The War for All the Oceans

by Roy Adkins

  Once war broke out, John Nicol in Scotland resented his own situation, constantly hiding from the press-gangs: ‘I hoped that every month would put a period to the war, and I would be allowed to return to Edinburgh . . . When the weather was good, night after night have I sat, after my day’s labour by the old windmill in Bartholomew’s field, first gazing upon Edinburgh, that I dare not reside in, then upon the vessels that glided along the Forth. A sigh would escape me at my present lot . . . I was like a bird in a cage, with objects that I desired on every side, but could not obtain.’47 He longed for peace, and the man in charge of the quarry kept him informed about the progress of the war: ‘As Mr Dickson knew I was anxious for the news, he was so kind as [to] give me a reading of the newspapers when he was done. The other workmen assembled in my cottage on the evenings I got them, and I read aloud; then we would discuss the important parts together.’48 Often heated arguments followed because Nicol, despite his situation, was a staunch supporter of the government, but the majority of the quarry men were not. Nicol and his wife would be fugitives for many years to come.

  The decision to send out as many British naval ships as possible after the short-lived peace was essential for the strategy of keeping control of the seas, particularly around the coast of mainland Europe. The first task was to ensure a tight blockade of enemy ports to prevent French warships massing into large fleets capable of posing a serious threat, and to destroy those warships whenever possible. Napoleon realised that in the long term he could not succeed in his ambitions if he was still opposed by Britain - the only solution was to neutralise the British Navy and to invade the country. With superiority at sea, France would have much greater access to trade and the chance to build a global empire, while the profits would fund his attempts to conquer Europe and the East. Even before war was declared, Napoleon was preparing plans for the invasion of Britain, and the British Navy was preparing a blockade to prevent it.

  In the weeks before war broke out many British naval officers, knowing what was coming, applied to the Admiralty for posts. Sir Sidney Smith was made commodore of a small squadron to patrol and blockade ports off northern France and the Dutch coast. He was probably glad to leave behind the scandal of his involvement with Princess Caroline - the Princess of Wales, the estranged wife of the future King George IV. Caroline took a series of lovers, of whom Smith was one, and she was rumoured to be pregnant with his child, but she cast him aside for another naval lover, Captain Manby, and the relationship ended acrimoniously. In 1820 the Prince was to lose the affection of the public when he put Caroline on trial for adultery in an attempt to divorce her and then forbade her to attend his coronation, but in 1803 the public only knew that the couple were formally separated. Nelson, too, had scandalised high society by his association with Emma, but at least that relationship was enduring and happy, and now he had one of his long-term ambitions fulfilled by being given command of the Mediterranean fleet, while Admiral Lord Keith took the North Sea fleet and Admiral Sir William Cornwallis headed the Channel fleet. One officer under orders from Cornwallis was the Cornishman Sir Edward Pellew, a very experienced seaman with over thirty years’ service in the navy. During the peace he had become Member of Parliament for Barnstaple in north Devon, but with the threat of war he too applied for a post and in March 1803 was appointed captain to the Tonnant, an 80-gun warship captured from the French at the Battle of the Nile.

  After delays at Plymouth recruiting sufficient crew and fitting out the ship, Pellew set sail in early June to join the blockade of Brest. Here he received orders from Cornwallis to sail with the Spartiate and Mars to the port of Ferrol on Spain’s north-western coast, where a Dutch squadron was believed to have called in on the way to the East Indies. Pellew’s orders were to detain the Dutch ships and to seize or destroy any French vessels, but ‘to give no interruption to any Spanish ships or vessels whilst they continue to act as a neutral Power’.49 Although Spain was supporting Napoleon financially, the country had not yet resumed war with Britain, and so technically ports such as Ferrol were neutral and open to all shipping. At Ferrol Pellew’s ships joined the Aigle under Captain Wolfe (sent there to gather intelligence, before facing trial at Weymouth for the murders at Portland), only to discover that the Dutch ships had slipped away the evening before. After three weeks engaged in a fruitless chase as far as Madeira, Pellew’s ships returned to begin a blockade of the adjacent ports of Corunna (La Coruña) and Ferrol, where a French squadron had just arrived after leaving the West Indies on the resumption of the war.

  In November the frigate Hussar sailed from Cornwallis’s squadron off Brest to take dispatches to Pellew and join the blockade at Ferrol. Six months earlier the Hussar under Captain Philip Wilkinson was ordered to cease impressment on the North Sea coast and join the blockade of Brest. The seaman John Wetherell loathed the brutal Wilkinson, a ‘great brave tyrannical cross unfeeling coward . . . Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for their wickedness and Wilkinson ought to have been in the midst of them’.50 Typical of the class structure and snobbery of British society at this time Wetherell, the son of a whaling captain, also despised Wilkinson for being of low birth, since he was the son of a Harwich barber. British society was highly stratified, in contrast to that in France, where the Revolution had swept away the aristocracy and suppressed the middle classes. Wetherell recorded that the Hussar was ‘stationed off the harbour mouth to break off all communications between Ferrol and Corunna. The French lay in Ferrol harbour 9 sail and in Corunna one 74 and two frigates. We used to go on shore to market frequently and have fresh beef for all the squadron.’51 Several of the crew were also in the habit of exchanging tobacco and even their own clothing for alcohol and fruit.

  At the end of the year, after the British ships had spent months on blockade duty, fierce storms inflicted serious damage, and so when the gales abated in early January 1804, Pellew risked taking shelter in Betancos Bay, between Ferrol and Corunna, which he correctly suspected was not a dangerous anchorage as the Spanish firmly believed. The French expected his ships to be driven on to shore, but instead Pellew rode out the storms and kept the enemy ships securely blockaded, while maintaining good relations with the Spanish. The British and French squadrons were 3 miles apart, and Pellew would send his men on shore to a windmill from where they could look down on Ferrol. Here they met up with their French counterparts, and such was the respect between officers that an amicable understanding was easily reached, which Pellew mentioned in a letter to Cornwallis: ‘We are not permitted [by the Spanish] to go near their ships, but our look-out Lieuts meet at the Wind-Mill on a hill between the two ports - out of one window my Lieut. spies them, and out of the opposite one their [French] officer upon us. Buller proposes a Pic-Nic there with Mons. Gourdon26, as we find they dine there frequently.’52 Sir Edward Buller was captain of the Malta, and it was cruelly said that he was ‘even in his sober moments about as much a seaman as his grandmother’.53

  The westerly winds that kept the French in port allowed Pellew to shelter in Betancos Bay, but when the winds turned easterly he quickly anchored his ships across the entrance to the harbour mouth to keep the French cooped up. Not only was Pellew worried about these French ships escaping, but he was also constantly afraid that a French squadron would slip out of Brest to overwhelm his small number of ships or that Nelson in the Mediterranean would be unable to contain the French in Toulon harbour, who could be an even greater threat. Apart from the anxiety of an unexpected attack, blockade duties were always tedious, and often physically demanding and dangerous. Added to this was the difficulty of obtaining adequate supplies. Ships from England were supposed to bring provisions to the blockading fleets, but frequently in winter the weather prevented this or delayed the transfer of supplies once they did arrive. Fresh water could be obtained from places on the nearby coast, but food was not plentiful there, and British seamen ended up travelling as much as 40 miles inland. In general the Spaniards were happy to allow this, although the French tri
ed to stir up opposition.

  As well as food, the blockading ships were running short of other essentials, and Pellew complained to Cornwallis that they were suffering in the wretched weather:As we were not caulked27 when commissioned, we have not a dry hammock in the ship, and what is worse the magazine becomes more damp every day, so that [gun]powder filled three days cannot be lifted by the cartridge; 1600 and odd [cartridges] have been condemned by survey - and the regular loss of above 100 weekly. Every pound of pitch in the ship has been long since expended, so that our caulkers are at stand: nor are they able to do any more than stop partial leaks. I shall hope therefore whenever relieved that we may go to a port, when the defects can be made good, otherwise this fine ship will be ruined.54

  In early February Pellew received important dispatches from John Frere, the British minister at Madrid, warning him of a Spanish military expedition of several thousand soldiers that was to set sail from Ferrol in the next few weeks, and explaining that it was essential to prevent it because of the probable hostile intent. Pellew therefore decided to send the Hussar with dispatches to England, though they were to communicate first with Cornwallis off Brest and inform him of this threat. Wetherell noted that ‘Sir Edward gave us orders to prepare for England with all speed. He had orders from the Admiralty to dispatch the Hussar home to England with all haste.’55 Not knowing the reason for their mission, Wetherell was quite convinced that the Admiralty had issued the order because of complaints about Captain Wilkinson’s brutality. The Hussar prepared to sail, but they were delayed by a terrific thunderstorm. Eventually the weather abated, and they set sail for England.

  Donat Henchy O’Brien, an eighteen-year-old master’s mate from County Clare in Ireland, expressed their excitement: ‘Every heart was elated with the joyful expectation of being safely moored in a few hours in the land of liberty. Some were employed in writing to their friends and relatives; but, alas! how frail and delusive are the hopes of man!’56 After leaving Ferrol, the Hussar’s journey through the Bay of Biscay was marred by faulty navigation. The ship took a course too far to the east, so that just before midnight on the night of 8 February the Hussar struck rocks on the Île de Sein (known to the British sailors as the Saints), as Wetherell described:The night was very dark and a little squally. Took in the royals, and were in the act of furling them when something sounded like the distant roll of a drum. All hands stood in a state of surprise for a moment and anxiously listened to hear from whence the noise proceeded, when a most dreadful crash ensued which nearly sent the masts over her bows. That was followed by another when she stuck fast . . . All hands in a state of confusion; some let go halyards, others let go sheets and braces, in fact all was terror and confusion. By this time the ship was half full of water, the pumps were rattling, boatswain’s mates roaring, ship striking, sails flapping, and officers bawling, which formed a most dismal uproar. At last some person on the forecastle saw a large rock under the bows quite above the water.57

  In order to try to attract assistance, Wetherell recorded that they ‘fired minute guns and rockets until daylight made its welcome appearance and then Oh,—horrid! All round as far as we could see from the deck was sharp ragged black rocks.’58 Wetherell thought that their course had been disputed by the officers on board, and that Captain Wilkinson had insisted this course should be followed in a death wish to destroy the ship and crew. The fact they were saved, Wetherell believed, was because ‘kind heavens protected us from his horrid design and safely landed us in the midst of our open enemies, as a place of refuge and deliverance from the hands of oppression’.59

  They were lucky to be wrecked on the edge of an inhabited island, but a story instantly spread that the island was full of French troops, and so some of the crew and marines managed to get on shore and marched to the fishing settlement, terrifying the few inhabitants by this invasion. Wetherell described that they found the house of the governor and asked a young boy where he was:The boy burst out crying and said, ‘You will kill my Father and my Mother and then take me away to England.’ ‘No, my good boy,’ says Smithson [a seaman who spoke French]; ‘Your Father nor yet any soul in the town shall suffer the least harm from any of our shipwrecked officers or men. All we want is to see your Father, so that he may instruct us how to act in regard to lodging our men on shore.’ At last the boy took Smithson as interpreter . . . into the next apartment where sat an elderly lady weeping. ‘Where is the governor?’ says Smithson. ‘Under the bed,’ says the woman, ‘but pray spare his life.’60

  The governor emerged from his hiding place and said that no lodgings were available but they could take refuge in the church. As he had orders to report any enemy ships, he advised them to take possession of the boats in the harbour, about thirty in all, and to save as much food as possible from the wrecked Hussar. Wetherell reported that with difficulty they managed to salvage ‘bags of bread beef pork cheese butter candles grog tea sugar, in short everything that was not damaged’61, carrying it all to the safety of the church. The next day it was decided to prepare the fishing boats for their escape before French troops made an appearance. According to Wetherell, ‘we ransacked the town, took all the sails we could find, which they mostly used for their beds, and tubs bottles pitchers, or any vessel we thought any use to carry water’.62 Next they set fire to the Hussar and ‘destroyed everything we thought of any use to the enemy. As for her magazines they were full of water. All the guns were loaded and double shotted on our first leaving Ferrol. We hove all the arms over the side, and finding the fires burning furiously . . . we all started on shore and went up to the town.’63

  In the evening they left the island in boats belonging to both the Hussar and the fishermen, to whom ‘bills of exchange were given to the full amount of their value upon the English government’.64 They intended reaching one of the British warships cruising off Brest, but by six in the morning ‘the wind shifted round to the N.W. followed by a heavy squall of hail and constant lightning followed by dreadful crashes of thunder. The gale kept still increasing, the sea rose in entire confusion thro’ the sudden change of wind, and our sails all blew away . . . We were one minute in total gloomy fog so thick we could not see one of our dispersed fleet, and the next minute wrapt in flames, as it were, by the continual lightning.’65 Captain Wilkinson in his boat was picked up by the battleship Magnificent, but the weather was so bad that the remaining boats were forced to make for Brest harbour. The men, ‘almost perishing and starved from the fatigues and sufferings of the night’66, were taken prisoner on board the French warship Alexandre. In six weeks’ time and 18 miles to the north, the Magnificent would also be wrecked on rocks.

  As a prisoner on board the Alexandre in Brest harbour, O’Brien was impressed by his initial treatment, noting that the French ‘gave each of my men a glass of liquor, and ordered breakfast for them, with every thing else that was necessary to recruit exhausted nature, and to console them under their sufferings and misfortunes. The poor fellows were in a most deplorable state, shivering and shaking like aspen leaves: some of them were so worn out with fatigue, hunger, and the extreme severity of the weather, that they could scarcely articulate when spoken to.’67 The French admiral addressed them: ‘Be of good courage, my men. Your confinement in France will not be long, and as it is the laws of our two nations to hold fast all prisoners at this present time, my duty to my nation compels me to transfer you to some place of confinement as prisoners of war.’68 They could hardly imagine that most of them would remain prisoners in France for the next ten years.

  In late February the crew of the Hussar set off from Brest on a long and arduous march of 500 miles across France to their prison depot at Givet.28 This was a fortified town on the left bank of the River Meuse overlooked by the substantial fortress of Charlemont high on the cliffs above. Many prisoners-of-war came to be held in fortresses and walled towns on thiseastern side of France, at places such as Valenciennes, Givet, Verdun, Bitche and Besançon. These fortified strongholds were no lon
ger needed to protect France, because Napoleon had pushed his frontier much further east by invading neighbouring countries. At the time of Napoleon’s first abdication in 1814 there were over sixteen thousand foreign prisoners in France, about three-quarters of whom were sailors, most from the actions of French privateers capturing merchant vessels and also from naval vessels being shipwrecked, especially during constant close blockade duties on the dangerous Atlantic coast.

  Conditions for prisoners depended very much on local circumstances, such as the gaoler in charge and the wealth of individual prisoners. For poorer prisoners, some money was handed out by relief funds administered by charities, such as the Lloyd’s Patriotic Fund in London. From the outbreak of war in May 1803, the gentlemen civilian prisoners, known as détenus (‘detained people’), were held on parole wherever they wished to live, giving their word of honour, parole d’honneur, not to escape. As they were illegally held, many civilians did not regard this parole as a moral obligation and so attempted to escape. Consequently, in November there was an order that the upper-class détenus should be held at Verdun, on parole, and the rest elsewhere. Verdun, the prison where military and naval officers were held, was on the left bank of the Meuse, like Givet, which was further to the north.

  As well as the illegal detention of civilians, some seamen were kept prisoner contrary to accepted wartime rules, and one such was Lieutenant William Dillon. Having joined the frigate Africaine after his press-gang work in Hull, he became involved in the blockade of the Dutch port of Hellevoetsluis near the Hook of Holland. In July he was sent with dispatches from Admiral Keith to the Dutch commodore under a flag of truce, a convention recognised by all nations. He was asked to wait for a reply from the Dutch government, and after eight days was given an answer to the dispatch and told he was at liberty to leave, at which point the crew from a nearby French frigate, the Furieuse, boarded his unarmed boat and took him and his crew captive.