own

the enemy's fhips, and immediately wore and laid his fhip's head towards the enemy again, being then in their wake and at a little distance only, and expecting the admiral to advance with all the fhips to renew the fight, the admiral did not advance for that purpose, but shortened fail, hauled down the fignal for battle; nor did he at that time, or at any other time whilft ftanding towards the enemy, call the ships together in order to renew the attack as he might have done, particularly the vice-admiral of the red, and his divifion, which had received the leaft damage, had been the longest out of action, were ready and fit to renew it, were then to windward and could have bore down and fetched any part of the French fleet, if the fignal for battle had not been hauled down, or if the faid Admiral Keppel had availed himself of the fignal appointed by the thirty-firft article of the Fighting Inftructions, by which he might have ordered thofe to lead who are to lead with the ftarboards tacks on board by a wind, which fignal was applicable to the occafion for renewing the engagement with advantage after. the French fleet had been beaten, their line broken, and in diforder. In thefe inftances he did not do the utmost in his, power to take, fink, burn, or deftroy the French fleet, that had attacked the British fleet.

IV. That inftead of advancing to renew the engagement, as in the preceding articles is alledged, and as he might and ought to have

done, the admiral wore and made fail directly from the enemy, and thus he led the whole British fleet away from them, which gave them

the opportunity to rally unmolefted, and to form again into a line of battle, and to ftand after the British fleet; this was difgraceful to the British flag, for it had the appearance of a flight, and gave the French admiral a pretence to claim the victory, and to publish to the world that the British fleet ran away, and that he purfued it with the fleet of France, and offered it battle.

V. That on the morning of the 28th of July, 1778, when it was perceived that only three of the French fleet remained near the British, in the fituation the whole had been in the night before, and that the reft were to leeward at a greater distance, not in a line of battle but in a heap, the admiral did not caufe the feet to pursue the flying enemy, nor even to chace the three fhips that fled after the reft; but on the contrary, he led the British fleet another way, directly from the enemy.

By thefe inftances of mifconduct and neglect, a glorious opportunity was lot of doing a moft effential fervice to the ftate, and the honour of the British navy was tarnished.

When the evidence on the part of the profecutor (which lafted to the 30th of Jan.) was gone through, the admiral opened his defence with the following speech :

The Speech of the Honourable Auguftus Keppel, before the Court Martial, in opening his Defence, Jan. the 30th 1779.

Mr. Prefident and Gentlemen of the

Court,

mand, for a variety of offences, which, if true or probable, would be greatly aggravated by the means I have had, from a long experience, of knowing my duty, and by the ftrong motives of honour, which ought to have incited me to perform it to the very utmost extent of my ability.

Sir Hugh Pallifer, an officer under my orders, conceives that I have acted very irregularly and very culpably in the engagement with the French fleet on the 27th of July laft; fo very irregularly, and fo very faultily, that I have tarnished the luftre of the navy of England.

Poffeffed with this opinion, on our return to port after the action, he has a letter from the Lords of the Admiralty put into his hands, giving me, in the most explicit terms, his Majefty's approbation for a conduct, which he now affects to think, deferves the utmoft difapprobation, and the fevereft cenfure; and he, with the other admirals and captains of the fleet, to whom it was likewife communicated, perfectly acquiefces in it.

With the fame ill opinion of my conduct in his bofom, he goes to fea again under my command; he goes to fea under me, without having given the leaft vent to his thoughts, either by way of advice to myfelf, or of complaint to our common fupe

riors.

He afterwards correfponds with me on terms of friendship; and in this correfpondence he ufes expreffions, which convey a very high opinion of my difintereftednels, and of my zeal for the service.

After all this I came home; I am received by his Majefty with

the moft gracious expreffions of favour and efteem; and I am received in the moft flattering manner by the firft Lord of the Admiralty.

Several weeks paft, when at length, without giving me any previous notice, the Board of Admiralty fend me five articles of charge, on which they declare their intention of bringing me to my trial; thefe charges are brought by Sir Hugh Pallifer; who nearly at the fame time publicly declared, that he had taken this ftep from an opinion, that he himself lay under an imputation of difobedience to my orders, and that this imputation was countenanced by me. I may fay, without the leaft hesitation, that if I fhould be cenfured on fuch a charge (which in this court, and with my cause, I think impoffible) there is an end of all command in the navy. If every fubordinate officer can fet up his judgment against that of his commander in chief; and after feveral months of infidious filence, can call him to trial, whenever he thinks it ufeful for the purpofe of clearing away imputations on himfelf, or in order to get the start of a regular charge, which he apprehends may poffibly be brought on his own conduct; there can be no fervice.

If the charges of my accufer could be juftified by his apprehenfions for himself, he has taken care to prove to the court, that he had very good reason for his fears; but if thefe charges are to be confidered as fupported upon any rátional ground, with regard to the nature of the offence, or any fatisfactory evidence with regard to the facts, as against me, he makes [R]-2

that

that figure, which, I truft in God, all those who attack innocence will ever make.

In your examination into that judgment, which my officer, in order to depreciate my fkill and to criminate my conduct, has thought proper to fet up against mine, you have very wifely, and according to the evident neceffity of the cafe, called for the obfervations and fentiments of all the officers who have ferved in the late engagement; fo far as they have been brought before you by the profecutor, I take it for granted, you will follow the fame courfe with thofe that I fhall produce. If this fhould not be done, an accufer, (according to the practice of mine) by the ufe of leading questions, by putting things out of their natural order, by confounding times, and by à perplexed interrogatory concerning an infinite number of manoeuvres and fituations, might appear to produce a ftate of things directly contrary to the ideas of those who faw them with their a eyes. I am aftonilhed, that, when an officer is accufed by another of crimes, which, if true, must be apparent to a very ordinary obfervation and understanding, that any witnefs fhould, on being asked, refuse to declare his free fentiments of the manner in which the matters to which he depofes have appeared to him: I never wifhed that any gentleman fhould withhold that part of his evidence from tendernefs to me; what motives the accufer had for objecting to it, he knows.

The plaineft and fulleft fpeaking is beft for a good caufe. The manifeft view and intention that

things are done with, constitute their crime or merit. The intentions are infeparably connected with the acts; and a detail of military or naval operations, wholly feparated from their defign, will be nonfenfe. The charge is read to a witnefs, as I apprehend, that he may defcern how the facts he has feen, agree with the crimes he hears charged. Otherwise I cannot conceive why a witness is troubled with that reading. The court can hardly enter fully into the matter without fuch information; and the world out of our profeffion cannot enter into it at all. These queftions I am informed are properly queftions of fact; and I believe it; they are perfectly conformable to the practice of court martials; but if they were queftions to mere opinion, yet the court, not the witnefs, is anfwerable for the propriety of them. Mafters have been called here by the profecutor (and the propriety not difputed) for mere opinions, concerning the effect of chacing on a lee-fhore. In higher matters, higher opinions ought to have weight; if they ought, there are none more capable of giving the court information than thofe who are fummoned here; for I believe no country ever was served by officers of more gallantry, honour, ability, and kill in their profeffion.

You are a court of honour as well as of strict martial law. I ftand here for my fame, as well as for my life, and for my ftation in the navy: I hope, therefore, that in a trial, which is not without importance to the whole fervice, you will be fo indulgent as

to

to hear me with patience, whilft I explain to you every thing that tends to clear my reputation as a man, as a feaman, and as commander. I will open it to you without any arts; and with the plain freedom of a man bred and formed as we all are.

As I am to be tried for my conduct in command, it is proper I should lay before you, my fituation in that command, and what were my motives for the feveral acts and orders, on account of which I ftand charged. I must beg leave to make fome explanation of these before I enter upon the accufations article by article.

To the five special articles of the charge, you may depend upon it, I fhall give full, minute, and fatisfactory answers, even on the narrow and mistaken principles on which fome of them are made. But I beg leave to point out to you, that there is a general false fuppofition, that runs through the whole; in cenfuring me for mifconduct and neglect of duty, my accufer has conceived very mistaken notions of what my duty was; and on that bad foundation he has laid the whole matter of his charge.

I think myself particularly for tunate, in being able to make out by evidence, at this distance of time, with fo much exactness as I fhall do, the various movements which were made or ordered in the action of the 27th of July: it is a piece of good fortune which cannot often happen to a commander in chief in the fame circumftances. In an extensive naval engagement, and in the movements preparatory to it, fubordinate officers, if they are attentive to their duty, are fully employed in the care of their

own particular charge; and they have but little leifure for exact obfervation on the conduct of their commander in chief; it is their bufinefs to watch his fignals, and to put themselves in a condition to obey them with alacrity and effect. As they are looking towards one thing, and he is looking towards another, it is always a great chance whether they agree, when they come to form an opinion of the whole.

You are fenfible, gentlemen, that one of the things which distinguish a commander in chief, is to know how to catch the proper moment for each order he gives. He is to have his eye on the enemy, the reft ought to have their eyes on him. If thofe fubordinate officers, who are inclined to find fault with him, do no mark the instant of time with the fame precifion which he does, their judgment will often be erroneous; and they will blame where perhaps there is the greatesl reafon for commendation.

Befides it must be obvious, when we confider the nature of general engagements, that in the multitude of movements that are made, and the variety of pofitions in which fhips are fucceffively found, with regard to one another, when in motion over a large space, (to fay nothing of the fmoke) things fcarcely ever appear exactly in the fame manner to any two fhips. This occafions the greateft perplexity and confufion in the accounts that go abroad, and fometimes produces abfolute contradictions between different relators; and that too without any intentional fault in thofe who tell the story. But wherever the commander in chief is placed; that is the center of all [R] 3

the

the operations; that is the true point of view from which they must be seen by thofe who examine his conduct; because his opinion must be formed, and his conduct regulated by the judgment of his eye upon the pofture in which he fees his objects, and not from the view which another in a different, and perhaps diftant pofition has of them; and in proportion as he has judged well or ill upon that particucular view, taken from that particular pofition (which is the only point of direction he can have) he deferves either praise or cenfure.

On these principles I with my manoeuvres to be tried, when the proper confideration is, whether they have been unskilfully conceived, or as the charge expreffes it, in an un-officer-like manner. But my reasons for preferring any one ftep to another, ftand upon different grounds; all that he charges as negligence was the effect of deliberation and choice; and this makes it neceffary for me to explain, as fully as I think it right to do, the ideas I acted upon.

I am not to be confidered in the light in which Sir Hugh Pallifer feems to confider me, merely as an officer with a limited commiffion, confined to a special military operation, to be conducted upon certain military rules, with an eye towards a court martial, for my acquittal or condemnation as I adhered to thofe rules, or departed from them. My commiffion was of a very different fort. I was entrufted with ample difcretionary powers for the immediate defence of the kingdom. I was placed, in fome fort, in a political as well as a military fituation; and though, at my own defire, for the purposes

of uniformity and fecrecy, my inftructions came to me through the Admiralty alone, yet part of them originated from the Secretary of Sate, as well as from the board. Every thing which I did as an officer was folely fubfervient and fubordinate to the great end of the national defence. I manoeuvred; I fought; I returned to port; I put to fea; juft as it feemed best to me for the purpose of my deftination. I acted on these principles of large difcretion; and on thofe principles I must be tried. If I am not, it is another fort of officer; and not one with my trust and my powers that is on trial.

It is undoubtedly the duty of every fea officer, to do his utmoft to take, fink, burn and destroy the enemy's fhips wherever he meets them. Sir Hugh Pallifer makes fome charge on this head, with as little truth, reafon, or justice, as on any of the others. He fhall have a proper anfwer in its proper place; that is, when I come to the articles. But in juftice to the principles, which directed me in my command, I must beg leave to tell you, that I should think myfelf perfectly in the right, if I poftponed or totally omitted that deftruction of fhips in one, in two, or in twenty inftances, if the purfuit of that object seemed to me detrimental to matters of more importance, otherwise it would be a crime for a commander entrusted with the defence of the kingdom, to have any plan, choice, or forefight in his operations; I ought to conduct myfelf, and I hope I did, in each particular, by my judg. ment of its probable effect on the iffue of the whole naval campaign, to which all my actions ought to