I repaired on board with a pilot and brought the vessel into Hamoaze. At the appointed time I waited on the admiral. The dinner I thought passed off heavily. There were no ladies to [pg 296]embellish the table, and after coffee I went on board. Next morning I waited on the commissioner, Fanshaw, who received me very graciously, as I was known to several of his family. As the vessel was to be docked and fresh coppered, we were hulked, and I took lodgings on shore, where the commissioner did me the honour of calling on me and requested me to dine with him the following day. The dinner party consisted of another brother officer, his own family, who were very amiable, and myself. During the fortnight I remained here, as I was well acquainted with several families, I contrived to pass my time very agreeably.
I expected every hour orders to fit foreign, but, oh! reader, judge of my mortification when the admiral informed me I was to go back from whence I came in a few days, and take with me a heavy-laden convoy. My mind had been filled with Italian skies and burnished golden sunsets, ladies with tender black eyes, Sicilian coral necklaces, tunny-fish and tusks. I was to give up all these and to return to that never-to-be-forgotten, good-for-nothing rotten flotilla, to see Dover pier, the lighthouse, and the steeple of Boulogne, to cross and re-cross from one to the other to provoke an appetite. If I had had interest enough I would have changed the Board of Admiralty for having sent me to Plymouth on a fool’s errand. My thoughts were bitter and seven fathoms deep. Again I cruised, like an armadillo on a grassplat, [pg 297]there and back again. After our usual time we again disturbed the mud, and most likely a number of fish, by letting go our anchors in the Downs, I little thought for the last time. How blind is man to future events, and fortunate it is he is so!
On the ninth day His Majesty’s brig was again dividing the water and making it fly to the right and left in delicate wavy curls. We wished Boulogne, Bonaparte, and his flotilla burnt to a cinder during this cruise; we were generally at anchor off that detested place, and took nothing, for there was nothing to take. On Sunday we were usually firing at the flotilla as they anchored outside the pier, but so close to it that I fear our shot made little impression. At this time they were erecting a column on the heights, on which, we understood from the fishing-boats, an equestrian statue of that great dethroner, Bonaparte, was to be placed. A large division of the army of England, as they chose to call themselves, were encamped round it. We occasionally anchored at Dungeness for a few hours to procure fresh beef and vegetables. Our cruise was nearly terminated when the sloop of war, whose captain was senior to myself, made my signal. On repairing on board her, he informed me that a division of the flotilla was to run along shore for Cherbourg that night, and that it was necessary to keep the vessels as close in shore as possible, in order to intercept them.
I again joined my ship and remained on deck until midnight in the hope of encountering these bugbears, and making them pay dearly for all the trouble they had given us; but, alas! how futile is the expectation of man! I had gone to my cabin and thrown myself on the sofa, and fallen into a canine slumber—that is, one eye shut and the other open—when I heard a confused kind of rumbling noise, and soon afterwards the officer of the watch tumbled down the hatchway and called out to me that the ship was aground on the French coast, but that the fog, which had come on about an hour after I quitted the deck, was so dense that the land could not be seen. I had only taken off my coat and shoes. I was immediately on deck, where I saw, to my sorrow and amazement, my commanding officer hard and fast about half pistol-shot from us. I asked the pilots, whose carelessness had done us this favour, what time of tide it was. “The infant ebb of the spring,” was the comfortable answer. “I wish you were both hanged,” I replied. “So be it,” responded the officers. During this period we were not idle; the boats were got out as well as an anchor astern, and the sails hove aback, the water started, the pumps set going, guns thrown overboard over the bows as well as shot, but all our efforts proved fruitless—you might as well have tried to start the Monument; and, to conclude this distressing and disastrous scene, a heavy battery began pouring its shot into the vessel I commanded, she being the [pg 299]nearest, and the fort not more than an eighth of a mile from us on the edge of a cliff. A boat came from the sloop to request that I would make preparations to blow up my vessel and quit her with the crew. “Sooner said than done,” replied I to the officer sent; “my boats will not carry the whole of us, and however I may wish to go to heaven in a hurry, probably those who are obliged to remain may not be willing to bear me company.” As the vessel began to heel over towards the battery, I ordered the boats to be manned, and all left the ship except nineteen men and myself, who had the felicity to be fired at like rabbits, as the enemy had now brought some field-pieces to bear on us. Our rigging was soon shot away and our sails cut into ribbons. At length away went the lower masts a little above the deck, while about two hundred men were pegging away at us with muskets. To make our happiness supreme, the sloop of war which had been set on fire and abandoned, blew up, and set us partially in a blaze, and while we were endeavouring to extinguish it the enemy took the cowardly advantage of wounding the purser, gunner, and two seamen, as well as myself, though only slightly. We had now fallen so much on the side that we stood with our feet on the combings of the hatchways, with our backs against the deck. What a charming sight, as my Lady Dangerfield might have said, to see four heavy guns from the battery, three field-pieces, and about two hundred soldiers firing at a nearly deserted vessel, and endeavouring to pick off and [pg 300]send to “Kingdom come” the unfortunate few of her crew who remained. The captain of the other sloop, finding I was not in the boats, pulled back in a gallant manner under a most galling fire to entreat me to come into his boat. This I declined, as I could not in justice leave those who were obliged to remain behind. Finding he could not prevail on me to leave, he joined the other boats and proceeded to England, where, happily, they all arrived in the evening. We had now been aground about four hours, and the enemy had amused himself by firing at us for about two hours and a half.[6]
CHAPTER XXIV.
TAKEN PRISONER.
Taken prisoner, and removed to Boulogne gaol—Asked to dinner by General Lemaroix—News of Perceval’s assassination—Parole refused—Marched to Montreuil-sur-Mer—On to Hesdin; being footsore, author insists on having a carriage—Drives to Arras.
When the tide had receded sufficiently for the enemy to board us without wetting their delicate feet, about one hundred and fifty disgraced our decks. About thirty of these civil gentlemen, principally officers, paid a visit to my cabin without asking permission. The wine, of which I had ten dozen on board, was their first object, which I make no doubt they found suited their palate, as they drank it with much zest. My clothes, spyglasses, knives and forks, as well as the crockery-ware, were seized on in turn; and it appeared by their smirking looks and lively conversation that all they had achieved was perfectly to their satisfaction, and that instead of plundering a few ship-wrecked sufferers they had only been asked to a fête given by me. The commanding officer of these brave and honest men desired us to go on shore, where we were met by another officer, who ordered us to the guard-house near the battery, and an hour afterwards we marched for Boulogne, which [pg 302]was four miles distant, escorted by about forty of our tormentors. On our arrival we had the unexpected happiness of being lodged in the common gaol, cooped up in a dirty tiled room of twelve feet by eight, with a small well-grated window. “Well,” said I to the doctor, who had remained behind to dress the wounded, “what will the marines say to this? The sailors will never believe it.” Whilst we were prosing with our elbows on our knees and our chins on our thumbs, looking very dolefully at each other, the ill-looking man who had locked us up made his appearance with a servant in a rich livery, who asked in French for the commandant. I stood up and said I was that person, on which he presented me with the following note:—