by Roy Adkins
The ship was so cramped that Cochrane’s cabin had ‘not so much as room for a chair, the floor being entirely occupied by a small table surrounded with lockers, answering the double purpose of storechests and seats. The difficulty was to get seated, the ceiling being only five feet high,so that the object could only be accomplished by rolling on the locker, a movement sometimes attended with unpleasant failure.’5 The lack of space in the cabin was extremely uncomfortable for Cochrane, who was over six feet tall, and he found that the ‘only practicable mode of shaving consisted in removing the skylight and putting my head through to make a toilet-table of the quarter-deck above’.6
Based in the Mediterranean, the Speedy was under the overall command of Admiral Lord Keith and in 1800 was being used as an escort for merchant convoys. This was essential but generally unrewarding work that maintained the flow of trade, particularly to and from the colonies, on which Britain’s prosperity depended. On 10 May the Speedy sailed from Cagliari on Sardinia’s southern coast to protect a convoy of fourteen merchantmen on their way to Leghorn (Livorno) on Italy’s north-west coast, but within hours Cochrane was facing a crisis. The Speedy’s log for that day read, ‘At 9 a.m. observed a strange sail take possession of a Danish brig under our escort.’7 Faced with the choice of abandoning the Danish ship or leaving the rest of the convoy in a rescue attempt that might not succeed, Cochrane did not hesitate, as the log entry continued, ‘At 11.30 a.m. rescued the brig, and captured the assailant.’8
The captured ship, Cochrane’s first prize, was the French privateer Intrépide, and this was not the only threat because four days later the Speedy had to rescue two stragglers in the convoy which were seized by five armed boats that rowed out from the island of Monte Cristo. The voyage from Cagliari to Leghorn took eleven days, but after safely delivering the convoy, Cochrane was rewarded by being given a relatively free hand to harass enemy shipping, initially off the Italian coast and then off eastern Spain.
For nearly a year the Speedy cruised along the Spanish coast, capturing enemy ships as prizes and occasionally having to avoid warships that were too large and heavily armed, but on 5 May 1801 Cochrane and his crew came across some Spanish gunboats off Barcelona and immediately gave chase. The gunboats ran for the safety of the harbour, and from the way they behaved they were obviously acting as decoys, but this did not deter Cochrane. At dawn the next day he again took the Speedy in towards Barcelona, ‘when the trap manifested itself in the form of a large ship’9 - the Spanish frigate Gamo. This was a much larger vessel than the Speedy, with a crew of 319 men and armed with 8- and 12-pounder cannons and 24-pounder carronades. The weight of shot in the Gamo’s broadside was 190 pounds, nearly seven times that of the Speedy. Cochrane also had the disadvantage that his crew was reduced in number to fifty-four because some men were taking captured ships back to the Speedy’s base at Port Mahón on Minorca.
There was still time to escape from such an unequal contest, but Cochrane’s officers had complained about not attacking a similar frigate and so ‘orders were then given to pipe all hands, and prepare for action’.10 Putting on a bold front, the Speedy ‘made towards the frigate, which was now coming down under steering sails. At 9.30 a.m., she fired a gun and hoisted Spanish colours, which the Speedy acknowledged by hoisting American colours [America was a neutral country], our object being, as we were now exposed to her full broadside, to puzzle her, till we got on the other tack, when we ran up the English ensign, and immediately afterwards encountered her broadside without damage.’11
The only chance for the Speedy was to move in as close as possible to the Gamo, whose guns had a much longer range. The Gamo managed to fire another broadside, which again failed to damage the fast-approaching Speedy. Cochrane gave orders ‘not to fire a gun till we were close to her; when running under her lee, we locked our yards amongst her rigging, and in this position returned our broadside, such as it was’.12 The Spanish frigate towered above the Speedy, and, Cochrane recorded, ‘to have fired our popgun 4-pounders at a distance would have been to throw away the ammunition, but the guns being doubly, and as I afterwards learned, trebly, shotted2, and being elevated, they told admirably upon her main deck; the first discharge . . . killing the Spanish captain and the boatswain.’13 The Gamo was now at a disadvantage, as Cochrane had calculated: ‘My reason for locking our small craft in the enemy’s rigging was the one upon which I mainly relied for victory, viz. that from the height of the frigate out of the water, the whole of her shot must necessarily go over our heads, whilst our guns, being elevated, would blow up her maindeck. ’14
Although the Speedy had counteracted the superiority the Gamo had in fire-power, the crew was still outnumbered six to one by the Spanish, so to Cochrane the next move was obvious:The Spaniards speedily found out the disadvantage under which they were fighting, and gave the order to board the Speedy, but as this order was as distinctly heard by us as by them, we avoided it at the moment of execution bysheering off to prevent the movement, giving them a volley of musketry and a broadside before they could recover themselves. Twice was this manoeuvre repeated, and twice thus averted. The Spaniards finding that they were only punishing themselves, gave up further attempts to board, and stood to their guns, which were cutting up our rigging from stem to stern, but doing little farther damage, for after the lapse of an hour the loss to the Speedy was only two men killed and four wounded. This kind of combat, however, could not last. Our rigging being cut up and the Speedy’s sails riddled with shot, I told the men that they must either take the frigate or be themselves taken, in which case the Spaniards would give no quarter - whilst a few minutes energetically employed on their part would decide the matter in their own favour.15
The situation was desperate, and Cochrane did everything to improve their chances:Calculating on the superstitious wonder which forms an element in the Spanish character, a portion of our crew were ordered to black their faces, and what with this and the excitement of combat, more ferocious looking objects could scarcely be imagined. The fellows thus disguised were directed to board by the head [at the bow], and the effect produced was precisely that calculated on. The greater portion of the Spaniard’s crew was prepared to repel boarders in that direction, but stood for a few moments as it were transfixed to the deck by the apparition of so many diabolical looking figures emerging from the white smoke of the bow guns. 16
While the Spanish were occupied by this diversion, Cochrane related, ‘our other men, who boarded by the waist [amidships], rushed on them from behind, before they could recover from their surprise’. 17 He gambled everything on this attack, and his entire crew boarded the Spanish vessel except for ‘the doctor, Mr. Guthrie, who . . . volunteered to take the helm. Leaving him therefore for the time being both commander and crew of the Speedy . . . in a few seconds every man was on the enemy’s deck - a feat rendered the more easy as the doctor placed the Speedy close alongside with admirable skill.’18 Initially the British had the upper hand because ‘for a moment the Spaniards seemed taken by surprise, as though unwilling to believe that so small a crew would have the audacity to board them, but soon recovering themselves, they made a rush to the waist of the frigate, where the fight was for some minutes gallantly carried on’.19
At this point Cochrane shouted down to the doctor, the sole person aboard the Speedy, to send up another fifty men. He also sent a man to haul down the Spanish colours, and ‘the Spanish crew, without pausing to consider by whose orders the colours had been struck3, and naturally believing it the act of their own officers, gave in, and we were in possession of the Gamo frigate, of thirty-two heavy guns and 319 men, who an hour and a half before had looked upon us as a certain if not an easy prey’.20
Contrary to what might have been expected with the British so heavily outnumbered, the disparity between the sizes of the two crews was matched by a similar disparity in casualty figures, as Cochrane reported: ‘Our loss in boarding was Lieutenant Parker, severely wounded in several places, one seaman k
illed and three wounded, which with those previously killed and wounded gave a total of three seamen killed and one officer and seventeen men wounded. The Gamo’s loss was Captain de Torres, the boatswain, and thirteen seamen killed, together with forty-one wounded, her casualties thus exceeding the whole number of officers and crew on board the Speedy.’21
When the Spanish had time for reflection, they were seemingly embarrassed to have been captured by so small a vessel, and Cochrane noted that ‘some time after the surrender of the Gamo, and when we were in quiet possession, the officer who had succeeded the deceased captain . . . applied to me for a certificate that he had done his duty during the action’.22 Cochrane duly gave him a certificate with the equivocal wording that he had ‘conducted himself like a true Spaniard’23, which pleased the officer, while to his amusement Cochrane ‘had afterwards the satisfaction of learning that it procured him further promotion in the Spanish service!’24
Having won the battle, the British needed to escort the captured ship back to base before other Spanish warships intervened, and ‘it became a puzzle what to do with 263 unhurt prisoners now we had taken them, the Speedy having only forty-two [fit] men left. Promptness was however necessary, so driving the prisoners into the hold, with guns pointing down the hatchway, and leaving thirty of our men on board the prize . . . we shaped our course to Port Mahon.’25 The two ships reached Minorca safely, and in this they were lucky, with ‘the Barcelona gun-boats, though spectators of the action, not venturing to rescue the frigate’.26 AsCochrane admitted, ‘had they made the attempt, we should have had some difficulty in evading them and securing the prize, the prisoners manifesting every disposition to rescue themselves, and only being deterred by their own main deck guns loaded with canister, and pointing down the hatchways’.27
At the time the Gamo was captured in 1801, Cochrane was just twenty-five and the Speedy was his first independent command, but he would go on to terrorise the French by capturing over fifty vessels in the Mediterranean and harassing French troops in raids on the coasts of France and French-occupied Spain. He built a reputation as a captain who would not risk the safety of his crew unnecessarily, but was likely to make them rich with prize money. Yet Cochrane was only exceptional in the consistency of his success and his extreme independence of spirit. While frequently forced to endure the tedium of protecting merchant convoys or patrolling enemy ports, captains of small fast warships were also given a free hand to cruise particular areas, doing whatever damage they could to enemy forces and trade. The British Navy came to rely on these individual commanders who, with single ships or small squadrons rather than huge battle fleets, relentlessly reduced French naval power to a handful of warships confined to port by a continuous blockade.
The capture of the Gamo by the Speedy was only unusual because of the great difference in size and power between the two vessels - most battles were more evenly matched - but this incident is typical of the professionalism, ingenuity, daring and raw courage displayed by the seamen of the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. While Napoleon4 went from one victory to another on land, all his plans for taking control of the seas were dogged by failure. The commerce of France was stifled, the French Empire shrank and the economy almost collapsed, while Britain expanded its trade, wealth and empire. Although Wellington dealt the final blow at Waterloo, ultimately the war against Napoleon was won by the officers and men of the British Navy.
ONE
GATEWAY TO INDIA
Had I been master of the sea, I should have been master of the East.
Napoleon, speaking about his expedition
to the eastern Mediterranean1
With hindsight, Tuesday 24 April 1798 was one of those pivotal days when history changes its course, but at the time it seemed no different from any of the days that came before or after. France had undergone a revolution and was now at war with Britain. The Directory, the present government of France, was engaged in a struggle with French Royalists who were trying to restore the Bourbon dynasty, which had ended with the execution of Louis XVI five years earlier. Having just arrested three leaders of the Parisian network of Royalists, the Directory’s grip on power was more secure than it had been for some time and, on the surface at least, France seemed relatively stable. The rising star of the French administration, General Napoleon Bonaparte, was in Paris awaiting the Directory’s decision on whether his planned expedition to invade Egypt would go ahead, or whether he would instead be sent on a diplomatic mission to Austria; Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson, who was soon to become one of Napoleon’s most effective adversaries, was at Lisbon on his way to join the British fleet in the Mediterranean; and Captain Sir William Sidney Smith, also of the British Navy, was a prisoner in Paris in a high-security prison called the Temple. This was a medieval tower, with a turret on each corner, that originally formed the heart of the fortified residence of the crusading Knights Templars in Paris. The forbidding stone structure was now mainly used for political prisoners: Louis XVI was held there before his execution, and Smith occupied the same apartments.
Smith had been in the Temple for much of the past two years, having been captured during a naval action at the mouth of the River Seine. The second son of a captain in the guards and gentleman-usher to Queen Charlotte, Smith had been born in Park Lane, London. He had joined the navy in 1777, at the age of thirteen, since when he had been in several notable actions. The French suspected that he was a spy and so refused to treat him as a prisoner-of-war. Although not able to prove it, they were right about his involvement in espionage, and from his prison cell in the French capital Smith acted as a spymaster, channelling funds from Britain to British agents and French Royalists in the Paris area. A fluent speaker of French, he was also a master of propaganda, and on the wooden panelling of his cell he had inscribed part of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Ode à la Fortune. This inscription began: ‘Fortune’s wheel makes strange revolutions, it must be confessed; but for the term revolution to be applicable, the turn of the wheel should be complete. You are today as high as you can be. Very well. I envy not your good fortune, for mine is better still. I am as low in the career of ambition as a man can well descend; so that, let this capricious dame, fortune, turn her wheel ever so little - I must necessarily mount, for the same reason that you must descend.’2
The inscription was aimed at Napoleon and continued: ‘I make not this remark to cause you any uneasiness, but rather to bring you that consolation which I shall feel when you are arrived at the same point where I now am - yes! at the same point where I now am. You will inhabit this same prison - why not [you] as well as I? I no more thought of such a thing, than you do at present, before I was actually shut up in it.’3 Smith ensured that his message found its way into the French newspapers, ending with the proclamation: ‘In short, I need not prove to you that you will come to this place, because you must come here to be able to read these lines. I presume also you will inhabit this apartment, because it is the best, and because the keeper of it is a civil man and will do for you the best he can, as he does for me.’4 It came to be known as Smith’s ‘prophecy’, and although Napoleon never saw the original inscription, the newspaper reports undoubtedly played on the superstitious streak in his character - he later ordered the Temple to be demolished, probably to prevent the prophecy from coming true.
On 24 April 1798 two officers arrived at the prison with an order to transfer Captain Smith and his fellow prisoner, Midshipman John Wesley Wright, to another prison at Fontainebleau. This was unusual, as those held in the Temple were either released, executed or died there, and the head gaoler, Citizen Antoine Boniface, scrutinised the order carefully. There appeared to be nothing amiss, and so Boniface had his clerk copy the order into the register while the more senior of the waiting officers signed a receipt for the prisoners. Sir Sidney later recalled that the officer who came to collect him gave an assurance ‘in the most serious manner, that the government were very far from intending to aggravate my misfortunes, and that I
should be very comfortable at the place whither he was ordered to conduct me’.5 When all the formalities had been completed, Boniface ordered six men from the guard to accompany Smith, which was agreed, but then the officer addressed Smith again, saying, ‘Commodore, you are an officer, I am an officer also; your parole will be enough. Give me that, and I have no need of an escort’6, to which Smith replied, ‘if that is sufficient, I swear on the faith of an officer to accompany you wherever you choose to conduct me.’7
Once outside the prison, the small party of officers and their prisoners boarded a four-wheeled horse-drawn cab, apparently ‘taken from the nearest stand’8, but as Smith climbed inside he saw faces he recognised - faces of French Royalist agents - and his suspicions were confirmed that a rescue attempt was in progress. Once away from the prison, fearing immediate pursuit, they urged the cab driver to make haste, but their progress was immediately halted:A trivial circumstance nearly defeated the bold enterprise. The driver had not gone a hundred yards, when he ran against a post, and not only damaged his wheel, but injured a foot-passenger [a child in the street]. An angry crowd collected; Sidney and his companions jumped out, took the valise, and were hurrying away, when the driver called them back, demanding his fare . . . [and one of the party] committed a rash act, which might well have compromised everything by arousing the suspicion of the by-standers; he threw the driver a double louis [an illegal Royalist gold coin], and hastily rejoined his companions.9
Hurrying away before the mistake was noticed, the fugitives set out on foot for a nearby Royalist safe house, where they spent the night. Smith left the next day in a carriage heading north-west, but he had no passport or papers and the most dangerous part of the journey was the checkpoint on the road leading out of Paris. Just as they approached this obstacle, the carriage collided with a wall and was damaged, but turning this accident to his advantage, Smith slipped through on foot while some of the checkpoint guards were occupied by the diversion. After being repaired, the carriage picked him up and continued towards the Normandy coast.