That their religious life was the mainspring of all their actions is sufficiently clear throughout the whole lives of the two brothers. During this time at Ramsgate, Francis was noticed as “the officer who knelt in church,” and up to the day of his death there is one entry never absent from the diary of Charles Austen—“Read the Lessons of the Day.”
In May 1804 Captain Francis Austen was appointed to the Leopard, the flagship of Rear-Admiral Louis, who held a command in the squadron blockading Napoleon’s Boulogne flotilla. This flotilla, begun in 1802, had by 1804 assumed very large proportions. With the object of stirring up the descendants of the Norman conquerors to a new invasion of England, Napoleon, always dramatic in his effects, made a progress through the maritime provinces attended by the Bayeux Tapestry, the display of which was expected to arouse much martial ardour. It was assumed that his great army of veteran soldiers, encamped above the cliffs of Boulogne, was only waiting for favourable weather to embark on board the two thousand flat-bottomed boats. His review of this fleet in August 1804 was, however, so seriously disturbed by one or two of the British men-of-war that the new Emperor was obliged to recognise the impossibility of crossing the Channel unless he had the command of (at least) the narrow seas.
All the naval history that follows, up to the day of Trafalgar, was the outcome of his attempt to obtain this superiority for his “Grand Army of England.” The failure of Villeneuve, on his return from the West Indies, to reach the appointed rendezvous with Ganteaume off Brest, broke up Napoleon’s combination; the army marched to Austerlitz and Vienna, the flotilla was left to decay, and the site of the two years’ camp is commemorated only by the Column of Napoleon himself.
The work of watching Boulogne and the neighbouring ports was, in common with all other blockades, as a contemporary writer says, “a trial to the temper, spirits and health of officers and men.” There was a strong feeling in England against this system, which seems to have been popular with naval authorities. This opinion is voiced in the following cutting from the Naval Chronicle of that date:
“Were it indeed possible to keep so strict a watch on the hostile shores that every effort of the enemy to escape from the ports would be unavailing, that the fortuitous circumstances of calms, fogs, gales, the obscurity of the night, &c., would not in any degree advance his purposes, then would the eventual mischief inseparable from a blockade, by which our marine is threatened, find a compensation in our immediate security. But until this can be effected with a certainty of success, the national interests ought not to be compromised, and our future offensive and defensive means unnecessarily abridged.” This extract is perhaps of greater interest as an example of the journalese of the date, than for any unusual depth in the ideas which it expresses, which merely amount to the fact that it was considered that the “game was not worth the candle.”
Against this we may set another view of the blockades as expressed by Dr. Fitchett:
“It was one of the compensations of these great blockades that they raised the standard of seamanship and endurance throughout the British fleets to the highest possible level. The lonely watches, the sustained vigilance, the remoteness from all companionship, the long wrestle with the forces of the sea, the constant watching for battle, which for English seamen marked those blockades, profoundly affected the character of English seamanship. When, indeed, has the world seen such seamen as those of the years preceding Trafalgar? Hardy, resolute, careless alike of tempest or of battle; of frames as enduring as the oaken decks they trod, and courage as iron as the guns they worked; and as familiar with sea-life and all its chances as though they had been web-footed.
“If the great blockades hardened the seamanship of the British fleets, fighting for long months with the tempests of the open sea, they fatally enervated the seamanship of the French navy. The seaman’s art under the tri-colour decayed in the long inaction of blockaded ports. The seaman’s spirit drooped. The French navy suffered curious and fatal loss, not only of nautical skill but of fighting impulse.”
Nelson’s comment is opportune: “These gentlemen are not accustomed to a Gulf of Lyons gale, which we have buffeted for twenty-one months, and not carried away a spar.”
Captain Austen’s idea of the best way to minimise the evils of a blockade was to give the men as much work to do as possible in the care of the ship. At one time this took the form of having the boats re-painted. Over this question we have the following characteristic letter: