History of the Royal Navy (after 1707)
The history of the Royal Navy reached an important juncture in 1707, when the Act of Union merged the kingdoms of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain, following a century of personal union between the two countries. This had the effect of merging the Royal Scots Navy into the Royal Navy. The Navy grew considerably during the global struggle with France that had started in 1690 and culminated in the Napoleonic Wars, a time when the practice of fighting under sail was developed to its highest point. The ensuing century of general peace saw Britain virtually uncontested on the seas, and considerable technological development. Sail yielded to steam and cannon supplanted by large shell-firing guns, and ending with the race to construct bigger and better battleships. That race, however, was ultimately a dead end, as aircraft carriers and submarines came to the fore and, after the successes of World War II, the Royal Navy yielded its formerly preeminent place to the United States Navy. The Royal Navy has remained one of the world's most capable navies and currently operates a fleet of modern ships, though the size of the fleet has declined significantly since the 1980s.
A united navy and resurgent France 1707–1815
Wars with France and Spain, 1707–1748
From 1603 until their union in 1707, Scotland and England possessed separate navies that operated as one force – albeit for a period of Anglo-Scottish hostilities during the interregnum. Thomas Gordon became the last commander of the Royal Scots Navy, taking charge of HMS Royal Mary on the North Sea patrol, moving to Royal William when she entered service in 1705, and being promoted to commodore in 1706. With the Act of Union in 1707, the Royal Scottish Navy was merged with the English Royal Navy, but there were already much larger English ships called Royal William and Mary, so the Scottish frigates were renamed and, while only retained its name.The Act of Union took effect mid-way through the War of Spanish Succession, which saw the Navy operate in conjunction with the Dutch against the navies of France and Spain, in support of the efforts of Britain's Austrian Habsburg allies to seize control of Spain and its Mediterranean dependencies from the Bourbons. Amphibious operations by the Anglo-Dutch fleet brought about the capture of Sardinia, the Balearic Islands and a number of Spanish mainland ports, most importantly Barcelona. While most of these gains were turned over to the Habsburgs, Britain held on to Gibraltar and Menorca, which were retained in the peace settlement, providing the Navy with Mediterranean bases. Early in the war French naval squadrons had done considerable damage to English and Dutch commercial convoys. However, a major victory over France and Spain at Vigo Bay, further successes in battle, and the scuttling of the entire French Mediterranean fleet at Toulon in 1707 virtually cleared the Navy's opponents from the seas for the latter part of the war. Naval operations also enabled the conquest of the French colonies in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Further conflict with Spain followed in the War of the Quadruple Alliance, in which the Navy helped thwart a Spanish attempt to regain Sicily and Sardinia from Austria and Savoy, defeating a Spanish fleet at Cape Passaro, and in an undeclared war in the 1720s, in which Spain tried to retake Gibraltar and Menorca.
The subsequent quarter-century of peace saw a few naval actions. The navy was used against Russia and Sweden in the Baltic from 1715 to 1727 to protect supplies of naval stores. It was used at Cape Passaro during the War of the Quadruple Alliance in 1718, during the Great Northern War, and in the West Indies in 1726. Another war with Spain broke out in 1727, which saw the Royal Navy dispatch a fleet to resupply the British garrison in Gibraltar, which proved crucial in repelling a Spanish siege. In 1745, the Royal Navy contributed to collapse of the Jacobite rising.
File:John Cleveley the younger - The Capture of the 'Nuestra Señora de Covadonga', 20 April 1743 - 1271077 - National Trust.jpg|thumb|George Anson's capture of the Manila galleon Nuestra Señora de Covadonga on 20 April 1743
After a period of relative peace, the Navy became engaged in the War of Jenkins' Ear against Spain, which was dominated by a series of costly and mostly unsuccessful attacks on Spanish ports in the Caribbean, primarily a huge expedition against Cartagena de Indias in 1741. These led to heavy loss of life from tropical diseases. In 1742 the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was driven to withdraw from the war in the space of half an hour by the threat of a bombardment of its capital Naples by a small British squadron. The war became subsumed in the wider War of the Austrian Succession, once again pitting Britain against France. Naval fighting in this war, which for the first time included major operations in the Indian Ocean, was largely inconclusive, the most significant event being the failure of an attempted French invasion of England in 1744.
Total naval losses in the War of the Austrian Succession, including ships lost in storms and in shipwrecks were: France—20 ships-of-the-line, 16 frigates, 20 smaller ships, 2,185 merchantmen, 1,738 guns; Spain—17 ships-of-the-line, 7 frigates, 1,249 merchantmen, 1,276 guns; Britain—14 ships-of-the-line, 7 frigates, 28 smaller ships, 3,238 merchantmen, 1,012 guns. Personnel losses at sea were about 12,000 killed, wounded, or taken prisoner for France, 11,000 for Spain, and 7,000 for Britain.
Seven Years' War, 1756–1763
The subsequent Seven Years' War saw the Navy conduct amphibious campaigns leading to the conquest of New France, of French colonies in the Caribbean and West Africa, and of small islands off the French coast, while operations in the Indian Ocean contributed to the destruction of French power in India. Admiral John Byng failed to relieve Minorca; he was executed on his own quarterdeck. Voltaire famously wrote, in reference to Byng's execution, that "in this country it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others". Minorca was lost but subsequent operations went more successfully, and the British fleet won several victories, starting with the Battle of Cartagena in 1758.The French tried to invade Britain in 1759 but their force was defeated at the Battle of Quiberon Bay off the coast of Brittany, fought in a gale on a dangerous lee shore. Once again the British fleet effectively eliminated the French Navy from the war, leading France to abandon major operations. Spain entered the war against Britain in 1762 but lost Havana and Manila, though the latter was given back in exchange for Florida. Britain was also able to seize the Spanish fleet that had been sheltering at Havana. The Treaty of Paris ended the war.
Naval losses of the Seven Years' War testify to the extent of the British victory. France lost 20 of her ships-of-the-line captured and 25 sunk, burned, destroyed, or lost in storms. The French navy also lost 25 frigates captured and 17 destroyed, and suffered casualties of 20,000 killed, drowned, or missing, as well as another 20,000 wounded or captured. Spain lost 12 ships-of-the-line captured or destroyed, 4 frigates, and 10,000 seamen killed, wounded, or captured. The Royal Navy lost 2 ships-of-the-line captured, 17 sunk or destroyed by either battle or storm, 3 frigates captured and 14 sunk, but added 40 ships-of-the-line during the course of the war. British crews suffered 20,000 casualties, including POWs. Actual naval combat deaths for Britain were only 1,500, but the figure of 133,708 is given for those who died of sickness or deserted.
American Revolutionary War, 1775–1783
was a strategically significant location for the Royal Navy because it provided much of its timber supply. The Royal Navy also began to have a larger presence there during the American Revolution in order to suppress illegal smuggling to evade the Townshend Acts and the Navigation Acts. The Gaspee Affair in which a revenue cutter ran aground in Rhode Island and was attacked led colonial legislatures starting with the Virginia House of Burgesses to form committees of correspondence.At the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, the Royal Navy dealt with the fledgling Continental Navy handily, destroying or capturing many of its vessels. However, France soon took the American side, and in 1778 a French fleet sailed for America, where it attempted to land at Rhode Island and nearly engaged with the British fleet before a storm intervened, while back home another fought the British in the First Battle of Ushant. Spain and the Dutch Republic entered the war in 1780. Also the same year a large British convoy of 63 ships was captured by a Franco-Spanish fleet, which dealt a severe blow to the commerce of Great Britain. Action shifted to the Caribbean, where there were a number of battles with varying results. A Spanish fleet was defeated at the battle of Cape Saint Vincent in 1780 while a Franco-Spanish fleet was defeated at the Battle of the Saintes in 1782. The most important operation came in 1781 when, in the Battle of the Chesapeake, the British failed to lift the French blockade of Lord Cornwallis, resulting in a British surrender in the Battle of Yorktown. Although combat was over in North America, it continued in the Caribbean and India, where the British experienced both successes and failures. Though Minorca had been recaptured, it was returned to the Spanish. The relief of Gibraltar later the same year symbolised the restoration of British naval ascendancy, but this came too late to prevent the independence of the Thirteen Colonies.
The eradication of scurvy from the Royal Navy in the 1790s came about due to the efforts of Gilbert Blane, chairman of the Navy's Sick and Hurt Board, which ordered fresh lemon juice to be given to sailors on ships. Other navies soon adopted this successful solution.