THE WEST INDIA MERCHANTS.
The period on which the Post-Office now entered was, as far as its
Foreign Mail Service was concerned, one of struggle and disaster. A long
series of calamities was at hand, sufficient to shake the faith of those
who trusted most firmly in the new system, and furnishing to those who
from the first disliked and feared it, a well-nigh inexhaustible supply
of arguments.
Before entering on this category of misfortunes it is necessary to
remark again that throughout the war terminated by the peace of Amiens
in 1802, the officers of the Falmouth station held a low standard of
duty. There were doubtless many individuals among them who, in the midst
of the prevailing laxity, maintained a more honourable course, and
discharged their duties with perfect fidelity and vigour; but the fact
that there was much ground for criticism in the conduct of the general
body is proved by the frequent recurrence of minutes such as the
following, inscribed in August, 1793, by command of the Postmaster
General:—“The Postmaster General cannot but lament when they look at the
absentee list of their captains in time of war, to see how many reasons
they are constantly urging to stay at home, and of how little use they
must consider their own presence at sea. There are now twelve Packets at
sea, and no less than ten of the captains of them ashore.” The excuses
urged were plausible enough; and it was only by considering them in the
aggregate that the Postmaster General could make plain their shifty
character. Remonstrances were frequent, but unavailing, and the
Postmaster General proceeded to use such modes of compulsion as occurred
to them.
Their first proceeding was to stop absolutely the comfortable old system
whereby all the superior officers of a Packet stayed at home at ease,
while the mails entrusted to them made their distant journey to Barbados
or Jamaica under the charge of a common seaman, who felt his way across
the Atlantic by rule of thumb. None of the officers lost a penny by this
arrangement. The captain, or the owners whom he represented, whose
profits were made largely out of the passengers and in a less degree out
of the sum paid for the hire of the Packet, with a small annual salary,
received every item of these amounts without deduction whether he made
the voyage or not; and in these circumstances the natural inclination of
mankind to turn their employments into sinecures was constantly
asserting itself at Falmouth. In fact, the idea that so long as the
commander, whether on board or not, was nominally responsible for the
safety of his ship, no further questions ought to be asked, seems to
have been elevated to the rank of an accepted principle of conduct at
Falmouth, recognized by agent and commanders alike.
There was therefore a good deal of indignation when, in 1793, the agent,
Mr. Pender, began to upset established practice, and went so far as to
lay down the rule that, in the absence of the commander, no officer of
lower rank than the master was to assume charge of a Packet. Mr. Pender
explained that he was acting under instructions from headquarters; but
the commanders could not believe that headquarters would be so
unreasonable; and it needed a sharp, peremptory minute from the
Postmaster General to convince them of the fact.
Of course this new arrangement was more costly to the commanders than
the old one, for the master would not act as the captain’s deputy
without receiving considerably more money than would have contented a
common sailor. At the same time the Postmaster General reached the
pockets of the absentee captains in another way, for they laid down that
any commander who, by shirking voyages in time of war, abrogated his
functions as a fighting officer, should receive only the salary paid in
times of peace, which was two pounds a month lower than the pay of the
war establishment.
These penalties bore too small a proportion to the whole income of the
Falmouth commanders to influence their conduct greatly, and matters,
therefore, went on very much as before. “The Postmaster General,” says a
minute of the latter part of 1793, “cannot help thinking there must be
some mistake about Captain D.’s application for leave, for, if they are
right, he has been ashore on private business since September 11th,
1792, and yet has asked leave to be ashore this voyage. If that is so,
they decidedly refuse him the leave he now asks for.” Captain D.
probably thought it wiser to accept this decision without protest, but,
whether by passive resistance or active subtlety, he certainly escaped
going to sea; and five years later another Postmaster General commented
on his proceedings in the following terms: “... We cannot forget that
Captain D. has been absent from his duty during many years, assigning no
other cause than the death of his mother _in 1792_. We shall be sorry
for new occasions to revert to this consideration. Such occasions may
lead to a decision that Captain Deake has not that due zeal for the
service which we are obliged to expect from those who remain in it.”
This incisive minute was penned by Lord Auckland, and its subtly-worded
reference to some “two-handed engine” which might yet operate on Captain
D. had the useful effect of frightening him back to his ship.
Such being the temper prevalent at Falmouth, good results were not to be
expected. It will be necessary to return to this subject in a later
chapter. It is now time to resume the catalogue of the various disasters
which befell the sea service of the Post-Office in the latter years of
the last century.
When the authorities at Lombard Street reviewed the events of the year
1794, they may have been, on the whole, fairly well satisfied with what
had occurred. It was true that since the loss of Captain Yescombe in the
“King George,” two other Packets had been captured, and one of these
misfortunes was especially regretted since it was no other than the
“Antelope,” the vessel fought so bravely in the previous year, which had
fallen into the hands of the enemy. The “Antelope” ended her career
without dishonour indeed, but yet ingloriously. She was on a voyage to
Halifax, under the personal command of her captain, William Kempthorne,
and on the 19th September became involved in a dense fog which lasted
many hours; when the fog cleared off Captain Kempthorne found himself
completely surrounded by a squadron of French frigates, against which it
would have been folly to resist. Accordingly he sank his mails, struck
his colours, and he with his brave crew became prisoners of war.
The Falmouth Service could ill have spared an officer of Captain
Kempthorne’s qualities, even for the limited period which might be
expected to elapse before he could be exchanged. But a worse misfortune
was at hand, for Captain Kempthorne had been no more than a few days in
the hands of the French when he fell ill of a putrid fever, and died
after a very short illness. No officer could have been more regretted,
for Captain Kempthorne, who had served in the navy as midshipman and
lieutenant, had in the last war fought one of the most notable actions
of which the Post-Office could boast, having sustained for some hours
and at last repulsed the joint attack of three American Privateers, of
which the smallest was of greater force than his own ship.
The same French squadron captured the “Thynne” Packet four days after
the “Antelope,” but the last four months of 1794 went by without further
mishap, and when the New Year arrived the retrospect must have been
fairly encouraging. Though four Packets had been captured no one of them
had fallen to a Privateer. Three had indeed been captured by squadrons
against which any armament conceivable would have proved useless, and,
on the whole, it might fairly be argued therefore that the new system
held its ground.
The time was at hand, however, in which this immunity from the ravages
of Privateers was to be broken. In the year 1795 the French turned their
chief attention to the task of destroying commerce, and their change of
policy makes itself felt at once in the records of the Post-Office, for
though the Packets captured in 1795 were again only four in number,
every one of them was taken by a Privateer, and in each case without a
fight.
This was certainly not very satisfactory, for if the qualities of the
new Packets, their sailing powers and their capacity for fighting in the
last resort, could not protect them against Privateers the model must
stand condemned. Questions doubtless arose in Lombard Street about the
bloodless nature of every one of these conquests, but no trace of such
discussions appears in the records. My Lords the Postmaster General had
certainly impressed on their commanders that their safety was in flight,
but they had not intended to convey that all the qualities of timid
animals were to be copied, and that the commanders were to give
themselves up for lost when overtaken.
In the following year (1796) the record is more pleasant to read. Three
Packets were captured, apparently without effective resistance, by
French Privateers, and one was seized by the Spaniards in Corunna
harbour upon the declaration of war with England; but there were three
gallant fights, which were the more welcome by reason of the fact that
during two years the commanders seemed to have forgotten that guns were
made to be fired.
Of the first of these encounters it happens unfortunately that no
details are preserved. It was fought by the “King George,” the Packet
nominally commanded by that Captain Yescombe whose romantic escape from
prison was mentioned in the last chapter, and a letter from him is still
in existence in which he speaks in the highest terms of the gallantry
displayed by Mr. Bett, the master, who was in command of the Packet, as
well as of the firmness with which he was supported by Mr. Jinkin, the
mate, and by all the ship’s crew. That these were not empty words is
proved by the return of casualties, which shows that though none of the
Packet’s men were killed, six were wounded, some dangerously. The action
was completely successful, and, even in the imperfect state of our
information regarding it, may be set down as deserving credit.
The other two actions were fought by the same Packet, and within three
weeks of each other. Both occurred, moreover, in those narrow seas of
the West Indian archipelago which, since the British were driven out of
Guadeloupe in December, 1794, had become doubly and trebly dangerous to
our commerce. The vessel engaged was the “Portland,” sailing under
command of her master, Mr. Nathaniel Taylor.
A young man, untried in the responsibilities of command, Mr. Taylor was
making his first voyage in charge of the “Portland”; and being, as the
scanty record tells us, engaged to be married on his return to Falmouth,
he was doubtless eagerly looking out for opportunities of distinction—an
aspiration which was destined to be amply gratified.
The “Portland” was somewhat more than a month out from Falmouth when, on
October 1st, 1796, she was attacked in the neighbourhood of Barbados by
a French Privateer which, after a close action of some duration, she
succeeded in repulsing, with the loss apparently of only one man.
Neither the name and force of the attacking vessel, nor any other
details of the fight, have been preserved; but if the “Portland” was not
outmatched in force, it can only be said that her antagonist was a much
smaller vessel than any other Privateer, French, Spanish, or American,
which came into conflict with a Packet throughout the war.
There were in fact few Privateers afloat which were not armed more
heavily than the Post-Office Packets. It could not be otherwise, for the
highwayman, whose arms were not superior to those of the peaceful
traveller, could expect neither a long nor a merry life, and would see
Tyburn earlier than he need.
It is certain, therefore, that the enemy repulsed by the “Portland” in
this earlier action was a vessel stronger than herself; and Mr. Taylor,
who had found his opportunity and grasped it, may have congratulated
himself with the thought, that by the law of chances the perils of his
voyage were over, and may thus have counted on carrying his laurels back
to Falmouth.
But it was decided otherwise. On October 17th the “Portland” was lying
becalmed off Guadeloupe—that hot-bed of privateering, a fatal monument
of the shortsightedness of our naval administration—when an armed
schooner, full of men, came out of a creek at no great distance, and
using her sweeps, bore down on the “Portland.”
A very light breeze enabled Mr. Taylor to get his ship’s head off shore,
and to make way under easy sail towards Martinique, at which island he
was to touch. All night the strange schooner hung upon the “Portland’s”
wake, and at daylight, on the 18th, the distance between the vessels was
the same as at dusk on the previous evening.
Shortly after the first light the schooner bore down towards the Packet,
and Mr. Taylor, thinking it time to bring the matter to an issue,
hoisted his colours and fired a shot at the approaching vessel. The shot
was instantly returned, and the next moment the colours of the French
Republic were flying at the peak of the schooner, surmounted—in strange
companionship with the ensign of a great and honourable nation—by the
bloody flag, which signified that she would give no quarter in the
coming fight.
There were on board the “Portland” four officers, Captain G. A. Tonyn,
48th Regiment; Captain J. Johnston of the Buffs; Captain G. Rainy of the
45th Regiment; and Captain W. Maxwell, 93rd Highlanders; together, with
Dr. Green, surgeon to the Forces at Antigua, and five merchants resident
on that island, St. Vincent, or Martinique. All these gentlemen appear
to have taken part in the action, so that Mr. Taylor’s available force,
allowing for the loss of one man in the former action, was increased to
forty-one men and boys, some of whom, however, had probably been wounded
when their sea-mate was killed. On board the French vessel there were,
as was afterwards discovered, sixty-one fighting men; and relying on
this superiority of force, which they quickly discerned, the French,
after a short cannonade, ran down to close quarters, intending to finish
the affair by an impetuous assault.
Mr. Taylor seems to have desired nothing more, and resolving to hold his
enemies to the ground which they had selected, he seized the Privateer’s
jib-boom as it ran aboard, lashed it securely, and then called his men
forward, requesting the passengers at the same time to maintain a close
fire of musketry on anything which showed itself on the deck of the
enemy.
Then began a series of hand to hand combats, fought out desperately with
cutlasses and boarding pikes. No details of these fights are left us;
but we are told that out of the Privateer’s crew no less than forty-one
were killed or wounded, and that the remnant were at last driven to haul
down their colours, finding the Falmouth men had gained secure
possession of their deck.
Some of the French had taken refuge below, and a few of these, not
knowing, it may be hoped, that the colours had been struck, fired a
volley in the very moment when Mr. Taylor was restraining the fury of
his men; and the brave young captain fell, shot through the heart in the
moment of victory.
Whether this unhappy occurrence was, as the passengers decided at the
time, an act of premeditated treachery, or whether it may not more
probably have found some justification in the confused circumstances of
the moment, is a question which can never be determined. It is clear,
however, that at the instant when he fell, though the colours were then
certainly struck, Mr. Taylor found his authority needed to restrain
further carnage; and if this were so, the responsibility for his death
does not rest with the French. In any case, no charge of treachery
should be made against honourable foes, save on evidence much clearer
than is here forthcoming.
By the united testimony of the passengers, Mr. Taylor, throughout the
action, was “perfectly calm, cool, and collected.” He achieved part at
least of his wish. He made his reputation, and though he did not live to
wear it, yet it survived him many years, and forms one of the few bright
spots in the history of the Falmouth Packets during the last decade of
the eighteenth century.
At Lombard Street there was need of all the credit which his gallantry
had earned; for troubles were gathering thickly round the administrators
of the sea service, and in the City the voice of discontent was loud and
menacing. The war had now lasted four years. Within that period twelve
Packets had been captured, having on board—for there was not always a
ship ready to embark the mail—no less than eighteen mails. On several
occasions original letters and duplicates made for safety had both been
lost. The inconvenience was immense, and the merchants grew restive
under it.
It was easy enough to argue, as the Post-Office did, that in former wars
the average of losses had been higher; and that to expect the Packets to
carry every mail in safety was much the same as asking them to teach
forbearance and morality to the enemy’s Privateers. The West India
merchants neither listened nor replied to these contentions. They did
not want arguments. They wanted security for their correspondence, and
they looked to the Post-Office to obtain it for them, whether in war or
peace.
When the Postmaster General and the other high officials cast their eyes
around to discover what prospects there were of satisfying this very
natural desire, they could not fail to discern that in the near future
they were likely to fare worse than in the past. The hopes of peace
raised by Lord Malmesbury’s negotiations in the autumn of 1796 had been
disappointed. Even the Packet told off to convey despatches from the
ambassador, having been driven ashore near Calais by a violent storm,
was seized by the French and condemned as lawful prize, notwithstanding
the full explanations which were rendered by her commander and by the
British Government. The number of Privateers which were reported week by
week to be issuing from St. Malo, Nantes, Bordeaux, and a hundred other
ports was absolutely without precedent. Between 20° and 30° W. long.
there were, as the officers of a Nantes Privateer informed some
Packetsmen whom they had captured, no less than forty vessels like
herself cruising with the sole object of preying on British commerce,
and through this belt of enemies every West India Packet must pass. Many
of these wolves of the ocean were hardly less powerful than frigates;
and the smallest of them was an overmatch for any Packet in every point
save that of individual courage and resource.
Moreover, when the war broke out it had been a duel between England and
France alone, and the enmity of Holland on the north and Spain on the
south somewhat limited the French powers of offence. Of whatever value
this advantage might have been it was now lost; and the three powers
henceforward presented a united front to England. The Privateers of any
one could shelter, refit, or dispose of prizes in the ports of any
other; and while this circumstance gave them an added strength in
European waters, the case was even worse in the West Indies, where the
French gained lurking places in every creek of the Spanish islands, and
were enabled to lie in ambush for British commerce at numberless points
where our ships were used to think themselves in safety.
It was easier by far to discern these facts of evil augury than to
discover any remedy. They were still being pondered in Lombard Street
when the merchants opened their attack and lodged a memorial in Downing
Street in which they complained in the strongest terms of the failure of
the Post-Office to protect their correspondence. Scarcely had this
memorial been received when the loss within one month of three West
India Packets stamped it with an urgency which even its promoters had
not foreseen, and raised the subject immediately from one chiefly
affecting a single class to a grave matter of national concern.
The “Princess Elizabeth,” homeward bound from Barbados and Jamaica, was
taken on February 28th, by the “Actif,” a Privateer carrying fourteen
guns and a hundred and thirty men. The “Swallow” carried the outward
mails of February 1st, for the same islands, while the “Sandwich” took
out those of February 15th and March 1st. Three consecutive mails were
thus on board these two Packets; and even the most anxious of merchants,
sending important letters in triplicate by successive mails, might
fairly have thought his precautions adequate to the risks. How great
then was the anger and alarm when the news arrived that both Packets
were captured and the three mails lost may be easily conceived.
Even more alarming than the present loss was the apprehension for the
future raised by the great force of the Privateers concerned in these
captures. The “Du Gay” which captured the “Sandwich” carried no less
than two hundred men and eighteen guns; while the captor of the
“Swallow” was armed with sixteen guns (nines and sixes) and a hundred
and twenty men. How, the Postmaster General demanded, could the Packets
be expected to resist such force? And the merchants, echoing the
question, declared that impossibility to be the basis of their whole
argument; for the Packets, they asserted, had no more effective power of
resisting Privateers than so many wherries from Blackfriars stairs.
The prayer of the merchants’ memorial was that the Packets might be so
equipped as to enable them to resist any enemy of equal size. This, as
the Postmaster General pointed out, meant that each one of the
Post-Office fleet should carry at least fourteen guns and one hundred
men—a proposition which would involve rebuilding every Packet afloat,
since no one of them was constructed to carry such an armament; and
besides, that great capital expenditure would more than treble the
charges of the Service, which already resulted in a yearly loss of over
£12,000, exclusive of the liabilities for captured Packets, amounting at
this time to more than £34,000.
It was natural enough that the Government, involved in a dangerous and
costly war, should decline to entertain such a costly proposal. The
Post-Office, however, willing to strengthen its hands against the
merchants, put forward a modified scheme for arming each Packet with ten
four-pounders and forty men, at an extra cost of £8,000 yearly; and if
more losses had been reported while that scheme was before the Treasury,
it may have been that the Government would have accepted it. But
unfortunately for the merchants, there was at this particular period a
lull in the storm. Four months passed without disaster. Then came the
report that the “Grantham” had been captured, but after a stout fight;
and following the receipt of that news another equal period of good
fortune. The disasters of February seemed to be exceptional. A House of
Commons Committee was urging that by every means Post-Office expenditure
should be reduced; the Treasury yielded to the greater pressure, and
declined the Postmaster General’s proposals.
The “Grantham” was commanded by Captain James Bull, an officer of long
experience and proved ability, whose son, Captain John Bull, afterwards
made a considerable reputation as commander of “Duke of Marlborough,” of
which much will be heard in subsequent chapters of this work. The
“Grantham” was attacked near Barbados by a French Privateer of “fourteen
double fortified four-pounders and one hundred and eleven men.” She was
much shattered in the action which preceded her capture; but no details
of the fight have been preserved. Not long after it was decided, the
“Tamar” frigate happily chanced to pass that way, and delivered Captain
Bull and his men from the prospect of a French prison.
Those optimists who held the comfortable faith that the disasters of
February, 1797, were not likely to be repeated received an uncomfortable
shock in the last month of that year and the first of the new one.
The “Countess of Leicester,” which sailed from Falmouth on November 21st
with mails for New York, should, under normal circumstances, have
carried only those of the previous week. But it was at this time a
practical impossibility to despatch every mail as soon as it reached
Falmouth; and—strange as it seems to us to hear of such delays—the
“Countess of Leicester” had on board not only the bags made up for her
regular turn, but also those which should have been despatched from
Falmouth on November 1st, but which had lain there three weeks, waiting
for a Packet. It is difficult in these days even to imagine the outcry
which would be caused by the delay of a mail for three weeks at the port
of embarkation. But in 1797 such inconveniences were the trifles at
which reasonable men did not cavil. The grievance lay in the fact that
both mails were ultimately lost altogether.
The scarcity of Packets was already so great that it may be presumed
that the “Prince Edward,” which left Falmouth in the middle of December,
and was captured off Barbados, was carrying out more mails than one;
while this blow was instantly followed by the loss of two successive
homeward mails, carried by the “Prince Ernest” and the “Portland.” It
can scarcely be conceived that the brave crew of the latter vessel
surrendered without struggle; but still, fight or no fight, the mails
were gone.
This was more than the patience of the merchants could bear. To lose in
one month at least two outward and two homeward mails—and it is quite
possible that on board the three Packets even more mails had been
stowed—was almost sufficient to bring their business to a standstill.
The inconvenience was mounting to an intolerable pitch. They applied for
a conference with the Postmaster General; and had scarcely done so when
the news arrived that the “Roebuck,” homeward bound from the Leeward
Islands, and the “Swallow,” outward bound on the same voyage, had both
been captured by a single Privateer.
There was the same story of overwhelming force against which the Packets
could not contend. The captor of the “Roebuck” was a Nantes Privateer,
“La Liberale,” carrying over two hundred men, and armed with eighteen
18–pounder guns, and it may be stated by the way that the captured
officers told a remarkable story of the elfish mischievousness of the
victors, who seemed to have behaved more like riotous schoolboys than
like seamen. “On the enemy taking possession of the Packet,” says
Captain Servante, “they plundered her of every cabin and ship-store; and
what they did not take with them, they wilfully destroyed or threw
overboard. Several new sails they cut to pieces and divided among them;
and a suit of sails that were bent to the yards, little the worse for
wear, they suffered to blow to pieces, there not being a seaman among
them who would venture aloft to take them in.”
The conference between the merchants and the Postmaster General was
grave and weighty, according to the dignified manners of those days. The
merchants, after remarking that no arrangement of the Packet Service
could be adequate for the purposes of their trade, which did not render
it highly improbable that even one homeward bound Packet would be lost,
proceeded to ask whether it really was the case that the new Packets had
attained that swiftness of sailing to which all their qualities of
defence had been sacrificed. The average duration of the outward passage
to Jamaica (touching at Barbados and other islands) is, they said, 45
days, and from Jamaica to Falmouth (touching only at Cape Nicola), 35
days. Now, these are very ordinary passages, remarkable in no way for
speed. And the merchants emphasized their point by repeating that
Packets designed expressly for speed ought to have been able to outsail
Privateers. Why, then, had they not done so? Because, they concluded,
some abuses exist in the mode of loading or navigating the Packets.
They were right; abuses did exist, of which the nature must be more
fully explained in the next chapter. But before entering upon that
subject, it will be well to complete the record of disasters, so that it
may be understood more fully of what the merchants had to complain.
One of the practical suggestions made at the conference was that the
Admiralty might be asked to lend a cutter which could be sent out with
mails for the Leeward Islands and Jamaica. The request was made and
granted by the Admiralty; but the cutter fared no better than the
Packets, for on her homeward voyage she, too, was captured.
Great as was the number of Privateers which issued from the French and
Spanish islands in the West Indies throughout this war, it was never so
great as in the year 1798. How many were actually afloat will never be
known; but, doubtless, the number captured by our cruisers in any one
year bore some kind of rough fixed proportion to the whole body. Now, in
1796—if the figures given by Southey (_Chronological History of the West
Indies_, Vol. III., p. 149) are correct—only sixteen were captured; but
in 1797 the number had risen to sixty-seven; and in 1798 no less than
ninety-nine of these sharks were brought in by our sloops and frigates.
It may be that for every one so captured there were five still lurking
in the creeks and shallow waters round Guadeloupe or Cuba; and numbers
such as these might suggest that it was well-nigh impossible for our
Packets to sail among the islands without encountering an enemy. But the
ocean is wide, and it is marvellously easy for vessels to miss each
other, even when both have the desire for an encounter.
The conference was held in March. In April no Packets were lost, but at
the end of May the “Princess of Wales,” outward bound for Jamaica, was
taken by a Privateer; and a week or two later the “Prince Adolphus,”
which was carrying a mail to Lisbon, met with a similar fate. About the
latter vessel there hangs a curious story, which is worth relating.
It appears that when the French took possession of the “Prince
Adolphus,” they sent Captain Boulderson, her commander, with the greater
part of his crew, on board the Privateer. Five men remained on the
Packet, among whom the surgeon was the only officer; and a prize crew
was instructed to navigate the prize into whatever French port could
first be made.
Mr. Bullock, the surgeon, was by no means anxious to go to prison; and
when the Packet had separated from her captor, he began to work on the
cupidity of the prize master, and ultimately persuaded him to give up
the ship, and restore all his prisoners to liberty in consideration of
receiving a sum equivalent to about £4000, to be paid on the arrival of
the vessel at Lisbon, where Mr. Bullock felt confident that the money
would be forthcoming.
Accordingly, the “Prince Adolphus” was navigated into the Tagus, and Mr.
Bullock, persuaded that he had made a good bargain—for, while the Packet
itself was not worth less than the stipulated ransom, the goods on board
were worth as much again—repaired to the office of the Post-Office agent
at Lisbon, Mr. Gonne, and demanded help in carrying out the transaction
to which he had pledged the credit of the Government. But here an
unexpected check occurred; for Mr. Gonne, asking grimly whether the
doctor wished both of them to be drawn and quartered on a scaffold at
Tyburn, produced an Act of Parliament, recently passed, which declared
it treason for any British subject to remit money to persons owing
obedience to the French Government.
Mr. Bullock and his companions were thus left to take their choice of
three painful alternatives. Firstly, they might break their pledge
freely given to the prize master; secondly, they might execute that
pledge and submit to the penalties of high treason; or lastly, they
might once more go on board the “Prince Adolphus,” and—if indeed the
harbour authorities would have allowed a vessel under French command to
leave the Tagus in safety—permit the prize master to put to sea, and
conduct them whither he would.
The last alternative, distressing as it was for men who had once set
foot in freedom, seemed the only practicable one. This was recognized by
every one concerned, but before adopting it the case was referred to the
Postmaster General, who, after consultation with ministers, decided that
the ransom should be paid, and that a clause should be inserted in a
forthcoming Act of Parliament, indemnifying the persons concerned in the
transaction.
The money was accordingly handed over to the Frenchmen, who departed
full of praises of the honourable treatment they had received, and which
they did their best to requite in kind, for they wrote to the French
Minister of Marine, stating what had occurred, and begging that, if only
to mark their high esteem of the conduct of the English Government,
Captain Boulderson might at once be liberated. This request was complied
with, and Captain Boulderson very shortly returned to Falmouth.
Such was the end of a difficult affair, and if in its conclusion the
Postmaster General found some ground for satisfaction, it could only
have been with a chastened pleasure that they read the story of how the
best had been made of a serious misfortune, and how a Packet, designed
to escape the French, had been got out of their hands without so very
much loss after all. But a gleam of better fortune was at hand, and the
valour of one officer did much to redeem the record of the Falmouth
Station in the year 1798.
The “Princess Royal” was commanded by Captain John Skinner, an officer
of long experience and proved courage. On June 22nd, the Packet being
then in Mid-Atlantic, bound for Halifax, a brig was discovered at
daybreak in chase of the Packet, and Captain Skinner promptly caused the
decks to be cleared for action, and barricaded the ship as far as
possible with hammocks and spare sails.
The wind was unfortunately very light, and the sea calm, so that though
the “Princess Royal” crowded all sail to get away, the Privateer, which
was using sweeps, gained ground perceptibly. It was not until 7 P.M.,
however, that she came within gunshot. A few broadsides were then
exchanged without much effect on either side, after which the Privateer,
having satisfied herself that resistance was intended, laid in her
sweeps and waited for the day.
At 3 A.M. she swept up somewhat suddenly. Captain Skinner was quite
ready however, and as she drew near he began to play upon her with his
two 6–pounder stern chasers. Unfortunately one of these guns was
rendered useless after the first discharge by the snapping of its axle
tree, but the other was served with vigour. The one gun, however, did
not suffice to stop the advancing Privateer, for at 3.30 A.M. she was
alongside, and the action was in full progress.
James, who in his _Naval History_ mentions but three of the numerous
actions fought by the Packets, states that at this point Captain Skinner
succeeded in bringing his six guns to bear on the side on which he was
attacked.[3] Captain Skinner does not mention this in his report to the
Postmaster General; and indeed, as has been seen, one of his six guns
was already useless. Very probably some such arrangement of the
remaining five was attempted, but if so, any advantage which might have
resulted from it was quickly lost, for Captain Skinner tells us that
very shortly after the loss of his 6–pounder the axle trees of two of
his 4–pounders gave way, and that he fought practically throughout the
whole action with three guns only.
Footnote 3:
_Nav. Hist._, Vol. II., p. 207.
That he succeeded under these unfortunate circumstances in holding his
ground against a more powerful antagonist is a striking proof of courage
and seamanship. The cannonade lasted two hours, and during the whole of
that time the “Princess Royal” was so manœuvred by her captain that the
French had no opportunity of boarding, and were thus in some measure
deprived of the advantage of their superior numbers. Meantime the
passengers, under the direction of General Murray, had formed themselves
into a body of riflemen, and were keeping up a galling fire on their
enemies with excellent effect, for at 5.30 P.M. the Privateer sheered
off.
It would have been folly for Captain Skinner with half his guns
dismounted to endeavour to renew the action, so with a few parting shots
from the chaser, which appeared to create confusion on the Privateer,
the vessels separated, and the “Princess Royal” pursued her voyage.
In this action two men were badly wounded, and Captain Skinner himself
was hurt less seriously by the explosion of a powder-horn. It happened
that on board the Privateer there were thirty English and American
prisoners; and from some of these men it was afterwards ascertained that
the “Princess Royal” had engaged the “Aventurier” of Bordeaux, a
Privateer carrying fourteen long 4–pounders, and two 12–pound
cannonades, with eighty-five men, an armament which might have been
expected to secure a quick and almost bloodless victory for its
possessors. The event, however, was so far otherwise that while two of
the “Aventurier’s” crew were killed, and four wounded, the vessel
herself was so much injured that with all her masts shot through and no
less than nineteen round shot in her hull, she was obliged to break up
her cruise and return to Bordeaux to refit.