INTRODUCTORY
For the articles issued by the Duke of York at the outbreak of the Third Dutch War in March 1672 we are again indebted to Lord Dartmouth's naval manuscripts. They exist there, copied into the beginning of an 'Order Book' which by internal evidence is shown to have belonged to Sir Edward Spragge. It is similar to the so-called 'Royal Charles Sea Book,' and is nearly all blank, but contains two orders addressed by Rupert to Spragge, April 29 and May 22, 1673, and a resolution of the council of war held on board the Royal Charles on May 27, deciding to attack the Dutch fleet in the Schoonveldt and to take their anchorage if they retired into Flushing.
The orders are not dated, but, as they are signed 'James' and countersigned 'M. Wren,' their date can be fixed to a time not later than the spring of 1672, for Dr. Matthew Wren, F.R.S., died on June 14 in that year, having served as the lord admiral's secretary since 1667, when Coventry resigned his commissionership of the navy. They consist of twenty-six articles, which follow those of the late war so closely that it has not been thought worth while to print them except in the few cases where they vary from the older ones.
They are accompanied however in the 'Sea Book' by three 'Further Instructions,' which do not appear in any previous set. They are of the highest importance and mark a great stride in naval tactics, a stride which owing to Granville Penn's error is usually supposed to have been taken in the previous war. For the first time they introduced rules for engaging when the two fleets get contact on opposite tacks, and establish the much-abused system of stretching the length of the enemy's line and then bearing down together. But it must be noted that this rule only applies to the case where the fleets are approaching on opposite tacks and the enemy is to leeward. There is also a peremptory re-enunciation of the duty of keeping the line and the order enforced by the penalty of death for firing 'over any of our own ships.' Here then we have apparently a return to the Duke of York's belief in formal tactics, and it is highly significant that, although the twenty-six original articles incorporate and codify all the other scattered additional orders of the last war, they entirely ignore those issued by Monck and Rupert during the Four Days' Battle.
We have pretty clear evidence of the existence at this period of two schools of tactical opinion, which after all is no more than experience would lead us to suspect, and which Pepys's remarks have already indicated. As usual there was the school, represented by the Duke of York and Penn, which inclined to formality, and by pedantic insistence on well-meant principles tended inevitably to confuse the means with the end. On the other hand we have the school of Monck and Rupert, which was inclined anarchically to submit all rules to the solvent of hard fighting, and to take tactical risks and unfetter individual initiative to almost any extent rather than miss a chance of overpowering the enemy by a sudden well-timed blow. Knowing as we do the extent to which the principles of the Duke of York's school hampered the development of fleet tactics till men like Hawke and Nelson broke them down, we cannot but sympathise with their opponents. Nor can we help noting as curiously significant that whereas it was the soldier-admirals who first introduced formal tactics, it was a seaman's school that forced them to pedantry in the face of the last of the soldier-school, who tried to preserve their flexibility, and keep the end clear in view above the means they had invented.
Still it would be wrong to claim that either school was right. In almost every department of life two such schools must always exist, and nowhere is such conflict less inevitable than in the art of war, whether by sea or land. Yet just as our comparatively high degree of success in politics is the outcome of the perpetual conflict of the two great parties in the state, so it is probably only by the conflict of the two normal schools of naval thought that we can hope to work out the best adjusted compromise between free initiative and concentrated order.
It was the school of Penn and the Duke of York that triumphed at the close of these great naval wars. The attempt of Monck and Rupert to preserve individual initiative and freedom to seize opportunities was discarded, and for nearly a century formality had the upper hand. Yet the Duke of York must not be regarded as wholly hostile to initiative or unwilling to learn from his rivals. The second and most remarkable of the new instructions acquits him. This is the famous article in which was first laid down the principle of cutting off a part of the enemy's fleet and 'containing' the rest.
Though always attributed to the Duke of York it seems almost certainly to have been suggested by the tactics of Monck and Rupert on the last day of the Four Days' Battle, June 4, 1666. According to the official account, they sighted the Dutch early in the morning about five leagues on their weather-bow, with the wind at SSW. 'At eight o'clock,' it continues, 'we came up with them, and they having the weather-gage put themselves in a line to windward of us. Our ships then which were ahead of Sir Christopher Myngs [who was to lead the fleet] made an easy sail, and when they came within a convenient distance lay by; and the Dutch fleet having put themselves in order we did the like. Sir Christopher Myngs, vice-admiral of the prince's fleet, with his division led the van. Next his highness with his own division followed, and then Sir Edward Spragge, his rear-admiral; and so stayed for the rest of the fleet, which came up in very good order. By such time as our whole fleet was come up we held close upon a wind, our starboard tacks aboard, the wind SW and the enemy bearing up to fall into the middle of our line with part of their fleet. At which, as soon as Sir Christopher Myngs had their wake, he tacked and stood in, and then the whole line tacked in the wake of him and stood in. But Sir C. Myngs in fighting being put to the leeward, the prince thought fit to keep the wind, and so led the whole line through the middle of the enemy, the general [Monck] with the rest of the fleet following in good order.'
The account then relates how brilliantly Rupert fought his way through, and proceeds, 'After this pass, the prince being come to the other side and standing out, so that he could weather the end of their fleet, part of the enemy bearing up and the rest tacking, he tacked also, and his grace [Monck] tacking at the same time bore up to the ships to the leeward, the prince following him; and so we stood along backward and forward, the enemy being some to windward and some to leeward of us; which course we four times repeated, the enemy always keeping the greatest part of their fleet to windward, but still at so much distance as to be able to reach our sails and rigging with their shot and to keep themselves out of reach of our guns, the only advantage they thought fit to take upon us at this time. But the fourth time we plying them very sharply with our leeward guns in passing, their windward ships bore up to relieve their leeward party; upon which his highness tacked a fifth time and with eight or ten frigates got to the windward of the enemy's whole fleet, and thinking to bear in upon them, his mainstay and main topmast being terribly shaken, came all by the board.' Monck not being able to tack for wounded masts 'made up to the prince,' and then the Dutch, after a threat to get between the two admirals, suddenly bore away before the wind for Flushing.[1]
The manoeuvre by which Myngs attempted from to windward to divide the enemy's fleet and so gain the wind of part of it seems to be exactly what the new instruction contemplated, while its remarkable provision for a containing movement seems designed to prevent the disastrous confusion that ensued after the Dutch line had been broken. This undoubtedly is the great merit of the new instruction, and it is the first time, so far as is known, that the principle of containing was ever enunciated. In this it compares favourably with everything we know of until Nelson's famous memorandum. Its relations to Rodney's and Howe's manoeuvres for breaking the line must be considered later. For the present it will suffice to note that it seems designed rather as a method of gaining the wind than as a method of concentration, and that the initiation of the manoeuvre is left to the discretion of the leading flag officer, and cannot be signalled by the commander-in-chief.