First Salute (26 page)

Without a ship and in proximity to London and the fashionable man’s life, the lures of gambling enveloped Rodney again, although it was less these than the lures of Parliament that were to be his undoing. He had held three seats in the gift of political patrons, but in 1768 Northampton, which he represented, was suddenly contested by an outsider and an election campaign had to be waged in order for Rodney to retain it. Even without television and modern expenses, the cost of a contested election for entertainment, drinks and direct payment for votes was ruinous. The mystique of Parliament was so powerful that Rodney was willing to spend £30,000 for an illusion of power where he exercised no influence and from which he obtained no benefit and which plunged him even more deeply in debt. In 1771, he was named to the honorary position of Rear Admiral of Great Britain and appointed Commander-in-Chief of Jamaica. Since half his designated salary as Rear Admiral was withheld until he had accounted to the Navy Board for expenditures of public money in Jamaica and to other claims upon his salary, he asked to retain his Greenwich Hospital post, as, he pointed out, three predecessors had been allowed to do before him. Lord Sandwich, showing signs of some unexplained grudge, refused to allow this and when, after his service in Jamaica, Rodney asked to be appointed Governor of that island, this too was refused. Embittered and resentful, he faced coming to the end of his three-year commission with the prospect of returning to England on half pay unless he was given another post. Advised upon his return in September, 1774, that he should leave the country rather than face a possibility of debtor’s prison, he fled to Paris. Here the pleasures of elegant life and sociable companions who admired the handsome English Admiral overcame him once more, until the burden of new debts he had incurred imprisoned him in the French capital, if not within stone walls. The French police made it plain that he would not be allowed to leave the city until his Parisian creditors were paid.

At this moment the shots at Lexington and Concord announced the
American rebellion and put Rodney in a frenzy of impatience to take his part in action at sea. He was held immobile, however, for in spite of urgent letters to Lord Sandwich offering his service for active duty and his readiness “to go on any enterprise … at a moment’s warning,” no recall came from the Admiralty and nothing more than a formal and official reply from the First Lord, who in his fulsome correspondence had always professed himself Rodney’s true friend.

Rebellion against England of her primary colony was now a fact, bringing a foreboding of international conflict. That was realized when in February, 1778, France entered into alliance with the Colonies after the stunning American victory at Saratoga in October, 1777, that brought with it the nearly unbelievable surrender of General Burgoyne’s army of 5,700, who were shipped home as prisoners under oath not to resume arms against America. Four months later, in March, 1778, the French informed the British government that they recognized the independence of the United States of America, and had concluded treaties of alliance and of amity and commerce with the Continental Congress upon condition that neither party should make a separate peace before England acknowledged American independence. The alliance changed the war, putting a major power on the side of the rebels and embroiling Britain once more against her ancient enemy.

TO MAKE
alliance with rebels necessarily put France at war with Britain as the governing power, which was of course the French intention. Bourbon policy was not formed out of sympathy with the Jeffersonian principle that a time comes when a people must “assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them.” That was not a monarchical idea, although enunciated by the ally whose cause the Bourbons now embraced. Less philosophical, the French motive was simple hostility to Britain, grown out of seven centuries of rivalry since 1066, and desire to redress French losses in the Seven Years’ War. Thus it was a power struggle of the Old World, not a concern with America, that brought about the French intervention that would make it possible for the American Colonies to win their separation from Britain. The alliance was composed of two treaties, one of commerce and friendship, and the other contingent upon both parties binding themselves not to make a separate peace with Britain before she acknowledged American independence.

In July, 1778, five months after signing her treaty of alliance with America, France declared war on Great Britain, to be followed a year
later by Spain, in renewal of the Bourbon Family Compact. Spain’s price was a French promise to help her recover Gibraltar and Minorca.

The greatest French dread was that the Colonies would reconcile themselves with the mother country and re-establish her trade and her colonial and maritime position, restoring Britain to the pre-eminence which it was France’s chief war aim to reduce. Benjamin Franklin’s deliberate hints to the French about a possible reconciliation, and supporting signs and portents which the French thought they detected, had led them to make the treaty of alliance in the first place. Its pledge against a separate peace barred the way to French fear of settlement between Britain and the Colonies—for the moment. It was soon to revive when the British themselves proposed a settlement with the Colonies.

Seventeen days after the French entered the war, the opening fleet action that had nothing to do with America, yet that would in the long run seriously damage the British war effort, intangibly if not physically, was fought in the Channel near the island of Ushant, off the French coast. The French objective was to gain control of the Channel preparatory to invading England. Having intelligence of the sailing of two French squadrons from Brest and Toulon, the British objective was to prevent their juncture, and in case the two squadrons did join and proceed up the Channel, to attack them unless their force was “markedly superior,” and in that case to return for reinforcements. Admiral Augustus Keppel, the British commander of the Channel fleet, on sighting two frigates, outriders of the French fleet, opened fire in eagerness to bring on a battle. The usual practice of the time was for the admiral to be in the center of the line, where he had the forward and rear extremities of his fleet equally visible, or equally invisible, as the case might be. For successful action, a perfect understanding must exist between the admiral and his second in command, who directs the rear. In this case, Admiral Keppel and his third in command, Admiral Hugh Palliser, belonged to different political parties. Again occurred a misapprehension of signals, whether from misunderstanding or malice was afterward disputed by partisans to the point of blows. Either way, the signal table was inadequate for its purposes. The British code had no signal that allowed a captain to indicate a failure to see or understand a given instruction, nor any by which an admiral could indicate that a second signal superseded the first or other change of orders. No better system of communicating could be worked out except the use of light dispatch
boats as messengers, like a general’s aides on land galloping forward with spoken instructions. This was not practical, because ships of the line could not stand still awaiting orders as brigade or divisional commanders could on land. The alternative of placing the admiral in a frigate at the head of the line, so that he might show the path he wanted by his example rather than by signal, was later attempted by Nelson but never generally adopted.

Thirty ships of the line fought on either side at Ushant; none was taken or sunk and both fleets returned without glory to their respective ports. The British public—expecting to see the home fleet return with the French scalp hanging from its belt, having driven the enemy from the seas—looked for someone to blame and fell into furious dispute when charges were raised by Palliser against Keppel, and vice versa, culminating in courts-martial of first one and then the other, fiercely dividing opinion in the public and the navy. Popular sentiment favored Keppel, who was a Whig attached to the Opposition and who, in 1775, had announced that he would not serve against the American Colonists. Only after the French entered the war had he accepted command of the home fleet. Now, charged by Palliser with having thrown away victory at Ushant by ordering his fleet to withdraw when the French were fleeing, he demanded a court-martial to clear him of the accusation. Palliser was a protégé of Sandwich and a loyal supporter of the government. His attack upon a superior officer and a Whig aroused the antagonism of colleagues, of whom twelve admirals signed a protest against his conduct, so that he too took his turn in court. The trials and testimony by witnesses aroused public passion even further. Opinion in general laid the fault for the navy coming home empty-handed on Sandwich, who was believed to have sent Admiral Keppel to sea with an ill-equipped fleet in the hope that he would suffer defeat and thus discredit the Opposition which Keppel openly supported. Jobbery in the yards had, in truth, left ships unseaworthy, underequipped, unprovisioned and undermanned. Opposition members in Parliament charged Sandwich in a “
fierce torrent of invective as was ever heard in the House” with “gross incompetency and criminal neglect” of naval affairs. As a stick to beat the administration, his dismissal was moved by Charles James Fox. The motion was defeated by the government’s safe majority of 103 votes. Sandwich remained.

Excitement rose when the court-martial at Portsmouth enthusiastically acquitted Keppel. The London mob celebrated by looting Palliser’s
house and smashing all the windows at Lord North’s. The easy-tempered Prime Minister, a master of survival, climbed to the roof and equably remained there until the rioters dispersed. Unsated, they rushed on to assault the Admiralty gates and howl for the downfall of Sandwich. After Palliser too was acquitted, he resigned his commission in the navy and was later recompensed by the government for his loss of income by appointment to the post Rodney had held as Governor of Greenwich Hospital. Keppel, with a louder gesture, declared that he would not serve again in the navy while Sandwich was First Lord. The withdrawal of the two antagonists in no way quieted the quarrel. A train of dissension and intramural hostility now pervaded the senior service, from officers to dockyard workers, just at the time when Britain’s need of an able, self-confident navy for offense and defense in four theaters of war at once—in America, in home waters, in the West Indies and in India—was at its most critical. Rallying to Keppel, Whig flag officers took up his example and made it a point of honor for opponents of the government to decline service under Sandwich. Divided against itself by party faction, the navy was now deprived of many of its forward-looking officers. Naval officers were Whigs almost to a man.

The navy was ruled at the top by the Lords Commissioners, who were professional seamen exercising political power from seats in Parliament and among whom the First Lord held a seat in the small national governing Cabinet of eight or nine ministers. It was a vast institution administering several hundred warships, with enough cannon to equip an army and enough personnel to man its ranks, dockyards, victualing yards and storehouses around the world. The harm done by the rampant politicizing following the default of Ushant is recorded by Rodney’s friend Wraxall, drawing on Rodney’s private letters. “
So violent was the spirit of party and faction in his own fleet, as almost to supersede and extinguish the affection to their Sovereign and their country …” and of such “inveterate an animosity to the Administration … particularly to the First Lord, as almost to wish for a defeat if it would produce the dismission of Ministers.” Naval officers themselves confirmed these sentiments. As Commissioner of the Portsmouth dockyard, Admiral Hood declared in a letter to his brother that “such a
want of discipline and order throughout a fleet was never known before, and such a want of regard and attention to the good of the King’s service. The negligence of officers in general is really astonishing, and God knows to what extent the mischief will go.” Admiral Samuel Barrington, who had entered
the navy at the age of eleven, commanded a ship at eighteen and whose brother was one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, when declining the Channel command, spoke of the “total relaxation of discipline” and said that the “strain and anxiety” would kill him. “Had I been in command, what I have seen since I have been here
would have made me run mad.” He had no confidence in Sandwich or in the Admiralty, who were the “wickedest herd that ever good men served under.” The lesson was not yet clear in the 18th century, as America was to learn to her cost in our own century, that the presence of disunity in the military about method and strategy, and among the nation’s people about the rightness of the war aim, makes it impossible for a war of any duration to be fought effectively and won.