Frigates and Foremasts: The North American Squadron in Nova Scotia Waters, 1745–1815

Olaf Uwe Janzen is a professor of history at Memorial University,
reviews editor of The Northern Mariner, and the editor of Northern Seas.

In Frigates and Foremasts, Julian Gwyn explains the origins, activities,
and significance of the Royal Navy squadron of warships stationed in
North America during the 70 years following its inception in 1745. It
was an eventful period, one that saw two campaigns against Louisbourg,
the founding of Halifax, the destruction of the French North American
empire, war with the American colonies as they secured their
independence, a titanic struggle with first revolutionary and then
Napoleonic France from 1793 to 1815, and the War of 1812 with the United
States. Throughout that period the squadron played a critical role in
the application of British imperial policies and naval strategies, a
role that Gwyn insists has never been comprehensively studied.

The only other work to analyze British naval power in North America was
Gerald Graham’s Empire of the North Atlantic (1950), and though that
work has stood the test of time, it lacks the particular focus and
detail Gwyn provides here. This is an operational study that examines
how local commanders reconciled scarce resources, ambiguous policies,
changing strategic situations, and a plethora of responsibilities in
carrying out their orders. Gwyn also assesses the characters and
abilities of the officers who served and commanded the squadron. The
analysis can be very good, as when Gwyn analyzes the impact of
privateering after 1793 on shipping. Yet at times an interesting but
otherwise insignificant story is allowed to interfere with the flow of
the analysis (e.g., the curious case of Captain Evans on page 138). At
other times, the focus on Nova Scotia limits our ability to appreciate
the sheer immensity of the challenges faced by the Royal Navy as it
fought wars and maintained peace on a global scale. Nevertheless, and
for the most part, Gwyn succeeds in showing that Halifax played a
meaningful role in the application of maritime pressure on England’s
enemies in wartime and rivals in peacetime, just as the Royal Navy
played a formative role in the early history of Nova Scotia generally
and Halifax in particular.