Struggle for Sea Power : A Naval History of American Independence (9781782397403)

by Willis, Sam

  1779

  17

  SPANISH PATIENCE

  Long before war between Britain and Spain was officially declared, the spectre of Spanish involvement could be sensed throughout the British empire. It caused anxiety and bloodshed and directly affected the war.

  In the new year of 1779 a naval expedition was sent to British settlements in Spanish Honduras to reassure British subjects of naval protection and to recruit native allies. Indian canoe flotillas had already been fully integrated with British naval operations on Lakes Champlain and George,1 and the British intended to do the same in the western Caribbean if war with Spain erupted. With very limited resources available at the nearest British naval command in Jamaica, a young man of promise was needed for such a job, and Peter Parker, commander-in-chief at Jamaica, had just the man in his sights: Lieutenant Horatio Nelson. To fulfil this duty, Parker gave Nelson his first independent command, the brig HMS Badger, a captured American privateer.

  Nelson was ordered to sail to the Mosquito Coast of Spanish Guatemala, making land at the Black River settlement. On his way he would avoid large French and American predators and hunt small prey. In that forgotten British corner of the world he would fly the British flag and collect the king of a reportedly friendly native tribe, the Sandy Bay Samboes, who were descended from shipwrecked slaves. He would then bring the king of the Samboes back with him to Jamaica for talks with Parker.

  Nelson was only twenty-one and the war had landed this bizarre opportunity in his lap. One wonders how the Badger’s crew took to him – this slim, freckly, light-haired boy with a Norfolk burr, the very picture of British innocence – because this really was a miserable posting. The Badger wasn’t much of a ship. Brigs were notorious for being cramped and uncomfortable even in pleasant conditions, but the coast of Honduras in January was going to be about as tough as you could get – at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit with regular 70 per cent humidity. Everyone knew that such a climate led to fever. Then there was the coastal navigation to consider. One of the reasons that the Black River settlement was in its location was that it was difficult to approach from the sea, and hence was relatively secure from maritime attack. A British officer who visited the coast shortly after Nelson described the navigation around the area as ‘dangerous beyond description’.2 Then, of course, even if they made it ashore, the potentially hostile Spanish could be lurking around any or every corner.

  The voyage, however, was uneventful. Nelson struggled to keep his ship and his crew together, but no more or less than anyone in a similar situation. He and his sailors fought a constant battle against the elements. The ship rotted beneath them. Nonetheless, Nelson and the Badger returned to Jamaica with King George of the Samboes, demonstrating competence by avoiding the numerous pitfalls of this first command. Unfortunately for Nelson, however, this very demonstration of competence would nearly kill him: he was now the highest-ranking British naval officer with detailed recent knowledge of the Honduras coast, and John Dalling, the governor of Jamaica, had set his heart on an elaborate and unrealistic scheme to seize vast quantities of land and treasure from the Spanish in Central America. Nelson could now help him realize those plans.

  * * *

  Another area of British concern was New Orleans, a Spanish enclave since the end of the Seven Years’ War (1754–63), and the Mississippi River, which led north and provided navigable access deep into the American colonies. The Spaniards had long been ferrying key supplies to the rebels via this network. One of the most important but often overlooked items was money. The influx of Spanish specie via New Orleans became so extensive that, almost single-handedly, it had boosted the struggling Continental currency and become a commonplace means of exchange.3 The Spaniards, moreover, had opened New Orleans to American privateers and warships and their prizes early in 1777, and used the port as a base to launch spying operations on nearby British Pensacola, once a Spanish colony.4

  The British reciprocated with their own display of naval strength. They paraded off New Orleans and made increasingly frequent sorties up the Mississippi to protect British settlements and police the river. Those settlements were now horribly isolated. Rebel colonists, untrustworthy Spaniards and Choctaw Indians – who were allies of the Spanish – openly salivated at British vulnerability.5 The British in turn sought help from the Chickasaw and Creek Indians, but the backbone of British strength lay in the sea power they could wield on the river. That ‘strength’, however, was very limited indeed and an American by the name of James Willing decided to strike.

  A frustrated merchant with local knowledge, with a brother who had sat on the First Continental Congress, Willing proposed a raid down the Mississippi that was authorized by Congress.6 On 11 January 1778 he sailed from Fort Pitt on the Ohio River in Pennsylvania with twenty-eight men in a sloop, the USS Rattletrap. As they headed south, various banditti joined his gang, and once they entered the Mississippi, some Spanish officers even came to his flag. Willing and his men systematically plundered every British settlement they came to and captured every British ship. They then sailed all the way to New Orleans, where the governor, Bernardo de Gálvez, gave Willing’s men shelter in a public building and allowed them to dispose of their plunder at public auction. One Tory described this as ‘aiding, assisting, abeting, entertaining, succoring &c. the rebels’.7 Spanish and British warships closed in on New Orleans as the tension rose.

  The relationship between Gálvez and Willing, however, and through them the relationship between the Spanish and the Americans, was less clear-cut and far more interesting than this apparently black and white picture suggests. Willing’s raid is particularly important for what it tells us about the relationship between Britain and Spain in this period, because one of the British vessels that Willing captured was taken from a village well inside Spanish territory.8 Unsurprisingly, the British were furious with the Spanish for ‘allowing’ it to happen in theoretically neutral waters, but perhaps more surprisingly, the Spanish were furious with the Americans for barging into the carefully stage-managed relationship that then existed between Britain and Spain.

  The Spanish had long been committed to the war but, just like the French in 1778, were waiting until the time was exactly right to declare war, and they would not be pushed. An immensely delicate process, it was overseen by the talented conde de Floridablanca, the new Spanish minster of state who operated with precision under the guidance of the firm Spanish king Carlos III. Everything Floridablanca did was governed by patience and reason. He was a deeply impressive man and led the most efficient administration of any nation involved in this war. The governor of New Orleans, moreover, Bernardo de Gálvez, was equally level-headed and shrewd, and was certainly not going to let the Spanish masterplan be upset by the pesky Willing. Even when a British naval captain fired a shot into the city in the subsequent confrontation, Gálvez did not rise. In fact, he used the opportunity to publish a proclamation that laid down the strict rules of neutrality, and stated that Spain would continue to observe a ‘perfect’ neutrality.9

  The situation escalated in the subsequent weeks as more British ships arrived, but Gálvez kept his calm and did so with both humour and style. It was a stately display of Spanish self-control in a city that was a boiling pot of tension, where loyalists and rebels ‘hate[d] each other to an Excess’.10 It was also a clear announcement that Gálvez was aware of the broader strategic issues and that he was willing to play the long game. A major player in the war had arrived and the British needed to stand up and take notice.

  * * *

  The Spanish had a strong hand to play; they knew it, the French knew it and the Americans knew it. More than that, however, many Americans saw not only hope in the entry of Spain into the war but even a guarantee of victory. The wild expectation that had characterized the American assessment of French involvement in 1778 simply transferred itself to Spanish involvement in 1779. In January 1779 Washington wrote to a Congressional committee arguing that

  [it]
is not only possible but probable the affairs in Europe may take a turn which will compel [Britain] to abandon America. The interpositions of Spain and the union of her maritime force to that of France would probably have this effect.11

  He also admitted that the ‘doubts’ he had concerning the success of the revolution would ‘all subside’ if the Spanish ‘would but join their fleets to France’.12

  Everyone could see that the numbers made sense: if Spain, with fifty-eight ships of the line, allied with France, which had sixty-three, then they would have far more warships than the British, who had ninety. Somewhere, surely, they could make that difference count.

  Before the Spanish could declare war, however, they needed several things to fall into place. The most important of these was for the French to agree to Spanish terms – it was, in effect, the price for their alliance, and the price was high. Above all the Spanish wanted Gibraltar back. The British had taken that rock and its anchorage at the mouth of the Mediterranean with barely a fight in 1704. Since then it had become a strategic key to the British maritime empire. The British presence there was like a splinter deep in the Spanish heel, and the British stubbornly refused to return it in the diplomatic dance that preceded Spanish intervention in the war. This was a key moment. D’Estaing’s failure to achieve anything in America in 1778 had demonstrated the weakness of French sea power, and here the British had a clear diplomatic opportunity to keep Spain out of the war, which would have allowed them to squeeze the French at sea and dominate them utterly through blockade.

  The Spanish also wanted Minorca back. A tiny island blessed with the finest harbour in the western Mediterranean, Minorca was only 100 miles from Barcelona, 200 from Valencia, a similar distance from the French naval base at Toulon and less than 200 miles from Sardinia. The perfect naval base from which to control the western Mediterranean, it also was in British hands.

  The remaining demands were subsidiary, but they included clearing the British from East and West Florida. There was a clear link between these war aims and the Spanish crown: Florida, Gibraltar and Minorca had all been lost to Britain since the advent of the Bourbon dynasty in 1700. Further aims were the recovery of the coast of Honduras, a contested zone since the 1660s, and the island of Jamaica, captured from the Spanish in 1655. American independence was never a specific Spanish war aim but it was a significant part of their commitment because Spain agreed not to make peace with Britain without French consent, and France could not achieve peace until England recognized American independence. The Spanish would therefore ally with France and not with America, and Spain would never deal directly with American diplomats, but the American cause was still central to Spanish policy.13

  The demands were enormously high, regardless of how they were to be achieved, but the Spanish had a clear idea of how to go about it and that plan was even written into the Treaty of Aranjuez to stop the French from wriggling out of it.14 The plan was to invade England and to seize some territory, perhaps Plymouth or the Isle of Wight, and then to exchange it for Gibraltar. Such a move was specifically designed to force Britain’s hand by creating a financial panic: this was sea power used carefully and precisely to influence politics. It was a new strategy, Bourbon invasion plans in previous wars having relied upon invasion to promote mass uprisings that would lead to a change of monarchy.15 This new invasion plan depended entirely on the presence of the Spanish fleet, which, when added to the French, would in theory allow the allies to seize control of the Channel. Spain’s diplomacy therefore relied upon the theoretical existence of its sea power, but its ability to act rested on the quality of that sea power, and this was the final piece of the puzzle that governed Spain’s willingness to declare war.

  The French were trapped. Their failure to defeat the British in a single campaign in America now left them at the mercy of the Spanish. In 1778 British mobilization had finally kicked in and the weakness of French sea power when compared with Britain’s led to an almost total capitulation to these exorbitant Spanish demands.16

  The Spanish had been making diplomatic promises since August 1778, but it was not until the spring of 1779 that the Spanish fleets were manned, armed and victualled. Spanish sea power was funded by Spanish treasure, mined from the New World, and in 1778 there were insufficient reserves of money to pay for a naval mobilization. The Spanish fleet could not be prepared, therefore, until the 1778 treasure ships arrived home. Expected in the summer of 1778, their failure to appear by the end of June had been deeply alarming, but they soon staggered in, the last arriving on 18 September from Vera Cruz, Lima and Havana. If the British had been able to intercept or even blockade any of these treasure fleets, the war would have taken an altogether different path. But they did not, and by April 1779 the money had been spent and the ships had been manned, supplied and loaded.17

  The Spanish were finally ready to make their play, and on 12 April they signed their alliance with France in the exquisite Royal Palace of Aranjuez, a royal site since the fifteenth century that had been favoured by Philip II in the 1560s and enlarged by Philip V in the early 1700s and then by Charles III, his son. In 1779, therefore, Aranjuez was a sumptuous symbol of Spanish authority and tradition. The Americans were instantly fired up by the news. Washington wrote to Lafayette: ‘The declaration of Spain in favour of France has given universal joy to every Whig while the poor Tory droops like a withering flower under a declining sun.’18 The French were also delighted. D’Estaing, then at Cap François on the northern shore of Saint-Dominigue, immediately threw a party.19

  The tangible threat of Spanish sea power also created a growing sense of inevitability and doom in Britain. Lord North, who had nearly suffered a breakdown when the French had allied with the Americans, again cracked. On 22 June 1779 he wept in the House of Commons.20 As he had done when France entered the war, North again tried to resign and, yet again, the king denied his request. Perfectly miserable, North wrote to his brother: ‘I am not my own master, I am tied to a stake and can’t stir.’21 All he could do was watch as the tide of Spanish sea power rose to his chin and drowned him.

  It is useful to see these developments as a chain linked by expectations of sea power. At the start of the revolution the Americans had needed help in the form of sea power, and they had expected success to be delivered on a plate by the French navy. They had been disappointed. Now the French needed help in the form of sea power, and they looked to the Spanish navy. But would they and the Americans now be disappointed too? The Spanish had a massive navy, bases in the Caribbean and boundless ambition. If they joined the war, the combined Franco-Spanish fleet would utterly dominate the British. Surely this would tip the scales. How could it not?

  18

  BOURBON INVASION

  It is helpful to think about the Franco-Spanish campaign to invade England in the summer of 1779 like this.

  The challenge was immense, perhaps even too immense for it ever to succeed. Two fleets of differing nationalities in three locations had to meet at sea in or around the notorious Bay of Biscay. The timing was crucial because the operation had a finite end: the storms of the autumnal equinox would probably destroy an operation of any complexity within sight of the English shore. Almost everything, however, conspired to upset the timing of that meeting.

  The fleets would come from Brest, Ferrol and Cádiz. The furthest points in that chain, Brest and Cádiz, are at least 1,000 miles away from each other by sea. The fact that the operation was planned for midsummer, when northerly winds hampered any voyage north from Cádiz, made that distance – significant in any case – even more of a challenge. Before they could leave the ships would have to be victualled and manned, a process that never worked according to strict deadlines, depending as it did on intricate relationships between a complex naval administration and a host of contractors. A moderate-sized warship would carry 1,000 tons of equipment and stores for a normal voyage, but the Cádiz fleet, burdened by the distance it would have to travel to and from the theatre of operat
ions, would need at least five months’ worth of supplies. Once purchased and prepared, how would the goods be transferred to the naval dockyards? Once there, how would they be stored? Once stored, how would they be loaded onto the fleet? Who would check the stores for quality? What should be done if the food or drink was found to be vile? The quantities in question were immense.

  Even before the Spanish and French fleets met, therefore, the fleet commanders were forced to answer a question that would affect future operational capability. What was more important? Meeting on a designated date, and perhaps sacrificing readiness in terms of men and supplies to be there on time, or making certain that the ships were fully operational at the expense of the envisaged timetable? This question was based firmly on the realities of sea power in the 1770s; in no way was it the product of fevered pessimism.

  To complicate matters still further, each of the three commanders would have to ask their own question, and their answers would be based on the conditions in their own dockyards. Each answer, therefore, would be determined by different conditions that were influenced both by the culture of the navy in question as well as by the unique logistical issues each dockyard faced. The problems in Ferrol, for example, would not be the same as the problems in Cádiz just because both dockyards were Spanish. Moreover, France and Spain may have shared a royal house but their navies were vastly different in terms of leadership, structure and administration. They worked in different ways and at different speeds. Their administrations also had different expectations. This was a massive problem in its own right, but to make matters worse the navies were at different stages in the war. The French were already strained from a year of operations. The Spanish, in contrast, had been preparing for war for two years or more.