Jane Austen's Sailor Brothers - J. H. Hubback (novels for students txt) 📗

bring battering cannon to Haifa for the attack on Acre. It was some time before he got the opportunity to slip out of Alexandria, and he then found Jaffa the only place available for landing the guns. Accomplishing this, he vainly endeavoured to co-operate in the siege of Acre, but was driven off by the Tigre and Theseus under Sir Sydney Smith. The blockade made it impossible for Perr��e to re-enter Alexandria. The five vessels therefore sailed for Toulon, and on June 18 we have in the log of the Peterel the account of the capture of this unlucky squadron, within a few hours of their French haven.

June 7.—“Admiral (Lord Keith) and fleet in company. The Emerald made signal for five sail in sight. The Admiral signalled for general chace. Answered his signal to us to keep between the Admiral and the chacing ships in N.E., to repeat At 8 P.M. Emerald N.E., six or seven miles, Admiral west, four miles.

June 18.—“One o’clock P.M. Saw four sail bearing N.W. At six, five sail of strangers in sight. At seven, perceived the Centaur open a fire on the chace, which was returned. Saw two of them strike and shorten sail. Half-past seven, the Emerald got up with, and took possession of, another. At eight o’clock the Centaur brought to a fourth. The Success and the Triton in chace of the fifth.

June 19.—“At daylight, ten of the fleet and five prizes in company. Boats of the fleet employed on the 19th getting the prisoners out of the prizes. These ships proved to be a squadron which had escaped out of Alexandria on the 19th of March, and, after cruising a considerable time off Joppa, were returning to Toulon. Their names are as follows:

La Junon … . . 38 guns, 600 men (with a Rear-Admiral on board).

L’Alceste … . . 36 guns.

La Courageuse … . . 32 guns, 300 men.

L’Alerte … . . 16-gun brig.

La Salamine … . . 16-gun ditto.”

Marshal Suwarrow, in command of the Russian and Austrian armies, was now making use of Bonaparte’s enforced detention in Egypt to drive the French out of Italy. By June, after the battle of the Trebbia, he had not only shut up Moreau’s army in Genoa, but had driven Macdonald back into Tuscany. It was only with the greatest difficulty that the two French Commanders were able eventually to join forces in Genoa. With characteristic want of confidence in their generals, the French Directory sent out General Joubert to take command in the place of the two who had been worsted. Almost immediately after his arrival, he was himself utterly defeated and killed at the battle of Novi. Nothing was left of the French possessions in Italy except Genoa, and a few smaller fortified places. To Genoa Massena came after his successful exploits in Switzerland, and made his memorable stand, against the Austrian army besieging by land and the British blockading by sea.

With these events during 1799 and 1800, the Peterel was in constant touch. On one occasion, off Savona, a vessel was taken containing two hundred and fifty wounded soldiers, who were being conveyed from Genoa back to France after the indecisive battle of the Trebbia. On this Captain Austen remarks, “As many of them were in such a state as not to be moved but at the risque of their lives, Captain Caulfield (of the Aurora), from motives of humanity, let the vessel proceed.”

Another capture shows how much the French were hampered by our blockade, their general being unable to reach his army excepting by sea. In Francis Austen’s own words:

August 2, 1799.—“Last night at 9 P.M. the Minerve’s boats came alongside; sent them along with our own, armed, under the command of the first lieutenant to cut out some vessels from the Bay of Diano.

“About midnight saw a very heavy fire of cannon and musketry in Diano Bay. Towards dawn the boats turned on board, having brought out a large settee laden with wine, and a French armed half-galley, mounting six guns, and rowing twenty-six oars. This galley had lately arrived from Toulon with General Joubert, appointed to supersede Moreau in the command of the French army of Italy, and was to have proceeded to-day with the general to the headquarters, near Genoa. She was manned with thirty-six people, twenty of which jumped overboard and swam ashore as soon as our boats attacked them. The other sixteen were made prisoners, amongst which was the commander of her, having the rank of ensign de vaisseau in the service of the Republic. The vessel is called La Virginie, is Turkish built, and was taken by the French at Malta when they got possession of that place last year.”

Another time the chace is described as follows:

July 14.—This vessel proved to be the El Fortunato Spanish ship polacre of about 100 tons burden, from Cagliari bound to Oneglia, laden with wine, and having on board an officer charged with despatches from the King of Sardinia to General Suwarrow, Commander-in-Chief of the combined armies of Russia and Austria in Italy.”

The autumn and winter of 1799 were spent by the Peterel cruising again in the west of the Mediterranean, chiefly off Minorca; but in the spring of 1800 they were again near Marseilles. The capture of the French brig La Ligurienne, described in the following letter, is another witness to the fruitless attempts of the French to get help to the army which Bonaparte had left behind in Egypt.

“Peterel AT SEA, March 22, 1800.

“SIR,—I have to inform you that the vessels with which you saw me engaged yesterday afternoon near Cape Couronne, were a ship, brig, and xebecque, belonging to the French Republic; two of which, the ship and xebecque, I drove on shore, and, after a running action of about one hour and a half, during the most of which we were not more than two cables length from the shore, and frequently not half that distance, the third struck her colours. On taking possession, we found her to be La Ligurienne, French national brig, mounting fourteen six-pounders, and two thirty-six-pound howitzers, all brass, commanded by Fran��ois Auguste Pelabon, lieutenant de vaisseau, and had on board at the commencement of the action one hundred and four men. Though from the spirited conduct and alacrity of Lieutenant Packer, Mr. Thompson, the master, and Mr. Hill, the purser (who very handsomely volunteered his services at the main deck guns), joined to the gallantry and determined courage of the rest of the officers, seamen and marines of his Majesty’s sloop under my command, I was happily enabled to bring the contest to a favourable issue; yet I could not but feel the want, and regret the absence, of my first lieutenant, Mr. Glover, and thirty men, who were at the time away in prizes. I have a lively pleasure in that this service has been performed without a man hurt on our part, and with no other damage to the ship than four of our carronades dismounted, and a few shots through the sails. La Ligurienne is a very fine vessel of the kind, well equipped with stores of all sorts, in excellent repair, and not two years old. She is built on a peculiar plan, being fastened throughout with screw bolts, so as to be taken to pieces and put together with ease, and is said to have been intended to follow Bonaparte to Egypt. I learn from the prisoners that the ship is called Le Cerf mounting fourteen six-pounders, xebecque Le Joillet, mounting six six-pounders, and that they had sailed in company with a convoy (two of which, as per margin, I captured in the forenoon) that morning from Cette, bound to Marseilles. I enclose a return of the killed and wounded, as far as I have been able to ascertain it,

“And am, your very humble servant,

“FRANCIs WM. AUSTEN.

“To Robert Dudley Oliver, Esq.,

“Captain of H.M. Ship Mermaid.

“Return of killed and wounded in an action between his Britannic Majesty’s sloop Peterel, Francis Win. Austen, Esq., Commander, and the French national brig La Ligurienne, commanded by Fran��ois Auguste Pelabon, lieutenant de vaisseau.

“Peterel: Killed, none; wounded, none.

“La Ligurienne: Killed, the captain and one seaman; wounded, one gardemarin and one seaman.

“(Signed) FRANCIS WM. AUSTEN.”

The captures, “as per margin,” are of a French bark, name unknown, about two hundred and fifty tons, and of a French bombarde, La Vestic, about one hundred and fifty tons, both laden with wheat, and both abandoned by their crews on the Peterel’s attack.

If, as is stated, La Ligurienne was intended to go to Egypt, it seems not improbable that the reason for her peculiar construction was that she might be taken to pieces, carried across the desert, and launched again in the Red Sea, there to take part in an attempt on India.

This exploid, though related in a matter-of-fact way by Captain Austen in his letter, was not inconsiderable in the eyes of the authorities, and the result was his immediate promotion to post rank. He himself knew nothing of this advancement until the following October; only an instance of the slowness and difficulty of communication, which was so great a factor in the naval affairs of that time.

It should be mentioned that the frigate Mermaid was in sight during part of this action, which perhaps had something to do with the two French vessels running themselves ashore, also that the capture of La Ligurienne was within six miles of Marseilles. The Peterel took her three prizes to Minorca, where the prisoners were sent on board the Courageuse one of Perr��e’s frigates captured in 1799 as already described.

The next voyage was to Malta, where the fortress of Valetta was still in French hands, with a few ships under the command of Rear-Admiral Villeneuve. The British blockading squadron had just taken the Guillaume Tell in the endeavour to escape from Valetta harbour, after eighteen months’ stay. This ship of the line was the only one remaining to the French from Bonaparte’s expedition to Egypt and the Battle of the Nile.

The Peterel took on board, in the Bay of Marsa Sirocco, thirty-five of the crew of the Guillaume Tell, by orders of Commodore Troubridge of the Culloden, and with these prisoners made sail for Palermo, where for a few days she hoisted Nelson’s flag. Arrived once more at Port Mahon, in Minorca, the French sailors were added to the number on the Courageuse, and the Peterel found her way to Lord Keith’s fleet, now closely investing General Massena in Genoa.

The great events of the campaign of Marengo are matters of European history. The British fleet’s blockade of the coast was clearly a determining factor in the choice of the St. Bernard route by the First Consul, inasmuch as the Riviera road was commanded from teh sea. It must remain a question whether Bonaparte deliberately left Massena’s army to risks of starvation and capture, in order that the destruction of the Austrian forces in Piedmont might be complete. Massena had been compelled to extend his lines too far, so that he might secure from a mountainous country the supplies which could not reach him from France. This made it possible for the Austrians to press their advantage, and to isolate the fortresses of Nice, Savona, and Genoa. The unceasing patrol of the sea completed the circle of hostile forces. The French army was entirely shut up in Genoa, and throughout the month of May the town was several times bombarded by the ships and the armed boats