by Hughes, Ben;
Several miles to the east, Master Jonathon Upton, the commander of the Hunter, a 14-gun Boston privateer, was growing concerned. The chasing frigate, which was flying the British ensign from its mizzen peak, was gaining fast. Having taken a merchant brig and a troop transport bound for Newfoundland since leaving Salem for the West Indies on 9 December, Upton’s cruise had been going well, but all would count for nought unless he could evade his pursuer. Over the course of the morning, Upton had his seventy-five strong crew heave twelve of his guns overboard. Riding higher as each splashed into the water, the brig picked up speed, yet still the frigate gained. At 3 p.m. Hillyar ordered a warning shot fired across the American’s bows. The gun captain pulled the lanyard, the mechanism snapped shut, the charge caught and, as the gun recoiled across the deck, a 9-pound roundshot hurtled across the ocean to send a plume of foam spiking up a few hundred yards shy of the Hunter. Upton had had enough. With over an hour of daylight remaining, he knew he had no hope of escape. Striking his colours, he hove to and waited for the British to board him.7
At daylight on New Year’s Day the Phoebe’s lookouts spotted a schooner. The Vengence from New York was bound for Bordeaux with a cargo of coffee, indigo, cotton and sugar. Hillyar changed course to intercept and ordered his topmen to set the larboard studding sails. Extending the pivoting booms from the ship’s sides and the yards above, Laura and his crew pulled the sail into place, the frigate picked up speed and at 11 a.m. the forecastle 9-pounder crews opened fire. Officers standing on the quarterdeck spotted the shot fall and sent runners forward to advise the gun captains to adjust their fire. At midday, after several shots had fallen close, the Vengence’s Master, G. R. Dowdall, surrendered. Hillyar sent a petty officer and ten men in one of the ship’s boats to take possession. Seventeen prisoners were locked below with those taken from the Hunter, while Hillyar retired to his cabin under the quarterdeck to peruse the latest New York newspapers courtesy of his prize. The front pages announced yet another US victory. On 25 October the 38-gun HMS Macedonian had been defeated by USS United States midway between the Azores and Cape Verde Islands. She was the second British frigate to fall into the Americans’ hands. Returning to the quarterdeck, Hillyar ordered Acting Sailing Master Miller to set a course for England. The Admiralty would want to know of their latest defeat without delay.8
Born at Portsea, Hampshire, on 29 October 1769 into a naval surgeon’s family, Captain James Hillyar had always been destined for a life at sea. As a blue-eyed, blonde-haired boy, he had accompanied his widowed father from ship to ship before joining the 50-gun Fourth Rate, HMS Chatham, as a ten-year-old first-class volunteer. In the American War of Independence, Hillyar had commanded three of the Chatham’s lower deck 24-pounders when the French frigate Magicienne had been pounded into submission off Boston and was involved in the capture of no less than forty prizes before the Treaty of Paris brought the conflict to an end. The outbreak of the French Revolutionary War saw Midshipman Hillyar narrowly escaping with his life when his shore battery was stormed by bayonet-wielding Revolutionary French troops at the siege of Toulon. Rapid promotion on board a series of frigates followed and by the age of thirty Hillyar had attained the rank of First Lieutenant. In 1794, while serving on HMS Aquilon under Captain Robert Stopford, he took part in his only fleet action, the Glorious First of June, and six years later was made captain of HMS Niger, a 12-pounder frigate stationed at Torbay. Hillyar’s crowning moment on his first command came on 8 October 1800 when he led a night-time cutting-out operation at Barcelona. With the benefit of surprise, the 31-year-old brought two Spanish corvettes out of the harbour under heavy fire.9
Thirteen years of captaining frigates later, with his once-blonde hair steadily turning grey, Hillyar watched as his able First Lieutenant, William Ingram, sailed the Phoebe into Plymouth Sound. Three ships-of-the-line, including HMS Rivoli, a 74 recently captured from the French, HMS Salsette and a number of other frigates, and several armed brigs and sloops lay at anchor. To one side a line of nine dismasted prison hulks were moored. Crammed with French, Danish, Dutch and American soldiers, these once-proud giants served as a reminder of the ongoing European war. Under her previous title, the Formidable, HMS Brave had served as the flagship of Rear-Admrial Dumanoir at the Battle of Trafalgar. Alongside was a Spanish 74 captured at Cape St Vincent, the San Isidrio, two of whose inmates would attempt to escape whilst the Phoebe was at Plymouth, only to be caught in the act of cutting a 3-foot-square hole through her tropical hardwood hull.10
On the morning of 9 January 1813, having worked his way into the sheltered waters of the Barn Pool to the west of the shore batteries on Drake Island, Hillyar brought the Phoebe to anchor. Shore boats selling fresh fruit, fish, meat and vegetables gathered round and the men enjoyed the first fresh bread they had tasted since leaving port. Other boats arrived carrying crewmembers’ wives, a number of local prostitutes offered their services for half a crown (a little over double an able seaman’s daily pay) and the ship was soon overrun by ‘Jew pedlars’, small-scale entrepreneurs who set up shop in the hatchway gratings selling everything from handkerchiefs and duck trousers to gold watches and silver rings. The men weren’t the only ones to take advantage. Lieutenant Ingram had soon run up a debt of £5.11
That afternoon the cutter, yawl and barge were lowered and the ninety American prisoners were put on board HMS Salvador del Mundo, a Spanish three-decker captured at Cape St Vincent and since anchored in Cawsand Bay as a receiving ship for pressed men. Four days later, while the rest of the crew was busy taking on supplies, repainting the hull in the distinctive black and yellow pattern known as the ‘Nelson Chequer’ and repairing the sails and rigging, the Phoebe’s dwindling band of Trafalgar veterans bade farewell to one of their own. Never having fully recovered from a tropical fever contracted at Java in 1811, Able Seaman Robert Hilling, a 42-year-old Irishman who had served on the frigate since 1 November 1803, took one last look at the legendary signal sent by Nelson over seven years before (‘England expects every man shall do his duty’) embossed in gold lettering on a brass plaque on the Phoebe’s quarterdeck, before being discharged into Plymouth Hospital.12
On 14 January Hillyar wrote a letter to the Admiralty concerning another long-standing servant: Boatswain John Pomfrey, ‘a very worthy man … [who was growing increasingly prone] to frequent indisposition’. After outlining Pomfrey’s good service, Hillyar ‘beg[ged]’ the Admiralty ‘to appoint him to’ a role on shore so he could live out his final years in a modicum of comfort. No reply was received. On the 19th the captain took up his pen once more. Patrick Brady, a 27-year-old from County Carlow, Ireland, with a penchant for painting, was to be the Phoebe’s new schoolmaster. Tasked with rounding off the young midshipmen’s education, Brady was paid a measly £2 6d a month, the exact same remuneration received by his charges. Before he could be entered onto the frigate’s books, the Admiralty would have to confirm his appointment. This time Hillyar’s plea was answered. Brady lugged his sea chest on board and was assigned a hammock in the cramped confines of the berth deck.13
On 2 February orders were received ‘to fit for foreign service’. Over the next eight days the Victualling Agent dispatched dozens of barrels of salt pork and beef, dried pease, flour, raisins, butter, vinegar and gallons of beer and spirits from the Weevil yard at Stonehouse. Rowed out on the Hoytaker’s boats, they were hoisted on board the Phoebe using a line rigged via the yards to the ship’s capstan, entered into the books by the Purser’s Steward, the 24-year-old Londoner John Higgins, and stacked in the hold. On 7 February orders came to proceed to Spithead. The following day Purser John Surflen, a 26-year-old father of two from Margate who had previously served for five years on HMS Vulture, issued an advance on the prize money due for the Vengence. Head-money for the capture of her crew totalling £85 was also paid. Divided amongst the crew according to rank, this unexpected windfall allowed the Phoebes to buy some personal supplies.14
Over the next two days fifty-seven names were
added to the ship’s muster, bringing the complement to 274 men. Hillyar had been short of hands ever since the cruise to the Indian Ocean in 1810 and 1811 had seen dozens die of tropical diseases. Twenty more had run at Quebec or deserted while on leave in Plymouth in mid-1812. Sent from the Salvador del Mundo, most of the new recruits had been pressed and held just long enough to be examined by a doctor, washed, deloused and issued with new clothing as a precaution against typhus. Others, realising they stood to gain the King’s bounty (as much as £5 per head) had volunteered. Once on board the Phoebe, the recruits were questioned by First Lieutenant Ingram. Their profession, place of birth and dwelling, name, age and length of time at sea were duly noted in the ship’s muster book by Nicholas Nickenson, the 26-year-old captain’s clerk. A brief practical examination followed, after which Ingram decided each man’s rating. Peter Mortraugh and Peter Carlan, two lads from Drogheda aged seventeen and twenty respectively, were classed ordinary seamen as were William Knowles, a 22-year-old from Reading in Berkshire, and the twenty-year-old John Jackson. Listed as born ‘at sea’, Jackson opted to send five of the eleven pennies he was paid daily to his mother, Agnes Jackson, in Plymouth.15
Thus were the new recruits condemned to a routine of unremitting toil. From sunrise to sundown they would be assigned a series of backbreaking tasks, their only respite coming on the Sabbath, their only amusements the daily issue of grog or small beer, a weak brew typically 2 or 3 per cent proof, and the occasional dance to ‘Rule Britannia’ which the Phoebe’s band were frequently ordered to play. They were deprived of the company of other men as ship to ship visits were discouraged and would only see women in home ports. Psychologically, the most punishing aspect was that they had no idea when their imprisonment would end. Committed to serve until hostilities finished, in early 1813 there seemed little prospect of an early release. The conflict with France had been dragging on for some twenty years. It showed no sign of terminating soon.16
On 10 February Hillyar gave the order to raise anchor. With eight merchantmen in convoy, a local pilot guided the Phoebe round Drake’s Island under leaden skies and out into the Sound where Acting Master Miller set a course for Spithead. Probably the best-known of the Royal Navy’s anchorages, Spithead enjoyed several advantages: with the Isle of Wight to the southwest, a number of sandbanks to the east and the mainland to the north, it was well-sheltered; Saint Helen’s Roads provided easy access; and it was close to the major dockyards at Portsmouth. Spithead was a major assembly point for fleets bound for both domestic and foreign service and as the scene of frequent naval reviews, it was always crowded with His Majesty’s ships. HMS Mars, an old 74-gun ship of the line which had fought in the lee column at Trafalgar before being turned into a receiving ship or ‘bird of passage’, and HMS Gladiator, a 44-gun Fifth Rate which served as Rear-Admiral Sir Peter Halkett’s flagship, were present at the Phoebe’s arrival on 12 February along with a line of fourteen prison hulks riding at anchor on one side of the bay. Elsewhere, a convoy of merchantmen bound for the West Indies were gathering under the protection of a frigate and several brigs of war. Forty more sail were visible, amongst them eight East Indiamen and the Isaac Todd, a lumbering 20-gun storeship commanded by Captain Fraser Smith. Property of the North West Company, the Todd was due to sail for the Pacific coast of America and carried a letter of marque, thus giving Smith the right to capture any enemy vessels he might fall in with during the voyage.17
On 13 February the Phoebe loaded more supplies. Eleven tons of water in twenty-two butts, three tons of beer in twelve hogsheads, a supply of slops and bedding and 300lbs of fresh vegetables were hoisted on board. On 16 February there were fresh gales and intermittent rain. While the men set up the standing and running rigging and fitted a new fore sail, the frigate was blown eastwards. Forced to wear out of trouble, she ran aground on a sandbank, but was soon floated off again. That afternoon the barge took Hillyar ashore leaving First Lieutenant Ingram in charge. At Portsmouth, busy with smartly-dressed officers, gangs of unruly tars and corner-haunting ‘Spithead nymphs’, Hillyar received a bundle of three packets of orders written by John Wilson Croker, the dour Scottish Secretary of the Admiralty. Marked with the fouled anchor seal and bearing the legend ‘secret’, each was to be opened at a set latitude and longitude, thus revealing the frigate’s mission in stages. The first, which Hillyar unsealed immediately, commanded him to escort the Isaac Todd storeship south towards the Bay of Biscay. Once there Hillyar would be permitted to open the second.18
As Hillyar may have suspected from the involvement of the Isaac Todd, the Phoebe’s mission was to take him into the Pacific. Once round Cape Horn, the frigate was to sail north up the coast of the Americas to the mouth of the Columbia River and destroy Fort Astoria, a trading outpost belonging to the Pacific Fur Company, a US enterprise which shipped beaver and sea otter pelts, acquired from the local Tla-o-qui-aht Indians, across the Pacific via the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) to the Chinese port of Canton, where they were exchanged for porcelain, tea and silk. Previously, the trade had been monopolised by the British-owned North West Company whose two centuries of experience in the Asian market had taught them not to tolerate rivals. Once Fort Astoria had been reduced to ruins by the Phoebe’s guns, the passengers on board the Isaac Todd were to build a British outpost in its stead. The mission was just one small part of a new policy to bring the Americans to heel. Stung by the news of three embarrassing frigate losses in single-ship actions and enabled to redistribute resources following Napoleon’s disastrous retreat from Moscow, the Royal Navy was finally taking her news foes seriously. The coming year would see the strength of the Halifax station increased to eleven 74s and sixteen Fifth Rates, the entire eastern seaboard of the US would be blockaded and several large-scale amphibious raids would be launched.19
Captain Hillyar was back on board the Phoebe by 18 February. In his absence a new fore gallant sail and spare jib had been completed and 240lbs of fresh beef and 200lbs of vegetables had been taken on board. An outbreak of insubordination among the newly-mustered men had prompted Lieutenant Ingram to order the ship’s boats to row guard round the frigate at night to prevent desertion. With the captain back on board, several of the ringleaders were punished. The first was John Jackson, the newly-pressed man who had arranged to send part of his pay to his mother. Stripped to the waist, he was tied to the grating while the ship’s company, assembled on the frigate’s waist, looked on. Captain Hillyar, flanked by his lieutenants and dressed in white breeches and a navy-blue woollen coat with epaulettes picked out in gold, oversaw the operation from the forecastle, his authority assured by the forty-eight red-coated marines led by Lieutenant William Burrow, who stood to attention around him. After the charges, that Jackson had been guilty of showing contempt to a senior officer, had been read aloud, he was given twenty-four lashes by Boatswain’s Mate George Scargill, a 29-year-old Londoner, with a cat-o-nine-tails. James Smith, another newcomer, was given thirty-six for theft and Ordinary Seaman Patrick Burns, a 33-year-old from Kildare who had fought at Tamatave, was given twelve lashes for insolence.20
By the middle of February the Phoebe was alive with rumours concerning her forthcoming mission. The fact that the North West Company was involved surely meant that she was headed for the frozen furthest reaches of the Pacific Ocean, but the goal of the mission and all other particulars ‘were … matters of conjecture. This is one of the greatest inconveniences of a sailor’s life’ mused Midshipman Allen Gardiner, who berthed with his five peers in and around the ship’s cockpit on the orlop deck, ‘but secrecy is a policy in war, without which, even the best concerted plans must fail.’21
Born in Basildon, Berkshire, on 28 January 1794, Gardiner was a thoughtful character who kept a journal detailing his experiences. As a child, he had longed to join the navy to see the world and had spent hours producing detailed plans for cutting out the French fleet from La Rochelle and copying the vocabulary of the Mandingo language from an edition of Mungo Park’s African tra
vels. At thirteen, having overcome his parents’ misgivings, Gardiner entered the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth, at that time still a relatively uncommon route into the service. There, he and seventy other students studied seamanship, navigation, mathematics, physics, astronomy, gunnery and fortification under the college’s renowned headmaster, James Inman. Graduating in 1810, Gardiner had volunteered on board HMS Fortune, a ship which carried him first to Mauritius and later to Ile de France where he had transferred to the Phoebe in March 1811 in time to take part in the Battle of Tamatave. Well-educated and widely-travelled, Gardiner possessed a keen sense of scientific curiosity. Combined with an interest in humanity and a morality coloured by the first signs of the evangelicalism which would dominate his adult life, these qualities would make him an enquiring observer of events.22
With the Isaac Todd still awaiting the arrival of several key North West Company employees, the Phoebes spent several weeks at Spithead. Captain Hillyar made numerous forays into town and some of his officers were granted shore leave, although the men were strictly forbidden from leaving the ship, a regulation which must have been particularly trying for Able Seaman John Smith, a 26-year-old who had been born in Plymouth, pressed onto the frigate in 1807 and wounded at the Battle of Tamatave four years later. Being within a few miles of family and friends yet unable to visit them must have stretched Smith’s patience to the limits.23