The immediate difficulty was to find a means of communicating to the Senate of Hamburg, then, as always, friendly to the English, the fact that mails were lying at Heligoland, and to concert with them some scheme for introducing those mails into the city.
To do this was a matter of great difficulty, since all the approaches to Hamburg were very closely watched. It was also dangerous, for if the messenger were captured, he would certainly have to face a long imprisonment; and worse than imprisonment might befall him, for he ran an excellent chance of being shot as a spy. A man of courage must therefore be chosen, and one of resource, of undoubted honesty, faithful to his employers, and adroit in action. Such a man was not easily found; but Mr. Thornton at last put forward his servant, James Giltinan, who had been long with him in Hamburg, and was well acquainted with all the surrounding territory.
Giltinan accepted the dangerous mission very readily. He sailed from Harwich on a Packet bound for Heligoland, and within a few hours of his arrival in that island he left it again on board a schuyt, bound for the mouth of the Elbe. The Heligolanders were confident that he would never succeed in penetrating to Hamburg, and the event proved them right. A furious storm delayed all news for some days, but at last the schuyt returned with the melancholy news that Giltinan had been made prisoner between Neuwerk and Cuxhaven, and sent to Hamburg in close confinement. What befell him there does not appear ever to have become known.
Upon the failure of this gallant venture various plans were considered, but all were laid aside as offering no prospect of success commensurate with the risk involved. The Post-Office declined to make itself responsible for any further efforts, and resolved to confine itself to landing the mails at Heligoland, where they must lie until good fortune provided some means of forwarding them. To such a condition of impotence the policy of Napoleon had reduced the Post-Office in the year 1807.
It is now time to return to the operations of the Falmouth Packets. A new service to Gibraltar and Malta had been opened in the year 1806, in deference to the wishes of the Mediterranean merchants, and still more perhaps to the foresight of the Government which anticipated the closing of the Northern ports. The “Cornwallis,” Captain Anthony, was the first Packet despatched on this voyage, which the hostility of Spain rendered rather dangerous. The passage through the Straits brought the “Cornwallis” into close quarters with the Spanish coast, and six gun-boats sallied out from Tarifa to intercept her.
These gun-boats carried 24 and 30–pounders, heavy guns for those days, with from fifty to seventy men each, and their plan of attack was a simultaneous onslaught. They were probably Privateers, for they fought under the bloody flag in token of their resolution to give no quarter. Captain Anthony had anticipated some such attack; and on meeting Collingwood’s fleet on the previous day, had asked for convoy through the straits. Collingwood, however, could not spare a convoy, being in constant hope of meeting the French fleet and bringing it to action.
“Just at first,” says a passenger on board the “Cornwallis,” “when we saw the enemy coming we wished we had had the convoy; but we soon forgot that when our blood warmed, for all on board had to turn to and work his best. Everybody on board did not seem to mind at all, down to the little boy who serves us in the cabin, although we could see they more than twice outnumbered all of we, for one Englishman is as good as two frog-eaters, and I am sure as good as any two of those rags of Spaniards. I saw that little David, the cabin lad who carried up the powder from below, sang merry until he had no wind with running up and down so much, and he only cried one bit at first, when a splinter from the boat’s bottom cut his forehead. His face was very black from the smoke, and he looked mighty comick when I wrapped his head up in my large kerchief, which I did when I was recovered from my fright.
“It was at ten o’clock on Monday morning, July 28th, 1806, a very hot day with little wind, that we engaged in coming through the Gutt, and we fought them for getting on for two hours, till nearly noon, about fifteen to twenty miles from Gibraltar.... The captain, seeing as how I was quite well again from my sea-sickness, and that I look steady, gave me the charge of all the powder, which gave me plenty to do. To every man on board cutlasses was served out, for we must not trust to our cannon alone, as they mostly try to board a ship, and take it by power of numbers.
“If a light wind, they make use of their oars and sweep along very fast, and board on all quarters at once if they can. Our ship with her stern gun, a long 9–pounder, spoke such language as they could not understand. She fired about sixty shots, and kept them at their proper distance, and was our principal defender. I suppose we fired two hundred shots on the whole, and did much damage to the gun-boats, one of which we sunk, and many of her men, thank God, was drowned in the sea, though the other boats being near picked up some. Once or twice when we struck them with our grape their shrieks was very awful and loud.
“Captain Anthony behaved bravely, and much praise is due to him for his spirited conduct. Mr. Mitchell, from Berwick on Tweed, fought with uncommon vigour; he fired three of the guns. As soon as one was discharged he ran to another; and directed the shot in a gallant style. The first shot that the Spaniards fired blew away the bottom of the boat which hung astern of the ship, and broke the cabin windows. A piece of wood from the boat struck me in the back, and I was much alarmed lest I was shot; but I received no hurt, only a great fright, at which Captain Anthony found time to laugh heartily.