Naval operations in the American Revolutionary War

The naval operations of the American Revolutionary War divide themselves naturally into two periods. (1) From 1775 till the summer of 1778 the Royal Navy was engaged in co-operating with the troops employed against the insurgents, on the coasts, rivers and lakes of North America, or in endeavouring to protect British commerce against the enterprise of American privateers. (2) During the second period the successive interventions of France, Spain and Holland extended the naval war till it ranged from the West Indies to the Bay of Bengal. This second period lasted from the summer of 1778 to the middle of 1783, and it included both such operations as had already been in progress in America, or for the protection of commerce, and naval campaigns on a great scale carried out by the fleets of the maritime powers.

First Period

The history of the naval war from 1775 to 1778 was made up of many small operations. The naval force at the disposal of the admirals commanding on the station, who until Admiral Lord Howe took up the command on July 12, 1776 were Samuel Graves and Molyneux Shuldham, was insufficient to patrol the long line of coast. A large part of such squadrons as there were was necessarily limited to aiding General Gage and Sir William Howe at Boston, in seeking stores for the army and in supplying naval brigades. At other points of the coast the British navy was employed in punitive expeditions against the coast towns--as for example the burning of Falmouth (now Portland, Maine) in October 1775--which served to exasperate, rather than to weaken the enemy, or the unsuccessful attack on Charleston, in June 1776. It was wholly unequal to the task of blockading the many towns from which privateers could be fitted out. British commerce therefore suffered severely, even as far off as the Irish coasts, where it was found necessary to supply convoy to the Belfast linen trade. The Americans were not yet in a position to provide a fleet. On March 23, 1776 Congress did indeed issue letters of marque and reprisal, and efforts were made to fit out a national force. But the so-called "continental" vessels which sailed with the commission of the Congress hardly differed in character, or in the nature of their operations, from the privateers. The British navy was able to cover the retreat of the army from Boston to Halifax in April 1776, and to convey it to New York in June. It assisted in the expedition to Philadelphia in July 1777. On the St Lawrence and the Lakes it was able to play a more aggressive part. The relief of Quebec by Captain- -afterwards Sir Charles--Douglas in May 1776 forced the American general Benedict Arnold to retreat. The destruction of his squadron on Lake Champlain in October covered the frontier of Canada, and supplied a basis for the march of General John Burgoyne in 1777 which ended in the surrender at Saratoga.

Second Period

The disaster at Saratoga was followed in 1778 by war with France, which had already given much private help to the American privateers and to their forces in the field. The rupture came in March when the British ambassador, Lord Stormont, was recalled from Paris, but as neither fleet was ready for service, actual conflict did not take place until July. The French government was somewhat more ready than the British. On the 13th of April it despatched a squadron of twelve sail of the line and four frigates from Toulon to America under the command of the Count d'Estaing. As no attempt was made to stop him in the Straits of Gibraltar, he passed them on the 16th of May, and though the rawness of his crews and his own error in wasting time in pursuit of prizes delayed his passage, he reached the mouth of the Delaware on the 8th of July unopposed. The French government, which by the fault of the British administration was allowed to take the offensive, had three objects in view--to help the Americans, to expel the British from the West Indies and to occupy the main strength of the naval forces of Great Britain in the Channel. Therefore a second and more powerful fleet was fitted out at Brest under the command of the Count d'Orvilliers. The British government, having neglected to occupy the Straits of Gibraltar in time, despatched Admiral John Byron from Plymouth on the 9th of June with thirteen sail of the line to join Admiral Lord Howe, Sir William's brother, in America, and collected a strong force at home, called the Western Squadron, under Viscount Keppel. Keppel, after a preliminary cruise in June, brought d'Orvilliers to action off Brest on 27 July 1778 in the First Battle of Ushant. The fleets were equal and the action was indecisive,--as the two forces merely passed one another, cannonading. A violent quarrel exacerbated by political differences broke out among the British commands, which led to two courts-martial and to the resignation of Keppel, and did great injury to the discipline of the navy. No further event of note occurred in European waters. On the coast of America the news of the approach of d'Estaing compelled the British commanders to evacuate Philadelphia on the 18th of June. Howe then concentrated his force of nine small line-of-battle ships at Sandy Hook on the 29th of June, and on the 11th of July he learnt that d'Estaing was approaching. The French admiral did not venture to make an attack, and on the 22nd of July sailed to co-operate with the Americans in an endeavour to expel the British garrison from Rhode Island. Howe, who had received a small reinforcement, followed. The French admiral, who had anchored above Newport, came to sea to meet him, but both fleets were scattered by storms. D'Estaing sailed to Boston on the 21st of August. Howe received no help from Byron, whose badly appointed fleet was damaged and scattered by a gale on the 3rd of July in mid-Atlantic. His ships dropped in by degrees during September. Howe resigned on the 25th of that month, and was succeeded by Byron. The approach of winter made a naval campaign on the coast of North America dangerous. The operations of naval forces in the New World were largely dictated by the facts that from June to October are the hurricane months in the West Indies, while from October to June includes the stormy winter of the northern coast. On the 4th of November d'Estaing sailed for the West Indies, on the very day that Commodore William Hotham was despatched from New York to reinforce the British fleet in those waters. On the 7th of September the French governor of Martinique, the Marquis de Bouille, had surprised the British island of Dominica. Admiral Samuel Barrington, the British admiral in the Leeward Islands, had retaliated by seizing Santa Lucia on the 13th and 14th of December after the arrival of Hotham from North America. D'Estaing, who followed Hotham closely, was beaten off in two feeble attacks on Barrington at the Cul-de-Sac of Santa Lucia on the 15th of December. On 6 January 1779 Admiral Byron reached the West Indies. During the early part of this year the naval forces in the West Indies were mainly employed in watching one another. But in June, while Byron had gone to Antigua to guard the trade convoy on its way home, d'Estaing first captured St Vincent, and then on the 4th of July Grenada. Admiral Byron, who had returned, sailed in hopes of saving the island, but arrived too late. An indecisive action was fought off Grenada on the 6th of July. The war now died down in the West Indies. Byron returned home in August. D'Estaing, after co-operating unsuccessfully with the Americans in an attack on Savannah, in September also returned to Europe. In European waters the Channel had been invaded by a combined French and Spanish fleet of sixty-six sail of the line, Spain having now joined the coalition against Great Britain. Only thirty-five sail of the line could be collected against them under the command of Sir Charles Hardy. But they came late and did nothing. The allies retired early in September and were not even able to molest the British trade convoys. In the meantime the Spaniards had formed the siege of Gibraltar.

So far the British navy had stood on the defensive, without material loss except in the West Indies, but without triumph. The operations of 1780 went on much the same lines. The British government, not feeling strong enough to blockade Brest and the Spanish ports, was compelled to regulate its movements by those of its opponents. In the Channel it was saved from disaster by the ineptitude of the French and Spanish fleets. The only real success achieved by this numerically imposing force was the capture on the 8th and 9th of August of a large British convoy of ships bound for the East and West Indies carrying troops. But on the American coast and in the West Indies more vigour was displayed. Early in the year Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot was sent to take command in North America. On the French side the count de Guichen was sent with reinforcements to the West Indies to take command of the ships left in the previous year by d'Estaing. He arrived in March, and was able to confine the small British force under Sir Hyde Parker at Gros Islet Bay in Santa Lucia. In May d'Arzac de Ternay was sent from Brest with seven line-of-battle ships, and a convoy carrying 6,000 French troops to act with the Americans. He had a brush with a small British force under Cornwallis near Bermuda on the 20th of June, and reached Rhode Island on the 11th of July. During the rest of the year, and part of the next, the British and French naval forces in North American waters remained at their respective headquarters, New York and Newport, watching one another. The West Indies was again the scene of the most important operations of the year. In February and March a Spanish force from New Orleans, under Don Bernardo de Galvez, invaded West Florida with success. But the allies made no further progress.

At the close of 1779 Sir George Rodney had been appointed to command a large naval force which was to relieve Gibraltar, then closely blockaded, and send stores to Minorca. Rodney was to go on to the West Indies with part of the fleet. He sailed on the 29 December 1779 with the trade for the West Indies under his protection, captured a Spanish convoy on his way off Finisterre on the 8th of January, defeated a smaller Spanish force at Cape St Vincent on the 16th, relieved Gibraltar on the 19th, and left for the West Indies on the 13th of February. On the 27th of March he joined Sir Hyde Parker at Santa Lucia, and Guichen retired to Fort Royal in Martinique. Until July the fleets of Rodney and Guichen, of equal strength, were engaged in operations round the island of Martinique. The British admiral endeavoured to force on a close engagement. But in the first encounter on the 17th of April to leeward of the island, Rodney's orders were not executed by his captains, and the action was indecisive. He wished to concentrate on the rear of the enemy's line, but his captains scattered themselves along the French formation. In two subsequent actions, on the 15th and 19th of May, to windward of Martinique, the French admiral would not be brought to close action. The arrival of a Spanish squadron of twelve ships of the line in June gave a great numerical superiority to the allies, and Rodney retired to Gros Islet Bay in Santa Lucia. But nothing decisive occurred. The Spanish fleet was in bad health, the French much worn-out. The first went on to Havana, the second to San Domingo. In July, on the approach of the dangerous hurricane season, Rodney sailed for North America, reaching New York on the 14th of September. Guichen returned home with the most worn-out of his ships. On the 6th of December Rodney was back at Barbadoes from the North American station, where he was not able to effect anything against the French in Narragansett Bay.

The rambling operations of the naval war till the close of 1780-- directed by the allies to such secondary objects as the capture of West Indian islands, or of Minorca and Gibraltar, and by Great Britain to defensive movements--began to assume a degree of coherence in 1781. Holland having now joined the allies, the British government was compelled to withdraw part of its fleet from other purposes to protect the North Sea trade. A desperate battle was fought on the Dogger Bank on the 5th of August between Sir Hyde Parker and the Dutch admiral Zoutman, both being engaged in protecting trade; but Holland did not affect the general course of the war. The allies again failed to make a vigorous attack on the British forces in the Channel. They could not even prevent Admiral George Darby from relieving Gibraltar and Minorca in April. The second of these places was closely invested later on, and was compelled to surrender on the 5th of February 1782. But a vigorous policy was carried out by France in the West Indies and America, while she began a most resolute attack on the British position in the East Indies.

In the West Indies Rodney, having received news of the breach with Holland early in the year, took the island of St Eustatius, which had been a great depot of contraband of war, on the 3rd of February. The British admiral was accused of applying himself so entirely to seizing and selling his booty that he would not allow his second in command, Sir Samuel Hood, who had recently joined him, to take proper measures to impede the arrival of French forces known to be on their way to Martinique. The French admiral, the count de Grasse, reached the island with reinforcements in April. Until July he was engaged in a series of skilful operations directed to menacing the British islands while he avoided being brought to battle by Rodney. In July he sailed for the coast of North America, whither he was followed in August by Hood, Rodney having been compelled to return home in ill-health.

On the coast of North America the war came to its crisis. In the earlier part of the year the British at New York and the French at Newport continued to watch one another. In April the British admiral Arbuthnot did indeed succeed in baffling an attempt of the French to carry reinforcements to the American cause in Virginia. The action he fought off the capes of Virginia on the 16th of April was ill conducted, but his main purpose was achieved. Washington, who was wisely anxious to concentrate attack on one or other of the centres of British power in Virginia or New York, had to wait till the arrival of Grasse before he could see his ideas applied. The French admiral gave the allies a superiority of naval strength on the coast of Virginia, and Lord Cornwallis, the British commander, was beleaguered in Yorktown. Admiral Thomas Graves, Arbuthnot's successor, who had been joined by Hood from the West Indies, endeavoured to drive off the French fleet. But the feeble battle he fought on the 5th of September failed to shake the French hold on the Chesapeake, and Grasse having been reinforced, Graves sailed away. Yorktown fell on the 19th of October, and the war was settled as far as the coast of North America was concerned.

The French admiral, having rendered this vital service to his ally, now returned to the West Indies, whither he was followed by Hood, and resumed the attacks on the British islands. In January and February 1782 he conquered St Christopher, in spite of the most determined opposition of Hood, who with a much inferior force first drove him from his anchorage at Basseterre, and then repulsed his repeated attacks. The next purpose of the French was to combine with the Spaniards for an attack on Jamaica. Sir George Rodney, having returned to his command with reinforcements, baffled this plan by the series of operations which culminated in the Battle of the Saintes of April 12, 1782. No further operations of note occurred in the West Indies. At home Howe relieved Gibraltar for the last time in September and October 1782.

The war in the East Indies formed a separate series of episodes. In 1778 the British authorities had little difficulty in seizing the French settlement of Pondicherry. A naval engagement of a very feeble kind took place on the 10th of August in the Bay of Bengal, between the British naval officer in command and M. de Tronjoly. But the French were too weak in these seas for offensive movements, and therefore remained quiescent at Bourbon and Mauritius until the beginning of 1782. In the spring of 1781 the bailli de Suffren was sent to the East with a small squadron; on his way he fell upon a British force which had been sent to take the Cape from the Dutch, and which he found in the Portuguese anchorage of Porto Praya, on the 16th of April. Having provided for the security of the Cape, Suffren went on to the French islands. He sailed from them early in 1782 to carry out a vehement attack on the British forces in the Bay of Bengal. From the 17th of February 1782 to the 20th of June 1783 he fought a series of fine actions against Sir Edward Hughes, by which he secured a marked superiority on the water. Though he had no port in which to refit and no ally save Hyder Ali, he kept the sea and did not even return to the French islands during the north-easterly monsoon. Suffren failed in his main purpose, which was to make such a capture as would put his government in a strong position during the negotiations for peace. But his capture of Trincomalee in July 1782 in spite of Sir Edward Hughes, and the heavy loss he inflicted on the British fleet in several of the actions he fought, constitute the most honourable part of the French naval operations in the war.

Authorities

The Influence of Sea Power upon History, Captain Mahan, gives the best critical examination of the naval aspects of the war. The French side will be found in the Histoire de la marine francaise pendant la Guerre de l'Independence americaine (Paris, 1877), by Captain Chevalier. For accounts of the American navy see C. O. Paullin, The Navy of the American Revolution (Chicago, 1906); E. S. Maclay, History of the U.S. Navy, vol. i. (New York, 1897): C. H. Lincoln, Naval Records of the American Revolution (Washington, 1906); and Edward Field, Esek Hopkins, Commander-in-chief of the Continental Navy during the American Revolution (Providence, R.I., 1898). For details of actions the reader may be referred to Beatson's Naval and Military Memoirs of Great Britain from 1727 to 1783 (London, 1804), and to Sir W. Laird Clowes's The Royal Navy: A History (London, 1897, &c.). (D. H.)

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.