Privateers and Privateering

by Edward Phillips Statham

The action was fought, we are told, so close under Cape St. Vincent that the castle on the Cape repeatedly fired upon the combatants, "as a neutral power commanding peace"; in other words, as a protest against the action being fought in Portuguese waters, within gunshot of the coast.

By half-past ten the Prince Frederick came up to the assistance of her consort. At this time the King George had received so much damage aloft, that there was no choice but to remain, for she could not have run away. "All our braces and maintopsail yard were shot away, the foremast quite disabled, and the mainmast damaged. We could not work our ship, and bravery became now a virtue of necessity."

There was no mention of striking the colours, however; and half an hour later the Glorioso desisted from action, and retired from the field. When, at daybreak, Captain Dottin, of the Prince Frederick, came on board, his first inquiry was as to whether the commodore was alive; then, seeing the ship's company so nearly intact, and his friends among the officers unhurt, he embraced the gallant commodore in the enthusiasm of his joy and admiration.

Despatching the Prince Frederick, with the Duke and Prince George, in pursuit of the enemy, Walker set to work to refit; and then a fresh alarm arose, for a large sail was seen approaching from the eastward. She proved, however, to be a friend, the Russell, an 80-gun ship, and Walker lost no time in acquainting her captain with the state of affairs.

Helpless in his dismantled vessel, Walker watched with his glass the progress of the chase, his own three vessels nearing the Spaniard, with the giant Russell crowding sail to join them; but he could not account for a fourth vessel which now seemed to be in the fight.

The headmost ship, apparently the Prince Frederick, now engaged the Spaniard hotly, and Walker, speaking his thoughts aloud to his officers, deplored her captain's unwariness in not waiting for the others to come up; for Dottin was blazing away for all he was worth, and Walker's experience immediately suggested a new danger. "Dottin will fire away all his cartridges at too great a distance, and afterwards be obliged to load with loose powder, by which some fatal accident may happen."

Scarcely had he spoken, keeping his glass upon the vessel, when simultaneously with the discharge of a broadside a pillar of smoke and flame shot up. "Good heavens, she's gone!" cried Walker. "Dottin and all his brave fellows are no more!" One of the officers suggested that it was merely the smoke of her last broadside. "It's a dreadful truth you tell," replied Walker, still looking through his glass, "for 'tis the last she will ever give!" And when the smoke cleared away there was no ship to be seen! This terrible incident so affected the ship's company that Walker called the officers aside into the companionway in order to admonish them that they must keep up an air of cheerfulness before the men, who might otherwise be backward in fighting; and while he spoke there was a series of sudden explosions, mingled with cries of alarm. Running out on deck, they found the crew in a panic, some clinging outside the ship, others climbing out on the bowsprit, in readiness to jump overboard when the ship should blow up. The alarm was caused by a seaman stepping upon a number of loaded muskets, which were covered with a sail, and firing one off, which quickly set the others going, some spare ammunition also exploding; bullets were flying about, the sail was on fire, and the men could not be persuaded to quit their temporary refuge, so completely scared were they by this sudden din, following closely upon the tragic occurrence they had just witnessed. The captain and officers extinguished the fire, assisted by the chaplain—"a very worthy gentleman"—apparently of the same type as that excellent parson described in "Midshipman Easy," who rendered such material assistance under similar circumstances, and was anxious to ascertain afterwards whether he had allowed his tongue too free play for one of his cloth; he had, but Jack Easy consoled him. "Indeed, sir, I only heard you say, 'God bless you, my men; be smart,' and so on."

Well, the Russell, aided by "The Royal Family," captured the Spaniard, of course, though she made a more stubborn fight than they expected, and the Russell was very short of men. The King George, however, had no decisive news on the subject for some days, when, encountering their consort, the Duke, what was the joy on board upon learning that the Prince Frederick was safe and sound! The vessel which so unhappily blew up was the Dartmouth, a frigate which had come up, hearing the guns, to see the fun. Only seventeen of her crew were picked up by the Prince Frederick's boats; one of them was an Irish lieutenant, O'Brien, who apologised to captain Dottin for his dress: "Sir, you must excuse the unfitness of my dress to come aboard a strange ship, but really I left my own in such a hurry that I had no time to stay for a change." He had been blown out of a port!

It was not until he was introduced to the Spanish captain, on board the Russell, that Walker learned that the treasure was safe at Ferrol—a great blow to him and his men; and on arriving at Lisbon he was, to his surprise, confronted by one of his owners, who blamed him severely for venturing the privateers against a man-of-war. Walker very justly replied, "Had the treasure, sir, been aboard, as I expected, your compliment had been otherways; or had we let her escape from us with that treasure on board, what had you then have said?"

Walker was then, in fact, treated very scurvily by the owners, if we are to believe the quite simple and apparently straightforward story of his friend and former officer, and was at the last hustled out of his ship, the King George, at Lisbon, by a scandalous subterfuge. Probably avarice was at the bottom of all this sordid business; privateer owners had a very keen eye for the main chance, and did not set too much store by heroism—without profits!