Old men of the sea BOOKS

S. W. ROSKILL

One cannot but marvel at the sustained industry and fecundity of Professor S. E. Morison. As though to celebrate the start of his eighty- second year this week he has produced his forty-second volume: a full-length biography of another of the us Navy's great figures—TM Bruin,' Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry (our 65s). Of course he gets much help from the cooperative Navy Department. Can one, for in- stance, imagine Whitehall 'reactivating' a retired officer in order that he might accompany a his- torian on his travels and interpret for him? But precisely that was done for Morison; and his narrative makes plain how much he owed to the linguistic skill and knowledge of Japan of Roger Pineau, who served the us Navy's crypto- graphic organisation so well in the Second World War. As always Morison has been at pains to visit as many as possible of the places, no matter how remote, with which his subject was connected. The result is that he almost always produces vivid descriptions of the actual scene of events of long ago; and in this case his awn photographs supplement admirably the excellent collection of contemporary illus- trations he has discovered.

Calbraith Perry (he was always known by his second name) was born in April 1794 of old Quaker stock; but his father abandoned that sect's pacifism and served in his country's navy—with no great credit. Thereafter the family provided a whole succession of naval officers, and although Calbraith is always at the centre of Morison's stage his brothers and sons also figure prominently in his story— because two or three of them were often to be found in the same ship. After serving in the famous--to Britain infamous—commerce- raiding frigates in the war of 1812, Perry had a brush with the tiresome pirates of Algiers. Then in 1819-20 he took part in a very unusual assignment—the first attempt to found the Republic of Liberia with freed negro slaves from the us. It was he who actually selected the site of Monrovia, its capital. Next followed service in the eastern Mediterranean at the time of the Greco-Turkish war and a trip to Russia. These brought him valuable diplomatic experi- ence which he later put to very good account.

From 1833-42 Perry was ashore at the New York Navy Yard, and there turned his energies to the introduction of steam propulsion, the improvement of ordnance and of naval educa- tion, and the extension of the lighthouse service. He was indeed of a scientific turn of mind, and very much a reformer. One of the ships built by Perry while commandant of the Navy Yard was the brig 'Somers,' and two of his sons went to sea in her. Thus the family was deeply involved in the mutiny of 1842, which was ended by the summary hanging of the three ringleaders. Morison tells the tale most graphic- ally, but evidently has some doubts regarding the necessity for this extreme measure.

From 1846-48 Perry was deeply involved in the war with Mexico, commanding the Gulf Squadron for most of it, and showing much energy and initiative, especially in combined operations. Morison calls this 'a tough little war, brilliantly won'; but he glosses the issue of whether it really was justified. Certainly Presi- dent Santa Anna's regime was a fantasia; yet the rape of Texas, New Mexico and California leaves an unpleasant taste—despite the $15 mil- lion paid for those vast territories. Morison admits that Perry was a strong annexationist; which largely discounts his constant special pleading to try and cleanse him of the `imperialist' stigma. True enough an upsurge of prosperity for the us followed the annexa- tions; but the Mexican war was also the prelude to the unsavoury era of 'dollar diplomacy' in Central America. At the end Morison is con- strained to acknowledge that his hero was 'an imperialist, but with a difference.' To this re- viewer the difference (presumably from the imperialism of European nations) seems a little obscure.

Early in 1852 Perry was given command of the East Indies squadron formed to accomplish the opening up of Japan to foreign trade, a purpose which President Fillmore and his suc- cessor Pierce certainly wanted to accomplish without using force. In May of the following year Perry reached Okinawa, then a paradise with absolutely no armaments, and in July he arrived unheralded in Tokyo Bay (as it is now called). Morison is at his best in his descriptions of the scenery, the people and the mediaeval pageantry which prevailed during the very tricky negotiations that followed. The lengthy conclaves also brought out the best in Perry— firmness combined with tact, dignity combined with great patience. Nowhere can one find a better description of mid-nineteenth century feudal Japan than in these chapters.

The successful conclusion of a treaty, though it did not include the right to trade, was the high-water mark of Perry's career. In his official 'Portrait of Peruri [Perry], a North American,' by a contemporary Japanese artist.

narrative he made an astonishingly accurate prophecy of how the Japanese, being equipped with 'great dexterity' in 'the practical and mechanical arts . . . would enter as powerful competitors in the race for mechanical success in the future.' Probably he would not be surprised at the hive of industry established today all along the lovely coast where his arrival caused such consternation 115 years ago.

On finishing this book one's only regret is that Morison introduces, as he did in certain earlier works, incidents which for sheer un- pleasantness c.ai hardly be surpassed, and which add nothing to our unders:.inding of his subject. Such is the story of four seamen urinating in a drunken comrade's mouth to make him vomit —which certainly turned this reviewer's not very queasy stomach. None the less this is a far more distinguished work than Morison's Pulitzer prize-winning life of Paul Jones; and one wonders what further crown his country can now add to applaud his new achievement.

Cuthbert Collingwood was Captain of the `Barfleur' at Lord Howe's victory of the Glorious First of June 1794, fought far out in the Atlantic a few weeks after Calbraith Perry was born. He has not been well served by bio- graphers. partly because his name is so over- shadowed by that of Nelson. Oliver Warner, perhaps the greatest living authority on the naval side of the War of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic War, has now added a most distinguished work to his other books on this period, The Life and Letters of Vice- Admiral Lon! Collingwood (ouP 42s).

Collingwood's promotion was slow, for he possessed no 'interest'; but Warner justly claims that none of his contemporaries excelled him in 'bravery in battle, felicity in expression and abiding sense of duty.'

It was the battle of Cape St Vincent (14 February 1797), in which he supported Nelson's highly original tactical manoeuvre to prevent the enemy's escape, which first made his name widely known—and incidentally brought about the rectification of the scandalous denial to him of the Glorious First of June gold medal.

Collingwood. like Perry, was a strict dis- ciplinarian and believed that flogging was the only real deterrent to crime. His relations towards his officers and men can reasonably be described as ultra-paternalist; and if he never won their love, as Nelson did, he certainly gained their respect.

The story of Collingwood's brilliant leader- ship of the la:board line' at Trafalgar is well known but bears retelling. After Nelson's death he became not only C-in-C, Mediterranean, but also a sort of Ambassador Extraordinary with diplomatic responsibilities stretching from Spain to the Bosphorus. In Warner's words 'Ministers had found a willing horse. and they proceeded . . . to work him to death.' Certainly the burden placed on his shoulders was more than one man, without any proper staff, should have been re- quired to carry. But Collingwood made it worse by his habitual over-centralisation, and his persistent attention to the minutiae of running his big fleet. In this respect he reminds one of Jellicoe as C-in-C, Grand Fleet, in the First World War. In the realm of tactics he was, says Warner, 'much nearer to Howe than to Nelson,' and if another fleet action had come to pass early in 1808, as at one time seemed possible, it is difficult to believe that another Trafalgar would have resulted. Again Collingwood's tactical memoranda invite comparison with Jellicoe, whose Grand Fleet battle orders

showed a similar rigidity. The greatest of Col- lingwood's services probably was that the sea power he wielded made it possible to launch Wellesley's Peninsular Campaign in 1808=the `Spanish ulcer' which finally ruined Napoleon's grandiose plans.

Warner describes Collingwood as 'one of the supreme examples of the selfless leader,' which is fair enough. Yet the reader will be bard-pressed to find much sign of that in- estimable quality in the leader—a sense of humour. And what sort of leader is it who can reprimand his Flag Captain publicly and with stinging sarcasm—a mode of address which Carlyle aptly stigmatised as 'the language of the devil'? Collingwood's constant moralising in his letters to his daughters and his wife ('Above all things keep novels out of their reach') be- comes tedious; and there is little doubt what a psychologist would make of the flogging of midshipmen's bare backsides with the cat-o'- nine-tails in the Captain's cabin here described.

When Collingwood died at sea early in 1810 he was a rich man, leaving £163,000 exclusive of his houses and land—most of it gained from prize money. But even had he been allowed to haul down his flag and return home when he might still have recovered his health, one may doubt whether he would have proved capable of really enjoying his wealth. More probably it would have brought him further worries. This is an entirely honest account of the character and life of a man who, though he never attained the heights of true greatness, played an important part in bringing his country through its last great crisis before 1940; and it is written in a straightforward yet elegant style which Collingwood himself would have appreciated.