Part 13

As a specimen of his powers as a translator, his rendering of the well-known fifth ode of the 1st Book of Horace, will, I venture to think, compare, not altogether unfavourably, with the productions of his mightier predecessors in the task--Milton and Cowley.

'What youth bedew'd with moist perfume Courts thee, O Pyrrha! graceful maid, With neat simplicity array'd In the sweet bower where roses bloom?

'For whom dost thou in ringlets form Thy golden locks?--Oft shall he wail Thy truth, swift changing as the gale, View the wild waves, and shudder at the storm.

'Who now, all credulous and gay, Enjoys thy smile? on whose vain pride Thy fickle favour shines untry'd, And soft, deceitful breezes play?

'My fate the pictur'd wreck displays; The dripping garments that remain In mighty Neptune's sacred fane Record my glad escape, my grateful praise.'

But a third brother of the second Viscount--Edward, the Admiral--was destined to live in the pages of history; and of him I propose to treat more at length at the conclusion of this brief sketch of the family generally, which now draws rapidly to a close.

George Evelyn, the Admiral's youngest son, was the third Viscount, issue having failed through his two uncles, and George Evelyn's brothers having died before the death of their uncle, the second Viscount. Of these brothers it may be observed, that Edward Hugh,[86] the eldest, who was M.P. for Truro, died abroad in 1774; and that William Glanville, a youth of great promise, and an officer in the navy, was drowned when eighteen years of age, in 1769, whilst bathing at Port Royal, Jamaica. In him, said Mrs. Delany, 'his father's (the Admiral's) merit revived,' and he was 'the delight and glory of the lives of his mother and sisters.' I hardly know whether the following lines on his death are from Mrs. Delany's pen, or from his mother's:

'Ah, William! till thy hapless hour Shall fade on mem'ry's pensive eye The muse on Fate shall curses shower, That doomed a youth like thee to die.

'Though lost, alas! thy lovely name With incense shall the skies perfume; And ev'ry flower of fairest fame Shall wish where William sleeps, to bloom.

'Till Virtue seek her native sphere, Till honour cease below to shine, For thee shall Virtue drop the tear, And Honour's envied praise be thine.'

There can, however, be little doubt that it was a mother's pen which described him, on his cenotaph, as that 'most lovely, most beloved youth.'

But to return to the surviving and youngest brother, George Evelyn, who was destined to perpetuate the title. He is said to have been very like his mother, who describes herself as 'a little personage;' and he must have inherited the talents of both his parents, for he did remarkably well at Winchester, and very early showed a determination to follow in his illustrious father's footsteps by fighting against the enemies of his country, notwithstanding the wishes of his family to the contrary. For the sum of £400 his mother at last unwillingly procured for her 'poor little soldier,' as she termed him, an ensigncy in the 4th or King's Own Regiment of Foot; and he, proceeding forthwith to America, was soon after present at the battle of Lexington. When Prince William Henry, afterwards William IV., came into Falmouth harbour in the _Hebe_ in 1785, he was entertained at Tregothnan, and thence, under Viscount Falmouth's guidance, visited all the Cornish 'lions.' On 25th October, 1787, Mrs. Boscawen writes thus to Mrs. Delany: 'My son has been a peacemaker in Cornwall, and was happy enough to pacify near a thousand angry miners, who were marching into Truro to pull their houses about their ears;' and here it may be noted that one of his ancestors had performed a similar valuable public service when the Hon. Hugh Boscawen, Lord Warden of the Stannaries of Cornwall and Devon, presided over the Convocation of the twenty-four Stannators, 20th February to 20th April, 1710, held in the Coinage Hall, Truro; on which occasion, by a judicious speech, he dispersed a mob of some 5,000 or 6,000 men, tinners and others, led by one Charles Tregea, who had assembled to intimidate the Convocation, and 'force them to a farm.' The object of this Convocation was 'to keep up the price of tin, and to confirm the laws, customs, and constitutions of the Stannaries;' but it led to no satisfactory result.

The third Viscount's two sisters married well--one, Frances, gained for her husband the Hon. John Leveson Gower, Secretary to the Admiralty; and the other, Elizabeth, secured Henry, fifth Duke of Beaufort--an affair which does not seem to have altogether satisfied that family. Her mother writes to Mrs. Delany, that the Beauforts were not particularly well pleased with the match;--'And yet, my dear madam,' says the sprightly Admiral's widow, 'does not Admiral Boscawen's daughter, with £10,000 now, and at least 5 (_i.e._ £5,000) more by-and-by, with many excellent wife-like qualities, and no faults that ever they heard of, deserve some gentler welcome, _especially as nobody asks anything of them_?' The Duke seems to have made the Cornish lassie a most devoted and affectionate husband.

George Evelyn Boscawen was succeeded in the title by his son, Edward, fourth Viscount and first Earl of Falmouth. He was an officer in the Coldstream Guards, and, like so many other members of his family, Recorder of Truro--the last who filled that office. He was the second of Lord Winchelsea in his famous duel with the Duke of Wellington, fought on Wimbledon Common in March, 1829, when the Duke fired and missed, and Lord Winchelsea then fired in the air and apologized. This nobleman rebuilt Tregothnan House, near the site of an older and picturesque mansion, in which might have been seen many carved stones from the old tower and chapel at Fentongollan; and he made the famous drive to it from Tresilian Bridge, an undertaking the result of which he is said to have always contemplated with much satisfaction. His son, George Henry, fifth Viscount, and second and last Earl, died unmarried in 1852, fourteen years after his father. He was a man of considerable ability, taking, in 1832, a first-class at Oxford; and he was one of the best amateur violinists of his day. As we have said, with him the earldom lapsed. His cousin Evelyn succeeded him as sixth Viscount, and has been one of the most distinguished patrons of the turf, as well as a most fortunate owner of race-horses, having, as I am informed, won the Derby, the St. Leger, and the Two Thousand Guineas twice, and the Oaks and the One Thousand Guineas four times each; besides other important races.

_ADMIRAL THE RIGHT HON. EDWARD BOSCAWEN._

'My lov'd Boscawen dead! 'tis all a lye-- Fame's trumpet sounds "He cannot, shall not die-- At Lagos still triumphant he survives, And still at Louisbourg immortal lives."'

_Gentleman's Magazine_, Jan., 1761.

'A great Admiral.'

PITT.

The foregoing sketch of the history of the Boscawens seemed desirable in order to give the reader some idea of the sources from which Pitt's 'great Admiral' sprang, and to serve as a background to the family picture in which his figure is the most prominent. We have seen that the Boscawens were an ancient, wealthy, and not altogether undistinguished group of Cornishmen; and have noted that their seat had for ages been on the banks of that sylvan river which empties its waters into the once renowned Falmouth Haven. Here Edward Boscawen, third son of the first Viscount, was born on the 19th August, 1711; and, notwithstanding the absence (so far as I am aware) of any published details concerning the childhood and youth of the illustrious sailor, except the fact of his quaint humour in imitating the gestures of an old servant till he himself contracted a constant habit of carrying his head slightly on one side[87]--there can be little doubt, I think, that a good deal of the young sea-dog's leisure was spent on, or in, the Fal, which washes the shores of his ancestral woods and glades. We know, indeed, that he entered the navy whilst _very young_ (when only twelve years old, so Campbell says), and this suggests the idea that the future 'old Dreadnought' may have found the limits of the sequestered Tregothnan estate and the quiet life led there incompatible with the high spirits which a lad of his quality must undoubtedly have possessed. In other words, we can but believe that he was a born sailor, and that he merited, from the first, another of his sobriquets,--derived from the heroic contempt of danger which he manifested throughout his life--'the brave Boscawen.' He no doubt expected that, in accordance with the practice of a century and a half ago, through family interest he would very shortly obtain his lieutenancy, when an order was suddenly and unexpectedly issued, subjecting all midshipmen to at least six years' service. 'To this order,' Boscawen used to say, 'I owe all my knowledge of seamanship.' At any rate, the new regulation did not change his views, nor prevent many other Cornish youngsters from entering the navy and serving under an officer who was as fond of having them about him as they were of sailing under his command. Amongst such may be named the Hon. George Edgcumbe,[88] afterwards Admiral of the White, who commanded the _Lancaster_ of seventy guns at the famous siege of Louisbourg (of which we shall hear more by-and-by); and Admiral Sir Richard Spry, who commanded a similar ship, the _Oxford_, on that occasion.

And here it should be remembered how different in many respects is the position of the modern British sailor--true Briton as he still is, and is proving himself to be at Alexandria even whilst I write these lines--from the traditional sailor of Boscawen's days. Now, most of the sailors' work in our steam iron-clads is done on deck or below; but, at the period of which we are about to consider some episodes, the larger proportion--certainly the more difficult--was performed aloft. In weather of all sorts 'there were dead-eyes to turn in, there were chafing gear to look after, reef-points to knot, masts to stay, studding-sail gear to reeve, and the like.' Then the wild excitement of going aloft to shorten sail in stormy weather! The old songs at the reef-tackles, the flapping of the canvas, the springing into the shrouds, and the helter-skelter race for the weather-earing--unless, indeed, the iron-hard pressure of the gale pinned you against the shrouds as if you had been a spread-eagle. In work of this sort the English tars were always pre-eminent, and one can easily believe that the Admiral accordingly had a thoroughly hearty contempt for the unsailor-like character of the French crews. Of one he said he 'never saw so bad a crew on salt water before; there were not twenty men on board who could go aloft.'[89] Those, too, were days not only of rough work, but also of rough-and-ready fighting; and Boscawen's motto, like that of Hawke,[90] his illustrious contemporary and rival, was always, 'Strike.' One night Boscawen's lieutenant came to him, and awoke him, saying that they had fallen in with three ships of the enemy. 'What shall we do?' 'Why, fight 'em, to be sure!' said Boscawen; and, dashing up on deck in his night shirt, he soon compelled the enemy to sheer off. It was from this action that he is said to have acquired the name of Old Dreadnought. On another occasion he took off his wig, and with it stopped a leak in his boat, which was rapidly sinking.

As we have seen, he was the third son of the first Viscount Falmouth, and was called Edward after his grandfather. His grandmother, Jael, was of the fine old Cornish stock of Godolphin, and his mother was Charlotte Godfrey, a niece of the great Duke of Marlborough, not a natural daughter (as Hals says) of James II., by Arabella Churchill, but her eldest daughter, by Colonel Charles Godfrey, Master of the Jewel Office, whom she had subsequently married;--so that he seems to have had royal as well as good fighting blood in his veins, some of which he was destined to shed for his country. I do not know at what date he received his lieutenant's commission; probably it was on being appointed to the _Hector_ in 1732; but on the 12th March, 1737, when not quite twenty-six years old, he was appointed captain of the _Leopard_, a fourth-rate of fifty guns. On the outbreak of the war with Spain, he was transferred to the _Shoreham_ of twenty guns, and was sent to cruise off Jamaica. Unfortunately, when Admiral Vernon determined, in November, 1740, on attacking Porto Bello (a place which Columbus had discovered and named in 1562, and which had once before succumbed to a British Admiral, Sir Francis Drake, in 1596), the _Shoreham_ was found to be unfit for action; but Boscawen would not be deprived of this chance of seeing some active service, so he sailed as a volunteer, and so far distinguished himself at the easy capture of the place--for the garrison was on a peace footing, and the British lost only seven men--that he was entrusted with the duty of superintending the demolition of the fortifications.

Rejoining the _Shoreham_, which had now been thoroughly overhauled, we next hear of him, in March, 1740-41, at the siege of Carthagena, the chief port in New Granada, again under Admiral Vernon, who is described as a man of fair abilities, but of harsh overbearing temper;--one of those naval heroes of whom Byron sourly says in his 'Don Juan:'

'They filled their sign-posts then like Wellesley now.'

Here again he gathered laurels, and attracted considerable notice by what Campbell describes as his 'quick-sighted judgment and intrepid valour,' commanding a detachment of 300 sailors and 200 soldiers, and storming a fascine battery on Boca Chica, which had much galled General Wentworth, and held our forces in check.

Campbell thus describes Boscawen's part in the affair, which reminds us of the recent gallant rush on Tel-el-Kebir:[91]

'Pushing forward with a strength equal to their animation, they soon climbed the entrenchments, and entering the embrasures in the face of a continued fire, and on the very muzzles of the guns, they drove the enemy from the works with considerable slaughter; and after spiking the cannon and burning the platforms, together with the gun-carriages, guard-house, and magazine, Boscawen led off his detachment in order, and returned to the fleet with six wounded prisoners. The Spaniards, fully sensible of the support which this battery had afforded them, were indefatigable in their endeavours to repair it; and having in a few days so far succeeded as to be able to bring six guns to bear upon the English fleet, Boscawen was again ordered to reduce it, but in a manner which exposed him less to personal danger than in the service in which it was before deemed expedient to employ him. He was directed to proceed with his own ship, the _Shoreham_, together with the _Princess Amelia_ and the _Lichfield_, as close inshore as the depth of the water would admit them (a dangerous enterprise in consequence of the difficulties of the navigation here), to anchor abreast of the battery, and to bring the ships' broadsides to bear upon it; whilst, on the other hand, a detachment of seamen, under the command of Captains Watson, Cotes, and Dennis, were at the same time to storm it. These measures, taken with so much skill and prudence, would in all probability have ensured the success of the attack; but the Spaniards, intimidated by the formidable appearance of the assailants, _abandoned the battery without firing a shot_.'

But the place was too strongly fortified; and the siege of Carthagena was soon after raised (a circumstance which, by the way, tended to hasten the fall of Walpole). Yet before Boscawen left he was again employed, as at Porto Bello, to rase the different forts which the English had taken on the neighbouring coast; and, whilst engaged on this service, was appointed to the _Prince Frederick_, of 70 guns, on the death of Lord Aubrey Beauclerk, who gallantly fell at Boca Chica.

Clinton observes that the siege lasted from January to 24th April, 1741; and that as the surf prevented a bombardment from the sea, it was determined to make a lodging on Boca Chica, in order to reduce the fort there. The long-standing jealousy between the navy and the army was, he thinks, the cause of the failure of the siege. However that may be, three thousand men were lost by assaults and sickness; and the fleet returned to Jamaica.

On the 14th May, 1742, Boscawen reached home, or rather St. Helen's, Isle of Wight, bringing advices of Admiral Vernon's having sailed on a fresh expedition, which unfortunately proved abortive. But this year was memorable in his life for other than warlike exploits; for its close witnessed his marriage with the graceful, sprightly, and accomplished Frances Evelyn Glanville, of St. Clere, Kent; a lady sufficiently distinguished in her day to claim, as a Cornishman's wife, the notice which I have ventured to append to this sketch of the Admiral, her husband,--whose epitaph, glowing with eloquence, she was destined to write.

In the year that he married he was elected Member for Truro. And here it may be observed that the gallant naval officer was always extremely popular in his native county. One account states that he was 'positively adored' by the people, and that they insisted on sending him to Parliament as their representative, notwithstanding his reluctance to serve, on account of one member of his family being already there--namely, his father--in the House of Peers. Again, in 1747 he was elected for both Saltash (another old Cornish borough) and Truro; but he decided on maintaining his political connexion with the latter.

The next few months of his life would seem to have passed without any events of public interest occurring; but, early in 1744, war, arising out of the assistance given by the French to the Young Pretender's ill-starred descent upon England, broke out with France; and Boscawen was made Captain of the _Dreadnought_, of 60 guns. With her he very soon after captured the _Medea_, a French frigate of 26 guns and 240 men, commanded by a M. Hocquart--whom in the course of our history we shall twice meet again as Boscawen's prisoner. This was the first prize taken in the war. For some time he continued doing what may be called home duty--cruising in the Channel, sitting on courts-martial, and acting as Commodore on board the _Royal Sovereign_, at the Nore. Whilst acting in the latter capacity it fell within his province to send out several of the newly-pressed men as they were brought to him in company with some experienced seamen, in frigates and small vessels, to guard the mouths of many of the minor creeks and rivers along the shores of Kent and Sussex.

In January, 1746, he was appointed to the _Namur_, formerly of 90 guns, but afterwards reduced to a third-rate; and in November of that year, being in command of a small squadron at the mouth of the Channel, he captured two prizes--one a large privateer from St. Malo, the other a despatch-boat from M. De Jonquiere (the commander of the French fleet on the American station), with advices of the death of the Duc D'Anville, and of the consequent failure of the expedition under that officer's command.

We now approach the time when he was to receive his first wound of consequence, and to perform one of the most gallant and self-denying exploits of his brave career--a deed so daring and so brilliantly successful as to excite the jealousy of Anson, his superior officer, and thus to lay the foundation of an ill-feeling between those two gallant seamen which, it is to be feared, can be traced throughout their lives.

In 1747, whilst commanding a line-of-battle ship in the fleet intended for America, under Admirals Anson and Vernon, he was present at the gallant action of the 3rd May, off Cape Finisterre. 'Here,' says Campbell, 'Boscawen signalized himself equally by his heroism and his judgment. The French fleet, having got the weather-gage, kept up a constant and well-directed fire on the English ships as they turned to windward to form the line abreast of the enemy. But Boscawen, perceiving that our ships would thereby be disabled before their guns could be brought to bear upon the French line, and his ship being a very superior sailer to any of the rest, and being, besides, the leading ship of the van, pressed forward with a crowd of sail, received himself the greatest part of the enemy's fire, and singly maintained the conflict until the remainder of the fleet came up to his support; by which daring but judicious manœuvre _he principally contributed_ to the success with which on that day the British arms were crowned.[92] On this occasion he was severely wounded in the shoulder by a musket-ball. His country, however, was not long deprived of his services by this misfortune, from the effects of which he recovered in a few weeks.' At Finisterre all the French ships, ten in number, were taken, including the _Diamant_, of 56 tons, commanded by M. Hocquart, who thus became, for the second time, Boscawen's prisoner.

Shortly after being made Rear-Admiral of the Blue, he was invested with a command which shows the remarkable estimation in which he was held by the Government, receiving, as he did, a commission from the King as Admiral and Commandant of a squadron of six ships of the line and five frigates, with 2,000 soldiers on board, ordered for the East Indies; and also as General and Commander-in-Chief of the land forces employed in the expedition--'the only instance, except that of the Earl of Peterborough, of any officer having received such a command since the reign of Charles II.' Yet, such were his tact and personal character, that no ill-feeling arose on the part of the troops thus placed under his command--in fact, as an officer, quoted by Campbell, quaintly says, 'the Admiral, by his genteel behaviour, gained the love of the land officers, and never was greater harmony among all degrees of men than in this expedition;' notwithstanding which it failed in effecting the main objects which it had in view, viz. the capture of Pondicherry, and the attack on Port Louis, Mauritius, _en route_ thither. He sailed from St. Helen's on the 4th November, 1747; but owing to bad weather and contrary winds, did not reach the Cape of Good Hope till the 29th March, 1748; and here he remained a short time to refresh his jaded crews.

The difficulties of the landing at Port Louis, and the strength of the batteries by which it was defended, were such as to triumph over even the genius and courage of Boscawen; and after vain though most strenuous search for a practicable landing-place, the Admiral called a council of war, at which it was determined that a small boat-party should land during the night with a view to capturing (if possible) at least one man of the enemy, from whom they might obtain information as to the numbers and situation of the French forces. This ingenious attempt, however, failed; and at a second council of war it was agreed that the attack on Port Louis, even if it succeeded (which was doubtful), would necessitate the leaving behind so large a force to occupy the place, that it would imperil the chances of capturing Pondicherry, the principal object of the expedition; and to this it may be added that Boscawen had lost many of his men from their eating a poisonous fish called the vieille, at the island of Roderique.