began to change their mind. Up till now works on tactics had been French. Clerk’s was the first volume on this subject in the English tongue. It is not too much to assert that this completely revolutionised British naval tactics, and that to its teaching were largely due the victories of Rodney, Howe, Duncan, and St. Vincent. And the interesting fact was that it was written not by an officer, but by a layman; not by a seaman, but by a Scotch laird. Those who are attracted by the subject of tactics will find much in this book that is instructive, even though steam and steel ships and our present-day weapons never entered into Clerk’s contemplation. And the numerous plans criticising actual contemporary sea fights will be found most helpful to a complete understanding of the nautical events of this period.

One of the most memorable battles in the whole of our naval history was that which is known as the “Glorious First of June,” 1794. The tactics which Howe employed on this occasion are interesting, because, although he formed his fleet in line-abreast, and was able to disable the enemy’s rear, forcing their van and centre to break away to support their rear, yet there was such a ship-to-ship mode of attack that it may seem to have been a reversion to the olden days of medievalism. But the reason for this was that Howe was well aware that, crew for crew, the English were superior to the French. The result proved that his belief was well grounded, for at this time the crisis in the British Navy had just passed, the improvement in tactics had taken place, and the decadent ebb had already run its course.