by Tom Anderson
- Admiral Sir Brian Collingwood, Found Wanting? The Royal Navy, 1780-1810 (published in 1895)
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From: “The Third Platinean War” by Dr Thierry Gaston de Connarceux (1945 – English translation)—
The British fleet that fought in the Third Platinean War might be better termed an Anglo-American one given the makeup of its crews. The force was a hodgepodge thrown together from several fleets by the Admiral of the Fleet, Admiral Sir Humphry Pellew (who would die from a sudden illness months later, leading to Sausmarez taking his place). The bulk of the force was made up of the former American and Mediterranean Squadrons combined, while more minor flotillas were detached from the Home Fleet to take over their former duties – ultimately, of course, fatally weakening the remaining Home Fleet when the time came for Lisieux to launch his Great Crab.
There was a shortage of good commanders in the Royal Navy, the result of so many leaving the service after the rise of Fox as Prime Minister and the ensuing cutbacks. Consider the three British fleets that had participated in the Seigneur Offensive of 1799. Of their commanders, Admiral Duncan was dead and Commodores Nelson and Bone had both left for foreign service, Neapolitan and Royal French respectively. The overall commander of that force, Admiral Sir William Byng, was persuaded out of retirement to take command of the new fleet that would avenge the Cherry Massacre.
Byng was elderly but still had his wits about him. Scorning the stodgy conservatives who made up much of the Admiralty, he promoted two relatively young post-captains to commodore with the help of two of his old friends, who agreed to withdraw from the service to free up the places necessary on the list. These two were John “Black Jack” Harrison, known for the fierce loyalty he paradoxically commanded from his men despite his filthy temper and insistence upon iron discipline, and Christopher “Yankee Chris” Perry, only the second American-born officer to achieve flag rank and the first to explicitly self-identify as American.
Admiral Byng was careful to play up the participation of both sailors and troops from the Empire of North America in the venture; like all Royal Navy career men, he was a skilled publicist and knew the importance of presenting the facts ‘properly’ in his dispatches. Admiral Pellew had informed him that the war was still somewhat controversial in the ENA (at least among the educated classes, if not the commoners outraged by the Cherry Massacre) and it was essential that “American” successes be promoted in order to make Imperial politicians latch onto them as something to be proud of. Otherwise, they risked a messy withdrawal and a breakdown of the joint command which the Royal Navy – in contrast to the Army – had always fought to maintain in the face of pressure to grant full autonomy to the American Squadron.
The Royal Navy task force assembled in Falkland’s Islands in April 1806, capturing the cursory Meridian garrison that was the legacy of the infamous Alejandro Mendez. Byng, who had shepherded countless troopships across the Atlantic and knew from the Battle of Wight how vulnerable they could be, decided that they could not be risked in open combat with the Meridians. It would be particularly painful in the papers if British and American redcoats had been transported for thousands of miles only to drown at the last hurdle. Besides, after the long journey many of the troops were suffering from the usual round of accidents, disease and malaise. To that end, Byng decided to disembark most of his troops on the islands and hide the troopships up the Choiseul Sound, detaching a few brigs and a frigate to guard them against opportunistic Meridian incursion. After this was accomplished, he then divided his fleet into three parts under Harrison, Perry and himself, and sent them “a-huntin’ for the silvermen” as the great Carolinian renaissance man, George Washington Allston, put it in his seminal Ballad of the Deeps, written in the style of an uneducated American sailor reminiscing about his experiences during the war.
President-General Castelli’s plan to assemble a fleet and land troops in Mexico had not been halted due to the Cherry Massacre sparking war with Britain and America; in many ways it had already gained its own momentum, and Castelli still held out hope that the Anglo-American situation could be resolved peacefully. Indeed there may have been some substance to this argument, but Castelli made the mistake of negotiating solely with London, which put a substantial additional delay on the time it took for diplomatic packages to travel there and back. Perhaps Castelli thought Fox’s government would be more amenable to peace than the new Hamilton ministry in Fredericksburg, but it seems more likely that he simply enjoyed a contempt for the ENA, believing the Americans to be simple stooges and servants of the British, not unlike the Empire of the Indies he sought to destroy. This was a mistake.
Because of Castelli’s naval commitment to the Mexican scheme, Byng’s triple force actually had some trouble in finding any Meridian ships to fight. Eventually a small flotilla of the Meridian Armada was sighted off the Valdes peninsula enroute to rounding the Horn and joining up with Admiral Ramírez’s main fleet in the Pacific. Admiral Perry successfully surrounded, trapped and pounded this force using tactics clearly derived from study of Nelson and Bone’s earlier treatises – not that the stodgy Admiralty would admit it, of course. Byng could not have asked for a better headline; the Americans had won themselves a victory, and when the news reached Fredericksburg suddenly every man was falling over themselves to praise Perry and his men, condemn the Meridians, and generally hope everyone forgot their earlier criticism of the war. This strengthened Hamilton’s position and (among other issues, including a minor financial scandal) led to James Madison resigning as Leader of the Opposition after only a few months. He was replaced by the redoubtable westerner John Adair, one of the two MCPs for Transylvania, who fought to hold the Constitutionalist Party together in the wake of tensions over Carolina’s ambitions for Hispaniola and Great Britain’s refusal to countenance them.
After the initial victory at the Battle of Valdes in June 1806, Byng left Perry’s fleet on station to facilitate a mass landing of troops up the River Plate. The soldiers were now rested and trained for several months on the Falklands, albeit still mostly subsisting off ships’ stores thanks to the bleakness of those isles. Perry chose to leave a significant garrison force on the Falklands, larger than the token ones that had been customary before (such as the Meridians’), which ultimately laid the foundations for the Fort Perry naval base and the ensuing tensions with the UPSA which would last for almost five decades.
Meanwhile, Byng and Harrison’s portions of the Anglo-American fleet rounded the Horn and went after the main Meridian Armada force. Ramírez had already successfully defeated the remaining New Spanish ships under Admiral Juan Patricio Ruiz y Díaz, the best commander the exilic Spaniards could field, at the Battle of Cocos in April of that year. Now, with the New Spanish coastline defenseless, Ramírez escorted Castelli’s famous troopship force to land an army under General Hector Fernández, a native of Santiago de Chile. At the same time, Marshal Pichegru continued his slow but steady advance into New Granada as the outnumbered New Granadine commander, Bernardo O’Higgins, did his best to slow him down.
Approximately fifteen thousand troops were landed near Acapulco in the first wave (including Fernández), upon which Ramírez turned around and returned to Lima in order to pick up the next force assembling there. When he arrived in late August, it was to find that the army at Lima simply did not exist. The force had been dispersed by regional commanders in panic after the news had spread like wildfire that a British fleet had burned the UPSA’s Pacific naval base at Valdivia and was now performing random amphibious descents up and down the coast, raiding villages and stirring up terror. This was a doctrine that had been developed for the war with Robespierre’s Republic but which had not been implemented at the time; a tactic for use against an enemy with little naval strength but a formidable army that made it hard to attack him directly. Spread the terror, the theory went, and it would force him to spread his army thin to try to defend against the arbitrary attacks, particularly if he commands a democratic state like t
he UPSA in which the will of the people is always at the back of his mind.
Ramírez realised that the only way to salvage the situation was to try to take on the Royal Navy himself and destroy Byng’s force, or at least make it retreat. Though outnumbered, he recognised that the Anglo-Americans were on the end of a very long supply line and if he wounded them sufficiently he would force them to round the Horn once more – a difficult prospect at the best of times – for resupply and repairs, buying time which might save the UPSA. To that end, Ramírez attacked Byng’s fleet in harbour at Valdivia in October, pulling off a surprise attack worthy of Horatio Nelson. Several British ships were sunk, including Byng’s flagship Royal Frederick, though the Admiral himself was evacuated by jolly-boat. But in the moment of Ramírez’s triumph, Black Jack Harrison’s fleet appeared on the horizon. Ramírez’s force was trapped between the two Anglo-American forces and pounded to pieces, ending any chance of Fernández’s troops in Mexico being reinforced.
Meanwhile on the Atlantic coast, Perry achieved a landing of American troops under General Andrew Clinton, former deputy to Isaac Wayne II who felt that the fiasco in Hispaniola had to urgently be eclipsed by successes in this conflict for the American portions of the Army not to become embarrassed and mocked. Furthermore, he was treading in the footsteps of Mariott Arbuthnot and George Washington by leading troops to occupy the River Plate. It was to be hoped that he could imitate the successes of the latter, not the failures of the former.
Clinton’s task was certainly much more difficult than his predecessors’; recognising the avenue of attack, the Meridians had built several large forts to guard the Plate from invasion. Perry lost several ships in neutralising them, often by night descents led by Royal Marines. In fact, it is probable that the Americans could have been driven off by the Meridian defences were it not for the neutral Portuguese-Brazilian possession of the northern bank of the river, allowing Perry to hug that in places and bypass Meridian forts. This obvious flaw led to much anger later on among the Meridians and the political idea that strategic possession of the entire River Plate basin was essential to preserve the nation.
The American troops began landing in September and had assembled completely by the end of October. Most of the UPSA’s Fuerzas Armadas had already been directed to either the war in Peru or the mission to Mexico, but Castelli ordered what regiments and militia remained to assemble in order to defend Buenos Aires. In November General Clinton attempted to attack Buenos Aires and was initially repulsed by the ramshackle Meridian troops led by General Miguel Bautista, ironically a Lower Peruvian by birth. As the Meridians celebrated their victory, however, Clinton decided that all was not lost. He encamped his troops on the delta of the Paraná River north of Buenos Aires and they wintered there. This combined with Perry’s dominance of the sea meant that Buenos Aires was virtually cut off from resupply, and by early 1807 the city was starving. Furthermore, drunk on their early victory, Castelli and the other political leaders had dismissed calls to evacuate the city by road as cowardice.
And it was then, even as the impossible news filtered down through the ranks that England was invaded, that the outcome of the Third Platinean War was decided. The decisive blow would not fall between Anglo-Americans and Meridians, but far to the north…
Chapter #75: The Battle of Britain
“We shall not flag or fail. Nor shall we rush in as fools and throw away our liberty out of reasonless outrage, for that is the path of the enemy. My illustrious ancestor’s master King William once said that there is one way never to see the country come to ruin, and that is to die in the last ditch.
I, on the other hand, intend to make the Frenchman die in it.”
- John Spencer-Churchill, 5th Duke of Marlborough (from an 1807 speech)
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From: “Messiah or Monster? – The Life of John Spencer-Churchill” by Dr Rowland Patterson (Oxford University Press, 1961)—
Students of the turbulent latter stages of the Jacobin Wars, whether inhabitants of our own island or the continent, often remark on the way that Churchill seemed to emerge from nowhere as the Kingdom’s saviour (if one concedes that title to him). True, as the great-great-grandson of John Churchill the First Duke of Marlborough, he came from a distinguished lineage, but one which had produced little of note since that great general of the First War of Supremacy. When Churchill (then Marquess of Blandford) was growing up in the 1770s and 80s, all the Marlboroughs possessed was Blenheim Palace and mounting debts from high living and foolish investments. His father, George Spencer the 4th Duke, proceeded to deepen the problem further when he lost a large sum in the Africa Bubble scandal that ultimately led to the (temporary) political downfall of Lord Rockingham in 1782. Put under undue strain by tough financial decisions to ensure the family survived, Spencer died just two years later, leaving John to inherit the dukedom – and all of its problems.
One of the new Duke’s first acts was to change his name to the double-barrelled Spencer-Churchill, evoking his famous ancestor, and “Churchill” is generally the name by which history has recorded him, much as the first Duke of Mornington is “Wesley”. Both of these remarkable men enjoyed considerable popularity with the common folk at the concomitant expense of being held under suspicion by their fellow peers, particularly those still in possession of intact fortunes, and the way they were known by their surnames even within their lifetimes reflects this populist touch. This terminology is not, as is often misunderstood, a pure act of retroactive revisionism following the reforms of a generation later.
It is also true that much of Churchill’s life was very much of the ordinary for an aristocrat. In his youth he had particularly admired his ancestor the general, and entertained dreams of taking service. He did not imagine such service would be with the British Army, for like many of his contemporaries he misread the mood of the late 1780s as heralding an era of peace. France under Louis XVI seemed too bankrupt and exhausted to fund another great European war. Instead, the boy and then young man envisaged himself becoming a mercenary in service of one of the German states, probably Saxony if Hanover remained tied to a British neutrality policy. Churchill viewed the defeat of Prussia, and the temporary return to Austrian hopes of making the Empire an entity worth the name once again, as a Catholic threat to free Protestant nations.
This idealistic vision was shattered with his father’s death and Churchill, as his only son, being saddled with all the problems of his house. Although naturally such a figure as this man has had every aspect of his life scrutinised with eyes both learned and yet narrowed with bias, most commentators agree – however grudgingly – that Churchill managed the finances fairly well, not so much by his own ability as by knowing which men to pick as advisors. As Duke he also had the option of sitting in the House of Lords, which did not appeal to him, not being much of a political animal at the time. However with the French Revolution of 1794, panic and paranoia among British society led to a general call for all conservative peers (the vast majority) to flock to Westminster in order to block any enterprisingly copycat legislation on behalf of the Portland-Burke Ministry – this being before Burke, surprising many of his like-minded colleagues, summarily rejected the principles of the Revolution.
Churchill was thus able to stay away from Parliament for several more years, before once again being called upon in 1799 by his political allies – many of whom were also men he had to keep friendly in order to arrange the financial deals he was working to dig himself out of debt. His friends wished his vote to help bring down the Rockingham Ministry. As history records, this succeeded rather too well and Rockingham died from overwork while attempting to forestall such an attempt. Ironically this ultimately led to the premiership of Charles James Fox, a far more radical figure whom Churchill despised.
Fox’s premiership coupled to the accession of Prince Henry William as Henry IX, a like-minded king, meant Churchill did the closest that a peer could come to resigning his seat without an act of attainder. He public
ly swore off all involvement with Parliament. “Any manner of government, any constitution knowing liberty of any kind that allows such men to achieve power is intolerable,” he wrote daringly, in a letter counter-signed by many other Tory peers. “What would our forefathers think of such men? What would King William think to know that his Protestant Religion and the Liberty of England were cast aside so scornfully by those who would shake the hands of enemies of the realm and then smile weakly as they instead grasped our throats? It is unconscionable. Therefore, I say to this institution, not goodbye, not farewell, and certainly not au revoir (as they would doubtless prefer), but simply: I am leaving, and I am not coming back.”
This document, the ‘Churchill Letter’ as it has retrospectively been known (at the time it was chiefly associated with the more senior and prominent peer who delivered the letter, Andrew Percy the Duke of Northumberland), scandalised political circles at the time. In particular the fact that ‘such men’ could be read not simply to refer to Fox and his political allies but also King Henry himself was a subtle piece of insolence. Some of the peers who signed the letter later attempted to go back on their word when it slowly emerged that the Fox Ministry would not crash and burn as they had predicted, but would remain propped up by the progressive Liberal wing of the Whigs under Richard Burke as the Reform Coalition. Churchill, however, had no time for any of this and retired to Blenheim Palace, gradually improving his family’s situation for his children and occasionally issuing a political diatribe from his acid pen, usually under the pen name A Gentleman. Most commentators, however, knew exactly who the Gentleman was. Some moderate Liberals of Burke’s faction, halfway between Fox’s idealistic Radicals and curmudgeonly Tories and likeminded Whigs such as Churchill, daringly spoke of the Gentleman as “England’s Lisieux”. They noted that, much like L’Administrateur, the Gentleman did not seem to realise that he could not change the nature of reality just by rewriting his version of events. “It matters little what the political ends of such a writer are; his method shows his madness,” said Frederick Dundas, and Charles Bone added “Both of them seem equally enthusiastic about the persecution of the Catholic faith.”
