Types of Naval Officers, Drawn from the History of the British Navy

The severe strain of this prolonged watchfulness told on even his iron hardihood, and it would almost appear that some of the rough practical jokes told of this period must represent reaction from the tension under which he necessarily was through the grave anxieties pressing upon him. Humor he certainly had, but at this time it often showed itself in horse-play, so fantastic as to suggest some unusual exciting cause. Thus, for one such prank he seemed to draw his inspiration from the Sunday celebration of Divine Service. Upon its conclusion, he framed and published a new signal, for "all chaplains," the employment of which, however, was postponed to an occasion suited to his lordship's fun. "A few days after it blew great guns from west-southwest, which is directly into the Bay of Cadiz. The inshore squadron lay six miles from the flag-ship, directly to leeward, and up went the signal for all chaplains. It was a hard pull for the rowers, and no luxury for the sitters. When they reached the quarter-deck of the Ville de Paris, literally drenched with salt-water, the admiral presented them to 'Bishop Morgan,' as he called the chaplain of the flag-ship, and desired that they would go down into the ward-room and hold a conclave." One who has had a pull of that kind, as most officers have in their day, can understand that the humor was less appreciable to the victims than to the author.

"He sometimes amused himself by paying a visit to the quarter-deck at what most people would deem very unseasonable hours. Coming up one morning at half-past two, in the middle watch, he sent for Colonel Flight, the commanding officer of marines. Up came the colonel, armed at all points, supposing that some enterprise was in hand. 'I have sent for you,' said the Chief, in the quiet and gentlemanly style which he could always command, 'I have sent for you, Colonel, that you might smell, for the first time in your life, the delicious odors brought off by the land wind from the shores of Andalusia. Take a good sniff, and then you may go and turn in again.'"

"A lieutenant one day came on board to answer a signal. Lord St. Vincent thought there was about him too much embonpoint for an officer of that rank. 'Calder,' said he to the captain of the fleet, 'all the lieutenants are running to belly; they have been too long at anchor (for the fleet was still off Cadiz); block up the entering port, except for admirals and captains, and make them climb over the hammocks.' The entering port in a three-decked ship being on the middle deck, the difference between going into that and climbing over the hammocks may be compared to entering the drawing-room by the balcony window, or mounting to the parapet and taking the attics by storm. There was also great inconvenience, and even expense, attending this painful operation, since in those days all officers wore white knee-breeches, or shorts, as they were called, and many useful garments which could not readily be replaced, were torn and spoiled in this attempt at juvenile activity, and many oaths probably sworn, which but for this needless exertion would not have been elicited."

A more pleasing, and it may well be believed much more characteristic, instance of his playfulness has also been transmitted; one illustrative too of his deep fund of kindliness which was shown in many acts, often of large pecuniary liberality, and tinged especially with a certain distinct service coloring, with sympathy for the naval officer and the naval seaman, which must have gone far to obtain for him the obedience of the will as well as submission of conduct. He wisely believed in the value of forms, and was careful to employ them, in this crisis of the mutinies, to enforce the habit of reverence for the insignia of the state and the emblems of military authority. Young lieutenants—for there were young lieutenants in those days—were directed to stand cap in hand before their superiors, and not merely to touch their hats in a careless manner. "The discipline of the cabin and ward-room officers is the discipline of the fleet," said the admiral; and savage, almost, were the punishments that fell upon officers who disgraced their cloth. The hoisting of the colors, the symbol of the power of the nation, from which depended his own and that of all the naval hierarchy, was made an august and imposing ceremony. The marine guard, of near a hundred men, was paraded on board every ship-of-the-line. The national anthem was played, the scarlet-clad guard presented, and all officers and crews stood bareheaded, as the flag with measured dignity rose slowly to the staff-head. Lord St. Vincent himself made a point of attending always, and in full uniform; a detail he did not require of other officers. Thus the divinity that hedges kings was, by due observance, associated with those to whom their authority was delegated, and the very atmosphere the seaman breathed was saturated with reverence.

The presence of Lord St. Vincent on these occasions, and in full uniform, gave rise to an amusing skit by one of the lieutenants of the fleet, attributing the homage exacted, not to the flag, but to the great man himself; and this, becoming known to the admiral, elicited from him in turn the exhibition of practical humor to which allusion has just been made. Parodying the Scriptural story of Nebuchadnezzar's golden image, the squib began:—

"I. The Earl of St. Vincent, the commander-in-chief, made an Image of blue and gold, whose height was about five feet seven inches, and the breadth thereof was about twenty inches" (which we may infer were the proportions of his lordship). "He set it up every ten o'clock A.M. on the quarter-deck of the Ville de Paris, before Cadiz."

Passing from hand to hand, it can be understood that this effusion, which was characterized throughout by a certain sprightliness, gave more amusement to men familiar with the local surroundings, and welcoming any trifle of fun in the dulness of a blockade, than it does to us. At last it reached the admiral, who knew the author well. Sending for him on some pretext, an hour before the time fixed for a formal dinner to the captains of the fleet, he detained him until the meal was served, and then asked him to share it. All passed off quietly until the cloth was removed, and then the host asked aloud, "What shall be done to the man whom the commander-in-chief delights to honour?" "Promote him," said one of the company. "Not so," replied St. Vincent, "but set him on high among the people. So, Cumby," addressing the lieutenant, "do you sit there,"—on a chair previously arranged at some height above the deck,—"and read this paper to the captains assembled." Mystified, but not yet guessing what was before him, Cumby took his seat, and, opening the paper, saw his own parody. His imploring looks were lost upon the admiral, who sat with his stern quarter-deck gravity unshaken, while the abashed lieutenant, amid the suppressed mirth of his audience, stumbled through his task, until the words were reached, "Then the Earl of St. Vincent was full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against the poor Captain of the Main-Top," who had not taken off his hat before the Image of blue and gold. Here a roar of laughter from the head of the table unloosed all tongues, and Cumby's penance ended in a burst of general merriment. "Lieutenant Cumby," said the admiral, when quiet was restored, "you have been found guilty of parodying Holy Writ to bring your commander-in-chief into disrespect; and the sentence is that you proceed to England at once on three months' leave of absence, and upon your return report to me to take dinner here again."

Compelled by general break-down of health to seek rest at home, St. Vincent returned to England in August, 1799. He was not left long in repose. The condition of the Channel Fleet as regards discipline has already appeared, and the very recent incident of the escape of the great French fleet from Brest, coupled with the equally humiliating and even more threatening experience of the same character in 1796, when the invasion of Ireland was attempted,—both which occurred under the same British commander-in-chief,—showed the urgent necessity of placing in control the only man of suitable rank, whose complete adequacy to such a post had been demonstrated. St. Vincent accordingly hoisted his flag in April, 1800.

In the effort to restore discipline, he here encountered not only opposition, intensified by the greater desire for shore privileges that always attends a home station and the proximity of wives and children, but something very like an attempt at combination against his orders—a very grave military offence—on the part of the captains. All this he trampled down with severity amounting to ruthlessness. The insubordinate toast—"May the discipline of the Mediterranean never be introduced into the Channel Fleet"—was met face to face by republishing every order and restriction upon which the discipline of the Mediterranean had rested. In the more distinctly military part of his task, the closing of the port of Brest to evasions by the enemy, such as those just mentioned, he achieved a noteworthy success. Modelling his scheme upon that of Hawke, forty years before, he gave to it a development, a solidity, and an extension which his distinguished forerunner had not been able to impart. Hawke had not the advantage, which St. Vincent had, of following a period of inefficiency, the remembrance of which compelled the Admiralty vigorously to support all measures of the commander-in-chief, if they desired to replace the interminable uncertainties and anxieties of the last administration of the fleet by a sense of security, and consequent popular content.

St. Vincent's institution and maintenance of the Brest blockade must be regarded under two principal heads. There is, first, the usefulness of the blockade as an instrument to the general ends of the current war, which is the strategic point of view, involving a conception permanent in character; and there are again the local dispositions, arising from the local conditions, that may rightly be styled tactical, and vary from port to port thus watched. The former, the strategic, was more directly in line with his natural gifts; and in the possession which the idea took of him is to be found the germ of the system that thenceforward began to throttle the power of the French Revolution, whether under the Republic or the Empire. The essence of the scheme was to cut loose from the beach, and keep to the sea; ever watchful, with the same watchfulness that had not only crushed mutiny, but by diligent care forestalled occasions of revolt. "Our great reliance," he said,—not directly in reference to the blockade, but to the general thought of which the blockade, as instituted by him, was the most illustrious exemplification,—"is on the vigilance and activity of our cruisers at sea, any reduction in the number of which, by applying them to guard our ports, inlets, and beaches, would in my judgment tend to our destruction." Amplified as the idea was by him, when head of the Admiralty, to cover not only Brest but all ports where hostile divisions lay, it became a strategic plan of wide sweep, which crushed the vitality of the hostile navies, isolated France from all support by commerce, and fatally sapped her strength. To St. Vincent, more than to any one man, is due the effective enforcement and maintenance of this system; and in this sense, as practically the originator of a decisive method, he is fairly and fully entitled to be considered the organizer of ultimate victory.

The local dispositions before Brest will not here be analyzed.14 Suffice it to say that, as revealed in Jervis's correspondence, they show that equipment of general professional knowledge, that careful study of conditions,—of what corresponds to "the ground" of a shore battle-field,—and the thoughtful prevision of possibilities, which constitute so far the skilful tactician. The defence and the attack of seaports, embracing as they do both occupation of permanent positions and the action of mobile bodies, are tactical questions; differing much, yet not radically, from field operations, where positions are taken incidentally, but where movement of armed men is the principal factor. In the one sense St. Vincent displayed a high degree of aptitude for ordered permanent dispositions, which is the side of tactics most akin to strategy. On the more distinctively tactical side, in the movements of a fleet in action, he had little opportunity. As far as shown by his one battle, Cape St. Vincent, it would not appear that either by nature or cultivation he possessed to any great extent the keen insight and quick appreciation that constitute high tactical ability.

Earl St. Vincent rendered three great services to England. The first was the forming and disciplining the Mediterranean fleet into the perfection that has been mentioned. Into it, thus organized, he breathed a spirit which, taking its rise from the stern commander himself, rested upon a conviction of power, amply justified in the sequel by Cape St. Vincent and the Nile, its two greatest achievements. The second was the winning of the Battle of St. Vincent at a most critical political moment. The third was the suppression of mutiny in 1797 and 1798. But, in estimating the man, these great works are not to be considered as isolated from his past and his future. They were the outcome and fruitage of a character naturally strong, developed through long years of patient sustained devotion to the ideals of discipline and professional tone, which in them received realization. Faithful in the least, Jervis, when the time came, was found faithful also in the greatest. Nor was the future confined to his own personal career. Though he must yield to Nelson the rare palm of genius, which he himself cannot claim, yet was the glory of Nelson, from the Nile to Trafalgar, the fair flower that could only have bloomed upon the rugged stalk of Jervis's navy. Upon him, therefore, Nelson showered expressions of esteem and reverence, amounting at times almost to tenderness, in his early and better days. In later years their mutual regard suffered an estrangement which, whatever its origin, appears as a matter of feeling to have been chiefly on the part of the younger man, whose temper, under the malign influence of an unworthy passion, became increasingly imbittered, at strife within itself and at variance with others. The affectionate admiration of St. Vincent for his brilliant successor seems to have remained proof against external differences.

It was poetic justice, then, that allotted to St. Vincent the arrangement of the responsible expedition which, in 1798, led to the celebrated Battle of the Nile; in its lustre and thorough workmanship the gem of all naval exploits. To him it fell to choose for its command his brilliant younger brother, and to winnow for him the flower of his fleet, to form what Nelson after the victory called "his band of brothers." "The Battle of the Nile," said the veteran admiral, Lord Howe, "stands singular in this, that every captain distinguished himself." The achievement of the battle was Nelson's own, and Nelson's only; but it was fought on St. Vincent's station, by a detachment from St. Vincent's fleet. He it was who composed the force, and chose for its leader the youngest flag-officer in his command. Bitter reclamations were made by the admirals senior to Nelson, but St. Vincent had one simple sufficient reply,—"Those who are responsible for measures must have the choice of the men to execute them."

When St. Vincent, in 1799, quitted the Mediterranean, he had yet nearly a quarter of a century to live. His later years were distinguished by important services, but they embody the same spirit and exemplify the same methods that marked his Mediterranean command, which was the culminating period of his career. In 1801, when Pitt's long term of office came to an end, he became First Lord of the Admiralty,—the head of naval affairs for the United Kingdom,—and so continued during the Addington administration, till 1804. In 1806, at the age of seventy-two, he was again for a short time called to command the Channel fleet; but in 1807 he retired from active service, and the square flag that had so long flown with honor was hauled down forever.

The rest of his life was spent chiefly at his country-seat, Rochetts, in Essex, sixteen miles from London. Having a handsome income, though not wealthy, he entertained freely; and his retreat was cheered by frequent visits from his old naval subordinates and political friends. Generous in the use of money, and without children for whom to save, the neighborhood learned to love him as a benefactor. In cases of necessity, his liberality rose to profusion, and he carried into the management of his estate a carelessness he never showed in administering a fleet. It is told that he once undertook to raise a sum by mortgage, in entire forgetfulness of a much larger amount in bank. Far into old age he retained the active habits of his prime. To say that he rose at four, asserts a biographer, would be to understate the case; he was frequently in the fields at half-past two in the early summer dawn of England,—always before his laborers,—and he was not pleased if his male guests did not appear by six. To ladies he was more tolerant. With mind unclouded and unweakened to the last, he retained his interest in public affairs and in the navy, contributing to the conversation which animated his home the judgment of an acute intellect, though one deeply tinged by prejudices inseparable from so strong a character. Thus honored and solaced by the companionship of his friends, he awaited in calm dignity the summons, which came on the 13th of March, 1823. He was two months over eighty-eight when he passed away, the senior admiral of Great Britain.

James, Lord de Saumarez

SAUMAREZ

1757-1836

"These were honourable among the thirty," says the ancient Hebrew chronicler, "yet they attained not unto the first three." Since that far-away day, when the three mighty men broke through the host of the Philistines that they might bring their chieftain water from the well of Bethlehem, to how many fighters, land and sea, have these words been applicable!—men valiant in deed, wise in council, patient in endurance, yet lacking that divine somewhat which, for want of a better name, we call genius. Of such an one now, and, in contrasted sequence, of another of his peers, we are about to give an account; men who in their respective careers illustrated more conspicuously, the one the distinctively military, the other the more purely nautical, aspects, in the due blending of which the excellence of the profession is realized; foremost, both, among the ocean warriors whose pennants flew through the wild scenes where England's flag was called to brave the battle and the breeze,

"Till danger's troubled night depart,

And the star of peace return."

James Saumarez was born on the 11th of March, 1757, in Guernsey, one of the Channel group of islands that still remain attached to the English crown,—the sole remaining fragment of the Norman duchy to which the kingdom itself was for a while but an appendage. In Saumarez's childhood, French was still so generally spoken there that, despite the very early age at which he went to sea, he always retained a perfect mastery of that language; and it is recorded that one of his uncles, being intended for the sea service, was sent to school in England when ten years old, in order to acquire the use of English. From such a stock, whose lineage among the gentry of the island can be traced to the fourteenth century, sprang three distinguished officers of this name, destined to illustrate the British flag by their deeds in several wars, in which their chief opponent was the French navy. Among these, the subject of this article attained the most brilliant renown. Eighteen months older than Nelson, not even Nelson saw more or harder fighting than did James Saumarez, nor bore himself more nobly throughout their day and generation.

Having early shown a taste for the navy, his father, who had six sons and a restricted income, obtained of a naval captain to have his name borne on the books of a ship of war at the early age of ten; a curious custom of that day allowing such constructive service to be counted in the time prescribed for attaining a lieutenant's commission. The boy did not actually go afloat until 1770, when a little over thirteen. This first employment kept him from home continuously for five years, a period spent wholly in the Mediterranean, and for the most part in the Levant; the active naval war then existing between Turkey and Russia, in the waters of Asia Minor, necessitating a special protection to British interests. It is a singular circumstance that this sea, esteemed so important to Great Britain, was never again visited by him, with the exception of the few brief months from May to October, 1798, when, as second in command, he followed Nelson's flag during the pursuit of Bonaparte's fleet which ended in its destruction at the Battle of the Nile.

Returning to England in 1775, his actual and constructive service permitted Saumarez to appear for examination for a lieutenancy. This he passed, but was not at once promoted. The troubles with the American colonies had now become open hostilities, and he was appointed, as master's mate or passed midshipman, to the Bristol of fifty guns, selected as flag-ship for the expedition against Charleston. This duty, which, by bringing him immediately under the eyes of the naval commander-in-chief, placed him also on the highway to advancement, he owed to Admiral Keppel, then one of the leading flag officers of the British navy. His uncle, Philip Saumarez, and Keppel had shared the perils and sufferings of Anson's well-known expedition to the South Seas in 1740. Together they had buffeted the wild weather off Cape Horn, with ships' companies more than decimated by scurvy; together they had spread terror among the Spanish colonies of the Pacific; together they had captured the great galleon off Manila; and Keppel still retained an affectionate interest in the kinsman of his old shipmate, who had long since fallen gloriously on the deck of his ship, in close action with a French vessel of far superior force.

The squadron, which was commanded by Commodore Sir Peter Parker, assembled at Cork, whence it sailed in January, 1776. Embarked on board the Bristol was Lord Cornwallis, afterwards so closely, and for himself disastrously, associated with the course of the American Revolution. Struck by Saumarez's activity and efficiency, he offered him a commission in his own regiment, with the position of aide-de-camp to himself. The young seaman, having a naturally strong military bent, which at that moment seemed more likely to receive satisfaction on shore than at sea, and swayed doubtless also by the prospect of a powerful patron, in the days when patronage had so much to do with men's careers, was on the point of accepting; but his messmates chaffed him so mercilessly upon adopting a profession which habitually supplied them with derisive illustrations and comparisons, that he finally declined. Many years later, when Saumarez was among the senior captains of the navy, the two gentlemen met as guests at the table of the head of the Admiralty, who upon hearing the incident from Cornwallis remarked that he would have deprived the navy of one of its best officers.

Owing partly to delays inseparable from sailing vessels, and partly to the dilatoriness with which war was most often waged before the days of the French Revolution, the British expedition did not appear off Charleston until the beginning of June, 1776. To Americans who know their own history, the stirring story of Fort Moultrie and its repulse of the British fleet has been familiar from childhood. Few are the American boys to whom the names of Jasper, of Marion, and of their brave commander, Moultrie himself, are unknown. But while all honor is due to the band of raw provincials who at this critical moment—one week before the Declaration of Independence was signed—withstood the enemy, and for the moment saved the province, the steady, obstinate valor shown by the seamen of kindred race, who contended with them, was no less brilliant, and was even more severely tested. The loss of the fort was thirty-seven killed and wounded; that of the Bristol alone was one hundred and eleven out of a crew of three hundred and fifty; and during much of the action, which lasted thirteen hours, she was powerless to return the raking fire of the enemy, in consequence of shot severing the ropes that kept her broadside in position. Saumarez was here for the first time engaged, and had two narrow escapes. Once, when pointing a gun, a cannon-ball entering the port swept away seven of the eight men who served the piece; and somewhat later another ball struck off the head of a messmate by whom he was standing, covering him with blood.