Thinking about War at Sea

As a decidedly junior post-captain, Charles Middleton did not hesitate to give tactical advice to the commander-in-chief of the Leeward Islands station. ¹ Surely, the horseback ruminations of Mrs Bouverie’s estate manager occasionally strayed from crops and livestock to tactics and strategy. Returned to active duty, Middleton engaged in a voluminous correspondence on the conduct of the American war with a wide circle of friends serving at sea. But, it was one thing to exchange views privately with old shipmates; it was another for the Controller of the Navy to urge on the First Lord of the Admiralty a particular line of strategy. For Middleton’s authority ran only to the civil side of the Navy. The military side, the responsibility to ‘advise the Government on the use of the navy as an instrument of policy’, ² lay with the Admiralty Board. Middleton had an ampler notion of his duties. ³ ‘The office I am in is of that nature as to see every branch of the service and how it is conducted’, Middleton claimed. ‘My zeal for its success’, he confessed, ‘often carries me out of my own line.’ ⁴