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HISTORY OF

THE POST-OFFICE PACKET SERVICE

Frontispiece.

WINDSOR CASTLE—CAPT. ROGERS, COMMANDER.

HISTORY OF
THE POST-OFFICE PACKET SERVICE
BETWEEN THE YEARS 1793–1815
COMPILED FROM RECORDS, CHIEFLY OFFICIAL

BY

ARTHUR H. NORWAY

London

Macmillan and Co.

and New York

1895

All rights reserved

NOTE.

My acknowledgments are due to Mrs. Ball, of Roscarrach, Falmouth, for permission to make use, in illustrating this work, of four pictures in her possession, namely, two of the action of the “Duke of Marlborough” with the “Primrose” one of the “Windsor Castle,” and one of the “Hinchinbrooke” To Mr. Burton, of the Old Curiosity Shop, Falmouth, I am indebted for an illustration of Russell’s Wagons; and to many other friends, in Cornwall and elsewhere, for very kind assistance and advice.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

CHAPTER I.
FALMOUTH IN THE OLDEN TIME.

No nation can afford to forget its past history; and England, of all others, whose power is so deeply rooted in sea-fights, should not be careless of her naval records. After many generations of almost ceaseless warfare, there has been a long breathing time of peace, an interval which could not be better spent than in collecting and recording the actions of those brave men whose struggles ensured our ease, and preserving them for our own benefit, as well as for that of posterity.

This task has been accomplished long ago as regards the great sea-battles; and most of even the lesser fights in which the ships of the Royal Navy were engaged have been sufficiently described. But there remains a service distinguished over and over again, an ancient service, highly useful to the public, and associated with a great department of State, whose history has been left untold till all the officers connected with it have passed away, and the personal recollections which are the lifeblood of such a narrative are lost to us irretrievably—I refer to the Post-Office Packet Service.

The very name has grown unfamiliar to our ears. It brings nothing to our minds, recalls no train of recollections, stirs up no dim memories. For the whole world, with the exception of a few people in Cornwall and on the east coast of England, the Packet Service is dead, like all the men who made it, and fought in it, and laid their lives down for it. It was a fighting service, yet the naval histories scarcely mention it. It was for a century and a half the regular vehicle of travellers; yet among the multitude of books which treat of the journeys of our grandfathers, few indeed take note of the fact that they sometimes crossed the ocean. Its records, containing many a story which other nations would have set with pride in the forefront of their history, have lain neglected for eighty years. Some have perished through the carelessness of three generations; some were wantonly destroyed as possessing neither use nor interest. Even in Falmouth itself, so long the headquarters of the Service, the actions which distinguished it are forgotten; and you may search for half a day before finding some old sailor, mending his nets in the stern of a boat, in whose memories those stories linger which have never been collected, and which few indeed of his fellow-townsmen have cared to remember.

Seeing, therefore, that this oblivion has descended on the Service, it will be necessary at the outset to give some description of its nature and functions, of the men who constituted it, the voyages they performed, the profits they made, and so forth. This will best be done by describing the life of a single station; and, as it was at Falmouth that the largest number of Packets was stationed, and the most important business transacted, there is no other station so suitable for the purpose.

The town of Falmouth was associated most intimately with the Post-Office for more than a century and a half. Indeed, it would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that the town was made by its connection with the Mail Service. Certain it is that when the Post-Office selected Falmouth in 1688 as the point of embarkation and departure for the newly established Spanish mail boats, the Department found not an old established town and port, but a place as yet of the smallest consequence, only recently incorporated, possessing hardly any trade in spite of its advantages of situation, and hampered in its growth by the jealousy of neighbouring towns. In all those traditions of the past which made the glory of Fowey, Looe, Penryn, and a dozen other ports along the coast, the Falmouth men had no share whatever. Their town was a bare hillside when the Fowey men vindicated their claim to rank among the Cinque Ports. It was nothing but a cluster of cottages when the Armada sailed up the Channel.

This very absence of traditions and of vigorous commercial life made the place more suitable for a Post-Office station, and may have largely influenced its choice. It would not have served the Department nearly so well to send its officers to a port where their affairs must have taken rank among other transactions, and the despatch of mails might have been delayed by the pressure of urgent commercial business. At Falmouth My Lords the Postmaster General[^[1]] took what was practically a clear board, and could write on it what they pleased.

[1]. The office of Postmaster General was until the year 1823 always held jointly by two Ministers of the Crown.

Throughout the eighteenth century the links which bound the Post-Office Service to the town grew steadily stronger. As the numbers of the Packets increased the local tradesmen prospered; the demand for naval stores was incessant; and in those days of difficult and slow communication it was necessary to obtain almost all supplies locally. Shipbuilding yards sprang up, rope walks were laid out, inns were built for the accommodation of the travellers who came from all parts of England to take passage for Spain or the West Indies. A considerable number of merchants found their chief occupation in supplying the officers of the Packets with goods to be sold on commission in foreign ports, for the statute which prohibited such trade was not enforced, and many more were engaged in disposing of wines and lace, tobacco and brandy, which were smuggled home on board the Post-Office vessels under cover of the opportunities created by this irregular traffic. The sons of the sailors, as they grew up, sailed with their fathers. The sons of the commanders took up their fathers’ appointments, while the old men retired on their pensions and their savings to comfortable houses in the pleasant neighbourhood of Falmouth, creating with their wives and families a society among themselves, and so binding closer with each successive generation the ties between the town and the Service in which their lives were spent.

And so as the town of Falmouth grew and developed it continued to be what it had been at the outset, a Packet town, every trade and interest which its inhabitants professed being drawn irresistibly towards the important State Department which had settled itself down in their midst. Merchants and tradesmen were to be found of course, who conducted prosperous businesses upon independent lines; but it is probably safe to say that at the end of the last century there was hardly one person in the place who did not feel that he would have been injured in his profession, and yet more in his sympathies and his pride, by any step which impaired the permanence of the relation between Falmouth and the Post-Office Service.

The life of a seaport can never be dull with the hopeless insipidity of an inland town, and Falmouth especially, possessing a harbour which formed an unequalled station for watching the French coast, had its share of excitement in the coming and going of the warships. But in the vessels belonging to the port, the Falmouth Packets, there was an even greater and more enduring interest. For the Packets were the regular vehicles of news. Their commanders were under orders to inform themselves of the situation of affairs in every country at which they touched; and wherever military or naval operations were being conducted, it was to them that everybody looked for a full and accurate plan of the campaign.

Thus the news for which all England was waiting reached Falmouth first, and was ventilated and discussed in every tavern in the town a full day at least before it was in the hands even of Ministers in London. A look-out man was constantly stationed on the Beacon Hill above Falmouth, whence the returning Packets could be seen for a great distance coming up the coast. As soon as one was sighted the watchman hastened down and spread the news about the town, receiving in accord with regular custom a shilling from every woman whose husband was on board; and then the people crowded out towards Pendennis to see the Packet sailing in, speculating and guessing as to whether she had spoken with the fleet, whether a battle had occurred, watching anxiously to see whether the sides or rigging of the vessel bore any marks of shot—for it was a common thing for them to fight their way across the ocean. Then the gigs from the hotels, well manned with sturdy rowers, would shoot out from the inner harbour, racing as eagerly as in a regatta to catch the first of the passengers; and in a little while the Market Strand, which was the usual landing-place, would be packed with people pushing and struggling to congratulate the home-comers, to hear how stoutly the Packet had beaten off a Privateer, to understand exactly where the great battle of our fleet was fought, and how many French ships had been taken. On such occasions the town seethed with excitement, and it was a frequent thing to close the day’s proceedings by a dance on the deck of the Packet as she lay at anchor in the harbour.

A Spanish traveller, Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella, who visited England in 1808, has left in his published letters an amusing account of the noise and racket which went on in Falmouth immediately after the arrival of the Packet from which he landed.

“The perpetual stir and bustle in this inn,” he plaintively observes, “is as surprising as it is wearisome. Doors opening and shutting, bells ringing, voices calling to the waiter from every quarter, while he cries ‘coming’ to one room, and hurries away to another. Everybody is in a hurry here; either they are going off in the Packets and are hastening their preparations to embark, or they have just arrived and are impatient to be on the road homeward. Every now and then a carriage rattles up to the door with a rapidity which makes the very house shake. The man who cleans the boots is running in one direction, the barber with his powder bag in another. Here goes the barber’s boy with his hot water and razors; there comes the clean linen from the washerwoman, and the hall is full of porters and sailors bringing up luggage, or bearing it away. Now you hear a horn blow because the post is coming in, and in the middle of the night you are awakened by another because it is going out. Nothing is done in England without a noise, and yet noise is the only thing they forget in the bill.”

So vivaciously writes Don Manuel of what he saw and heard on his landing in Falmouth, and while it would be futile to deny that his amiable sarcasm about our national propensity for noise contains a grain of truth, yet it may be fairly claimed that the affairs of an establishment so large as that which the Post-Office maintained at Falmouth could not have been conducted with the leisurely and well-bred movements to which Spanish life had accustomed him.

There were, when the Don landed at the Market Strand, thirty-nine Packets at Falmouth, of which one sailed every week for Lisbon, one for San Sebastian, or some other port on the north coast of Spain, whence communication with our army in the Peninsula could be maintained, one for the West Indies, sailing alternately by a different route among the islands, and others at somewhat longer intervals for the Mediterranean, Brazil, Surinam, Halifax, and New York. The officers and crews of these Packets formed a body of no less than twelve hundred men, all permanently employed by the Post-Office, while the passengers numbered between two and three thousand in the course of a year.

The mere coming and going, and the natural demands of so large a number of people, created a great prosperity in Falmouth. There was plenty of money in the town, and it was spent as freely as it had been gained. The commanders were all making large incomes. The passage money was the chief source of profit, and from this alone each one of them drew a net income of approximately £1000 per annum. Their fees on the carriage of bullion were more variable, but at times very considerable; while, as long as the privilege of private trading existed, there were few commanders who did not turn over as much by the sale of goods on commission as he drew from the passenger fares. These, with the regular official pay of £8 a month in war, and £5 in peace, formed the commander’s legitimate receipts. Some people said that his financial transactions did not end there; but that is as it may be. And, after all, smuggling was not condemned by public opinion in the West of England; though probably in the early years of this century much less was done in this way at Falmouth than in the previous generation.

It may be interesting to record the sums paid by passengers on a few of the voyages most frequently made in those days. The rates here given are those current in 1807, and were somewhat higher than were in force ten years earlier.

From Falmouth to Gibraltar the fare was thirty-five guineas, and to Malta fifty-five guineas. The cost of the necessary provisions in the Mediterranean ports was so much greater than at Falmouth, that the homeward fares were higher still, viz., sixty guineas from Malta, and forty-five guineas from Gibraltar. Passengers for Jamaica paid fifty-four guineas, and were provided with everything except bedding; but when they returned they were by old custom to provide themselves with food in addition, and yet were mulcted of fifty guineas.

As for the bullion brought home in the Packets, there were landed at Falmouth in a single year the following sums:

To face p. [10].

RUSSELL’S WAGONS.

A treasure of such value demanded special precautions for its safe keeping. It was stored in a chamber cut in the solid rock which forms the hillside on which the town of Falmouth lies. This chamber was lined with sheet iron, and its doors were of oak strongly bound with iron bars. Here the treasure lay in absolute safety until arrangements could be made for conveying it to London. It travelled by vehicles which are yet well remembered in Cornwall, and which, in their day, constituted one of the chief modes of communication between London and the West of England. Russell’s wagons were indeed travelling upon the Great West Road before the first mail coach bowled out of London; and as the passenger fares by the “Highflyer” or the “Rocket” were beyond the means of poor people, there were always some, even until the days of railways, who preferred to journey with the wagons, sleeping by night beneath the tilt, and trudging all day beside the wagoner’s pony. There was no difficulty in keeping pace; for the rate did not exceed two, or at most three, miles an hour. The horses never trotted; the progress was a sort of stroll. Inside the wagon rode a man armed with pistol and blunderbuss. The drivers were provided with horse pistols, and, when treasure was in the wagons, a guard of soldiers marched up to London with them, one on either side, two in the rear, to guard against surprise.

The roads were unsafe enough in old days, but there is no memory of any attack upon Russell’s wagons; though a tradition lingers that such a venture was once planned, but frustrated by a dream which revealed the robbers’ plot. Hardly fifty years have passed since these old wagons might still have been met, toiling at their leisurely pace along the western road. But the new railway was fast devouring the country; the busy inns were closing one by one; that great silence was falling over the country roads which has lasted until now. The passengers went by train; the specie no longer came to Falmouth. The old wagons had had a long day, but it was past; and they went the way of other anachronisms. The illustration which faces this page shows perhaps more clearly than any description, the picturesqueness of this phase of by-gone life.

It was not with the wagons that the change in progress either began or ended. The construction of railways was changing the face of England, robbing certain districts of their old importance, and raising others to a consequence which they had never before enjoyed. The picturesque and busy life of Falmouth was doomed. The same silence was fast stealing over the port and town as had settled on the country roads. The townsmen fought hard and long to retain their ancient Service, but the spirit of the age was too strong for them. Bit by bit the Packets were removed to other ports, and an old and memorable chapter of our history was brought to a close.

CHAPTER II.
LAX ADMINISTRATION.

It may be that from the bird’s-eye view given in the previous chapter, the reader has gathered some impression of the magnitude of the Post-Office establishment at Falmouth, and of the strength and number of the ties which united it with the prosperity of that town.

To describe in similar detail the life of other Packet Stations would be tedious and useless; for no one of them could vie with the great Cornish seaport in any circumstance of interest. The Dover Station, whence the Calais Packets sailed, was closed during every French war. The Harwich, or Yarmouth boats, for they sailed during several years from the latter port, stood next to Falmouth in importance. They maintained the Postal Service for Holland and Northern Europe generally, sailing chiefly to the Brill and to Hamburg. Their voyages on the stormy North Sea were often dangerous; and were performed with great skill and hardihood, but with little variety of incident. It was not until the Continental System established by Napoleon began to force the exclusion of English vessels from every seaport which his hand could reach, and like a creeping paralysis, the hostile influence mounted steadily up the shores of the North Sea and the Baltic,—it was only then that the Harwich Packets began to serve as counters in a game of exceptional difficulty. The Holyhead Station confronted no dangers worth speaking of. The Milford Packets ran to Waterford, often making rough and troublesome passages, but offering very little detail worth recording. The boats between Portpatrick and Donaghadee were still less interesting.

In every sense Falmouth was the chief station. Nearly every vestige of interest connected with the ancient Mail Service centres there, and the Falmouth Packets may be regarded as the most perfect type of the Post-Office Establishment.

No account appears to be extant of the circumstances attending the institution in the year 1688 of a Service of Packets from Falmouth Harbour, but they may be easily surmised. For fourteen years the communications were with Corunna alone. It could scarcely have been for the convenience of passengers that in those days of difficult roads, the most westerly port in England was chosen as the place of embarkation. The selection suggests that the Government were guided in their choice by the paramount necessity of quick passages, and the swift transmission of news; and this anxiety for haste is amply accounted for by the growing importance of Spanish politics at the time. Questions were indeed arising in that quarter of the world which were of vital consequence to England; and the Ministry in providing a means of forwarding and receiving despatches with regularity, were impelled by something like necessity.

The idea of a Regular Service of Packet boats, supported by the Government, was not a novel one. Such a Service had existed on the eastern coast of England from very early times; and in the Packets of Harwich or Dover a model for the new establishment was ready to hand. A somewhat different type of vessel was required for the Corunna voyage. The new Packets were considerably larger, nearly two hundred tons, while those serving in the North Sea did not usually exceed sixty tons. They were also more heavily armed, as became vessels which ventured further from the protection of English cruisers in the home waters, and carried a larger complement of men. They were hired under contract, and were not the property of the Post-Office, which, indeed, at no period of its administration, became the owner of the Packets, though the officers and men serving on them were from very early days the servants of the Postmaster General, not of the contractors.

It might have seemed more natural that the new Packets should sail from the same ports as the old ones, and be located on the east coast, where all the machinery needed for their administration was at work already. But it seems to have been recognized from the outset that for the Spanish Service that port was the most suitable which lay furthest to the west. Falmouth was chosen from the first, and though in the early years of the last century the contractors were occasionally allowed to despatch their boats from Plymouth, and even once or twice (under a strong representation of the danger of Privateers watching a known point of departure) from Bideford, the Postmaster General, as time went on, became less ready to fall in with the whims of these gentlemen, and the Service settled down regularly at Falmouth.

That the right port was chosen there cannot be a doubt. The extreme westerly position of Falmouth Harbour gives it an advantage which is rendered evident by a single glance at the map. From no other harbour in this country can an outward bound vessel clear the land so soon. No other is so quickly reached by one homeward bound running for shelter. On the darkest nights and in dense fog, ships unacquainted with the harbour enter it in safety, so easy is it of access; and sailing vessels can leave it in any wind, save one blowing strongly from the east or south-east. The prevalent gales in the English Channel are from the west. These are head winds for a ship leaving Plymouth, the port with which Falmouth is most naturally compared; but they are favourable for Falmouth. In fact, it happened only on very rare occasions that the despatch of the mails was delayed by stress of weather;[^[2]] and the Post-Office agent, when giving evidence on the subject in 1840, could not remember one instance of such delay throughout his whole service, extending over forty-five years.

[2]. The standing rule was that the Packets must put to sea immediately on receiving the mails, whatever the wind was, provided only that they could carry a double-reefed topsail—a striking proof of the certainty with which a good and well-found sailing vessel can clear the Channel from Falmouth.

If, however, Falmouth excelled in ease of access, the natural advantages of the harbour were still more evident when the ships had reached it. It is, in fact, the safest anchorage in the country, protected from the full strength of the Atlantic rollers by the great promontory of Meneage, and abounding in sheltered creeks where vessels might lie in practical immunity from the worst of storms.

On one of these creeks the town of Falmouth stands; and this inlet, the King’s or Inner Harbour, was assigned to the Packets as their special anchorage. It lies in such a situation that the swell entering the harbour is diverted from it by the high land of Pendennis, at the entrance of the port; and the advantage of this aspect is so great, that vessels may be seen lying in the Inner Harbour without perceptible motion, while just outside others are rolling gunwale under.

There is seldom any difficulty in leaving this sheltered anchorage. With a fair wind a vessel may be in the open sea in a quarter of an hour after slipping her moorings off Green Bank, opposite the town of Falmouth; and here the Packets used to lie until the day before sailing, when they warped out into Carrach Roads, and lay there to receive the mails, in order that not the slightest loss of time might occur in proceeding to sea when the bags were once on board.

At Falmouth then the Post-Office located itself in the year 1688, with two Packet boats hired from a contractor, one Daniel Gwin, who appears to have received a salary of £70 per annum, in addition, doubtless, to whatever he could make indirectly out of his contract. Probably his gains were considerable. At any rate the Government made none, for the accounts show from year to year a loss of several thousand pounds upon the maintenance of these two boats, from which, indeed, the revenue seems seldom to have received more than £450. Expensive as the Corunna Packets proved to be, it may be presumed that the promoters of the Service were not dissatisfied with it; for early in the new century they proceeded to develop it. The West Indian trade was becoming important enough to make its wishes felt. The merchants engaged in it may probably have represented that the regular communication now established with Corunna gave their colleagues in the Spanish trade more facilities than they enjoyed. All Governments have found it difficult to resist such an argument; and accordingly, in 1702, Packets were established at Falmouth to ply to Barbados, Jamaica, and certain places in the Southern States of North America. Two years later a Service with Lisbon was set up; and the Post-Office Service at Falmouth began to assume the form which it preserved until within the memory of men now living.

It is no part of the present writer’s purpose to trace in detail all the events which went to make up the history of the Packet Station at Falmouth during the last century. Such a task would doubtless throw much light on naval history, and some, perhaps, on other subjects not without their share of interest. The materials are scanty, however, and the record might be dreary reading. The personal recollections which would have lit the story up and made it real are lost beyond recall. What has come down to us is hardly more than the bald record of administrative changes—at such a time there were two West India Packets, at another four; under one regime they touched at Charlestown and Pensacola, while under its successor their voyages were restricted. There were such changes of rule in regard to victualling the sailors, such and such difficulties in controlling them; and so on. It is nothing but an arid waste of technicalities, almost devoid of interest save for the professed student of naval or commercial history.

One or two facts stand out from this mass of detail, and arrest attention as we pass it by. There is the occasional mention of a sea fight, in which so many men (in proportion to the number of the crew) were killed and wounded, as to create a strong desire to know the details.

Thus, an order of the Postmaster General, dated May 16th, 1744, recounts that a petition has been received from one Hannah Christophers, widow of Joseph Christophers, who lost his life on June 24th, 1740, on board the “Townshend” Packet, Captain John Cooper, in an engagement against the Spaniards, wherein five men (whose names are given) received “several grievous wounds in defence of the Packet, and afterwards suffered a long and cruel imprisonment of sixteen months.” By the rules and customs of His Majesty’s service, the order goes on to observe, these poor men are entitled to “some bounty or allowance for their comfort and support”; and the Postmaster General, having in mind this laudable usage, and moreover, “having in part experienced it will be impossible to carry on the sea service of this office without great difficulty, danger, and interruption, unless some such encouragement be constantly given in the like cases,” proceed to award bounties ranging from £4 to £10, and in one case even a pension of no less amount than £4 per annum!

We shall hear further of the “Townshend” Packet, for the mantle of Captain John Cooper descended on the commander of another “Townshend,” by whom some seventy years later a great action was fought against hopeless odds with such determined bravery as must be admitted to surpass any other recorded achievement of the Post-Office fleet.

Again, on July 25th, 1759, it is ordered that Captain John Jones be allowed £100 for his gallant defence of the “Fawkener” Packet, when attacked by a large French sloop of twelve carriage guns and upwards of one hundred men between Barbados and Antigua; and three years later the same sum was awarded to Captain Bonell, for bravery and good conduct in action with a French Privateer.

Many more such quickly jotted entries of the perils of brave men can be traced in the ancient records. The details of their conduct were allowed to perish. The question of account alone survives. Enough has been said however to show that from the outset the Falmouth Packets formed a fighting service, that is to say, a service which was frequently called upon to fight, and understood how to acquit itself when occasion arose.

It is true that the Packet officers were not allowed to seek engagements; and this rule, though obviously necessary, seeing that the safety of the mails was the sole object of the Service, proved most difficult to enforce. The difficulty was not caused by any especial unruliness on the part of the Falmouth officers. It grew from a much deeper root, and flourished in the natural tendency of all mankind to pick up any articles of value which can, even by a stretch of conscience, be regarded as fair prize.

A long succession of years of peace has so confirmed the sacredness of the principles of meum and tuum in the minds of most of us, that it is not easy to realize how far they were undermined in days of war, especially upon the high seas. The world has grown very punctilious, and looks askance on even honest privateering, while piracy is universally held to deserve no better fate than a post and chains in Execution Dock. In the last century these excellent sentiments were by no means generally entertained, at any rate in quarters where they were likely to be acted on. Among men of the sea, the ocean was regarded in the light of a great lucky bag, into which you thrust your hand and pulled out the best thing you could find. If the thing belonged to your neighbour, so much the worse for him. He should have kept his guns in better practice, and trained his men more carefully to the use of small arms.

Now there were sailing on the seas in those days a considerable number of ill-defended ships which were so very valuable as to make a poor sailor’s mouth water and his fingers tingle. Of the wealth of the Spanish treasure ships every one has heard. The sums they are reported to have carried in their clumsy holds sound fabulous even to us as we read of them in the sober light of history; and exaggerated as they doubtless were in the heated atmosphere of a Falmouth tavern, where every sailor strove to surpass his neighbour in marvellous tales of the sea, these reports must have seemed to many a poor Packet captain to open a road to untold wealth. Such galleons were captured very easily sometimes. A little disguise to make the Packet look like a sloop of war, a bold onset, a desperate boarding assault, and the prize would be won. Many a well-armed vessel had been taken by a handful of men! England was at war with Spain during a great part of the last century; and did not that fact make the Spanish argosies the fair prize of any Englishman who could seize them?

Whether, under the influence of such considerations, a treasure ship was ever taken by a Packet, is not mentioned in the scanty records. But it is certain that a good deal of piracy in a quiet way was done by the Falmouth commanders, especially early in the century, when the control from headquarters was lax, and the necessity of watching the use made of the armaments supplied by the Government was not clearly seen. The officers showed a disposition to call the irregularity “privateering”; but a vessel which takes prizes without a license from the Crown is a Pirate, not a Privateer, and the Packets never held such licenses.

Of course without a license there was a difficulty in disposing of a captured vessel. The intervention of the Admiralty Court could not be sought, unless indeed it was possible to represent the Packet as having been attacked, and as having captured her prize in self-defence. The Admiralty Courts were not models of incorruptibility, as all who recollect Lord Cochrane’s descriptions of them will allow, and doubtless did not inquire too closely into any plausible story. But if the matter would not bear even their examination, there were a dozen ports known to all sailors where a vessel and her cargo could be sold without any questions asked.

Of course these practices, however full of charm for the officers who profited by them, were very strongly condemned by the Postmaster General, who had to consider only the safety of the mails, and to guard against the chance of heavy claims being made upon the Government for the value of captured Packets. As far as was possible, therefore, they forbade piracy and punished the offenders; and yet the frequency of the offence is pretty clearly shown by the fact that it was constantly being adduced as the best of all reasons for not arming the Packets heavily. About the year 1780, as was detailed before a committee of the House of Commons, a sailor called at the General Post-Office, to announce the capture of the Packet in which he sailed. He described the gallant stand which his officers and his fellow seamen had made against hopeless odds, spoke feelingly of the cruel captivity they had undergone, in which some of them were still languishing, exhibited the scar of the wound he had received, and confidently claimed the “smart money” which he had earned so well.

The story was imposing, but it did not survive cross-examination. Something suggested suspicion; and by degrees the true facts were wormed out of the brave fellow. It was quite true that his Packet had been captured. In the early dawn of a certain summer morning, as the Packet was running towards New Orleans, she descried two innocent-looking vessels lying-to off the shore. They were remarkably like sugar ships, such as would fetch a substantial sum, if sold judiciously; and being traders, were doubtless well within the power of the Falmouth vessel, which accordingly ran down, and sent a shot across their bows, only to find the strangers were a French frigate and her consort, which quickly turned the tables on their presumptuous adversary.

Of course in such a case as this the Government would admit no claim for the value of the Packet lost by gross misconduct, and it may probably be assumed that the money loss thus thrown upon the owners was not the only punishment imposed. There were cases, however, in which conduct equally irregular, but which happened to succeed, was entirely condoned; and a striking instance of this leniency shown towards success occurred in the year 1808, at a time when several years of strong administration had purified the Packet Service of many of its blemishes. It may be safely concluded that for every such case occurring in the present century, there were half a dozen in the last.

It was a Harwich Packet which was concerned in this curious case; and it may be that the Postmaster General thought it unnecessary to apply a strict rule to a station on which the Packets came but rarely into conflict with the enemy. The circumstances were as follows:—

On June 16th, 1808, the “Earl of Leicester,” Captain Anthony Hammond, homeward bound from Gothenburg with mails and passengers, was met about ten leagues to the westward of the Scaw by a gale of wind which obliged her to bear away for Marstrand. On the way thither she encountered two Danish vessels laden with corn from Jutland for their army in Norway. Now, under his instructions Captain Hammond had nothing to do with these vessels, but to leave them alone. It is true this country was at war with Denmark at the time; but the “Earl of Leicester” was neither one of H.M. cruisers, nor a letter of marque, and had no business to involve herself in the matter. Captain Hammond never asserted that the Danish vessels attacked him. Indeed both he and they had quite enough to do at the moment with their own affairs, for a full gale of wind was blowing, and all the ships were labouring heavily. Nevertheless Captain Hammond, it being as he said “too rough to board them,” ordered them to regard themselves as prizes, and to follow him.

The two Danish ships being unarmed had no choice but to obey these orders, and Captain Hammond made joyfully for Marstrand with his prizes. He had not proceeded very far when one of them flew signals of distress, and made known that she was in danger of sinking. Captain Hammond lowered a boat and at great risk took the crew out of the foundering vessel, which went down as soon as the boat had got clear of her. The remaining prize duly reached Marstrand, and was handed over to the British Consul at that port, to await the decision of the Admiralty Court. The crews of both vessels were liberated, on giving a promise to do their utmost to secure the release of the crew of the “Unity” Packet, captured in the previous November.

On board the “Earl of Leicester” were three Swedish passengers, who were so far from feeling satisfied with Captain Hammond’s conduct on this occasion that they addressed a special letter of complaint to the Postmaster General. In this letter they by no means admit that the prizes were picked up by Captain Hammond as he went along, in the casual way detailed by him, without delay or interruption to his voyage. On the contrary, they assert roundly, that he chased the two little vessels during a whole night, keeping up a continual fire both of cannon and musketry; that the “Earl of Leicester” was far past Schagen when the prizes were first seen, which of itself proved that Captain Hammond put in to Marstrand with no other motive than that of realizing them secure; and they add: “On account of this chase and capture, in which, in our opinion, Packets have no right to engage, our voyage to England was entirely broken off, because, during the above hostile operations, we were in continual anxiety and fear, loaded guns being carried about in the cabin where we lay, and several shots fired from them; and we had reason to fear that the war-like scene might soon be acted again, wherefore we did not venture to pursue our voyage on board the said Packet, but returned to Gothenburg.”

Captain Hammond, in reply to these charges, maintained that three gentlemen who, by their own admission, were extremely frightened, and to his knowledge were also lamentably sea-sick, were not the most trustworthy witnesses of what occurred, and with this argument, together with some evidence that the return to Marstrand was really made necessary by the weather, the Postmaster General remained content. The matter was dropped; and Captain Hammond, after waiting some five years, during which time the Admiralty Courts considered his case in their pleasant, leisurely way, received the value of the prize.

Smuggling was a practice very frequently charged against the Packet Service by its critics who, towards the end of the last century, raised an outcry loud enough to become heard in Parliament. It may be feared that the charge was by no means groundless. Indeed it would be strange if it were, seeing that throughout the west of England, if not elsewhere, the game of eluding the revenue laws was played with infinite zest and enjoyment by all classes of society. Falmouth itself was a nest of smugglers. The old town was full of hiding-places. The women entered into the sport with audacious ingenuity; and probably there was neither man, woman, nor child in the town, with the possible exception of the revenue officers, who did not regard the success of a smuggler as a triumph for his kind against men who were scarcely to be distinguished from foreign enemies.

It is true there was a high officer of the Post-Office at Falmouth, whose duty it was to discover malpractices of every kind, and report them to the Postmaster General. The contractor, from whom the Packets were hired at their first institution, had long since disappeared.

The Packets were hired from the commanders; and over these officers was set an agent, to whom each one of them was responsible for his actions. This agent was not Postmaster. His duties did not extend beyond the foreign mails and the conduct of the Packet officers and seamen. He was the link which united the sea service with the internal system of the Post-Office. His duties were multifarious and of the greatest consequence to the welfare of the service.

It is perfectly clear that the duties of a controlling officer cannot be properly performed unless he keeps his affairs and interests totally distinct from those of his subordinates. The misfortune was that the agents at Falmouth in the last century could not grasp this principle, but departed from it so far as to have trading relations with the commanders. The agent dealt in naval stores: the commanders supplied their Packets with spars and cordage from his stock.

This was not the only way in which the agent’s affairs became entangled with those of the men he was placed at Falmouth to control. The Packets, though nominally owned by the commanders, with whom the Government contracted for their hire, were in most cases really the property of a syndicate, or of private individuals, who put forward the commander to represent them, on condition of receiving the larger part of the emoluments. This capitalist in the background was frequently no other than the agent himself.

Relations such as these of course rendered it very difficult for the agent to perform the duties of his position at all effectually, and, as a matter of fact, he did not so perform them. Abuses of every kind crept into the Falmouth service. The captains were subjected to gross extortions by the agent, who in turn relaxed discipline in any way they might desire. If, for instance, it occurred to any commander, that by sailing with a few men short of his complement, he could save their victualling allowances and so increase his own profits; the agent, whose duty it was to muster the men immediately before sailing, would either neglect the muster altogether, or else make it, and be careful not to see the shore-boat which, immediately afterwards, took off three or four of the men who had answered to their names. If the captain wished to stay ashore, whilst his Packet went to sea, the agent would accept and forward to London a certificate that he was ill, without asking any questions either as to the nature of the illness or the qualifications of the person appointed to command the ship, who was not infrequently a common seaman. If the captain had received from some Bristol merchant a larger consignment of goods to be sold on commission at Lisbon or Barbados than his vessel ought to carry, the agent would still certify that she was in trim when she left Falmouth harbour, and had nothing on board which could impede her sailing. In fact, there were a hundred ways in which the agent could oblige those captains who dealt largely with him; and without attempting to go more deeply into the events of the last century, it may fairly be doubted, in the light of the scandals discovered in its closing years, whether misconduct far grosser than any here indicated was not practised by the commanders and tolerated by the agent.

This is a matter which will be dealt with more fully in succeeding chapters. Enough has been said to show that the state of affairs at Falmouth was unsatisfactory to the last degree; and while it may very probably be that a considerable number of individuals acted with scrupulous fidelity to their trust, there is no doubt whatever that very many betrayed it systematically.

Of course, a strong administration from headquarters would have changed all this. But the General Post-Office itself was by no means exempt from the taint which had fastened on Falmouth. There was scarcely a single official, from the secretary down to the door-keepers, who did not own shares in the Packets, and each one of them was for ever trying to secure advantages for the particular vessel in which he was interested. The ancient system of paying the clerks merely nominal salaries, and leaving in their hands privileges and perquisites out of which they were expected to make their chief, if not their sole, remuneration, produced its natural effect in causing every officer to judge upon departmental matters in the light of his own pecuniary advantage; and, in short, it can only be said that when the outcry in Parliament, which has been mentioned already, made itself heard, it was high time for some change to occur.

In truth, the end of an age of corruption was approaching. In all departments of Government a purer atmosphere was spreading. The Post-Office was no worse than other public offices. It was what the spirit of the times had made it, and it did but partake of the vices which were characteristic of the age. The old, bad system was everywhere breaking down, crushing individuals beneath it, as such rotten growths will when they fall at length. At Falmouth, a certain agent went too far. The unsavoury story need not be probed. Even at the time, as would appear, the facts were not fully disclosed; for it no sooner became plain that a searching inquiry into the agent’s conduct would be made, than the miserable man shut himself up in his office and blew his brains out.

That tragic occurrence marked, or coincided with, a turning point in the history of the Packet Service. On one side lies corrupt and slovenly administration, with its natural sequel of scandals and disorder. On the other can be traced the commencement of earnest endeavours for reform, the springing up of patient and honest striving after an ideal; and as the course of events in the Packet Service is followed from this moment through the forty years or so which intervened before the control passed from the hands of the Post-Office, the effect of these endeavours becomes continually more manifest, till they culminate at last in something resembling absolute success.

This is the story told in the ensuing pages. It is taken up from the year 1793, because that year, the first of the great struggle for mastery on which no Englishman can look back without pride, serves well to mark the commencement of the new order of things. Moreover, much more is to be known about the Packet Service from 1793 onwards than can be gleaned concerning the earlier period. The departmental records are fairly complete thenceforward; some account, at least, of every sea fight is preserved; and among piles of brown and dusty papers, from some of which the ink is fading fast, there has lain untouched for ninety years, not only the story of a piece of administrative work, as difficult and as useful to this country as any that has ever been carried through by patient effort, but also a whole series of naval actions, of which the Post-Office was once proud, and of which Cornishmen are proud still, though they have forgotten the details of most.

CHAPTER III.
A FIRMER RULE.

At the beginning of the year 1793, then, while the relations of this country with France were quickly growing desperate, the two statesmen who, according to the custom of the time, jointly filled the office of Postmaster General, were engaged in endeavouring to set their Department in order, and to reduce the expenses of administration, as the House of Commons Committee had directed.

The difficulty of any interference in a system which had grown up through a whole century was obviously very great. Malpractices which four generations of officers at Falmouth had learned to regard as their natural privileges would not be given up at the first word of rebuke from headquarters. The profits of smuggling would not be dropped without a struggle. Laxity of discipline, remissness, carelessness of the credit of the Department—these were faults which, where they existed, could be cured only by a firm rule and in course of years. One decision had, however, been taken, and was already being carried out, from which important results proceeded, and which upon the whole effected much good.

Throughout the whole existence of the Falmouth Packets up to this time it had scarcely been questioned that on the long Atlantic voyages the safety of the mails was directly proportionate to the heaviness of the armament. The West India merchants were perpetually forcing this point on the Postmaster General, and whenever a mail for Barbados or Jamaica was lost, the General Post-Office was beset with an indignant throng of merchants, loudly demanding that more and more guns should be assigned to every Packet which had to run the gauntlet of the West India Islands.

The influence of wealthy merchants upon the Post-Office is perhaps in our own day as great as is convenient. But a hundred years ago it was infinitely greater. For the General Post-Office, which has now grown into something resembling a populous town, was then itself scarcely larger than the office of any considerable merchant. Between St. Martin’s le Grand, as we know it, and the office of whatever city firm, there may be interchange of views, but there can be no intimate association; and it is exactly this which existed between the Post-Office in Lombard Street, in 1793, and the neighbouring offices, which were as large, if not as important, as itself.

The Post-Office Packets in those days were carriers of news as well as of the mails. The officers had instructions to record most carefully in their journals full details of any events of public importance occurring in the countries which they visited. These journals, which frequently contained news later and more authentic than any which had yet reached London, were sent up from Falmouth immediately after the arrival of the Packets, and lay at the Post-Office open to the inspection of the merchants, who were thus continually in the office, inquiring and commenting on every detail connected with the administration of the Packets, proffering suggestions, and criticizing in season and out of season.

This constant association with the clerks of the Post-Office placed in the hands of the West India merchants very great opportunities of pressing their views about the armament of the Packets, and they did press them with such pertinacity and vehemence that it must have required courage on the part of Lords Chesterfield and Carteret to announce the resolution not to increase those armaments, but to cut them down, and to send the Packets to sea in future totally unfit to resist Privateers of their own size.

Such was the new policy, arranged in concert with the Navy Board. It was not lacking in audacity. The Packets stationed at Falmouth were of different sizes and varying rig. In future, all new vessels were to be of a certain fixed design, of 179 tons burden, carrying a crew of twenty-eight men and boys, with four 4–pounders, two 6–pounders, for use as chasers, and a proportionate quantity of small arms.

A vessel armed and manned in this way was clearly not a fair match for any but the smallest class of French or Spanish Privateer. My Lords the Postmaster General admitted this, and stated that their reliance was on the capacity of the new Packets to outsail their enemies. The most patient thought had been given to the selection of the model. It was believed that vessels built on the new design would outsail most things afloat, and in order to give them a fair chance of doing so they were to carry as little weight of metal as possible. If they could keep off row-boats on entering or leaving the channel, more was scarcely expected of them save in the last resort. The commander’s duties were summed up in this formula, “You must run where you can. You must fight when you can no longer run, and when you can fight no more you must sink the mails before you strike.”

Here at one blow perished the system of Privateering in the Packet Service. A ship armed so lightly could not afford to cruise after prizes, but was sufficiently concerned with her own safety.

The West India merchants prophesied disaster, and indeed it seems that the Postmaster General in framing their plans were not untainted by the proverbially excessive zeal of the convert. The events of the next few years certainly suggest that the point of safety had been passed in reducing the armaments; and all the changes effected by further experience throughout the war were in the direction of increase.

Such as the system was, however, it was established, and My Lords had no time to discuss its merits or defects. The declaration of war burst upon them before their plans were executed, and forthwith the General Post-Office was beset with armourers and powder merchants, while the clerks were called off from handling letters and newspapers to discuss the pattern of a boarding pike, or to consult with Mr. Nock about the quality of the pistols which he had supplied.

Not one of the Packets had received its armament when the war broke out. It had not lasted three weeks when an incident occurred which showed how little time there was to waste.

The declaration of war had been immediately followed by a general embargo on shipping, but, in pursuance of an agreement between the French and English Governments, an order in Council exempted from this embargo Packets, and bye boats (vessels hired temporarily for the Postal Service), and announced that they were to continue to run for some time longer.

Under this agreement the “Despatch,” a Dover Packet, commanded by Captain John Osborn, set sail as usual; but on February 20th, while lying in Ostend Roads, she was summoned to surrender by a French Privateer. Captain Osborn had no means of resistance. His protests were disregarded, his ship was seized, and he with his crew were made prisoners of war.

The “Despatch” was carried into Dunkirk, and, despite the remonstrances of the British Government, was condemned as a prize. Captain Osborn was exchanged within a few weeks of his capture, but his crew were less fortunate. One of his sailors, after remaining in prison for nearly three years, during the whole of which period, if his statement may be trusted, he supported life on a handful of horse beans, served out every twenty-four hours, and a small allowance of dirty water, came over to England in a cartel in December, 1795. The rest of the crew were then still in prison, and probably remained there until peace was declared in 1802.

Under the stimulus of this unfortunate event the work of arming the Packets proceeded briskly. The guns and small arms for the Falmouth boats were shipped on board a vessel lying in the Thames, and after a series of irritating delays, caused chiefly by the necessity of waiting for convoy, reached their destination towards the end of March. The few guns needed for the Harwich Packets were soon provided. It had been intended to give them 4–pounders, but the commanders objected, declaring that four 2–pounders each were as much as their ships could carry. This was probably true enough, for the North Sea Packets ranged only from fifty to eighty tons burden. And indeed they had small need for heavy armaments, for though they doubtless had occasionally to skirmish with row-boats it does not appear that throughout the war any one of these Packets was attacked, or at least seriously engaged on the high seas—a somewhat remarkable immunity, which is perhaps to be accounted for partly by their own excellence of sailing, and partly by the thoroughness with which the important trade route over which their various voyages were made was patrolled by British cruisers.

It had not been customary in former wars to arm the Holyhead and Dublin boats, but a few light guns were now allowed to them, as well as to those from Port Patrick to Donaghadee. The Packets running between Milford Haven and Waterford were somewhat more exposed to the attacks of Privateers, which might be expected to hang about the entrance to St. George’s Channel in the hope of intercepting the shipping out of Bristol, but here a curious difficulty was raised by the proprietors, a body of merchants, nineteen in number. All but six of these gentlemen were members of the Society of Friends, and, being sincerely convinced of the sinfulness of war, they put in a decided objection against the proposal to provide their vessels with implements of strife and destruction.

The Postmaster General proceeded to reason with these ardent theorists, and pointed out that as, by the existing rule, the Department was bound to pay the value of captured Packets it was but reasonable that it should be allowed, at its own cost, to protect them. The men of peace, touched by the financial argument, admitted this, but retorted that if only the Government would refrain from the wickedness of placing guns and cutlasses in the hands of their sailors, they, that is to say the thirteen Quaker proprietors, would waive all claim to compensation in the event of capture. It was true, they admitted, that the six proprietors who were not Quakers were by no means ready to make this sacrifice, but the Government, they urged, might fairly be expected to risk the liability for six-nineteenths of the loss when a principle was at stake.

By this time, however, the Postmaster General had become tired of the discussion, and closed it with a brief intimation that if the Packets were not armed the contract would be withdrawn, and in view of this unsympathetic attitude the Quakers sold their shares and retired from the concern.

That the unwarlike attitude of the Quakers was by no means always accompanied by any want of natural courage was demonstrated not long after this period by a certain inhabitant of Falmouth, an old and greatly respected member of the Society of Friends. This gentleman held the appointment of surgeon to the Post-Office establishment, and was one day cruising on board a Packet when a French Privateer hove in sight. It was obvious that there was going to be a fight; and the commander, knowing his passenger’s principles, suggested that he had better go below. The doctor, a fine tall man, declined to budge from the deck; and the captain thereupon offered him a cutlass and pistol, observing that as he intended to remain in the way of danger, he might at least use weapons in self-defence. But this suggestion also the doctor refused to entertain; and, standing quite unarmed on the quarter-deck, he remained an interested and placid spectator of the action. After a sharp cannonade, the French vessel hurled her boarders into the Packet. The doctor showed no sign of excitement as he saw the fierce St. Malo men swarming up the sides, cutlass in hand; but when, a moment later, a swarthy giant came clambering up unperceived, at a point where there was no one to resist him, the doctor calmly stepped forward, threw his arms round the astonished Frenchman with a grip few men could have resisted, and saying, gently, “Friend, thee makes a mistake, this is not thy ship,” tossed him into the sea.

The work of armament was complete at last. The Packets, armed on the new system, sailed on their distant journeys; and at the General Post-Office there was no more to do than to await the reports how they fared.

The interval of waiting must have been full of anxiety. It was generally known that the number of French Privateers which were being sent out from St. Malo, Bordeaux, Nantes, and a dozen other ports, to prey on British commerce was beyond all precedent. Many of these Privateers cruised with the express intention of intercepting the Packets, attracted not only by the bullion which the Falmouth vessels frequently had on board, but even more by the hope of intercepting the Government despatches, and of striking blows at British trade by sending mercantile correspondence to the bottom of the sea.

How seriously such disasters were felt in the City of London the Postmaster General knew well; and they knew too that the West India merchants, those unfriendly critics who were constantly at their side, would pounce unmercifully on the first misfortune, and declare that the new system had broken down. Month after month went by, however, and no bad news reached Lombard Street. Packet after Packet came into port, and recorded uneventful voyages. Some had been chased, a few had exchanged shots with an enemy; but not one had been seriously engaged, or had experienced the least difficulty in escaping an antagonist; and the end of the year came before any Packet crept in beneath Pendennis Castle with battered sides, and sails torn by shot.

The “Antelope” Packet was commanded by Captain Kempthorne, a member of an old Cornish family which for many generations gave the navy some of its best officers. Captain Kempthorne, by some accident which he regretted during the short remainder of his life, had remained at home, and given over the command of his ship to Mr. Edward Curtis, the master, an officer of courage and discretion.

Under the charge of her acting commander, the “Antelope” was off Cumberland Harbour, in Jamaica, homeward bound, when she fell in with two schooners which at once gave chase. This was on the 1st December. Mr. Curtis put the ship to her best point of sailing, and she behaved so well that throughout the day the Cornishmen felt no doubt of being able to shake off their enemies. On the following morning one of the schooners was out of sight, but the other held on, and about four P.M. opened fire with her bow chasers. The “Antelope” replied smartly with all the guns she could bring to bear; and the Privateer, finding there was to be no bloodless victory, dropped astern, with the evident design of waiting for daylight before she commenced the action. Fearing a surprise, Mr. Curtis kept his men at their quarters throughout the night. The hours of waiting must have been trying to the nerve of the Falmouth men; but all was quiet until five A.M. At that hour the Privateer (her name was the “Atalanta”) suddenly ran down, aided by her sweeps, for the wind had dropped, and, laying herself alongside the “Antelope” to starboard, she poured in a broadside, which was promptly returned, and immediately a furious discharge of cannon and small arms set in on both sides. Under cover of the smoke the “Atalanta” cast out grappling irons and locked herself to the Packet, and at the same moment, by a shrill signal, her boarders were called to their stations.

Mr. Curtis was perfectly alive to the danger of his position. Some of his hands having been disabled by fever, he had but twenty-two men fit for service, counting the surgeon as a combatant; and a single glance was sufficient to show that the French were in much greater numbers. There was no chance of avoiding the assault, now that the grappling irons were securely fixed: yet, if the Privateersmen made good their footing on the deck of the Packet, the Cornishmen were tolerably certain to be overwhelmed by numbers.

At the moment when Mr. Curtis was watching the boarders congregating on the quarter, it was reported to him that a second party was forming at the bow. The Packetsmen were all too few to resist a single attack, and the design of the enemy clearly was to keep the whole force occupied at the stern, while a second party clambered over the bow nettings unresisted, and took the Cornishmen in the rear. Mr. Curtis hurried forward. There was not an instant to lose. The boarders were already mounting the bulwarks of their own ship. Some fifteen in number, they crowded together in a dense body, and in another instant would have leapt at the “Antelope,” when Mr. Curtis brought his two bow guns to bear upon them, double-shotted with round and grape. At that short range the discharge of these guns created terrible havoc, and killed or disabled the whole of the opposing party.

One peril had been successfully overcome, and the pressing danger was now on the starboard quarter, against which the attack had been delivered before Mr. Curtis could regain his quarter-deck. There was no gun which could be brought to bear, and the boarders consequently met with no obstacle in climbing up the side. Here, however, in the breezy language of the boatswain, John Pasco, “they were deceived by our boarding nettings and handspikes,” and after a desperate scuffle half of them were shot or thrust into the sea, while the remainder were glad enough to regain their own ship.

So far, fortune had favoured the Cornishmen; but success had been bought at a heavy price. Mr. Curtis lay dead on the deck—shot while encouraging his men without regard for his personal danger. The steward and a passenger were also killed; while the mate was so severely wounded as to be incapable of taking command of the ship, or indeed of giving any orders at all. The command thus devolved upon Pasco, the boatswain, an illiterate fellow, who could not write his name, but who in this emergency displayed the qualities of a brave sailor, and a born leader of men. He assumed the responsibility thus suddenly thrust on him without hesitation, and gave orders for a continuous fire of musketry to be maintained upon anything which showed itself on the French vessel’s decks. The “Antelope” was considerably higher than her antagonist, and the Cornish marksmen were thus under cover, while the decks of the “Atalanta” were swept by their bullets. At the same time a sharp cannonade was maintained, and by an unfortunate shot one of the “Antelope’s” guns was dismounted, whereupon Henry Bond, a seaman, believed to be one of the strongest men in England, coolly took up the gun in his arms, remounted it under a heavy fire, and returned to his post unharmed.

The effect of the musketry fire maintained by the Cornishmen was now beginning to show. The French were growing restless under it; and their officers, seeing that they were losing heavily, ordered the boarders forward once more. Pasco and his little crew were ready for them when they came, pleased to return to the occupation of “deceiving” the French with a handspike; and the end of it was that the boarders were driven back with great loss, but once more at a heavy cost, for three of the brave Packetsmen were disabled in the fight.

By this time the spirit of the French was daunted. They had lost all hope of capturing the “Antelope,” and, casting loose the grapplings, endeavoured to sheer off. Now was the time for Pasco to bear in mind the new official maxim, that commanders of Packets were not expected to resist an enemy of equal force. He had suffered heavy losses, he had but a handful of men fit for service, he had earned distinction by his brave defence, and if he let the French vessel go, he had nothing but credit to expect. But the man’s blood was up, and he meant to carry the affair through. The moment he saw the vessels separating, he sprang into the rigging, ran up aloft, and lashed the “Atalanta’s” squaresail yard to the “Antelope’s” fore shrouds.

“Thereupon,” to quote his own words once more, “we found the fire slacken, which greatly encouraged us. We kept up a constant fire for half an hour more, when we had the pleasure of hearing them cry for mercy. But to all appearance they deserved none, nor expected any, as some of them jumped overboard and drowned themselves, for their bloody flag was nailed to the masthead. They were ordered to tear it down, and we took possession, which it was lucky was so soon; for our mainsail, nettings, quarter cloths, and hammocks were on fire, which in the midst of the fire and smoke was not seen. To save the ship we were obliged to cut all away.”

Thus ended this gallant action. When Pasco and his men had leisure to examine their prize, they found that out of her crew of sixty-five men only sixteen remained unhurt, while no less than thirty-two lay dead upon the deck. Of the “Antelope’s” crew only two were slain, namely, Mr. Curtis and the steward; though Mr. Walpole, the surgeon, afterwards died, exhausted, as would appear, by the fatigue of attending on so many wounded men.

In James’ Naval History (vol. i., p. 111), where this action is briefly described, it is stated that the “Atalanta” carried eight 3–pounders, and the “Antelope” six. If this is correct, the “Antelope” had not yet been armed on the new principle described in the preceding pages. She was an old vessel, and it may have been thought wiser to leave her armaments unaltered.

When the circumstances of the action became known, the public enthusiasm rose to a height which seems in the retrospect a little overstrained, but which may certainly be accepted as a proof of the high degree of importance attached to the preservation of the mails. The news, moreover, reached England at a time when no great naval engagement had taken place, and when the success of several single ship actions had whetted the public appetite for glory without satisfying it. There was, too, something in the circumstances which touched the imagination; for it was not every day, even in the years of our greatest sea-fights, that a ship was brought out of action by her boatswain. It was seriously proposed to strike a medal in Pasco’s honour. The Jamaica House of Representatives voted five hundred guineas to be distributed among the crew. The Society for Encouraging the Capture of French Privateers—it was a Committee of Lloyds—granted a substantial sum for the same purpose, in addition to a gold boatswain’s call which they presented to Pasco, who was also rewarded by the Postmaster General with another similar call; while “smart money” and pensions were granted on the highest scale consistent with the regulations.

Even in distributing these rewards the Postmaster General found an opportunity for asserting their new principle. The Secretary’s letter to the agent at Falmouth ran as follows: “But Mr. Pender must let it be thoroughly understood amongst the officers and crews that these rewards are given only in consequence of the particular circumstances attending this glorious action, in which the “Antelope” was first chased from nine o’clock A.M. December 1st to December 2nd, when she was obliged to defend herself against an attack, but did not first attack an enemy. For the Postmaster General by no means intend to depart from the principle which they have been ordered to adopt, of considering it to be the duty of the Packets to outsail the enemy whenever they can, and by no means to fight when it can possibly be avoided.” In such terms the Secretary pointed his moral, perhaps a little incautiously. How his instructions were interpreted will appear hereafter.

Before leaving the subject of the “Antelope’s” action, it must be observed that the newspapers of the time were full of praise of the extraordinary bravery of a certain M. Nodin, a passenger, formerly a midshipman in the French navy. The circumstances, if true, are remarkable enough; but there is still in existence an official copy of a declaration signed by Pasco himself and by the gunner of the “Antelope,” in which the whole story is denied. M. Nodin resented this disparaging deposition, and threatened proceedings against the two petty officers for defaming his character, a suit which the Postmaster General described as “absurd,” and which does not seem to have been proceeded with. It is quite clear that the Post-Office authorities did not believe the story of M. Nodin’s prowess. The matter might not have been worth mentioning had not the tale acquired authority by being set forth by James (Naval History, vol. i., p. 112). The authors and upholders of the new system were, doubtless, cheered and encouraged by this action, which seemed to show that great results might be achieved with even smaller armaments than those recommended for the new Packets. The fact that one of the oldest and worst equipped ships had won this striking success was hailed as a happy augury; and so the old year went out among mutual congratulations and good hope for the future.

The sunshine was of short duration. The storm was rising already. In the first days of January the loss of the “Arab” was reported at the Post-Office. The “Arab” was one of the new Packets, and her capture was a serious misfortune. It appeared that she had been taken by a French frigate, “L’Insurgente,” while on her homeward passage from Corunna on Christmas Eve; and while it was evident that resistance would have been a useless sacrifice of life, there was some disappointment on finding that the “Arab’s” fine sailing qualities had not saved her.

Another disaster was quickly announced, though belonging this time more plainly to the category of accident. The “Princess Augusta,” again one of the new ships, caught fire while lying in the Tagus, and was completely burned. This was a mere piece of bad luck; but so much could not be said of the loss of the “Expedition,” which was carried into Brest, in April, by a French frigate, which she had failed to outsail. The matter was the more serious since not only one mail was lost, but three, the scarcity of Packets having compelled the Post-Office agent at Lisbon to despatch the mails of three successive weeks by a single ship. The precaution commonly taken in those days of sending duplicates of all despatches and important letters by the next mail following that which had carried the originals was thus completely frustrated on this occasion, and the inconvenience to the Government and the mercantile community must have been immense.

To losses of this nature, however, of which, in these days, people rarely think, the merchants of a hundred years ago were well accustomed; and on the whole they endured them with exemplary patience. The prevalent ideas of the risks of business were formed on the experience of a century of almost constant war. So far, the losses of Packets had been less numerous than in the last war; and there was, therefore, no great degree of discontent.

In July, the “King George,” a Lisbon Packet commanded by Captain Yescombe, was captured. She was about thirty leagues off Ushant, on her homeward voyage from Lisbon, when she fell in with four large French ships standing on the same tack. Captain Yescombe wore ship, and ran to the southwest until he had lost sight of the enemy for an hour or more; but had scarcely resumed his proper course when the four ships came in sight again, followed by four more in the same quarter; and in trying to avoid these squadrons, Captain Yescombe manœuvred himself into the jaws of the French 40–gun ship “Unité”; whereupon he sank the mails and despatches and struck his colours.

His experiences as a prisoner in France were rather curious. The “King George” was carried into Brest, and after remaining some time at that port, Captain Yescombe and his crew were sent to Quimper. It would appear from his letters that the English sailors confined in the naval prison of that town suffered great hardships, and that within nine weeks of his arrival no less than three hundred out of the whole number died miserably for want of proper food. From the risk of sharing their fate Captain Yescombe was delivered by a singular piece of good fortune. A lady residing near the prison, who happened to be related to the Commissary in charge of the prisoners, became aware of his forlorn condition, and obtained permission for him to lodge at her house. This arrangement continued for several months, when Captain Yescombe managed to escape, being, as he always maintained, not on parole at the time. He made his way to Brest, where he remained concealed for several weeks; and during this time he witnessed the sailing of the great fleet, which got out of Brest on the 31st December, 1794, under the command of Villaret Joyeuse; and gathered details concerning its composition and equipment which afterwards proved of service to the British Government. Towards the end of January he managed to obtain a passage across the Channel, and landed at Plymouth, greatly broken in health by the hardships he had undergone.

The romantic circumstances of this escape attracted attention both in England and in France. In the newspapers of the latter country it was indeed freely asserted that Captain Yescombe had broken his parole; and though the Postmaster General accepted their officer’s assurances on this point, yet the charge was so strongly asserted in France, and threats were so publicly made of meting out rigorous treatment to Captain Yescombe if he should again become a prisoner of war, that it was thought more prudent to allow his duties to be discharged by deputy for a time, and the “King George” accordingly sailed under command of her master until peace was declared in 1802.

CHAPTER IV.
THE WEST INDIA MERCHANTS.

The period on which the Post-Office now entered was, as far as its Foreign Mail Service was concerned, one of struggle and disaster. A long series of calamities was at hand, sufficient to shake the faith of those who trusted most firmly in the new system, and furnishing to those who from the first disliked and feared it, a well-nigh inexhaustible supply of arguments.

Before entering on this category of misfortunes it is necessary to remark again that throughout the war terminated by the peace of Amiens in 1802, the officers of the Falmouth station held a low standard of duty. There were doubtless many individuals among them who, in the midst of the prevailing laxity, maintained a more honourable course, and discharged their duties with perfect fidelity and vigour; but the fact that there was much ground for criticism in the conduct of the general body is proved by the frequent recurrence of minutes such as the following, inscribed in August, 1793, by command of the Postmaster General:—“The Postmaster General cannot but lament when they look at the absentee list of their captains in time of war, to see how many reasons they are constantly urging to stay at home, and of how little use they must consider their own presence at sea. There are now twelve Packets at sea, and no less than ten of the captains of them ashore.” The excuses urged were plausible enough; and it was only by considering them in the aggregate that the Postmaster General could make plain their shifty character. Remonstrances were frequent, but unavailing, and the Postmaster General proceeded to use such modes of compulsion as occurred to them.

Their first proceeding was to stop absolutely the comfortable old system whereby all the superior officers of a Packet stayed at home at ease, while the mails entrusted to them made their distant journey to Barbados or Jamaica under the charge of a common seaman, who felt his way across the Atlantic by rule of thumb. None of the officers lost a penny by this arrangement. The captain, or the owners whom he represented, whose profits were made largely out of the passengers and in a less degree out of the sum paid for the hire of the Packet, with a small annual salary, received every item of these amounts without deduction whether he made the voyage or not; and in these circumstances the natural inclination of mankind to turn their employments into sinecures was constantly asserting itself at Falmouth. In fact, the idea that so long as the commander, whether on board or not, was nominally responsible for the safety of his ship, no further questions ought to be asked, seems to have been elevated to the rank of an accepted principle of conduct at Falmouth, recognized by agent and commanders alike.

There was therefore a good deal of indignation when, in 1793, the agent, Mr. Pender, began to upset established practice, and went so far as to lay down the rule that, in the absence of the commander, no officer of lower rank than the master was to assume charge of a Packet. Mr. Pender explained that he was acting under instructions from headquarters; but the commanders could not believe that headquarters would be so unreasonable; and it needed a sharp, peremptory minute from the Postmaster General to convince them of the fact.

Of course this new arrangement was more costly to the commanders than the old one, for the master would not act as the captain’s deputy without receiving considerably more money than would have contented a common sailor. At the same time the Postmaster General reached the pockets of the absentee captains in another way, for they laid down that any commander who, by shirking voyages in time of war, abrogated his functions as a fighting officer, should receive only the salary paid in times of peace, which was two pounds a month lower than the pay of the war establishment.

These penalties bore too small a proportion to the whole income of the Falmouth commanders to influence their conduct greatly, and matters, therefore, went on very much as before. “The Postmaster General,” says a minute of the latter part of 1793, “cannot help thinking there must be some mistake about Captain D.’s application for leave, for, if they are right, he has been ashore on private business since September 11th, 1792, and yet has asked leave to be ashore this voyage. If that is so, they decidedly refuse him the leave he now asks for.” Captain D. probably thought it wiser to accept this decision without protest, but, whether by passive resistance or active subtlety, he certainly escaped going to sea; and five years later another Postmaster General commented on his proceedings in the following terms: “... We cannot forget that Captain D. has been absent from his duty during many years, assigning no other cause than the death of his mother in 1792. We shall be sorry for new occasions to revert to this consideration. Such occasions may lead to a decision that Captain Deake has not that due zeal for the service which we are obliged to expect from those who remain in it.” This incisive minute was penned by Lord Auckland, and its subtly-worded reference to some “two-handed engine” which might yet operate on Captain D. had the useful effect of frightening him back to his ship.

Such being the temper prevalent at Falmouth, good results were not to be expected. It will be necessary to return to this subject in a later chapter. It is now time to resume the catalogue of the various disasters which befell the sea service of the Post-Office in the latter years of the last century.

When the authorities at Lombard Street reviewed the events of the year 1794, they may have been, on the whole, fairly well satisfied with what had occurred. It was true that since the loss of Captain Yescombe in the “King George,” two other Packets had been captured, and one of these misfortunes was especially regretted since it was no other than the “Antelope,” the vessel fought so bravely in the previous year, which had fallen into the hands of the enemy. The “Antelope” ended her career without dishonour indeed, but yet ingloriously. She was on a voyage to Halifax, under the personal command of her captain, William Kempthorne, and on the 19th September became involved in a dense fog which lasted many hours; when the fog cleared off Captain Kempthorne found himself completely surrounded by a squadron of French frigates, against which it would have been folly to resist. Accordingly he sank his mails, struck his colours, and he with his brave crew became prisoners of war.

The Falmouth Service could ill have spared an officer of Captain Kempthorne’s qualities, even for the limited period which might be expected to elapse before he could be exchanged. But a worse misfortune was at hand, for Captain Kempthorne had been no more than a few days in the hands of the French when he fell ill of a putrid fever, and died after a very short illness. No officer could have been more regretted, for Captain Kempthorne, who had served in the navy as midshipman and lieutenant, had in the last war fought one of the most notable actions of which the Post-Office could boast, having sustained for some hours and at last repulsed the joint attack of three American Privateers, of which the smallest was of greater force than his own ship.

The same French squadron captured the “Thynne” Packet four days after the “Antelope,” but the last four months of 1794 went by without further mishap, and when the New Year arrived the retrospect must have been fairly encouraging. Though four Packets had been captured no one of them had fallen to a Privateer. Three had indeed been captured by squadrons against which any armament conceivable would have proved useless, and, on the whole, it might fairly be argued therefore that the new system held its ground.

The time was at hand, however, in which this immunity from the ravages of Privateers was to be broken. In the year 1795 the French turned their chief attention to the task of destroying commerce, and their change of policy makes itself felt at once in the records of the Post-Office, for though the Packets captured in 1795 were again only four in number, every one of them was taken by a Privateer, and in each case without a fight.

This was certainly not very satisfactory, for if the qualities of the new Packets, their sailing powers and their capacity for fighting in the last resort, could not protect them against Privateers the model must stand condemned. Questions doubtless arose in Lombard Street about the bloodless nature of every one of these conquests, but no trace of such discussions appears in the records. My Lords the Postmaster General had certainly impressed on their commanders that their safety was in flight, but they had not intended to convey that all the qualities of timid animals were to be copied, and that the commanders were to give themselves up for lost when overtaken.

In the following year (1796) the record is more pleasant to read. Three Packets were captured, apparently without effective resistance, by French Privateers, and one was seized by the Spaniards in Corunna harbour upon the declaration of war with England; but there were three gallant fights, which were the more welcome by reason of the fact that during two years the commanders seemed to have forgotten that guns were made to be fired.

Of the first of these encounters it happens unfortunately that no details are preserved. It was fought by the “King George,” the Packet nominally commanded by that Captain Yescombe whose romantic escape from prison was mentioned in the last chapter, and a letter from him is still in existence in which he speaks in the highest terms of the gallantry displayed by Mr. Bett, the master, who was in command of the Packet, as well as of the firmness with which he was supported by Mr. Jinkin, the mate, and by all the ship’s crew. That these were not empty words is proved by the return of casualties, which shows that though none of the Packet’s men were killed, six were wounded, some dangerously. The action was completely successful, and, even in the imperfect state of our information regarding it, may be set down as deserving credit.

The other two actions were fought by the same Packet, and within three weeks of each other. Both occurred, moreover, in those narrow seas of the West Indian archipelago which, since the British were driven out of Guadeloupe in December, 1794, had become doubly and trebly dangerous to our commerce. The vessel engaged was the “Portland,” sailing under command of her master, Mr. Nathaniel Taylor.

A young man, untried in the responsibilities of command, Mr. Taylor was making his first voyage in charge of the “Portland”; and being, as the scanty record tells us, engaged to be married on his return to Falmouth, he was doubtless eagerly looking out for opportunities of distinction—an aspiration which was destined to be amply gratified.

The “Portland” was somewhat more than a month out from Falmouth when, on October 1st, 1796, she was attacked in the neighbourhood of Barbados by a French Privateer which, after a close action of some duration, she succeeded in repulsing, with the loss apparently of only one man. Neither the name and force of the attacking vessel, nor any other details of the fight, have been preserved; but if the “Portland” was not outmatched in force, it can only be said that her antagonist was a much smaller vessel than any other Privateer, French, Spanish, or American, which came into conflict with a Packet throughout the war.

There were in fact few Privateers afloat which were not armed more heavily than the Post-Office Packets. It could not be otherwise, for the highwayman, whose arms were not superior to those of the peaceful traveller, could expect neither a long nor a merry life, and would see Tyburn earlier than he need.

It is certain, therefore, that the enemy repulsed by the “Portland” in this earlier action was a vessel stronger than herself; and Mr. Taylor, who had found his opportunity and grasped it, may have congratulated himself with the thought, that by the law of chances the perils of his voyage were over, and may thus have counted on carrying his laurels back to Falmouth.

But it was decided otherwise. On October 17th the “Portland” was lying becalmed off Guadeloupe—that hot-bed of privateering, a fatal monument of the shortsightedness of our naval administration—when an armed schooner, full of men, came out of a creek at no great distance, and using her sweeps, bore down on the “Portland.”

A very light breeze enabled Mr. Taylor to get his ship’s head off shore, and to make way under easy sail towards Martinique, at which island he was to touch. All night the strange schooner hung upon the “Portland’s” wake, and at daylight, on the 18th, the distance between the vessels was the same as at dusk on the previous evening.

Shortly after the first light the schooner bore down towards the Packet, and Mr. Taylor, thinking it time to bring the matter to an issue, hoisted his colours and fired a shot at the approaching vessel. The shot was instantly returned, and the next moment the colours of the French Republic were flying at the peak of the schooner, surmounted—in strange companionship with the ensign of a great and honourable nation—by the bloody flag, which signified that she would give no quarter in the coming fight.

There were on board the “Portland” four officers, Captain G. A. Tonyn, 48th Regiment; Captain J. Johnston of the Buffs; Captain G. Rainy of the 45th Regiment; and Captain W. Maxwell, 93rd Highlanders; together, with Dr. Green, surgeon to the Forces at Antigua, and five merchants resident on that island, St. Vincent, or Martinique. All these gentlemen appear to have taken part in the action, so that Mr. Taylor’s available force, allowing for the loss of one man in the former action, was increased to forty-one men and boys, some of whom, however, had probably been wounded when their sea-mate was killed. On board the French vessel there were, as was afterwards discovered, sixty-one fighting men; and relying on this superiority of force, which they quickly discerned, the French, after a short cannonade, ran down to close quarters, intending to finish the affair by an impetuous assault.

Mr. Taylor seems to have desired nothing more, and resolving to hold his enemies to the ground which they had selected, he seized the Privateer’s jib-boom as it ran aboard, lashed it securely, and then called his men forward, requesting the passengers at the same time to maintain a close fire of musketry on anything which showed itself on the deck of the enemy.

Then began a series of hand to hand combats, fought out desperately with cutlasses and boarding pikes. No details of these fights are left us; but we are told that out of the Privateer’s crew no less than forty-one were killed or wounded, and that the remnant were at last driven to haul down their colours, finding the Falmouth men had gained secure possession of their deck.

Some of the French had taken refuge below, and a few of these, not knowing, it may be hoped, that the colours had been struck, fired a volley in the very moment when Mr. Taylor was restraining the fury of his men; and the brave young captain fell, shot through the heart in the moment of victory.

Whether this unhappy occurrence was, as the passengers decided at the time, an act of premeditated treachery, or whether it may not more probably have found some justification in the confused circumstances of the moment, is a question which can never be determined. It is clear, however, that at the instant when he fell, though the colours were then certainly struck, Mr. Taylor found his authority needed to restrain further carnage; and if this were so, the responsibility for his death does not rest with the French. In any case, no charge of treachery should be made against honourable foes, save on evidence much clearer than is here forthcoming.

By the united testimony of the passengers, Mr. Taylor, throughout the action, was “perfectly calm, cool, and collected.” He achieved part at least of his wish. He made his reputation, and though he did not live to wear it, yet it survived him many years, and forms one of the few bright spots in the history of the Falmouth Packets during the last decade of the eighteenth century.

At Lombard Street there was need of all the credit which his gallantry had earned; for troubles were gathering thickly round the administrators of the sea service, and in the City the voice of discontent was loud and menacing. The war had now lasted four years. Within that period twelve Packets had been captured, having on board—for there was not always a ship ready to embark the mail—no less than eighteen mails. On several occasions original letters and duplicates made for safety had both been lost. The inconvenience was immense, and the merchants grew restive under it.

It was easy enough to argue, as the Post-Office did, that in former wars the average of losses had been higher; and that to expect the Packets to carry every mail in safety was much the same as asking them to teach forbearance and morality to the enemy’s Privateers. The West India merchants neither listened nor replied to these contentions. They did not want arguments. They wanted security for their correspondence, and they looked to the Post-Office to obtain it for them, whether in war or peace.

When the Postmaster General and the other high officials cast their eyes around to discover what prospects there were of satisfying this very natural desire, they could not fail to discern that in the near future they were likely to fare worse than in the past. The hopes of peace raised by Lord Malmesbury’s negotiations in the autumn of 1796 had been disappointed. Even the Packet told off to convey despatches from the ambassador, having been driven ashore near Calais by a violent storm, was seized by the French and condemned as lawful prize, notwithstanding the full explanations which were rendered by her commander and by the British Government. The number of Privateers which were reported week by week to be issuing from St. Malo, Nantes, Bordeaux, and a hundred other ports was absolutely without precedent. Between 20° and 30° W. long. there were, as the officers of a Nantes Privateer informed some Packetsmen whom they had captured, no less than forty vessels like herself cruising with the sole object of preying on British commerce, and through this belt of enemies every West India Packet must pass. Many of these wolves of the ocean were hardly less powerful than frigates; and the smallest of them was an overmatch for any Packet in every point save that of individual courage and resource.

Moreover, when the war broke out it had been a duel between England and France alone, and the enmity of Holland on the north and Spain on the south somewhat limited the French powers of offence. Of whatever value this advantage might have been it was now lost; and the three powers henceforward presented a united front to England. The Privateers of any one could shelter, refit, or dispose of prizes in the ports of any other; and while this circumstance gave them an added strength in European waters, the case was even worse in the West Indies, where the French gained lurking places in every creek of the Spanish islands, and were enabled to lie in ambush for British commerce at numberless points where our ships were used to think themselves in safety.

It was easier by far to discern these facts of evil augury than to discover any remedy. They were still being pondered in Lombard Street when the merchants opened their attack and lodged a memorial in Downing Street in which they complained in the strongest terms of the failure of the Post-Office to protect their correspondence. Scarcely had this memorial been received when the loss within one month of three West India Packets stamped it with an urgency which even its promoters had not foreseen, and raised the subject immediately from one chiefly affecting a single class to a grave matter of national concern.

The “Princess Elizabeth,” homeward bound from Barbados and Jamaica, was taken on February 28th, by the “Actif,” a Privateer carrying fourteen guns and a hundred and thirty men. The “Swallow” carried the outward mails of February 1st, for the same islands, while the “Sandwich” took out those of February 15th and March 1st. Three consecutive mails were thus on board these two Packets; and even the most anxious of merchants, sending important letters in triplicate by successive mails, might fairly have thought his precautions adequate to the risks. How great then was the anger and alarm when the news arrived that both Packets were captured and the three mails lost may be easily conceived.

Even more alarming than the present loss was the apprehension for the future raised by the great force of the Privateers concerned in these captures. The “Du Gay” which captured the “Sandwich” carried no less than two hundred men and eighteen guns; while the captor of the “Swallow” was armed with sixteen guns (nines and sixes) and a hundred and twenty men. How, the Postmaster General demanded, could the Packets be expected to resist such force? And the merchants, echoing the question, declared that impossibility to be the basis of their whole argument; for the Packets, they asserted, had no more effective power of resisting Privateers than so many wherries from Blackfriars stairs.

The prayer of the merchants’ memorial was that the Packets might be so equipped as to enable them to resist any enemy of equal size. This, as the Postmaster General pointed out, meant that each one of the Post-Office fleet should carry at least fourteen guns and one hundred men—a proposition which would involve rebuilding every Packet afloat, since no one of them was constructed to carry such an armament; and besides, that great capital expenditure would more than treble the charges of the Service, which already resulted in a yearly loss of over £12,000, exclusive of the liabilities for captured Packets, amounting at this time to more than £34,000.

It was natural enough that the Government, involved in a dangerous and costly war, should decline to entertain such a costly proposal. The Post-Office, however, willing to strengthen its hands against the merchants, put forward a modified scheme for arming each Packet with ten four-pounders and forty men, at an extra cost of £8,000 yearly; and if more losses had been reported while that scheme was before the Treasury, it may have been that the Government would have accepted it. But unfortunately for the merchants, there was at this particular period a lull in the storm. Four months passed without disaster. Then came the report that the “Grantham” had been captured, but after a stout fight; and following the receipt of that news another equal period of good fortune. The disasters of February seemed to be exceptional. A House of Commons Committee was urging that by every means Post-Office expenditure should be reduced; the Treasury yielded to the greater pressure, and declined the Postmaster General’s proposals.

The “Grantham” was commanded by Captain James Bull, an officer of long experience and proved ability, whose son, Captain John Bull, afterwards made a considerable reputation as commander of “Duke of Marlborough,” of which much will be heard in subsequent chapters of this work. The “Grantham” was attacked near Barbados by a French Privateer of “fourteen double fortified four-pounders and one hundred and eleven men.” She was much shattered in the action which preceded her capture; but no details of the fight have been preserved. Not long after it was decided, the “Tamar” frigate happily chanced to pass that way, and delivered Captain Bull and his men from the prospect of a French prison.

Those optimists who held the comfortable faith that the disasters of February, 1797, were not likely to be repeated received an uncomfortable shock in the last month of that year and the first of the new one.

The “Countess of Leicester,” which sailed from Falmouth on November 21st with mails for New York, should, under normal circumstances, have carried only those of the previous week. But it was at this time a practical impossibility to despatch every mail as soon as it reached Falmouth; and—strange as it seems to us to hear of such delays—the “Countess of Leicester” had on board not only the bags made up for her regular turn, but also those which should have been despatched from Falmouth on November 1st, but which had lain there three weeks, waiting for a Packet. It is difficult in these days even to imagine the outcry which would be caused by the delay of a mail for three weeks at the port of embarkation. But in 1797 such inconveniences were the trifles at which reasonable men did not cavil. The grievance lay in the fact that both mails were ultimately lost altogether.

The scarcity of Packets was already so great that it may be presumed that the “Prince Edward,” which left Falmouth in the middle of December, and was captured off Barbados, was carrying out more mails than one; while this blow was instantly followed by the loss of two successive homeward mails, carried by the “Prince Ernest” and the “Portland.” It can scarcely be conceived that the brave crew of the latter vessel surrendered without struggle; but still, fight or no fight, the mails were gone.

This was more than the patience of the merchants could bear. To lose in one month at least two outward and two homeward mails—and it is quite possible that on board the three Packets even more mails had been stowed—was almost sufficient to bring their business to a standstill. The inconvenience was mounting to an intolerable pitch. They applied for a conference with the Postmaster General; and had scarcely done so when the news arrived that the “Roebuck,” homeward bound from the Leeward Islands, and the “Swallow,” outward bound on the same voyage, had both been captured by a single Privateer.

There was the same story of overwhelming force against which the Packets could not contend. The captor of the “Roebuck” was a Nantes Privateer, “La Liberale,” carrying over two hundred men, and armed with eighteen 18–pounder guns, and it may be stated by the way that the captured officers told a remarkable story of the elfish mischievousness of the victors, who seemed to have behaved more like riotous schoolboys than like seamen. “On the enemy taking possession of the Packet,” says Captain Servante, “they plundered her of every cabin and ship-store; and what they did not take with them, they wilfully destroyed or threw overboard. Several new sails they cut to pieces and divided among them; and a suit of sails that were bent to the yards, little the worse for wear, they suffered to blow to pieces, there not being a seaman among them who would venture aloft to take them in.”

The conference between the merchants and the Postmaster General was grave and weighty, according to the dignified manners of those days. The merchants, after remarking that no arrangement of the Packet Service could be adequate for the purposes of their trade, which did not render it highly improbable that even one homeward bound Packet would be lost, proceeded to ask whether it really was the case that the new Packets had attained that swiftness of sailing to which all their qualities of defence had been sacrificed. The average duration of the outward passage to Jamaica (touching at Barbados and other islands) is, they said, 45 days, and from Jamaica to Falmouth (touching only at Cape Nicola), 35 days. Now, these are very ordinary passages, remarkable in no way for speed. And the merchants emphasized their point by repeating that Packets designed expressly for speed ought to have been able to outsail Privateers. Why, then, had they not done so? Because, they concluded, some abuses exist in the mode of loading or navigating the Packets.

They were right; abuses did exist, of which the nature must be more fully explained in the next chapter. But before entering upon that subject, it will be well to complete the record of disasters, so that it may be understood more fully of what the merchants had to complain.

One of the practical suggestions made at the conference was that the Admiralty might be asked to lend a cutter which could be sent out with mails for the Leeward Islands and Jamaica. The request was made and granted by the Admiralty; but the cutter fared no better than the Packets, for on her homeward voyage she, too, was captured.

Great as was the number of Privateers which issued from the French and Spanish islands in the West Indies throughout this war, it was never so great as in the year 1798. How many were actually afloat will never be known; but, doubtless, the number captured by our cruisers in any one year bore some kind of rough fixed proportion to the whole body. Now, in 1796—if the figures given by Southey (Chronological History of the West Indies, Vol. III., p. 149) are correct—only sixteen were captured; but in 1797 the number had risen to sixty-seven; and in 1798 no less than ninety-nine of these sharks were brought in by our sloops and frigates.

It may be that for every one so captured there were five still lurking in the creeks and shallow waters round Guadeloupe or Cuba; and numbers such as these might suggest that it was well-nigh impossible for our Packets to sail among the islands without encountering an enemy. But the ocean is wide, and it is marvellously easy for vessels to miss each other, even when both have the desire for an encounter.

The conference was held in March. In April no Packets were lost, but at the end of May the “Princess of Wales,” outward bound for Jamaica, was taken by a Privateer; and a week or two later the “Prince Adolphus,” which was carrying a mail to Lisbon, met with a similar fate. About the latter vessel there hangs a curious story, which is worth relating.

It appears that when the French took possession of the “Prince Adolphus,” they sent Captain Boulderson, her commander, with the greater part of his crew, on board the Privateer. Five men remained on the Packet, among whom the surgeon was the only officer; and a prize crew was instructed to navigate the prize into whatever French port could first be made.

Mr. Bullock, the surgeon, was by no means anxious to go to prison; and when the Packet had separated from her captor, he began to work on the cupidity of the prize master, and ultimately persuaded him to give up the ship, and restore all his prisoners to liberty in consideration of receiving a sum equivalent to about £4000, to be paid on the arrival of the vessel at Lisbon, where Mr. Bullock felt confident that the money would be forthcoming.

Accordingly, the “Prince Adolphus” was navigated into the Tagus, and Mr. Bullock, persuaded that he had made a good bargain—for, while the Packet itself was not worth less than the stipulated ransom, the goods on board were worth as much again—repaired to the office of the Post-Office agent at Lisbon, Mr. Gonne, and demanded help in carrying out the transaction to which he had pledged the credit of the Government. But here an unexpected check occurred; for Mr. Gonne, asking grimly whether the doctor wished both of them to be drawn and quartered on a scaffold at Tyburn, produced an Act of Parliament, recently passed, which declared it treason for any British subject to remit money to persons owing obedience to the French Government.

Mr. Bullock and his companions were thus left to take their choice of three painful alternatives. Firstly, they might break their pledge freely given to the prize master; secondly, they might execute that pledge and submit to the penalties of high treason; or lastly, they might once more go on board the “Prince Adolphus,” and—if indeed the harbour authorities would have allowed a vessel under French command to leave the Tagus in safety—permit the prize master to put to sea, and conduct them whither he would.

The last alternative, distressing as it was for men who had once set foot in freedom, seemed the only practicable one. This was recognized by every one concerned, but before adopting it the case was referred to the Postmaster General, who, after consultation with ministers, decided that the ransom should be paid, and that a clause should be inserted in a forthcoming Act of Parliament, indemnifying the persons concerned in the transaction.

The money was accordingly handed over to the Frenchmen, who departed full of praises of the honourable treatment they had received, and which they did their best to requite in kind, for they wrote to the French Minister of Marine, stating what had occurred, and begging that, if only to mark their high esteem of the conduct of the English Government, Captain Boulderson might at once be liberated. This request was complied with, and Captain Boulderson very shortly returned to Falmouth.

Such was the end of a difficult affair, and if in its conclusion the Postmaster General found some ground for satisfaction, it could only have been with a chastened pleasure that they read the story of how the best had been made of a serious misfortune, and how a Packet, designed to escape the French, had been got out of their hands without so very much loss after all. But a gleam of better fortune was at hand, and the valour of one officer did much to redeem the record of the Falmouth Station in the year 1798.

The “Princess Royal” was commanded by Captain John Skinner, an officer of long experience and proved courage. On June 22nd, the Packet being then in Mid-Atlantic, bound for Halifax, a brig was discovered at daybreak in chase of the Packet, and Captain Skinner promptly caused the decks to be cleared for action, and barricaded the ship as far as possible with hammocks and spare sails.

The wind was unfortunately very light, and the sea calm, so that though the “Princess Royal” crowded all sail to get away, the Privateer, which was using sweeps, gained ground perceptibly. It was not until 7 P.M., however, that she came within gunshot. A few broadsides were then exchanged without much effect on either side, after which the Privateer, having satisfied herself that resistance was intended, laid in her sweeps and waited for the day.

At 3 A.M. she swept up somewhat suddenly. Captain Skinner was quite ready however, and as she drew near he began to play upon her with his two 6–pounder stern chasers. Unfortunately one of these guns was rendered useless after the first discharge by the snapping of its axle tree, but the other was served with vigour. The one gun, however, did not suffice to stop the advancing Privateer, for at 3.30 A.M. she was alongside, and the action was in full progress.

James, who in his Naval History mentions but three of the numerous actions fought by the Packets, states that at this point Captain Skinner succeeded in bringing his six guns to bear on the side on which he was attacked.[^[3]] Captain Skinner does not mention this in his report to the Postmaster General; and indeed, as has been seen, one of his six guns was already useless. Very probably some such arrangement of the remaining five was attempted, but if so, any advantage which might have resulted from it was quickly lost, for Captain Skinner tells us that very shortly after the loss of his 6–pounder the axle trees of two of his 4–pounders gave way, and that he fought practically throughout the whole action with three guns only.

[3]. Nav. Hist., Vol. II., p. 207.

That he succeeded under these unfortunate circumstances in holding his ground against a more powerful antagonist is a striking proof of courage and seamanship. The cannonade lasted two hours, and during the whole of that time the “Princess Royal” was so manœuvred by her captain that the French had no opportunity of boarding, and were thus in some measure deprived of the advantage of their superior numbers. Meantime the passengers, under the direction of General Murray, had formed themselves into a body of riflemen, and were keeping up a galling fire on their enemies with excellent effect, for at 5.30 P.M. the Privateer sheered off.

It would have been folly for Captain Skinner with half his guns dismounted to endeavour to renew the action, so with a few parting shots from the chaser, which appeared to create confusion on the Privateer, the vessels separated, and the “Princess Royal” pursued her voyage.

In this action two men were badly wounded, and Captain Skinner himself was hurt less seriously by the explosion of a powder-horn. It happened that on board the Privateer there were thirty English and American prisoners; and from some of these men it was afterwards ascertained that the “Princess Royal” had engaged the “Aventurier” of Bordeaux, a Privateer carrying fourteen long 4–pounders, and two 12–pound cannonades, with eighty-five men, an armament which might have been expected to secure a quick and almost bloodless victory for its possessors. The event, however, was so far otherwise that while two of the “Aventurier’s” crew were killed, and four wounded, the vessel herself was so much injured that with all her masts shot through and no less than nineteen round shot in her hull, she was obliged to break up her cruise and return to Bordeaux to refit.

CHAPTER V.
THE END OF THE ABUSES.

Disaster came treading close on the heels of success, and while the reports of Captain Skinner’s gallant defence were still being digested in Lombard Street, the news arrived that the “Duke of York,” outward bound for Barbados and Jamaica, had been captured by a Privateer carrying twenty “long double fortified four-pounders,” and no less than one hundred and seventy men.

The remaining months of 1798, and the early ones of 1799 passed away without further misfortunes. If it had been otherwise, it is not easy to see how the service could have been maintained with any sort of regularity, for the recent captures had caused the very greatest embarrassment. Sixteen established Packets were commonly employed on the West India voyage, a supply which was certainly not more than barely adequate to keep up the usual fortnightly service, but of these sixteen only seven were available in December, 1798; and though by hiring temporary vessels the numbers were made up to ten, the extra vessels were less efficient than the regular ones; and the delay of mails and despatches, which were kept waiting at Falmouth for a Packet, grew very serious. The agent, who was immediately responsible, was bitter in his protestations against being blamed for what he could not help.

The commanders, he declared, were very much in fault. No less than nine of them had received permission to remain ashore to supervise the building of new Packets. It was doubtless most desirable that the commanders should supervise this work. The construction of the Packets was a matter of vital concern to the officers who had to sail and fight them; and, besides, it was only reasonable to suppose that under the commander’s eye the work would be done more quickly as well as better.

Such were the arguments put forward by the commanders, very plausible as all their reasonings were, but breaking down in some odd way in actual practice. Each one of the nine captains demonstrated quite clearly that he was bestirring himself with zeal. Yet, somehow or other, the new Packets did not advance; and the Postmaster General, on calling for a return, could not but be struck by the astonishingly long time which it took to complete the brigs of one hundred and eighty tons, or thereabouts, which were required for the service. Captain Servante, for instance, with his utmost exertions, as he himself testified on repeated occasions, could not get one built in less than two years and five months, during the whole of which time his personal supervision was given to the work.

At this period the Post-Office administration had passed into the hands of men whose habit it was to draw direct and forcible inferences from facts such as these. Lord Auckland who, jointly with Lord Gower, now held the office of Postmaster General, possessed a dry and penetrating intellect, with an instinctive comprehension of the value of arguments used before him and of the worth of the persons using them. In writing, his style was direct and pungent; he knew how to state a principle and give it force without appearing to drive it down the throats of unwilling subordinates. He was thoroughly dissatisfied with the condition of the Packet Service, and determined to improve it as opportunity served during his term of office.

The other man whose strong hand began to influence the Post-Office at this crisis was Mr. Francis Freeling, lately appointed Secretary, an administrator whose brilliant and courageous work throughout the whole period of the war is by no means yet forgotten.

Two rulers so clear sighted and sagacious, acting together and supporting each other as they did in every emergency, could scarcely fail to discover the roots of the mischief at Falmouth; but before entering on a description of the measures taken, and while the Postmaster General and the Secretary, assuming office at much the same time, are making their preliminary survey, taking note now of some indefensible practice which must be stopped, now of some suspicious action which demands stringent inquiry, it will be well to complete the tale of disasters to the Packets, which furnished so much material to these dissatisfied watchers at headquarters.

The earlier months of 1799 passed away as uneventfully as the later ones of 1798; and it was not until April that bad news reached the Post-Office. The “Chesterfield” was captured on the 23rd of that month; and three months later the “Carteret” hauled down her colours to a Privateer. Then there was again a period of success; and, except for the loss of one of the small schooners employed among the West India islands, the Packets made their voyages in safety until November.

Comparatively speaking, the captures had been so few during the last sixteen months, that there was doubtless some exultation at Lombard Street, and a growing confidence that the great problem how to convey the mails in safety during war-time was approaching a solution. The agitation of West India merchants had died away; complaints from irascible Colonial Governors, whose despatches were adorning some coral reef, or washing about in mid-ocean, were few and far between. It seemed indeed as if a golden age had dawned at last; but in the last six weeks of the year these bright anticipations were rudely shaken.

Towards the end of November the same Privateer which had captured the “Chesterfield” in July took possession of another Packet, the “Lady Harriet,” outward bound for Lisbon; and only a few days later the “Halifax,” homeward bound from the Leeward Islands, was seized by the “Vengeance,” of sixteen guns and one hundred and thirty men.

The next homeward Packet expected from the West Indies was the “Westmoreland.” She was captured on December 7th by a Privateer of twenty-six guns and two hundred and fifty men. In her were lost the duplicates of the letters and despatches captured in the “Halifax”; while, as if resolved that no cautious Colonial Governor or merchant who might have forwarded his correspondence in triplicate should profit by the precaution, the French lay in wait for the next homeward Packet also. It was the “Adelphi,” and on December 22nd she fell into the hands of the “Grand Buonaparte,” a Privateer of twenty-two guns and two hundred men.

How great a loss was caused by these three captures, how serious the interference in the machinery of government, may be surmised, but can never now be calculated. Grievances sustained a hundred years ago did not become vocal in the public press until they had grown absolutely intolerable, if then. But though there was no newspaper outcry, there was an abundance of personal protests, both from ministers and from the merchants; while, if the attitude of Lord Auckland on this important subject may be judged from his subsequent actions, he was doubtless well pleased at finding his hand strengthened at a moment which was big with reform for Falmouth.

So the year 1799 passed away, and the new year opened upon indignant clamour outside the Post-Office, and careful, anxious deliberation within its walls.

One circumstance which struck Lord Auckland as singular was that the number of mails lost on the homeward passage was larger than on the outward voyage. When first observed this fact was brushed aside as an accidental occurrence, with the expectation that the next series of captures would redress the balance, and show that the risks of the outward bound Packets were no less great.

Time went on, and the balance was not redressed. Persons outside the Post-Office began to notice which way it inclined, and ugly rumours were already circulating when an unparalleled series of disasters riveted the attention of the authorities on this point which at first seemed so insignificant.

The “Princess Royal,” whose officers and crew had fought so bravely in June, 1798, was the first Packet reported lost. Her gallant captain had been promoted to a command on the Holyhead station, which was both more lucrative and less arduous than the post in which he had won distinction. How far Captain Skinner might have succeeded in repulsing the “Courier” Privateer, to which the “Princess Royal” struck her colours on February 27th, being then on her homeward voyage from the Leeward Islands, it would be profitless to inquire. Ten days later the “Carteret,” homeward bound from Jamaica, hauled down her colours to the “Bellona,” a powerful Privateer of thirty guns and two hundred and fifty men. The “Jane,” the outward Packet of March 2nd for the West Indies, was captured, after a sharp engagement, on the 12th of that month; and though she was recaptured a few days later by an English cruiser, that event happened too late to save her mails. On May 4th the “Princess Charlotte” was captured; on May 6th the “Marquis of Kildare” succumbed; on May 11th the “Princess Amelia” was seized by a Bordeaux Privateer; and, after an interval of some months, the “Duke of Clarence” was sent into Teneriffe as the prize of a Spanish Privateer.

Every one of the four last Packets was homeward bound. The coincidence was too obvious to be overlooked.

Another fact about these captures must have arrested Lord Auckland’s attention. There was hardly any fighting. Why was there not? The capturing Privateers were, it is true, of overmastering force in many cases, if not in all. But the “Antelope,” the “Portland,” and the “Princess Royal” had successfully resisted superior forces; and when was it ever imputed to English sailors that they feared to defend themselves against an enemy because they could not bring into action man for man, or gun for gun? On this very Falmouth station, in past years, numberless actions had been fought as bravely as any in our annals; and these glories were by no means eclipsed for ever, but were in a few years to shine again with no less splendour than before, though Lord Auckland had not the satisfaction of foreseeing this.

It is not asserted that every Packet whose capture is mentioned in these pages was surrendered without firing a shot; but it is certainly true that in hardly one case did any serious fighting occur. The very sailors who were captured were not devoid of spirit, as appeared in the case of the “Marquis of Kildare,” whose loss was mentioned above. The greater part of the crew of this Packet remained prisoners on board the Privateer, but twelve were left on their own ship, in charge of a prize crew. In the night these twelve rose upon their captors, drove them into the hold, and triumphantly navigated the Packet into Falmouth. They were doubtless commended, and perhaps rewarded, on arriving there; but it may be hoped that the agent took occasion to point out to them how much more serviceable their valour would have been had they proved it before their ship was captured and their mails lost.

Nobody believed the Falmouth sailors to be cowards. Indubitable facts and the long experience of the past showed that they were not. The root of the mischief must be sought deeper than that.

Wherever it might lie, there was clearly no time to lose in searching for it. The complaints of the merchants were incessant; and when Mr. Henry Dundas, at that time Secretary of State for the Colonies, went so far as to instruct the general officer in command in the West Indies to send home duplicate and triplicate copies of his despatches by well-armed merchant vessels, “which appear to have a better chance of safe arrival than the regular Packets,” and forwarded a copy of this galling letter to the Postmaster General, no one could any longer doubt that unless some quick and searching remedy could be found, the Post-Office might almost as well lay down the pretence of conveying the mails in safety. Lord Auckland frankly owned that Mr. Dundas’ letter had not surprised him. Long before matters reached this point, he had inquired what evidence was taken that the capture of any particular Packet had occurred in the manner described by her officers. He was told that of evidence, properly so called, there was none at all, except the sworn statement of the captain, made before a notary selected by himself.

An officer of the navy who lost his ship, Lord Auckland observed, was invariably brought to court-martial. A number of honourable and experienced officers were appointed to judge his conduct; he was called before them, and required to prove on oath, and by the evidence of witnesses, that his courage and skill had been properly exerted.

A Packet captain in the same situation was summoned before no court at all. He went, in company with one or two of his chief officers, to a notary in Falmouth, and before that gentleman executed a sworn statement, technically called a “protest.” In form, this document “protested” against the conduct of the enemy which had captured, or injured, the Packet. It detailed just so much, or so little, of the facts as the captain thought proper to relate; and the notary had no other responsibility in the matter than the administration of an oath.

This was the whole proceeding. When the “protest” reached the General Post-Office, it was accepted as a matter of course; and on it steps were taken for repaying to the commander the amount of his loss.

Could it be right, Lord Auckland asked, that there should be no public inquiry, no examination of the whole crew, no statements taken from passengers! The Inspector of Packets was the person to whom it fell to answer this question; and he at once came forward to testify that he thought it the most satisfactory system in the whole world. It was the time-honoured custom at Lloyds, and must therefore be good enough for the General Post-Office. A sworn declaration! Were there no penalties against perjury! The fear of incurring these penalties must be a perfect safeguard, if any be needed among honourable men!

The value of the opinions held by this Inspector of Packets, who must have somewhat resembled Dr. Pangloss (except, as shown by mountainous papers still existing, where his own fees were concerned), was quickly put to a fresh test. But in order to make clear the nature of the very important question which now arose, some amount of explanation and of retrospect is necessary.

Allusions have been made in previous chapters of this work to the fact that all Packets throughout the last century carried goods. Now this practice was expressly forbidden by a statute of Charles II.; but it does not appear that the prohibition had ever been enforced. Mr. Freeling, the Secretary of the Post-Office, stated in a report made about this time that he had been unable to trace the steps by which the trade had developed itself in the teeth of the statute, and that in his opinion the custom “was coeval with the Packet Service itself.” However that may have been, the trade was certainly of antiquity sufficient to have struck deep roots at Falmouth. It was carried on without the slightest concealment; and was indeed expressly sanctioned by the Government, though it remained, as it had always been, illegal. In reports made on the capture of Packets, the presence of goods on board the vessel was set down with no more comment than that of provisions. Indeed, so recently as in 1798, in a code of new regulations applicable to the Packet station at Falmouth, the trade had been explicitly recognized, and the only instruction given to the agent in regard to it was that he must satisfy himself that no Packet carried so large a quantity of goods, or stowed them in such a manner, as to put her out of trim.

The Post-Office always looked unfavourably on this trade; and from time to time sought the assistance of the Treasury in abolishing it, and restricting the Packets to their proper use. But in those days of constant war, when the seas were unsafe for merchant vessels, and the ports now of one nation, now of another, were closed to English ships, the Government held that it would be inopportune to stop a commercial outlet on which many merchants of Bristol and other towns in the west depended for a chief part of their trade; and so the irregular system went on and grew unchecked.

On the Lisbon station the trade seems to have been more important than on the West India boats, though it was very profitable on both. The West India boats carried out cheese, potatoes, boots, and shoes, and, curious addition to the list, fighting cocks, for which there was a brisk demand. The Lisbon Packets exported every kind of manufactured goods, often to the value of £4000 on a single voyage. These were by no means the speculations of the captain or of the officers alone. The seamen traded, each on his own account. Every man had his own stowage space reserved under the ceiling of the forecastle. Here his “ventures” were suspended, and no one claimed to interfere with them.

Sometimes the seaman’s ventures consisted of goods entrusted to him by some merchant, to sell on commission at Lisbon or Barbados; sometimes he had purchased them himself; for not a few of the seamen were capitalists on a small scale, and most of them had formed regular connections with the merchants. The goods once sold in foreign ports, others were of course purchased there. Silks, wines, tobacco, numberless things which by a little ingenuity could be smuggled into Falmouth duty free; and in order to facilitate disposing of these imported bargains, a whole corps of female pedlars was in existence, locally named “troachers,” who trudged the country and hawked about the goods of Jamaica or New York from farm house to country mansion.

There was thus at Falmouth an irregular trade of great value. Every seaman in the employment of the Post-Office was engaged in it. To most it had formed a chief inducement to enter the service; for the wages were very low, and would not of themselves have attracted men away from the Revenue Service or the Royal Navy.

More than once during the last few years of the century suggestions had been made of scandals connected with the Falmouth trade; and hints had been thrown out that a stringent inquiry, conducted on the spot, might bring to light facts which would explain the frequent captures of Packets. The West India merchants, in guarded language, “prayed that ... any abuses in the loading of the Packets ... might be remedied”; but other persons spoke plainly what was here only hinted; and roundly declared that it was sometimes very profitable to be captured, and that the officers who were the most often captured were the most quickly growing rich.

The charge soon took clearer shape. It was said that, in accordance with a common practice, the goods received on board the Packets at Falmouth were insured in England for the double voyage, out and home. If then the goods were sold in the West Indies, it would be a possible thing for the crew to remit the purchase money in bills by some safe channel; and to surrender themselves quietly to the first Privateer they met. They ran the risk of spending some years in a French prison; but one cannot grow rich without some risk, and there was a good chance that the Privateer would put them ashore in their own boat.

When they once reached England, they were secure from detection. They declared before the Insurance Company that the Privateer had taken from them large quantities of goods which they had not succeeded in selling abroad, or which they had purchased there hoping to sell at home. They claimed the value of those goods, and by the next Packet received that value a second time in the bills which they had themselves remitted.

This was the charge against the Falmouth officers,—a charge involving so much base dishonesty that one hesitates before accepting it as true of even the smallest section of the Service at which it was levelled.

Lord Auckland declined to believe in the possibility of “so black and desperate a fraud.” Still, whatever incredulity might be felt at headquarters, the accusation was clearly one which demanded instant notice; and accordingly the optimistic Inspector of Packets was directed to proceed to Falmouth, and report on the matter.

Little time was lost by the Inspector. He quickly produced a report which positively asserted the existence of such fraud to be impossible. His reason was that no insurance company would pay the value of its policy in the absence of an affidavit declaring precisely the quantity and quality of the goods on board the Packet at the time of the capture. The honest man forgot that the very nature of the charge involved treachery and lying; and that men who could be supposed guilty of those basenesses would not be likely to hesitate at a perfectly safe perjury. Of course the Inspector’s conclusion was not necessarily absurd, because his reasoning was unsound. But there are two stories on record which go some way to prove that the one and the other were equally wrong.

To take the least conclusive story first. The “Earl Gower,” commanded by Captain Deake, was on her way home from Lisbon in June 1801 when she encountered the “Télégraphe” Privateer cutter, of fourteen guns and seventy men, a force considerably superior of course to her own. Captain Deake plied his guns with vigour, however, and might perhaps have got clear off, had not fully half his crew gone below in a body, refusing either to work the vessel or to fight her. The action of these men is scarcely comprehensible on any other supposition than that they wished to be captured. Cowardice would have impelled them to flight; but they refused to work the ship, which was of course taken.

The second case tells a plainer story; and must always stand, exceptional as it may be, as a black disgrace upon the records of the Falmouth Service. The facts are as follows.

The “Duke of York,” a Packet homeward bound from Lisbon, was chased throughout September 18th, 1803, by a Privateer of scarcely more than half her size, though more heavily manned. Towards evening the master, who was acting commander at the time, consulted with the surgeon as to the course proper for them to take in view of the fact that the enemy was obviously gaining on them. The surgeon stated that in his opinion resistance was impossible. He advised surrender; and the master, after a short conversation, adopted his view. They came to this resolution while the enemy’s vessel was still a mile distant from them, and before she had even fired a summoning gun they hauled their colours down.

It was then seven o’clock, and the night was falling rapidly. This circumstance however did not suggest to them that there was a chance of escaping under cover of the darkness; it brought to their minds only the fear that the enemy might not have seen their flag pulled down. And so, to avoid any misapprehension on the subject of their shame, they sent a boat on board the Privateer and proclaimed it in advance.

The story as here told leaked out by degrees. However, on the first receipt of the news in London, Lord Auckland heard it with so much suspicion that he resolved to use the occasion for instituting the Court of Inquiry, about the necessity of which he and the Inspector of Packets held such divergent views. A Court was accordingly constituted at Falmouth, composed of all the commanders in port at the time, under the presidency of the agent; but the result was disappointing. The commanders put their questions in such a manner as to shield the culprits as far as possible; and finally stultified themselves by finding that all the officers did everything possible to save their ship.

Perhaps little else was to be expected at the outset of such inquiries. The commanders doubtless resented the change of system as an insult to themselves. They were all old friends and neighbours; esprit de corps was strong among them in proportion as their numbers were few; and, moreover, their Court having no legal standing, nor any power to administer oaths, there was nothing to excite a feeling of responsibility, or dignity, among the individuals composing it, such as might have outweighed the natural dislike to its establishment. The responsibility developed; the dislike wore off. In course of time these inquiries, which became part of the regular routine of the station, were found useful enough, and even indispensable.

On this first occasion, however, the finding of the Court was useless, if not positively mischievous; and some more stringent inquiry was plainly needed. It was entrusted to the Inspector of Packets, who was acute and shrewd when he could cast off the preconceived ideas bred by his long experience, and who had been shaken out of his optimism in some degree by recent events. He set himself to work in Falmouth with zeal and energy, and gradually disclosed a number of very remarkable facts. He traced, so far as possible, the value of the goods which each officer and sailor had on board, what insurances he had effected on the outward voyage, and what on the homeward, and finally what sum (if any) he had gained by being captured.

One man, he found, admitted that he had gained £300 by his misfortune. The surgeon, who advised the surrender, had certainly made £250 out of it; but, by a remarkable lapse of memory, he was quite unable to recollect what sum he had received in Lisbon for goods sold there; so that it was impossible to arrive at the full amount of his profit. The steward’s mate was richer by £250; one of the seamen by £200; and most of the crew had pocketed substantial sums, made in the identical way indicated by the rumours spoken of above.

The next step was to ascertain whether any of these men, and especially those who had made large profits on this occasion, had been captured before.

The surgeon, who had been foremost in counselling surrender, and who was also (probably) the largest gainer among this pack of scoundrels, had also been captured more frequently than any of the crew, except three men, having been taken prisoner no less than three times before. How much money he had made on those three occasions is not stated. Three of the crew had been equally lucky. Four other men had been captured twice before, most of the rest once, and eight of them had been on board the “Earl Gower” at the time of the disgraceful circumstances related above.

The inference from these facts was so plain that not even the Inspector of Packets could fail to draw it. His report was hesitating, but on the whole conclusive: and it contained this striking passage, “I cannot help being of opinion that if during the war officers and seamen are permitted to carry out merchandise on commission or otherwise, there is reason to fear that the loss of Packets may be very considerable, unless indeed under disinterested or high-spirited commanders.”

There is a barb in this sentence for all who love Falmouth, and one would fain drop the subject at this point. But history has no concern with sentiment; and, as the matter is of importance, the following extract may be quoted from the minutes of the Postmaster General, written after a careful review of the whole subject.

“... These papers prove beyond a doubt that His Majesty’s Packet could not have been captured if the skill and courage of her crew had been properly exerted. Their Lordships even incline to think that the French Privateer might have been captured if our vessel had been carried into action with the spirit which characterizes British seamen in general. No resistance was made. It was not even seen what was the force of the Privateer. The Packet was not even hailed or fired at by the enemy, yet a boat was sent off to meet the Privateer and to accelerate a surrender of which the seamen themselves speak as dishonourable and dishonest.... Under these circumstances my Lords the Postmaster General ... never will consent that Mr. —— the acting commander, or Mr. —— the surgeon, shall again be employed in their service.”

So then, it must be taken as proved that in this one case certain officers of the Falmouth Service sold their honour and betrayed their country. One naturally asks whether any of the other captures mentioned in the previous pages were due to a similar treason. Since the war broke out thirty-two Packets had been captured, and of these twenty-one were taken on the homeward voyage.

It may be said at once that, as far as the now existing records show, no such misconduct as was proved against the officers of the “Duke of York” was ever alleged against any others. Doubts may have been raised in the minds of Lord Auckland or of Mr. Freeling; but if so, they were allowed to slumber again, and, after the lapse of well-nigh a hundred years, it cannot be necessary to reawaken them.

In order to bring out more clearly the nature of these charges, and to show precisely how far they were well-grounded, the proper sequence of events has been somewhat neglected.

During the four years which elapsed between the first rumour of the scandals and the capture of the “Duke of York,” considerable progress had been made in limiting the trade. Early in 1800 complaint of the existence of an illegal trade at Falmouth was made to Mr. Pitt by a private individual. Who this person was, on what grounds he objected to the trade, or by what influence he prevailed on the Treasury to issue a prohibition for which successive Postmasters General had appealed in vain,—these are inquiries on which the records throw no light. The fact however is that he did prevail, and an order was issued prohibiting the private trade on the West India Packets, though for the present it was permitted to continue on the Lisbon boats.

In looking back on these events one cannot but suppose that in thus vitally altering the ancient conditions of service on the Falmouth station the Government were actuated by some motive much more potent than the desire to gratify a single individual. It must have been foreseen that the sailors would resent the loss of their large profits; that the chief attraction of the Service in their eyes was about to be destroyed, and this in the midst of a dangerous and costly war.

The discontent showed itself at once. There was something resembling mutiny at Falmouth. The crews of several vessels refused to proceed to sea, and their captains reported that they could not obtain sailors unless the trade were restored. The Government stood firm. The memorials of the seamen pointed out that their wages, if they must rely on them solely, were not sufficient for their maintenance and for that of their families. The statement was perfectly true, for the trade had been so fully recognized by the authorities that it was always held to be unnecessary to pay any but low wages to men who were earning so much by private speculation. The wages had to be increased, but the increase of course could not be equivalent to the amount of profit lost by the new rule; and a smouldering mass of discontent was left at Falmouth which in years to come broke out again and again into mutiny.

CHAPTER VI.
THE NORTH SEA PACKETS.

Thus far, for the sake of clearness, the narrative has concerned itself with the Falmouth Packets alone. The successive developments by which the root of the mischief existing on the Cornish station gradually revealed itself to all the world were too important to be complicated with the affairs of other stations, especially when those affairs, with very few exceptions, were neither interesting nor considerable. In fact, it is only on the stations whence the North Sea Packets sailed that one is tempted to linger at all after leaving Falmouth. The record of the Irish Packets is incomparably dull. Squabbles between the Post-Office of Great Britain and the Post-Office of Ireland about the precise amount of influence which each should exercise over the Holyhead or the Milford boats, interminable arguments concerning the regulations under which noblemen’s carriages might be stowed on deck during the voyage, lengthy surveys of the coast, complaints from the agent that the captains were disrespectful and from the captains that the agent interfered unwarrantably in their private affairs—such were the subjects of the bulky reports which filled the pigeon-holes devoted at the General Post-Office to the affairs of the two lines of communication with the opposite side of St. George’s Channel.

The Irish Packets, so far as we know, were never in action during the years of which this volume treats. Almost the same remark indeed might be made of the North Sea Packets; but here an interest of another kind arises. The Harwich and Dover boats played manfully a part in a drama of the greatest moment to this country. It was a game in which shot and powder had scarcely any part; yet it called for courage of the highest order, and for resource and seamanship such as British sailors have always shown themselves possessed of in time of need.

The Continental system which called out these faculties was as yet only a dream in Napoleon’s heart; and the story of the North Sea Packets might have been left untouched until that system began to develop itself, had it not happened by a curious chance of fortune that in the year 1798 a sort of rehearsal occurred of the dangers of that troublous time which was yet to come. The winter proved to be of extraordinary severity. The shores of Holland and Northern Germany were beset with ice; the rivers were all closed, and by a sudden turn of temperature the Post-Office was confronted with the identical situation which the masterful hostility of Napoleon created a few years afterwards.

Before proceeding to speak of the difficulties thus created, it will be necessary to explain that the North Sea Packets by no means corresponded to the Falmouth model. Small as the Cornish Packets must appear in the eyes of our generation, accustomed to the vast dimensions of the floating palaces in which travellers of to-day make the Atlantic voyage, the Harwich and Dover boats were smaller still. Many of them indeed were of only fifty tons, while none exceeded eighty tons. The Harwich boats, which plied to Helvoetsluis as their normal port of call, were a trifle larger than the Dover Packets which undertook the shorter voyage to Calais, and they carried somewhat heavier guns. Three-pounders were found to be too heavy for the Dover boats, and had to be exchanged for two-pounders; but the Harwich Packets always carried four four-pounders, and at a later period some of them were allowed a couple of extra guns of the same calibre.

In 1793, when the war broke out, the port of Calais was of course closed to English ships, and the mails for Italy and the Mediterranean could no longer cross France. The situation thus created was too familiar in the last century to occasion any embarrassment at the General Post-Office. In fact, the relations between the Postal authorities in London and Paris were in those days so much the reverse of cordial, even when the two countries were at peace, that the outbreak of hostilities seems to have been not altogether unwelcome at Lombard Street, as closing a channel of communication which had never been used without friction and dispute.

The Dover station was at once closed, and the Packets transferred to Harwich, whence, after a short interval, the whole fleet of both stations was removed to Yarmouth, a port which was supposed to be more conveniently situated for the duties which lay before them. All the mails were forwarded to Helvoetsluis. The relations between the Post-Offices of England and Holland had always been good; and the Service worked well and smoothly until the French power menaced the integrity of Holland.

Throughout the year 1794 the rupture of relations with Holland loomed through the troubled atmosphere, and early in 1795 it became an accomplished fact. Town after town declared for the French. Pichegru’s cavalry, careering over the frozen waters of the Texel, captured the Dutch fleet; the English troops retreated; the Batavian Republic was proclaimed; the resources of Holland were added to those of France, and another outlet for the Continental mails must be found, Helvoetsluis being henceforth closed against us as rigidly as any port in France itself.

In this emergency the British Post-Office naturally looked to Hamburg, with which ancient city it had been in alliance for many generations. The mails were despatched to Cuxhaven, and were there landed and despatched via Hamburg into the interior without obstruction for more than three years. A great frost set in, however, during December, 1798, and before Christmas the severity of the weather had already produced serious difficulties for the Post-Office. The mails began to arrive at very irregular intervals; and each Packet as she reached Yarmouth brought fresh reports of the alarming speed with which ice was forming not only in the Elbe, but even beyond the estuary of the river, so as in a great degree to threaten interruption of all access to the coast. Meantime the frost grew daily more severe. On the 28th December four Hamburg mails were due, and London had been without trustworthy news from the Continent for the best part of a fortnight.

Such an interruption of the regular course of post would have been serious enough at any time; and if commerce only had been injured by it, would have called for the promptest remedy possible. But far greater interests were at stake than those of Threadneedle Street and Mincing Lane. Political events were occurring on the Continent of which intelligence reached London all too slowly at the best of times; and it was quite possible that in the bags lying idle in the Hamburg Post-Office there might be despatches containing news which, whether for good or evil, touched the very existence of the country.

The forethought of the directors of the Hamburg Office had provided to some extent for such a contingency as had now occurred. They had established an agent on the island of Heligoland, whose instructions were to receive the mails whenever the Packets were unable to reach Cuxhaven, and to use any means suggested by his experience for forwarding them to their destination. It was scarcely likely that officials in London could quicken this agent’s apprehension of the urgency of the situation, or suggest any expedient which he had left untried; and yet the uneasiness both in Downing Street and the City was rising to such a pitch that it was resolved to send an energetic officer to attempt both these tasks.

This resolution was hardly taken when the “Champion” frigate, having on board Mr. Grenville, a diplomatist charged with a mission of some importance, put back to Yarmouth, from which port she had sailed for Cuxhaven about a week before. The officers reported having encountered head winds against which they had vainly struggled to make their port, or even to reach the Holstein coast, where the envoy might have landed with some prospect of reaching his destination. They had sighted three Post-Office Packets beating about in the neighbourhood of Heligoland, apparently unable to proceed, while the master of a Bremen galliot had informed them that both the Elbe and the Weser had been frozen up for three weeks.

The prospect appeared hopeless. Where the “Champion” had failed, it seemed useless to expect that a Post-Office clerk would succeed. For a few days, therefore, the matter drifted; but on the 4th January Mr. Freeling was summoned to Downing Street, and in the course of the interview which he had with Ministers so much stress was laid on the necessity of making a great immediate effort to obtain the mails and despatches which were lying at Cuxhaven, that on his return to the city he at once selected Mr. Henry Chamberlayne for the duty, and instructed him to make ready for an immediate departure.

At Downing Street the opinion was held that the conditions of weather which rendered it impracticable to reach the mouth of the Elbe might admit of a landing at Norden in Friesland, from which place a journey overland to Hamburg ought to offer no insuperable difficulties.

A sloop of war was sent round to Yarmouth, where it took up Mr. Chamberlayne, with two King’s messengers, and at once set sail in company with a Post-Office Packet and a lugger. The latter craft was to be detached to obtain the mails at Heligoland, and bring them on to Norden, whither the sloop and the Packet were to proceed direct. The scheme failed hopelessly however. It proved absolutely impossible to land either at Norden or elsewhere within striking distance of Hamburg; and after beating about the North Sea for ten days, wearing themselves out in ineffectual efforts to accomplish their mission, Mr. Chamberlayne and the King’s messengers returned with the report that the thing was impracticable, and that no mails must be looked for until the weather moderated.

Their report, though in the main true enough, and made only after very great efforts to succeed, was already partially disproved in advance. A daring officer of the Yarmouth station had demonstrated that the ice blockade was not impenetrable, and had shown that on a service of this nature the proper person to despatch was a seaman, and one moreover to whom the navigation of the stormy North Sea was thoroughly familiar.

Captain Bridge, commander of the “Prince of Orange,” had received two mails for Cuxhaven on board his Packet on the 9th of December; and it may be interesting to readers of our own day who by long experience have gained confidence in the speed and certainty of mails, to observe how long these mails remained in Captain Bridge’s possession, and how he fared in his efforts to dispose of them.

It was by no means in the power of a Packet captain a hundred years ago to proceed to sea whenever he pleased. He was under the necessity of waiting on the winds; and for a full week after Captain Bridge had received his mails, those winds blew so fiercely from the east that it was quite impossible for the “Prince of Orange” to set out on her voyage.

Nothing short of absolute necessity kept the Packets lying idle. If any craft afloat got out to sea they were expected to do so; but not the best will or the finest seamanship around the coast could take a Packet from Yarmouth upon her course for Hamburg in the teeth of an easterly gale. And so the “Prince of Orange” lay at anchor, while more mails continually collected in the agent’s office, until, when at last the wind veered round, and blew from the south, there were three other Packets also ready to put out to sea.

All four set sail in company; but almost before they had weighed anchor they were suddenly enveloped in a dense fog, in which they separated. At the same time the wind shifted again into the north-east, and rose quickly to a strong gale, with showers of snow and sleet, against which the four Packets beat vainly throughout two nights and a day, when, finding it absolutely impossible to make progress, they returned once more to Yarmouth. Two days afterwards the wind again became favourable, and the Packets, once more hoisting their anchors, went out of Yarmouth Roads with a strong breeze from west-south-west. The fair weather lasted long enough to bring the “Prince of Orange” in sight of Heligoland, where she remained throughout the night, making signals for a pilot, which were not responded to.

Now Captain Bridge was well aware of the critical importance of the service he was engaged on, and by no means intended to be prevented from executing it by the cowardice or sloth of the Heligoland pilots. He knew the coast well, and resolved to attempt a landing. Possibly he might succeed as well without a pilot as with one, since the case was one demanding resolution and daring rather than an exhaustive knowledge of the coast. He was venturing a good deal; for the risks of the sea were his, the Government accepting only those of capture or damage by the enemy.

At daybreak Captain Bridge took in his signals, and made all sail for the mouth of the Elbe. The voyage proved unexpectedly easy. The “Prince of Orange” met with no obstacles. The ice, possibly, had shifted by the action of the tide; but however that may be, the “Prince of Orange” succeeded where others had failed, and at 2 P.M. shot the ice close to Cuxhaven Pier.

This was well enough; but the dangers of the voyage were by no means over. With great difficulty and no small danger a line was got ashore across the pack ice; but this occupied some time. The tide was ebbing like a chain; the Packet had already begun to drift down stream; and before the line could be made fast by the helpers on the quay, it parted, and the “Prince of Orange” lay at the mercy of the stream.

Her position was now highly dangerous. The ice floes closed around her, and navigation was impossible. There was nothing for it but to wait until she grounded, which she did at last upon a sandbank some considerable distance below the town, and not far from the village of Doos.

The “Prince of Orange” lay upon her side at some distance from the shore. Night was falling; the winter darkness was thick, and nothing could be done until daybreak. During the night the ice bore down on the Packet so heavily as to threaten momentarily to capsize her; but though at times it seemed impossible that she could stand the strain of the floes grinding against her timbers, she was still in much the same position when morning came. Moreover, the tide had fallen so far during the night that it was possible to reach the land; and Captain Bridge at once put the mails in safety, and ordering his crew to get ashore whatever they could of value from the ship, which still seemed only too likely to go to pieces, he hired a wagon in the village, and himself delivered the mails and despatches at the agent’s office in Cuxhaven.

He made no long delay in Cuxhaven, being in great anxiety about his ship, but taking over all the bags which the agent had in charge, drove back in his wagon to Doos. The position there had changed for the better during his absence. The Packet had floated off the sandbank, and appeared on examination to be uninjured. The mails were put on board without delay, and Captain Bridge set sail for Yarmouth, where he received great credit for his plucky exploit.

The Yarmouth commanders were all bold seamen, but few of them were willing to take the risks which Captain Bridge had run. The frost continued week after week, and with one exception, when Captain Hammond in the “Carteret” repeated Captain Bridge’s feat, bringing home three mails in triumph, all intercourse with Northern Europe was cut off until the end of January.

It must appear to our modern ideas scarcely possible to exaggerate the inconvenience and distress proceeding from this long stoppage of political and commercial intercourse with the Continent. Such an event occurring at the present day would assuredly bring down to the ground many an old business house, and even shake the foundations of public credit. But our ancestors traded before the days of speedy answers and quick transactions. They were well used to the loss or long delay of letters, and had adjusted their affairs to the conditions of their time. The loss to them, therefore, cannot be measured by what it would impose on us; yet, after making all allowances, it remained very severe, and caused great anxiety to the Government.

As January sped away, bringing with it no change for the better, various suggestions were laid before the Postmaster General by persons who conceived themselves qualified to advise. Among these the most curious was considered to be one for the use of balloons. Great merriment was made in Lombard Street over this idea. It was brought before Lord Auckland in a jocular report, and he, minuting the case in the same spirit, professed his readiness to appoint the inventor of the notion to the post of “Controller of Balloons,” on the usual conditions of personal service, and of being paid after the return voyage. The project seems to us less mad than Lord Auckland thought it; but few men would have been found a century ago to whom the possibilities of ballooning had revealed themselves.

However, whilst one suggestion was being rejected after another, it was certainly desirable to do something, if only to avoid the reproach of inertness; and the receipt of letters of advice from several Greenland merchants in the city seemed to offer ideas which were worth pursuing. These merchants pointed out that it would be easy to collect a number of sailors who were accustomed to find themselves entangled in the ice, and whom experience had taught how to make the best of such a situation. A few such men were hastily brought together, and added to the crews of two of the Packets, each of which was also provided with an ice-boat. At Heligoland preparations were made for more carefully organized attempts to reach the mainland. All these designs were, however, formed too late, for while they were still being perfected, the thaw came, the ice broke up, and the postal communication fell back into its normal course.

So great a difficulty does not seem to have been caused by frost on any other occasion. But the time was drawing near when the will of one man was to erect and hold against English ships a barrier more impenetrable than that of winter, and during those years of doubt and of anxiety, the experience gained by the Post-Office in 1798 and 1799 was turned to good account.

CHAPTER VII.
THE SECOND FRENCH WAR.

With the outbreak of the second French War, the Falmouth service entered on a new and better period. It is in fact to the years now opening that Falmouth men look back with pride and satisfaction, years in which one gallant action followed another in quick succession, whilst the officers and crews of every Packet seemed to vie with each other in courage and devotion to their duties.

A large portion of the credit of the better temper which manifested itself from this time forth must of course be attributed to the zeal with which Lord Auckland and Mr. Freeling had plied the reformer’s broom; but as no regulations or discipline from headquarters can avail greatly against a supine or hostile executive, it is only fair to acknowledge that the officers at Falmouth worked most heartily in the same direction as their chiefs. Indeed, it would seem as if the reproach cast upon the station by the conduct of the officers of the “Duke of York” had bitten deeply into the heart of the whole establishment, and roused them to shake off the old and evil practices which had led to such disgrace. There was a dark stain on the honour of the Service, and every man set himself to wipe it out. How nobly this was done the following pages will amply show.

Among a number of less important reforms which had been carried out during the last three years perhaps the most useful was the ingenious system by which the absenteeism of the commanders was checked, while at the same time a substantial benefit was conferred on the Service. A system of mulcts was established, under which every commander wishing to remain on shore when his turn came for proceeding to sea sacrificed a certain proportion of the profits which he would have made upon the voyage. But at the same time the sting was taken out of these money fines, and they were even made popular, by a regulation throwing them all into one fund, the interest of which was devoted to pensioning the widows and orphans of captains and masters who were left in distressed circumstances. Mulcts, which were really nothing more than enforced subscriptions towards an object which must be congenial even to the mulcted, were in fact not open to criticism. The amount of the penalty was sufficiently large to induce some hesitation before incurring it, but as no exemptions from it were granted, even for reasonable business, the pension fund grew and prospered, and proved of the greatest benefit to the Service.

Among the captains who by this salutary new rule were tempted back to their own quarter-decks was Captain Yescombe, the remarkable story of whose escape from a French prison in the year 1794 has been told in a former chapter.

Since the events there described, Captain Yescombe, at his own urgent request, had been allowed to perform his duties by substitute, on the plea of having received a strong hint that it would go hardly with him if he were a second time made prisoner.

What it was that he feared, or on what ground, is not easy to make out; but it is clear that he had some apprehension of more than ordinary danger in resuming his sea life, and that he managed to convince the authorities of the reality of this danger. It is therefore not a little strange to find that on his first voyage after the war broke out again his forebodings were verified, and his ruin compassed by a French vessel named “The Reprisal.”