Cochrane the Dauntless

by David Cordingly

  From the distant position of the anchored British fleet it was possible to see most of the grounded French ships and Gambier had certainly taken note of Cochrane’s signals. However, he was reluctant to commit his ships to a general attack. Low water was around 8.20 a.m. and he was worried about the narrowness of the channel and whether there was sufficient depth of water for his ships of the line. He was particularly concerned about his ships going aground and being at the mercy of the guns on the Ile d’Aix as well as the guns of the French ships which were still afloat. His worries were confirmed by Edmund Fairfax, the master of the fleet and the man responsible for the navigation of the flagship. As they were working from inaccurate charts and had not carried out a reconnaissance of the area or taken soundings, they had some reason to be cautious – unlike Cochrane who had a copy of a French chart and had checked the depth of water in several key places. He also knew the true state of the gun batteries.

  Gambier may have wished to play safe but he was aware that Cochrane’s messages required some action to be taken. Soon after receiving the fourth signal from the Imperieuse he ordered the fleet to get under way. The impressive gathering of ships of the line, frigates, brig sloops and attendant vessels heaved up their anchors, set sail and slowly made their way up the channel. At 11.00 a.m., when they were still out of range of the guns of the Ile d’Aix, the Caledonia shortened sail and came to anchor in thirteen fathoms, and the rest of the fleet followed suit. Gambier later explained in his despatch to the Admiralty that he had intended to proceed with the fleet in order to effect the destruction of the enemy ships. ‘The wind, however, being fresh from the northward, and the flood-tide running, rendered it too hazardous to run into Aix Roads (from its shallow water), I therefore anchored again at a distance of about three miles from the forts on the island.’3 Instead of risking his ships of the line, Gambier ordered the bomb vessel Aetna to proceed to a position from which she could bombard the grounded French ships. Three gun brigs, Conflict, Growler and Innocent, were despatched to support her, and the Bellona, Revenge and Valiant were ordered to take up an advanced position ahead of the main fleet. As far as Gambier was concerned the fireships had done their work and the damage caused by a single bomb vessel with a thirteen-inch mortar would be sufficient to complete the action.

  Cochrane had been anxiously watching the British ships and was greatly relieved when he saw them getting under way. He was surprised that they had not done so after the receipt of his first signal four hours before but there was still time to inflict lasting damage on the enemy. When he saw Gambier drop anchor out of range of the guns of the Ile d’Aix he realised that the commander-in-chief had no intention of committing his fleet to a general attack. His exasperation at the wasted opportunity was shared by several other officers and seamen present. Lieutenant Gordon of the Illustrious later recalled, ‘I cannot describe the indignation expressed by all hands when the signal was made to anchor again.’4 Cochrane decided to take matters into his own hands and force Gambier into action by attacking the enemy with the Imperieuse. By acting without orders he was risking his commission and he knew perfectly well that a lone frigate was no match for the guns of the French 74-gun ships, but he was prepared to take the consequences. ‘It was better to risk the frigate, or even my commission, than to suffer a disgraceful termination to the expectations of the Admiralty, after having driven ashore the enemy’s fleet.’5

  Cochrane was as ingenious as ever in his method of approach. At 1.00 p.m. he ordered the anchor cable of the Imperieuse to be hauled in until the anchor began to drag along the bottom. This allowed the incoming tide to drift them stern first towards the enemy. ‘I did not venture to make sail, lest the movement might be seen from the flagship, and a signal of recall should defeat my purpose of making an attack with the Imperieuse; the object of this being to compel the commander-in-chief to send vessels to our assistance, in which case I knew their captains would at once attack the ships which had not been allowed to heave off and escape.’6 As they slowly drifted southeast along the edge of the channel they observed frantic movements taking place among the enemy ships. The advance of Gambier’s fleet had led the French to assume that they were about to be attacked. The two ships afloat in the anchorage, the Foudroyant and the Cassard, cut their cables and made sail for the Charente. They proceeded a mile up the river but then went aground on the bar at the river entrance near the castle of Fouras. Several other ships had laid out anchors and were now hoisting sails to help drive them off the shoals. Seeing that the opportunity for a successful attack was slipping away, Cochrane sent a signal to Gambier, ‘The enemy ships are getting under sail.’ This was received by the flagship at 1.30 p.m. Cochrane then set the topsails of the Imperieuse and headed for the group of French ships which were still aground on the north-western end of the Palles Shoal. One of the ships was the Jean Bart, which was an abandoned wreck. She had run aground two weeks before and her battered hull served as a useful marker to the edge of the shoal. Three grounded ships lay on the outer edges of the shoal near the wreck: they were the Calcutta, the Ville de Varsovie and the Aquilon. Behind them lay the Tonnerre which was so firmly aground on the rocks that it would prove impossible for her crew to float her.

  As the Imperieuse gathered way and heeled before the wind Cochrane sent a challenging signal to Gambier, ‘The enemy is superior to the chasing ship, but inferior to the fleet’, and five minutes later he followed this with a signal which he knew could not be ignored: ‘The ship is in distress and requires to be assisted immediately.’7 Within minutes of this the Imperieuse shortened sail and fired a shot at the Calcutta. Cochrane now dropped anchor in five fathoms with a spring on the anchor cable so that he could bring the frigate’s broadside to bear on the Calcutta as well as the Aquilon and the Ville de Varsovie. At 2.00 p.m., according to the log of the Imperieuse, they commenced close action with the three French vessels, all of them ships of the line. It was near high water so the ships were floating upright and in theory their heavier armament should have enabled them to inflict crippling damage on the British frigate, but the French had thrown many of their guns overboard in order to lighten the ships, and crews were demoralised following the fireship attack and the sixteen hours they had spent on the Palles Shoal.

  For half an hour the Imperieuse fought alone but then a succession of British ships joined the action in response to Cochrane’s last signal. The bomb vessel Aetna was the first to arrive and began throwing shells among the French ships. She was followed by the brig sloop Beagle whose crew gave Cochrane three cheers as they passed by. The three gun brigs Conflict, Growler and Innocent were next on the scene. They were followed at intervals by seven warships which had been ordered to get under way by Lord Gambier. These were the 74-gun ships Revenge and Valiant and the frigates Aigle, Indefatigable, Pallas, Unicorn and Emerald, the latter commanded by Captain Frederick Maitland.8 This was not the general attack that Cochrane had originally hoped for but it was more than enough fire power to overcome the French ships still aground on the Palles Shoal. The sight of the approaching British ships caused the crew of the Calcutta to abandon her. Cochrane sent a midshipman and a boat’s crew to take possession of her, and they were joined by a boat from the Beagle under the command of a lieutenant. Acting apparently on his own initiative the lieutenant set fire to the French ship but the fire burnt so slowly that it was dusk before the flames reached the magazine.

  Now that reinforcements had arrived Cochrane was able to give his gun crews a rest. At around 3.30 p.m. he gave the order to cease fire, ‘the crew being thoroughly exhausted by fatigue; whilst I was so much so, as to be almost unable to stand’.9 The Imperieuse had taken heavier casualties than was usual under Cochrane’s command. Three men had been killed and eleven wounded. Henry Crookman, the captain of the forecastle, had had his head taken clean off by a cannonball, according to Marryat, who also recorded ‘a very curious instance of muscular action’. An eighteen-year-old seaman was on the forecastle when he was hit b
y a shot which cut away the whole of his bowels, scattering them over Marryat and another midshipman and nearly blinding them. ‘He fell – and, after lying a few seconds, sprang suddenly on his feet, stared us horridly in the face, and fell down dead.’10 Among the wounded were George Gilbert, assistant to Dr Guthrie, and Mark Marsden, the ship’s purser. The French guns had also caused considerable damage to the ship herself: the foremast was shot through, one of the boats was smashed, there were shot holes in the ship’s sides and deck and the sails and rigging required urgent attention. The carpenter, the boatswain and the sailmaker and their assistants took advantage of the interlude to carry out essential repairs including ‘knotting and splicing the running and standing rigging it being much cut by the enemy’s shots’.11

  The crews of the Aquilon and the Ville de Varsovie were now facing a steady bombardment from a miscellaneous group of British warships ranged in a crescent formation in the deeper water at the northern end of the shoal. By the time the Revenge and Valiant joined the fray the thunderous boom of broadsides could be heard for miles around and dense clouds of grey gun smoke were swirling among the embattled ships and drifting across the estuary. It was an unequal contest. The French had difficulty in bringing their broadside guns to bear and had to rely on firing their stern chasers. For two hours they kept up a gallant resistance but they were taking heavy losses and at 5.30 p.m. both ships surrendered. The Tonnerre was so far on the reef that she was out of range of the British guns. Unable to haul her into deeper water her crew decided to set her on fire and take to the boats. They rowed across to the safety of the Ile Madame, a mile and a half away to the south-east. At around 7.30 the Tonnerre blew up, and at 8.30 the Calcutta, which had been slowly burning for several hours, also exploded. The Calcutta had been the storeship for the French fleet and was carrying large quantities of ammunition in addition to her own magazine. An eyewitness on board the Valiant described the resulting explosion as ‘the most terrific and sublime spectacle the human mind could contemplate or the eye survey without emotions of terror!’.12

  The heavy bombardment of the grounded French ships had encouraged Lord Gambier to send in more reinforcements under the command of Rear-Admiral Stopford. At 5.30 p.m. a flotilla consisting of three fireships, the 74-gun ship Theseus and Stopford’s 80-gun flagship Caesar set sail and headed for Aix Roads. The Caesar’s gunner, William Richardson, found the gun batteries on the Ile d’Aix to be as ineffective as Cochrane had reckoned they would be: ‘In passing the Aix batteries,’ Richardson wrote later, ‘where our French pilots had said there were as many guns as days in the year, we could not find above thirteen guns that could be directed against us in passing; and these we thought so little of that we did not return their fire, although they fired pretty smartly at us too with shot and shells, which made the water splash against the ship’s side…’13 But at 7.40 p.m., just as they were drawing clear of the Aix batteries, the Caesar ran firmly aground on the Boyart Shoal on the south side of the approach channel to the Aix anchorage. They were now a sitting target for the gun batteries on the Ile d’Oléron as well as long shots from the Ile d’Aix. The ship began to heel as the tide fell but the gathering darkness saved them from the French guns. Richardson described how they jettisoned thirty tons of water to lighten the ship and ran the after guns forward to bring her more on an even keel. They had a grandstand view of the blowing up of the Calcutta which was only half a mile away. ‘Fortunately none of her fiery timbers fell on board our ship: everything went upwards, with such a field of red fire as illuminated the whole elements.’14 The Caesar floated off with the rising tide at 10.30 p.m. and they anchored her in deeper water. The fireship attack had to be abandoned because by midnight the wind was no longer favourable as it was blowing from the south-west.

  The extremely low water caused by the spring tides was causing difficulties for other British ships as well as for the French. The Imperieuse and the frigate Indefatigable went aground for a while but both were afloat again by 9.30 p.m. Cochrane then sent the boats of the Imperieuse to take off the crews of the Aquilon and the Ville de Varsovie. It took several hours and was not helped by the weather which was blustery with squally rain showers. During this operation an incident occurred which was noted by several people because it demonstrated that Cochrane, in spite of the extreme hazards and dangers he had been exposed to, had luck on his side. The captain of the Aquilon had told Cochrane that he had left his personal possessions and charts behind on his ship. Cochrane volunteered to go back on board with him and collect them. As they left the Aquilon and were being rowed back towards the Imperieuse, a stray shot from a heated gun on the burning Tonnerre hit their boat. According to Cochrane the shot ‘struck the stern sheets of the boat on which he and I were sitting, and lacerated the lower part of the gallant officer’s body so severely that he shortly afterwards expired’.15 Cochrane, who was sitting beside the French captain, was untouched.

  At 3.00 a.m. Captain John Bligh, the commander of the Valiant, gave the order for the Aquilon and the Ville de Varsovie to be set on fire, a controversial decision which was later questioned by Cochrane and others who felt that the ships could have been floated off and retained as prizes; the Ville de Varsovie in particular was considered to be one of the finest two-deckers in the world. As the flames of the two burning ships illuminated the darkness of the estuary, some of the other grounded French ships opened fire on them, believing them to be more fireships sent in by the British.

  By seven on the morning of 13 July the only British ships remaining in the vicinity of the Aix Road anchorage were the Imperieuse, the frigate Pallas, the bomb vessel Aetna, the brig sloop Beagle and eight smaller vessels. The ships of the line and the other frigates had headed back to join the fleet in Basque Roads in response to a signal of recall made by Rear-Admiral Stopford. Cochrane decided to ignore the signal on the grounds that it only applied to the ships that Gambier had sent to the assistance of the Imperieuse. There were still a number of French ships aground at the entrance of the River Charente, notably Allemand’s flagship Océan. All these ships were at the mercy of an attacking force. Cochrane believed it was his duty, in accordance with the orders he had received from the First Lord of the Admiralty, to destroy what remained of the French fleet. The water was too shallow for the frigates to sail into the Charente (low tide was around 9.00 a.m.) so he ordered the Aetna and the other shallow-draft vessels to attack the Océan, the Régulus and the Indienne. At 11.00 a.m. the flotilla of small warships dropped anchor and opened fire. The demoralised crews of the grounded French warships found themselves bombarded by the shells of the Aetna, the guns of the Beagle, Conflict, Contest, Encounter, Fervent and Growler, and the rockets of the schooner Whiting and the cutters Nimrod and King George. According to some accounts Cochrane transferred to the Aetna and directed the action from the deck of the bomb vessel, but there is no mention of this in the logbooks of the Aetna or the Imperieuse, nor does he make any reference to it in his autobiography.16

  For five hours the anchored British ships and the grounded French ships pounded away at each other. Casualties were surprisingly light during this phase of the action, probably because the shallowness of the water prevented the British gun brigs getting too close, while the rocket vessels and bomb vessel usually operated from a distance. However, the damage caused to the ships was considerable. An officer of the Océan later provided a detailed description of the state of the flagship:

  Our principal damages were: a shot cut our mizen mast through to the spindle, our boom cut half in two, 6 main shrouds cut through and 2 mizen shrouds, two chain plates cut away, our main top-sail yard cut through near the slings, two top-gallant yards cut to pieces. Many shot, fragments of shells, and fire-arrows (rockets) struck us, two poop carronades dismounted, all the stanchions and lockers of the cabin cut away, and the deck pierced by shot.17

  Around midday the brig sloops Dotterel, Foxhound and Redpole anchored near the Imperieuse and one of them had a letter for Cochrane f
rom Lord Gambier. The first part of the letter urged Cochrane to return to the fleet as soon as possible: ‘You have done your part so admirably that I will not suffer you to tarnish it by attempting impossibilities.’ Gambier explained that he needed information from Cochrane so that he could complete his despatches. The second part of the letter appeared to give Cochrane authority to continue his actions against the French ships: ‘I have ordered three brigs and two rocket-vessels to join you, with which, and the bomb, you may make an attempt on the ship that is aground on the Palles, or towards the Ile Madame, but I do not think you will succeed.’18

  Cochrane decided to overlook the first part of the letter and respond to the second. ‘I have just had the honour to receive your Lordship’s letter,’ he wrote. ‘We can destroy the ships that are on shore, which I hope your Lordship will approve of.’19 He sent one of the brig sloops back to Gambier with his reply and at the same time sent a telegraph signal to the flagship, ‘Can destroy the enemy.’ By 4.00 p.m. the tide was running out fast and the Aetna, Beagle and other vessels had to abandon their bombardment of the French ships and make their way out of the Charente towards deeper water. Rain was now sweeping across the great estuary and a blustery wind was whipping up steep waves as the flotilla of small warships rounded the northern end of the Palles Shoal and headed for the Imperieuse which was anchored in the Maumusson Passage, an area of deep water to the south of the Boyart Shoal.

  The morning of 14 April brought more rain and fresh gales from the west. At least four of the French warships had managed to heave themselves off the mud during the night and had proceeded up the Charente towards Rochefort. Those French ships which were still aground could be seen unloading guns and stores into local vessels lying alongside them. Cochrane was convinced that these ships, which included the flagship Océan, could still be destroyed but before he could organise another attack a boat came alongside with a second letter from Lord Gambier: ‘It is necessary I should have some communication with you before I close my despatches to the Admiralty. I have, therefore, ordered Captain Wolfe to relieve you in the services you are engaged in. I wish you to join me as soon as possible, that you may convey Sir Harry Neale to England, who will be charged with my despatches, or you may return to carry on the service where you are.’20 While the last phrase was somewhat ambiguous, Cochrane had no option but to hand over operations to Captain Wolfe of the frigate Aigle and report to the flagship. That afternoon the Imperieuse weighed anchor, sailed out of Aix Roads with the ebb tide and joined the fleet.