THE TRAFALGAR CHRONICLE TRAFALGAR CHRONICLE Yearbook of THE 1805 CLUB No. 19, 2009 TRAFALGAR CHRONICLE
ii Cover Illustration: HMSVictory in her final berth at Portsmouth, from an original drawing by Hanslip Fletcher, 1932. Courtesy Michael A. Nash Archive. Published by The 1805 Club, 2009, Cranbrook, Kent, TN17 2QD. Publication Design by Bumblebee www.bumblebeedesign.net Printed by B D&H, Litho and Screen Printers, Norwich. ISBN: 978-1-902392-18-9 Shipwright, hand-coloured etching, published c. 1810. Courtesy Warwick Leadlay Gallery.
THE TRAFALGAR CHRONICLE Yearbook of The 1805 Club. No.19, 2009 Editorial – Anthony Cross and Huw Lewis-Jones vi The Chairman’s Dispatch: Victory, Remembrance, and Daring – Peter Warwick viii In Search of Nelson’s Spy: A Research Case Study – Justin Reay 1 The Battle of Santa Cruz: A Critical Transition– Joseph F. Callo 16 British Blockades in the Great Wars, 1793-1815 – N.A.M. Rodger 27 Terror in the Countryside: HM Schooner Whiting in Southern Nova Scotia in 1805 – Keith Mercer 38 The Black Book– Terry Coleman 54 Reasons for Going North: John Franklin, Nelson and Post-War Promotion– Andrew Lambert 66 ‘Nelsons of Discovery’: Notes on the Franklin Monument in Greenwich– Huw Lewis-Jones 78 ‘The Brave, Rough, English Admiral…’: Sir Cloudesley Shovell and his Monument by Grinling Gibbons in Westminster Abbey, 1708 – Justin Reay 106 Why Didn’t John Bull Volunteer? – Tamara L. Hunt and Scott Hughes Myerly 118 Treasures from the British Museum Print Collections: Rule Britannia, The Development of an Icon, 1770-1820 – Jennifer Bodie 129 ‘Too Sublime for our Comprehension’: William Blake’s Nelson, Reconsidered– Huw Lewis-Jones 148 The Making of a Hero: Captain Cook’s Last Voyage – Glyn Williams 162 ‘The Idle Apprentice Sent to Sea’: Sailors and Urban Youth Culture in the Eighteenth Century – Roland Pietsch 174 Why did Captain Robert FitzRoy really take command of HMSBeagle? – James Taylor 190 Cochrane and the Battle of Basque Roads – David Cordingly 201 ‘A Local Remedy to a Local Grievance’: British Countermeasures against Spanish Privateering, 1822-23 – Matthew McCarthy 215 ‘Intrepidity and Perseverance’: Searching for HMSWager in the Gulf of Pain– Chris Holt 227 Cut text The Navy on Silver: Early Photographic Images of the Royal Navy – William J. Schultz 241 Alfred John West and the Trafalgar Centenary – David Clover 266 ‘The Greatest Reserve of the Imagination’: The Naval Theatre in the Age of Empire – Jan Rüger 283 Riot and Rap: The Cecil Isaacson Lecture, 2009 – AnnCoats 296 Contributors’ Biographies 314 Notes for Contributors 317 iii
THE 1805 CLUB Past President Mrs Lily McCarthy CBE (1914-2005) Vice-Presidents Mr K. Flemming*, Mrs J. Kislak, Mr M. Nash*, Mrs W.J.F. Tribe OBE JP, Mr T.Vincent*, Mr K. Evans* Mr G.Jeffreys, Mrs J.Jeffreys Hon. Chairman Peter Warwick 4A Camp View, Wimbledon, London SW19 4UL Hon. Vice-Chairman BillWhite Hon. Secretary John Curtis 9 Brittains Lane, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 2JN Hon. North American Secretary R. Burdett Mafit Hon. Treasurer Lindy Mackie Hon. Editors, The Trafalgar Chronicle Anthony Cross Dr Huw Lewis-Jones MA MPhil PhD FRGS Hon. Membership Secretary Linda Ebrey Friston Down, Jevington Road, Friston, East Sussex BN20 0AW Hon. Events Officer SusanAmos Chaplain to The 1805 Club (Ex-officio) Reverend Peter Wadsworth MA Hon. Editors, The Kedge Anchor Randy and Dana Mafit Paul and Penny Dalton Hon. Publications Officer Cdr Stephen Howarth RNR, FRHistS FRGS AMNI Hon. PR and Media Officer Alison Henderson iv
Hon. Education Officer Dianne Smith Hon. Webmistress Josephine Birtwhistle Research Advisor Professor Leslie P. LeQuesne CBE FRCS *Indicates Founder Member. All posts listed above are honorary. The Club’s Bank Lloyds TSB, 27 High Street, Whitchurch, Shropshire SY13 1AX Account Number: 11193060 Annual Subscription Rates Members: £35 / US$70 Schools: £50 / US$100 Corporate Members: £100 / US$200 Membership of The 1805 Club The 1805 Club is a non-profit-making voluntary association dedicated for the benefit of the public to the preservation and maintenance of Nelson-related graves and monuments. The 1805 Club also publishes original Nelson-related research, reprints, rare Nelson-related documents and organizes events of interest to students of the Royal Navy in the age of sail. Membership of The 1805 Club is open to all and is by direct application to, or special invitation from, its governing Council. Subscriptions are due on 1 January each year. All members receive, post-free, the Club’s news magazine, the Club’s Yearbook The Trafalgar Chronicle and the Club’s occasional papers. A charge may be made for other special publications. A prospectus is available on request from the Membership Secretary or the North American Secretary. For economy of administration, members are encouraged to pay their subscriptions by Standing Order. Disclaimer The opinions expressed in The Trafalgar Chronicle are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The 1805 Club as a whole. Registered as a Charity in England and Wales Registered Charity No. 1071871 v
Editorial See you the ferny ride that steals Into the oak-woods far? O that was whence they hewed the keels That rolled to Trafalgar. Rudyard Kipling, Puck’s Song, 1906. This, the nineteenth edition of The Trafalgar Chronicle, once again takes as its keynote a birthday, though this year of a different sort. 23 July 2009 marked the 250th anniversary of the laying down of Victory’s keel at His Majesty’s dockyard at Chatham in Kent. Thus began the building of a vessel that would grow to become the oldest commissioned warship, and perhaps the most famous in the world. Victory will always be linked with the name and memory of Lord Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar, and that, of course, has been key to her survival into the present day. That she has survived 250 years, over 150 of them in the ‘oggin’, is remarkable but what is extraordinary is the dual role she nowadays enjoys. Not only is she a living museum of the Georgian navy, she also serves as the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief Naval Home Command. Proof that her heart beats yet – if proof were needed – is evident in the salute she fired on 18 September this year at the formal launch of the National Museum of the Royal Navy. Victorylet go rolling broadsides and, pleasing to HM Treasury no doubt, this was done at the expense of less powder than gunners at Trafalgar would have used for a single shot. Never fear, HMSVictory’s heart still beats strong. In honour of her birth and longevity, we might do well to take as our metaphor for this issue the construction of a ship. A vessel floats, or sinks, according to the result of the cooperation of the skilled hands that go into her building. And in eighteenth-century Britain, the dockyard was the most complex industrial operation then known. It has been estimated that something like twenty-six different trades went into the building of a wooden-hulled, sail-powered warship. We hope the rough similarity of this figure and our complement of contributors this year is obvious. However, it would be inappropriate to stretch this comparison beyond its bounds and differentiate in order of importance between the master craftsmen who laid the keel and the lads who caulked the deck. Each plays a crucial part. Without due recognition of all hands, ‘ships are but boards, sailors but men’. vi
The coordination of many people offering different, but complimentary, talents would have greatly cheered our friend, the late Dr Colin White. In addition to making a generous contribution himself, Colin would no doubt have given us encouragement in like measure, often as not in a practical form of guidance and critical suggestion. To see that spirit still manifest here is a warm reassurance. As in previous years, it is our particular pleasure to see this Trafalgar Chronicle as the result of genuine team effort. All manner of disciplines, skills and trades have been brought to bear in the making of this journal. The common ambition of all the authors found in these pages appears to be the desire to volunteer one’s very best. Never mind therefore whether it comes as the result of the professorial pen, the student’s laptop, or the painstaking notes of the amateur historian. Each has its merits and all deserve a place here. Let us rejoice in this admixture and savour the result. Each essay widens and deepens our understanding, especially so in that solving a question very likely leads to raising many more. If this is so, then we look forward to their address in future issues. Therefore, our thanks are due to each and all who have contributed to this edition. We hope you will find both enjoyment and edification in your Trafalgar Chronicle. On this note of celebration, in Victory’s ‘wonderful year’, let us remind the reader of that enduringly good advice: ‘if you have trouble opening your bottle of champagne, try hitting it with a ship!’ vii Anthony Cross Huw Lewis-Jones
viii The Chairman’s Dispatch: Victory, Remembrance, and Daring Peter Warwick Over Time’s misty tide-stream sailing, Stirring the heart like the throbbing of the drums, Banners of conquest and bravery trailing, Out of the past she comes. How shall we honour her? How shall we name her? What shall her blazon be? FLAGSHIP OF NELSON, FLAGSHIP OF ENGLAND, VICTORY’S ‘VICTORY’ Anon. This year with the successful celebration of the 250th anniversary of Admiral Lord Nelson’s birthday fresh in our minds, we celebrated the 250th anniversary of the laying down of the keel of HMSVictory. However, we also said mournful farewells to Lt Cdr David Harris MBE RN and Dr Colin White, two leading lights of The 1805 Club and the naval history community generally. Meanwhile, we have all been shocked by the grim financial climate – an economic crisis so severe that it has set the scene for public spending cuts that may affect the future of the Royal Navy. Concurrently, we are on the threshold of commemorating the death, in March 1810, of another great figure from the era of the Georgian sailing navy, Admiral Lord Collingwood. This is very likely to be the last great naval bicentenary of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars that will be remembered in a major way. Will future generations look back and see the years immediately following the Trafalgar bicentenary as some kind of symbolic watershed marking a time when the allure of Britain’s naval history and heritage had reached a highpoint, while the simple lessons ‘out of the past’ were misunderstood or even ignored? What shall Victory’s blazon be now? In the mid-nineteenth century William Thackeray penned, ‘The bones of the Victory ought to be sacred relics for Englishmen to worship almost’. Today, there is still no more illustrious a warship name in British naval history than
ix HMS Victory, inextricably linked as it is with Admiral Lord Nelson, the Battle of Trafalgar and today’s Royal Navy – the oldest commissioned warship in the world and flagship of the Second Sea Lord and Commanderin-Chief Naval Home Command. It is an amazing coincidence that this ship, which is forever associated with Nelson, was ordered in the year of his birth, and that her construction was begun before his first birthday. Victory’s keel was laid on 23 July 1759 in the Old Single Dock (Number 2) at Chatham Royal Dockyard, with construction continuing for six years. Designed by Sir Thomas Slade, the Senior Surveyor of the Navy (1755-71), she was the biggest warship ever built for the British fleet. Carrying 100 guns on three decks and with a length of 69.34 metres and a beam of 15.8 metres, she displaced 3,556 tonnes and drew 7.44 metres of water ‘at mean load’. Some 6,000 oak and elm trees from the depleted Wealden forests of Kent and Sussex and oak and fir from the Baltic were used in her construction. The reason she enjoyed such a long fighting career was that much of this timber was more than a century old. It had been deliberately stockpiled to create a new first rate at a future date. This also accounts, in part, for why she has survived to this day. In January 1922, thanks to the efforts of the Society for Nautical Research, Victory was permanently dry-docked in Number 2 Dock, HM Naval Base, Portsmouth, where she has been variously restored, repaired and lovingly preserved ever since. The 1805 Club is honoured to be among the organisations that are officially regarded by the Royal Navy as ‘stakeholders’. Under its developing Naval Heritage Strategy the Royal Navy is demonstrating its duty of care for this magnificent ship at a difficult time. Victory is part of an over-stretched defence budget and it is clearly a challenge to justify monies for the preservation of her ‘wood and tar’ when sailors and marines requiring adequate kit are at risk of their lives in operational theatres. Last winter up to 40 per cent of Britain’s forces in Afghanistan were from the Royal Navy and Royal Marines. Nevertheless, there is no doubt about the flagship’s enduring significance. Lord West of Spithead, when First Sea Lord, believed, ‘she should act as a reminder that the reasons for her being created in the first place still stand, that today and into the future, Britain needs to understand the worth of its Navy and its vital role in securing the nation’. The late and lamented Dr Colin White expressed this belief more succinctly when he simply described her as ‘the beating heart’ of the Royal Navy, its standards and traditions: an icon for all those who have served and continue
to serve. She is indeed a potent reminder that Britain is a maritime country and as such we should never lose sight of the worth of our Navy in securing the nation’s freedoms and democracy. She reminds us that the sea should be at the heart of our defence. The standards can be damaged when, as Nelson once wrote to Lady Hamilton, ‘Government don’t care much for us’. Like Nelson, whom he championed in such an inimitable way, Colin White’s death in December 2008 tore a hole in the naval historical fabric. Like his hero, he died prematurely depriving the world of an undoubted talent. Admired and respected internationally – by royalty, the Royal Navy, historians and enthusiasts of Nelson and naval history alike – Colin was the right man in the right place at the right time. His apogee was the Trafalgar bicentenary, which he steered with considerable success. In the wake of his extensive research, which identified new sources (which he was happy to share with others, a rarity) and ‘revealed new insights’ (a favourite phrase), he launched a fleet of Nelson books culminating in the landmarkNelson: The New Letters, fired a broadside of spell-binding lectures and justly earned the description of being the admiral's ‘representative on earth’. x ‘Ladies and gentlemen, imagine that you are sitting with Nelson in the Great Cabin of Victory on the eve of Trafalgar …’ Drawing by John Gwyther, 2009.
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