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.