re
signed 'Rupert' and addressed to 'Sir Edward Spragge, Knt.,
Vice-Admiral of the Blue,' we can with certainty fix them to this
time. For we know that Spragge sailed in Rupert's squadron, and on
the fourth day of the famous June battle was raised to the rank here
given him in place of Sir William Berkley, who had been killed in the
first day's action.[6] What share Monck had in the orders we cannot
tell, but Rupert, being only joint admiral with him, could hardly have
taken the step without his concurrence, and the probability is that
Rupert, who had been detached on special service, was issuing a
general fleet order to his own squadron which may have been
communicated to the rest of the fleet before he rejoined. It must at
any rate have been after he rejoined, for it was not till then that
Spragge received his promotion. Both Monck and Rupert must therefore
receive the credit of foreseeing the danger that lay in the new
system, the danger of tactical pedantry that was destined to hamper
the action of our fleets for the next half century, and of being the
first to declare, long before Anson or Hawke, and longer still before
Nelson, that line or no line, signals or no signals, 'the destruction
of the enemy is always to be made the chiefest care.'
In the light of this discovery we can at last explain the curious
conversation recorded by Pepys, which, wrongly interpreted, has done
so much to distort the early history of tactics. The circumstances of
Monck's great action must first be recalled. At the end of May, he and
Rupert, with a fleet of about eighty sail, had put to sea to seek the
Dutch, when a sudden order reached them from the court that the French
Mediterranean fleet was coming up channel to join hands with the
enemy, and that Rupert with his squadron of twenty sail was to go
westward to stop it. The result of this foolish order was that on June
1 Monck found himself in presence of the whole Dutch fleet of nearly a
hundred sail, with no more than fifty-nine of his own.[7] Seeing an
advantage, however, he attacked them furiously, throwing his whole
weight upon their van. Though at first successful shoals forced him
to tack, and his rear fell foul of the Dutch centre and rear, so that
he came off severely handled. The next day he renewed the fight with
forty-four sail against about eighty, and with so much skill that he
was able that night to make an orderly retreat, covering his disabled
ships with those least
|