The War for All the Oceans

by Roy Adkins

  Lieutenant Provo Wallis of the Shannon later recalled that ‘for some days previous to the 1st June . . . the weather in Boston Bay had been very thick and foggy, so much so that we had to guess our position. The morning of the above-named day, however, was ushered in by a brilliant sunrise, and the land near Boston sighted; but we were not without fear lest the Chesapeake had effected her escape during the thick weather . . . Having, however, stood in to reconnoitre, we were gratified by a sight of her at anchor in Nantasket Roads, a sure proof that she was ready for sea.’34

  Broke immediately decided to send a challenge to Captain Lawrence: ‘As the Chesapeake appears now ready for sea, I request you will do me the favour to meet the Shannon with her, ship to ship, to try the fortune of our respective flags.’35 He included details of the manning and guns of his ship and added that ‘my proposals are highly advantageous to you, as you cannot proceed to sea singly in the Chesapeake, without imminent risk of being crushed by the superior force of the numerous British squadrons which are now abroad . . . Choose your terms - but let us meet.’36 The letter never reached Lawrence, as he had already decided to risk an encounter, leaving Boston at midday. There was an expectation of imminent success, and crowds of people gathered to watch. It was reported that ‘so confident were the Americans of victory, that a number of pleasure-boats came out with the Chesapeake from Boston, to see the Shannon compelled to strike; and a grand dinner was actually preparing on shore for the Chesapeake’s officers, against their return with the prize!’37 The encounter was being treated more like a baseball game than a battle.

  Next, Broke reported, ‘I took a position between Cape Ann and Cape Cod, and then hove to for him to join us - the enemy came down in a very handsome manner, having three American ensigns flying.’38 Broke addressed his men: ‘Shannons! The Americans have, owing to the disparity in force, captured several of our frigates; but to-day, I trust, they will find out the stuff British sailors are made of when upon an equality. I feel sure you will all do your duty. In a word - remember, you have some hundreds of your brother sailors’ blood to avenge!’39 One seaman then asked: ‘“Mayn’t we have three ensigns, sir, like she has?” “No,” said Broke, “we’ve always been an unassuming ship.”’40 Unusually he also prohibited cheering, insisting on silence as they headed into battle. The Chesapeake was more ostentatious, as all the guns had stirring names, engraved on copper plates, including ‘Yankee Protection’, ‘Liberty for Ever’, ‘America’ and ’Washington’, and while they approached the Shannon, Lawrence tried to encourage his men further with the words ‘Peacock her, my lads! Peacock her!’,41 referring to the destruction of that ship by the Hornet.

  About 20 miles from Boston, at half past five, the Chesapeake met the Shannon. Two or three broadsides were exchanged, but right from the first broadside the training of the men of the Shannon proved devastating. Lieutenant Augustus Ludlow, acting first lieutenant of the Chesapeake, remarked that ‘of one hundred and fifty men quartered on the upper deck, I did not see fifty on their feet after the first fire’,42 while the marksmen high up in the rigging of the Shannon told Midshipman Richard King ‘that the hammocks, splinters, and wrecks of all kinds driven across the deck formed a complete cloud’.43 The two ships became so entangled that the Chesapeake could no longer fire at the Shannon, and Lawrence gave orders for boarding, but in vain. He himself was then hit by a musket-ball and was carried below. His last words before he left the deck were ‘tell the men to fire faster and not give up the ship. Fight her till she sinks!’,44 which became a future rallying cry for the American Navy of ‘Don’t give up the ship!’

  Lieutenant Wallis related that Broke quickly assessed the situation and decided to board: ‘Broke, who saw the confusion on board of her, ran forward, calling out, “Follow me who can” and jumped on board, supported by all [about fifty seamen and marines] who were within hearing. A minute had hardly elapsed before the ships had separated, and a general cry was then raised, “Cease firing,” and by the time I had got upon the quarterdeck from the aftermost part of our maindeck the ships had got so far asunder that it was impossible to throw any more men on board of her; but it was unnecessary, as they hailed, “We have possession.”’45 The Americans had given up the ship.

  The gallantry of Broke’s men was noteworthy, but the number of casualties was high, not least from ‘friendly fire’ that Broke bitterly regretted: ‘My brave First Lieutenant, Mr. Watt, was slain in the moment of victory, in the act of hoisting the British colours; his death is a severe loss to the service.’46 While they were hauling down the American colours and replacing them with the British flag, Lieutenant George Watt and some of the men surrounding him had been fired on by the Shannon, which mistook them for Americans, even though a cease-fire had been called. Broke himself was lucky to survive. ‘Having received a severe sabre wound at the first onset,’ he remarked, ‘whilst charging a party of the enemy who had rallied on their forecastle, I was only capable of giving command till assured our conquest was complete, and then directing Second Lieutenant Wallis to take charge of the Shannon, and secure the prisoners.’47 Wallis explained that ‘my first care was to get the prisoners secured, which was an easy matter, as the Chesapeake had (upon deck) some hundreds of handcuffs in readiness for us’.48 The Americans had been so sure of victory they were planning a triumphant return to Boston with the Shannon’s crew in handcuffs. At least sixty-one men were killed and eighty-five injured from the Chesapeake, and thirty-four killed and fifty-two injured from the Shannon. The battle gained the dubious record of being the fastest slaughter in naval history up to then, as it was all over in eleven minutes.

  The Chesapeake with a prize crew and prisoners on board left Boston and headed for Nova Scotia, accompanied by the Shannon. Halifax was reached on 5 June, but thick fog meant they had to wait outside the harbour until the 6th, a Sunday. Some fifty years later the author and judge Thomas Chandler Haliburton recalled the events:I was attending divine service in St. Paul’s Church at that time, when a person was seen to enter hurriedly, whisper something to a friend in the garrison pew, and as hastily withdraw. The effect was electrical, for, whatever the news was, it flew from pew to pew, and one by one the congregation left the church. My own impression was that there was a fire in the immediate vicinity of St. Paul’s; and the movement soon became so general that I, too, left the building to inquire into the cause of the commotion. I was informed by a person in the crowd than ‘an English man-of-war was coming up the harbour with an American frigate as her prize.’ By that time the ships were in full view, near George’s Island, and slowly moving through the water. Every housetop and every wharf was crowded with groups of excited people, and, as the ships successively passed, they were greeted with vociferous cheers. Halifax was never in such a state of excitement before or since.49

  Haliburton and a friend found a boat and rowed out to the Shannon, but were denied admission. Instead they were allowed to board the Chesapeake, but because the vessel had only a small prize crew, the carnage of battle had not yet been removed:Externally she looked . . . as if just returned from a short cruise; but internally the scene was one never to be forgotten by a landsman . . .The coils and folds of ropes were steeped in gore as if in a slaughter-house. She was a fir-built ship, and her splinters had wounded nearly as many men as the Shannon’s shot. Pieces of skin, with pendant hair, were adhering to the sides of the ship; and in one place I noticed portions of fingers protruding, as if thrust through the outer wall of the frigate; while several of the sailors, to whom liquor had evidently been handed through the portholes by visitors in boats, were lying asleep on the bloody floor as if they had fallen in action and had expired where they lay. Altogether, it was a scene of devastation as difficult to forget as to describe. It is one of the most painful reminiscences of my youth, for I was but seventeen years of age.50

  Once Captain Broke was taken off the Shannon, the surgeon of the naval hospital examined him: ‘I was requested . . . to visit Captain Broke,
confined to bed at the commissioner’s house in the dockyard, and found him in a very weak state, with an extensive sabre wound on the side of the head, the brain exposed to view for three inches or more; he was unable to converse, save in monosyllables.’51 Miraculously, he survived and returned to England in October. He would never serve at sea again, and although he lived to the age of sixty-four, he never fully regained his health.

  Captain Lawrence survived for four days, but died of his wounds on 5 June just before they reached Halifax. He was thirty-one. His body was wrapped in the Chesapeake’s flag and laid on the quarterdeck, before being buried with military honours at Halifax on the 8th:Six of the oldest navy captains carried the pall, which was one of the colours of the Chesapeake. This, they said, was considered a particular mark of respect by naval men, as it was a token that he had defended his colours bravely, and that at this time they should not be separated from him. The procession was very long, and everything was conducted in the most solemn and respectful manner; and the wounded officers of both nations, who followed in the procession, made the scene very affecting . . .There was not the least mark of exultation . . . even among the commonest people.52

  Lieutenant Ludlow, acting first lieutenant of the Chesapeake, made reasonable progress, but died a few days after being transferred to the naval hospital. He was only twenty-one, and he was buried close to Lawrence. His last words were ‘Don’t give up the ship.’53

  Once news reached America of the death of these two officers, Captain George Crowninshield from Salem in Massachusetts called for their bodies to be brought back to America. He was given permission to sail with a flag of truce to Halifax, and on 13 August he returned to America with the two bodies on board. At Salem a further funeral service took place, attended by thousands of people who came into the town. The coffins were then transported to New York, where some fifty thousand people watched the procession and a third funeral service took place, this time in Trinity Church. They were buried together in the churchyard and in 1847 their remains were removed closer to Broadway and a new, imposing mausoleum was erected in the Trinity Church graveyard, where it can still be seen.

  The news had been slow to spread through America, but Richard Rush, comptroller of the treasury, later wrote: ‘I remember . . . the first rumour of it. I remember the startling sensation. I remember, at first, the universal incredulity. I remember how the post offices were thronged for successive days with anxious thousands; how collections of citizens rode out for miles on the highway, accosting the mail to catch something by anticipation. At last, when the certainty was known, I remember the public gloom; funeral orations, badges of mourning, bespoke it. “Don’t give up the ship!” the dying words of Lawrence . . . were on every tongue.’54

  In Britain Broke was treated in much the same way as the Americans had treated Hull and Decatur. There was widespread public celebration, with guns fired, illuminations, bonfires and numerous speeches. Broke was knighted and showered with other honours and gifts, and in Parliament John Croker, Secretary of the Admiralty, said that ‘the action, which he [Broke] fought with the Chesapeake, was in every respect unexampled. It was not - and he knew it was a bold assertion which he made, - to be surpassed by any engagement which graced the naval annals of Great Britain.’55

  The Chesapeake was brought to England and served in the Royal Navy until 1819, when the vessel was sold for dismantling, as described by a vicar of Fareham, near Portsmouth, who heard the story from Joshua Holmes himself:She was sold by Government to Mr. Holmes for £500, who found he had made a capital investment on this occasion, and cleared £1000 profit. He broke up the vessel, took several tons of copper from her, and disposed of the timbers, which were quite new and sound, of beautiful pitch pine, for building purposes. Much of the wood was employed in building houses in Portsmouth; but a large portion was sold, in 1820, to Mr. John Prior, a miller, of Wickham, for nearly £200. Mr. Prior pulled down his own mill, and constructed a new one with this timber, which he found admirably adapted to this purpose.56

  The watermill in Wickham became known as Chesapeake Mill and operated until 1970. Extensive historical and archaeological research has recently taken place into what is one of the finest surviving buildings constructed from old ships’ timbers.

  The war with America was literally brought home to Britain’s shores with the arrival of privateers and warships that were beginning to be a serious threat to trade. In August 1813 the American brig-sloop Argus under the command of Captain William Henry Allen, from Rhode Island, was preying on shipping around the coast of Britain, having recently transported the minister for France and his aides from New York to the French port of Lorient. After a stint in the English Channel the Argus had sailed round Land’s End and into St George’s Channel (between Ireland and Wales), capturing and burning merchant ships, and ‘by celerity of movement, audacity of action, and destructive energy, spread consternation throughout commercial England’.57 The prizes were burned, because they were too far from a friendly port, and likewise captured prisoners were only briefly detained before being returned to shore.

  One West Country newspaper reported that ‘a correspondent at Ilfracombe informs us, that an American privateer [actually a naval vessel] called the Argus, was cruising last week near Lundy Island [in the Bristol Channel]. She is a long, low brig, with yellow sides and black head, and mounts 22 24-pounders. She took last Wednesday [10 August] a homeward-bound West India ship, a brig from Ireland with cattle, a sloop from St. Ives to Liverpool with clay, and a schooner. The crews of these vessels she put aboard a light brig, which has arrived at the Mumbles. - She has also taken a pilot-skiff, which she makes use of as a decoy.’58 On the 13th the Argus captured and burned a merchant vessel laden with wine from Portugal, but exhausted crew members rescued some of the cargo and that evening became drunk. Early the following morning the flames from the burning vessel revealed their position near Milford Haven. The British brig-sloop Pelican under Captain John Fordyce Maples had only just left Cork with orders to search for the Argus. ‘At 4 this morning,’ Maples reported, ‘I saw a vessel on fire, and a brig standing from her, which I soon made out to be a cruizer; made all sail in chase, and at half-past 5 came alongside of her . . . when, after giving her three cheers, our action commenced, which was kept up with great spirit on both sides 43 minutes, when we lay alongside, and were in the act of boarding, when she struck her colours.’59

  In fact, the crew of the Argus cheered and fired first, followed by cheering and a broadside from the Pelican. The fighting could be heard in Milford Haven, where ‘the inhabitants of this neighbourhood were this morning alarmed by a tremendous firing which appeared to be at some distance from the harbour’. 60 William Young, master’s mate, was killed instantly as he led the boarding party. Another seaman, John Kitery, also lost his life, and five others from the Pelican were wounded. The Pelican returned to Cork, with some prisoners on board, while the Argus, manned by a prize crew, headed for Plymouth.

  Ten men from the Argus were killed and another fourteen injured. Captain Allen was injured early on and had his left leg amputated by his own surgeon. When the ship reached Plymouth, Allen was examined by the highly respected surgeon of Millbay Prison, Dr George MaGrath, who realised he was in a dangerous state and advised that he should be moved to his hospital. Despite the best efforts to save him, Allen died four days after the battle. ‘In person,’ the Naval Chronicle lamented, ‘he was about six feet high, a model of symmetry and manly comeliness, and in his manner and conversation a highly finished and accomplished gentleman. ’61 The funeral with military honours took place on the 21st, attended by a substantial procession, including many inhabitants of Plymouth. Allen was buried in St Andrew’s churchyard, next to eighteen-year-old Midshipman Richard Delphy, who had lost both legs in the action and had been buried the previous evening. Much of the churchyard has since been cleared, but the gravestone commemorating these two Americans has been restored and can be seen on a wall to the south of
the church.

  NINETEEN

  UP THE CHESAPEAKE

  Upon all occasions throughout this unhappy war,—between two nations speaking the same language, and descended in great measure from one common stock of ancestors,—it was certainly creditable to the Americans that they exhibited much kindness to British prisoners whom the fortune of war placed in their power.1

  By the end of 1813 Napoleon was completely on the defensive as the forces allied against him began to close in. Wellington had fought his way up through the Iberian peninsula, compelling Napoleon to restore King Ferdinand VII to the throne of Spain, and had then invaded France from the south. In October Napoleon was defeated by a mainly Austrian and Russian army at Leipzig and was forced to retreat, and in November a Dutch uprising expelled the French from Holland. By January 1814 France was on the verge of collapse in the face of the invading forces, and Joachim Murat, who had been installed as King of Naples by Napoleon, changed sides in a bid to save his own throne. By the beginning of March the allies were so confident of success that they signed a treaty agreeing not to make a separate peace with Napoleon: they would defeat him first and decide the internal boundaries of Europe afterwards.