He was scarcely appointed, when officers came forward in crowds to offer their services. On the 29th of June, only six days after he arrived in the Channel, he writes—"Government has taken a very proper view of the subject, and has determined to send out a proper force. I immediately said, it was my duty to finish that which I had begun, and that I should cheerfully go. My offer is accepted, and I embark in the Queen Charlotte, with Impregnable, and others. The only delay will be want of men; but I hope they will be induced by the offers made, to volunteer for the service, to be rewarded after it." On the 4th of July, he says, "I have refused Israel, Pownoll, Fleetwood, Harward, and both Admiral and Captain Halsted,[12] volunteers. Even Lord Spencer brought his son, and a hundred others."
With very few exceptions, the officers were selected by the Admiralty. It was understood that Sir Charles Penrose would be the second in command, his appointment at that time as commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean entitling him to the preference. He was very highly valued by Lord Exmouth, under whom he had served with the Cleopatra in the western squadron. It was intended that despatches should be sent in time to enable him to join the expedition; but greatly to the disappointment of both officers, the information was received too late.
Lord Exmouth persisted in refusing all his relations. The motive of duty, which was imperative on himself, applied to none of them; and all were anxious to go. For himself, he might well trust that the Providence which had shielded him forty years, for so long was it since he had fought the Carleton on Lake Champlain, would guard him in the approaching battle; or, if he were doomed to fall in what might truly be deemed a holy war, he had a better confidence than the pride of a hero, or even the self-devotedness of a patriot. Before he sailed, he made every arrangement which his death would render necessary; and among others, wrote a letter for his eldest son, chiefly on the subject of the duties which would devolve upon him as a British nobleman, and which he designed for his last injunctions. The existence of this letter was not known until some time after his death, when it was found among his papers.
The Admiralty would not send back the squadron which had just returned from the Mediterranean, probably thinking it right that ships going expressly to fight a severe battle should be manned with volunteers. This decision greatly increased his difficulties. Naval officers seldom think a ship effective until she has been some time in commission. Within two months, Lord Exmouth commissioned, fitted, and manned a fleet, and fought the battle.
As soon as he had completed his first arrangements at the Admiralty, he hastened to Portsmouth, where the Boyne, his flag-ship, was lying with her consorts. He went on board as soon as he arrived, and there was not a little excitement when the Admiral was seen coming alongside at a very early hour in the morning. He mustered the ship's company on deck, and having read to them the Admiralty letter, invited them to join him; but at that time scarcely a man came forward. They were unwilling to enter for a new service until they had enjoyed some liberty on shore; but after they had been paid off, and spent their money, numbers of them volunteered, and many more would probably have done so, but for the very short time in which the crews were completed. No difficulty was experienced in manning the fleet. The whole ship's company of the Leander, then on the point of sailing as the flag-ship on the North American station, volunteered to go, and accordingly her destination was changed for the time. Rear-Admiral Milne, for whom she had been fitted, obtained permission to go out with her; and as Sir Charles Penrose did not join at Gibraltar, he hoisted his flag in the Impregnable, as second in command. Among other volunteers were a number of smugglers, who had been taken on the western coast, and sentenced to five years' service in the navy. They were sent to the eastward as prisoners in a cutter in which Mr. Pellew had taken a passage to make a parting visit to his brother, and they implored his intercession on their behalf. He advised them to enter for the Queen Charlotte, and gain a title to the indulgence they sought by their good conduct in the battle. They all did so: no serious casualty occurred among them, and they behaved so well that Lord Exmouth applied to the Admiralty, and obtained their discharge.
Lord Exmouth's marine officer in the Arethusa, the late Sir Richard Williams, then commanded the marine artillery, and Lord Exmouth wrote to request that he would aid him to the best of his abilities, by selecting officers and men from his corps. Sir Richard displayed on this occasion all the activity and judgment to be expected from his character, and Lord Exmouth acknowledged his services after the glorious result of the expedition, in the following words:—"I should be very ungrateful, my dear friend, if I neglected to thank you for the care and pains you took in selecting, for the service I was ordered upon, the best officers and men I ever saw during my service. I assure you that all the officers did you full justice: they not only knew their duty well, but they performed it well."
In addition to the five line-of-battle ships, two of which were three-deckers, the force included three heavy frigates, and two smaller ones; four bomb vessels, and five gun-brigs. Four of the line-of-battle ships were to destroy the fortifications on the Mole; while the fifth covered them from the batteries south of the town, and the heavy frigates, from those on the town wall. The bomb-vessels were to fire on the arsenal and town, assisted by a flotilla of the ships' launches, &c., fitted as gun, rocket, and mortar-boats. The smaller frigates and the brigs were to assist as circumstances might require.
The fleet left Portsmouth on the 25th of July. On the 28th it sailed from Plymouth Sound, and the same afternoon was off Falmouth. Twenty three years before, Lord Exmouth had gone from the house of his brother, who now took leave of him, and sailed to fight the first battle of the war from the port whence he was proceeding on the service which was to close and crown it. From this place the Minded, 74, was sent on to Gibraltar, that the necessary supplies might be ready when the fleet arrived. Through all the passage the utmost care was taken to train the crews. Every day, Sunday excepted, they were exercised at the guns; and on Tuesdays and Fridays the fleet cleared for action, when each ship fired six broadsides. On board the Queen Charlotte a twelve-pounder was secured at the after part of the quarter-deck, with which the first and second captains of the guns practised daily at a small target, hung at the fore topmast studding-sail boom. The target was a frame of laths, three feet square, crossed with rope-yarns so close that a twelve-pound shot could not go through without cutting one, and with a piece of wood, the size and shape of a bottle, for a bull's-eye. After a few days' practice, the target was never missed, and on an average ten or twelve bottles were hit every day. Thus kept in constant preparation for the battle, and daily gaining new confidence in themselves, the crews were in the highest degree elated. Officers and men felt they were going to an assured victory, and that to obtain complete success the plans of their chief required only the exertions which every one resolved to make. As a consequence of this enthusiasm, which never had a check, for the excitement of preparation was followed by the flush of victory, their health and vigour were beyond all parallel. Scarcely a man came on the sick-list; and when the Queen Charlotte was paid off on her return, only one had died, except from the casualties of battle, out of nearly a thousand who had joined her more than three months before.
On the 9th of August, the fleet reached Gibraltar, where the Minden had arrived only the preceding night. Here they found a Dutch squadron of five frigates and a corvette, commanded by Vice-Admiral the Baron Von de Capellan, who, on learning the object of the expedition, solicited and obtained leave to co-operate. The ships, having completed their ordnance stores and provisions, were ready to sail on the 12th; but the strong easterly wind prevented them from moving for two days. On the 13th, every ship received a plan of the fortifications, with full instructions respecting the position she was to occupy. A general order to this effect had been issued on the 6th, but the co-operation of the Dutch squadron had made some change in the arrangements necessary. To this squadron was assigned the duty of attacking the fort and batteries south of the town, a service previously intended for the Minden and Hebrus, which were now to take a position among their consorts in front of the Mole.
The fleet sailed next day, and on the 16th was within two hundred miles of its destination, when the wind again shifted to the eastward. That evening the ship-sloop Prometheus, Captain Dashwood, joined direct from Algiers, with information that the Algerines were making every preparation to meet the attack. All the former defences had been made completely effective, and new works had been added; forty thousand troops had been assembled; all the Janizaries called in from distant garrisons; and the whole naval force of the regency, four frigates, five large corvettes, and thirty-seven gun-boats, were collected in the harbour. The Prometheus brought the wife, daughter, and infant child of Mr. M'Donell, the British consul. The two former had succeeded in getting off, disguised as midshipmen; but the infant, which had been carefully concealed in a basket, after a composing medicine had been given to it by the surgeon of the Prometheus, awoke, and cried as it was passing the gateway, and thus led to the arrest of all the party then on shore. The child was sent off next morning by the Dey, and, "as a solitary instance of his humanity," said Lord Exmouth, "it ought to be recorded by me;" but the consul was confined in irons at his house, and the surgeon, three midshipmen, and fourteen seamen of the Prometheus, were detained as prisoners; nor could the most urgent remonstrances of Captain Dashwood induce the Dey to release them.