The two squadrons, being very equally matched, fought all night with equal courage; and in the morning, the English commodore seeing French colours displayed, hailed his antagonist and pretended he had mistaken them for Spaniards; the battle was forthwith suspended, mutual compliments passed, and, having treated each other with great marks of politeness, they parted with the loss of about a hundred men killed on each side.
If Smollett had ever harboured any patriotic fervour, it is clear that it was evaporating quickly, and worse was to come. In Port Royal, the British fleet was joined by the Caribbean fleet and further bolstered by a North American squadron. The result was a truly intimidating force consisting of 186 ships including 29 ships of the line, 22 frigates, two hospital ships, various fireships, and bomb ships armed with a total of some 2,000 cannon. These were supported by 80 troop transports and 50 merchant ships. There were at least 27,400 military personnel, of which the land force totalled 12,000. This seemed like a pretty invincible armada, and all were reasonably confident that victory was more of a formality than anything else. The decision was taken to head to the mainland port of Cartagena first and capture that, before turning to Portobello and Havana. Given the gargantuan size of this fleet, it is perhaps unsurprising that it took several weeks for the vessels to finally assemble off Cartagena, and all had suffered greatly in the meantime, as Smollett noted:
We had languished five weeks on the allowance of a purser’s quart per day for each man in the Torrid Zone, where the sun was vertical, and the expense of bodily fluid so great, that a gallon of liquor could scarce supply the waste of twenty-four hours; especially as our provision consisted of putrid salt beef, to which the sailors gave the name of Irish horse; salt pork, of New England, which, though neither fish nor flesh, savoured of both; bread from the same country, every biscuit whereof, like a piece of clockwork, moved by its own internal impulse, occasioned by the myriads of insects that dwelt within it; and butter served out by the gill, that tasted like train oil thickened with salt. Instead of small beer, each man was allowed three half-quarterns of brandy or rum, which were distributed every morning, diluted with a certain quantity of his water, without either sugar or fruit to render it palatable, for which reason, this composition was by the sailors not ineptly styled Necessity.
This was one of the first incarnations of Admiral Vernon’s soon to be famous ‘grog’. Basically, the navy faced a real problem in the Caribbean when it came to ‘refreshing’ the crew by splicing the mainbrace. Back home in England, sailors could expect a daily ration of ale to keep them happy. In the Mediterranean, this was substituted with wine, while in the Caribbean, rum was generally used, with disastrous effect, the result being that crew were often utterly sozzled. Vernon’s solution was to add water mixed with lime juice to the rum. The name ‘grog’ came about because the Admiral was nicknamed ‘old grog’ on account of his favouring a jacket made out of grogram cloth. Smollett was particularly scathing about grog, also describing it as ‘a most unpalatable drench which no man could swallow without reluctance’. But to return to main body of Smollett’s rantings:
Nor was this limitation of simple element [water] owing to a scarcity of it on board, for there was at this time water enough in the ship for a voyage of six months, at the rate of half-a-gallon per day to each man: but this fast must, I suppose, have been enjoined by way of penance on the ship’s company for their sins; or rather with a view to mortify them into a contempt of life, that they might thereby become more resolute and regardless of danger. How simply then do those people argue, who ascribe the great mortality among us, to our bad provision and want of water; and affirm, that a great many valuable lives might have been saved, if the useless transports had been employed in fetching fresh stock, turtle, fruit, and other refreshments from Jamaica and other adjacent islands, for the use of the army and fleet! Seeing it is to be hoped, that those who died went to a better place, and those who survived were the more easily maintained. After all, a sufficient number remained to fall before the walls of St. Lazar, where they behaved like their own country mastiffs, which shut their eyes, run into the jaws of a bear, and have their heads crushed for their valour.
Given this delay and the evident damage to the health of the men, the need for haste was palpable, as the onset of the rainy season was just around the corner and all knew that once this set in, disease could decimate the British Forces within a matter of days. There were other problems too: the city of Cartagena was substantial and well fortified, with a population of around 10,000. It was notable for its wonderful enclosed harbour, considered one of the finest natural havens in the Caribbean. It was here that the stately Spanish galleons filled their holds with all the ill-gotten gains of El Dorado, before dipping through the tropics by the palm-green shores, loaded with cargoes of diamonds, emeralds, amethysts, and gold moidores. Given the value of the cargoes loaded at the port, it was only natural that it should be well defended. The only deep water access was through a narrow channel, known as the Boca Chica (small mouth in English) and naturally both sides of this channel were bristling with well armed batteries. Once inside, there was the further problem of besting the main armament of the city itself. Francis Drake had managed this with his usual aplomb in 1585, but an attempt to take the city by Admiral Vernon the previous year had ended in failure. Now Vernon was back with a much stronger force, but a number of notable weaknesses. For some reason, there was no overarching commander. Vernon was in charge of the navy, Wentworth in charge of the army and the two did not get on, each taking every opportunity to make the other look foolish. The results were distinctly mixed and I will leave it to Smollett to give you his characteristically withering assessment:
At length we arrived in a bay to the windward of Carthagena, where we came to an anchor, and lay at our ease ten days longer. Here, again, certain malicious people took occasion to blame the conduct of their superiors, by saying, that in so doing they not only unprofitably wasted time, which was very precious, considering the approach of the rainy season, but also allowed the Spaniards to recollect themselves from a terror occasioned by the approach of an English fleet, at least three times as numerous as ever appeared in that part of the world before. But if I might be allowed to give my opinion of the matter, I would ascribe this delay to the generosity of our chiefs, who scorned to take any advantage that fortune might give them even over an enemy. At last, however, we weighed, and anchored again somewhat nearer the harbour’s mouth, where we made shift to land our marines, who encamped on the beach, in despite of the enemy’s shot, which knocked a good many of them on the head. This piece of conduct, in choosing a camp under the walls of an enemy’s fortification, which I believe never happened before, was practised, I presume, with a view of accustoming the soldiers to stand fire, who were not as yet much used to discipline, most of them having been taken from the plough-tail a few months before. This expedient, again, has furnished matter for censure against the ministry, for sending a few raw recruits on such an important enterprise, while so many veteran regiments lay inactive at home. But surely our governors had their reasons for so doing, which possibly may be disclosed with other secrets of the deep. Perhaps they were loth to risk their best troops on such desperate service, or the colonel and the field officers of the old corps, who, generally speaking, enjoyed their commissions as sinecures or pensions, for some domestic services rendered to the court, refused to embark in such a dangerous and precarious undertaking; for which refusal, no doubt, they are to be much commended.
Smollett was often singled out for his rather spiteful treatment of those he chose to satirise, but in the case of the leaders of the siege of Cartagena, his savagery seems entirely justified. Nevertheless, the British succeeded in taking the forts of the Boca Chica at the entrance channel of Cartagena. They now had access to the main harbour and it was at this point that things started to go badly wrong. The basic plan was sound enough; the fort of San Lazar stood just outside the main city on top of a hill and esse
ntially commanded the city. Capture this, and you had the town at your mercy, so it was the obvious next step. All assumed that while Wentworth and his men were attacking this fortress, Vernon’s ships would be employed in battering the main town in order to draw off troops and generally wreak havoc. This did not happen, Vernon making the bizarre excuse that there was insufficient depth off the harbour walls to be able to do this, even though it was plainly evident from the Spanish merchant vessels anchored under the walls that a ship could sail in close with no difficulty. At the same time he goaded the unfortunate Wentworth for his inactivity and perceived dithering until the inexperienced officer rashly proceeded without the much-needed covering fire from the fleet. The result was a humiliating defeat. It didn’t help that the guides mistakenly led the troops to a section of the walls that could only be accessed by a very precipitous path, or that the scaling ladders deployed to storm the parapets were ten feet too short. The ultimate result was catastrophic. I will again leave it to Smollett to convey the absurdity of the situation and also wrap up the action:
Our chief, not relishing this kind of complaisance in the Spaniard’s, was wise enough to retreat on board with the remains of his army, which, from eight thousand able men landed on the beach near Bocca Chica, was now reduced to fifteen hundred fit for service. The sick and wounded were squeezed into certain vessels, which thence obtained the name of hospital ships, though methinks they scarce deserved such a creditable title, seeing few of them could boast of their surgeon, nurse, or cook; and the space between decks was so confined that the miserable patients had not room to sit upright in their beds. Their wounds and stumps, being neglected, contracted filth and putrefaction, and millions of maggots were hatched amidst the corruption of their sores. This inhuman disregard was imputed to the scarcity of surgeons; though it is well known that every great ship in the fleet could have spared one at least for this duty, an expedient which would have been more than sufficient to remove this shocking inconvenience. But perhaps our general was too much of a gentleman to ask a favour of this kind from his fellow chief, who, on the other hand, would not derogate so much from his own dignity, as to offer such assistance unasked; for, I may venture to affirm, that by this time the Demon of Discord, with her sooty wings, had breathed her influence upon our councils; and it might be said of these great men (I hope they will pardon the comparison) as of Cesar and Pompey, the one could not brook a superior, and the other was impatient of an equal; so that, between the pride of one and insolence of another, the enterprise miscarried, according to the proverb, ‘Between two stools the backside falls to the ground.’ Not that I would be thought to liken any public concern to that opprobrious part of the human body, though I might with truth assert, if I durst use such a vulgar idiom, that the nation did hang on arse at its disappointment on this occasion; neither would I presume to compare the capacity of our heroic leaders to any such wooden convenience as a joint-stool or a close-stool; but only to signify by this simile, the mistake the people committed in trusting to the union of two instruments that were never joined.
This was about the end of any meaningful action, but still Wentworth and Vernon dallied, undecided on what to do. In the meantime the rains came in. Day after day the heavens opened and lengthy, persistent deluges soughed down on the fleet, the monotony only broken by intermissions of scorching sunlight and heat which made the decks steam and the crew gasp like landed fish. Most of the men who had not been killed in battle proceeded to die in this festering steaming pit of disease and despair, as Smollett recalled:
Nothing was heard but groans, lamentations and the language of despair, invoking death to deliver them from their miseries. What served to encourage this despondence was the prospect of these poor wretches who had strength and opportunity to look around them; for there they beheld the naked bodies of their fellow soldiers and comrades floating up and down the harbour, affording prey to the carrion crows and sharks, which tore them in pieces without interruption, and contributing by their stench to the mortality which prevailed.
After 67 days of almost unremitting ineffectiveness, the action was called off, and the British retreated to Port Royal to lick their wounds, which were significant: 18,000 dead, mostly from disease and 50 ships abandoned or lost. After the defeat, Admiral Vernon sent a letter to the leader of the forces in Cartagena stating: ‘We have decided to retreat, but we will return to Cartagena after we take reinforcements in Jamaica’, to which Blas de Lezo, leader of the Cartagena forces, responded ironically, ‘In order to come to Cartagena, the English King must build a better and larger fleet, because yours now is only suitable to transport coal from Ireland to London’. The whole affair was a massive national embarrassment, exacerbated by the fact that Admiral Vernon had rather jumped the gun and, after the taking of the Boca Chica, had despatched a message to King George II stating that Cartagena had fallen. To this end, commemorative medals were issued, lauding Vernon as ‘the scourge of the Spaniards’ and there was much celebration, which fell rather flat once the truth came to light. In fact, King George II was so annoyed by the whole affair that he forbade his courtiers from speaking about the event thereafter.
Quite how involved in the action Smollett was is extremely difficult to ascertain; for one thing, the naval attack itself was rather limited due to the extreme lassitude of Admiral Vernon. What Smollett was able to gather from this catastrophic campaign was the material that would make up a large portion of his first, and most successful novel, Roderick Random. Not only is this a fine, salty account of life at sea, it is a viciously searing indictment of the entire operation. He was no less abrasive in his assessment of the officers of the navy. Here is his sneering depiction of Captain Harry Paulet, renamed by Smollett as Captain Whiffle:
… a tall, thin young man, dressed in this manner: a white hat, garnished with a red feather, adorned his head, from whence his hair flowed upon his shoulders, in ringlets tied behind with a ribbon. His coat, consisting of pink-coloured silk, lined with white, by the elegance of the cut retired backward, as it were, to discover a white satin waistcoat embroidered with gold, unbuttoned at the upper part to display a brooch set with garnets, that glittered in the breast of his shirt, which was of the finest cambric, edged with right Mechlin: the knees of his crimson velvet breeches scarce descended so low as to meet his silk stockings, which rose without spot or wrinkle on his meagre legs, from shoes of blue Meroquin, studded with diamond buckles that flamed forth rivals to the sun! A steel-hilted sword, inlaid with gold, and decked with a knot of ribbon which fell down in a rich tassel, equipped his side; and an amber-headed cane hung dangling from his wrist. But the most remarkable parts of his furniture were, a mask on his face, and white gloves on his hands, which did not seem to be put on with an intention to be pulled off occasionally, but were fixed with a curious ring on the little finger of each hand. In this garb, Captain Whiffle, for that was his name, took possession of the ship, surrounded with a crowd of attendants, all of whom, in their different degrees, seemed to be of their patron’s disposition; and the air was so impregnated with perfumes, that one may venture to affirm the climate of Arabia Felix was not half so sweet-scented.
Such lampooning of the more ineffective members and practices clearly brought Smollett great pleasure and you can sense his glee as he humiliates Paulet. Yet it was to be some years before Smollett was able to sit down and write his first book. After the fleet arrived back in Jamaica, the surgeon’s mate mysteriously disappears from the Chichester’s crew register, and very little is known of his movements for the next four years. It is believed that he settled in Jamaica for some time and this is corroborated by his subsequent marriage to Anne Lascelles, a Jamaican Creole heiress. It was not until 1746 that we know he was definitely back in London, new wife by his side. As an interesting aside, he moved into lodgings in Downing Street. No 10 was already occupied by prime minister Robert Walpole, the house being gifted to him by George II, but the rest of the street had not yet been acquired for th
e use of other ministers and Smollett was able to make himself comfortable and set up a surgeon’s practice in this genteel suburb. It is possible that his travails in the Caribbean had left him rather unsuited to dealing with minor complaints such as gout and bunions and the kind of trifling ailments that his genteel clients presented him with. Certainly, he was not a success. Sir Walter Scott in his biography of Smollett states that he:
… failed to render himself agreeable to his female patients, certainly not from want of address or figure, for both were remarkably pleasing, but more probably by a hasty impatience of listening to petty complaints, and a want of sympathy with the lamentations of those who laboured under no real indisposition.
I am sure there are plenty of doctors out there today who could sympathise with this point of view. In the meantime the bored and irritable surgeon returned to trying to flog the wretched Regicide to the theatre managers of London, who were as unreceptive as they had been five years previously. Success, however, was just around the corner and in 1748, Smollett hit the big time with Roderick Random. The book was an immediate hit and Smollett found himself competing alongside Henry Fielding as the foremost writer of his time.
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