Flag and Fleet: How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas

by William Wood

The dreaded invasion never came off; and the only two French fleets that did get out were destroyed: the one from the Mediterranean off Lagos in the south of Portugal, and the one from the west coast of France in Quiberon Bay.

Boscawen's fleet was refitting and taking in stores at Gibraltar when one of his look-out frigates signalled up to the Governor's house, where Boscawen was dining, that the French were slipping through the Strait by hugging the African shore under cover of the dark. The British flagship had her sails unbent (that is, unfastened altogether). Every vessel had her decks and hold lumbered up with stores. Half the crews were ashore; and if a spy had taken a look round he would have thought the enemy could never have been overhauled. But the Navy is never caught napping. In the twinkling of an eye Gibraltar was full of British blue-jackets racing down to their ships, leaping on board, and turning their skilful hands to the first job waiting to be done. Within two hours Boscawen was off hotfoot after the French, hoisting in boats, stowing the last of the lumbering stores, and clearing decks for action. Overhauling La Clue near Lagos, off the coast of Portugal, he ranged up alongside, flagship to flagship. But the French, fighting with equal skill and courage, beat him off. Falling astern he came abreast of the gallant Centaure, which had already fought four British men-of-war. Being now a mere battered hulk she surrendered. Then Boscawen, his damage repaired, pushed ahead again. La Clue, whose fleet was the smaller, seeing no chance of either victory or escape, chose shipwreck rather than surrender, and ran his flagship straight on the rocks, with every stitch of canvas drawing full and his flag kept flying.

[Illustration: The ROYAL GEORGE]

Quiberon and Quebec go together, like "the eye of a Hawke and the heart of a Wolfe"; for Hawke's victory at Quiberon made it certain that Wolfe's victory at Quebec could not be undone. The French were trying to unite their west-coast fleets at Morbihan for an invasion of England or at least a fight to give some of their own shipping a breathing spell free from blockade. Their admiral, Conflans, was trying to work his way in under very great difficulties. He was short of trained men, short of proper stores, and had fewer ships than Hawke. Hawke's cruisers had driven some of Conflans' storeships into a harbour a hundred miles away from Brest, where Conflans was trying hard to get ready for the invasion of England. The result was that these stores had to be landed and carted across country, which not only took ten times longer than it would have taken to send them round by sea but also gave ten times as much trouble. At last Conflans managed to move out. But he had about as much chance of escape as a fly in a spider's web; for Hawke had cruisers watching everywhere and a battle fleet ready to pounce down anywhere. Conflans had been ordered to save his fleet by all possible means till he had joined the French fleet and army of invasion. So he is not to be blamed for what he tried to do at Quiberon.

On the 20th of November he was sailing toward Quiberon Bay when he saw the vanguard of Hawke's fleet coming up before a rising gale. With fewer ships, and with crews that had been blockaded so long that they were no match for the sea-living British, he knew he had no chance in a stand-up tight in the open, and more especially in the middle of a storm. So he made for Quiberon, where he thought he would be safe; because the whole of that intricate Bay is full of rocks, shoals, shallows, and all kinds of other dangers.

But Hawke came down on the wings of the wind, straight toward the terrific dangers of the Bay, and flying before a gale which in itself seemed to promise certain shipwreck; for it blew on-shore. Conflans ran for his life, got into the Bay, and had begun to form his line of battle when some distant shots told him that his rear was being overhauled. Then his last ships came racing in. But the leading British, like hounds in full cry, were closing on them so fast that before they could join his line they were caught in the fury of the fight. Within a few desperate minutes two French ships were so badly battered that they had to surrender, while three more were sent to the bottom. Then the gale shifted and blew Conflans' own line out of order. He at once tried to move into a better place. But this only made matters worse. So he anchored in utter confusion, with wrecking rocks on one side and Hawke's swooping fleet on the other. Once more, however, he tried a change—this time the bold one of charging out to sea. But Hawke was too quick for him, though the well-named Intrépide rushed in between the two racing flagships, the Royal George and Soleil Royal. This was the end. The gale rose to its height. Darkness closed in. And then, amid the roaring of the battle and the sea, the victorious British anchored beside all that was left of the French.

There were no such sea fights on the coasts of Canada, where the British were in overwhelming naval strength. But never was there a joint expedition which owed more to its fleet than the one that took Quebec this same year (1759). The fact that the battles were fought on the land, and that Wolfe and Montcalm both fell in the one which decided the fate of Quebec, has made us forget that sea-power had more to do with this and the other American campaigns than all the other forces put together. The army did magnificently; and without Wolfe's and the other armies the conquest could never have been made. But the point is this, that, while each little army was only a finger of the hand that drew the British sword in Canada, the fleet which brought the armies there and kept them going was part and parcel of the whole vast body of British sea-power united round the world.

Pitt planned to give French Canada the knockout blow in Empire Year. So, holding the extreme east and west at Louisbourg and Fort Duquesne, he sent a small force to cut the line of the Lakes at Niagara, a much larger one to cut into the line of the St. Lawrence from Lake Champlain, and the largest and strongest of all up the St. Lawrence to take Quebec, which, then as now, was the key of Canada. Niagara was taken; and the line of Lake Champlain was secured by Amherst, who, however, never got through to the St. Lawrence that year. But the great question was, who is to have the key? So we shall follow Saunders and Wolfe to Quebec.