1. The Board of Admiralty to Milne

[Milne Mss MLN/114/6]

[6 February 1860]

Whereas by Our Commission, dated the 13th Jany. 1860, We have appointed you to succeed Vice Admiral Sir Houston Stewart1 as Commander in Chief of Her Majesty's Ships and Vessels employed on the North American and West India Station between the limits therein described, and We have ordered your Flag to be hoisted on board Her Majesty's Ship Emerald at Devonport.

You are hereby required and directed so soon as the Emerald shall be in all respects ready, to put to Sea in her and proceed to Bermuda for the purpose of meeting Sir Houston Stewart[,] to whom you are to deliver the accompanying Despatch, and he will hand over to you all unexecuted Orders and Instructions relative to the Station (including our standing Orders dated 5 Feb 1857 of which a Copy is enclosed) and will direct the several Captains and Commanding Officers of the Ships and Vessels … now under his orders to place themselves under your command, after which the Vice Admiral will return to England, and on his parting company you are to assume the Chief Command of the North American and West India Station.

[Enclosure]

You are to take as early an opportunity as circumstances will admit of to put yourself in communication with the Governors, or Officers administering the Government of Her Majesty's Colonies and Settlements within the extent of your Station; as also with her Majesty's Ministers and Consuls residing at places, within, or bordering on the same; understanding that you are generally to afford them, or any of them, such ready aid and co-operation in all matters for the benefit of the Queen's Service as they may from time to time require from you, or as circumstances may call for, and which may be in your power to afford consistently with your opinion of the necessities of the Service, and you are to make such disposition of the Force under your command, as you may deem most beneficial for the safety and Welfare of the said Colonies and Settlements, and for protecting the Trade of Her Majesty's Subjects throughout the extent of your Command.

The British, evicted from Europe in the spring of 1940, vowed to return but it was clear that they could not do so alone, nor, they felt, could an invasion of Nazi-held mainland Europe take place for several years and until Germany had been severely weakened by attacks elsewhere, notably round the periphery of her conquests. In the end, an Allied return to the continent owed much to Soviet pressure on Germany from the east; the bulk of the German army was held on the eastern front. The Allies – chiefly Britain, the United States and Canada but also including elements of the occupied European countries – achieved a return to the continent in June 1944.

The date of the landings was a matter of dispute in the Combined Chiefs of Staff. The Americans, true to their military tradition, advocated an early and direct assault on Europe. They had argued for a diversionary landing in 1942 to draw pressure from the eastern front, where the Germans threatened to force the Soviet Union to surrender. The British Chiefs of Staff held firm against the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Not only did they wish to promote their own traditional indirect strategy, based on the Mediterranean, they felt that a descent on Europe in 1942 would be premature. Command of the surface of the Channel could not then be assured, while the Allies did not have overwhelming supremacy in the skies over the sea and Normandy. American troops in Britain in 1942 were very few and the majority of Britain's own soldiers were occupied mainly in North Africa, Burma and Madagascar. Moreover, the major bottleneck, never satisfactorily cleared throughout the war, was the lack of sufficient landing craft [129–30, 133–4, 144]. Even after the troops had been got ashore, much would depend on Germany's army being stretched by operations elsewhere and its means of reinforcement in Normandy effectively blocked. Moreover, as important as the initial landings was the capability to reinforce and supply the army quickly and steadily over many months. Planning for the great expedition, the assembly of much specialised equipment, the gathering of intelligence, elaborate deception and secrecy schemes, not to mention the training not only of the common soldiery but also numerous specialised units, would take many months. The JCS, somewhat chastened and chagrined after losing the argument over a 1942 invasion, proposed 1943.

The Spanish Civil War dragged on throughout 1938 and for much of the year it seemed as if neither side had the strength to bring it to a successful conclusion. This meant that the Mediterranean Fleet was obliged to continue the onerous duty of detaching cruisers and destroyers to the eastern coast of Spain to protect British shipping. The rotation of destroyer flotillas was particularly disliked because it interfered with training and flotilla work with the remainder of the fleet. At the beginning of the year it seemed as if there would be some relief. The Nyon agreements were apparently working, attacks by unknown ‘pirate’ submarines on shipping in the Mediterranean apparently ceased. This was not surprising since the perpetrator of those attacks, the Italians, had become part of the agreement. The British in early January were able to secure French and Italian agreement to a reduction in the patrols with the proviso that a small force was ready in each area to resume them if necessary [256–8]. The period of relief was short, for by mid January there were reports of attacks on British and other ships by submarines working outside of territorial waters. The Spanish Nationalists had only a pair of submarines obtained from Italy, but the Admiralty suspected the Italians might have been behind the attacks as they knew the Nyon patrols had been reduced [259]. Acting on Admiralty orders, Vice Admiral Cunningham, at the moment senior naval officer in the western basin of the Mediterranean, delivered a stiff protest to Admiral Moreno, the Nationalist naval commander at Palma. Cunningham sarcastically summed up Moreno's eventual reply after investigation: ‘The ships which were not sunk were attacked by Insurgent submarines whose Commanding Officers disobeyed their orders, whereas those which were sunk were not attacked by them’ [260]. The formal protest by the British Government to both sides in the war contained a threat to attack any submerged submarine encountered in the British zone [261, 262]. The protests and threats had their effect, Admiral Moreno agreed to restrict activities of the Nationalist submarines and Lieutenant Commander Hillgarth, the industrious consul in Palma was confident similar incidents would cease except, perhaps, for British merchant ships risking damage from air attack in Republican ports [264]. Attacks by aircraft on merchant ships, particularly Italian-manned aircraft according to Moreno, were likely to remain a problem.

Command of a ‘gunboat’ in the nineteenth century provided valuable experience for the Royal Navy's junior officers. On the West Africa station the duties carried out by such vessels included intercepting slave runners at sea, close blockade of slave ports, exploration, trade security and the furtherance of British foreign policy in the region. One of these vessels, HMS Investigator, was built for, and spent its entire short career on the West Africa station. Amongst its many tasks was an annual ascent of the Niger River in support of the Niger Expedition primarily under Dr Baikie based at Lokoja, the settlement at the confluence of the Niger and Benue Rivers.

The Niger Expeditions of 1854 and 1857 were reviewed in a Foreign Office note which summarised the purposes of the expeditions as being:

By 1864 the Foreign Office considered that the work of Dr Baikie, who had been resident at Lokoja since 1857, had largely achieved the purposes and expectations outlined above, and it was time for him to be relieved. In consequence, Investigator, under the command of Lieutenant Charles George Frederick Knowles, was ordered to take Lieutenant Henry S. Bourchier, Royal Marine Light Infantry to Lokoja to take command there in Baikie's stead. In addition to Bourchier, Investigator carried other passengers, the most important being Bishop Samuel Crowther, the first consecrated African bishop, who was being taken to his diocese on the Niger. The site of Crowther's first church is today marked by a white cross on the banks of the Niger opposite modern Lokoja.

Throughout Investigator's ascent of the Niger in 1864, Knowles kept a detailed journal containing a narrative of the voyage and a comprehensive study of the people met and places visited. A résumé of the ascent was published in the Royal Geographical Society journal in January 1865. The original of Knowles's journal is held in the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, and it is this that is reproduced in part here.

Exploration of the Niger River

The Niger River's history is well documented.

With the resolution of the Chanak Affair the Mediterranean Fleet was able to resume a more normal pattern, ushering in a period that can be viewed in retrospect as something of a golden age in the interwar period. There were flaws in this rosy picture and some serving at the time might have considered it as a golden age only in the light of what was to follow. The government imposed strict economy measures that translated into reduced fuel allowances resulting in curtailed time at Sea, unrealistically slow ‘economical speed’ in exercises and a much resented increase in bureaucracy and paperwork to account for expenditures. The staff of the Mediterranean Fleet became notorious for excessive regulation and attempts to foresee and schedule everything with exercises crammed into every available minute. It was, as Admiral Chatfield later wrote, ‘staff work run mad: the Germanic method of complete preparation and organisation, successful perhaps on land but ill adapted to the Sea’. Admiral Brock was succeeded as Commander-in-Chief in June 1925 by Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, a well-known and popular figure because of his leadership of the raids on Zeebrugge and Ostend in 1918. Keyes was followed in June 1928 by Admiral Frederick Field who commanded for the remainder of the 1920s. The atmosphere of the mid-1920s, with its impressive annual combined manoeuvres with the Atlantic Fleet followed by the cruising Season with visits to various Mediterranean and Adriatic ports, can be discerned in the letters from the flagship written by Lieutenant Duckworth [280, 281]. Duckworth also reflects the pride in the immaculate appearance of the Fleet and the importance attached to ‘showing the flag’, coupled with a somewhat condescending attitude towards foreigners that was characteristic of that time [282, 283].

The arrangement of the summer cruises was more complicated than it might seem at first. The first part of the cruise in the eastern Mediterranean, primarily in Greek waters, posed relatively few problems and took place each year. The second part of the summer cruises was more difficult, that is the very size of the Fleet made it desirable not to outlast its welcome in the western Mediterranean by visiting ports too often. Consequently, the second half of the summer cruise alternated each year between the ports of the western Mediterranean and the adriatic [302, 304].

The departure of Heath from Berlin was an opportunity for the new naval attaché to rebuild relations between the two navies. Captain Hugh Watson, the suave, urbane and sociable individual who took up his post in August 1910, attempted to do just this, holding out the prospect of an Anglo-German agreement on the exchange of naval information to all the senior officers and officials that he met [106, 110, 111, 112]. In doing so, his enthusiasm outran his discretion and he was ultimately reprimanded by the Foreign Office and disowned by the Admiralty for his pains in interfering in a ‘political’ matter. Subsequent to the breakdown of these well-intentioned efforts to promote an Anglo- German agreement on the exchange of naval information, Watson reassessed his attitude towards the German leadership. In particular, one can see Watson's growing suspicions concerning Admiral Tirpitz, the German naval authorities and the coterie he termed ‘the Large Navy Party’ [126]. Another theme that emerges from Watson's reports at this time concerns the development of German air power. Beginning in late 1911, he and his military colleague, Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. Alexander ‘Alick’ Russell, embarked upon an extensive campaign to raise awareness of German technical progress in the field of dirigible airships [140, 143, 147]. It was a point that they would raise with growing frequency in later years, as we shall see in subsequent chapters.

106. Hugh Watson, Germany N.A. No.31/10

Berlin, 25 August 1910

A Conversation with Admiral von Tirpitz

I have the honour to report an interview I had yesterday with his Excellency Admiral von Tirpitz.

With reference to the notes I handed to his Excellency, those contained in No.2 I was authorised by the First Lord of the Admiralty to put before Admiral von Tirpitz.

Those in No.3, the Director of Naval Intelligence suggested that I could put them forward as views of British Admiralty to Admiral von Tirpitz should opportunity arise.

[Enclosure]

106a. Precis of Conversation held with his Excellency Admiral von Tirpitz by Captain Hugh D. R. Watson, Royal Navy

Berlin, 24 August 1910

His Excellency was only making a brief stay in Berlin on his way from his home to Dantzig [sic] to attend the combined Naval and Military parade there before His Majesty the Kaiser.

It was not to be expected that a multilateral treaty of such great import, and on such an unprecedented subject, as the Five Power Treaty of Naval Limitation signed at Washington in 1922 would enjoy a smooth life. It raised, firstly, the question, for both the British and the Americans, of how to defend their positions in the Pacific, since they were forbidden to add to their fortifications in the western Pacific and, in effect, they had ceded naval supremacy there to the ‘local’ great power Japan, which already possessed defended and developed bases in the area. The Americans, whose remote Pacific possessions had never prompted Congress to appropriate money for their defence, merely shrugged their shoulders and concentrated on building up Pearl Harbor, far distant from the threatened islands. The British embarked on the long saga of developing a naval base at Singapore, sufficient to house the ‘main fleet’ and near enough to the western Pacific to deter Japanese imperial ambitions [41, 58].

There was, secondly, an American programme, ultimately accomplished, to raise the elevation of their battleships’ main armament, which drew British objections, though it was a moot point as to whether it was prohibited by the treaty. British ships had a 20° elevation whereas the older American ships had a 15° elevation, raised to 30° after Washington; only a few British ships were raised to this elevation in 1935–37. The Americans happily adopted a ‘stand pat’ position on the treaty as regards capital ship gun calibres and displacement and evidently enjoyed substantial battleship building facilities, in contrast to the British [42, 56, 62].

Although the treaty had specified total tonnage amounts in submarines for each of the signatories and the Root Resolutions had endeavoured to pin submarines to the historic rules on cruiser warfare, the British were disappointed that no other nation had supported their heartfelt (but scarcely realistic) proposal for total abolition of a weapon which had brought Britain almost to her knees in the spring of 1917.

New evidence about the coup which brought Mary to the throne has shed more light on its naval aspect. It has always been known that the Duke of Northumberland sent ships to the East Anglian coast to prevent Mary from making her escape that way. This is explicit in one of the contemporary chronicles, as extracted here [II.1]. We now know in some detail what happened to these ships, and in particular about dissension aboard one of them, from the record of a case heard before the Admiralty Court two years later. Greyhound's captain, Gilbert Grice, had been hand-picked by Northumberland for his expertise, but his crew had a keener sense of the way the tide was running, and when Grice went ashore at Yarmouth the master, John Hurlocke, took command and declared for Mary. He then broke open the captain's chest, on the grounds that he was a manifest traitor, and shared the contents with his shipmates. In the event Grice soon made his peace with Mary [II.3] and was retained in service. He subsequently sued Hurlocke before the Admiralty Court for the recovery of his goods, and it is the depositions in these proceedings which are presented in full here [II.2]. The testimonies are not entirely consistent, and there is no judgement. Grice was not on trial (indeed he had already been pardoned), and the only issue was whether he would see his clothes or his money again. What makes these papers important is their incidental detail about the operation and the men involved in it. This chapter is supplemented by some extracts from the Privy Council Register which show how the new regime took control of the navy [II.3–4].

II.1 The naval squadron sent to East Anglia in the attempt to prevent Mary's accession: extract from the account of anonymous Tower of London chronicler

[Chron. Jane, pp. 8–9]

13–15 July 1553

The 13th day [of July] there came divers gentlemen with their powers to Queen Mary's succour.

About this time or thereabouts the six ships that were sent to lie before Yarmouth, that if she had fled to have taken her, was by force of weather driven into the haven, whereabout that quarters one Master Jerningham was raising power on Queen Mary's behalf, and hearing thereof came thither.

Following the Second Moroccan Crisis, the German Government introduced a new amendment (a ‘Novelle’) to the Naval Law, greatly expanding the size, preparedness and fighting power of their fleet. This chapter follows the passage of this legislation through the Reichstag and contains Watson's analysis of the intent behind this measure. As the opening document makes clear, he was convinced that the bill was motivated by hostile feelings towards Britain. He also outlined his view that, while this increase in the German navy could not be stopped, a firm response by Britain would prevent further such increases [148]. He would continue to make this point in many instances thereafter. A further recurring issue in this period was Watson's perception that the German naval bill was being promoted by an active propaganda effort that sought to win the public by besmirching Britain. This propaganda Watson traced to Tirpitz and the news bureau of the Reichsmarineamt [157, 169], a fact that further reinforced his suspicions of the Admiral and his methods.

148. Hugh Watson, Germany N.A. No.5/12

Berlin, 8 February 1912

The German Naval Estimates, Increases and General Trend of Opinion

I have the honour to submit to your notice that in the speech delivered yesterday, opening the Reichstag, His Majesty the Emperor spoke of a strengthening of the naval and military defences of the German Empire.

No details of increases were given, and at the present moment there is no official pronouncement on the subject.

The following are, however, the heads under which the press prophesy the increases are to be placed:–

• (a.) Formation of a third battle squadron of eight ships, to be kept permanently in commission (reported on in my letter No.2 of the 26th January last).

• (b.) Addition of one armoured ship per annum to the present shipbuilding programme of the Fleet Law, and therefore in addition to the shipbuilding programme as contained in the summary of the naval estimates of 1912, published in the North German Gazette immediately before last Christmas. Another proposal urges the building of an additional armoured vessel every alternate year.

• (c.) Increase in number of submarines.

• (d.) Formation of a school squadron for torpedo-boat destroyers.

In the summer of 1934, Leslie Craigie, the British Government's chief diplomatic advisor on arms limitation, wrote to Ray Atherton, the longserving Counselor at the American Embassy, ‘It is unfortunately the case that since the London Naval Treaty was concluded in 1930 a very serious deterioration in the international and political outlook has occurred.’ Craigie wrote in the midst of lengthy preliminary negotiations between the British and the Americans (led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's confidant, Norman H. Davis) held in advance of a projected naval arms limitation conference scheduled for 1935 and intended to carry forward the Treaties of Washington (1922) and London (1930) for another six to ten years [120–27, 130–41, 143–6]. They were conducted amid war and rumours of war and thus had an unpromising backcloth. Since the 1930 conference, Japan had witnessed two Prime Ministers assassinated, other civilian leaders cowed into silence and several senior naval officers who had supported the Treaty system forced into early retirement. Worse still, a rogue element in the Japanese Army, supposedly guarding a railway concession in Manchuria, had provoked the ‘Mukden Incident’ with Chinese troops in September 1931. This was a major step on the road to Pearl Harbor, one compounded by the abjectly weak response of the League of Nations and the United States to an event of militaristic opportunism, if not of outright aggression. It was followed in January 1932 by a Sino-Japanese clash in Shanghai, occasioned by local patriotism but leading to the use of overwhelming force by the Japanese and much suffering for the local population; the western powers helped to stitch up a shaky peace. It was no longer clear who really spoke for Japan. A few months later Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany and quickly made his intentions clear internally and on the European stage. In Italy, Mussolini, dormant for a decade, was moving towards a seizure of Abyssinia, accomplished in 1935 [125, 132, 134, 141, 145, 146].

The London Naval Treaty of 1930 was due to terminate on 31 December 1936, at the same time as the landmark Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, and there was provision for another conference in 1935, with London again nominated as the venue.

The Emergence and Consequences of the Anglo-German Naval Rivalry

Unbeknown to most people at the time, the year 1897 marked a turning point in Anglo-German relations. In June of that year a ministerial reshuffle in the German government led to the appointment of new set of officials dedicated to revolutionising the Reich's place in the world. Unwilling to accept Bismarck's dictum that Germany was a ‘saturated’ European power with no further desires for expansion, they sought instead to transform their country into a ‘World Power’ (Weltmacht) capable of challenging the three global super-states, ‘Greater Britain, Continental Russia and Pan-America’.

Most prominent of the new appointees was the new Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and future Reich Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow. His avowed goal, articulated in the slogan Weltpolitik (‘world policy’), was to embark upon a new and dramatic foreign policy designed to ensure that Germany attained her ‘place in the sun’. Although it was never Bülow's intention to antagonise Britain, his method of implementing Weltpolitik – involving Germany ostentatiously in any global problems that arose anywhere in the world – would nevertheless ultimately arouse suspicions in London as to Germany's hostile intent. However, the probability is that very little would have come of these suspicions were it not for the actions of another of the new appointees, Admiral Alfred Tirpitz, the new Secretary of State at the Imperial Naval Office (Reichsmarineamt).

If Bülow was the most prominent of the new appointees, Tirpitz was certainly the most important of them, at least in so far as Anglo-German relations were concerned. The reason for this was that Tirpitz came to office with a very particular agenda in mind. Viewing the United Kingdom as Germany's ‘most dangerous naval enemy’ and the one against whom Germany most urgently needed ‘a certain measure of naval force as a political power factor’, he concluded that German naval expansion should be directed against Britain. As he put it: ‘the military situation against England demands battleships in as great a number as possible’. As a result of this thinking, he set out to transform Germany's naval position. In place of the existing meagre force of coastal defence ships and small cruisers, he sought to build a battle fleet capable of confronting the Royal Navy in the North Sea.

By the beginning of 1920 the situation of General Denikin's Volunteer Army appeared grave and it was likely the White forces would be thrown back into the Crimean Peninsula which would now be their only refuge. Admiral de Robeck, strongly committed to the White cause, argued that the Crimea should be held at all costs, if only because it might serve as a diversion and prevent the whole of Bolshevik strength being employed against Poland in the west or prevent the Bolsheviks moving through the Caucasus into Asia Minor. There was also a humanitarian motive, a natural reluctance to abandon those whom the British had hitherto supported to Bolshevik vengeance [51]. Both de Robeck and General Milne, commander of the ‘Army of the Black Sea’, believed the situation might yet be salvaged if British troops, even a small number, were committed to bolster the White Russian forces at Odessa, Novorossisk, the Crimea and Baku. British forces at the latter would permit the Navy to resume control of the Caspian Flotilla, now in the uncertain hands of the fledgling Azerbaijan Republic [54, 55]. The Admiralty authorised de Robeck to proceed to the Black Sea with all available ships and prepare to send a party to take over Denikin's ships in the Caspian, but delayed a decision on holding the Crimea [52, 53]. The Cabinet decided, however, that no British troops would be moved to defend any Russian ports or territory [56]. Nonetheless, the British would carry on an evacuation from Novorossisk to the Crimea in order to fulfil the guarantee made by Sir Halford Mackinder, British Commissioner for South Russia, concerning the safety of Russian officers’ families and children [57]. De Robeck pointed out, however, that this would not be a real fulfilment of the Mackinder guarantee, for the women and children would not be in a place of safety since the Crimea might fall in a few weeks. He therefore made arrangements for the eventual evacuation of refugees beyond Russian territory [58]. De Robeck had doubts about the wisdom of sending a navy party to the Caspian unless British troops could occupy Baku and the safety of the Batoum–Baku railway could be guaranteed. Nevertheless, in April the Admiralty ordered the detachment to the Caspian.

On 21 November 1918, the American Admiral William S. Sims stood on the quarterdeck of the dreadnought USS New York, flagship of an American force under Rear Admiral Hugh Rodman, US Navy, which had constituted the 6th Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet. From that viewpoint Sims watched the German High Seas Fleet steam to Scapa Flow to surrender to Admiral Sir David Beatty and his Grand Fleet. This suggests an intimacy in Anglo-American naval relations, forged by wartime collaboration since April 1917, and in truth there was a sense of warmth between the two English-speaking navies from which Britain's other allies were excluded, less by deliberate policy than by cultural difference.

Sims’ account of the wartime relationship, however, reveals an Anglophilia not shared by other American officers, who were highly critical of the Royal Navy's lack of a formal Admiralty staff and its supposed inability to conduct offensive operations against the Imperial German Navy. To a certain extent, these criticisms were valid, though Americans lacked an appreciation of the realities of the situation and approached maritime warfare with a rather inflexible doctrine. There were, however, deeper and darker issues separating the two navies. The rise and rise of the United States Navy in the wartime years had a double impetus – that nation's burgeoning economic strength, greatly accelerated by wartime trade with, and financing of, Britain and her allies, which led to a soaring national pride and expanded moral, strategic and commercial horizons; and the call of the normally pacific President Woodrow Wilson, angered by British blockade policy and determined to curb it (and regain the domestic political initiative), for the US Navy to be ‘incomparably the greatest in the world’. Will and means were thus united in 1916 and a programme launched that would enable the US Navy to match the Royal Navy in strength by 1919.

American performance was disappointing in terms of wartime construction but, from 1919 to 1922, a vast fleet of dreadnoughts, carriers, destroyers, submarines, submarine chasers and other auxiliaries was turned out. Moreover, America's hitherto minuscule mercantile marine was considerably enhanced, a powerful post-war challenge to the Red Ensign's global dominance.

It is not always safe to date an administrative process, let alone an institution, from its earliest documentation. Records go missing, or their archival sequence can be lost through subsequent rearrangement. The Navy Treasurer's Declared Accounts to the Exchequer begin at Christmas 1546, seemingly in direct consequence of the restructuring of the naval administration earlier that year. Naval accounts do, of course, survive in profusion before this date, but the almost unbroken series running from Robert Legge's account for the year ending Christmas 1547 [I.80] might be taken as a new beginning. In fact, as the foot of this account shows, Legge had submitted an account for the previous year, but that is now lost. The 1546/7 roll has also become detached from its successors and so now has a random piece number, while the first item in the sequence is not really part of it.

All the accounts printed here, though expressed with some prolixity, are mathematically simple. However, they cannot be read as straightforward statements of receipt and expenditure; in common with the practice of the time, their purpose was rather for the accountant (here the Treasurer or Victualler) to demonstrate that he had discharged his own financial liability to his superior (here the Crown). Therefore any arrears from the previous account are added in on the charge side or recepta along with the actual sums received [as II.89]. Against this is set the discharge or expense, and if that exceeded the charge the account was said to be in surplus (superplus) [as I.81]. If on the other hand the discharge fell below the charge, he was said to be in debt [as I.87], because the difference represented the Crown's money still standing on his books. Making and copying the accounts was a lengthy process, so this was set in hand well before the terminal date, with the result that a ‘postscript’ or super had to be added, which might include additional charges. More often it deducted administrative expenses (such as the costs of writing the account itself and the audit) which whittled away the charge. Items might also be written off at this point. Sometimes the accountant achieved a perfect balance of charge and discharge, in which case he declared himself equalis or ‘quit’ [as I.80].

The Descent into War

The origins of the changed relationship between Britain and the United States, from interdependent trading partners to enemies in the War of 1812, can be found in the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which had ended the previous Anglo-American War. Heated debate in Britain over future trade with its former American colonies often focused on the extent of American trade with the British West Indian ‘sugar islands’, as did the influential writer Lord Sheffield. Nevertheless, in time, a mutually beneficial ‘Atlantic economy’ had reasserted itself – each country became the other's major customer and source of supply. American wheat, flour, rice, timber, tobacco and raw cotton found outlets in Britain and its overseas territories, while the United States, as a predominantly agrarian economy and growing market for British manufactures and re-exports, became crucially important to Britain's economic development. By 1810, although America had an adverse balance of trade with Britain, often resented by contemporary American commentators, its merchant navy of over a million tons carried over 90 per cent of its overseas trade, and earned more than enough to produce a favourable balance of payments for the United States.

However, a French declaration of war on Britain in 1793 meant more frequent contact between American merchant vessels and warships of the Royal Navy, as Britain imposed maritime blockades on France, and neutral American vessels sought to gain the trade denied to French shipping. American shippers increasingly maintained that ‘Free Ships’ meant ‘Free Goods’ which were not subject to British ‘stop and search’, or confiscation of cargoes as broadly defined contraband. Furthermore, the Royal Navy would soon seek to ease its perpetual manpower shortage by impressing apparently British seamen – but often, in fact, American citizens – from American merchant vessels, sufficiently often to strain diplomatic relations . By 1807, of the 55,000 seamen engaged in American overseas trade, no less than 40 per cent were British born. Between 1803 and 1812, the Royal Navy may have impressed as many as 6,000 Americans. Neither nation could afford the loss of so many trained seamen. The forcible British seizure of four men from USS Chesapeake, a United States warship leaving an American port in June 1807, brought war very close.

Duckworth was familiar with the Caribbean around Jamaica and San Domingo/St Domingue from his time as interim commander-in-chief six years before, but not so much with the string of islands which stretched north from Guiana to Porto Rico, though as a British sailor he presumably knew a good deal at second-hand and he had been there briefly in 1793. Here there were colonies of six different European nations, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden, besides Britain. Some of the non-British colonies had been conquered already – Surinam, Martinique – but Guadaloupe remained under French control, the Dutch and Swedish islands were still under metropolitan control, and the Spaniards held Porto Rico. So the British had the problem of controlling their own islands, and of holding onto those they had conquered, while simultaneously deterring enemies from fomenting risings and rebellions, or mounting counterattacks. The varieties of political control involved made it possible for privateers to operate, encouraged by the French, and there was always the possibility of major naval interventions from Spain or France, or both, since both had territories where a naval force could be based.

Since most of the fighting at St Domingue had ended after 1796, the region as a whole had become a naval backwater, and Duckworth's task was mainly to suppress privateers, organise convoys, and watch Guadal-oupe and Porto Rico [505–508]. To do this he had a single line-of-battle ship, his own Leviathan, and a varying group of frigates and smaller ships, not all of which were in good condition [509, 514]. Many of his smaller ships were employed in assembling and escorting convoys to Britain and they did not always return. Each colony needed at least one ship more or less constantly present in order to intercept raiders and privateers [506, 507, 522 are examples]. It was also an area of largely unsurveyed navigation, and one of his ships was lost even as he arrived [513]. And, of course, there were hurricanes and yellow fever and slave revolts.

Apart from the continuing and repeated general problems of the region, Duckworth had two particular issues to deal with in his time in office (which was in fact to be only eighteen months or so).