Part 19

For this action Pellew was knighted ten days afterwards. The Portsmouth correspondent of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, writing in July, 1793, of this engagement, says that 'the commencement of the action between the _Nymphe_ and _Cleopatra_ was the most notable and awful that the naval history of the world ever recorded. The French captain ordered his ship to be manned, and, coming forward on the gangway, pulled off his hat, and called out, "Vive la nation!" when the ship's company gave three cheers. Captain Pellew, in like manner, ordered his men from quarters to the shrouds, and gave three cheers to "Long live King George the Third!" and his putting on his hat again was the signal for action, one of the most desperate ever fought.' The captain of the _Cleopatra_, Citoyen Mullon, was buried in Portsmouth churchyard.

In January, 1794, he joined the _Arethusa_, which formed one of the cruising frigates of the Western Squadron, a branch of the service which our hero may be said to have originated. In the engagement between the small French and English squadrons on 23rd April, 1794, off the Isle of Bass, he captured the _Pomone_, a larger vessel than his own, and carried her into Portsmouth harbour, on which occasion Pellew received the warmest thanks of the First Lord of the Admiralty, and of Earl Howe. Another French squadron was, in the following August, driven ashore near Brest, by Pellew and his brave companions in arms; and the Channel was thus practically cleared of the enemy's cruisers for a while. But the following October saw the Frenchmen once more on the move; and it was not until after a smart engagement off Ushant between the _Artois_ and the large French frigate _Révolutionnaire_, on which occasion Pellew commanded the squadron, that the French navy was completely cowed.

On the 2nd January, 1795, private intelligence having reached Sir Edward that the enemy's fleet, consisting of thirty-five sail of the line, thirteen frigates, and sixteen smaller vessels, had put to sea from Brest, he set forth from Falmouth with his little squadron of five ships to reconnoitre; but no engagement resulted from this expedition.

He now joined the _Indefatigable_, which he successfully insisted upon having cut down and rigged after his own method. She sailed from Falmouth on 2nd March; and shortly after, the squadron of which she formed part captured fifteen out of a convoy of twenty-five vessels near the Penmarcks rocks.

The scene now shifts to Plymouth Sound, where he performed, on 26th January, 1796, one of the most heroic acts that it has ever fallen to the lot of man to accomplish. He was in evening dress, and on his way to a dinner-party, when he heard that a large ship, an East Indiaman, the _Dutton_, was on the rocks under the citadel, and that no one was able to go to her assistance; but, with his usual hardihood, he swam out to her through the surf, and thus became the means of saving the lives of between 500 and 600 of his fellow-creatures. This service he performed at the imminent risk of his own life, and when, as we have seen, no other witness of the wild scene had the courage to make the attempt. For his gallant conduct on this memorable occasion he was created a baronet, as Sir Edward Pellew, of Treverry. The Corporation of Plymouth voted him the freedom of their town, and the merchants of Liverpool presented him with a service of plate. The civic wreath and the stranded ship which appear as honourable augmentations on his coat-of-arms were derived from this event.

On the 20th April following, our sailor was again at sea, and the action was fought between the _Indefatigable_ and the _Virginie_, which ended--as usual with Pellew--in victory. 'He takes _everything_!' said the brave French Captain Bergeret, weeping bitterly as he surrendered his sword to his opponent.

November, 1798, witnessed the well-known futile descent of the French upon Ireland. In the ineffectual steps taken by the British fleet to prevent it, Pellew had no share beyond watching Brest, and reporting progress. But in January, 1799, he fell in with the _Droits de l'Homme_, and, in the midst of a furious gale, and after an engagement of eleven hours (during the latter part of which the _Indefatigable_ was assisted by the _Amazon_, Captain Reynolds),[125] the French ship was driven on shore in the Bay of Audierne. The _Amazon_ was also wrecked, and the _Indefatigable_ herself had a narrow escape.

The capture of a few privateers is all we now have to chronicle until we hear of Sir Edward making the daring proposal of attacking with a few frigates the whole of the French fleet then in harbour at Brest; but, whether from timidity on the part of the Admiralty, or, as was suggested, from the jealousy of Pellew's superior officer, Lord Bridport, the offer was declined.

The _Impetueux_, one of his captures from the French, was his next ship; and in her, at Bantry Bay, he promptly quelled a mutiny, which, but for his courage and sagacity, would probably have extended to other ships, whose disaffected crews, demoralized by the reports of the mutinies at Spithead and the Nore, were, it is said, only waiting a successful result of the rising on board Sir Edward's ship. The _Impetueux_ soon after joined Earl St. Vincent in the Mediterranean, and formed part of the force which pursued the combined fleets from the Mediterranean to Brest.

In the siege of Ferrol, August, 1800, the _Impetueux_ played an important part; but, Pellew's advice (which seemed to Sir J. B. Warren too dangerous to follow) not being taken, the place was not captured; though it was afterwards discovered that Pellew's advice should have been followed, and that the garrison were quite prepared to lay down their arms.

A short period of retirement which he spent in the bosom of his family at Trefusis, on the shores of Falmouth harbour, followed.

The year 1801 saw him nearly at the head of the list of post-captains, and appointed a Colonel of Marines. In the following year he was elected Member for Barnstaple; but inactive posts did not suit him, and at the very first moment possible he returned to his beloved profession, being appointed to the _Tonnant_, of 80 guns, one of the Channel fleet. Detached from the squadron, together with the _Mars_ and the _Spartiate_ and five other sail of the line, which were placed under his orders, he blockaded the French at Corunna and at Ferrol. But he was recalled by the Ministry in order to support the Government against an attack made upon their Naval Administration by Pitt, and on Pellew's excellent speech on this occasion the vindication of the Ministry is said to have in a great measure depended.

On 23rd April, 1804, he was promoted to be Rear-Admiral of the White, and was appointed Commander-in-Chief in India, hoisting his flag in the _Culloden_. Whilst on this station he was ever on the alert for French and Dutch privateers, of most of which the Admiral himself or his captains never failed to give a good account, to the great advantage of British commerce. The destruction of the enemy's fleet at Batavia, on 2nd November, 1805, was an expedition on a larger scale. In this Sir Edward's son, Captain Fleetwood Pellew,[126] in the _Terpsichore_, took a prominent part; and a successful attack upon Sourabaya, in Java, soon followed. This sums up his Oriental experiences; and in February, 1809, he sailed from India with a fleet of Indiamen under his convoy, and safely arrived once more in England, after a narrow escape during a severe gale. The spring of the following year, 1810, saw him, on board the _Christian VII._, and Commander-in-Chief in the North Sea, effectively blockading the Dutch fleet in the Scheldt.

In 1811, in the _Caledonia_, he succeeded Sir Charles Cotton as Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean fleet, jealously watching the coast from the Ionian Islands to Gibraltar, and striving, with the utmost energy and success, to promote the efficiency and welfare of all who served under him. He was present at the capitulation of Genoa in February, 1814; and shortly afterwards saw the termination of the war, and the confinement of Napoleon as a prisoner in the island of Elba.

Of this happy event advantage was taken by the Government to confer on our hero the dignity of a baron--an unexpected honour to him--and he chose 'Exmouth of Canonteign' as his title, that being an estate which he had purchased as a family property. He also obtained the pension usually granted for services so distinguished as his had been (it amounted to £2,000 a year), and the next year he received the additional honour of being made a G.C.B.

He went to the Mediterranean again in 1815, on the return of Napoleon from Elba, hoisting his flag in the _Boyne_, with his brother, Sir Israel Pellew, as Captain of the Fleet. Naples he rescued from anarchy on the flight of Murat before the Austrian army, and for this service King Ferdinand gave him the Order of St. Ferdinand and Merit. Next he saved Marseilles from the rebel Marshal Brune; and finally spent the winter of this year in Leghorn roads.

The commencement of 1816 found him preparing for what is perhaps his most celebrated exploit, viz., the siege of Algiers; the objects of which, it will be remembered, were to obtain the release of all the Ionian slaves, who, by recent political arrangements, had become _British_ subjects; and to repress the piratical excursions of the Barbary States.

The preliminary reconnoitre was admirably performed by Captain Warde, and the squadron, shortly afterwards, set sail for Algiers, where the demand for the release of the Christian slaves was forthwith promised. Tunis and Tripoli followed suit; and Lord Exmouth returned to Algiers in order to press upon the Dey the abolition of Christian slavery. Only evasive answers could, however, be procured; and, having secured from the Dey a promise at least to treat, the British Admiral returned for a short space to England for further instructions.

It need scarcely be said that Mr. Osler's description of the siege of Algiers, the guilty 'pirate city,' is given with all that perspicacity and fullness of detail which characterized all his literary work; and to his account the technical reader may confidently be referred. The formidable sea defences alone consisted of 500 guns; and these Exmouth proposed to attack with only five sail of the line! Nelson is said to have named (under incorrect information, it is true) twenty-five as the proper force; but, at any rate, the attack of such fortifications as these by a few ships was quite a novelty in the annals of war.

Joined by five frigates, four bomb-vessels, and five gun-brigs, the fleet sailed from Portsmouth on the 25th July, 1816, practising regularly with their guns on the voyage, and arriving before Algiers on the 26th August.

Very early on the following morning, after waiting long and anxiously for the sea-breeze, which came at last, the _Queen Charlotte_, with Lord Exmouth (now sixty-five years of age) on board, led the attack amidst three ringing cheers from his men;--and in a few minutes her broadsides destroyed the defences of the Mole. It was reported that 500 Moors were killed by the first discharge of the English guns. The Algerines then attempted, in their gunboats, to board the British ships; but, as soon as they were discovered through the smoke, the heavy guns of the _Leander_ and other ships sent 33 out of the 37 which composed the flotilla to the bottom. The enemy's ships at anchor were then fired; and by ten at night, after a cannonade of nearly nine hours, the town and fortifications of Algiers were in ruins. 128 men only were killed and 690 wounded in the British ships, and 13 killed and 52 wounded in the Dutch squadron--losses by no means excessive under the circumstances; the enemy's loss, which must have been fearful, is not known. Lord Exmouth was struck (but only very slightly wounded) in three places; yet his coat was slit and torn by musket-balls as if it had been slashed by a madman's scissors.[127]

British sailors had never fought more bravely and determinedly, or in grimmer silence. When wadding failed, they cut up their clothes as a substitute for it; and even the women on board handed the shot and shell to their husbands. The _Impregnable_ and the _Leander_ suffered most from the enemy's fire; the former was hulled by 263 shot, 209 of which were between wind and water, and she herself discharged 6,730 round shot.

The next morning, the 28th of July, the Dey, Omar Pasha, a brutal and ferocious ex-Aga of Janissaries, whilst Algiers was in flames, and her sea-batteries pounded into ruins, sent in his complete submission; peace was signed under a salute of 21 guns for England, and the same for Holland; and 3,003 slaves, of whom 1,083 were Christians, and some of whom were English, were liberated, and returned to their respective countries.

Honours now fell thick and fast upon Lord Exmouth. He was created a Viscount by George III.; the Kings of Holland, Spain, and Sardinia conferred knighthood upon him; the City of London voted him its freedom; Oxford conferred upon him the degree of D.C.L.; and he received the thanks of Parliament; the letter from the Speaker, dated 3rd February, 1817, conveying them, being as follows:

'In transmitting to your Lordship this honourable testimony of the gratitude of your country, I cannot withhold the expression of my own personal satisfaction that this age of military exploits has not closed without so splendid an increase of our naval glory; and that the great work, of which all Christian States had so long and justly desired to see the accomplishment, has been performed with a display of skill and valour which have enrolled your Lordship's name upon the annals of the nation in the most distinguished rank of her naval commanders.'

Pellew had now attained the summit of his ambition; and, in 1817, having been appointed to the naval command at Plymouth,[128] was instrumental in saving from destruction the historic fortress of Pendennis Castle, which, from motives of economy, the Government of the day had proposed to destroy.

He passed the close of his life quietly near Teignmouth, the only additional honour which was bestowed upon him being that of his appointment, in 1832, as Vice-Admiral of England, a post which, however, he only filled for a few months; for, on the 23rd of January, 1833, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, the old sea lion calmly passed away, in pious confidence, to his rest. A brother officer who was often with him during his last hours, said, 'I have seen him great in battle, but never _so_ great as on his death-bed.'

He was buried at Christow, the parish in which are the family mansion and estate of Canonteign; and in the church there an elaborate marble monument records his faith and piety, his honours and his virtues.

There are three or four good portraits of Pellew, of which the three-quarter length by Northcote in the National Portrait Gallery is perhaps the best. It gives the unmistakably Cornish physiognomy of the original, and does full justice to the determined look of the lower part of his face. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition at Somerset House in 1819, when Pellew was sixty-two years of age. Another fine portrait is by Sir Wm. Beechy (engraved by C. Turner), a full-length, representing the hero on the deck of the _Queen Charlotte_ at the siege of Algiers, giving orders for furling her mainsail, when she was in imminent danger of being set on fire by an Algerine vessel, which was in flames close by.

FOOTNOTES:

[122] Polwhele says that he stood in great awe of Ned Pellew, who, _he believes_, 'once thrashed him.'

[123] Polwhele says that Pellew lived in the house where his own mother and grandmother had resided.

[124] The _Cleopatra's_ crew numbered 320, the _Nymphe's_ only 240.

[125] Admiral Reynolds was afterwards drowned in the Baltic, in the _St. George_, on Christmas Day, 1811. One of the writer's uncles, William Hawken, a Truro boy, and an excellent swimmer, who was a midshipman on board, was also, with many others, drowned.--W. H. T.

[126] Pellew had four sons and two daughters.

[127] He had a jaguar on board at the bombardment of Algiers. He gave the animal, on his return to England, to the Marchioness of Londonderry, who presented it to the Tower menagerie.

[128] Whilst holding this appointment he received Queen Caroline on her arrival in Plymouth Sound, and was one of the witnesses at her celebrated trial. The mob were so exasperated at his evidence that, on the night of June 8th, 1820, they broke his windows, whereupon he issued from the house with sword and pistol, and dispersed them.--_The Greville Memoirs._

_SAMUEL FOOTE_,

WIT AND DRAMATIST.

_SAMUEL FOOTE_,[129]

WIT AND DRAMATIST.

'He was a fine fellow in his way, and the world is really impoverished by his sinking glories. I would have his life written with diligence.'[130]--DR. JOHNSON.

It is not a little remarkable that the fame of Samuel Foote, great as it was during his lifetime, and for some time after his death, has so rapidly dimmed; for he was not only a capital mimic, a boon companion, a most generous master to his subordinates, a ready wit, and an accomplished actor, but he was also a fair scholar, a bitter though an avowed satirist, and a prolific, as well as skilled, dramatic writer and critic. He wrote about thirty pieces for the stage (which were translated into the German in 1796), and the list of his works in their various editions occupies about thirty pages in the MS. British Museum catalogue. His slightest sayings were carefully preserved; and the very slightness of some of them is, perhaps, one of the strongest evidences of the fame which he enjoyed.

Foster says of him, in the _Quarterly Review_ for 1854, that his writings are 'not unworthy of a very high place in literature;' and that his name 'was once both a terrible and a delightful reality.' And yet, notwithstanding the amusing picture which they present of the manners and conversation of London a hundred years ago, they have not sufficed to preserve his fame. Who of the rising generation has ever read anything of Foote's besides his ever-ready and often quoted _bon-mots_; or knows anything more of his plays than has been learnt from an occasional representation of 'The Liar' on the stage? It is hardly necessary to inquire into the cause of this, for the joker's reputation is proverbially fleeting. Moreover, Foote's pieces are somewhat too slightly constructed, depending not so much upon the plot or the _dénouement_ as upon such a delineation of the various characters as seems hardly to come within the scope of our modern actors; but, nevertheless, it certainly does cause one to reflect how soon a man, not without strong claims to be remembered, may be forgotten. Yet, while he lived, his name was in every man's mouth, and in a vast number of contemporaneous books. 'No man,' says Baker, 'was more courted when in the zenith of his fame: for instance, when the Duke of York returned from the Continent, he went first to his mother's, then to His Majesty's, and directly from them to Mr. Foote's.' And yet it should be well understood that he was, withal, no toady. To the Scotch nobleman, boasting of his old wine, which he doled out in very small _glasses_--'It is very _little_, of its age,' said Foote, handling his glass. He congratulated the Duke of Cumberland on his digestion, when the Duke said he had come for the purpose of swallowing all Foote's good things--'for,' said the coarse wit, 'you never bring any of them up again.' And when the Duke of Norfolk consulted him as to going to a masquerade in a _new character_--'Go _sober_,' was Foote's instant reply.

It will be the object of the following memoir not only to sketch the life of the Truro wit, and to enumerate most of his plays in chronological order, but also to give one or two short specimens of his powers as a writer: the difficulty on the latter point being to make a selection from the very numerous examples left to us. But it should always be remembered that the parts played by Foote are, as written, but a very faint reflexion of what he actually uttered, often _impromptu_.

Samuel Foote was the older of two sons of Samuel and Eleanor Foote, of Truro. His younger brother Edward, a clergyman, was all but an imbecile, and in his later years depended almost entirely upon his elder brother for support. Samuel was born, not as is generally stated, at the Red Lion Inn, in Boscawen Street, which was at one time the residence of Henry Foote--a distant relation; but 'at Johnson Vivian's[131] house, near the Coinage Hall' (now removed). So far as I can ascertain, this house must have stood nearly opposite to the Red Lion, on the site of the old King's Head inn, where, Lysons says, a nunnery of Poor Clares once stood, and close to the spot where Lemon Street and Boscawen Street now join. Polwhele suggests that the inscription 'I. F., 1671,' still to be seen over the door of the Red Lion, refers to John Foote, the dramatist's grandfather.[132] His father was M.P. for Tiverton, Mayor and Alderman of Truro, a Commissioner of the Prize Office, and Receiver of Fines for the Duchy of Cornwall; and had his summer residence at Pencalenick, about a mile east of the new city. And here it may be said that Foote was to the last very proud of his genealogy. His father died at 'Pednkallinick,' as his epitaph records, on 12th March, 1754, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, and was buried at St. Clement's, near Truro: his grave-stone is on the east wall of the little north transept. But the Footes had another residence in the same parish, namely, at Lambesso, where, according to Lysons, they were seated in the days of Charles II. His mother was a daughter of Sir Edward Goodere, Bart. (a descendant of the Earl of Portland), M.P. for Herefordshire; she was a lady of considerable vivacity, from whom Foote is supposed to have derived what Carlyle calls the 'aroma' of his character, rather than from his father. She was eighty-four years of age when she died, and 'Hesiod' Cooke (who wrote Foote's life) says, she was as sprightly at seventy-nine as most women are at forty. She was as thriftless as her celebrated son himself, and he had ultimately to grant her an annual allowance. The following letters once passed between them:

'DEAR SAM, 'I am in prison for debt: come and assist 'Your loving mother, 'E. FOOTE.'

'DEAR MOTHER, 'So am I; which prevents his duty being paid to his loving mother by 'Her affectionate son, 'SAM FOOTE.'

However, he added, by way of postscript:

'I have sent my attorney to assist you; in the meantime let us hope for better days.'

Samuel Foote, the subject of our sketch, was christened on 17th January, 1720, at St. Mary's Church (on the site of the Cathedral now in progress), and was educated first at the Truro Grammar School, under Mr. Conon, where he was particularly fond of his Terence, and afterwards under Dr. Miles, at Worcester. Notwithstanding his strong propensity for jokes and tricks, he was a favourite with his master, and made fair progress with his studies; and he never failed, when visiting Truro, to call at the old school, and, in mock-heroic style, to beg a holiday for the boys.