When referring to the actions of the commander of Royal Navy forces at the Battle of Jutland, Winston Churchill famously remarked that Admiral Sir John Jellicoe was ‘the only man who could lose the war in an afternoon.’ His assertion begs the question whether there ever was a British commander who did lose a war in the afternoon. The Battle of Jutland is well-remembered in spite of having been an indecisive engagement. As a rule, it is the more decisive military encounters that are better-remembered. Perhaps this is one reason why the Second Battle of The Capes has been largely forgotten, because as a prime example of one man losing a war in the postmeridian, it should be much better known today. When Churchill, an avid military historian, made his famous remark, did he have in mind the ignoble feat of Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Graves in the late afternoon of 5th September 1781?
The American War of Independence is often mistakenly seen as a war solely between Britain and her American colonies. In fact, by 1778 it had already become a global war after the signing of the Franco-American Alliance. A year later, France’s ally Spain declared war on Britain, although the Spanish crown refused to recognise the cause of American ‘insurgents’ [1]. The subsequent declaration of war by the Netherlands, and the forming of the League of Armed Neutrality by northern European powers, both the result of heavy-handed British attempts to prevent foreign trade with its adversaries, meant that through 1778-1783, although the Americans continued to have only one enemy, the British were having to fight sea battles not just in the North Atlantic and Caribbean but also in the English Channel, the Mediterranean, and even the Indian Ocean.
Keen to avenge the loss of Canada to the British at the end of the Seven Years War, France had started providing materiel aid to the Patriots as early as 1776, but it wasn’t until their unexpected victory at the Battle of Saratoga in October 1777 that the French government under King Louis XVI began to consider direct involvement. France was the only country at the time capable of opposing the Royal Navy in fleet actions. The Continental Congress, comprising the thirteen former British colonies, had authorised the development of a ‘Continental Navy’ through ‘purchase, conversion and new construction’ in the fall of 1775. [2] However, from the navy’s inception, its strategy was one of ‘guerre de course’ against British trade vessels, especially those bringing military supplies to the Americas. In fact, most of these formally commissioned men-of-war were sunk, scuttled or captured.
One success the Continental Navy had achieved at the outset was in raiding British gunpowder warehouses in the Bahamas. However, small fleet encounters with the British were generally disastrous. In October 1776, Benedict Arnold sacrificed his entire flotilla of small warships on Lake Champlain in efforts to thwart a British advance up the Hudson River. In July 1779, three Continental Navy warships and a large number of smaller vessels from the state navy of Massachusetts were lost as a result of a poorly-coordinated attempt to repel a British landing north of Boston in Penobscot Bay, Maine. ‘While the Continental navy had its share of tactical triumphs, not once did its efforts cause the British an operational or strategic check.’ [2], and until the French formally intervened, the Royal Navy could operate at will up and down the eastern seaboard, supporting British army landings and transporting stores and troops.
Far more effective was the Congress’s policy of granting ‘letters of marque’ to private ship owners sanctioning the conversion of vessels for the purpose of seizing enemy ships. ‘YOU may’, Congress President John Hancock’s signed authority stated on 3rd April 1776, ‘by Force of Arms, attack, subdue, and take all Ships and other Vessels belonging to the Inhabitants of Great Britain, on the high seas, or between high-water and low-water marks’. Roughly 1,700 letters of marque were issued by congressional governments during the war. This ‘privateering’, or what the British considered legalised piracy, (even though they’d followed the same strategy since Tudor times) was financed by wealthy backers of the revolution, several of whom based themselves in France where many privateers were secretly commissioned.
Privateers operated with considerable success against British supply ships not just off the American seaboard but also in the Bay of Biscay, the English Channel and off the coast of Ireland. In 1776 alone, privateers captured more than 300 British vessels, including 500 soldiers. [2] The work was hazardous but highly profitable. By 1780, twice as many British merchantmen and privateers were being captured as American and French privateers were being lost. The value of captured ships and cargo was split between the ship’s owner and the state government that had issued the marque. Recruitment was made easy by promising sailors a percentage of the prize. Advertisements of the time invited would-be crewmen ‘to make their fortunes at one stroke’. [3]
The private nature of these warships and financial stakes involved made for some bloody and desperate ship-to-ship encounters. For example, the Massachusetts-based privateer Thorn fought a two-hour action with a pair of armed brigs, which involved hand-to-hand fighting as the American crew fought off a British attempt to board. Both British vessels suffered heavy casualties and eventually surrendered to the Thorn, although one later escaped. [4] The most famous name to come out of the naval side of the American War of Independence was that of John Paul Jones, whose most notable exploit was the capture of the British frigate Serapis off Flamborough Head in 1779 using an old East-Indiaman that he had fitted out in France and had renamed Bonhomme Richard. Jones’ own ship was so damaged during this furious engagement that she eventually foundered. Jones even had the audacity to land in Scotland, an act that did little for the morale of the British public. However, these thrilling engagements between small groups of ships have tended to obscure the pivotal role played by the French navy in the outcome at Yorktown and consequent British capitulation:
‘Renowned as was the long fight of the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis, and the capture by the Thorn of two English sloops of war, it was not by such isolated incidents that independence was won. Ships’ actions there were in plenty, and the privateers who swarmed out of American ports did grievous hurt to England’s merchant marine. But the decisive factor was the often complicated and sometimes almost bloodless behind-the-scenes manoeuvring of the fleets of great naval powers.’
While it is true that the French navy was the greatest threat to the British, it was still significantly weaker during this period. It is difficult to give precise numbers about warships as they were forever being built, rebuilt, lost, wrecked and repaired. The mere existence of a ship did not signify its battle readiness. The official French estimate in 1774 was that in terms of ships carrying 50 or more guns, the Royal Navy outnumbered them by a ratio of more than two to one. [1] However, the true advantage was probably much smaller [5]. An ambitious ship building programme in the decade following the Seven Years War, generously supported by public subscriptions, meant that the French navy was perhaps better equipped than ever before. Ironically, this had been made possible by the conclusion of the Seven Years War, which allowed the French government to divert resources from its land armies to its navy. In addition, the French could continue to count on support from the powerful Spanish navy. Nevertheless, in an era when the outcome of sea battles was usually determined by superior numbers of ships and cannon, the advantage still lay firmly with the British. In addition, during the course of the war the Royal Navy would gain technological supremacy through their adoption of copper sheathing, which not only increased ships’ speeds but also the amount of time they could spend at sea.
There was ambivalence on both sides about French involvement in the American War of Independence. Monarchical France had no natural affinity with the republican ideals of the Patriots. Likewise, many Americans were very reluctant to fight fire with fire; that is, to use the troops of one imperial power to oust those of another with the attendant risk of precipitating another de facto occupation. The French government saw American ‘Independence’ purely in terms of a ‘political and military separation’ from Britain. This would not only strengthen its position in the West Indies but also open up lucrative trading opportunities such as fishing rights off the northeast coast. [6]
On the American side, it was George Washington who did most to pave the way for French involvement. It was the American commander of the Continental Army who first publicly articulated a receptiveness to the idea of deploying French ground troops. Moreover, the general was quick to recognise the fundamental importance of sea power. In a letter he wrote to the French army officer Lafayette in 1780, he avowed: ‘Without a decisive naval force, we can do nothing definitive; and with it, everything honourable and glorious.’ [7]
Another important factor in the French decision to divert military forces to the Americas rested on the cancelation of a planned invasion of Britain, involving a combined Franco-Spanish naval operation in the summer of 1779. It was army divisions assembled for this invasion that would eventually stand shoulder to shoulder with Washington at Yorktown. This cancellation also freed up naval units. However, the French fleets that sailed westwards after this time did so primarily to defend the country’s own colonial interests in the Caribbean, not specifically to bring about American Independence.
Bow Creek to Anatahan 