Lieutenant Edward Moore, at this time one of the mates. Ned was as brave
and generous a soul as ever lived; a determined enemy to tyranny, as the
following circumstance will shew. When the present Retired Rear-Admiral
Shield[62] was first lieutenant of the Saturn, 74, at Spithead in the
year 1791 or 1792, one evening in the first watch he ordered one of the
midshipmen (Mr. Leonard) on some trifling occasion to the masthead for
punishment. Mr. L. said he would go there with pleasure if it was on
duty, but not for punishment; upon which Mr. Shield had him made fast to
a girtline and triced up to the main topmast-head without a guy to keep
him clear of the top etc. This made a great stir both on board and on
shore, and Mr. Leonard was advised to commence proceedings by entering
an action against Shield; and a subscription was set on foot to defray
the expenses attending it. My friend Ned at this time belonged to the
London, 98, lying at Spithead; and he wrote letters to the midshipmen of
the other men of war to subscribe also. This coming to the knowledge of
Lord Hood, he considered it as a conspiracy injurious to the discipline
of the navy, and Moore was put under an arrest. A court of inquiry was
held, and then a court martial, where Sir Hyde Parker stood as
prosecutor; and after a long examination of witnesses, Moore was found
guilty of contempt of court and sentenced to be confined in the
Marshalsea for one month, a fortnight of which he remained on board the
guard-ship. The other charge was not proved. The late Admiral Macbride,
who commanded the Cumberland, 74, at that time, was a member of the
court, and was a friend to Moore ever after, and made him lieutenant.
One of our midshipmen, who lately died a post captain, was an infernal
tyrant. While in the Edgar, this chap one evening began his tricks by
thrashing one of the youngsters, a messmate of Ned’s, and for so doing
Ned gave him, to the great joy of all, the most severe drubbing I ever
witnessed. Ned had been a shipmate of this person’s before in the Queen,
98, when a guard-ship, and had seen some of his pranks there and now
paid him on the old score.
While lying at the Hardway moorings, about three o’clock one morning we
heard a voice halloing out ‘Come here, you sleepy-headed hounds, and
take me out of a hole that I have got into.’ It being low water, the
voice appeared to come from the mud. Two or three of us got into the
cutter (for we always kept a boat out)[63] and went in the direction of
the voice, where we found Moore up to his middle, and being a stout
fellow it was no easy matter to extricate him. Had we not gone when we
did he would have been suffocated as the tide was flowing. He had been
keeping it up and missed his way to the Hard. He was one that would part
with his last shilling to serve a friend or assist those in distress. I
recollect while lying in Torbay with the grand fleet (we belonged to the
Barfleur, 98, then), that I had not a sixpence and no opportunity of
sending home; and I wanted to go on shore, and how to raise the wind I
did not know; which coming to the ears of Ned, says he, ‘Tony, I have
got a guinea and I am determined that you shall have half of it’—which
he made me take. Would to God that he was alive and that I could shake
hands with him now, and the rest of the brave fellows that are no more.
_Sit tibi terra levis!_
We had a custom when the officers were at dinner in the wardroom, of
dividing into parties; one division was to storm the other on the poop.
In one of those attacks I succeeded in getting on the poop, when Kiel
(who I have mentioned before) attacked me with a fixed bayonet and
marked me in the thigh (all in good part). I then got hold of a musket,
put in a small quantity of powder, and as he advanced, I fired. To my
horror and amazement he fell flat on the deck, and when picked up his
face was as black as a tinker’s, with the blood running down occasioned
by some of the grains of powder sticking in. I shall never forget the
terror I was in, but thank God he soon got well; only a few blue spots
remained in his phiz, which never left him. This was the only time I
ever fired a musket and probably will be the last. They used to say in
the cockpit that he was troubled with St. Anthony’s fire (alluding to my
name).
Another time when attacking the poop, I was standing on one of the
quarter deck guns, when I received a violent blow on the face from a
broomstick, which made my nose bleed off and on for several days. It was
thrown at me by J. S. Carden (now Captain Carden[64]) and a hand swab
was thrown at him, which falling short, entered one of the office
windows, which put an end to the attack. It was laughable to see John
Macredie take the part of Ajax Telamon, with a half-port for a shield
and a boarding-pike for a lance. Culverhouse used to take the part of
Diomede, but instead of a lance would use the single-stick, with which
he was superior to anyone in the fleet. He was a very clever fellow,
full of fun and drollery, and sung humorous songs in the most comic
style. I remember a verse or two of one:
When first they impressed me and sent me to sea,
’Twas in the winter time in the making of hay,
They sent me on board of a ship called Torbay,
Oh! her white muzzle guns they did sore frighten me,
Musha tudey, etc.
Says the boatswain to Paddy, And what brought you here?
For the making of hay ’tis the wrong time of year.
By Jasus, says Paddy, I wish I was gone,
For your small wooden kingdom I don’t understand.
Musha tudey, etc.
Oh! the first thing they gave me it was a long sack,[65]
Which they tould me to get in and lay on my back;
I lay on my back till the clock struck one bell,
And the man overhead he sung out, All is well.
Musha tudey, etc.
We had a very droll midshipman who lately died an old post captain, and
was one of the best officers in the service. This gentleman was a kind
of ventriloquist, and when we sat in the officers’ seat in Gosport
chapel, and opposite to old Paul the clerk, of beer-drinking memory,
whenever this man would begin to sing, the other would go Quack, Quack,
Quack; sometimes high and sometimes low, according as the clerk would
sing the psalm. I have seen the old fellow look round with amazement,
the people whispering to one another, while others could not keep their
countenance but would hold their heads down and laugh. I remember him
coming on board late one night in a wherry from Gosport, and it being
calm we could hear him quacking a long way off. We then lay at the
Hardway moorings. When the wherry got alongside the waterman swore he
would be damned sooner than have that chap in his boat again. Had he
known as much, he would not have taken him off for any money; he
certainly was the devil or his near relation, for some hell-hound or
other had been following him on the water all the way from Burrow Castle
(near the Magazine and reported to be haunted) until he got alongside.
He said he knew that Burrow Castle was haunted and he’d take good care
to return on the other side of the harbour, and blast him if he’d ever
come that way at night. I had the watch upon deck at the time and
remember every word, and I thought I should have died a-laughing.
Our first lieutenant had an inveterate hatred to the Barfleur (the
flagship) for the following reason. The signal was made for all
midshipmen, and I had just returned in the long boat from Spithead,
where we had been fishing, and was then going to relieve the deck, it
being my watch, when Lieutenant Yetts ordered me to answer the signal.
On my asking him leave to go below and get ready, as I was certain they
would turn me back if I went in the dress I had on, ‘Mr. Gardner, will
you dictate to me?’ was his reply; ‘Go as you are, sir.’ When I got on
board the Barfleur, Lieutenant Ross (who I knew very well) was
commanding officer. The moment he saw me he came up, and with eyes of a
dog fish, asked who I was and where I came from. I could hardly help
laughing at the question. However, I explained to him the reason, but
all to no purpose, as he sent me into my boat saying, ‘Tell your officer
that I made the signal for a midshipman, and not for a fisherman, and he
ought to have known better from the length of time he had been in the
service.’
On my delivering this insolent message to Lieutenant Yetts, it put him
in a great rage and he swore, damn his brains, but he’d remember Master
Ross for his kindness, the first opportunity. This Ross was a satirist,
or would be thought so, because he wrote some poem in doggerel rhymes of
scurrilous merit, abusing some of the officers of the guard-ships and
many of the respectable people of Gosport. He also wrote a play which
was damned and hissed off the stage, and some other pieces of the same
description. Soon after this it came to our turn to have the guard, and
late in the first watch, Lieutenant Yetts sent for me and gave orders
that I should go in the cutter and row guard, and if possible get
alongside the Barfleur. Away I went round the guard-ships, and left the
Barfleur for the last. On rowing ahead I let the boat drop down with the
tide and actually got alongside her accommodation ladder without being
hailed. It is the duty of a lieutenant to row guard, so I did not think
myself justified in boarding her, which I could have done; but remained
some time alongside. At last one of the midshipmen (Mr. Holmes) hailed
from the gangway, ‘What boat is that?’ upon which I called out as loud
as I could hollo, ‘Guard boat!’ and that I had been alongside a
considerable time without being hailed—to his great astonishment, as he
informed me afterwards. On my telling this to Mr. Yetts, he rubbed his
hands and swore that everyone should know how the damned brutes were
caught napping.
In the absence of the admiral we, as senior captain, would have the
command; and when exercising sails or getting down top gallant yards
etc, if the Barfleur only showed a man’s head above deck, up would go
her signal to call her men down out of the tops and rigging, and old
Yetts would exclaim, ‘Damn my brains, no starting before us; we are
masters now.’ Mr. Nowell, our second lieutenant, was a very powerful and
active man; and though gloomy and fiery at times, was much the
gentleman. He was famous at fencing and jumping, and could, as I have
been told, jump across the gateway of Gosport works—about twenty feet.
On one occasion he sprained his ankle, when Frost (one of our
midshipmen) said in his hearing and mocking the Welsh (Nowell being a
Welshman) ‘My vather a tevil of a good shumper, shumped twenty veet,
came right down, proke his ankle, could no more shumpy.’ For this the
other gave him a look that spoke volumes.
This Frost was a complete Commodore Gale and went by the nickname of
Hard Frost. It is related that when his wife died he gave a dinner on
the day of her funeral. When the company arrived, Frost was dead drunk;
upon which some of the party laid him out, with a leg of mutton under
his head for a pillow, and a bunch of turnips under his feet. In the
early time of the guard-ships there was a board held by the midshipmen
of the Queen, 98, the flagship, where the midshipmen of the other ships
used to go to pass their examination for a blackguard. Frost, who
belonged to the Pégase, 74, went to pass, and on the occasion showed
such transcendent abilities, that the board considered him a wonder, and
requested he would take his seat as a member. I could relate many of his
sayings, but they had better sink into oblivion.
Our first lieutenant was a devil for scrubbing decks, and in the dead of
winter we frequently had to shovel the snow from the quarter deck, and
take a spell, about half-past four in the morning, with the holystone
and hand organs, while the water would freeze as soon as it was thrown
on the deck. The general order, made into rhyme by Flood [was] as
follows:
The decks, as usual, to be washed and scrubbed;
And with the holystone severely rubbed.
To show the superstition of sailors I must mention the following
anecdote. Not a hundred miles from Portsmouth lived a great nabob, who
formerly possessed a large fortune, but from gambling and other bad
management had greatly fallen off, and the neighbours used to say he had
dealings with the devil, and at night would converse with him in his
cellar. We had a raven on board that came from this neighbourhood; and
from the number of strange pranks it was in the habit of playing, was
supposed by the ship’s company not to have been one of this world; and
what strengthened this opinion was Macredie giving it out that he had
heard the raven speak, and say that he had been the nabob’s coachman,
and should resume his office as soon as the ship was paid off, and he
had got some recruits for his master. This made him be looked at with an
evil eye by the ship’s company; and one evening when the provisions were
serving out and several of the people were in the cockpit about the
steward’s room, the raven caught hold of the gunner’s mate by the
trowsers, croaking and snapping at his legs. He then flew on the
shoulder of the corporal of marines, took off his hat and hid it in the
tier. ‘I’m damned,’ says old Phillips, the quartermaster, ‘if he has not
marked you for his master.’ He had hardly said this when the raven came
hopping back and seized upon the cheese belonging to the quartermaster,
and walked off with a large piece of it, the other being afraid to
follow.
Another of his tricks I was an eye-witness to. Our sergeant of marines
had leave to go on shore, and was on the poop showing a half-guinea to
the corporal, saying ‘With this bit of gold I shall take a cruise, it
will last as long as I like to stay.’ He was holding the half-guinea
between his finger and thumb, and asked the raven, who was on the poop,
if he would take a trip with him. Ralph, ever on the watch, in an
instant snapped the half-guinea out of his hand, and flew up to the main
topmast head and remained more than an hour aloft, the sergeant all the
time in the greatest anxiety, and some of the fellows saying to him,
‘Now, don’t you believe he’s the devil?’ At last the raven flew down
upon the booms and went into the stern sheets of the barge lying there
and hid the half-guinea, which the sergeant found, but swore it was not
the same that was taken from him, while several called out ‘Sold!
Sold!’[66]
I shall now conclude the Edgar after saying a word for Davy Reed, the
master. He was what we call a hard officer, as well as a very strange
sort of fish, and had the misfortune, like many others, to lose his
teeth. I was at dinner in the wardroom when a small parcel was handed in
directed for Mr. Reed. ‘What the hell can this be?’ says Davy (who did
not like to have sixpence to pay the waterman), ‘and who gave it to
you?’ continued he. ‘Sir,’ says the waterman, ‘it was a young lady who
sent it off from Common Hard.’ As several tricks had been played with
Davy before, he was afraid to open the parcel, and begged of one of the
officers at the table to do so for him, but when opened, what was his
amazement to find a set of sheep’s teeth for David Reed, Esq., with
directions for fixing, and a box of tooth powder that, by the smell,
appeared to be a mixture of everything abominable. Poor Davy was in a
dreadful rage, and never heard the last of it. The Edgar was paid off in
January 1790, and we had a parting dinner at the India Arms, Gosport,
and kept it up until twelve that night. With the exception of the half
dozen, they were some of the best fellows I ever met with. The Edgar was
commissioned immediately after by Captain Anthony James Pye Molloy, and
some of the midshipmen rejoined her.
OFFICERS’ NAMES
HON. JOHN LEVESON GOWER, Commodore and then rear-admiral.
Dead [1792]. I have said enough of him.—[_D.N.B._]
JOSEPH PEYTON, Esq., Rear-admiral.
Dead [1804]. An admiral; a tight hand.
CHAS. THOMPSON, Esq., Captain.
Dead. See Boreas.
JOHN YETTS, 1st Lieutenant.
Dead. Out-pension. A good sailor of the old school, in many
respects better than the new.
WILLIAM NOWELL, 2nd Lieutenant.
Dead [1827]. A vice-admiral; gloomy and fiery; but a good officer
and gentleman.—[Marshall, ii. 598.]
RICHARD WELLAND, 3rd Lieutenant.
Dead. Had the out-pension, and thirteen children; proud, but a
good officer.
JOHN IRWIN,[67] 4th Lieutenant.
Dead [1812]. A post captain [1796]. A very good fellow; always
smiling.
WILLIAM BEDFORD, 5th Lieutenant.
Dead [1826]. A vice-admiral; fidgety; he once turned me out of the
gunroom because I said Andrew Macbride, our schoolmaster, was
formerly Dionysius the tyrant, and kept a school at Corinth,
according to the opinion of Pythagoras respecting the
transmigration of souls.—[Marshall, ii. 574.]
JOHN CULVERHOUSE, Mate and then flag lieutenant.
Dead. A clever fellow and good officer; a post captain; drowned at
the Cape.
JOHN STILES, Lieutenant, lent for the cruise.
Dead. See Salisbury.
HARRY DAWE, Lieutenant, lent.
Dead. A commander [1818]; so-so. [Did not die till 1841.]
DAVID REED, Master.
Dead. An odd fish.
[JOHN] ROSKRUGE, Master.
Dead. A very good man, and one that was better acquainted with
rope-yarns and bilge water than with Homer or Virgil. He said a
man’s ideas should go no further than the jib-boom end.
[JAMES] MALCOLM, Surgeon.
Dead. See Panther.
[THOMAS] TROTTER, Surgeon.
Uncertain. Formerly physician of the fleet; a most excellent
fellow with first-rate abilities, an able writer and poet. [Died
1832—_D.N.B._]
THOMAS KEIN, Surgeon; did duty as first assistant.
A very worthy fellow. Dead since writing this.
TITUS LEVY, Purser and then admiral’s secretary.
Dead. Insane before he died.
CHARLES BUCHAN, Purser.
Dead. See Boreas.
JOHN STEVENS, Mate.
Dead. A commander.
[JOHN] WATSON, Mate. Dead. A lieutenant; sickly and as crabbed as the
devil. Cato the Censor never ended a speech without saying
‘Delenda est Carthago,’ and this man never ended his without
saying ‘Damn your whistle.’
GEO. WANGFORD, Mate.
Dead. See Boreas; drank himself to death.
FRANCIS SARGENT, Mate.
Dead. Drank hard; a lieutenant.
EDWARD MOORE, Mate.
Dead. A lieutenant; well known in the navy, and highly respected
by a numerous acquaintance.
GEO. RULE BLUET, Midshipman, and then mate of the hold.
Dead. A lieutenant; a good-natured fellow with good abilities, but
drank hard. I recollect being of a party at Gosport when Bluet
wanted to make love to a young lady, but did not know how to
begin. At last he took out of his pocket a plan of the Edgar’s
hold which he begged her to accept, and hoped she would keep it
for his sake!
PATRICK FLOOD, Midshipman.
Dead. Good abilities, but thoughtless, and regardless of his
character.
CHAS. INGLIS, Midshipman.
Dead [1833]. A post captain; a most able officer.—[Marshall, iv.
699.]
MAURICE BROWN, Midshipman.
Uncertain. A dashing fellow.
TOM EDMONDS, Midshipman.
Dead. A lieutenant; a good fellow, and played the flute
delightfully.
FRANK FEARY, Midshipman.
Dead. A lieutenant; a very quiet fellow, who had taken plenty of
calomel in his time.
ANDREW JAMES THOMPSON, Midshipman.
Dead. A lieutenant; a mad fellow.
ROBERT PHILPOT, Midshipman.
Dead [1826]. A post captain [1800]; obstinate and stiff
in opinion, but quite the gentleman. Called ‘Toby
Philpot.’—[Marshall, iii. 289.]
GEO. JONES, Midshipman.
Dead [1834]. A commander [1798]; a fiery Welshman; called
‘Dog-head.’ He used to visit at Fareham, and Billy Lamb drew a
midshipman in uniform with a dog’s head, which bore a strong
resemblance of Jones, and a directing post near him with—‘To
Fareham,’ written on it.—[Marshall, x. 269.]
WILLIAM LAMB, Midshipman and mate.
Dead. A commander; my old and worthy messmate in two ships; a most
able officer and seaman.
SOLOMON KING, Midshipman.
Dead. A lieutenant; a very worthy fellow.
WILLIAM KING, his brother, Midshipman.
Dead. A commander; a very worthy fellow.
WILLIAM BROWN, Midshipman, and then mate.
A superannuated master attendant; a good sailor; called ‘Billy
Beljer,’ and ‘Hell Sweat Us.’
ROBERT ELLIOT, Midshipman.
A post captain. [Rear-admiral, 1846; died, a vice-admiral,
1854.—O’Byrne.]
JAMES SLADE, Midshipman.
A post captain; wonderfully grand. [Died 1846—O’Byrne.]
WILLIAM WILKINSON, Midshipman.
Dead [1816]. A post captain [1810]; proud without reason.
JAMES SANDERS, Midshipman.
Dead [1834]. A post captain and C.B. Black Sambo, you and I never
could agree; we hated one another most cordially: as a midshipman
you were tyrannical; as a captain, I know nothing of
you.—[Marshall, iv. 635.]
JOHN KIEL, Midshipman.
Dead. A lieutenant. Poor Jack went mad and died.
WILLIAM PRINGLE, first a scribe, and then a midshipman.
Dead. A lieutenant out-pension; nicknamed ‘Bull Rothery’ and
‘Ponderous and Huge.’ He got the name of ‘Ponderous and Huge’ from
the following circumstance. When we were storming the poop (as I
have mentioned before), I was looking at John Macredie who had a
boarding-pike for a spear, and repeating the following lines from
the Iliad:
And now he shakes his great paternal spear,
Ponderous and huge, which not a Greek could rear—
when Pringle, who was standing by, asked me who Ponderous and Huge
were, and whether they were Greeks or Trojans.[68]
TITUS ALLARDICE, Midshipman.
Dead [1832]. A commander [1831]; died insane at Haslar.
DAVIS, Mate. Dead. A lieutenant. Poor fellow, was broke by
court martial.
JOHN BULL CONOLLY, Midshipman.
A lieutenant, out-pension; a very good fellow.
ROBERT YETTS, son of the first lieutenant, midshipman.
Dead. A lieutenant; broke by court martial. Poor Bob with all his
faults was a worthy, generous fellow.
HENRY FOULARTON, Midshipman.
Dead. Very religious, and remarkably neat in his dress; but at
last drank very hard, and died regretting that a keg of gin (along
side of him) should see him out, which was really the case.
HENRY ALLEN, Midshipman.
This unfortunate man was captain of the Rattler sloop of war in
the West Indies and was hanged at the yardarm by the sentence of a
court martial [April 22, 1797, under the 29th Article of War].
GREGORY GRANT, Midshipman.
A commander [1810]; a very worthy fellow. Died 1839.—[Marshall, x.
403.]
WILLIAM VOSPER, Midshipman.
A lieutenant, Royal Asylum, Greenwich Hospital. A very good fellow
and seaman; we were at three schools together, and also in the
Edgar and Berwick.
RICHARD HEYCOCK, Midshipman.
Dead. A lieutenant. Old Dick was a good sailor, but unfortunately,
as deaf as a doornail.
FRAS. ROSKRUGE, Midshipman.
Lieutenant [of Britannia], killed [at Trafalgar] in battle. A very
worthy fellow; son of the master.
FROST, Midshipman.
Dead. A master; ‘Hard Frost,’ I have mentioned you before.
MILLAR, Midshipman.
Dead. A gunner; as worthy a fellow as ever lived; called ‘Tom
Pepper.’[69]
RICHARD COLE, Midshipman.
Dead. Dicky was an easy, simple fellow.
EMANUEL SILVA, Midshipman.
A magistrate for the county of Surrey; a gentleman; very much
respected.
WM. GRANGER, Midshipman.
A vice-admiral of the blue. [Died 1848.—O’Byrne.]
HUGH DOWNMAN, Midshipman.
A vice-admiral; a very good officer. [Died, admiral,
1858—O’Byrne.]
[JOHN] HOLLINGSWORTH, Midshipman.
Killed in battle[70]; a lieutenant.
JOHN TWISDEN, Midshipman.
A commander; a droll old guardo! [Died 1853.—O’Byrne.]
JOHN MACREDIE, Midshipman.
Dead [1833]. A commander [1827]; a most worthy fellow whom I have
mentioned before.
HUGH COOK, Midshipman.
Dead [1834]. A post captain [1806]; called ‘Pot luck and what
not.’ Billy Lamb gave him this name, because one evening on shore,
when half seas over, he was asking every one in the room to come
and see him and take ‘pot luck and what not.’—[Marshall, v. 160.]
WM. HUGH DOBBIE, Midshipman.
Dead [1830]. A post captain; an excellent character.—[Marshall, v.
136.]
JOHN TRESAHAR, Midshipman.
A commander; my worthy messmate. [Died 1844.—O’Byrne.]
J. S. CARDEN, Midshipman.
A post captain. He commanded the Macedonian when she was captured
by an American frigate of superior force. [Died, a retired
rear-admiral, 1858—O’Byrne.]
EDWARD BRACE, Midshipman.
A rear-admiral and K.C.B. [Died, a vice-admiral, in
1843.—Marshall, iii. 253.]
J. A. GARDNER, Midshipman.
A commander.
DAVID SPENCE 1st, Midshipman, lent.
Dead. A lieutenant; worthy fellow.
DAVID SPENCE 2nd, Midshipman, lent.
Dead. A master; worthy fellow.
ROBERT CROSBIE, Midshipman, lent.
Dead from drink; a lieutenant not worth his salt.
JAMES IRWIN, Midshipman, lent.
Dead. A commander; much respected.
ANDREW MACBRIDE, Schoolmaster.
Dead. Splendid abilities.
CROMBEY, Assistant Surgeon.
Dead. A surgeon; a man of prodigious strength.
JOHN LIGGATT, Assistant Surgeon.
Dead. A surgeon. Poor Jack lost his leg in action.
GEO. GORDON, Assistant Surgeon.
Dead. George was not very orthodox.
DUNCAN CAMPBELL, Assistant Surgeon.
Uncertain. Much the gentleman.
MARSH, Assistant Surgeon.
Uncertain. Drank like a fish.
LAUCHLIN MACLEAN, Clerk.
Dead. A paymaster at Greenwich Hospital.
JOHN SCOTT, Clerk.