The Launching of Roger Brook

Rodney's victory off the Saints restored the situation.'

'Were you present at the fight, Chris?' asked Mr. Sutherland.

'Aye, Jack,' nodded Captain Brook, 'and a bloody business it was; the enemy's ships being crammed to bursting with soldiers for his projected invasion of Jamaica. As you may have heard tell, my Lord Rodney made naval history by deliberately disrupting his own line of battle to break clean through the enemy centre. This new manoeuvre enabled us to get to windward of the French and encircle five of their biggest ships, including the Ville de Paris, in which Admiral de Grasse was flying his flag. After a monstrous gruelling he hauled down the flag of France with his own hands and surrendered himself to Hood on the Barfleur. Rodney then called off the fight, and although we took four prizes, in Hood's view had we kept at them we might have taken many more. So, although a fine victory, 'twas not so conclusive as Quiberon Bay, where I served as gunnery Lieutenant of the middle deck in Augusta. I count Lord Hawke's action there in 'fifty-nine as our greatest naval victory since the Armada; it gave us undisputed command of the seas for a decade.'

'Those were the days!' muttered old Sir Harry reminiscently. ' 'Twas in the same year that General Wolfe's victory at Quebec secured Canada to us, and but two years earlier that Lord Give had bested the French at Plassey. By 'sixty-one both the Mogul Empire and the Americas were ours, and we had naught to fear from any man.'

'The cause of our late disaster, Sir, is not far to seek,' put in Mr. Gibbon. 'Had not the King's rebellious subjects in what they are now pleased to term the United States forced a war upon us and engaged our forces overseas, the French and their allies would not have dared once more to challenge our supremacy for another decade at least.'

'Oh, come, Sir,' cried Mr. Robbins, 'The American war was a thing apart, and the Colonists had right on their side in their contention that they should not be subject to taxation without representation in our Parliament.'

'That contention, Sir, was both illegal and impractical,' boomed back Mr. Gibbon. 'The time and distance separating the two continents would have made representation in our legislature of little value. Moreover, it is ancient practice that the distant Provinces of an Empire should in part bear the financial burden of their own defence. We had but recently preserved the New Englanders from falling under the tyranny of the French who, at that time, were dominant in Canada and a constant menace to them, so I count their refusal to accept that just liability as base ingratitude; an opinion which is shared by no less erudite and thoughtful men than Dr. Samuel Johnson and Mr. John Wesley.'

'Yet, Lord Chatham, Mr. Burke, Mr. Fox and Mr. Walpole were all against you, Sir,' said Sam Oviatt, 'and the City of London so opposed to this taking up of arms against our kin that they refused to vote funds for the war.'

'As for Mr. Wesley, Sir,' said the Vicar truculently, 'you can scarce expect those of us who are loyal to the Church Established to attach much weight to the opinions of such a firebrand.'

'On the contrary, Sir,' hit back Mr. Gibbon acidly, 'You and your brethren would do well to adapt yourselves to many of the precepts of that great preacher's teaching unless you wish to lose what little credit is still left to you. In the past forty years his Methodism has gained such a legion of converts that unless you bestir yourselves the movement bids fair to deprive you all of your congregations.'

Seeing that tempers were rising Captain Brook intervened. 'There is much to be said on both sides. The real tragedy lay in our Government's failure to compose the quarrel in its early stages, as could so easily have been done.'

'Aye,' agreed Harry Darby, 'and the blame for that lies with the King, whose wish to rule us as an autocratic monarch caused him to ignore all sager counsels and entrust the Government to a weakling like my Lord North, solely because he knew that he could make a catspaw of him.'

'True enough!' chimed in Captain Burrard, 'The King's crazy pig-headedness has been the root of all our troubles.'

Mr. Gibbon frowned. 'Crazy pig-headedness. Sir, is a strange term to apply to one who has the courage of his convictions, when those convictions have the support of law, the undeniable rights of sovereignty and also form the opinion of the great majority of a people. The Colonists' defiance of Parliament shocked the nation and by the election of 'seventy-four it clearly confirmed the King in his policy.'

'The King has a long purse and there are always a plenitude of pocket Boroughs for sale,' laughed Captain Burrard.

'Say what you will, Sir,' retorted Mr. Gibbon, 'Unlike the first two Georges, the King is by birth, education and inclination, an Englishman. Affairs of state are no longer subject to the corrupt and venal influence exercised by German harlots and from the inception of his reign King George III has ever placed what he considers to be the true interests of England before all else.'

'Aye, the King's well enough,' nodded Captain Brook, 'and 'twas Lord North's mismanagement that so embittered the Colonists. They would have been content with their early successes and glad enough to patch up the quarrel had he not offered the negro slaves their freedom if they enlisted with us, and despatched Hessian troops to fight against our own flesh and blood.'

Sir Harry Burrard banged the table with his fist. 'You've hit upon it, Chris! That was the crowning blunder of them all, and well do I remember the Great Commoner's attack upon the Government at the time, when he thundered 'You have ransacked every corner of Lower Saxony, but forty thousand German boors never can conquer ten times that number of British freemen.' And he was right.'

'Yet, 'twas Lord Chatham himself who two years later opposed the Duke of Richmond's motion to withdraw all forces by sea and land from the revolted provinces,' countered Mr. Gibbon.

'I grant you that, Sir, and I well remember that occasion, too, since 'twas my Lord Chatham's dying speech and he collapsed but a half hour later. I was again in the Lords gallery at the time, and although it is all of five years ago I recall his words as well as if he'd spoke them yesterday. 'Shall we,' he asked, 'tarnish the lustre of this nation by an ignominious surrender of its rights and fairest possessions? Shall a people that fifteen years ago was the terror of the world now stoop so low as to tell its ancient, inveterate enemy—take all we have, only give us peace.' But remember, Sir, he spoke them in a very different case. The French were about to intervene on behalf of General Washington and the thought of a European conflict being added to our woes had caused something near to panic. Lord Chatham would have supported my Lord North in making any terms with the Americans, short of giving them their independence, since to do so at that juncture would only have laid us open to other so-called, 'positively last demands' by the French. How could he, to whose leader­ship we owed our splendid victories over them in the Seven Years' War, refrain from rising, even from a bed of death, to protest against such ignominious folly?'

'Yet his Grace of Richmond had wisdom on his side,' argued Mr. Eddie. 'The extension of the war in 'seventy-eight compelled us to evacuate Philadelphia in order to protect New York and defend the Indies from the French; and our case became even worse when the Spaniards too, came in against us in 'seventy-nine.'

' Twas worse still in 'eighty,' added General Cleveland, 'when our blockade had maddened the Russians, Swedes, Prussians, Danes and Austrians into a common policy of armed neutrality against us, and the Dutch added themselves to our active enemies.'

'Nay, General,' Captain Brook took him up quickly, 'I pray you say nothing against the blockade. 'Tis England's greatest weapon. With it we've many times brought the Continent to reason and under Providence will do so many times again.'

The old General grunted. 'Let us pray then that should such a case arise we'll have no major conflict raging overseas. Since, saving your presence, Captain, 'twas bad naval strategy and naught else that lost us our fairest possessions in America.'

'That I contest, Sir, and, saving yours, I count the Army more to blame. On no less than four occasions our Generals bungled badly. At the very outset of the war General Gage locked himself up in Boston for eleven months instead of engaging the Colonists before they could become organised. Then in 'seventy-six, had they been active, Generals Howe and Cornwallis could have crushed Washington between them; but they frittered away their opportunity. In both 'seventy-seven and 'eighty-one, had two large British forces not dallied but made them junction on the Hudson, as was intended, they could have cut off the North from the South and so still preserved the Southern Colonies to the Crown. Yet, as we know, their dilatoriness resulted, in the first case, in General Burgoyne being trapped and compelled to surrender at Saratoga and, in the second, in General Cornwallis laying down his arms at Yorktown, and with them our last hope of victory. Had we had a Commander of General Washington's quality on our side I am convinced that the conflict would have ended very differently.'