Privateers and Privateering

by Edward Phillips Statham

It was one of these privately maintained king's ships which was selected to convoy the young Pretender to Scotland in 1745; indeed, both the Elizabeth, of 60 guns, and the Dentelle, a much smaller vessel, in which the prince embarked, were of this class. The two vessels encountered the British 60-gun ship Lion, off Ushant, and of course there was a fight. The Lion and Elizabeth, pretty equally matched, and each commanded by a doughty fighter, blazed away at each other by the space of four or five hours, when both had had enough. Captain Brett, of the Lion, while regretting that he had not been able to capture the Elizabeth, was pleasing himself with the reflection that he had "spoiled her voyage"—and so he had, for she had 65 killed and 136 wounded, while her hull was fearfully battered, and she was compelled to make for the nearest French port. Brett took but little notice of the smaller craft, which, endeavouring at first to assist the Elizabeth, was easily disposed of by the Lion's stern chasers, and hung about out of range until the big ships separated, when she proceeded on her voyage to Scotland. Brett must have been rather annoyed afterwards to think that he had not made a capture of the Dentelle; but he had, in fact, spoiled their voyage very effectually, for the Elizabeth had on board all the stores and munitions for the campaign in Scotland, and Charles Edward Stuart landed very empty-handed in consequence.

One of the most prominent among French privateer captains is Jean Bart; he is, in fact, perhaps somewhat unduly prominent, as it does not appear, from authentic accounts, that he performed any more wonderful or daring feats of seamanship and battle than some others. It may be that the many unfounded, or at least unsupported tales of his prowess—incredible tales, many of them—form the basis, to a large extent, of his immense popularity; or, on the other hand, this very popularity may have given rise to these exaggerated anecdotes. He was, without doubt, a very fine seaman, and a determined and capable commander, very worthy of the public esteem, and his reputation gains nothing from wild inventions.

He was born in 1650, at Dunkirk, though his family is said to have been of Dieppe origin. He came of privateering, semi-piratical stock, and at the age of twelve he embarked as boy on board a Dunkirk smuggler, under a brutal, but capable ruffian named Jerome Valbué; his father's old boatswain, Antoine Sauret, accompanying him, apparently, as a kind of "sea-daddy"—and it appears to have been just as well that he had some one to stand between him and the skipper. After a four years' apprenticeship, young Bart, always enthusiastic and eager to learn, had acquired remarkable proficiency in seamanship and gunnery, and is said to have won the prize for the best marksman at the annual competition on the Dunes.

Thanks to Sauret's teaching and his own zeal, the lad was considered competent, at the age of sixteen, to fill the post of mate on a brigantine, the Cochon Gras, of which the redoubtable Valbué was appointed commander.

Jean Bart and his elderly adviser, Sauret, were, however, destined soon to find employ elsewhere, the occasion of their leaving the Cochon Gras being an exhibition of wanton cruelty on the part of their captain. The fact of the two having protested rendered it advisable that they should not remain.

M. Valbué, it appears, in common with many captains, both in the Navy and elsewhere at that period, still affected to be bound, together with his crew, by the Laws or Judgments of Oléron—a brutal code, dating from the twelfth century.

Valbué, half drunk, had been relating some wonderful tale of the miraculous intervention of a saintly bishop to save a fishing-boat, and proceeded to emphasise his own belief and his contempt for heretics by flinging his half-empty tin cider-mug at one Lanoix, a harmless Huguenot seaman. (Huguenots are habitually represented by the ordinary British writer as harmless, exemplary persons; a large number of them were, in fact, bloodthirsty, cruel, and seditious ruffians, who richly deserved all they got.)

Lanoix meekly but firmly pointed out that the Laws of Oléron ordained that the captain was not to punish a seaman until his anger had cooled down. (It reminds one rather of Midshipman Easy walking about with the Articles of War under his arm, and admonishing his superior for using strong language!)

Valbué's rejoinder was a blow with a handspike, which narrowly missed braining the seaman. Antoine Sauret ventured to remonstrate, but was warned that he was in danger of similar treatment: for the Laws of Oléron allow the captain one blow, just as the law of England allows a dog one bite—only the skipper was apparently permitted one crack at each member of his crew. So Sauret said no more.

Lanoix, however, was as well up in the law as his captain, and, jumping over the iron rail which separated the forecastle from the after part of the vessel, reminded Valbué that if he followed him on to the forecastle and repeated the blow he would put himself in the wrong, and he, Lanoix, would have the right to retaliate.