Britain Against Napoleon

by Roger Knight

  22. Rodger, Command of the Ocean, pp. 515–16.

  23. Ibid., pp. 508–18.

  24. 2 June 1800, Marsden, Brief Memoir, pp. 97–8fn.

  25. Gardiner, Frigates, p. 90.

  26. Ritchie, Admiralty Chart, p. 30.

  27. The Times, 28 Feb. 1801, quoted in Dudley Pope, Great Gamble, p. 159.

  28. Harvey, Collision of Empires, pp. 115–16; Muir and Esdaile, ‘Strategic Planning’, pp. 26–7.

  29. Verney, Calvert, p. 452.

  30. To Major General Sir Hew Dalrymple, 12 Oct. 1794, ibid., p. 360.

  31. Jupp, Canning Letter Journal, p. 204, 10 Feb. 1795.

  32. Ibid., pp. 174–6, 30 Dec. 1794; p. 210, 20 Feb. 1795.

  33. Ibid., p. 198, 1 Feb. 1795.

  34. Ibid., p. 278, 23 June 1795.

  35. Melville, Huskisson, pp. 24–5.

  36. Jupp, Canning Letter Journal, p. 34, 3 Dec. 1793.

  37. Chalus, ‘Elite Women’, p. 686.

  38. Marsden, Brief Memoir, p. 99fn., 6 July 1800.

  39. Harling, ‘Old Corruption’, p. 65.

  40. Thorne, House of Commons, Vol. V, pp. 45–52. The fellow MP was John William Ward.

  41. Boscawen to Thomas Grenville, 30 Sept. 1806, HL, STG 136 (9).

  42. Ward, ‘English Revenue Commissioners’, p. 207.

  43. Gentleman’s Magazine, 1811, p. 501; ODNB.

  44. Thorne, House of Commons, Vol. V, p. 186.

  45. Ibid., Vol. III, p. 228, quoting Joseph Jekyll to Bond, 2 July [1813], Dorset Record Office, Bond MSS D367.

  46. St Vincent to Nepean, 29 July 1796, NMM, NEP/7.

  47. Windham to Thomas Grenville, 17 Oct. 1806, HL, STG 168 (59).

  48. 15 July 1798, Melville, Huskisson, p. 35.

  49. Duffy, ‘French Atlantic Fleet’, p. 601.

  50. Marsden, Brief Memoir, p. 99fn., 17 Sept. 1800; p. 97fn, 11 Mar. 1799.

  51. Nelson, Home Office, p. 50.

  52. The Transport Board was expected to work a five-day week, but had to continue on Saturdays throughout the French Revolutionary War. Morriss, British Maritime Ascendancy, p. 340.

  53. Lord Chatham to Middleton, 11 Jan. 1794, NMM, MID/1/141.

  54. Commission of Naval Revision, Ninth Report, p. 7. See Appendix 2.

  55. Lloyd, Prisoners of War, p. 334.

  56. Crimmin, ‘Spanish Prisoners of War’, p. 235, quoting Transport Board to Admiralty, 12 Jan. 1796, TNA, 98/107.

  57. Durey, Wickham, p. 101, quoting Denization and Naturalisation Office: General Correspondence 1798–1811, TNA, HO 1/4.

  58. Crimmin, ‘Spanish Prisoners of War’, pp. 231–5.

  59. Ibid., p. 231, quoting numerous volumes from TNA, ADM 103.

  60. To John Harrison, 27 Oct. 1797, BL, Althorp Papers, Add. MSS 75813.

  61. Cole, Arming the Navy, pp. 38–40, 54.

  62. Crimmin, ‘Admiralty Relations with the Treasury’, pp. 70–72.

  63. 13 Dec. 1800, Rosebery, Windham Papers, Vol. II, p. 162.

  64. E.g., 18 Apr. 1793, ‘Memorial from the Clerks in the Navy Office’, NMM, ADM BP/3; 6 June 1794, ‘Shortage of Clerks … on Account of the Accumulation of Business’, BP/4.

  65. Parliamentary Register, Third Series, 1798, pp. 277–8.

  66. Nelson, Home Office, pp. 62, 63.

  67. Navy Board to Admiralty, 29 Nov. 1802, NMM, ADM BP/22B.

  68. Nelson, Home Office, pp. 52, 54.

  69. ODNB, quoting Glenbervie Diaries MSS, fols. 16–17; Harling, ‘British War Effort’, p. 127.

  70. Harling, ‘Old Corruption’, p. 73, quoting Parliamentary Sessional Papers, Vol. CXIII, p. 85.

  71. George Hartwell, John Kingdom, Charles Derrick to the first lord of the Admiralty, 18 July 1800, NMM, ADM BP/20b.

  72. Morriss, Royal Dockyards, p. 106.

  73. MacDougall, ‘Dockyard Dispute’, pp. 47–8.

  74. Morriss, Royal Dockyards, pp. 123, 128.

  75. Commissioner Hope, Chatham, to Navy Board, 24 Aug. 1802, NMM, ADM BP/22b.

  76. Gwyn, Ashore and Afloat, pp. 73–4, 330.

  77. Cookson, ‘Political Arithmetic’, p. 38.

  78. Eastwood, ‘Information Flow’, pp. 289–90.

  79. Cookson, ‘Political Arithmetic’, pp. 41–2.

  80. Eastwood, ‘Information Flow’, pp. 280–81.

  81. East, ‘Eighteenth Century’, p. 471.

  82. Deane and Cole, Economic Growth, p. 65.

  83. Marsden, Brief Memoir, p. 100.

  5 Intelligence and Communications 1793–1801

  1. Duffy, ‘Control of British Foreign Policy’, p. 156, quoting Dropmore, Vol. V, p. 215.

  2. To Burke, 7 Nov. 1793, Rosebery, Windham, Vol. I, p. 170; Ehrman, Younger Pitt, Vol. II, pp. 567–9.

  3. Sparrow, Secret Service, p. 84.

  4. E.g. TNA, ADM 1/6037, 109 folios of classified index to intelligence, Feb. 1794–Apr. 1796.

  5. Duffy, ‘French Atlantic Fleet’, pp. 602–3, quoting 4 Apr. 1798, Corbett, Spencer Papers, Vol. II, p. 305.

  6. Ibid., p. 602, quoting ibid., 27 Apr. 1798, p. 326.

  7. E.g. Thomas White and Thomas Tayler sending extracts of letters to Philip Stephens, 18 May 1792, 12 Jan. 1794, 30 Jan. 1795, TNA, ADM 1/5120/1.

  8. Knight, Jane, ‘Merchant News’, May 2005.

  9. Ellis, Post Office, pp. 67–75, 138–9.

  10. Durey, Wickham, p. 36, fn. 83, quoting Bland Burges to Grenville, 13 Oct. 1793, Dropmore, Vol. II, p. 445.

  11. Oct. 1796, Granville, Leveson Gower Correspondence, Vol. I, 131.

  12. 7. Oct. 1798, NMM, NEP/2.

  13. Paget to Lord St Helens, 18 Sept. 1801, Paget, Paget Papers, Vol. II, p. 15.

  14. Durey, Wickham, p. 33; see Chapter 1.

  15. Sparrow, ‘Alien Office’, p. 362.

  16. Durey, Wickham.

  17. Ibid., pp. 38–9, 42–3; Sparrow, ‘Alien Office’, p. 365.

  18. Durey, Wickham, p. 45, quoting Portland to Wickham, 8 Sept. 1794, Hampshire Record Office, WP, 38M49/1/40/1.

  19. Ibid., p. 46.

  20. Ibid., pp. 41–4.

  21. Sparrow, ‘Secret Service’, p. 368.

  22. 10 Jan. 1798, Admiralty in-letters, TNA, ADM 1/4175, extract from Spiridion Foresti to Lord Grenville, Corfu, 8 Nov. 1797.

  23. Secret service accounts, ‘Government Account with the Rt Hon. Henry Dundas’, 2 Mar. 1795, NMM, NEP/3.

  24. Sparrow, ‘Secret Service’, p. 286.

  25. Ibid., pp. 291–2.

  26. Office for Auditing the Public Accounts, 1 Apr. 1801, HL, STG 187 (23).

  27. Bew, Castlereagh, pp. 137–9.

  28. NMM, NEP/4, 16 Dec. 1797, 19 Feb., 2 Mar. 1798.

  29. Ibid., 30 July 1798.

  30. Ibid., 3 June 1797.

  31. Durey, Wickham, p. 75; Mitchell, ‘Dropmore Bulletins’, p. 142.

  32. Pocock, Smith, p. 2.

  33. Durey, ‘Escape of Smith’, p. 443.

  34. 5, 16 May 1798, NMM, NEP/3.

  35. Durey, Wickham, pp. 49, 53, 57–62, 100, 151.

  36. Ellis, ‘Communications and Diplomacy’, pp. 169–72.

  37. Ellis, Post Office, p. 34.

  38. Durey, ‘Grenville and the Smoking Gun’, p. 563.

  39. Abstracts of logs 1793–1794, TNA, ADM 7/575, a sample of twelve ships in each year.

  40. To his father, the earl of Uxbridge, 1 Dec. 1800, Paget, Paget Papers, Vol. I, p. 287.

  41. Ibid., Keith to Paget, 18 Dec. 1800, p. 289.

  42. Grocott, Shipwrecks, p. 84, quoting The Times, 13 Nov. 1799.

  43. Abstracts of logs 1793–1794, TNA, ADM 7/575.

  44. Boyden, British Army Postal Service, p. 4.

  45. Knight and Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet, p. 192.

  46. ‘Reasons Assigned by Capt. Bridge Why Cuxhaven is Preferable to Bremerhale’ [n.d.], TNA, POST/43/9.

  47. Clowes, Royal Navy History, Vol. II, p. 412.

  48. 18 May, 31 July 1797, TNA, Post Office records, POST 43/134, fols. 95–9.

  49. Robinso
n, British Mails, pp. 311–12; Trinder, Harwich Packets, pp. 50–51.

  50. 11 Oct. 1800, 10 Jan., 17 Apr., 1 May, 16 July 1801, Prince of Wales’s log, in the author’s possession.

  51. Ibid., 28 Sept. 1800–15 Aug. 1802. The shipwreck was sighted on 16 Mar. 1801.

  52. Mackesy, Strategy of Overthrow, pp. 54, 62.

  53. Hunter to Nelson, 26 Sept. 1804, NMM, CRK/7/106.

  54. 14 Apr. 1800, Captains’ in-letters, TNA, ADM 1/1922.

  55. Barker and Gerhold, Road Transport, p. 24.

  56. Mallinson, Semaphore, p. 82.

  57. Ibid., pp. 76–8.

  58. 4 Feb. 1796, Colchester, Diary, Vol. I, p. 30.

  59. TNA, PRO 30/8/259.

  60. [n.d. but July 1801], NMM, CRK/14/107.

  61. 4 Aug. 1801, NMM, CRK/13/52.

  62. Kitchen, ‘Coastal Signal Stations’, pp. 337–41.

  63. Navy Office to Nepean, 19 Sept. 1796, NMM, ADM BP/16b.

  64. Instructions to Lieutenants of Signal Posts, 22 Aug. 1798, NMM, ADM BP/18b.

  65. Grocott, Shipwrecks, quoting The Times, 27 Feb. 1793.

  66. Crowhurst, French War on Trade, pp. 199–202.

  67. Harrison, ‘Privateers on the East Coast’, pp. 301–6.

  68. Grocott, Shipwrecks, p. 85, quoting Naval Chronicle, pp. 3, 76.

  69. NMM, HNL/13/10: 79, 27 Nov. 1799.

  70. Mornington to Melville, 4 Sept. 1798, WLC, Melville Papers; Ward, ‘Rainier’, pp. 72, 75, 100.

  71. Cleghorn to Dundas, 14 Feb. 1795, TNA, WO 1/361; Ehrman, Younger Pitt, p. 562n.; Durey, Wickham, pp. 41, 51.

  72. Cleghorn to Dundas, 24 Oct. 1795, TNA, WO 1/361.

  73. Ibid., 17 June, 20 July, 14 Oct. 1795; 14 July 1797.

  74. Durey, Wickham, pp. 84–5.

  75. Duffy, ‘Egyptian Expedition Intelligence’, p. 279.

  76. Canning to Nepean, 24 Apr. 1798, enclosing Jackson’s letter, TNA, ADM 1/4176; WLC, Melville Papers, Nepean’s enclosure to Dundas, actions 29 Apr.–24 July 1798.

  77. ‘Buonaparte’s Expedition to Egypt and the Means of Delivering that Country from the French’, précis of fifty intelligence despatches received 20 Apr. 1798–10 May 1799, WLC, Melville Papers.

  78. Ingram, Commitment to Empire, p. 42, quoting Eton to Dundas, 25 Apr. 1798, SRO, GD/51/1/768/3; Wood to Dundas, 26 Apr. 1798, TNA, WO 1/1101.

  79. Ward, ‘Rainier’, pp. 92, 98.

  80. Day to St Vincent from Genoa, 13 Apr. 1798, NMM, CRK/18/4; Duffy, ‘Egyptian Expedition Intelligence’, p. 283.

  81. Duffy, ‘Egyptian Expedition Intelligence’, pp. 282–3.

  82. Corbett, Spencer Papers, Vol. II, p. 445.

  83. WLC, Melville Papers, Nepean’s enclosure to Dundas, actions 29 Apr.–24 July 1798; Mackesy, Strategy of Overthrow, p. 22.

  84. Knight, Pursuit of Victory, p. 279.

  85. 28 May 1798, BL, Add. MSS 34906, fol. 426.

  86. Knight, Pursuit of Victory, p. 284.

  87. See letter of 29 Apr. 1798 to St Vincent, Corbett, Spencer Papers, Vol. III, pp. 437–41.

  88. St Vincent to Nepean, 3 July 1798, NMM, NEP/4, fol. 121.

  89. Précis of correspondence, 20 Apr. 1798–10 May 1799, WLC, MelvillePapers.

  90. 28 Sept. 1798, Dropmore, Vol. IV, p. 328.

  91. Melville, Huskisson Papers, pp. 38–9.

  92. Précis of correspondence, 20 Apr. 1798–10 May 1799, WLC, Melville Papers.

  93. Duffy, ‘French Atlantic Fleet’, pp. 603–4.

  94. Ibid., pp. 609–11.

  95. Rodger, Command of the Ocean, p. 462.

  96. Huskisson to Home Popham, 16 July 1799, WLC, Melville Papers.

  97. 26 Oct., 3, 21 Nov. 1796, 25 May 1798, 19 June, 18 Sept. 1800, NMM, NEP/2.

  98. Durey, ‘Assassination of the French Directory’, pp. 551–5.

  99. Durey, Wickham, p. 101.

  100. Ibid., p. 100.

  101. Durey, ‘Escape of Smith’, p. 438.

  102. Rodger, Command of the Ocean, p. 466.

  103. 8, 13 Jan. 1801, NMM, NEP/2; Knight, Pursuit of Victory, pp. 364, 388.

  104. Duffy, ‘French Atlantic Fleet’, p. 614.

  6 Feeding the Armed Forces and the Nation 1795–1812

  1. James Whitworth to his wife, HMS Portia, 7 May 1812, NMM, WHW/1/4.

  2. Apr., 5 May 1812, logbook of the Portia, TNA, ADM 51/2626; Mar. 1811–Apr. 1818, muster book, ADM 37/3128.

  3. Coad, Royal Dockyards, p. 275.

  4. Macdonald, Feeding Nelson’s Navy, p. 13.

  5. Vale, ‘Conquest of Scurvy’, pp. 160–79.

  6. Morriss and Saxby, Channel Fleet, pp. 13–14.

  7. Cookson, Armed Nation, p. 5.

  8. Knight, ‘Politics and Trust’, p. 136; Knight and Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet, pp. 47, 51–2.

  9. Rodger, ‘War as an Economic Activity’, p. 5.

  10. Deane and Cole, British Economic Growth, p. 8.

  11. Lloyd, Prisoners of War, p. 201.

  12. Knight and Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet, Appendix 4.

  13. Ibid., Appendices 4 and 5.

  14. Ibid., pp. 51, 52, 221.

  15. Stern, ‘Bread Crisis’, pp. 171–2.

  16. Knight and Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet, 74–6

  17. Randall, Riotous Assemblies, p. 224

  18. Knight and Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet, p. 75.

  19. Galpin, Grain Supply, pp. 13–14.

  20. Bowen, Business of Empire, p. 51, quoting Stephen Lushington to Pitt, 25 June 1795, BL, India Office Records L/P and S/1, Vol. IX, fols. 190v–1.

  21. Secret Committee, Minute, 30 Sept. 1795, BL, India Office Records, L/P and S/5/583 (reference provided by Alan Frost).

  22. Bowen, Business of Empire, p. 51, quoting BL, India Office Records B/123, 236, 337, 589; B/124, 886.

  23. Knight and Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet, p. 74.

  24. Charlesworth, Atlas of Rural Protest, pp. 101–2.

  25. Wells, Dearth in Yorkshire, pp. 19, 23.

  26. Vane, Memoirs of Castlereagh, Vol. IV, pp. 78–9.

  27. Wells, Wretched Faces, p. 35.

  28. Knight and Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet, p. 77, quoting Wells, Wretched Faces, p. 1, from 11 Oct. 1800, BL, Add. MSS 38311, fols. 166–9.

  29. Secret Letters of the Commissariat 1799–1806, TNA, WO 58/170.

  30. Knight and Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet, Appendix 3.

  31. Ibid., pp. 121–2, 127–8.

  32. www.nmm.ac.uk, ‘Sustaining the Empire’ database.

  33. Knight and Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet, pp. 149–51, 155–76.

  34. Ibid., p. 5.

  35. Ibid., pp. 16–17.

  36. Armstrong, ‘Coastal Shipping’, p. 23.

  37. Szostak, Transportation in the Industrial Revolution, pp. 54–9.

  38. Chaloner, ‘Salt in Cheshire’, pp. 103–4, 112, 117.

  39. Ward, Canal Building, pp. 26–73.

  40. Randall, Riotous Assemblies, p. 80.

  41. Kaplan, Provisioning Paris, p. 84.

  42. Ward, Canal Finance, p. 136.

  43. Nye, War, Wine and Taxes, p. 82.

  44. Bonser, Drovers, p. 37.

  45. Fussell and Goodman, ‘Traffic in Livestock’, pp. 217, 219, 221, 225.

  46. Davey, ‘Within Hostile Shores’, p. 248, quoting memorandum, 24 July 1808, NMM, MKH/112.

  47. To Benjamin Hallowell, 28 Jan. 1809, Hughes, Collingwood Correspondence, p. 265.

  48. O’Brien, ‘Triumph and Denouement’, p. 197.

  49. Brandon, ‘South Downs’, p. 46.

  50. Marshall, County Reports, Vol. V, pp. 465–6, 498.

  51. Ibid., pp. 474–5.

  52. Vine, London’s Lost Route, pp. 33–4, 50–51.

  53. Knight and Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet, pp. 46, 59.

  54. Davey, ‘Within Hostile Shores’, p. 252.

  55. 25 June 1795, Corbett, Spencer Papers, Vol. I, p. 46.

  56. Morris, Royal Dockyards, pp. 46–7; Cross, Banks of the Neva, p. 207.

  57. Knight
and Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet, pp. 59–60.

  58. Coad, Block Mills, p. 35.

  59. Coats, ‘Rosia Water Tanks’, pp. 83–5; Macdonald, ‘Victualling Yard at Gibraltar’, p. 58.

  60. Knight and Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet, pp. 58–63.

  61. Armstrong, ‘Coastal Shipping’, pp. 23–32.

  62. 23 Sept. 1795, with draft reply, BL, Add. MSS 75779; McCranie, Lord Keith, pp. 44–8.

  63. Davey, ‘Within Hostile Shores’, p. 251.

  64. Hansard, 1808, Vol. XI, cols. 879–81.

  65. Morriss and Saxby, Channel Fleet, pp. 18–19, 132–4.

  66. Mackesy, Victory in Egypt, pp. 38–48.

  67. Motz to Treasury, 15 Mar. 1801, letters relating to army victualling, TNA, ADM 109/104.

  68. Victualling Board minutes, 10 Feb., 9 June 1801, TNA, ADM 111/159.

  69. Davey, ‘Within Hostile Shores’, pp. 248–50, 253.

  70. Ibid., p. 241, quoting 16 Oct. 1808, TNA, ADM 1/7/278–80.

  71. Ibid., p. 255.

  72. Knight and Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet, p. 213; Knight, Pursuit of Victory, pp. 489, 493.

  73. Knight, Pursuit of Victory, p. 510.

  7 Transporting the Army by Sea 1793–1811

  1. HL, STG 168 (64).

  2. Muir and Esdaile, ‘Strategic Planning’, p. 21.

  3. Navy Board to Admiralty, 23 Aug. 1794, NMM, ADM BP/14.

  4. Condon, ‘Surveying and Measuring’, pp. 334–5; Morriss, ‘Colonization, Conquest’, p. 313.

  5. Morriss, ‘Colonization, Conquest’, p. 313.

  6. Duffy, Sugar and Seapower, pp. 166–70.

  7. Morriss, ‘Colonization, Conquest’, p. 317.

  8. Condon, ‘Administration of Transports’, p. 281.

  9. Sutcliffe, ‘Bringing Forward Merchant Shipping’, pp. 110, 202–3.

  10. Thomas Hamilton to Thomas Grenville, 20 Feb. 1807, HL, STG 152 (19).

  11. Currie, Henleys of Wapping, p. 13.

  12. Morriss, ‘Colonization, Conquest’, pp. 316–17.

  13. Blanning, French Revolutionary Wars, p. 209.

  14. Mitchell and Deane, British Historical Statistics, p. 217; Duffy, Sugar and Seapower, p. 387; Parkinson, Trade Winds, p. 83; Morriss, Foundations of Maritime Ascendancy, p. 83.

  15. TNA, MT 23/1, N/N/1797.

  16. Currie, Henley’s of Wapping, p. 17.

  17. Ville, English Shipowning, pp. 124–6.

  18. Syrett, ‘British Army to Flanders 1742’, p. 317.

  19. 23 Dec. 1802, Markham, Markham Letters,