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.