by Sam Willis
Published in Great Britain in 2013 by Atlantic Books,
an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.
Copyright © Sam Willis, 2013
Appendix II © Nicholas Blake, 2013
The moral right of Sam Willis to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Hardback ISBN: 9780857895707
Special Edition ISBN: 9780857898302
Ebook ISBN: 9780857895721
Paperback ISBN: 9780857895738
Text design and typesetting: Carrdesignstudio.com
Printed in Great Britain.
Atlantic Books
An Imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd
Ormond House
26–27 Boswell Street
London
WC1N 3JZ
www.atlantic-books.co.uk
For Tors
Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson describing his attack on the French fleet at the mouth of the Nile, 2 August, 1798
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
LIST OF MAPS & BATTLE PLANS
PREFACE
The finding
INTRODUCTION
The Writing
The Forgetting
The Content
The Commanders and their Fleets
The Demands of Seapower
The Navy and the Nation
The Recipients
A Note on the Transcriptions
1. THE GLORIOUS FIRST OF JUNE
The Banner
The Extremists
The Sea Dog
The Convoy
The Dispatches
2. ST VINCENT
The Palace
The Allies
The Stickler
The Storms
The Dispatches
3. CAMPERDOWN
The Replica
The Invasion
The Scotsman
The Coercion
The Dispatches
4. THE NILE
The Lightning Conductor
The Prey
The Favourite
The Discovery
The Dispatches
5. COPENHAGEN
The Manor
The Puppet
The Newlywed
The Conundrum
The Dispatches
6. TRAFALGAR
The Relics
The Mismatch
The Cripple’s Friend
The Desperado
The Dispatches
7. SAN DOMINGO
The Sextant
The Survivors
The Aspirant
The Goose Chase
The Dispatches
CONCLUSION
The Paradox
The Uncertain
The Change
POSTSCRIPT
The Photograph
The Appeal
APPENDIX I – THE SECRETARIES OF THE ADMIRALTY
APPENDIX II – THE ROYAL NAVY’S PRIZES
GLOSSARY
NOTES
FURTHER READING
NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am extremely grateful to the many people who have offered their time and knowledge during the creation of this book. Nicholas Blake’s work on the documents themselves was inestimable and his research for Appendix II meticulous. Oliver Walton has been a valuable sounding board and nonsense-preventer. Richard Blake helped with questions of piety; Tony Beales with Trafalgar; Sim Comfort with swords and telescopes; Andrew Bond, who is becoming something of a naval historian himself, with word-finding and grammar; Phil Weir with developments in telegraph and radio; and Andrew Little with Dutch museums. Lucy Morris did some excellent work at short notice and my father, Michael Willis, was an important shellfish and Dutch lager consultant on our ‘research’ trip to Rotterdam. The staff at the British Library, and particularly Dr William Frame, Curator of Modern Historical Papers, have been highly professional and helpful. Mark and David Hawkins of the Lanes Armoury in Brighton were very kind in letting me use an image of their Nile medal. And, as always with my work, this book is all the better because Michael Duffy read it through in draft and pointed out a number of howlers.
Finally I would like to thank Georgina Capel and Anthony Cheetham for believing in this project from its birth as a two-lined email, which began ‘You’ll never believe what I have just found ...’
ILLUSTRATIONS
First Section
1. The volume of dispatches (© The British Library Board. Add. Mss. 23207)
2. The silk banner belonging to L’Amerique (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)
3. Admiral Richard Howe by John Singleton Copley, 1794 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)
4. ‘The Brunswick and Le Vengeur after the Action on the First of June, 1794’ by Nicholas Pocock, engraved by R. Pollard and J. Widnell (Sim Comfort Collection)
5. Sir John Jervis by Gilbert Stuart, c. 1782–7 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)
6. La Granja de San Ildefonso, Segovia, Spain (© Paul Maeyaert/The Bridgeman Art Library)
7. ‘Nelson boarding the San Nicolas in the victory off Cape St Vincent, 1797’ by W. M. Thomas, c. 1800 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)
8. Fragment of the naval ensign of the Batavian Republic (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)
9. ‘Duncan receiving the surrender of de Winter at the Battle of Camperdown, 11 October 1797’ by Daniel Orme, 1797 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)
Second section
10. Lightning conductor from L’Orient (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)
11. Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson, attributed to Guy Head, c. 1800 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)
12. ‘The Battle of the Nile, 1 August 1978’ by Nicholas Pocock, c. 1808 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)
13. The Nile Medal (Courtesy of Mark and David Hawkins)
14. Sir Hyde Parker by James Walker (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)
15. ‘The Battle of Copenhagen, 2 April 1801’ by Nicholas Pocock (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)
16. Nelson’s pigtail (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)
17. Rear-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood by Henry Howard (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)
18. ‘The Death of Nelson, 21 October 1805’ by William Arthur Devis, 1807 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)
19. Duckworth’s sextant (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)
20. Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth by Sir William Beechey (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)
21. ‘Duckworth’s action off San Domingo, 6 February 1806’ by Nicholas Pocock, 1808 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)
Images in the main text
The parts of the original letters reproduced on pages here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here all come from the volume of dispatches in the British Lib
rary (© The British Library Board. Add. Mss. 23207)
Veteran of the Battle of the Nile (Courtesy of Mark and David Hawkins)
MAPS & BATTLE PLANS
As always, my maps and battle plans have been drawn by the extraordinarily talented artist and illustrator, Jamie Whyte. For more of his work, please see www.jamiewhyte.co.uk
Major fleet battles, 1794–1806
Howe’s tactics for The Glorious First of June
The Battle of St Vincent
The Battle of Camperdown
The alternative routes for attacking Copenhagen
The Battle of Copenhagen
The Battle of Trafalgar
The Battle of San Domingo
PREFACE
The Finding
On a cold spring day in 2010 I made my way to the British Library and climbed the stairs to the manuscript reading room. It was just one more stop on a tour of British archives and libraries that I was undertaking as part of the research for a new book. Buried in the list of documents that I wanted to consult that day was the innocuous-sounding Add: 23207. A catalogue entry stated that it contained a number of letters written in the aftermath of a naval battle fought between Britain and France at the height of the Reign of Terror in 1794, a battle that became known as The Glorious First of June.
As is often the case with such material, I was expecting to receive several loose sheets of paper tucked inside a dull-coloured envelope made of acid-free paper. Instead, however, the archivist asked to re-check my credentials, took me to a special seating area reserved for the most precious of manuscripts and wheeled over a trolley bearing a varnished box the size of a coffin. I thought that there had been a mistake. Perhaps I had ordered the wrong document – one of those huge illuminated medieval manuscripts for which the British Library is so famous or an early copy of the Bible or the Koran. I nearly sent it back without looking inside but, when I opened the box, the glint of moulded decoration and clasps promised something sensational. Inside was a book so large and heavy that it took two people to move it from its box to a table. Straining under its weight, we rested it on a large foam wedge.
The book was over two feet long, at least eighteen inches wide, several inches thick and covered in the most gorgeous navy-blue velvet. At its head and foot were decorated silver-gilt onlays displaying themes of naval war and victory while, at the centre, another onlay displayed a fouled anchor set against a sea of rigging, ensigns, cannon and drums. The book was held shut by a clasp, beautifully moulded into the shape of a shell (fig. 1). I fiddled with it and swung the cover open as if opening the heavy oak door to a church. Inside were the original dispatches sent to London from the victorious fleets after the most significant naval battles of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. I told myself to keep breathing.
The volume was divided by portraits of the victorious admirals. They stared out from the book, guarding their letters, as once they had stared out from their quarterdecks, guarding their fleets and their country. The letters were a national treasure. Here, immaculately preserved, were the admirals’ narratives describing their victories to the King and the naval lords and politicians in London. Here also were letters from captains describing their conduct in battle to their admirals; from boatswains describing the damage to their ships; and from surgeons describing injuries to their men. Here were maps detailing the changing locations of ships as the chaos of battle unfurled; here were captured enemy narratives; here, even, were some of the original envelopes. History came off them all like heat.
I knew instantly that these documents had to be shared and that they would change the way that we think about naval warfare in this crucial period of British and world history. It is the aim of this book both to place these letters in the context of their battles and to examine their significance. As fascinating for what their authors leave out as for what they put in, they remain urgent and riveting more than 200 years after they were written.
INTRODUCTION
‘You may rely on what I have written because it is what I have seen.’
E. Poussielgue, Comptroller General of Napoleon’s Eastern Army, to his sweetheart, 3 August 1798
The Writing
Listen! Do you hear it? It is the sound of a quill, like an urgent whisper. It is the sound of history being written at a heavy oak desk in a low-beamed cabin; the sound of a naval officer describing one of those mighty clashes that ruptured history between 1794 and 1815, when Europe was at war and when much of the conflict was fought at sea.
Perhaps you hear nothing but frantic scribbling as the events of the preceding days come out in a desperate, instinctive torrent, the account bursting with the adrenaline that has kept its author awake for hours, perhaps even days. For some the creation of a dispatch is partially cathartic, a means of internally reconciling the recent events as much as of informing a third party of its detail. Their words pour from the quill in an endless fountain of ink. The very act of writing eases the pressure on an overburdened mind.
Others take their time. They pause, listening to the snap of the canvas or the moans of the injured and dying; they glance out of the cabin window, perhaps seeing their reflection in the few panes that have not been destroyed by enemy gunfire. They pick up their quill. They lay it down again. They shift their weight; they rub their eyes. Do not see these dispatches as faits accomplis, but imagine them first as blank pieces of paper, as challenges posed to shattered minds. This, after all, is far more than a private letter and the author knows it: it is an opportunity to announce, broadcast and publicise. It is also an opportunity to mislead as well as to inform; to be disingenuous as much as to be frank. This type of author has his public audience in mind and wants every word to count. He writes a first draft and then adds sentences here and there to squeeze more information between the lines. He crosses out words or phrases that fail to capture his exact meaning. He is a man wrestling with words just as he has been wrestling so recently with the enemy. His finished dispatch will be concise, well considered and articulate.
Another type of man has no time at all for the task. He is uncomfortable at his desk and worried about the ongoing repairs to his ship, the lives of his men that still hang in the balance and the gathering clouds on the horizon. He is a seaman and a fighter but no bureaucrat. He finds it difficult to express himself on paper even though he has been commanding hundreds of men in fleets 50 strong for a lifetime. He will not shirk his task but his dispatch will be nothing but a newsflash, reticent and brief.
The sound of scribbling may even be interrupted by brief passages of speech because the dispatch is being dictated to a trusted secretary. The Admiral may be uncomfortable with a quill or conscious of his poor spelling and grammar. He may, of course, simply be unable to write. Are all of his fingers intact? Have the tendons in his forearm been severed by a splinter or sabre cut? Has the loss of blood left this fierce warrior too weak to hold a bird’s feather?
However it is created, the dispatch will soon assume a life and a power of its own. It will not only be read by the Lords of the Admiralty, but also by the King and the Prime Minister; it will then be published in several newspapers and journals and will become the talk of London’s coffee houses before it becomes the talk of Great Britain, Europe, America and the Colonies in the East and West Indies. The author is creating both a description of the battle and a piece of journalism for a knowledgeable, critical and powerful audience that is starved of, though fascinated by, the detail of naval battle. The Admiral’s letter will influence perceptions of him and his navy on a global scale. And make no mistake of the power of these dispatches; there is no greater challenge to rational thought and behaviour than sudden and powerful news. Letters like these did not just transmit news but also relief, grief, excitement, energy and opportunity. They could make or break political fortunes, launch or wreck naval careers and directly affect the lives of men, women and children with only the most tenuous links to the battle. They stopped people sleeping, made them aba
ndon their established routines and had them rushing around in a frantic whirl. In 1798, when Napoleon was loose in the Mediterranean with a vast army bound for an unknown destination, the First Lord of the Admiralty was under such stress that, when he finally received the news of Nelson’s great victory at the Nile, he collapsed in a dead faint.
Once written, the letter is added to other documents, perhaps a list of dead or injured, or one describing the fates of the enemy ships, describing in shorthand the immediate physical effects of the battle. Sometimes an exhausted surgeon describes a crew’s injuries and gives the names of the victims; sometimes a boatswain’s report describes the damage to his ship and her stores; sometimes a captain describes how the battle unfolded several miles from the fleet flagship; sometimes a narrative has even been captured from the enemy.
Bundled together with the Admiral’s letter, this sheaf of documents becomes ‘the dispatches’. They are handed to a man worthy of the great responsibility, whose body is probably bruised and his uniform scuffed but whose eyes are bright with the promise of reward and acknowledgement of the great honour bestowed. This is a man who has been entrusted with a secret that could change the world. He will carry the dispatches home swiftly and surely and will be ready to elaborate on them if requested; remember, the written dispatches are only part of the story that will be told. He is the messenger, the winged Mercury of the all-powerful naval gods who fight out of sight but whose presence and influence are immense. He will sail for home in one of the fleet’s swiftest ships, making port where the wind will allow. The dispatches will be sealed in their own envelopes and protected as a bundle with a canvas wrap, perhaps even locked in a wooden case or leather satchel, but the gist of their contents will spread even before his ship makes land. Fishing boats may come alongside for news as she makes her journey and a thousand eyes will watch her drop anchor. Sailors granted leave will pass their own news ashore; those left on board will gossip with harbour labourers and merchants who come to tend to the ship’s needs.