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THE PERILOUS ADVENTURES AND VICISSITUDES OF A NAVAL OFFICER ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

There is a tradition in the family of the writer of this narrative, ViceAdmiral George Vernon Jackson, that he was the prototype of Peter Simple. At any rate, it seems certain that Captain Marryat was acquainted with Jackson's youthful escapades and adventurous early life. As his name was entered in the books of the Trident on 5th May 1795 at eight years of age, his official connection with the Navy may be said to have lasted eighty-one years. He died in 1876, aged eighty-nine.

me

IX.

DURING the voyage out to Lieutenant I have nothing to Halifax, I had said nothing say. The Marine Officer, John about my hopes of promotion; Green, stood about six feet and all were astonished when, high, and might be compared soon after our arrival, Admiral to a switch in personal appearLee came on board, and, after ance. There was plenty of shaking hands, congratulated length but no breadth about him. I had a great regard for him, and believe the feeling was mutual, though this did not prevent us from being often at variance. always going to call me out, but I always made an absurd joke of it, and declined to go out to fight a man with as much chance of hitting him as of splitting a bullet on a penknife. Poor Green : the sequel of his life proved that he was not such a difficult mark after all.1

on my appointment as Second Lieutenant to one of the finest frigates in the Navy, the Junon, 38 (Captain John Shortland). This was on 20th April 1809. I joined her during the same evening, and on the following day received an invitation to dine with the Admiral and attend a ball afterwards.

This was the beginning of a great change from the hardships and uncertainties of a tarpaulin Midshipman, hitherto without a friend to interest himself on my behalf.

An old shipmate named Conn was Third Lieutenant in the Junon; the rest of the officers were strangers. Of the First

He was

Captain Shortland bore the character of an austere disciplinarian, and I felt rather nervous at the prospect of serving under him; however, I have reason to think that he

1 He was killed in the Junon while beating off a boarding-party of the enemy

in the action of 13th December 1809, when the Junon was captured by the French.

took a liking to me. particularly celebrated navigator and a good seaman, and he showed preference for me in one respect, as he would allow no one to touch his chronometer but myself. This instrument was his own private property. He did not entirely depend upon my management of it when he was taking observations, but he made me to call over the time as it transpired.

The day before we left port an alarm was given of fire forward. I called for the drummer to beat to quarters-a foolish thing to do in those days, as it wasted time, while a word would have sufficedand told the Captain. It transpired that some matches had ignited somehow, but the fire was soon got under. The contents of the match-room, however, had been damaged by water; and although the damage was thought to have been rectified, it proved ere long to have been otherwise, as will shortly be seen, when occasion for their use arose.

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He was and the two Armées-en-flute as a Loire and Seine, each carrying twenty guns. From this moment until the termination of the ensuing engagement I was ignorant of what took place on deck, being on duty on the main deck; but just as we were about to pass under the stern of the leading ship, the Renommée, they changed their colours and let fire a broadside. I was looking out of the port at the time. Our helm must have been put down, and as we came up into the wind the second frigate, the Clorinde, drew alongside of us, her bowsprit abreast of our mainmast. She manifestly did not like her position, and hauled off. The Renommée meantime had placed herself on our weather bow, and the Clorinde then resumed her old position to an inch. About this time the purser hurried up to me and said that there were no matches, and as he spoke a shot came into us and struck away an iron stanchion which stood directly between us. Once during the action I received a fearful blow across my body, caused by a poor fellow being blown into smithereens-by my side. Passing aft to my quarters I stepped over a prostrate seaman who was literally disembowelled, whom I afterwards found to be my own servant. Towards the last part of the fight, the Arméeen-flute Loire, on board of which were some 200 French soldiers, came up as close as possible to our stern, and poured volley after volley of musketry along

While cruising off Guadeloupe on the afternoon of the 13th December 1809, during my watch we sighted four vessels. At first we supposed them to be Spaniards, and when the Captain came on deck, he ordered me to fire and bring them to. I did so, and they obeyed the summons, and we cleared for action. We found that our enemies consisted of the two frigates Renommée and Clorinde, each with forty guns,

the deck, and the Renommée, like with him, and offering still on our weather bow, ran up and put her bowsprit between our main and mizzen mast. It was now dark. Then came a Midshipman named Auchinlick, who told me that the Captain was dangerously wounded, and took me to the foot of the quarter-deck ladder, where he lay-not a soul near him. I approached close, and he said, "Jackson, take me down ; and we carried him below directly. At the bottom of the ladder he exclaimed, "Thank you, Jackson, thank you; now encourage the men to fight bravely."

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I repaired as fast as I could to the Captain's cabin. Poor fellow, he was lying there disabled by four severe wounds; and as I entered he turned his head and remarked with a smile, "Damn 'em, Jackson; they've spoilt my dancing."

The French Commodore then came on board and went to the Captain. Whitehurst, one of the Midshipmen, and an old messmate of mine in the Inflexible, acted as interpreter, of whom more by-and-by. The Frenchman behaved with the utmost courtesy, requesting to know whom the Captain would

him every attention. The Captain chose myself, Auchinlick, and another Midshipman named John Thompson. The latter was a brave young fellow, and I could not help being forcibly struck with his courage when, previous to the ship being taken, he was ordered to find the signal-book which the Captain had left aft. He passed amidst the shower of musket balls to execute his commission, displaying the most consummate coolness and indifference to the risk he ran, luckily escaping without a wound. The book was ultimately found by the Frenchmen on the binnacle. Auchinlick also deserved his meed of praise for assiduous and affectionate consideration for the Captain. The scene board during the night was a trying and miserable one.

on

One poor man, a Marine, was completely perforated through the jaws, and each time I passed him he called for water; but not a drop was to be found. At last I procured a bottle of porter and poured him out a glass, which he drank with grateful avidity. He died within a few hours. Whenever the Captain wanted anything he sent for me, and the prayers of the wounded men were loud everywhere for water. I was stepping across a figure apparently dead, on my passage from the Captain's cabin once, when it suddenly raised itself and caught hold of my arm. "God

bless me, Appleby," "1 I exclaimed, "what are you doing here Go below, man." He pointed to his wound and remarked, "It matters not where I die, Mr Jackson; as well here as elsewhere." I insisted on his going below, and he dragged himself off and took possession of my cabin.

The doctor, Evan Evans by name, was in a most pitiable situation. Besmeared up to his shoulders with blood, he was plying his instruments with untiring energy, and encouraging the sufferers with kind words, but hardly able to turn for the implorations of those yet unattended to. He had no one to help him in his dreadful work, and the men would crawl about him with the bleeding forms of their messmates; while those who could amongst the wounded would clutch him with their hands, and beseech him to turn to them if only to stop the blood gushing from their bodies. At times he would cry out in a way peculiar to him, "N'am of goodness me men, bear with it a bit, bear with it a bit; I'll serve you in yer turn," and then call out for his boy. "Where is my boy?" he would shout; but no boy was forthcoming, nor would he ever come again. In going the rounds I went forward in the bow of the ship, and there I soon discovered the reason of his absence from his post of duty. Excepting his legs

and his arms, nothing remained of him the size of an apple. He must have been bending down with his body in a horizontal position when a shot through the bow struck him straight on end, carrying away the the trunk and shivering it into atoms. The last duty I performed on board was to throw the dead bodies into the sea. Our losses amounted to sixty killed and wounded.

I mentioned the Captain's cabin, but he was really lying in the cabin of the First Lieutenant. The latter, on being ordered by the French Commodore to repair on board the Renommée, had been unable to remove his things, so the next in rank being ordered instead, I was made his substitute, to my infinite regret.

Before taking leave of my Captain I helped him into the boat which conveyed him to one of the Armées-en-flute, whither he was carried. I was accompanied by Conn and Thomas, who were likewise ordered to the Renommée. The other survivors were then distributed among the four French ships.

On our way we fell in with an English frigate, when all the prisoners were sent below in the hold, and stowed away regardless of rank or fortune. Whilst in this confinement, sitting cramped up in a corner and scarcely capable of moving, two of my men showed a mark of attention to me which pleased

1 Thomas Appleby, a midshipman.

me very much. They took off their neckerchiefs and tied one end of each to the battens overhead, tying the other under each arm, which then provided a sort of sling, a tolerable substitute for lying down. One of the men addressed me whilst we were in durance vile with the words, "You struck me on the head to-day, sir, with the guns." I scarcely remembered the circumstance, but he brought it more prominently forward by some additional remark, and I replied, "Yes, but what were you leaving your quarter for ?" "I was going to fetch a match or something to fire the guns off with, and after all could only get some cinders from the galley." I was sorry to have punished him when I discovered this to be the fact; I had thought he was running away from his duty.

We heard a shot presently, as we thought, between the foremast and the mainmast, and our hopes rose at the thought of an action; but the English frigate, it appeared later, intending to intercept them before they could reach their destination, made a shortcut to Guadeloupe. Unluckily for us, she only sucshe only succeeded with the two Arméesen-flutes. The Renommée now met with a mischance, and struck on the

Shoals,

but we came across an English West Indiaman which had been captured, and the Commodore settled to put us on board of her. So we were had up; and

I, as Senior Officer, signed a declaration that we would steer south at a certain distance from Madeira before we proceeded to England. All had been arranged for us to go on board in the morning early, when to our grief an English frigate came in sight and altered the whole proceeding. Instead of sailing home in the West Indiaman she was burnt without delay, and we continued prisoners without a prospect at present of release. The burning of the ship was a sufficient indication of an enemy's presence, and the English frigate kept to the windward. They little imagined what an easy prize was within their reach, as the Renommée, being crippled with the loss of SO many guns, could have offered but small resistance. She was, however, a fast sailer, and I was amused, despite my disappointment, to see the ruse they adopted to keep away from the English frigate by not hauling the bowline and sheets aft. We then hastened forward to Brest, and passed another English frigate at night, evidently ready for action, as all her main deck was lighted up. But we kept dark, and it is possible that we were not observed. Twelve hours later we landed in Brest, and, after undergoing quarantine, were landed and sent to the hospital, where Whitehurst joined us. The captive officers, including the Captains of merchantmen, amounted to nine in number. The Commodore then called

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