The War for All the Oceans

by Roy Adkins

  How dare any country pretend to either honour, delicacy, or a spark of the real spirit of freedom where such a system is the law of the land, and the trade and pursuit of its people!!!41

  Since the British slave trade had carried nearly three and a half million Africans to slavery in America and the West Indies between 1662 and 1807, this was a very rapid change of attitude, but in the West Indies at least, slavery was withering. In the twenty-six years between the stopping of the British slave trade and the final abolition of slavery, the slave population of the West Indies fell by nearly 19 per cent. With British naval supremacy now undisputed in the Caribbean after the fall of Guadeloupe, there would be increasing pressure on the slave trade carried on in non-British ships.

  SIXTEEN

  THE HAND OF PROVIDENCE

  A spirit of Commerce, and strength at Sea to protect it, are the most certain marks of the Greatness of Empire . . . whoever Commands the Ocean, Commands the Trade of the World, and whoever Commands the Trade of the World, commands the Riches of the World, and whoever is Master of That, Commands the World itself.

  Comment on navigation and commerce by John Evelyn in 16741

  Vice-Admiral Alexander Cochrane’s success in expelling the French from the West Indies was rewarded with the governorship of Guadeloupe. It also probably helped to protect him from the repercussions over the marooning of the seaman Robert Jeffery, who, three years before, had been left to die on the uninhabited island of Sombrero by the captain of a ship in Cochrane’s fleet, the Honourable Warwick Lake. When Captain Lake was ordered by Cochrane to rescue Jeffery, there had been no sign of the man. Very few ships passed by the remote island, yet the most likely explanation was that Jeffery had been rescued, and so Cochrane had decided to take no further action, as he explained: ‘I was well aware of the irregularity of the proceedings at the time it occurred, and when it was reported to me, I immediately sent Captain Lake back to the island, to take the man off, but he was already gone; and having heard soon after of the circumstances being reported in an American paper, and of the man’s arrival there, which assured me of his safety, I consented, after seriously admonishing Captain Lake, to let the business rest.’2

  No effort was made to verify this rumour of Jeffery’s rescue, and a few months later Lake had been allowed to return to England on sick leave. Shortly after, he was ordered back to the West Indies as captain of the Ulysses. In September 1809 Lake was court-martialled for an incident in July, when the Ulysses was waiting to set sail as part of the Walcheren expedition. He was accused of drunkenness and of having neglected discipline by allowing the officers to be treated with disrespect. Lake was acquitted, but at the time of this court martial nobody knew about Jeffery, and the incident probably would never have come to light, but for the actions of Charles Morgan Thomas, a former acting purser in Cochrane’s fleet who had a grudge against the admiral. In order to stir up trouble, Thomas wrote from Martinique to his Member of Parliament about his grievances in March 1809, adding: ‘I deem it a duty I owe to humanity, to inform you that Captain Lake, when Commander of the Recruit, set a man belonging to that vessel on shore at Sombrero, an uninhabited Island in the Atlantic Archipelago, where he died through hunger, or otherwise, for more was never heard of him. This was likewise known to Sir Alexander Cochrane, who suffered this titled murderer to escape, and he now has command of the Ulysses.’3

  The Admiralty in London was informed of this letter, and enquiries were made, leading to Lake facing a court martial on 5 February 1810 on board the Gladiator in Portsmouth harbour. He was accused of ‘having, when Commander of his Majesty’s ship Recruit, on the 13th of December, 1807, at six o’clock in the afternoon, caused a seaman, of the name of Robert Jeffery, to be put on shore on the desert island of Sombrero, in the West Indies’.4 In his defence Lake ‘admitted that he put the man on shore, but denied that he ever intended to put his life in jeopardy, as he thought the island was inhabited: that in landing him, he thought he would be more sensible of his want of conduct, and would reform in future’.5 While punishments for seamen could be very harsh and their lives made intolerable by some brutal officers, captains did not have the power to invent their own system of justice. Nobody questioned the flogging that Jeffery had received for stealing rum, as that was an accepted punishment, but the court martial decided that Lake was guilty of abandoning the seaman, for which he was dismissed from the Royal Navy.

  After Lake’s court martial there immediately followed a frenzy of speculation in newspapers across the country about whether or not Jeffery was alive, and what action should be taken. At that time the artist Joseph Farington was touring Cornwall, and at Polperro he happened to ask about Jeffery, but he wrote in his diary that ‘All of those I spoke to believed Jefferies [Jeffery] to be dead, and that all the reports to the contrary were published by the friends of Capn. Lake hoping thereby to prevent any further discussion of this subject which so greatly agitated the public mind.’6 Later Farington received a visit from Jeffery’s mother, Mrs Coade, who explained that she too was doubtful that Jeffery was alive. Farington tried to comfort her ‘by saying that there has appeared in the newspapers accounts of her son being well and settled in America, and that they did seem to be authentic’.7

  Farington’s words of comfort turned out to be true, because Jeffery had actually been rescued from Sombrero on his tenth day there. When first abandoned on the island, he admitted that he was very frightened and in utter despair. His attempts to find food were unsuccessful: ‘Second day.-At the dawn of this day, I went out in search of food; but could not find any, not even a blade of grass, a weed, or a limpet . . . Third day.-I again traversed the rock, in search of food, and found an egg; but could not eat it, as it was in a very putrid state, it being out of season for birds to lay. It rained on this day, which enabled me to get a little fresh water. Hunger became more violent.’8 In the following days his desperation increased:Fifth night.-Night drawing on, I again laid me down to sleep; but was continually alarmed by what had troubled me before, black lizards crawling over my face, and being ignorant of the harmlessness of those creatures, I remained restless the whole of that night! . . . Sixth day.-I was refreshed by more showers of rain, and supplied with a little more fresh water. I saw two vessels pass at a great distance! Seventh night.-On this night, the heavens were as light as noon-day, arising from a continuation of strong flashes of lightning, which were followed by violent claps of thunder! The awfulness of this night was beyond description . . . Seventh day.-On this day in the morning, a ship hove in sight, which gave me fresh hopes; but they were soon banished by her steering another course, when she soon disappeared. I found myself now more forlorn, more miserable, and more hopeless than ever . . . Eighth day-the rock was so hot by the heat of the sun, that it was almost insupportable. I stripped myself of my jacket and trowsers, and bathed myself in the puddles of salt water which lodged in parts of the rock, and which were thrown there by sprays of the sea.9

  Exhaustion took over, and that night Jeffery was able to sleep. On the following day he spotted another vessel and waved his hat furiously to attract attention. The schooner Adams was sailing from Martinique to America, and Captain John Dennis was sufficiently curious about this moving figure and the number of birds flying about to change his course. The next morning with the aid of his telescope he was able to make out Jeffery, who described his subsequent rescue: ‘They had supposed me to be some unfortunate mariner who had been wrecked, and was the only survivor to tell the fate of his unhappy shipmates . . . when, with the assistance of the crew, I got on board, the captain, and every one else, got round me with the most tender concern, supposing me shipwrecked. I related that my Captain had put me on that rock, for taking about a couple of quarts of spruce beer, and told them of my sufferings there! They were struck, as it were, for some time speechless.’10

  With contrary winds, it took another five weeks to reach their home port of Marblehead56, 18 miles to the north of Boston, but during that time
Jeffery recovered some of his strength. He was rescued just in time, since many American merchant ships were now stuck in port because of the Embargo Act, banning trade with all foreign nations, which the US government had recently passed following the attack on the Chesapeake by the Leopard. In America Jeffery continued to be treated well, as he later recalled:When we arrived at Marblehead, Joseph Dickson, the mate, kindly took me to his house, and kept me nearly three weeks, until I was able to work. He generously went round to the inhabitants of the town with a paper, for a subscription for me. They came forward to relieve me, some with clothes, and others with money. John Wayman, a butcher, wanting a servant, and I, from my sufferings, being still in a very weak state, gladly went to him for my victuals, and remained with him three weeks. Israel Martin, a blacksmith, of Beverley, wanting a hand, engaged me to work at his business, and I remained with him two months, at eight dollars per month, board and lodging. From thence I went to Hambleton, and worked for David Dodge, blacksmith, three months, at nine dollars per month, board, &c. &c. From thence I went to Hipsidge, and worked with Amos Jones, blacksmith, five months, at ten dollars per month. From thence I returned to Hambleton, and was with John Adams, a farmer, and I laboured for six months on the farm. I wentthence to Whinham, and worked for Ziell Dodge, blacksmith, twelve months, at ten dollars per month.11

  At this time Jeffery was unaware of the political storm that the story of his abandonment was causing in Britain. Sir Francis Burdett, a radical parliamentary reformer, would not let the matter rest. He was one of the two Members of Parliament for Westminster, the other being Captain Thomas Cochrane, who was on half-pay from the navy after being denied a role in the Walcheren expedition. On 15 February 1810 Burdett stood up in the House of Commons ‘to call the attention of the House to a very interesting subject which he thought demanded their most serious consideration . . . that a sea-captain, in the British service, had been lately brought to trial by a court-martial, for a most unhuman act of wanton and deliberate barbarity towards a British seaman on board his own ship’.12 Burdett was furious that Lake had been merely dismissed from the navy and asked whether the government ‘meant to take any further steps upon a subject so disgraceful to the service, so materially interesting to the life and security of every seaman in his Majesty’s fleet; a circumstance which, if so slightly passed over, might have the most serious effects in the naval service . . . for if such wanton tyrannical occurrences were once suffered to obtain with impunity, there would be an end of all order and good government in our fleets’.13 In turn Samuel Whitbread, Member of Parliament for Bedford and another ardent reformer, expressed his outrage, saying that ‘a case of more horrible cruelty could hardly be conceived. He had heard that sailors often find the approach of night dreadful, when their ship is sailing alone through the unknown seas: but what must have been the feeling of this unfortunate man, when, on the approach of night, he was left without provisions, or without clothes, alone on a desolate island?’14

  On 6 April, three days after a major House of Commons debate on Jeffery, Burdett was found guilty of breach of privilege because of the language he had used in a letter to his Westminster electors, condemning the exclusion of reporters from the debates over the failed Walcheren expedition. It was voted to imprison him in the Tower of London, and crowds of supporters gathered around the Tower and in Piccadilly, where he lived. Violence broke out among the crowd in Piccadilly: ‘The carriages of several Noblemen and Gentlemen . . . who, ignorant of the assemblage, drove that way, were assailed, and the windows of some of them were broken . . . About eight in the evening appearances became very alarming, nor was it long till the populace proceeded to various acts of outrage.’15 They pelted the houses of many notable people with mud from the unpaved streets and broke their windows, as well as insisting ‘that the inhabitants of Piccadilly and St. James-street should illuminate. Some refused and had their windows broken . . . The great majority, however, including the Club-houses, did illuminate; and these two streets were almost a blaze of light at 2 o’clock.’16

  Governments were fearful of popular uprisings like this, and it was reported with great concern that ‘the crowd at this time amounted to some thousands, extending through Piccadilly, beyond Berkeley-street, on the one side, and as far as Charles-street on the other. They employed themselves in compelling all persons who passed to do homage to them. The presence of the military did not prevent them from exacting this tribute. Such as refused to pull off their hats immediately were pelted with mud and dirt.’17 Although the cavalry charged, resulting in many injuries, and the Riot Act was read, the disturbances continued, but Burdett was finally seized from his house on 9 April and taken to the Tower, only being released at the end of the parliamentary session in June.

  In late April, after seeing a newspaper report about Jeffery, George Hassell, a merchant seaman, made a lengthy statement before the mayor of Liverpool, declaring that Jeffery was alive and well in America. A year earlier, while at the port of Beverly, to the north of Boston, ‘he saw a person of the name of Jeffery, who, he understood, was by trade a blacksmith, with whom he had some conversation’. 18 Hassell added that ‘Jeffery was well known in the neighbourhood of Marblehead and Beverley . . . and was generally called by the name of the “Governor of Sombrero,” it being so notoriously known there that he had been put on shore by the order of the Captain of an English sloop of war.’19

  The British consul at Boston arranged for Jeffery to set down his entire story, from his impressment at Falmouth to his rescue from Sombrero, and Jeffery signed this declaration with a cross, as was done by those who were illiterate. This report appeared in newspapers in Britain some weeks later, but his mother in Polperro was far from convinced, since she knew that her son could write and would have signed his name. To her this was further proof that he was dead. William Cobbett, the radical journalist who had published Burdett’s letter about Walcheren that led to his time in the Tower, wrote a damning piece about the events surrounding Jeffery and urged that he should be brought home, declaring: ‘There can be no reason for not doing it. The means are always at hand; and, there can be only one objection, which, indeed, may naturally occur: namely, that the poor fellow may be resolved never again to set his foot in England, or upon any land, or in any place or situation, where he may be exposed to the possibility of being again pressed on board an English ship of war.’20 Cobbett was himself writing from Newgate Prison, where he had just started a two-year sentence for daring to criticise flogging within the army.

  In America it was arranged for Jeffery to go to Halifax in Nova Scotia, and from here he was taken to England. On arriving at Portsmouth he was met by Samuel Whitbread, who wrote to Jeffery’s mother: ‘As you may not have heard the good tidings before this reaches you, I have the pleasure to inform you, that your son arrived at Spithead, in the Thistle schooner, yesterday. I have been on board her, and have seen him in good health and spirits; he says he has almost forgotten how to write, that he sent to you [a letter] by a friend of his from America some months ago-that he got his master to write the letter-that he made the deposition which you have seen, and put his mark to it.’21 With the American ban on trade with Britain, it was a matter of chance whether letters reached their destination. In 1809, under the new president, James Madison, the extremely unpopular Embargo Act was replaced by one that permitted trade with all countries except France and Britain, and the following year this was replaced by a trade ban on Britain alone when France promised to repeal its own decrees against America.

  Jeffery was ordered to the Admiralty in London and was given his discharge from the navy and all arrears of pay. He admitted that ‘he had signed his mark, because it is the usual practice of seamen to do so, it being the least trouble’.22 A representative from the Lake family next persuaded him to sign a paper not to prosecute Captain Lake, in return for which he was given £600. He then travelled to Polperro, in the company of a clerk appointed by the Lake family, in order to ensure his safe ar
rival with such a large sum of money. ‘My mother,’ Jeffery related, ‘had been informed of my arrival only about half an hour before she saw me; and to describe this meeting is more than I can do. Suffice it to say, that when I saw my dear parent-we rushed into each other’s arms, and I wept aloud . . . Neighbours and friends now flocked in, shaking me by the hand, and, with tears of joy, congratulated me on my deliverance.’23 The following day his mother received one of two letters that Jeffery had written to her long ago from America - the other one never reached her.

  Apart from the cloud over the incident with Jeffery on Sombrero, by early 1810 the situation in the West Indies was looking good for Britain. Naval supremacy there had been secured, and this also had a beneficial effect on trade with the East, because ships sailing to India and the East Indies from Britain would, at some point, be blown westwards. This was simply because they were dependent on prevailing winds for their speed. Whether they were bound for the West Indies or the East Indies, ships from Britain usually set a southerly course at least as far as the Cape Verde islands, off the west coast of Africa. Up to this point prevailing winds were from the west, but further south ships ran into the area of variable and unreliable winds around the equator. They tried to cross this region as quickly as possible, since they could become becalmed for days or even weeks and run dangerously short of supplies. South of this region, known as ‘the doldrums’, ships picked up the south-east trade winds, which blew them west towards the Caribbean and South America - a problem for ships sailing to India and the East.