ALGIERS. 1815-1816
Charles Philip Yorke was born on April 2, 1799, at Sydney Lodge,
Hamble, and like his father, was destined from the first for a naval
career. He must have been quite a small boy when Sir Joseph presented
him to Lord Nelson, and the family tradition is that the hero accosted
him with a kind smile and said, 'Give me a shake of your daddle, my
boy, for I've only one to shake _you_ with.'
The boy was sent to Harrow, and after a few years at that school was
entered, in his fourteenth year, at the Royal Naval College at
Portsmouth, where he formed a friendship with John Christian Schetky,
then drawing master at the college, and later Marine Painter to Queen
Victoria, and a man of note in his profession. What little is known of
young Yorke's career at Portsmouth points to diligence and capacity,
for he gained the gold medal in his second year after little more than
eighteen months at the college, a distinction which ensured his
immediate entry into the service. On May 15, 1815, he was appointed
midshipman on board the _Prince Regent_, 98 guns, the flagship at
Spithead, and a training which stood him in good stead in after life
was begun under the commander of this vessel, Captain Fowke. A month
later he was transferred to the _Sparrowhawk_, a brig of 18 guns
commanded by Captain Baines, then under sailing orders for the
Mediterranean.
There was no coddling in the navy in those days, and those who survived
its rigorous life were probably the fittest. I have heard my father say
that at this period the middies' soup was served in the tin boxes which
held their cocked hats, and that one of their amusements was provided
by races round the mess table of the weevils knocked out of the biscuit
which was a part of their daily fare. Young Yorke, however, accepted
this life and its hardships with all cheerfulness; and the spirit with
which he entered the service and the interest he took in his profession
from the first are, I think, abundantly clear from a letter he wrote
home to his father on July 15, 1815 from the Mediterranean, off
Celebrina, after he had been a little more than a month at sea.
* * * * *
'I am afraid you will be surprised at my not writing to you oftener but
I have had no opportunity of sending letters home, as we have spoken no
ships bound for England. I am happy to say that I am in perfect health
and have been so ever since I left you, and the hot country does not at
all oppress me, or make me uncomfortable, as I expected it would at
first, and I have not had a moment's sickness since I have been out. I
can only say that I am in every way so comfortable on the _Sparrowhawk_
that I have no desire to quit her at all. Perhaps you may think I am
comfortable in her through idleness and not having much duty put upon
me; but I am one of the three Mids in the ship and the duty is heavy,
there being only one Mid in each watch, and he has the duty of Mate of
the watch, there being none; but I like my messmates, and we have a
capital berth. Captain Baines is also a kind friend to me in every way;
whatever may be said of him is nothing to me, his advice and friendship
to me is good and kind; he keeps me in practice with my navigation, for
I work all the observations for the ship and take them also. It is, as
you may perceive by my writing, my wish to remain in her, but to the
will of my Father I submit; and I am also certain that seamanship and
my profession I shall learn by being six months in a brig. When we get
to Genoa I shall see Lord Exmouth, but I will not give your letter
until I hear from you again, but I shall tell him I have written to you
concerning the _Sparrowhawk_, and beg to remain in her till I hear from
you.
'I shall now give you some short description of our voyage. We sailed
from England on the Tuesday after I left you and tided it down channel,
at Yarmouth we went ashore with the Captain and Officers to play
cricket and had an excellent match, _Sparrowhawks_ against Rosarios. In
general we have had calms and fine weather, now and then a few puffs.
Cape St. Vincent was the first land we made, that was on the 9th July,
we anchored off the rock of Gibraltar on the 12th. Captain B. took me
ashore with him to see the place, it is a most extraordinary thing. It
is dreadfully hot, the reflection of the sun being so great; from
thence we sailed the following day and are now off Celebrina in a dead
calm. I think I shall see much of the Mediterranean in this ship, for
she will be always kept cruising and likely to stay out some time.
Yesterday we cleared for action for a large brig that was bearing down
upon us, but to our great disappointment, it proved to be an English
brig from Santa Maria to London with fruit. There is on board the
_Sparrowhawk_ a carpenter by the name of Beach who sailed with you on
the _Stag_, and he wishes to be shifted into a larger ship; if you
could at any time have a thing of that sort in your power, you will be
doing him the greatest kindness. He did not apply to you, because when
he was with you he refused a warrant, not thinking himself fit to hold
that situation. If you could do this, let me know, for I should like to
see him get a larger ship, for he is a most excellent man.
'17th.--Here we are still in the same place off Celebrina detained by
calms and light breezes, just now a breeze has sprung up which is
likely to last. Last night we all went overboard and had a delightful
bath.
'29th.--We have just arrived at Genoa after a tedious and unpleasant
voyage, the last six days squalls and heavy gales of wind and
lightning. Genoa is a most beautiful city, and situated most
delightfully. Last night I was at the Opera, and it is exactly the same
as our own in England, it is much larger and a most magnificent
theatre. The houses are mostly of marble and beautifully ornamented,
they are immensely high but the streets very narrow. There are no ships
here and we sail for Marseilles as soon as we have watered. Pray give
my best love to Lady C. and all hands on board.'
* * * * *
It is of interest to note the mention in this letter of Charles Yorke's
first visit to Genoa, and the impression that beautiful city, 'Genova
la superba,' made upon his youthful imagination. As will appear further
on in this memoir, he visited it again some thirty-five years later in
very different circumstances, and that Genoa exists to-day, with much
of its beauty unimpaired, is mainly owing to the part played by Charles
Yorke when, as Lord Hardwicke, he again appeared in a British
man-of-war off that port.
The boy's wish to stay on the _Sparrowhawk_ expressed in this letter to
his father was not fulfilled, for a month after his arrival in the
Mediterranean he was transferred to the _Leviathan_, of 74 guns,
commanded successively by Captains F. W. Burgoyne and Thomas Briggs. In
her he remained a little less than a year, during which he had a
serious attack of scarlet fever followed by rheumatism, which left him
very weak, and raised a question as to whether he should be invalided
home. He was, however, exceedingly popular with his superiors, who were
most kind and attentive to him through his illness, and he was lucky
enough to recover without having to return to England. In August of
1816 he was again transferred, to the _Queen Charlotte_, Captain
Brisbane, a ship of the line of 120 guns, and the flagship of Admiral
Lord Exmouth, commanding in the Mediterranean.
The young midshipman was most fortunate in being stationed under that
command, for it was the one place in the world at that moment where
there was any probability of seeing active service. The supremacy of
the British navy which had been established over the fleets of France
and Spain at Trafalgar, and the recent peace which had followed the
defeat and surrender of Buonaparte, had removed any possibility of
collision with a European State. But, as a matter of fact, the naval
Powers, England in particular, had long been waiting an opportunity to
settle a long-standing account in the Mediterranean with a set of
potentates established on the north coast of Africa, who had for years
availed themselves of the dissensions between the Great Powers to carry
on a system of piracy and rapine of the most insolent and atrocious
character. During the naval wars which had lasted with short intervals
for half a century, the fleets of England, France, Spain, and Holland
had been so much occupied in fighting each other that they had been
unable to bestow much attention on the doings of these petty rulers,
who were known collectively as the Barbary States, individually as the
Deys of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. All of these owned nominal
allegiance to the Sultan of Turkey at Constantinople when it suited
them, but in reality claimed and exercised complete independence when
such was convenient to any purpose they had in hand.
For half a century at least, the depredations of these barbarians had
made the Mediterranean a sea of great peril for the merchant vessels of
all nations, and even for the fighting ships of the smaller
Mediterranean powers like Naples and Sardinia, whose weakly manned
vessels were often no match for the galleys and feluccas of the Barbary
corsairs. The ruffianly Deys made little attempt to conceal the
piratical nature of their proceedings, and became a perfect scourge not
only to the mariners of all nations in the Mediterranean, but also to
the unfortunate inhabitants of its shores. They ravaged the islands and
coastline of the mainland wherever there was plunder to be gained or an
unprotected town to be raided, impudently hoisted the flags of one or
other of the great naval powers then at war, and preyed upon the
commerce of the rest, plundered and burned their shipping, and, worst
of all, consigned the crews of the vessels they captured or destroyed
to all the horrors of slavery in a Mohammedan country.
Among these Barbary Powers the Deys of Algiers had long been the most
powerful and the most truculent. During a lull in the fighting between
France and England in the middle years of the eighteenth century,
Admiral Keppel, [Footnote: Admiral Keppel, second son of the second
Earl of Albemarle, created Viscount Keppel for his gallant services;
died unmarried in 1786. He was the eponymous hero of so many public
houses.] then a very youthful-looking captain, had been sent with a
squadron to curb the insolence of the Dey of that period, which he
effected without the firing of a shot. Keppel demanded an interview
with the Dey, and went ashore to the palace without a guard, and stated
his business in very plain terms. The Dey wondered at the presumption
of King George in sending a beardless boy as his ambassador. 'The King
my master,' replied Keppel, with a glance at the Dey's hairy
countenance, 'does not measure wisdom by the length of the beard, or he
would have sent a he-goat to confer with your Highness.' The Dey raged
at this bold repartee, and began to speak of bowstrings and the
ministers of death. 'Kill me, if you will,' replied Keppel, pointing
through the open window to his squadron riding in the roadstead, 'and
there are ships enough to burn your city and provide me with a glorious
funeral pile.' Keppel's firmness had the result of checking the
Algerian piracies for a time, but during the long wars between the
Powers which were shortly resumed, these were overlooked in the press
of matters of more urgency, and it was only with the return of a
permanent and general peace, as already noted, that the Powers had
leisure to turn their attention to a state of things in the
Mediterranean which had long been intolerable.
In view of her established supremacy at sea, England was generally
regarded as the police-constable of Europe in naval affairs, and upon
her fell the chief duty of chastening the Dey of Algiers, though on
this occasion the Dutch Government also lent its assistance. Quite
early in the spring of 1816, Lord Exmouth placed himself in
communication with the Dey, and stated the terms of the British
demands. These were that the Ionian Islands, long a hunting-ground for
the Barbary pirates, should be henceforth treated as British territory;
that the British Government should be accepted as arbitrator between
the Barbary Powers and Naples and Sardinia, who had a long list of
claims and grievances against them; and that the Barbary Powers should
enter into a definite undertaking to abolish all slavery of Christians
within their dominions, and to treat all prisoners of war, of whatever
nation, in accordance with the customs of civilised nations. The Dey
agreed to the first two demands and released the Ionian slaves as
British subjects, but declined all promises as to the abolition of
slavery. Leaving that matter in abeyance, Exmouth sailed on to Tripoli
and Tunis, whose Deys he found more amenable to reason, and who
consented to make declarations in the form demanded by the British
Admiral upon all three points.
Exmouth then returned to Gibraltar, where his squadron was assembled,
and at once resumed negotiations with the Dey with the intention of
procuring his adhesion to the all-important undertaking to abolish
Christian slavery. The Dey, after many evasions, at length repeated his
refusal on the ground that he was a subject or vassal of the Sultan,
and could not consent to so important a stipulation without his
authority. Exmouth granted a delay of three months accordingly, and
himself lent a frigate, the _Tagus_, to convey the Dey's envoy to
Constantinople.
Meanwhile, however, the Dey committed an unpardonable atrocity. A coral
fishery at Bona worked under the British flag was suddenly and
treacherously destroyed by an attack of the Algerines. The fishermen
engaged at their work were, without warning of any kind, almost
annihilated by artillery fire from the fort and by the musketry of 2000
Algerian infantry, their houses and goods were given over to the
looting of the soldiery, the company's stores and magazines were
rifled, and their boats either seized or sunk. This atrocity, of
course, put an end to all negotiation, and the Admiral, who had sailed
for England, was at once directed by the British Government to complete
the work which he had initiated, and to exact the most ample
satisfaction and security for the future. He was offered any force that
might be necessary, and surprised the naval authorities by his opinion,
which was the result of observation upon the spot, that five
line-of-battle ships, with frigates, bomb vessels and gun brigs, would
be sufficient for a successful attack on the formidable defences of
Algiers. In less than two months Lord Exmouth commissioned, fitted,
manned and trained his fleet, and on August 14, 1816, the expedition,
including his own flagship the _Queen Charlotte_ of 120 guns, the
_Impregnable_ of 98, three vessels of 70 guns, the _Leander_ of 50,
four smaller frigates and several armed vessels of lesser tonnage,
sailed from Gibraltar. One of these, a gunboat, towed by the _Queen
Charlotte_ from that port, was placed under the command of Charles
Yorke, who had just completed his seventeenth year. The English
admiral's force was joined at Gibraltar by a Dutch squadron of five
frigates and a sloop under Admiral Baron von de Capellan.
On the very eve of the sailing of this powerful force, young Yorke
wrote home a letter to his father which shows the spirit of the young
sailor and the enthusiasm which animated the fleet.
* * * * *
'MY DEAR FATHER,
'We are hove to for a Packet, and she is coming up fast, so my stave
will be short, with a strong breeze, which is to say I am quite well.
We have a great deal to do, shall be at Gibraltar to-morrow if the wind
holds. We clear for action there, and leave all our chests, bulkheads,
and everything we have except guns, powder, shot, &c. &c. of which we
have not a little.
'I have the honour to command one of H.M.S. _Queen Charlotte's_ boats
on service, and if there is any work, expect to cut no small caper. I
have seen the plan of attack; all our fire is to be on the mole head.
Us, the _Leander_, _Superb_ and _Impregnable_ are to be lashed together
and as near the walls as possible. _Minden_ engages a battery called
the Emperor's Fort, and _Albion_ stands off and on to relieve any
damaged ship. As soon as the Mole is cleared, we are to land; glorious
enterprise for the boats.
'Give my love to dearest Uranie and Lady C. [Footnote:
Dowager-Marchioness of Clanricarde, his stepmother.] &c. &c.
'Your affecte.
'C. YORKE.'
* * * * *
The British fleet with its allied Dutch squadron arrived off Algiers on
August 21. Lord Exmouth had sent in advance a corvette with orders to
endeavour to rescue the British Consul, a humane effort which, however,
succeeded only in rescuing that gentleman's wife and child, and
resulted, on the other hand, in the capture of the boat's crew of
eighteen men. The captain of the corvette reported that the Dey refused
altogether to give up that official, or to be responsible for his
safety, and also that there were 40,000 troops in the town, in addition
to the Janissaries who had been summoned from distant garrisons. The
Algerine fleet, he said, consisted of between forty and fifty gun and
mortar vessels, as well as a numerous flotilla of galleys. Works had
been thrown up on the mole which protected the harbour, and the forts
were known to be armed with a numerous artillery and to be of excellent
masonry with walls fourteen to sixteen feet thick. The Dey, thinking
himself fairly secure behind such defences, was prepared with a
determined resistance.
On August 27, Lord Exmouth sent a flag of truce restating his demands
and giving a period of three hours for a reply. Upon the expiration of
that term and on the return of the flag of truce without an answer, he
anchored his flagship just half a cable's length from the mole head at
the entrance of the harbour, so that her starboard broadside flanked
all the batteries from the mole-head to the lighthouse. The mole itself
was covered with troops and spectators, whom Lord Exmouth vainly tried
to disperse before the firing began by waving his hat and shouting from
his own quarter-deck as the flagship came to an anchor at half-past two
in the afternoon.
'As soon as the ship was fairly placed,' writes Lord Exmouth's
biographer, 'the sound of the cheer given by the crew was answered by a
gun from the Eastern Battery; a second and a third opened in quick
succession. One of the shots struck the _Superb_. At the first flash
Lord Exmouth gave the order "Stand by," at the second "Fire." The
report of the third gun was drowned by the thunder of the _Queen
Charlotte's_ broadside.'
Thus opened an engagement which is memorable among the attacks of
fleets upon land fortifications, and which fully justified Lord
Exmouth's opinion that 'nothing can resist a line-of-battle ship's
fire.' The Algerine tactics were to allow the British squadron to come
to an anchor without molestation, and to board the vessels from their
galleys while the British crews were aloft furling sails, for which
purpose they had thirty-seven galleys fully manned waiting inside the
mole. To the surprise of the enemy, however, the British admiral had
given orders for the sails to be clewed from the deck, instead of
sending men aloft for the purpose, and the British ships were thus able
to open fire the moment they came to an anchor. The result of this
smart seamanship was an instant disaster for the Algerines; their
galleys were all sunk before they could make the few strokes of the oar
which would have brought them alongside, and tremendous broadsides of
grapeshot from the _Queen Charlotte_ and the _Leander_ shattered the
entire flotilla, and in a moment covered the surface of the harbour
with the bodies of their crews and with a few survivors attempting to
swim from destruction.
On the molehead the effect of the British fire was terrible; the people
with whom it was crowded were swept away by the fire of the _Queen
Charlotte_, which had ruined the fortifications there before the
engagement became general, and then crumbled and brought down the
Lighthouse Tower and its batteries. The _Leander's_ guns, which
commanded the principal gate of the city opening on the mole, prevented
the escape of any survivors.
The batteries defending the mole were three times cleared by the
British fire, and three times manned again.
'The Dey,' wrote a British officer on the _Leander_, 'was everywhere
offering pecuniary rewards for those who would stand against us; eight
sequins were to be given to every man who would endeavour to extinguish
the fire. At length a horde of Arabs were driven into the batteries
under the direction of the most devoted of the Janissaries and the
gates closed upon them.'
Soon after the battle began, the enemy's flotilla of gunboats advanced,
with a daring which deserved a better fate, to board the _Queen
Charlotte_, and a few guns from the latter vessel sent thirty-three out
of thirty-seven to the bottom. Then followed the destruction of the
Algerine frigates and other shipping in the port, which were set on
fire by bombs and shells and burned together with the storehouses and
the arsenal.
The Algerines, none the less, made a most determined resistance, and
maintained a fire upon the squadron for no less than eleven hours.
Young Charles Yorke was in command of a tender of the flagship which
was moored near to his parent ship, and was consequently in the midst
of the hottest fire, within sixty yards of the mouths of the enemy's
guns, throughout the engagement. Long before that period had elapsed,
however, he found himself running short of ammunition, and taking one
marine in his dinghy, pulled in her to the _Queen Charlotte_, climbed
her side and made his way to the quarter-deck, where, saluting Lord
Exmouth, he said, 'Sir, I am short of ammunition.' 'Well, my lad,'
replied the admiral, 'I cannot help you, but if you choose to go below,
and fetch what you want yourself, you are very welcome.' Charles Yorke,
wishing for nothing better, again saluted and withdrew. He then
descended into the flagship's magazine, and single-handed brought up
1368 lbs. of ammunition, which he lowered over her side to his single
marine in the dinghy, and in her returned to his gunboat to resume his
firing until the close of the action, when, by the aid of a land
breeze, which turned about half-past eleven into a tremendous storm of
thunder and lightning, the fleet was able to draw out from the
batteries. Nothing had been able to resist the concentrated and
well-directed fire, and the sea defences of Algiers, with a great part
of the town itself, had by this time been shattered and reduced to ruin.
This success was only purchased at heavy cost, for the British
casualties, considering the size of the squadron, were enormous, the
_Impregnable_ being the chief sufferer. One hundred and twenty-eight
men were killed and 690 wounded, while the Dutch lost thirteen and
fifty-two respectively. The _Leander_ had every spar injured and her
rigging cut to pieces, and when her cables were at last shot away, was
unable to set a single sail, and so was drifting helplessly ashore,
when a fortunate change of wind allowed her boats to bring her to a
second anchorage. On the flagship the enemy's fire was so hot that Lord
Exmouth himself escaped most narrowly, being slightly wounded in three
places, and the skirts of his coat were shot away by a cannon-ball.
When the morning broke, the admiral found that he had brought the Dey
to reason. Having first beheaded his prime minister, that potentate
released the British Consul and the boat's crew he had detained before
the action, handed over the ransom money he had extorted from captured
subjects of Naples and Sardinia in exchange for their freedom,
amounting to no less than 382,000 dollars, and undertook, 'in the
presence of Almighty God,' to release all Christian slaves in his
dominions, to abandon the enslavement of Christians for the future, and
to treat all prisoners of war with humanity until regularly exchanged,
according to European practice in like cases. About 1200 slaves, the
bulk of them Neapolitans and Sicilians, were embarked on the 31st,
making, with those liberated a few weeks before, more than 3000 persons
whom Lord Exmouth thus had the satisfaction of delivering from slavery.
He sailed away from the city without leaving a single Christian slave,
so far as could be gathered, in either of the Barbary States.
Charles Yorke's conduct at this engagement was fully recognised by
Captain Brisbane, who, when the young midshipman came to leave the
_Queen Charlotte_ a few months later, wrote his certificate in the
following terms:
* * * * *
'These are to certify the principal officers and commissioners of His
Majesty's navy that Mr. Charles Philip Yorke served as midshipman on
board H.M.S. _Queen Charlotte_ from the 11th day of July to the 16th
October 1816, during which time he behaved with diligence and sobriety,
and was always obedient to command. His conduct at the battle of
Algiers was active, spirited, and highly meritorious.
'(Signed) JAMES BRISBANE,
'_Captain._'
* * * * *
Charles Yorke's share in this action, together with his later services,
is recorded on a tablet, next to a similar one to Lord Exmouth, in the
English chapel at Algiers, by his daughter, the writer of the present
memoir.
It may be added that he always cherished the memory of the
distinguished admiral under whom he served on this occasion, and that
in later years he purchased from Sir William Beechy's studio a portrait
of Lord Exmouth on his quarter-deck at Algiers, in full dress and
orders as the naval fashion then was, which hung on the great staircase
at Wimpole.
Still in his seventeenth year, Charles Yorke had not yet served long
enough for promotion, and was transferred on October 17 of the same
year, 1816, to the _Leander_, commanded by Sir David Milne, who had
been second in command at Algiers, and was then under orders for the
North American station at Halifax, where the _Leander_ shortly sailed.