Cornish Characters and Strange Events

by S. Baring-Gould

So far the battery had not fired, and Nicolls ordered that the Albion should be got under sail, and the cable was cut.

At this moment up came the barge, commanded by Lieutenant the Hon. Warwick Lake. He took command of the prize captured by Nicolls, and with two boats towing her soon ran her out of gunshot of the battery, which had now at last opened fire, and joined the frigate in the offing.

Captain Mudge, in his report to the Admiralty, wrote: "Having gained intelligence that there was a large coppered cutter full of bullocks for the Cape laying close under the guns of Monte Christi (four 24-pounders and three field-pieces), notwithstanding her situation, I was convinced we could bring her off; and at two this morning she was masterly and gallantly attacked by Lieutenant Lake in the cutter, and Lieutenant Nicolls, of the Marines, in the barge, who cut her out. She is ninety-two tons burden, etc. This affair lost me two men killed, and two wounded."

As will be seen, this was a gross misstatement of facts. The Hon. Warwick Lake was in the barge, and did nothing till the Albion had been captured by Lieutenant Nicolls in the cutter. Nor was this all. Among the two wounded, Lieutenant Nicolls, the hero of the action, was not named. His wound was not a scratch, but a hole on each side of his body and a ball in his arm, that sent him bleeding to the cock-pit of the Blanche.

The Patriotic Fund presented to Lieutenant Lake "for his gallantry" a sword valued at £50, and he did not blush to receive it, whereas Lieutenant Nicolls received one valued at £30. Not till much later was it discovered who had been the hero of the action, and who the sneak who flourished the plumes due to another.

In 1807 Lake was captain of the Recruit, an 18-gun brig-sloop.

Jeffery, at the age of eighteen, had entered in 1807 on board the Lord Nelson privateer of Plymouth; but eight days after, when the privateer had put into Falmouth, was pressed by an officer of the Recruit, which soon after sailed for the West Indies. Jeffery was a skulking, ill-conditioned fellow, who was caught stealing a bottle of rum and was punished for it, and by his own acknowledgment, on December 10th, went to the spruce-beer cask and drew off about two quarts. A shipmate saw and informed against Jeffery, and Captain Lake ordered the sergeant of marines to "put him in the black list," and he had the word Thief painted on a bit of canvas and affixed to his back.

Edward Spencer, master, told his captain that the fellow was no good on board, and that the best thing that could be done with him was to put him on shore.

On the 13th December the Recruit was passing the island of Sombrero, that lies between the islet of Anyada in the Puerta Virgin Islands and that of Anguella in the Lesser Antilles group. It was towards evening between five and six of the afternoon. Captain Lake then ordered Jeffery to be brought on deck, and saying that he would not keep such a worthless scoundrel on the ship, gave orders to Lieutenant Mould to have out the boat and convey Jeffery on shore. Neither the captain nor any of the crew knew that the island was desert and waterless. They believed that it was inhabited by a few fishermen, and in the evening light mistook some rocks on shore for houses. Accordingly, a little before 6 p.m., Jeffery was placed in a boat along with the second lieutenant of the brig, Richard Cotten Mould, a midshipman, and four sailors, and landed on Sombrero, without shoes to his feet, or any other clothes than those on his back, and without even a biscuit for food.

Lieutenant Mould, seeing that the lad's feet were cut and bleeding by stepping on the sharp-pointed rocks, begged a pair of shoes for him from one of the seamen, and gave him his knife and a couple of handkerchiefs, to be made use of as signals, and advised him to keep a sharp look-out for passing vessels. Then he pulled back to the Recruit.