Frigate Commander (23 page)

BOOK: Frigate Commander

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To my infinite joy she launched off the rocks. We hailed the boats to follow us and let go the end of the hawser, and steered out to the Northward happily clear of all the rocks. We continued firing guns to direct the Boats by the sound, as not even our Blue lights could be seen through the Fog. We got all our boats but the Launch on board last night, and this morning we got our launch, which had rowed all night and got on board the
Diamond
this morning.

Moore realized that they must have run onto Alderney, but he could not understand how they had reached it so quickly, as they had been off of the Isle of Wight at noon. According to his calculations, they should have been ten miles to the north-east of Alderney. The emergency over, Moore was able to relax and took some comfort in the fact that he had behaved well during the crisis:

I never lost my coolness, but I had not the least hopes of saving the ship, and was very intent on alarming the
Diamond
, which I think, by being to the se of us must have been in the Race of Alderney.

With daylight, he was able to make an initial assessment of the damage, recording it despondently in his journal:

. . . the lower part of the Rudder appears ragged, and a great deal of the Copper about the keel is ript and sticking out on both sides. We must be docked.

Daylight also revealed the
Diamond
, riding safely a little distant away, and also another (unnamed) ship which had just arrived from Spithead where the port was buzzing with news that Sir Edward Pellew, in the heavy frigate
Indefatigable
, in company with Captain Reynolds in the
Amazon
, had taken on the French 74-gun
Droits de L’Homme
in a heavy storm as she was making her way back from Bantry Bay. The French ship had been driven on shore where, sadly, she had been followed by the
Amazon
. When Moore went on board the
Diamond
, he was shown Sir Edward Pellew’s official letter printed in one of the London papers, and heartily approved of the
‘lively’
account it gave of the action. Days later, the entire squadron appears to have been
‘extremely happy’
to learn that Reynolds and the crew of the
Amazon
had all been saved.

The recent excitement had certainly revived Moore’s enthusiasm and now, despite the damage to the frigate, he was anxious to avoid returning to port prematurely. On 11 February, Moore and Strachan stopped a suspicious-looking ship which proved to be an American frigate sailing from Le Havre to New York. The two captains were convinced that she was really a French-owned vessel, but they had no proof, and rather than risk the penalties of a charge of false detention, they let her go. Ironically, Moore had only days before been pondering the relationship between America and France:

We have no other way to force the French into our terms but by continuing to cut off their Trade, which I believe is too slow to be effectual. The late Revolution they have come to relative to the Americans seems profligate in a great degree, allowing that the English have treated the Americans ill, that cannot justify the French in plundering them. The Americans are in an awkward predicament between the English and the French, a war with either would be fatal to their Commerce, but with the English ruinous, altho their privateers would get some plunder. The conduct of the French on this occasion leads me to think that they wish to force the Americans into a war with us, or to rob them.

Eventually, shortage of provisions forced the squadron back to Spithead. Moore reported the damage to the
Melampus
but was told that he would have to wait until the early part of March for a dock to become available. Moore and Strachan decided to put to sea again, rather than linger in port. But before they departed, the frigate
Greyhound
arrived with the second privateer brig she had captured off Barfleur, and paraded her triumphantly past the other ships in the anchorage. Moore watched with gritted teeth:

. . . She has not been any thing like so much at sea as the
Diamond
and us, nor had a tenth part of the harassing and fatiguing service. I grudge her her success, as, comparatively with others on the station, she has not deserved it.

Back at sea, Moore found himself mulling over news that he had received whilst in port. He was especially concerned over the welfare of his brother John, who had contracted fever at St Lucia. He also read and re-read Sir Edward Pellew’s official letter recounting the action with the
Droits de L’Homme
. In the letter, Pellew had written, ‘
The fate of her
[Droits de L’Homme’s]
brave but unhappy crew was perhaps more sincerely lamented by us from the expectation of sharing the same fate
.’ There was something about this statement that Moore felt was not right, and eventually he came to the conclusion that Pellew was not only expressing a sentiment he didn’t genuinely feel, but was also philosophically wrong;

After the danger was over they might the more sincerely pity the French Crew from the imminent danger they themselves
had been
in of sharing a similar fate, but I doubt if a single man in the
Indefatigable
pitied them at the time, but if they did it was not for the reason given.

Only a frigate commander, whose ship and crew had faced the sort of danger experienced by the
Indefatigable
, could have made that distinction.

On 1 March, Moore stopped an American vessel that was seen to depart from Le Havre. The Master of the vessel reported that a large 24-pounder frigate, the
L’Indien
, was in the harbour, but no crew could be found for her. The difficulties of the French navy were growing. Confident that there could be no threat from that quarter, Moore turned north for Spithead, and a dock in Portsmouth.

2. Captain Alan Gardner. Son of an admiral and promoted earlier than Moore, the two men became firm friends and remained so until Gardner’s early death in 1815.

(Author’s Collection)

3. Liverpool, in around 1790. Moore, who would have seen this view often as a Lieutenant, was impressed by the city’s commercial energy.

4. Dynevor (Dinefwr) Castle. The romantic ruins of Dynevor Castle, in the grounds of Newton House, Carmarthenshire, probably as they would have been seen by the dinner party when leaving the house.