The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth

by Edward Osler

CHAPTER X.

SECOND MEDITERRANEAN COMMAND.

The contest for naval supremacy was so entirely decided by the battle of Trafalgar, that no opportunity was afterwards afforded for great successes. But at the end of the war, when the leading Peninsular generals were raised to the peerage, it was thought due to the service to confer a similar distinction upon a naval officer. Sir Edward Pellew received this mark of his sovereign's favour. He was created Baron Exmouth, of Canonteign, a mansion and estate in the South of Devon which he had purchased for a family property; and the pension was settled on him which is usually granted when a peerage is conferred for eminent public services.

He was still in the Mediterranean when the news of his elevation reached him, and he received the first account of it from a newspaper. In allusion to it, he writes:—"I was never more surprised than at this event. Never was man more ignorant of its being thought of; much less reason had I to expect it; and it has happened only by a combination of events quite unconnected with influence or power. I had some reason to believe a red ribbon was intended, and —— wrote that it had been granted; but if so, it was changed next day to what it is, which, for the sake of our family, I hope will be useful and respectable. For myself I am indifferent, and know it will only tend to multiply my enemies, and increase my difficulties." ... In the course of this year, he received a handsome compliment from the officers of the Mediterranean fleet. It is a beautiful model of the Warwick vase, executed by Messrs. Rundel and Bridge, at a cost of 580 guineas, and bears the following inscription:—"Presented to the Right Honourable Admiral Lord Exmouth, &c., &c., &c., as a mark of their respect and esteem, by the officers who served under his Lordship's command in the Mediterranean."

At the beginning of the next year, when the order of the Bath was extended, he was included among the knights commanders; and was afterwards advanced on an early vacancy to be a grand cross. The former was entirely unexpected, as he knew nothing of the intention to extend the order. He thus begins a letter to his brother on the 5th of January:—"I seize this moment, when the arrival of the post has brought me the enclosed without one single line from any friend I have on earth: possibly, it was owing to the lateness of the nomination. I had not the most distant idea of this event, and I can only account for its coming to me by the squabbling of parties ... to end which, it was probably decided on giving it to the commander-in-chief. On this ground only can I account for it, as it was by no means necessary to add this, which was once considered due to me as a reward of sufficient magnitude, without any other.

"6th January, 1815.—I had written the above before any gazette reached me, which explains the whole. But as it shows my heart and mind to you without reserve, and as I can call God to witness, that I never in my life kept anything from you. I send it.—May God bless you."

He had remained but a few months in England, when, on the renewal of hostilities consequent on the return of Napoleon from Elba, he was sent back to the Mediterranean. Hoisting his flag in the Boyne, and again with his brother, Sir Israel, as captain of the fleet, he hastened to his station. His services were first required at Naples, which he was so happy as to save from all the horrors of anarchy. Murat, that he might create a diversion in favour of Napoleon, had rashly attacked Austria, and thus violated the compact by which he was allowed to hold his usurped throne. What followed scarcely deserves the name of war. His army, not waiting for the enemy to approach, fled like sheep, and left the Austrian commander an unresisted march to Naples. Lord Exmouth, after having arranged with Lord W. Bentinek for the co-operation of the forces from Sicily with the allies, had arrived on the evening of the 18th of May, at Civita Vecchia, whence, on learning the rapid advance of the Austrians, he proceeded without delay for Naples, where he anchored on the evening of the 20th. Madame Murat embarked the same night on board a British seventy-four, and immediately wrote to Lord Exmouth, requesting that he would take measures for the security and peace of the city. No capital in Europe contains within itself more formidable elements for popular tumult; and upon this occasion, the mob, excited by the general confusion, and not restrained by any adequate authority, were proceeding to the last excesses of rapine and violence. Lord Exmouth was not slow to take the steps which such an emergency required. On the morning after his arrival, he landed the marines, who took possession of the forts, and the castle of St. Elmo, and conjointly with the civic guard, restored, and maintained order. On the 23rd, the Austrian army entered the city, and next day the forts were delivered up, and the marines embarked. The king, Ferdinand, was unbounded in his expressions of gratitude, and invested him on the spot with his highest order.

After having concluded some very difficult and delicate negociations respecting the queen and court of Murat, who were eventually sent to Trieste, Lord Exmouth proposed to General Bianci, to embark a few thousand men, and make a dash at Toulon. Unfortunately, the instructions of the Austrian commander would not allow him to join in such an expedition. The squadron therefore sailed for Leghorn, where it landed the first division of the Austrian army, and thence proceeded to Genoa. Accounts received on the 3rd of July of the situation of affairs on the coast of Provence determined Lord Exmouth, in concert with Sir Hudson Lowe, to embark 3,000 men, part of the garrison of Genoa, consisting of the 14th, and two Italian regiments, and including 200 artillery and cavalry, with which he sailed direct for Marseilles. Here the troops were landed, with a body of seamen, and the marines of the squadron, and stopped the advance of the rebel Marshal Brune, who was marching from Toulon upon Marseilles avowedly to destroy it. The inhabitants, grateful to their preservers, were unceasing in their attentions, both to the fleet and army, as long as they remained in the place. Their sense of the important services which the two commanders had rendered, as well to their city, as to the cause of their rightful sovereign, was marked by the present to each of a large and beautiful piece of plate, which was executed at Paris. On the base of that presented to Lord Exmouth is a medallion of the noble Admiral; and a view of the port of Marseilles, with the Boyne, his flagship, entering in full sail. It bears the simple and expressive inscription,—"A l'Amiral mi Lord Exmouth, la ville de Marseilles reconnoissante."

The squadron wintered in Leghorn roads, being detained in the Mediterranean for instructions, which were delayed for some time, through the magnitude of the negotiations then in progress. At the beginning of 1816, Lord Exmouth was ordered to proceed to the different Barbary powers, to claim the release of all the Ionian slaves, who, by the late political arrangements, had become British subjects: and to make peace for Sardinia. These were to be matters of compulsion; but he was also to make peace for any of the other states in the Mediterranean who would authorize him to do so. Naples readily availed herself of his offer. Unable to protect herself, it was to her an inestimable blessing to gain security from such a dreadful scourge on the easiest terms which the influence of the first maritime power could obtain for her. Nothing can be conceived more horrible than the condition of the Christian slaves, subjected as they were, in countries where no law gave protection, to all the caprice and cruelty of masters, who hated and despised them for their faith. Nor was it a small aggravation of their misery, that as Roman Catholics, they were cut off from the observance of rites which they deemed essential. To the fear and danger of being reduced to this miserable condition was the maritime population of the states around the Mediterranean continually exposed: while the great naval powers, deterred from exterminating these pirates, either by more pressing concerns, or by the failure of the different expeditions which had attempted it, purchased a discreditable security by presents.

Lord Exmouth afterwards visited Rome; but the Pope declined the offer of his services, perhaps from difficulties arising out of religious scruples at confiding a formal trust to a Protestant. He received the Admiral, however, with the utmost courtesy, and even attended to his request upon a subject where it was scarcely to have been expected that the interference of a Protestant would be allowed. A young Spanish lady, who was confined in a convent at Minorca, under circumstances of an oppressive and distressing nature, had contrived to bring her case to the knowledge of Lord Exmouth, and to place in his hands a memorial, which he took an opportunity to deliver personally to the Pope. A British admiral interceding with the Pope for a Spanish nun was a novel occurrence; but Pius VII. received the memorial very graciously, and placed it in the hands of Gonsalvi that proper inquiries might be made. It is satisfactory to add, that Lord Exmouth received a letter a few months after, informing him that the poor girl's prayer to be set at liberty had been complied with.