Reefs and Shoals l-18
Page 40
* * *
That xebec that Lewrie’s squadron captured in his absence in American ports-in A Sailor of King George: The Journals of Captain Frederick Hoffman, RN, 1793-1814 (U.S. Naval Institute Press), Hoffman related his early days as a Mid and Lieutenant in the West Indies, chasing French and Spanish privateers in the Florida Straits and on the northern coast of Cuba with its myriad of “pocket harbours”. He saw many lateen-rigged xebecs in the coasting trade and some fitted out as very fast, weatherly, and manoeuvrable privateers for short raiding cruises. The Spanish had known of their good qualities since the days of the Reconquista, and the depredations of Barbary Corsairs, and brought the type from the Mediterranean, early on in the colonial days. See, I didn’t make it up!
* * *
Spanish Florida and lower Georgia were very sparsely settled in the early 1800s, and there were no settlements at what is now Miami, or in the Keys. The border country had been a battlefield between the Spanish, English, and French since the 1500s, and if Whites weren’t at each others’ throats, it was the Indians who raided, and the British colonists who made war on them in return. Governour Oglethorpe lured emigrants to lower Georgia to form a barrier against those raids, to protect his crown jewel, Savannah. Brunswick, Sunbury, Midway, and Darien are real places, and there are many historical sites from the colonial era and the Revolutionary War era to visit, including some restored forts. And, of course there are the Sea Islands. Cumberland Island is pretty-much off-limits for all but day-trippers, unless you’re one of the Kennedys, St. Simon’s is more touristy, and Jekyll, which I’ve visited several times, is much more laid back. Good luck, though, if you go in late summer; it’s “love bug” season. After driving from I-95 to Jekyll Island, I had to use half a bottle of windshield cleaner and a Dobie scrub pad to see where I was going!
* * *
Lewrie’s assault up the St. Mary’s River is based on an actual event. In July of 1805, HMS Cambrian (40) captured a French privateer, the Matilda (10) off Spanish Florida, and put a British crew aboard led by Lt. George Pigot (2)-(not guns, the second of that name on the Navy List!) with orders to enter the St. Mary’s in search of a rumoured Spanish privateer. Pigot went much further than Lewrie did, a whole twelve miles, and way beyond the edge of my coastal chart, under fire by sharpshooters on both banks, captured the privateer, and brought her out. When I found that incident in Clowes’s The Royal Navy: A History from the Earliest Times to 1900, Volume Five, near places where I had previously visited, my course was set. I knew where Alan Lewrie would go and knew what he would be doing in the momentous year of 1805… the year of Trafalgar.
* * *
News travelled no faster than ships in those days, so rumours of Missiessy and Villeneuve bringing fleets to the West Indies, with Admiral Horatio Nelson in pursuit, came to Lewrie weeks and months after the actual events. He still has no idea whether the French will attack the Bahamas or not. If, Nelson brings them to battle, he also does not know whether to fear for his youngest son, Hugh, now a Midshipman in HMS Aeneas, or not, if battle is joined.
All Lewrie can do is to enjoy being temporarily in command of all the smaller warships in the Bahamas, keep his fingers crossed in hopes that the French have bigger fish to fry, and hope that it all blows over so he can return to Bermuda to fulfill the last part of his orders, to survey and chart the reefs and anchorages. He, Lt. Bury, and Lt. Westcott might even have time to sketch out the groundwork for that naval dockyard and fort on North Ireland Island on Grassy Bay and the Great Sound, which was finally begun in 1809. Whilst engaged in that endeavour, might Lewrie take up fish-watching with Lt. Bury, “with a bucket on his head”?
Or, will Dame Fortune decide to serve Lewrie a barricoe of bad turns? He can’t be too sure that the threat of privateers along the coasts of Georgia and Spanish Florida is well and truly ended, or that Mr. Treadwell’s death, and the ruin of his company, will convince other Americans who would connive with his King’s enemies in violation of U.S. neutrality to think twice before filling that void.
Since I have a say in such things, after all, rest assured that fresh orders will come, summoning Lewrie to new seas, and new mis-adventures. There is one snag, though: So long as Bisquit is the ship’s dog, will Lewrie ever get to play his penny-whistle again?
I will give you one wee hint. Lewrie will find himself and his frigate South of the Equator the next time round, dragged into a bit of glory, followed by a monumental cock-up.
’Til then, I wish ya’ll fair winds and calm seas.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DEWEY LAMBDIN is the author of seventeen previous Alan Lewrie novels. A member of the U.S. Naval Institute and a Friend of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, he spends his free time working and sailing. He makes his home in Nashville, Tennessee, but would much prefer Margaritaville or Murrells Inlet.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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