120 FIRST LORD DE SAUMAREZ, ETC. 



naval supremacy had achieved rendered them unnecessary, 

 they returned to England, to find more scope for their acti- 

 vities in Spain, where Moore was destined to win immortality 

 at Corunna. Moreover the Spaniards on Funen were but 

 half-hearted allies of Napoleon and, isolated from French 

 influence, and in the presence of the visible power of the 

 British Navy, they decided to change sides and were trans- 

 ported back to Spain by Saumarez 's subordinate, Sir Richard 

 Keats, in transports captured from the Danes, there to join 

 their own countrymen now in revolt against their Buonaparte 

 king. 



This was the most important action of 1808 on the west 

 of the Baltic. On the East was Saumarez himself with a 

 much more difficult problem. With him was Rear-Admiral 

 Sir Samuel Hood, and about half the British fleet. He was 

 particularly hampered by three facts, the impossibility of 

 preventing the invasion of Finland with a naval force, the 

 shortcomings of the Swedish fleet, and the mass of islands 

 known as the Skerry Guard round the coast of Finland which 

 prevented his ships-of-the-line from approaching near enough 

 to the coastal towns to co-operate in their defence. 



Matters were made worse by the surrender to the Rus- 

 sians in May of the whole of the Swedish fleet on the East 

 side of the Baltic, 97 ships including the coastal flotillas 

 which alone could navigate the channels of Skerry Guard. 

 In face of this the Swedes were compelled to abandon the 

 succour of Finland by sea. In July Saumarez temporarily 

 left the Eastern waters to assist Sir Richard Keats to trans- 

 port the Spaniards from Funen. On his return in August 

 he lent the Swedes two ships of 74 guns, the "Centaur," com- 

 manded by Sir Samuel Hood, and Captain Byam-Martin in 

 the "Implacable." These joined 11 sail-of-the-line off the 

 Gulf of Finland and on August 24th they met the Russians 

 with nine sail-of-the-line and a number of frigates. The 

 Russians retired. The British gave chase and captured one 

 ship, but to their disgust the Swedes were so slow that they 

 v/ere unable to follow and the Russians easily gained Port 

 Baltic at the south-western corner of the Gulf of Finland. 



Saumarez appeared three days later with four battle- 

 ships but was prevented from attacking Port Baltic for a 

 week by contrary winds. This gave the Russians time to 

 fortify the harbour ; and when the wind changed again it was 

 impossible to attack them. After a month of blockade the 

 approach of winter and the freezing of the Baltic compelled 

 him to retire to Gothenburg, outside the Baltic, where he 

 found a fleet of 1,200 sail awaiting convoy to England, a 

 proof of the success of British presence in the Baltic and of 



