Privateers and Privateering

by Edward Phillips Statham

Then Cassard, having obtained permission to take the matter in hand, picked out a band of about three hundred Bretons from among the crews of the war-ships, and landed with them. He did not mince matters. He was well aware that the only course to pursue, with any hope of success, was to meet savagery with savagery, and the plunderers soon found themselves confronted with the alternative of submission or death. They fought it out in forty-eight hours, Cassard guarding the gates strongly, and searching systematically every quarter of the town. With his own hand he is said to have shot down a score of looters; and when it was over he had to arrange for the burial of three hundred and seventy unhappy women, who had been ill-treated and murdered, often in the very churches.

De Pointis, on their return, strongly recommended Cassard for a commission in the Navy, but prejudice was too strong against his class, and it was not until nearly three years later, after some successful privateering, that he was summoned to the royal presence. "I have need," said the king, "of all the brave men I can find for my Navy, and as you, they say, are the bravest of the brave, I have appointed you a lieutenant in my fleet, and have given instructions that a sum of £2,000 be handed over to you, to enable you to support your position in a proper manner."

This was all very well; but his newly earned honours sat heavily upon him, and the jealousy of the naval aristocrats made things unpleasant; so it was in the capacity of commander of a private ship of war that he gained further laurels.

This was the St. William, fitted out by merchants of St. Malo in 1705, a small vessel, mounting only eight guns of insignificant power and manned by sixty-eight harum-scarum fellows picked up on the quays at St. Malo.

After a fruitless cruise he returned to refit, and then made a successful raid upon small traders off the south coast of Ireland, thereby gaining a little prize-money to encourage his crew. After a visit to Brest, he was returning to the coast of Ireland when he came across a Dutchman of greatly superior force, with which he had an heroic encounter.

The Dutchman fired the usual "summoning" gun, to which Cassard paid no heed. A shot across his bows followed, but he held on his course. The Dutchman cleared for action, crowding sail and rapidly overhauling the St. William. It looked like a foregone conclusion that she should succumb to this formidable adversary, carrying fourteen 9-pounders.

Cassard, however, had his own ideas as to the conduct of the engagement. As the enemy rapidly came up, pounding him with his bow-guns, the Frenchman suddenly shortened sail, squared his mainyard, and threw his ship aboard the other. A discharge of grape and chain-shot from the St. William's 3-pounders was instantly followed by a rush of sixty desperate men, headed by their captain.

A most bloody encounter ensued. Dutchmen are not easily beaten, and the deck had to be gained step by step. It is said that Cassard had told off one of his leading men to endeavour, the moment he gained a footing on board, to run in one of the Dutchman's guns and point it along the deck; and while the remainder were at grips with the enemy, this man and half a dozen others contrived to effect this, loaded the gun with langrage—which means any odd bit of metal you can scrape up—and watched for a chance. Then they shouted, "Stand clear of the gun!" The French suddenly parted to either side of the deck, and the shower of iron peppered the astonished Dutchmen. This was twice accomplished, the Frenchmen each time rushing forward in the smoke; and then the Dutch captain, wounded and bleeding, proffered his sword to Cassard. It was a good device, if the story be true; but not as easy of accomplishment as it is made to appear in the accounts of the action.

It is said that the Dutch loss, out of a crew of 113, was 37 killed and 51 wounded. Cassard had 16 killed and 23 wounded.

Some three or four years of success followed, during which Cassard adopted the illegal, but tempting device of ransoming his prizes and taking the captains as hostages for payment—a practice for which, like Jean Bart, he was brought to book, without very much practical result. However, he made a great deal of money, and in the year 1709[12] he was appealed to by some merchants of Marseilles to convoy from Bizerta, on the north coast of Tunis, a fleet of grain-ships—an urgent business, as France was in very great need of grain. He was induced to put his hand in his pocket and fit out at his own expense two men-of-war—the Éclatant and Serieux—lent by the Government, the latter of which he commanded himself, and made sail for Bizerta, where he found the grain-ships safe enough. The difficulty was, to get them safely to Marseilles, the English fleet being on the alert. With this end in view he had recourse to a ruse, which is not very clearly set forth in the accounts; but in the end he enticed a frigate out of Malta and led her away from his convoy, which he had left in charge of the Éclatant, though it involved a desperate running action with a vessel of superior force, in which he nearly came to grief.