Her Majesty Queen Victoria with a steam fleet defeats a squadron of sailing line-of-battle ships—Rough weather in the Channel—Ship nearly wrecked in Grecian Archipelago—My first command—At Sinope—Captain Michell’s seamanship—I become a Midshipman—William Peel—Cholera in the Fleet—Reconnaissance of the Crimea.
The young Bluejackets of H.M.S. Queen, trained under zealous and efficient officers, improved rapidly in seamanship, and on the 11th August 1853, did well in a Royal Review off the Isle of Wight.
Her Majesty’s ships Prince Regent and Queen with three steamers represented an enemy cruising off St. Helen’s, and Her Majesty the Queen, in the Victoria and Albert, led nineteen men-of-war steamers to attack us.
The British fleet advanced in a crescent formation and nearly surrounded their opponents, the Commanders of which, after expending a quantity of blank ammunition, struck their colours in obedience to a signal from the Senior officer, when Her Majesty going on board the tender Fairy passed round the captured vessels.
The Fleet dispersed a few days later, and our young crew was severely tested, H.M.S. Queen being caught in a heavy gale, which after tossing us about under close-reefed topsails, which were on two occasions blown away, obliged us to run for shelter into Torbay. During the gale the ship’s bow and stern rose alternately high out of the water, as she pitched in a choppy sea, and a wave striking the rudder violently, made the wheel revolve with such force as to throw two of the helmsmen right over it, one being severely injured. The wheels on the upper and main deck were then double manned, but it was necessary to control the swaying tiller in the gunroom with steadying tackles, in all thirty-two men being employed for some hours in steering the ship.
The temptations of Plymouth were too much for the probity of our Mess, and Wine caterers, a Clerk, and a Master’s Assistant, who misappropriated over £200. Three months later they were tried by Court Martial in the Bosphorus, and dismissed the Service, the one who was the more guilty getting six months’ imprisonment; but the money had to be repaid, and in the gunroom our bill of fare up to and including Christmas Day varied only to the extent, say Sundays salt pork and plain duff with sugar, Mondays salt beef and pease pudding, while we had to continue paying our usual Mess bills, those of a Midshipman being limited to 30s. per mensem, and a wine bill not exceeding 7s. 6d.
Tourists who steam past Cape Matapan, the southern point of Greece, in a few hours, may find it difficult to realise that H.M.S. Queen, although an unusually good sailer, took seven days to round that promontory. We were nearly wrecked in trying to beat through the Doro Channel. The passage lies between the islands of Negropont and Andros, the most northerly of the Cyclades, there being about six miles from land to land. The wind was north-east, blowing freshly, and dead against us; we were, however, nearly through, but just before dark on the 9th November, when the helm was put down in our last tack, which would have taken us clear, the jib halliards carried away, and the ship missing stays, gathered stern way. We drifted so close to the rocky cliffs of Andros that one might have thrown a biscuit on shore. A staysail brought the ship’s head round in time, however, and “wearing,” we lay for the night under the lee of the island. Next day the breeze increased to a gale, and the ship was kept under reefed courses, till the mainsail splitting, was replaced by the fore staysail. On the 11th December the Captain bore up, and ran back to Milo, there to remain till the gale blew itself out.
The harbour being landlocked, the sea was calm, as we duly saluted His Excellency the Governor, who came on board. Some hours later he returned to complain that one of the Midshipmen, in practising with his new pistol, had shot the Governor’s donkey. His Excellency was well satisfied with twenty dollars, which my messmate had to pay for his pistol practice.
When we left Milo we had a fair wind up to Constantinople, and from the Golden Horn on to Beicos Bay, where we joined the Allied Fleet. We remained for ten days at anchor amidst lovely scenery in the Strait, which varying from half a mile to two miles, separates Europe from Asia.
On the 3rd January the combined fleets weighed to proceed to Sinope, where five weeks earlier a Turkish squadron of seven frigates had been destroyed by the Russian Fleet. H.M.S. Queen and two French line-of-battle ships had reached the northern end of the Strait, when our progress was arrested by signals. The greater part of the fleets had been less prompt in getting under way and making sail, and the wind veering to the N.N.W. and bringing with it a fog, the fleets anchored again in Beicos Bay, the Queen remaining just inside the Bosphorus.