by Roy Adkins
Before we set sail, Mr. Maxwell, the Agent who had followed the expedition to Martinique, gave us bills upon England for the amount of prize-money (a considerable sum) due to those officers and men of the Pompée who had accompanied the Commodore into the Belleisle. The bills were protested [rejected], and sent back to the West Indies; and the first news we heard in return was, that Mr. Maxwell had departed this life, and had died insolvent … I had now lost all that I had gained.4
On board Aaron Thomas’s ship, the Lapwing, able seaman Francis Kirnan from London also kept a journal filled with biting comments. On 5 November 1797, he wrote, ‘the agent’s clerk came on board and paid 10 dollars, 6 bitts and 3 dogs, being as he tells us the remainder of our due – it is astonishing the swindling and roguery practised by agents.’5 Two months later he added that ‘no species of knavery is left out in paying sailors prize money’.6
On the other hand, the marine Daniel Goodall, serving in the Amelia in 1809, was lucky to have no problems with his prize-money:
Before we left the coast of Spain we had a small supplement of good luck in the shape of a capture of three large decked boats, laden with stores and military clothing for the 119th regiment of the line of French infantry. They were attempting a passage from Bayonne to Gijon when we descried them along shore, and our boats being sent in pursuit of the crews in charge of them, run the boats on the beach and escaped up the country. There were complete suits for a thousand men, a plentiful supply of shirts and shoes, and several casks filled with hams and soap. The boats we broke up for firewood, a pair of shoes and a shirt was given to every man and boy in the ship, and the hams and soap also were distributed, so we had a foretaste of our share in the captures. When we reached Plymouth a few weeks after, a fair distribution of all the prize-money due to us was made, and we had, besides the treasure taken at St. Andero, something very handsome to receive for the value of vessels cut out at Sables d’Oloune, the crew of the Amelia had long reason for speaking exulting of the thumping luck they had experienced in their cruise off the coast of Spain.7
Because of all the potential pitfalls surrounding the payment of prize-money, it was appreciated when their officers did all they could to speed up payments. Theophilus Lee remembered that Henry Digby, when captain of the Aurora, always tried
to sell his prizes in the lump to the Jews at Lisbon; and as soon as the gallant and active Captain … appeared there, he was surrounded by competitors for the purchase of them, – the amount being invariably paid down in cash, and divided before another cruize commenced. This gave an eclat to the Aurora which brought all the best seamen of the transports to enter on board her; and she had a ship’s company, for a vessel of her class, perhaps unrivalled in the service. Her crew became great dandies, having the gold Crusadoes made into buttons, and sown so thick on their jackets, that many thousands of this coin were thus distributed in the ship. At the bottom of their trowsers they had also broad lace of fine quality, and, in fact, the Aurora’s men were known from all the other seamen of the fleet by these costly decorations, as well as by their large silver buckles, handsome silk handkerchiefs, and other indications of ‘lots of prize money’.8
Much more than their wages, prize-money was the tangible reward that the majority of sailors from humble or impoverished backgrounds dreamed of. Although captures of Spanish treasure ships were the exception rather than the rule, when they happened the captains became rich enough to buy country mansions and estates, while some crew members might fulfil their dream of buying an inn and retiring on the proceeds. Henry Digby was later captain of the Alcmene when the Spanish ships Thetis and Santa Brigida were captured in the Bay of Biscay in 1799, loaded with treasure. Like Nelson, Digby was the son of a clergyman, and although he did not rise so high or become nearly so famous as Nelson, he was extremely successful in capturing enemy shipping. While in the Aurora, he captured fifty ships from January 1797 to September 1798, of which the majority were Spanish. Digby’s share of the prize-money from these and other captures, plus the fortune he received for his role in taking the Thetis and Santa Brigida, made him a very rich man, and he used part of his wealth to restore the family home at Minterne Magna in Dorset. As well as being lucky with prize-money, Digby had a distinguished career, commanding the Africa at the Battle of Trafalgar, and the following year he married the daughter of the Earl of Leicester. He was awarded various honours and had reached the rank of admiral by the time he died in August 1842 at the age of seventy-two.
At the other end of the scale was John Smith Cowan, who never became a post-captain. James Scott served under him in 1810 when he was acting captain of the Barfleur and was surprised by his experience:
Capt. Cowan astonished me not a little by observing that he had never witnessed a shot fired in anger during the whole of his active career. I forget the number of years it embraced, but the singular part of the business was, that he had been constantly in sea-going ships, ever in search of enemies, and had never encountered any capable of resistance. Yet how far more deserving of promotion was this officer than the many who, with not a third part of his knowledge and abilities, had by mere good luck been so placed and circumstanced as to enable them to push their claims with success. The service is a lottery in this respect: it was the fate of Captain Cowan to experience all the real fag and hardships of the profession without receiving an adequate reward.9
Towards the end of the war, in 1813, William Dillon was irritated by false reports of the amount of prize-money awarded to officers:
It was whilst in company with five naval Captains that our attention was drawn to an article in one of the newspapers, attempting to prove what a lucky set of men the Captains of the Navy were in taking prizes and making fortunes. This article was so pointed, and so false in its assertions, that we drew up a reply to it which was signed by the whole six. We stated that we had been so many years serving our Country, that we had commanded ships a long while, that the whole of us had been wounded, and that none of us had, up to that period, received £100 Prize Money.10
Not quite true in his case, since earlier in his career Dillon had gained substantial prize-money. When he was lieutenant of the Aimable in 1797, they captured ‘a fine ship called the Teneriffe, from the Caracas, deeply laden with cocoa … We were soon in Tortola with our prize. My share of her amounted to £500 – the greatest share of prize money I ever received. I instantly sent it to my father.’11
The line between pursuit of prizes, glory and strategic need was ambiguous. The battle in 1794 that became known as the ‘Glorious First of June’ was acclaimed as a great British triumph because Lord Howe’s fleet defeated the French warships that were commanded by Rear-Admiral de Villaret de Joyeuse. Yet from the French side it was a brilliant defensive victory. Bad harvests had produced almost famine conditions in some parts of France, and the French warships were escorting a fleet of over a hundred transports carrying grain from the United States. While the British warships were occupied with the French fleet, the grain reached France safely, and although the battle provided propaganda to boost British morale, the arrival of the much-needed grain had the same effect in France.
Both officers and seamen hoped for prizes as a reward, and the strategic effect of the prize system was to disrupt and curtail the enemy’s trade, crippling their economy and reducing their power and will to continue the war. In the long term, the cumulative effect was more important than those clashes between warships, or the battles between great fleets, that caught the imagination of the public. Nelson was exceptional in that, although not insensitive to the need for prize-money, he always put the pursuit of glory and honour first. He gained many honours from his successes in battle, including a knighthood, and was then created Baron Nelson of the Nile by George III and made the Duke of Bronte by the King of Naples. Above all, Nelson took over from Sir Francis Drake the position of Britain’s best-known and best-loved sailor, and people still toast his ‘immortal memory’.
As well as being distanc
ed by rank and discipline aboard ship, a gulf persisted between officers and men when the war came to an end. All commissioned officers (lieutenants and above) were entitled to half-pay when they were not actively employed, and a few obtained pensions. For post-captains and higher ranks, even being laid off on half-pay did not stop their automatic promotion by seniority when officers above them died off, but for those under the rank of post-captain peace often meant the end of their career. For officers who did manage to stay on in the navy, the prospects for promotion and social advancement were greatly diminished. Archibald Sinclair summed up the plight of midshipmen: ‘When this ship [the Morgiana] was paid off (with many others) at the close of 1814, every mate and midshipman went through the ordeal of what was then styled “passing for a gentleman”. If you could not show that you were of gentle blood; or, what was of far more consequence, get some political influence to bear, you were simply discharged, and were considered to have no further claim upon the service.’12
Another midshipman, John Bluett, who had just returned from a voyage to Quebec, was somewhat happier at the prospect of being laid off, because he found he had been promoted to lieutenant and so was eligible for half-pay, as he confided in his diary on 17 August 1815:
Once more, with pleasure I leap on the blest shores of Old England; rendered additionally gratifying by the improvement in my condition since I left it. I find I am confirmed Lieutenant since 28th Feby. 1815. I shall now thank God be able to relieve my beloved parents, from the immense expense they have been at to support me as a gentleman since I have been at sea. The peace will for the present throw me out of employ, and frugally indeed must I live to make my half pay (of £90 a year) support me. To what distant period must I look before I can be happy with my beloved Margaret and dare I hope she will preserve herself disengaged for a period so indefinite, for the sake of one so little worthy of her; the thoughts being no present comfort. I must dismiss it.13
Sadly the relationship with Margaret did not last, but in 1821 Bluett married Sophia White.
For some men, leaving the navy was an opportunity to return to family and friends. Captain Fremantle had been away from his family for a considerable period, but on 6 March 1814, with peace in prospect, he wrote from Trieste to his wife Betsey:
Please God I shall sail tonight in the Eagle for England where I hope soon to meet all I hold dear in the world, for every place [held by the enemy] has been taken and nothing remains to be watched but Corfu and Vienna which do not so much depend upon naval operations. I am in hopes to enjoy some years of quiet. Nothing could have been more unkind to me than the present Admiralty, but thank God I have no occasion for their assistance. I have been made Commander of the Order of Maria Theresa, which no other English officer except Lord Wellington has ever received. I am told that it also makes me and my heirs Counts of the Empire; so my little Countess hold up your head until I come to England and then you will be a good girl. I frequently look at some children here and endeavour to calculate the height of my own: it seems to me so unnatural to have a child 3½ years old that I have never seen.14
For some officers an end to the war was the point at which they turned to a different career on land, but many had known no other life except the navy and languished in poverty or scraped by on their half-pay. Of these, some doubtless hoped for a renewal of war because peace had proved short-lived in the past, and might do so again, but by 1821 the situation was clear. In May of that year Napoleon’s death in exile put an end to fears of a resurgence of hostilities from France. Just the previous month, in his diary entry for 5 April, the naval surgeon Guy Acheson had written a poignant poem called ‘The Half-pay Officer’:
Mark well that haggard eye, that brow of care,
Where Pride seems nobly struggling with despair,
That sullen look, that dignity of mien,
Which e’en these faded garments cannot screen;
Such is the man, who lately led his crew,
To fight, to conquer, and to bleed for you;
Such is the man, who late in proud array,
Shone with the Proud, the Great, the Fair, the Gay.
But who alas! now scans with wary eye
Each group, each equipage, that passes by;
Alert to turn, if haply he should meet
Thou whom his pride forbids him now to greet.
The meagre wretch who begs from door to door
Is blest compared with the genteely poor;
No stubborn pride assails his callous breast,
No thoughts of past disturb his nightly rest.
The Cottager, his daily labour o’er,
Has still the blessings of a home in store
Though poor that home, though scant and coarse his fare,
His wife’s, his children’s smiles await him there;
Not for him who early leaves his home
Through boundless seas and foreign climes to roam;
Inspired by zeal, disease and death to dare
To guard the wealth he ne’er, alas! must share.
His attic home receives his wasted form,
No wife to greet, no lisping babes to charm,
His meal before him oft untasted lies
While tears of bitter care bedim his eyes;
To him alas, one only hope is given;
A page in History! a place in Heaven!
Is this my country, the chill reward
For these thy boasted, darling sons prepared?
These, who so oft thy blood’ned Flag unfurled,
Who fixed thy Empire o’er the watry world.
These who first checked the mighty Tyrants sway,
First opn’d for Wellington his glorious way;
This the reward? Alas, too plainly true,
Yet still they’ll fight, they’ll bleed, they’ll starve for you.15
For over six years since the war had ended, Acheson had observed the fate of officers surviving on half-pay only and naturally he sympathised most closely with them, but despite his assertions to the contrary, the situation was generally worse for the seamen and those officers too low in rank to be entitled to half-pay. Yet for many men the initial prospect of leaving the navy was one of euphoria, as Daniel Goodall depicted:
For all that has been said and sung about Jack’s strong attachment to his profession, I must say that the prospect of freedom from its obligations thus opened up to us by the news from France produced a delirium of joy amongst the whole of the men in the fleet very much at variance with the assumption that Jack preferred nothing better than his ship, his messmates, and ‘a life on the ocean wave’. Nor can this rejoicing at the prospect of a release from service be at all wondered at, considering that by far the greater number of hands were forced into it, and retained there much against their wills, and that many of them had not set foot on land for years – liberty to go on shore, even for a day, being then but rarely granted, so great was the dread of desertion.16
At the peak of the war the navy employed up to 145,000 men, but by 1817 the estimate of manpower required had fallen to around 19,000. A few laid-off sailors had enough money to live on, and some found places on merchant ships, whalers and fishing vessels, which were still short-handed after losing many of their crew to the press-gang, but for the majority the future was bleak. At the end of hostilities many warships were decommissioned, and their cannons scrapped – more would be scrapped as developments in technology made them obsolete. A number of these cannons were reused as bollards – with the muzzle upwards and a cannonball fixed in the mouth. They became so familiar that iron bollards were specially manufactured to resemble these cannons, and the design is now an accepted part of street furniture. The old warships, stripped of anything useful, were converted to supply depots, floating work platforms in the docks and prison hulks. It is a sad irony that some starving ex-seamen who turned to crime would find themselves as convicts on board a converted warship, and just as the cannons ended up on the street, so too did many impoverished sa
ilors.
When the seamen were discharged they tended to behave exactly the same as they had previously done on shore leave – they spent their money fast and freely until within a few days, or weeks at the most, they were penniless. Where they had been used to returning to their ship, or serving on board another one, they now found that no ship would take them. Even at the time, some people felt that it was a mistake to pay off so many seamen at once, as a letter in the Naval Chronicle noted: ‘I am aware that the Admiralty were anxious to release the seamen after so many years service in the defence of their country, both from a sense of justice to the men and to the country; yet, from the state in which we have seen the poor fellows at every port, so soon after getting their discharge, it is quite obvious that, for their own good, they might have been gradually paid off.’17
It did not take long to separate these seamen from their back pay and prize-money, and as James Scott grieved, ‘How often doth the reckless sailor escape the perils of mighty ocean’s din – the greedy monsters of the deep – the cannon’s roar – the battle fight – the fire – the wreck, to be finally stranded on his native land – to feel he hath grappled with the omnipotent works of a mighty God, only to fall a prey to the grasping clutches and devouring passions of his fellow men!’18
The first thought of many of the laid-off seamen was to demand work, as in September 1815 when The Times reported:
A large body of seamen, lately discharged from on board of men of war, attempted to obtain admission yesterday into the London Docks, for the avowed purpose of driving from thence all the foreigners they might find employed on board of vessels lying there. By letters received yesterday from Newcastle, we learn, that for some days past the seamen in that quarter had assembled in a body, with a view to obtain employment at an advanced rate of wages. They had taken the means of preventing any ship leaving Newcastle and the neighbourhood with coals, by dismantling the shipping in the trade. The seamen demand to be paid after the manner of the transports, – namely, to have £5 per month, and five men and a boy to be allowed for every 100 ton. This day a general meeting of the seamen, it was understood, would be held on the sands, in the vicinity of Newcastle, to consider what further proceedings they ought to adopt under existing circumstances.19