Mackesy P. The War for America, 1775-1783
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been sent to Spain, they had not been properly issued to Cordoba's fleet. A week slipped away in translating signal
books and agreeing on orders; and d'Orvilliers foresaw that the unwieldy mass of ships would be too numerous and
inexperienced to manoeuvre well. On 30 July the Combined Fleet sailed for the Channel with only a month in
hand; but the wind off Ushant turned contrary, and ten more days were lost in doubling the cape. At last on 15
August the Lizard was sighted; and on the following day the armada was seen from Plymouth.1
2
The British Fleet
So England was faced, for the first and only time in the war, with what Keppel had wrongly feared in 1778: an
invasion across the Channel. Thirty-one thousand men were concentrated at St Malo and le Havre to seize the
Portsmouth area; and the Bourbon fleets were in the Channel to protect their crossing. At that moment the British
Channel Fleet was far to the westward and ignorant of the enemy's presence.
To trace the policies which laid the Channel open to the enemy, one must turn back to the opening of the Channel
fleet's operations at the beginning of June. It was maintained by Keppel that if Hardy had been sent south in pursuit
of the French he could have fought and beaten them before the Spaniards reached the rendezvous. But this
supposed that the Cabinet were certain of the enemy's intention, which they were not; and that they could guess
what delays would retard the Bourbon concentration. Hardy did in fact sail with orders, issued a couple of weeks
before the Spanish declaration, to prevent the enemy's junction. An additional instruction, so secret that he was to
issue no copies and inform only flag officers, authorised him to intercept any Spanish ships of the line which were
clearly bound for a French port.2
Thus at the outset of the second campaign the Admiralty felt strong enough to re-institute the blockade of Brest;
and if Hardy could have been off Ushant in time he might have put an end to the enemy's plan. But when his
orders were issued the fleet was still unready. Darby's squadron had been sent out to protect Arbuthnot and the
New York convoy; and at the beginning of June twelve ships left at Spithead lacked 1,400 men. On 4 June, a week
before Darby's return and long before the other ships had completed their crews, d'Orvilliers sailed from Brest.
The news that the enemy were out reached the Cabinet on 11 June. Sandwich sent off a messenger the same
evening to urge Hardy to sail. But Darby had only returned on the 10th and needed a few days to complete
1 Patterson, 5961, 1609.
2 Adm. 2/1336, ff. 23, 25
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his provisions. There was much criticism of the delay; and Keppel implied that the interception of the French fleet
should have had priority over the despatch of a convoy. But even when Darby returned, the rest of the fleet was
still short of men; and it seems clear that Hardy could in no circumstances have been off Ushant on 4 June to stop
d'Orvilliers.1 One other point may be made in defence of the Admiralty. The French had hustled out before they
were ready, and paid a heavy price for being first at sea; the British fleet sailed with healthy crews and adequate
provisions.
Hardy put to sea on 16 June with thirty sail of the line, leaving another half dozen nearly ready to follow him. He
cruised off Ushant for several days before he learnt for certain that the enemy were indeed away and had been
sighted by a neutral off Finisterre. His orders were to follow the French only if it would not expose the British
Isles, and otherwise to fall back and wait off the Lizard. There was no sense in crossing the Bay after an enemy
who in all probability had long since joined the Spaniards and left the rendezvous; and Hardy returned off the
Lizard for news and orders.
The position of Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet has often been an uncomfortable one. His was the only
command whose operations were subject to daily interference from London. Hardy was spared the wireless
communications with which the First Lord plagued Sir Charles Forbes in 1940; but his slow movements and long
spells in port exposed him to letters and visits from Sandwich. Like Keppel he was anxious for the protection of
specific orders; but this was not the form of Sandwich's directions as the Bourbon fleets approached.
Sandwich's attitude to Hardy must have been influenced by the manner of his appointment. The Keppel affair had
deprived the Channel fleet of its Commander-in-Chief and both its commanders of divisions. In Ross, Darby,
Digby and Thomas Graves the Admiralty found satisfactory substitutes for Palliser and Harland; but a
Commander-in-Chief was less easy to find. Many good officers felt that Keppel had been wronged, and would not
take his place. Howe was not even approached, and Mann pleaded poor health. On scanning the list of admirals the
King's eye fell on Sir Charles Hardy, Admiral of the White and Governor of Greenwich Hospital, who had offered
his services. Hardy was sixty-four, in poor health, and had not been to sea for twenty years. His recommendations
were an amiable temper and great seniority, which the government hoped might place him above faction; but to
introduce some competence he was compelled to take a seaman of the first order as his Flag Captain. Richard
Kempenfelt was an officer whose ability had somehow failed to bring him to the top of his profession.
1 Keppel, II, 334; Patterson, 105.
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He was only two years younger than Hardy, and diffident of the burden which he was to shoulder for the next two
years. But his merits were widely known. Middleton had wanted him for the Navy Board: 'Captain Kempenfelt is
not merely a sea officer, but a man of deep knowledge in most professions.'1
There was much to be said for the choice of Hardy, for a conciliator was needed at that moment. The navy's unity
had been torn to shreds by the court-martials, yet Sandwich could not surrender to the opposition and restore the
command to Keppel, whom he now feared and distrusted. And Lord Mulgrave reported from the fleet that Hardy
was diligent and much liked. But Kempenfelt saw him at closer quarters and was appalled. He found the
Commander-in-Chief to be a bad administrator, inaccessible to advice, and no leader. He took no forethought, and
did not know the important from the trivial. 'There is a fund of good nature in the man, but not one grain of the
Commander-in-Chief. . . . My God, what have you great people done by such an appointment.'2
Sandwich had been driven to appoint a Commander-in-Chief in whose ability it was difficult to have confidence.
His own nerve had been shaken by the Keppel affair; and in April he suffered a personal sorrow which
undermined him further. Martha Ray, the actress, was shot dead at Drury Lane.
Germain had lost his wife on the heels of Saratoga: Sandwich now lost his mistress. He had taken her from a
milliner's shop sixteen years earlier, when his mad wife had long since left him. She lived in his house, sang at his
parties, and bore him two sons. Even the puritan King pitied his loss. 'I am sorry Lord Sandwich has met with any
severe blow of a private nature', he wrote to him; ' . . . the world scarcely contains a man so void of feeling as not
to compassionate your situation.' Sandwich, 'robbed of all comfort in the world', found himself for a short time
unequal to his burdens. A week after the murder, Lord Bristol was due to introduce a motion against him in the
House of Lords; and Sandwich had to beg him for the sake of their former friendship to postpone the debate.
Bristol, whose days were numbered, used a touch of the gout as a convenient excuse to comply.3 This generous
action shed the only ray of warmth in the weeks which followed the courts-martial.
The effect of these successive blows was betrayed by Sandwich's increasing eagerness to shelter from
responsibility behind the Cabinet and the fleet commanders. When Spain entered the war, his colleagues had the
greatest difficulty in persuading him to press from exemptions without waiting
1 G 2209; Sandwich, III, 3, 43.
2 Sandwich, III 17; Barham, I, 293, 323.
3 Sandwich, II, 249, 2568; CL, Lacaita-Shelburne, I (12 April 1779).
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for an Act of Parliament, though the fleet at that moment was still undermanned. Even Lord North intervened
against delay, and promised the Cabinet's support in obtaining a bill of indemnity.1 With Hardy Sandwich's loss of
nerve led him to the calculated substitution of personal conversations and private letters for official instructions.
3
Suspense in the Channel
The intervention of Spain and the escape of the Brest fleet made Hardy's orders obsolete, and brought a new
sharpness of anxiety to the Admiralty's deliberations. He had scarcely sailed, in ignorance of the Spanish
declaration on that very day, when intelligence reached the Admiralty from the Consul at Cadiz that the Spanish
fleet was ready for sea. Coupled with the Spanish Ambassador's note, the news suggested an overwhelming
concentration against Hardy; and on 19 June instructions were drafted that if he found himself too weak to risk a
battle he should come up the Channel for orders.
At this the King protested. It was the eve of his address to the Cabinet; and the magnitude of the danger and his
ministers' disunity were propelling him into an unusually persistent course of advising on the operations of war. He
was convinced of the British fleet's superior quality and morale, and lamented that the draft left so little latitude to
Hardy. With such orders, he told Lord Weymouth, and in Hardy's situation, he would instantly return to Torbay. 'I
know the zeal and excellence of the fleet under his command; if its spirit is damped it may prevent its acting with
that vigour the occasion requires, over caution is the greatest evil we can fall into.' He suggested adding a few
words trusting that Hardy would not execute the instructions further than his own judgment made him think
absolutely necessary, and desired Lord Weymouth to show his letter to the Cabinet. The instructions went out
unaltered, but on 3 July an amendment was sent which followed closely the words the King had suggested.2
One may ask, as the fleet clears the Devon coast, how England could hope to hold off the great fleets which were
gathering against her. Thirty or forty ships of the line could scarcely face sixty-six in battle; and it may seem that
nothing but the enemy's mistakes could save the country. The enemy suffered indeed from sickness, shortages and
inexperience, and his weaknesses were guessed. But there were more positive grounds for hope. For d'Orvilliers
and Cordoba had been charged with one of the most difficult operations of war. To cover an invasion it was not
enough to possess the general command of the sea. They would have to exercise continuous local command of
1 G 2666, 26723; Sandwich, III, 26, 289.
2 Thynne Papers, XXXVIII, No. 55; Adm. 2/1336, ff. 30, 34.
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the invasion line over the whole period of the landings. If Hardy refused to fight, the unwieldly armada would have
to protect the transports in every wind against both the fast two-deckers of Hardy's fleet and the frigates which
were charged with their interception.
An active fleet in being might well make the passage too perilous to attempt. And Hardy had one revolutionary
asset. By July he had seven swift coppered two-deckers in his fleet. In the late summer of the previous year Keppel
had reported fourteen of his ships as foul beyond all hope of overhauling an enemy, though some of them had been
off the ground for less than a year, and another thirteen foul after only six or nine months out of dock. But when
Hardy faced the Bourbon fleets in 1779 the experiments of the past nine years were bearing fruit.
In 1770 the hulls of one or two frigates had been experimentally sheathed with copper plates to prevent the growth
of barnacles and the boring of the sea-worm. Success came with Middleton's introduction of a preservative to
prevent the copper from corroding the iron bolts which held the frames of ships of the line; and just when the
intervention of Spain put the British fleet at a hopeless numerical disadvantage, it became possible to increase its
real efficiency. 'Twenty-five sail of the line, coppered, will be sufficient to hazard and tease this great, unwieldly,
combined armada, so as to prevent their effecting anything.'1 So Kempenfelt was to write from the Channel in
September. England's technological victory was to have immense importance in the years to come.
The choice in the weeks which followed was between a position to the westward in the open sea, and one inside
the Channel; and to some extent this was also a choice between risking everything on a battle and frustrating the
enemy with an active fleet in being. The King was for fighting. Only the Ferrol squadron was known to have joined
the French, making an estimated thirty-nine ships of the line against the thirty-two which Hardy had collected by
the middle of July; and the King regarded these as fair odds which were unlikely to improve. Middleton, it is true,
did not share his optimism, for though seamanship and courage might be on the British side, the letters he was
receiving from Kempenfelt made him doubt whether they would enjoy the same pre-eminence in manoeuvring a
line of battle. Yet as Pye and Mulgrave pointed out, the larger the fleet the more difficult its manoeuvres, and the
enemy had the handicaps of divided nationality, unfamiliarity, and the low standard of manoeuvre of the Spaniards.
Mulgrave considered the British fleet to be equal to anything; and Captain Walsingham, whose leanings were
towards the Keppel faction, shared his confidence.
There was nevertheless much to be said for avoiding battle. The King
1 Barham, I, 297.
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with his taste for Providence might have remembered the flavit deus of the Armada medallion: 'God blew with his
winds and they were scattered.' The position of the British ports on a lee shore, so hampering when spring convoys
were imprisoned by the wind, could be the country's saving when an enemy was master of the Channel. The British
could safely keep the seas, knowing that they could find shelter from a south-wester and a retreat for ships
damaged in battle. For the French and Spaniards it was otherwise. In a westerly gale they would have no resource
but to run up the Channel as the Armada had run two centuries earlier; and a southerly wind might drive them on
to the English coast.
Yet till the enemy's plans were known it was not possible to retire inside the Channel and yield the western
position. Not only were convoys due from the Caribbean and India: Ireland was vulnerable, and could not be
covered by a fleet inside the Channel. Its defences were weaker even than England's, and its internal peace a
hundred times more precarious. There were fewer than 10,000 regular troops, and the regiments grew weaker daily,
as recruits were outnumbered by deserters whom the civil power refused to apprehend. Nor was their commander,
Sir John Irwin, highly regarded. But the King, with the Howe enquiry still on its last legs, refused to remove him
and disgrace an amiable man. He suggested instead the device already used in the Channel fleet, of putting in a
good subordinate to manage him.1
Irish discontent was aggravated by economic troubles. Linen exports to America had been blocked by the war, and
the price of black cattle had tumbled when the sale of provisions to the French was banned. Money flowed out to
pay the troops abroad and support the absentee landlords who fled from the country's poverty. These troubles made
the oppressive trade laws intolerable; and Protestant resentment at their economic fetters rivalled the Catholics'
hatred of their religious oppressors. The French and Spaniards were well aware of these troubles. Their agents were
in the country, and they had discussed an attack.2
For these reasons it was right that Hardy should remain to the westward. At the beginning of July he ran in to
Torbay before a westerly gale, learning for the first time that the country was at war with Spain, and was promptly
ordered to resume his station west of the Lizard as soon as the weather allowed. Whether he should give battle
there was still an open question. 'I sigh for an action', wrote the King, while Middleton urged the postponement of
the battle at least till six more ships which were nearly ready could join the fleet. Sandwich fell in with the King's
suggestion by writing a personal letter begging Hardy to get to the westward and meet the enemy before they had
time to collect their strength. But he emphasised that these were
1 G 2685, 2687.
2 See Patterson, 72 ff.
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his private views, and not instructions: the Commander-in-Chief must interpret his orders for himself.1
Hardy sailed again on 14 July; but by now the enemy's intentions were beginning to take shape. Intelligence from
the Norman and Breton coasts showed that the enemy was assembling his invasion shipping inside the Channel at
Le Havre and St Malo; and a few days after the fleet's departure reports reached Wentworth's intelligence bureau
from Holland and Paris which revealed the Cadiz fleet's intention to join d'Orvilliers, and the strength of the
Combined Fleet of the enemy as sixty-six of the line.2 If this was believed, everything pointed to an overwhelming
concentration in the Channel and an invasion of the south coast of England.
The invasion craft were the immediate care of frigate squadrons which the Admiralty had stationed on the flanks of
the invasion coast in the Downs and the Channel Islands. Supported by fifty-gun ships, they had been active for
some time, and as soon as the enemy transports' assembly points were known, the Jersey squadron had sailed to
scour the French coast. At that point Amherst had pressed the Prime Minister to attack the huddled transports, now
more vulnerable in their harbours than they might ever be again. His plan to bombard le Havre was examined and
turned down by Admiral Mann. But Rodney, who had bombarded the port in 1759, believed that it could be done;
and for the next two months his friend Germain pressed for the attempt to be made.3
Meanwhile Hardy had chosen a position thirty to sixty miles west-south-west of the Scillies, which he considered
the best station to protect the trade and meet the enemy if they tried to come up Channel. Its danger was that they
might slip past unseen into the mouth of the Channel, a risk which had to be balanced against the increasingly
unlikely threat to Ireland. In the light of the latest intelligence there was something to be said for a position inside
the Channel off Start Point, relying on the light forces to prevent the transports in St. Malo from slipping away
towards Ireland.
At the end of July there was a last opportunity to consider the fleet's position, for Hardy was blown up Channel
again by a gale. The chance was rejected. On the 28th an official letter from the Admiralty regretted that he had
been driven so far to the eastward, exposing the East and West India convoys and uncovering Ireland. There was
some anxiety that he might come into port, and the Admiralty promised him reinforcements and supplies at sea.
The same day Sandwich wrote again privately that his coming into port would arouse 'very extraordinary sensations
in this country'. At
1 Sandwich, III, 401, 43.
2 Sandwich, III, 47; G 2702, 2716; SP 78/306, intelligence of 9 July.
3 WO 34/230, p.407; Knox, 162; Sandwich, III, 31, 55.
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the same time he was fearful of blame for any misfortune which might result from keeping the fleet to the
westward. He emphasised that these were only his private opinions, and that Hardy must act in the light of his own
experience. 'Your enemies and mine are watching to take every advantage against us . . .'1
On the following day Sandwich was to find better cover in a Cabinet instruction, a form of protection to which he
increasingly resorted. The King had already canvassed North, Weymouth and Amherst; and on the morning of the
meeting he wrote to the First Lord strongly urging the modification of Hardy's old orders to come into port if he
were outnumbered. Most of the reinforcements had now joined the fleet, and there was not enough prospect of
additional ships to justify Hardy in delaying the battle, while retreat might damage the fleet's morale. He did not
mean that Hardy should be ordered to risk a battle at all events, but that he should be authorised to watch the
enemy and exploit an opening. He dreaded the disgrace and political confusion of a retreat into harbour. The
Cabinet meeting went as he hoped, and a more positive order went out to Hardy. In view of the threat to England,
Ireland and the convoys he was to go to the westward as far as he judged necessary to frustrate the enemy; nor was
he to quit his station while his provisions held out unless he were driven off it.2
The Leeward Island convoy was spoken on 30 July, and passed safely up the Channel. Germain, watching the naval
operations with sardonic detachment, hoped that by then Hardy had resumed his station; 'but I think we have more
reason to trust in Providence than in our Admirals'.3 Hardy was slowly working his way to the westward to resume
his station. In spite of the growing indications that the invasion would be inside the Channel, the King at least still
feared for Ireland; and his uneasiness was fed by a letter from the Bishop of Derry in Paris and an intercepted
Swedish despatch. He was aware that independence would be a powerful bait for the Irish.4
Whether Hardy should fight remained an open question. The King still doubted if the whole Spanish fleet was fit
to come north to the Channel, and preferred the alternative (and not ill-conceived) theory that it was bound for
Gibraltar. Even if he were wrong he still wished for a battle. 'I may appear strange, but I undoubtedly wish for the
action and feel a confidence in the success that never attended any other event.'5 Yet Hardy's orders by no
1 Adm. 2/1333, f. 64; Sandwich, II, 49, 55.
2 G 27223; Adm. 2/1336, f. 46.
3 Knox, 160.
4 G 2726, 2728.
5 G 27179; Sandwich, III, 49.
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means made clear what he was intended to do. He regarded himself as confined to a defensive station, and his
Secretary was writing to urge that he should have positive orders to seek the enemy. Mulgrave wrote from the fleet
that he regarded the present position as the best one to cover both Kingdoms and the convoys; but if the fleet was
intended to seek the enemy Hardy should have explicit orders from the highest quarters, since nothing less would
justify him in leaving the country exposed. These views had not reached London when the Cabinet agreed that if
Hardy had any reason to think the enemy intended to avoid an engagement by returning to Brest, he should be free
to leave his station and prevent their retreat by battle. This order was sent on 14 August, without delaying to refer
the decision to the King. Sandwich excused his haste, 'being unwilling to lose any time, and knowing that your
Majesty would not withhold your sanction from any measure that is likely to add to the probability of bringing the
fleets to action'.1
The Ministry was still acting on the presumption that the odds would be fifty ships of the line against thirty-nine.
Mulgrave had supposed that as soon as the Indiamen were safe home Hardy's mission would be to guard the
Channel, since all the enemy's preparations seemed to be against England. But on this point no instructions were
sent. And soon none were needed. For as the Marlborough made her way down Channel on the 15th to join Hardy,
she sighted sixty-three enemy ships in the chops of the Channel. Her First Lieutenant was put on board a sloop
which ran in to Plymouth; and twenty hours later he was hammering on Sandwich's door at Blackheath.2
The First Lord sent off a messenger at once to the Admiralty with orders to summon North, Weymouth and
Amherst to London; and expresses dashed off with warnings to the Admirals at Portsmouth and the Downs. By
then the enemy fleets were far inside Hardy's position, riding unchallenged off Plymouth Sound.3
4
The Plymouth Panic
The worst had happened. For the first time in ninety years an enemy fleet was in possession of the Channel, and
the safety of the Kingdom apparently
1 Sandwich, III, 568; G 2741.
2 Patterson, 181.
3 G 2742, 2747. The Opposition made much of the Ministers' absence at their country houses for the summer.
But they were conforming to custom a custom which had surprised the French Embassy before the war
(Doniol, I, 216, 583 n.). Shelburne's Cabinet continued the practice (see below, p. 482); and in 1799 Pitt's
colleagues marked the imminent departure of the hastily gathered expedition to Holland by scattering to their
country retreats.
19
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rested on the army. Since Saratoga new regiments and a general augmentation of establishments had brought the
home forces up to a more respectable strength. There were about 21,000 regular cavalry and infantry of all ranks in
England, backed by 30,000 militia. Amherst had begun to encamp his regulars in May; and on the Spanish
declaration tents were ordered to enable the militia regiments which were not on coast duty to take the field.
In making his dispositions Amherst faced the inevitable dilemma of a commander preparing to meet an invasion:
the choice between dispersing his force to hold the beaches and keeping them together for a counter-stroke. His
solution was concentration and his dispositions much as they had been in 1778. A screen of dragoons patrolled the
coast of Kent and Sussex, while the striking force lay back round London: the infantry of the line and militia
astride the Thames in Kent and Essex, with the cavalry of the northern force at Colchester; the Household Cavalry
and Foot Guards in the capital from which they could move out on either side of the river. This left very little to
defend the coast. A battalion thrown forward to Rye and a cavalry regiment at Chichester would impose some
delay where landings were most likely; and the naval bases of Portsmouth, Plymouth and Chatham had garrisons
and encampments to meet the first onslaught. But beyond Plymouth the coast was almost naked, and Cornwall had
only a single regiment of militia.1
These arrangements were bound to cause alarm; and it was not confined to country gentlemen whose local beaches
were undefended, but extended to the highest quarters. Lord North harried the Commander-in-Chief to strengthen
Plymouth and Portsmouth, and even to shift the whole weight of his force to cover London against a landing in
Sussex. When the enemy appeared off the coast Sandwich wanted Torbay to be fortified; and later, when Hardy
came up the Channel and left the south-west uncovered, North agitated for troops to be moved to the west. But
some militia regiments had already gone down to the west, and unlike Hardy in the Channel the Commander-in-
Chief of the Army was free to post his forces as he pleased. Throughout the summer he steadfastly refused to
weaken his masse de manoeuvre. Till the enemy committed his forces, the most critical areas were Kent, Sussex
and East Anglia, and the place for the counter-offensive reserve was in the London area. His patrolling dragoons
would report a landing immediately, and the army would have to use its mobility to intercept the enemy as he
pushed for the capital. To deal with the first impact of a landing at Portsmouth or further west the cavalry south of
the Thames were posted at Salisbury; and in August a gentleman was organising a loan of horses to move the
infantry rapidly from their camps round London at a
1 WO 34/112, and CL, Lord North's return books.
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