British naval squadron

“ In Feb. 1805, the Rear-Admiral received orders to proceed with six sail of the line in pursuit of a French squadron that had escaped from Rochefort, and consisted of five line-of-battle ships, three frigates, two brigs, and a schooner, having on board about 4,000 troops. After running down the coasts of Portugal and Spain, and looking into Madeira, Teneriffe, and Porto Praya, he sailed to Barbadoes, and there first learnt the destination of the enemy, and their trifling exploits. The British squadron sailed again from Barbadoes, April 5, and then renewed the pursuit ”

“ On the contrary, if the plan which is suggested were generally adopted, with such an additional force on board, capable of striking terror upon either element, not a British squadron would put to sea that must not be viewed by our enemies with a jealous eye; but what would keep their extensive coasts for ever on the alert, and by that rapidity and secrecy which are peculiar to all naval movements, objects might be effected, and conquests achieved that never were anticipated by the political surmises of our countrymen, or the [43] intelligence of our foes. ”

“ Hardly had the fresh beef for the British squadron been brought down to the beach yesterday, by the contractor on the southern side, before some of your soldiers fired at the boat which had been purposely sent to bring it on board the Orestes. On some days your troops appear to conduct themselves with the greatest propriety; on others quite the reverse, taking every opportunity to fire from under cover of rocks and trees at boats passing in the direction of H.B.M. ships. On Saturday last, your Excellency’s piquets conducted themselves in a manner becoming a steady soldiery ”

“ I know what I am about; we do not want a squadron at this time to blow the Bashaw’s palace about his head, we want only the British flag, and an officer who has sense enough not to commit himself in new circumstances, and spirit sufficient to repeat what I say when he arrives. ”

“ One was a long, logical argument in favor of swift frigates of a certain size, rather than ships of the line, and showed thorough knowledge, not only of naval construction and cost of building, but also of the general international situation, and the best method of conducting the war on the sea. On the latter point he wrote: "Keeping such a squadron in British waters, alarming their coasts, intercepting their trade, and descending now and then upon their least protected ports, is the only way that we, with our slender resources, can sensibly affect our enemy by sea-warfare." ”

“ It is not too much to say that they were men just of the stamp to have escaped this shame and ruin of reputation, under more favorable conditions of professional tone.
Concerning the vice-admiral's action at this time, which had its share in the ruin of these captains, another curious instance of men's bondage to the order of battle transpires. The three rear ships of his squadron were clean, that is, relatively fast; and they were rearmost for this very reason of speed, because, when the division led on the other tack, they, as headmost ships of the fleet, would be ready to chase. ”

“ To the discipline and valour of British seamen is to be ascribed their great superiority over the enemy, who, although more than treble the force of the English squadron in number of guns and weight of metal, have been so singularly defeated. ”

“ On the 16th, at sunset, the Vice-Admiral arrived off Saldanha Bay, when the enemy’s squadron were descried, consisting of two ships of 66 guns each, one of 54, five frigates and sloops, and one store-ship. Sir George, seeing the inferiority of their force in point of numbers, came to anchor within gun-shot of them, and sent an officer to the Dutch commander, with a request that, to avoid the effusion of human blood, he would surrender to the British fleet; intimating at the same time, that resistance to a force so superior must expose his ships to certain destruction. ”

“ One of the most important naval battles of the war took place on January 24 in the North Sea between a British battle cruiser squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty, comprising the battle cruisers Tiger, Lion, Princess Royal, New Zealand and Indomitable, assisted by a few light cruisers and destroyers, on the one hand, and on the other a German squadron, consisting of the battle cruisers Derflinger, Seydlitz and Moltke, the armored cruiser Bluecher, one of the finest in the Kaiser's navy, and several light cruisers. ”

“ His in turn are directly deducible from others framed shortly after the first war, in 1652-1654, when sail tactics had not passed the stage of infancy, and were [Pg 10] still strongly affected by the galley tradition. There is here found, on the one hand, the prescription of the line of battle,—a single column of ships formed in each other's wake,—with the provision that if the enemy is to leeward, and awaits attack, the headmost squadron of the British shall steer for the headmost of the enemy's ships. ”

“ To form a correct opinion of the difficulties of the enterprise we have been describing, a reference to the chart is necessary; and to judge of the able manner in which it was conducted, it should be known that the above-mentioned services, and the capture of 60 pieces of ordnance, many thousand stand of arms, and an immense quantity of ammunition, in different vessels, at various periods, were effected by the squadron under Rear-Admiral Penrose, without the most trifling injury being sustained by any of H.M. ships, or the loss of life to any British subject. ”

“ The British squadron reached Elsineur Roads on the 20th Aug., and on the 29th the negociation terminated in a convention between the two powers, by virtue of which, the Freya and the vessels detained with her were to be repaired at the expence of Great Britain and then released ”

“ The captains, officers, and men of the squadron you did me the honor to place under my command, behaved with that coolness and intrepidity inherent in British seamen, particularly the Amaranthe, whose gallant conduct was noticed by the whole squadron. From the troops of the Royal York Rangers, doing duty as marines, I received every assistance. Lieutenant Crooke, who commanded the boats, I am sorry to say, is severely wounded in four places; the loss of this gallant young man’s services is severely felt on board the Circe. ”

“ In the autumn of 1799, he accompanied Vice-Admiral Mitchell, to whom he was next in seniority, on an expedition against the Helder, and on that occasion had confided to his care a division of transports, consisting of about eighty sail, which he conducted, under very trying circumstances, in safety to the place of debarkation; and after the troops had been landed proceeded with the Vice-Admiral to the Vlieter, where the Dutch squadron, commanded by Rear-Admiral Storey, surrendered to the British arms. ”

“ Possession was immediately taken of the enemy's ships, and a British officer sent on board of each, for the purpose of maintaining peace and order among the crews, to whom Vice-Admiral Mitchell issued a manifesto, announcing their being taken possession of in favor of the Stadtholder; and a few days afterwards, the Dutch squadron was escorted to England by a detachment from the British fleet. ”

“ Her conduct is thus noticed by Nelson’s biographers (Messrs. Clarke and M‘Arthur) , at pp. 79, 80, &c. of their highly valuable work.
“While the advanced officers in the British squadron [3] were proving themselves worthy of that experience and decision which directed the whole, the Rear-Admiral himself had entered into action with the remainder of his force; and was the first that anchored on the outer side of the enemy, within half pistol-shot of le Spartiate, the third ship in the French line of battle. ”

“ The Minotaur continued with the in-shore squadron off Cadiz till May 24, 1798, on which day she sailed for the Mediterranean, in company with a strong detachment under the orders of Captain Thomas Troubridge, whose junction with Sir Horatio Nelson, near Toulon, the long cruise which succeeded in quest of a French armament commanded by Napoleon Buonaparte, and the great victory achieved by the British squadron in Aboukir Bay, have already been described in a note at p. ”

“ The thing to be observed here is the separate, but positive, initiative prescribed for a portion of the fleet, with a view to divide the enemy, and then concentrate the whole fleet upon the fraction thus isolated. The British van takes a particular, but not an independent, action; for the other divisions contribute their part to the common purpose. "The middle squadron is to keep her wind, and to observe the motion of the enemy's van, which" [that is, "which" action of the middle squadron] "the last squadron—the rear—is to second ”

“ AND THE "EDWARD." — MUGFORD'S BRAVE FIGHT. — LOSS OF THE "YANKEE HERO." — CAPT. MANLY, AND THE "DEFENCE." — AMERICAN VESSELS IN EUROPEAN WATERS. — GOOD WORK OF THE "LEXINGTON" AND THE "REPRISAL." — THE BRITISH DEFEATED AT CHARLESTON.
he year 1776 witnessed some good service done for the cause of liberty by the little colonial navy. The squadron, under the command of Ezekiel Hopkins, left the Delaware in February, as soon as the ice had left the river, and made a descent upon the island of New Providence, where the British had established a naval station. ”

“ I., it will be seen that the British squadron passed the Dardanelles, Feb. 19, 1807; and, on the 20th, brought up about 8 miles from the Turkish capital “At 10 o’clock,” says Sir J. T. Duckworth, “I sent Captain Capel, in the Endymion, to anchor near the town, if the wind, which was light, would permit the ship to stem the current; and to convey the Ambassador’s despatches to the Sublime Porte, in the morning, by a flag of truce ”

“ The British squadron works to windward to secure the power to force on battle, and comes down in line to engage the enemy from end to end. The French wait for the attack, fire to cripple the rigging of those of our vessels which present themselves first to its blows, and then slip away, damaged more or less severely, but never so seriously that they cannot reach the port they are steering for, while our crews are knotting, splicing, and replacing ropes and spars. ”

“ The constructions of what we call the new navy of the United States, "the white squadron," which has placed us sixth in the rank of the naval powers of the world, instead of so far down that we were scarcely to be counted at all, has all been done in less than twelve years. It may be that to stand sixth in rank is not yet high enough, but the progress of a single decade certainly is remarkable. ”

“ If when a war comes they are all to be laid up, it would be better to give up altogether this pretence of a navy, which seems to be only used in peace-time, when there is no real work for it to do. No doubt if one of our frigates falls in with the enemy's squadron it will be captured; but English frigates do not always sail in squadrons any more than our own ”

“ For the provision to cover the period of delay of the Canadian ships, however, there was a special reason—viz., that, in July, 1912, the Cabinet had decided that a British battle squadron should be maintained in the Mediterranean, that Great Britain might be the guardian of her own interests there, and by the end of 1915 a battle squadron of eight battleships, based on Malta, would replace the four battle cruisers now stationed there. ”

“ No very formidable armada was that of a handful of pygmy vessels, commanded by (p. 358) a young officer who had never heard the thunderous cannonade of a naval battle, or seen the decks of his ships stained with the blood of friends and daily companions. Yet the work of the little squadron saved the United States from invasion, won for the young commander a never-dying fame, and clothed the vine-clad hills, the pebbly beaches, and the crystal waters of Put-in-Bay with a wealth of proud, historical associations. ”

“ But when all has been told and written about the history of the American navy since the Civil War, the one significant fact of all is this: we have from our own resources, mental and material, sent afloat a White Squadron that, though small in number, is fit to keep the sea in spite of foul weather or any other foul force. ”

“ It was the mighty greeting of a great fleet to the Sovereign of a wide-flung realm. It was the inspection of a naval force which a generation before could have dominated the seas of the world and put all civilized nations under tribute. Gathered together from the Home Station, the Channel squadron and the Cruising squadron; without the detachment of a ship from foreign waters or Colonial stations, it included 20 battleships, 24 cruisers and 47 torpedo crafts, with an outer fringe of foreign vessels contributed in complimentary fashion to honour the occasion. ”

“ The American squadron, six huge battle-ships and four fast cruisers, accompanied by ten sea-going torpedo-boats, have been detailed by the commander-in-chief to attack and capture this important naval station. Within safe distance from the forts on the harbor's entrance the squadron's mighty engines are stopped, and the ships soon cease to forge ahead in the quiet sea. One of the swift little crafts, then another and another, noiselessly runs alongside the Admiral's ship, and an officer from each climbs the precipitous side of the battle-ship. ”

“ It is a grey morning out on the North Sea, with but little wind. There is no swell, but considerable movement on the surface of the waters, with here and there an occasional tossing of the white manes of the sea-horses. Swimming majestically through the sea comes one of our monster slate-grey battle-cruisers. She is "stripped to a gantline", and in complete and instant readiness for action. The red cross of St. George flutters bravely at her fore-topmast head, for she is the flagship of the squadron of three or four towering grey ships that are following in her wake. ”