Lord Howe’s career practically ended with this battle and the honors that followed it.  Infirmities then gained rapidly upon him, and it would have been well had his own wish to retire been granted by the Government.  He remained in nominal command of the Channel Fleet, though not going to sea, until the occurrence of the great mutinies of 1797.  The suppression—­or, more properly, the composing—­of this ominous outbreak was devolved upon him by the ministry.  He very wisely observed that “preventive measures rather than corrective are to be preferred for preserving discipline in fleets and armies;” but it was in truth his own failure to use such timely remedies, owing to the lethargy of increasing years, acting upon a temperament naturally indulgent and unapprehensive, that was largely responsible for disorders of whose imminence he had warning.  From the military standpoint, the process of settlement had much the air of opera bouffe,—­a consummation probably inevitable when just grievances and undeniable hardships get no attention until the sufferers break through all rules, and seek redress by force.  The mutinous seamen protested to Howe the bitterness of their sorrow at the sense of wrong doing, but in the same breath insisted that their demands must be conceded, and that certain obnoxious officers must be removed from their ships.  The demands were yielded, Howe gently explaining to the men how naughty they had been; and that, as to the unpopular officers, they themselves asked relief from so unpleasant a situation.  In his curiously involved style, he wrote:  “This request has been complied with, under the pretext of an equal desire on the part of the officers not to be employed in ships where exception, without specification of facts, has been taken to their conduct.  However ineligible the concession, it was become indispensably necessary.”  Under this thin veil, men persuaded themselves that appearances were saved, as a woman hides a smile behind her fan.  Admiral Codrington, a firm admirer of Howe, justly said:  “It was want of discipline which led to the discontent and mutiny in the Channel Fleet.  Lord Howe got rid of the mutiny by granting the men all they asked; but discipline was not restored until the ships most remarkable for misconduct had been, one after the other, placed under the command of Lord St. Vincent.”

With the settlement of this mutiny Lord Howe’s long career of active service closed.  Immediately afterwards he retired formally, as he sometime before had actually, from the command of the Channel Fleet, and on the 5th of August, 1799, he died full of years and honors; having lived just long enough to welcome the rising star of Nelson’s glory as it burst upon men’s sight at Cape St. Vincent and the Nile.

FOOTNOTES: 

[12] Parkman’s “Montcalm and Wolfe,” vol. ii. p. 90.

[13] Ante, p. 250.

JERVIS