English fleet

“ Were they English or French ships? It is easy to conceive the agonising suspense which filled every heart. The English historian and eye-witness, Knox, has graphically described it as follows:—
“We stood gazing for some time up the river in an inexpressible state of anxiety, until the sails became clearly visible, and we knew they were the advance ships of the English fleet! It is impossible to describe the scene which followed. Men and officers leapt on to the ramparts facing the French army, and, waving their hats, gave vent for upwards of an hour to hurrahs and shouts of delight. ”

“ The English fleet consisted of about 200 ships under the personal command of Edward III. The allied French and Genoese fleet numbered, according to the English king, 190, and was composed of ships, galleys, and barges, while some of the chroniclers have put its numbers at as many as 400 sail, but this would probably include many small craft.75 The battle resulted in the capture, or destruction, of nearly the whole French fleet. The English are said to have lost 4,000 men killed, and the French 25,000. ”

“ English shipbuilders had adopted an improved style of naval architecture, having constructed vessels which would sail faster and be more easily handled than those of the older fashion, and—what was of still greater importance—had built them so as to carry more and heavier cannon. Hence, the English fleet, on board of which the number of sailors exceeded that of the soldiers, was in reality—if only it could avoid fighting at close quarters—far superior to that of the enemy.
(p. 462)
The Spanish Armada. ”

“ He got ready the largest fleet that was ever known, and called it the Invincible Armada; but it did not prove to be invincible, although the English had but a very small navy at that time, not more than fifteen ships of war; but the merchants lent their ships, and manned [147] them at their own expense; and people of all classes gave money to pay soldiers, to defend the country, in case the Spaniards should effect a landing. ”

“ Another frolicsome adventure of the English sailors was to hang about the rear of the Spanish 'silver fleet' on its way from America to Spain, and when any vessel became separated from her fellows, to fall upon her, remove the precious cargo to their own vessel, and then set fire to the Spanish ship and send her adrift upon the high seas. ”

“ It consisted of one hundred and twenty-nine ships of great size, with thousands of soldiers and sailors on board. To oppose it was an English fleet of eighty small vessels, made up of a few of the Queen’s ships and a. ”

“ There is that in English soil that makes every settler an Englishman in heart. But there is warfare before us yet, and the fleet must break the force of the storm, if it cannot altogether turn it aside. ”

“ For in 1416, exactly five hundred years before Jellicoe's victory of Jutland, Henry's Parliament passed a resolution in which you still can read these words: "that the Navy is the chief support of the wealth, the business, and the whole prosperity of England." Some years later Hungerford, one of Henry's admirals, wrote a Book of English Policy, "exhorting all England to keep the sea" and explaining what Edward III had meant by stamping a ship on the gold coins called nobles: "Four things our noble showeth unto me: King, ship, and sword, and power of the sea." ”

“ For the kings of England have for many years been at the charge to build and furnish a navy of powerful ships for their own defense, and for the wars only; whereas the French, the Spaniards, the Portugals, and the Hollanders (till of late) have had no proper fleet belonging to their princes or state. ”

“ Histories, as they have too often been written, obscure the vision and provide a false perspective. Faithful chronicles no doubt of the red-letter days of battle, but how few and far between were the battles in our long naval wars! Too often the histories speak of the Navy as if it were a thing apart, a mere fighting instrument, and forget to tell us of the fleets behind the fleet; of the merchant sailors and the fishermen, the pioneers and the builders of our sea-supported confederacy. These "traders," it was said of the Elizabethan seamen, "escaped the notice of kings and chroniclers." ”

“ The share of navies in the great movements which have moulded human destiny and shaped the world’s progress, although long obscure and undervalued, has met in our time full recognition. Within a decade the influence of sea power upon history has become the frequent theme of historians and essayists who, in clear and striking form, have shown the cardinal importance, both in war and commerce, of the fleet—the nation’s right arm on the sea. ”

“ The British fleet consisted of the Britannia, Trafalgar, Vengeance, Rodney, Betterophon, Queen, Lynx, Sphynx, Tribune, Sampson, Terrible, Furious, Retribution, Highflyer, Spiteful, Cyclops, Vesuvius, Albion, Arethusa, London, Sanspareil, Agamemnon, Firebrand, Triton, Niger, constituting a most powerful navy. At that juncture, so great were the maritime resources of England, that a naval authority thus reported concerning her resources:—“From our ships in reserve and building, we could form a naval force far surpassing that which any other nation in the world can boast of having afloat. ”

“ It is supposed that the British Fleet is at war with, indeed, the British Fleet.
Sir John. A very clever idea.
Lord George. I flatter myself it is, and novel too. It is true that occasionally the ships comprising the British Fleet have run into one another in the past just as if they had been at war, but then they were avowedly at peace, and now they are undoubtedly the reverse. Do you take my meaning?
Sir John. Well, not clearly. How do you show that the British Fleet is at war with the British Fleet? ”

“ Now I want you to understand that we are more likely to be saved by an English vessel than by one of any other nation, as there are three times as many English cruisers in these seas as there are French, and ten times as many merchantmen. ”

“ The whole impression of the British fleet must be to overpower [from] two or three ships ahead of their commander-in-chief—supposed to be in the centre—to the rear of their fleet. I will suppose 20 sail of the enemy’s line to be untouched. ”

“ England, for example, has always guarded her homes, not at the hearth-stone nor the threshold, but within gunshot of her enemy’s territory; her defence has been an attack upon his inner line, and her vessels have been, not corsairs preying upon merchantmen, but battle-ships, ready for duel or for fleet engagement, whether they had the odds against them or not. ”

“ Any one who will contrast the British navy of to-day with the British navy as it might and would have been under the administration, say, of such a First Lord of the Admiralty as the present Duke of Somerset proved himself in every department of the naval service five-and-twenty years ago, will understand the recent outcry in England for a safer and more powerful fleet. ”

“ This means that the Navy, in spite of all its losses, became bigger than any other country's navy, mercantile marine, fishing fleet, river steamers, and all other kinds of shipping, put together, since the world began. When we add the British mercantile marine, British shipbuilding, the British fishing fleets, and all the shipping interests of the Empire overseas, we shall find that British sea-power of all kinds equalled all the sea-power of all the rest of the world together. Destroy that sea-power and we die. ”

“ A navy, accordingly, was now a Sea-power and territorial expansion
in the “New World.” weapon of undoubted keenness, capable of very effective use by any one who knew how to wield it. Having tasted the sweets of intercourse with the Indies, whether in the occupation of Portugal or of Spain, both English and Dutch were desirous of getting a larger share of them. English maritime commerce had increased and needed naval protection. If England was to maintain the international position to which, as no one denied, she was entitled, that commerce must be permitted to expand. ”

“ As the British Navy in its influence on world policy inspired German ambitions, so German thoroughness in organization, when applied to the growing German Fleet, reacted upon the British Navy and gave it a new and vigorous life. ”

“ England at this time needed men in her navy, and the captains of war-ships were in the habit of boarding any vessel that sailed from the colonies in America and taking sailors by force to serve on the English ships. ”

“ When we are confronted with a declining merchant marine, when the carrying trade is passing into the hands of foreigners, when we remember that our whaling fleet, which twenty years ago numbered 600 ships with 18,000 sailors, the best sailors on the globe, disciplined and educated in voyages of three and four year's duration—is now reduced to 163 vessels with less than 5,000 men, we may well inquire, where are we to look for experienced seamen to man our navy in case of foreign war? ”

“ The British fleet was great and powerful—but not so great and powerful as the German by far. As the Queen Mary, Indefatigable and the two torpedo boats fell back, still the center of German fire and still hurling shell, seeking their proper places in the battle line, the other British vessels came on. And presently the Queen Mary and others had gained their places in the formation. ”

“ But in every particular involving relations with the Grand Fleet as a whole, British practice was and is the rule. Everything that any British ship or squadron does devolves likewise upon every American ship and squadron, this extending from such things as providing work-parties for road-making or other jobs on the beach, to sallying forth on one of the great concerted sweeps through the North Sea in which the bulk of the floating might of the whole world is on the move. ”

“ The victories of the United States frigates and sloops taught England that there was on the other side of the Atlantic a growing power which must one day be numerous and wealthy, which would be able to maintain great fleets, and had shown that her seamen could defeat all but the best of the English Navy. ”

“ Without the vastly important things of the sea, without the war fleets and merchant fleets of empires old and new, it is perfectly certain that the world could not have been half so good a place to live in ”

“ We had been in-shore about a week, every day running close in, and counting the French fleet in the harbour, to see that they were all safe, and reporting it to the admiral by signal, when one fine morning, the whole of the French vessels were perceived to hoist their topsails, and in less than an hour they were under weigh, and came out of the harbour. ”

“ Scattered far apart, three English ships are striving to make headway against the freshening gale that blows from the east, and at every fresh gust strains their almost close-reefed canvas as if to blow it out of the bolt-ropes; and seizing their ponderous spars, their intricate top-hamper and heavy-towering poops, every moment careens them over to leeward. Hardly they beat, and bravely too; for a foreign, and it may be a hostile shore is lying with all its rocky terrors on their lee, for these ships are the Harry, the Cressi, and White Rose. ”

“ If the van of the enemy tack, the captured ships must run to leeward of the British fleet; if the enemy wear, the British place themselves between the enemy and the captured and disabled British ships ”

“ English officers have never had to deal with an oversea expedition numbering more than a few thousand men, and in all such conditions each vessel, or group of vessels, has put to sea as soon as its equipment was complete, leaving its place at the quay to be taken by another, or others ”

“ It is proper, however, to keep constantly in sight, the power against which we have to contend; the English have in all the ports of England, in a condition for actual service, or at least given out and reported to be so, twenty ships of the line. ”

“ The British Fleet won the War, and the British Fleet didn’t get a single thing it ought to have, excepting the everlasting stigma amongst our Allies, of being fools, in allowing the German Fleet to be sunk under our noses, because we mistook the Germans for gentlemen. ”

“ Never before have her merchant navies been called upon to support so stupendous an operation, to carry almost the whole weight of transport and supplies for millions of fighting men. Since ships are the railroads of the Allies; since without ships neither soldiers nor guns can reach the distant seats of war; since without them Britain herself cannot hope to sustain her life—ships and sailors have been and are, as they have been in the past, the first and last and utterly essential element. ”

“ In the night of the 15th, the French fleet put to sea; on the 16th, they were discovered in the N.W., and Sir George immediately pursued them. Night coming on, the British ships were formed into a line of battle a-head, keeping sight of the enemy, who by his manoeuvres evidently wished to avoid a battle. In the morning of the 17th, the wind favoured the British fleet, so as to give them the advantage of the weather gage. ”

“ VI. "For the encouragement of the ships of war, as well as the merchant vessels, which may be provided with commissions to make use of, in case of need, to cause to the English ships all the prejudice possible, we intend that the English ship of which they may make themselves masters, of what nature or denomination soever it may be, shall be given them entire, the tenth for the Admiral excepted, without pretending, however, to any further recompense. ”