by Dean King
“Well—sir—what—say—you?” asked the wounded man, whose words dropped slowly and laboriously from his lips.
“This is no time to trifle, sir,” replied the surgeon, for whom a dozen miserable sufferers were calling out; “and I am sorry to tell you this wound is mortal. It is my duty to say that you have but a short time to live!”
“Indeed! I feared so,” groaned the poor man. “And yet,” he sighed, “I should like very much to live a little longer, if it were possible.”
He spoke no more, but laid his sword on a large stone by his side, as gently as if its steel had been turned to glass, and that he was fearful of breaking it. What he meant by this action, we knew not; for he sunk dead upon the grass almost immediately afterwards.
On regaining the road, we were loudly appealed to by so many voices of men suffering from their wounds, and in despair of ever reaching the boats, that we knew not which way to turn or what to do. At first we gave our arms to those nearest us who could walk; but on these wretched men failing and others struggling to gain our assistance, it became quite evident that we should never reach the shore if we did not close our ears to these supplications. In fact, we had almost resolved, hard-hearted as it may seem, to walk along as fast as we could, without heeding the wounded and dying, when a number of artillery waggons, sent out from the city, came galloping along, with orders to glean up all the sufferers who could not readily find their way alone.
As we came nearer to Corunna, we found this precaution had already been taken, so that such of the wounded people as we now fell in with on foot (and these were many hundreds), were trudging on, I can hardly call it merrily, but with a degree of animation, which, considering the frightful predicament of many of them, was truly wonderful. Generally speaking, indeed, the soldiers displayed a great degree of fortitude. We passed a cart filled with men, none of whom uttered a complaint, though I could observe more than one stream of blood trickling on the road through the openings between the planks.
Hardly any trace of twilight remained when we entered the town; but, in consequence of orders given to illuminate the houses in the streets leading to the places of embarkation, no difficulty arose in marching the troops to the boats; an operation which, for obvious reasons, was purposely delayed till after it became quite dark.
When the action was over and the army withdrawn to the position they had occupied in the morning, every demonstration was made of an intention to retain possession of the ground. In this view, large fires were kindled along the line, and these being kept up during the whole night, effectually deceived the enemy and gave time for the different corps not only to retire at leisure in good order, but to embark almost as regularly as if nothing had happened. Such is the effect of discipline well understood. Each soldier having taken his place in the boats, was rowed on board the particular ship destined to receive him; for, it may not be uninteresting to mention, that, on visiting the field before the battle, we found the officers of each regiment in possession of the tickets, specifying the name and number of the transport in which their corps was to be embarked. Accordingly, when the troops marched into Corunna, in the middle of the night, they proceeded without any halt, straight to the shore, where they found the men-of-war’s barges and launches, and the flat-bottomed boats of the transports, all ranged in order ready to receive them. As soon as it was known what regiment was approaching, a certain number of the boats were brought to the edge of the beach, when, without noise or confusion, the soldiers stepped in, and the word being given to shove off, in half-an-hour the empty boats rowed back again to the point of embarkation, having deposited these gallant freights in their respective vessels. I must say, indeed, that nothing during the whole of these memorable scenes excited my admiration more than the cheerfulness with which the harassed soldiers bore so many inevitable but trying humiliations. Their gallant bearing in the morning, when assailed by the formidable columns of the enemy, was certainly very brilliant; and still more admirable did their courage appear, when standing inactive, while their ranks were ploughed up by the French battery. But I am not sure if their genuine stamina and merit as soldiers were not fully as much evinced in their orderly demeanour when the excitement of action was past and when the darkness rendered it easy for any man to straggle without the possibility of detection.
The embarkation of the troops had not entirely ended when the day broke on the morning of the 17th of January; and had not Corunna been a fortified place, the enemy might have rushed on, and greatly harassed, if not cut off the rear. As it was, the pickets and other detachments from the different corps left to keep the fires lighted had to scamper for it briskly enough. But the French cavalry having pushed forward at the first peep of dawn, to ascertain what was the situation of affairs, found the bird flown, the camp empty, and only a long line of well-heaped fires remaining to show the diligence of the last lingerers on the field. On galloping briskly over the ridge, they had the mortification to see the last of the retiring pickets crowding into the gates of Corunna, under cover of the guns of the fort. The walls were manned partly by the rear-guard of the British army, and partly by the Spaniards, who behaved upon this occasion with a degree of steadiness which deserves particular mention, as it was almost the only instance in which the English forces had been effectually seconded by the people they came to assist. The baffled cavalry pulled up their horses on coming within range of the grape and canister shot from the works; and thus terminated the second campaign of the great Peninsular war.
Shortly afterwards we could distinguish from the boats, as we passed to and from the shore to the transports, the heads of the enemy’s columns showing themselves, one by one, over the tops of the ridge on which the English had been posted; and presently the whole of that part of the ground which faced the harbour was speckled with French troops.
As the French approached Corunna, they were not slack in bringing up those heavy guns which had harassed our position in such style the day before, and trying their efficacy on the ships. It was playing at long bowls indeed; for the point to which the guns were brought must have been more than a mile off, and, being much elevated above the sea, the balls plunged at random amongst the fleet of transports. They only excited a bustle among the merchant ships, many of which cut their cables, and, the wind being fair, they drifted out of the harbour in groups of ten or twelve. I was rowing past one transport, when the boat was hailed by a military officer. We lay upon our oars to hear what he had to say
“I wish you would give us some help here,” he cried; “we are all soldiers on board, and don’t know how to get the anchor up, or how to set the sails.”
“Where’s the master and his crew?” we asked.
“Oh!” replied the soldier, laughing, “the scamps took to their boat upon a shot passing between the masts; and here we are, a parcel of land-lubbers, as you see, willing enough to work, shot or no shot, if you will be good enough to put us in the way.”
As the ship by which we had been hailed was already full of troops, I put a midshipman and a couple of the boat’s crew on board, and then proceeded with the fifty men we were embarking. Presently I saw my friends, the soldier-sailors, heaving up their anchor and making sail in very good style. The ragamuffin of a skipper joined his vessel off the port; and the midshipman returned with many thanks from the troops who had been so unhandsomely deserted.
Another transport, however, lying considerably in shore of the one which we relieved, and consequently nearer to the battery, got under weigh in the most deliberate style imaginable, made sail regularly, and, having accidentally cast the wrong way on tripping her anchor, did not wear round with her head off shore, but filled upon the larboard tack, and stood on, nearing the guns more and more every minute, and drawing all their fire upon her. After a time she tacked and sailed leisurely out to sea, actually delaying to make all sail till she was beyond the reach of shot.
Meanwhile three, if not four, of the transports lying nearest to the town of Corunna ma
naged matters so ill that, on cutting their cables, without first having their sails properly set, they could not clear the point, and so went plump ashore, just inside a small rocky island, on which the castle of San Antonio is built, at the distance of two or three hundred yards from the walls at the north-western angle of the city. The hard granite on which Corunna stands being an overmatch for the ribs of these vessels, it very soon pierced their sides and laid them on their beam-ends. A dozen boats were employed for a full hour to remove the troops to other transports. But even these provoking ship-wrecks proved, as will be seen presently, highly useful to the purpose then in hand, the orderly embarkation of the rearguard, and the other remaining troops, consisting of several thousand chosen men, who still kept the enemy at bay, while their comrades passed from the shore to the fleet.
A midshipman, I believe of the Ville de Paris, had been sent on shore with a message to Sir Samuel Hood, who superintended the embarkation of the army On his way to the landing-place, he observed the transports alluded to bilged and deserted; and having done his errand, and being in no great hurry to return, he pulled between the castle of San Antonio and the sally-port which opens from the salient angle of the bastion, forming the extreme point of the principal works in that quarter of the citadel.
“It would be a great shame,” quoth the middy, “if these vessels, wrecked though they be, should fall into the hands of the French; so I shall go on board and set fire to them.”
This exploit he accordingly executed; but although there rose a considerable smoke from the wrecks during the afternoon, the flames did not burst out till about an hour or two after sunset, almost at the moment named for assembling the launches and barges of the fleet to embark the rear-guard, affording a splendid illumination, in which the soldiers marched down to the boats in companies and embarked with as much ease and celerity as if it had been noon-day: and, before breakfast-time next morning, the whole fleet of men-of-war and transports stood out to sea.
As we in the Endymion had the exclusive charge of the convoy of transports, it was our business to remain to the very last, to assist the ships with provisions, and otherwise to regulate the movements of the stragglers. Whilst thus engaged, and lying to, with our main-topsail to the mast, a small Spanish boat came alongside, with two or three British officers in her. On these gentlemen being invited to step up and say what they wanted, one of them begged we would inform him where the transport 139 was to be found?
“How can we possibly tell you that?” said the officer of the watch. “Don’t you see the ships are scattered as far as the horizon in every direction? You had much better come on board in the mean time.”
“No, sir, no,” cried the officers; “we have received directions to go on board the transport 139, and her we must find.”
“What is all this about?” inquired the captain of the Endymion; and being told of the scruples of the strangers, insisted upon their coming up. He very soon explained to them the utter impossibility, at such a moment, of finding out any particular transport amongst between three and four hundred ships, every one of which was following her own way. We found out afterwards that these gentlemen were naturally apprehensive of having it imagined they had designedly come to the frigate for better quarters. Nothing, of course, was farther from our thoughts; indeed, it was evidently the result of accident. So we sent away their little boat; and just at that moment the gun-room steward announced breakfast. We invited our new friends down and gave them a hearty meal in peace and comfort, a luxury they had not enjoyed for many a long and rugged day.
Our next care was to afford our tired warriors the much-required comforts of a razor and clean linen. We shared the party amongst us; and I was so much taken with one of these officers, Colonel de Lancey,10 that I urged him to accept such accommodation as my cabin and wardrobe afforded. He had come to us without one stitch of clothes beyond what he then wore, and these, to say the truth, not in the best condition. Let that pass; he was as fine a fellow as ever lived, and I had much pride and pleasure in taking care of him during the passage.
We shortly became great friends; but on reaching England we parted, and I never saw him more. Of course he soon lost sight of me; but his fame rose high, and, as I often read his name in the Gazettes during the subsequent campaigns in the Peninsula, I looked forward with a gradually-increasing anxiety to the renewal of an acquaintance begun so auspiciously. At last I was gratified by a bright flash of hope in this matter, which went out, alas! as speedily as it came.
Not quite six years after the events here related, I came home from India in command of a sloop of war. Before entering the Channel, we fell in with a ship which gave us the first news of the battle of Waterloo, and spared us a precious copy of the Duke of Wellington’s despatch. Within five minutes after landing at Portsmouth, I met a near relation of my own, which seemed a fortunate rencontre, for I had not received a letter from home for nearly a year, and I eagerly asked him,—
“What news of all friends?”
“I suppose,” he said, “you know of your sister’s marriage?”
“No, indeed! I do not! which sister?”
He told me.
“But to whom is she married?” I cried out, with intense impatience, and wondering greatly that he had not told me this at once.
“Sir William de Lancey was the person,” he answered. But he spoke not in the joyous tone that befits such communications.
“God bless me!” I exclaimed, “I am delighted to hear that. I know him well; we picked him up in a boat at sea, after the battle of Corunna, and I brought him home in my cabin in the Endymion. I see by the despatch, giving an account of the late victory, that he was badly wounded. How is he now? I observe, by the postscript of the Duke’s letter, that strong hopes are entertained of his recovery.”
“Yes,” said my friend, “that was reported, but could hardly have been believed. Sir William was mortally wounded and lived not quite a week after the action. The only comfort about this sad matter is that his poor wife, being near the field at the time, joined him immediately after the battle and had the melancholy satisfaction of attending her husband to the last!”
Basil Hall, whose long naval career took him to the far reaches of the globe, became a prolific writer. His nine-volume work, Fragments of Voyages and Travels (1831–1833), included his experiences and observations regarding a wide spectrum of naval topics and was much reprinted. In 1816 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He was also a fellow of the Royal Astronomical, Royal Geographical, and Geological societies. Hall died at Haslar Hospital in 1844.
While Lieutenant Hall was engaged on the Peninsula, in the thick of the struggle with Napoleon’s forces, Lieutenant George Jackson was on the North American station, where the fighting was no less fierce, even if on a smaller scale. He proves as relentless in seeking freedom as he was in fighting for it.
1 Napier, [Sir William Francis Patrick (1785–1860), History of the War in the Peninsula (London:1835)] vol.i.p.78.
2 Ibid. p. 479.
3 Napier, vol. i. p. 488.
4 Ibid. p.492.
5 Napier, vol. i. p. 475.
6 Napier, vol. i. p. 492.
7 General Sir David Baird (1757–1829) lost his arm as the result of his wound at Corunna. This was to be his last active command, although he later served as commander in chief of Ireland.
8 Napier, vol. i. p. 498.
9 Ibid.
10 Colonel Sir William Howe Delancey, who was born in New York, served in the Peninsula as the Duke of Wellington’s assistant, and, from 1809 to 1814, as Deputy Quartermaster General.
George Vernon Jackson
“Damn ’em, Jackson, They’ve Spoilt My Dancing”
1809–1812
THE FIVE SONS OF Navy purser George Jackson of Godshill, on the Isle of Wight, all entered the Royal Navy. Of them, three were killed and one retired a commander. George Vernon Jackson, the eldest son and the author of this narrative, is a bright and resourceful lieu
tenant. But his promotion to the recently taken frigate Junon, now commanded by Captain John Shortland, proves to be a dubious reward. Once again she will be confronted by superior numbers and, in the same year that she was taken by the Royal Navy, she will revert back to French ownership. Jackson’s short cruise leads to an extended and peripatetic existence behind enemy lines.
1809
During the voyage out to Halifax I had said nothing about my hopes of promotion; and all were astonished when, soon after our arrival, Admiral Lee came on board, and after shaking hands congratulated me on my appointment as second lieutenant to one of the finest frigates in the Navy, the Junon, 38, Captain John Shortland. This was on 20th April 1809. I joined her during the same evening, and on the following day received an invitation to dine with the admiral and attend a ball afterwards.
This was the beginning of a great change from the hardships and uncertainties of a tarpaulin midshipman hitherto without a friend to interest himself on my behalf.
An old shipmate named Conn was third lieutenant in the Junon; the rest of the officers were strangers. Of the first lieutenant I have nothing to say. The marine officer, John Green, stood about six feet high, and might be compared to a switch in personal appearance. There was plenty of length but no breadth about him. I had a great regard for him, and believe the feeling was mutual, though this did not prevent us from being too often at variance. He was always going to call me out, but I always made an absurd joke of it, and declined to go out to fight a man with as much chance of hitting him as of splitting a bullet on a penknife. Poor Green, the sequel of his life proved that he was not such a difficult mark after all.1
Captain Shortland bore the character of an austere disciplinarian, and I felt rather nervous at the prospect of serving under him; however, I have reason to think that he took a liking to me. He was particularly celebrated as a navigator and a good seaman, and he showed preference for me in one respect, as he would allow no one to touch his chronometer but myself. This instrument was his own private property. He did not entirely depend upon my management of it when he was taking observations, but he obliged me to call over the time as it transpired.
