The East India Company's vessels carried guns, but they were not equipped for facing heavily armed men-of-war. Their crews were not trained fighting men; they were deeply laden, and their decks were heavily cumbered. Moreover, they were not protected by a naval squadron; and had Rear-Admiral Linois been a commander of daring, initiative, and resource, the greater part, or the whole, of this enormous mass of floating treasure might have fallen like a ripe peach into his hands.
But he had to contend with an English sailor of astounding and quite picturesque assurance in Nathaniel Dance, the commodore of the fleet. Dance fully expected, when he left Canton, that he would meet French raiders, though he was astonished when he saw five sail under the tricolour bearing up towards him. But he had thought out what he intended to do if attacked; and, partly by courage, partly by a superb piece of "bluff," he succeeded completely.
Before sailing, the Company ships had been freshly painted. Their gun embrasures showed up more fearsome to the eye of imagination than they were in reality. Dance also carried blue ensigns, which were hoisted on four of his craft when the French made their appearance. He resorted to this device with the deliberate purpose of making the strongest vessels of his convoy look like British men-of-war. In fact, he commanded a fleet of opulent merchantmen, the best of which, by the mere use of brushes and pots of paint, and by the hoisting of a few yards of official bunting, were made to resemble fighting ships. But, wonder of wonders! this scarecrow strategy struck terror into the heart of a real Rear-Admiral, and, as a French historian somewhat lugubriously, but quite candidly, acknowledges: "Les ruses de Dance reussirent; les flammes bleues, les canons de bois, les batteries peintes, produisirent leur effet."
No sooner did the French squadron appear, than Dance drew up his convoy in two lines, with the fifteen smaller vessels under the lee of the sixteen larger ones, which presented their painted broadsides to the foe. It was a manoeuvre which threatened a determination to fight, and Linois was disposed to be cautious. He was puzzled by the number of ships, having been informed by an American captain at Batavia that only seventeen were to leave Canton. The larger fleet, and the blue ensigns fluttering from four masts, imbued him with a spirit of reluctance which he dignified with the name of prudence. As a naval historian puts it, "The warlike appearance of the sixteen ships, the regularity of their manoeuvres, and the boldness of their advance, led the French Admiral to deliberate whether a part of them were not cruisers."* (* James, Naval History 3 247. There is a contemporary account of the incident in the Gentleman's Magazine (1804) volume 74 pages 963 and 967.) Linois did not like to attack, as darkness was approaching, but argued that if the bold face put upon the matter by the British were merely a stratagem, they would attempt to fly in the night; in which case he would not hesitate to chase them. But Dance did nothing of the kind. He had taken his enemy's measure; or, to quote the French historian again, "il comprit l'etat moral de son adversaire." He maintained his formation during the night, keeping blue lights burning on the four ships which sported the blue ensign, to enforce the illusion that they were the naval escort of the convoy, and were eager for battle. In the morning Linois was quite satisfied that he really had to contend with a fleet pugnaciously inclined, which, if he tried to hurt them, would probably hurt him more. Cheers broke from the British decks as the Marengo bore up. Dance then manoeuvred as if his intention were to shut in the French squadron between two lines, and rake them on both flanks. This clever movement so scared the Rear-Admiral that he determined to run. A shot was fired from his flagship, which killed one man and wounded another on the Royal George; whereupon the British sailors fired their guns in return, and kept up a furious, but quite harmless, cannonade for forty minutes. Not a single French ship was hit; but under cover of the thick smoke which "the engagement" occasioned, Linois and his squadron sailed away, and left the cheering Britons in the peace which they so certainly required, but had so audaciously pretended that they did not in the least degree desire.
Dance became temporarily a national hero. The Englishman enjoys a joke, and at a period of extreme tension the impudent exploit of the commodore provoked a roar of delighted and derisive laughter throughout the British Isles. He was feted by the City of London, knighted by King George, presented with a sword of honour, and endowed by the Company with a handsome fortune.
On the other hand, Napoleon was furious. Linois "has made the French flag the laughing stock of the universe," he wrote to his Minister of Marine, Decres.* (* Correspondance de Napoleon I (1858 to 1870) volume 9 document 8024.) Again he said, "The conduct of Linois is miserable"; and in a third letter, summing up in a crisp sentence the cause of so many French failures on the blue water, he said: "All the maritime expeditions that have been despatched since I have been at the head of the Government have failed because our admirals see double, and have found, I do not know where, that one can make war without running any risks;" "it is honour that I wish them to conserve, rather than a few wooden vessels and some men." It was while still smarting under this same indignity, and urging his Minister to hurry the sending of ships with supplies for the support of the Isle of France, that Napoleon made one of his most famous retorts. Decres, with the obsequiousness of a courtier, had written that if the Emperor insisted on ordering certain ships to be despatched, "I should recognise the will of God, and should send them." "I will excuse you from comparing me to God," wrote Napoleon; and, prodding the dilatory Minister again to make haste, he wrote, "You can surely, to meet the needs of our colonies, send from several ports vessels laden with flour. There is no need to be God for that!"* (* Correspondance, volume 17 document 13,960.)
Now, if instead of the timid Linois, the French squadron in the Indian Ocean had been commanded by an Admiral endowed with the qualities of dash, daring, and enterprise, the consequences to the weak little British settlement at Sydney would have been disastrous. After Trafalgar, British interests in the South and the East were more amply safeguarded. But before that great event, Linois had magnificent opportunities for doing mischief. Port Jackson would have been a rich prize. Stores, which the Isle of France badly needed, could have been obtained there plentifully. Ships from China frequently made it a port of call, preferring to take the route through the recently discovered Bass Straits than to run the hazard of capture by crossing the Indian Ocean. It was just a lucky accident that the enemy's admiral was a nervous gentleman who was afraid to take risks. General Decaen, a fine soldier, openly cursed his nautical colleague; but nothing could strike a spirit of vigorous initiative into the breast of Linois. He was always afraid that if he struck he would be struck at--in which view he was undoubtedly right.
Did Napoleon himself realise that there was so rich a prize in Port Jackson? Not until it was too late. In 1810, when he was fitting out another expedition for aggressive service in the Indian Ocean, he probably remembered what he had read in Péron's account of the Voyage de Decouvertes aux Terres Australes about the British colony there, and directed that the new squadron should "take the English colony of Port Jackson, which is to the south of the Isle of France, and where considerable resources will be found" ("faire prendre la colonie anglaise de Jackson"--sic),* (* Correspondance, volume 20 document 16,544.) But the task was well-nigh hopeless then, and the squadron never sailed. Probably it would not have reached the Indian Ocean if it had left Europe, for the Cape, which was in Dutch hands when Linois had his great chance, was recaptured by the British in January 1806. In 1810 Admirals Pellew and Bertie were in command of strong British forces, and Lord Minto, the Governor-General of India, was determined to root the French out of the Isle of France, and clear India of danger from that source. They succeeded, and Mauritius has been British ever since.
We must now leave the sphere of conflict in which the destinies of the world were being shaped, and enter upon another phase of this history. The reader will:
"slip across the summer of the world,
Then, after a long tumble about the Cape
And frequent interchange of foul and fair,"