The Influence of sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, vol I

This dramatic ending to the distinguished part played by him, and the promptitude of his previous action, by which, while assuming a great responsibility, he saved the success of the day, have made Nelson the most striking figure in the battle of Cape St. Vincent; or, as it is sometimes called, of St. Valentine's Day. This splendid movement of his genius in no way detracts from the credit due to the commander-in-chief; as it was no lessening of Nelson's own fame that the leader of the van at the Nile conceived on the moment the happy thought of passing inside the French line. To Jervis alone belongs the honor of attacking such heavy odds, as well as of the correct and sufficient combination by which he hoped to snatch victory from superior numbers. He was happy, indeed, in having such a lieutenant, so right a man in so right a place, and at so critical a moment; but the whole responsibility and the whole original plan was his, and no man can take it from him. To him, too, was primarily due the admirable efficiency of his fleet, which removed from his enterprise the reproach of rashness to bestow upon it the praise of daring. A yet higher meed of glory is due to this bold admiral. As the dull morning light showed him the two fleets, he was heard to say, "A victory is very essential to England at this moment." Honor to the chief who can rise above his own anxieties and his local responsibilities to think of the needs of his country, and who is willing to risk his own reputation to support her credit.

Four Spanish ships were now in the possession of the British, and the great "Santisima Trinidad" was without fore or mizzen mast,—some said she had struck; but the lee division of the enemy was at last coming up, and many of the weather were still uninjured. Jervis, therefore, about four in the afternoon formed his fleet in line on the starboard tack, interposing it between the enemy and his prizes. This ended the battle. It has been thought that further pursuit of a fleet so disgracefully beaten would have increased the British triumph; but Jervis was not the man to risk a substantial success, securely held, for a doubtful further gain. The victory essential to Great Britain was won; the worthlessness of the Spanish navy was revealed,—it could no longer be accounted a factor in the political situation. In the opinion of the author, Jervis was right not to expose this, the great and attained result of Valentine's Day, to those chances of mishap that cannot be excluded from the operations of war.

Among the numerous rewards bestowed for this action, the admiral was advanced to the peerage as Earl St. Vincent, while upon Nelson was bestowed the then distinguished honor of Knight of the Bath. On the 20th of February he was made a rear-admiral. The captains of the fleet received medals, and the senior lieutenant of each ship was promoted.

Jervis had well said that Great Britain was then in essential need of a victory; and never was one better timed for political effect. Deep gloom prevailed throughout the country, and in every quarter the horizon was black with clouds, when, on the 3d of March, the bearer of the dispatches reached the admiralty. Since Bonaparte had seized the line of the Adige and cut off Mantua, three distinct attempts had been made by the Austrians in superior force to dislodge him and relieve the city; and in all three they had been beaten with heavy loss. The news was but lately come that Mantua had capitulated, leaving Bonaparte free to assume the offensive and advance, as he shortly did. The British fleet had been forced to abandon Corsica and the Mediterranean. Peace negotiations, begun with the republic, had ended by the British envoy being peremptorily ordered to leave France in forty-eight hours; and although the government had not expected a favorable issue, the effect on the people was disheartening. Consols fell to 51, a depression greater than any reached during the American Revolution. 149 The expedition of the French against Ireland had indeed failed; but so little share had the Channel fleet borne in their defeat, that the country was forced to ascribe to the direct interposition of Divine Providence a deliverance, which it would have preferred to see wrought through the instrumentality of the navy. That trusted arm of the national defence seemed palsied in every quarter. Finally, among the greater of many discouraging circumstances, specie payments were stopped by the Bank of England on the 26th of February, in obedience to an order of the government. The profuse subsidies paid to continental states, and the demands for coin to meet the expenses of the navy in all parts of the world, were the chief causes of a drain against which the bank directors had frequently remonstrated during two years as threatening ruin. To these causes for scarcity was added at this time another, temporary in its character and arising in great part from loss of confidence in the navy's efficiency,—the fear, namely, of invasion. People had begun to call for and to hoard coin against an evil day. Such was the outlook as Jervis's captain posted from Falmouth, where he landed, to London, keeping the secret of his good news within his breast. The frigate which had borne him went on to Plymouth with the viceroy of Corsica, returning with his suite from his lost principality. When they landed on the 5th of March, news had just reached the town of the suspension of cash payments, and, as they told of the great achievement off Cape St. Vincent, people at first refused to believe that the tide had turned. They were expecting to hear of a junction between the French and Spanish fleets, and an approaching invasion. So great was the financial panic, that fifteen guineas were with difficulty collected among government officials to pay the expenses of Elliott's journey to London. 150

The revulsion was great, and was proved by the profusion with which rewards were distributed. The Spanish navy had been but a bugbear, but as a bugbear it was great. The veil that covered its rottenness was stripped away, and at the same time were revealed to the nation, which feared it had no naval chiefs, the striking and brilliant figures of Jervis and Nelson. In vain did the Opposition, in the true spirit of faction, seek to turn men's eyes from the brilliant achievements of the warriors to the imbecility affirmed of the government, which had opposed fifteen ships to twenty-seven. Thinking men realized that the administration could not be held responsible for Mann's unauthorized return at Christmas-tide, nor for the extraordinary series of misfortunes by which five more of the Mediterranean fleet were in one short month incapacitated. They saw, too, that no popular government would have dared to replace Mann's ships so long as the fate of Ireland, then in the balance, was uncertain. But most men did not care to think. It was enough for them that fifteen British ships had dashed into the midst of twenty-seven enemies, had collared and dragged out four of the biggest and severely handled the rest. It was enough to hear that the crew of one British seventy-four, headed by a man whom few out of the navy yet knew, had, sword in hand, carried first a Spanish eighty and then another of one hundred and twelve guns. With such men to rule the fleet, and with Pitt at the helm of state, they thanked God and took courage. Speculation is often futile; yet it is hard to see how the country could have borne the approaching crisis of the mutinies, on top of its other troubles, had not the fear of the Spanish navy been removed and the hope of better naval leaders been afforded. That the hope was well founded is no speculation. With St. Vincent began a series of victories and achievements which have thrown the great deeds of earlier years into undeserved obscurity.

Immediately after the battle the Spanish fleet entered Cadiz, and Jervis returned to Lisbon to refit his ships. On the 31st of March, having received further re-enforcements, he left Lisbon with twenty-one ships-of-the-line and took position off Cadiz, where the Spaniards had twenty-six of the same class. After cruising for six weeks under sail, he anchored the fleet for a long blockade, and this disposition continued with little intermission for two years,—until May, 1799, when the successful sortie of Admiral Bruix from Brest, related in another place, 151 and the consequent chase by the British blockading force, gave the Spaniards the opportunity to slip out. This tedious watching was unfruitful in events of military interest; but the burden of the commander-in-chief was increased by the spirit of mutiny, rife throughout the whole period, which triumphed temporarily in the Channel and North Sea fleets, and was by Jervis kept down only by a stern vigilance of which few but he were capable. Stamped out time and again by his unflinching energy, it was continually renewed by the fresh ships sent out from home, under officers of temper inferior to his captains, and with seamen who knew not yet by experience the indomitable will which they sought to bend. Execution followed execution; but never once did the old man's courage quail nor his determination falter. Seaman and officer alike were made to feel that while his flag flew his authority should prevail; and with such backing the officers showed themselves incapable of the weaknesses too often manifested in the home ports. 152 It is probable too that a strong nucleus of support existed among the crews that fought at St. Vincent,—due to admiration for the admiral himself, and for Nelson, Collingwood, Troubridge, Saumarez and others, who there distinguished themselves.

While these various events were transpiring at sea, from the evacuation of Corsica to the battle of St. Vincent, Bonaparte in Italy was still holding the line of the Adige and blockading Mantua. His posture therefore was essentially one of defence. The vigor and sagacity with which he resorted to offensive movements the instant the enemy drew down from the Tyrol to attack him, and the brilliant character of the victories won by him, obscure to most the fact that he was really on the defensive; holding on, amid risks and discouragements, to the conquests already made, and unable to attempt more until Mantua fell. The glories of Castiglione, Arcola, Rivoli, conceal this crucial feature of his situation, and the consequently important bearing of the presence of the British fleet, encouraging the dispositions of Naples and the Pope, which were distinctly hostile to the French. Nothing less than Bonaparte's energy and genius could have grappled successfully with such a situation; and his correspondence betrays his fear that, by the co-operation of the fleet, these dangers in the rear might become too great even for him. When Mantua capitulated on the 2d of February, Bonaparte turned first upon the Pope, whom he accused of violating the armistice concluded the previous June. His Holiness at once submitted, and on the 19th of February signed a peace, abandoning his right to his northern provinces,—Bologna, Ferrara and the Romagna,—and ceding to France, until the end of the war, Ancona, a good seaport on the Adriatic.

On the 10th of March, having completed all the dispositions that seemed necessary to secure his rear, Bonaparte advanced against the Austrians. The young Archduke Charles, whom the campaign of 1796 on the Danube had revealed to Europe as gifted with military talents of a very high order, had been sent to oppose him; but it was too late to resist on the plains of Italy, or even on the Italian side of the mountains. The French crossed the Tagliamento on March 16, and pushed up through the gorges of that stream and of the Isonzo into the eastern Alps. On the 23d Trieste was occupied. The Archduke retired continuously, barely disputing difficult positions with the enemy. His mind was fixed not to fight until he had drawn the French far into Germany, and had collected his own resources,—a decision whose wisdom Bonaparte sealed with his own commendation. "If the enemy had committed the folly of awaiting me," he wrote to the Directory, "I should have beaten them; but if they had continued to fall back, had joined a part of their forces from the Rhine, and had overwhelmed me, then retreat would have been difficult, and the loss of the Army of Italy might entail that of the republic. We must not shut our eyes to the fact that, though our military position was brilliant, we have not simply dictated the conditions." 153 Italy, too, was fermenting behind him. The moral effect, however, of this unopposed advance through the mountains of Carinthia brought the House of Austria to terms; and on the 18th of April preliminaries of peace were signed at Leoben, only sixty miles from Vienna. Though the formal treaty was not concluded until six months later, this transaction marked, for that time, the end of hostilities between Austria and France, which had then lasted five years,—from April, 1792, to April, 1797.

The preliminaries of Leoben stipulated a mutual cessation of hostilities between the republic and the emperor, and extended this provision to all the states of the German Empire, as well as to the particular dominions of the emperor himself. Austria surrendered definitively the Netherlands (Belgium), and "recognized the limits of France as decreed by the laws of the French Republic." In this phrase was imbedded the rock upon which negotiations with Great Britain split. The republic, on its part, undertook to furnish to the emperor at the final peace a "just and suitable compensation" for the provinces he lost.

The "suitable compensation," thus mysteriously alluded to, was defined in the "secret preliminary agreements," contracted at the same moment. It was furnished by depriving the republic of Venice, with which Bonaparte had reasons for serious discontent, of all its possessions on the mainland of Italy, as well as of Istria and Dalmatia on the east coast of the Adriatic. The provinces thus taken were divided: Austria receiving all east of the Oglio and north of the Po, with Istria and Dalmatia. The country between the Oglio and the Adda, previously owned by Venice, was taken to constitute a new, independent republic; into which were also incorporated all possessions of Austria west of the Oglio conquered by the French in the recent campaign. This was to be known as the Cisalpine Republic. Thus the lords of the Adriatic were shorn of their glory, and brought to the brink of the precipice from which, six months later, at the final peace, the Corsican conqueror hurled them headlong. For the moment there were spared to them their ancient city and the Ionian Islands; and the legations of Bologna, Ferrara, and the Romagna, taken from the Pope, were given to them,—a like transient possession.

Such, in brief outline, were the principal terms of the preliminaries of Leoben. The great and significant feature does not ostensibly appear among the articles. Bonaparte, in diplomacy, had achieved the great end at which he aimed in his plans of campaign. He had separated his enemies. "The French Republic," wrote he, "in granting at Leoben preliminaries so advantageous to his Imperial Majesty, had as its principal end the conclusion of a separate peace with his Majesty, in order to be in a position to turn all its forces against England, and oblige her to a prompt peace." He alone made and signed the preliminaries, and this quotation gives the strategy and policy of his life in a nutshell. 154 The crucial fact at Leoben was that Austria then, as Sardinia a year before, treated alone,—without her ally. This Great Britain, to her honor, absolutely refused to do in 1796, and as long as her ally stood by her. There is, of course, a great difference between the position of a state which finds a victorious enemy in the heart of its territories, and that of an island empire; and great allowance must be made for Austria, even though the calm retrospect of history sees that she failed rightly to appreciate the extreme hazard of Bonaparte's situation. But this allowance merely emphasizes the important truth, that the imposing attitude maintained by Great Britain throughout this tremendous contest depended absolutely and wholly upon the control of the sea,—upon Sea-Power.

Note..—It now only remains to be seen how, when insubordination, and accompanied by villany of this magnitude, did make its open appearance, Lord St. Vincent dealt with it. A remarkable occasion will be mentioned, not indeed the first outbreak of mutiny, nor its last effort, but that one which excited the greatest sensation in the fleet,—that which came with most untoward circumstances,—that of which the enforcement of the penalty had, in Lord St. Vincent's opinion, the most salutary effect.

No sooner had Sir Roger Curtis arrived, than applications came to the commander-in-chief for courts-martial on mutineers from three of those ships,—the "Marlborough," the "Lion," and the "Centaur." Selection will be made of the sequel to the "Marlborough."

As the squadron approached, and before the request for a court-martial, this ship being known to the commander-in-chief to have been among the most disorganized at Spithead had been ordered to take her berth in the centre, at a small distance from the rest of the fleet. It, however, had so happened that a very violent mutiny in her had broken out at Beerhaven, and again during the passage, which had been suppressed by the officers, but chiefly by the first lieutenant. The very object too of this mutiny was to protect the life of a seaman who had forfeited it by a capital crime. A court-martial on the principal mutineers was immediately assembled; and one was no sooner sentenced to die than the commander-in-chief ordered him to be executed on the following morning, "and by the crew of the 'Marlborough' alone, no part of the boats' crews from the other ships, as had been usual on similar occasions, to assist in the punishment,"—his Lordship's invariable order on the execution of mutineers. On the receipt of the necessary commands for this execution, the captain of the "Marlborough," Captain Ellison, waited upon the commander-in-chief, and reminding his Lordship that a determination that their shipmates should not suffer capital punishment had been the very cause of the ship's company's mutiny, expressed his conviction that the "Marlborough's" crew would never permit the man to be hanged on board that ship.

Receiving the captain on the "Ville de Paris'" quarter-deck, before the officers and ship's company, hearkening in breathless silence to what passed, and standing with his hat in his hand over his head, as was his Lordship's invariable custom during the whole time that any person, whatever were his rank, even a common seaman, addressed him on service, Lord St. Vincent listened very attentively till the captain ceased to speak; and then, after a pause, replied,—

"What do you mean to tell me, Captain Ellison, that you cannot command his Majesty's ship the 'Marlborough'? for if that is the case, sir, I will immediately send on board an officer who can."

The captain then requested that, at all events, the boats' crews from the rest of the fleet might, as always had been customary in the service, on executions, attend at this also, to haul the man up; for he really did not expect the "Marlborough's" would do it.

Lord St. Vincent sternly answered: "Captain Ellison, you are an old officer, sir, have served long, suffered severely in the service, and have lost an arm in action, and I should be very sorry that any advantage should be now taken of your advanced years. That man shall be hanged, at eight o'clock to-morrow morning, and by his own ship's company: for not a hand from any other ship in the fleet shall touch the rope. You will now return on board, sir; and, lest you should not prove able to command your ship, an officer will be at hand to you who can."

Without another word Captain Ellison instantly retired. After he had reached his ship, he received orders to cause her guns to be housed and secured, and that at daybreak in the morning her ports should be lowered. A general order then issued to the fleet for all launches to rendezvous under the "Prince" at seven o'clock on the following morning, armed with carronades and twelve rounds of ammunition for service; each launch to be commanded by a lieutenant, having an expert and trusty gunners'-mate and four quarter-gunners, exclusive of the launch's crew; the whole to be under the command of Captain Campbell, of the "Blenheim." The written orders to the captain will appear in their place. On presenting them, Lord St. Vincent said, 'he was to attend the execution, and if any symptoms of mutiny appeared in the "Marlborough," any attempt to open her ports, or any resistance to the hanging of the prisoner, he was to proceed close touching the ship, and to fire into her, and to continue his fire until all mutiny or resistance should cease; and that, should it become absolutely necessary, he should even sink the ship in face of the fleet.'

Accordingly, at seven the next morning, all the launches, thus armed, proceeded from the "Prince" to the "Blenheim," and thence, Captain Campbell having assumed the command, to the "Marlborough."

Having lain on his oars a short time alongside, the captain then formed his force in a line athwart her bows, at rather less than pistol-shot distance off, and then he ordered the tompions to be taken out of the carronades, and to load.

At half-past seven, the hands throughout the fleet having been turned up to witness punishment, the eyes of all bent upon a powerfully armed boat as it quitted the flag-ship; every one knowing that there went the provost-marshal conducting his prisoner to the "Marlborough" for execution. The crisis was come; now was to be seen whether the "Marlborough's" crew would hang one of their own men.

The ship being in the centre between the two lines of the fleet, the boat was soon alongside, and the man was speedily placed on the cathead and haltered. A few awful minutes of universal silence followed, which was at last broken by the watch-bells of the fleet striking eight o'clock. Instantly the flag-ship's gun fired, and at the sound the man was lifted well off; but then, and visibly to all, he dropped back again; and the sensation throughout the fleet was intense. For, at this dreadful moment, when the eyes of every man in every ship were straining upon this execution, as the decisive struggle between authority and mutiny, as if it were destined that the whole fleet should see the hesitating unwillingness of the "Marlborough's" crew to hang their rebel, and the efficacy of the means taken to enforce obedience, by an accident on board the ship the men at the yard-rope unintentionally let it slip, and the turn of the balance seemed calamitously lost; but then they hauled him up to the yard-arm with a run,—the law was satisfied, and, said Lord St. Vincent at the moment, perhaps one of the greatest of his life, "Discipline is preserved, sir!"

When the sentence was executed, and not any disturbance appeared, that it might be again made perceptible to all the fleet that abundant force had been provided to overpower any resistance which a line-of-battle ship could offer, Captain Campbell broke his line, and rowing down, placed his launches as close alongside the "Marlborough" as their oars would permit; and then re-forming them, resumed his station across her bows, continuing there until the time for the body's hanging having expired, it was taken down, sewed up as is usual in its own hammock with a shot, and was carried in one of the "Marlborough's" boats to half a mile from the ship, and sunk; upon which, Captain Campbell withdrew his force, and the "Marlborough's" signal was made to take her station in the line.

This was the fatal blow to the mutiny in the fleet before Cadiz; not that violent insubordination, treasonable conspiracies, and open resistances did not again and again occur, to be as often and as instantaneously quelled; for the ships were many that were sent out from England, several arrived in almost open mutiny, and they brought a profusion of infection to the rest. The dreadful sentence was again and again inflicted, and in all cases of insubordination the crews were invariably the executioners of their own rebels; but never again was the power of the law doubted by any one.—Tucker's Memoirs of Earl St. Vincent, vol. i. pp. 303-309.

CHAPTER IX

The Mediterranean in 1797 and 1798Bonaparte's Egyptian Expedition.—The Return of the British to the Mediterranean and the Battle of the Nile.—Great Britain Resumes Control of the Mediterranean, and the Second Coalition is formed

THE Preliminaries of Leoben silenced the strife of arms and permitted all eyes to turn to the field of diplomacy, upon which, for the twelve months following, the interest of Europe was chiefly fixed. Moreau and Hoche, commanding the two armies of France upon the Rhine, had crossed the river, to enter upon a campaign in Germany, at the very moment when Bonaparte was signing the articles. On the 22d of April, a courier, bearing news of the suspension of hostilities, arrived at the headquarters of each general, and put an immediate stop to their advance. War continued only upon the sea, between Great Britain and the nations allied with France against her.