CHAPTER XV
A LETTER FROM JANE
The time of Captain Austen’s service in the Elephant is divided into three periods. For over a year she was employed with Admiral Young’s fleet in the North Sea, which was stationed there to watch Vice-Admiral Missiessy, then at anchor at the mouth of the Scheldt, ready to slip out if occasion offered. The ships under his command had been newly built in Napoleon’s great dockyard of Flushing, which was rendered ineffective by the constant British blockade. In the autumn of 1812 the Elephant was cruising off the Azores with the Phœbe and Hermes. The disputes concerning trade had by this time resulted in war with the United States. On this cruise we have the record in the log of the capture of an American privateer, the Swordfish.
“December 27.—At two, saw a strange sail bearing W. by N. Made the signal to the Hermes with a gun. Made all sail in chace. At sunset, chace distant two miles. The chace had all the appearance of an armed vessel.
“28.—Fired several shots at the chace. At five minutes to two perceived her hoist two lights and bring to. At two shortened sail, hove to, boarded, and took possession of the chace, which proved to be the American schooner privateer Swordfish, out sixteen days from Boston, armed with twelve six-pounders and eighty-two men. During the chace ten of her guns and several spars were thrown overboard.”
After her return to England with the prize and another turn at the Flushing blockade, the Elephant was ordered to the Baltic. They were engaged in convoying vast numbers of small vessels through the Sound and the Belt past the coasts of Denmark, which was still under the power of France, and in keeping at a distance such armed craft of the enemy as were dangerous. We find, in these short cruises to and fro, as many as two hundred and fifty or three hundred sail in company, under the charge of three or four men-of-war. An entry in the log on October 10 will show the nature of the work: “A boat from the Zealous came with letters for the Admiral, and to say that the galliott chaced yesterday was one which had drifted out of the convoy the preceding night, and was captured in the morning by a row-boat privateer off Nascoi, which, on the Zealous’ approach, abandoned her and escaped into Femerin. It appearing on examining the master of the galliott that he never had belonged to the convoy, but had merely joined them off Anholt and continued with them for security sake, without applying for instructions, it was decided to consider the vessel as a recapture, and to take her on to Carlskrona as such. She is called the Neptunus, Daniel Sivery, master, belonging to Gottenberg, and bound from that place to Stralsund with a cargo of rice, sugar, coffee, and indigo.”
The Island of Anholt, captured in 1809, was a possession of great importance to the English when engaged in this work, on account of its lighthouse, which could signal to the ships of the convoy and keep them all in their places. Of this island Captain Austen had a few words to say which show that its importance lay therein alone. After a lengthy and minute description of the lighthouse and all which appertained to it, he continues: “The garrison at present consists of about three men of a veteran battalion, and a few marine artillery, which form by many degrees the most considerable portion of the population, for, exclusive of the military and their appendages of wives and children, there are but sixteen families on the island, who all reside at the only village on it, near the high ground to the westward, and whose principal occupation is fishing, in which they are generally very successful during the summer.
“Antecedent to the war between England and Denmark and the consequent occupation of the island by the English, the Anholters paid a small rent to the proprietor of the soil, who is a Danish nobleman residing at Copenhagen; but at present they are considered and fed as prisoners of war by the English. They are an exceedingly poor people, and seem to enjoy but a small proportion of worldly comfort.”
The Island of Rugen, which was another anchoring station for the Elephant, was the only portion of the conquests of Gustavus Adolphus which still remained under the Swedish flag. The whole tract of country which he conquered was called Swedish Pomerania, but the mainland districts had lately been occupied by part of Napoleon’s army under Marshal Brune.
Of Rugen, Captain Austen writes: “The British ships of war were not supplied with fresh beef and vegetables whilst the Elephant was there, and I understood because (though they might have been procured) the price was too great, which may probably be in a great degree owing to the neighbouring part of Pomerania having been last year occupied by the French troops, and having suffered much from the effects of war, as well as having still large armies in its vicinity, which must of course very materially affect the state of the markets for provisions of all kinds.”
While the Elephant was employed in this way in convoying small vessels backwards and forwards, great events were going on all round. The southern shores of the Baltic were included this year in the great arena of the battles which preceded the downfall of Napoleon.