The life of this gallant sailor and good man was told so admirably
in 1835, by my late valued friend, Edward Osler, F.L.S.--for many
years editor of the _Royal Cornwall Gazette_, and himself one of our
Cornish Athenæ--that his memoir must necessarily form the backbone of
any account of Lord Exmouth's career. To Mr. Osier's well-known work
I would therefore refer those who desire a more detailed account than
space allows me to give to the subject of this chapter. I should,
however, add that I have been fortunate enough to gather some facts to
which even Mr. Osier does not refer in his elaborate memoir.
Lord Exmouth's career was both eventful and distinguished; but,
notwithstanding its brilliancy, his chief glory was his unswerving
devotion to his country, irrespective of all party feeling (and he was
a strong Tory)--his generosity in recognising to the fullest extent
the merits of his subordinates--his combined strictness and kindness
to his men--and his constant recognition of the Divine Hand in all his
victories. No vessel under the orders of Pellew was ever taken by the
enemy.
Like many another Cornish worthy, Edward Pellew was a man of
comparatively small beginnings. Originally, it is said, of Norman
extraction, the Pellews were an old-established West Cornwall family,
whose tombs may still be found at Breage. Humphry Pellew, his
grandfather, an American merchant, the builder of part of the little
town of Flushing in Falmouth harbour, took for his wife, in 1692,
Judith Sparnon of Sparnon and Pengelly in Breage, by whom he had six
children; but the children of Samuel, the youngest son (who was only
eight years old when his father died in 1721), were at length the
only male survivors of the family. This Samuel Pellew, Lord Exmouth's
father, a man of determined character, commanded a post-office packet
on the Dover station. He married in 1752 Constance, daughter of
Edward Langford, Esq., of a Herefordshire family, settled at or near
Penzance--a woman, Mr. Osier says, 'of extraordinary spirit,' and
fitted, as indeed her husband also was, to be a parent of heroes.
In 1765 Samuel Pellew died, leaving a widow and six children; of whom
Edward, the second, was born at Dover, 19th April, 1757. In 1765 he
removed with his mother to Penzance; and here, when quite a child,
gave an early instance of his love of the 'pomp and circumstance of
glorious war,' by walking all the way from Penzance to Helston, in
order to follow a troop of soldiers; and of his indomitable courage,
when somewhat older, by removing from a burning house a quantity of
gunpowder which had been stored there. He frequently played truant
from school in order to get into a boat at the quay; and was a great
favourite with the loafers there, who taught him to box. Bottrell says
that Mrs. Pellew and her family lived in a thatched cottage 'near the
Alverton entrance to Fox's gardens;' the house still stands, on the
left-hand side of the road as the traveller leaves Penzance for the
Land's End.
The Truro Grammar School, where the Rev. R. Polwhele was one of his
schoolfellows, as appears from his 'Reminiscences,'[122] was the next
scene of his combative energy; and here he thrashed so many of his
schoolfellows, that, in order to escape a still severer thrashing with
which the head-master (then Mr. Conon) threatened him, he ran away,
and--against his grandfather's consent, but luckily for English glory,
and for his own fame--went to sea. Whilst at Truro, hastening through
the courtyard of the Red Lion Hotel to assist in putting out a fire,
Pellew found the high back gate shut; but he sprang over it, and I
remember the spot being pointed out to me in evidence of his strength
and agility. His freaks on the water in after-life were of the most
daring kind, and he often set the example on board ship, when no sailor
could be found bold and active enough to perform some dangerous act of
seamanship.
In the year 1770, being then about thirteen or fourteen years of age,
Edward Pellew entered the Navy in the _Juno_, and went his first voyage
to the Falkland Islands. Thence, under the same captain (Stott), he
sailed in the _Alarm_ to the Mediterranean, where, at Marseilles--a
place which he was destined afterwards to save from destruction by
its own inhabitants--he left the ship, in consequence of a gross and
uncalled-for insult inflicted by the Captain on one of Pellew's brother
midshipmen, named Cole.
He next joined the _Blonde_, under Captain Pownoll--who had been
trained in the school of another Cornish naval hero, Admiral
Boscawen--and with whom he soon became a prime favourite. It was on
board the _Blonde_ that he so alarmed and amused General Burgoyne, by
standing on his head on the yard-arm when the General came on board to
make his ill-starred expedition to America; and from the fore-yard of
the same ship Pellew sprang to rescue a man who had fallen overboard.
His magnificent physique and perfect courage enabled him to perform
similar services on more than one occasion.
A smart engagement with a superior American force on Lake Champlain
was his next exploit, in which, though unsuccessful, he found another
opportunity of showing his coolness and bravery; and his services
on this occasion gained him his lieutenant's commission. Shortly
afterwards he very nearly captured, single-handed, the American
Commander-in-Chief Arnold. The stock and buckle, which General Arnold
left behind him in his flight, were long (and perhaps still are)
preserved by the Pellew family.
Joining Burgoyne's unlucky army, and sharing in all the dangers and
hardships which it underwent, Pellew, though only twenty years old,
was summoned to the council of war at Saratoga, at which (against his
own advice) it was resolved, in October, 1777, to capitulate to an
American force of double the strength of the English. On his way home
to England, in a transport, he fought an American privateer, and beat
her off with his usual pluck and skill.
On receiving his commission to a guard-ship, he threatened to throw
it up rather than remain at so inactive a post; and it was not until
he declared his intention to command a privateer that he obtained his
appointment to the _Licorne_, in which he sailed for Newfoundland in
the spring of 1779. He returned, however, to England in the following
winter, and joined the _Apollo_, under his old friend--his 'only one on
earth,' as he said--Captain Pownoll, taking part in an engagement with
the French frigate _Stanislaus_, on which occasion the Captain left to
Pellew the honour of completing her capture.
The old sloop _Hazard_, of which he was promoted to be commander,
was his next ship, and the East Coast of Scotland his station in the
summer of 1780. Then followed the _Pelican_, a French prize, whilst
commanding which he drove ashore some French privateers near the Isle
of Bass, an exploit for which he was made a post-captain on board the
_Suffolk_:--thus obtaining every step in his profession as a reward
for some successful action. When it is added that, whilst in temporary
command of the _Artois_, he captured on 1st July, 1782, the French
frigate _Prince of Robego_, we may conclude this part of his career by
observing that this was his last service before the Peace, which left
him without any employment in His Majesty's service for four years.
The year 1783 saw him a denizen of Truro,[123] and married to Susan,
daughter of J. Frowde, Esq., of Knowle, in Wiltshire. Doubtless, in his
wooing, he told her--
'Of all the wonders of the mighty deep,
Tales that would make a maiden love to weep,
Of perils manifold and strange, and storms,
Battle, and wreck, and thousand feller forms,
Which Death, careering on the terrible sea,
Puts on to prove the true knight's constancy.'
It was probably about this time, also, that he became, according to
Polwhele, a member of the Truro Corporation. He soon, however, removed
to Flushing, near Falmouth, a curious little village, which had for
Pellew, as we have seen, family associations, and where his elder
brother, Samuel Humphry, formerly a surgeon of Marines, was collector
of the Customs.
In 1786 we find him on board the _Winchelsea_, and once more on the
Newfoundland station, into every harbour of which he squeezed his ship
with the utmost intrepidity, often exhibiting remarkable feats of
personal strength and activity.
The _Winchelsea_ was paid off in 1789, and till 1791 Captain Pellew
served in the _Salisbury_, of 50 guns, again on the Newfoundland
station; and this time with his younger brother, Israel, as first
lieutenant. He afterwards became Admiral Sir Israel Pellew, K.C.B.--an
officer whose distinguished career was scarcely less illustrious than
that of his more celebrated brother. He was born at Flushing in 1761,
and died at Plymouth in 1832. His ship, the _Amphion_, of 32 guns, blew
up in the Hamoaze, Plymouth, on 22nd September, 1796, and only her
commander and a few others escaped with their lives.
Once again the distasteful 'piping times of peace' came round; and
Pellew, for want of something to do, turned farmer. His experiments in
this capacity were made on the little family estate of Treverry, near
Falmouth; but they were a failure; and the declaration of war against
France, in February, 1793, promised him a most agreeable relief after
his enforced idleness. He was appointed to the _Nymphe_ (formerly a
French frigate) of 36 guns; and, to Cornishmen at least, his connexion
with this ship--manned as she was for the most part by Cornish miners,
eighty of whom joined her at Spithead--is one of the most interesting
parts of his career. On the evening of 19th June, 1793, the _Nymphe_
came up with the French frigate _Cleopatra_,[124] of 40 guns, and after
a furious cannonade of three-quarters of an hour, the Cornish crew,
most of whom had certainly smelt powder before (underground), though
none had ever before heard a cannon fired, had the proud delight of
seeing the enemy's pennant hauled down, and of capturing the first
frigate in the war,--thus illustrating Drayton's lines in his 'Barons'
Warres':
'For courage no whit second to the best,
The Cornishmen, most active, bold, and light.'
For this action Pellew was knighted ten days afterwards. The Portsmouth
correspondent of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, writing in July, 1793, of
this engagement, says that 'the commencement of the action between the
_Nymphe_ and _Cleopatra_ was the most notable and awful that the naval
history of the world ever recorded. The French captain ordered his ship
to be manned, and, coming forward on the gangway, pulled off his hat,
and called out, "Vive la nation!" when the ship's company gave three
cheers. Captain Pellew, in like manner, ordered his men from quarters
to the shrouds, and gave three cheers to "Long live King George the
Third!" and his putting on his hat again was the signal for action, one
of the most desperate ever fought.' The captain of the _Cleopatra_,
Citoyen Mullon, was buried in Portsmouth churchyard.
In January, 1794, he joined the _Arethusa_, which formed one of the
cruising frigates of the Western Squadron, a branch of the service
which our hero may be said to have originated. In the engagement
between the small French and English squadrons on 23rd April, 1794, off
the Isle of Bass, he captured the _Pomone_, a larger vessel than his
own, and carried her into Portsmouth harbour, on which occasion Pellew
received the warmest thanks of the First Lord of the Admiralty, and
of Earl Howe. Another French squadron was, in the following August,
driven ashore near Brest, by Pellew and his brave companions in arms;
and the Channel was thus practically cleared of the enemy's cruisers
for a while. But the following October saw the Frenchmen once more on
the move; and it was not until after a smart engagement off Ushant
between the _Artois_ and the large French frigate _Révolutionnaire_, on
which occasion Pellew commanded the squadron, that the French navy was
completely cowed.
On the 2nd January, 1795, private intelligence having reached Sir
Edward that the enemy's fleet, consisting of thirty-five sail of the
line, thirteen frigates, and sixteen smaller vessels, had put to sea
from Brest, he set forth from Falmouth with his little squadron of five
ships to reconnoitre; but no engagement resulted from this expedition.
He now joined the _Indefatigable_, which he successfully insisted
upon having cut down and rigged after his own method. She sailed from
Falmouth on 2nd March; and shortly after, the squadron of which she
formed part captured fifteen out of a convoy of twenty-five vessels
near the Penmarcks rocks.
The scene now shifts to Plymouth Sound, where he performed, on 26th
January, 1796, one of the most heroic acts that it has ever fallen to
the lot of man to accomplish. He was in evening dress, and on his way
to a dinner-party, when he heard that a large ship, an East Indiaman,
the _Dutton_, was on the rocks under the citadel, and that no one was
able to go to her assistance; but, with his usual hardihood, he swam
out to her through the surf, and thus became the means of saving the
lives of between 500 and 600 of his fellow-creatures. This service he
performed at the imminent risk of his own life, and when, as we have
seen, no other witness of the wild scene had the courage to make the
attempt. For his gallant conduct on this memorable occasion he was
created a baronet, as Sir Edward Pellew, of Treverry. The Corporation
of Plymouth voted him the freedom of their town, and the merchants
of Liverpool presented him with a service of plate. The civic wreath
and the stranded ship which appear as honourable augmentations on his
coat-of-arms were derived from this event.
On the 20th April following, our sailor was again at sea, and the
action was fought between the _Indefatigable_ and the _Virginie_, which
ended--as usual with Pellew--in victory. 'He takes _everything_!' said
the brave French Captain Bergeret, weeping bitterly as he surrendered
his sword to his opponent.
November, 1798, witnessed the well-known futile descent of the French
upon Ireland. In the ineffectual steps taken by the British fleet to
prevent it, Pellew had no share beyond watching Brest, and reporting
progress. But in January, 1799, he fell in with the _Droits de
l'Homme_, and, in the midst of a furious gale, and after an engagement
of eleven hours (during the latter part of which the _Indefatigable_
was assisted by the _Amazon_, Captain Reynolds),[125] the French ship
was driven on shore in the Bay of Audierne. The _Amazon_ was also
wrecked, and the _Indefatigable_ herself had a narrow escape.
The capture of a few privateers is all we now have to chronicle until
we hear of Sir Edward making the daring proposal of attacking with a
few frigates the whole of the French fleet then in harbour at Brest;
but, whether from timidity on the part of the Admiralty, or, as was
suggested, from the jealousy of Pellew's superior officer, Lord
Bridport, the offer was declined.
The _Impetueux_, one of his captures from the French, was his next
ship; and in her, at Bantry Bay, he promptly quelled a mutiny, which,
but for his courage and sagacity, would probably have extended to
other ships, whose disaffected crews, demoralized by the reports of
the mutinies at Spithead and the Nore, were, it is said, only waiting
a successful result of the rising on board Sir Edward's ship. The
_Impetueux_ soon after joined Earl St. Vincent in the Mediterranean,
and formed part of the force which pursued the combined fleets from the
Mediterranean to Brest.
In the siege of Ferrol, August, 1800, the _Impetueux_ played an
important part; but, Pellew's advice (which seemed to Sir J. B. Warren
too dangerous to follow) not being taken, the place was not captured;
though it was afterwards discovered that Pellew's advice should have
been followed, and that the garrison were quite prepared to lay down
their arms.
A short period of retirement which he spent in the bosom of his family
at Trefusis, on the shores of Falmouth harbour, followed.
The year 1801 saw him nearly at the head of the list of post-captains,
and appointed a Colonel of Marines. In the following year he was
elected Member for Barnstaple; but inactive posts did not suit him,
and at the very first moment possible he returned to his beloved
profession, being appointed to the _Tonnant_, of 80 guns, one of the
Channel fleet. Detached from the squadron, together with the _Mars_
and the _Spartiate_ and five other sail of the line, which were placed
under his orders, he blockaded the French at Corunna and at Ferrol.
But he was recalled by the Ministry in order to support the Government
against an attack made upon their Naval Administration by Pitt, and
on Pellew's excellent speech on this occasion the vindication of the
Ministry is said to have in a great measure depended.
On 23rd April, 1804, he was promoted to be Rear-Admiral of the White,
and was appointed Commander-in-Chief in India, hoisting his flag in the
_Culloden_. Whilst on this station he was ever on the alert for French
and Dutch privateers, of most of which the Admiral himself or his
captains never failed to give a good account, to the great advantage
of British commerce. The destruction of the enemy's fleet at Batavia,
on 2nd November, 1805, was an expedition on a larger scale. In this
Sir Edward's son, Captain Fleetwood Pellew,[126] in the _Terpsichore_,
took a prominent part; and a successful attack upon Sourabaya, in Java,
soon followed. This sums up his Oriental experiences; and in February,
1809, he sailed from India with a fleet of Indiamen under his convoy,
and safely arrived once more in England, after a narrow escape during
a severe gale. The spring of the following year, 1810, saw him, on
board the _Christian VII._, and Commander-in-Chief in the North Sea,
effectively blockading the Dutch fleet in the Scheldt.
In 1811, in the _Caledonia_, he succeeded Sir Charles Cotton as
Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean fleet, jealously watching the
coast from the Ionian Islands to Gibraltar, and striving, with the
utmost energy and success, to promote the efficiency and welfare of all
who served under him. He was present at the capitulation of Genoa in
February, 1814; and shortly afterwards saw the termination of the war,
and the confinement of Napoleon as a prisoner in the island of Elba.
Of this happy event advantage was taken by the Government to confer
on our hero the dignity of a baron--an unexpected honour to him--and
he chose 'Exmouth of Canonteign' as his title, that being an estate
which he had purchased as a family property. He also obtained the
pension usually granted for services so distinguished as his had been
(it amounted to £2,000 a year), and the next year he received the
additional honour of being made a G.C.B.
He went to the Mediterranean again in 1815, on the return of Napoleon
from Elba, hoisting his flag in the _Boyne_, with his brother, Sir
Israel Pellew, as Captain of the Fleet. Naples he rescued from anarchy
on the flight of Murat before the Austrian army, and for this service
King Ferdinand gave him the Order of St. Ferdinand and Merit. Next he
saved Marseilles from the rebel Marshal Brune; and finally spent the
winter of this year in Leghorn roads.
The commencement of 1816 found him preparing for what is perhaps his
most celebrated exploit, viz., the siege of Algiers; the objects of
which, it will be remembered, were to obtain the release of all the
Ionian slaves, who, by recent political arrangements, had become
_British_ subjects; and to repress the piratical excursions of the
Barbary States.
The preliminary reconnoitre was admirably performed by Captain Warde,
and the squadron, shortly afterwards, set sail for Algiers, where the
demand for the release of the Christian slaves was forthwith promised.
Tunis and Tripoli followed suit; and Lord Exmouth returned to Algiers
in order to press upon the Dey the abolition of Christian slavery. Only
evasive answers could, however, be procured; and, having secured from
the Dey a promise at least to treat, the British Admiral returned for a
short space to England for further instructions.
It need scarcely be said that Mr. Osler's description of the siege of
Algiers, the guilty 'pirate city,' is given with all that perspicacity
and fullness of detail which characterized all his literary work; and
to his account the technical reader may confidently be referred. The
formidable sea defences alone consisted of 500 guns; and these Exmouth
proposed to attack with only five sail of the line! Nelson is said to
have named (under incorrect information, it is true) twenty-five as the
proper force; but, at any rate, the attack of such fortifications as
these by a few ships was quite a novelty in the annals of war.
Joined by five frigates, four bomb-vessels, and five gun-brigs, the
fleet sailed from Portsmouth on the 25th July, 1816, practising
regularly with their guns on the voyage, and arriving before Algiers on
the 26th August.
Very early on the following morning, after waiting long and anxiously
for the sea-breeze, which came at last, the _Queen Charlotte_, with
Lord Exmouth (now sixty-five years of age) on board, led the attack
amidst three ringing cheers from his men;--and in a few minutes her
broadsides destroyed the defences of the Mole. It was reported that
500 Moors were killed by the first discharge of the English guns. The
Algerines then attempted, in their gunboats, to board the British
ships; but, as soon as they were discovered through the smoke, the
heavy guns of the _Leander_ and other ships sent 33 out of the 37
which composed the flotilla to the bottom. The enemy's ships at anchor
were then fired; and by ten at night, after a cannonade of nearly
nine hours, the town and fortifications of Algiers were in ruins.
128 men only were killed and 690 wounded in the British ships, and
13 killed and 52 wounded in the Dutch squadron--losses by no means
excessive under the circumstances; the enemy's loss, which must have
been fearful, is not known. Lord Exmouth was struck (but only very
slightly wounded) in three places; yet his coat was slit and torn by
musket-balls as if it had been slashed by a madman's scissors.[127]
British sailors had never fought more bravely and determinedly, or in
grimmer silence. When wadding failed, they cut up their clothes as a
substitute for it; and even the women on board handed the shot and
shell to their husbands. The _Impregnable_ and the _Leander_ suffered
most from the enemy's fire; the former was hulled by 263 shot, 209 of
which were between wind and water, and she herself discharged 6,730
round shot.
The next morning, the 28th of July, the Dey, Omar Pasha, a brutal and
ferocious ex-Aga of Janissaries, whilst Algiers was in flames, and her
sea-batteries pounded into ruins, sent in his complete submission;
peace was signed under a salute of 21 guns for England, and the same
for Holland; and 3,003 slaves, of whom 1,083 were Christians, and some
of whom were English, were liberated, and returned to their respective
countries.
Honours now fell thick and fast upon Lord Exmouth. He was created a
Viscount by George III.; the Kings of Holland, Spain, and Sardinia
conferred knighthood upon him; the City of London voted him its
freedom; Oxford conferred upon him the degree of D.C.L.; and he
received the thanks of Parliament; the letter from the Speaker, dated
3rd February, 1817, conveying them, being as follows:
'In transmitting to your Lordship this honourable testimony of the
gratitude of your country, I cannot withhold the expression of my
own personal satisfaction that this age of military exploits has not
closed without so splendid an increase of our naval glory; and that
the great work, of which all Christian States had so long and justly
desired to see the accomplishment, has been performed with a display
of skill and valour which have enrolled your Lordship's name upon
the annals of the nation in the most distinguished rank of her naval
commanders.'
Pellew had now attained the summit of his ambition; and, in 1817,
having been appointed to the naval command at Plymouth,[128] was
instrumental in saving from destruction the historic fortress of
Pendennis Castle, which, from motives of economy, the Government of the
day had proposed to destroy.
He passed the close of his life quietly near Teignmouth, the only
additional honour which was bestowed upon him being that of his
appointment, in 1832, as Vice-Admiral of England, a post which,
however, he only filled for a few months; for, on the 23rd of January,
1833, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, the old sea lion calmly
passed away, in pious confidence, to his rest. A brother officer who
was often with him during his last hours, said, 'I have seen him great
in battle, but never _so_ great as on his death-bed.'
He was buried at Christow, the parish in which are the family mansion
and estate of Canonteign; and in the church there an elaborate marble
monument records his faith and piety, his honours and his virtues.
There are three or four good portraits of Pellew, of which the
three-quarter length by Northcote in the National Portrait Gallery is
perhaps the best. It gives the unmistakably Cornish physiognomy of the
original, and does full justice to the determined look of the lower
part of his face. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition
at Somerset House in 1819, when Pellew was sixty-two years of age.
Another fine portrait is by Sir Wm. Beechy (engraved by C. Turner), a
full-length, representing the hero on the deck of the _Queen Charlotte_
at the siege of Algiers, giving orders for furling her mainsail, when
she was in imminent danger of being set on fire by an Algerine vessel,
which was in flames close by.