A LIFE OF LORD ST. VINCENT By 0. A. SherrarJ
Nelson's brilliance as a fighting admiral has overshadowed the sound strategy and the invaluable service reforms of his old chief and friend, John Jervis. It is pleasant. to find that Mr. 0. A. Sherrard's attractive and able Life of Lord St. Vincent (Allen and Unwin, 10s. 6d.) does justice to the elder man without being unfair to his favourite pupil. The Navy was a quarrelsome Service throughout the eighteenth century, and it was in accordance with precedent that Nelson in the last two years of his life should turn against St. Vincent and assist his political enemies. But Mr. Sherrard does not make too much of this unlucky episode ; St. Vincent bore no grudge, and Nelson's mistakes may be forgotten in the glory of Trafalgar. Jervis went to sea in 1747, when he was twelve, and he did not haul down his flag, as Admiral of the Channel Fleet, till 1807. But the interest of his career is concentrated in the last dozen years of the sixty. As Commander in the Mediterranean from 1795, he saved a most critical situation. The French were checked, the Spaniards were roughly handled off Cape St. Vincent in February, 1797, and, when mutiny made the home fleets helpless, discipline was maintained by stern measures in the ships blockading Cadiz. St. Vincent gave Nelson his great chance by which he profited at the Nile, and himself went home to become First Lord and attack the monstrous corruption in the dockyards by which poli- ticians, contractors and workmen alike were enriching them- selves and ruining the 'Navy. Mr. Sherrard describes very clearly the dramatic sequel. Pitt and Melville accused St. Vincent of maladministration, but were confounded by the Report of the Navy Commission, appointed by St. Vincent, which showed Melville guilty, as Treasurer of the Navy, of peculation and led to Melville's resignation and impeachment. St. Vincent was justilted in the sight of all men, and he showed his good temper and apse of duty' by not making too much of his triumph. Though very infirm, he took the command in the Channel after the deaths of Pitt and Nelson, and held it for a year till all danger of a French invasion was seen to have passed away. The modern Navy dates from St. Vincent's reforms, and Mr. Sherrard's life of him is well worth reading.
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