to affect the elections in a dockyard town. Admiral Keppel considered that he had been sacrificed to party feeling; and a very distinguished officer, Barrington, refused to take a fleet, although willing to serve as second, even under a junior. "Who," he wrote, "would trust himself in chief command with such a set of scoundrels as are now in office?" Even a quarter of a century later, Earl St. Vincent gave to George III. himself the same reason for declining employment. After eliciting from him an unfavorable opinion as to the discipline and efficiency of the Channel fleet, the king asked, "Where such evils exist, does Lord St. Vincent feel justified in refusing his conspicuous ability to remedy them?" "My life," replied the old seaman, "is at your Majesty's disposal, and at that of my country; but my honor is in my own keeping, and I will not expose myself to the risk of losing it by the machinations of this ministry, under which I should hold command." "To such feelings it was due that Howe, Keppel, and Barrington did not go to sea during the anxious three years that followed. The illustrious Rodney, their only rival, but in himself a host, was the one distinguished naval chief who belonged heart and soul to Sandwich's party. It was an odd coincidence, and a curious comment upon this partisan spirit, that, when the administration changed, Rodney was recalled as a pure party step, by orders issued after his great victory, but before the news reached England; his successor being a man of no distinction.

The same change of administration, in the spring of 1782, called Howe again into service, to replace the mediocrities who for three campaigns had commanded the Channel fleet, the mainstay of Great Britain's safety. Upon it depended not only the protection of the British Islands and of the trade routes converging upon them, but also the occasional revictualing of

Gibraltar, now undergoing the third year of its famous siege. To relieve the rock fortress was the only great task that devolved upon Howe during this short term of duty. It had, in September, 1782, successfully repelled a long-prepared and gigantic attack by both the land and sea forces of the French and Spaniards; but, although thus impregnable to assault, it was now in the last extremity for provisions, and forty-nine ships of the line held it closely blockaded. To oppose these, and to introduce the needed succors, for carrying which a hundred and forty store-ships were employed, Great Britain could muster only thirtyfour ships of the line; but to them was adjoined the superb professional ability of Lord Howe, never fully evoked except when in sight of the enemy, as he here must act, with Barrington for his second. The deliberate care with which the work was conducted may be inferred from the circumstance that thirty days were spent in the passage from England to Gibraltar; its methodical skill, from the fact that no transport appears to have been dropped.

On the 11th of October, the great body of one hundred and eighty sail entered the straits, the ships of war disposed to cover the movements of the supply vessels. The enemy went to sea in pursuit; but, by the combined effects of its own awkwardness and Howe's address, this far superior fleet did not succeed in capturing a single one of the convoy, during the six days occupied in passing it into the anchorage. On the 18th, taking advantage of the easterly wind then blowing, the British sailed out of the straits in full sight of the baffled allies, who, being thus drawn down to attack them, left the supply ships undisturbed to land their cargoes. A distant cannonade between the hostile fleets terminated the incident, and Howe returned to England, leaving Gibraltar safe.

Another long period of shore life now intervened, carrying the gallant admiral over the change-fraught years of declining life from fifty-seven to sixty-eight, at which age he was again called into service to perform the most celebrated, but, it may confidently be affirmed, not the most brilliant action of his career. At the outbreak of the French Revolution, he stood conspicuously at the head of the navy, distinguished at once for well-known professional accomplishments and for tried capacity in chief command. His rivals in renown among his contemporaries -Keppel, Barrington, and Rodney had gone to their rest. Jervis, Nelson, Collingwood, and their compeers had yet to show what was in them as general officers. Lord Hood alone remained; and he, although he had done deeds of great promise, had come to the front too late in the previous war for his reputation to rest upon sustained achievement as well as upon hopeful indication. The great commands were given to these two; Hood going to the Mediterranean with twenty ships of the line, Howe taking the Channel fleet of somewhat superior numbers.

The solid, deliberate, methodical qualities of the veteran admiral were better adapted to the more purely defensive rôle forced upon Great Britain by the allied superiority in 1782 than to the continuous, vigilant, aggressive action demanded by the new conditions with which he now had to deal, when the great conflagration of the Revolution was to be hemmed in and stamped out by the unyielding pressure and massive blows of the British sea power. days of regulated, routine hostilities between rulers had passed away with the uprising of a people; the time foretold, when nation should rise against nation, was suddenly come with the crash of an ancient kingdom and its social order. An admirable organizer and indefatigable driller of ships, though apparently a poor disciplinarian,

The

Howe lacked the breadth of view, the clear intuitions, the alacrity of mind, brought to bear upon the problem by Jervis and Nelson, who, thus inspired, framed the sagacious plan to which, more than to any other one cause, was due the exhaustion alike of the Revolutionary fury and of Napoleon's imperial power. Keenly interested in the material efficiency of his ships, as well as in the precision with which they could perform necessary evolutions and maintain prescribed formations, he sought to attain these ends by long stays in port, varied by formal cruises devoted to secondary objects and to fleet tactics. Thus, he flattered himself, he should insure the perfection of the instrument which should be his weapon in the hour of battle. It may justly be urged on his behalf that this preparation should have been made, but was not, by the government in the long years of peace. This is true; but yet the fact remains that Howe pursued his system by choice and conviction repeatedly affirmed; that continuous instead of occasional cruising in the proper positions would better have reached the ends of drill; and that to the material well being of his ships he sacrificed those correct military dispositions before the enemy's ports afterwards instituted by Jervis, who at the same time preserved the efficiency of the vessels by increased energy and careful prevision of their wants. The brilliant victory of the 1st of June has obscured the accompanying fact, that lamentable failure characterized the use of the Channel fleet under Howe and his immediate successor.

Once in sight of the enemy, however, the old man regained the fire of youth, and showed the attainments which long study and careful thought had added to his natural talent for war. The battle of June 1, 1794, was brought about in the following manner. Political anarchy and a bad season had combined to ruin the French harvests

in 1793, and actual famine threatened the land. To obviate this, at least partially, the government had bought in the United States a large quantity of breadstuffs, which were expected to arrive in May or June, borne by one hundred and eighty merchant vessels. To insure the safety of this valuable convoy, the Brest fleet was sent to meet it at a designated point; five ships going first, and twenty-five following a few days later. The admiral's orders from Robespierre were to avoid battle, if possible, but at all hazards to secure the merchant fleet, or his head would answer for it.

About the same time, Howe, who had kept his vessels in port during the winter, sailed from the Channel with thirty-two ships of the line.

These

he soon divided into two squadrons; one of which, numbering six, after performing a specific service, was not ordered to rejoin the main body, but to cruise in a different spot. These ships were sadly missed on the day of battle, when they could have changed a brilliant into a crushing victory. Howe himself went to seek the French, instead of taking a position where they must pass; and after some running to and fro, in which the British actually got to the westward of their foes, and might well have missed them altogether, he was lucky enough, on the 28th of May, to find the larger of their two detachments. This having been meanwhile joined by one ship from the smaller, both opponents now numbered twenty-six heavy vessels.

The French were to windward, a position which gives the power of refusing or delaying decisive action. The average speed of any fleet, however, must fall below the best of some of the force opposed to it; and Howe, wishing to compel battle, sent out six of his fastest and handiest ships. These were directed to concentrate their fire upon the rear of the French column, the weakest part, because, to be helped,

vessels ahead must turn round and change their formation, performing a regular evolution, whereas, if the van be assailed, the rear continually advances to its aid. If this partial attack crippled one or more of the French, the disabled ships would drift towards the British, where either they would be captured, or their comrades would be obliged to come to their rescue, hazarding the general engagement that Howe wanted. As it happened, the French had in the rear an immense ship of one hundred and ten guns, which beat off in detail the successive attacks of her smaller antagonists; but in so doing she received so much injury that, after nightfall, she left the fleet, passing the British unmolested, and went back to Brest. One of her assailants, also, had to return to England. It may be scored to Howe's credit that he let this single enemy go, rather than scatter his fleet and lose ground in trying to take her. He had a more important object.

The next morning, May 29, the French, by poor seamanship, had got somewhat nearer, and Howe saw that his column could be directed in such wise as to threaten a cannonade by a great part of it upon the hostile rear; that he possibly might even cut off three or four ships. The necessary movement was ordered; and the French admiral, seeing things in the same light, was so alarmed, justly, for the result that he turned his head ships, and after them his whole column in succession, to run down to help the rear. Judicious, and indeed necessary, as this was, it played right into Howe's hands, and was a tribute to his tactical skill; for in doing it the French gave up much of their distance to windward, and so hastened the collision they wished to avoid. Though the attack upon the French rear was limited to a few desultory broadsides, the two fleets were now nearly within cannon shot, whereas the day before they had been

eight or ten miles apart. They were running in parallel lines, west.

Towards noon, Howe saw that the morning's opportunity of directing his whole column upon the enemy's rear again offered, but with a far better chance; that if his ships manœuvred well half a dozen of the French must be cut off, unless their admiral, to save them, underwent a general action. The necessary signals were made, but most of the fleet were poorly handled; and seeing that failure would follow, Howe took the lead, tacked his own ship, though her turn was not come, and, with two others, stood straight for the hostile order. The three broke through and cut off two of the enemy, which were speedily surrounded by others of the British. The French admiral then repeated his former evolution, and nothing could have saved a general engagement except the disorder into which the British had fallen, and Howe's methodical abhorrence of attacks made in such confusion as prevailed. Moreover, the total result of this last brush was that the French entirely lost the windward position, and the British admiral knew that he now had them where they could not escape; he could afford to postpone the issue. Accordingly, fighting ceased for the day; but the French had been so mauled that three more ships had to go into port, leaving them but twenty-two to the enemy's twenty-five.

The French admiral now saw that he must fight, and at a disadvantage; consequently, he could not hope to protect the convoy. As to save this was his prime object, the next best thing was to entice the British out of its path. With this view he stood away to the northwest, Howe following; while a dense fog coming on both favored his design and prevented further encounter during the two ensuing days. In the evening of May 31 the weather cleared, and at daybreak the next morning the enemies were in position, ready - NO. 435.

VOL. LXXIII. —

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for battle, two long columns of ships, heading west, the British twenty-five, the French again twenty-six; for during the two days' chase their small detachment of four had joined. Howe now had cause to regret his six absent vessels, and to ponder Nelson's wise saying, "Numbers only can annihilate."

The time for manoeuvring was past. Able tactician as he personally was, and admirable as had been the direction of his efforts in the two days' fighting, Howe had been forced in them to realize two things, namely, that his captains were, singly, superior in seamanship, and their crews in gunnery, to the French; and again, that in the ability to work together as a fleet the British were so deficient as to promise very imperfect results, if he attempted any but the simplest formation.

To such, therefore, he resorted, falling back upon the old, unskillful, sledge-hammer fashion of the English navy. Arranging his ships in one long line, three miles from the enemy, he made them all go down together, each to attack a specified opponent, coming into action as nearly as might be at the same instant. Thus, the French, from the individual inferiority of the units of their fleet, would be at all points overpowered. The issue justified the forecast; but the manner of performance was curiously and happily marked by Howe's own peculiar phlegm. There was a long summer day ahead for fighting, and no need for hurry. The order was first accurately formed, and canvas reduced to proper proportions. Then the crews went to breakfast. After breakfast, the ships all headed for the hostile line, under short sail, the admiral keeping them in hand during the approach, as an infantry officer dresses his company. his company. Thus, if not absolutely simultaneous, the shock from end to end was so nearly so as to induce results unequaled in any engagement conducted on the same primitive plan.

Picturesque as well as sublime, animating as well as solemn, on that bright Sunday morning, was this prelude to the stern game of war about to be played the quiet summer sea stirred only by a breeze sufficient to cap with white the little waves that ruffled its surface; the dark hulls gently rippling the water aside in their slow advance, a ridge of foam curling on either side of the furrow ploughed by them in their onward way; their massive sides broken by two, or at times three, rows of ports, whence, the tompions drawn, yawned the sullen lines of guns, behind which, unseen, but easily realized by the instructed eye, clustered the groups of ready seamen who served each piece. Aloft swung leisurely to and fro the tall spars, which ordinarily, in so light a wind, would be clad in canvas from deck to truck, but whose naked trimness now proclaimed the deadly purpose of that still approach. Upon the high poops, where floated the standard of either nation, gathered round each chief the little knot of officers through whom he issued or received commands, the nerves along which thrilled the impulses of the great organism, from its head, the admiral, through every member to the dark lowest decks, nearly awash, where, as farthest from the captain's own oversight, the senior lieutenants controlled the action of the ships' heaviest batteries.

On board the Queen Charlotte, Lord Howe, whose burden of sixty-eight years had for four days found no rest save what he could snatch in an armchair, now, at the prospect of battle, "displayed an animation," writes an eye-witness, “of which, at his age, and after such fatigue of body and mind, I had not thought him capable. He seemed to contemplate the result as one of unbounded satisfaction." By his side stood his fleet-captain, Curtis, of whose service among the floating batteries at the siege of Gibraltar the

governor of the fortress had said, "He is the man to whom the king is chiefly indebted for its security;" and Codrington, then a lieutenant, who afterwards commanded the allied fleets at Navarino. Five ships to the left, Collingwood, in the Barfleur, was making to the admiral whose flag she bore the remark that so stirred Thackeray: "Our wives are now about going to church, but we will ring about these Frenchmen's ears a peal which will drown theirs." The French officers, both admirals and captains, were mainly unknown men, alike then and thereafter. The fierce flames of the Revolution had swept away the men of the old school, mostly aristocrats, and time had not yet brought forward the very few who during the Napoleonic period showed marked capacity. The commander in chief, Villaret-Joyeuse, had three years before been a lieutenant. He had a high record for gallantry, but was without antecedents as a general officer. With him, on the poop of the Montagne, which took her name from Robespierre's political supporters, stood that anomalous companion of the generals and admirals of the day, the Revolutionary commissioner, about to learn by experience the practical working of the system he had advocated, to disregard all tests of ability save patriotism and courage, depreciating practice and skill as unnecessary to the valor of the true Frenchman.

As the British line drew near the French, Howe said to Curtis, "Prepare the signal for close action." "There is no such signal," replied Curtis. “No,” said the admiral, "but there is one for closer action, and I only want that to be made in case of captains not doing their duty." Then closing a little signal book he always carried, he continued to those around him, "Now, gentlemen, no more book, no more signals. I look to you to do the duty of the Queen Charlotte in engaging the French flagship. I don't want