by Dean King
At length one of the men came with the mate in the lanch [launch] a long side. I broke open the magazeen scuttle and took out 14 whole and half barrels of powder, several boxes of hand granades, several boxes of muskets catriges, and boxes of glas handgronades, which are to heave by hand, where you see them most numerous for boarding. I took it all on b[oar]d the lugger, which I was in myself and would not allow any fier on b[oar]d while I had charg of it. If she had been blown up there would of been a great distruction both by the houses on shore and the shiping laying roun about hur. I went to the agent and inform’d him, but he had the news before I inform’d him. I and my comrad receiv’d great aplause for our conduct, but I had a new suit of clothing spoilt for my labour. Shortly after the Netley came in and Capt[ain] Bond was inform’d by the agent of my conduct in saving his vessel and a number of lives, which gave me a great deal of privilage both on b[oar]d and a shore.
The Netley being complete for see we all went on b[oar]d and put to see. After passing Fort Julian, which stands on the north side and west end in entering the Tagos up to Lisbon, we fell in with a Portegee fishing boat. They inform’d us there was a Spanish privateer laying under the fort at an anchor with an English brig they had taken the same day. We run in shore and by this time it was dark. We saw both schooner and brig. We lowered the boat down, armed, and boarded hur as we run under hur stern. When we had possession we lufed up for the schooner. I was order to be ready with 25 men to jump on board as soon as we tutched hur sides. The anchor was let go the moment we tuched hur main chains, head and stern. We jumped on board. Some run below, and some that did not got wounded. We cleared the decks. The officers run down in the cabin. I told them to remain there and they would not be hurt. I claped a sentry on the dore, and we cut the cable and made sail out to see, and the Netley hove up hur anchor and followed us.
In the morning we fell in with a fleet of Portegee merchantmen under convoy of an English 24 gun ship man of war and a privateer of 16 guns. The privateer had seen the Spanish schooner the day before and was afraid to engage hur and supposing she and the Netley was coming to take the convoy, begin to fire at us by whole broad sides, and we could not fire at hur without damaging or hurting some of the merchat men, till the Netley made sail and spoke the commedore. Then they ceased, but there shot was at random and done us no harm, excepting cuting our riging. We went in with them and our prises. The Portegees thought to take them from us, as they ware taken under there forts, but we took the privateer out in the night and sent hur to England. The English privateer lay below Bellom Castle and would not come up to Lisbon for fear of our captain.
We put to see again and run to Porto Port and went in as soon as we came to an anchor. We ware inform’d that a French privateer of 14 guns had come off the barr and had taken an English brig that lay under the fort. Being loaded, and not able to get hur in till the tide served, therefore the Portegees new they would have to pay for hur. Being taken under cover of there guns, they sent out a Kings lugger mounted 12 twelve pounders to retake the brig. Being heavyer mettal than the Frenchman off Viana, she came up with them. The privateer engaged the luger and in a quarter of an hour took the luger. The next day we ariving and hearing of the event, the capt[ain] got under way to go out, but the pilots said it was unpossible, as the wind was due west and right into the harbour, and the channel too narrow to beat out over the barr. The capt[ain] was determend to take hur out himself and he beat hur out. The pilots said there never was the like done before over that bar.
We stood to the nothord, but the wind died away almost calm. The capt[ain] seeing a fishing boat within gunshot, we fired a 24 pounder over them and they came a long side amediately, [k]nowing the Netley. We took the men on b[oar]d. The master and myself with 25 men took to the oars and pulled all night to the nothord. We had no other arms but pistols and cutlashes. By daylight we ware off Viana and saw the brig in the offin. The Netley had ketched a breze of wind in the night and had got farther to the nothord than we ware. The lugger was close in shore, but the wind was very light. We made for the brig and came up with hur and boarded hur. I rem[aine]d on board with 5 men and 9 Spaniards. The master went to the Netley and from thence to the lugger, pulled up a stern and boarded hur, but they could of kill’d every man if they had fired, but they said they new the Netley would take them, and if they had fired they expected no quarter from us. The privateer had got off Vigo, and seeing hur prizes taken she was glad to get in hurself. We took the prizes into Porto Port. Capt[ain] Bond and ships company agreed to make the lugger a present to the King again, and I having charge of hur, I received a letter to deliver hur up to the Kings officer when he came on board, which I did according to my orders. We went out again and fell in with a Sweedish ship that had been taken by the Spaniard. I was sent on board and took charge of hur, though the capt[ain] and mate were left on board.
About 10 o’clock the next day, having light winds and fair weather, coming in with the bar off Porto Port, distance about 5 mile, I purceived a French privateer schooner boarding every vessel that was coming into the bar, and an English man of war of 24 guns was laying at an anchor without the bar and took no notice of hur. At the same time a convoy of Portegees vessels was to the sotherd of harbour, distance about 5 or 6 miles. The Frenchman was now coming to board me, but when about half way, they purceived a vessel standing out to the westward from the convoy. The Frenchman new hur and amediately called them back again and got the boat in and made sail. I amediately new hur to be the Netley. This French schoon[er] was supposed to out sail anything on the coast, which made hur so daring with the 20 gun ship, but the Netley having such a name made them jubus [dubious] of hur. The Netley was coming up with hur very fast. When we ware going over the bar, about 9 o’clock P.M., the Netley got with in gun shot, and to the Frenchman’s misfortune, shot away the head of hur foremast. Then she was amediately a long side of hur. They struck and was brough[t] into Porto next morning.
In a few days I returned on board, and we put to sea. Cruising off Laguardo we saw a schooner coming down upon us before the wind, and we were then in the rig of a Dutch galyot, which I before mentioned we could be in the rig of a schooner in twenty minutes, and when our ports were closed and caps on the muzels of the guns they could not purceive we had any till they got near us. This schooner had a French sailor on board that had been taken by us twice before. He inform’d the French capt[ain] that we ware the “trees keelus” as they call’d us, having three keels, but the French capt[ain] thought he new better and said we ware a Sweedish galyot, as they ware very comon then on the Portegee coast trading from Hollond. However they came down so close that they could purceive we had guns but not at any great distance with the spy glass. They hall’d their wind. We then made sail. In a short time we ware abrest of them. They up hellem and claped hur before the wind, but all would not do, we ware amediately along side of hur and they struck their colours.
The Frenchman that we had taken before got up on one of the guns and cried out, “Capt[ain], how you do.” We all new him.
The capt[ain] asked him why he did not [k]now the Netley. He replyed, “Yes, Sir, I [k]now de trees keelus. De capt[ai]n no belief me. I tel him many times. Now he tink so two.”
We got the prisoners on b[oar]d and this Frenchman went to the capt[ain] and told him he must stay on board the Netley. The capt[ain] asked him if he wanted to enter for the Netley. He replyed, “Yes, Sir, I go no more from de trees keelus. He take me tree times, I must stay here.” Therefore he remain’d on board. Som tim after, we retook an English ship from Newfound land which had been taken by the Spaniards. She had seven thousand kentals [quintals] of kodfish on board, and in sending hur into Lisbon, this Frenchman was one sent in hur. In going in in a gale of wind the ship was lost and all hands perished excepting this Frenchman. He got on shore and left Lisbon, and we never heard of him afterwards.
The Netley, though a man of war, having such excelent yousage on board from Capt[ain] Bond that we could at any time
get as many seamen out of the merchant ships as he wanted and would not except of them unless they ware good seaman, I being on shore waiting for the Netley to come off the bar at Porto and having orders from the capt[ain] to enter some good seam[en], and when they had intilegence, there ware more came than I would except of, but I took 28 men and a good many of them ware mates and boatswains of merchantmen, and when I came on b[oar]d we had more men than we wanted. Capt[ain] Bond runing into Lisbon in my absence had entered some there. In a few days after we fell in with a gansey [Guernsey] privateer that had all hur men pressed by a sixty four and had not men sufficient to take hur into harbour. Capt[ain] Bond gave him the priviledge of having any of the new hand if they chewsed to go, but all he could get was one Sweed and a boy.
Capt[ain] Bond took a delight in making his ships company comfortable, and when in harbour as much liberty as could be expected. He could not bare to punish men at the gangway, but he contrived a collar of one inch plank to ware round there necks with a large padlock for any certain time, which they dreaded more than floging. Likewise for lighter crimes was a scarlot cap full of black tossels hung all over it. When any strangers came on board, these men that had them on would sneak a way below for shame.
We fell in with a Merican ship that had lost hur masts and hur side stove in, which made hur so leakey they could scarcely keep hur free. We sent men on board and carpenters on board, tared a tarpolan, and ocam [oakum] over it, and nail’d it well over with boards, which stoped the leak considerable, and took hur in tow and caried hur into Lisbon where she was bound to. She belonged to the notherd.
On our cruises there was two privateers hove in sight, a cutter of 18 guns, the schooner of 16 guns, and we gave chase after them. Coming up, we run betwen both of them with our colours hoisted. The cutter fired two broad sides, great guns and small arms, and then made sail. We having the schooner under our lee, when the cutter made sale, he gave hur one 24 p[ounde]r, which dismounted one gun, killed one man, and wounded several more. At the same time the capt[ain] gave me orters to give the schooner a gun, which I did and split hur stem. The men left their quarter and the capt[ain] hall’d the coluurs down. We sent the boat on board and brought the capt[ain] on board. They proved to be English privateers from the Isle of Ganzey [Guernsey]. They new we ware an English man of war, but they expected we would press there men. As luck would have it, they done us no harm excepting cutting some of our riging. We took one man out of the schooner, not as we wanted him, but to certify as a witness. The capt[ain] rought to the Admiralety and there was strict orders sent to Gernsey that the capt[ain] of the cutter was never more to have command of a vessel out of the port, if known.
We then run north as far as Cape Finister and was laying two, close under the Cape, sounding, and the capt[ain] was taking the remarks of the Cape, of a thick foggy morning [13 August 1800]. All of a suddent appeared a verry large ship in the fog. We up hellem before the wind, but coming to vew hur with the spy glass and counting hur port, we found she carried only 24 guns. We hall’d our wind for hur. She hoisted hur Spanish colours. When we got a long side we up English colours and gave hur three or four of our 24 pounders. They finding our mettle so heavy, they run from there quarter and struck there colours.
We boarded hur. She proved to be a fine packet [La Reyna Luisa]from South America bound to Spain with a good quantity of Kings money on board. She had two capt[ains] and a Spanish general on b[oar]d. Mr. Buchan, master, took charge, he being my suprior officer, while I took the officers on board. When we ordered the men into the cabin and overhall’d them, we found a good quantity of dollars, half joes, doubleelons, 7 lb. bars and 14 lb. bars of gold. We overhall’d the men twice and found as much with them the last time as we did the first. We found doubleoons sowed in the soles of there stockings, 2 deep, from one end to the other. All the money we found was among the men and officers and some bars they hove overboard. The general got away with 4 gold bars, as the Spanis[h] capt[ain] inform Capt[ain] Bond afterwards. We brought hur into Lisbon. She had a great quantity of curious articles on board such as curious mats, wild fir skins, one of them was so butiful, dimond cut of different colours and not more than three and a half square, it sold for 38 dollars on b[oar]d the Netley Schooner. She had on b[oar]d 30,000 neats tongues dried, ostrige feathers in stands, length about two feet and about 40 in one stand, and 45 pigs of tooth and egge, beside a great quantity of goods in boxes which I cannot give an acount of. The ship was a fast sailor. The Spanish capt[ain] inform’d us that two English frigates had chased them three days and could not cetch them. When the prisoners were sent on shore, I remain’d on b[oar]d the Spanish ship with the men I had with me.
Having some business on shore I landed at the lower end of the town [Lisbon] where the ship lay and walked up to town, but being two late to go to the ship, about 10 o’clock at night I went down to Buckleys Stares to go on b[oar]d the Netley that lay off in the stream. While standing at the foot of the stairs, next to the water, calling a boat, two men came down the steps behind me. One, raped [wrapped] up in a cloak, clap’d a small sord to my brest. The other, behind me, had a Portegee dirk and put the point of it to my side. I had no arms, neither would they allow me to put my hand into my pocket for fear I had arm. They took my gold watch, a silver chain purse, and about forty five gold dollars and even some copper in my jacket pocket. I had a large gold ring on my finger which they did not observe. They then left me. I went up the steps when they ware at a small distance to see where they went to, but when they see me follow them, they gave chase after me. I took up a large street, [k]nowing if they came up with me they would kill me. I run for life. Coming to a large brick building that was broke down, I run into the back side of it and covered myself with bricks and the dry morter. When they came up, they looked all round, both in side and out and then discoursed together and went off. I lay there till day light, for fear they might be watching me. When day light apeared, I got up and brushed myself as well as I could and went and got some refreshment and went on board. The next day I received two hundred Pounds [sterling], therefore I only regreted the loss of my watch, though I had others at the same time.
We went out, and standing to the nothord we saw a schooner at a long distance off. We made sail and was coming up very fast with hur, when to our surpris she hove two and took in hur sale when she was above two leagues off. Coming up to hur, our capt[ain] asked him what he hove two for.
“O, I [k]now de trees kealus. No can run away, so I stay,” which made all hands laugh.
We took hur into Lisbon. Ariving, Capt[ain] Bond received a Letter of Preferment from the Board of war. It was a severe cut to the ships crew. Capt[ain] Bond wished to take me with him, but not having a nother ship apointed, he could not take me with him.
While the Netley wreaked its own peculiar brand of havoc off Spain and Portugal in the Indian Ocean, several oversize French frigates were creating bad news for British merchants and thus for the Royal Navy. Merchantman and shipowner Robert Eastwick sees his fortunes rise and fall several times over as two heavy frigates duke it out off the coast of India. One of the combatants, the French La Forte, launched at Rochefort in 1795, was, at the time, the largest frigate ever built originally as a frigate.
1 HMS Netley, a 16-gun schooner with a sliding keel, was designed by General Samuel Bentham and launched in 1798. The ship was 82.6 feet in length, and had a tonnage of 177 and a mean draft of 9.3. The ship surrendered to the French in the West Indies in 1806. “Rupert Jones List,” National Maritime Museum.
2 In a letter of 12 September 1798, from Haslar Hospital, Portsmouth, Captain Bond wrote to Evan Nepean, secretary of the Admiralty, that he not only suffered from the wound in the thigh, but also from having received “a violent contusion in my breast, the effect of which is not a little alarming, though the pain, by blistering etc. is something palliated.” Health may have been a factor in limiting his active career. Captain’s Correspondence, ADM/1/2756, Public Records Office.
3 In a letter of 4 July 1797, Samuel Hood wrote to Admiral Jervis describing his ill-fated effort to take Vigo. He attributed the failure to “extraordinary” poor intelligence provided by Vice-Consul Allen. Allen’s kindness to Nagle may have been, in part, an effort to improve his reputation with the Royal Navy.
4 Nagle is confusing with regard to his acquaintances at Vigo. The editor’s reading of the journal is that the consul, Mr. Allen, arranged for Nagle to board with neighbors. Although Nagle is not clear about how close the relationship became, he suggests that the wife of Allen’s friend exceeded the bounds of propriety in her show of affection for him. Nagle may be teasing his reader a bit, or he may be salving a guilty conscience.
Robert Eastwick
The Fortune of War
1799
BORN IN LONDON IN 1772, Robert Eastwick went to sea in the merchant service at age twelve. After being taken by the press gang and serving very briefly on board HMS Inconstant prior to the Napoleonic wars, Eastwick returned to the merchant service on board an East Indiaman. He eventually settled with his wife near Calcutta and hauled freight in the East Indies, dodging potentially ruinous confrontations with pirates and the king’s enemies. Finally his luck runs out, but not without a few twists of fate.
I HAVE MENTIONED how dangerous was the Bay of Bengal in these days, owing to the French men-of-war, and privateers that were continually cruising about in search of our merchant ships. It was computed that within a single twelve-month British shipping to the value of not less than two millions sterling had been captured or sunk. There were three notorious frigates which every one had learnt to dread, the Preneuse, the La Prudente, and the La Forte. It was from the latter two ships that I had escaped when returning from Bencoolen in 1797, and by a strange coincidence they were both captured in the month of February, 1799, though at points many hundreds of miles apart. The victory over the La Forte I shall presently relate. Her companion ship, the La Prudente,1 on the 16th of the same month, was sighted early one morning off the south-east coast of Africa by the Daedalus, Captain Ball, who immediately gave chase, and by midday brought her into action, and in fifty-seven minutes forced her to strike. She was returning to Europe from the Isle of France, and had three hundred men on board. In the next year the Preneuse2 likewise met her fate off the same coast, being run ashore and burnt by her own captain in order to escape capture at the hands of a British squadron that was in pursuit of her. But before these three frigates were taken their presence had paralyzed our Eastern trade, and the rates asked for insurance were so prohibitive, that at last I was totally unable to afford the premiums demanded, and on the voyage I am now describing I remained uninsured.