It will not be denied that at times a diversion under such conditions may be attempted, if it does not take away force needed for serious enterprises. Upon this ground may perhaps be justified the attempted French invasion of Ireland in December, 1796, which, though on a somewhat larger scale, essentially resembled the expedition of Jervis and Grey against the West Indies. It also depended upon a local rising in favor of an insufficient force, upon the support of practically unorganized masses without military antecedents; but it was undertaken at a period when the tide of affairs elsewhere was running strongly in favor of France, and, whatever hopes may have been entertained of possible ultimate results, was essentially a diversion. The immediate aim was not a direct gain to France, but an indirect advantage, by accumulating embarrassments for Great Britain. A state entirely inferior at sea could not count upon lasting military control of a large island with an alien population; but it could hope that the insurrection of Ireland, concurring with disaster upon the Continent, might force a disadvantageous peace upon the arch enemy. The conquest of the smaller Antilles, on the contrary, was not properly a diversion, but an object of real importance to a great British interest. It was feasible for the greater naval power to take and hold them, being small; and their tenure, by relieving the navy of part of its work, would have facilitated the protection of Jamaica and its trade, as well as the general control of the western Caribbean. Haïti was too large and too populated for conquest; but its power for injury could have been confronted with more substantial force had Guadaloupe remained a British garrison.
The alliance of Spain and Holland with France much increased the difficulties of Great Britain, by throwing open their colonial ports to French privateers. The extensive sea-coasts of Cuba and Haïti became alive with them. In 1807 it was estimated that there were from two to three hundred depending upon these two islands, and unfitted, from their size, to go far from them. [75] The number testifies to the extent and value of British trade in that sea, although the privateer did not confine his depredations to the enemy, but preyed lawlessly on neutrals as well. The same authority illustrates the annihilation of French and Spanish commerce by stating that not more than two or three British privateers were sailing from Jamaica.
General Abercromby went for a short time to Europe in the fall of 1796. Upon his return a strong military and naval expedition was sent against Trinidad, but did not meet the resistance expected from the size and importance of the island. It capitulated on the second day, February 18, 1797, and with it the Spaniards lost four ships-of-the-line. Thence Abercromby moved, in April, against Porto Rico; but upon reconnoitring, the defences were found too strong, and the troops were re-embarked after losing two hundred men. This ended the colonial expeditions in the West Indies for the first war. Quiet possession was taken of the Dutch colonies of Surinam and Curaçoa in 1799 and 1800; and in 1801, when Sweden and Denmark became involved in hostilities with Great Britain, their West India islands were also given up without resistance, but no further fighting took place.
Note. As it does not enter into the author's plan to give in detail the naval history after Trafalgar, it may be well to state here, in brief, the subsequent events in the West Indies. At the Peace of Amiens in 1801, Great Britain restored all her West India conquests except the Spanish Trinidad. When war broke out again in 1803, Tobago, Santa Lucia, Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice were at once seized without difficulty, as was Surinam in 1804. There matters rested till 1807, when Curaçoa and the Danish islands fell, followed in 1809 by Martinique, and in 1810 by Guadaloupe. Spain having become again the ally of Great Britain in 1808, the latter had now no open enemy in the Caribbean; but the long habits of lawlessness left numerous pirates infesting Cuba, whom the weak Spanish government failed to control.
CHAPTER V.
The Naval Campaign of May, 1794, and Battle of the First of June.
THE pressure of the allied armies upon all her frontiers, combined with the British mastery of the sea, had thrown France largely upon her own resources during the year 1793; while the distracted condition of the country and a bad harvest had united to cause a scarcity of bread-stuffs, which threatened a famine, with all its consequences of sufferings to the army and the people, and inevitable increase of disturbance and sedition.
The eyes of the government had therefore turned beyond the sea to the United States, and its representatives there had been directed to accumulate a quantity of provisions to be shipped to France. It was intended to despatch these in a great convoy, to be protected on the voyage by a force of ships-of-war; while its approach to the shores of Europe would be covered by a sortie of the great fleet from Brest and Rochefort, to occupy the attention of, and, if necessary, forcibly to contest the control of the sea with, the British navy. Experience had not yet corrected the sanguine confidence of the republican government, based upon the wordy enthusiasm of the crews, nor taught it that, with the departure of the trained officers and the spread of license among the men, the navy had ceased to be the strong power which had faced Great Britain with success in the war of the American Revolution. The very measures which had most contributed to destroy its efficiency became, in the excitement and ignorance of the times, the sure gage of victory.
The convoying squadron of two ships-of-the-line and three smaller vessels sailed from Brest for the United States in December, 1793, under the command of Rear-Admiral Van Stabel, an active and judicious officer. On the 12th of February it anchored in Chesapeake Bay, and sailed again for France on the 11th of April. The merchant ships under its charge numbered one hundred and thirty, [76] among them being many laden with produce from the French West India islands, which, not venturing to make the passage home direct and unattended, for fear of British cruisers, had collected at Hampton Roads to await the time of sailing. It seems somewhat remarkable that the British government, which was fairly well informed as to the designs of the French, should not have attempted to intercept the convoy at its port of departure. That is the point at which a great maritime expedition, whether purely military or otherwise, can usually be most effectually watched; and in this case the more so, because, if the convoy had eluded the blockading squadron, the latter, few in number and homogeneous, could easily have outstripped the unwieldy multitude and again awaited it off its port of arrival. The success of this mass of merchantmen in escaping the numerous enemies that attended it off the coast of France is a striking illustration of the uncertainties of commerce-destroying, and of the chances that favor the safe arrival of a body of ships when the enemy is in doubt as to their exact destination.
The French minister to the United States, M. Genêt, had written home that he would forward a part of the convoy, under the care of two small ships of war, as soon as possible. With the idea that these might have sailed before Van Stabel reached America, a force of five ships-of-the-line with some lighter vessels was directed to protect their arrival. This squadron accordingly sailed from Brest under the command of Rear-Admiral Nielly, on the 10th of April. [77] It had been preceded by a light division, whose mission was to meet the convoy and inform the officer in charge that Nielly would await him a hundred leagues west of Belle-Isle.
Later news corrected the expectations based upon Genêt's first despatches, and as the close approach of summer made it more easy for the British fleet to maintain its position in the Bay of Biscay, and consequently increased the dangers through which the convoy must pass, the French government determined to send out all the available ships in Brest. On the 16th of May the great fleet, comprising twenty-five ships-of-the-line, one of which carried one hundred and twenty guns and three others one hundred and ten, sailed under the command