When the _Impérieuse_ reached the coast of Spain early in 1808, we
were still at war with that country. Napoleon had not yet turned his
submissive ally into an enemy by that act of brigandage which was the
capital error of his life. The war was for us still a “rich war,” as
Nelson put it--there were still Spanish prizes to be picked up. Cochrane
was master of the work to be done. His previous cruise in the _Speedy_
had made him perfectly familiar with the Spanish coast. It had also
given him an absolute confidence in his power to beat the Spaniards
at any odds. On this occasion he had no opportunity to equal the most
marvellous of all his feats--the capture of the frigate _Gamo_ with his
tiny gun-brig the _Speedy_, but he was incessantly active and uniformly
successful. The _Impérieuse_ hugged the Spanish coast, destroyed isolated
forts, sailed into the very ports and marked her prey down coolly, before
sending her boats in to cut out the more tempting prizes. In all this
stirring fighting Marryat had such share as a midshipman might. The
history of it is recorded in “Frank Mildmay,” in “Mr. Midshipman Easy,”
in “Peter Simple.” One incident may be recorded as a type of the rest.
Lord Cochrane learnt that a certain vessel which he was resolute to
take was lying at anchor in Almeria. He himself, in his “Autobiography
of a Seaman,” calls her “a large French vessel, laden with lead and
other munitions of war.” Marryat, as quoted by his daughter, calls her
a polacre privateer, and says nothing of her nationality, but in other
respects the stories agree. The story may now go on in Marryat’s words:
“At daybreak we were well in with American colours at the peak.
[The place, as has been just said, was Almeria Bay, and this trick
of hoisting neutral colours was a common stratagem of war.] The
Spaniards had their suspicions, but, as we boldly ran into harbour,
anchored among the other vessels, and furled our sails, they did
not fire. They were puzzled, for they could not imagine that any
vessel would act with such temerity, as we were surrounded by
batteries. We had, however, anchored with springs upon our cables;
close to us within half musket shot, lay a large polacre privateer
of sixteen guns, the same vessel which had been attacked by, and
had beaten off the boats of the _Spartan_ with a loss of nearly
sixty men killed and wounded. On our other side were two large
brigs heavily laden and a zebecque; the small craft were in-shore
of us, the town and citadel about half a mile ahead of us at the
bottom of the bay, the batteries all around us, and evidently well
prepared. Our boats had long been hoisted out and lay alongside,
which circumstance added to the suspicions of the Spaniards; still,
as yet, not a gun was fired.
“Lord Cochrane’s reasons for running in with the frigate was,
that he considered the loss of life would be much less by this
manœuvre than if he had despatched the boats, and this privateer
he had determined to capture. He did not suppose, nor indeed did
any one, that, lying as she was under the guns of the frigate, she
would dare to fire a shot, but in this he was mistaken. The boats
were manned, and the remaining crew of the _Impérieuse_ at their
quarters. The word was given and the boats shoved off; one pinnace,
commanded by Mr. Caulfield, the first lieutenant, pulling for the
polacre ship, while the others went to take possession of the brigs
and zebecque.
“To our astonishment, as soon as the pinnace was alongside the
ship, she was received with a murderous fire, and half of our
boat’s crew were laid beneath the thwarts; the remainder boarded.
Caulfield was the first on the vessel’s decks--a volley of
musquetoons received him, and he fell dead with thirteen bullets
in his body. But he was amply avenged; out of the whole crew of
the privateer, but fifteen, who escaped below and hid themselves,
remained alive; no quarter was shown, they were cut to atoms on
the deck, and those who threw themselves into the sea to save
their lives were shot as they struggled in the water. The fire
of the privateer had been the signal for the batteries to open,
and now was presented the animated scene of the boats boarding
in every direction, with more or less resistance; the whole bay
reverberating with the roar of cannon, the smooth water ploughed
up in every quarter by the shot directed against the frigate and
boats, while the _Impérieuse_ returned the fire, warping round and
round with her springs to silence the most galling. This continued
for nearly an hour, by which time the captured vessels were under
all sail, and then the _Impérieuse_ hove up her anchor, and, with
the English colours waving at her gaff, and still keeping up an
undiminished fire, sailed slowly out the victor.”
It was on such an occasion as this, if not in this very affair, that
Marryat is said to have had the adventure recorded by him in “Frank
Mildmay.” Like the hero of that story, he was knocked down by the body
of his leader, who was shot in front of him in a boarding affair, and
then almost trampled to death by the men who pressed on to carry the
prize. When the fight was over he was dragged out insensible, and laid
among the dead. The unfriendly remark of a comrade--that he had cheated
the gallows--revived him to give a vigorous denial. Mrs. Ross Church
states that this happened in Arcassan Bay during the first cruise of
the _Impérieuse_, but Cochrane himself mentions no such fight there,
and no loss of any of his officers. Frank Mildmay’s adventure happened
in Arcassan Bay, but Marryat would have obvious reasons for not being
strictly accurate as to place. If the incident was taken from his own
life, it can only have happened at Almeria. It may be noted that both
Mr. Handstone in the novel, and Mr. Caulfield in history, were first
lieutenants, and that both died in the same way, riddled with bullets, at
the head of a boarding party. Was Caulfield oppressed with a presentiment
of his coming death like the lieutenant in “Frank Mildmay”--or was he
indeed the original of that officer who, be it observed, is a very
distinct character, and has much the air of being a portrait? Perhaps a
preliminary question ought to be asked, namely, whether this incident
did actually happen to Marryat as recorded in the novel? It is possible.
The fact that he does not mention it in the passage quoted above proves
nothing. It is apparently taken from his unfinished life of his friend
Napier, in which he would naturally not dwell on his own personal
adventures. On the other hand, it is very much the sort of story which
might be transferred from the hero of the novel to its author.
In the course of 1808 a great change came over the war in the Western
Mediterranean. Napoleon made his famous (and infamous) grab at the
Spanish monarchy, and instantly, without hesitation, without concert
among themselves, in one great spontaneous burst of patriotic enthusiasm,
the Spanish people rose in arms. Their efforts were often unsuccessful,
and even disgraced by mismanagement or treason; but, on the whole, they
set Europe a magnificent example, which was well followed later on by
Russia, and they gave England what she had long wished for in vain--a
field of battle on land against Napoleon. The _Impérieuse_ had her share
in the Peninsular War. It was her duty not only to help the Spaniards in
the coast towns, but to harass the French troops which endeavoured to
enter Spain by the coast road. Cochrane was at his best in work of this
kind. For months he was engaged in incessant boat attacks on the French
transports, which endeavoured to reach Barcelona (then and throughout
the war in their possession), by hugging the shore. With this service
were mingled landing expeditions to blow up French telegraph stations or
batteries, or to help the Spaniards to defend forts which commanded the
road, and which the French for that very reason were particularly anxious
to capture. It was Cochrane’s belief to the end of his life that if he
had been supplied with a flotilla of light vessels and a regiment of
troops, he would have made it impossible for the French to enter Spain by
the Eastern Pyrenees at all. How far he was justified in this opinion, he
never was able to show. Indeed, when he was offered just such a command
on condition that he would abstain from attacking Admiral Gambier in the
House of Commons, he refused it. Even as it was, however, he did much.
His untiring vigilance made it impossible for the French to use the sea
for the transport of men or provisions, and difficult for them to use the
coast route which at many places was liable to be swept by the cannon of
the English frigate. They were driven to use the inland route through
a poor and rugged country swarming with guerrilleros. It is known that
all this part of the war proved enormously costly to the French, and
much of the credit due for imposing the loss upon them must go to the
_Impérieuse_. Marryat had his share of it all, and in “Frank Mildmay” he
has given a carefully finished sketch of one of the sharpest pieces of
service in it--the defence of Rosas, where he himself received a bayonet
wound.
The desire to be back in his place in Parliament, in order that he
might expose the malpractices of the Maltese Admiralty Court (this
is the motive assigned by himself, and was doubtless that of which he
was most conscious), induced Cochrane to apply for leave to bring the
_Impérieuse_ home to England. It was granted with a facility which throws
some doubt on his theory that the Admiralty feared his presence; and
early in March, 1809, he dropped anchor in Plymouth Sound. Unhappily for
himself, Cochrane was selected for a special piece of service before
he could resume his Parliamentary work. In February of this year a
French squadron had slipped out of Brest, with orders to drive off the
British seventy-fours which were then watching L’Orient, to pick up
three more ships at anchor there under Commodore Troude, and then to
proceed to the West Indies to relieve Martinique. Admiral Willaumez,
the French commander, did not escape the vigilance of the Channel
squadron. His fleet was sighted at sea, followed till it entered the
Pertuis d’Antioche, between the islands of Ré and Oléron, and very soon
a blockading force collected under Admiral Gambier. The outcries of
the London and Liverpool merchants roused the Admiralty to make great
exertions for the destruction of an armament which was designed to
operate in the West Indies, and would, by its mere presence in those
waters, have greatly disturbed English trade. In an evil hour for
Cochrane, my Lords remembered that he was well acquainted with this
part of the French coast, and they resolved to send him to execute an
attack on the enemy’s ships. Very reluctantly, for he knew how ill
he was likely to be received by officers whom he would practically
supersede, he undertook the work. He prepared a flotilla of explosion
vessels and fire-ships. In April the _Impérieuse_ had joined Gambier’s
squadron. A detailed account of the action which followed would be out
of place here. Its rather melancholy history is to be read in Cochrane’s
“Autobiography,” and the Minutes of the court martial on Lord Gambier.
The squadron was in an indifferent moral condition, divided by sour
professional factions, and impatient of its Admiral, a brave but weak
officer, chiefly known as what was called in the navy a “blue light,”
that is a pious man of a somewhat Methodistical turn. Very little zeal
was shown in supporting Cochrane. The attack was made on the night of
April 11th, and whatever the _Impérieuse_ could do was magnificently
done. The French fleet of eight line-of-battle ships, and some smaller
vessels, had withdrawn to the Basque Roads, at the mouth of the Charente,
and had fortified itself with a heavy boom. Towards that boom the English
explosion and fire-ships were driven by wind and tide after dark on the
11th. It is doubtful whether more than one of them reached it--but that
one was commanded by Cochrane himself. She was brought up to the boom
at half a cable’s length off the French frigate _Indienne_, and there
exploded, scattering the boom all over the mouth of the Charente. Through
the opening thus made a few English vessels passed. They were a mere
handful, and might have been sunk by the fire of the French, but our
enemies were panic stricken. They cut their cables, and ran ashore. When
day broke the French ships were fast aground, and might every one have
been destroyed; but Lord Gambier was an officer of the stamp peculiarly
hateful to Nelson. He was prompt to conclude that enough had been done,
and was loth to risk ships and men in what he thought an unnecessary
way. In vain did Cochrane, who had now returned to the _Impérieuse_,
hoist signal after signal urging the Admiral to attack. He told him
that the enemy were ashore, and could be destroyed; that they would get
off if they were not stopped; that they were actually preparing to get
off. It skilled not, and Gambier remained stolidly at anchor miles off.
At last Cochrane, who by this time was nearly rabid with rage, work,
and want of sleep, flew into a Berserker fury. He deliberately drifted
the _Impérieuse_ stern first under the guns of the French liners, and
then signalled that he was overpowered and in need of assistance. This
desperate measure, worthy of Nelson in his most splendid moments, did
at last force Admiral Gambier’s hand. Some vessels were sent--when it
was well-nigh too late to do any service at all--and distinctly too late
to do all that ought to have been done. Three of the French liners were
destroyed, but the others by throwing their guns overboard and starting
their water, were able to grovel over the mud-bar of the Charente, and
escape into a pool out of reach up the river. They never appeared in
the West Indies certainly, but the work was half done. Cochrane went
back to England--with all that was best and worst in him fermenting with
fury--to make his unhappy motion of opposition in the House to the vote
of thanks to Admiral Gambier. From thence came his final quarrel with the
Admiralty, and the court martial on Lord Gambier, in which it is only
too probable that English officers and officials of rank winked at the
suppression of evidence, and something not unlike forgery. Cochrane’s
service in our navy was over for long years.
With this scene of mingled heroism and stupidity, the more brilliant part
of Marryat’s naval life came to an end. He was engaged in the Basque
Roads on one of the fire-ships, and when they proved of little use, was
probably recalled to the _Impérieuse_. It is to be hoped at least that
he was on her deck when her captain, in an exaltation of fury, drifted
her among the French liners. In point of time, however, his service was
merely beginning, and he was to do good work yet, both as a subordinate
and as commander; but it wanted the heroic touch of the first three
years. When Cochrane was superseded from the _Impérieuse_, Marryat
remained with the new captain, and under him took part in the wholly
wretched Walcheren business, out of which he got--in common with some
thousands of others--all that it had to give--a distinct idea of how a
combined expedition ought _not_ to be conducted,--and an attack of marsh
fever.
From this time until the close of the Great War, he was on such active
service as the overpowering supremacy we had attained at sea left to
be performed. From the Scheldt he returned invalided on board the
_Victorious_, 74. As soon as he was fit for service, he was appointed
to the _Centaur_, 74, the flag-ship of Sir Samuel Hood, with whom he
went back to the Mediterranean, but not to the stirring life of his
old frigate. After a year of the seventy-four he returned home, and
was appointed to the _Æolus_ frigate on the American station. He went
out as a passenger on the _Atlas_, 64, and joined his ship at Halifax.
In the _Æolus_, and then in another frigate, the _Spartan_, he became
familiar with the West Indies, which are, with the Mediterranean, the
scenes of so large a part of his stories. In 1812 he had served his time
as midshipman, and returned home to pass. His influence was good, as
the fact that he served so much in frigates proves, and he received his
lieutenant’s commission immediately after going through his examination
(December 26, 1812). Six months later he was appointed to _L’Espiègle_
sloop, and cruised in her on the north coast of South America, till
he was invalided by the breaking of a blood-vessel, and sent home as
a passenger on board his old frigate, the _Spartan_, which had now
finished her commission. This accident, due in part to a constitutional
infirmity, which ultimately proved fatal to him, occurred at Barbadoes,
at a dance--perhaps a dignity ball. In 1814 he was back on the coast of
America in the _Newcastle_, 58, and was again invalided home, this time
from Madeira. In June, 1815, just as the Great War was closing, Marryat
was promoted commander, and the first period of his life came to an end.
The years from 1809 to 1815 may be rapidly passed over, for though
they added to his experience, they were colourless as compared with
the cruises of the _Impérieuse_. He saw some service in them, but it
was either tame, or a mere repetition of what he had seen before. The
so-called “war of 1812” was in progress during part of his service in the
_Spartan_ and all his service in the _Newcastle_, but he saw little of
it. Some boat work--and sharp work too--he went through in Boston Bay,
but he saw nothing of those unlucky frigate actions with the Americans,
which gave us such a disagreeable shock, and it was not his good fortune
to be one of the crew of the famous _Shannon_. The capture of a small
privateer or two, by so powerful a vessel as the _Newcastle_, was no
important experience to a man who had seen the boarding of the _King
George_, the defence of the Trinidad fort at Rosas, and the affair in the
Basque Roads. An acquaintance he made with an American prisoner of war
while on board the _Newcastle_ was useful to him afterwards, but at the
time he probably thought little about it.
His captains in these years doubtless served him as models when he began
his work as a novelist, but they were none of them men of the commanding
kind. The best remembered of them was Captain E. P. Brenton of the
_Spartan_, brother of the famous Sir Jahleel who fought a brilliant
frigate action off Naples, under the very eyes of Murat. Captain Brenton
had himself done good work, but his chief reputation was made in later
days, as the author of a life of St. Vincent, and a history of the
Great War, which is itself mainly remembered as the object of incessant
corrections, often pettifogging, commonly superfluous, and always
intensely wearisome, in James’s “Naval History.”
Even in the most peaceful times, opportunities of facing danger come in
every seaman’s way. He may have his chance to save life, and he must
help to fight the storm. In both of these ways Marryat distinguished
himself. Few men have more frequently risked their own lives to save
others. As a midshipman in the _Impérieuse_ he went overboard to save a
fellow midshipman. He saved the life of a seaman while serving on the
_Æolus_, and narrowly escaped drowning on a similar occasion when serving
in _L’Espiègle_. On this occasion he was a mile and a half off before the
sloop could be brought to, and when a boat picked him up he was nearly
senseless. This also was a part of experience to Marryat, for it was
while overboard from _L’Espiègle_ that he discovered that drowning is not
an unpleasant death. It is recorded in his Life by his daughter that,
first and last, “during the time he served in the navy, he was presented
with twenty-seven certificates, recommendations, and votes of thanks,
for saving the lives of others at the risk of his own, beside receiving
a gold medal from the Humane Society.” This mark of distinction given in
1818 was assuredly well deserved.
Not less pleasing to Marryat than the memory of his efforts to save
others, must have been his recollection of the honour he gained in
volunteering during a gale to cut away the main-yard of the _Æolus_.
The story appears, more or less coloured and adapted, with so many
other of his reminiscences in “Frank Mildmay.” In the sober pages of
Marshall, it is, however, a quite sufficiently gallant story. “On the
30th of September, 1811, in lat. 40° 50’ N., long. 65° W. (off the coast
of New England), a gale of wind commenced at S.E., and soon blew with
tremendous fury; the _Æolus_ was laid on her beam ends, her top-masts
and mizen-masts were literally blown away, and she continued in this
extremely perilous situation for at least half an hour. Directions were
given to cut away the main-yard, in order to save the main-mast and
right the ship, but so great was the danger attending such an operation
considered, that not a man could be induced to attempt it until Mr.
Marryat led the way. His courageous conduct in this emergency excited
general admiration, and was highly approved by Lord James Townshend, one
of whose ship’s company he also saved by jumping overboard at sea.”
Up then to the age of three-and-twenty Marryat had prepared himself
to write sea stories by making his life a sea story. He had, in fact,
fulfiled the counsel of perfection given to the epic poet. He had seen
no great battle; the last of them had been fought before he entered the
service; he had not even shared in a single ship action. But what he did
not witness himself he saw through the eyes of messmates. The battles,
to judge from the little said of them in his stories, do not appear
to have greatly interested Marryat--perhaps he found a difficulty in
realizing what one would be like, perhaps he found them unmanageable.
With the single ship actions he had no such difficulty. He could tell
precisely what must happen, and he had no doubt heard tales of many such
pieces of fighting. Indeed, in the actual sea-life of the time, the great
battles did not play a much more considerable part than they do in the
novels. Of the 2,437 lieutenants on the navy list when Marryat entered
the service, the very great majority had never seen a general engagement.
It was thought a rather exceptional thing that Collingwood should have
been present in three battles. Nelson himself only took part in four,
or five, if Admiral Hotham’s feeble action in the Gulf of Lyons is to be
allowed the name. But most officers had seen service of some kind, and
had tales to tell. Marryat, too, had been fortunate in an eminent degree.
He had been wounded, but not severely--he had never been taken prisoner
or shipwrecked. His service had been varied. Between 1806 and 1815 he had
seen the North Sea, the Channel, the Mediterranean, and the Eastern Coast
of America, from Nova Scotia to Surinam. His promotion had been rapid.
Altogether he had had much to develop, and nothing to sour him, in this
first period of his life.