Arthur Phillip

by Michael Pembroke

  On 17 February 1777, the pitifully small Portuguese squadron, which had sailed from Rio de Janeiro, and which Phillip had now joined from his station at Colonia, waited in one of the bays in the channel between Santa Catarina and the mainland. Soon a seemingly endless line of Spanish ships entered the channel. Within three hours there were so many sails that it was impossible to count them. The natural inclination of Robert McDouall, the commodore of the Portuguese squadron, was to avoid combat. He sought refuge in delay, fearing the decimation of the Portuguese squadron, and called a council of war, summoning all his captains to the Santo Antonio for a colloquy. But before it convened he privately consulted Phillip, who was horrified by McDouall’s prevarication. In their conversation Phillip ‘made every effort to induce the Chief to attack the enemy’. And on returning to his ship Phillip wrote to McDouall, ‘imploring him for the sake of his own honour and that of the Nation, not to refrain from attacking them’.

  The council of war did not take place until 20 February – three days after the first sighting of the enemy’s fleet in the channel. The Spanish transports and men-of-war had already begun to unload their troops; McDouall had lost those most valuable military advantages – speed and surprise. Although Phillip’s initial sentiments were heroic, the circumstances now called for sober realism. The Court Instructions from Lisbon required protection of the fleet, but the viceregal orders of Lavradio ordered the enemy be attacked. Six of the eight captains favoured protection of the squadron, stating that if they attacked the superior Spanish fleet, the Portuguese squadron would be destroyed. Only one captain, de Melo, favoured attack, expressly analysing the discrepancy between the orders. Phillip wanted to vote with de Melo, but it appears that McDouall showed him only the Court Instructions to protect the fleet and not Lavradio’s order to attack. In Phillip’s written opinion, unlike that of de Melo, he quotes from the former and does not mention the latter, of which he appeared to be unaware.

  But it was now too late and the initiative had been lost. As Phillip observed, the enemy was now free of the encumbrance of its transports, and a strong fleet at anchor has a great advantage over a weaker one that goes to attack it. He concluded, reluctantly it seems, that there was now ‘no advantage to be gained by disobeying His Majesty’s orders’.

  In the aftermath, Lavradio condemned the captains who voted against attacking the Spanish fleet but excused Phillip. He believed that Phillip had not been shown the full set of orders and had been tricked by McDouall into changing his mind – which he had only done, reported Lavradio, ‘out of the great deference he renders to the orders of his superiors’. In the result, the Portuguese settlement at Santa Catarina was sacrificed with little resistance and Colonia followed soon afterwards. McDouall departed, taking his squadron north to Rio de Janeiro without offering a shot. It was no doubt out of a wellhoned sense of self preservation that he sent Phillip ahead to deliver the distressing news to Lavradio. Later, when McDouall faced the Viceroy, Lavradio said that ‘his countenance betrayed the anguish which every man ought to feel under such circumstances’.

  Fortunately, the embarrassing capitulation at Santa Catarina and Lavradio’s fury were soon followed by a naval success in which Phillip played a leading role, further raising his esteem in Lavradio’s eyes, and for which he was amply rewarded. The result was the capture of a considerable prize – Spain’s newest battleship, the San Agustin, a 70-gun ship of the line carrying 550 men and first-class munitions and accessories. Lavradio gladly appropriated her to his squadron and she became distinctly his most powerful ship. The San Agustin had not been ready to sail when the Spanish armada had left Cadiz and only followed a month later with despatches intended for the military commanders at Santa Catarina. At Montevideo the despatches were transferred to a fast-sailing guard ship the Santa Ana, which ran ahead. On 14 April 1776, in the coastal waters off Santa Catarina, the Santa Ana failed to identify the approaching Portuguese squadron and was duly intercepted and boarded and her crew taken prisoner. Her captain, Salcedo, threw the despatches overboard, but by one torturous means or another, the existence of the San Agustin following behind was extracted and the Portuguese waited, ready to pursue and attack when the unsuspecting battleship appeared.

  On 19 April the San Agustin was sighted by the lookouts on de Melo’s ship the Prazeres and on Phillip’s ship the Pilar. On the signal to beat to quarters, nervous energy would have rippled through the crews on both ships; the gun decks would have been cleared for action and sail added for greater speed; all obstructions including animals had to be removed and bulkheads and partitions dismantled to provide maximum space for loading and firing the guns. Phillip and de Melo were eager for the hunt and soon outdistanced their colleagues. The Prazeres was larger and faster than the Pilar but the San Agustin was more powerful than both of them. Phillip pushed his vessel forward even though a frigate could expect to be heavily outgunned by an enemy battleship. When de Melo was within range he fired, inflicting some damage but from a considerable distance. Phillip then came up with his frigate and was allowed to get closer to the Spanish battleship.

  The Spanish thought the Pilar was one of their own, unable to convince themselves that such a weak vessel, carrying only 26 guns, would venture to attack a 70-gun line-of-battle ship. Their mistake was soon followed by unmitigated surprise. On Phillip’s command, her guns were run out through their ports and a broadside was poured into the San Agustin’s masts, rigging and sails. Phillip’s intention in aiming high was to retard the San Agustin sufficiently to allow de Melo to approach and for the two of them to engage her. But the damage was insufficient and the Spanish ship fled, crowding on more sail. For the remainder of the day, the two Portuguese vessels chased their Spanish quarry through the southern Atlantic waters. When night fell, the eyes and ears of hundreds of experienced seamen would have strained for telltale signs of the enemy’s presence, but darkness enveloped them both and the San Agustin escaped.

  The next morning, as dawn broke and the pale light of early morning gradually strengthened, the San Agustin’s crew were dismayed to find that their ship was floating within sight of the Portuguese squadron. The ensuing battle was marked by confusion and fright on the part of the Spaniards, and lasted just an hour and a quarter before the Spanish captain surrendered.

  Lavradio showed his appreciation to Phillip by appointing him to command the captured San Agustin, which patrolled in the waters of the Southern Atlantic from late May until August 1777, when a truce was declared. Phillip appears to have slipped easily into his new role as captain of a 70-gun line-of-battle ship. A large ship of the line such as the San Agustin was a community of many hundreds of men, for whom the captain was patron and protector; the ‘first after God’ in the eyes of the seamen; responsible for their health, wealth and welfare and ultimately accountable for everything and everybody on his ship. Although he was assisted in the day-to-day operation of the vessel by the master and the ship’s officers, the captain’s conduct set the tone and his decisions could make the difference between a successful voyage and failure; between mutiny and harmony.

  Phillip was never brutal, erratic or unfair, and on the San Agustin it no doubt helped that he had learned the Portuguese language. He had, it seems, the confidence of his superiors and the respect of his seamen. At the end of Phillip’s service in Brazil, Lavradio’s estimation of his character as a man and as a naval officer was unqualified. He reported to his superiors in Lisbon that Phillip was ‘very clean-handed; an officer of great truth and very brave’. Truth and bravery are clear enough but the expression ‘clean-handed’ requires some explanation. It was a common form of praise in the eighteenth century, connoting honesty, trustworthiness, frankness and the absence of any behaviour that could be described as sneaky or underhanded.

  Conveniently, the respect and freedom accorded to Phillip meant that whenever possible during assignments and between naval engagements, he was able to survey the coastline, draw maps and charts and observe the fortificat
ions. And he investigated the commerce and structure of Portuguese and Spanish colonial settlements, keeping a weather eye on opportunities for the expansion of British trade. He displayed an interest in the manufacture of cochineal, the red crimson dye that was so essential to the eighteenth-century cloth trade, and acquired a detailed knowledge of the Brazilian diamond mines and their production processes. There was plenty of time to pursue these private and sometimes secret interests – four months in Rio de Janeiro when he first arrived in 1775, fifteen months at Colonia from 1775 to 1776 and nine months when he returned to Rio de Janeiro after the truce of August 1777. And considerable time also to enjoy the company of the urbane Lavradio.

  Phillip’s strategic observations were extensive. He gathered details of Spanish settlements and made charts of the coast between Rio de Janeiro and Colonia. He noted three good harbours along the coast ‘where ships that wanted to wood and water, would find only a few settlers’. He drew charts of the harbour at Rio de Janeiro, another of Rio Grande and a third of Colonia including the adjacent shores and islands. He made enquiries about the Spanish settlement of Maldonado and the more substantial base at Montevideo. The former, he explained, had many defects and in any event was too shallow for large ships. Montevideo, he thought, was the key to control of the whole estuary. As well as military and strategic observations, Phillip investigated Spanish commerce and transport networks, reporting later on the trade to hinterland cities such as Cordoba, Santiago and San Miguel and the length of the journey to each of these places. At all times, however, it seems clear that his principal focus was on the fortifications and defences, and the vulnerability to attack of the Spanish towns and harbours along the Atlantic coast. He noted elliptically that the Spanish at Montevideo and Buenos Aires lived in constant fear of attack by bands of Indians.

  Phillip’s investigations and coastal observations established the groundwork for future British aspirations in the Plate estuary. In the coming years, all of these matters of geography and strategic vulnerability along the South American coastline would form part of Phillip’s discussions with the administration – first with Lord Sandwich at the Admiralty and subsequently with Evan Nepean and his superiors at the Home Office. By his thorough investigations and his careful charts, Phillip soon made himself indispensable on any question concerning the Spanish settlements on the Atlantic coast of South America. He knew that charts and maps were intensely political; that they were ‘keys to empire’ and a ‘way to wealth’; and that they provided opportunities for international advancement and professional success. In due course, when he later made his charts available to Lord Sandwich for use by ships of the Royal Navy and the East India Company, he politely requested that his authorship be acknowledged – so ‘that I may reap the Credit and Advantage that will naturally arise from them’.

  International advancement meant new territories, new markets and the diversification of British trade. In the second half of the eighteenth century Great Britain’s overall objective was worldwide economic suzerainty. The cochineal trade had returned great riches to Spain since the Spanish conquistadors first arrived in the new world and discovered the Aztecs using it. The name ‘cochineal’ is derived from the Latin word for scarlet – coccinea – which describes the indelible crimson dye obtained from the crushed bodies of a particular scale insect of Mexican origin. Spain soon created a near-monopoly in cochineal dye, which was in great demand in the European cloth trade. It had a symbolic and practical significance for the British as it was the colour source for the distinctive red coats of their soldiers and marines – the ‘lobsters’ as the navy disparagingly called them. In fact, brilliant dyes of scarlet and crimson had been sought-after symbols of power and authority since at least Roman times. If you were ‘born to the purple’ in ancient Rome, you belonged to the aristocracy. Cochineal insects produced a red of such intensity that nothing else could match it. All else was drab, dull and brown in comparison.

  In Brazil the Portuguese sought to develop their own industry. Lavradio even established a cochineal plantation on the island of Santa Catarina from where host cactus plants with their accompanying cochineal insects were despatched to other parts of Brazil. While he was at Colonia, Phillip showed a keen interest in the commercial potential of this insect. So much so that he obtained specimens from the plantation established by Lavradio at Santa Catarina and bred cochineal insects in his ship’s cabin, closely observing their cycle. He thought that their potential for breeding in the West Indies would be for ‘the great advantage of the nation’. Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society, was later so encouraged that he even developed plans for a cochineal industry in New South Wales.

  The diamond trade was another well-recognised source of national wealth. Phillip investigated Portugal’s diamond mines and production processes at Minas Gerais, a mountainous area approximately three hundred miles north of Rio de Janeiro. His journal contains detailed accounts, as well as what he describes as ‘Views of the Diamond Works … taken on the spot’. For centuries, vast supplies of rough diamonds had been shipped from India to Lisbon and London, from where they made their way to the skilled cutters, polishers and diamond bourses of Antwerp. In the mid eighteenth century, as the Indian diamond mines neared exhaustion, the Portuguese uncovered a new source of supply in Brazil. So important did Brazil’s mineral wealth at Minas Gerais become, that the seat of Portuguese colonial government was moved from Bahia to the port city of Rio de Janeiro, closer to the diamond mines. From there the mineral riches of Minas Gerais were shipped to Lisbon. In the official regulations, the diamond-producing district was described as the ‘Forbidden District’, but it seems likely that with Lavradio’s acquiescence Phillip had access to it. We know because of Phillip’s journal of his Brazilian years. All that now remains of the journal is a five-page extract held at the William Clements Library at Ann Arbor, Michigan, which details a precise knowledge of the diamond works and production processes, as well as the work of the African slaves on whose labour the mines depended.

  The slaves were a nagging and ever-present feature of the social structure in Brazil, which was a true slave society to which nearly five million slaves would eventually be imported. In Europe, however, the morality of slavery had commenced to be a topic of discussion. Slavery and the slave trade still flourished but the slow progress towards emancipation was underway, although in Brazil it would be more than a century before abolition was achieved. While Phillip was serving in South America, the heavy Portuguese dependence on slave labour was everywhere apparent. In Rio de Janeiro alone, slaves represented approximately half the total population, and the percentage was much higher on the plantations and in the mines. Many of the slave dealers in Rio de Janeiro lived and carried on business in large houses on Rua Vallongo. Each house had a ‘ware room’ in which three or four hundred slaves ‘were exposed for sale like any other commodity’. The merchants lived on the first and second floors while the slaves were lodged on the ground floor. There they were prepared to be sold by being ‘shaved, fattened, and if necessary, even painted’ to give the illusion of health.

  At the diamond mines, the slaves were an expendable and replaceable means to an economic end, as they have always been. There were so many thousands of slaves that it was possible to use their labour to turn whole rivers, manually redirecting watercourses to expose the diamond-bearing silt and rock. Phillip describes the slaves working in line after line, bent over with pick and hoe, raking, sifting and washing the gravel, searching for the elusive gemstones, all the time guarded by superintendents who used their whips freely. As one fell, another would take his place. Phillip’s contemporaneous observations seem objective, eschewing judgment. But he would have been too discreet to record criticism of the Brazilian administration. It seems inevitable, however, that during his Brazil years he began to develop personal views about the institution of slavery.

  When the war between Spain and Portugal in South America concluded, Phillip’s Portugues
e service also came to an end. The August truce was followed on 1 October 1777 by the Treaty of Santo Ildefonso. Among other things, the treaty provided for Spain to return Santa Catarina to Portugal, Portugal to relinquish Colonia and the San Agustin to be handed back to Spain. In the aftermath, McDouall was relieved of his command and despatched on the first ship to Lisbon to be court-martialled for his part in the loss of Santa Catarina. Phillip was given the command of McDouall’s flagship, the Santa Antonio, in which he returned triumphantly to Lisbon in August 1778. He had decided to resign his Portuguese commission and rejoin the Royal Navy. The war front in which Great Britain was engaged was broadening as France had now taken the side of the rebellious American colonies, and Spain would soon follow. Phillip’s final Portuguese assignment consisted of escort duty across the Atlantic with a convoy of merchant vessels. On board the Santa Antonio he carried five locked chests lined with velvet, each brim-full of diamonds destined for the Portuguese treasury. Phillip was merely a courier of the diamonds, but it seems likely that at this time he acquired and brought back from Brazil the ‘Duncombe diamond’, which he gave to Charles Slingsby Duncombe, who in turn bequeathed it to Phillip on his death ‘as a token of my lasting friendship’.

  CHAPTER 5

  CAPTAIN OF THE ARIADNE

  The American Revolutionary Wars including Phillip’s secret missions in South America, his special operations on the Continent and the convict legend

  The rebellion by the thirteen American colonies that began in 1775 spawned another global war – a war that was not settled until 1783. Just as the Seven Years War had done, the American Revolutionary Wars soon stretched across much of the world and were waged simultaneously in Europe, the Mediterranean, North America, the West Indies, the Indian subcontinent and Africa. France, Spain and the Dutch republic all secretly provided supplies, ammunition and weapons to the American rebels, whose turning-point victory at Saratoga in 1777 would never have been achieved without covert French assistance. In March 1778 France entered the war openly and in the next year Spain followed suit. France’s intention was not only to help the Americans win their independence but also to capture British territory in the West Indies. It constantly threatened an invasion of England, aiming to encourage the Royal Navy’s ships to stay in the English Channel, while aspiring to take Britain’s Caribbean colonies.