CHAPTER VIII

CAPTAIN DEATH, OF THE "TERRIBLE"

One of the bloodiest privateer actions on record was that between the _Terrible_, owned in London, and the _Vengeance_, of St. Malo.

The _Terrible_ carried 26 guns, with a crew of 200 men, and was commanded by Captain Death. She was cruising off the mouth of the Channel at the end of the year 1756, and had had some success, capturing an armed French cargo ship, the _Alexandre le Grand_, (the narrator very simply translates this "Grand Alexander"!), which she was escorting into Plymouth, with a prize crew of an officer--the first lieutenant--and fifteen men, when on December 27th, at daylight, two sails were sighted to the southward, about twelve miles distant. Some communication was observed to take place between the two vessels, and then the larger one steered for the _Terrible_ and her prize, which was far astern, so that the _Terrible_ was obliged to back her mizzen-topsail and wait for her.

Meanwhile, every preparation was made for action; but, from the absence of the prize crew and other causes, no more than 116 men out of 200 were able to stand to the guns; indeed, the narrator, who was third lieutenant of the _Terrible_, tells rather a sad story of her crew--"the rest being either dead or sick below with a distemper called the spotted fever, that raged among the ship's company." This may have been malignant typhus, or the plague, terribly infectious; and there would be great reluctance to handle the dead bodies--hence some of these were left below.

The enemy approached, as was usually the practice, under English colours until within close range, when she shortened sail and hoisted French colours. The _Terrible_ was ready for her, with her starboard guns manned, and the prize had by this time come up; but she was a clumsy sailer, deep-laden, and fell off from the wind; so the Frenchman got in between them, gave the prize a broadside, and then, ranging close up on the _Terrible's_ port quarter, delivered a most destructive fire, diagonally across her deck, killing and wounding a great number. So close were the two ships, that the yardarms almost touched, and the _Terrible's_ people, in spite of the awful battering they had just received, returned a broadside of round and grape, which was equally destructive. For five or six minutes they surged along side by side, while each disposed his dead and wounded, and a touch of the helm would have run either vessel aboard her opponent. The Frenchmen, more numerous in spite of their losses, might have boarded, and the "Terribles" were in momentary expectation of it--but they held off, and the English did not find themselves strong enough to attempt it. Separating again, they exchanged a murderous fire at close range, the casualties being very heavy on both sides.

The French ship had, however, one great advantage at such close quarters; in each "top" she had eight or ten small-arm men, who were able to fire down upon the _Terrible's_ deck, and pick off whom they would--the latter was too short-handed to spare any men for this purpose.

This slaughter, to which they were unable to reply, really decided the action. Every man in sight was either killed or miserably wounded--the captain and the third lieutenant escaped for some time, but the latter was grazed on his cheek, and the captain, he states, was shot through the body after he had struck his flag. This is a very common accusation, and no doubt it has often been true, though probably only through a misapprehension; men who are blazing away and being shot at in a hot action do not always know or realise at the moment that the enemy has struck, and so some poor fellow loses his life unnecessarily.

It was too hot to last. The enemy was a ship of considerably superior force, and probably had three times the number of the _Terrible's_ available crew at the commencement of the action. On board the English vessel nearly one hundred men were dead or wounded, the decks were cumbered with their bodies, and only one officer was left untouched; they had not a score of men left to fight the ship, and the enemy continued to pour in a pitiless fire, which at length brought the mainmast by the board.

Captain Death, a brave man, could then see no course but to surrender, having put up a very gallant fight; and so he ordered down the colours, and was then, as is said, fatally wounded by a musket-ball.

Then follows a dismal story of the treatment of the English prisoners, which we may hope, for the sake of French humanity and generosity, is somewhat exaggerated--as we know that such things can be, under the smart of defeat and surrender: "They turned our first lieutenant and all our people down in a close, confined place forward the first night that we came on board, where twenty-seven men of them were stifled before morning; and several were hauled out for dead, but the air brought them to life again; and a great many of them died of their wounds on board the _Terrible_ for want of care being taken of them, which was out of our doctor's power to do, the enemy having taken his instruments and medicine from him. Several that were wounded they heaved overboard alive."

If this is a true account one shudders to think what may have been the fate of those unhappy, plague-stricken men below--probably brought up and hove overboard in a ferocious panic!

The French ship was named the _Vengeance_, of 36 guns and about 400 men; so there was no discredit to Captain Death in yielding, after such a plucky resistance. The merchants of London opened a subscription at Lloyd's Coffee House for his widow and the widows of the crew, and for the survivors, who had suffered the loss of all their possessions.

This desperate fight was much talked about at the time, and inspired some rhymester, whose name has not come down to us, to compose the following:

CAPTAIN DEATH

The muse and the hero together are fir'd, The same noble views has their bosom inspir'd; As freedom they love, and for glory contend, The muse o'er the hero still mourns as a friend; So here let the muse her poor tribute bequeath, To one British hero--'tis brave Captain Death.

The ship was the _Terrible_--dreadful to see! His crew was as brave and as valiant as he. Two hundred or more was their full complement, And sure braver fellows to sea never went. Each man was determined to spend his last breath In fighting for Britain and brave Captain Death.

A prize they had taken diminish'd their force, And soon the brave ship was lost in her course. The French privateer and the _Terrible_ met, The battle began with all horror beset. No heart was dismayed, each bold as Macbeth; The sailors rejoiced, so did brave Captain Death.

Fire, thunder, balls, bullets were soon heard and felt, A sight that the heart of Bellona would melt. The shrouds were all torn and the decks fill'd with blood. And scores of dead bodies were thrown in the flood. The flood, from the time of old Noah and Seth, Ne'er saw such a man as our brave Captain Death.

At last the dread bullet came wing'd with his fate; Our brave captain dropped, and soon after his mate. Each officer fell, and a carnage was seen, That soon dy'd the waves to a crimson from green; Then Neptune rose up, and he took off his wreath, And gave it a triton to crown Captain Death.

Thus fell the strong _Terrible_, bravely and bold, But sixteen survivors the tale can unfold. The French were the victors, tho' much to their cost, For many brave French were with Englishmen lost. For thus says old Time, "Since Queen Elizabeth, I ne'er saw the fellow of brave Captain Death."

There is another poetic effusion on the subject, under the title "The Terrible Privateer"; but it is such halting doggrel that the reader shall be spared the transcription; with the exception of the last verse, which breathes such a blunt British spirit that it would be a pity to omit it:

Here's a health unto our British fleet. Grant they with these privateers may meet, And have better luck than the _Terrible_, And sink those Mounsiers all to hell.

The _Vengeance_ was, in fact, captured about twelve months later by the _Hussar_, a man-of-war, after a stout resistance, in which she lost heavily; it is impossible, however, to say how far the devout aspiration of the poet was fulfilled!

MR. PETER BAKER AND THE "MENTOR"

In the Reading-room of the Free Library in Liverpool there hangs an oil-painting, of which a reproduction is here given, illustrating an incident which occurred during the American War of Secession, in 1778.

Liverpool merchants and shipowners were very active at that time in the fitting out of privateers; and some, or one of them, entered into a contract with one Peter Baker to build a vessel for this purpose. Now, Baker does not appear to have had the necessary training and experience to qualify him as a designer and builder of ships. He had served a short apprenticeship with some employer in the neighbourhood of Garston, near Liverpool, and had then worked as a carpenter in Liverpool, eventually becoming a master. However, he set to work to fulfil his contract; but he turned out of hand such a sorry specimen of a ship--clumsy, ill-built, lopsided, and with sailing qualities more suited to a haystack than a smart privateer--that the prospective owner refused her, throwing her back on his hands--a very serious matter for Peter Baker, who was heavily in debt over the venture.

Strangely enough, this apparent calamity proved to be the making of him.

Despairing of paying his debts, he resolved upon the somewhat desperate course of fitting out the ship as a venture of his own, and contrived to obtain sufficient credit for this purpose. Probably his creditors agreed to give him this chance, as the privateers not infrequently made considerable sums of money.

Baker did not, however, aspire to the post of privateer captain; he appointed to the command his son-in-law, John Dawson, who had made several voyages to the coast of Africa, and knew enough about navigation to get along somehow. The vessel measured 400 tons, carried 28 guns, and shipped a crew of 102 men; but they were a very queer lot: loafers picked up on the docks, landsmen in search of adventure, and so on. With this unpromising outfit--a lopsided, heavy-sailing vessel, an inexperienced commander, and a crew of incapable desperadoes--Peter Baker entered upon his privateering venture, and in due course the _Mentor_, provided, no doubt, with a king's commission, proceeded down the Irish Sea, hanging about in the chops of the Channel for homeward bound French merchantmen. Dawson was not very persistent or enterprising, for we are told that in something under a week he was on the point of returning, not having as yet come across anything worthy of his powder and shot. Falling in with another privateer, homeward bound, he made the usual inquiry as to whether she had seen anything, either in the way of a likely prize or a formidable enemy; and was informed that a large vessel, either a Spanish 74-gun ship, or Spanish East Indiaman, had been seen just previously in a given latitude.

Dawson thereupon resolved to put his fortune to the test--"For," said he, "I might as well be in a Spanish prison as an English one, and if I return empty I shall most likely be imprisoned for debt." So he made sail after the assumed Spaniard, and found her readily enough; as he closed, he made out through his glass that she was pierced for 74 guns, and was, of course, in every respect a far more formidable craft than the lopsided _Mentor_. Handing the glass to his carpenter, John Baxter, evidently an observant and intelligent man, the latter exclaimed that the stranger's guns were all dummies!

Thereupon John Dawson bore down to the attack, boarded the enemy, and carried her, with his harum-scarum crew, almost unopposed.

She proved to be a French East Indiaman, the _Carnatic_, with a most valuable cargo--said to be worth pretty nearly half a million sterling. One box of diamonds alone was valued at L135,000.

The crew had been three years in the vessel, trading in gold and diamonds, and did not even know that war had broken out.

Here was a piece of luck for Peter Baker! When the rich prize was brought into the Mersey, in charge of the proud and happy Dawson and his crew, bells were set ringing, guns were fired, and both captors and victors were entertained in sumptuous fashion by the delighted townspeople. Baker became, of course, immediately a person of importance: he was jocosely alluded to as "Lord Baker," and was later elected Mayor of Liverpool and made a county magistrate.

He proceeded to build himself a large house at Mossley Hill, outside Liverpool, which either he or some facetious friend dubbed "Carnatic Hall"; it was partially destroyed by fire later on, and rebuilt by the present owners, Holland by name.

Baker and Dawson entered into partnership as shipbuilders, and the uncouth but lucky _Mentor_ continued her cruising, capturing two or three more prizes of trifling value. In 1782, however, while on her passage home from Jamaica, she foundered off the Banks of Newfoundland, thirty-one of her crew perishing.

Such is the story of Peter Baker's sudden rise of fortune, illustrating the extraordinary uncertainty of those privateering times. Baker had, so to speak, no business to succeed; one cannot help regarding him, in the first instance, as something of an impostor in undertaking to build a ship under the circumstances--for we may be sure that she was not rejected without good reason; but she caused all this to be forgotten by one piece of good luck. Her fortunate builder and owner died in 1796.

CAPTAIN EDWARD MOOR, OF THE "FAME"

A privateer commander of the best type was Captain Edward Moor, of the _Fame_, hailing from Dublin. His vessel carried 20 six-pounders and some smaller pieces, and a crew of 108 men. It was in August 1780, when he was cruising off the coast of Spain and the northern coast of Africa, that he received news of the departure of five ships from Marseilles, bound for the West Indies: all armed vessels, and provided with fighting commissions of some kind--letters of marque, as they are styled.

Being a man of good courage, and not afraid of such trifling odds as five to one, Moor went in search of these Frenchmen; and on August 25th he was lucky enough to sight them, off the coast of Spain. As dusk was approaching he refrained from any demonstration of hostility, but took care, during the night, to get inshore of the enemy.

At daybreak they were about six miles distant, and, upon seeing the _Fame_ approach in a businesslike manner, they formed in line to receive her.

Adopting similar tactics to those of George Walker in attacking eight vessels--perhaps purposely following the example of a man who had such a great name, and whose exploits were sure to be known among privateersmen[10]--Moor bade his men lie down at their guns, and not fire until he gave the word.

At half-past six they were within gunshot, and the Frenchmen opened fire; but the _Fame_ swept on in silence until she was close to the largest ship; then they blazed away, and in three quarters of an hour she surrendered. Without a moment's delay Moor tackled the next in size, which also shortly succumbed. Putting an officer and seven men on board, with orders to look after _both_ ships--what glorious confidence in his men!--he went after the others, which were now endeavouring to escape; only one succeeded, however, though one would have imagined that, by scattering widely, they might have saved another. These two fugitives made no further resistance, and Captain Moor thus got four ships, to wit--_Deux Freres_, 14 guns, 50 men; _Univers_, 12 guns, 40 men; _Zephyr_ (formerly a British sloop-of-war, according to Beatson's "Memoirs"), 10 guns, 32 men; and _Nancy_, 4 guns, 18 men--a total of 40 guns and 140 men, against his 26 guns and 108 men. The Frenchmen certainly ought to have made it hotter for him; but probably their crews were not trained, and Moor evidently had his men well in hand, just as Walker had.

He took his prizes into Algiers, where he landed the prisoners, who gave such a good account of the kind and generous treatment they had received from their captors that the French Consul-General at Algiers wrote a very handsome letter to Moor, expressing in the strongest terms his appreciation of his conduct.

This Edward Moor was evidently one of those commanders like Walker and Wright; a gentleman by birth and instinct, combining the highest courage with refinement of mind and humanity; he would have been well employed in the Royal Navy.

CAPTAIN JAMES BORROWDALE, OF THE "ELLEN"

Earlier in this same year, 1780, a Bristol ship made a very brilliant capture. This was the _Ellen_, an armed merchantman, provided with a letter of marque. She carried 18 six-pounders and a crew of 64, half of them boys and landsmen on their first voyage. She was commanded by James Borrowdale, a careful man, who, while fully aware that he was expected to make as good a passage as possible, and refrain from engaging in combat unless it was forced upon him, took some pains to ensure that, in such event, the foe should not have a walk-over.

He had as passenger one Captain Blundell, of the 79th--Liverpool--Regiment, going out to join his regiment in Jamaica; and this gentleman, in order, no doubt, to beguile the tedium of the voyage, undertook to train sixteen of the crew to act as marines--hoping, probably, for an opportunity of proving their metal; and he was not disappointed.

A month out, on April 16th, a ship was sighted to windward, apparently of much the same size and force as the _Ellen_. Captain Borrowdale, with all his canvas set to catch the Trade-wind, stood on, apparently unheeding the approach of the stranger; but his men had the guns cast loose and loaded, and Blundell, with his little band of amateur marines, was very much on the alert.

Arriving within gunshot, the stranger fired a gun, hoisting Spanish colours; upon which Borrowdale shortened sail, seeing that it was impossible to avoid a fight, and hoisted American colours, to gain time; for his idea was to commence the action at very close quarters.

He then addressed his crew, bidding them ram down a bag of grape-shot into every gun--on top of the round shot, of course--to keep cool, and reserve their fire for close quarters, keeping the guns trained on the enemy meanwhile; to fire as quickly as possible, and to fight the ship to the last extremity.

When the other was within hailing distance down came the American colours, up went the English, and a deadly broadside was delivered, accompanied by a well-directed volley from Blundell's contingent. So effective, in fact, was the sudden and vigorous attack, that it quite staggered the Spaniards, who fell into confusion, neglecting the proper handling of their vessel, so that she fell off from the wind and got under the _Ellen's_ lee; upon which the other broadside was poured into her. The Spanish captain, imagining that he had only an ordinary armed trader to deal with--and many of them were very poor fighters--had perhaps not made full preparation for action; at any rate, he and his men were so demoralised by these two broadsides that he put his helm up and ran for it. The English captain, having successfully defended his ship, might now have pursued his voyage, without any loss of credit, that being his business; but no such idea entered his head. The crew gave three hearty cheers as they trimmed and cracked on sail, and the Spaniard, having sustained some damage aloft, was unable to escape. Running alongside, the _Ellen_ attacked again, and the action was maintained for an hour and a half, the two vessels running yardarm to yardarm; and then, the _Ellen's_ fire having completely disabled the foe aloft, the Spanish colours came down, and Captain Borrowdale found himself in possession of the _Santa Anna Gratia_, a Spanish sloop-of-war, mounting 16 heavy six-pounders and a number of swivels, with a crew of 104 men, of whom seven were killed and eight wounded; the _Ellen_ had only one killed and three wounded; but these small losses were doubtless owing to the two vessels mutually aiming at the spars and rigging, each endeavouring to cripple her opponent aloft.

This was a very brilliant little affair, and Borrowdale and his merry men must have felt very well pleased with themselves as they sailed into Port Royal, Jamaica, the prize in company, with the English colours surmounting the Spanish.

[Footnote 10: The account of George Walker's exploits comes later on.]

TWO GREAT ENGLISHMEN