The War for All the Oceans

by Roy Adkins

  Both governments did their best to downplay what had occurred. Opinion in America was mixed, but in many quarters it was believed that the earlier attack on the Chesapeake had been avenged. When the news reached London a month later, the British press was outraged, and one newspaper haughtily declared: ‘Upon this extraordinary affair, we will only observe, that it betrays the hostile spirit of the American Commander. He had no right to question an English ship of war carrying English colours. He therefore was the aggressor, and upon his head lies the blood that has been shed . . . We give him joy of his triumph. The President, the great Leviathan of the American navy, overpowered a little English brig of 18 guns!!!’25 Where the clash between the Chesapeake and the Leopard could be dismissed as an isolated incident, that between the President and the Little Belt was a warning of what was to come.In the East, Dutch-held Java remained the single obstacle to British domination of trade, but on 4 August a massive naval force carrying nearly twelve thousand troops attacked the island. It took more than a month to overrun Java, during which time the captured Dutch ships and gunboats swelled the British fleet to over one hundred vessels, and sailors were called upon to build boat bridges across rivers, construct siegeworks and handle the artillery. When disease broke out among the troops, they were reinforced by marines from the ships, and in the latter stages of the campaign parties of seamen and marines were sent out to deal with the minor outposts. The Dutch finally surrendered their colony of Java on 18 September - the naval war in the East was effectively over, giving Britain rather than France the solid foundations of an empire that Napoleon had long dreamed of and lusted after.

  In Britain itself the year 1811 was one of change brought about by Parliament finally deciding to declare George III insane. His illness and erratic behaviour had been causing concern for some time, and in early February the Prince of Wales was made Regent, initially with limited powers for twelve months. This was the start of what would be known as the Regency period, and was celebrated by a sumptuous banquet and fête on 19 June at Carlton House, the London residence of the Prince of Wales. It was a lavish meal with about two thousand guests, including the exiled French royal family. Such largesse did nothing for the general population, many of whom were suffering the effects of wartime shortages and the widening gap between rich and poor that was a side-effect of the early industrial revolution. Jobs and incomes were being squeezed, but the cheap food, clothing and other necessities that the British Empire would eventually supply had not started to flow into the country.

  The winter of 1810-11 was severe, and the River Thames froze over so hard that men could walk on the ice from Battersea Bridge as far as Hungerford Stairs. In the countryside many people were starving and desperate, and inevitably violence broke out. In January 1811 Major-General Dyott, formerly at Walcheren and now military commander at Lichfield, wrote in his diary: ‘A great deal of frost and cold weather in January; shooting most days with tolerable success. I went to Beaudesert [Beaudesert House in Staffordshire] for a day’s shooting with Lord Paget58, and never saw so much game in so short a time. We were not out more than three hours, and killed twenty-five pheasants, seven hares, and four rabbits.’26 Such game animals were private property, however, and protected by severe laws - the punishment for poaching could be transportation. Home-grown wheat was also protected by duties that were introduced in 1804 to keep the price of imported wheat uncompetitive, but for most of the war food was so expensive that such laws were not needed. The high incomes of landowners and farmers were protected, but when prices rose, the poor starved. Many agricultural labourers, tenant farmers and their families were taking jobs in the industries, often at pitiful wages, and they had no hope of improving their lot. Although a few radicals spoke out in Parliament the landowners swayed the government, and corrupt elections and lack of a universal franchise for men, let alone women, ensured the status quo.

  Under such conditions bad weather led to bad harvests, high prices, food shortages and then civil disturbance. Often the focus of resentment was the new labour-saving machines that put people out of jobs, and in 1811 Luddite attacks against factories began in the Midlands. In November Dyott wrote in his diary:On the 7th I was ordered to Nottingham by a letter from the Commander-in-chief’s secretary in consequence of the alarming riots that existed in that town and neighbourhood. The stocking manufacturers had committed great outrages by breaking the stocking-frames of such of their employers as would not increase the price of wages. I remained at Nottingham until the 14th, having distributed the 15th Dragoons and Berkshire Militia in the several villages where disturbances had happened to keep the peace and proceeded to Loughborough to attend a meeting of magistrates of the county of Leicester, there having been some symptoms of discontent in that country, but the appearance of a military force prevented any repetition of outrage, and I returned to Lichfield on the 15th.27

  In fact there was uproar in the counties of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire that took seven regiments of troops to quell. This wasonly the beginning, as the attacks spread to textile areas in northern England. In all, the year the Prince Regent came to power was not a good one for the ordinary people of Britain, and it was to end in tragedy for the military.

  The Baltic was essential for trade, but at the end of 1810 Sweden had declared war, leaving Britain no allies. With the Napoleonic decrees banning trade with Britain, all Baltic ports were closed to the British, but Vice-Admiral Sir James Saumarez, commander-in-chief of the Baltic fleet, had maintained friendly relations with Sweden. Using a system of foreign flags and false papers for merchant ships, trade between Britain and the Baltic countries was kept open. British warships escorted the merchant convoys, but with no base in the Baltic, they all had to leave before the onset of winter. On 1 November 1811 Rear-Admiral Robert Carthew Reynolds set out from the anchorage at Hanö, off the south-east tip of Sweden, in his 98-gun flagship the St George. Along with other warships, he was leading a convoy of over 120 merchant ships and had instructions not to leave any later because of the dangers from ice and worsening weather. Almost immediately the convoy ran into contrary winds, forcing the ships to turn back and severely delaying them. They were dogged by bad weather, and during the night of the 15th while at anchor off Nysted, a storm hit the convoy, and ships were dismasted and dragged their anchors. A large merchant vessel was blown across and cut one of the anchor cables holding the St George, which was driven into the shoals. In a desperate attempt to save the ship, all the masts were cut down with axes, but despite this the ship struck the bottom several times, the rudder was torn away, and the vessel ran aground. In this condition the St George managed to survive until the wind dropped, early the next morning, and temporary masts and a makeshift rudder were fitted, but it took another two days to refloat the battleship.

  The merchantmen were in an equally distressed condition, several having been wrecked on the enemy coast and some having sunk. Thirty were badly damaged and limped back to a safe harbour near Hanö for repairs. The rest, seventy-six in all, were escorted to the Wingo anchorage off Gothenburg, where they arrived on 1 December. At Wingo the convoy met up with other British warships, including the Victory with Saumarez on board. He proposed that the St George should remain there while the other ships sailed with the convoy, but Reynolds insisted that his ship was capable of making the voyage, and in the end Saumarez allowed him his wish. The convoy was again delayed by contrary winds, not setting out for England until the 17th. A squadron consisting of the warships Victory, Vigo, Dreadnought and Orion as well as the brigs Mercury and Snipe led the way. Then came the St George, towed by the Cressy, and accompanied by the Defence and the brig Bellete, after which came the Hero and the brig Grasshopper leading the convoy of merchant ships. By the morning of Christmas Eve, the squadron led by the Victory had safely crossed the North Sea. Early on, the convoy of merchantmen returned to Wingo because of adverse winds and only set sail again on 21 December.

  Because the St George seemed to b
e sailing well, the tow was cast off, but this squadron also decided to turn back to Wingo, and likewise headed for home again on the 21st. In the following days these ships managed to round the northern tip of Jutland but the weather, which had never been good, began to worsen again, and the Bellete was separated from the other three ships. Unknown to them, the merchant convoy led by the Hero had already passed them and was further south. Part of that convoy split off towards Hull and Scotland, while the Hero and Grasshopper continued to escort the rest of the convoy. News of the ships from the Baltic did not reach Britain until nearly two weeks later, when The Times reported:We have with . . . regret to mention, that the fears entertained for the safety of the Hero, of 74 guns, Captain NEWMAN, are unfortunately realized. It is stated, that in a most dreadful gale, she struck on the Haak Sand, near the Texel, on which the Minotaur was lost last winter, and foundered. Every soul on board of her, it is added, perished. The Grasshopper sloop of war is also lost. She struck on the Haak, but got over it, and was subsequently wrecked. Captain FANSHAW, the Commander and the Officers and crew, were, it is stated, saved from the wreck, but are made prisoners of war in Holland.28

  Because the ships were wrecked on the enemy coast of Holland, it was some days before a full picture of the incident emerged, in an account from one of the crew of the Grasshopper, showing that they were much further east than the pilots reckoned:At half-past three [on 24 December] the hands were turned up, the ship being in broken water: we found we were on a sandbank, the pilot imagining it to be Smith’s Knoll [towards the Suffolk coast]. The captain instantly ordered the brig to be steered S.S.E thinking to get out to sea, but she continued striking so hard [on the bottom] for a length of time, that we had almost given her up for lost, when suddenly and very fortunately, we fell into three fathoms water, upon which the captain caused an anchor to be let go, when we perceived the Hero again (as we then thought) also at an anchor, though she fired several guns and burnt blue lights: but alas! when the day broke we had the mortification of witnessing a most horrible scene, - the Hero was totally dismasted and on her larboard beam ends, with her head to the N.E. about a mile from us upon the Haeck’s [Haake] Sand, as we then found we were inside of it, off the Texel Island.29

  The Hero was already breaking up, and the damaged Grasshopper was trapped between a sandbank and the Dutch coast. There was no alternative but to surrender to the Dutch and ask for help:The ship’s company [of the Hero] were all crowded together on the poop and forecastle. As soon as daylight had well appeared, she hoisted a flag of truce and fired a gun, which we repeated, and very shortly after saw a lugger, two brigs, and several small vessels, plying out of the Texel to our assistance, but owing to the flood tide having made, and the wind blowing a perfect gale at N.N.W. the lugger was only able to come within two or three miles of us by two o’clock in the afternoon. In the meantime we hoisted out our boats, and made an attempt to get near the Hero, but the surf was so high, that it was all ineffectual, and we were under the cruel necessity of seeing so many of our brave countrymen perishing, without being able to render them any assistance. 30

  The crew of the Grasshopper was eventually taken off by the Dutch, with the loss of only one man. The Hero sank and there were no survivors.

  These were not the only vessels of that convoy to be wrecked, for the Grasshopper seaman reported: ‘I observed, likewise, about five miles to the northward of us, a vessel on shore, with her foremast standing, and another some distance from her, both of which I took to be the transports that were under our convoy. The [Dutch] commanding officer here has since informed us, that the telegraph has reported that eight or ten vessels were wrecked upon the coast to the northward . . . a transport, called the Archimedes, beat over the Haecks as well as ourselves, with the loss of her rudder, but has since been wrecked, though the crew are saved, and now prisoners of war, as well as we.’31

  It took longer for news of the Defence and St George to reach Britain, but in early February 1812 newspapers began to pick up stories from the Danish press, and on the 10th the Hampshire Courier carried an account:The Journals of Jutland are full of details, in part contradictory, relative to the shipwrecks of the St. George and Defence. It is natural that these dreadful scenes, having only for witnesses the sailors and fishermen, inhabitants of the coasts, should be related in different ways. It is known that the St. George carried 98 guns, 552 sailors and 200 marines. The crew of the Defence was 500 men in the whole; ten men from the St. George, and six from the Defence, are all that were saved: 1283 individuals perished in the waves. The Defence, which was very old, struck the ground first; she made signals with blue lights, that she was left without resource, and in a moment afterwards she went to pieces; what remained of her however, continued still visible, lying bottom upwards, and had at a distance the appearance of a church. Capt. ATKINS got alive to land, with six sailors, but expired a few moments after.32

  This was on Christmas Eve, the same day that the Hero and Grasshopper were wrecked, but the warships Defence and St George were wrecked much further north, on the west coast of Jutland. The makeshift rudder of the St George no longer functioned, and the vessel drifted towards the coast. The captain of the Cressy decided to save his own ship, but the captain of the Defence remained with the St George, and both ships were driven ashore. Eyewitnesses did not agree as to whether the St George or the Defence ran aground first:The St. George let go her anchors, but the violence of the wind drove her on shore, and the furious waves rolled over her without being able to break her, as she was of a very strong construction. This circumstance served only to prolong the sufferings of the unhappy crew. During the whole of the 25th, from four to five hundred men were seen clinging to the lofty deck of the vessel. It was impossible to come to their assistance, on account of the storm and unexampled agitation of the sea. On a sudden these men disappeared, and it was thought they had been carried away by a wave; but according to the account of one of the ten sailors, Admiral REYNOLDS, conceiving all succour impossible, had thrown himself in despair into the sea, and been followed by the greater part of the crew. Those who remained endeavoured to tie one another to pieces of wood, masts, and yards; and at length threw themselves into the sea, and attempted to gain the shore . . . but with exception of ten they were all drowned, or crushed to death by the beating fragments of the wreck. The Secretary of Admiral REYNOLDS got to land, but expired immediately from fatigue and cold. There was found on him the portrait of his wife, with her address in London, and a note requesting those who might find his body to inform her of his unhappy fate. A child, eight years old, got on shore safe, fastened to a large piece of timber. His father and mother were on board the Defence: they followed him with their eyes, and when they saw him reach the land alive, they threw themselves into the waves, and died together!33

  In the following days a great many bodies were washed up on the coast and were buried in the sand dunes where they were found, an area known ever since as ‘dead men’s dunes’. The number of casualties from the Baltic convoy could not be calculated precisely, but over two thousand men and an unknown number of women and children were lost in the wrecks of the three warships, while the total death toll from warships, transport ships and merchantmen has been estimated at over five thousand. It was the worst single disaster to befall the British Navy during the entire Napoleonic Wars.

  EIGHTEEN

  THE GREAT MISTAKE

  Be it enacted, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, that War be, and the same is declared to exist, between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the dependencies thereof, and the United States of America and their territories . . . June 18, 1812 - (Approved.)

  James Madison1

  The year 1812, which had begun so badly for the navy, was not destined to greatly improve. All attention was on Europe, where at last Wellington’s forces were gaining ground in Spain. After the victory at Ciudad Rodrigo in January, the British public
was following the progress of the army through the Iberian peninsula, and for the first time since long before Trafalgar the army was beginning to eclipse the navy in popularity. In part the navy was a victim of its own success, having established a secure blockade of the Continent, adequate protection for trade and the annexation of the remnants of France’s overseas empire. The problem was that many of these successes had been low-key and often far from home, with no great dramatic victories to capture the public imagination. The army now seemed to promise such drama, close at hand, with the possibility of British soldiers invading French soil in the foreseeable future, whereas the navy, which had cut off Napoleon’s every attempt to spread his influence beyond mainland Europe, was taken for granted.