When the great war came at last to an end in 1815, leaving Marryat a
commander at the age of three-and-twenty, his ambition was still to be
the successful naval officer, and not the portrait painter of the sea
life. Twelve years were to pass before he ceased to be employed. During
this period he held three commands, and once more saw the face of war.
It was a small and poor war after the heroic conflicts of his boyhood,
but still it had its own difficulties and trials. He began to use his pen
in these years, but at first it was for merely professional purposes.
His code of signals must have been prepared, and his pamphlet on the
best method of recruiting the navy, and his scheme for stopping Channel
smuggling, were certainly written, in this second period, while he was
still looking forward to the chance of hoisting his flag.
Marryat was one of the great swarm of Englishmen who profited by the
peace to visit the Continent, which had been as nearly as might be
shut to the peaceful traveller for twenty-two years. He is credited
with having “occupied himself in acquiring a perfect knowledge of such
branches of science as might prove useful should the Lords of the
Admiralty think fit to employ him in a voyage of discovery or survey.”
Doubtless Marryat loved his profession, and worked at it, but when he was
recalled from Italy, in 1818, on some vague scheme of African exploration
he was probably engaged in amusing himself. The scheme came to nothing,
and in January, 1819, he married--a most convincing proof that his
intention of exploring Africa had not lasted long. Mrs. Marryat was a
Miss Shairp, daughter of a Scotch gentleman who had been Consul-General
in Russia. Marryat never agreed with St. Vincent that married men are
ruined for the service, and some eighteen months later he was at sea
again in command of the _Beaver_ sloop.
In this commission he saw the end of the man who had kept Europe in
turmoil for the major part of a generation. The _Beaver_ was ordered on
an all-round cruise in the South Atlantic to show the flag at Madeira
and the Azores, at the solitary rock of Tristan d’Acunha, at our own
possessions at the Cape, and finally to do guard duty at St. Helena. When
the _Beaver_ arrived at her station Napoleon was just reaching the end
of his final years of imprisonment. We still maintained a naval guard
against the enterprises of any Buonapartist adventurer who might try to
take the Emperor off the rock where he sat, consumed with unavailing
regrets, and disgracing his fall by undignified squabbles with Sir
Hudson Lowe. An English man-of-war was always kept cruising to windward
of the island. The last officer who performed this duty was Captain
Marryat. The _Beaver_ was watching for the possible liberator, who never
came, when Napoleon died. Marryat, who was a clever draughtsman, took
a sketch of the Emperor on his death-bed. He was already apparently
suffering from dysentery or he fell ill immediately (and somewhat
conveniently) afterwards. As his health did not permit him to remain in
the South Atlantic station any longer, he was allowed to exchange into
the _Rosario_. In her he brought the despatches announcing the Emperor’s
death home to Spithead. From Spithead he was ordered round to Harwich
to form part of the squadron which escorted the body of Queen Caroline
to Cuxhaven. This piece of ceremonial duty was followed by work of a
very different kind. The _Rosario_ was told off for revenue duty in the
Channel, and continued cruising for smugglers till she was put out of
commission in February, 1822. This was service of a very sufficiently
serious kind. There was indeed no fighting to be done, but the cruising
was arduous and incessant. The smugglers were among the smartest seamen
in the Channel, and to catch them required on the part of the revenue
officers constant vigilance, great activity, and an intimate knowledge
of the coast--that is to say, if the work was to be properly done. As a
matter of fact it seems to have been scamped. Marryat, who had perhaps
been infected by Cochrane with an inability to let a comfortable old
abuse alone, forwarded to the Admiralty a long despatch showing that the
preventive service was inefficiently performed, and pointing out how
it could be improved. The despatch was written after the _Rosario_ had
been paid off, and was founded on his own experience. It gives a curious
glimpse into a phase of sea life which has entirely disappeared since the
establishment of free trade ruined the smugglers by making it not worth
any man’s while to smuggle. The industry which went on all round the
coast, from the mouth of the Clyde to the mouth of the Firth of Forth,
was conducted on varying principles in different districts. Marryat dealt
only with what he had seen himself:--the smuggling carried on in that
part of the English Channel which lies between Portsmouth and the Start.
When he came to write as a novelist, Marryat displayed a certain sympathy
with the adventurous scamps who ran cargoes of brandy from Cherbourg
to the coast of Hampshire and Dorsetshire. But Captain Marryat the
revenue officer was a very different person. In this severe and official
capacity he did his best to suppress what he afterwards described with
a distinctly humorous sympathy. The smugglers, he pointed out, profited
by the system adopted by the English revenue boats. Cherbourg was the
centre of the trade--the free trade, as the smugglers called it, not
knowing, poor fellows, who their real enemy was. Their vessels were
almost exclusively manned by Portland or Weymouth men. When they were
going to run a cargo to a point of the coast with which they were not
familiar, they would take on a local hand, but as a rule they kept the
trade pretty exclusively to themselves. When one of their luggers was
sighted by the revenue boats and could not show a clean pair of heels,
the cargo was jettisoned. If this happened in mid-channel it was a clear
loss to everybody. The smuggler crews were only paid when they landed a
cargo. The revenue boats could get no prize money unless they seized the
tubs of spirits. If, however, the cargo was jettisoned in shallow water,
the case was different. The smugglers might return, or their confederates
on shore could fish up the sunken kegs, and then of course they earned
their money. On the other hand, if the landing was stopped, or the kegs
were dredged up by the revenue officers _they_ earned their prize money.
It is therefore perfectly obvious that it was the interest of the revenue
officers not to see the smuggling luggers in mid-channel. The more brandy
they picked up, the more prize money they earned, and the more credit
also. But by allowing the smugglers to approach the English coast they
gave them many opportunities of running cargoes. Partly because they
wished to secure the approval of their chiefs, who took no account of
any service which did not include the capture of kegs--partly also out
of a natural human desire for prize money, the revenue boats nursed the
illicit trade. They went very little to sea, and confined their exertions
to scouring the coasts in cutters and gigs. Marryat’s idea was that much
more effect would be produced by pursuing the luggers in mid-channel. If,
he argued with great force, the smugglers found that they were compelled
to make a dead loss, voyage after voyage, they would soon become tired.
As it was, the immense profits earned on any cargo successfully run,
paid them for the loss of two, or even three. Of course if his system
were adopted there would be no captures to show for the credit of the
coastguard, and no prize money to be earned. But the smuggling would
be put a stop to. The despatch in which he set forth his opinions is a
thoroughly able and business-like document, and shows that if Marryat
was allowed to fall out of the service it was not because he was wanting
in zeal or ability.
Although Marryat, like every other naval officer who ever held His
Majesty’s commission, thought himself “no favourite” with the Admiralty,
he had no intelligible reason to complain--at least as yet. The
grumblings of naval officers are generally, indeed, unintelligible to
the landsman, who is apt, after hearing much of them, to arrive at the
conclusion that if every gentleman in the service were promoted to be
Lord High Admiral and made G.C.B. to morrow morning, they would all be as
discontented as ever by midday. Certainly Marryat, who was a commander at
twenty-three, and had received a command, on service which brought him
into notice, in time of profound peace and reduction of armaments, when
the great majority of his fellow officers were vegetating on half pay on
shore, had little cause to growl. He must, in truth, have had very good
influence at the Admiralty, for though he was only paid off the _Rosario_
in February, 1822, he was re-appointed to the _Larne_, of twenty guns,
in March, 1823, so that he had barely a year on shore. The _Larne_ was
fitted out at Portsmouth for service in the East Indies. In July Marryat
sailed from Spithead for his station, this time taking out his wife and
family. An entry in his log briefly records an accident which might, if
the amplified form of the story given in his biography is to be taken
as literally true, have ended his career in a somewhat absurd manner.
His gig upset in Falmouth Harbour while he was in it. To an athletic man
and good swimmer a ducking in the month of July was no great disaster,
but the boat carried a bumboat woman and a midshipman. The woman swam
like a fish, and was delighted at the prospect of distinction and profit
apparently thrown in her way. She fastened on Marryat, intent on saving
a captain, and refused peremptorily to let him go when she was asked to
transfer her help from the superior officer, who did not need it, to the
obscure midshipman, who, not being able to swim, was in imminent danger
of drowning. In some way or another Marryat did contrive to get rid
of the incumbrance of her assistance, and the mid was not sacrificed.
Whether he did not invent the bumboat woman’s devotion to rank, is
perhaps doubtful. A bumboat woman was capable of acting in this way, no
doubt, but then Marryat was equally capable of seeing that she ought to
behave in this way, and of crediting her with fulfilling her duty.
When the _Larne_ reached India, Marryat found that she was to form part
of the combined force ordered to invade Burmah. This war, which filled
1824 and 1825, was of a kind common with us before we learnt that in
war, as in building, it is more economical to employ a hundred men for
one day, than one man for a hundred days--before also the common use
of steam had made great rapidity of movement possible. Sir Archibald
Campbell’s force was not numerous enough, and was unable to move quick.
The operations dragged on for months, till fevers, cholera, and scurvy,
had almost annihilated our army, and had almost unmanned the squadron.
The duties of the navy, in the war, were to clear the Irrawaddy of
Burmese war-boats, to transport the troops, protect their landing, cover
their flank, and now and then to help storm a stockade, or beat down the
fire of native batteries mounted with guns which would not fire, handled
by gunners who could not shoot. The enemy fought fiercely, according to
his lights, but then he had neither good weapons, nor discipline, nor
experience. Except when attacked in a particularly strong position, by an
insufficient force, the poor Burmese were sent into action as cattle to
the slaughter. We naturally make the most of these wars, and politically
they are often of the utmost importance, but as far as fighting is
concerned, a wilderness of them is not equal to the action between the
_Shannon_ and the _Chesapeake_ or the _Blanche_ and the _Pique_. Yet
Marryat was well entitled to say, as he did in a letter to his brother
Samuel, that the crew of the _Larne_ had in the course of five months
“undergone a severity of service almost unequalled.” The climate was
deadly to unseasoned men exposed to it in an unhealthy season. Much toil
had to be gone through in moving the troops, in rowing guard against the
Burmese war-boats, and even in doing engineer work. It is a complaint
sometimes made by the navy that, in combined operations with the army,
a disproportionate amount of the toil falls to them, while the redcoats
get all the fun and the glory of the fighting. In this war the navy had
plenty of work, and suffered proportionately from the strain. It also
complained, in later days, that its exertions were hardly sufficiently
recognized by military historians. Yet their comparatively subordinate
position was a necessity of the case. The war was a land, and not a naval
war, and the sailors could hardly expect to be more than accessories in
it.
Marryat’s share, both of the work and the credit, was as large as that
of any naval officer engaged. From the beginning of the campaign, in
May, 1824, he was employed until September; at first as subordinate,
and then, when Commodore Grant was invalided, as senior naval officer
at Rangoon. The five months almost destroyed the crew of the _Larne_,
and greatly damaged his own health. His men had been on salt provisions
since February, and when fatigue and exposure were added to unwholesome
diet, they naturally suffered grievously from scurvy. After a rest at
Pulo Penang, he was back at Rangoon in December, and then, after being
despatched on service to India, he was recalled to Burmah to take part
in an attack on Bassein. There were more river work, more attacks on
stockades, more exposure to fever. In July, 1824, on the death of
Commodore Grant, he was transferred into the _Tees_, 26, a post-ship,
which--as it was a death vacancy--should have given him post rank. The
nomination was not, however, confirmed by the Admiralty, and Marryat
was not actually posted till 1825, a loss of a year, which affected his
seniority. It was in the _Larne_ that he took part in the occupation of
Bassein, and the attack on the Burmese stockades at Negrais and Naputah,
but he brought the _Tees_ home and paid her off early in 1826. The thanks
of the general and the Indian Government, the Companionship of the Bath,
and the command of the _Ariadne_, 28, were his rewards for good service
in Burmah. This command he held for exactly two years, from November,
1828, to November, 1830, when “private affairs” induced him to resign.
The _Ariadne_ was his last ship. He was never employed again, nor does
he ever seem to have applied for a command. When there was a prospect
of war with the United States some years later, he spoke of going on
active service again, but he was in ordinary times quite reconciled
apparently to the termination of his career as a naval officer. The end
was rather sudden. Up to 1830 he had been in constant employment and very
successful. He could hardly have hoped for more than to be a post-captain
and a C.B. at thirty-four. The truth doubtless is that he had begun to
have other ambitions.
As is not uncommonly the case, the end of the old life overlapped the
beginning of the new. Indeed, the old cannot have consciously come to an
end with Marryat for some years. The evidence as to his wishes and hopes
is scanty--extraordinarily scanty considering his prominence and that he
lived almost into this generation; but what has been made known about
him shows that he did not cease to think and work for “the service,”
or quite gave up for a long time expecting that he might again hold a
command. As an active naval officer, however, his career ended when he
resigned the command of the _Ariadne_. Before that date he had written
and published “Frank Mildmay,” and had written the “King’s Own.” What
the private affairs may have been which induced him to resign his ship
does not appear very clearly. Mrs. Ross Church supposes that he wished
to devote himself to his duties as equerry to the Duke of Sussex, which
hardly appears a sufficient explanation. Perhaps, like many other
sailors, he may have had a period of revolt against the routine work,
and long absence from friends and family imposed by naval life, and for
which there is little compensation in peace time. With a growing family
to look after he had a strong attraction to the shore. Then service
in peace time cannot have had many temptations to a man who enjoyed
excitement as Marryat did. To be sent on “diplomatic duties,” which in
practice would mean visits, in the company of His Majesty’s Consuls,
to foreign governors, or to be ordered off in winter to look for reefs
in the Atlantic, which never existed except in the bemused brains of
some merchant skipper, must have been very trying. An experience or
two of this kind, coinciding with the success of his first book and
the equerryship, would be enough to decide him to try his fortune on
shore--all the more as he had private means. Whatever the exact motives
may have been, in 1830 he was on shore for good, and established in
Sussex House, Hammersmith.
His equerryship seems to have led him to no particular good. “The smiles
of princes,” says Mrs. Church, “are by nature evanescent.” The favour
of princes at least, like that of other men, requires to be cultivated
with due skill and attention. Possibly Marryat may have been wanting in
the will or the capacity to practise the art. Certain it is that neither
from the Duke of Sussex, nor from the duke’s royal brother, William IV.,
did he ever obtain any visible good beyond invitations to festivities
which appear to have been of a somewhat dreary character. According to a
story given in the preface to Bone’s edition of the “Pirate and Three
Cutters,” and quoted on that authority by Mrs. Ross Church, the King,
who all through his life seems to have been moved to do something silly
whenever he remembered that he was a naval officer, was offended by
Marryat’s condemnation of the press-gang. He not only refused to consent
to the conferring of some mark of distinction on Marryat in addition to
the C.B. given for the Burmah campaign, but would not even allow him to
wear the Legion of Honour sent him by Louis Philippe as a reward for the
code of signals. The story is credible enough of William IV., who, saving
the reverence of the Crown, was very little better than a fool, and a
spiteful fool, too, at times. The Admiralty of its own motion, or the
Admiralty and the King together, seem to have decided that Marryat need
not be employed again. In the enjoyment of literary success and liberty,
he probably reconciled himself to the want of employment readily enough.
He must have been prepared to do without it when he threw up his command.
The Admiralty does not love captains who resign their ships.