around the world , the medium whi ch in fact covers by fa r the under the redoubtabl e De Grasse blockaded Yorktown, on larger part of the Earth 's surface. Chesapeake Bay, fo rcing surrender of a British arm y of7,000 Francis Drake, sailing in the wake of great navigators like to an American arm y commanded by Was hington, re inforced Portugal' s Dias and Spain 's Columbu s, did much to introduce by French reg ulars. From thi s point on, the war, in which the new view of the sea as an element to be kept rather than just Washington had sa id early on that nav ies wo uld have the traversed. Running ahead of the resources and the techno logy casting vote, was effectively over. of his time, he conceived of longIn Febru ary 1782 , the ve ry term bl ockade and virtu al occupamonth that the House of Commons tion of enemy sea-l anes, a sea presreso lved again st further effort in ence supported by seizure of straAm eri ca, Rodney set sail from teg ic bases around the wo rld. Thi s England with seventeen ships of was the response of a small state the line to re info rce the weak Britconfronting the mighty of the earth . ish fl eet in the Caribbean. Meeting The sea would be a moat, to di sDe Grasse he secured dec isive viccourage attack , and it wo uld be a tory, hi s able subordinate Hood hi ghway for the nati o n stron g actu ally capturing the French flageno ugh to keep the sea. ship Ville de Paris and with her the Against the onslaught of Spangreat De Grasse himself. Command ish imperiali sm under Philip of of the seas was wrested back fro m Spain in the 1500s, and of the the large French and Spani sh fleets, France of Lo ui s XIV in the 1600s and the four- year siege of Gibraltar and 1700s, the British did well. In wa s lifted after a tre me nd o us the mid 1700s , fi ghting the Seven French-Spani sh effort had come Years War against France, which dangerously close to taking thi s gave them Canada and made the strongpoint at the entrance to the English-speak ing American coloMedite1i-anean. nies secure, they did even better, As the war wound down, the A gee!. 67. sec uring a stro ng positi on in Indi a French and Spanish need fo r peace as well as almost complete domiwas urgent, and Britain was read y nance of the North Ameri can conto settle the world war generated by John Nicol took up the seaman's life in distant trades, tinent. The Treaty of Pari s of 1763 , until he was drafted by a press gang for service in the the spark of the American Revo lu while it made liberal accommoda- Royal Na vy. Despite hard times, he kept a twin kle in his tion . France and Spain wanted a tions to Brita in 's defea ted enemies, eye, as seen in this portrait made of him at age 67, when peace that wo uld keep the new put the British in an unacc ustomed he dictated his book. Drawing by W. H. Lizars. American Republi c well to the east top-dog pos iti on vis-a-v is Euroof the Miss iss ippi , and south of the pean powers. When the grow ing revolt of the American Ohio Ri ver, both vital arteries of Spani sh and French trade in colonies became a true revoluti on, with the signing of the the undeveloped interior of the American continent. But the American Declaration of Independence in the summer of American negoti ators in Pari s learned from friends in England 1776, the great military powers of France and Spain , and the that Brita in was now leaning toward a strong America, emsmall but wealthy Holland began shipping arms and providing bracing the Ohi o Ri ver Va ll ey and reaching to the Mi ssissippi fin ancing to the Ameri cans. and the Great Lakes. At least one Englishman, Jonas Hanway , At first, the Americans barely hung in with a ragtag arm y fo under of the Marine Society in London (whi ch fl ouri shes led by General George Washington, easil y the most important today) , had foreseen American independence and the ri se of American leader, who kept the arm y in be ing through tactics a new nati on which could weigh in the bal ance against the of delay, retreat and sharp counterattacks. Thus he kept the mass ive armaments and populations of Europe, which hugely British continuously off balance. In the end these Fabian outweighed Britain ' s limited popul ati on base. And others tactics led the British to cluster in the great cities of New York began to see a much stronger market for British exports in an and Philadelphia, virtuall y abandoning the countryside to pro- independent Ameri can nati on. With consummate statesmanAmerican fo rces. Harsh measures were used by the Patriots to ship Benjamin Franklin, leader of the American delegati on, di scourage those who persisted in loyalty to aking 3,000mil es put thi s settlement over on America ' s reluctant allies, whose away. But the British came in raids that rallied the countryside need fo r peace was paramo unt since they now were los ing the aga inst them, while the Ameri can forces stayed on in what war on all fronts. was , after all, their own country. The French Revolution George III, like America ' s President Lyndon John son two The changing values and radical new ideas of the late 1700s hundred years later, tried to fig ht the American war without centered in France, with Pari s the center of intellectual ferextraordinary taxation and a real nati onal effort. This pro- ment. Rousseau had proclaimed the superiori ty of the pureduced near-catastrophe fo r Britain when the French declared hearted savage to the degeneracy of civilized man, corrupted war to support the American cause in 1778 and began sending by greed, envy and the obsessive rituals of a society oppressed sold iers as well as arms to the Americans. Spain joined with by servitude. Voltaire from a different perspecti ve foun d the France, and for two summers the naval balance was totall y values that held society together to be false, hypocriti cal and upset, as French fl eets crui sed the Eng li sh Channel while des igned to serve the interests of the ruling cl ass. God him self Britain desperately rearmed . In September 178 1 a French fleet (if he ex isted) rigged the system agai nst the human race, and SEA HISTORY 85, SUMMER 1998
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