Types of Naval Officers, Drawn from the History of the British Navy

by A. T. Mahan

To the surprise of the Admiralty, Lord Exmouth asked for but five ships-of-the-line, five frigates, and five smaller vessels, to which were added four mortar boats to play upon the town and arsenal. When met with expressions of doubt, he replied, "I am satisfied, and take the responsibility entirely upon myself." To satisfy the hesitancy of the Government, he left with the Secretary to the Admiralty a written statement that his every requirement had been fulfilled, and that to him alone, therefore, would failure from deficient power be attributable. On the eve of departure he said to his brother Israel, "If they open fire when the ships are coming up, and cripple them in their masts, the difficulty and loss will be greater; but if they allow us to take our stations, I am sure of them, for I know that nothing can resist a line-of-battle ship's fire." He trusted to the extreme care of his preparations, which neglected no particular of equipment or organization, elaborating every detail of training and discipline, and providing, by the most diligent foresight and minute instruction, that each officer concerned should know exactly what was expected of him. In short, it was to perfection of quality, and not to an unwieldy bulk of superfluous quantity, that Exmouth confided his fortunes in this last hazard.

The fleet sailed from England on the 28th of July, 1816, was joined at Gibraltar by a Dutch squadron of five frigates, whose commander asked to share the coming contest, and on the 26th of August was off the north point of Algiers Bay, some twenty miles from the town. At daybreak the next morning, the weather being almost calm, a flag of truce was sent in, bearing the British demands. During its absence a breeze from the sea sprang up, and the fleet stood in to a mile from the works, where it stopped to await the reply. At two P.M. the boat was seen returning, with the signal that no answer had been given. The flag-ship queried, "Are you ready?" Each ship at once replied, "Yes;" and all filling away together stood down to the attack, the admiral leading.

The Algerine batteries were fully manned; the mole, moreover, was crowded with troops. With singular temerity, they fired no gun as the ships came on, thus relieving the most anxious of Exmouth's preoccupations concerning the difficulties before him; fearing, seemingly, that, if otherwise received, the prey might turn and escape. The British, on their side, observed the utmost silence; not a gun, not a cheer, marred the solemn impression of the approach. The flag-ship, Queen Charlotte,[16] piloted by an officer who had served continuously with Exmouth since 1793, anchored by the stern across the mole head, at a distance of fifty yards, her starboard batteries pointing to sweep it from end to end. Still no sound of battle, as she proceeded to lash her bows to those of an Algerine brig lying just within the mole. This done, her crew gave three cheers, as well they might. Then the stolid, unaccountable apathy of the barbarians ceased, and three guns in quick succession were fired from the eastern battery. Stirred by a movement of compassion, Lord Exmouth, from the flag-ship's poop, seeing the Moorish soldiery clustered thick upon the parapets to watch the ships, waved to them with his hand to get down. At the first hostile gun he gave the order "Stand by!" at the second, "Fire!" and simultaneously with the third the Queen Charlotte's broadside rang out, and the battle began.

The other vessels of the squadron were not all as successful as the flag-ship in taking the exact position assigned, and the admiral's plan thereby suffered some of that derangement to which every undertaking, especially military and naval, is liable. This, however, produced no effect upon the general result, except by increasing somewhat the lists of killed and wounded, through loss of advantageous offensive position, with consequent defect in mutual support. But the first broadside is proverbially half the battle. It was a saying of Collingwood to his crew, in a three-decker like the Queen Charlotte, that if they could deliver three effective fires in the first five minutes no vessel could resist them; and this was yet more certain when opposed to the semi-discipline of adversaries such as the Algerine pirates. Exmouth's general design was to concentrate his heavy ships at the southern end of the mole, whence the curve in the line of batteries would enable them to enfilade or take in reverse the works at the northern extremity. Here were to be the two three-deckers, with a seventy-four between them, all three in close order, stem to stern. The two-decker, however, anchored some seven hundred feet astern of the Queen Charlotte, the intervening space being left empty until filled by a thirty-six-gun frigate, upon whose captain St. Vincent passed the eulogium, "He seems to have felt Lord Nelson's eye upon him." The two remaining seventy-fours placed themselves successively close astern of the first, which was in accord with the original purpose, while the other three-decker took the right flank of the line, and somewhat too far out; in which exposed and unintended position, beyond the extreme north point contemplated for the British order, she underwent a very heavy loss.

In general summary, therefore, it may be said that the broadsides of the ships-of-the-line were opposed from end to end to the heavy central batteries on the mole, while the lighter vessels engaged the flanking works on the shore to the southward, thus diverting the fire which would have harassed the chief assailants,—a service in which the Dutch squadron, composed entirely of frigates, rendered important assistance. The bomb vessels from the rear threw their shells over the fighting ships into the town and arsenal, and in the admiral's report are credited with firing all the shipping in the harbor, except one frigate, creating a conflagration which spread over the arsenal and storehouses. Soon after the contest opened, the thirty-seven Algerine gunboats, crowded with troops, were seen advancing under cover of the smoke to board the flag-ship. The attempt, rash to insanity, met the fate it should have expected; thirty-three were sent to the bottom by the guns of the Leander, stationed ahead of the Queen Charlotte, and commanding the entrance to the port. An hour later, Lord Exmouth determined to set fire to the remaining frigate. The service was performed by an officer and boat's crew, with a steadiness which elicited from him such admiration that, on the return of the party, he stopped the working of the ship's upper battery to give them three cheers. As the hostile vessel burned, she drifted so near the Queen Charlotte as nearly to involve her in the same fate.

From three to ten P.M. the battle lasted, steady disciplined valor contending with a courage in no way inferior, absolutely insensible to danger, but devoid of that coherent, skilful direction which is to courage what the brain and eye are to the heart. "I never," wrote Exmouth to his brother, "saw any set of men more obstinate at their guns, and it was superior fire only that could keep them back. To be sure, nothing could stand before the Queen Charlotte's broadside. Everything fell before it, and the Swedish consul assures me we killed above five hundred at the very first fire, from the crowded way in which the troops were drawn up, four deep above the gunboats, which were also full of men. It was a glorious sight," he continues, "to see the Charlotte take her anchorage, and to see her flag towering on high, when she appeared to be in the flames of the mole itself; and never was a ship nearer burnt; it almost scorched me off the poop. We were obliged to haul in the ensign, or it would have caught fire." He was himself struck thrice, though not seriously injured. A cannon-ball carried away the skirts of his coat, and one glass of the spectacles in his pocket was broken, and the frame bulged, by a shot.

At ten P.M., the ammunition of the fleet running short, and its work being substantially accomplished, the ships began to haul off. The sea defences and a great part of the town were in ruins. "To be again effective," wrote Exmouth, "the defences must be rebuilt from the foundation." The flanking batteries and the hill forts continued to annoy the vessels as they retired, but the spirit of the Dey was broken. Towards eleven a light air from the land sprang up, which freshened into a violent and prolonged thunderstorm, lasting for three hours; and the flashes of heaven's artillery combined with the glare of the burning town to illuminate the withdrawal of the ships.

The following morning the Dey signified his submission, and on the 30th of August Lord Exmouth made known to the fleet that all the terms of Great Britain had been yielded; that Christian slavery was forever abolished, and that by noon of the following day all slaves then in Algiers would be delivered to his flag. This was accordingly done, the whole number amounting to 1642; which, with those previously released at Tunis and Tripoli, raised to 3003 the human beings whom Exmouth had been the instrument of freeing from a fate worse than death. Of this total, but eighteen were English; the remainder were almost wholly from the Mediterranean countries. On the 3d of September, just one week after the attack, the fleet sailed for England.

Profuse acknowledgment necessarily awaited the hero of a deed in which national exultation so happily blended with the sentiment of pity for the oppressed. The admiral was raised to the next rank in the peerage, and honors poured in upon him from every side,—from abroad as well as from his own countrymen. His personal sense of the privilege permitted him, thus to crown a life of strenuous exertion by a martial deed of far-reaching beneficence, was a reward passing all others. In the opening words of his official report he voices his thankfulness: "In all the vicissitudes of a long life of public service, no circumstance has ever produced on my mind such impressions of gratitude and joy as the event of yesterday. To have been one of the humble instruments in the hands of Divine Providence for bringing to reason a ferocious Government, and destroying for ever the horrid system of Christian slavery, can never cease to be a source of delight and heartfelt comfort to every individual happy enough to be employed in it."

Here Lord Exmouth's career closes. Just forty years had elapsed since as a youth he had fought the Carleton on Lake Champlain, and he was yet to live sixteen in honored retreat; bearing, however, the burden of those whose occupation is withdrawn at an age too advanced to form new interests. Though in vigorous health and with ample fortune, "he would sometimes confess," says his biographer, "that he was happier amid his early difficulties." The idea of retirement, indeed, does not readily associate itself with the impression of prodigious vitality, which from first to last is produced by the record of his varied activities. In this respect, as in others, the contrast is marked between him and Saumarez, the two who more particularly illustrate the complementary sides of the brilliant group of naval leaders, in the second rank of distinction, which clustered around the great names of Nelson, Howe, and Jervis. In the old age of Saumarez, the even, ordered tenor of his active military life is reflected in the peaceful, satisfied enjoyment of repose and home happiness, of the fruits of labors past, which Collingwood, probably without good reason, fancied to be characteristic of his own temperament. Lord Exmouth, compelled to be a passive spectator, saw with consequent increased apprehension the internal political troubles of Great Britain in his later days. Though not a party man, he was strongly conservative, so that the agitations of the Reform era concealed from him the advantages towards which it was tending, and filled him with forebodings for the future of his country.