Arthur H. Norway

“ James, the master, an officer whose growing reputation both as a navigator and in action already marked him as destined for an independent command. Mr. James was well aware of the great probability that any strange vessel encountered in that situation was an enemy; and he made his preparations without loss of time. It was half-past four in the afternoon when the schooner was sighted. By five o’clock the decks were cleared, the boarding nettings triced up, the arms served out, the mail brought on deck, the guns loaded, and the men were at their quarters, cheerful and confident. ”

“ Happily for this country, its honour at that crisis did not depend upon a merchant. It was in the hands of a man whose mind was not dominated by the fear of money loss, and who, much as he might regret the risk of losing the capital on which his wife and children must depend if he fell in the coming action, dreaded far more the disgrace of seeing the Union Jack hauled down, and the tricoloured ensign floating over Rozeau Bay. At this moment the Falmouth captain stood for England. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This lasted for an hour; at the end of which time the Packet had suffered so much that Captain James was scarcely able, if he had wished it, to avoid the boarding attack which he saw the Americans were preparing. Indeed, confident in the strength of his nettings, and in the quality of his small handful of men, he may possibly have even welcomed the prospect of a hand-to-hand fight, wherein his men, who were doubtless growing restive under the long pounding of guns heavier than their own, might work off their suppressed fury, and perhaps gain an encouraging success. ”

“ His couple of 12–pounder carronades were double-shotted, and as the lugger sheered up under the stern of the “Cornwallis” she got such a storm of grape and canister along her decks as took the heart out of her for boarding; while as she fell away in some confusion the Packet’s starboard guns came to bear, and were discharged at short range with terrible effect. ”

“ So strong was the confidence in this good faith that not one of the Packets was armed. Their guns were lying in store at home, as was the practice in time of peace; for to make show of readiness of war would not only have been unnecessary but insulting, and might well have precipitated a catastrophe. Thus, when a small force of French 149soldiers marched suddenly into Helvoetsluis, no apprehension was felt at first; and no other feeling than incredulity was excited by the intimation of the officer in command that the English must consider themselves prisoners, and their ships prizes of war. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 morning wore away before Captain Furze had convinced himself that escape was impossible, but being at last fully satisfied of the necessity of fighting, he took in his studding sails and awaited 288the attack. The schooner, as she came nearer, was seen to be a formidable antagonist, mounting sixteen guns, and having her decks literally crowded with men. She was flying American colours, which fact of itself was enough to show the Packetsmen that if they were to save their vessel and their liberty, it would be no child’s play that they had to face. ”

“ At Falmouth, where there is still a considerable 304interest in the ancient service of the Post-Office, no one has collected the facts or given any labour to preserve them from perishing. One by one, as the survivors of the Service died, their memories died with them. Captain Cock has passed out of recollection in the town of his adoption as completely as if he had never lived. Nobody remembers Captain James. The “Morgiana” and the “Montague” are forgotten as absolutely as if no remarkable events had been connected with their names. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The inhuman decree issued by Napoleon at the commencement of the war, ordering the seizure and detention of all English subjects between the ages of 18 and 60 who, for whatever reason, were present on territory subject to French control at the moment when war was declared, has no defenders now. That barbarous seizure of peaceful travellers, both men and women, of merchants 148following their lawful callings, and of Government servants, who had not yet been ordered to quit their posts, stands universally condemned as the act of a savage rather than of a civilized enemy. ”

“ Sidgman, master of the “Townshend” being killed, and six more sailors, making ten in all, desperately wounded. His crew was now so reduced in numbers that it was with the greatest difficulty that Captain Cock could continue to serve the guns, and at the same time to collect sufficient men to meet the constantly recurring boarding attacks. It was plain that this situation of affairs could not last. There was no sign of succour on the sea, and when Captain Cock looked aloft, he could not but admit that in the crippled condition of his ship, all chance of running her ashore was gone. ”

“ We have been more minute in stating the facts than the importance of the case should seem to demand; but we deem the detail necessary to prevent misrepresentations which might obtain credence, to the prejudice of that magnanimity and justice which the United States, in all their intercourse with England, have ever strictly adhered to. The crew of the ‘Windsor Castle,’ brought in by the Privateer ‘Roger,’ were on Wednesday last put on board a small schooner, and sent down to Craney Island in charge of Mr. Westbrook, an officer of the ‘Roger,’ with a guard of eight United States’ soldiers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Both the West India and American Mails were ready yesterday by about noon, but what with the passengers in different and distant inns, the Packets in different places, the cartage of the mails, the purchasing of their anchors in very deep water—pilotage not one man-of-war ever goes to sea without, so dangerous is the passage—that I see very clearly we shall not gain anything in getting to sea, though the mail arrives here in the morning.... ”

“ If ever circumstances justified surrender after a short resistance, they were present in this case. It might even be thought that resistance was a useless sacrifice of life; but such was not Captain Cock’s view. He held it to be his plain duty not only to keep the mails out of the hands of the enemy—which could be done effectually by sinking them at any moment—but to use every means in his power to preserve them for their proper owners, 229and not to abandon hope of delivering them at the agent’s office in Bridgetown until every chance of doing so was gone. ”

“ But a worse misfortune was at hand, for Captain Kempthorne had been no more than a few days in the hands of 61the 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 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Where, in those earlier years, was that splendid daring with which Captain Rogers led his men to victory, that dogged obstinacy which brought Captain Anthony successfully out of three fights against a heavy superiority of force within two years, that self-sacrificing zeal which animated Captain Dyneley in his great exploit at Dominica, enabling him to accept the whole burden of the risk which the merchants declined, and so to save a rich island for the British crown? ”

“ Thus was created the most serious situation which had ever confronted the General Post-Office, the most serious, one might say, if it is ever safe to forecast the complications of international affairs, with which it can possibly have to deal. ”

“ It is true that H.M. sloop “Dominica” had been sent to cruise off Guadeloupe; but even with the greatest zeal and enterprise, this vessel could scarcely have counted on intercepting more than a small proportion of the Privateers which lurked in every bay and creek of that notorious island, while, as it happened, any schemes which her officers had formed in this direction were promptly frustrated by a mutiny of the crew, who seized the vessel, took her into Guadeloupe, and reported to the French the defenceless state of Dominica. ”