On the 10th began a general combined movement on Rangoon, which fell on the 14th, the Rattler taking a leading part in attacking the outlying stockades. The large stockade round the town and the pagoda was carried at the point of the bayonet. The navy suffered but little loss from the enemy; but cholera set in, and the Admiral fell ill. He was persuaded by the doctors to leave the river, as all active proceedings of the expedition had ceased for the time. He went to Calcutta, where, through the kind hospitality of the Governor-General, he gradually recovered his health. Rangoon, with its wonderful solid pagoda, and all its Buddhist traditions, was now in British hands; but the Burmese Government were bent on recapturing it, for certain royal offerings to the shrine were among the conditions of the King’s tenure of his throne. The war was therefore continued, and it was decided to penetrate further up the river, and with a yet stronger force. Admiral Austen thereupon returned to duty. On arrival at Rangoon in the Hastings he transferred his flag to the steam sloop Pluto, and went up the river on a reconnaissance, in advance of the combined forces. The main body proceeded direct to Henzada, by the principal channel of the Irrawadi, while the contingent following the Pluto was delayed by the resistance of the Burmese leader at Donabyu. It became necessary for the main body to make for this point also, while Admiral Austen was by this time much further north, at Prome. He was anxiously awaiting their arrival, while his health grew worse during the two or three weeks spent in this unhealthy region. On October 6, his last notes at Prome are as follows: “Received a report that two steamers had been seen at anchor some miles below, wrote this and a letter to my wife, and read the lessons of the day.” On the following morning he died. The Burmese leader was also killed during the assault, which took place at Donabyu not long afterwards, and his army then retreated. The British battalions were eventually quartered on the hill above Prome, overlooking the wide river, not far from Lord Dalhousie’s new frontier of Lower Burmah. Now thick jungle covers alike the camp and the site of the fort of Donabyu (White Peacock Town), for Upper Burmah is British too, and there is no king to make offerings at the Rangoon shrine.
The death of Charles was a heavy blow to Francis. The only other survivor of all his brothers and sisters, Edward Knight, of Godmersham and Chawton, died at about the same time; but Francis had still thirteen years of life before him. To realise what his life had been we must return to the close of the long war, when he came on shore from the Elephant, and was not called upon to go to sea again for thirty years. It is easy to imagine the changes that had taken place in the Navy in the interval between his times of active service.
During these years on shore several honours fell to his share. He had been awarded his C.B. in 1815, on the institution of that distinction. In 1825 he was appointed Colonel of Marines, and in 1830 Rear-Admiral. About the same time he purchased Portsdown Lodge, where he lived for the rest of his life. This property is now included within the lines of forts for the defence of Portsmouth, and was bought for that purpose by the Government some years before his death. At the last investiture by King William IV. in 1837 he received the honour of K.C.B.; and the next year, on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Coronation, he was promoted to the rank of Vice-Admiral. In 1845 he took command of the North American and West Indies Station. This command in the Vindictive forms a notable contrast to his earlier experiences in the West Indies. How often he must have called to mind as he visited Barbadoes, Jamaica, or Antigua, the excitements of the Canopus cruises of forty years ago! How different too the surroundings had become with the regular English mail service, and the paddle-wheel sloops of war in place of brigs such as the Curieux—and, greatest change of all, no such urgent services to be performed as that of warning England against the approach of an enemy’s fleet!
Nevertheless, there was plenty to be done. The Naval Commander-in-Chief has no easy berth, even in time of peace. His letters tell us of some of the toils which fell to his share.
“Our passage from Bermuda was somewhat tedious; we left it on February 6, called off Antigua on the 15th, and, without anchoring the ship, I landed for an hour to inspect the naval yard,” rather an exertion in the tropics, for a man of seventy-three. A voyage to La Guayra follows. It appears that Venezuela was giving as much trouble in 1848 as in 1900.
“A political question is going on between the Government of Caraccas and our Chargé d’affaires, and a British force is wanted to give weight to our arguments. I am afraid it will detain us a good while, as I also hear that there is a demand for a ship-of-war to protect property from apprehended outrage in consequence of a revolutionary insurrection.”
We find that the Vindictive was at Jamaica within a fortnight or so. It would appear that the Government of the Caraccas (legitimate or revolutionary) was quickly convinced by the weight of the arguments of a 50-gun ship.
The following general memorandum may be interesting with reference to the expedition against Greytown, Nicaragua.
“The Vice-Admiral Commander-in-Chief has much gratification in signifying to the squadron the high sense he entertains of the gallantry and good conduct of Captain Loch, of her Majesty’s ship Alarm, and of every officer and man of her Majesty’s ships Alarm and Vixen, and of the officers and soldiers of her Majesty’s 28th Regiment, employed under his orders on the expedition up the river St. Juan, and especially for the cool and steady intrepidity evinced while under a galling fire from a nearly invisible enemy on the morning of February 12, and the irresistible bravery with which the works of Serapagui were stormed and carried. The result has been an additional proof that valour, when well directed and regulated by discipline, will never fail in effecting its object.”
There are also notes about the Mexican and United States War then in progress, and instructions to treat Mexican privateers severely if they interfered with neutral craft. Strong measures were also to be enforced against slave-traders, who still sailed under Brazilian and Portuguese flags, but were now reprobated by international treaties generally.