But it was the policy of the time to pacify the merchants, whose bugbear was a negro insurrection in the West Indies; and whether the genius or the fears of Pitt gave way to the impression, the consequence was equally lamentable—the mighty power of England was wasted on the capture of sugar islands, which we did not want, which we could not cultivate, and which cost the lives, by disease and climate, of ten times the number of gallant men who might have saved Europe. At the close of 1793, a grand expedition against the French Caribbee islands was resolved upon by the British cabinet; and it is a remarkable instance of both the reputation of Sir John Jervis and the impartiality of the great minister, that a Whig member of parliament should have been chosen to command the naval part of the expedition.
The expedition consisted of twenty-two ships of war and six thousand troops, the troops divided into three brigades, of which one was commanded by the late Duke of Kent. Sir John Jervis hoisted his flag as vice-admiral of the blue on the 3d of October.
A ludicrous circumstance occurred in the instance of a favourite officer, Mr Bayntun, who had applied for permission to join Sir John. Bayntun received in answer the following decisive note: "Sir, your having thought fit to take to yourself a wife, you are to look for no further attention from your humble servant, J. JERVIS." It happened that Bayntun was a bachelor, and he instantly wrote an exculpatory letter, denying that he had been guilty of so formidable a charge. The mistake arose from a misdirection in two notes which the admiral had written on the same subject. He had left them to Lady Jervis to direct, and she had addressed them to the wrong persons. The consequence, however, was, that Bayntun received the appointment, and the married man the refusal. This inveteracy against married officers seems strange in one who had committed the same crime himself; yet he constantly persisted in calling officers who married moon-struck, and appears at all times to have regarded matrimony in the service as little short of personal ruin.
On the passage out, a curious circumstance occurred to the Zebra frigate, under command of the gallant Robert Faulknor. The Zebra, which had been separated from the rest of the squadron, saw one evening a ship on the horizon. All sail was made in chase, and the ship was discovered to be a twenty-eight gun frigate. All contrivances were adopted to induce her to show her colours, but without success. At length Faulknor, impatient of delay, and disregarding the disparity of force, closed upon her, and jumped on board at the head of his men. To his astonishment he found that she was a Dutch frigate, quietly pursuing her way; and as Holland was at peace with England, equally unexpecting and unprepared for an attack. This instance of apathy night have procured her a broadside; but luckily the affair finished with the shaking of hands.
On the 5th of February the expedition reached Martinique. On the 18th of March Fort Lewis was stormed, General Rochambeau capitulated, and Martinique was taken, St Lucie followed, the Saintes next fell, and the final conquest was Guadaloupe. Thus in three months the capture of the French islands was complete.
But an enemy more formidable than the sword was now to be encountered. The yellow fever began its ravages. The troops perished in such numbers, that the regiments were reduced to skeletons; and just at the moment when the disease was at its height, Victor Hughes was dispatched from France with an expedition. The islands fell one by one into his hands, and the campaign was utterly thrown away.
The romantic portion of the European campaigns now began. The French Directory, unpopular at home, wearied by the sanguinary successes of the Vendéan insurrection, and baffled in their invasion of Germany, were in a condition of the greatest perplexity, when a new wonder of war taught France again to conquer. Napoleon Bonaparte, since so memorable, but then known only as commanding a company of artillery at Toulon, and repelling the armed mob in Paris, was appointed to command the army on the Italian frontier. Even now, with all our knowledge of his genius, and the splendid experience of his successes, his sudden elevation, his daring offer of command, his plan of the Italian campaign, and his almost instantaneous victories, are legitimate matter of astonishment. In him we have the instance of a young man of twenty-six, who had never seen a campaign, who had never commanded a brigade, nor even a regiment, undertaking the command of an army, proposing the invasion of a country of eighteen millions, garrisoned by the army of one of the greatest military powers of Europe, which had nearly 300,000 soldiers in the field, and which was in the most intimate alliance with all the sovereigns of Italy. Yet, extravagant as all those conceptions seem, and improbable as those results certainly were, two campaigns saw every project realized—Italy conquered, the Tyrol, the great southern barrier of Austria, overpassed, and peace signed within a hundred miles of Vienna. The invasion of Italy first awoke the British ministry to the true direction of the vast naval powers of England. To save Italy if possible, was the primary object; the next was to prevent the superiority of the French fleet in the Mediterranean. A powerful fleet had been prepared in Toulon, for the purpose of aiding the French army in its invasion, and finally taking possession of all the ports and islands, until it should have realized the project of Louis XIV., of turning the Mediterranean into a French lake. It was determined to keep up a powerful British fleet to oppose this project, and Sir John Jervis was appointed to the command. Nothing could be a higher testimony to the opinion entertained of his talents, as his connexion with the Whigs was undisguised. But Pitt's feeling for the public service overcame all personal predilections, and this great officer was sent to take the command of the most extensive and important station to which a British admiral could be appointed. Lord Hood had previously declined it, on the singular plea of inadequacy of force; and Sir Charles Hotham having solicited his recall in consequence of declining health, the gallant Jervis was sent forth to establish the renown of his country and his own.
The fleet was a noble command. It consisted on the whole of about twenty-five sail of the line, two of them of a hundred guns, and five of ninety-eight; thirty-six frigates, and fifteen or sixteen sloops and other armed vessels.
Among the officers of the fleet were almost all the names which subsequently obtained distinction in the great naval victories—Troubridge, Hallowell, Hood, Collingwood, &c., and first of the first, that star of the British seaman, Nelson. It is remarkable, and only a just tribute to the new admiral, that he, almost from his earliest intercourse with those gallant men, marked their merits, although hitherto they had found no opportunities of acquiring distinction—all were to come. Nelson, in writing to his wife, speaking of the admiral's notice of him, says, "Sir John Jervis was a perfect stranger to me, therefore I feel the more flattered." The admiral, in writing to the secretary of the Admiralty, says—"I am afraid of being thought a puffer, like many of my brethren, or I should before have dealt out to the Board the merits of Captain Troubridge, which are very uncommon."
The French fleet, of fifteen sail of the line, lay in Toulon, ready to convoy an army to plunge upon the Roman states. Sir John Jervis instantly proceeded to block up Toulon, keeping what is called the in-shore squadron looking into the harbour's mouth, while the main body cruised outside. The admiral at once employed Nelson on the brilliant service for which he was fitted, and sent him with a flying squadron of a ship of the line, three frigates, and two sloops, to scour the coast of Italy. The duties of the Mediterranean fleet, powerful as the armament was, were immense. Independently of the blockade of Toulon, and the necessity of continually watching the enemy's fleet, which might be brought out by the same wind which blew off the British, the admiral had the responsibility of protecting the Mediterranean convoys, of sustaining the British interests in the neutral courts, of assisting the allies on shore, of overawing the Barbary powers, which were then peculiarly restless and insolent, and of upholding the general supremacy of England, from Smyrna to Gibraltar.