There was, before the time of Rodney and Nelson, no name more popular
among the sailors of the British navy than that of Admiral Benbow. He
had been a sailor himself, and he was, while living, the sailors’ idol;
and since his death his memory has been held in much reverence by the
Jack Tars of that and every succeeding age. The thorough sagacity,
honesty, and gallantry he displayed in his many daring ventures had
taken, too, with the general public: and “old Benbow,” as he was
familiarly called (though really never an old man) was looked on as the
model of a rough and real British seaman, suited for all weather and all
war. He and his deeds have been the subject of many a naval song[1] and
story, and his likeness was formerly a common sign for public houses
throughout the country. Moreover, to this day, the portraits of the
admiral in the town hall of Shrewsbury, and in Greenwich Hospital, and
his stalwart visage still to be seen, here and there, in front of some
rural inn; and more than all that, the many yarns about him, show that
even amid the greater glories of Keppel and Duncan, Rodney and Nelson,
old Benbow is not forgotten. Admiral Benbow, though he had to make his
own way, came, according to his biographers, from a branch of an ancient
and honourable line,—the Benbows of Newport, in the county of Salop;
but, singular to say, much obscurity hangs about his immediate
parentage. In the Civil War his family of Benbow was Cavalier, and
sacrificed life and property in bravely sustaining the royal cause.
Colonel Thomas Benbow and Colonel John Benbow, generally understood to
be,—the former uncle, and the latter father, of the admiral, were, it is
related, both men of estate, and both officers in the army of Charles I.
They were in the military service of the crown prior to the murder of
the king, and afterwards fought at Worcester, and were made prisoners at
or shortly after that engagement. Much discrepancy occurs as to the
exact result of their capture. The usual biographies we find of Admiral
Benbow will have it that the elder, Colonel Thomas Benbow, was shot at
Shrewsbury on the 15th, 17th, or 19th of October, 1651, and that Colonel
John Benbow made his escape. I, however, on referring to the State
Trials, find that a _Captain_ John Benbow (he may have never been
colonel, or his promotion of colonel might be looked on as illegal in
the eyes of the Commonwealth) was tried on the 1st of October, 1651, by
a Roundhead court-martial, and had the honour of having, on that
occasion, two important fellow prisoners, viz., the brave royalist, Sir
Timothy Fetherstonhaugh, and the illustrious Earl of Derby. The earl and
Sir Timothy were sentenced to be beheaded,—the one on the 15th of
October, 1651, at Bolton; and the other on the 22nd of the same month at
Chester; and Captain John Benbow was sentenced to be shot at Shrewsbury
on the 15th of the same month. The earl and Fetherstonhaugh, as every
one knows, died pursuant to their sentences; but I find no statement, in
the State Trials at least, that John Benbow was actually executed. Could
it be, if this account is to be sustained, that Colonel Thomas Benbow
was shot by sentence of some previous court-martial, and that John
escaped from the judgment to be put in force at Shrewsbury? However,
whether from that judgment or not, escape he must have done, if the
following story refer to him, which, however, is doubtful. He, it is
said, lived during the Commonwealth in concealment, his land being
forfeited; and the Restoration found him poor and broken down, and glad
to accept a small ordnance post in the Tower of London. Here he was,
when his death is reported to have occurred in a very affecting way. It
happened that a little before the breaking out of the first Dutch war,
King Charles II. came to the Tower to examine the magazines, and his
majesty there cast his eye on the colonel, whose appearance had become
venerable by a fine head of grey hair. The king, whose memory was as
quick as his eye, knew him at first sight, and immediately came up and
embraced him. “My old friend, Colonel Benbow,” said he, “what do you
here?” “I have,” returned the colonel, “a place of fourscore pounds a
year, in which I serve your majesty as cheerfully as if it brought me in
four thousand.” “Alas!” said the king, “Is that all that could be found
for an old friend at Worcester? Colonel Legge, bring this gentleman to
me to-morrow, and I will provide for him and his family as it becomes
me.” But, short as the time was, the colonel did not live to receive, or
so much as to claim, the effects of this gracious promise; for the sense
of the king’s gratitude and goodness so overcame his spirits, that,
sitting down on a bench, he there breathed his last, before the king was
well out of the Tower.[2] John Benbow, the future admiral, was fifteen
years of age,[3] and was in the merchant service at the time this
Colonel Benbow’s demise thus happened. One thing is certain, that the
king’s good-natured interview resulted in no benefit to young Benbow;
but he found a better friend in his own industry and ability, which
raised him to be owner and commander of the _Benbow_ frigate, one of the
most considerable vessels then employed in the Mediterranean trade.
Captain Benbow had grown into high esteem with the merchants of the
Royal Exchange as a brave, active, and skilful seaman, when the
following singular incident led to his passing into the royal navy.
In the year 1686, Captain Benbow, in his own vessel, the _Benbow_
frigate, was attacked in his passage to Cadiz by a Moorish corsair, from
that notorious nest of pirates, Salee. Captain Benbow defended himself,
though very unequal in the number of men, with the utmost bravery, till
at last the Moors boarded him; but were quickly beat out of his ship
again with the loss of thirteen men, whose heads Captain Benbow ordered
to be cut off, and thrown into a tub of brine. When he arrived at Cadiz
he went ashore, and directed a negro servant to follow him, with the
Moors’ heads in a sack. He had scarcely landed before the officers of
the revenue inquired of his servant what he had in his sack. The captain
answered, salt provisions for his own use. That may be, answered the
officers; but we must insist on seeing them. Captain Benbow alleged that
he was no stranger there; that he did not use to run goods, and
pretended to take it very ill that he was suspected. The officers told
him that the magistrates were sitting not far off, and that if they were
satisfied with his word, his servant might carry the provisions where he
pleased; but that otherwise it was not in their power to grant such
dispensation.
The captain consented to the proposal, and away they marched to the
custom-house, Captain Benbow in the front, his man in the centre, and
the officers in the rear. The magistrates, when he came before them,
treated Captain Benbow with great civility; told him they were sorry to
make a point of such a trifle, but that since he had refused to show the
contents of his sack to their officers, the nature of their employments
obliged them to demand a sight of them; and that, as they doubted not
they were salt provisions, the showing them could be of no great
consequence one way or other. “I told you,” says the captain sternly,
“they were salt provisions for my own use. Cæsar, throw them down upon
the table; and, gentlemen, if you like them, they are at your service.”
The Spaniards were astounded at the sight of the Moors’ heads, and no
less astonished at the account of the captain’s adventure, who, with so
small a force, had been able to defeat such a number of barbarians. They
sent an account of the whole matter to the court of Madrid, and Charles
II., then king of Spain, was so much pleased with it, that he would
needs see the English captain, who made a journey to court, where he was
received with great testimonies of respect, and not only when departing
received a handsome present, but his Catholic Majesty was also pleased
to write a letter in his behalf to King James II., a naval monarch, well
able to appreciate the captain’s daring; and so it proved, for the
English king, upon the captain’s return, gave him a ship, which was his
introduction to the Royal navy.[4] There he speedily won high
distinction, but as his career is matter of history, I pass over his
several daring cruises, his effective convoys, his bombardment of St.
Maloes, his fire-ships, and his bold attack on Calais, where he was
wounded, and his other numerous acts of gallantry. He became an admiral
in 1694, and in 1700 King William III., it is said, to mark his
approbation, granted him an honourable augmentation to his arms, “by
adding to the three bent bows which he and his family already bore as
many arrows.”[5] On the approach of the war of the Succession, King
William wanted a commander for his West India fleet, but hesitated
summoning Benbow, as he had already worked him so hard. Some other
officers sent for seemed not to like undertaking the heavy duty
proposed, upon which the king is reported to have said, “I will not have
these beaux, but must get a beau of another sort, honest Benbow.” The
admiral accordingly arrived, and when the king excused himself for
exacting what he thought too much, Benbow said, “he knew no difference
of climates, and, for his part, he thought no officer had a right to
choose his station, that he himself should be, at all times, ready to go
to any part of the world to which his majesty thought proper to send
him.”
Benbow sailed with the fleet to the West Indies; he there did all he
could to carry out the object of his government to force the Spanish
colonies not to recognise Philip V., Louis XIV.’s grandson, as king of
Spain; and the moment he received official information of war being
declared, May, 4, 1702, against France, he prepared, with his usual
daring, to attack with a far inferior force the squadron under the
command of the French admiral, Du Casse. This brought on the affair,
which redounded so to his own honour and to the disgrace of the captains
under him. Mr. C. J. Yonge, in his recent able “History of the British
Navy,” to which I shall have to refer more than once in this volume,
gives the following clear and spirited account of the memorable
engagement:—
“In the autum of 1701 Benbow had been sent to the Antilles, where it was
known that the French admiral, Du Casse, was also cruising. Benbow was a
resolute and skilful officer, but a man of a somewhat rough and stern
temper, which had excited a feeling of insubordination and hostility
against him in the breasts of some of his officers. Though peace still
subsisted when he quitted England, his instructions were warlike; and he
had acted on them, making prizes of several Spanish ships, and in no
respect keeping secret his intention to treat the French in the same
manner, if opportunity should offer. In the spring of 1702 certain
information reached him that the French were preparing greatly to
increase their force in the neighbourhood; and at the beginning of
August he learnt that Du Casse, with four ships of the line, and one
large frigate, were off Carthagena, making arrangements with the
Spaniards to cripple our trade in that quarter. His own force consisted
of two ships of the line, one ship of fifty-four guns, and four large
frigates.[6] With these he at once sailed in quest of the Frenchman;
and, on the 19th of August, he found him proceeding under easy sail at
no great distance from the South American shore. Benbow at once made the
signal for battle, but, as the French squadron, though not positively
fleeing from the combat, held on its course, without taking any measures
to bring it on; little was done that evening, beyond exchanging one or
two broadsides. The next five days are amongst the most discreditable in
our naval history. During the night of the 19th, Benbow, in his own
ship, the _Breda_, of seventy guns, had kept as close to the enemy as
the darkness would allow; and so correct had been his judgment of their
course, that at daybreak, on the 20th, he found himself close to them;
but of all his squadron, but one frigate, the _Ruby_, Captain George
Walton (on such a day of cowardice, or treachery, or both, his name
deserves honourable mention), was at hand to support him; the rest had
already contrived to fall several miles astern. Still, as the enemy
continued on their way, Benbow, with this single comrade, pursued them
as vigorously as he could, firing whenever they seemed within gunshot,
and signalling with peremptory orders to the rest of the ships to join
him. The next day the French, seeing his almost isolated state, halted
to fight. The _Ruby_ behaved most gallantly, and engaged one of the
ships of the line, but was soon disabled by her antagonist’s heavier
fire, and might have been taken, had it not been for the resolute manner
in which the _Breda_ first supported, and then protected her. While this
conflict was proceeding, the _Defiance_, 64, Captain Kirby, was unable
to avoid coming close to the enemy, but she refused to fire a single
shot. The _Windsor_, 48, Captain Constable, behaved equally ill; and the
next day the _Greenwich_, 54, Captain Wade, behaved even worse, keeping
five leagues from the admiral, who, from the crippled state of the
_Ruby_, was in greater need of support than ever. On the 23rd Benbow
engaged the whole of the enemy’s ships single handed; he even took a
small vessel, called the _Anne_, a British galley, which Du Casse had
captured on his way out. At last, Captain Vincent, of the _Falmouth_,
48, began to feel something like shame at the part which he had been
enacting, and came to his assistance. The next day Benbow, now supported
by the _Falmouth_, was still continuing the fight with unabated
resolution, when a chain-shot struck him on the leg. In spite of all the
agony of this mortal wound (for such it proved to be) his spirit was as
resolute as ever. He was borne below, but he soon ordered himself to be
again carried on deck, where he still gave his orders with an unaltered
countenance. ‘I am sorry, sir,’ said Fogg, his captain, ‘to see you in
this state.’ ‘I am sorry too,’ said the brave old man; ‘but I would
rather have lost both my legs than have seen this disgrace brought on
the British flag.’ Presently he was addressed in a different spirit.
Captain Kirby had the audacity to come on board the _Breda_, and tell
him, ‘that he had better desist; the French were very strong, and, from
what had passed, he might see that he could make nothing of it.’ In
truth he could make nothing of it: he had, indeed, reduced the ship with
which he had been most closely engaged to a wreck; but he had not
escaped severe injury to his own masts and rigging. The whole French
squadron were now in full flight, and he soon became convinced of the
impossibility of keeping up any further pursuit of them with the
slightest prospect of success. He returned for Jamaica, while Du Casse
made his way to Carthagena, thankful for his escape, and well aware to
what circumstances he owed it.”
The French admiral was a man of spirit, and fully acknowledged the
heroism of Benbow and the rascality of the officers under him. He wrote
a letter to Admiral Benbow, of which the following is a translation:—
“CARTHAGENA, _August, 1702_.
“Sir,—I had little hopes on Monday last but to have supped in your
cabin, yet it pleased God to order it otherwise. As for those cowardly
captains who deserted you, hang them up: for by —— they deserve it.
“DU CASSE.”
The original letter has been preserved by Admiral Benbow’s family.
Admiral Benbow, after being thus cheated, as it were, out of victory,
returned to Jamaica, where he arrived with his squadron, very weak from
a fever brought on by his wounds, and was soon after joined by
Rear-Admiral Whetstone, with the ships under his command.
As soon as he conveniently could, Admiral Benbow issued a commission to
Rear-Admiral Whetstone, and to several captains, to hold a court-martial
for the trial of the several offenders. On the 6th of October, 1702, the
court sat at Port Royal, when Captain Richard Kirby, of the _Defiance_,
was brought upon his trial. He was accused of cowardice, breach of
orders, and neglect of duty, which crimes were proved upon oath by
Admiral Benbow himself, ten commission and eleven warrant officers; by
whose evidence it appeared that the Admiral boarded Du Casse in person
three times, and received a large wound in his face, and another in his
arm, before his leg was shot off: that Kirby, after two or three
broadsides, kept always out of gunshot, and by his behaviour created
such a fear of his desertion, as greatly discouraged the English in the
engagement: that he kept two or three miles astern all the second day,
though commanded again and again to keep his station: that the third day
he did not fire a gun, though he saw the admiral in the deepest
distress, having two or three French men-of-war upon him at a time: and
that he threatened to kill his boatswain for repeating the admiral’s
command to fire. He had very little to say for himself, and therefore
was most deservedly sentenced to be shot.
The same day, Captain John Constable, of the _Windsor_, was tried; his
own officers vindicated him from cowardice, but the rest of the charge
being clearly proved, he was sentenced to be cashiered, and to be
imprisoned during Her Majesty’s (Queen Anne’s) pleasure. The next day,
Captain Cooper Wade was tried, and the charge being fully proved by
sixteen commission and warrant officers on board his own ship, as also,
that he was drunk during the whole time of the engagement, he, making
little or no defence, had the same sentence with Kirby. As for Captain
Hudson, he died a few days before his trial should have come on, and
thereby avoided dying as Kirby and Wade died, for his case was exactly
the same as theirs.
Upon the 12th, came on the trials of Captain Samuel Vincent, commander
of the _Falmouth_, and Captain Christopher Fogg, who was captain of the
admiral’s own ship, the _Breda_, for signing, at the persuasion of
Captain Kirby, a paper containing an obligation on themselves not to
fight the French. The fact was clear, and the captains themselves did
not dispute it. All they offered was in extenuation of their offence,
and amounted only to this, that they were apprehensive Kirby would have
deserted to the enemy, and they took this step to prevent it. But this
tale would have hardly passed on the court-martial, if Admiral Benbow
himself had not given some weight to their excuses, by declaring, that
however they might be criminal in subscribing that paper, yet they
certainly behaved themselves very gallantly in the fight. For the sake
of discipline, the court, however, thought fit to suspend them; and yet,
to favour the captains, the judgment was given with a proviso that
entirely took off its edge, viz., that it should not commence till the
pleasure of his Royal Highness Prince George of Denmark, the then Lord
High Admiral, should be known. The prince dealt too leniently with them,
for he sent orders for their being employed again.
The two chief offenders, however, Kirby and Wade, underwent the penalty
their atrocious conduct had so richly merited. They were, in the spring
of 1703, sent from Jamaica, onboard Her Majesty’s ship, the _Bristol_,
and they arrived at Plymouth on the 16th of April, where (as in all the
western ports), there lay a death warrant for their immediate execution,
in order to prevent any applications in their favour; and not being, as
having disgraced their country, permitted to land on English ground,
they were accordingly shot on board the ship that brought them home,
showing at their death such courage and constancy of mind, as made it
evident that their behaviour in the engagement arose not from any
natural cowardice, but from a corrupt and malignant hostility towards
their gallant commander. Let us now return to Benbow himself. He
lingered near a month after the trials; for the court sat on the 6th of
October, and it was on the 4th of November, 1702, that his true and
valiant spirit fled. He showed the soul of a perfect British seaman to
the very last. He was all along extremely sensible of his danger, and
never entertained any flattering hopes of recovery. Yet, while he calmly
and religiously prepared for death, he, during his illness, never ceased
to perform his duty as an English admiral, with the same firmness he had
shown during the engagement, giving all the necessary orders for
protecting the trade that could have been expected from him, if he had
been in full health. In the letters he wrote home to his wife, he
displayed anxiety for the interest of the nation, quite as great as, if
not greater, than for his private fortune, or the concerns of his
family. Queen Anne, who had succeeded King William on the 8th of March,
1702, deeply mourned the loss of the admiral, and ever expressed the
greatest regard for his memory. The admiral’s sister had, in his
lifetime, presented his picture to the Corporation of Shrewsbury, who
caused it to be hung up in their town-hall, where it still remains, in
lasting testimony of the affectionate remembrance in which the men of
his county held his worth and patriotism.
Admiral Benbow, by Martha his wife, left behind him a family of two sons
and two daughters, but his sons dying without issue, his two surviving
daughters became co-heiresses. Of these, the elder, Martha, born in
1679, was the wife, first of Thomas Stringer, and secondly of Samuel
Robinson, and died in 1719; and the younger, Catherine, born in 1687,
was the wife of Paul Calton, Esq., of Deptford, and of Milton, near
Abingdon, Berks, and Hampstead, Middlesex. John Benbow, the admiral’s
elder son, was a seaman of some note in his day, in consequence of his
strange adventures when second mate on board the _Degrave_, East
Indiaman, 52 guns. That vessel was shipwrecked off the coast of
Madagascar, and Captain Young, who commanded the vessel, Mr. Buchan, and
others with them, endeavoured to make terms with the negro inhabitants
of the island, by forcibly carrying off their king and queen. In this
daring attempt they nearly succeeded, and some of them, including
Benbow, got out of the clutches of the pursuing savages; after this,
Benbow, unable to quit the island, remained some years among the
negroes, living after their manner, and on friendly terms with them. He
eventually returned to England on board a Dutch vessel, and, dying in
1708, was interred in the vault of St. Nicholas Church, Deptford. His
brother, William Benbow, a great collector of epitaphs, and at one time
a clerk in the Navy Office, died in 1729, and was buried in the same
place. Confiscation and outlawry for their loyalty in the time of the
Commonwealth did much to scatter the worthy family to which Admiral
Benbow belonged; and the connections of it now extant are not many. A
grand-niece of the admiral, Mary, was married to Herbert Haselden, Esq.,
of the White House, county of Hereford, the head and representative of
an old Herefordshire family, and was great-grandmother of the present
representative, Herbert Howorth Wood, Esq., of the White House, near the
city of Hereford. Of the kindred of Admiral Benbow, was also the late
John Benbow, Esq., of Lincoln’s Inn, M.P. for Dudley, whose two sons are
the present Colonel Clifton Benbow, of Bath, and John Henry Benbow,
Esq., of Lincoln’s Inn.
Some accounts will have it that the remains of Admiral Benbow were
brought from Jamaica, and deposited in the cemetery of St. Nicholas
Church, Deptford; but that was not so, and no doubt the mistake has
arisen from his having rented from Evelyn, the author of “Sylva,” his
house, Sayes Court, Deptford; and from the fact of his two sons being
interred at St. Nicholas, Deptford. The admiral was buried in Jamaica,
and a monument was erected over him, which, according to one statement,
a hurricane since swept away.[7] Few visible marks, indeed, remain of
this brave admiral, beyond his portraits at Shrewsbury and in Greenwich
Hospital, and on inn signs, and beyond a descendant here and there,
still living, of his race. In my anxiety to clear up the doubts that
hang around the parentage and immediate kindred of the admiral, I, while
putting this article together, went down to St. Nicholas Church,
Deptford, and after viewing, in that handsome and interesting edifice,
the stone tablet with the almost effaced inscription (the arms are
unfortunately quite effaced) over the vault where lie the admiral’s two
sons, I wandered, with a friend who accompanied me, to the neighbouring
Sayes Court, once the property of Evelyn, and let by him to Admiral
Benbow, and to a still greater individual, the Czar Peter, when a
workman in Deptford dockyard. We reached the place through a hideous
labyrinth of streets, reeking with poverty, wretchedness, and dirt.
“Alas! if Evelyn saw his favourite mansion and garden now,” was the
thought that struck us both. Evelyn once wrote, “I let my house, Sayes
Court, near Deptford, on the 1st June, 1696, for three years, to Vice
Admiral Benbow, condition to keep up the garden;” and on the 18th of the
following January he further wrote: “I have let my house to Captain
Benbow, and have the mortification of seeing every day much of my former
labours and expense there impairing for want of a more polite tenant.”
Evelyn must have got the admiral out before the end of his term, for in
January, 1698, he had the Czar for a tenant, whom, while there, the
king, William III., came to visit, after having furnished the house for
him. The Czar proved even a more careless and less cleanly occupier than
the admiral. But to look at Sayes Court now! The free and easy way of
living, common to the rough seaman, and the rude northern potentate,
could not, in wildest mood, have contemplated such a condition. It has
gradually sunk from bad to worse; it has been a workhouse, and has
become too decayed and confined for even that. It is now attached to the
dockyard as a kind of police station and place for paying off the men.
The large hall, used for the latter purpose, was no doubt the scene of
many a jovial night spent by the admiral, and his successor, the Czar.
What remains of Evelyn’s garden is now a wilderness of weed and rank
grass, hemmed in by a dingy wall that shuts out some of the filthiest
dwellings imaginable. The avenue of hovels through which we passed from
this ruined abode of former greatness, bore the name of Czar Street,—a
last, lingering memento of the imperial visit. The illustrious Czar was
so great a man, that he could nowhere set his foot without leaving an
imprint behind. A monument to him is not needed; but it would have been
pleasing to have found in Deptford some memorial carved in brass or
stone of our gallant Benbow. Yet, after all, it matters not much, while
the British public, ever mindful of greatness in the British navy,
permits no oblivion to rest on his personal worth, his achievements, and
his fame.