1757-1833
Like the English tongue itself, the names of British seamen show the
composite origin of their nation. As the Danes after the day of
Copenhagen, to them both glorious and disastrous, claimed that in Nelson
they had been vanquished by a man of their own blood, descended from
their Viking forefathers; as Collingwood and Troubridge indicate the
English descent of the two closest associates of the victor of
Trafalgar; so Saumarez and the hero of this sketch, whose family name
was Pellew, represent that conquering Norman race which from the shores
of the Northern ocean carried terror along the coasts of Europe and the
Mediterranean, and as far inland as their light keels could enter. After
the great wars of the French Revolution and the Battle of Algiers, when
Lord Exmouth had won his renown and his position had been attained,
kinship with him was claimed by a family still residing in Normandy,
where the name was spelled "Pelleu." Proof of common origin was offered,
not only in the name, but also in the coat of arms. In England, the
Pellew family was settled in the extreme southwest, in Cornwall and
Devonshire, counties whose nearness to the great Atlantic made them the
source of so much of the maritime enterprise that marked the reign of
Elizabeth. Lord Exmouth's grandfather was a man of wealth; but, as he
left many children, the juniors had to shift for themselves, and the
youngest son, Samuel Pellew, the father of the admiral, at the time of
the latter's birth commanded a post-office packet on the Dover station.
He accordingly made the town of that name the home of his wife and
children; and there Edward, the second of his four sons, was born, April
19, 1757. Their mother was the daughter of a Jacobite gentleman, who had
been out for the Pretender in 1715,--a fact which probably emphasized
the strong Hanoverian sympathies of Samuel Pellew, whose habit was to
make his children, every Sunday, drink King George's health upon their
knees.
In 1765, when the future admiral was only eight years old, his father
died, and the mother making an imprudent marriage three years later, the
children were thrown upon the world with small provision and scanty
care. The resolute, active, and courageous character of the lads,
however, brought them well forward among their equals in age. At school
Edward was especially distinguished for fearlessness. Of this he gave a
marked instance, when not yet twelve, by entering a burning house where
gunpowder was stored, which no other of the bystanders would approach.
Alone and with his own hands the lad brought out the powder. A less
commendable but very natural result of the same energetic spirit was
shown in the numerous fighting matches in which he was engaged. Being
threatened with a flogging for one of these, the circumstance became the
immediate occasion of his going to sea. If flogged, he declared, he
would run away; and as a decided taste for seafaring life had already
manifested itself, his guardian thought better to embrace at once the
more favorable alternative and enter him regularly in the navy. He thus
went afloat towards the end of 1770, the date at which Nelson, also,
though one year younger, began his career.
His first cruise was in the Mediterranean. It came to a premature end
through a quarrel between the commander of the ship and one of the
midshipmen. In this the captain was clearly and grossly in the wrong;
yet nevertheless carried his resentment, and the power of oppression in
his hands, then little restrained by law, so far as to expel the
youngster from the ship and set him on shore in Marseilles. Pellew
insisted upon accompanying his messmate, and the two lads of fourteen,
aided by some of the lieutenants, secured a passage home. It shows a
pleasing trait in our hero's character that, some years afterwards, he
advanced materially the professional fortunes of the son of the officer
who had thus abused his authority.
He next passed under the command of a Captain Pownoll, between whom and
himself were established such warm relations, of affectionate interest
on the one side and reverential regard on the other, that Pownoll became
a family name among the descendants of the admiral. He himself gave it
to his first-born, and it still appears in the present generation. Under
him, also, Pellew was brought into direct contact with the American
Revolution; for on board the frigate _Blonde_, Pownoll's ship, General
Burgoyne embarked in 1775 for Canada, there beginning the undertaking
which ended so disastrously for him. It is told that when the
distinguished passenger came on board, the yards being manned to receive
him with the honors due to his rank, he was startled to see on one
yardarm a midshipman standing on his head. Upon expressing alarm, he was
laughingly reassured by the captain, who said that Pellew--for he it was
who put this extra touch upon the general's reception--was quite capable
of dropping from the yard, passing under the ship's bottom, and coming
up on the other side. A few days later the young officer actually did
leap from the yardarm, the ship going fast through the water--not,
however, as bravado, but to aid a seaman who had fallen overboard, and
whom he succeeded in saving.
Throughout his youth the exuberant vitality of the man delighted in
these feats of wanton power. To overturn a boat by press of canvas, as a
frolic, is not unexampled among lads of daring; but it is at least
unusual, when a hat goes overboard, to follow it into the water, if
alone in a boat under sail. This Pellew did, on one occasion, when he
was old enough to know better; being at the moment in the open Channel,
in a small punt, going from Falmouth to Plymouth. The freak nearly cost
him his life; for, though he had lashed the helm down and hove-to the
boat, she fell off and gathered way whenever he approached. When at last
he laid hold of her rail, after an hour of this fooling, barely strength
remained to drag himself on board, where he fell helpless, and waited
long before his powers were restored. It is trite to note in such
exhibitions of recklessness many of the qualities of the ideal seaman,
though not so certainly those of the foreordained commander-in-chief.
Pellew was a born frigate captain.
At the end of 1775 the Americans were still engaged in the enterprise
against Quebec, the disastrous termination of which is familiarly known.
After the fall of General Montgomery in the unsuccessful night assault
of December 31, 1775, the American operations were reduced to a land
blockade of the town, which was cut off from the sea by ice in the
river. A close investment was thus maintained for five months, until
the early part of May, 1776, when the place was relieved by the arrival
of a small naval force, commanded by Captain Charles Douglas.
Immediately upon its appearance the commanding British general Carleton,
attacked the besiegers, who, already prostrated by disease and
privation, abandoned their positions and fell back upon Sorel, at the
mouth of the river Richelieu, the outlet from Lake Champlain to the St.
Lawrence. Here they remained until June, when the enemy, who had
received heavy reinforcements, advanced in overpowering numbers. The
Americans again retired above the rapids of the Richelieu to St. Johns.
Thence there is a clear channel southward; and embarking there, the
retreating force without further molestation reached Crown Point, a
fortified post a hundred miles distant, at the head of the lake,
commanding the narrow stream to which it is reduced in its upper part.
Twelve miles above Crown Point is Ticonderoga, the well-known border
fortress of the Colonial and Revolutionary wars; and for fifteen or
twenty miles farther the stream is navigable for boats of some size,
thus affording an easy means of communication in those early days of
impassable forests and scanty transport.
Though greatly superior on land, the British had now for a time to stay
their pursuit; for the water highway essential to its continuance was
controlled by the flotilla under the command of Benedict Arnold,
forbidding further advance until it was subdued. The presence of these
vessels, which, though few, were as yet unopposed, gained for the
Americans, in this hour of extremity, the important respite from June to
October, 1776; and then the lateness of the season compelled the
postponement of the invasion to the following year. The toil with which
this little force had been created, a few months before, was thus amply
justified; for delay is ever to the advantage of the defence. In this
case it also gave time for a change of commanders on the part of the
enemy, from Carleton to Burgoyne, which not improbably had a decisive
effect upon the fortunes of the next campaign.
As soon as established at St. Johns, the British took steps to place a
naval force upon the lake, an undertaking involving trouble and delay,
notwithstanding their greatly superior resources in men and material.
Some thirty fighting vessels, suitable to the waters upon which they
were to act, were required, and also four hundred bateaux for the
transport of the troops. These had either to be built upon the spot,
despite the lack of all dockyard facilities, or else to be brought
bodily from the St. Lawrence, by road, or through the rapids of the
Richelieu, until the deep water at St. Johns was reached. In this hardy,
strenuous work, Pellew naturally was conspicuously active; and in its
course he gained a particular professional accomplishment which
afterwards stood him in good stead. Several vessels were built upon the
shores of the stream; among others, one of one hundred and eighty tons,
the _Inflexible_, whose heavier timbers were brought overland to St.
Johns. The construction of these craft was superintended by a
lieutenant--afterwards Admiral Schank--of scientific knowledge as a ship
architect; and through close association with him Pellew's instinctive
appreciation of all things nautical received an intelligent guidance,
which gave him a quick insight into the probable behavior of a ship from
an examination of her build, and enabled him often to suggest a suitable
remedy for dangerous faults. During this period of equipment occurred a
characteristic incident which has only recently become public through a
descendant.[15] "On the day the _Inflexible_ was launched, Pellew on the
top of the sheers was trying to get in the mainmast. The machinery not
being of the best gave way, and down came mainmast, Pellew, and all,
into the lake. 'Poor Pellew,' exclaimed Schank, 'he is gone at last!'
However, he speedily emerged and was the first man to mount the sheers
again. 'Sir,' Admiral Schank used to conclude, 'he was like a
squirrel.'"
Thirty days after the keel of the _Inflexible_ was laid at St. Johns,
the vessel herself not only was launched, but had set sail for the
southward. She carried eighteen twelve-pounders, nine on a side, and was
thus superior in power, not only to any one vessel of the Americans, but
to their whole assembled flotilla on Lake Champlain. Except the
principal pieces of her hull, the timber of which she was built was
hewed in the neighboring forest; and indeed, the whole story of the
rapid equipment of this squadron recalls vividly the vigorous
preparation of Commander Perry, of the United States navy, in 1813, for
his successful attempt to control Lake Erie. The entire British force,
land and naval, now moved toward Crown Point. On the 11th of October the
American flotilla was discovered, a short distance above Plattsburg and
about twenty miles from the foot of the lake, drawn up between Valcour
Island and the western shore, which are from one-half to three-fourths
of a mile apart. It lay there so snugly that the British, wafted by a
northwest wind, had actually passed to the southward without seeing it,
and the discovery was purely accidental,--a fact which suggests that
Arnold, who must have felt the impossibility of a force so inferior as
his own contesting, or even long delaying, the enemy's advance by direct
opposition, may have entertained some purpose of operating in their
rear, and thus causing a diversion which at this late season might
effectually arrest their progress. It is true that such a stroke would
frightfully imperil his little squadron; but, in circumstances of
absolute inferiority, audacity, usually the best policy in war, offers
the only chance of success. Mere retreat, however methodical, must end
in final destruction. To act towards St. Johns, trusting to dexterity
and to local knowledge of the network of islands at the foot of the lake
to escape disaster, or at least to protract the issue, offered the best
chance; and that the situation thus accepted would not be hopeless was
proved by the subsequent temporary evasion of pursuit by the Americans,
even in the open and narrow water of the middle lake.
The British moved to attack as soon as the hostile shipping was
discovered. Pellew was second officer of the schooner _Carleton_, of
twelve guns, the third vessel of the flotilla in point of force. The
wind being contrary, and apparently light, the _Carleton_ alone of the
sailing vessels got into action; and although she was supported by a
number of rowing gunboats, whose artillery was heavy, the match was
unequal. According to Arnold's own account, he had disposed his gunboats
and gondolas "on the west side of Valcour Island, as near together as
possible, and in such a form that few vessels can attack us at the same
time, and those will be exposed to the fire of the whole fleet." To this
Captain Douglas, in his report of the occurrences, adds the suggestive
particular that the _Carleton_, by a lucky slant of wind, fetched
"nearly into the middle of the rebel half-moon, where she anchored with
a spring on her cable." The position was one of honorable distinction,
but likewise of great exposure. Her first officer lost an arm; her
captain, Lieutenant Dacres, was so severely wounded that he was about
to be thrown overboard as dead; and Pellew, thus left without a
superior, fought the vessel through the engagement. When signal was at
last made to withdraw, the _Carleton_ was able to do so only by help of
the gunboats, which towed her out of fire. On the other hand, Arnold's
flag-ship, the schooner _Royal Savage_, which had fought in advance of
her consorts and under canvas, fell to leeward, and came there under the
distant fire of the _Inflexible_, by which she was badly crippled. She
then was run ashore on the southern point of the island, where she fell
momentarily into the hands of the British, who turned her guns on her
former friends. Later in the day, it seeming probable that she might be
retaken, she was set on fire and burned to the water's edge. Thus
abandoned, she sank to the bottom, where her hull rests to this day.
During the recent summer of 1901 some gun-carriages have been recovered
from her, after lying for a century and a quarter beneath the surface of
the lake.
Pellew's personal activity and strength enabled his gallantry to show to
particular advantage in this sanguinary contest. When the _Carleton_, in
her attempt to withdraw, hung in stays under the island, her decks swept
by the bullets of the riflemen on shore, it was he who sprang out on the
bowsprit to bear the jib over to windward. When the tow-rope was cut by
a shot, it was Pellew again who exposed his person for the safety of the
vessel. His two seniors being forced by their wounds to leave the
schooner, he succeeded to the command, in which he was afterwards
confirmed. In this sharp affair the _Carleton_ lost eight killed and six
wounded,--about half her crew,--and had two feet of water in her hold
when she anchored out of range.
Towards evening the _Inflexible_ succeeded in getting within point-blank
range of the American flotilla, "when five broadsides," wrote Douglas,
"silenced their whole line;" a sufficient testimony to the superiority
of her concentrated battery over the dispersed force of all her numerous
petty antagonists. The British then anchored to the southward of
Arnold's little force; but that active and enterprising officer
succeeded in stealing during the night between the enemy and the western
shore, and retired towards Crown Point. The chase to windward continued
during the next day, but a favorable shift of wind, to the north,
reached the British first, and enabled them to close. Arnold again
behaved with the extraordinary bravery and admirable conduct which
distinguished him in battle. Sending on the bulk of the squadron, he
took the rear with two galleys, covering the retreat. Fighting like a
lion, he opposed the enemy's advance long enough to secure the escape of
six of his vessels; and then, seeing his one consort forced to strike,
he ran his own galley ashore and set her on fire. "Arnold," says the
naval historian Cooper, "covered himself with glory, and his example
seems to have been nobly followed by most of his officers and men. The
manner in which the Congress was fought until she had covered the
retreat of the galleys, and the stubborn resolution with which she was
defended until destroyed, converted the disasters of this part of the
day into a species of triumph." "The Americans," says a contemporary
British writer, "chiefly gloried in the dangerous attention paid by
Arnold to a nice point of honor, in keeping his flag flying, and not
quitting his galley till she was in flames, lest the enemy should have
boarded and struck it."
Pellew received like recognition, not, perhaps, from the popular voice,
but from his official superiors. Douglas, the senior naval officer at
Quebec, who was made a baronet in reward of these operations, Lord Howe
at New York, and the First Lord of the Admiralty in England, all sent
him personal letters of commendation; and the two latter promised him
promotion as soon as he came within their respective jurisdictions. His
continuance at the front of operations during this and the following
year therefore postponed his deserved advancement to a lieutenancy, by
retaining him from the "jurisdiction" of those able to bestow it.
The two gallant enemies were soon again brought together in an incident
which came near to change the career of one of them, and, in so doing,
to modify seriously the fortunes of many others. Arnold having one day
pulled out on the open lake, in his venturesome manner, Pellew gave
chase in another boat. The Americans being hard pressed and capture
probable, Arnold unbuckled his stock and himself took an oar. So nearly
caught was he, that he had to escape into the bushes, leaving behind him
stock and buckle; and these, as late as sixty years after, remained in
the possession of Pellew's brother. Had he thus been deprived of the
opportunity that Saratoga gave him the next year, Arnold's name might
now be known to us only as that of the brave officer who kept his
country's flag flying till his vessel was in flames.
On the 14th of October Carleton landed at Crown Point, which the
Americans had abandoned; but the lateness of the season deterred him
from advancing against Ticonderoga, and he soon afterwards returned to
Canada. The full import of this halt is too easily overlooked, with
consequent failure to appreciate the momentous influence exerted upon
the course of the Revolutionary War by this naval campaign, in which
Pellew bore so conspicuous a part. It has never been understood in
America, where the smallness of the immediate scale has withdrawn
attention from the greatness of the ultimate issue, in gaining time for
the preparations which resulted in the admittedly decisive victories
about Saratoga. "If we could have begun our expedition four weeks
earlier," wrote a German general there present, "I am satisfied
everything would have been ended this year [1776]; were our whole army
here, it would be an easy matter to drive the enemy from their
entrenchments at Ticonderoga." The delay, not of four weeks only, but of
the whole summer, was obtained by the naval force organized upon
Champlain by Arnold and his superior, General Schuyler. The following
year the invasion was resumed, under General Burgoyne. Pellew
accompanied him with a body of seamen, taking part in all the operations
down to the final surrender. Burgoyne, indeed, afterwards chaffed him
with being the cause of the disaster, by rebuilding the bridge which
enabled the army to cross from the east bank of the Hudson to the west.
Returning to England in the early part of 1778, Pellew was made
lieutenant, and in 1780 we find him again serving under Captain Pownoll,
as first lieutenant of the _Apollo_ frigate. On the 15th of June, in the
same year, the _Apollo_ met the French frigate _Stanislas_. A severe
action followed, and at the end of an hour Pownoll was shot through the
body. As his young friend raised him from the deck, he had barely time
to say, "Pellew, I know you won't give his Majesty's ship away," and
immediately expired. The engagement lasted an hour longer, when the
enemy, which had all the time been standing in for the Belgian coast,
took the ground, the most of her spars, already wounded, going overboard
with the shock. The _Apollo_ had hauled off a few moments before,
finding that she had less than five feet of water under her keel.
Though unable again to attack the _Stanislas_, which claimed the
protection of the neutral flag, the result was substantially a victory;
but to Pellew's grief for the death of a tried friend was added the
material loss of a powerful patron. Happily, however, his reputation was
known to the head of the Admiralty, who not only promoted him for this
action, but also gave him a ship, though a poor one. After a succession
of small commands, he was fortunate enough again to distinguish
himself,--driving ashore and destroying several French privateers, under
circumstances of such danger and difficulty as to win him his next
grade, post-captain. This step, which, so far as selection went, fixed
his position in the navy, he received on the 25th of May, 1782.
The ten years of peace that shortly followed were passed by many
officers in retirement, which we have seen was contentedly accepted by
his distinguished contemporary, Saumarez; but Pellew was a seaman to the
marrow, and constantly sought employment afloat. When out of occupation,
he for a while tried farming, the Utopian employment that most often
beguiles the imagination of the inbred seaman in occasional weariness of
salt water; but, as his biographer justly remarks, his mind, which
allowed him to be happy only when active, could ill accommodate itself
to pursuits that almost forbade exertion. "To have an object in view,
yet to be unable to advance it by any exertions of his own, was to him a
source of constant irritation. He was wearied with the imperceptible
growth of his crops, and complained that he made his eyes ache by
watching their daily progress."
His assiduous applications, however, were not wholly unavailing to
obtain him the professional employments usually so hard to get in times
of peace. For five of the ten years, 1783-1793, he commanded frigates,
chiefly on the Newfoundland station; and in them, though now turning
thirty, he displayed the superabundant vitality and restless activity
that had characterized his early youth. "Whenever there was exertion
required aloft," wrote a midshipman who served with him at this period,
"to preserve a sail or a mast, the captain was foremost in the work,
apparently as a mere matter of amusement, and there was not a man in the
ship that could equal him in personal activity. He appeared to play
among the elements in the hardest storms. I remember once, in
close-reefing the main topsail, the captain had given his orders from
the quarter-deck and sent us aloft. On gaining the topsail yard, the
most active and daring of our party hesitated to go upon it, as the sail
was flapping violently, making it a service of great danger; but a voice
was heard from the extreme end of the yard, calling upon us to exert
ourselves to save the sail, which would otherwise beat to pieces. A man
said, 'Why, that's the captain! How the ---- did he get there?' He had
followed us up, and, clambering over the backs of the sailors, had
reached the topmast head, above the yard, and thence descended by the
lift,"--a feat unfortunately not easy to be explained to landsmen, but
which will be allowed by seamen to demand great hardihood and address.
All this was the simple overflow of an animal energy not to be
repressed, the exulting prowess of a giant delighting to run his course.
It found expression also in joyous practical jests, like those of a big
boy, which at times had ludicrous consequences. On one occasion of state
ceremony, the king's birthday, Pellew had dressed in full uniform to
attend a dinner on shore. The weather was hot, and the crew had been
permitted an hour's swimming around the ship. While his boat was being
manned, the captain stood by the frigate's rail watching the bathers,
and near by him was one of the ship's boys. "I too shall have a good
swim soon," called the latter to a comrade in the water. "The sooner,
the better," said Pellew, coming behind him and tipping him overboard.
No sooner had the lad risen to the surface from his plunge than it was
plain that he could not swim; so in after him went the practical joker,
with all his toggery. "If ever the captain was frightened," writes the
officer just quoted, "it was then."
But along with all this physical exuberance and needless assumption of
many of the duties of a foremast hand, Pellew possessed to a very
remarkable extent that delicate art of seamanship which consists in so
handling a ship as to make her do just what you want, and to put her
just where she should be; making her, to use a common sea expression, do
everything but talk. This is a faculty probably inborn, like most others
that reach any great degree of perfection, and, while a very desirable
gift, it is by no means indispensable to the highest order of naval
excellence. Nelson did not at all equal Pellew in this respect, as is
indicated by an amusing story transmitted by a Colonel Stewart, who
served on board the great admiral's flag-ship during the expedition
against Copenhagen: "His lordship was rather too apt to interfere in the
working of the ship, and not always with the best judgment or success.
The wind, when off Dungeness, was scanty, and the ship was to be put
about. Lord Nelson would give the orders, and caused her to miss stays.
Upon this he said, rather peevishly, to the officer of the watch, 'Well,
now see what we have done. Well, sir, what mean you to do now?' The
officer saying, with hesitation, 'I don't exactly know, my lord. I fear
she won't do,' Lord Nelson turned sharply to the cabin, and replied,
'Well, I am sure if you do not know what to do with her, no more do I,
either.' He went in, leaving the officer to work the ship as he liked."
Yet Nelson understood perfectly what ships could do, and what they could
not; no one could better handle or take care of a fleet, or estimate the
possibility of performing a given manoeuvre; and long before he was
called to high command he was distinguished for a knowledge of naval
tactics to which few, if any other, of his time attained. He was a great
general officer; and whether he had the knack of himself making a ship
go through all her paces without a fault mattered as little as whether
he was a crack shot with a gun.
A ship is certainly the most beautiful and most graceful of machines; a
machine, too, so varied in its movements and so instinct with life that
the seaman affectionately transfers to her credit his own virtues in
handling her. Pellew's capacity in this part of his profession was so
remarkable that it is somewhat singular to find him, in his first
frigate action, compelled to discard manoeuvring, and to rely for
victory upon sheer pluck and luck. When war with the French republic
began in 1793, his high reputation immediately insured him command of a
frigate, the _Nymphe_. The strength of England as a naval power lay
largely in the great reserve of able seamen manning her merchant ships;
but as these were scattered in all quarters of the world, great
embarrassment was commonly felt at the outbreak of a war, and especially
when it came with the unexpected rapidity of the revolutionary fury. As
the object of first importance was to get the fleets of
ships-of-the-line to sea, Pellew had to depend chiefly upon his own
indefatigable exertions to procure a crew for his vessel. Seamen being
hard to find, he had on board a disproportionate number of landsmen when
the _Nymphe_, on the 19th of June, 1793, encountered the French vessel
_Cléopâtre_, of force slightly inferior, except in men, but not
sufficiently so to deny the victor the claim of an even fight.
A peculiar incident preceding the action has interest, as showing the
strong preoccupation of men's minds at the opening of war, before
meetings with the enemy have lost novelty. Pellew's younger brother,
Israel, a commander in the navy, being otherwise unemployed, had come
out with him for the cruise. The _Cléopâtre_ having been first seen in
the early morning, Edward would not have him called till just as the
_Nymphe_ was closing. As he came on deck, the brother said
affectionately, "Israel, you have no business here. We are too many eggs
from one nest. I am sorry I brought you from your wife." But the other
was unheeding, his eyes fixed upon the stranger. "That's the very
frigate," he cried, "that I've been dreaming of all night! I dreamt that
we shot away her wheel." And, hastening to the after-gun, he made the
French ship's wheel the object of an unremitting fire.
By the way the enemy was handled it was evident that she was well
manned and ably commanded. She had, in fact, been in commission for over
a year. Great as was his own skill, Pellew could not venture upon
manoeuvres with a green crew, untrained save at the guns, and only
filled the night before by pressing from a merchant vessel. He therefore
determined upon a simple artillery duel. The Frenchman waited under
short canvas, while the _Nymphe_, with greater way, drew slowly up on
his starboard, or right-hand side; both ships running nearly before the
wind, but having it a little on the left side. Each captain stood
uncovered, and as the bows of the _Nymphe_ doubled upon the stern of the
_Cléopâtre_, within three hundred feet, a French sailor was seen to run
aloft and fasten a red cap of liberty to the mainmast head. The eyes of
the British seamen were fastened upon their commander, awaiting the
gesture which he had set, instead of word of mouth, for opening fire. At
quarter-past six he gave it, raising his cap to his head. A furious
cannonade at once began, and, the _Nymphe_ shortening sail as soon as
fairly abreast her antagonist, the two frigates continued on parallel
lines, maintaining their relative positions as though at anchor, and
rolling easily in the soft summer sea under the recoil of their guns. So
nearly matched were the gunners that the conflict, unusually deadly
though it was, might have lasted long, but at a little before seven
Israel Pellew's dream was fulfilled. The Frenchman's wheel was shot
away, and, the mizzenmast going overboard at the same time, the
_Cléopâtre_ yielded to the impulse of her forward sails, turned sharp
round to the right, and ran perpendicularly into the _Nymphe_. The
British boarded her, fixed in this disadvantageous position, fought
their way aft, and, although the French crew was numerically superior,
in ten minutes hauled down the colors. In this brief hour they had lost
twenty-three killed and twenty-seven wounded, the enemy sixty-three
killed and wounded, out of ships' companies numbering respectively two
hundred and forty and three hundred and twenty.
This was the first decisive frigate action of the War of the French
Revolution, and in consequence great was the enthusiasm aroused. Lord
Howe wrote to Pellew, "The manner in which you have taken the enemy's
ship will set an example for the war." In truth, however, while
admitting the soundness of Pellew's judgment in adopting the course he
did, the actual demand upon his personal skill was less, and in so far
the credit due therefore less, than in the second successful frigate
action, in the following October, in which Sir James Saumarez commanded.
Not only was the French vessel's superiority in force more marked in the
latter instance, but Saumarez's ship there met with an accident similar
in character to that which befell the _Cléopâtre_, from the consequences
of which she was extricated by his masterly seamanship. Still, it may
with fairness be argued that, as the one action from its attendant
circumstances evidenced the individual skill of the commander, so the
other testified to the antecedent preparation and efficiency of the
crew, which are always to be attributed to the care of the captain,
especially under the conditions of Pellew's enlistments. Both captains
fully deserved the reward of knighthood bestowed upon their success.
Israel Pellew was promoted to post-captain.
During the first three years of this war British commerce in the
neighborhood of the Channel suffered most severely from French cruisers.
The latter resumed the methods of Jean Bart and other celebrated
privateers of the days of Louis XIV.; the essence of which was to prey
upon the enemy's commerce, not by single vessels, but by small squadrons
of from five to seven. Cruisers so combined, acting in mutual support,
were far more efficient than the same number acting separately.
Spreading like a fan, they commanded a wider expanse than a ship alone;
if danger arose, they concentrated for mutual support; did opportunity
offer, the work was cut out and distributed, thus insuring by
co-operation more thorough results. At the suggestion of Sir Edward
Pellew, the British Admiralty determined to oppose to these organized
depredators a similar system. Groups of crack frigates were constituted,
and sent to cruise within the limits of the Channel Fleet, but
independent of its admiral. In these Pellew served for the next five
years, much of the time as squadron commander; to him a period of
incessant, untiring activity, and illustrated by many brilliant and
exciting incidents, for which the limits of this sketch afford no space.
There are, however, two episodes in which he was so distinctly the
central figure that they demand at least a brief narration. In January,
1796, while his ship was repairing, a large East Indiaman, the _Dutton_,
carrying some six hundred troops and passengers, was by a series of
mishaps driven ashore on the beach of Plymouth, then an unprotected
sound. As she struck, all her masts went overboard, and she lay
broadside to the waves, pounding heavily as they broke over her. Pellew
was at this moment driving to a dinner with his wife. Seeing crowds
running from various directions towards the same quarter, he asked the
reason. Upon learning it, he left his carriage and hurried to the scene.
When he arrived, he recognized, by the confusion on board, by the way
the ship was laboring, by the poverty of the means that had been
contrived for landing the imperilled souls,--only a single hawser having
been run to the shore,--that the loss of nearly all on board was
imminent. Night, too, was falling, as well as the destruction of the
vessel impending. After vainly offering rewards to the hardy boatmen
standing by, if they would board the wreck with a message from him, he
said, "Then I must go myself." Though then close to forty years of age,
his immense personal strength and activity enabled him, though sorely
bruised thereby, to be hauled on board through the breakers by the
hawser, which alternately slacked and then tightened with a jerk as the
doomed ship rolled to and fro in the seas. Once on board, he assumed
command, the want of which, through the absence of the proper captain,
had until then hampered and well-nigh paralyzed all effectual effort.
When his well-known name was spoken, three hearty cheers arose from the
troops on board, echoed by the thousands of spectators on shore; and the
hope that revived with the presence of a born leader of men showed
itself at once in the renewed activity and intelligent direction of
effort, on the decks and on the beach. The degree of the danger can be
estimated from the fact that boats from the ships of war in port, his
own included, tried in vain to approach and had to run for safety to the
inner harbor. With sword drawn,--for many of the soldiers were drunk and
riotous,--Pellew maintained order, guided with a seaman's readiness the
preparations for landing, and saw the women, the children,--one child
but three weeks old,--the sick, landed first, then the soldiers, lastly
the seamen. When he himself was transferred to the beach by the same
means that his skill had contrived for others, but three persons
remained on board, officers of the ship, who eased him on shore. The
injuries he had received in his perilous passage out, and which confined
him to his bed for a week, forbade his being last. To the end of his
life, this saving of the crew of the _Dutton_ was the action in which he
took most pride.
The year that opened with this magnificent act of self-devotion saw
Pellew, at its close, bearing a seaman's part in the most serious crisis
that befell his country during the wars of the French Revolution. The
end of 1796 and the earlier months of 1797 marked the nadir of Great
Britain's military fortunes. The successes of Bonaparte's Italian
campaign were then culminating; Austria was on the point of making peace
with France; England was about to find herself alone, and the discontent
of the seamen of the navy, long smouldering, was soon to break out into
the famous and threatening mutinies of the Channel Fleet and of the
Nore. At the same time France, relieved on her eastern frontiers, felt
able to devote seventeen ships-of-the-line and eighteen thousand troops
to the invasion of Ireland.
Pellew, with two frigates besides his own, was stationed off the mouth
of Brest harbor to watch the enemy's movements; the main British fleet
being some fifty miles to seaward. To this emergency he brought not only
the intrepidity of a great seaman and the ardor of an anxious patriot,
but likewise the intense though narrow Protestant feeling transmitted
from a past, then not so remote, when Romanism and enmity to England
were almost synonymous. "How would you like," said he to an officer who
shared Pitt's liberal tendencies, "to see Roman Catholic chaplains on
board our ships?" and to the end of his life he opposed the political
enfranchisement of persons of that creed.
The French expedition against Ireland sailed from Brest on the 16th of
December, 1796. Having sent off successively each of his consorts with
information for the fleet, Pellew remained with his own ship alone, the
_Indefatigable_, at the moment of the final start. There are two
principal channels by which Brest can be left, one leading to the south,
the other due west. The French admiral had at first intended to use the
former; but, the wind showing signs of an unfavorable shift, he
endeavored to change the orders just as night was falling. The weather
being hazy, his signals were understood by but few of the forty-odd
vessels composing the force. Eight or ten joined him; the remainder
followed the original instructions and went out by the south. Pellew
attached himself to the admiral's division, kept along with it just out
of gun-shot, and by making false signals, burning blue lights and
sending up rockets, introduced into the attempts to convey the wishes of
the commander-in-chief such confusion as rendered them utterly futile.
Having satisfied himself as to the general direction taken by the
enemy, he left them, and made all sail for Falmouth, where he arrived on
the 20th.
The general fortunes of the expedition do not belong to the present
story. Suffice it to say that the greater part reached Ireland safely,
but through stress of weather was unable to land the troops, and went
back to France by detachments, in January, 1797. It is during this
process of return that Sir Edward Pellew again appears, in perhaps the
most dramatic incident of his stirring career.
On the afternoon of January 13th, being then in company with the frigate
_Amazon_, and about one hundred and twenty miles west of Brest, a French
ship-of-the-line was discovered. The stranger, named the _Droits de
l'Homme_, was returning from Ireland, and heading east. The frigates
steered courses converging towards hers, seeking to cut her off from the
land. The weather was thick and gloomy, with a strong west wind fast
rising to a gale. At half-past four, as night was falling, the French
ship carried away her fore and main topmasts in a heavy squall; and an
hour later the _Indefatigable_, now under close reefs, passed across her
stern, pouring in a broadside from so near that the French flag floated
across her poop, where it was seized and torn away by some of the
British seamen. The enemy, having on board nearly a thousand soldiers
besides her crew, replied with rapid volleys of musketry, and, as the
frigate passed ahead, sheered impetuously towards her, attempting to
board, and in her turn grazing the stern of the _Indefatigable_. In
another hour the _Amazon_ drew up, and then the British vessels took
their positions, one on either bow of the _Droits de l'Homme_, whence,
by movements of the helm, they alternately raked her. The labor of the
gunners, however, was arduous, due to the deep rolling of the ships, on
board which, also, the seas poured in volumes through the gun-ports. On
the main decks the men fought up to their middles in water, the heavy
cannon broke away from the breechings, or ropes used to control them,
and even iron bolts tore out from the ships' sides under the severe
recoil of the guns. Thus through the long winter night the three ships
rushed headlong before the gale towards the French coast, intent on
mutual destruction; the constant storm of shot, though flying wild under
the violent motions of the vessels, tearing through spars and rigging,
and crippling them in much that was essential to their safety.
At four o'clock in the morning of the 14th, long before daybreak, land
was sighted right ahead. The _Indefatigable_ hauled at once to the
southward, the _Amazon_ to the northward; the enemy alone, seemingly
unconscious of the danger, kept on, and as she passed Pellew's ship
fired a broadside which severely wounded all the masts. The situation of
the combatants was well-nigh desperate. They had reached the coast of
France at a point where it forms a deep recess, called Audierne Bay,
from either side of which project capes that must be cleared in order to
gain once more the open sea. One only of the three escaped. The _Droits
de l'Homme_, unmanageable for want of sail power, tried to anchor, but
drove, and struck on a shoal some distance from the beach. Of sixteen
hundred souls on board when the battle began, over one hundred had been
killed; and of those who survived the fight three hundred perished in
the wreck. The _Amazon_, likewise crippled, though not so badly, had
gone ashore to the northward only ten minutes after she ceased firing.
Of her people, but six were drowned. The _Indefatigable_, beating back
and forth against the gale before the scene of the French disaster, upon
which her crew gazed with the solemn feeling that such might soon be
their own fate, succeeded at last in clearing the southern cape. At
eleven o'clock, nearly twenty-four hours after first meeting the foe,
and with six feet of water in her hold, she passed only three-quarters
of a mile outside of the Penmarcks, a rocky promontory thirty miles
south of Brest.
This remarkable encounter is said to have suggested to Marryat the vivid
sea picture with which "The King's Own" ends. Pellew's unusual personal
endurance was signally illustrated on the same day, very shortly after
the safety of the ship from wreck was assured. Her principal sails had
been so torn by shot as to require immediate renewing, and this had
scarcely been done when two vessels were sighted, one of which was for
the moment supposed to be the _Amazon_, whose fate was yet unknown.
Pellew gave orders to chase, but his officers represented to him that,
whatever he himself was capable of, the ship's company was too exhausted
for present further exertion; and that, besides, the ammunition was very
short, almost the last filled cartridge having been expended. Under
these circumstances he was compelled to desist.
The interest of Pellew's career centres mainly in his command of
frigates. This independent but yet restricted sphere afforded the
fullest scope for a conspicuous display of those splendid
qualities--fearlessness, enterprise, sound judgment, instant decision,
and superb seamanship--which he so eminently possessed. He was, above
all, the frigate captain. "Nothing like hesitation was ever seen in him.
His first order was always his last; and he often declared of himself
that he never had a second thought worth sixpence." In 1799, by a new
Admiralty rule, he was transferred to the _Impétueux_, a
ship-of-the-line, and thenceforth served in that class of vessel until
his promotion to admiral.
As a general officer, Pellew had no opportunity to show whether he
possessed ability of the highest order. For five years he held the
command in India; and soon after Collingwood's death he was, in 1811,
appointed commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean. On both stations he
evinced that faculty for careful organization, systematic preparation,
and sagacious distribution of force which carries success up to the
point which administrative capacity can reach. His ability in planning,
while yet a subordinate in command of squadrons, had been recognized by
St. Vincent during his management of the Brest blockade. "The
disposition made by Sir Edward Pellew for the descent on a certain point
is the most masterly I have ever seen.... Although the naval command in
Quiberon may appear too important for a captain, I shall not divest him
of it, unless I am ordered to do so; feeling a thorough conviction that
no man in His Majesty's Navy, be his rank ever so high, will fill it so
well." At the time this was written, June, 1800, he had seven
ships-of-the-line under his orders. After the Peace of Amiens, when war
again began in 1803, he commanded a similar division watching the
Spanish port of Ferrol, in which, although formally neutral, a French
division lay at anchor; and in discharge of this duty, both as a seaman
and an administrator, he again justified the eulogium of the old Earl,
now at the head of the navy as First Lord.
In 1804 he was promoted Rear-Admiral, and soon afterwards assigned to
the East India Station, which he held from 1805 to 1809. Here no naval
actions on the great scale were to be fought, but under his systematic
organization of convoys and cruisers for the protection of commerce the
insurance premium--the war risk--on the most exposed routes fell
markedly,--for the port of Bombay fifty per cent less than at any former
period of hostilities; while the losses by capture, when the merchants
observed his instructions, amounted to but one per cent on the property
insured, which was less than those caused by the dangers of the sea, and
considerably less, also, than the average war losses in other parts of
the world. All this shows great ability, carefully utilized in diligent
preparation and efficient precaution; and the same characteristics are
to be observed in his administration of the Mediterranean command, of
wider scope and more purely military importance. Nevertheless, it gives
no sure proof of the particular genius of a great captain. Whether,
having forged his weapon, Pellew could also wield it; whether, having
carefully sowed, he could also reap the harvest by large combinations on
the battle-field, must remain uncertain, at least until probable
demonstration of his conceptions is drawn from his papers. Nothing is as
yet adduced to warrant positive inference.
Pellew's Mediterranean command coincided in time with the period of
Napoleon's falling fortunes. After Trafalgar, the Emperor decided to
increase his navy largely, but to keep it in port instead of at sea,
forcing Great Britain also to maintain huge fleets, the expense of
which, concurring with the commercial embarrassments that he sought to
bring upon her, might exhaust her power to continue the war. In
consequence of this policy, British military achievement on the grand
scale was confined to the army in the Spanish peninsula; and in the
bestowal of rewards, after Napoleon's first abdication, but one peerage
was given to the navy. The great claims of Sir James Saumarez, who was
the senior of the two, were disregarded on the ground that his flag was
not flying at the moment, and Pellew was created Baron Exmouth.
During the process of settlement which succeeded the final fall of
Napoleon at Waterloo, Lord Exmouth remained in the Mediterranean. In the
early part of 1816 he was ordered to visit with his fleet the Barbary
ports, and to compel the unconditional release of all slaves who were
natives of the Ionian Islands; they having become subjects of Great
Britain by the terms of the peace. For many years, while the powers of
Europe were engrossed in the tremendous strife of the French Revolution,
these piratical states, under pretence of regular hostilities, had
preyed upon the coasts as well as upon the commerce of the weak
Mediterranean countries, and captives taken by them were kept in bitter
slavery. Nelson in his correspondence, in 1796, mentions a curious
incident which sufficiently characterizes the general motives and
policy of these barbarian Courts. He asked an Algerine official visiting
his ship, why the Dey would not make peace with Genoa and Naples, for
they would pay well for immunity, as the United States also at that time
did. The reply was, "If we make peace with every one, what is the Dey to
do with his ships?" In his later experience with the Mediterranean the
great admiral realized yet more forcibly the crying shame of Great
Britain's acquiescence. "My blood boils that I cannot chastise these
pirates. They could not show themselves in this sea did not our country
permit. Never let us talk of the cruelty of the African slave trade,
while we permit such a horrid war." The United States alone, although
then among the least of naval powers, had taken arms before 1805 to
repress outrages that were the common reproach of all civilized
nations,--a measure the success of which went far to establish the
character of her navy and prepare it for 1812. Lord Exmouth was also
directed to demand peace for Sardinia, as well as for any other state
that should authorize him to act for it. Only Naples availed itself of
this opportunity.
As far as his instructions went, his mission was successful, and, by a
happy accident, he was able at Tunis and Tripoli to extort further from
the rulers a promise that thereafter captives should be treated as in
civilized countries; in other words, that they should no longer be
reduced to slavery. Algiers refused this concession; and the admiral
could not take steps to enforce it, because beyond his commission. The
Dey, however, undertook to consult the Porte; and the fleet, with a few
exceptions, returned to England, where it arrived towards the end of
June.
Meanwhile British public feeling had become aroused; for men were saying
that the outrages of the past had been rather welcome to the commercial
selfishness of the country. The well-protected traders of Great Britain,
shielded by her omnipotent navy, had profited by crimes which drove
their weaker rivals from the sea. Just then news came that at the port
of Bona, on the Algiers coast, where there was under the British flag an
establishment for carrying on the coral fishery, a large number of the
fishermen, mostly Italians, had been wantonly slaughtered by a band of
Turkish troops. To insist, arms in hand, upon reparation for such an
outrage, and upon guarantees for the future, would doubtless be
condemned by some of our recent lights; but such was not then the temper
of Great Britain. The government determined at once to send a fleet to
the spot, and Lord Exmouth was chosen for the command, with such a force
as he himself should designate. The gist of his instructions was to
demand the release, without ransom, of _all_ Christian slaves, and a
solemn declaration from the Dey that, in future wars, prisoners should
receive the usage accorded them by European states. Great Britain thus
made herself, as befitted the obligation imposed by her supreme maritime
power, the avenger of all those oppressed by these scourges of the sea.
The times of the barbarians were fulfilled.
During a long career of successful piracy, the port of Algiers had
accumulated an extensive and powerful system of defences. These had
doubtless suffered in condition from the nonchalant fatalism of Turkish
rule, encouraged by a long period of impunity; but they constituted
still, and under all the shortcomings of the defenders, a most imposing
menace to an attacking fleet. To convey a precise impression of them by
detailed verbal description would be difficult, and the attempt probably
confusing. It may be said, in brief, that the town faces easterly,
rising abruptly up a steep hill; that from its front there then
projected a pier, nearly a thousand feet long, at whose end was a
circular fort, carrying seventy guns in three tiers; from that point a
mole extended at right angles to the southward,--parallel, that is, in a
general sense, to the town front, but curving inward through the
southern half of its length, so as better to embrace and shelter the
vessels inside. This mole was somewhat over a thousand feet in length,
and had throughout two tiers of guns, linked at their northern extremity
to the circular fort at the pier end. These principal works were flanked
and covered, at either end and on the hillside, by others which it is
unnecessary to particularize. The total number of guns bearing seaward
numbered near three hundred, of very respectable size for that day. The
basin formed by the pier and the mole constituted the port proper, and
in it, at the time of the attack, was collected the entire Algerine
navy, nine frigates and corvettes and thirty-seven gunboats, the paltry
force that had so long terrorized the Mediterranean.
In prevision of his present enterprise, Lord Exmouth before leaving the
Mediterranean had despatched a light cruiser to Algiers, on a casual
visit similar to those continually made by ships of war to foreign
ports. Her commander, Captain Charles Warde, received from him very
precise and most secret instructions to examine closely into the
defences and soundings; to do which it was necessary not only to observe
every precaution of seeming indifference,--even to the extent of
appearing engrossed with social duties,--but also to conduct under this
cover measurements and observations of at least approximate correctness.
This duty was performed with singular diligence and success, with the
double result of revealing the hopeless inaccuracy of existing charts
and of placing in Exmouth's hands a working plan of the ground,
perfectly trustworthy for his tactical dispositions.
As before remarked, in the sketch of Lord St. Vincent, the defence and
attack of seaports, involving as they do both occupation of permanent
positions and the action of mobile bodies, are tactical questions. They
differ much, though not radically, from operations in the open sea, or
in the field, where positions may be taken incidentally, but where the
movements of mobile bodies are the principal factor. In this way, though
without using the word tactical, Exmouth treated the problem before him.
Furnished, thanks to his own foresight and Warde's efficiency, with
reliable information concerning the preparations of the enemy, he
calculated the dispositions necessary to meet them and to crush their
fire. Having assigned to the hostile works, severally and collectively,
the force needed to overbear them, and having arranged the anchoring
positions for the vessels of his command with reference to the especial
task of each, as well as for mutual support, he had substantially his
plan of battle, afterwards communicated to the fleet before going into
action; and the same data afforded the foundation for his statement to
the Government of the number and character of ships needed for success.
To the surprise of the Admiralty, Lord Exmouth asked for but five
ships-of-the-line, five frigates, and five smaller vessels, to which
were added four mortar boats to play upon the town and arsenal. When met
with expressions of doubt, he replied, "I am satisfied, and take the
responsibility entirely upon myself." To satisfy the hesitancy of the
Government, he left with the Secretary to the Admiralty a written
statement that his every requirement had been fulfilled, and that to him
alone, therefore, would failure from deficient power be attributable. On
the eve of departure he said to his brother Israel, "If they open fire
when the ships are coming up, and cripple them in their masts, the
difficulty and loss will be greater; but if they allow us to take our
stations, I am sure of them, for I know that nothing can resist a
line-of-battle ship's fire." He trusted to the extreme care of his
preparations, which neglected no particular of equipment or
organization, elaborating every detail of training and discipline, and
providing, by the most diligent foresight and minute instruction, that
each officer concerned should know exactly what was expected of him. In
short, it was to perfection of quality, and not to an unwieldy bulk of
superfluous quantity, that Exmouth confided his fortunes in this last
hazard.
The fleet sailed from England on the 28th of July, 1816, was joined at
Gibraltar by a Dutch squadron of five frigates, whose commander asked to
share the coming contest, and on the 26th of August was off the north
point of Algiers Bay, some twenty miles from the town. At daybreak the
next morning, the weather being almost calm, a flag of truce was sent
in, bearing the British demands. During its absence a breeze from the
sea sprang up, and the fleet stood in to a mile from the works, where
it stopped to await the reply. At two P.M. the boat was seen returning,
with the signal that no answer had been given. The flag-ship queried,
"Are you ready?" Each ship at once replied, "Yes;" and all filling away
together stood down to the attack, the admiral leading.
The Algerine batteries were fully manned; the mole, moreover, was
crowded with troops. With singular temerity, they fired no gun as the
ships came on, thus relieving the most anxious of Exmouth's
preoccupations concerning the difficulties before him; fearing,
seemingly, that, if otherwise received, the prey might turn and escape.
The British, on their side, observed the utmost silence; not a gun, not
a cheer, marred the solemn impression of the approach. The flag-ship,
_Queen Charlotte_,[16] piloted by an officer who had served continuously
with Exmouth since 1793, anchored by the stern across the mole head, at
a distance of fifty yards, her starboard batteries pointing to sweep it
from end to end. Still no sound of battle, as she proceeded to lash her
bows to those of an Algerine brig lying just within the mole. This done,
her crew gave three cheers, as well they might. Then the stolid,
unaccountable apathy of the barbarians ceased, and three guns in quick
succession were fired from the eastern battery. Stirred by a movement
of compassion, Lord Exmouth, from the flag-ship's poop, seeing the
Moorish soldiery clustered thick upon the parapets to watch the ships,
waved to them with his hand to get down. At the first hostile gun he
gave the order "Stand by!" at the second, "Fire!" and simultaneously
with the third the _Queen Charlotte's_ broadside rang out, and the
battle began.
The other vessels of the squadron were not all as successful as the
flag-ship in taking the exact position assigned, and the admiral's plan
thereby suffered some of that derangement to which every undertaking,
especially military and naval, is liable. This, however, produced no
effect upon the general result, except by increasing somewhat the lists
of killed and wounded, through loss of advantageous offensive position,
with consequent defect in mutual support. But the first broadside is
proverbially half the battle. It was a saying of Collingwood to his
crew, in a three-decker like the _Queen Charlotte_, that if they could
deliver three effective fires in the first five minutes no vessel could
resist them; and this was yet more certain when opposed to the
semi-discipline of adversaries such as the Algerine pirates. Exmouth's
general design was to concentrate his heavy ships at the southern end of
the mole, whence the curve in the line of batteries would enable them to
enfilade or take in reverse the works at the northern extremity. Here
were to be the two three-deckers, with a seventy-four between them, all
three in close order, stem to stern. The two-decker, however, anchored
some seven hundred feet astern of the _Queen Charlotte_, the intervening
space being left empty until filled by a thirty-six-gun frigate, upon
whose captain St. Vincent passed the eulogium, "He seems to have felt
Lord Nelson's eye upon him." The two remaining seventy-fours placed
themselves successively close astern of the first, which was in accord
with the original purpose, while the other three-decker took the right
flank of the line, and somewhat too far out; in which exposed and
unintended position, beyond the extreme north point contemplated for the
British order, she underwent a very heavy loss.
In general summary, therefore, it may be said that the broadsides of the
ships-of-the-line were opposed from end to end to the heavy central
batteries on the mole, while the lighter vessels engaged the flanking
works on the shore to the southward, thus diverting the fire which would
have harassed the chief assailants,--a service in which the Dutch
squadron, composed entirely of frigates, rendered important assistance.
The bomb vessels from the rear threw their shells over the fighting
ships into the town and arsenal, and in the admiral's report are
credited with firing all the shipping in the harbor, except one frigate,
creating a conflagration which spread over the arsenal and storehouses.
Soon after the contest opened, the thirty-seven Algerine gunboats,
crowded with troops, were seen advancing under cover of the smoke to
board the flag-ship. The attempt, rash to insanity, met the fate it
should have expected; thirty-three were sent to the bottom by the guns
of the _Leander_, stationed ahead of the _Queen Charlotte_, and
commanding the entrance to the port. An hour later, Lord Exmouth
determined to set fire to the remaining frigate. The service was
performed by an officer and boat's crew, with a steadiness which
elicited from him such admiration that, on the return of the party, he
stopped the working of the ship's upper battery to give them three
cheers. As the hostile vessel burned, she drifted so near the _Queen
Charlotte_ as nearly to involve her in the same fate.
From three to ten P.M. the battle lasted, steady disciplined valor
contending with a courage in no way inferior, absolutely insensible to
danger, but devoid of that coherent, skilful direction which is to
courage what the brain and eye are to the heart. "I never," wrote
Exmouth to his brother, "saw any set of men more obstinate at their
guns, and it was superior fire only that could keep them back. To be
sure, nothing could stand before the _Queen Charlotte's_ broadside.
Everything fell before it, and the Swedish consul assures me we killed
above five hundred at the very first fire, from the crowded way in which
the troops were drawn up, four deep above the gunboats, which were also
full of men. It was a glorious sight," he continues, "to see the
_Charlotte_ take her anchorage, and to see her flag towering on high,
when she appeared to be in the flames of the mole itself; and never was
a ship nearer burnt; it almost scorched me off the poop. We were obliged
to haul in the ensign, or it would have caught fire." He was himself
struck thrice, though not seriously injured. A cannon-ball carried away
the skirts of his coat, and one glass of the spectacles in his pocket
was broken, and the frame bulged, by a shot.
At ten P.M., the ammunition of the fleet running short, and its work
being substantially accomplished, the ships began to haul off. The sea
defences and a great part of the town were in ruins. "To be again
effective," wrote Exmouth, "the defences must be rebuilt from the
foundation." The flanking batteries and the hill forts continued to
annoy the vessels as they retired, but the spirit of the Dey was broken.
Towards eleven a light air from the land sprang up, which freshened into
a violent and prolonged thunderstorm, lasting for three hours; and the
flashes of heaven's artillery combined with the glare of the burning
town to illuminate the withdrawal of the ships.
The following morning the Dey signified his submission, and on the 30th
of August Lord Exmouth made known to the fleet that all the terms of
Great Britain had been yielded; that Christian slavery was forever
abolished, and that by noon of the following day all slaves then in
Algiers would be delivered to his flag. This was accordingly done, the
whole number amounting to 1642; which, with those previously released at
Tunis and Tripoli, raised to 3003 the human beings whom Exmouth had been
the instrument of freeing from a fate worse than death. Of this total,
but eighteen were English; the remainder were almost wholly from the
Mediterranean countries. On the 3d of September, just one week after the
attack, the fleet sailed for England.
Profuse acknowledgment necessarily awaited the hero of a deed in which
national exultation so happily blended with the sentiment of pity for
the oppressed. The admiral was raised to the next rank in the peerage,
and honors poured in upon him from every side,--from abroad as well as
from his own countrymen. His personal sense of the privilege permitted
him, thus to crown a life of strenuous exertion by a martial deed of
far-reaching beneficence, was a reward passing all others. In the
opening words of his official report he voices his thankfulness: "In all
the vicissitudes of a long life of public service, no circumstance has
ever produced on my mind such impressions of gratitude and joy as the
event of yesterday. To have been one of the humble instruments in the
hands of Divine Providence for bringing to reason a ferocious
Government, and destroying for ever the horrid system of Christian
slavery, can never cease to be a source of delight and heartfelt comfort
to every individual happy enough to be employed in it."
Here Lord Exmouth's career closes. Just forty years had elapsed since as
a youth he had fought the _Carleton_ on Lake Champlain, and he was yet
to live sixteen in honored retreat; bearing, however, the burden of
those whose occupation is withdrawn at an age too advanced to form new
interests. Though in vigorous health and with ample fortune, "he would
sometimes confess," says his biographer, "that he was happier amid his
early difficulties." The idea of retirement, indeed, does not readily
associate itself with the impression of prodigious vitality, which from
first to last is produced by the record of his varied activities. In
this respect, as in others, the contrast is marked between him and
Saumarez, the two who more particularly illustrate the complementary
sides of the brilliant group of naval leaders, in the second rank of
distinction, which clustered around the great names of Nelson, Howe, and
Jervis. In the old age of Saumarez, the even, ordered tenor of his
active military life is reflected in the peaceful, satisfied enjoyment
of repose and home happiness, of the fruits of labors past, which
Collingwood, probably without good reason, fancied to be characteristic
of his own temperament. Lord Exmouth, compelled to be a passive
spectator, saw with consequent increased apprehension the internal
political troubles of Great Britain in his later days. Though not a
party man, he was strongly conservative, so that the agitations of the
Reform era concealed from him the advantages towards which it was
tending, and filled him with forebodings for the future of his country.
Like his distinguished contemporary, Admiral Saumarez, and like many
others of those lion-hearted, masculine men who had passed their lives
amid the storms of the elements and of battle,--and like our own
Farragut,--Lord Exmouth was a deeply religious man. Strong as was his
self-reliance in war and tempest, he rested upon the Almighty with the
dependence of a child upon its father. His noble brother, Sir Israel
Pellew, who had followed Nelson into the fire at Trafalgar, departed
with the words, "I know in Whom I have believed;" and of the admiral
himself, an officer who was often with him during the closing scene
said, "I have seen him great in battle, but never so great as on his
deathbed."
Lord Exmouth died on January 23, 1833. He was at the time Vice-Admiral
of England, that distinguished honorary rank having been conferred upon
him but a few months before his death.
* * * * *
Of the last four admirals whose careers have been here sketched, Howe
alone inherited fortune and high social rank; but he also fought his
way far beyond the modest position bequeathed to him by his brother.
Eminent all, though in varying manner and degree, each illustrated a
distinct type in the same noble profession. All were admirable officers,
but they differed greatly in original endowments and consequent
development. It was intuitive with St. Vincent to take wide and
far-sighted views, and to embody them in sustained, relentless action.
Endued by nature with invincible energy and determination, he moved
spontaneously and easily along his difficult path. He approached,
although he did not attain genius. In Howe is seen rather the result of
conscientious painstaking acting upon excellent abilities, but
struggling always against a native heaviness and a temper
constitutionally both indolent and indulgent; a temper to which indeed
he does not yield, over which he triumphs, but which nevertheless
imposes itself upon his general course with all the force inseparable
from hereditary disposition. A man of talent, he educates himself to
acquirements which in his rival have the character of perception; and
only under the spur of emergency does he rise to the height of
greatness. Both were great general officers, a claim which can scarcely
be advanced for Saumarez and Exmouth, able, brilliant, and devoted as
they were. Saumarez was the steadfast, skilful, accomplished master of
his profession, but one whose aptitudes and tastes placed him in the
great organization of the fleet, as a principal subordinate rather than
as head. Exmouth was the typical, innate seaman, intensely active, whose
instincts are those of the partisan warrior, and who shines most in the
freedom of detached service. All bore a conspicuous part in the greatest
war of modern times, with honor such that their names will be remembered
as long as naval history endures.