Part 26

“Of the propriety of the conduct of these noble lords, in both instances, no doubt has at any moment been entertained by any body. They certainly exercised a sound discretion upon that occasion; but it may not be improper for me to remark, that, although the advantages they had acquired were certainly superior to mine; that mine was a situation in which it was in every respect more necessary to exercise that discretion, which, in every case, must be vested in the commander of a squadron, to judge of the propriety or impropriety of offering battle to a superior fleet. In the instances above-mentioned there was no other force to contend with, no other quarter from which an attack was to be apprehended, than the fleets which had been already engaged. In mine, it behoved me to be particularly on my guard against the Ferrol and Rochefort squadrons, consisting of twenty-one sail of the line, both which, I had reason to believe, were out, and _one of which appears to have been actually at sea_, and to which the squadron opposed to me might easily have given notice of their situation, as will be hereafter more fully stated.

“With these observations I shall dismiss this part of the case for the present, and proceed to lay before the court a statement of the facts, to which I am to request their serious attention.”

The Vice-Admiral then went into a complete detail of his conduct prior to, at, and after the action. He thus referred to the actual battle:—

“On the 22nd of July, about noon, the combined squadrons came in sight. Their force, consisting of _twenty sail of the line, seven frigates, and two brigs_, a much greater force than, as I before stated, Admiral Cornwallis supposed them to consist of. And it appears, from Lord Gardner’s letter to me of the 6th of July, that when seen off the Diamond Rock, at Martinique, on the 16th of May, they consisted of sixteen sail of the line, and six frigates.

“My force consisted of _fifteen sail of the line, two frigates, the Frisk cutter, and Nile lugger_.

“Notwithstanding this superiority, and notwithstanding they had the advantage of the wind, I forced them to action. The general result of it you are already acquainted with. As it is not particularly the object of your inquiry, it is unnecessary to take up your time with observations upon it.

“Amidst the numerous prejudices that have assailed me, I have never yet heard the slightest insinuation to my disadvantage, either as to the mode of the fleet being carried into, or conducted in action. The victory certainly was ours, and most decisively so. I have only to lament that the weather did not afford an opportunity of making it more complete. Such was the valour and intrepidity of my second in command, and of every officer and man of my squadron, that, but for the weather, I am satisfied it would have been so. As it was, there are but few instances, and those of modern date, in which _even equal_ numbers have been so successful....”

His defence concluded thus:—

“The question before you is a great and momentous one,—it affects every officer who has been, or at any time may be, in a situation of command. Miserable, indeed, must be their condition if they are to be censured for the fair and honest exercise of the discretion necessarily resulting from such a situation. I have ever felt, that in my case, I have exercised it wisely and beneficially; I still feel so, and were I again placed in the same situation, I should act in the same manner; unless this court, putting themselves in the situation I then was, and considering all the circumstances that at that time presented themselves to my consideration, and the various objects to which my attention was necessarily directed, shall tell me I have acted erroneously. This I trust they will not do.

“If, in the discussion of this question, I may be allowed to look to subsequent events, they, I think, will fully justify the line of conduct I adopted. By it I was enabled, after receiving a reinforcement, to pursue the combined squadrons to Cadiz, and thereby perhaps to have laid the foundation of that glorious victory (Trafalgar) which we have so recently celebrated. Believe me, gentlemen, the circumstance of having, by the various calumnies which have been spread, been put under the necessity of soliciting the present enquiry, and thereby been prevented from being a sharer in the glories of that day, has been no small addition to the various sufferings I have undergone.

“These sufferings, I trust, will now have had their period, and the opinion of this court will, I flatter myself, confirm me in that estimation with the profession and the public, which I have for so many years enjoyed, and to restore me unsullied that fair fame and reputation which has on this occasion been so cruelly and unjustly attacked.”

In support of the defence, the Gazette and several official letters were read, approving his conduct throughout the encounter. Nine officers, the Hon. Captain Gardner, the Hon. Captain Legg, Captain Boyles, Captain Lechmere, Captain Brown, Captain Cuming, Captain Griffiths, Captain Elphinstone-Fleming, and Lieutenant Warrand, and the Rev. John Souter, chaplain of the _Prince of Wales_ (Admiral Calder’s ship), all witnesses of the engagement, spoke strongly in favour of the Vice Admiral, and bore out the view that he could not renew the engagement. The evidence of each is so nearly alike that I need here only give the statement of one or two.

In Captain Lechmere’s examination Sir Robert Calder asked:—

_Q._ Did the enemy ever chase or make any attempt to force me to action on the 23rd of July?

_A._ No.

_Q._ Could I have forced the enemy to action on the 23rd of July, if they had chosen to avoid it?

_A._ No.

_Q._ Did the enemy appear to you to have sustained any considerable damage to their masts and yards?

_A._ None in their masts. They shifted a top-sailyard or two, and that, I believe, was the utmost.

_Q._ Was the British fleet always kept between the enemy and Ferrol as long as they continued in sight?

_A._ Till the afternoon of the 24th we were always nearer Ferrol, than the enemy was.

_Q._ Could they then have fetched Ferrol?

_A._ Certainly not, the wind was then N.E. and by E.

_Q._ If I had gone towards the enemy on the 24th, could I have overtaken them, if they had chosen to avoid me, without approaching so near the shore between Ferrol and Cape Finisterre, as to have enabled them to have communicated by land signals with Ferrol?

_A._ No.

Captain W. Cuming, of the _Prince of Wales_, was asked by Sir Robert Calder:—

_Q._ As you were near my person during the whole time of the action of the 22nd, was any part of my conduct to be attributed to fear, or a want of zeal for his majesty’s service?

_A._ Most certainly not.

_Court._—Captain Cuming, what number of the British ships appeared to you, on the morning of the 24th, incapable of sailing in line-of-battle or order of sailing?

_A._ I imagine the whole, except the _Windsor Castle_, might have been formed in line-of-battle.

_Q._ If the _Windsor Castle_ had been taken in tow, considering the relative situation of the two fleets, could the British squadron have renewed the action on the 24th, the enemy declining so to do?

_A._ Certainly not.

_Q._ Did the vice-admiral decline the action, either on the 23rd or 24th, if the enemy had been inclined to renew it?

_A._ He did not.

_Sir R. Calder._—Mr. President, I conceive Captain Cuming to be the only person competent to speak to the question I put to him, or I should have no difficulty in submitting the same to every captain in the fleet.

Notwithstanding this testimony, and to the surprise of most present and the public generally, the court came to an adverse decision. Its judgment was this:—

“The court is of opinion, that the charge of not having done his utmost to renew the said engagement, and to take or destroy every ship of the enemy, has been proved against the said Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Calder, that it appears that his conduct has not been actuated either by cowardice or disaffection, but has risen solely from error in judgment, and is highly censurable, and doth adjudge him to be severely reprimanded; and the said Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Calder is hereby severely reprimanded accordingly.”

The _Gentleman’s Magazine_ of the time thus records the effect of this judgment upon Calder:

“Upon the sentence being pronounced, Sir Robert Calder appeared deeply affected—he turned round, and retired without a word. He was accompanied by a great number of friends, and, on descending from the deck of the _Prince of Wales_ into his barge, scarcely lifted up his head, which was apparently bowed down by the weight of the sentence upon him. He is in his sixtieth year; forty-six of which he has passed in the service of his country.”

This judgment of the court-martial has been since, by most naval writers, looked on, if not as quite erroneous, at least as extremely severe. One circumstance made people the more regret it. It was passed at the very time when there lay, encircled by a halo of victory, in Greenwich Hospital, awaiting a State ceremonial, the dead body of Nelson, who before he himself annihilated at Trafalgar the very admirals and some of the very vessels Calder encountered, had openly approved of Calder’s conduct. The public soon veered in Sir Robert’s favour, and the sentence did not prove popular. It was spoken against in Parliament, and it was everywhere felt that a true and valuable British commander had been hardly dealt with. Restitution was subsequently proferred to Calder in the appointment, which he accepted, of admiral in command at Plymouth. But the trial broke his spirit, and it was remarked that he never was the same energetic man again. His amiability, social manners, and sound good sense, however, lasted to his death, and during his final retirement he continued to experience the greatest respect and attention not only from the Admiralty, but from a host of friends and from persons of all rank and station. He died at Holt, near Bishops-Waltham, Hants, on the 31st Aug. 1816; and as he left no issue by his wife, Amelia, daughter of John Mitchell, Esq., of Bayfield, Norfolk, his own baronetcy became extinct. The baronetcy of his family, however, continues, and is now held by his nephew, Sir Henry Roddam Calder, the fifth Bart. of Muirtoune.

TRIAL OF GENERAL SIR ROBERT WILSON AND OTHERS FOR THE ESCAPE OF LAVALLETTE.

One of the most wonderful historic events that occurred on the second Restoration of the Bourbons, in 1815, was the escape from his condemned cell of Marie Chamant, Count de Lavallette, through the means of his devoted wife, Emile Louise, daughter of the Marquis of Beauharnais, niece of the Empress Josephine, and cousin in blood of Napoleon III. This escape was not without parallel, for, just one hundred years before, by a similar act of heroism, a wife, the Countess Winifred, of the noble and illustrious house of Herbert, daughter of William, Marquis of Powis, freed her husband, William Maxwell, fifth Earl of Nithsdale, from the Tower of London, where he lay under sentence of immediate death for joining in the Rising of 1715. It is a curious fact that in either case some suspicion has attached to the Sovereign then reigning of not being altogether uncognisant of, or adverse to, the successful attempt at issue. George I., satiated with Jacobite blood, and not so intent on punishment as his Government and adherents, may not have secretly connived, but certainly did evince satisfaction, at the happy result of Lady Nithsdale’s daring act. “It is,” he exclaimed, “de very best ting a woman can do for a man in his condition.” A still stronger notion exists, to the honour of Louis XVIII., that a hint, if not actual help, as to what Madame Lavallette was to do, came from him. The fury of the supporters of the House of Bourbon at the second Restoration was without control. Labédoyère had been executed; and that still worse piece of cruelty, a deed never forgotten by the public, and eventually fatal to the Bourbon dynasty, had been just consummated—the consignment to a traitor’s death of Marshal Ney, “the bravest of the brave.” France already murmured; and it is natural to suppose that Louis’s own good sense and humanity revolted at continuing such slaughter. He dared not, such was the violence of his party, openly interfere; but one cannot carefully read the whole affair of Lavallette without being struck with some circumstances in it. How was it, for example, that Louis XVIII., after refusing to see Mesdames Labédoyère and Ney, come to beg their husbands’ lives, admitted Madame Lavallette on the same errand, to a personal and private interview, where but little ever transpired of what passed? How was it that the gaoler, without bribe, acted so glaringly in Lavallette’s favour? How, too, did Lavallette live so long sheltered in the Foreign Office? And how was it that the party who harboured him was never brought to account? Then there were the lenient sentence passed on Wilson and his associates, and finally, the ready pardon granted, in a few years afterwards, by King Louis to Lavallette himself. This curious question, however, admits of more discussion than can be accorded to it here. I pass from it, and from the oft-told story, (and nowhere better told than in “Chamber’s Miscellany” and Sir Bernard Burke’s “Romance of the Aristocracy,”) of the evasion from prison of Lavallette, as effected by his wife. I pass over, also, his wonderful concealment in the mansion of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and I come to the actual cause of the following trial, which is connected with our army in this, that two of the accused were British officers, and their object was effected through the facilities then afforded by the British military occupation of France.

Let us, therefore, take it that Lavallette, Postmaster General under Napoleon, had, on news of the famous return from Elba, violently, and, as far as the King’s Government was concerned, treasonably, resumed his place at the head of the Post Office, and had stopped the Bourbon proclamations and forwarded those of his Imperial master. For this complicity, as it was termed, with Napoleon against the royal authority and the safety of the state, Lavallette was, on the 20th November, 1815, tried and condemned to die, and his appeal to the Court of Cassation was rejected. His wife on the eve of his execution had got him out of prison, and he lay precariously hidden in an apartment of the Foreign Office. What followed cannot be better given than from Count Lavallette’s own narrative:

“These,” he writes, “are the particulars. The Princess de Vaudemont, uneasy at knowing me to be still in Paris, though she was not acquainted with the place of my concealment, looked about for persons who might help me away. She spoke of her anxiety to Madame de St. Aignan Caulaincourt, one of the cleverest women born in France, whose kindness is inexhaustible, and whose courage is unbounded: she proposed to the Princess to sound a young Englishman, Mr. Bruce, who used to visit both their houses. Bruce, delighted at the idea of saving an unfortunate man who had escaped the scaffold in so wonderful a manner, accepted with enthusiasm the proposal of the ladies, and went immediately to consult Sir Robert Wilson on the subject.

“Sir Robert shared his young friend’s enthusiasm. He had failed in his attempt to save Marshal Ney, but he hoped to take his revenge in my case. He made quite a military expedition of the business; and, as Bruce was not in the army, it became necessary to find one or two officers, independent men, of liberal opinions, who might be disposed to play off a good trick on the Government of the Bourbons. The road to Belgium, by Valenciennes, was specially assigned to the English army, and it was therefore chosen for my escape. They asked no more than two days to finish their preparations. I received a very particular instruction concerning my dress; no mustacchios, and English wig; my beard shaved very clean, after the manner of the officers of that nation; a great-coat, with buttons of the English Guards; the regimentals and hat were to be given to me at the instant of our departure.

“We held a council, and, as it occurs in most cases, our first steps were wrong. It was looked upon as very necessary to get my coat made by the tailor of an English regiment, but he would want my measure; my friend Stanislaus took it with fine white paper; and instead of the notches that the tailors are accustomed to make, he wrote on it, ‘_Length of the forearm, breadth of the breast_,’ &c., in a fine neat hand, and carried it boldly to the tailor of the regiment of the Guards. He quickly made the coat, however—not without observing that the measure had not been taken by a tailor. M. Bresson had been to buy me another great-coat at an old clothes’ shop, and was naturally obliged to measure it on himself. He was tall and thin, so that in less than forty-eight hours I had two coats, neither of which could be of any service to me. I had no boots, and all our speculations were useless in contriving to procure me a pair. I was forced to put on a pair belonging to M. Bresson: they were at least two inches longer than my foot; I could scarcely walk in them, and we all laughed much at the awkward figure I cut. On the 9th of January, 1816, at eight o’clock in the evening, I at last took leave of my kind friends (at the Foreign Office).

“We stopped at the house, in the Rue de Helder, near the Boulevard: there I took leave of my friend Chassenon. As I walked slowly up the stairs, I was surprised at meeting Mademoiselle Dubourg. There would have been too much danger in our appearing to know each other. I afterwards learned that she was going to M. Dupuis, my Reporting Judge, who lived on the second floor of the house; so that I was going to pass the night under the same roof with the magistrate who had, during my trial, examined me twice at length, and with great severity. This circumstance, however, by no means troubled me. M. Dupuis was an honourable man, to whom I had shown no reserve, who was convinced of my innocence, and did not fear openly to declare it with an energy that might be hurtful to his fortune.

“When I reached the first floor, I saw before me a gentleman of tall stature and noble features: it was Sir Robert Wilson. He introduced me to two persons who were expecting me in the parlour; in one of whom I recognized Mr. Bruce, whom I had met sometimes the preceding winter at the Duchess of St. Leu’s, (Queen Hortense). Mr. Hutchinson, to whom the apartments belonged, was a Captain in the English Guards. He received me in a friendly manner. We seated ourselves round a bowl of punch. Our conversation turned on public affairs, and we talked with as much ease and freedom as if we had been together in London. These gentlemen did not appear to entertain the least uneasiness in respect to our next day’s journey; and at last, after sitting for about an hour, Sir Robert and Mr. Bruce rose, and the former shaking hands with me, said: Be up to-morrow by six o’clock, and be very careful about your dress. You will find here the coat of a captain in the Guards, which you must put on. At eight o’clock, precisely, I shall expect you at the door.” “As for me,” said Bruce, “I am going to spend three days at the country seat of the Princess de la Moskowa, for you will not want me any longer. My wishes go along with you, and I shall receive accounts from you of my friends.”

When they were gone, Mr. Hutchinson offered me his bed; but I had no desire to sleep, and I laid myself down on a sofa.

“At last, after having counted every hour of the night, I heard six o’clock strike; I immediately set about my toilet, and at eight o’clock precisely I found Sir Robert Wilson in the street, dressed in his full regimentals, and seated in a pretty gig. Mr. Hutchinson soon appeared also on horseback, and we set off. The weather was beautiful; all the shops were open, everybody in the street, and, by a singular coincidence, they were just, at that moment, putting up in the Place de Grève the gibbet, which, according to custom, is used to execute in effigy persons declared guilty in contumacy.

“We entered the Rue de Clichy, which leads to the barrier of the same name. As I had on the regimentals and cap of the Guards, the English soldiers we met saluted us in the military manner. Two officers we saw on the road appeared very much surprised at seeing with Sir Robert one of their comrades with whom they were unacquainted; but Mr. Hutchinson went up to them and talked to them while we were approaching the barrier. To the right and to the left were two guard-houses, the one English and the other French. The soldiers drew up under arms. Fortunately the French were National Guards, and it was not probable they could know me, as they did not belong to my quarter of the town. We crossed the barrier with a slow step; and when we were out, I thanked Sir Robert with as much gratitude as if we had crossed the barriers of the kingdom. We went on thus to the village of La Chapelle. There we were obliged to take another horse, to be able to go to Compiègne. This horse had been baited at a large inn. When we approached the house, we perceived four gendarmes standing in front of the large door. Sir Robert went up to them: they separated that we might pass; and, to prevent them from paying attention to us, Mr. Hutchinson began a conversation with them. His inquiries were chiefly directed to the number of stables and the quantity of forage and lodgings that were to be found in the village; from all which they concluded that English troops were expected, and one of them invited the English captain to accompany me to the Mayor. “Not at present,” he answered; “I am going forward to meet the waggons, and in two hours I shall be back.” The conversation could not last long with an Englishman who knew but little of our language. But the horse was quickly changed, and we had the satisfaction, on going away, to exchange salutes with the gendarmes. I then learned that the man who had brought us thus far belonged to M. Auguste de St. Aignan. On the road we met with several gendarmes in pursuit of malefactors, or bearing military correspondence. They all fixed their eyes on us without suspecting anything. I had accustomed myself on seeing them to shut my eyes, but with the precaution of placing my hand on my pistol, fully resolved, if I should be recognized and apprehended, to blow my brains out, for it would have been too great a stupidity to suffer myself to be brought back to Paris.