The Sword And The Dagger
Page 20
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Since Napoleon had declared France an empire in May 1804 and crowned himself Emperor at Notre-Dame in December of the same year, the fight to contain an antichrist was inevitable. The Napoleonic Wars had been a series of coalitions; the war of the fourth coalition was now in progress. August 1807 and Napoleon had mustered the small states of the Rhineland including Saxony and Bavaria. England formed a coalition with Prussia, Russia and Sweden and a gunboat war ensued.
Britannia ruled the waves but not without sacrifice. Her naval power had stopped France expanding her empire and would be a deciding factor in the defeat of the French. Denmark and Norway declared themselves neutral in the Napoleonic Wars and established a large navy and traded with both sides. British naval authorities looked upon the Danish-Norwegian fleet as a threat if bolstered by the French. The British had amassed an armada of more than fifty ships in the Sound north of Scotland to attack the city of Copenhagen should Denmark not agree to a treaty of protection and alliance. Negotiations were fruitless and the fleet was poised to attack Copenhagen in late August, finally numbering 126 ships off the coast of Copenhagen.
The Banshee had returned to England with the information on the loss of the Octavia and the use of rockets by the Ghost with success. The Congreve Rocket designed by William Congreve had been tested since 1805 as part of the royal arsenal and a trial of the rocket in battle was given the go ahead by Admiralty on several ships in the fleet assigned to bombard Copenhagen. The weapon had been sourced from the Kingdom of Mysore in India during the wars fought by the British East India Company in 1801 and was thought to have originated in the Far East.
The British were keen to set Fial and his ships against the French along the coast of France and had planted informants in the crews of the Banshee and Octavia. They hoped they may be able to speak with Fial or if captured to express the possible free hand that would be given to the Ghost and its party if attacks were directed to the French and Spanish fleets in the English Channel. The Copenhagen assault was leaving the navy stretched and they were attempting to muster all the help they could get.
The first mate of the Octavia was brought before Fial close to death in Ras al-Khaimah, a few days after she was sunk by the captain of the Shiraz which was now back in action. A dying man whispered the facts to Fial; a fleet bearing down on Copenhagen, the French conveying slaves, no longer with any opposition from the British. There was a lack of British ships to contain the French expansion of the slave trade. The seaman died not long after talking with Fial. He was now in deep thought about his next move.
Fial’s armada left Ras al-Khaimah in early September during the battle of Copenhagen and headed for the British Channel, a voyage that would take them past Madagascar, round the most southern tip of Africa and north along the African west coast, with plans to engage French and Spanish shipping from Portugal to the Netherlands.
Fial had resigned himself to the fact that if the British did not assist with resupplying his ships he would take what he needed by capturing merchantmen. He calculated his voyage would bring his fleet to Portugal in mid-December and he planned stops in the African ports to restock in South Africa and the Congo. Fial had set his sights on Portuguese ports to operate from as Napoleon’s armies were putting the Portuguese under attack, and if the British were to be true to their word he would be an asset to the British in the area.
Viana do Castelo, a port on the north coast of Portugal near the Spanish border was a place that Fial saw that he could easily withdraw south from should he need to, plus be a constant menace to the French; and it was a chance to eat food he was remotely fond of so he found it appealing. Years of salted meat, stale bread, potatoes and rotting fruit gave way to the thought of small comforts other than camel and legumes, of which Fial had developed a special dislike. With the new British approach to the movement of slaves Fial’s quest was changing tack, even at times to him becoming futile.