Naval operations in the American Revolutionary War: Encyclopedia II - Naval operations in the American Revolutionary War - France enters the war 1778

Naval operations in the American Revolutionary War - France enters the war 1778

The disaster at Saratoga was followed in 1778 by war with France, which had already given much private help to the American privateers and to their forces in the field. The rupture came in March when the British ambassador, Lord Stormont, was recalled from Paris, but as neither fleet was ready for service, actual conflict did not take place until July.

The French government was somewhat more ready than the British. On the 13th of April it despatched a squadron of twelve sail of the line and four frigates from Toulon to America under the command of the Comte d'Estaing. As no attempt was made to stop him in the Straits of Gibraltar, he passed them on the 16th of May, and though the rawness of his crews and his own error in wasting time in pursuit of prizes delayed his passage, he reached the mouth of the Delaware on the 8th of July unopposed.

The French government, which by the fault of the British administration was allowed to take the offensive, had three objects in view—to help the Americans, to expel the British from the West Indies, and to occupy the main strength of the naval forces of Great Britain in the Channel. Therefore a second and more powerful fleet was fitted out at Brest under the command of Louis Guillouet, Comte d'Orvilliers.

The British government, having neglected to occupy the Straits of Gibraltar in time, despatched Admiral John Byron from Plymouth on the 9th of June with thirteen sail of the line to join Admiral Lord Howe, Sir William's brother, in America, and collected a strong force at home, called the Western Squadron, under the Hon. Augustus Keppel.

Keppel, after a preliminary cruise in June, brought d'Orvilliers to action off Brest on July 27, 1778 in the Battle of Ushant. The fleets were equal and the action was indecisive, as the two forces merely passed one another, cannonading. A violent quarrel exacerbated by political differences broke out among the British commands, which led to two courts-martial and to the resignation of Keppel, and did great injury to the discipline of the navy. No further event of note occurred in European waters.

On the coast of America the news of the approach of d'Estaing compelled the British commanders to evacuate Philadelphia on June 18, 1778. Howe then concentrated his force of nine small line-of-battle ships at Sandy Hook on the 29th of June, and on the 11th of July he learnt that d'Estaing was approaching. The French admiral did not venture to make an attack, and on the 22nd of July sailed to co-operate with the Americans in an endeavour to expel the British garrison from Rhode Island. Howe, who had received a small reinforcement, followed. The French admiral, who had anchored above Newport, came to sea to meet him, but both fleets were scattered by storms. D'Estaing sailed to Boston on the 21st of August.

Howe received no help from Byron, whose badly appointed fleet was damaged and scattered by a gale on the 3rd of July in mid-Atlantic. His ships dropped in by degrees during September. Howe resigned on the 25th of that month, and was succeeded by Byron.

The approach of winter made a naval campaign on the coast of North America dangerous. The operations of naval forces in the New World were largely dictated by the facts that from June to October are the hurricane months in the West Indies, while from October to June includes the stormy winter of the northern coast.

On the 4th of November d'Estaing sailed for the West Indies, on the very day that Commodore William Hotham was despatched from New York to reinforce the British fleet in those waters. On the 7th of September the French governor of Martinique, the Marquis de Bouille, had surprised the British island of Dominica. Admiral Samuel Barrington, the British admiral in the Leeward Islands, had retaliated by seizing Santa Lucia on the 13th and 14th of December after the arrival of Hotham from North America. D'Estaing, who followed Hotham closely, was beaten off in two feeble attacks on Barrington at the Cul-de-Sac of Santa Lucia on the 15th of December.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "France enters the war 1778", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki