Cochrane (25 page)

When the
Imperieuse
anchored with the fleet and Cochrane went aboard the
Caledonia
to report to the commander-in-chief, he found that the British captains and admirals were already fighting one another with a belligerence beyond anything which they showed to the French. There was intense dislike of Gambier personally and jealousy of him professionally on the part of men like Admiral Sir Eliab Harvey, who was present on the flagship. Gambier was notorious for being better acquainted with a desk in Whitehall than with the quarterdeck of a ship of the line. During the first twenty-two years of his life as a Royal Navy officer he had contrived to spend seventeen of them ashore. On the other hand, he had commanded H.M.S.
Defence
at the Glorious First of June and had emerged with his ship scarred and smoke-blackened from the thick of the fight. Captain Pakenham of the
Invincible
had hailed him waggishly across the water, "I see you've been knocked about a good deal. Never mind, Jimmy, whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth!"

Though men like Harvey swore that Gambier owed his promotion to kinship with Pitt and the Barham family, it was the air of suffocating piety exuded by their leader which they found so intolerable. Even as a junior officer, Cochrane was irritated by Gambler's insistence on having dozens of evangelical tracts delivered to the
Imperieuse
with orders for their distribution and perusal by officers and men alike.

While Gambier regarded Harvey as a heathen beyond the power of salvation, Harvey dismissed his commander's piety as canting humbug. Eliab Harvey was a man of courage and temper. As captain of the "Fighting
Temiraire"
at Trafalgar, he and Nelson had borne the main onslaught of the enemy battleships. At one point, the
Te
meraire
had a French ship of the line grappled on one side and a Spaniard on the other, both trying to take her. When the smoke cleared at length, it was the men of the
Te
miraire
,
led by Harvey, who had captured the other two ships. At the gaming tables, Harvey was as courageous as in battle, according to Horace Walpole. His account occurs in a letter of
6
February
1780,
when Harvey was a mere midshipman, written at Strawberry Hill to his friend Sir Thomas Mann.

Within this week there has been a cast at hazard at the Cocoa Tree, the difference of which amounted to an hundred and fourscore thousand pounds. Mr. O'Birne, an Irish-gamester, had won
£100,000
of a young Mr. Harvey of Chigwell, just started from a midshipman into an estate by his elder brother's death. O'Birne said "You can never pay me." "I can," said the youth; "my estate will sell for the debt." "No," said 0, "I
will
win ten thousand - you shall throw for the odd ninety." They did, and Harvey won.
⁹

There was almost every reason for Harvey and Gambier to detest one another. While Cochrane was on board the
Caledonia,
discussing his plan of attack with Gambier, Harvey was shown in. He demanded that Gambier should now put him in charge of the operation, and he produced a list of officers and men who had volunteered to serve under him in that event. Blankly implacable, Gambier reminded him that the Board of Admiralty had chosen Cochrane.

"I do not care," Harvey announced. "If I am passed by, and Lord Cochrane or any other junior officer is appointed in preference, I will immediately strike my flag, and resign my commission."

"I should be very sorry to see you resort to such an extremity," Gambier replied, though his sorrow was generally doubted by those who knew him. Even Cochrane himself was astonished by the outburst from Harvey which followed this.

"I never saw a man so unfit for the command of the fleet," he began, and then went on to accuse Gambier of wasting time with roll calls or musters instead of getting on with the attack. "If Lord Nelson had been here, he would not have anchored in Basque Roads at all, but would have dashed at the enemy at once."

Having delivered this final barb, Harvey stormed out. Cochrane found him in Sir Henry Neale's day cabin a little while later, still denouncing Gambier to anyone who would listen. However, he assured Cochrane that he had no personal quarrel with him. It was Gambier and his air of self-important piety which were Harvey's aversion.

The feelings of all concerned had now been heated to an intensity which was to cause the court-martialling of two British admirals in the next few months. Harvey threw aside all restraint and according to Cochrane's evidence, said to the assembled witnesses in the day cabin:

This is not the first time I have been lightly treated and that my services have not been attended to in the way they deserved, because I am no canting Methodist, no hypocrite, no psalm-singer, and do not cheat old women out of their estates by hypocrisy and canting.

After this outburst, Harvey went up to the quarterdeck of the flagship and, in front of the flag-captain, William Bedford, listed the insults he had received from Gambier, which were a proof of the commander-in-chief's "methodistical, Jesuitical conduct, and of his vindictive disposition". Bedford prudently kept clear of the dispute but he was already qualified to be a witness at the subsequent court-martial. For good measure, Harvey added:

Lord Gambier's conduct, since he took command of the fleet is deserving of reprobation. His employing officers in mustering the ships' companies instead of in gaining information about the soundings, shows him to be unequal to the command of the fleet. You know you are of the same opinion.

But Bedford, once again, refused to be drawn into the argument. The next news of Sir Eliab Harvey was that he was on his way back to England to face a court-martial "for grossly insubordinate language on board the
Caledonia,
in consequence of not having been appointed to command the fire-ships". For his outbursts against Gambier he was sentenced to be dismissed the service. However, there were misgivings before long. He was, after all, the same Sir Eliab Harvey who had commanded the
Temer
aire
at Trafalgar. In the following year, in recognition of his "long and meritorious services", he was reinstated in his rank and seniority. But it was only an act of grace, since the Admiralty never employed him again.
¹⁰

Returning to the
Imperieuse,
Cochrane was alarmed to discover that Gambier ordered the frequent musters of ships' companies principally in order to examine them as to whether they had learnt the contents of the tracts distributed to them. He read through several of these, the work of Wilberforce, Hannah More and their associates. He found the contents "silly and injudicious". More disturbingly, the fleet was now divided into two irreconcilable factions. First there were the supporters of the tracts, "officers appointed by Tory influence or favour of the Admiral". Then there were those who

hated Gambier and his ostentatious piety. But because he was determinedly carrying out Admiralty instructions and allowing Cochrane to command the attack, this second group also disliked Cochrane himself quite as much as the first.
¹¹

While this diverting squabble was occupying the attention and energies of the Royal Navy, the French expeditionary force might well have made its escape. Fortunately for England, the French were busy with an unpleasant little dispute of their own. One of their captains, Jacques Bergeret, complained to the Minister of Marine that Willaumez had taken two days longer than was necessary to reach the Basque Roads. The Minister paid heed and replaced Willaumez by Vice-Admiral Allemand on
17
March.

Allemand anchored his fleet in two lines within the comparative safety of Aix Roads. The approach to the anchorage from the sea lay
along the channel between the Il
e d'Aix and the Boyart Shoal, a passage which was some two miles wide. Beyond it lay the mainland, the two arms of the Charente estuary. At low tide, some three miles of the Boyart Shoal were uncovered, as well as mud flats round the islands and the arms of the estuary. Allemand's ships were anchored inshore of the Aix-Boyart channel, just clear of the Palles Flat which was the extreme southern arm of the Charente estuary.

Even at low tide, the approach channel was still two miles wide and Cochrane knew that it was the inevitable route for an attacking force. There were soldiers and shore-batteries on the He d'Aix and,
at a greater distance, on the Il
e d'Oleron to the south and on the mainland. None of these would interfere with his plan.

He first sent back Lord Gambier's tracts, refusing to distribute them to his men. He included a few of them in a letter to his friend William Cobbett, merely in order that the world should see the deplorable "state of the fleet". He also sent a private despatch to Lord Mulgrave on
3
April. Though he had hardly arrived in the Basque Roads, Cochrane had already reconnoitred the
Ile
d'Aix and had found its walls and defences even more dilapidated than he had dared to hope. "At present the fort is quite open," he told Mulgrave, "and may be taken as soon as the French fleet is driven on shore or burned."

Cochrane repeatedly urged Mulgrave and the ministry to send a small force of troops so that the Biscay islands might be seized. French coastal trade and the main link between north and south on this side of the country would be at an end. The south would be starved of corn, the north of oil and wine. "No diversion which the whole force of Great Britain is capable of making in Portugal or Spain, would so much shake the French government as the capture of the islands on this coast. A few men would take Oteron."
¹²

That Cochrane was right in supposing such an attack might tie down
100,000
French troops seems likely. That he had the capacity to lead an inventive and audacious attack had been proved. But perhaps the cavalier reference to Spain and Portugal was unfortunate. His despatch was bound to pass through the hands of the First Secretary at the Admiralty, William Wellesley-Pole, whose brother, in a few months more, was to be celebrated in verse by John Wilson Croker and in popular acclaim as Viscount Wellington of Talavera. All Cochrane's urging was greeted by a profound silence on the part of their Lordships.

Worse still, the days had passed and the fire-ships, which Mulgrave had promised, failed to arrive. Cochrane went to Gambier in desperation and demanded the use of some of the transports accompanying the fleet, which he proposed to transform into fire-ships and "explosion vessels" for the attack. Gambier agreed. Cochrane left the preparation of the fire-ships to the rest of the fleet and personally supervised the "explosion vessels".

Fire-ships were easily constructed. William Richardson was put to work on a brig from South Shields, which was anchored in the Basque Roads.
He
and his companions laid troughs of powder fore-and-aft on all the decks, crossing these with other troughs, and stacking wood and canvas between them. Tarred canvas was hung from the beams, and four large port-holes cut on each side of the deck, through which the draught would suck the fire with the effect of a furnace. The rigging was festooned with tarred ropes, the vessel was doused with resin and turpentine, and grappling chains fixed to it so that it would be more difficult for the French to dislodge it once it had drifted against any of their ships.
¹³

Unlike the fire-ships, whose virtue was that they burnt long and slowly, the explosion vessels were designed to go up in a single devastating roar. Setting to work on a captured French coaster, Cochrane first had its decks and sides strengthened with logs and spars, to provide that resistance to the explosion which would in fact increase its destructive power.
1500
barrels of gunpowder were then packed into casks in the ship's hold. On each cask he placed a ten-inch shell and had the entire group of casks lashed together to resemble "a gigantic mortar". He packed
3000
hand grenades round this and laid a fuse to the stern of the vessel. The fuse would burn, he judged, for twelve to fifteen minutes, giving the volunteer crew of the explosion ship a chance to scramble into their little boat and row for safety.

Three explosion vessels were prepared as well as thirteen fire-ships. On
10
April the eight fire-ships promised by Lord Mulgrave arrived at last from England. Cochrane was to lead the attack in person but all those who went with him had to be volunteers. It was not only Gambier who regarded this as a horrible mode of warfare. In the French view, those who practised it and were captured must go before a firing squad.

It was later said that any British warships which had attempted to follow up the attack by these vessels would have been in great danger from the French batteries on the lie d'Aix. Cochrane had reconnoitred the island and he knew better. The ineffectiveness of the French guns could hardly be more cogently demonstrated than by the willingness of men to act as crew on the explosion vessels. Gambier swore that the French were prepared to fire red-hot shot at any ship which foolishly approached Allemand's fleet by way of the Aix-Boyart channel. He and his supporters when asked why they had remained far out to sea swore that the risk of any approach involved unacceptable danger to themselves and their ships. If this were so it seems extraordinary that Cochrane and his men were prepared to go in with a ship whose hold contained
1500
barrels of gunpowder, a hundred or more ten-inch shells and some
3000
hand grenades. A single hit fro
m one of the batteries on the Il
e d'Aix would have ended the career of every man on board in the most spectacular fashion. However, it has also to be conceded that unacceptable danger was not a concept by which Cochrane was greatly preoccupied.

Once the fire-ships had arrived from England it was imperative to make the attack as soon as possible. It was not only that delay would give the French fleet a further opportunity of escape, the newly-arrived ships from England were being surveyed with interest from the mainland. It woul
d only be a short time before All
emand and his captains identified these ships and their purpose.

However, the officers of the French fleet were uncomfortably aware of the weakness of their position, despite the fears which Gambier expressed for his own ships if he attempted a traditional attack. While he and the Admiralty hesitated, an officer of the French battleship
Ocean
in Aix Roads wrote that an attack upon the
Ile
d'Aix would be "our destruction". Gambier and his supporters later pleaded that the strength of the island, its garrison and its batteries was formidable. Only a madman of Cochrane's stamp would risk the fleet against it. "Its garrison, it is true, is
2000
men strong," wrote the officer of the
Ocdan
on
10
April, "but they are all conscripts who have never seen any firing, and the island is strong only in that part which protects the fleet on the N.E. side, or towards the coast of the Bay of Rochelle. There are but a few guns placed at a distance from each other and in bad condition." From a better vantage point than Gambier ever enjoyed, he confirmed Cochrane's assurance to the Admiralty that the fortress of Aix was "quite open".
¹⁴

On
10
April, with the attacking force assembled and the weather favourable, Cochrane went to see Gambier and asked that he should be allowed to go in at once. To his astonishment, the admiral refused, objecting that "the fire-ships might be boarded and the crews murdered" by the French. Impatiently, Cochrane pointed out that there was a greater danger of this happening if the attack was delayed and Allemand was given time to recognise the vessels for what they were. Indeed, Gambier's objection would logically mean that no attack at all could be made against the enemy.

"If you choose to rush on to self-destruction that is your own affair," said Gambier haughtily, "but it is my duty to take care of the lives of others, and I will not place the crews of the fire-ships in palpable danger."
¹⁵

Exasperated by this, Cochrane returned to the
Imperieuse,
which was cruising off the Aix-Boyart passage. He was depressed but not surprised to see that on the next morning Allemand had altered the formation of his fleet, so that only the bows of half his ships, rather than the sides of all of them, were offered as targets for attack. While Gambier was protesting at Cochrane's impulsive folly in "rushing on", Allemand had identified the fire-ships, as he reported in his despatch of
12
April, and had taken precautionary measures. Ahead of his battleships, his frigates awaited the attackers, behind a massive boom across the entrance of the anchorage.

On
11
April, the wind gathered strength and there was a high sea. In these conditions, Gambier at length consented to the attack being made. If he hoped that Cochrane himself would be deterred by the squally conditions, he was due to be disappointed. The flood tide that evening would be ideal for carrying the fire-ships and explosion vessels in, while making it harder for the French guard-boats to row out and forestall them. As Lord Gambier and his fleet put out to sea, where they anchored some nine miles from the scene of the action, Cochrane anchored the
Imperieuse,
with an explosion vessel in tow, at the seaward end of the Boyart Shoal. With the frigates
Aigle, Unicorn,
and
Pallas,
and H.M.S.
Caesar
standing by to pick up the returning crews of the fire-ships, all was ready for the attack. The prize was a destructive blow against the power of France, equal perhaps to Trafalgar or the Nile.

As darkness fell on the early evening of n April, the volunteer captains of the fire-ships assembled on board the
Caledonia
for their final orders. They were to form the second wave of the attack, going in on the flood tide soon after 8 p.m. The initial assault on the French anchorage was to be made by the explosion vessels. No one had to inquire who would be in command of them. On the first vessel, far out in front of the rest, Cochrane himself would ride into battle at the flood tide, with a ton or two of assorted explosives under his feet.

At six in the evening, Allemand from the deck of the
Ocean
sighted three frigates, four brigs, and three coasters coming to anchor at the far end of the Aix-Boyart channel. The weather was far from ideal for an attack but Admiral Allemand took no chances. He ordered out the ships' boats of the French fleet, fully armed, and instructed them to row for the great two-mile boom which enclosed the anchorage of Aix. This was his secret weapon. It was in the shape of a rather flat arrow-head, two miles in length and solidly constructed. On the surface it floated as a solid barrier of enormous spars lashed together and bound securely with heavy chains. But it was also anchored to the sea bed with such a weight of iron that it served almost as an impenetrable wall. No fire-ship, not even a ship of the line, would ever break through it.

The cutters and small boats were to take up their defensive position just within the sheltering arm of the boom, where it lay at the mainland end of the Aix-Boyart channel. An officer of the
Oce
an
watched them set out and saw that they had chosen almost the worst time of the tide for it. "Wind from the N.W. and blew very strong," he noted, "the sea high and the flood .
..
beginning to make strong."
¹⁶

Cochrane's men had a rather different problem. The flood tide was in their favour, carrying the explosion vessels and fire-ships in. But when they took to their little boats, they would have to row back at least three miles, against a tide which would be funnelling at full strength into the Aix-Boyart passage, before they could hope to be picked up by the waiting frigates or H.M.S.
Caesar,
which was about all that remained of Gambier's force.