Life and Adventures 1776-1801 (11 page)

Action off Cape St Vincent—
Blockade of Cadiz—Action at
Aboukir Bay—Anecdotes of the
Battle—Subsequent Occurrences—
Landing of the British Army in
Egypt—Ophthalmia—Return to
England.

W
E NEXT SAILED
for St Forensa Bay in the island of Corsica to water, but found the French in possession of the watering-place, and could get none. I belonged to the launch and had charge of the powder and match. I was constantly on shore when any service was to be done in destroying stores, spiking guns, blowing up batteries, and enjoyed it much. We carried off all the brass guns, and those metal ones that were near the edge of the rocks we threw into the sea. This was excellent sport to us but we were forced to leave it and sail to Gibraltar for water and provisions; but could obtain no supplies and sailed for Lisbon where we got plenty, having been on short allowance for some time before.

While we lay at Lisbon we got private intelligence overland that the Spanish fleet was at sea. We with all dispatch set sail in pursuit of them. We were so fortunate as come in sight of them by break of day, on the 14th of February, off Cape St Vincent. They consisted of twenty-five sail, mostly three-deckers. We were only eighteen but we were English, and we gave them their valentines in style.

Soon as we came in sight, a bustle commenced not to be conceived or described. To do it justice, while every man was as busy as he could be the greater order prevailed. A serious cast was to be perceived on every face but not a shade of doubt or fear. We rejoiced in a general action; not that we loved fighting, but we all wished to be free to return to our homes and follow our own pursuits. We knew there was no other way
of obtaining this than by defeating the enemy. ‘The hotter war the sooner peace,’ was a saying with us. When everything was cleared, the ports open, the matches lighted and guns run out, then we gave them three such cheers as are only to be heard in a British man-of-war. This intimidates the enemy more than a broadside, as they have often declared to me. It shows them all is right, and the men in the true spirit baying to be at them.

During the action, my situation was not one of danger but most wounding to my feelings and trying to my patience. I was stationed in the after-magazine, serving powder from the screen, and could see nothing—but I could feel every shot that struck the
Goliah,
and the cries and groans of the wounded were most distressing as there was only the thickness of the blankets of the screen between me and them. Busy as I was, the time hung upon me with a dreary weight. Not a soul spoke to me but the master-at-arms as he went his rounds to inquire if all was safe. No sick person ever longed more for his physician than I for the voice of the master-at-arms. The surgeon’s-mate at the commencement of the action spoke a little, but his hands were soon too full of his own affairs.

Those who were carrying run like wild creatures and scarce opened their lips. I would far rather have been on the decks amid the bustle, for there the time flew on eagle’s wings. The
Goliah
was sore beset; for some time she had two three-deckers upon her. The men stood to their guns as cool as if they had been
exercising. The admiral ordered the
Britannia
to our assistance. Iron-sides, with her forty-twos, soon made them sheer off.
^†
68
Towards the close of the action the men were very weary. One lad put his head out of the porthole, saying, ‘Damn them, are they not going to strike yet?’ For us to strike was out of the question.

At length the roar of the guns ceased and I came on deck to see the effects of a great sea engagement—but such a scene of blood and desolation I want words to express. I had been in a great number of actions with single ships in the
Proteus
and
Surprise
during the seven years I was in them. This was my first action in a fleet and I had only a small share in it. We had destroyed a great number and secured four three-deckers. One they had the impiety to call the
Holy Ghost
we wished much to get, but they towed her off. The fleet was in such a shattered situation we lay twenty-four hours in sight of them, repairing our rigging.

It is after the action the disagreeable part commences. The crews are wrought to the utmost of their strength. For days they have no remission of their toil, repairing the rigging and other parts injured in the action. Their spirits are broke by fatigue. They have no leisure to talk of the battle and, when the usual
round of duty returns, we do not choose to revert to a disagreeable subject. Who can speak of what he did where all did their utmost? One of my mess-mates had the heel of his shoe shot off. The skin was not broke yet his leg swelled and became black. He was lame for a long time.

On our return to Lisbon we lost one of the fleet, the
Bombay Castle.
She was stranded and completely lost. All her crew were saved. We were in great danger in the
Goliah.
Captain Sir C. H. Knowles was tried for not lending assistance, when he needed it himself. The court-martial honourably acquitted him. Collis, our first lieutenant, told us not to cheer when he came on board, but we loved our captain too well to be restrained. We had agreed upon a signal with the coxswain, if he was, as he ought to be, honourably acquitted. The signal was given and in vain Collis forbade. We manned the yards and gave three hearty cheers. Not a man on board but would have bled for Sir C. H. Knowles. To our regret we lost him to our ship at this very time. He was as good a captain as I ever sailed with. He was made admiral, and went home in the
Britannia.

Captain Foley took command of the
Goliah
and we joined the blockade of Cadiz where we remained, sending our boat to assist at the bombardments and covering them, until Admiral Nelson came out again and picked out thirteen seventy-fours from the fleet. The
Goliah
was one. She was the fastest sailing ship in the fleet. We did not stay to water but got a supply
from the ships that were to remain, and away we set under a press of sail, not knowing where.

We came to an anchor in the Straits of Messina. There was an American man-of-war at anchor. Captain Foley ordered him to unmoor that the
Goliah
might get her station, as it was a good one near the shore, but Jonathan would not budge, but made answer, ‘I will let you know I belong to the United States of America and I will not give way to any nation under the sun but in a good cause.’
⁶⁹

So we came to an anchor where we could. We remained here but a short time when we got intelligence that the French fleet were up the Straits. We then made sail for Egypt but missed them, and came back to Syracuse and watered in twenty-four hours. I was up all night filling water. The day after we left Syracuse we fell in with a French brig who had just left the fleet. Admiral Nelson took her in tow and she conducted us to where they lay at anchor in Aboukir Bay.
⁷⁰

We had our anchors out at our stern port with a spring upon them, and the cable carried along the ship’s side, so that the anchors were at our bows, as if there was no change in the arrangement. This was to prevent the ships from swinging round, as every ship was to be brought to by her stern. We ran in between the French fleet and the shore to prevent any
communication between the enemy and the shore. Soon as they were in sight a signal was made from the admiral’s ship for every vessel as she came up to make the best of her way, firing upon the French ships as she passed, and ‘every man to take his bird’ as we joking called it.

The
Goliah
led the van. There was a French frigate right in our way. Captain Foley cried, ‘Sink that brute, what does he there?’ In a moment she went to the bottom and her crew were seen running into her rigging. The sun was just setting as we went into the bay, and a red and fiery sun it was. I would, if had I had my choice, been on the deck. There I would have seen what was passing and the time would not have hung so heavy, but every man does his duty with spirit, whether his station be in the slaughterhouse or the magazine
^†
.
⁷¹

I saw as little of this action as I did of the one on the 14th February off Cape St Vincent. My station was in the powder magazine with the gunner. As we entered the bay we stripped to our trousers, opened our ports, cleared, and every ship we passed gave them a broadside and three cheers. Any information we got was from the boys and women who carried the powder. The women behaved as well as the men, and got a present for their bravery from the grand signior.

When the French admiral’s ship blew up, the
Goliah
got such a shake we thought the after-part of her had blown up until the boys told us what it was. They brought us every now and then the cheering news of another French ship having struck, and we answered the cheers on deck with heartfelt joy. In the heat of the action a shot came right into the magazine but did no harm as the carpenters plugged it up and stopped the water that was rushing in.

I was much indebted to the gunner’s wife who gave her husband and me a drink of wine every now and then, which lessened our fatigue much. There were some of the women wounded, and one woman belonging to Leith died of her wounds and was buried on a small island in the bay. One woman bore a son in the heat of the action. She belonged to Edinburgh.

When we ceased firing I went on deck to view the state of the fleets, and an awful sight it was. The whole bay was covered with dead bodies, mangled, wounded and scorched, not a bit of clothes on them except their trousers. There were a number of French, belonging to the French admiral’s ship the
L’Orient,
who had swam to the
Goliah
and were cowering under her forecastle. Poor fellows, they were brought on board and Captain Foley ordered them down to the steward’s room to get provisions and clothing.

One thing I observed in these Frenchmen quite different from anything I had ever before observed. In the American war, when we took a French ship, the
Duke de Chartres,
the prisoners were as merry as
if they had taken us, only saying,
‘Fortune de guerre’
—you take me today, I take you tomorrow. Those we now had on board were thankful for our kindness but were sullen and as downcast as if each had lost a ship of his own.

The only incidents I heard of are two. One lad who was stationed by a salt box on which he sat to give out cartridges and keep the lid close—it is a trying berth—when asked for a cartridge, he gave none, yet he sat upright. His eyes were open. One of the men gave him a push. He fell all his length on the deck. There was not a blemish on his body yet he was quite dead, and was thrown overboard. The other, a lad who had the match in his hand to fire his gun. In the act of applying it a shot took off his arm. It hung by a small piece of skin. The match fell to the deck. He looked to his arm and, seeing what had happened, seized the match in his left hand and fired off the gun before he went to the cockpit to have it dressed. They were in our mess or I might never have heard of it. Two of the mess were killed and I knew not of it until the day after. Thus terminated the glorious first of August, the busiest night in my life.

Soon after the action the whole fleet set sail with the prizes, and left the
Goliah
as guard ship. We remained here until we were relieved by the
Tigre,
seventy-four, when we sailed for Naples to refit. After refitting we sailed for Malta to join in the blockade, where we remained eight months without any occurrence worthy of notice. At length the
Goliah
became
so leaky we were forced to leave our station and sail for Gibraltar where, after watering, we sailed for England.

We got some marines from the Rock to reinforce the
Goliah’s
complement—one of them a tall stout Englishman who had been cock of the Rock.
⁷²
He was very overbearing. There are often quarrels at the ship’s fires when the men are boiling their kettles. We had a stout little fellow of an Irishman, who had been long in the
Goliah.
The marine pushed his kettle aside. Paddy demanded why he did so.

‘Because I choose to do it.’

‘I won’t allow you while the life is in me,’ was the reply.

‘Do you wish to fight?’ said the Englishman.

‘Yes, and I do,’ said Paddy. ‘I will take the Gibraltar rust out of you or you shall beat the life out of my body before we are done.’

A fight was made up in a minute, and they went well forward on the deck to be out of sight of the officers. To it they went and fought it out, we forming a ring and screening them from observation. Paddy was as good as his word, for he took the rust off the marine so well he was forced to give in, and we were all happy to see the lobster-back’s pride taken out of him.

On our arrival she was put out of commission, and the crew turned over to the
Royal William,
the guard
ship, and had two or three days’ liberty on shore by the admiral’s order.

I was next drafted on board the
Ramilies
and sailed for Belleisle, but remained only a short time in her when I was turned over to the
Ajax,
Captain Alexander F. Cochrane, upon preferment.
⁷³
We sailed for Ferrol and attempted to cut out some vessels but did not succeed, then stood for Algiers to water, having a fleet of transports with troops on board under convoy. The troops were commanded by Sir Ralph Abercromby. Having watered, we sailed with the army to Mamarice Bay, and the troops were encamped upon a fine piece of ground, with a rivulet running through the centre. The French had just left the place, having first done all the mischief in their power.