It was not until August 8th that d’Estaing with the eight remaining ships-of-the-line ran the batteries and anchored between Coasters’ Harbor Island and Conanicut. He was now joined by the others except one which remained as a lookout in the West Channel. The long delay of ten days from the time of arrival had been at Sullivan’s request, who was not yet ready. Two thousand men had been sent by Washington under Lafayette, but the expected militia were slow to come in. Things now looked very black for the British, but the delay had been fatal.
D’Estaing on August 9th landed on Conanicut such of his thousand soldiers in the fleet as were fit for duty and some two thousand seamen, in readiness for the morrow’s attack as arranged. Scarcely were these landed when the lifting of the fog revealed the English fleet at anchor off Point Judith, seven miles southwest of Narragansett Bay. Though there were some thirty ships, there were but one 74, six 64’s, and five 50’s, a force wholly inadequate to meet d’Estaing’s. Howe, thus inferior, could not have ventured into the bay, but his presence caused d’Estaing to lose his judgment. The latter had begun to get his ships into position for defence, in the prevailing calm, but next morning when the wind came out from the northeast, fair for leaving port, but making it impossible for Howe to come in even had his force allowed, d’Estaing in over haste cut his hemp cables and went to sea. Howe, unable to meet him, did the same, and now the day and part of the next were spent in maneuvering for position in face of a rising storm. The wind had gradually increased and finally blew with such force as to make action impossible. Next day (August 12th) it developed into an “August storm,” a West India hurricane, which had taken its usual course up our coast, scattering both fleets and inflicting heavy damage, particularly upon the French, whose flagship, the Languedoc, completely dismasted and with tiller broken, came near being taken on the 13th by a much weaker but wholly manageable British 50-gun ship, the Renown. Only night saved her. D’Estaing, with several ships under jury masts, anchored east of Cape May and gradually collected his damaged fleet. He was seen here by Howe, who had now but two of his ships in company. By August 20th d’Estaing was again off Newport, but only to hold a council of war at which were present Sullivan and Lafayette. D’Estaing was willing to remain two days if the American officers would guarantee the surrender of Newport in that time. This they could not do, and the fleet left for Boston, which was mentioned in the admiral’s orders as the place in which he was to refit in case of need. It is of no use to dwell upon the bitter feeling aroused among the Americans, who felt that the British army at Newport was, with the aid of the fleet, in their power. In all fairness, however, the failure was really due to Sullivan’s own delay, which changed completely naval conditions. The siege was raised; the great effort had gone for nothing but the destruction of a few unimportant British ships. The British fleet, now heavily reinforced by the thirteen powerful ships under Byron which had left England in June, had command of the sea.
D’Estaing spent two months refitting at Boston, and then following the letter of his orders, left on November 4, 1778, for the West Indies, where he was much more fortunate, but where we cannot follow him. His departure left our coast open to invasion at every point, and thus Savannah was occupied in December by a strong British force; it was the beginning of the Southern invasion which was to cost us dear.
Pressed by our people, d’Estaing in the summer of 1779, though he had received orders to return with his own particular squadron to France, determined to attempt to dislodge the British at Savannah. He thus left Santo Domingo with twenty ships-of-the-line and seven frigates, and anchored, on August 31, 1779, off Tybee at the mouth of the Savannah River, on which, eighteen miles from the sea, is Savannah, then but a small village. Troops were landed by the French, an attack made, and an expedition, expected to be completed in eight days, extended to two months. It ended in disaster; gale after gale crippled the French fleet here on an unprotected coast, until on October 28th it was wholly dispersed. The flagship was driven to sea with the loss of both her only remaining anchors, and it was not until well into December that the main portions came together again in the West Indies. D’Estaing himself, however, was driven so far to sea that he determined to return alone to France. This he did, fortunately meeting the Provence which gave him an anchor, and reached Brest on December 7, 1779.
He returned, having accomplished nothing in aid of the United States itself, however fortunate in the West Indies. He was severely judged by naval officers of his service. One, however, need not go to the extent of Captain La Clocheterie, whom the Vicomte de Charlus (who kept a journal when crossing the Atlantic with Rochambeau’s expedition next year) reports as saying: “He was a coward and a man of no talent.” His failure is found rather in the mot of a really great French sailor, Suffren: “If he had only been as much of a seaman as he was brave——”
The whole conduct of d’Estaing’s campaign illustrates what superior strength at sea might accomplish but, in this case, did not. If he had, in going to America, pressed westward, even to the extent of towing his slow sailers, he would have made one of the great successes of history, and have ended the war in America. Failing this, he could, at once on his arrival, have forced the surrender of Newport, upon which he had but to close his hand and the place, with its 7,000 soldiers and sailors, and the bay would have been in possession of the allies. His fault, militarily considered, was in acceding to Sullivan’s request for delay. Reading into the psychics of the question, this request had its basis in Sullivan’s desire to make as good a showing as possible in the combined operations, and not from actual necessity, as the powerful French fleet in itself commanded the situation, and d’Estaing’s compliance came from a natural desire to meet the wishes of the American commander. But on neither side was it war. His leaving the bay at the crisis of events was an unfortunate want of judgment. His later action was but part of the ill-judged strategy of the time which ended in the fall of Charleston and the British occupancy of the whole South, its wholesale devastation and well-nigh subjugation.
But neither side, British nor French, could understand how completely the whole was a question of naval domination. Washington saw, but he was powerless to do more than proclaim again and again the truth, until finally in 1781 he was listened to, the result of which was one of the decisive triumphs of all time.
CHAPTER VI
The new treaty with France was to bring into special prominence one of the most remarkable characters of his time, John Paul Jones. On October 10, 1776, he had been made the eighteenth captain on a list of twenty-four then established. He considered himself ill-treated, and justly so, as having been first on the list of lieutenants he should have been placed higher. His animadversions on the subject, in a letter to Robert Morris, are worth quoting. It showed along with some very just criticisms that he had a high and fitting estimate of his duties as a sea officer, and of the demands of his calling. He said:
“I cannot but lament that so little delicacy hath been observed in the appointment and promotion of officers in the sea service, many of whom are not only grossly illiterate, but want even the capacity of commanding merchant vessels. I was lately on a court-martial where a captain of marines made his mark and where the president could not read the oath which he attempted to administer without spelling and making blunders. As the sea officers are so subject to be seen by foreigners, what conclusions must they draw of Americans in general, from characters so rude and contracted? In my judgment the abilities of sea officers ought to be as far superior to the abilities of officers in the army as the nature of a sea service is more complicated and admits of a greater number of cases than can possibly happen on the land; therefore the discipline by sea ought to be the more perfect and regular, were it compatible with short enlistments.”[7]