First Salute - Barbara Wertheim Tuchman [56]
VII
Enter Admiral Rodney
WHEN Admiral Sir George Brydges Rodney was given the mission to attack St. Eustatius, he was commander of the Leeward Island station of the British fleet in the West Indies and had long been angered by St. Eustatius’ daily operation as the principal source of supply to Britain’s enemies. A man of unforgiving character and vigorous action, he welcomed the opportunity for punishment. His orders, received January 27, 1781, when he was stationed off Barbados, at the eastern edge of the Windwards, informed him that Britain was now at war with the United Provinces and that in view of the “many injurious proceedings of the States-General of the United Provinces and their subjects, and for procuring reparation and satisfaction by attacking and subduing such of the Dutch possessions in the West Indies as the commanders of his Majesty’s land and sea forces shall be of opinion may be attempted with success,” the Admiralty proposed immediate action. They recommended as “first objects of attack St. Eustatius and St. Martin’s, neither of which it is supposed are capable of making any considerable resistance.” Rodney was authorized to consult “on procedures” with General Vaughan, commander of land forces which had been sent out a few weeks previously in anticipation of action. Material gain, the necessary justification for all warlike enterprise of the 18th century, was not overlooked: Because great “quantities of provisions and other stores are laid up there,” the Admiralty pointed out, and “may fall into our hands if we got possession speedily, the immediate attack and reduction of those islands” is recommended. Strategically, as Rodney wrote to Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, on December 25, Martinique, boasting the finest harbor in the Leeward Islands, “is the island most proper to attack.” British possession of that island could have made a real difference in the course of the war, but Britain’s immediate object was to cut off the contraband flowing from St. Eustatius to her enemies the French, as well as to the rebels in America. Two-thirds of the provisions and naval stores sent out from Britain under convoy, Sandwich had told the Cabinet in the September just past, ended up at St. Eustatius, from which they were shipped into French naval hands at Martinique. Well knowing this iniquitous trail, which his ships had often intercepted, and angered by the island’s withholding rope for repair of his rigging on a false plea of having none in stock, Rodney had conceived a hatred for St. Eustatius, and needed no prodding. He “lost not a moment’s time” in executing the order, he reported to the Admiralty. Troops were embarked, ships victualed and watered, guns and rigging inspected and readied, “the whole being kept a most profound secret” so that the blow should fall like “a clap of thunder.” Late in the evening of January 30, his squadron of fifteen ships sailed on its mission, reaching the harbor of St. Eustatius on February 3.
It was one of the peculiar malfunctions of technology that shore batteries on the islands were generally of inadequate caliber and range to knock out a ship approaching with hostile intent. One is moved to wonder why, if a 10-pounder gun could be mounted on the rolling deck of a sailing vessel, the same or larger could not be mounted on land? The fact is that the blind parsimony of the defense kept the shore batteries usually too few in number to equal in firepower the heavy guns of a ship of the line. When one of these big ships engaged in an exchange with shore batteries, it was more likely to knock out the land guns than vice versa. The guns of Fort Orange, like those of other islands, can still be seen mounted in the courtyard of the fort pointing right down at the harbor. If they could not defend against