Sir Samuel Hood and the Battle of the Chesapeake

4. The Commissioner

4 The Commissioner On Hood’s return from North America there was a dispute with Spain over the Falkland Islands, and at one time it looked like it might result in a war. The crisis had been provoked by the belief in France and Spain that Britain had lost the will and power to enforce her interests at sea. The Spanish, acting with the encouragement of France, had ejected a small party of British settlers from the islands. The driving force behind the idea was the duc de Choiseul, who wanted an alliance with Spain to attack Britain and gain revenge for the defeats of the Seven Years’ War. The British had long believed that the French wished to reverse the verdict of the previous war. To counter this, but without going to the final resort of full hostilities, British governments of all complexions had used the threat of naval power. The British had not been able to establish any alliance with a Continental power to counter France and draw some of its resources away from the anticipated French naval expansion. On its own, even with its enlarged navy, the French government could not provide a sufficient naval force to offset the British superiority at sea, and Bourbon France relied on Bourbon Spain to join forces in the Family Compact. In the case of the Falklands, Spain had actively pressed their case, but when it came to the point of supporting Spain, in the end the French government, with the exception of Choiseul, was not keen on the idea of war with Britain. The ineffective governments of previous years had been replaced by one led by Lord North, who in the face of crisis mobilized the navy. Pushed to the brink of war, France backed down, Choiseul was sacked, and pressure was put on Spain to withdraw its claims to the Falklands. The threat of British naval power had been enough to bring a satisfactory end to the crisis. Still, the government had to maintain increased naval expenditure in the face of continuing Bourbon hostility. Throughout the next few years the strength of the navy matched the combined fleets of France and Spain. In the last few years of his reign, Louis XV turned to more domestic concerns and tended to neglect his navy, so French naval strength fell. Sir Samuel Hood and the Battle of the Chesapeake 38 In the period leading up to the American War there were various clashes of interest between Britain and France. The most important of these was the British reaction to the buildup of French naval forces at Ile de France (present-day Mauritius). The British position in India was delicate at that time due to the bad government of the East India Company and the practice of some Indian states to play off the Western powers against each other. The French had the opportunity to do serious damage to British interests, and in 1771 the Admiralty proposed a force of three ships of the line and one 50-gun ship, commanded by Sir Robert Harland, to go to the area. The French were told that this force was in reply to their own expansion. The crisis rumbled on until the French began to withdraw their additional sea and land forces in 1773. In the aftermath, one development was of particular benefit to the navy. Sir Edward Hawke retired from the post of First Lord of the Admiralty and was replaced by Lord Sandwich. Sandwich was by far the better person to fill the post and became, with Lord Anson, one of the two most effective First Lords the navy has ever had. As the tension dissipated, so did the opportunity of a new active command for Hood. He was appointed instead to the Royal William,1 a guard ship at Portsmouth, one of a series of such assignments over the next few years. Hood spent just under two years in the Royal William before being moved to the Marlborough (74). Among the midshipmen of whom he had charge was the Hon. James Pitt, the youngest son of Lord Chatham. While Samuel Hood was denied an active command, his young cousin and protégé Alexander Hood joined Captain Cook in his second voyage round the world. Alexander had been serving in the yacht Katherine with his namesake, Samuel’s brother, who had pushed for their cousin to be given this chance. The elder Alexander Hood’s wife, Molly, had written to Lady Chatham...