by Roy Adkins
Another soldier, from the 71st, reported that one of the wives similarly obtained money:Among the women who were put ashore on our arrival at Portsmouth, there was one belonging to our regiment who had rather the appearance of a bundle of rags than of a human being. Upon some of the men calling out to her not to expose the regiment, by telling the good English people that such a scarecrow belonged to it, she answered, that she would soon have more prize-money than any of us. This eventually turned out truth; not long afterwards she joined us again, finely dressed, and having £30 in her pocket: - her lamentable story had taken well; but, I dare say, she got the money more readily on account of having a beautiful child in her arms.80
After all the hardships of the campaigns in Spain, even this was small compensation.
THIRTEEN
THE GRAND EXPEDITION
This is to certify that Mr. Frederick Marryat, midshipman of H.M.S. Imperieuse, was in the explosion brig under my command in the attack of the enemy’s fleet in Basque Roads, on the night of the 11th of April, 1809, and conducted himself very much to his own credit and my entire satisfaction.
Certificate of service given to the naval officer
and later novelist Frederick Marryat1
The British Navy’s success in evacuating Corunna was almost instantly counterbalanced by the failure of the blockade off Brest. When the squadron of Rear-Admiral Willaumez was disastrously hit by a hurricane, some of his ships had taken refuge in American waters. In early 1807 he managed to return to Brest, where he had been blockaded ever since. Admiral James Gambier - now elevated to Lord Gambier after his attack on Copenhagen - was in charge of the Channel Fleet, but severe weather forced his blockading ships from Brest, and on 21 February 1809 Willaumez seized the opportunity and escaped with eight battleships and seven frigates.
The failure of the blockade was blamed on Gambier, who had a reputation, regarded by many sailors as a bad reputation, for being a Christian evangelist. The poet and humourist Thomas Hood mocked his extreme views in an ode :Oh! Admiral Gam—— I dare not mention bier
In such a temperate ear,—
Oh! Admiral Gam—— an Admiral of the Blue,
Of course, to read the Navy List aright,
For strictly shunning wine of either hue,
You can’t be Admiral of the Red or White.2
Many thought that Gambier was more concerned with saving the souls of his crew than saving Britain from the French, an attitude frowned on by several of his fellow officers and most of the men, who christened him ‘Dismal Jimmy’ and ‘Preaching Jemmy’.
The squadron of Willaumez was spotted by Commodore John Beresford, whose four battleships were blockading the nearby port of Lorient, and he attempted to attack them, but they gave him the slip. On the 23rd Willaumez reached as far south as Rochefort, which was blockaded by Rear-Admiral Robert Stopford. There was no chance of stopping the French force, and Stopford sent a ship to Gambier to raise the alarm while harassing the stragglers and forcing two frigates to be wrecked on the French coast. Stopford, though, could only watch as Willaumez led his remaining fleet into the safe anchorage known as Basque Roads, from where Napoleon intended him to go to Toulon.
The place where Willaumez had taken shelter was just off the Atlantic coast of France between La Rochelle to the north and Rochefort to the south. This anchorage was protected by several islands, with the Île de Ré west of La Rochelle, the Île d’Oléron off Rochefort and the Île d’Aix, much closer to the shore, lying between the two. Basque Roads was the area of sea to the north of the Île d’Aix, and Aix Roads was to the south. Not only were these anchorages protected from the weather, but enemy attack was made more difficult by shore batteries on the islands and the fact that the smaller islands and shoals made navigation of the area difficult and slow. The natural protection of the shoals was not always beneficial, because as Willaumez led his fleet into the greater safety of Aix Roads, the battleship Jean Bart ran aground on a shoal due south of the Île d’Aix and had to be abandoned as a wreck. The nature of the area, with its shoals and fortified islands, made it extremely difficult to blockade, particularly with the small force at Stopford’s disposal, but Willaumez made no move to escape, and merely strengthened his defensive position by fixing a heavy boom across the passage into his anchorage. This passageway, a shallow channel less than 2 miles wide, led between the shoals and the Île d’Aix to the estuary of the River Charente, and it was here that the French were anchored.
Gambier arrived with his fleet on 7 March, which at least provided extra ships for a more effective blockade, but neither the Admiralty in London nor the Ministry of Marine in Paris was happy with events. When it was known that Willaumez had failed to tackle Beresford’s inferior force and was now bottled up in Aix Roads, he was replaced by Vice-Admiral Zacharie-Jacques-Théodore Allemand. In London, the general opinion was that if the French could give Gambier the slip at Brest, they could easily do so here. The Admiralty was no longer content merely to blockade the French fleet but wanted action, proposing an attack on the French ships at anchor. Gambier reluctantly replied that ‘an attack by means of fire-ships was hazardous, if not desperate . . . [but] if the Board of Admiralty wished to order such an attack, it should be done secretly and quickly’.3 When the idea became known in Gambier’s fleet, a number of officers volunteered to take part, including the Trafalgar veteran Rear-Admiral Eliab Harvey. The decision was not in Gambier’s hands, though, and the Admiralty had already formed a plan.
Captain Thomas Cochrane had barely set foot on land at Plymouth after his successes against the French in Spain, when he received a message from William Johnstone Hope, Second Lord of the Admiralty: ‘There is an undertaking of great moment in agitation against Rochefort, and the Board [of Admiralty] thinks that your local knowledge and services on the occasion might be of the utmost consequence, and, I believe, it is intended to send you there with all expedition; I have ventured to say, that if you are in health, you will readily give your aid on this business.’4 On reaching London, Cochrane learned that it was proposed to put him in charge of the fireship attack. He instantly objected - being only a junior captain, he knew his plans would be met with ill-feeling by those higher in rank. Cochrane was curtly told that ‘the present was no time for professional etiquette’5 and was sent off immediately to Rochefort, arriving there on 3 April.
His appearance produced just the effect he had feared: Admiral Harvey, initially assuming it was all Gambier’s doing, flew into a rage and publicly accused him of being unfit to command. Cochrane commented that the ‘the abuse of Lord Gambier to his face was such as I had never before witnessed from a subordinate’.6 Harvey returned to England to face the inevitable court martial, which found him guilty of using ‘vehement and insulting language to the Right Hon. Lord Gambier, and of having otherwise shewn great disrespect to him as commander-in-chief’.7 He was dismissed from the navy, and although he was reinstated to his rank the following year in recognition of his previous years of service, he was never employed at sea again.
Cochrane immediately set in motion his plan for attack, with explosion vessels full of shells and Congreve rockets, and fireships to burn the French fleet. There had been continuing skirmishes between both sides, and one incident on the day of his arrival was recorded by William Richardson, gunner of the Caesar: ‘In the forenoon of this day we observed many large boats, some with guns [cannons] and full of men, rowing along shore on the Oleron side [near the Île d’Oléron], and we supposed with intent to capture some of our victuallers, who were lying becalmed outside of the roads; we therefore sent the launches of our fleet armed with carronades and other boats manned and armed to stop them; a smart fight soon ensued, and the enemy retreated. Our loss in the boats was one lieutenant and one seaman killed and another seaman wounded.’8 The ‘victuallers’ were merchant ships bringing supplies to the blockading fleet, but Cochrane had another purpose in mind for them, as Richardson related:Having got the victuallers cleared of the pr
ovisions and water, twelve of them were selected for fire-ships, and the Mediator, 36-gun frigate, was to be fitted for another, in order to go in ahead of the others and clear away all obstacles; eight others were expected from England, making in all twenty-one, and besides we fitted up three explosion vessels, to lead in the fire-ships and blow up first, to throw the enemy in consternation: all these (’twas thought) were sufficient to destroy the enemy’s fleet. We got alongside one of the victuallers, a brig of 350 tons named the Thomas, and belonging to a Mr. Cowey of North Shields, and immediately began to fit her up for a fire-ship; we made narrow troughs and laid them fore and aft on the ’tween decks and then others to cross them, and on these were laid trains of quickmatch [fuses]; in the square openings of these troughs we put barrels full of combustible matter, tarred canvas hung over them fastened to the beams, and tarred shavings made out of brooms, and we cut four port-holes on each side for fire to blaze out and a rope of twisted oakum well tarred led up from each of these ports to the standing rigging and up to the mast-heads; nothing could be more complete for the purpose.9
Gunner Richardson was then employed on an explosion vessel:
Chart representing the French and British fleets in Basque Roads
My next job was to fit up a chasse-marée48 (lately taken) for an explosion vessel; but she rolled so much alongside as to endanger her masts being carried away against our rigging, so she was dropped astern, and hung on by a rope [was towed], and then continued to roll as much as ever; so that I had to change first one and then another of the carpenter’s crew who were on board cutting the fuses, they being seasick. We stowed thirty-six barrels of gunpowder (90 lb. each) in her hold upright and heads out, on each was placed a 10 inch bomb-shell, with a short fuse in order to burst quickly. A canvas hose well filled with prime powder was laid for a train from the barrels to a small hole cut in her quarter for the purpose, and the train was led through it to her outside, which was well fastened - a port fire which would burn twelve or fifteen minutes so as to give the people alongside in the boat who set it on fire sufficient time to escape before she exploded.10
James Choyce had until recently been a prisoner-of-war at Sarrelibre, but had joined the French Navy as a means of escaping and a few days later rowed out to a British warship. He was now involved in fitting out transport ships as fireships, with all sorts of combustible material. ‘In all this what stuck most in our gizzards,’ he lamented, ‘was that two or three of these vessels were loaded with hay, and a number of puncheons of rum, of which we were not allowed to taste a drop, the puncheons being all stove [in] and the contents poured over the hay to make it burn the better. This . . . grieved us very much.’11
Once the fireships and explosion vessels were ready, it was only necessary to have favourable winds and tides, and the attack was launched on the evening of 11 April, just over a week after Cochrane had taken charge. The plan was that an explosion vessel towed into position by Cochrane’s Imperieuse would drift against the boom and blow up, clearing the way for the other ships. These would be steered in by a handful of men who were to light the fuses and escape in boats, to be picked up by frigates waiting nearby. William Robinson on board the Revenge commented that ‘however dangerous the service, yet there are never wanting British seamen to embark in it, and on this occasion a boat’s-crew, from each ship of the line, volunteered their services to take those fire-ships in . . . it is a mode of warfare dreadful to resort to, and should not be practised by any civilised nation’.12
The conditions seemed ideal, and Richardson described it as ‘being very dark, and a strong tide setting with blowing weather right towards the enemy’s ships’.13 Characteristically, Cochrane not only led the way with his ship, but joined the crew of the boat that was to set fire to the explosion vessel. What happened next was described by an anonymous correspondent of The Times:When Lord Cochrane had conducted his explosion-ship as near as was possible; the enemy having taken the alarm, he ordered his brave little crew into the boat, and followed them, after putting fire to the fuse, which was calculated to give them 15 minutes to get out of the reach of the explosion. However, in consequence of the wind getting very high, the fuse burnt too quickly; so that, with the most violent exertion against wind and tide; this intrepid little party was six minutes nearer than they calculated to be, at the time when the most tremendous explosion that human art ever contrived took place, followed by the bursting at once in the air, of near 400 shells, and 300 hand-grenades, pouring down a shower of cast-metal in every direction! But fortunately our second NELSON was spared; the boat having reached, by unparalleled exertion, only just beyond the extent of destruction. Unhappily this effort to escape cost the life of the brave Lieutenant, whom this noble Captain saw die in the boat, partly under fatigue, and partly drowned with waves, that continually broke over them. Two of the four sailors were also so nearly exhausted that their recovery has been despaired of.14
In fact, the boat was not yet beyond the falling debris, according to Cochrane:To our consternation, the fuses which had been constructed to burn fifteen minutes, lasted little more than half that time, when the vessel blew up, filling the air with shells, grenades, and rockets; whilst the downward and lateral force of the explosion raised a solitary mountain of water, from the breaking of which in all directions our little boat narrowly escaped being swamped. In one respect it was, perhaps, fortunate for us that the fuses did not burn the time calculated, as, from the little way we had made against the strong head wind and tide, the rockets and shells from the exploded vessel went over us. Had we been in the line of their descent, at the moment of explosion, our destruction, from the shower of broken shells and other missiles, would have been inevitable.15
The blast dislodged the boom, and the fireship Mediator broke through this massive obstacle of cables and anchors, leaving the channel free for the other, smaller fireships. With the high winds, they sped down towards the French, and the attack looked to be a success, but already Cochrane was disappointed. Only four of the twenty-one fireships managed to reach the enemy, and Cochrane blamed the crews for setting light to their fuses and abandoning them too soon. However, at least part of the problem was the unexpected ferocity of the wind, which made the fuses burn faster than normal. Nevertheless, faced with the wall of fire racing towards them out of the darkness, the French panicked and cut their anchor cables, allowing the wind to blow them away from the danger. By daylight only two French battleships were still afloat, and the other eight were heeled over at awkward angles, having run aground. Not a single French ship had been burned.
The victory was only half won, and it was obvious to Cochrane that it could easily be completed by the British battleships sailing in and bombarding the stranded French ships before they had a chance of refloating. Cochrane sent anxious signals from the Imperieuse, asking for support from Gambier, who was anchored some 10 miles away. A few hours later Gambier at last brought his ships in closer, only to anchor 6 miles from the enemy ships. He was unwilling to risk his battleships in an attack, underestimating the width of the channel and overestimating the strength of the French shore batteries. As James Choyce commented, ‘this would have been the time to have destroyed them; but this favourable opportunity was neglected, which caused not a little murmuring among us, and was considered most unseamanlike by many experienced men in our fleet.’16
After midday, some of the French ships began to refloat and Cochrane, furious at what he saw as a lost opportunity, could wait no more. He went in to attack the Calcutta, an East India ship that had been captured in 1805, sending urgent signals that he needed assistance. Gambier initially ordered some of the smaller vessels to go in and assist, followed up by battleships and frigates. Faced with a possible assault, two French ships cut their cables but soon afterwards grounded, and in the late afternoon three ships (the Aquilon, Ville de Varsovie and Calcutta) surrendered after being attacked. Captain Jean Lafon of the 50-gun Calcutta was later court-martialled and shot dead for having sur
rendered to Cochrane’s inferior Imperieuse (of only 38 guns). The French set fire to the Tonnerre to prevent the vessel being taken, and the British set fire to the Calcutta in the belief that the ship was stuck fast. Gunner Richardson on board the Caesar, though, commented that ‘it was thought she might have been got off by lightening her’.17
Some British ships grounded for a while, including the Caesar, but Richardson explained that they got clear late at night and moved away from the Calcutta, ‘which had been all in a blaze only a short distance from us; the latter when she blew up made a most dreadful explosion, having a great quantity of gunpowder on board and other stores which were intended for Martinique, had we not prevented her. It was said she was worth half a million sterling. 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.’18
The Revenge with William Robinson on board also grounded: ‘Our ship having touched the ground, we were obliged to lay under their batteries all night . . . their shots were whistling over us, some a-head, some a-stern, and a great many fell short: there was not one in fifty that hit us, but those that did, effected great execution. Amongst them was a very distressing and mischievous one, which knocked a man’s head completely from his shoulders, and struck a lieutenant on the breast: the lieutenant was knocked down by the force of the head striking him.’19 During the night, Choyce recorded, ‘a constant fire was kept up from our bomb and rocket vessels, for no decision had been come to as to how we should act, it not being considered prudent to risk many of our heavy ships among the sands and shoals’.20 Fireships were preparing to attack the remaining ships, but the winds changed. Instead the Aquilon and Ville de Varsovie were set on fire in the early hours of the 13th, as Gunner Richardson recalled:Captain [John] Bligh of the Valiant was sent in with the boats manned and armed to reconnoitre the enemy more closely, and on his return informed us that they had got three lines of boats manned and armed to keep off any more fire-ships, and, it beginning to blow strong at the time, the attempt was given up. So we set fire to the Varsovie, a new 90-gun ship (for she carried that number), and to the Aquilon (74 guns), as they were waterlogged. They burnt to the water’s edge, and then blew up. As for the Tonnère (74 guns), the enemy set fire to her themselves, and then escaped in their boats. In the place where we now had anchored we found our ships to ground at low water. And early in the morning, the wind having become favourable, we got under way with the other line-of-battle ships, and left this place, which may be compared to Portsmouth Harbour, and soon after anchored among our other ships in Basque Roads, which may be compared to Spithead.21
