Frederick, born July 10, 1792, was one of fifteen sons and daughters, "of whom ten attained maturity, and several have entered the lists of literature." His eldest brother, Joseph, was a famous collector of china, and author of Pottery and Porcelain; the youngest, Horace, wrote One Year in Sweden, Jutland and the Danish Isles; and his sister, Mrs Bury Palliser, was the author of Nature and Art (not to be confounded with Mrs Inchbald's novel of that name), The History of Lace, and Historic Devices, Badges and War Cries. His father and grandfather published political and medical works, respectively, while the generation below was equally prolific. Marryat's youngest son, Frank, described his travels in Borneo and the Eastern Archipelago and Mountains and Molehills, or Recollections of a Burnt Journal; and his daughter Florence, Mrs Lean, the author of his Life and Letters, has written a great many popular novels.
We can record little of Marryat's boyhood beyond a general impression of his discontent with school-masters and parents. Mr Hannay is probably right in regarding his hard pictures of home and school life as reflections of his own experience.
It is said that on one occasion he was found to be engaged in the pursuit of knowledge while standing on his head; and that he accounted for the circumstance with a humorous philosophy almost worthy of Jack Easy—"Well! I've been trying for three hours to learn it on my feet, but I couldn't, so I thought I would try whether it would be easier to learn it on my head." Another anecdote, of a contest with his school-fellow Babbage, is interesting and characteristic. It appears that the inventor of the calculating machine, unlike Marryat, was a very diligent lad; and that he accordingly arranged, with some kindred spirits, to begin work at three in the morning. The restless Marryat wished to join the party, but his motives were suspected and the conspirators adopted the simple expedient of not waking him. Marryat rolled his bed across the door, and Babbage pushed it away. Marryat tied a string from his wrist to the door handle, and Babbage unfastened it. A thicker string was cut, a chain was unlinked by pliers, but at last the future captain forged a chain that was too stout for the future mathematician. Babbage, however, secured his revenge; as soon as his comrade was safely asleep he slipped a piece of pack thread through the chain and, carrying the other end to his own bed, was enabled by a few rapid jerks to waken Marryat whenever he chose. Apparently satisfied with his victory in the gentle art of tormenting, Babbage yielded voluntarily upon the original point of dispute. Marryat and others joined the reading party, transformed it to a scene of carnival, and were discovered by the authorities.
Meanwhile Marryat was constantly running away—to sea; according to his own account because he was obliged to wear his elder brother's old clothes. On one occasion his father injudiciously sent him back in a carriage with some money in his pocket. The wise youth slipped out, and finding his way home by some quiet approach, carried off his younger brothers to the theatre. He finally ran away from a private tutor, and Mr Marryat recognised the wisdom of compliance. Being then fourteen, that is of age to hold a commission, Frederick was allowed to enter the navy, and on the 23rd of September 1806, he started on his first voyage on board H.M.S. Impérieuse, Captain Lord Cochrane, for the Mediterranean.
He could scarcely have entered upon his career under better auspices. In a line-of-battle ship he would have had no chance of service at this stage of the war, when the most daring of the French could not be decoyed out of port; but the frigates had always more exciting work on hand than mere patrolling. There were cruisers to be captured, privateers to be cut off, convoys to be taken, and work to be done on the coast among the forts. And Lord Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald, was not the man to neglect his opportunities. His daring gallantry and cool judgment are accredited to most of Marryat's captains, particularly in Frank Mildmay, where the cruise of the Impérieuse along the Spanish coast is most graphically and literally described. Cochrane's Autobiography betrays the strong, stern individuality of the man, invaluable in action, somewhat disturbing in civil life. As a reformer in season and out of season, at the Admiralty or in the House of Commons, his zeal became a bye-word, but Marryat knew him only on board his frigate, as an inspiring leader of men. He never passed an opportunity of serving his country and winning renown, but his daring was not reckless.
"I must here remark," says Marryat in his private log, "that I never knew any one so careful of the lives of his ship's company as Lord Cochrane, or any one who calculated so closely the risks attending any expedition. Many of the most brilliant achievements were performed without loss of a single life, so well did he calculate the chances; and one half the merit which he deserves for what he did accomplish has never been awarded him, merely because, in the official despatches, there has not been a long list of killed and wounded to please the appetite of the English public."
Marryat has left us a graphic account of his first day at sea:—
"The Impérieuse sailed; the Admiral of the port was one who would be obeyed, but would not listen always to reason or common sense. The signal for sailing was enforced by gun after gun; the anchor was hove up, and, with all her stores on deck, her guns not even mounted, in a state of confusion unparalleled from her being obliged to hoist in faster than it was possible she could stow away, she was driven out of harbour to encounter a heavy gale. A few hours more would have enabled her to proceed to sea with security, but they were denied; the consequences were appalling, they might have been fatal. In the general confusion some iron too near the binnacles had attracted the needle of the compasses; the ship was steered out of her course. At midnight, in a heavy gale at the close of November, so dark that you could not distinguish any object, however close, the Impérieuse dashed upon the rocks between Ushant and the Main. The cry of terror which ran through the lower decks; the grating of the keel as she was forced in; the violence of the shocks which convulsed the frame of the vessel; the hurrying up of the ship's company without their clothes; and then the enormous wave which again bore her up, and carried her clean over the reef, will never be effaced from my memory."
This, after all, was not an inappropriate introduction to the stormy three years which followed it. The story is written in the novels, particularly Frank Mildmay[1] where every item of his varied and exciting experience is reproduced with dramatic effect. It would be impossible to rival Marryat's narrative of episodes, and we shall gain no sense of reality by adjusting the materials of fiction to an exact accordance with fact. He says that these books, except Frank Mildmay, are "wholly fictitious in characters, in plot, and in events," but they are none the less truthful pictures of his life at sea. Cochrane's Autobiography contains a history of the Impérieuse; it is from Peter Simple and his companions that we must learn what Marryat thought and suffered while on board.
Under Cochrane he cruised along the coast of France from Ushant to the mouth of the Gironde, saw some active service in the Mediterranean, and, after a return to the ocean, was finally engaged in the Basque Roads. A page of his private log contains a lively resumé of the whole experience:—