Types of Naval Officers Part 10

Nevertheless it is, as told, so entirely characteristic, that the present writer has no doubt it occurred, at some time, substantially as given by his biographer, who was son to a secretary long in close relations with him when admiral. It would be entirely in keeping with all experience of testimony that the old man's recollections, or those of his secretary, may have gone astray on minor circ.u.mstances, while preserving accurately the fundamental and only really important facts, which are perfectly consistent with, and ill.u.s.trative of, the stern decision afterwards shown in meeting and suppressing mutiny of the most threatening description. The crew of the _Albany_, it is said, from some motives of discontent refused to sail. Jervis had brought with him a few seamen from his late command. These he ordered to cut the cables which held the s.h.i.+p to her anchors, and to loose the foresail. Daunted more, perhaps, by the bearing of the man than by the mere acts, the mutineers submitted, and in twenty-four days, an extraordinarily short pa.s.sage for that time, the _Albany_ was at New York. Here Jervis was unfortunately delayed, and thus, being prevented from rejoining Sir Charles Saunders, lost the promotion which a British commander-in-chief could then give to an officer in his own command who had merited his professional approval.

It was not until October, 1761, when he was twenty-six, that Jervis obtained "post" rank,--the rank, that is, of full, or post, captain. By the rule of the British navy, an officer up to that rank could be advanced by selection; thenceforth he waited, through the long succession of seniority, for his admiral's commission. This Jervis did not receive until 1787, when he was fifty-two.

It was as a general officer, as an admiral commanding great fleets and bearing responsibilities unusually grave through a most critical period of his country's history, that Jervis made his high and deserved reputation. For this reason, the intervening years, though pregnant with the finished character and distinguished capacity which fitted him for his onerous work, and though by no means devoid of incident, must be hastily sketched. The Treaty of Paris, which in 1763 closed the Seven Years War, was followed by twelve years of peace. Then came the American Revolution, bringing in its train hostilities with France and Spain.

During the peace, Jervis for nearly four years commanded a frigate in the Mediterranean. It is told that while his s.h.i.+p was at Genoa two Turkish slaves escaped from a Genoese galley, and took refuge in a British boat lying at the mole, wrapping its flag round their persons.

Genoese officers took them forcibly from the boat and restored them to their chains. Jervis resented this, as being not only an insult to the British flag, but also an enforcement of slavery against men under its protection; and so peremptory was his tone that an apology was made, the two captives were given up on the frigate's quarter-deck, and the offending officers punished. The captain's action, however, was not sustained by his own government. It is curious to note that, notwithstanding his course in this case, and although he was not merely nominally, but strenuously, a Whig, or Liberal, in political faith, connected by party ties with Fox and his coterie of friends, Jervis was always opposed to the abolition of the slave trade and to the education of the lower orders. Liberty was to him an inherited wors.h.i.+p, a.s.sociated with certain stock beliefs and phrases, but subordination was the true idol of his soul.

In 1775 Captain Jervis commissioned the _Foudroyant_, of eighty-four guns, a s.h.i.+p captured in 1758 from the French, and thereafter thought to be the finest vessel in the British fleet. To this, her natural superiority, Jervis added a degree of order, discipline, and drill which made her the pride and admiration of the navy. He was forty when his pennant first flew from her masthead, and he held the command for eight years, a period covering the full prime of his own maturity, as well as the entire course of the American Revolution. It was also a period marked for him, professionally, less by distinguished service than by that perfection of military organization, that combination of dignified yet not empty pomp with thorough and constant readiness, which was so eminently characteristic of all the phases of Jervis's career, and which, when the rare moments came, was promptly transformed into unhesitating, decisive, and efficient action. The _Foudroyant_, in her state and discipline, was the type in miniature of Jervis's Mediterranean fleet, declared by Nelson to be the finest body of s.h.i.+ps he had ever known; nay, she was the precursor of that regenerate British navy in which Nelson found the instruments of his triumphs. Sixty years later, old officers recalled the feelings of mingled curiosity and awe with which, when sent to her on duty from their own s.h.i.+ps, they climbed on board the _Foudroyant_, and from the larboard side of her quarter-deck gazed upon the stern captain, whose qualities were embodied in his vessel and const.i.tuted her chief excellences.

During Jervis's command, the _Foudroyant_ was continuously attached to the Channel Fleet, whose duty, as the name implies, was to protect the English Channel and its approaches; a function which often carried the s.h.i.+ps far into the Bay of Biscay. Thus he took a prominent part in Keppel's battle off Ushant in 1778, in the movements occasioned by the entrance into the Channel of an overpowering Franco-Spanish fleet in 1779 and 1781, and in the brilliant relief of Gibraltar by Admiral Howe towards the end of 1782. His most distinguished service, however, was taking, single-handed, the French seventy-four _Pegase_, in the spring of the latter year. The capture was effected after an action of fifty minutes, preceded by a chase of twelve hours, running before a half-gale of wind. The _Foudroyant_ was unquestionably superior in battery to her enemy, who, moreover, had but recently been commissioned; but, as has justly been remarked of some of the victories of our own s.h.i.+ps over those of the British in the War of 1812, although there was disparity of forces, the precision and rapidity with which the work was done bore incontrovertible testimony to the skill and training of the captain and crew. Single combats, such as this, were rare between vessels of the size of the _Foudroyant_ and _Pegase_, built to sail and fight in fleets. That one occurred here was due to the fact that the speed of the two opponents left the British squadron far astern. The exploit obtained for Jervis a baronetcy and the ribbon of the Order of the Bath.

Sir John Jervis did not serve afloat during the ten years of peace following 1783, although, from his high repute, he was one of those summoned upon each of the alarms of war that from time to time arose.

Throughout this period he sat in Parliament, voting steadily with his party, the Whigs, and supporting Fox in his opposition to measures which seemed to tend towards hostilities with France. When war came, however, he left his seat, ready to aid his country with his sword in the quarrel from which he had sought to keep her.

Having in the mean time risen from the rank of captain to that of rear-and of vice-admiral, Jervis's first service, in 1794, was in the Caribbean Sea, as commander of the naval part of a joint expedition of army and navy to subdue the French West India islands. The operation, although most important and full of exciting and picturesque incident, bears but a small share in his career, and therefore may not be dwelt upon in so short a sketch as the present aims to be. Attended at first by marked and general success, it ended with some severe reverses, occasioned by the force given him being less than he demanded, and than the extent of the work to be done required. A quaintly characteristic story is told of the admiral's treatment of a lieutenant who at this period sought employment on board his s.h.i.+p. Knowing that he stood high in the old seaman's favor, the applicant confidently expected his appointment, but, upon opening the "letter on service," was stunned to read:--

SIR,--You, having thought fit to take to yourself a wife, are to look for no further attentions from

Your humble servant, J. JERVIS.

The supposed culprit, guiltless even in thought of this novel misdemeanor, hastened on board, and explained that he abhorred such an offence as much as could the admiral. It then appeared that the letter had been sent to the wrong person. Jervis was himself married at this time; but his well-regulated affections had run steadily in harness until the mature age of forty-eight, and he saw no reason why other men should depart from so sound a precedent. "When an officer marries," he tersely said, "he is d----d for the service."

Returning to England in February, 1795, Jervis was in August nominated to command the Mediterranean station, and in November sailed to take up his new duties. At the end of the month, in San Fiorenzo Bay, an anchorage in the north of Corsica, he joined the fleet, which continued under his flag until June, 1799. He had now reached the highest rank in his profession, though not the highest grade of that rank as it was then subdivided; being a full Admiral of the Blue. The crowning period of his career here began. Admirable and striking as had been his previous services, dignified and weighty as were the responsibilities borne by him in the later part of a life prolonged far beyond the span of man, the four years of Jervis's Mediterranean command stand conspicuous as the time when preparation flowered into achievement, solid, durable, and brilliant. It may be interesting to Americans to recall that his age was nearly the same as that of Farragut when the latter a.s.sumed the charge in which, after long years of obscure preparation, he also reaped his harvest of glory. It is likewise worthy of note that this happy selection was made wholly independent of the political bias, which till then had so often and unworthily controlled naval appointments. Jervis belonged to the small remnant of Whigs who still followed Fox and inveighed against the current war, as unnecessary and impolitic. It was a pure service choice, as such creditable alike to the Government and the officer.

Though distinguished success now awaited him, a period of patient effort, endurance, and disappointment had first to be pa.s.sed, reproducing in miniature the longer years of faithful service preceding his professional triumphs. Jervis came to the Mediterranean too late for the best interests of England. The year 1795, just ending, was one in which the energies of France, after the fierce rush of the Terror, had flagged almost to collapse. Not only so, but in its course the republic, discouraged by frequent failure, had decided to abandon the control of the sea to its enemy, to keep its great fleets in port, and to confine its efforts to the hara.s.sment of British commerce. To this change of policy in France is chiefly to be ascribed the failure of naval achievement with which Macaulay has reproached Pitt's earlier ministry.

Battles cannot be fought if the foe keeps behind his walls. Prior to this decision, two fleet battles had been fought in the Mediterranean in the spring and summer of 1795, in which the British had missed great successes only through the sluggishness of their admiral. "To say how much we wanted Lord Hood" (the last commander-in-chief), wrote Nelson, "is to ask, 'Will you have all the French fleet or no battle?'" Could he have foreseen all that Jervis was to be to the Mediterranean, his distress must have been doubled to know that the fortunes of the nation thus fell between two stools.

His predecessor's slackness in pus.h.i.+ng military opportunities, due partly to ill health, was mainly const.i.tutional, and therefore could not but show itself by tangible evidences in the more purely administrative and disciplinary work. Jervis found himself at once under the necessity of bringing his fleet--in equipment, in discipline, and in drill--sharply up to that level of efficiency which is essential to the full development of power when occasion offers. This his perfect achievement, of organization and administration, in its many intricate details, needs at least to be clearly noted, even though s.p.a.ce do not admit many particulars; because his capacity as administrator at the head of the Admiralty a few years later has been seriously impugned, by a criticism both partial and excessive, if not wholly unjust. Nelson, a witness of his Mediterranean service from beginning to end, lauded to the utmost the excellence there reached, and attributed most of the short-coming noted in the later office to the yielding of a man then advanced in years, to advisers, in trusting whom fully he might well believe himself warranted by experience.

Although, when taking command, his fleet reached the seemingly large proportions of twenty-five s.h.i.+ps-of-the-line and some fifty cruisers, heavy allowance must be made for the variety of services extending over the two thousand miles of the Mediterranean, from east to west. Seven of-the-line had to be kept before Cadiz, though still a neutral port, to check a French division within. One of the same cla.s.s was on the Riviera with Nelson; and other demands, with the necessities of occasional absences for refit, prevented the admiral from ever a.s.sembling before Toulon, his great strategic care, much more than a round dozen to watch equal French numbers there. The protection of Corsica, then in British hands; the convoy of commerce, dispersed throughout the station; the a.s.surance of communications to the fortress and Straits of Gibraltar, by which all transit to and from the Mediterranean pa.s.ses; diplomatic exigencies with the various littoral states of the inland sea; these divergent calls, with the coincident necessity of maintaining every s.h.i.+p in fit condition for action, show the extent of the administrative work and of the attendant correspondence. The evidence of many eye-witnesses attests the successful results.

Similar attention, broad yet minute, was demanded for the more onerous and invidious task of enforcing relaxed discipline and drill. Concerning these, the most pregnant testimony, alike to the stringency and the persistence of his measures, may be found in the imbittered expressions of enemies. Five years later, when the rumor spread that he was to have the Channel Fleet, the toast was drunk at the table of the man then in command, "May the discipline of the Mediterranean never be introduced into the Channel." "May his next gla.s.s of wine choke the wretch," is a speech attributed to a captain's wife, wrathful that her husband was kept from her side by the admiral's regulations. For Jervis's discipline began at the top, with the division and s.h.i.+p commanders. One of the senior admirals under him persisting in a remonstrance, beyond the point which he considered consistent with discipline, was sent home. "The very disorderly state of His Majesty's s.h.i.+p under your command," he writes to a captain, "obliges me to require that neither yourself nor any of your officers are to go on sh.o.r.e on what is called pleasure." "The commander-in-chief finds himself under the painful necessity of publicly reprimanding Captains ---- and ---- for neglect of duty, in not maintaining the stations a.s.signed to their s.h.i.+ps during the last night."

In a letter to a lieutenant he says, "If you do not immediately make a suitable apology to Commissioner Inglefield for the abominable neglect and disrespect you have treated him with, I will represent your behaviour to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, and recommend your name to be struck off the list of lieutenants." Captains of vessels were not only subject to strict regulation as to their personal proceedings, compelled to sleep on board, for instance, even in home ports; but duties customarily left to subordinates, with results to discipline that might not now obtain but which were in those days deplorable, were also a.s.signed to them.

"The commander-in-chief has too exalted an opinion of the respective captains of the squadron to doubt their being upon deck when the signal is made to tack or wear _in the night_, and he requires all lieutenants then to be at their stations, except those who had the watch immediately preceding." Nor did he leave this delicately worded, but pointed, admonition, issued in the Mediterranean, to take care of itself. In after years, when he was nigh seventy, his secretary tells that on a cold and rainy November night off Brest, the signal to tack being made, he hurried to the cabin to persuade the old man not to go on deck, as was his custom. He was not, however, in his cot, nor could he for a long time be found; but at last a look into the stern gallery discovered him, in flannel dressing-gown and c.o.c.ked hat, watching the movements of the fleet. To remonstrance he replied, "Hush, I want to see how the evolution is performed on such a night, and to know whether Jemmy Vashon (commanding the s.h.i.+p next astern) is on deck;" but soon hearing the captain's well-known shrill voice, crying, "Are you all ready forward?" he consented then to retire.

Post-captains and commanders were required to attend at points on sh.o.r.e where the boats and crews of s.h.i.+ps congregated on service; at landing places and watering places,--scenes fruitful in demoralization,--to maintain order and suppress disturbance. "The Masters and Commanders are to take it in turn, according to rank, to attend the duty on sh.o.r.e at the ragged staff [at Gibraltar], from gun-fire in the morning to sunset, to keep order and prevent disputes, and to see that boats take their regular turns. They are never to be absent from the spot except at regular meal times." "When the squadron is at anchor in Torbay [in the English Channel], a captain of a s.h.i.+p-of-the-line is to command at the watering place at Brixham, taking to his a.s.sistance his commanding officer of marines with a party of his men. He also may take with him a lieutenant of the s.h.i.+p and as many mids.h.i.+pmen as he thinks fit; _but he himself_ is not to quit his command until regularly relieved." A greater stringency is observable at this later date, in the Channel Fleet, than in the Mediterranean; for at the earlier period the spirit of mutiny had not openly broken out, and he had besides on the distant station better captains than those who had clung to the home fleet under its lax discipline. "Old women in the guise of young men," he affirmed many of them to be.

There was in fact an imminent necessity that naval rank should be made to feel its responsibilities, and to exert its predominance; to be restored to prestige, not by holding aloof in its privileges, but by a.s.serting itself in act. The preponderance of political and family influence in determining promotion of officers, unbalanced by valid tests of fitness such as later days imposed, had not only lowered the competency of the official body as a whole, but impaired the respect which personal merit alone can in the long run maintain. On the other hand, the scarcity of seamen in proportion to the heavy demands of the war, and the irregular methods of impressment and recruiting then prevailing, swept into the service a vast number of men not merely unfit, but of extremely bad character,--"miscreants," to use Collingwood's word,--to be ruled only by fear of the law and of their officers, supported by the better element among the crews. But these better men also were becoming alienated by the harsh restrictions of the times, and by the procrastination of superiors--Howe, the Sailor's Friend, among others--to heed their just complaints. The stern Jervis, whom none suspected of fatherly tenderness, if less indulgent to culprits, was far more attentive to meet the reasonable demands of those under him. While quelling insubordination mercilessly, he ever sought to antic.i.p.ate grievance; exhibiting thus the two sides of the same spirit of careful, even-handed justice.

Jervis's work during the first eighteen months of his command was therefore not only necessary, but most timely. By improving that period of comparative internal quiet, he educated his officers and men to pa.s.s steadfastly, though not unmoved, through the awful crisis of the mutinies in 1797-98. Professional self-respect, a most powerful moral force, was more than restored; it was intensified by the added dignity and power manifest in the surroundings of daily life, as well as in the military results obtained. Seamen, like others, deal more conservatively with that of which they are proud because it reflects honor upon themselves; and they obey more certainly men who share their labors and lead them capably in danger, as did Jervis's Mediterranean captains.

With himself, severity was far from being the only instrument.

Thoroughly capable professionally, and thereby commandful of respect, he appealed also to men's regard by intelligent and constant thought for the wants and comfort of those under him; by evidence of strong service feeling on his own part; by clear and clearly expressed recognition of merit, wherever found; by avoidance of misunderstandings through explanation volunteered when possible,--not apologetically, but as it were casually, yet appealing to men's reason. Watchfulness and sympathetic foresight were with him as constant as sternness, though less in evidence.

Of this prevalence of kindly naval feeling amid the harshness which seemed superficially the chief characteristic of his rule, many instances could be cited. Pa.s.sing by the frequent incidental praise of distinguished captains, Nelson, Troubridge, and others, he thus advocates the claims of one of the humble, hopeless cla.s.s of sailing-masters, out of the line of promotion. After an act of brilliant merit in the West Indies, "Mr. White was ambitious to become a lieutenant; but not having served six years in the navy, and being a master, I could not then comply with his wishes. He is now Master of the _Defence_, and his captain speaks in the highest terms of him; and it is a tribute _due to the memory_ of Captain Faulknor,--whose certificate of that matchless service is enclosed,--and _to the gallantry of his officers and crew_, to state the claims of Mr. White to your Lords.h.i.+p, who is the protector of us all." The present and the past, the merits of the living, the memory of the glorious dead, the claims of the navy to see well-doers rewarded, are all pressed into service to support a just request, and with a manifest heartiness which in virtue of its reality approaches eloquence. "I have given an order to Mr. Ellis to command as a lieutenant, he being the son of a very old officer whom I knew many years; and coming very strongly recommended from his last s.h.i.+p, I place him under your Lords.h.i.+p's protection as _a child of the service_." When a man thus bears others' deserts and the profession on his heart, he can retain the affections of his subordinates even though he show all the unbending severity of Jervis, and despite the numerous hangings, which, for that matter, rarely fell except on the hopelessly bad. A most significant feature of his rule as a disciplinarian was his peculiar care of health, by instructed sanitary measures, by provision of suitable diet, and by well-ordered hospital service. This was not merely a prudential consideration for the efficiency of the fleet; he regarded also the welfare of the sufferers. He made it a rule to inspect the hospitals himself, and he directed a daily visit by a captain and by the surgeons of the s.h.i.+ps from which patients were sent, thus keeping the sick in touch with those they knew, and who had in them a personal interest. An odd provision, amusingly ill.u.s.trative of the obverse side of the admiral's character, was that the visiting captain should be accompanied by a boatswain's mate, the functionary charged with administering floggings, and, "if they find the patients do not conduct themselves properly and orderly, they are to punish them agreeably to the rules of the Navy." It was, however, on his care of health, in its various exposures, that the admiral specially valued himself; it was, he said, his proudest boast among the services to which he laid claim.

But while he labored thus for the welfare of the seamen, it was naturally upon the professional tone of his officers that his chief reliance must be placed; and the leaders among them he grappled to his soul with hooks of steel, as they recognized the wisdom and force of his measures, and the appreciation given to them and others. Whatever beneficent influence might issue from him as a fountain-head must through them be distributed, and by them reinforced and sustained. "The discipline of the fleet," he said, "is in the ward-room;" and greatly did he lament the loose insubordinate talk, the spirit of irresponsible criticism that found voice at mess-tables, within the hearing of servants, by whom it was disseminated throughout the body of the s.h.i.+p.

Not only he, but many, attributed to this hot-bed the fomenting of discontent into organized mutiny. This could not be stopped by direct measures, but only by imposing a feeling of fear, and nurturing that of officer-like propriety, by stringent prescription of forms of respect and rigid exaction of their observance. To stand uncovered before a superior, instead of lightly touching the hat, to pay outward reverence to the national flag, to salute the quarter-deck as the seat of authority, were no vain show under him. "Discipline," he was fond of quoting, "is summed up in the one word, 'Obedience;'" and these customs were charged with the observance which is obedience in spirit. They conduced to discipline as conventional good manners, by rendering the due of each to each, knit together the social fabric and maintain the regularity and efficiency of common life; removing friction, suppressing jars, and ministering constantly to the smooth and even working of the social machinery.

By measures such as these, extending to all ranks and every detail, exemplifying, in spirit and in form, the extremes of cordial reward, iron restraint, and weighty punishment, Jervis patiently fas.h.i.+oned the fleet which was to be both a pattern for coming days, and the highly tempered instrument to achieve his own victory of Cape St. Vincent and the earlier triumphs of Nelson; as well as to sustain and to crush the onset of mutiny which soon afterwards shook the Navy to its centre. For purely military action of an aggressive character no opportunity was afforded him. His coming to the Mediterranean coincided with that of Napoleon Bonaparte to the Army of Italy. During 1795, wrote Nelson, if the British fleet had done its duty, the French army could not have moved along the Riviera of Genoa. It failed, and the Austrian general, its ally, also failed to act with vigor. So the year had ended, for the Austrians, with a disastrous defeat and a retreat behind the Apennines.

To the Riviera they never returned to receive the co-operation which Jervis stood eager to give. At their first move to cross the mountains, Bonaparte struck, and followed up his blows with such lightning-like rapidity that in thirty days they were driven back over a hundred miles, behind the Adige; their chief fortress, Mantua, was blockaded; all northwest Italy with its seaboard, including Leghorn, was in the power of France; and Naples also had submitted. Jervis, powerless to strike a blow when no enemy was within reach, found his fleet without a friendly port nearer than Gibraltar, while Corsica, where alone he could expect anchorage and water, was seething with revolt against the British crown, to which, by its own vote, it had been annexed but two years before.

Amid these adverse circ.u.mstances, the only large operation possible to him was the close watching of the port of Toulon, conducted on the same general plan that was afterwards more ill.u.s.triously exhibited before Brest, between 1800 and 1805, under conditions of surpa.s.sing difficulty.

All contemplated movements of the French fleet were thus dammed at the source, for it must first fight the British, after which there was little hope of being in a state to fulfil any further mission. For six months, from April to October, Jervis held his fleet close up to the port, the advanced body two miles from the entrance. The effort was admirable as a pattern, and for disciplinary purposes. The s.h.i.+ps, forced to self-dependence, became organically self-reliant. Their routine life of seamans.h.i.+p and military exercise perfected habit and efficiency, and difficulties to others insuperable were as the light burdens which a giant carries unwittingly.

Further than this, achievement could not then go. During the summer Bonaparte held Mantua by the throat, and overthrew one after another the Austrian forces approaching to its relief. Two French armies, under Jourdan and Moreau, penetrated to the heart of Germany; while Spain, lately the confederate of Great Britain, made an offensive and defensive alliance with France, and sent a fleet of over twenty s.h.i.+ps-of-the-line into the Mediterranean. Staggered by these reverses, the British ministry ordered Corsica evacuated and the Mediterranean abandoned.

Jervis was cruelly embarra.s.sed. A trusted subordinate of high reputation had been before Cadiz with seven s.h.i.+ps-of-the-line, watching a French division in that port. Summoned, in view of the threatening att.i.tude of Spain, to reinforce the main fleet in San Fiorenzo Bay, he lost his head altogether, hurried past Gibraltar without getting supplies, and brought his s.h.i.+ps dest.i.tute to the admiral, already pressed to maintain the vessels then with him. Although there were thirty-five hostile s.h.i.+ps in Toulon and the British had only twenty-two, counting this division, there was nothing to do but to send it back to Gibraltar, under urgent orders to return with all speed. With true military insight and a correct appreciation of the forces opposed to him, Jervis saw the need of fighting the combined enemies then and there.

Unfortunately, the division commander, Admiral Mann, on reaching Gibraltar, became infected with the spirit of discouragement then prevailing in the garrison, called a council of naval captains, and upon their advice, which could in no wise lessen his own responsibility, decided to return to England. This culpably unwarrantable act aptly ill.u.s.trates the distinction, rarely appreciated, between an error of judgment and an error of conduct. Upon arrival, he was at once deprived of his command, a step of unquestionable justice, but which could not help Jervis. "We were all eyes, looking westward from the mountain tops," wrote Collingwood, then a captain in the fleet, "but we looked in vain. The Spanish fleet, nearly double our number, was cruising almost in view, and our reconnoitring frigates sometimes got among them, while we expected them hourly to be joined by the French fleet." "I cannot describe to your lords.h.i.+p," wrote Jervis himself, "the disappointment my ambition and zeal to serve my country have suffered by this diminution of my force; for had Admiral Mann sailed from Gibraltar on the 10th of October, the day he received my orders, and fulfilled them, I have every reason to believe the Spanish fleet would have been cut to pieces. The extreme disorder and confusion they were observed to be in, by the judicious officers who fell in with them, leave no doubt upon my mind that a fleet so trained and generally well commanded as this is would have made its way through them in every direction."

Nelson shared this opinion, the accuracy of which was soon to be tested and proved. "They at home," wrote he to his wife, "do not know what this fleet is capable of performing; anything and everything. The fleets of England are equal to meet the world in arms; and of all the fleets I ever saw, I never beheld one, in point of officers and men, equal to Sir John Jervis's, who is a commander-in-chief able to lead them to glory."

To a friend he wrote: "Mann is ordered to come up; we shall then be twenty-two sail-of-the-line such as England hardly ever produced, commanded by an admiral who will not fail to look the enemy in the face, be their force what it may. I suppose it will not be more than thirty-four of-the-line." "The admiral is firm as a rock," wrote at the same moment the British viceroy of Corsica. Through all doubts and uncertainties he held on steadily, refusing to leave the rendezvous till dire necessity forced him, lest Mann, arriving, should be exposed alone and lost. At last, with starvation staring him in the face if delaying longer, he sailed for Gibraltar, three men living on the rations of one during the pa.s.sage down.

Mann's defection had reduced the fleet from twenty-two vessels to fifteen. A series of single accidents still further diminished it. In a violent gale at Gibraltar three s.h.i.+ps-of-the-line drove from their anchors. One, the _Courageux_, stretching over toward the Barbary coast, ran ash.o.r.e there and was totally wrecked, nearly all her crew peris.h.i.+ng.

Her captain, a singularly capable seaman named Hallowell, was out of her upon a courtmartial, and it was thought she would not have been lost had he been on board. Another, the _Gibraltar_, struck so heavily on a reef that she had to be sent to England. Upon being docked, a large piece of rock was found to have penetrated the bottom and stuck fast in the hole.

Had it worked out, the s.h.i.+p would have foundered. The third vessel, the _Zealous_, was less badly hurt, but she had to be left behind in Gibraltar when Jervis, by orders from home, took his fleet to Lisbon.

There, in entering the Tagus, a fourth s.h.i.+p was lost on a shoal, so that but eleven remained out of twenty-two. Despite these trials of his constancy, the old man's temper still continued "steady as a rock."

"Whether you send me a reinforcement or not," he wrote to the Admiralty, "I shall sleep perfectly sound,--not in the Tagus, but at sea; for as soon as the _St. George_ has s.h.i.+fted her topmast, the _Captain_ her bowsprit, and the _Blenheim_ repaired her mainmast, I will go out."

"Inactivity in the Tagus," he wrote again, "will make cowards of us all." This last expression summed up much of his naval philosophy. Keep men at sea, he used to say, and they cannot help being seamen, though attention will be needed to a.s.sure exercise at the guns. And it may be believed he would thus contemn the arguments which supported Howe's idea of preserving the s.h.i.+ps by retaining them in port. Keep them at sea, he would doubtless have replied, and they will learn to take care of themselves.

In quitting the river another vessel took the ground, and had to be left behind. This, however, was the last of the admiral's trials for that time. A few days later, on the 6th of February, 1797, there joined him a body of five s.h.i.+ps-of-the line, detached from England as soon as the government had been freed from the fear of the invasion of Ireland, which the French had attempted on a large scale in December. On the 13th, Nelson, a host in himself, returned from an adventurous mission up the Mediterranean. The next day, February 14th, Jervis with his fifteen s.h.i.+ps met a Spanish fleet of twenty-seven some thirty miles from Cape St. Vincent, which has given its name to the battle.

The Spaniards were running for Cadiz, to the east-southeast,--say, across the page from left to right, inclining a little downward,--while Jervis's fleet was approaching nearly at right angles from the north, or top of the page. It was in two close, compact columns, of seven and eight s.h.i.+ps respectively. The Spaniards, on the contrary, were in disorder and dispersed. Six of their s.h.i.+ps were far ahead of the others, an interval of nearly eight miles separating the two groups. The weather, which was foggy, cleared gradually. Jervis was walking back and forth on the p.o.o.p with Hallowell, lately captain of the wrecked _Courageux_, and he was heard to say, "A victory is very essential to England at this moment." As s.h.i.+p after s.h.i.+p of the enemy loomed up through the haze, successive reports were made to him. "There are eight sail-of-the-line, Sir John." "There are twenty sail-of-the-line, Sir John." "There are twenty-five of-the-line, Sir John." Finally, when the full tale of twenty-seven was made out, the captain of the fleet remarked on the greatness of the odds. "Enough of that, sir," retorted the admiral, intent on that victory which was so essential to England; "if there are fifty sail, I will go through them." This reply so delighted Hallowell, an eccentric man, who a year later gave Nelson the coffin made from the mainmast of the _Orient_, that he patted his august superior on the back. "That's right, Sir John," said he, "and, by G----, we'll give them a d----d good licking!"

When the weather finally cleared, toward 10 A.M., the British were near to the enemy and heading direct for the gap, which the Spaniards, too late, were trying to close. Almost at the moment of meeting, Jervis formed his two columns into one--the order of battle--"with the utmost celerity;" thus doubling the length of the line interposed between the two divisions of the enemy. Soon opened the guns of the leading s.h.i.+p, the _Culloden_, Captain Troubridge; the reports following one another in regular succession, as though firing a salute by watch. The _Culloden's_ course led so direct upon a Spanish three-decker, that the first lieutenant reported a collision imminent. "Can't help it, Griffiths,"

replied Troubridge; "hardest fend off." But the Spaniard, in confusion, put his helm up and went clear. By this time the Spanish division on the right, or west, of the British had changed its course and was steering north, parallel but opposite to its foes. As the _Culloden_ went through, the admiral signalled her to put about and follow it.

Troubridge, fully expecting this order, obeyed at once; and Jervis's signal was scarce unfurled when, by the flapping of the _Culloden's_ sails, he saw it was receiving execution. "Look at Troubridge!" he shouted. "Doesn't he handle his s.h.i.+p as though the eyes of all England were on him? I would to G.o.d they were, that she might know him as I know him!" But here a graver matter drew the admiral's care. The Spanish division from the left, steering across his path of advance, approached, purposing in appearance to break through the line. The _Victory_ stopped, or, as seamen say, hove-to; and as the Spanish admiral came near within a hundred yards, her broadside rang out, sweeping through the crowded decks and lofty spars a storm of shot, to which, in the relative positions, the foe could not reply. Staggered and crippled he went about, and the _Victory_ stood on.

Meanwhile, the s.h.i.+ps which Troubridge and his followers were pursuing drew toward the tail of the British column, and as they did so made a movement to pa.s.s round it, and so join their friends who had just been so severely handled in making the attempt to pa.s.s through. But Nelson was in this part of the order, there being but two s.h.i.+ps behind him.

Now, as far as signals went, he should continue on, and, like the others, follow in due succession behind the _Culloden_. He saw that if this were done the Spaniards would effect their junction, so he instantly turned his s.h.i.+p toward the rear, out of her place, and threw her alone across the enemy's advance. It is said that the Captain of the Fleet drew Jervis's attention to this breach of discipline. "Ay,"

replied the old seaman, "and if ever you offend in the same way, I promise you my forgiveness beforehand." For a while Nelson took the brunt of the hostile fire from half a dozen s.h.i.+ps, but not for long.

Soon Troubridge, his dearest friend, came up with a couple of others; and Collingwood, the close a.s.sociate of early days, who had the rear s.h.i.+p, was signalled to imitate Nelson's act. In doing this, he silenced the fire of two enemies; but, wrote Nelson, "disdaining the parade of taking possession of beaten s.h.i.+ps, Captain Collingwood most gallantly pushed on to save his old friend and messmate, who appeared to be in a critical state, being then fired upon by three first-rates, and the _San Nicolas_, eighty." To get between Nelson's s.h.i.+p and the _San Nicolas_, Collingwood had to steer close, pa.s.sing within ten feet of the latter; so that, to use his own expression, "though we did not touch sides, you could not put a bodkin between us." His fire drove the _San Nicolas_ upon one of the first-rates, the _San Josef_; and when, continuing on to seek other unbeaten foes, he left the field again clear for Nelson, the latter, by a movement of the helm, grappled the _San Nicolas_.

Incredible as it may appear, the crew of this one British seventy-four carried, sword in hand, both the enemy's s.h.i.+ps, though of far superior force. "Extravagant as the story may seem," wrote Nelson, "on the quarter-deck of a Spanish first-rate I received the swords of the vanquished Spaniards, which, as I received, I gave to William Fearney, one of my bargemen, who placed them with the greatest _sang-froid_ under his arm."

Four Spanish s.h.i.+ps, two of them of the largest size, were the trophies of this victory; but its moral effect in demonstrating the relative values of the two navies, and the confidence England could put in men like Jervis, Nelson, and the leading captains, was far greater. The spirit of the nation, depressed by a long series of reverses, revived like a giant refreshed with wine. Jervis had spoken truth when he said a victory was essential to England at that time. The grat.i.tude of the state was shown in the profusion of rewards showered upon the victors.

Promotions and honors were liberally distributed. The Government had already purposed to recognize Jervis's previous services by raising him to the lower ranks of the peerage; but this timely triumph procured him at one step a higher elevation. He was created Earl of St. Vincent, with a pension of three thousand pounds per annum.

The tactical decisions made by Jervis on this momentous occasion were correct as far as they went; but, except the initial determination to attack the larger body of the enemy, because to windward, there is no evidence of tactical originality in him, no innovation comparable to Howe's manoeuvres on May 28 and 29,--and there was undoubted oversight in not providing by signal against that move of the weather Spanish division which it became Nelson's opportunity and glory to counteract.

It is also possible that the signal to tack in succession, a wholly routine proceeding, might have been made earlier to advantage; but the writer does not think that the body of the fleet should then have tacked together, as some criticism would have it. Until the British van approached on the new tack, the broadsides of the centre were better ranged on the original line to counteract the efforts, actually made, by the lee Spanish division to break through. As regards the decision not to follow the victory further, which has been censured in the instances of Rodney and Howe, the conditions here differed in much. The disparity of numbers was very great; if many of the enemy had suffered greatly, many also had not suffered at all; they were now reunited; above all Jervis's strategic and political insight--far superior to his tactical equipment--had rightly read the situation when he said that what England needed was a victory,--moral effect. The victory was there, undeniable and brilliant, it was better not risked.

The rest of the Spaniards, many of them badly crippled, took refuge in Cadiz, and there Jervis, after repairing damages, held them blockaded for two years, from April, 1797, to May, 1799. For the greater part of this time the operation was conducted by anchoring the British fleet, a resource which the character of the ground permitted, and which, though not everywhere possible, St. Vincent declared the only way of a.s.suring the desired end of holding a position in all weathers. During this period was rendered the other most signal service done by him to the state, in suppressing the mutinous action of the seamen, which there, as everywhere else in the British navy at that time, sought to overthrow the authority of the officers.

The cause of the mutinies of 1797 is not here in question. Suffice it to say that, in their origin, they alleged certain tangible material grievances which were clearly stated, and, being undeniable, were redressed. The men returned to their duty; but, like a horse that has once taken the bit between his teeth, the restive feeling remained, fermenting in a lot of vicious material which the exigencies of the day had forced the navy to accept. Coinciding in time with the risings in Ireland, 1796-1798, there arose between the two movements a certain sympathy, which was fostered by the many Irish in the fleets, where agents were in communication with the leaders of the United Irishmen on sh.o.r.e.

In the Channel and the North Sea, the seamen took the s.h.i.+ps, with few exceptions, out of the hands of their officers. In the former, they dictated their terms; in the latter, after a month of awful national suspense, they failed: the difference being that in the one case the demands, being reasonable, carried conviction, while in the other, becoming extravagant, the Government's resistance was supported by public opinion. It remained to be seen how the crisis would be met in a fleet so far from home that the issue must depend upon the firmness and judgment of a man of adamant. It was no more than prudent to expect that the attempt would be made there also; and the watchfulness of the superior officers of the fleet soon obtained certain information of its approach, though as yet without proof adequate to the arrest of individuals. The policy of the admiral, broadly stated, was that of isolating s.h.i.+p from s.h.i.+p--_divide et impera_--to prevent concerted action; a measure effected to all practical purpose by his unremitting vigilance, and by the general devotion to his policy among his leading officers. On the other hand, evidence was not wanting that in the s.h.i.+ps long under his orders his own character was now fairly understood, and obtained for him a backing among the seamen themselves, without which his severity alone might have failed.

The first overt sign of trouble was the appearance of letters addressed to the leading petty officers of the different s.h.i.+ps of the Mediterranean fleet. These were detected by a captain, who held on to them, and sent to St. Vincent to ask if they should be delivered.

Careful to betray no sign of anxiety, the admiral's reply was a general signal for a lieutenant from each s.h.i.+p to come to him; and by them word was sent that all letters should be delivered as addressed, unopened.