by Roy Adkins
Charles Dibdin (1745–1814) was a prolific dramatist and composer of popular songs, many of which were about the men of the navy. The song that King’s friends were singing was likely to be something like ‘Jack in His Element’, the first verse of which ran,
Bold Jack, the sailor, here I come;
Pray how d’ye like my nib,
My trowsers wide, my trampers rum,
My nab, and flowing jib?
I sails the sea from end to end,
And leads a joyous life;
In ev’ry mess I finds a friend,
In ev’ry port a wife.25
About ten o’clock, King’s boat crew returned to the Melpomene:
The captain asked us if we could guess at our loss. We said no. He then ordered us a glass of grog each and the purser took us all down to his cabin and gave each of us a tumbler of Hollands gin. I drank it off and went and laid down in my berth under the table and was soon fast asleep and never woke until the hammocks were piped up the following morning, not having been disturbed or called upon to keep any watch the ensuing night.26
In coastal waters gunboats, each carrying at least one cannon, were as much a threat to British shipping as the enemy’s warships. This was particularly the case when there was little or no wind, so that a stationary warship presented an easy target for boats propelled and manoeuvred by oars. To counter this threat, the boats from British warships often patrolled up and down enemy coasts, looking for anything worth attacking. In late 1812 George Watson was part of the crew of HMS Eagle who were involved in boat operations in the Adriatic, and, as he said, ‘We had no particular object in view, on leaving the ship, our design was merely to reconnoitre the coast in the morning, and intercept the vessels if we found any trading between Venice and Ancona.’27 He considered this work much more dangerous than full-scale battles, though his view was probably coloured by being severely injured in one such boat operation: ‘I have no hesitation in saying that individual valour is more conspicious in, and more necessary to sustain, such a conflict, which is also severer while it lasts, than any general action … I had a boatmate who was in the Victory at Trafalgar, and no coward either, who said, (in his way of speaking) he would rather be “in twenty Trafalgars,” than in one such combat, as we sustained often in the green barge.’28
Some enemy vessels were better armed than anticipated, as in one incident in mid-May 1807 off the south coast of France, near Nice. The Spartan frigate under the command of Jahleel Brenton was chasing what seemed to be an unarmed poleacre (merchant ship). When both ships were becalmed, boats from the Spartan were rowed the 5-mile distance to capture the vessel. James Bodie recounted what happened:
I, James Bodie, Quartermaster belonging to H.M. Ship Spartan under the command of Capt. Brenton, was sent from the said ship on the 13 May under the command of Lieutenant [Benjamin] Weir, after a large ship inshore. Which, at 10 a.m., we went alongside of her, and when seeing the boat the enemy called to all hands, the same as a British man of war. Which, Mr Weir ordered me to stop for the rest of the boats. Accordingly I did so. The jolly boat and cutter was in sight but a good way off then. The launch came up, and it was agreed among the officers to board her … At a distance of pistol shot of her, the fire begun. Which, I steered the boat that Mr Weir was in, and laid him on the starboard quarter, according to his orders. Which, we was under a very hot fire for a considerable time.29
Another report described the ensuing disaster:
The boats of the Spartan with the two senior lieutenants, Weir and Williams, and 70 of the best men, pulled alongside in two divisions, and attempted to board her on the bow and quarter with the usual determination and valour of British seamen; but the vessel was defended by a numerous and equally gallant crew … The first discharge from their great-guns and musketry laid 63 of our brave fellows low, the first and second lieutenants and 26 men being killed or mortally wounded; seven men only remained unhurt. The few remaining hands conducted the boats back to the ship.30
Bodie never made it back to the Spartan, because he had already boarded the merchant vessel, as he recounted:
I jumped in the mizzen chains and went forward without being discovered by anyone. I spiked 4 of the guns on the starboard side with the ramrod of my pistol. The boats shifting off, I was discovered by a small boy that was coming up the fore hatchway, who called out, Engles, Engles [English, English]. Upon which, I was directly attacked by the Capt. and one of the seamen. After some time, I was surrounded by the whole ship’s company and being wounded in the back and legs, and seeing my shipmates flee from me, I thought it was best to make them understand that I was a prisoner of war. She proved to be the ship L’Orient, Letter of Marque. Mounted 22 guns and had 36 for the crew.31
Only when the boats returned to the Spartan was it discovered that Bodie was missing, presumed dead:
The deceased men were all laid out on the main deck; the wife of Bodie, a beautiful young woman, flew with a lantern from one to the other in search of her husband, but in vain: all the survivors declared that he had undoubtedly perished; they saw him wounded, and fall between the ship and the boat. The poor woman became delirious, got into the barge on the booms, and taking the place lately occupied by Bodie, could with difficulty be moved from it. A few days, with the soothing kindness of the officers and crew, produced a calm, but settled grief. At Malta a subscription of 80 guineas was made for her, and she was sent to her parents in Ireland. Some weeks elapsed when the Spartan spoke a neutral vessel from Nice, and learnt that a poleacre had arrived there, after a severe action with the boats of a frigate; that she had beaten them off, and that when they had left her, a wounded Englishman was discovered holding by the rudder chain; he was instantly taken on board, and after being cured of his wounds, sent off to Verdun.32
Until Napoleon completely overturned the rules regarding prisoners-of-war, it was normal for the officers and men to be officially exchanged. The process was fairly rapid for officers, since they did not need to wait for several hundred of them to be exchanged simultaneously, as happened with the seamen. Being gentlemen, they simply gave their word of honour not to serve in the navy until they were deemed officially exchanged. Ordinary seamen were judged unsuitable people for keeping their word of honour, even in revolutionary France, so they were held prisoner until they could be physically exchanged for the equivalent number of prisoners, a process that could drag on.
George Mackay was taken prisoner when he was a fifteen-year-old servant on board the Scout sloop. He was rated as a first-class boy and had been at sea for two years. In August 1794 the Scout was accompanying a convoy off Algeria when they were taken by two French frigates. Mackay thought that the Scout’s seamen were too intent on trying to hide their prize-money to put up a fight, ‘with the exception of a few who, like true British tars, finding they were in the hands of the enemy, broke open the spirit-room and in a few minutes totally forgot the situation’.33 The ships took several days to reach Toulon, from where the captured men began a march of over a hundred miles northwards to their prison, or depot, at Gap, but Mackay said that after a few days, ‘my feet, unaccustomed to a series of travelling, were severely blistered’.34 At the town of Gap they were allowed to roam at will until dark, and money was sent to them by the prize agent at Leghorn (now Livorno) in Italy. Mackay was fortunate in being able to speak French, and after being a prisoner-of-war for nearly a year, he tried twice to escape but was caught both times.
‘In the following year, (1796),’ Mackay related, ‘finding that we were not likely to be soon exchanged, I prepared myself for another effort to regain my liberty.’35 This time he travelled as far as Paris, before he was again apprehended, taken back to Gap and thrown into prison for thirty days, ‘and to my further mortification, I learned that the crew of the Scout had been exchanged by cartel, during my absence’.36 Having missed his opportunity to be exchanged, Mackay instead obtained a passport to return to Toulon, ‘where it was supposed I would embark on board of a
cartel. On my arrival … I was given to understand that there was no cartel appointed, and that I must await the recovery of some other prisoners in order to embark with them at a future period.’37 Mackay subsequently fell in love with a French girl of fourteen, but she died soon after of smallpox, and he himself became very ill and depressed. He remained in hospital until spring 1798, when ‘despairing of ever obtaining my freedom by exchange, I petitioned the Commissary at War to allow me to return to the Interior, where I would enjoy a greater extent of liberty’.38 Eventually, Mackay escaped via Switzerland and Germany, and at Cuxhaven he boarded the packet boat to Yarmouth – where he fell straight into the arms of the press-gang, was forced back into the navy and sent to the West Indies.
The year Mackay escaped, 1798, a parliamentary report was published on the treatment of French prisoners-of-war confined in England and of British captives held in French prisons following the outbreak of war five years before. This was a time of heightened emotions because two years earlier Captain Sir Sidney Smith had been captured and kept in the Temple prison in Paris, instead of being released as an officer – in April 1798 he made a dramatic escape back to England. The report complained that the British had released many French prisoners-of-war, but that the French were behaving dishonourably and not fulfilling their side of the agreement – they owed 2995 men. Further treachery was uncovered, because
every effort was made to induce the British seamen to go on board the French fleet, particularly at the times of the expedition against Ireland … All efforts were used to inveigle them; they were frequently threatened to be starved, and at other times, liquor was given to them, and advantage was taken of them when in a state of intoxication … Three or four hundred were debauched into the scheme, under the expectation of being sent home for exchange.39
James Colnett was captain of the Hussar frigate that was wrecked on the north coast of Brittany on 24 December 1796. He and his crew became prisoners-of-war, and although Colnett as an officer was eventually exchanged, in his evidence to the parliamentary committee he was critical of his treatment:
After we escaped from the wreck, and surrendered ourselves to the military, we were pillaged by them of everything but what was on our backs. We were five days on our march to Brest, on foot, during which time we had only a small quantity of bread given us one day, no other lodging than wet straw in a church was procured for us, unless we could pay for it. After our arrival at Brest, we were confined in the Common Gaol at Pontanezan; for the first two days fed with nothing but the common prisoners rations, which were parts of a bullock cut up by the lump, liver, lights, offal, and part of the horn with the jaw. After being let out of the gaol, a larger quantity of provisions was allowed the officers, but of the same quality. After remaining some time at Pontanezan, where a very small part of my effects was returned to me, we were forced to go on parole a hundred miles from Brest to Pontavie, and were obliged to pay our own expences, as well as those of the soldier who had the care of us. The whole time of our stay at Pontavie, we had no more than the French common soldier’s rations, and even the worst part of the meat, and no wood to cook the victuals. When our release was ordered, we were marched back in the same way, paying our own expences; but finally some wood was procured, for which we signed receipts.40
On being asked if he knew of any steps to entice the British seamen to join the French Navy, he replied: ‘Not personally, but from my own crew, of whose veracity I had no doubt. Several of them applied to me for my consent, rather than be starved in prison, as they were threatened to be, which I positively refused.’41
Once war resumed in 1803, after the collapse of the Peace of Amiens, arrangements governing prisoner exchanges were entirely abandoned, with Napoleon only allowing them on rare occasions. Anyone captured early on was doomed to spend the next decade in prison, unless he escaped. It was generally assumed that prisoner exchanges between the two countries would be reinstated, but negotiations between the British and French failed. Most prisoners were destined to be held in French prisons, well away from the sea, until the peace in 1814. According to Napoleon, when speaking to his surgeon Barry O’Meara on St Helena, the captured seamen did not want to return to the Royal Navy: ‘Many of your English sailors did not want to be exchanged. They did not wish to be sent again on board of their floating prisons.’42 There is no evidence to support his claim – surviving records show that the captured seamen suffered immensely, especially from shortage of food and desperate boredom. They might not want to rejoin the navy, but that prospect was preferable to life as a prisoner in France.
Many of Napoleon’s captives were held in fortresses and walled towns on the eastern side of France, at places such as Arras, Valenciennes, Givet, Verdun, Sarrelibre and Besançon, or else were sent as punishment to the dismal penal depot of Bitche, where many prisoners were kept in dungeons deep underground. These fortified strongholds were no longer needed to protect France, because the Revolutionary and Napoleonic armies had pushed the frontier much further east by invading neighbouring countries. At the time of Napoleon’s first abdication in 1814 over sixteen thousand prisoners were being held in France, about three-quarters of whom were sailors. Most had been taken through the actions of French privateers capturing merchant vessels, or from naval vessels being shipwrecked.
Guarded by gendarmes, the captured seamen were marched from the ports where they landed to these prisons, with only the officers having an opportunity to use wheeled transport. Such marches of several hundred miles could be gruelling, especially for men who might not have stepped ashore for months, and each night they were put into secure lodgings, usually the local gaol. In August 1804 sixteen-year-old Midshipman Robert Bastard James was on board the Rambler brig, which was returning to the squadron off Brest after a stint of blockading Rochefort. They captured two merchant vessels carrying wine, and James was put in charge of one of the prize vessels, with orders to sail to England. The prize was poorly equipped, and terrible weather (plus his men becoming drunk) in the Bay of Biscay forced them into the mouth of the River Loire and on to rocks. They were captured and taken by boat to Nantes, then marched some five hundred miles to prisons on the other side of France. ‘Not being accustomed to walking;’ James lamented, ‘we were incapable of any farther than half way to the town, where we were to rest for the night. The miserable remains of our money the men spent in brandy – and four of them so drunk that the soldiers were obliged to procure a cart to take us.’43 He went on: ‘we looked like a set of half starved miserable wretches, instead of British seamen … guards used to exhibit us as fine specimens of English sailors – in throwing a ridicule on our wretched appearance – long beards, half famished, no shoes – they forgot they were casting a severe reflection on their own navy, to be so often beat by such miserable looking wretches.’44
After a rest of several days, they continued their journey, this time with money given to them by a wealthy English resident: ‘My men, as usual, stopped at every public house on the road and were generally drunk before they entered the prison, and I really think that sailors march better drunk, than sober; in one case, they would stagger and roll along, singing and quarrelling, while on the other hand, they would be as sulky as mules, and only go by driving.’45
Robert James was taken to Verdun, the prison where military and naval officers were held, on the left bank of the River Meuse. The majority were held on parole, wherever they wished to live, giving their word of honour – parole d’honneur – not to escape. There were also detained civilians – détenus – at Verdun, many with their wives and children and often lodging in the town. The place was unlike any other prison and developed into a microcosm of English society. James remarked that
Verdun resembles a small fashionable town in England. The lodgings were good and not extravagant … Horses were brought from England, and came through Germany at a most enormous expense – at last there was a very excellent set of horses, and the course was as fashionable and full of roguery a
s Newmarket. Drinking and smoaking clubs were established in many parts of the town, for all classes, and it was here that the naval youth spent his time, and money.46
Captain Jahleel Brenton of HMS Spartan had earlier been a prisoner-of-war at Verdun, after his frigate the Minerve grounded off Cherbourg harbour in thick fog in July 1803 and the entire crew was captured. When they finally reached Verdun, most of Brenton’s crew was sent on to Givet. In October 1806 Brenton became one of the rare prisoners-of-war to be exchanged (for Captain Infernet, captured at the Battle of Trafalgar) and allowed back to England. When James Bodie, Brenton’s coxswain from the Spartan, was captured in 1807, he was authorised to stay at Verdun because of his connections with Brenton, rather than being transferred to a prison like Givet.
While the loss of liberty for so many years was terrible to bear, life for the officers at Verdun was pleasant enough compared with conditions in many of the other prisons. Lieutenant John Carslake was captured in early 1809 and what vexed him most at Verdun was the difficulty of sending letters. In one letter to his brother-in-law Lieutenant John Yule in March 1811, he complained:
Every effort which I have used for some months past to get a letter conveyed to you has proved ineffectual. Four have been returned to me and even this scrap stands a poor chance of succeeding. The difficulties of corresponding are great beyond example, but instead of discouraging me, they add to my anxiety and consequently strengthen my perseverance … You have fine boys with prospects of an addition to your family! … I cannot bear to reflect on the period of seeing them, because that pleasure is reserved for a time so very remote, in that we have so entirely extinguished the idea of returning that [Lieutenant John] Bingham and myself have taken the lease of a house and garden for economy sake, and it is so pleasantly situated that we are become the envy of all our neighbours.47