by Roy Adkins
The British expedition was totally unprepared for such illness, as the medical authorities had not been consulted beforehand, even though it was known that this sickness was prevalent in this low-lying land, because the army had suffered during campaigns in 1747. John Pringle, physician to the army at that time, had observed that only those on land were affected, though he did not understand why: ‘Commodore Mitchell’s squadron, which lay at anchor in the channel between South Beveland and the island of Walcheren, in both which places the distempers raged, was neither afflicted with fever nor flux; but amidst all that sickness enjoyed perfect health. A proof that the moist and putrid air of the marshes was dissipated, or corrected, before it could reach them; and that such a situation open to the wind, is one of the best preservatives against the maladies of a neighbouring low and marshy country.’32
During the current Walcheren expedition Captain Codrington also noted that those who remained on board were healthy, but of the many who fell ill, ‘in the navy we have, I believe, only those who have formed the sea brigade on shore, and I have only heard of these in the Dryad and Imperieuse’.33 Although dysentery and typhus were a problem, what was mainly affecting the troops was malaria, a disease that is characterised by periodic attacks of shivering, sweating and weakness, and can be fatal. It was only in the late nineteenth century that it was discovered to be caused by parasites passed to humans by the bites of mosquitoes that thrived in the (now drained) marshlands of Zealand. The first attack of malaria appears some eight to twenty-five days after a person has been bitten. Lacking this knowledge, Robert Renny, the army’s assistant-surgeon, tried to explain why this fever was prevalent here: ‘The two islands of Walcheren and Beveland are, like all the Dutch European territories, flat and watery . . . it is not surprising that strangers, who have hitherto breathed a comparatively pure and healthful atmosphere, should be subject to febrile diseases, and more especially in autumn, when, from the heat of the sun, and the putrefaction of vegetable bodies, the effluvia from marshes are more active, more plentiful, and more obnoxious than at any other season of the year.’34 Although the disease and its causes were not understood, it was known that the bark of the cinchona tree (containing quinine) was an effective treatment. The French knew that the marshes were unhealthy, with the population prone to fever, and one French officer wrote that ‘it was rarely fatal for men acclimatised to the area, but it caused great harm amongst foreigners. The French only sent the minimum number of their own troops to Walcheren island; the permanent garrison of Flushing was for the most part composed of Prussian, Spanish and Irish prisoners.’35 The British army medical authorities declared that they could have made provision for this illness if the destination had not been kept secret. As it was, a disaster began to unfold.
After the fall of Flushing some soldiers were left as a garrison on Walcheren, while those who were not ill crossed into South Beveland by ferry and marched to Batz or else were transported by ship from Ramakins, in readiness for the onslaught on Antwerp. In one of the warships that sailed from Flushing were several marine artillerymen who had been responsible for firing Congreve rockets during the bombardment, and Seaman Joseph Wrangle was amused at the sight of them:They exhibited a strange appearance. The most part of them had been engaged in discharging the Rock[ets] from machines on a ladder. It was truly laughable to witness the appearance they made. The practice of discharging the Rocket by the ladder machine was a new invention and proved a great injury to the men, burning their hands and faces. Some had no hair on their heads and their hands and shoulders severely scorched. It appears that upon discharging the Rocket it will rebound and envelop the person discharging them in what appears in the day to be but smoke but at night is a flame of fire. The Rocket rebounds and then springs forward with great rapidity and it is according to the altitude that you give it that it will fall with great force upon the intended object.36
During the past fortnight the troops already on South Beveland had fortified the fortress of Batz, but were otherwise awaiting orders. The French therefore had plenty of time to send thousands of additional troops to the Scheldt and to the coast between Cadsand and Boulogne, because they were uncertain where the British planned to strike next. The neglected defences of Antwerp were also being improved, and, in order to prevent British warships reaching the city, a boom of chains and logs secured with anchors was constructed across the river just above the village of Sandvliet, with a gap wide enough to allow only one vessel at a time to pass through. In charge of the defences was Vice-Admiral Missiessy, who was disgraced after failing to take Diamond Rock and meet up with Villeneuve before Trafalgar. He was now commander of the French fleet in the Scheldt, and he withdrew to safety behind the boom.
As a further defensive method sluices were opened on both banks of the Scheldt between Antwerp and Bergen-op-Zoom, flooding some areas. Even so, the alarmed people of Antwerp fully expected their city to face bombardment. French soldiers heading to the city ‘met scared citizens who had just abandoned Antwerp, fearing to be exposed to the horrors of a bombardment that they regarded as inevitable . . . A crowd of worried sailors and inhabitants had gathered on the banks of the Scheldt; they gazed ceaselessly towards the north, as if some terrifying apparition had recently appeared on the horizon.’37 To the French it looked as if they were doomed: ‘This thick forest of masts, this immense gathering of floating fortresses that had come and placed itself so boldly within cannon reach of us, presented the most imposing sight.’38
On 15 August 1809, the day that Flushing surrendered, Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte arrived at Antwerp to take overall command of the army there. He set in motion other measures, including flooding more areas and strengthening the forts on the right and left banks. A boom between Lillo and Liefkenshoek forts was also constructed, this time completely blocking the river. On board the rocket ship Galgo, Seaman Wrangle observed the frantic activity:The whole of the French fleet was getting up towards Antwerp as fast as they could, and there appeared no opportunity of following them as the fortifications up the river was too strong. The French had well secured the passage to Antwerp with a boom thrown across the river, and the channel was well fortified with batteries erected all along the banks. But had our ships been allowed to proceed in the chase, some of the larger ones keeping the batteries in bay, our small craft might have turned the point on them and by dint of British seamanship have given a good account of some of them, but this was not permitted . . . From the place where we now lay we could plainly discover the fortification of Antwerp, and the cathedral was very plain as we could see the dial with the naked eye and could count the number of large ships laying in the basin at Antwerp, likewise the great fort of Lillo was plainly perceived.39
Although in sight of Antwerp, the British soldiers and sailors were left idle, either camped on South Beveland or on board vessels near Batz. In the Blake, Codrington wrote to his wife: ‘Our coming here yesterday produced us an introduction to Sir Home Popham . . . He lays blame on pretty thick, I assure you, and attributes to the great indolence of Lord C. [Chatham] the want of success which is likely to attend an attack on Antwerp . . . I just hear that the Commander-in-Chief is now expected to-day; having been expected yesterday; and to be further probably expected to-morrow!’40 Wrangle thought that it was hard for the troops to be confined to the transport ships and that ‘it was a curious sight to see them of a morning running round the deck by companies and this was done several times a day to keep them in motion. We often amused ourselves in looking at them for hours.’41 Surgeon Cullen Brown on board the Aetna also had little to do - no battle wounds to treat in this period of inactivity, while the men had not been on land and so remained healthy, well away from the ravages of the mosquitoes. He spent some of his time climbing up and down the mainmast to gain a better view: ‘I have just come down from the main-top-gallant-mast, from whence I have been contemplating the city and environs of Antwerp, than which nothing can cut a more splendid appearance. We are able to
make out nine apparently line-of-battle ships, and between forty and fifty gun-boats, and other small vessels.’42
Marine Captain Wybourn on board the Blake with Codrington was disgusted by the delays:It is certainly provoking to see Antwerp, all their Fleet & immense Flotilla just above us, & not be able to get at them, when it is beyond a doubt, that had we dashed up here at first & left Flushing invested (as it was) there were not 5,000 Men to oppose us . . . Thus will fifty thousand Men, at an Enormous Expense to the Country, have been trifling at Flushing to capture a handful of Men & a place little better than a fishing town, when such fine desperate fellows, instead of laying 16 days in the Trenches & wet ditches might absolutely have eaten their way (both man and beast) to Antwerp in the first week. Now General Hope says it will cost us 10,000 to attempt anything more. Besides, the Troops are falling off by sickness - many thousands have been laying 3 weeks in Beveland, in a Marsh, waiting for the Gallant Chief [Chatham] who was investing little Flushing with 21,000 troops, & living himself in beautiful Middleburg eating Turtle.43
Private Wheeler, anchored near Batz in a transport ship, recorded the antics of the French that succeeded in enraging the British sailors:Some of the dirty rascals on board the French fleet had been amusing themselves by —— on the Union Jack, on board one of their ships in the mouth of the harbour. In sight of the whole of our fleet, they have placed the British Jack under their bows for the ship’s company to evacuate on. I could not help laughing at one of our honest Jacks, who feeling a personal insult at such an unwarrantable dirty trick, could not help exclaiming ‘D—n their s—n cowardly eyes and limbs, if it was not for the cursed chain across the harbour, we would soon make the frog eating sons of B—s lick the filth off with their tongues.’44
Lord Chatham only reached Batz on 24 August, followed by the transport vessels with the cavalry and ordnance. A flotilla under Sir Home Popham went up the Scheldt to attack the forts and select a landing site, but by now over three thousand men were sick. Three days later the seven army lieutenant-generals advised Chatham that a siege of Antwerp was not feasible, and he decided to suspend operations and retreat from South Beveland. Before the army retreated, Rear-Admiral Strachan wanted at the very least to break the booms across the river, destroy the flotilla behind and sink the ships in the Scheldt to create an obstruction. Chatham refused.
On South Beveland the guns began to be dismantled and the next day an evacuation of the island began. The number of sick was increasing at an alarming rate, reaching nearly five thousand by 1 September and over eight thousand two days later. On 4 September the last soldiers were withdrawn from South Beveland, and the last of the British ships descended the Scheldt. The French flotilla quickly made their way to Batz, and Dutch troops reoccupied the fortress. The sick troops started to be moved to England, because conditions for them on Walcheren were terrible, but the number of returning sick became so great that the coastal towns had difficulty housing them.
Writing to her husband, Jane Codrington said that ‘I was told that there had been a most dreadful scene on the beach [at Deal] the whole morning . . . landing the sick, actually some dying as they landed. And even here so inefficient are the arrangements that there was not room enough for the numbers that did arrive, and the poor fellows were lying about in the barrack yard for hours without refreshment and exposed the whole time.’45 Three days later she wrote: ‘1,039 sick arrived here to-day; out of 100 in a transport eight were thrown overboard between Flushing and this place, and they generally die six or eight every day! It is really too dreadful to think of.’46
John Harris of the 95th Rifles remarked that ‘there were three brothers in the Rifles named Hart - John, Mike, and Peter - and three more perfectly reckless fellows, perhaps, never existed’.47 They had survived the Corunna retreat, but Harris was appalled how Walcheren destroyed them: ‘Nothing, indeed, but that grave of battalions, that unwholesome fen, Flushing, could have broken the spirits of three such soldiers as John, Mike, and Peter Hart. A few weeks, however, of that country sufficed to quiet them for evermore. One, I remember, died; and the other two, although they lived to return, were never worth a rush afterwards, but, like myself, remained living examples of what climate can bring even a constitution and body framed as if of iron to.’48
On 10 September Lord Chatham received an official command from Lord Castlereagh to return to England once arrangements had been made for those left behind to garrison Walcheren. Major-General William Dyott noted that ‘on the 14th Lord Chatham at last embarked for England. He had been detained by contrary winds for several days. I should imagine his lordship’s feelings must be uncomfortable, as the newspapers had been most liberal in their abuse of him.’49 Robert Blakeney of the 28th commented acerbically that ‘finding too late that late Court hours and measured movements were ineffectual against rapid and early rising revolutionists, Lord Chatham . . . returned to England’,50 while on 18 September Captain Codrington wrote to his wife:I shall commence with an epigram, which Sir Richard [Strachan] received in a letter yesterday, which tells the story of the expedition at once:—
Says Strachan to Chatham, ‘Come let us be at ’em!’
Says Chatham to Strachan, ‘No, we’ll let ’em alone.’
Another epigram going about at this time:—
Lord Chatham with his sword undrawn,
Was waiting for Sir Richard Strachan.
Sir Richard, longing to be at ’em,
Was waiting too-for whom?-Lord Chatham.51
George Canning, the foreign secretary, had for several months been plotting to have Castlereagh removed from his post as minister for war, blaming him for events in Portugal and now Walcheren as well. When Castlereagh found this out, rather than retaliate politically, he challenged Canning to a duel, which took place on 21 September:The parties met on Wimbledon Common, Lord Castlereagh attended by Lord Yarmouth, Mr. Canning by Mr. Ellis . . . Having taken their ground precisely at seven o’clock, they fired by signal, and Mr. Canning received the ball of his protagonist in the fleshy part of the thigh. He was preparing for another fire, but Mr. Ellis perceiving a great effusion of blood from the wound, interposed, and, after a conference with Lord Yarmouth, the parties retired . . . It was found on examination that the ball had passed quite through Mr. Canning’s thigh on the outside of the bone, but fortunately none of the large blood vessels were injured, and the wound is not considered dangerous.52
While the politicians in London fought among themselves, on Walcheren Lieutenant-General Sir Eyre Coote was left as commander-in-chief, with Dyott his second-in-command. Shortly afterwards Dyott spent two days visiting all the hospitals, commenting that ‘a more wretched melancholy duty no man ever performed; indeed I don’t suppose it ever fell to the lot of a British officer to visit in the course of three days the sick chambers of nearly 8000 unfortunate men in fevers; and the miserable, dirty, stinking holes some of the troops were from necessity crammed into, was more shocking than it is possible to express’.’53 Now that Chatham had gone, much more began to be done for the plight of the sick and dying, causing Codrington to write home that ‘the extent of this disease does not surprise those who have seen our men packed together in hovels such as would be thought unfit for dogs, exposed to the noxious night-airs, and in some cases with only damp straw to lie on . . . Indeed, till Lord C. went, and Sir E. Coote, with Dyott and Acland visited the whole of the hospitals and barracks, even the sick were no better provided, and death has consequently followed the convalescence.’54 Not understanding the reasons for the disease, Codrington believed himself safe and urged his wife to join him.
By the end of September about 9300 out of seventeen thousand men on Walcheren were sick. Because of the emergency, Dr James McGrigor, Inspector of Army Hospitals, was requested to go there immediately. In just a few hours he reached Deal, where there were four transports and the 74-gun Venerable warship of Sir Home Popham, then commanded by Acting Captain Andrew King. The port admiral gave Captain King orders to c
onvey Dr McGrigor and any other medical officers without delay to Walcheren, but the captain was furious at being used as a transport ship. Despite the urgency, he was in no hurry to leave, as McGrigor reported: ‘After the vessel was under weigh, and had stood out to sea, and after repeated signals from the admiral on shore, she made no way on her passage, and intended, as it appeared, to make little, till a lady came on board. That lady was the wife of an officer at Walcheren, Captain Codrington . . . She was at Canterbury [actually Walmer], whither I was informed an express had been sent for her.’55
McGrigor’s sudden arrival had obviously upset a prior arrangement to convey Codrington’s wife to Walcheren, and ‘although we got under weigh, and so far as to get beyond the reach of the admiral’s glasses; I soon found out that we were not making our passage. In reality, Captain King was waiting for Mrs. Codrington, and it was not till late at night, or perhaps the following morning, that she, with a lady her companion, came on board.’56 The companion of Jane Codrington, who was six months pregnant, was Miss Mary Treacher. At seven in the evening they reached the Stone Deep anchorage to the north-west of Walcheren, and Mary Treacher related that ‘Captain King wished to remain, for the tide had begun to ebb - we were still ten miles from the fleet, and there were symptoms of a coming storm - but he was overruled by the pilot, who affirmed that he could take the ship in safety. She had not, however left the anchorage five minutes when she struck upon the sandbank. The second shock she received carried away the rudder, and her ultimate fate then became very precarious.’57 McGrigor gave a graphic account of the ship in distress:On my reaching the deck, I found Captain King questioning the two Deal pilots, whose faces were of the colour of ashes. We had struck on a sand bank; and the vessel, on swinging round from this, struck upon another. An anchor was let go, which we lost. Another was thrown out, and with consternation it was found we had got into a quarter where we ought not to have been. We were in fact surrounded by sand banks. As night advanced, the scene became terrific. The ship was constantly thumping at a terrible rate, and I could hear the sailors say—‘Her bottom will not bear this long.’ The night was very dark; and about ten o’clock, after a violent thump, her rudder was carried away, and we heard a gush of water rush in. She was found to admit water very fast, although all hands were to the pumps. At this time, Captain King, taking me aside, begged I would take the ladies below into the ward room, for he was about to cut away the mainmast, and in its fall it might injure the cabin and the persons in it.58
