Every Man Will Do His Duty

by Dean King

  I had a chart in my hand, but the wind and rain, which poured down in torrents, prevented me from using it. All depended upon a sharp look-out and good steerage. I had reason to fear I had missed the channel, and death appeared inevitable. All at once, to our great joy, however, a buoy is seen on the starboard bow; immediately after another Hurra! In two minutes more we are in smooth water between the banks, and shortly after anchored in the five-fathom channel close to the beach, with the north-west bastion, and one of the churches of Flushing in sight, congratulating each other on our narrow escape. Unbending the foresail, we spread it over the main-boom as a covering from the rain, made a fire in our hanging stove, and, splicing the main brace, in five minutes all our dangers were forgotten in our present security. The gale continued, the rain still poured down upon us in spite of the awning, which afforded but a partial shelter, but we huddled round our stove and beguiled the night with telling long “yarns.” Daylight brought us better weather; we returned to our cruising ground, and our term of service being expired, rejoined the ship to the great satisfaction of the captain and crew, who had been very apprehensive for our safety. We took several boats with their cargoes, but our success by no means inspired the same feeling that the capture of the enemies of our country had done. The poor fellows always told a piteous tale of their own, and the distress of their wives and families, who would now be ruined by their detention.

  In the month of July I applied to be superseded; this was immediately complied with, and I found myself, for the first time in my life, on shore “Lord of myself,” and with sufficient of the sinews of war to carry it on for some time. Having seen the lions of London, I essayed the air of Cheltenham, then took a trip to Brighton, and hence crossed over to Paris, the agrémens [agréments, pleasures] of which detained me five months. The wounds the national sentiment had sustained by the reverses at Waterloo, and the occupation of la grande Cité, still fresh, were galled and kept open by the supercilious arrogance, the pride, and ostentation of many of our unbending countrymen, who, bringing with them all the deep-rooted prejudices springing from ignorance and conceit, which it has so long been the invidious policy of our oligarchy to foster among us, made no attempt to conceal their own imagined superiority and the contempt in which they held every other nation. This, among a high-spirited people, blinded by similar mistaken prepossessions, could not but lead to frequent collision; and quarrels and duels (in which many of both parties fell) were the order of the day. For my own part, my English notions of men and things having been more than once revised by early travel and experience, any false ideas I might have formed of our neighbours were easily corrected. Those who, like the learned Smellfungus,6 see every thing through the jaundiced or distorted medium of spleen, journey with a predetermination to be satisfied with nothing, make comparisons, and, for want of understanding, taste, or discrimination, find “nothing so good as at home,” will always do well to save the expenses of locomotion, by stopping at home and remaining contented within their own narrow circle, among the people and things which alone they are capable of appreciating, and not lowering their own or their country’s pretensions in the eyes of foreigners.

  I passed a very agreeable time among this light-hearted, vivacious, and really good-tempered people. The only unpleasantness I experienced occurred at Havre, on my return. I was one day dining at Justan’s table d’hote in that town, when some gentlemen recently arrived by the diligence were discussing the circumstances of the battle of Waterloo, and the loss of so many of our officers on that sanguinary day This led to some remarks from an officer-like Frenchman, at the table in a military undress, who, as usual, gasconaded so vehemently on the superior skill of his countrymen in the use of the sword, at the same time contemning the deficiency of our officers in science, that I could not help correcting his notions, evidently preconceived in an ignorance at least of one side of the question, and endeavoured to show him that, in a thousand instances, our seamen, with no other training than that acquired on the forecastle at single stick (generally as an amusement), when wielding the ship’s cutlass on similar principles, somehow or other always contrived to drive their adversaries like sheep before them, whatever the science of the latter might be. As usual on such occasions, the argument waxed warm. Both, like

  “Men convinced against their will

  Were of the same opinion still.”

  Moreover I felt excited, and an unlucky reminiscence of the unmerited and dastardly insult received at Nantes coming across my mind, I lost my centre, and could not help saying somewhat intemperately, “Only rouse me in a good cause and give me a ship’s cutlass, and I don’t care a d—n for any Frenchman that exists.” On this, with an urbanity and moderation that reproached me, he explained to me that it was by no means his intention to cast any reflection on the bravery of a class of men whose prowess he had not only witnessed, but personally experienced, having been cut down by a British officer at Badajos. The cloth was removed, the party broke up, and I was left alone with a stranger, who, complimenting me on the manner I had supported the national reputation, announced himself as the brother-in-law of the Hon. C. B. of our Navy. We discussed a bottle of Chateau Margot together, and I was going down stairs, when I saw my quondam [former] friend, the officer, making towards me. I really thought he was about to test my skill as an escrimeur [fencer], and was well pleased to accept his challenge—more in accordance with my inclinations—to sip my coffee with him. He was a fine fellow, had seen much service, and like all others of his class was devoted to l’Empereur.

  1 This, as my professional readers are aware, was a well-known privateer that made no little havoc among our trade about this time. The True-Blooded Yankee was one of the most famous American privateers. She was owned by an American living in Paris and operated out of French ports. On one thirty-seven-day cruise in 1814, she took twenty-seven ships off the coasts of Ireland and Scotland, destroyed seven more in a Scottish harbor, and took possession of an island off the Irish coast for nearly a week.

  2 Ivybridge is a town up the Erme River, west of Plymouth.

  3 The following are the particulars of this action received from one of the survivors: “The enemy (the Wasp, American corvette) was discovered on our lee bow about ten A.M. [on June 28, 1814] standing towards us. Little preparation was necessary: brother Jonathan had already cured us of that overweening conceit and false security, which long and uninterrupted success had given us, and we were always ready. Finding she would pass to windward, we tacked, and by hard sweeping soon gained a position that would enable us to keep the weather-gauge, when we put about again, and stood towards her. The American now tacked, and stood away from us. By hard sweeping, however, we gained a position on his weather quarter, and from a gun placed on the forecastle, at which Captain Manners attended himself, galled the enemy considerably, killing and wounding several of his men. This advantage was however but temporary; they were silently preparing a deadly return. Luffing athwart our bows, he poured in a deadly broadside, which mowed down our men like grass. The two vessels were now nearly alongside of each other, the carnage was dreadful. Poor Manners, badly wounded in both legs, was carried on the poop, where he remained on his knees, his left elbow on the larboard round-house, and waving his sword in his right to encourage his men, until a musket shot through the head from the enemy’s main-top deprived this talented and gallant young officer of existence and spared him the pain of lowering his country’s flag to her foe. The action was continued, and the first lieutenant and master being both badly wounded, the gunner, in the absence of the second lieutenant, left at Cork, was called up from the magazine to take the command, but not making his appearance in time, the action was continued by the captain’s clerk. In this condition, with seventy out of a crew of one hundred and nine killed and wounded, and the brig a perfect wreck, so as to be unmanageable, we were compelled to strike.”

  It is unnecessary to comment on this action, and its deplorable results, which, against such an
overwhelming disparity of force, ought to have been foreseen. The Reindeer mounted eighteen twenty-four pounders, and had one hundred and nine men. The Wasp, twenty six 32-pounders, and upwards of two hundred men; these were for the most part English seamen, who, having no other alternative than victory or an ignominious death, would, like the crew of the Essex, combat with the almost supernatural energy of despair. For this among other national benefits, we are indebted to the sages who some time before had turned adrift all our old men-of-war’s men, of eleven years standing, to seek their fortunes wheresoever they might list. Captured in our merchant ships, these ill-used men, indignant at their treatment, and having to choose between a prison or comfortable quarters, good wages, and other inducements, would not long hesitate. This policy deprived us of nine of our best men, all petty officers, and well affected to the service. Might it not have been better to have offered them an extra bounty and allowed them to volunteer for those cruisers most likely to fall in with our powerful adversaries? What might not poor Lambert have done with three hundred such as these? It is said, that previously to his sailing, he wrote to the Admiralty, requesting a survey of his crew, and reporting their inefficient state. He was answered by a certain ci-devant secretary, that “if he had any disinclination to go to India in the Java, some one should be found to supersede him,” [The Java was taken by the USS Constitution on December 29, 1812.] Well might old Admiral O, when asked how it was the Yankees were walking off with our frigates? exclaim with honest indignation, “Look at your Admiralty, what are they composed of?”

  4 George M. Dallas (1792–1864), later vice president of the United States under James K. Polk.

  5 Pawn.

  6 Smellfungus was Sterne’s name for Smollett, so earned for the unforgiving and discontented tone of his Travels Through France and Italy (1766).

  Notes on the Texts

  “IN THE KING’S SERVICE, 1793–1794,” and “With Stopford in the Basque Roads, 1808–1809”

  A Mariner of England: An Account of William Richardson from Cabin Boy in the Merchant Service to Warrant Officer in the Royal Navy [1780 to 1819] as Told by Himself ed. Colonel Spencer Childers, C.B., R.E., was published in 1908 by John Murray of London. “In the King’s Service” is part (pp. 100–11) of chap. 5 of the original; “With Stopford in the Basque Roads” is part (pp. 228–57, with some omissions) of chap. 10. The chapter titles and text used in Every Man Will Do His Duty are from the 1908 edition.

  “Commence the Work of Destruction: The Glorious First of June, 1794,” and “An Unequal Match, 1807–1808”

  These two passages were excerpted from A Narrative of My Adventures (1790–1839), by Sir William Henry Dillon, K.C.H., Vice-Admiral of the Red, edited by Michael A. Lewis, C.B.E., MA., F.S.A.,F.R.Hist.S., for the Navy Records Society and published in two volumes as Dillons Narrative: Vol. 1,1790–1802 (Navy Records Society vol. 93, 1953) and Dillon’s Narrative: Vol 2, 1802-1839 (Navy Records Society, vol. 97, 1956). “Commence the Work of Destruction, 1794,” originally appeared in vol. 1, chap. 3, “The Revolutionary War: The First of June/April 1794–December 1794” (aet. 13J4-14H).”“An Unequal Match, 1808,” originally appeared in vol. 2, chap. 10, “Post Captain: September 1807–April 1808 (aet. 27–271/2).” The annotations are those of Michael Lewis.

  In his introduction to Dillon’s Narrative, Lewis writes:

  The trouble with the sea-novelists as a group is that they tend to “typify” their characters. There is a suspicious family likeness between all Captains, all First Lieutenants, all Midshipmen, all Warrant Officers. Dillon has none of this weakness. There is no reason why he should, because all his characters are so plainly real people drawn from life; and life does not reproduce such straight similarities, even when it places men in similar environments. It is for this reason more than any other that this Narrative of Dillon’s is probably the finest naval-social document of his period yet discovered, (vol. 1, p. xxxi)

  “The Noted Pimp of Lisbon and an Unwanted Promotion in Bull Bay, 1794”

  This passage appears as “Gorgon, 44,” pp. 155–71, in Recollections of James Anthony Gardner, Commander R.N. (1775–1814),ed. Sir R. Vesey Hamilton, G.C.B., Admiral, and John Knox Laughton, M.A., D.Litt, for the Navy Records Society, 1906.

  In his introduction to a later edition, entitled Above and Under Hatches (London: Batchworth Press, 1955), editor Christopher Lloyd writes,

  Compared with other naval memoirs of the period, it may be said that Gardner’s are by far the most racy and colourful. … He had an eye for detail and a natural turn of phrase which any professional novelist might envy. He is, in fact, the literary counterpart of Rowlandson, and in the literature of the sea he stands in the first rank. These recollections have been the favorite reading of members of the Navy Records Society since they were first printed for the Society in 1906. … (p. xv)

  Ed. note: This chapter has been substantially rearranged for this volume. Gardner tended to deliver a quick and dry summary of the movements of his ship and then to follow that with a series of anecdotes and observations. Here, for readability, the anecdotes and observations have been inserted into their respective places of occurrence during the Gorgon’s voyage.

  “For the Good of My Own Soul, 1795,” and “Mad Dickey’s Amusement, 1798–1800”

  These two chapters are excerpted from The Nagle Journal: Diary of the Life of Jacob Nagle, Sailor, from the Year 1775 to 1841 (New York: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988). The former is part of a chapter entitled “Run to India” (pp. 182–90), and the latter is the chapter entitled “Prizemaster of HMS Netley” (pp. 218–44). The diary is edited and annotated by John C. Dann. Nagle’s spelling and grammar appear as they do in his original diary; all bracketed notations are Dann’s. Both passages are reprinted by the permission of John C. Dann.

  “They Would as Soon Have Faced the Devil Himself as Nelson, 1796”

  This passage originally appeared as “Nelson at Bastia,” by An Old Agamemnon [and also signed M.C.] in United Service Journal, Feb. 1841, no. 147: 212–18.

  “The Battle of Cape St. Vincent, 1797”

  This passage was taken from the second edition of A Narrative of the Battle of St. Vincent; with Anecdotes of Nelson, Before and After that Battle, by Colonel Drinkwater Bethune, F.S.A. (London: Saunders and Otley, 2d ed., 1840). Courtesy of the Naval War College.

  “The Fortune of War, 1799”

  This passage is taken from A Master Mariner: Being the Life and Adventures of Captain Robert William Eastwick, ed. Herbert Compton (London: T. Fisher Unwin, and New York: Macmillan, 1891). It originally appeared as chapter 7 (pp. 130–51).

  “The Audacious Cruise of the Speedy, 1800–1801”

  This passage originally appeared as “Cruise of the ‘Speedy,’” chap. 5, in The Autobiography of a Seaman, by Thomas, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Marquess of Maranham, etc. (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1890), pp. 38–54.

  Cochrane’s action served as the historical basis for much of Patrick O’Brian’s first Aubrey-Maturin novel, Master and Commander.

  “Bermuda in the Peace, 1802–1803,” and “When I Beheld These Men Spring from the Ground, 1809”

  The Midshipman: Being the Autobiographical Sketches of His Own Early Career, from Fragments of Voyages and Travels, by Captain Basil Hall, R.N., F.R.S. (London: Bell and Daldy and Sampson Low, Son, and Co., 1865). Fragments of Voyages and Travels was originally published in three volumes between 1831 and 1833 and was frequently reprinted. In “Bermuda in the Peace, 1802–1803 the passage here entitled “A Whale of an Adventure” was originally “Bermuda in the Peace” (pp. 50–63). The section here entitled “History of Shakings, the Middies’ Cur” was originally “Midshipmen’s Pranks—History of Shakings” (pp. 64–78).

  The passage entitled “When I Beheld These Men Spring from the Ground, 1809” comes from chaps. 24 and 25 of the original (pp. 262–95).

  “The Battle of Trafalgar, 1805”

&nb
sp; This passage was originally published in Nautical Economy by Jack Nastyface in 1836. The author’s real name, which he concealed for fear of reprisal, was William Robinson. The book later appeared as Jack Nastyface: Memoirs of a Seaman (Hove, East Sussex: Wayland Ltd., 1973).

  “The Death of Lord Nelson, 1805”

  This passage was taken from The Death of Lord Nelson, 21 Oct. 1805, 2d ed., by William Beatty, M.D.; ed. and originally published by Edward Arber, F.S.A., 1807. (Birmingham: War Library, 1894).

  In his preface to The Death of Lord Nelson, Arber writes,

  This little book … is valuable not only for giving us the fullest and most authoritative account in existence of Lord Nelson’s death; but also for much interesting information respecting his life, from one who knew him well. Especially would we note that “He possessed such a wonderful activity of mind as even prevented him from taking ordinary repose, seldom enjoying two hours of uninterrupted sleep; and on several occasions he did not quit the deck during the whole night.”

  “‘Damn ’em, Jackson, They’ve Spoilt My Dancing,’1809–1812”

  This passage originally appeared in chaps. 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 (pp. 138–219) of The Perilous Adventures and Vicissitudes of a Naval Officer, 1801–1812; Being Part of the Memoirs of Admiral George Vernon Jackson (1787-1876), ed. Harold Burrows, C.B.E., F.R.C.S. (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons Ltd., 1927).

  In his introduction to The Perilous Adventures, Burrows suggests that he believes Jackson was the prototype for Captain Frederick Marryat’s fictional character Peter Simple.

  “The Woodwind Is Mightier than the Sword, 1809–1812”