The Influence of Sea Power on the French Revolution. Alfred Thayer Mahan
foresight, the equipment of the fleet was maintained in sufficient and serviceable condition. In the year 1783 a plan was adopted "of setting apart for every sea-going ship a large proportion of her furniture and stores, as well as of stocking the magazines at the several dockyards with imperishable stores." [56] The readiness thus sought was tested, and also bettered, by the two partial armaments of 1790 against Spain and of 1791 against Russia; so that, when orders to arm were received in 1793, in a very few weeks the ships-of-the-line in commission were increased from twenty-six to fifty-four, and the whole number of ships of all sizes from one hundred and thirty-six to over two hundred. The same care and foresight was continued into the war. It was as much an object with Great Britain to hinder the carriage of naval stores from the Baltic to France as to get them herself, and there was reason to fear that her seizure of ships so laden and bound to France would, as before, bring on trouble with the northern States. "In 1796 the quantity of naval stores remaining on hand was too small to afford a hope of their lasting to the end of the war; but the government, foreseeing that a rupture must ensue, provided an abundant supply of materials for naval equipment; ship timber was imported from the Adriatic, masts and hemp from North America, and large importations were made from the Baltic. The number of British ships which passed the Sound in one year was forty-five hundred, chiefly laden with naval stores, corn, tallow, hides, hemp, and iron. At the same time the most rigid economy was enforced in the dockyards and on board ships of war." [57]
A bare sufficiency—to be eked out with the utmost care, turning everything to account, working old stuff up into new forms—was the economic condition of the British cruiser of the day. Under such conditions the knack of the captain and officers made a large part of the efficiency of the ship. "Some," wrote Collingwood, "who have the foresight to discern what our first difficulty will be, support and provide their ships as by enchantment; while others, less provident, would exhaust a dockyard and still be in want." Of one he said: "He should never sail without a storeship in company;" while of Troubridge Nelson wrote that "he was as full of resources as his old 'Culloden' was of defects." A lieutenant of the day mentions feelingly the anxieties felt on dark nights and in heavy weather off the enemy's coast, "doubting this brace or that tack," upon which the safety of the ship might depend. The correspondence of Nelson often mentions this dearth of stores.
The condition of the two navies in these various respects being as described, their comparative strength in mere numbers is given by the British naval historian James, whose statement bears every mark of careful study and accuracy. After making every deduction, the British had one hundred and fifteen ships-of-the-line, and the French seventy-six, when war was declared. The number of guns carried by these ships was respectively 8718 and 6002; but the author claims that, in consequence of the heavier metal of the French guns, the aggregate weight of broadside, undoubtedly the fairest method of comparison, of the line-of-battle in the two navies was 88,957 pounds against 73,957—a preponderance of one sixth in favor of Great Britain. [58] This statement is explicitly accepted by the French admiral, La Gravière, [59] and does not differ materially from other French accounts of the numerical strength of that navy at the fall of the monarchy.
The navy of Spain then contained seventy-six ships-of-the-line, of which fifty-six were in good condition. [60] Particular and detailed accounts are wanting, but it may safely be inferred from many indications scattered along the paths of naval records that the valid strength fell very, very far below this imposing array of ships. The officers as a body were inexpert and ignorant; the administration of the dockyards partook of the general shiftlessness of the decaying kingdom; the crews contained few good seamen and were largely swept out of the streets, if not out of the jails. "The Spaniards at this time," says La Gravière, "were no longer substantial enemies. At the battle of St. Vincent there were scarcely sixty to eighty seamen in each ship-of-the-line. The rest of the crews were made up of men wholly new to the sea, picked up a few months before in the country or in the jails, and who, by the acknowledgment of even English historians, when ordered to go aloft, fell on their knees, crying that they would rather be killed on the spot than meet certain death in trying so perilous a service." [61]
"The Dons," wrote Nelson in 1793, after a visit to Cadiz, "may make fine ships—they cannot, however, make men. They have four first-rates in commission at Cadiz, and very fine ships, but shockingly manned. I am certain if our six barges' crews, who are picked men, had got on board of one of them, they would have taken her." "If the twenty-one ships-of-the-line which we are to join off Barcelona are no better manned than those at Cadiz, much service cannot be expected of them, although, as to ships, I never saw finer men-of-war." [62] A few weeks later he fell in with the twenty-one. "The Dons did not, after several hours' trial, form anything that could be called a line-of-battle ahead. However, the Spanish admiral sent down two frigates, acquainting Lord Hood that, as his fleet was sickly nineteen hundred men, he was going to Cartagena. The captain of the frigate said 'it was no wonder they were sickly for they had been sixty days at sea.' This speech appeared to us ridiculous, for, from the circumstance of our having been longer than that time at sea do we attribute our getting healthy. It has stamped with me the measure of their nautical abilities; long may they remain in their present state." [63] In 1795, when Spain had made peace with France, he wrote, "I know the French long since offered Spain peace for fourteen ships-of-the-line fully stored. I take for granted not manned, as that would be the readiest way to lose them again." "Their fleet is ill-manned and worse officered, I believe; and besides they are slow." "From the event of Spain making peace much may be looked for—perhaps a war with that country; if so, their fleet (if no better than when our allies) will be soon done for." [64]
Captain Jahleel Brenton, a distinguished British officer of that day, being in Cadiz on duty before the war, sought and obtained permission to return to England in a Spanish ship-of-the-line, the "St. Elmo," with the express object of seeing the system of their service. He says, "This ship had been selected as one in the best state of discipline in the Spanish navy to be sent to England. She was commanded by Don Lorenzo Goycochea, a gallant seaman who had commanded one of the junto ships destroyed before Gibraltar in 1782. I had, during this voyage, an opportunity of appreciating Spanish management at sea. When the ship was brought under double-reefed topsails, it was considered superfluous to lay the cloth for dinner; I was told by the captain that not one officer would be able to sit at table, all being sea-sick, but that he had ordered dinner to be got ready in his own cabin for himself and me. It was the custom in the Spanish navy for the captain and officers to mess together in the ward-room. We had thenceforth a very comfortable meal together whenever the weather prevented a general meeting. As the safe arrival of this ship was deemed of great importance (she carried the Nootka Sound indemnity money), she had on board an English pilot to enable her to approach the coast of England in safety. A few nights before our arrival at Falmouth, the ship, having whole sails and topping sails, was taken aback in a heavy squall from the north-east, and I was awoke by the English pilot knocking at my cabin door, calling out,'Mr. Brenton! Mr. Brenton! rouse out, sir; here is the ship running away with these Spaniards!' When I got on deck I found this literally the case. She was 'running away' at the rate of twelve knots, and everything in confusion; she was indeed, to use the ludicrous expression of a naval captain 'all adrift, like a French post-chaise.' It required some hours to get things to rights." [65]
Napoleon, in 1805, ordered Admiral Villeneuve to count two Spanish ships as equal to one French; and the latter certainly were not equal, ship for ship, to the British. It is only fair to add that he said of the Spanish crews, speaking of Calder's action, that they fought like lions.
Holland, first the ally and afterwards the enemy of Great Britain in the war, had forty-nine ships-of-the-line, but, owing to the shoalness of her waters, they were mostly of light burden; many would not have found a place in a British line-of-battle. The frigates were also of small force. The condition of the ships being, besides, bad, the Dutch navy was not an important factor on either side. [66]
Portugal and Naples had, the one six, the other four, ships-of-the-line, which, during the early years of the war, offered a respectable support to the British Mediterranean fleet; [66] but the advance of the French under Bonaparte into the two peninsulas reduced these States to neutrality before the end of the century.
The fleets of the Baltic powers and of Turkey played no part in the war which would, at this time, require a particular consideration of their strength.