A New War: At Home and at Sea, 1803

by John G. Cragg

  Just as the two observers were about to leave, their curiosity was partially satisfied by the appearance of a column of men from a path that led off into the woods at the end of the mystery building. The column was preceded by two men carrying muskets. What was remarkable about the column was that the men were all chained together. One long chain was riveted on to shackles on their left ankles. They were also wearing iron neck collars that were joined by chains locked to the collars so that each man was joined to the man ahead and the man behind. Giles had seen coffles of black slaves similarly shackled in the West Indies, a practice that he abhorred. Now the same restraints were being used on white men here in France. From the tattered clothes which the men were wearing, Giles could recognize them as seamen, seamen now enslaved. Within moments a second coffle appeared. Giles counted a total of forty-three seamen who were enslaved. The light was now fading quickly so Giles and Carstairs eased away from the bank and retraced their steps to Patroclus’s long boat.

  The moon would be up in a couple of hours. Giles wanted to wait for it before trying to get closer to the dock in the long boat. Moonlight would also be helpful when they made their way back to the mouth of the river. In the interim, he allowed everyone to sleep except Midshipman Correll and Carstairs who were designated to keep watch. Giles himself gladly sank into oblivion. For the past hour his ability to give his full attention to the situation had seemed to be coming in and out.

  He was wakened by a light touch on his thigh. Carstairs whispered, “Quiet sir, there is someone out there.” Other members of the crew were also being roused quietly. Everyone waited tensely for more indication of strangers. It was not long in coming.

  “Englishman, you are surrounded and we are armed.” A low voice spoke from the darkness in a thick French accent. “We are not your enemies. We wish to talk, but quietly.”

  “Who are you?” Giles replied, in little more than a whisper. He knew that sound would carry over the still water to any guards posted at the frigates and the slave pen.

  “We are peaceful men, but enemies of the pirates who hold those ships and of the general who has seized our country. We would wish to talk to you, but not so close to the river.”

  “That doesn’t tell me who you are.”

  “I am Jean de Beauboeuf, Sieur de Gorgrasse, though my status is not recognized by the present government. Come, you are surrounded and outnumbered. Listen, if you don’t believe me.” A low whistle came from the direction of the speaker and promptly rustling in the bushes was heard, starting on the downstream bank near where their boat was moored and going in a semicircle to the bank upstream from them. ”I imagine that you are interested in the British warships across the river. I can help you.”

  Giles wondered if he could trust the man who had trapped them. He had an aristocratic name. If his intention had been to capture or destroy Giles’s party, he could have done so easily without warning them. Giles decided to take the chance.

  “I will come with you, bringing one of my men.” Giles whispered orders to Mr. Correll that if he wasn’t back in half an hour, the boat should be pushed from shore without them and they should take their chances on getting back to Patroclus. Then signaling to Carstairs to come with him, Giles stepped from the boat. Strange hands took his elbows and guided him into the bushes for a few feet. The shutter on a lantern was then opened to reveal a stocky man of about fifty years of age with several more men in the shadows around him.

  “Captain Richard Giles, commander of HMS Patroclus,” Giles introduced himself. He reckoned it would be best to forget his aristocratic titles in France. “Are you Monsieur de Beauboeuf?”

  “Oui, mon capitaine. Please come this way, where we can talk.” They proceeded down a narrow path until they emerged into a small clearing. A fire was burning in the middle of the glade and Beauboeuf indicated that the two British sailors sit near the fire with him and a henchman.

  “Let me tell you something of myself and the ships you have seen and then I’ll answer your questions.”

  Monsieur de Beauboeuf had been of the lowest level of the aristocracy before the Revolution. He had been nothing more than a farmer, a fairly prosperous farmer. Any feudal dues owed to his family had long since disappeared. When the old order was overturned, he and his neighbors in their largely forgotten corner of the country had had little to do with it. Their lives continued as they always had until the rampages of the Committee fueled the flames of old grudges. Monsieur de Beauboeuf had been denounced as an aristo and a gang from the nearest town had come looking for him and his family to use the popular method of settling old grudges, the guillotine. Luckily his neighbors were little in sympathy with the revolutionary thugs who had replaced the principled, if naïve, first adherents of the Revolution. They warned de Beauboeuf of the force that was coming for him and helped to spirit himself, his family and some of his animals into the wilderness that bordered his farm. Others of his neighbors were denounced, mainly as enemies of the people who had helped the aristocracy to escape their fate, and they too had to join de Beauboeuf in the wilderness. When the fever of the Terror had passed, they returned to their farms and rebuilt where necessary, but they kept a weather eye open for a return of the thugs with their easy way of gaining land by denouncing the owners, and they maintained the refuge to which they had resorted when the need had been great, making sure that its paths were known only to them and made inaccessible to others.

  Their neighbors across the river had had a rather different history. The major landowners there were of a somewhat more noble family than de Beauboeuf’s and gave themselves still greater airs. They had not abandoned all of their old rights, and indeed in the years preceding the Revolution had tried to revive old exactions, especially the ones requiring peasants’ labor. When the new regime took over, they were among the first to be denounced, their home and buildings burned and the members of the prominent family guillotined. There was, however, a third son, who had taken the name Jean Leclerc. He had moved from the family estates to Bordeaux before the Revolution and had embraced the Republican cause from the beginning. He had been a sailor, rising to being a ship’s captain and then a merchant and ship owner. Following the Revolution, he had taken up piracy, though calling it privateering, and sailing with forged letters of marque. This enterprise was successful, and he made a fortune in a very short time taking vessels – both English and French -- and selling the cargoes and the ships in Santander with no questions asked. He had selected his crew largely from men who were from this part of the country and had no particular love for the Revolution or for government authorities.

  With the rise of the Directory, and the start of the Terror, Leclerc had been worried about denunciation both by those who despised his aristocratic roots and also by any of the many people who were aware of his piracy and who and been affected by it. He had offered his services to the navy and with his record, and now again loudly proclaiming the Republican cause, he quickly rose to command a frigate. Somehow he managed to keep with him as officers his mates from his privateering days, and most of his crew. His other officers and crew members were as keen on lining their own pockets as were the ones he brought with him, and when a lieutenant was appointed to his ship who was not prepared to enjoy the proceeds of piracy, a false denunciation led to that lieutenant’s losing his head before he could counter the accusation. As a frigate captain, Leclerc showed himself adept at escaping British blockades and acting as a commerce raider. This activity further enriched both Leclerc and his crew and also his superiors. That some of the captures found their way to Santander and disappeared from the frigate’s logs was either not known or overlooked, for a price, by Leclerc’s superiors.

  Not surprisingly, when a new type of frigate came off the ways, those same superiors arranged for Leclerc to be given the command along with his most useful officers and crew. A most unfortunate change in command, from Leclerc’s point of view, occurred at this point, and the new admiral felt that Leclerc’s new ship cou
ld better be used as a scout and courier for the fleet rather than as an independent raider. In this role, Leclerc did indeed make himself useful, and in one encounter off Brest, he captured a British frigate. The French Navy bought the capture in at what Leclerc considered a very good price and the bounty for the sailors captured was worthwhile.

  Unfortunately for Leclerc, word of his shady dealings was spreading and the regime was looking more closely at the dodgy behavior of its officers. Added to his aristocratic origins, he was becoming a very ripe target for the Guillotine. When an informant, who was in his pay in the local government offices, sent word that preparations were being made for his arrest, Leclerc decided that a return to piracy was in order and sailed without orders in his frigate. He needed a base, well hidden, from which to carry out further raids. Santander as a market for captures might still be available, but it would be asking for trouble to base a stolen French frigate there. Leclerc remembered the river where he had grown up and realized that it would be a perfect base from which to operate.

  His piratical ventures were again successful, and Leclerc found that with his unexpectedly heavy bow chasers, he could even cripple frigates of the Royal Navy in such a way that they could not bring their broadside to bear, and so he could capture them. Remembering how lucrative had been his capture while still in the navy, he had brought the captured frigates to his base. He had, however, not yet succeeded in finding a way to both sell the frigates and their crews to the authorities and keep his head on his shoulders, which accounted for the three frigates still being at his dock. He kept the crews of the frigates hoping to sell them too, just as he implicitly had with the frigate he had captured. He separated the officers and petty officers from the rest possibly, Monsieur de Beauboeuf thought, because Leclerc realized that his prisoners might escape, but without officers they would be unable to take their ships away. He had taken the officers on his last voyage, to where de Beauboeuf did not know.

  De Beauboeuf reported that the brig of war had accompanied Leclerc’s latest captures to the base. It had reported that Leclerc was engaging another frigate and that when they were almost out of sight the enemy frigate had blown up. It was presumed that Leclerc had gone on to Santander and then would resume his cruising and was not expected back for several weeks.

  When Giles asked about the seamen in chains, de Beauboeuf said that he understood that they were being used to do agricultural work on Leclerc’s holdings and those of his neighbors. Providing labor would keep the beneficiaries quiet about what was happening. A lot of what the prisoners were doing was clearing ground that had once been fields but had reverted to scrub. There were three other captured gangs of captives who were also treated as slaves and who were housed in buildings several miles away. One of Leclerc’s early captures had been an American slaver engaged in the triangular trade who had as part of her cargo the slave fetters. They were now being used by Leclerc to control his captives.

  Giles was astonished by how much information de Beauboeuf had been able to give him. When Giles asked how he came to be so knowledgeable, the Frenchman laughed and explained that several of his own men periodically crossed the river and went for some wine to a tavern where Leclerc’s people also imbibed. They had picked up the information on their drinking trips.

  Giles recognized that, with the force under his command, he could neither retake the frigates nor free the prisoners. If he brought Patroclus up the river, he could possibly recapture the frigates and set the prisoners free, though it would be a close thing. But without officers, he could not sail the frigates away and he did not have the boats to ferry the prisoners to Patroclus. Certainly, he could not release those who were kept farther away. As he explained to Monsieur de Beauboeuf, he would have to return to England. The knowledge that Leclerc was not expected to return for several weeks gave him the hope that he could return to England and then come back to France with a force that could clear out this pirate’s nest before it became evident that Leclerc himself would not be returning. He hoped that de Beauboeuf would be able to help whoever might come by providing them with more up-to-date information, a task that de Beauboeuf readily agreed to perform.

  Giles and Carstairs were guided back to their boat. The moon was up, but Giles abandoned his plan to explore the moored ships more closely from the water. He thought he now had so much information that it would be foolish to row the boat closer to the landing place and risk warning the enemy that they had been discovered. Instead, he ordered the boat to be rowed downstream. They emerged into the ocean just after dawn. The land breeze was still blowing, and they could just make out Patroclus’s topsails beating towards them. Giles ordered the men to keep rowing for he was impatient to get to Patroclus in order to speed up the rescue process as much as possible.

  Patroclus arrived in Falmouth late the next day. Even before she could drop anchor, a boat sent by the port admiral met them. It carried orders to take Patroclus back to Butler’s Hard for repairs immediately. Giles’s report for the port admiral, which was to be forwarded to the Admiralty, was exchanged for the orders from the admiral. Patroclus turned to the east without dropping anchor. They arrived at the mouth of the Sloth River late the next day and had to wait overnight for the flood tide to carry them inland. At Butler’s Hard, Patroclus anchored and Giles took his barge ashore with a proud Midshipman Stewart at the tiller.

  Mr. Stewart had already received his orders to repair Patroclus as quickly as possible. He had been paying very close attention to any news of Patroclus’s doings and was bursting with pride that his son had been part of such a successful cruise. He insisted on accompanying Giles and his foreman to see what the damage was. When they stepped into the barge, he had trouble concealing his pride as he shook his embarrassed son’s hand, before Midshipman Steward resumed his duties of commanding the boat.

  The two men from the shipyard wasted no time evaluating what had to be done to replace the mizzenmast and to repair the damage done to the side of the ship and the bowsprit. They then disappeared to assess what strains may have been made evident by the firing of the bow chasers. Mr. Stewart emerged shaking his head.

  “I still think that the thirty-four pounders are too big for her,” he told Giles when he emerged. There are some places which we can reinforce, but she will tear her bow to pieces if those guns are fired repeatedly.”

  “How long will the repairs take?” Giles demanded.

  Mr. Steward took a few moments to consider the question. “We have several timbers that will serve to replace the mizzenmast, and the replacement of some staves that have been damaged and other carpentry work should be straight forward. We’ll have to shape the mast, of course, but a couple of days, say three at the most, will have you ready for sea. Now let me go ashore again to get it all started.”

  Midshipman Stewart again commanded the boat that took his father ashore. It was unclear who was more bursting with pride: the midshipman showing off his newly acquired skills or the father admiring how confident his son was in his chosen role.

  The boat came back carrying orders for Giles that had arrived while the damage was being examined. They were simple. Giles was to make sure that all arrangements had been made for the rapid repair of his vessel. Then he should go to Dipton to await further orders from the Admiralty.

  Giles instructed Davies in what he should do while waiting for the return of the Captain. The main one was that each watch was to be given a day’s run ashore. Giles had no worry that he would lose his crew if they were at liberty, though he could see that Davies had his own doubts on that score. It was tempting to careen Patroclus, in the good ways that the shipyard had, so that they could clean her bottom. Davies was ordered to see to that with Mr. Stewart’s concurrence. It was evident from Giles’s orders allowing him to proceed to Dipton that Patroclus was not going to sea in the next few days.

  It was too late in the day for Giles to leave Butler’s Hard. He sent Carstairs ashore to arrange horses for them at the crack of dawn the ne
xt day, and then retired to his cabin to play his violin. His playing of the Mozart sonata could still use a lot of improvement.

  Chapter XI

  Clara, Countess of Camshire, Giles’s mother, had learned patience over the years. She had very much wanted to see the estate that her older son had bought and the vicarage he had provided for her younger son. She also wanted to see her step-daughter and her two step-granddaughters. She had never seen the girls, for she had not seen Lady Marianne since her step-daughter’s disastrous elopement with Captain Crocker and her subsequent banishment from the world of the Earl of Camshire. But the Countess had delayed visiting Dipton until they were settled there.

  The Countess’s life with the Earl had been a disappointment. The dashing, confident nobleman, full of grace and good bearing whom she had thought she was marrying turned out to be an erasable and tight-fisted bully. He had met the problem of his overspending by engaging in highly speculative ventures that had turned out not to be the vehicles for rescuing the Camshire fortunes. He became sour as this continued from one fiasco to another and his political ventures, usually no better founded than his financial ones, were frustrated by narrow-minded politicians who had no vision or realization of their brilliance. Lady Camshire had devoted herself to helping the tenants of their estate, maintaining as best as she could the standards of a great house when the finances were precarious, and bringing up her two sons. That latter task had now become minimal as her older son had long-ago gone to sea and had quarreled with his father on so many issues that he rarely visited Ashbury Abbey. Richard was only rarely in town during the Season, when the Earl and Countess were in residence at Compton Square. She remembered with sadness the pimply faced young man who had left for his duties as a midshipman when he had really wanted to be a barrister with time to spend on music and literature. That he had been an astounding success as a sailor had not surprised her, but she knew that he still would have preferred a different life. By contrast, her son David had desperately wanted to follow his brother, who was his hero from the time David was a little boy. Instead, David had been designated for the church, partly at Lady Camshire’s insistence that one of her sons should be properly educated, especially as he was in no way suited for other professions. She knew that her sons’ inheritances would be minimal, and that the Earl would leave nothing to his daughter. It was with great satisfaction that she realized that Richard’s success would enable here son to make up for his father’s failings in maintaining the estate and she felt only mild regret that his other sons, by his first wife, would find that noble blood had little value when not accompanied by noble estates or noble character.