Cochrane the Dauntless

by David Cordingly

  The French suspected that the British might attempt a fireship attack and had taken a number of precautions. When Admiral Allemand had taken over command of the French fleet from Admiral Willaumez on 17 March he had found it moored in three lines in an exposed position near the entrance of the passage into Aix Roads. He ordered the ships to move south-east and anchor much closer to the guns of the Ile d’Aix. The eleven ships of the line were placed in two lines, their broadsides facing the approach channel, and the ships so positioned that those in the rear line had a clear field of fire between those in the front. Ahead of the ships of the line were four frigates which were positioned to guard the floating boom. The boom was formidable and was theoretically capable of preventing the passage of any fireship and all but the largest of warships. A massive cable, thicker than the main anchor cable of a first-rate ship, was suspended by wooden buoys and secured by chains to anchors weighing five and a quarter tons. Apart from the floating boom, and the guns of the anchored ships, the best defence of the anchorage should have been the guns on the Ile d’Aix – as Lord Gambier constantly stressed. A ship was at a disadvantage when facing a land-based battery partly because the guns of a stationary gun battery handled by an experienced gun crew were inevitably more accurate than the guns fired from a moving and pitching ship, and partly because a land battery could fire red-hot shot and set a ship alight. Moreover, the Ile d’Aix was no ordinary island. It was a military base – a heavily fortified island with ramparts, walls and gun emplacements and a garrison town, much of which remains today. It was to be made famous by Napoleon who fled to Rochefort after his defeat at Waterloo and would spend his last nights on the island before surrendering to Captain Maitland on board HMS Bellerophon. When Napoleon arrived in 1815 the military garrison and its defences were in good order, but the gun batteries were in a poor state in 1809 and the 2,000 troops on the island were mostly raw conscripts.

  When Admiral Allemand observed the arrival of the twelve transports on 10 April his suspicions about an impending fireship attack were confirmed. He ordered more than seventy armed launches and boats from his fleet to take up positions near the boom so that they could tow away any fireships. He also issued orders for all the ships of the line to strike their topmasts and topgallant masts and get them down on deck, and to send below all unnecessary sails to reduce the chance of the ships being set alight. On 11 April the wind was blowing from the north-west which, as Allemand well knew, was the quarter most favourable for a fireship attack. ‘About sunset it still blew hard, and I gave each captain the liberty to act according to circumstances.’20

  By midday on 11 April the British preparations for the attack were complete. Crews had been selected for the fireships and explosion vessels, all of them volunteers because, according to the understanding of the day, fireships were outside the rules of warfare and their crews would be executed if they were captured. Most of the crews consisted of four or five men led by a lieutenant. Cochrane himself would lead the attack in an explosion vessel and he would be accompanied by five members of the crew of the Imperieuse, including his brother Basil and Lieutenant Bissel. The second explosion vessel was likewise manned by men of the Imperieuse and was led by Lieutenant Johnson together with Midshipman Marryat and three seamen. The crew of the third explosion vessel was led by Lieutenant Baumgardt of the Gibraltar, and the fourth by Lieutenant Davies of the Caesar. The crew of the largest of the fireships, the Mediator, was commanded by Captain Wooldridge and he had with him two lieutenants, a gunner and one seaman. Small, narrow, four-oared gigs were selected as escape vessels and these would be towed behind the fireships until the moment came to light the fuses.

  The wind was rising and stirring up increasingly angry waves but it was blowing in the right direction. Low tide that evening would be at about eight o’clock and for the next six hours it would be flooding in along the channel towards the anchored French fleet. With wind and tide favourable for the night attack Lord Gambier gave Cochrane the order to proceed.

  At 4.00 p.m. the Imperieuse, accompanied by the frigates Aigle, Pallas and Unicorn, weighed anchor and headed south-east towards Aix Roads. When they were about three miles from the enemy they anchored in nine fathoms alongside the Boyart Shoal. Here they were in a good position to receive the returning boats of the fireships’ crews. As dusk fell the Lyra and the Redpole took up their designated positions on either side of the approach channel and hoisted their distinctive lights as markers for the attacking fleet. The wind was now so strong that the bomb vessel Aetna, which had orders to anchor near the Ile d’Aix with a spring on her cable to bring her broadside to bear on the gun batteries, was unable to maintain her position. With 150 fathoms of cable out she was still being driven towards the rocky shore of the island and Captain Godfrey was forced to release the spring and allow her to come head to tide.21

  By the time the explosion vessels and fireships cut their cables and began to sweep down the channel there was a heavy sea running and the night was as dark as any invading force could have wished. Cochrane, who seems to have been fearless on such occasions, gives a clear but curiously emotionless account of his headlong advance in command of what was nothing less than a floating bomb. He had to estimate the position of the French ships because it was too dark to make them out. ‘Judging our distance, therefore, as well as we could, with regard to the time the fuse was calculated to burn, the crew of the four men entered the gig, under the direction of Lieut. Bissel, whilst I kindled the portfires; and then, descending into the boat, urged the men to pull for their lives, which they did with a will, though, as wind and tide were strong against us, without making the progress calculated’.22 The wind caused the fuses to burn much faster than the expected fifteen minutes and within a few minutes the vessel blew up, lighting up the sky and hurling into the air a mass of burning timbers and exploding shells and grenades. The explosion caused the sea to rise in a tidal wave that lifted the escaping boat on its crest and then dropped it into the trough behind. The skill of Cochrane’s seamen enabled them to ride the wave and emerge safely from the trough. As darkness descended again they pulled towards the Imperieuse whose lights could be seen faintly in the distance.

  Marryat, who was on board the explosion vessel following in Cochrane’s wake, recalled the terror he felt as they set off: ‘Being quite prepared, we started. It was a fearful moment; the wind freshened, and whistled through our rigging. And the night was so dark that we could not see our bowsprit. We had only our foresail set; but with a strong flood-tide and a fair wind, with plenty of it, we passed between the advanced frigates like an arrow. It seemed to me like entering the gates of hell.’23 Marryat and Lieutenant Johnson steered the ship, while the other three men were in the boat being towed astern: one of them held the rope ready to let her go, another steered and the third bailed out the water which threatened to swamp the boat. The explosion vessel hit the floating boom with a crash and swung broadside to it. The force of the tide and the wind on her foresail caused her to heel over, while the boat astern was almost lifted over the boom. However, they lit the fuse, scrambled down into the boat and rowed with all their might. They were 200 yards away when the vessel exploded:

  A more terrific and beautiful sight cannot be conceived… The shells flew up in the air to a prodigious height, some bursting as they rose, and others as they descended. The shower fell about us, but we escaped injury. We made but little progress against the wind and tide; and we had the pleasure to run the gauntlet among the other fire-ships, which had been ignited, and bore down on us in flames fore and aft. Their rigging was hung with Congreve rockets; and as they took fire they darted through the air in every direction, with an astounding noise, looking like large fiery serpents.24

  Some of the fireships were set on fire and abandoned by their crews too early. The master of the anchored Imperieuse noted in his log that the fireships came down in a very irregular manner: three of them were ignited half a mile to windward of the Imperieuse; one of them grounde
d on the point of the Ile d’Oléron and several others were three-quarters of a mile from the enemy fleet as they passed harmlessly by. But some of the fireships were handled with bravery and competence, none more so than the former warship Mediator which was steered directly at the enemy. Her weight, combined with the strength of the wind and the tide, broke the boom. As the crew were preparing to abandon ship, the flames caused an explosion which blew them overboard, killing the gunner James Seggess. The others managed to reach the gig and row back to the waiting frigates but Captain James Wooldridge was severely burnt and his two lieutenants and a seaman received minor burns.

  British fireships, with Congreve rockets, bearing down on the anchored French fleet at Basque Roads on the night of 11 April 1809.

  The awesome sight of the burning fireships illuminating the dark and windy night made a deep impression on all who witnessed it. William Richardson, who was with the anchored British fleet, recalled that all hands were gathered on deck to witness the spectacle ‘and the blazing light all round gave us a good view of the enemy’.25 An officer on board the Valiant thought the fireships ‘appeared to form a chain of ignited pyramids, stretching from the Isle d’Aix to the Boyart Shoal; while Congreve’s rockets, flying through the air in various directions, and like comets dragging a fiery train behind, formed a scene at once the most grand and terrific that can well be imagined’.26

  The French were aware that a fireship attack was imminent. Admiral Allemand had observed the approach of the four British frigates and watched them anchor on the western side of the channel. In his later report he noted, ‘they had fire signals and appeared to be intended for beacons to the fireships’.27 But the rising gale seems to have led Allemand and his fellow officers to assume that the fireship attack would not take place on such a stormy night. The armed launches and open boats stationed by the floating boom were withdrawn and the first warning the French had of the impending attack was when Cochrane’s leading explosion vessel blew up a few hundred yards from their anchored ships. As men scrambled up on deck to see what was happening the second explosion vessel blasted the night and threw up a deadly shower of grenades and shells and flaming wreckage which was scattered across the anchorage. In the darkness which followed the explosion the French sailors could see a distant but ever-increasing number of floating fires as the crews of the twenty fireships set them alight. ‘A brig on fire was sent against part of the fleet,’ wrote Allemand, ‘and afterwards a number of other brigs and three-masted ships advanced in full sail in flames.’28 Only four of the fireships reached the French fleet but the sight of these, following the blowing up of the explosion vessels, caused alarm and panic among the French crews and their commanders. The three frigates which were anchored ahead of the main fleet cut their anchor cables, made sail and attempted to retreat behind the anchored battleships, but then found that every one of the French line-of-battle ships, except the Foudroyant, had also cut or slipped their cables and were adrift. The Cassard managed to bring up again with an anchor and ended up near the Foudroyant but these were the only French ships to remain afloat that night.

  An officer of the flagship Océan provided a vivid account of the chaotic scene in the anchorage as the crews made desperate efforts to keep clear of the advancing fireships. The Regulus, which was lying in the front line beside the Océan, became entangled with a fireship. Her crew managed to cut themselves free but in doing so forced the Océan to cut one of her cables to keep clear. As the Océan was brought up on her second cable her crew saw three fireships bearing down on them. They cut loose, hoisted the foresail and a staysail and tried to steer clear of the rocks of the Palles Shoal.

  At 10 we grounded; and immediately afterwards a fireship, in the height of her combustion, grappled us athwart our stern. For the ten minutes that she remained in this situation, we employed every means in our power to prevent the fire from catching our ship. Our engines played upon and completely wetted the poop: with spars we hove off the fireship, and with axes we cut the lashing of her grapnels fastened to the ends of her yards… Two of our line-of-battle ships, the Tonnerre and Patriote, at this time fell on board of us. The first broke her bowsprit in our starboard main rigging, and destroyed our main channels.’29

  In their desperate efforts to fend off the fireship and disentangle themselves from the other two ships they lost at least fifty men, most of them falling into the sea and drowning. They escaped the clutches of another fireship by firing a broadside at her which brought down her mainmast and caused her to change direction and drift harmlessly by them.

  The explosion vessels and the fireships failed to set light to a single enemy vessel but they caused mayhem in the anchorage. The wind and the tide did the rest. Within a few hours of the first explosion taking place, thirteen of the fifteen French warships in Aix Roads had been swept on to mud banks and rocky shoals and gone firmly aground.

  12

  The French Fleet Aground

  1809

  The crews of the fireships had a long and exhausting row back to the safety of the anchored frigates. Pulling into a headwind and driving rain they had to bail constantly to prevent the boats being swamped by the rough seas. Cochrane and his crew had nearly three miles to cover and it was after midnight when they bumped alongside the wooden sides of the Imperieuse and were helped aboard by their shipmates. They learnt that a fireship in flames had come so close to the Imperieuse that it had been necessary to veer out the anchor cable to keep clear, and there had been no option but to cut free the third explosion vessel which had been made fast to the frigate’s stern. Cochrane had intended to use this vessel at a later stage once the way had been cleared by the initial wave of explosion vessels and fireships. The fourth explosion vessel never left her moorings. Any disappointment which Cochrane felt at the incompetent handling of so many of the fireships was dispelled by the sight which greeted him at dawn on 12 April.

  It was a grey and misty morning with a fresh breeze. Where the previous day an entire fleet had been lying at anchor in orderly lines beside the Ile d’Aix, now there were only two warships still afloat. To the south of them, lying at strange angles on the Palles Shoal, were a great number of ships aground. Among them could be seen the massive hull of Allemand’s flagship, the Océan of 120 guns. Faintly visible beyond this group were more ships aground, lying in the shallows at the entrance of the River Charente. High water had been at 2.00 a.m. and the outgoing tide was causing the grounded ships to tilt further and further over on their bilges, leaving their bottoms exposed to shot. Only the two 74-gun ships floating in the anchorage were capable of offering any resistance. The remainder were helpless until the tide came in again, or their crews were able to haul them off, an operation which would take some time because they would have to lay out anchors and then lighten the ships by throwing guns and other heavy gear overboard. Cochrane saw at once that here was a golden opportunity to finish the work that the fireships had begun, and destroy the French fleet. He ordered the boats to be hoisted aboard, and at 4.00 a.m. the Imperieuse weighed anchor and made sail. They worked their way out of range of the guns on the Ile d’Aix and headed towards the distant British fleet which was three miles from where the Imperieuse had anchored and some six from the nearest French ships. At exactly 5.48, according to the signal book on the flagship Caledonia, Cochrane sent a signal to Lord Gambier: ‘Half the fleet can destroy the enemy: seven on shore.’1 The signal was acknowledged with an answering pennant, but no further message followed.

  As the skies brightened the men in the tops of the Imperieuse could see the remaining French ships aground on the far side of the Charente. At 6.40 a.m. Cochrane sent a second message to Gambier, ‘Eleven on shore’, and this too was acknowledged. Impatiently Cochrane waited for Gambier to order some of his warships to proceed to Aix Roads. When nothing happened he sent a third message, ‘Only two afloat’, to make sure that his commander-in-chief understood the current situation. At 9.00 a.m., with the tide on the turn, Cochrane wore sh
ip and headed back towards the Ile d’Aix to check on the state of the grounded French ships. Now was the ideal time for the British force to attack because they could sail in with the flood tide, destroy the enemy and sail out with the ebb – but there was no time to lose because the rising tide would enable some of the French ships to float off and he could see the crews of several of them heaving their guns and stores overboard. At 9.25 he sent a fourth signal to Gambier: ‘Enemy preparing to haul off.’2 At 10.00 a.m. Cochrane anchored close to the spot where the Imperieuse had spent the night. While waiting for the fleet to respond to his messages, he sent a boat to take soundings and test the depth of the channel leading to the inner Aix Roads.