Flag and Fleet: How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the SeasWood, William
History
Flag and Fleet: How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas
Wood, William
Great Britain -- History, Naval; Sea-power
Still, the Navy and mercantile marine were good enough to enable
British sea-power to turn the scale against Prince Charlie in Scotland
and against the French in Canada. The French tried to help the last of
the Stuarts by sending supply ships and men-of-war to Scotland. But
the British fleet kept off the men-of-war, seized the supply ships, and
advanced along the coast to support the army that was running the
Jacobites down. Prince Charlie's Jacobites had to carry everything by
land. The British army had most of its stores carried fen times better
by sea. Therefore, when the two armies met for their last fight at
Culloden, the Jacobites were worn out, while the British army was quite
fresh. In Canada it was the same story when the French fortress of
Louisbourg was entirely cut off from the sea by a British fleet and
forced to surrender or starve. In both cases the fleets and armies
worked together like the different parts of one body. At Louisbourg
the British land force was entirely made up of American colonists,
mostly from enlightened Massachusetts.
A fleet sent against the French in India failed to beat that excellent
French admiral, La Bourdonnais. But Anson's famous four years voyage
round the world (1740-44) was a wonderful success. The Navy having
been so much neglected by the government for so many years before the
war, Anson had to put up with some bad ships and worse men. Even poor
old pensioners were sent on board at the last minute to make up the
number required. Of course they soon died off like flies. But his
famous flagship, the _Centurion_, got through, beat everything that
stood up to her, and took vast quantities of Spanish gold and silver.
Yet this is by no means the most wonderful fact about the _Centurion_.
The most wonderful thing of all is, that, though she was only a
one-thousand-tonner (smaller than many a destroyer of the present day)
she had no fewer than eight officers who rose to high and well-won rank
in after years, and three--Anson, Saunders, and Keppel--who all became
First Lords of the Admiralty, and thus heads of the whole Navy.
[Illustration: H.M.S. _Centurion_ engaged and took the Spanish Galleon
_Nuestra Senhora de Capadongo_, from Acapulco bound to Manila, off Cape
Espiritu Santo, Philippine Islands, June 20, 1743.]
Three years after his return Anson won a victory over the French off
Cape Finisterre, while Hawke won another near the same place a few
months later. In both the French fought very well indeed; but, with
less skill in handling fleets and smaller numbers than the British,
they had no chance. One of Hawke's best captains was Saunders. Thus
twelve years before Pitt's conquest of Canada the three great admirals
most concerned with it had already been brought together.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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