Britain Against Napoleon
Page 56
Eighth Victualling Department, Plymouth: Embezzlement of the King’s Casks, printed 16 July
1805
Ninth Receipt and Issue of Stores at Plymouth Yard, printed 16 January
Tenth The Office of the Treasurer of His Majesty’s Navy, printed 13 February
Eleventh The Issue of Navy Bills for the purpose of Raising Money; Loss arising from the mode of paying the Interest of Navy and Transport Bills; Money impressed by the Navy Board for Secret Naval Service, printed 11 March
1806
Twelfth Purchases of Hemp, Masts and Fir Timber on commission by Mr Andrew Lindegren, for the service of His Majesty’s Navy from 1795 to 1799; Transfer of Contracts; and also Observations, by way of a supplement to the First Report of the Commissioners of Naval Enquiry on the Memorial of the Principal Officers and Commissioners of His Majesty’s Navy, in answer to that Report, printed 22 January
Thirteenth Contracts for Victualling Sick Prisoners of War, printed 15 May
Fourteenth Royal Hospital at Greenwich, printed 30 June
COMMISSION OF NAVAL REVISION
Reports of the commissioners appointed in January 1805 for revising and digesting the civil affairs of the navy
Fourteen reports, 1806–9*
Commissioners
Lord Barham (first lord of the Admiralty until February 1806)
John Fordyce (surveyor-general of crown lands)
Admiral Sir Roger Curtis
Rear-Admiral William Domett (Admiralty commissioner, 1808–13)
Ambrose Serle (commissioner of the Transport Board, with responsibility for prisoners of war)
Secretary
John Deas Thompson (May 1805–February 1806; Navy Board commissioner, 15 July 1805–29; succeeded by John Thomas Briggs: clerk, Secretary’s Office, Navy Board, 29 May 1798–7 December 1807; second chief clerk, 7 December 1807–11 December 1808; secretary to Committee of Accounts, Victualling Board, 1808; private secretary to first lord, 1830; accountant-general of the navy, 1832; knighted, 1851)
Office: No. 30 Craven Street
REPORTS
1806
First Instructions for the Resident Commissioner and Principal Officers of the Royal Dockyards, completed 13 June 1805, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 4 February 1806
Second Instructions for the Inferior Officers, Royal Dockyards, completed 6 February, printed 3 April
Third Instructions for the Surveyor of the Navy and his Assistants; Education of Shipwrights; Plan of Education proposed for Apprentices; Inferior Apprentices; Scheme of Task Work; Job Work, completed 24 June, printed 16 July
Fourth Navy Office: Navy Commissioners; Comptrolling Payments; Inspector-General of Naval Works; Accounts; Contracts; Salaries of Commissioners; Secretaries; Offices; Salaries of Clerks, completed 9 July
Fifth Instructions for the Resident Commissioners and Officers at His Majesty’s Naval Establishments Abroad, completed 2 August
Sixth Instructions for Officers at the Outports, Deal, Harwich, Leith, Falmouth and Kinsale, completed 4 December
1807
Seventh Instructions for the Governors, Lieutenants, Physicians, Surgeons, Agents, Stewards, Dispensers, Chaplains, Store Matrons, Porters and Overseers of Labour of the Royal Naval Hospitals at Portsmouth and Plymouth, completed 26 February
Eighth Instructions for Task Work in the Dockyards (not published)
Ninth Transport Office: Branch relating to the Transport Service; Miscellaneous Services; Branch for Sick and Wounded Seamen; Branch for Prisoners of War, completed 25 June
Tenth Victualling Office: State of Accounting Arrears and reorganization of the Office; Duties of the Committee for General Business; Duties of the Committee for Cash and Store Accounts; Duties of the Chairman; Duties of the Secretaries; Contracts, completed 11 August
Eleventh Victualling Yards: Useless and Erroneous Books, Accounts and Returns; Deptford; General Remarks; Instructions and Regulations for the Yard Officers; Employment of Artificers, Labourers and Others; Contracting for Works and Stores; Supplies and Accounts; Instructions for Master Butchers, Master Brewers, Master Millers and Granary Men, Master Bakers and Inferior Officers, completed 22 December
Twelfth Victualling Yards Abroad: Instructions for the Agents of Victualling Establishments Abroad; for Receipt and Examination of Provisions and Stores; for Issues of Provisions and Stores, completed 22 December
Thirteenth Transport Board: Instructions to the Resident Agents for Transports; Regulations to be observed by all Masters of Ships and Vessels employed and hired in His Majesty’s Transport Service; Articles for Government of Officers commanding His Majesty’s Armed Transports; Instructions to the Inspecting Agents, Shipwright Officers and Storekeepers for the Transport Service at Deptford; Instructions to the Surgeons, Agents, Dispensers at the Foreign Hospitals; Agents for Prisoners of War at Home and Abroad, to the Surgeons and Dispensers at the Depots for Prisoners of War at Home, completed 22 December
Fourteenth Secret Report on Timber, never printed*
Fourth–Fourteenth reports ordered to be printed by the House of Commons, 11 April 1809
COMMISSION OF MILITARY ENQUIRY
Reports of the Commissioners appointed by Act 45 Geo. III, c. 47, to enquire and examine into Public Expenditure and the Conduct of Public Business in the Military Departments
Nineteen reports, 1806–12†
Commissioners
Major General Hildebrand Oakes ((1754–1822) chairman, but left the commission when appointed quartermaster-general, Mediterranean, 11 July 1806; later Lieutenant-General Sir Hildebrand Oakes)
Colonel John Drinkwater ((1762–1844) succeeding chairman; later Sir John Drinkwater Bethune; army officer, military author)
Colonel F. Beckwith (dies before the First Report is completed)
Samuel. C. Cox (master in Chancery)
Giles Templeman (lawyer; captain, Law Association Volunteers, 28 July 1803‡
Henry Peters (merchant)
Charles Bosanquet (wealthy West Indies merchant and author; gazetted in the London Light Horse Volunteers, 1794; lieutenant-colonel, London and Westminster Cavalry, 7 February 1799; 1809 member of Lloyd’s; from 1823 to 1836 chairman of the Exchequer Bill Office; retired to Northumberland, where he became lord lieutenant)
Colonel Benjamin Charles Stephenson ((c. 1766–1839) later Major-General Sir Benjamin Stephenson; entered Hanoverian service, 1788; transferred to the English Army, 1796; deputy judge advocate, SW District, 1803–5; groom of the bedchamber to the duke of Cumberland, 1806–10; surveyor-general of the Office of Works, 1814–32; third commissioner, 1832–4; second commissioner, 1832–9)
L. Bradshaw
Office: No. 17 Buckingham Street, Adelphi
REPORTS
1806
First Office of the Barrack Master-General: Arrears of the Barrack Office Accounts; Mode of issuing and receiving money; Measures proposed for a speedy Settlement of Accounts, completed 20 March, printed 21 March
Second Establishment of the Barrack Office, completed 17 July, printed 18 July
Third Office of the Barrack Master-General: Stores and Supplies, completed 24 July, printed 22 December
1807
Fourth Office of the Barrack Master-General: Buildings, completed 28 February, printed 3 March
1808
Fifth Army Medical Department, completed 8 January, printed 26 January
Sixth Office of the Secretary at War: Establishment of the War Office; Regimental Accounts; Agency and Clothing, completed 24 June, printed 25 June
1809
Seventh Office of the Secretary at War: Department of Foreign Accounts; Chaplain General, completed 10 December 1808, printed 20 January 1809
Eighth Office of the Secretary at War: Miscellaneous Accounts Department, completed 6 January, printed 20 January
Ninth Army Expenditure in the West Indies (Act 41 Geo. III, c. 22), completed 28 March, printed 14 April
1810
Tenth Roya
l Military College, completed 14 August 1809, printed 26 February
Eleventh Departments of the Adjutant-General and the Quartermaster-General, completed 10 October 1809, printed 26 February 1810
Twelfth Office of the Ordnance: Treasurer of the Ordnance, completed 27 February, printed 27 February
1811
Thirteenth Master-General and the Board of Ordnance, completed 22 February, printed 27 February
Fourteenth Office of the Ordnance: Estimates, completed 8 March, printed 29 April
Fifteenth Office of the Ordnance: Fortifications and Buildings; Barracks; Small Gun Department; Shipping, completed 4 June, printed 23 July
1812
Sixteenth Office of the Ordnance: Contracts; Royal Laboratory; Inspector of Artillery; Royal Carriage Department, completed 2 August 1811, printed 9 January 1812
Seventeenth Office of the Ordnance: Military Accounts; Field Train Departments; Royal Artillery Drivers; Deputy Adjutant-General Artillery; Medical Department; Royal Military Academy, Woolwich; Trigonometrical Survey of Britain, completed 17 October 1811, printed 9 January 1812
Eighteenth Office of the Commissariat, completed 17 March, printed 20 March
Nineteenth Royal Hospital Chelsea; Commissary-General of Musters; Royal Military Asylum, completed 25 March, printed 26 May
1816
General Index to Reports, 1806–12, printed 23 February
Illustrations
1. A Complete Representation of the Coast of England (1804) helped disseminate public knowledge of the invasion threat. It gives the length of the sea passage from potential French invasion ports, and is framed by plans of eighteen of them, from St Malo in the south to Amsterdam in the north. Britain’s military districts are delineated, each commanded by a general who reported to the commander-in-chief, the duke of York. The Southern Military District, seen to be the most vulnerable, was commanded by General David Dundas.
THE HEART OF GOVERNMENT
2. North View of the City of Westminster from the Roof of the Banqueting House (1807). Westminster Hall (centre left, back) and Abbey, and St Margaret’s, Westminster, can be clearly seen. Much of the activity in this book took place within this view. The terrace to the right housed the Board of Trade and the India Board of Control; the narrow entrance to Downing Street can be seen just beyond it. The classical block (centre) is no longer there.
3. Somerset House was the centre of naval administration, where from 1786 all departments, apart from the Admiralty itself, were housed in offices to the right. (See plan on p. 113.)
THE TRIUMVIRATE WHO RAN THE WAR (1794–1801)
4. William Pitt (prime minister 1783–1801 and 1804–6) in the late 1780s, when he was at his most confident, his face unmarked by the strain of the war. Pitt was not a natural war leader, and had to balance Dundas’s forceful advocacy of a maritime and empire policy with Grenville’s urging for coalitions with European governments.
5. Henry Dundas (from 1804 Lord Melville), secretary of state for war (1794–1801) and first lord of the Admiralty (1804–5), not long before his death in 1811. A convivial and plain-speaking Scot, Dundas provided much of the energy and drive behind the government’s war policy, both during the formation of the volunteers in the 1790s and in his short period as first lord of the Admiralty. Though he was seventeen years older than Pitt, they were very close.
6. William Wyndham Grenville, Baron Grenville, foreign secretary (1794–1801) (c. 1800). Grenville’s gaze, assured and even haughty, underlines his intellect and efficiency. Though a cousin of Pitt, they were frequently at odds, and Grenville did not join his second administration in 1804. After Pitt’s early death, leadership devolved upon him, but his confidence seemed to melt away. His clumsy management of ministers was a major factor in the shortcomings of the Ministry of All the Talents.
ADMIRALTY ADMINISTRATORS
7. Evan Nepean: served at sea during the American Revolutionary War and in 1782 had very early promotion to undersecretary at the Home Office; first secretary of the Admiralty (1795–1804), when he was one of the most powerful figures in Whitehall.
8. William Marsden: second, then first, secretary of the Admiralty (1795–1807). Marsden’s tolerance and good nature, and marked lack of political ambition, allowed him to serve both Whig and Tory governments.
9. George Phillips Towry, a victualling commissioner for thirty-three years. Towry was an effective, tough, well-connected Scot and, as deputy chairman of the Board, more influential than his chairman. He was very active, travelling extensively on victualling business.
10. Captain James Bowen, a transport commissioner (1803–16) and much respected seaman. Howe appointed him master of his flagship at the Battle of the First of June, and St Vincent made him flag captain, Channel, in 1806. Bowen’s administrative and seamanship experience were much in evidence in the operation to evacuate the army from Corunna in 1809.
AMPHIBIOUS OPERATIONS
11. The successful landing of the army at Aboukir Bay, Egypt, under Sir Ralph Abercromby on 8 March 1801, which was opposed by French troops in the dunes. Behind the operation was a complex assembling of troops and the feeding of thousands of men on board many transports.
12. The unopposed landing at Mauritius, December 1810. The taking of Mauritius in the middle of the Indian Ocean was also a considerable organizational feat, on this occasion aided by the lack of opposing forces and by calm weather.
13. The pier at Margate (c. 1800), on the north-east corner of Kent, was often used for the difficult task of loading troops and cavalry on to transports. Its location shortened the sea passage to the Continent, and allowed ships to sail in either westerly or easterly winds. Here three transports are being loaded, and a horse hauled up on the main yard of one of them before being lowered into its hold.
14. The shipbuilding slips and docks at Blackwall on the north bank of the Thames. In the foreground, two merchant ships are tacking towards London against a stiff breeze, but are helped by the flood tide, conditions that make for choppy waters.
We can date this view to 17 January 1798, because the painting celebrates the launch that day of the 74-gun Kent, the only warship to be built by the yard during the French Revolutionary War. All ships are flying a pre-1801 Union flag. The Kent can be seen centre left of the picture, flying large pennants (the Union Flag in front of the Royal Standard) that indicate an imminent launch. Admiralty barges can just be made out rowing down to witness the event.
The owner of this considerable yard was John Perry, whose main business was to build and maintain the great East Indiamen (vessels the same size as a 74-gun ship) seen on the river bank in the left half of the picture, both in frame on the slips and in dock. In the right-hand half of the picture is a wet dock in which East Indiamen were repaired. The tall wooden structure (centre right) is the crane that hoisted masts in and out of the ships. Perry retired in 1803, and between 1802 and 1812, under Green, Wigram and Wells, this yard went on to build no fewer than ten ships of the line. No painting illustrates the maritime resources of Britain more graphically.
ARMY ADMINISTRATORS
15. The duke of Richmond, master-general of the ordnance (1784–95). Despite being the most difficult and quarrelsome of all politicians in the 1780s, Richmond instigated reforms that made a vital contribution to British military capability.
16. General Sir William Congreve, comptroller of the Royal Laboratory at Woolwich. Congreve had charge of the government powder mills at Faversham and Waltham Abbey, and was thus responsible for the supply of gunpowder to both the army and the navy.
17. The duke of York, commander-in-chief (1795–1809 and 1811–27). In spite of early military failure when promoted far too early by George III, he was made a full field marshal and commander-in-chief at the age of thirty-two, in 1795.
18. General Sir David Dundas (1806). This informal watercolour captures one of the characters of the army. He was an active major general in the 1790s and a formidable quartermaster-general in the crucia
l years between 1796 and 1803. After retirement, he stepped in, at the age of seventy-four, to replace the duke of York as commander-in-chief.
19. William Pitt as the colonel commandant of the Cinque Port Volunteers (1804). As warden of the Cinque Ports, Pitt lived at Walmer Castle, seen in the background. When out of office, between 1801 and 1804, he raised three battalions of volunteers and could often be spotted around East Kent wearing his uniform, riding many miles between different parades and throwing himself into manoeuvres and exercises.
VOLUNTEERS
20. Grand Review at Sandown (or Sandham) Bay, Isle of Wight (1798). Sandown Bay was a vulnerable area for a potential invasion, low-lying and sheltered from south-westerly winds. A long line of troops can be seen marching along the beach, the red-coated militia at the front, and the blue-coated volunteers to the rear. In the foreground are riflemen in dark green, accompanied by a musician with a hunting horn. In the fort are volunteers with pikes, which had to be issued to the volunteers because of the shortage of muskets.