Every Man Will Do His Duty Read online

  Every Man Will Do His Duty

  Dean King and John B. Hattendorf

  For Patrick O’Brian

  MACTE VIRTUTE

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Foreword by John B. Hattendorf

  Introduction

  Editorial Note

  Abbreviations

  List of Maps and Charts

  Part I The War of the French Revolution

  Chapter numbers correspond to sites on maps.

  1. In the King’s Service, 1793–1794

  With only a silver watch and one rupee to his name, William Richardson is pressed into service while in India. He describes life on board the 48-gun frigate Minerva and how a mutiny was avoided; from A Mariner of England: An Account of William Richardson from Cabin Boy in the Merchant Service to Warrant Officer in the Royal Navy [1780 to 1819] as Told by Himself edited by Colonel Spencer Childers, C.B., R.E.

  2. Commence the Work of Destruction: The Glorious First of June, 1794

  On board Gambier’s speedy 74-gun HMS Defence, fourteen-year-old William Dillon experiences the heat of the Glorious First of June in the hellish lower deck; from A Narrative of My Adventures (1790–1839),by Sir William Henry Dillon, K.C.H., Vice-Admiral of the Red, edited by Michael A. Lewis, C.B.E., M.A., F.S.A., ER.Hist.S.

  3. The Noted Pimp of Lisbon and an Unwanted Promotion in Bull Bay, 1794

  Sailing homeward on board the Gorgon, 44 guns, James Gardner reports on ship life and shore leave in Gibraltar, Cadiz, and Lisbon. Along the way, French prisoners nearly revolt upon hearing the “Marseillese,” American sailors invite a brawl over a beef pie, and a deserter gets an undesirable promotion from a chamber pot; from Recollections of James Anthony Gardner, Commander R.N. (1775–1814),edited by Sir R. Vesey Hamilton, G.C.B., Admiral, and John Knox Laughton, M.A., D.Litt.

  4. For the Good of My Own Soul, 1795

  An itinerant merchant and naval seaman dodges the press gangs in England and describes a brief stay in London before meeting his inevitable fate; from The Nagle Journal: Diary of the Life of Jacob Nagle, Sailor, from the Year 1775 to 1841, edited by John C. Dann.

  5. They Would as Soon Have Faced the Devil Himself as Nelson, 1796

  Nelson and his shipmate Archibald Menzies, better known as the “Scotch Hercules,” oversee the evacuation of Bastia, Corsica, after Spain enters the war against Britain; from “Nelson at Bastia,” by M.C., An Old Agamemnon, United Service Journal, February 1841, no. 147.

  6. The Battle of Cape St. Vincent, 1797

  In an inspired moment, Nelson deviates from the battle plan and produces one of the most unlikely triumphs of the war; from A Narrative of the Battle of St. Vincent; with Anecdotes of Nelson, Before and After that Battle, by John Drinkwater Bethune, RS.A.

  7. Mad Dickey’s Amusement, 1798–1800

  At last, Jacob Nagle finds his niche in the Royal Navy. On board the sloop Netley, he is a very busy prizemaster; from The Nagle Journal, edited by John C. Dann.

  8. The Fortune of War, 1799

  In the Bay of Bengal, a captive merchant captain experiences a fierce battle between two powerful frigates, the French La Forte, 50 guns, and HMS La Sybille, 44 guns; from A Master Mariner: Being the Life and Adventures of Captain Robert William Eastwick, edited by Herbert Compton.

  9. The Audacious Cruise of the Speedy, 1800–1801

  Captain Thomas Cochrane, later the tenth earl of Dundonald, and the fifty-four-man crew of the Speedy,14 guns, have the gall to engage and board the Spanish xebec frigate El Gamo, 32 guns, 319 men; from The Autobiography of a Seaman, by Thomas, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the fleet, Marquess of Maranham, etc.

  Part II Peace

  10. Bermuda in the Peace, 1802–1803

  A midshipman recounts the loss of a shipmate during a gale and horseplay in Bermuda during a lull in the action; from The Midshipman: Being the Autobiographical Sketches of His Own Early Career, from Fragments of Voyages and Travels, by Captain Basil Hall, R.N., F.R.S.

  Part III The Napoleonic War

  11. The Battle of Trafalgar, 1805

  Nelson’s greatest triumph as seen by William Robinson from the lower deck; from Jack Nastyface: Memoirs of a Seaman, by William Robinson.

  12. The Death of Lord Nelson, 1805

  Dr. Beatty observes Admiral Nelson throughout his ultimate battle and reports here his words with Captain Hardy and others, including his last words; from The Death of Lord Nelson, 21 Oct 1805, by William Beatty, M.D., edited by Edward Arber, F.S.A.

  13. An Unequal Match, 1807–1808

  Given an unworthy command, Captain William Dillon makes the best of an ugly situation in northern waters. In command of the brig Childers, against the much heavier Danish brig Lügum, Dillon shows his heart of oak; from A Narrative of My Adventures (1790–1839), by Sir William Henry Dillon, K.C.H., Vice-Admiral of the Red, edited by Michael A. Lewis.

  14. With Stopford in the Basque Roads, 1808–1809

  Fifteen years after being impressed into the Royal Navy, William Richardson, now a warrant officer, participates in one of the most storied naval actions of the Napoleonic wars; from A Mariner of England, edited by Colonel Spencer Childers.

  15. When I Beheld These Men Spring from the Ground, 1809

  When first heard from in Every Man Will Do His Duty, Midshipman Hall was avenging the death of Shakings, a cur, on board the Leander in the waters off Bermuda. Five years later, having recently passed for lieutenant, Hall witnesses an awesome sight, the Battle of Corunna, and assists in the embarkation of retreating British troops; from The Midshipman, by Captain Basil Hall.

  16. “Damn ’em, Jackson, They’ve Spoilt My Dancing,” 1809–1812

  Beset by four French ships, HMS Junon, 38 guns, fights courageously and her captain is fatally wounded. But for the Junon’s Lieutenant Jackson, this is just the beginning of a wild odyssey through the French prisons of Verdun and Bitche and back home again; from The Perilous Adventures and Vicissitudes of a Naval Officer, 1801–1812; Being Part of the Memoirs of Admiral George Vernon Jackson (1787–1876), edited by Harold Burrows, C.B.E., F.R.C.S.

  17. The Woodwind Is Mightier than the Sword, 1809–1812

  A former U.S. Navy seaman, James Durand is impressed by the British, is wounded in battle, and discovers a novel way to ease the burden of service; from James Durand: An Able Seaman of 1812, His Adventures on “Old Ironsides” and as an Impressed Sailor in the British Navy, edited by George S. Brooks.

  Part IV The Napoleonic War, Continued, and the War of 1812

  18. HMS Macedonian vs. USS United States, 1812

  During the bloody battle between the Macedonian and the United States, Samuel Leech fights the Macedonian’s fifth gun on the main deck and loses some of his mess; from Thirty Years from Home or A Voice from the Main Deck, by Samuel Leech,

  19. An Unjustifiable and Outrageous Pursuit, 1812–1813

  Down on his luck, George Little, an American seaman, turns to privateering and his luck grows worse. A story of fighting, cannibals, and prison; from Life on the Ocean; or, Twenty Years at Sea: Being the Personal Adventures of the Author, by George Little.

  20. A Yankee Cruiser in the South Pacific, 1813

  Sent to the South Pacific to protect American whalers and to wreak havoc upon British shipping and whaling interests, Captain David Porter runs up the coast of Chile and Peru to the Galapagos Islands in his mighty little frigate Essex; from Journal of a Cruise Made to the Pacific Ocean by Captain David Porter in the United States Frigate Essex, in the Years 1812, 1813, and 1814.

  21. Showdown at Valparaiso, 1814

  The Phoebe’s Captain Hillyar is a friend of Captain Porter’s. In earlier days, Po
rter spent many pleasant hours with the Hillyar family in Gibraltar. Yet Hillyar’s mission is to destroy Porter’s frigate, the Essex. Far from home waters, the tension mounts as the two frigates lie anchored in a neutral port; from Journal of a Cruise Made to the Pacific Ocean by Captain David Porter.

  22. We Discussed a Bottle of Chateau Margot Together, 1812–1815

  Lieutenant William Bowers cruises off southwestern England and then takes a land tour on the other side of the Channel; from Naval Adventures During Thirty-Five Years’ Service, by Lieutenant W. Bowers, R.N.

  Notes on the Texts

  Selected Bibliography

  Index

  Acknowledgments

  THE EDITORS WISH TO express their gratitude to Jessica King for her editorial input, to J. Worth Estes for his suggestions for works to be included, and to Adam Merton Cooper for his excellent maps and battle charts. They would also like to thank John C. Dann for permission to use material from The Nagle Journal and the Navy Records Society for permission to reprint selections from Recollections of James Anthony Gardner and Dillon’s Narrative of My Adventures. The Henry E. Eccles Library of the Naval War College and the library of the New York Yacht Club generously made available the books from which many of the selections in this volume are excerpted. Once again, our sincerest thanks to David Sobel and Jonathan Swain Landreth at the Victualling and Ordnance Board and Jody Rein, our prize agent.

  Foreword

  THE EDITORS OF THIS VOLUME started out with a shared interest in the historical novels of Patrick O’Brian, particularly his series of eighteen Aubrey-Maturin books dealing with the Royal Navy in the wars of the French Revolution and Empire, 1793–1815. O’Brian’s work, like all the best historical fiction, both draws strength from and sheds light on its chosen era. It has a well-researched historical framework around which the author develops his characters and builds his plot, slipping seamlessly between fact and fiction. Ideally, the work raises curiosity and deeper interest in the historical period in which the novels are set. With that in mind, we produced A Sea of Words, a general guide to the historical background and the technical language used in the novels. Then we went on to produce Harbors and High Seas, a geographical companion to the series with new and period maps. Both works were designed to help readers better understand the historical setting and technical references that O’Brian uses in his novels.

  In Every Man Will Do His Duty, we took a further step in this direction. This time we hoped to draw the dedicated readers of novels about the Royal Navy in this period to some of the remarkable nonfiction accounts written by the men who were actually there. To that end, we selected works of the period that describe events that have inspired not only Patrick O’Brian, but also C. S. Forester, Alexander Kent, C. Northcote Parkinson, Dudley Pope, et al.

  We chose a series of cohesive, short essays that we think are well-written examples of the literature and that touch on many of the highlights of the wars. These passages have certainly been pored over by historians of maritime affairs, although some are rather obscure. We presented our collection in a way that leads the reader chronologically through the course of the period. Our purpose was to create a readable and interesting book that brings readers one step closer to original materials.

  We excerpted from previously published memoirs, diaries, and accounts in an attempt to represent the true voices of the age. All the pieces in this volume are evocative of life in the navy during the age of sail, and, in this respect, all are good sources. While we can be certain that most of these pieces were actually written by the seamen who participated in the events, a few raise doubts in the historian’s mind. In these cases, the documentary evidence has not yet been found that would allow researchers to subject these works to the closest scrutiny. The pieces we selected have been convincing enough to satisfy earlier generations, even those who lived at the time; in one or two cases, however, they still may not have been written by the sailors themselves, from their own experience. They may have been ghostwritten or incomplete; some have surely been retouched by overzealous publishers. Nevertheless, they are evocative of the era and persuasive as nonfiction descriptions, if not testimonies of actual experience.

  The works collected here are the predecessors of, and even the direct sources for, historical novelists. Any serious examination of the maritime literature for this period must start with published pieces such as these. Historians will eventually compare them to other forms of evidence that they find. In the meantime, modern readers can see these pieces on a variety of levels, learn from them, begin to ask questions about them, and, above all, enjoy reading them.

  JOHN B. HATTENDORF

  Introduction

  PRIOR TO THE BATTLE of Trafalgar, Admiral Lord Nelson issued to the captains of his fleet one of the lines for which he was so revered: “In case signals can neither be seen nor perfectly understood, no captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of an enemy.” Nelson was an expert at distilling naval tactics down to a level readily understood by individual captains, their officers, and men: Be flexible and responsive to the immediate tactical situation by looking for and making the most of opportunities; get each ship and its guns into effective action against the enemy; and maintain that action as long as possible, optimally until the enemy ship strikes or is sunk. The key was getting all of the ships into action, something that had been a recurring problem in naval tactics since the seventeenth century. At the same time, Nelson appealed directly to their sense of courage, a virtue of which he was the paragon.

  Just before the battle actually began on October 21, 1805, Nelson had another message to deliver, this time to the seamen of his fleet. The sentiment he chose, “England expects that every man will do his duty,” was singularly brilliant. Nelson was clearly out for glory that day, in the form of French and Spanish blood. This understated message swept away the pall of grievances held by the seamen of the British fleet in a resounding battle cry. Nelson was in touch with these men, many of whom were conscripted against their will and were subsequently governed by captains who had little choice but swift and merciless punishment to keep order.

  As William Robinson, one lower-deck hand who was present that day and who deeply resented the arbitrary and excessive use of the cat-o’-nine-tails, later wrote in his memoirs:

  How happy must that officer be, who has the consolation to know that he was beloved by his ship’s company. … Out of a fleet of nine sail of the line I was with, there were only two captains thus distinguished. … Those two ships beat us in reefing and furling; for they were not in fear and dread, well knowing they would not be punished without a real and just cause. Those men would have stormed a battery, or have engaged an enemy at sea, with more vigour and effect than the other seven; for the crews of those seven felt themselves so degraded at being wantonly and unmanly beaten about, that their spirits were partly broken; and in going to battle, the only thing that could stimulate, cheer, and inspire them, was not veneration for their commanders, but the recollection of the land that gave them birth, OLD ENGLAND.(pp. 136–37)

  Clearly, Robinson—better known by his publishing pseudonym Jack Nastyface—had an ax to grind, and he may have overstated his case. A fighting captain and a friend of the foremast jack, Nelson was much esteemed by his seamen as well as his country. Still, he was well aware that, given the harsh nature of life on board a man-of-war and the dubious and often cruel means of naval recruitment, the undivided loyalty of the men of his fleet lay primarily in one place—their country. He knew that this loyalty was so strong and so deeply felt that, in the face of the enemy, it would overcome all else.

  Every Man Will Do His Duty presents some of the voices of the seamen and officers who fought and lived at sea during the French Revolutionary War (1793–1802), the Napoleonic War (1803–1815), and the War of 1812 (1812–15), which were interrupted only by a brief period of peace, the roughly year-long Peace of Amiens beginning on March 25, 1802. Notwithstanding an often rapaci
ous desire for the pecuniary rewards of victory, the seamen who tell their stories here, whether British or American, were, generally speaking, motivated by national and personal pride, as well as for the love and respect of their shipmates.

  Many of the great and historically important moments of the Napoleonic wars are captured in this reader, among them the Glorious First of June (1794), the Battle of Cape St. Vincent (1797), the Battle of Trafalgar (1805), the (land) Battle of Corunna (1809), and the frigate action between HMS Macedonian and USS United States (1812). In that sense, this book serves as a selective history of these wars, as told by eyewitnesses.

  To cover all of the great fleet actions and the most significant frigate actions would consume far more space than one volume allows. Instead this book tries to capture the nature of life and war at sea in square-rigged ships—not just the heroic moments but the deprivations, the monotony, the pleasures, the pain, the justice and injustice. Cochrane’s cruise of the Mediterranean in 1801 and Porter’s cruise of the South Pacific in 1812, 1813, and 1814, while not as historically significant as the previously mentioned actions, perhaps better capture the mystique of life at sea and the political nature and psychological effects of life on board a man-of-war.

  Jacob Nagle’s two narratives and James Gardner’s account are especially strong at evoking the personalities of man-of-war men and their daily lives, on land as well as at sea. The accounts of Robert Eastwick and George Little, both merchantmen, reveal the effects of the wars on men outside the navy Eastwick experiences, in the Bay of Bengal, the frigate action between the French La Forte and HMS La Sybille while prisoner on board the enemy, and Little turns to privateering as a means of making a living, only to be captured by cannibals on the former Spanish Main and then imprisoned in England.

  IN THE CASE of the lower-deck seamen, these passages are akin to oral histories, frequently told in rough diction and jumping from one episode to another with little transition. These seamen wear their grievances in scars across their backs and frequently expound on the injustice and arbitrariness of the Royal Navy’s strict disciplinarians. If Studs Terkel had been there to document this “good war,” these are the accounts that he would have heard. In other cases, such as Drinkwater Bethune’s description of the Battle of Cape St. Vincent and Captain David Porter’s account of the action between USS Essex and HMS Phoebe, the presentation is more studied, often with a sense of creating or correcting history—the former wrote to glorify Nelson, the latter partly to document the violations of the rules of war by his opponent—and certainly from a more polished hand.