In connection with the Battle of the Nile, it may be interesting to
give some account of an action between single ships which closely
followed it, in which Admiral Nelson’s dispatches describing his
victory were captured by one of the two French line-of-battle ships
which escaped from Aboukir Bay.
It will be remembered that the Généreux and Guillaume Tell, with two
frigates, made sail and escaped, on August 2d.
On the 5th the Leander, 50, Captain Thompson, was despatched, with
Captain Berry, of Admiral Nelson’s flag-ship, to convey to Earl St.
Vincent the report of the great action.
The Leander, making the best of her way to the westward, was, at
daybreak on the 18th of August, within a few miles of the Goza di
Candia. As the sun rose a large sail was discovered in the south,
evidently a ship-of-the-line, and standing directly for the Leander,
which latter ship was becalmed, while the stranger was bringing up
a fine breeze from the southward. The Leander being some eighty men
short of her complement, and having on board several who were wounded
in the late action, Captain Thompson very properly took every means
to avoid a contest with a ship so superior in size and force. But the
inferiority in sailing of the Leander rendered an action inevitable;
and it was only left him to steer such a course as would enable her to
receive her powerful antagonist to the best advantage.
The line-of-battle ship soon turned out to be French, and no other
than the Généreux. She still had the breeze to herself, and came down
within distant shot, when she hoisted Neapolitan colors. These she
soon changed for Turkish, but had not at all deceived the English
officers as to her nationality. About nine o’clock she ranged up on
the Leander’s weather quarter, within half gunshot. The English ship
at once hauled up until her broadside would bear, and then opened a
vigorous fire, which was returned by the Généreux. The ships contrived
to near each other, keeping up a constant and heavy fire, until
half-past ten, when it was evident the Généreux intended to lay her
opponent on board. The Leander’s sails and rigging were so much cut
up, and the wind was so light, that she could not avoid the shock, and
the French ship struck her on the port bow, and, dropping alongside,
continued there for some time. The French crew were, however, prevented
from boarding by the musketry fire of the Leander’s few marines, upon
her poop, and the small-arm men on the quarter-deck. They made several
attempts, but were each time beaten off, with loss.
Meanwhile the great guns of both ships, that would bear, were firing
most actively, and the action was very severe. Presently, an increase
of breeze occurring, the Leander took advantage of it to disengage
herself, and, being ably handled, was able to pass under her enemy’s
stern, at but a few yards distance, while she deliberately raked her
with every broadside gun. Soon after this the breeze entirely died
away, and the sea became as smooth as glass; but the cannonade between
the two ships continued, with unabated fury, until half-past three
in the afternoon. A light breeze then sprang up, and the Généreux
had passed the Leander’s bows, and stationed herself on the latter’s
starboard side. Unfortunately, a great wreck of spars and rigging had
fallen on that side of the Leander, and disabled her guns. This checked
the English ship’s fire, and the French now hailed to know if she had
surrendered. The Leander was now totally unmanageable, having only the
shattered remains of her fore and main masts standing, while her hull
was cut to pieces, and her decks covered with the killed and wounded.
The Généreux, on the other hand, having only lost her mizzen-top-mast,
was about to take up a position across her opponent’s stern, where
she could finish her work by raking her with deadly effect, without
a possibility of reply. In this condition she had no choice but
surrender, and the Généreux, took possession of her hard-won prize.
In this six hours’ close and bloody fight the Leander had thirty-five
killed, and fifty-seven wounded, a full third of all on board. The loss
of the Généreux was severe. She had a crew of seven hundred, and lost
about one hundred killed, and one hundred and eighty-eight wounded.
This defence of a fifty-gun ship against a seventy-four is almost
unparalleled.
[Illustration: CAPTURE OF ADMIRAL NELSON’S DESPATCHES.]
Captain Le Joille, the commander of the French ship, was not, if we may
believe the English accounts, a very good specimen of a French naval
officer, even of those peculiar times, when rudeness was considered the
best proof of true republicanism. Captain Thompson and his officers
were allowed to be plundered, as soon as they arrived on board the
Généreux, of every article they possessed, hardly leaving the
clothes which they wore. In vain they expostulated with the French
Captain, reminding him of the very different treatment experienced by
the French officers taken prisoners at the battle of the Nile. With
great _nonchalance_ he answered, “I am sorry, but to tell the truth,
our fellows are great hands at pillage.” Captain Berry, the bearer of
dispatches, who was a passenger in the Leander, was plundered of a pair
of pistols which he valued. The man who had taken them was produced,
when the French Captain himself took the pistols, telling Berry that
he would give him a pair of French pistols when he was released, which
he never did. This incident is related by Sir Edward Berry himself, in
a letter. In fact, the French behaved very much like Barbary corsairs,
and even took the instruments of the surgeon of the Leander, before
he had performed the necessary operations. Captain Thompson’s severe
wounds nearly proved fatal, from their preventing the surgeon from
attending to them. When the Leander arrived at Corfu, where she was
taken, the French there treated the English very badly, and some of
them nearly perished of privation. Had Captain Thompson fallen into
the hands of Captain Bergeret, or many other French officers who could
be named, his obstinate and noble defence would have secured him the
respect and esteem of his captors.
Bergeret was of a very different type of French officer. He was, during
this war, a prisoner in England, and was given his parole, to go to
France, and endeavor to effect an exchange between himself and the
celebrated Sir Sidney Smith, then a prisoner in Paris. Failing in his
object, he promptly returned to his imprisonment in England. Sir Sidney
had, in the meantime, made his escape; and the British government, with
a due sense of Bergeret’s conduct, restored his liberty, without any
restrictions.
It is a pity that such a man as Le Joille should have been in command
of one of the finest 74s in the French navy.
When Captain Thompson’s wounds healed, and he at length reached his
native country, he received not only an honorable acquittal from the
court held upon the loss of his ship, but also the honor of knighthood,
for the defence which he had made against so superior a force.
Another striking incident connected with the battle of the Nile, and we
shall have done with that action.
Just a month after the battle, while the squadron under Captain Hood,
of the Zealous, which had been left off Alexandria, by Nelson, was
cruising close in with that place, a cutter made her appearance,
standing towards the land. The Swiftsure and the Emerald frigate fired
several shots at her, but the cutter would not bring to, and at length
ran aground a little to the westward of the Marabout tower. The English
boats were at once despatched to bring her off; but in the meantime the
crew of the cutter had made good their landing, and the vessel herself
was shortly afterwards beaten to pieces by the high surf. The shore, at
this time, presented nothing but barren, uncultivated sands as far as
the eye could reach; but soon several Arabs were seen advancing, some
on horseback and some on foot. The French, who had quitted the cutter,
now perceived their mistake; but, for nearly the whole of them, it was
too late. The Arabs were upon them.
The British boats pulled for the shore, in hopes of saving their
unfortunate enemies, but the breakers were too heavy to effect a
landing in safety. A midshipman of the Emerald, Mr. Francis Fane (who
afterwards rose high in the service), with a high sense of humanity,
threw himself into the water, and swam through the surf to the shore,
pushing before him an empty boat’s breaker, or small cask, to which a
line had been made fast. By this means Citizen Gardon, the commanding
officer of the French cutter, and four of his men, were saved. The
cutter was the Anémone, of four guns and sixty men, six days from
Malta, and originally from Toulon, having on board General Carmin and
Captain Vallette, aide-de-camp to General Bonaparte; also a courier,
with despatches, and a small detachment of soldiers.
The General, perceiving no possibility of escape from the English,
had ordered Captain Gardon to run the cutter on shore. The sailor
represented to the soldier the danger to his vessel and those on board,
from the high surf, and particularly to all who should succeed in
landing, from the hordes of wild Arabs who infested that coast.
The General said he would cut his way through them, to Alexandria,
which was not much more than ten miles off. No sooner, however, did
the French land, than they perceived the Bedouins, who, up to that
time, had concealed themselves behind the numerous sand hills in the
neighborhood.
Terror and dismay now seized upon the General and the unfortunate
victims of his rash resolve; and their enemy, the British, viewed their
probable fate with commiseration, for the Arabs never spared any French
who fell into their hands. Although the crew of the cutter, by refusing
to surrender, and by firing upon the British boats long after all hopes
of escape were at an end, had brought the disaster on themselves, still
the English could not help mourning their sad fate.
What followed was a melancholy spectacle. The French officers and
men were seized and stripped, and many of them murdered at once, in
cold blood, as they made no resistance on being pillaged. An Arab, on
horseback, unslung a carbine, and presented it at the General, in full
sight of the boats. The General and the aide-de-camp appeared to be on
their knees, begging for mercy. The Arab drew the trigger but the piece
missed fire, and the man renewed the priming, very deliberately, and
again fired at the General. He missed him, but shot the aide-de-camp,
in his rear, and then he drew a pistol and shot the General, who
instantly fell.
The French courier endeavored to escape, but he was pursued and killed,
and the Arab who got possession of his despatches at once rode off with
them. It was learned, afterwards, that they were restored to the French
for a large sum of money.
On the appearance of a troop of French cavalry, from Alexandria,
the Arabs retired to the desert, taking with them their surviving
prisoners, while the British boats, with their five rescued prisoners,
returned to the squadron.