THE NYMPHE AND CLEOPATRA.
Rich only in reputation, and with an increasing family, Captain Pellew
felt the pressure of narrow circumstances; and with the mistake so often
made by naval officers, he thought to improve them by farming. There was
a moderately large farm, Treverry, within a few miles of Falmouth, which
had descended in the family to his elder brother, and he proposed to
cultivate this upon the principle of sharing the profits. His brother,
though not very sanguine on the result, readily agreed to the
experiment; and when in no long time Captain Pellew complained that he
found it impossible to keep the accounts so as to make a fair division,
he was allowed to rent it on his own terms. It will not occasion
surprise that the undertaking was anything but profitable.
Indeed, farming is almost always a very losing employment to a
gentleman, and especially to a sailor. Nothing can be more incorrect
than the conclusion that education ought to excel, because ignorance
succeeds; for success depends upon attention to a multiplicity of petty
details, which inexperience will be likely to overlook, and talent may
find it irksome to attend to. If the small farmer, who cultivates his
little ground by the labour of his own family, and the more considerable
one, who devotes to his estate skill, capital, and undivided attention,
so often fail, what can he hope for, who depends upon labourers whose
mistakes he cannot correct, and whose indolence, and even dishonesty, he
is scarcely able to check? The failure of crops which depend for their
success upon the knowledge and activity of the principal; and the
necessary and constant outlay, which is great beyond the conception of a
novice, may ruin even him who farms his own land, when the care of it is
only a secondary object; and this it will generally be to a professional
man.
The expected pleasures of fanning will be likely to disappoint, even
more than its profits. When the fields are waving with abundance,
nothing appears more delightful than to direct the labours they require;
but the enjoyments of the harvest month, when all the weary toil of
preparation is forgotten, will be found a poor compensation for the
daily annoyances of the year. To be excelled in management by the
uneducated, and over-reached by the cunning: to study systems of
agriculture, to be thwarted in carrying them into effect, and when they
fail, to become an object of contemptuous pity to the ignorant but
successful followers of the old routine: to find that all around take
advantage of his ignorance: that servants, the best with other masters,
become careless and unfaithful with him: to become involved in petty
disputes with low neighbours, and to be unable to avoid them except by a
forbearance which encourages aggression: to find, that with all his
attention and trouble, the income lags far behind the outgoings--those
are among the pleasures of a gentleman farmer.
To Captain Pellew, the employment was peculiarly unsuitable. His mind,
happy only while it was active, could ill accommodate itself to pursuits
which almost forbade exertion; and a business within the comprehension
of a peasant was not for a character which could fill, and animate, with
its own energy an extended sphere of action. Even now, when agriculture
has become an eminently scientific profession, it requires to make it
interesting that it shall be thoroughly understood, and conducted upon a
proper scale; but at that time it was commonly a mere routine of dull
drudgery, and nowhere more so than in the west of Cornwall. To have an
object in view, yet 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. He was not likely to excel in
occupations so entirely uncongenial. The old people in the neighbourhood
of Treverry speak with wonder of the fearlessness he displayed on
different occasions, but shake their heads at his management as a
farmer. They have no difficulty in accounting for his fortune. While he
lived at Treverry, a swarm of bees found an entrance over the porch, of
the house, and made a comb there for many successive years; and to this
happy omen they attribute all his after success. The apartment is still
called the "bee-room."
The offer of a command in the Russian navy gave him an opportunity to
escape from his difficulties. It was recommended to him by an officer of
high character, with whom he had served, and who possessed so many
claims upon his confidence that he thought it right to strengthen his
own decision by the opinion of his elder brother, before he finally
refused it. His brother, who had always encouraged his every ambitious,
and every honourable feeling, and who, even at this time, confidently
anticipated for him a career of high distinction, of which, indeed, his
past life afforded ample promise, would not for a moment listen to his
entering a foreign service. He said, that every man owes his services,
blood, and life, so exclusively to his own country that he has no right
to give them to another; and he desired Captain Pellew to reflect how he
would answer for it to his God, if he lost his life in a cause which had
no claim upon him. These high considerations of patriotism and religion
are the true ground upon which the question should rest. Deeply is it to
be regretted that men of high character should have unthinkingly
sanctioned by their example what their own closer reflection might have
led them to condemn. Still more is it to be deplored that deserving
officers, hopeless, in the present state of the navy, (1834) of
promotion, or employment, should be driven by their necessities to
sacrifice their proudest and most cherished feelings, and to quit for a
foreign flag the service of which they might become the strength and
ornament. War is too dreadful a calamity to be lightly incurred. Only
patriotism, with all its elevating and endearing associations of
country, homes, and altars, can throw a veil over its horrors, and a
glory around its achievements: patriotism, which gives to victory all
its splendour; sheds lustre even on defeat; and hallows the tomb of the
hero, fallen amidst the regrets and admiration of his country. But he
who goes forth to fight the battles of another State, what honour can
victory itself afford to him? or how shall he be excused, if he attack
the allies of his own country, whom, as such, he is bound on his
allegiance to respect?
The decision of Captain Pellew on this occasion proved as fortunate as
it was honourable. At the beginning of 1793, there was no appearance of
hostilities; and when the French republicans put to death their king, on
the 21st of January, and declared war against England twelve days after,
the Government, which had made no preparation for such an event, was
taken by surprise almost as much as the country. The navy was on the
peace establishment, with only sixteen thousand seamen and marines; and
it became necessary in the course of the year to raise for it sixty
thousand men. Mr. Pellew, whose situation at Falmouth enabled him to
obtain the earliest information, hastened to Treverry as soon as he saw
that war was likely to break out, and advised his brother immediately to
offer his services to the Admiralty in person. Captain Pellew, too happy
in the prospect of exchanging the ploughshare for the sword, returned
with him to Falmouth; and the same night was on the road to London.
He was immediately appointed to the _Nymphe_, of thirty-six guns,
formerly a French frigate, which, by a striking coincidence, had been
taken by boarding in the former war, after having been disabled by the
loss of her wheel. He fitted her with extraordinary dispatch; but from
the number of ships commissioned at the same time, there was great
difficulty in manning her. Anticipating this, Captain Pellew wrote to
Falmouth as soon as he had received his appointment, and adverting to
the importance of getting his ship to sea quickly, he requested his
brother to assist him in procuring a crew--of sailors, if possible; but
if not, then of Cornish miners.
The choice may appear extraordinary, but Cornish miners are better
calculated to make seamen than any other class of landsmen; not so much
because they are always accustomed to difficult climbing, and familiar
with the use of ropes, and gunpowder, as that the Cornish system of
mining, with an order and discipline scarcely surpassed in a ship of
war, compels the lowest workman to act continually upon his own
judgment. Thus it creates that combination of ready obedience, with
intelligence, and promptitude at resource, which is the perfection of a
sailor's character. Familiarity with danger gives the miner a cool and
reflective intrepidity; and the old county sport of wrestling, so
peculiarly a game of strength and skill, now falling into disuse, but
then the daily amusement of every boy, was admirably calculated to
promote the activity and self-possession necessary in personal
conflicts.
Captain Pellew's quick discrimination is remarkably shown in thus
discovering the capabilities of a class of men, who had never before
been similarly tried, and with whom he could have had comparatively but
little acquaintance There were no mines in the immediate neighbourhood
of anyplace where he had lived; and as his professional habits were not
likely to give him an interest in the subject, he had probably never
held much intercourse with miners, except when he might have met them as
rioters. For at that period, the attention of the west countrymen was
devoted almost exclusively to their mines and fisheries, to the neglect
of agriculture; and the county being thus dependent upon importations,
famine was not uncommon. At such times, the poor tinners would come into
the towns, or wherever they had reason to believe that corn was stored,
with their bags, and their money, asking only barley-bread, and offering
the utmost they could give for it, but insisting that food should be
found for them at a price they could afford to pay. If the law must
condemn such risings, humanity would pity them for the cause, and
justice must admire the forbearance displayed in them. At one of these
seasons of distress, when there was a great quantity of corn in the
customhouse cellars at Falmouth, a strong body of miners came in to
insist that it should be sold. Mr. Pellew, the collector, met them in
the street, and explained to them the circumstances under which he was
entrusted with it, and which left him no power to sell. They were
famishing men, and the corn was in their power; but they had come to
buy, and famine itself, with the almost certainty of impunity, could not
tempt them to steal. They received his explanation, and left the town
peaceably.
About eighty miners entered for the _Nymphe_ and joined her at Spithead.
She sailed on her passage from Spithead to Falmouth very badly manned,
having not more than a dozen seamen on board, exclusive of the officers,
who were obliged to go aloft to reef and furl the sails, the captain
setting the example wherever anything was to be done, and often steering
the ship. A corporal of marines was captain of the forecastle. Arriving
at Falmouth, after a rough passage, she soon picked up a few good men.
She took a convoy from thence to the Nore, another from the Nore to
Hamburgh, and a third from Cuxhaven to the Nore again; never letting
slip an opportunity to press as many men as could be spared from the
merchant-ships. The captain would remain in a boat all night, and think
himself amply repaid if he obtained only one good man. From the Nore,
she returned to Spithead, and thence sailed on a cruize, in company with
the _Venus_, Captain Jonathan Faulknor, having now a full proportion of
good seamen, though she was still short of her complement, and none of
the crew had ever seen a shot fired. She parted company with the _Venus_
in chase, but rejoined her on the 29th of May. On the 27th, the _Venus_
had engaged the French frigate _Semillante_, one of a squadron then
cruizing in the Channel under the orders of Captain Mullon, of the
_Cleopatra_. The action had continued two hours, much to the
disadvantage of the enemy, when the _Cleopatra_ was seen coming up, and
the _Venus_ was obliged to fly. On the _Nymphe_ rejoining her, the two
frigates went in pursuit of the enemy as far as Cherbourg. Thence
Captain Pellew proceeded to the North Channel, where some French
cruisers were reported to have gone; but having swept the Channel
without seeing anything of them, and taken on board his brother Israel,
then living, a commander on half-pay, at Larne, he returned to Falmouth.
Here, on the 16th of June, the _Nymphe_ pressed the crew of a
South-seaman, which full manned the ship.
She sailed from Falmouth on the evening of the 18th. That afternoon,
Captain Pellew was informed that two French frigates had again been seen
in the Channel, and he discussed with his brother Israel, at their elder
brother's table, the course most likely to intercept them. After they
had talked over the advantages of sailing along the English or the
French coast, they at length determined to keep mid-channel.
An active and most anxious pursuit of the enemy for the last three weeks
had made the crew not less eager than their commander; and the subject
of the expected battle engrossed their sleeping and waking thoughts. A
dream of Captain Israel Pellew had perhaps some influence on the result.
His brother would not allow him to be called till they were just closing
the French frigate, and meeting him as he ran on deck half dressed, he
said to him, with much emotion,--"Israel, you have no business here! We
are too many eggs from one nest. I am sorry I brought you from your
wife." But Israel, whose whole attention was occupied with the enemy,
exclaimed, "That's the very frigate I've been dreaming of all night! I
dreamt that we shot away her wheel. We shall have her in a quarter of an
hour!" His brother, who had already inferred her high state of
discipline from her manoeuvres, replied, "We shall not take her so
easily. See how she is handled." He was a perfect artillerist, and,
prompted by the suggestions of his sleep, he took charge of a gun, made
the wheel his object, and ultimately shot it away. Not less
extraordinary was the dream of a master's mate, Mr. Pearse, who had
served in the _Winchelsea_. He dreamt that the _Nymphe_ fell in with a
French frigate the day after leaving port, that they killed her captain,
and took her; and so vivid was the impression, that he firmly believed
it to be a supernatural intimation, and spoke of it accordingly to his
messmates. They rallied him immoderately on his superstition, but his
confidence remained unshaken; and when his papers were examined after
his death, for he was killed in the action, it was found that he had
written the dream in his pocket-book.
At day break on the 19th, as they were proceeding up Channel, being
still some miles to the westward of the Start, a sail was observed in
the south-east, winch was soon made out to be a French frigate. Before
six o'clock they had approached very near, the enemy making no attempt
to escape; and, indeed, if both nations had wished at this early period
of the war to try the merit of their respective navies by a battle, no
ship could have been better calculated than the _Cleopatra_ to maintain
the honour of her flag. Her commander, Captain Mullon, was deservedly
considered one of the most able officers of the French marine. As
Suffren's captain, he had taken a prominent part in the actions with Sir
Edward Hughes in the East Indies; and the code of signals then used
along the French coast was his own invention. The _Cleopatra_ had been
more than a year in commission, and, with such a commander, it may be
supposed that her crew had been well trained to all their duties.
Indeed, it was known that the enemy had taken great pains in the
equipment of their cruizers; and the generally inferior description of
the English crews, inevitable from the circumstance that a navy was to
be commissioned at once, had led to great apprehensions for the result
of the first action. The seaman-like style in which the _Cleopatra_ was
handled did not escape the eye of Captain Pellew; who, conscious of his
own disadvantage, from the inexperience of his ship's company,
determined to avail himself of the power which the enemy's gallantry
afforded him, to bring the ships at once to close action, and let
courage alone decide it.
In the courage of his men he placed the firmest reliance; and when he
addressed a few words to them, before they closed with the enemy, he
knew how to suggest the most effectual encouragement in a situation so
new to them all. To the miners, he appealed by their honour and spirit
as Cornishmen; a motive which the feelings of his own bosom told him
would, above all things, animate theirs. Probably there is no place
where local pride prevails so strongly as in the west of Cornwall. The
lower classes, employed for the most part in pursuits which require the
constant exercise of observation and judgment, and familiarized to
danger in their mines and fisheries, are peculiarly thoughtful and
intrepid; while the distinctness of name and character which they derive
from the almost insular position of their county, and the general
ignorance of strangers in the interesting pursuits with which they are
so familiar, have taught the lower classes to regard it less as an
integral part of England, than a distinct and superior country. They
have a nobler motive for this feeling, in the successes of their
forefathers against the arms of the rebel parliament, when their
loyalty, unwavering amidst prosperous treason, and their victories over
superior discipline and numbers, obtained for them the grateful eulogy
of their unfortunate sovereign. His letter remains painted, as he
directed, in a conspicuous part of their older churches, a most
honourable monument of their virtues and his gratitude. No man could be
prouder of his county than Captain Pellew himself; and, as it was an
object much coveted by the most promising of its young men to serve in
his ship, and he continued steadily to patronize those who showed
themselves deserving, there is scarcely a town in it from which he has
not made officers. Thus his feelings were in perfect unison with theirs;
and never was an appeal made with greater confidence, or answered with
higher spirit, than when he reminded them of their home.
At six o'clock the ships were so near, that the captains mutually
hailed. Not a shot had yet been fired. The crew of the _Nymphe_ now
shouted "Long live King George!" and gave three hearty cheers. Captain
Mullon was then seen to address his crew briefly, holding a cap of
liberty, which he waved before them. They answered with acclamations,
shouting, "Vive la Republique!" as if in reply to the loyal watchword of
the British crew, and to mark the opposite principles for which the
battle was to be fought. The cap of liberty was then given to a sailor,
who ran up the main rigging, and screwed it on the mast-head.
At a quarter past six, the _Nymphe_ reached the starboard quarter of the
_Cleopatra_, when Captain Pellew, whose hat was still in his hand,
raised it to his head, the preconcerted signal for the _Nymphe_ to open
her fire. Both frigates immediately commenced a furious cannonade, which
they maintained without intermission for three quarters of an hour,
running before the wind under top-gallant-sails, and very near each
other. At a little before seven, the mizen-mast of the _Cleopatra_
fell, and presently after her wheel was shot away. Thus rendered
unmanageable, she came round with her bow to the _Nymphe's_ broadside,
her jib-boom pressing hard against the mainmast. Captain Pellew,
supposing that the enemy were going to board, ordered the boarders to be
called, to repel them; but the disabled state of the _Cleopatra_ was
soon evident, and he at once gave orders to board her. Immediately the
boarders rushed on the forecastle, a division of them, headed by Mr.,
afterwards Capt. George Bell, boarding through the main-deck ports, and
fought their way along the gangways to the quarter-deck. The
republicans, though much superior in numbers, could not resist the
impetuosity of the attack. At ten minutes past seven they had all fled
below, or submitted, and the pennant of the _Cleopatra_ was hauled down.
While the boarders were pouring in upon the enemy's forecastle, the
mainmast of the _Nymphe_, having been much wounded, and with the main
and spring-stays shot away, was most seriously endangered by the
pressure of the _Cleopatra's_ jib-boom. Fortunately, the jib-boom broke,
and the _Cleopatra_ fell alongside the _Nymphe_, head and stern. The
mainmast was again in danger, from the _Cleopatra's_ larboard
maintopmast-studding-sail boom-iron hooking in the larboard leech-rope
of the main-topsail, and dragging the sail. Captain Pellew ordered some
active seaman to go out upon the yard, and free the sail, promising ten
guineas, if he succeeded; and a main-top-man, named Burgess, immediately
sprang out, and cut the leech-rope. Lieutenant Pellowe had been already
directed to drop the best bower-anchor, as a means of getting the ships
apart; and by the time half the prisoners had been removed, the prize
separated, and fell astern.
The crew fought with a steadiness and gallantry above all praise. A lad,
who had served in the _Winchelsea_ as barber's boy, was made second
captain of one of the main-deck guns. The captain being killed, he
succeeded to command the gun; and through the rest of the action,
Captain Pellew heard him from the gangway give the word for all the
successive steps of loading and pointing, as if they had been only in
exercise. In the heat of action, one of the men came from the main deck
to ask the captain what he must do, for that all the men at his gun were
killed or wounded but himself, and he had been trying to fight it alone,
but could not. Another, who had joined but the day before, was found
seated on a gun-carriage, complaining that he had been very well as long
as he was fighting, but that his sea sickness returned as soon as the
battle was over, and that he did not know what was the matter with his
leg, it smarted so much. It was found that the poor fellow had received
a musket ball in it.
The loss was severe on both sides, and, in proportion to the respective
crews, nearly equal. The _Nymphe_, out of a crew of 240, had 23 killed,
including her boatswain, a master's mate (Pearse), and three midshipmen;
and 27 wounded, among whom were her second lieutenant, the lieutenant of
marines, and two midshipmen. The _Cleopatra_ lost 63 killed and wounded,
out of a crew of 320. She came out of action, therefore, with 67
effective men more than her conqueror. It is highly creditable to the
_Nymphe's_ crew, that they beat a ship like the _Cleopatra_ by gunnery,
notwithstanding their inexperience; and carried her by a hand-to-hand
conflict, notwithstanding their inferior numbers.
Captain Mullon was killed. A cannon-shot struck him on the back, and
carried away great part of his left hip. Even at that dreadful moment he
felt the importance of destroying the signals which he carried in his
pocket; but in his dying agony, he took out his commission in mistake,
and expired in the act of devouring it;--a trait of devoted heroism
never surpassed by any officer of any nation. These signals, so valuable
as long as the enemy did not know them to be in possession of the
British, thus fell into the hands of Captain Pellew, who delivered them
to the Admiralty.
Captain Pellew arrived at Portsmouth with his prize on the following
day. He sent the flag under which she fought, and the cap of liberty, to
his brother. This, the first trophy of the kind taken in the
revolutionary war, is about seven inches long, made of wood, and painted
red; with a round, tapering spear of brass, about three feet and a half
long, the lower half being blackened, with a screw at the end to fix it
on the mast. The following letter accompanied these trophies:--
"DEAR SAM,--Here we are--thank God! safe--after a glorious action
with _La Cleopâtre_, the crack ship of France; 40 guns, 28 on her
main-deck, and 12 on her quarter-deck, some of 36 pounds, and 320
men. We dished her up in fifty minutes, boarded, and struck her
colours. We have suffered much, but I was long determined to make a
short affair of it. We conversed before we fired a shot, and then,
God knows, hot enough it was, as you will see by the enclosed.[3] I
might have wrote for a month, had I entered on the description of
every gallant action, but we were all in it, heart and soul. I owe
much to Israel, who undertook with the after-gun to cut off her
rudder and wheel. The tiller was shot away, and four men were
killed at her wheel, which I verily believe was owing to him. I
will write again in a day or two, and do all I can for everybody.
We must go into harbour. _Cleopatra_ is fifteen feet longer, and
three feet wider than _Nymphe_--much larger, Poor dear Pearse is
numbered with the slain[4]--Plane and Norway slightly wounded--old
Nicholls safe. God be praised for his mercy to myself, and Israel,
and all of us!
"Yours, ever, E.P."
"Be kind to Susan--go over, and comfort her; I cannot write to poor
Pearse's mother for my life--do send her a note; I really cannot. I
loved him, poor fellow, and he deserved it.
"_June 20, 1793._"
FOOTNOTES:
[3] A list of the killed and wounded.
[4] After the action, Mr. Norway requested permission to keep the body
of Mr. Pearse for interment by his friends. Captain Pellew for answer
desired Mr. N. to read the contents of a paper which he drew from his
pocket. It was a direction that if he, Capt. P., should foil, his body
should at once be thrown overboard. Of course Mr. N. immediately
withdrew his request.