The Second Hundred Years War approaches a climax. Louis xv fights George ii in the War of the Austrian Succession.

2. Sea Power
1588-1763
How Western Nations Shaped
the Modern World

3. Sea Power
session viii
Finisterre, 1747

5. Not Guns, Germs, and Steel. Rather oceanic commerce and
the ships which have guarded it. That’s the factor to explain
the amazing rise of the English-speaking peoples. Their
naval campaigns underlie this history.
jbp

6. A Wall Map for the New War,
printed in1741

8. Note the
Dedica-
tion to
Admiral
Vernon
(Old Grog)

9. A Wall Map for the New War, 1741
Havana

15. Isthmus of
Panama;
Porto Bello
&
Chagre
(20 mi. W, not labeled)

21. The British equivalent of 24-7 cable news in the 1740s
Notice the large area of “unknown” or mistaken, e.g., Baja CA an island

22. English operations in the Caribbean Sea
during the War of Jenkins' Ear.

23. Spanish Trade (or War?)
A Greater War
Anglo-French War at Sea
Finisterre

24. Spanish Trade (or War?)
The Cockfight
Hogarth print, mid-1720s

25. Padfield, p. 188.
“WORLD TRADE INCREASED in two and a half decades of peace after the end of Louis
XIV’s wars. It was driven chiefly by growth in the plantation produce of America and
the West Indies, in particular sugar, and was primed by precious metals mined in the
New World—silver from the Spanish colonies of New Spain and Peru, gold from Minas
Gerais in Portuguese Brazil; production of both probably reaching levels at least double
those achieved during Spain’s sixteenth-century peak. Of the three major trading rivals,
France had access to silver through trading links with Spain and Spanish America through
Cadiz; Great Britain had access to gold through links with Portugal and her trade with
Brazil, and to silver by virtue of the slaving and commercial contract with Spain and the
opportunities this allowed for illicit trade with Spanish colonists. The Dutch also had
access to precious metals, as Amsterdam remained the intermediary between France and
Baltic and northern-European markets and suppliers.….”
10
Finisterre, 1747

26. op. cit, pp. 188-189.
“…and suppliers.
“The Dutch, however, entirely lost their trading dominance. Dutch industries were
hit by a growth of manufacturing • in the southern (Austrian) Netherlands and through
northern Europe and Scandinavia, accompanied by protectionist policies to nurture infant
industries,• Great Britain and France were able to absorb the loss of these markets through
the general growth in trade to colonial America and the re-export of produce from their
own colonies. The Dutch had neither sufficiently populous colonies nor, since the drastic
rundown of the army and navy due to the debt from Louis XIV’s wars, the power leverage
to win compensation elsewhere.• The result was a progressive collapse in manufacturing
and finishing, shipping and shipbuilding, and a drastic contraction of the urban
economy and population. The money men, seeing few attractive opportunities at home,
increasingly invested abroad—especially, but not exclusively, in London—contributing
both to the cycle of Dutch decline and to the expansion of the republic’s rivals….”
10
Finisterre, 1747

27. op. cit, p. 189.
“…republic’s rivals.
“By contrast, France enjoyed a trading and industrial resurgence. After recovering
from the financial disasters associated with John Law, her traditional industries regained
markets in Spain, Italy and the Levant, while the rapidly expanding sugar production in
her West Indian islands, Martinique, Guadeloupe and Saint-Domingue, provided a
commercial momentum which gave her a faster growth rate even than Great Britain.
Between 1730 and 1740 her seaborne trade increased by 86%, until it was equalling or
even surpassing the value of British overseas trade….”
10
Finisterre, 1747

28. op. cit, p. 189.
“… overseas trade..
“In 1735 the French East Indies Company • overtook both the Dutch VOC and the
British East India Company [HEIC] in value of sales. This growth was intimately linked
with the driving force of the economy in the West Indies, since three-quarters of the
cargoes from the East were Indian [Madras cottons] textiles, a large proportion of
which were then shipped to West Africa to barter for slaves for the sugar
plantations….”
10
Finisterre, 1747

29. WINNER OF THE SPANISH
SUCCESSION CONTROVERSY
Philip V (Spanish: Felipe V,
French: Philippe, Italian: Filippo;
(1683 – 1746) was King of Spain
from 1 November 1700.
Before his reign, Philip occupied an
exalted place in the royal family of
France as a grandson of King Louis
XIV.

30. op. cit, p. 189.
“…sugar plantations. African demand for brilliantly colored Indian textiles was such that
the French west-coast port of Nantes, center for Indian-textile imports, dominated the
French slave trade, as in England the corresponding center for Indian textiles, Liverpool,
was beginning to rival Bristol as the leading slaving port.
“So France, still the territorial threat to the balance of European power, emerged also
as Great Britain’s most dangerous colonial and trading rival. At the same time,
throughout the 1730s British merchants became increasingly bellicose. The South Sea
Company had not reaped the rewards expected in Spanish America from the commercial
and slaving treaty. France, linked to Spain by the Bourbon royal dynasty, had become
chief official—as opposed to contraband—supplier of manufactured goods to Spain and,
through Spanish merchants, her colonial empire. Moreover,• Philip V of Spain had begun
to rebuild and reform his navy on French lines, and to tighten control of trade with Spanish
America to keep out all foreign vessels—particularly those of the British South Sea
Company, which was engaged in massive smuggling under cover of its legal contract….”
10
Finisterre, 1747

31. op. cit, pp. 189-190.
“…legal contract. This had led to a succession of incidents with British ships attempting
to smuggle in trade goods, most notoriously the case of Robert Jenkins, captain of the
Rebecca, whose ear had been hacked off by a Spanish coastguard ‘making use at the
same time the most insulting expression towards the person of our king, an expression
no British subject can decently repeat.’…”
10
Finisterre, 1747

32. the Ear

33. op. cit, pp. 189-190.
“… decently repeat.’ The British merchant community exploited these violent clashes to
whip up a clamor for war. At bottom their aims were no different from those of Cromwell
or the Elizabethan adventurers before him: to seize the silver and take over the lucrative
trade of the Spanish colonists. Underlying the predatory ambitions was unease at the way
peace in Europe appeared to be working to the advantage of their French trade rivals.
“Walpole attempted by every means to avert war and cool tempers. In early 1739
he appealed to the reason of Members of Parliament: admitting there was something
‘peculiarly bewitching to an Englishman’ in the history of wars against Spain, he pointed
out that the days when the king of Spain was the dread of Europe were past:…”
10
Finisterre, 1747

34. op. cit, p. 190.
“…out that the days when the king of Spain was the dread of Europe were past:
“France, he went on, would not remain neutral, and ‘however great an opinion
gentlemen may entertain of the power of this nation, we are not invincible.’ As to their
late allies, the Dutch, ‘every gentleman here is sufficiently sensible of the present low
circumstances of that Republic.’ Their fleet lay in harbor in a very bad condition
requiring more money than they could furnish to fit it out. Moreover,…”
At present, if I may advance a paradox, his greatest security lies in his visible weakness…at
present there is scarcely any nation in Europe who has not a larger property in her [Spain’s]
plate ships and galleons than she herself has. It is true that all that treasure is brought home
in Spanish names…but Spain herself is no more than the canal through which all these
treasures are conveyed all over the rest of Europe. Should therefore we or any other people
pretend to seize these treasures, we could not fail to meet with a powerful opposition.
10
Finisterre, 1747

35. op. cit, pp. 190-191.
“…requiring more money than they could furnish to fit it out. Moreover,
“He went on to consider the disastrous consequences of war to the valuable British
trade with European Spain and the damage that might spread to British trade with Portugal
and the Indies, and asked whether it were not true that ‘a trading people ought by all
manner of means to avoid war; that nothing is so destructive of their interests, and that
any peace is preferable to a successful war’—sentiments that might have been coined by
Johan de Witt in the previous century.”
10
Finisterre, 1747
The French have a very fine army on foot which they can almost with no expense or danger
march down into Holland. Thus we might in a short time…[see] these Provinces again, in
danger of falling into the hands of France….Formerly the French in case they made any
attack upon Holland were sure of drawing the Emperor [Austria] upon their backs….But
now, sir, the Emperor is no longer in a condition to give any diversion that way. His own
army and finances are in the utmost disorder by his late unsuccessful campaign against the
Turks.

36. op. cit, p. 191.
“…previous century.
“Lord Portland carried Walpole’s theme to the House of Lords, making the point that
Britain’s differences with Spain were ‘not founded on her aspiring to the universal
monarchy as in the days of Queen Elizabeth…our differences are founded entirely on
affairs of commerce, to which nothing can be more fatal, nothing more destructive than a
war.’ Moreover, going to war would sound ‘an alarm to all Europe that Great Britain was
resolved to obtain, by the terror of her guns, what she had ni right to expect from the sense
of her treaties.’ There might then be seen as powerful a combination against Great Britain
as had been formed not many years since against the ambitions of France.•
“Reason made as little impact as might have been predicted by David Hume,• the
first volume • of whose Treatise was published that year: the arguments that forced
Walpole’s administration to armed hostilities were prompted by national pride and
expectation of plunder….”
10
Finisterre, 1747

38. op. cit, pp. 191-192.
“…of plunder. Preparations to attack Spanish trade were put in hand early that summer,
1739; as in the Anglo-Dutch wars of the previous century, months before an official
declaration: the Med fleet received orders to cruise off Cadiz, seizing Spanish
merchantmen, warships and privateers and committing ‘all sorts of hostilities’ against
Spain in reprisal for seizures by her coastguards in the West Indies, and a squadron was
fitted out to cross the Atlantic and carry the war to Spanish America. A smaller squadron
was prepared to attack Spanish trade and possessions on the Pacific coast, but this took so
long to fit out and man that it did not sail until September the following year.•
“Early results were disappointing, France was naturally determined that Britain should
not overpower Spain and engross her colonial trade. She remained formally neutral, but
fitted out her Brest fleet, so ensuring that the British main fleet would remain in home
waters, and neutralized other British squadrons by sending detachments to threaten action
in concert with the Spanish. Meanwhile British trade suffered the usual disruptions from
privateers….”
10
Finisterre, 1747

39. A Greater War
Battle of Fontenoy, 1745
Pierre Enfante, 1747

41. op. cit, p. 192.
“…from privateers.
“These failures were used to force Walpole’s resignation.• Before his downfall, he was
considering how to form a grand coalition as in previous wars to deflect France’s energies
to the land. The question was resolved for his successors by Louis XV himself.• The
Austrian Emperor died in 1740 without a male heir, precipitating a scramble for the
Austrian territory known as the War of the Austrian Succession.….”
10
Finisterre, 1747

43. op. cit, p. 192.
“…Austrian Succession. Louis, persuaded by the dominant military group at court that
the chance to seize the Austrian Netherlands and Luxembourg and bring the United
Provinces under French control was too good to forego, joined the anti-Austrian
coalition. It was a fateful decision: the United Provinces and Great Britain were bound to
join Austria in defense of the Netherlands, so creating the hostile combination that had
fought the wars of Louis XIV….”
10
Finisterre, 1747

44. The missing story of war’s outbreak.
Two young rulers would accede to the throne in 1740: 28-year-old Fredrick of the House
of Hohenzollern on 31 May,• and 23-year-old Maria Theresa of the House of Habsburg on
October 29.•
Ironically, there had been diplomatic feelers to marry the two during the 1730s but the
religious barrier was insuperable. When Emperor Charles VI died Saxony, Prussia,
Bavaria and France all repudiated the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 which established Maria
Theresa’s right to succeed he father. Frederick initiated hostilities on December 16 by
invading Silesia.
And “The Game of Kings” began again.
jbp

47. “…Louis XIV.
“So it turned out, and the outcome was remarkably similar. French resources were
drained in campaigns in Flanders, Germany and Italy, and the French fleet, after joining
the Spanish fleet and engaging in one indecisive line battle with the British Med fleet
off Toulon (1744),• was laid up for want of money; after which there was no option but
to repeat Vauban’s strategy of the guerre de course with light squadrons and privateers.
This allowed British fleets undisputed sway in the Med and off the Atlantic ports. French
trade with Italy and the Levant was again crippled, and the vital communications with her
American and West Indian possessions were seriously dislocated—as will appear.
Industry declined; hunger and civil unrest spread. At the same time, Britain’s trade
increased substantially and her stock of merchant shipping rose by over 20%, largely
from captures….”
10
Finisterre, 1747
Ibid.

50. The Rise of English Sea Power
“…British naval theorists of the early 18th century, … had before them in recent history only
the examples of Beachy Head, Barfleur and Málaga. As they saw the matter, mêlée tactics had
been tried and found wanting; formal tactics had repulsed the enemy. So official opinion came
out unequivocally in favor of formalism. Rooke’s Fighting Instructions of 1703 requiring a line
conterminous with the enemy (the Instructions he had used at Málaga), were adopted by the
Admiralty as Permanent Fighting Instructions. Thus they had the force of Standing Orders.
During the long peace from 1713 to 1740, while top-ranking naval officers grew old and
conservative, formalism acquired the added sanction of tradition. Formal doctrine became
dogma; mêlée tactics were forgotten. If anyone doubted that the conterminous line had become
inviolate, he was disabused by official reaction to the first engagement of the War of the
Austrian Succession (1740-48). This was the curious Battle of Toulon.…. ”
The Challenge of France
Sea Power, p. 40.

51. The Rise of English Sea Power
“…Battle of Toulon.
“Pursuing a Franco-Spanish fleet off Toulon in February 1744, Admiral Thomas Matthews
with a fleet of equal size but with bottoms fouled by long blockade duty, could not overtake the
enemy van with his own van. Rather than let the enemy escape, he bore down as he was and
engaged while still flying the signal for Line Ahead. This brought his van against the enemy
center and his center against the enemy rear. Mathews had expected Vice Admiral Richard
Lestock, commanding the British rear, to do the obvious and commonsense thing; press on all
sail and advance into the battle, joining the British center in massing on the enemy rear
[doubling]…. ”
The Challenge of France
Sea Power, p. 40.

53. The Rise of English Sea Power
“…enemy rear [doubling]. But Lestock did nothing of the sort. In literal obedience to Mathews’
line signal, he brought his rear squadron down against an open sea and so remained out of the
battle.• After the engagement, in which ships in the British van and center were severely
battered,• Mathews placed Lestock under arrest, but in the subsequent courts-martial the tables
were turned—Lestock was acquitted and Mathews was cashiered…. ”
The Challenge of France
Sea Power, p. 40.

55. “… and the French fleet, after joining the Spanish fleet and engaging in one indecisive
line battle with the British Med fleet off Toulon (1744),• was laid up for want of
money; after which there was no option but to repeat Vauban’s strategy of the guerre de
course with light squadrons and privateers. This allowed British fleets undisputed sway in
the Med and off the Atlantic ports. French trade with Italy and the Levant was again
crippled, and the vital communications with her American and West Indian possessions
were seriously dislocated—as will appear. Industry declined; hunger and civil unrest
spread. At the same time, Britain’s trade increased substantially and her stock of
merchant shipping rose by over 20%, largely from captures….”
Maritime Supremacy, p. 192.
10
Finisterre, 1747

56. op. cit, pp. 192-193.
“…from captures.
“On land, however, the pattern was not repeated. This was due, as Walpole had warned,
to the weakness of Britain’s principal allies, Austria and the United Provinces. Despite
heavy British involvement in Flanders, the Austrian Netherlands and barrier
fortresses fell to the French, who advanced to the borders of the republic. Elsewhere,
substantial British subsidies to Austria, Hanover and German mercenaries, together with
British Med fleet support for Austria’s Italian campaigns, failed to bring the prospect of
victory for the anti-French coalition. Meanwhile the extraordinary expenses of the war
by land and sea raised the British national debt by over 50%, to £70 million. French
finances were in a more desperate condition, for all the old reasons, and in 1748 a
compromise peace of exhaustion was signed at Aix-la-Chapelle whereby all conquests
were returned to the former owners; so the southern Netherlands reverted to
Austria….”
10
Finisterre, 1747

57. Europe
1748-1768
Well, not quite status quo ante bellum. Frederich II gets to keep Silesia.
Notice the island of Corsica, where another great general is born in 1769.

58. op. cit, p. 193.
“…to Austria.
“The great days of the United Provinces were definitely over. During the war it had
seldom been able to meet a much reduced quota of only twenty warships for the allied
fleet; its army had been poorly commanded, the troops disaffected; now its populace rose
in revolt. Dispirited by industrial decline, which had halved the populations of some of the
principal cities—Leiden, Haarlem, Delft and the shipbuilding center of Zaandam—
humiliated by military collapse, the people swept out the regents in favor of William
IV of Orange as stadtholder. Much of the intellectual argument for change was based on
John Locke’s treatises on government; and the state which emerged from the revolution
was a constitutional monarchy in all but name.
10
Finisterre, 1747

59. Anglo-French War at Sea
The Invincible French Ship of War mounting 74 Guns, Captured from France,
May 3d 1747,by Vice Admiral Anson & Rear Admiral Vernon.
John Charnock, 1747

60. “OF THE TWO leading trading rivals, the portents for France were dire, despite the apparent
stalemate in which the war had ended. The British merchant government had launched a
blatant assault for the Spanish colonial system which it was in France’s interest to defend. Yet
once again she had allowed herself to be seduced by the temptations of geography and the
compulsions of her military into a major Continental war; as a result, she had again been
forced to lay up her battle fleet and had had to resort to a form of trade warfare which had
proved harassing but strategically ineffective every time it had been tried. Once again her own
trade and industries had suffered while British trade had expanded; again revenue from the
corrupt tax system had failed to sustain her treasury, and Louis had been forced to borrow at
extravagant rates of interest. Significantly, the British government had borrowed at half the
rates incurred in Marlborough’s war—3% at the beginning, rising to only 4% in the final three
years, when over £14 million had been added to the permanent debt—a measure of the
maturity of British financial and fiscal institutions and the trust in which they were held. A
significant portion of the permanent debt—some £10 million of the total £70 million—
was held by foreigners, chiefly Dutch….” Ibid.
10
Finisterre, 1747

61. op. cit, pp. 193-194.
“Equally ominous for France was the message carried by a successful British blockade
of the Atlantic ports in the final years of the war. The strategy of keeping a powerful fleet
cruising to the W of the main naval base of Brest had been proposed by • Sidney
Godolphin during William III’s wars. He seems to have been the first to draw strategic
conclusions from the fact that Brest’s exits faced the Atlantic and a large fleet could leave
the port only with easterly winds….”
10
Finisterre, 1747

67. “…with easterly winds.• While these would also blow a blockading fleet from the coast,
the emerging French fleet would still be contained, since it could enter the English
Channel only when the wind went round to the W, and it would hardly dare to do so with
an English fleet to the W, both to windward and able to interpose between the fleet and its
base.
“The strategy was probably ahead of its time. It was proposed again in 1745 by the
commander of the home fleet,• Admiral Edward Vernon. Louis was preparing an
invasion force to support the ‘Young Pretender’ to the British throne,• Charles Stuart,
grandson of James II, who had landed in Scotland. To counter the threat, Vernon advocated
‘a western squadron formed as strong as we can make it’ to watch the French in Brest and
so ‘cover both Great Britain and Ireland and be in a condition to pursue them wherever
they went, and to be at hand to secure the safe return of our homeward bound trade from
the East and West Indies’….”
Ibid.
10
Finisterre, 1747

68. The Battle of Culloden—16 April 1746
final defeat of the Jacobite cause

70. “… West Indies.’
“The formation of the ‘western squadron’ and the destruction of a French coastal
convoy of troop transports was sufficient to deter Louis from his planned support for
Charles Stuart; without reinforcements, the Jacobite cause was snuffed out by an English
army recalled from the Netherlands.•
“The following year George Anson succeeded Vernon.• Anson had commanded the
small squadron sent round Cape Horn in 1740 to prey on Spanish trade and possessions in
the Pacific. He had returned in 1744 by way of the Cape of Good Hope after an epic of
endurance, seamanship and resolution which had brought him fame and enormous wealth
from the capture of a treasure galleon. Requesting a larger force, he ranged with
seventeen of the line from Ushant to Cape St Vincent covering all French and Spanish
Atlantic ports,…”
Ibid.
10
Finisterre, 1747

71. Ushant
48º27’ N
05º06’W
Cape St
Vincent
37º 01’ N
09º00’W
50º
40º
30º
20º
10º 5º 0º

72. “… Atlantic ports, and in May, 1747, some distance off the NW corner of Spain, he
surprised an outward bound convoy from La Rochelle and overpowered the weak escort of
five of the line in what is known as the first Battle of Finisterre….”
Ibid.
Lord Anson's victory off Cape Finisterre, 3 May 1747; painter, Samuel Scott, n.d.
10
Finisterre, 1747

73. Finisterre
42º53’ N
09º16’W
La
Rochelle
46º10’ N
1º09’W
Ushant
48º27’ N
05º06’W
Cape St
Vincent
37º 01’ N
09º00’W

74. op. cit, pp. 194-195.
“… Atlantic ports, and in May, 1747, some distance off the NW corner of Spain, he
surprised an outward bound convoy from La Rochelle and overpowered the weak escort of
five of the line in what is known as the first Battle of Finisterre. Many of the
merchantmen were taken; most of the rest turned back for France.
“Next month a detachment of five of the line sent out to relieve those of his ships in
need of repair surprised a homeward bound convoy from the French West Indies and
captured forty-eight merchantmen loaded with sugar, coffee and indigo valued at over a
quarter of a million pounds. As with the former haul, the greatest share of the prize money
went to Anson as CinC, but captains received £8,000 each—a small fortune—lieutenants
£1,000 and sailors £26, a substantial sum when compared with their normal pay. Although
the Royal Navy was by this date a disciplined fighting arm of the state, it retained features
of the predatory force from which it had sprung and the reward system of the merchant
state it served….”
10
Finisterre, 1747

76. Raubstaat England?
In 1941 when it was clear that Britain wouldn’t surrender, Hitler authorized his
propaganda chief Goebbels to begin a propaganda war. This ‘cigarette book’ was an
opening blast. Its theme was that the British Empire was stolen from indigenous
peoples and other (blameless?) European powers.• There were plenty of
controversial episodes where privateers were barely distinguishable from pirates, as
Spain had called Drake and Hawkins. And British artists like Hogarth who had
made a similar charge in “Cockfight.”
But was England’s colonialism different from that of the other Europeans’?
Even latecomer Germany’s?
jbp
THE ROBBED
WORLD EMPIRE

77. The page in the ‘cigarette book’ [packaged in cigarette packs]
showing Hogarth’s ‘Cockfight’

78. Finisterre
Battle of Cape Finisterre, October, 1747
Pierre-Juliene Gilbert, 1836

80. op. cit, p. 195.
“… it served.
“The squadron’s grip on the Atlantic coast was maintained through the summer and
into the autumn, bringing French West Indies trade to a standstill. In October a vast
convoy of over 250 merchantmen which had assembled at La Rochelle put to sea under
escort of eight of the line, virtually all the warships that could be fitted out from Brest,
under chef d’escadre the Marquis de L’Etanduère.• It was a desperate compromise
between trying to evade the British blockade and fighting the convoy through it.
“The western squadron now comprised fourteen of the line. Command had passed to
Rear Admiral Edward Hawke,• who had distinguished himself as a captain at the Battle
of Toulon. He had ample intelligence of the French preparations and attempted to lure the
French out by showing himself off Spain, afterwards cruising far out to sea in the track he
anticipated the convoy must take and spreading in line of search some 140 miles W of
Ushant. His judgement proved precise. The French sails were sighted to the SW in the
morning of 14 October, and he hoisted the signal to chase….”
10
Finisterre, 1747

81. “… to chase.
“De L’Etanduère formed a line, while his merchantmen crowded sail to the NW before
the wind. Hawke replaced the signal for chase with that for the line, then, seeing the
French warships bear away in succession and run south-westerly to draw him from the
convoy, he again hoisted general chase, hauling down the line signal. The leading British
ships arrived up with the rearmost French warships shortly before noon, engaged, and
pressed on to the ships ahead; those following did the same as they came up, most passing
to leeward but others working up to windward so that the French were doubled as the
fighting spread forward. Individually the British ships were lighter and more lightly
gunned, but the French rear, which bore the concentrated fire of succeeding fresh ships
coming into action, was soon isolated and beaten; afterwards the leading French were
subjected to a similarly overwhelming concentration,although two managed to escape into
the gloom as the October light faded….”
Ibid.
10
Finisterre, 1747

83. op. cit, pp. 195-196.
“… light faded.
“Of the six French warships captured at this second Battle of Finisterre, two had only
foremasts standing; the rest were swept clean of masts. ‘No ships behaved better than the
enemy’s,’ one British captain wrote of the courage they had displayed in defense,’or sold
their liberties dearer.’
“De L’Etanduère’s squadron had indeed written one of the most glorious chapters in
French naval history, inflicting so much damage on Hawke’s ships that they were
unable to pursue the convoy. Nevertheless Hawke sent a sloop to alert the British
commander in the West Indies, as a result of which forty of the merchantmen were taken
as they approached the islands. The other immediate result of Hawke’s victory was that
over 100 French merchantmen which had gathered at Martinique were deprived of
escorts home. Many had been waiting for over a year. The western squadron had not only
destroyed the greater part of the French Atlantic fleet in commission, it had in effect
severed mainland France from her most economically valuable colonies….”
10
Finisterre, 1747

84. Three of the six
French vessels
captured at the
Second Battle of
Cape Finisterre;
Terrible, Neptune
and Severn
—Wikipedia

85. “… valuable colonies.
“Among the French warships captured at first and second Finisterre were three 74-gun
two-deckers • which were larger, sailed better and carried heavier batteries higher from the
water than the British 80-gun three-deckers—or, indeed, than the 70-gun two-deckers
based on the design of the earlier French model, the Superbe. A new Board of Admiralty
which included Anson had been trying hard since 1744 to introduce a similar class of large
74-gun ship into the British service against the obstruction of the long-serving official
responsible for warship design. The power and handling qualities of the French prizes
provided added stimulus for the Admiralty. Nevertheless it was to take many stratagems
before the first comparable British 74s were laid down in 1755, just in time for the next
encounter with France. They and their successors which mounted twenty-eight 32-
pounders on the lower gun deck • married the destructive power of a first rate’s main
battery to the speed and handling qualities of a frigate. They were to play a prominent
role in the decisive battles of the next round of Anglo-French struggle, and became the
backbone of the British battle line for the rest of the century”
The ‘74s’
op. cit, p. 196.
10
Finisterre, 1747

89. The Rise of English Sea Power
“…When fleets abandoned bunching tactics for fighting in line ahead, small lightly armed
warships and armed merchantmen too often found themselves opposite men-of-war many times
more powerful than themselves. This sort of thing had to be avoided because the strength of a
column of ships lies in coherence. Like a chain, it is no stronger than its weakest link, The
obvious and only practical solution to this dilemma was to eliminate the weaker vessels from
the line. So, before the end of the 17th century, the smaller types were detached for cruising and
patrol duty, became in fact the cruisers of the navy, and merchantmen went back to transport
and cargo hauling. The tendency thereafter was to shorter, more homogeneous battle lines
containing only heavily gunned men-of-war considered ‘fit to lie in the line.’ Such ships were
called ships of the line.
“In the early 18th century, the division between ships of the line and cruisers was fixed at 50
guns. This arbitrary division proved unsatisfactory however, for 50-gun ships were found not fit
to lie in the line with ships of 100 guns. Not until mid-century were types clearly categorized
with standards of size, tonnage, and armament fixed for each. This was the work chiefly of
Admiral Anson, who became First Lord of the Admiralty in 1754…. ”
Eighteenth Century Ships and Guns
Sea Power, pp. 41-42.

90. The Rise of English Sea Power
“…in 1754. Besides introducing standardized uniforms for officers and pulling the Royal Navy
out of the material and administrative doldrums into which it had again declined, he made a
practical distinction between line ships and cruisers and established rates in each category Since
other countries generally followed the lead of Britain in naval matters, Anson’s plan of
organization, with some modifications, was followed elsewhere.
“In brief, Anson divided all men-of-war into six rates according to the number of guns
carried, First, Second, and Third Rates being designated ships of the line, and the rest,
cruisers….Thus we read of a 74-gun ship…. ”
Eighteenth Century Ships and Guns
Sea Power, pp. 42-43.

91. The Rise of English Sea Power
“In brief, Anson divided all men-of-war into six rates according to the number of guns
carried, First, Second, and Third Rates being designated ships of the line, and the rest,
cruisers….Thus we read of a 74-gun ship or a 36-gun frigate….
Eighteenth Century Ships and Guns
Sea Power, pp. 42-43.

92. The Rise of English Sea Power
“In brief, Anson divided all men-of-war into six rates according to the number of guns
carried, First, Second, and Third Rates being designated ships of the line, and the rest,
cruisers….Thus we read of a 74-gun ship • or a 36-gun frigate…. We also find men-of-war
named with rated number of guns following,• as Victory, 100; Constitution, 44; or Wasp, 18. To
the initiated these figures indicated that the first was a ship of the line; the second, a frigate; and
the third, a sloop-of-war….”
Eighteenth Century Ships and Guns
Sea Power, pp. 42-43.

93. The Rise of English Sea Power
“…a sloop-of-war.
“Flagships of the line carried from 80 to more than 100 guns. In later periods some huge
ships managed to crowd up to 140 aboard. Ships of 80 guns and upward, Anson’s First and
Second Rates, were three-deckers, that is they carried their guns on three complete decks, with
additional guns on the forecastle and quarterdeck…. ”
Eighteenth Century Ships and Guns
Sea Power, pp. 42-43.

94. The Rise of English Sea Power
“…and quarterdeck. A typical 100-gun ship had the following measurements:•…. A post-WWII
United States frigate has the same displacement, beam and depth of hold as a 100-gun ship of
the line, but is considerably more than twice as long and carries fewer than half as many men.
“Most of the ‘private,’ or non-flag, ships in the line were two-deckers (Third Rates) carrying
74 guns. These had a full compliment of about 650 men…•
“Eighteenth century men-of-war carried huge compliments of seamen, partly to work the
great cloud of sail needed to drive such broad-beamed vessels at an acceptable speed 9 but
chiefly to manhandle the awkward guns of the period. A dozen men were required to secure,
load, run out and lay a long 32-pounder.• Well trained gun crews in the RN could fire a
broadside every two or three minutes and get off three or four broadsides before exhaustion
slowed them down. A few British captains toward the end of the century trained their crews to
fire five broadsides in five minutes. French and Spanish gunners did well to get off one
broadside every five minutes…. ”
Eighteenth Century Ships and Guns
Sea Power, p. 43.
______
9 In average winds, a ship of the line could make five or six knots [7-8 mph] before the wind. Frigates could make
eight to ten knots.

96. The Rise of English Sea Power
“…five minutes. The contrast in rate of fire was a result partly of superior British training and
discipline and partly of differences in objective. Because the British usually reserved their fire
for close range action—under 600 yards—and fired at hulls, they rarely bothered with the
niceties of accuracy. Frenchmen and Spaniards, on the contrary, took careful aim in order to hit
masts and spars—at long range if possible. As formalism waned and Englishmen again sought
to bring on a melee, rate of fire proved decisive over aim—or at least over the aim that their
opponents generally achieved. That is why the great British meleeists of the last days of sail
seldom hesitated to tackle enemy fleets far superior in numbers to their own.
“Though the British fleet by the mid-1700s surpassed all others in organization, ship
handling and gunnery, nothing could shake the RN loose from its traditional guesswork in ship
design. French and Spanish ships were swifter and more maneuverable than British ships, not
because they were better built but because they were more scientifically designed. British
admirals were only too glad to capture them intact and incorporate them into their own fleets,
where more often than not they were appropriated as flagships…. ”
Eighteenth Century Ships and Guns
Sea Power, pp. 43-44.

97. The Rise of English Sea Power
“The voyaged of exploration and discovery in the late 15th and early 16th centuries
reoriented the interests of Europe toward the oceans and involved the oceanic powers in a long
and often bitter rivalry for trade and colonies. In this competition England took a strong lead
after meeting the challenges successively of Spain, Holland and France. Early in the 18th
century she had become the world’s greatest trader on the seas, she possessed the world’s
largest navy, and she had laid the foundations of a vast overseas empire.
“The chief reason for England’s success was her almost exclusive reliance upon her navy,
and that in turn grew out of her unique fitness for the role of sea power and colonizer. Her
comparatively sparse internal resources together with her burgeoning population provided the
impetus and the manpower for developing overseas commerce and planting colonies.
Englishmen had an outstanding capacity for colonization, trade, and industry, all three of which
nourish sea power. The government of England, unlike those of Spain and France, more and
more favored industrial, commercial and naval progress. Unlike France, England had a
continuous coastline that permitted her to keep her naval forces concentrated…. ”
Summary
Sea Power, p. 44.

98. The Rise of English Sea Power
“…forces concentrated. Uniquely among her rivals, she had no land frontier to tempt her into
continental expansion or oblige her to maintain a defensive standing army. She could therefore
devote her wealth to fleets for extending and protecting her trade, seizing and defending new
colonies, and blockading and destroying the fleets of her enemies. Lastly, her position athwart
the sea approaches to Western Europe enabled her easily to blockade enemy ports and disrupt
seaborne enemy commerce.10
“Partly by chance, partly by policy, England supported a balance of power in Europe • by
allying herself in each period with secondary powers against the strongest and most aggressive
power. At peace conferences she demanded trade concessions, overseas colonies, and on the
advice of the Admiralty, strategic bases near terminal points (major ports) and focal areas
(waters near capes and straits), where shipping tends to converge. Her strategic-base policy
enabled her at length, as the old phrase has it, to ’lock up the seven seas of the world.’…. ”
Summary
Ibid.
______
9 Based on Capt. Alfred Thayer Mahan USN, The Influence of Sea Power upon History (Boston, 1890), 25-89.

99. The Rise of English Sea Power
“…the world. In the early 18th century her acquisition of Gibraltar and Minorca had already
given her virtual control of the western Med. These bases also facilitated blockades of Cadiz
and Toulon and made it next to impossible for France to combine her Brest and Toulon fleets
for wartime operations in the English Channel.
“The isolation that had enabled England to hold aloof from continental disputes, picking her
time and allies, was interrupted during the period (1689-1701) when the Dutch Stadtholder was
also King of England. It was interrupted again in 1714 when the Elector of Hanover acceded to
the English throne as George I. While the Hanoverian Electors were also Kings of England,
their little German state was likely to be a millstone hung on British foreign policy and military
strategy.
“In seamanship and gunnery, Englishmen consistently outdistanced their rivals. For a long
time too they remained a step ahead in ship design and tactical doctrine. They were the first to
use broadsides and the first to stress maneuverability in their warships. They were the first to
abandon grappling and boarding and the first to improve upon the old bunching tactics…. ”
Summary
op. cit., pp. 44-45.

100. The Rise of English Sea Power
“…bunching tactics. By the end of the 17th century however, traditionalism in ship
construction and formalism in tactics began to put the RN at a disadvantage. England’s enemies
were quick to profit by these self-imposed handicaps by designing ships more scientifically and
by inventing suitable counter-tactics.
“After any drastic change in naval weapons, such as the introduction of the sailing warship,
five basic questions have to be answered:
The first two questions must be answered before an effective tactic doctrine can be worked out.
Working out the doctrine involves finding a simultaneous solution to questions 3, 4. and 5. In
meeting the challenge of Spain in the Spanish Armada campaign, England answered question 1
for herself: the gun was to be her primary naval weapon…. ”
Summary
op. cit., p. 45.
(1) What weapons are suitable for use in the main battle formation?
(2) What battle formation gives fullest play to the weapons in use?
(3) How can one mass one’s fleet against the enemy’s fleet?
(4) How can the enemy fleet be prevented from massing against one’s own?
(5) How can the enemy fleet be prevented from escaping

101. The Rise of English Sea Power
“…naval weapon. In meeting the challenge of Holland in the Anglo-Dutch Wars, England
answered question 2: the line ahead gave fullest play to the gun. By the middle of the 18th
century neither the melee nor the formal school of tactics in England had found a complete and
simultaneous set of answers for the rest of the tactical questions. The meleeists proposed the
devices of massing, doubling, and breaking as answers to question 3 and doubling and breaking
as answers to question 5, but they found no answer for question 4. The formalists proposed the
conterminous line of battle as an answer to question 4, but found no answer to questions 3 and
5. When opposing fleets are equal or nearly so, solutions to 3 and 5 may provide the key to
victory, but a solution to 4 is likely to prevent defeat. hence a choice between melee and formal
tactics boils down to whether one wishes to emphasize the offensive or the defensive. Early in
the 18th century, English naval tacticians chose a formal defensive doctrine and wrote it into
the Permanent Fighting Instructions. A naval service grown old and conservative in a long
period of peace raised the formal doctrine into inviolate dogma. The formalists, as it turned out,
won no decisive victories but neither did they suffer any decisive defeats…. ”
Summary
Ibid.
(1) What weapons are suitable for use in the main battle formation?
(2) What battle formation gives fullest play to the weapons in use?
(3) How can one mass one’s fleet against the enemy’s fleet?
(4) How can the enemy fleet be prevented from massing against one’s own?
(5) How can the enemy fleet be prevented from escaping

102. The Rise of English Sea Power
“…decisive defeats.
“Clear-sighted admirals like Anson and Hawke were far from satisfied. Scorning the paper
tacticians and their precise solutions, they set out to free the RN from its tactical chains. They
were prepared if necessary to jettison the line, and dogmatic tactics in general, and submit the
issue to the fortunes of the chase. In such a free-for-all something was lost and much was
risked, but individual initiative, skill, and spirit were given a chance to weigh in the balance.
Chase tactics won the clear victories that Englishmen had almost ceased to expect, but they did
not provide the final solution. That was to come later, when initiative and doctrine were brought
into balance and united by an efficient signal system. The combination at length produced the
victories of Howe, Jervis, Duncan, and Nelson in the golden age of sail.”
Summary
Ibid.

103. Britain and France would continue the Second Hundred Years War until 1815. The
Great War for Empire would take a decisive turn in the next round, the Seven Years
War, 1756-1763.
The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748, like so many treaties before, only signaled a
truce, while both sides prepared for war yet again.
Our French and Indian War, 1754-1763, was just one theater of the global Seven
Years War. It began in western Pennsylvania when • a Virginia militia major, 21-year-
old George Washington, made a fateful choice. The struggle to control the Forks of the
Ohio would trigger that round.
And once again maritime supremacy will be decisive.
But that’s another story…
jbp

106. Fin