The American Dream, and Where It All Started

By R.Z. Sheppard

THE FIRST SALUTE

by Barbara W. Tuchman

Knoph; 347 pages; $22.95

From the British point of view, the American revolutionaries were ingrates. Had not the mother country endowed her colonists with a splendid heritage? Did she not, at considerable cost, literally save their scalps from the French and their Iroquois allies during the Seven Years' War? The litany of disappointment went on, driven by royal self-righteousness and a scarcely concealed craving to punish the upstarts.

So George III and his ministers were even more distressed when, on Nov. 16, 1776, the Andrew Doria, a lightly armed brigantine flying the flag of the Continental Congress, was greeted by an eleven-gun salute from the fort guarding the main harbor of the Dutch West Indian island of St. Eustatius. Legitimizing the rebels with this ritual act was particularly galling because the Caribbean port was used, despite repeated British protests, to supply American troops with gunpowder and shot. St. Eustatius was Holland's "Golden Rock," a neutral speck devoted entirely to commerce.

The Dutch greeting is regarded as the first formal recognition of American nationhood by a foreign official. But to suggest that a maritime salutation could set in motion events that altered the world would seem to require a well-stocked imagination and a keen dramatic instinct. Readers of The Guns of August (1962), The Proud Tower (1966) and A Distant Mirror (1978) have good reason to know that Barbara Tuchman possesses both in abundance. Yet she has never reduced history to simple causes and effects. Her books resemble jigsaw puzzles: start anywhere with any fragment and one can eventually assemble the whole.

Tuchman's view of history is gravely classical. She is a tragedian who mounts the past against the fixed backdrop of human nature. Reason and goodwill exist but are like the stars in the heavens: flashes of enlightenment separated by vast expanses of darkness. "Halfway 'between truth and endless error,' " she concludes, "the mold of the species is permanent."

The First Salute is an Old World look at the New. There are no re-enactments of Paul Revere's ride, no echoes of the shot heard round the world. Instead, the critical naval battle in Chesapeake Bay and Washington's victory (with essential French aid) over Cornwallis at Yorktown are presented in the context of political decisions and misjudgments made thousands of miles across the Atlantic. Young America produced an unusual number of intelligent and bold leaders, but, to Tuchman, the success of its war of independence rested largely on the outcome of European struggles for colonies and commerce.

The balance of power in the 18th century depended on the weight and professionalism of one's navy. Tuchman devotes a great deal of space and vivid prose to the subject, from ship design to armaments and tactics. Her conclusion: England's vaunted sea force was crippled by poor leadership, corruption and an inflexible manual known as Fighting Instructions, deviation from which could and did get captains court-martialed.

John Paul Jones ("I have not yet begun to fight!") is honored for his bold exploits against the British, though Tuchman pays greater tribute to England's Admiral Sir George Brydges Rodney, a bellicose, gouty commander who scrapped Fighting Instructions to smash a Spanish fleet and relieve the garrison on Gibraltar in 1779.

The lessons of The First Salute are clear yet, sadly, still unlearned. Absolute power breeds not only corruption but also arrogance, sloth and stupidity. George III was no Isaac Newton, but he did not even have the wit to appoint brave and capable advisers. Tuchman examines Louis XIV's ruinous wars for conquest and glory and asks, What is the good of such effort? Her answer: "As an inveterate activity of our species, it is largely a waste of time."

It is reasonable to assume that Tuchman, 76, is approaching the end of her writing career. Publication of her tenth book, then, is an opportunity to offer a 21-gun salute. So for wisdom dispensed and pleasure received, commence fire.