LITMIR.BIZ

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incident may be recorded as a type of the rest. Lord Cochrane learnt that a certain vessel which he was resolute to take was lying at anchor in Almeria. He himself, in his “Autobiography of a Seaman,” calls her “a large French vessel, laden with lead and other munitions of war.” Marryat, as quoted by his daughter, calls her a polacre privateer, and says nothing of her nationality, but in other respects the stories agree. The story may now go on in Marryat’s words:

      “At daybreak we were well in with American colours at the peak. [The place, as has been just said, was Almeria Bay, and this trick of hoisting neutral colours was a common stratagem of war.] The Spaniards had their suspicions, but, as we boldly ran into harbour, anchored among the other vessels, and furled our sails, they did not fire. They were puzzled, for they could not imagine that any vessel would act with such temerity, as we were surrounded by batteries. We had, however, anchored with springs upon our cables; close to us within half musket shot, lay a large polacre privateer of sixteen guns, the same vessel which had been attacked by, and had beaten off the boats of the Spartan with a loss of nearly sixty men killed and wounded. On our other side were two large brigs heavily laden and a zebecque; the small craft were in-shore of us, the town and citadel about half a mile ahead of us at the bottom of the bay, the batteries all around us, and evidently well prepared. Our boats had long been hoisted out and lay alongside, which circumstance added to the suspicions of the Spaniards; still, as yet, not a gun was fired.

      “Lord Cochrane’s reasons for running in with the frigate was, that he considered the loss of life would be much less by this manœuvre than if he had despatched the boats, and this privateer he had determined to capture. He did not suppose, nor indeed did any one, that, lying as she was under the guns of the frigate, she would dare to fire a shot, but in this he was mistaken. The boats were manned, and the remaining crew of the Impérieuse at their quarters. The word was given and the boats shoved off; one pinnace, commanded by Mr. Caulfield, the first lieutenant, pulling for the polacre ship, while the others went to take possession of the brigs and zebecque.

      “To our astonishment, as soon as the pinnace was alongside the ship, she was received with a murderous fire, and half of our boat’s crew were laid beneath the thwarts; the remainder boarded. Caulfield was the first on the vessel’s decks—a volley of musquetoons received him, and he fell dead with thirteen bullets in his body. But he was amply avenged; out of the whole crew of the privateer, but fifteen, who escaped below and hid themselves, remained alive; no quarter was shown, they were cut to atoms on the deck, and those who threw themselves into the sea to save their lives were shot as they struggled in the water. The fire of the privateer had been the signal for the batteries to open, and now was presented the animated scene of the boats boarding in every direction, with more or less resistance; the whole bay reverberating with the roar of cannon, the smooth water ploughed up in every quarter by the shot directed against the frigate and boats, while the Impérieuse returned the fire, warping round and round with her springs to silence the most galling. This continued for nearly an hour, by which time the captured vessels were under all sail, and then the Impérieuse hove up her anchor, and, with the English colours waving at her gaff, and still keeping up an undiminished fire, sailed slowly out the victor.”

      It was on such an occasion as this, if not in this very affair, that Marryat is said to have had the adventure recorded by him in “Frank Mildmay.” Like the hero of that story, he was knocked down by the body of his leader, who was shot in front of him in a boarding affair, and then almost trampled to death by the men who pressed on to carry the prize. When the fight was over he was dragged out insensible, and laid among the dead. The unfriendly remark of a comrade—that he had cheated the gallows—revived him to give a vigorous denial. Mrs. Ross Church states that this happened in Arcassan Bay during the first cruise of the Impérieuse, but Cochrane himself mentions no such fight there, and no loss of any of his officers. Frank Mildmay’s adventure happened in Arcassan Bay, but Marryat would have obvious reasons for not being strictly accurate as to place. If the incident was taken from his own life, it can only have happened at Almeria. It may be noted that both Mr. Handstone in the novel, and Mr. Caulfield in history, were first lieutenants, and that both died in the same way, riddled with bullets, at the head of a boarding party. Was Caulfield oppressed with a presentiment of his coming death like the lieutenant in “Frank Mildmay”—or was he indeed the original of that officer who, be it observed, is a very distinct character, and has much the air of being a portrait? Perhaps a preliminary question ought to be asked, namely, whether this incident did actually happen to Marryat as recorded in the novel? It is possible. The fact that he does not mention it in the passage quoted above proves nothing. It is apparently taken from his unfinished life of his friend Napier, in which he would naturally not dwell on his own personal adventures. On the other hand, it is very much the sort of story which might be transferred from the hero of the novel to its author.

      In the course of 1808 a great change came over the war in the Western Mediterranean. Napoleon made his famous (and infamous) grab at the Spanish monarchy, and instantly, without hesitation, without concert among themselves, in one great spontaneous burst of patriotic enthusiasm, the Spanish people rose in arms. Their efforts were often unsuccessful, and even disgraced by mismanagement or treason; but, on the whole, they set Europe a magnificent example, which was well followed later on by Russia, and they gave England what she had long wished for in vain—a field of battle on land against Napoleon. The Impérieuse had her share in the Peninsular War. It was her duty not only to help the Spaniards in the coast towns, but to harass the French troops which endeavoured to enter Spain by the coast road. Cochrane was at his best in work of this kind. For months he was engaged in incessant boat attacks on the French transports, which endeavoured to reach Barcelona (then and throughout the war in their possession), by hugging the shore. With this service were mingled landing expeditions to blow up French telegraph stations or batteries, or to help the Spaniards to defend forts which commanded the road, and which the French for that very reason were particularly anxious to capture. It was Cochrane’s belief to the end of his life that if he had been supplied with a flotilla of light vessels and a regiment of troops, he would have made it impossible for the French to enter Spain by the Eastern Pyrenees at all. How far he was justified in this opinion, he never was able to show. Indeed, when he was offered just such a command on condition that he would abstain from attacking Admiral Gambier in the House of Commons, he refused it. Even as it was, however, he did much. His untiring vigilance made it impossible for the French to use the sea for the transport of men or provisions, and difficult for them to use the coast route which at many places was liable to be swept by the cannon of the English frigate. They were driven to use the inland route through a poor and rugged country swarming with guerrilleros. It is known that all this part of the war proved enormously costly to the French, and much of the credit due for imposing the loss upon them must go to the Impérieuse. Marryat had his share of it all, and in “Frank Mildmay” he has given a carefully finished sketch of one of the sharpest pieces of service in it—the defence of Rosas, where he himself received a bayonet wound.

      The desire to be back in his place in Parliament, in order that he might expose the malpractices of the Maltese Admiralty Court (this is the motive assigned by himself, and was doubtless that of which he was most conscious), induced Cochrane to apply for leave to bring the Impérieuse home to England. It was granted with a facility which throws some doubt on his theory that the Admiralty feared his presence; and early in March, 1809, he dropped anchor in Plymouth Sound. Unhappily for himself, Cochrane was selected for a special piece of service before he could resume his Parliamentary work. In February of this year a French squadron had slipped out of Brest, with orders to drive off the British seventy-fours which were then watching L’Orient, to pick up three more ships at anchor there under Commodore Troude, and then to proceed to the West Indies to relieve Martinique. Admiral Willaumez, the French commander, did not escape the vigilance of the Channel squadron. His fleet was sighted at sea, followed till it entered the Pertuis d’Antioche, between the islands of Ré and Oléron, and very soon a blockading force collected under Admiral Gambier. The outcries of the London and Liverpool merchants roused the Admiralty to make great exertions for the destruction of an armament which was designed to operate in the West Indies, and would, by its mere presence in those waters, have greatly disturbed English trade. In an evil hour for Cochrane, my Lords remembered that he was well acquainted

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