Part 19

In the following year, 1798, it became necessary to send a small detachment into the Mediterranean, and off the chief arsenal of the enemy, Toulon, to ascertain the facts concerning a great armament, since known as Bonaparte's Egyptian expedition, which rumor said was there in preparation. The hazardous nature of the duty, which advanced three ships of medium size, unsupported, in the very teeth of over a dozen enemies, many of superior strength, demanded the utmost efficiency in each member of the little body so exposed; a consideration which doubtless led Lord St. Vincent to choose Saumarez, though one of the senior captains, for this service, of which Nelson, the junior flag officer of the fleet, was given charge.

It seems scarcely credible that, when it was afterwards decided to raise this detachment to fourteen ships-of-the-line, sufficient to cope with the enemy, both St. Vincent and Nelson wished to remove Saumarez, with his antecedents of brilliant service, so as to allow Troubridge, his junior, to be second in command. The fact, however, is certain. Nelson had orders which would have allowed him to send the Orion back, when thus proceeding on a service pregnant with danger and distinction, to the immeasurable humiliation of her brave commander. After making every deduction for the known partiality for Troubridge of both St. Vincent and Nelson, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Saumarez, with all his undoubted merit, was in their eyes inferior to Troubridge in the qualities necessary to chief command, in case of Nelson's death, at a juncture which called for the highest abilities of a general officer. The moment was too critical to permit mere favoritism to sway two such men against their judgment. As it was, however, Nelson felt he could not part with so efficient a ship; and he therefore contented himself with giving Troubridge and Saumarez each a subdivision of four vessels, keeping six under his own immediate direction.

As all know, the French, when found, were at anchor. Thus surprised, the British fleet was hurled at them in a single mass; nor was there any subordinate command exercised, by Saumarez or any other, except that of each captain over his particular ship. Nelson's first expectation was to overtake the unwieldy numbers of the enemy, amounting to over four hundred sail, at sea, and there to destroy both convoy and escort. In such an encounter there would be inestimable tactical advantage in those compact subdivisions, which could be thrown as units, under a single head, in a required direction. For such a charge Saumarez possessed most eminent capacity.

The warm family affection that was among the many winning traits of Saumarez's symmetrical and attractive character impelled him to copious letter-writing. Hence we have a record of this pursuit of the French fleet, with almost daily entries; an inside picture, reflecting the hopes, fears, and perplexities of the squadron. Bonaparte's enterprise has been freely condemned in later days as chimerical; but it did not so appear at the time to the gallant seamen who frustrated it. The preparations had been so shrouded in mystery that neither Nelson nor his government had any certainty as to its destination,--an ignorance shared by most of the prominent French officials. When, after many surmises, the truth gradually transpired, the British officers realized that much time must yet elapse before the English ministry could know it. Two months, for instance, passed before news of the Battle of the Nile reached London. Then, if India were the ultimate object, to which Egypt was but the stepping-stone, four months more, at least, would be needed to get a naval reinforcement to the threatened point. What if, meanwhile, the ally of France in the peninsula, Tippoo Saib, had been assembling transports with the secrecy observed at Toulon and the other ports whence the divisions had sailed? "I dined with Sir Horatio to-day," writes Saumarez on June 15th, nearly four weeks after Bonaparte's starting, "and find that his intelligence extends only to the enemy's fleet having been seen off Sicily; but we have reason to suppose them gone for Alexandria, the distance from which to the Red Sea is only three days' journey. They may soon be transported thence by water to the East Indies, with the assistance of Tippoo Saib; and with their numerous army they expect to drive us out of our possessions in India. This profound scheme, which is thought very feasible, we hope to frustrate by coming up with them before they reach the place of their destination." A week later, Nelson received off Sicily news of the surrender of Malta to the French. In accordance with the views above expressed, Sir James now--June 22d--gave Nelson his written opinion, favoring the course adopted of seeking the enemy off the coast of Egypt; one of the most responsible decisions ever taken by an admiral in chief command, especially at the beginning of a career, as Nelson then was. "We are now crowding sail for Alexandria; but it is very doubtful if we fall in with them at all, as we are proceeding on the merest conjecture, and not on any positive information. If, at the end of our journey, we find we are upon the wrong scent, our embarrassment will be great indeed. Fortunately, I only act here en second; but did the chief responsibility rest with me, I fear it would be more than my too irritable nerves would bear." Nelson, in truth, was passing these hours in a fever of anxiety, scarce able to eat or drink. Yet at that very moment the British were crossing the enemy's wake, unseeing and unseen, and barely fifty miles separated the two fleets.

The perplexity foreshadowed by Saumarez actually fell upon the English admiral, through his reaching Alexandria three days before the French. Harassed out of his better judgment, he hurried back to the westward, touched at Sicily, and thence once more to Egypt. Meantime, the French had landed successfully. On the 1st of August the British fleet again sighted Alexandria; saw the French flag on the walls, but no ships of war. "When the reconnoitring squadron made the signal that the enemy was not there," wrote Saumarez, "despondency nearly took possession of my mind, and I do not remember ever to have felt so utterly hopeless or out of spirits as when we sat down to dinner. Judge, then, what a change took place when, as the cloth was being removed, the officer of the watch hastily came in, saying, 'Sir, a signal is just now made that the enemy is in Aboukir Bay, and moored in a line of battle.' All sprang from their seats, and, only staying to drink a bumper to our success, we were in a moment on deck." As the captain appeared, the crew hailed him with three hearty cheers, a significant token of the gloom which had wrapped the entire squadron through the recent ordeal of suspense and disappointment.

It is only with Saumarez's share in this renowned battle that we are here concerned. As is generally known, Nelson's tactics consisted in doubling upon the van and centre of the enemy, who lay at anchor in a column head to wind, or nearly so. Their rear, being to leeward, was thus thrown out of action. The French had thirteen ships-of-the-line, of which one was of one hundred and twenty guns, and two eighties. The British also had thirteen, all seventy-fours, and one of fifty guns; but one of the former going aground left them equal in numbers and inferior in force. There were two successive acts in the drama. In the first, ten British ships engaged the eight leading French; in the second, the fifty and two of the seventy-fours, which had been belated, came upon the field and strengthened the attack upon the enemy's centre. The Orion, being third in the order, was one of the five vessels which passed within the French, and fought on that side. In so doing, she described a wide sweep around her two predecessors. While thus standing down to her station, an enemy's frigate, the Serieuse, opened fire upon her, wounding two men. It was then part of the chivalrous comity of fleet-actions that frigates should not be molested by the ships-of-the-line, so long as they minded their own business,--an immunity which of course ceased if they became aggressive. Saumarez was urged to return her fire. "No," he replied, "let her alone; she will get bolder and come nearer. Shorten sail." She did draw nearer, and then the Orion, swinging sharply towards her, let drive her broadside of double-shotted guns. All the masts of the unlucky frigate went overboard, and she shortly sank, nothing but her poop being visible the next day. The helm of the British vessel was then shifted, but so much ground had been lost that she could anchor only abreast the fifth French ship; the interval left being filled by those who followed. In this position the Orion silenced her immediate opponent, the Peuple Souverain, which, being in an hour and a half totally dismasted, cut her cables and dropped out of the line; the contest being then continued with the sixth in the French order, the Franklin, next ahead of the flag-ship, Orient. The Orion was thus near by the latter when she blew up, but the few burning fragments which fell on board were quickly extinguished.

Twenty-four hours after the battle, Saumarez, who had been delayed till then by a severe wound from a splinter, went on board the flag-ship to call on the admiral; and to this visit we owe the knowledge of two closely related incidents, recorded by his biographer and friend, which are significant at once of his individual ideas on tactical combination, and of the lack of personal sympathy apparent between him and Nelson. He "found several of his brother officers on the quarter-deck, discussing the merits of the action. Some regret having been expressed at the escape of the two sternmost ships of the French line, Sir James said to the admiral, 'It was unfortunate we did not--' and was proceeding to say 'all anchor on the same side.' But, before he could finish the sentence, Nelson hastily interrupted him, exclaiming, 'Thank God there was no order!' Then turning the conversation, he entered his cabin and sent for Captain Ball.... We may relate the circumstances which induced Saumarez, without the least intention to offend, to make the observation at which offence was taken. It was Nelson's custom, when in communication or company with the captains under his command, to converse with them on the various modes of attacking the enemy under different circumstances; and, on one of these occasions, Sir James Saumarez, who had seen the evil consequences of doubling on the enemy, especially in a night action, had differed with the admiral in that plan of attack, saying that 'it never required two English ships to capture one French, and that the damage which they must necessarily do each other might render them both unable to fight an enemy's ship that had not been engaged; and, as in this case two ships could be spared to the three-decker, everyone might have his opponent.'"

Inasmuch as Nelson, in pursuance of his previously announced idea, had himself in the flag-ship--the sixth to enter action--set the example of doubling, by anchoring on the side of the enemy's line opposite to that of his first five ships, and in doing so had deliberately taken position on one side of a French vessel already engaged on the other, Saumarez's remark was substantially a censure, inopportune to a degree singular in a man of his kindly and generous temper; and its reception by Nelson is not a cause for surprise. On the other hand, as a matter of tactical criticism, based upon tactical conceptions previously adopted, if we assume it to be true that two British ships were not needed to capture one French, it may yet be confidently affirmed that to attack with decisively superior force a part of the enemy's order--to combine in short--is shown by experience to attain the same degree of success more certainly and at less cost than the simple distribution of effort advocated by Saumarez. To double, and to beat in detail, remained the ideal of Nelson, as it had been of Howe. It was by him applied then and afterwards to all cases, small or great, actual or supposed. To it he chiefly owed his dazzling successes, and this divergence of ideals marks the difference in professional insight which mainly determines the relative positions of Nelson and Saumarez in naval biography. It indicates the distinction between the great general officer and the accomplished and resolute division or corps commander.

At the Battle of the Nile Saumarez received the only wound that ever fell to him throughout his numerous meetings with the enemy, being struck on the thigh and side by a heavy splinter, which had killed two officers before reaching him. The total loss of his ship was forty-two killed and wounded, out of a crew of six hundred. Ten days after the action he was ordered to take charge of six of the prizes, which had been partly repaired, and with seven of the fleet to convoy them to Gibraltar. At the same time he was notified that the Orion was to go home as soon as this duty was performed. A more charming prospect can scarcely be imagined than this returning to his family after a long absence, fresh from the completest achievement ever wrought by the British navy; but even his tranquil temper, whose expressions never lapse into the complaints of Nelson or the querulousness of Collingwood, was tried by the slow progress of his battered and crippled squadron. "The prizes get on very slowly," he writes; "but I am endowed with unparalleled patience, having scarcely uttered a murmur at their tardiness, so perfectly satisfied am I with the prospect before me." Some time later he notes: "We have been three weeks effecting what might be accomplished in two days. This extraordinary delay makes me more fractious than can be imagined, and I begin to lose the character for patience which I had given myself, by so tiresome a situation." It was still the season of westerly winds, and the voyage from Alexandria to Gibraltar occupied sixty-nine days.

The Orion was now completely worn out, having been continuously in commission since the war began in 1793. Besides the three general actions in which Saumarez commanded her, she had borne a valiant part in Howe's great battle of the 1st of June. "This last business has so shattered the poor Orion" wrote Saumarez, "that she will not, without considerable repairs, be in a state for more service." On reaching England she was paid off; and in February, 1799, he was appointed to the Caesar, of eighty-four guns, one of the finest ships in the navy, which was to bear his flag in the last and most brilliant episode of his hard-fighting career.

A year later, Lord St. Vincent, having returned from the Mediterranean, took command of the Channel Fleet, and at once instituted in its methods, and particularly in the blockade of Brest, changes which gradually revolutionized the character of the general naval war; baffling beyond any other single cause the aims of Napoleon, and insuring the fall of his empire. One of the new requirements was the maintenance of a powerful advanced division of six or eight ships-of-the-line, within ten miles of the harbor's mouth. It was a duty singularly arduous, demanding neither dash nor genius, but calmness, steadiness, method, and seamanship of a high order, for all which Saumarez was conspicuous. From either side of the Bay of Brest a long line of reefs projects for fifteen miles to the westward. Far inside their outer limits, and therefore embayed by the westerly winds which blow at times with hurricane violence, was the station of the advanced squadron, off some well-marked rocks of the northern reef, known as the Black Rocks. On this spot, called Siberia by the seamen, during fifteen weeks, from August to December, Sir James Saumarez kept so close a watch that not a vessel of any force entered or left Brest. "With you there," wrote Earl St. Vincent, "I sleep as sound as if I had the key of Brest in my pocket." No work ever done by him was more meritorious or more useful. Near its expiration St. Vincent wrote to him, "The employment you have conducted is the most important of this war." He there demonstrated that what before had apparently been thought impossible could be done, though involving a degree of anxiety and peril far exceeding that of battle, while accompanied by none of the distinction, nor even recognition, which battle bestows. "None but professional men who have been on that service," says his biographer with simple truth, "can have any idea of its difficulties,--surrounded by dangers of every kind, exposed to the violence of storms, sailing amidst a multitude of rocks and variable currents in the longest and darkest nights, and often on a lee shore on the enemy's coast, while the whole of their fleet is near, ready to take advantage of any disaster." Collingwood, who in the next war succeeded to the same unenviable duty, wrote home that, even in the summer month of August, "I bid adieu to comfortable naps at night, never lying down but in my clothes. An anxious time I have of it, what with tides and rocks, which have more of danger in them than a battle once a week." In this laborious task Saumarez was the patient, unobserved pioneer.

There was one man, however, who could and did recognize to the full the quality of the work done by Saumarez, and its value to those sagacious plans which he himself had framed, and which in the future were to sap the foundations of the French power. That man was St. Vincent. "The merit of Sir James Saumarez," he said, "cannot be surpassed;" and again, to Saumarez himself, "The manner in which you have conducted the advanced squadron calls upon me to repeat my admiration of it." Succeeding soon after to the post of First Lord of the Admiralty, he gave him an opportunity for distinction, which resulted in an action of singular lustre and striking success.

Bonaparte, long before returned from Egypt, and now, as First Consul, practically the absolute ruler of France, had overthrown all enemies on the Continent. Peace with Austria, after her disasters of Marengo and Hohenlinden, had been signed in February, 1801. The great objects of the French ruler now were to compass a maritime peace and withal to retain Egypt, associated from far back with the traditional policies of France, and moreover a conquest in which his own reputation was peculiarly interested. To compel Great Britain to peace, he sought, by diplomacy or force, to exclude her commerce from the Continent, as well as to raise up maritime enemies against her. Thus he had fostered, if not actually engendered, the Baltic league of 1801, shattered by Nelson at Copenhagen; and for this purpose he intended to occupy both Portugal and the kingdom of Naples. A powerful British expedition against Egypt had entered the Mediterranean. It was essential either to attack this directly, or to cripple its communications. Unable to do the former, and persistently thwarted in his attempts to reinforce his own troops in that distant dependency by the close watch of the British navy, of which Saumarez gave so conspicuous an illustration before Brest, Napoleon resorted to the common and sound military expedient of collecting a threatening force upon the flank of his enemy's line of communications. He directed a concentration of the Spanish and French navies at Cadiz, which, by its nearness to the straits, met the desired requirement. Among others, three French ships were ordered thither from Toulon.

The British ministry was informed that at Cadiz were collecting Spanish vessels, said by report to be intended against Portugal. This is unlikely, as Bonaparte could have subdued that country from the land side by the assistance of Spain; moreover, the object of the concentration is stated in his letters. A squadron of five ships-of-the-line was accordingly formed, and placed under the command of Saumarez, who on the 1st of January, 1801, had been made a rear admiral. His orders were to go off Cadiz, where he would find two more vessels, and to prevent the enemies within the port from sailing, or from being joined by any from outside. Whatever Bonaparte's object, it would be thwarted by a force thus interposed, in a position to meet either one or the other of the converging detachments before they could unite.

Saumarez sailed on his mission June 16, 1801, and on the 28th arrived off Cadiz. On the 5th of July he was informed that three French ships had anchored off Algeciras, the Spanish port on the west side of Gibraltar Bay, confronting the British fortress on the east side. This was the division from Toulon, which upon reaching the straits first learned of the British squadron that effectually prevented its entrance to Cadiz.

Saumarez at once started for Algeciras with six of his ships-of-the-line, the seventh being out of recall to the northward. The following day, July 6th, he entered the bay, and found the French moored in a strong position, under cover of Spanish land batteries, and supported by a number of gunboats. Still, though difficult and doubtful, the enterprise was not hopeless; and, as the breeze allowed his vessels to head for the enemy, he steered to engage at once. Unfortunately, the wind fell as the squadron drew nigh, and only four ships were able to take their intended places; the other two had to anchor outside their consorts, and fire as they could through the intervals. This mishap lessened by one-third the fighting power of the British, and, coupled with the acknowledged superiority of guns on solid ground over those afloat, reduced them to inferiority. Their disadvantage was increased by the arrangements of the French admiral, carefully elaborated during the two preceding days. Had the preparations of Brueys at the Nile equalled those of Linois at Algeciras, Nelson's task must have been harder and his victory less complete. Nevertheless, after an engagement of an hour and a half, the British fire so far prevailed that the enemy resorted to a measure for which precautions had been taken beforehand. Lines had been run from each French ship to the shoal water lying close inside them; and by means of these they were warped away from their opponents until they took the ground. This increase of distance was in every way a gain to the party standing on the defensive, and a corresponding loss to the assailants. Saumarez ordered the cables cut and sail made to close once more; but the light and fickle airs both baffled this effort and further embarrassed the British, through the difficulty of keeping their broadsides in position. Here happened the great disaster of the day. One of the outer ships, the Hannibal, tried to pass inside the headmost of the French, not realizing that the latter had moved. In so doing she ran aground close under a battery, to whose fire she could make no reply. After a brave and prolonged resistance, in which she lost seventy-five killed and seventy wounded out of a crew of six hundred, and had many of her guns dismounted, she hauled down her flag. By this time another ship, the Pompee, was dismasted, and success was plainly hopeless. The British admiral, therefore, ordered the action discontinued, and withdrew to the Gibraltar side; the Pompee having to be towed away by the boats of the squadron.

Saumarez had failed, and failure, however explained, can hardly be carried to a man's credit; but his after course, by wresting success out of seemingly irretrievable disaster, has merited the highest eulogium. Maintaining both courage and energy unimpaired, every effort was instantly made to get the ships once more into fighting condition, that the attack might be renewed. "Tell the Admiralty," said he to the bearer of his despatches, "that I feel confident I shall soon have an opportunity of attacking the enemy again, and that they may depend upon my availing myself of it."

The opportunity did come. On the morning of July 9th, the Superb, the seventh ship, which had not been in the action, was seen rounding the west point of the bay under all sail, with a signal flying that the enemy was in pursuit. A few moments later appeared five Spanish vessels, two of which, the Real Carlos and the Hermenegildo, carrying each one hundred and twelve guns, were among the largest then afloat. On board them had embarked a number of the jeunesse doree of Cadiz, eager to join the triumphal procession which it was thought would soon enter the port, flushed with a victory considered by them to be rather Spanish than French, and escorting the rare trophy of a British ship-of-the-line that had struck to Spanish batteries. Besides the two giants, there were a ninety-gun ship and two seventy-fours; and the next day a French vessel of the latter class joined, making a total reinforcement of six heavy ships.

To these Saumarez could oppose but five. The Hannibal he had lost. The Pompee could not be repaired in time; her people were therefore distributed among the other vessels of the squadron. Even his own flag-ship, the Caesar, was so injured that he thought it impossible to refit her; but when her crew heard his decision, one cry arose,--to work all day and night till she was ready for battle. This was zeal not according to knowledge; but, upon the pleading of her captain in their name, it was agreed that they should work all day, and by watches at night. So it happened, by systematic distribution of effort and enthusiastic labor, that the Caesar, whose mainmast on the 9th was out and her rigging cut to pieces, was on the 12th able to sail in pursuit of the foe.

During the forenoon of the latter day the combined squadron was seen getting under way. The wind, being easterly, was fair for the British, and, besides, compelled the enemy to make some tacks to clear the land. This delay was invaluable to Saumarez, whose preparations, rapid as they had been, were still far from complete. Not till one in the afternoon did the headmost Spaniards reach the straits, and there they had to await their companions. The Hannibal was unable to join them, and reanchored at Algeciras. At half-past two the Caesar hauled out from Gibraltar mole, her band playing, "Cheer up, my lads, 't is to glory we steer!" which was answered from the mole-head with "Britons, strike home!" At the same moment Saumarez's flag, provisionally shifted to another vessel, was rehoisted at her masthead. The rugged flanks of the rock and the shores of Algeciras were crowded with eager and cheering sight-seers, whose shouts echoed back the hurrahs of the seamen. Rarely, indeed, is so much of the pride and circumstance, if not of the pomp, of war rehearsed before an audience which, breathless with expectation, has in it no part save to admire and applaud.

Off Europa Point, on the Gibraltar side, there clustered round the Caesar her four consorts, all but one bearing, like herself, the still fresh wounds of the recent conflict. Four miles away, off Cabrita Point, assembled the three French of Linois's division, having like honorable marks, together with the six new unscarred arrivals. At 8 P.M. of the summer evening the allies kept away for Cadiz; Linois's division leading, the other six interposing between them and the five ships of Saumarez, which followed at once. It was a singular sight, this pursuit of nine ships by five, suggestive of much of the fatal difference, in ideals and efficiency, between the navies concerned. Towards nine o'clock Saumarez ordered the Superb, whose condition alone was unimpaired by battle, to press ahead and bring the rear of the enemy to action. The wind was blowing strong from the east, with a heavy sea. At half-past eleven the Superb overtook the Real Carlos, and opened fire. Abreast the Spanish vessel, on her other side, was the Hermenegildo. The latter, probably through receiving some of the Superb's shot, fancied the ship nearest her to be an enemy, and replied. In the confusion, one of them caught fire, the other ran on board her, and in a few moments there was presented to the oncoming British the tremendous sight of these two huge ships, with their twenty hundred men, locked in a fast embrace and blazing together. At half-past two in the morning, having by that time drifted apart, they blew up in quick succession.

Leaving them to their fate, the hostile squadron passed on. The Superb next encountered the St. Antoine, and forced her to strike. Soon afterwards the wind died away, and both fleets were much scattered. A British ship brought to action one of the French which had been in the first battle; indeed, the French accounts say that the latter had fought three enemies. However that may be, she was again severely mauled; but the English vessel opposed to her ran on a shoal, and lost all her masts. With this ended the events of that awful night.

The net results of this stirring week completely relieved the fears of the British ministers. Whatever the objects of the concentration at Cadiz, they were necessarily frustrated. Though the first attack was repulsed, the three French ships had been very roughly handled; and, of the relieving force, three out of six were now lost to the enemy. "Sir James Saumarez's action has put us upon velvet," wrote St. Vincent, then head of the Admiralty; and in the House of Peers he highly eulogized the admiral's conduct, as also did Nelson. The former declared that "this gallant achievement surpassed everything he had ever met with in his reading or service," a statement sufficiently sweeping; while the praise of the hero of the Nile was the more to be prized because there never was cordial sympathy between him and Saumarez. Closely as they had been associated, Nelson's letters to his brother officer began always "My dear Sir James," not "My dear Saumarez."

In this blaze of triumph the story of Saumarez fitly terminates. He was never again engaged in serious encounter with the enemy. The first war with the French republic ended three months after the battle of Algeciras. After the second began, in 1803, he was, until 1807, commander-in-chief at the Channel Islands, watching the preparations for the invasion of England, and counteracting the efforts of cruisers against British commerce. In 1808, in consequence of the agreements of Tilsit between the Czar and Napoleon, affairs in the Baltic became such as to demand the presence of a large British fleet,--first to support Sweden, then at war with Russia, and later to protect the immense British trade, which, under neutral flags and by contraband methods, maintained by way of the northern sea the intercourse of Great Britain with the Continent. Of this trade Sweden was an important intermediary, and her practical neutrality was essential to its continuance. This was insured by the firm yet moderate attitude of Sir James Saumarez, even when she had been forced by France to declare war against Great Britain.

It may be said without exaggeration that from this time, and until the breach between Napoleon and Russia in 1812, the maritime interest of the war between Great Britain and France centred in the Baltic. Elsewhere the effective but monotonous blockade of the continental ports controlled by the French Emperor absorbed the attention of the British fleets. Of great battles there were none after Trafalgar. To Saumarez, therefore, fell the most distinctive, and probably also the most decisive, field of work open to the British navy. The importance of the Baltic was twofold. It was then the greatest source of materials essential to ship-building--commonly called naval stores; and further, the Russian part of its coast line, being independent of Napoleon's direct regulation, was the chief means of approach by which Great Britain maintained commercial intercourse with the Continent, to exclude her from which had become the leading object with the Emperor. The contravention of his policy in this way, in disregard, as he claimed, of the agreements existing between him and the Czar, led eventually to the Russian war, and so finally to his own overthrow and the deliverance of the Continent from his domination.

The historical significance of the position now occupied by Saumarez, and its importance to the great issues of the future, are thus manifest. It was a post that he was eminently qualified to fill. Firm, yet calm, sagacious, and moderate, he met with rare efficiency the varied and varying demands of those changeful times. The unremitting and well directed efforts of his cruisers broke up reciprocal commerce between the countries surrounding the narrow inland sea, so essential to their welfare while submitting to Napoleon; while the main fleet sustained the foreign trade with Russia and Sweden, carried on through neutral ships for the advantage of Great Britain. Two instances will illustrate his activities better than many words. In the year 1809 four hundred and thirty local vessels were captured, averaging the small size of sixty tons each, three hundred and forty of which belonged to Denmark, then under Napoleon's absolute sway. At the close of the open season of 1810, the merchant ships for England, which ordinarily were despatched under convoy in bodies of five hundred, numbered, according to Saumarez's flag-lieutenant and biographer, no less than one thousand vessels, gathered in one mass.

As long as Sweden remained friendly, the admiral's duties, though weighty, did not differ materially from those usual to his profession; but when she was unwillingly forced into a declaration of war by Napoleon, his task became more complicated and more delicate. The British minister having to leave, Saumarez succeeded to a diplomatic situation, in which the problem was to support the interests and dignity of his own nation, without transforming the formal war into actual hostilities, and substituting imbitterment for the secret good will of the Swedish government and people, who, in common with the Russian nobles and subjects, were alienated by the imperious and merciless exactions of the French demands. The secret aim of Great Britain was so to nourish this ill-will towards France, and so to avoid causes of offence by herself, as to convert covert hostility into open antagonism, and thus to reverse the political and military combinations of Europe. In the absence of regular accredited diplomatic representatives, Saumarez became at once the exponent and the minister of this vital policy. He had to avoid quarrels, and yet at the same time to restrain Sweden from acts of injury to which she was constantly impelled by the Emperor, whose purpose naturally was exactly the opposite of his; and who sought further to estrange all people from Great Britain.

In the performance of this task Saumarez's success was not only complete, but peculiarly his own. His temper was at times severely tried, but it never got beyond his control. He repressed injury, and demanded satisfaction for it, when committed; but, relying with good reason on the motives of the Swedish government, he contrived to secure redress without resorting to force, which, however understood by statesmen, would enrage the peoples he had to conciliate. After the ordeal was over, and Russia was at war with France, a leading Swedish statesman wrote to him: "You have been the guardian angel of my country; by your wise, temperate, and loyal conduct, you have been the first cause of the plans which have been formed against the demon of the continent.... Once more I must tell you, that you were the first cause that Russia had dared to make war against France; had you fired one shot when we declared war against England, all had been ended and Europe would have been enslaved." Saumarez, an extremely religious man, may have reflected that "he who ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city."