Types of Naval Officers Part 14

The French expedition against Ireland sailed from Brest on the 16th of December, 1796. Having sent off successively each of his consorts with information for the fleet, Pellew remained with his own s.h.i.+p alone, the _Indefatigable_, at the moment of the final start. There are two princ.i.p.al channels by which Brest can be left, one leading to the south, the other due west. The French admiral had at first intended to use the former; but, the wind showing signs of an unfavorable s.h.i.+ft, he endeavored to change the orders just as night was falling. The weather being hazy, his signals were understood by but few of the forty-odd vessels composing the force. Eight or ten joined him; the remainder followed the original instructions and went out by the south. Pellew attached himself to the admiral's division, kept along with it just out of gun-shot, and by making false signals, burning blue lights and sending up rockets, introduced into the attempts to convey the wishes of the commander-in-chief such confusion as rendered them utterly futile.

Having satisfied himself as to the general direction taken by the enemy, he left them, and made all sail for Falmouth, where he arrived on the 20th.

The general fortunes of the expedition do not belong to the present story. Suffice it to say that the greater part reached Ireland safely, but through stress of weather was unable to land the troops, and went back to France by detachments, in January, 1797. It is during this process of return that Sir Edward Pellew again appears, in perhaps the most dramatic incident of his stirring career.

On the afternoon of January 13th, being then in company with the frigate _Amazon_, and about one hundred and twenty miles west of Brest, a French s.h.i.+p-of-the-line was discovered. The stranger, named the _Droits de l'Homme_, was returning from Ireland, and heading east. The frigates steered courses converging towards hers, seeking to cut her off from the land. The weather was thick and gloomy, with a strong west wind fast rising to a gale. At half-past four, as night was falling, the French s.h.i.+p carried away her fore and main topmasts in a heavy squall; and an hour later the _Indefatigable_, now under close reefs, pa.s.sed across her stern, pouring in a broadside from so near that the French flag floated across her p.o.o.p, where it was seized and torn away by some of the British seamen. The enemy, having on board nearly a thousand soldiers besides her crew, replied with rapid volleys of musketry, and, as the frigate pa.s.sed ahead, sheered impetuously towards her, attempting to board, and in her turn grazing the stern of the _Indefatigable_. In another hour the _Amazon_ drew up, and then the British vessels took their positions, one on either bow of the _Droits de l'Homme_, whence, by movements of the helm, they alternately raked her. The labor of the gunners, however, was arduous, due to the deep rolling of the s.h.i.+ps, on board which, also, the seas poured in volumes through the gun-ports. On the main decks the men fought up to their middles in water, the heavy cannon broke away from the breechings, or ropes used to control them, and even iron bolts tore out from the s.h.i.+ps' sides under the severe recoil of the guns. Thus through the long winter night the three s.h.i.+ps rushed headlong before the gale towards the French coast, intent on mutual destruction; the constant storm of shot, though flying wild under the violent motions of the vessels, tearing through spars and rigging, and crippling them in much that was essential to their safety.

At four o'clock in the morning of the 14th, long before daybreak, land was sighted right ahead. The _Indefatigable_ hauled at once to the southward, the _Amazon_ to the northward; the enemy alone, seemingly unconscious of the danger, kept on, and as she pa.s.sed Pellew's s.h.i.+p fired a broadside which severely wounded all the masts. The situation of the combatants was well-nigh desperate. They had reached the coast of France at a point where it forms a deep recess, called Audierne Bay, from either side of which project capes that must be cleared in order to gain once more the open sea. One only of the three escaped. The _Droits de l'Homme_, unmanageable for want of sail power, tried to anchor, but drove, and struck on a shoal some distance from the beach. Of sixteen hundred souls on board when the battle began, over one hundred had been killed; and of those who survived the fight three hundred perished in the wreck. The _Amazon_, likewise crippled, though not so badly, had gone ash.o.r.e to the northward only ten minutes after she ceased firing.

Of her people, but six were drowned. The _Indefatigable_, beating back and forth against the gale before the scene of the French disaster, upon which her crew gazed with the solemn feeling that such might soon be their own fate, succeeded at last in clearing the southern cape. At eleven o'clock, nearly twenty-four hours after first meeting the foe, and with six feet of water in her hold, she pa.s.sed only three-quarters of a mile outside of the Penmarcks, a rocky promontory thirty miles south of Brest.

This remarkable encounter is said to have suggested to Marryat the vivid sea picture with which "The King's Own" ends. Pellew's unusual personal endurance was signally ill.u.s.trated on the same day, very shortly after the safety of the s.h.i.+p from wreck was a.s.sured. Her princ.i.p.al sails had been so torn by shot as to require immediate renewing, and this had scarcely been done when two vessels were sighted, one of which was for the moment supposed to be the _Amazon_, whose fate was yet unknown.

Pellew gave orders to chase, but his officers represented to him that, whatever he himself was capable of, the s.h.i.+p's company was too exhausted for present further exertion; and that, besides, the ammunition was very short, almost the last filled cartridge having been expended. Under these circ.u.mstances he was compelled to desist.

The interest of Pellew's career centres mainly in his command of frigates. This independent but yet restricted sphere afforded the fullest scope for a conspicuous display of those splendid qualities--fearlessness, enterprise, sound judgment, instant decision, and superb seamans.h.i.+p--which he so eminently possessed. He was, above all, the frigate captain. "Nothing like hesitation was ever seen in him.

His first order was always his last; and he often declared of himself that he never had a second thought worth sixpence." In 1799, by a new Admiralty rule, he was transferred to the _Impetueux_, a s.h.i.+p-of-the-line, and thenceforth served in that cla.s.s of vessel until his promotion to admiral.

As a general officer, Pellew had no opportunity to show whether he possessed ability of the highest order. For five years he held the command in India; and soon after Collingwood's death he was, in 1811, appointed commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean. On both stations he evinced that faculty for careful organization, systematic preparation, and sagacious distribution of force which carries success up to the point which administrative capacity can reach. His ability in planning, while yet a subordinate in command of squadrons, had been recognized by St. Vincent during his management of the Brest blockade. "The disposition made by Sir Edward Pellew for the descent on a certain point is the most masterly I have ever seen.... Although the naval command in Quiberon may appear too important for a captain, I shall not divest him of it, unless I am ordered to do so; feeling a thorough conviction that no man in His Majesty's Navy, be his rank ever so high, will fill it so well." At the time this was written, June, 1800, he had seven s.h.i.+ps-of-the-line under his orders. After the Peace of Amiens, when war again began in 1803, he commanded a similar division watching the Spanish port of Ferrol, in which, although formally neutral, a French division lay at anchor; and in discharge of this duty, both as a seaman and an administrator, he again justified the eulogium of the old Earl, now at the head of the navy as First Lord.

In 1804 he was promoted Rear-Admiral, and soon afterwards a.s.signed to the East India Station, which he held from 1805 to 1809. Here no naval actions on the great scale were to be fought, but under his systematic organization of convoys and cruisers for the protection of commerce the insurance premium--the war risk--on the most exposed routes fell markedly,--for the port of Bombay fifty per cent less than at any former period of hostilities; while the losses by capture, when the merchants observed his instructions, amounted to but one per cent on the property insured, which was less than those caused by the dangers of the sea, and considerably less, also, than the average war losses in other parts of the world. All this shows great ability, carefully utilized in diligent preparation and efficient precaution; and the same characteristics are to be observed in his administration of the Mediterranean command, of wider scope and more purely military importance. Nevertheless, it gives no sure proof of the particular genius of a great captain. Whether, having forged his weapon, Pellew could also wield it; whether, having carefully sowed, he could also reap the harvest by large combinations on the battle-field, must remain uncertain, at least until probable demonstration of his conceptions is drawn from his papers. Nothing is as yet adduced to warrant positive inference.

Pellew's Mediterranean command coincided in time with the period of Napoleon's falling fortunes. After Trafalgar, the Emperor decided to increase his navy largely, but to keep it in port instead of at sea, forcing Great Britain also to maintain huge fleets, the expense of which, concurring with the commercial embarra.s.sments that he sought to bring upon her, might exhaust her power to continue the war. In consequence of this policy, British military achievement on the grand scale was confined to the army in the Spanish peninsula; and in the bestowal of rewards, after Napoleon's first abdication, but one peerage was given to the navy. The great claims of Sir James Saumarez, who was the senior of the two, were disregarded on the ground that his flag was not flying at the moment, and Pellew was created Baron Exmouth.

During the process of settlement which succeeded the final fall of Napoleon at Waterloo, Lord Exmouth remained in the Mediterranean. In the early part of 1816 he was ordered to visit with his fleet the Barbary ports, and to compel the unconditional release of all slaves who were natives of the Ionian Islands; they having become subjects of Great Britain by the terms of the peace. For many years, while the powers of Europe were engrossed in the tremendous strife of the French Revolution, these piratical states, under pretence of regular hostilities, had preyed upon the coasts as well as upon the commerce of the weak Mediterranean countries, and captives taken by them were kept in bitter slavery. Nelson in his correspondence, in 1796, mentions a curious incident which sufficiently characterizes the general motives and policy of these barbarian Courts. He asked an Algerine official visiting his s.h.i.+p, why the Dey would not make peace with Genoa and Naples, for they would pay well for immunity, as the United States also at that time did. The reply was, "If we make peace with every one, what is the Dey to do with his s.h.i.+ps?" In his later experience with the Mediterranean the great admiral realized yet more forcibly the crying shame of Great Britain's acquiescence. "My blood boils that I cannot chastise these pirates. They could not show themselves in this sea did not our country permit. Never let us talk of the cruelty of the African slave trade, while we permit such a horrid war." The United States alone, although then among the least of naval powers, had taken arms before 1805 to repress outrages that were the common reproach of all civilized nations,--a measure the success of which went far to establish the character of her navy and prepare it for 1812. Lord Exmouth was also directed to demand peace for Sardinia, as well as for any other state that should authorize him to act for it. Only Naples availed itself of this opportunity.

As far as his instructions went, his mission was successful, and, by a happy accident, he was able at Tunis and Tripoli to extort further from the rulers a promise that thereafter captives should be treated as in civilized countries; in other words, that they should no longer be reduced to slavery. Algiers refused this concession; and the admiral could not take steps to enforce it, because beyond his commission. The Dey, however, undertook to consult the Porte; and the fleet, with a few exceptions, returned to England, where it arrived towards the end of June.

Meanwhile British public feeling had become aroused; for men were saying that the outrages of the past had been rather welcome to the commercial selfishness of the country. The well-protected traders of Great Britain, s.h.i.+elded by her omnipotent navy, had profited by crimes which drove their weaker rivals from the sea. Just then news came that at the port of Bona, on the Algiers coast, where there was under the British flag an establishment for carrying on the coral fishery, a large number of the fishermen, mostly Italians, had been wantonly slaughtered by a band of Turkish troops. To insist, arms in hand, upon reparation for such an outrage, and upon guarantees for the future, would doubtless be condemned by some of our recent lights; but such was not then the temper of Great Britain. The government determined at once to send a fleet to the spot, and Lord Exmouth was chosen for the command, with such a force as he himself should designate. The gist of his instructions was to demand the release, without ransom, of _all_ Christian slaves, and a solemn declaration from the Dey that, in future wars, prisoners should receive the usage accorded them by European states. Great Britain thus made herself, as befitted the obligation imposed by her supreme maritime power, the avenger of all those oppressed by these scourges of the sea.

The times of the barbarians were fulfilled.

During a long career of successful piracy, the port of Algiers had acc.u.mulated an extensive and powerful system of defences. These had doubtless suffered in condition from the nonchalant fatalism of Turkish rule, encouraged by a long period of impunity; but they const.i.tuted still, and under all the shortcomings of the defenders, a most imposing menace to an attacking fleet. To convey a precise impression of them by detailed verbal description would be difficult, and the attempt probably confusing. It may be said, in brief, that the town faces easterly, rising abruptly up a steep hill; that from its front there then projected a pier, nearly a thousand feet long, at whose end was a circular fort, carrying seventy guns in three tiers; from that point a mole extended at right angles to the southward,--parallel, that is, in a general sense, to the town front, but curving inward through the southern half of its length, so as better to embrace and shelter the vessels inside. This mole was somewhat over a thousand feet in length, and had throughout two tiers of guns, linked at their northern extremity to the circular fort at the pier end. These princ.i.p.al works were flanked and covered, at either end and on the hillside, by others which it is unnecessary to particularize. The total number of guns bearing seaward numbered near three hundred, of very respectable size for that day. The basin formed by the pier and the mole const.i.tuted the port proper, and in it, at the time of the attack, was collected the entire Algerine navy, nine frigates and corvettes and thirty-seven gunboats, the paltry force that had so long terrorized the Mediterranean.

In prevision of his present enterprise, Lord Exmouth before leaving the Mediterranean had despatched a light cruiser to Algiers, on a casual visit similar to those continually made by s.h.i.+ps of war to foreign ports. Her commander, Captain Charles Warde, received from him very precise and most secret instructions to examine closely into the defences and soundings; to do which it was necessary not only to observe every precaution of seeming indifference,--even to the extent of appearing engrossed with social duties,--but also to conduct under this cover measurements and observations of at least approximate correctness.

This duty was performed with singular diligence and success, with the double result of revealing the hopeless inaccuracy of existing charts and of placing in Exmouth's hands a working plan of the ground, perfectly trustworthy for his tactical dispositions.

As before remarked, in the sketch of Lord St. Vincent, the defence and attack of seaports, involving as they do both occupation of permanent positions and the action of mobile bodies, are tactical questions. They differ much, though not radically, from operations in the open sea, or in the field, where positions may be taken incidentally, but where the movements of mobile bodies are the princ.i.p.al factor. In this way, though without using the word tactical, Exmouth treated the problem before him.

Furnished, thanks to his own foresight and Warde's efficiency, with reliable information concerning the preparations of the enemy, he calculated the dispositions necessary to meet them and to crush their fire. Having a.s.signed to the hostile works, severally and collectively, the force needed to overbear them, and having arranged the anchoring positions for the vessels of his command with reference to the especial task of each, as well as for mutual support, he had substantially his plan of battle, afterwards communicated to the fleet before going into action; and the same data afforded the foundation for his statement to the Government of the number and character of s.h.i.+ps needed for success.

To the surprise of the Admiralty, Lord Exmouth asked for but five s.h.i.+ps-of-the-line, five frigates, and five smaller vessels, to which were added four mortar boats to play upon the town and a.r.s.enal. When met with expressions of doubt, he replied, "I am satisfied, and take the responsibility entirely upon myself." To satisfy the hesitancy of the Government, he left with the Secretary to the Admiralty a written statement that his every requirement had been fulfilled, and that to him alone, therefore, would failure from deficient power be attributable. On the eve of departure he said to his brother Israel, "If they open fire when the s.h.i.+ps are coming up, and cripple them in their masts, the difficulty and loss will be greater; but if they allow us to take our stations, I am sure of them, for I know that nothing can resist a line-of-battle s.h.i.+p's fire." He trusted to the extreme care of his preparations, which neglected no particular of equipment or organization, elaborating every detail of training and discipline, and providing, by the most diligent foresight and minute instruction, that each officer concerned should know exactly what was expected of him. In short, it was to perfection of quality, and not to an unwieldy bulk of superfluous quant.i.ty, that Exmouth confided his fortunes in this last hazard.

The fleet sailed from England on the 28th of July, 1816, was joined at Gibraltar by a Dutch squadron of five frigates, whose commander asked to share the coming contest, and on the 26th of August was off the north point of Algiers Bay, some twenty miles from the town. At daybreak the next morning, the weather being almost calm, a flag of truce was sent in, bearing the British demands. During its absence a breeze from the sea sprang up, and the fleet stood in to a mile from the works, where it stopped to await the reply. At two P.M. the boat was seen returning, with the signal that no answer had been given. The flag-s.h.i.+p queried, "Are you ready?" Each s.h.i.+p at once replied, "Yes;" and all filling away together stood down to the attack, the admiral leading.

The Algerine batteries were fully manned; the mole, moreover, was crowded with troops. With singular temerity, they fired no gun as the s.h.i.+ps came on, thus relieving the most anxious of Exmouth's preoccupations concerning the difficulties before him; fearing, seemingly, that, if otherwise received, the prey might turn and escape.

The British, on their side, observed the utmost silence; not a gun, not a cheer, marred the solemn impression of the approach. The flag-s.h.i.+p, _Queen Charlotte_,[16] piloted by an officer who had served continuously with Exmouth since 1793, anch.o.r.ed by the stern across the mole head, at a distance of fifty yards, her starboard batteries pointing to sweep it from end to end. Still no sound of battle, as she proceeded to lash her bows to those of an Algerine brig lying just within the mole. This done, her crew gave three cheers, as well they might. Then the stolid, unaccountable apathy of the barbarians ceased, and three guns in quick succession were fired from the eastern battery. Stirred by a movement of compa.s.sion, Lord Exmouth, from the flag-s.h.i.+p's p.o.o.p, seeing the Moorish soldiery cl.u.s.tered thick upon the parapets to watch the s.h.i.+ps, waved to them with his hand to get down. At the first hostile gun he gave the order "Stand by!" at the second, "Fire!" and simultaneously with the third the _Queen Charlotte's_ broadside rang out, and the battle began.

The other vessels of the squadron were not all as successful as the flag-s.h.i.+p in taking the exact position a.s.signed, and the admiral's plan thereby suffered some of that derangement to which every undertaking, especially military and naval, is liable. This, however, produced no effect upon the general result, except by increasing somewhat the lists of killed and wounded, through loss of advantageous offensive position, with consequent defect in mutual support. But the first broadside is proverbially half the battle. It was a saying of Collingwood to his crew, in a three-decker like the _Queen Charlotte_, that if they could deliver three effective fires in the first five minutes no vessel could resist them; and this was yet more certain when opposed to the semi-discipline of adversaries such as the Algerine pirates. Exmouth's general design was to concentrate his heavy s.h.i.+ps at the southern end of the mole, whence the curve in the line of batteries would enable them to enfilade or take in reverse the works at the northern extremity. Here were to be the two three-deckers, with a seventy-four between them, all three in close order, stem to stern. The two-decker, however, anch.o.r.ed some seven hundred feet astern of the _Queen Charlotte_, the intervening s.p.a.ce being left empty until filled by a thirty-six-gun frigate, upon whose captain St. Vincent pa.s.sed the eulogium, "He seems to have felt Lord Nelson's eye upon him." The two remaining seventy-fours placed themselves successively close astern of the first, which was in accord with the original purpose, while the other three-decker took the right flank of the line, and somewhat too far out; in which exposed and unintended position, beyond the extreme north point contemplated for the British order, she underwent a very heavy loss.

In general summary, therefore, it may be said that the broadsides of the s.h.i.+ps-of-the-line were opposed from end to end to the heavy central batteries on the mole, while the lighter vessels engaged the flanking works on the sh.o.r.e to the southward, thus diverting the fire which would have hara.s.sed the chief a.s.sailants,--a service in which the Dutch squadron, composed entirely of frigates, rendered important a.s.sistance.

The bomb vessels from the rear threw their sh.e.l.ls over the fighting s.h.i.+ps into the town and a.r.s.enal, and in the admiral's report are credited with firing all the s.h.i.+pping in the harbor, except one frigate, creating a conflagration which spread over the a.r.s.enal and storehouses.

Soon after the contest opened, the thirty-seven Algerine gunboats, crowded with troops, were seen advancing under cover of the smoke to board the flag-s.h.i.+p. The attempt, rash to insanity, met the fate it should have expected; thirty-three were sent to the bottom by the guns of the _Leander_, stationed ahead of the _Queen Charlotte_, and commanding the entrance to the port. An hour later, Lord Exmouth determined to set fire to the remaining frigate. The service was performed by an officer and boat's crew, with a steadiness which elicited from him such admiration that, on the return of the party, he stopped the working of the s.h.i.+p's upper battery to give them three cheers. As the hostile vessel burned, she drifted so near the _Queen Charlotte_ as nearly to involve her in the same fate.

From three to ten P.M. the battle lasted, steady disciplined valor contending with a courage in no way inferior, absolutely insensible to danger, but devoid of that coherent, skilful direction which is to courage what the brain and eye are to the heart. "I never," wrote Exmouth to his brother, "saw any set of men more obstinate at their guns, and it was superior fire only that could keep them back. To be sure, nothing could stand before the _Queen Charlotte's_ broadside.

Everything fell before it, and the Swedish consul a.s.sures me we killed above five hundred at the very first fire, from the crowded way in which the troops were drawn up, four deep above the gunboats, which were also full of men. It was a glorious sight," he continues, "to see the _Charlotte_ take her anchorage, and to see her flag towering on high, when she appeared to be in the flames of the mole itself; and never was a s.h.i.+p nearer burnt; it almost scorched me off the p.o.o.p. We were obliged to haul in the ensign, or it would have caught fire." He was himself struck thrice, though not seriously injured. A cannon-ball carried away the skirts of his coat, and one gla.s.s of the spectacles in his pocket was broken, and the frame bulged, by a shot.

At ten P.M., the ammunition of the fleet running short, and its work being substantially accomplished, the s.h.i.+ps began to haul off. The sea defences and a great part of the town were in ruins. "To be again effective," wrote Exmouth, "the defences must be rebuilt from the foundation." The flanking batteries and the hill forts continued to annoy the vessels as they retired, but the spirit of the Dey was broken.

Towards eleven a light air from the land sprang up, which freshened into a violent and prolonged thunderstorm, lasting for three hours; and the flashes of heaven's artillery combined with the glare of the burning town to illuminate the withdrawal of the s.h.i.+ps.

The following morning the Dey signified his submission, and on the 30th of August Lord Exmouth made known to the fleet that all the terms of Great Britain had been yielded; that Christian slavery was forever abolished, and that by noon of the following day all slaves then in Algiers would be delivered to his flag. This was accordingly done, the whole number amounting to 1642; which, with those previously released at Tunis and Tripoli, raised to 3003 the human beings whom Exmouth had been the instrument of freeing from a fate worse than death. Of this total, but eighteen were English; the remainder were almost wholly from the Mediterranean countries. On the 3d of September, just one week after the attack, the fleet sailed for England.

Profuse acknowledgment necessarily awaited the hero of a deed in which national exultation so happily blended with the sentiment of pity for the oppressed. The admiral was raised to the next rank in the peerage, and honors poured in upon him from every side,--from abroad as well as from his own countrymen. His personal sense of the privilege permitted him, thus to crown a life of strenuous exertion by a martial deed of far-reaching beneficence, was a reward pa.s.sing all others. In the opening words of his official report he voices his thankfulness: "In all the vicissitudes of a long life of public service, no circ.u.mstance has ever produced on my mind such impressions of grat.i.tude and joy as the event of yesterday. To have been one of the humble instruments in the hands of Divine Providence for bringing to reason a ferocious Government, and destroying for ever the horrid system of Christian slavery, can never cease to be a source of delight and heartfelt comfort to every individual happy enough to be employed in it."

Here Lord Exmouth's career closes. Just forty years had elapsed since as a youth he had fought the _Carleton_ on Lake Champlain, and he was yet to live sixteen in honored retreat; bearing, however, the burden of those whose occupation is withdrawn at an age too advanced to form new interests. Though in vigorous health and with ample fortune, "he would sometimes confess," says his biographer, "that he was happier amid his early difficulties." The idea of retirement, indeed, does not readily a.s.sociate itself with the impression of prodigious vitality, which from first to last is produced by the record of his varied activities. In this respect, as in others, the contrast is marked between him and Saumarez, the two who more particularly ill.u.s.trate the complementary sides of the brilliant group of naval leaders, in the second rank of distinction, which cl.u.s.tered around the great names of Nelson, Howe, and Jervis. In the old age of Saumarez, the even, ordered tenor of his active military life is reflected in the peaceful, satisfied enjoyment of repose and home happiness, of the fruits of labors past, which Collingwood, probably without good reason, fancied to be characteristic of his own temperament. Lord Exmouth, compelled to be a pa.s.sive spectator, saw with consequent increased apprehension the internal political troubles of Great Britain in his later days. Though not a party man, he was strongly conservative, so that the agitations of the Reform era concealed from him the advantages towards which it was tending, and filled him with forebodings for the future of his country.

Like his distinguished contemporary, Admiral Saumarez, and like many others of those lion-hearted, masculine men who had pa.s.sed their lives amid the storms of the elements and of battle,--and like our own Farragut,--Lord Exmouth was a deeply religious man. Strong as was his self-reliance in war and tempest, he rested upon the Almighty with the dependence of a child upon its father. His n.o.ble brother, Sir Israel Pellew, who had followed Nelson into the fire at Trafalgar, departed with the words, "I know in Whom I have believed;" and of the admiral himself, an officer who was often with him during the closing scene said, "I have seen him great in battle, but never so great as on his deathbed."

Lord Exmouth died on January 23, 1833. He was at the time Vice-Admiral of England, that distinguished honorary rank having been conferred upon him but a few months before his death.

Of the last four admirals whose careers have been here sketched, Howe alone inherited fortune and high social rank; but he also fought his way far beyond the modest position bequeathed to him by his brother.

Eminent all, though in varying manner and degree, each ill.u.s.trated a distinct type in the same n.o.ble profession. All were admirable officers, but they differed greatly in original endowments and consequent development. It was intuitive with St. Vincent to take wide and far-sighted views, and to embody them in sustained, relentless action.

Endued by nature with invincible energy and determination, he moved spontaneously and easily along his difficult path. He approached, although he did not attain genius. In Howe is seen rather the result of conscientious painstaking acting upon excellent abilities, but struggling always against a native heaviness and a temper const.i.tutionally both indolent and indulgent; a temper to which indeed he does not yield, over which he triumphs, but which nevertheless imposes itself upon his general course with all the force inseparable from hereditary disposition. A man of talent, he educates himself to acquirements which in his rival have the character of perception; and only under the spur of emergency does he rise to the height of greatness. Both were great general officers, a claim which can scarcely be advanced for Saumarez and Exmouth, able, brilliant, and devoted as they were. Saumarez was the steadfast, skilful, accomplished master of his profession, but one whose apt.i.tudes and tastes placed him in the great organization of the fleet, as a princ.i.p.al subordinate rather than as head. Exmouth was the typical, innate seaman, intensely active, whose instincts are those of the partisan warrior, and who s.h.i.+nes most in the freedom of detached service. All bore a conspicuous part in the greatest war of modern times, with honor such that their names will be remembered as long as naval history endures.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] Fleetwood Hugo Pellew, in "Our Naval Heroes."

[16] This _Queen Charlotte_ was the successor of the s.h.i.+p which carried Howe's flag on the First of June, and which had been destroyed by fire off Leghorn in 1800.

_Works by Captain A. T. Mahan_.

THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON HISTORY.

1660-1783.

THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EMPIRE. TWO vols.

THE LIFE OF NELSON, THE EMBODIMENT OF THE SEA POWER OF GREAT BRITAIN. TWO vols.

THE LIFE OF NELSON. _Popular edition_. One vol.

THE INTEREST OF AMERICA IN SEA POWER, PRESENT AND FUTURE.

LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH SPAIN, AND OTHER ARTICLES.

THE PROBLEM OF ASIA AND ITS EFFECT UPON INTERNATIONAL POLICIES.