If anyone wishes to know the history of this war, I will tell them it is our Maritime superiority that gives me the power of maintaining my army while the enemy are unable to do so.
The Duke of Wellington
[Currently at the Admiralty] there is no method whatever observed in arranging or collecting information . . . which is of the utmost consequence in judging of the enemy’s intentions; no time ought to be lost in adopting some plan for this purpose.
Admiral Middleton
THE KING, THE PRIME MINISTER, AND THE CABINET (PRIMARILY the secretaries of state) developed policy, rendered decisions, and issued instructions. These were in turn conveyed to the Royal Navy, as necessary, by the first lord of the Admiralty (a Cabinet member), who presided over the Lords Commissioners (or the Board) of the Admiralty. These men, and the central offices of the navy, were located in the seat of government at Whitehall. “The administration of the British Navy in the eighteenth century was,” N. A. M. Rodger notes, “like the government as a whole, a haphazard collection of institutions whose responsibilities often overlapped and whose relations were not well defined. On paper the arrangements were chaotic, but they had evolved over a long time, they were familiar to those who operated them, and in intelligent hands they functioned much more efficiently than might have been expected.”1
Actually, the Admiralty was much more than a service department; it was “a very ancient and peculiar corporation,” as the London Times once called it, and it was enormously vital to the social structure, economy and, of course, the defense of Great Britain.2 But it had a weak staff system—actually, hardly a staff or system existed at all.3 And as alluded to above, the Admiralty followed the English tradition of independent agencies (certainly in regard to intelligence) with little or no communication between them.
During this time the Admiralty ran a number of operational commands. The Channel Fleet, based in Plymouth and Portsmouth, covered the Atlantic area, including the French and Spanish ports from Brest to Vigo to Ferrol. The Mediterranean Fleet is self-explanatory. The North Sea Fleet, based in the Thames, essentially watched Holland and Belgium, and the Baltic Fleet (when activated) was focused upon the Danes, Russians, and Swedes.4 There were, of course, other stations and commands; of note were the Irish and Channel Island Squadrons, the East Indies station, the West Indies station, and the North American station.5
The Lords Commissioners’ authority was extensive, including commissioning ships; appointing admirals, captains, and lieutenants; and issuing orders concerning the majority of ship movements. However, major decisions, including fleet movements and appointments of fleet commanders in chief, were often made at the Cabinet level; sometimes the decision (such as the appointment of Earl Howe as commander in chief of the Channel Fleet in 1793) was made by the king himself.6 Moreover, there is no doubt that the king was instrumental in Nelson’s selection to command Adm. Lord St. Vincent’s detached squadron, in 1798, in preference to senior officers already present in the Mediterranean. A December 1798 letter from Sir Edward Berry to Lord Nelson confirms this: “The Duke of Clarence desired I would tell you from him that it was the King that sent you with the Squadron up the Mediterranean, and formed the whole plan.”7
While some first lords were, or had been, seamen, most were appointed politicians. In fact, of the ten listed in Appendix 2, only Jervis and Middleton had been seamen; John Pitt (the prime minister’s elder brother) and Henry Phipps were high-ranking soldiers. The tasks of the subordinate professional (later the “sea”) lords varied over the years, depending upon the desires of the first lord as well as upon the initiative of the individuals concerned. The first professional lord, during the tenure of Lord Barham (Adm. Sir Charles Middleton, quoted at the beginning of the chapter) as first lord, had several significant roles, including responsibility for ship movement, personnel, promotion, and equipment, as well as “taking upon himself the general superintendence and arrangement of the whole. . . . His duty will also be to attend to the correspondence of the day, but more particularly to that of the ports and all secret services.”8
The second professional lord oversaw transport, victualling, the Sick-and-Hurt Boards, and Greenwich Hospital. The third professional lord worked with the first primarily upon the appointment of officers and other personnel issues. From two to three civil lords (civilian appointees) focused on daily paperwork.9
A key position in the Admiralty—perhaps the key, which will be developed later—was the first (or principal) secretary to the Board. In order to effectively handle the Admiralty’s voluminous correspondence, he was aided by an assistant secretary, in turn assisted by the chief clerk, “the Senior Clerks (who had ‘Esq.’ after their names), the Junior Clerks (no ‘Esq.’), the extra clerks, the Supernumeraries, the First Lord’s private secretary, and the Keeper of the Records and Papers.”10 The overall staff was very small; it included less than sixty people in 1801,11 compared to eighty-eight in 1830, eight hundred in 1924, and around eight thousand in 1964.12
Fig. 2-1 Charles Middleton, Lord Barham.
Barham was a great naval administrator; under him staff work at the Admiralty probably reached its highest level of efficiency during the war. Originally drawn by I. Downman.
© National Maritime Museum, London
It is interesting to note that, prior to Lord Barham’s reorganization, the duties of the Board could be confusing or at least somewhat nebulous; even if a given first lord knew what he wanted each of his immediate subordinates to be doing, it was not always clear to others, including commanders at sea. Consider the following, from Nelson to First Secretary William Marsden: “There is [a] little alteration I wish for; and if I knew the particular Lord of the Admiralty that managed this business, I would take the liberty of writing him.”13
Map 2-1 The North Atlantic Ocean Mahan, Life of Nelson
Map 2-2 The English Channel and North Sea Mahan, Life of Nelson
Generally, after the first lord received instructions from the Cabinet, the Board of the Admiralty would meet and draft orders. “It had no system of delegation or of sifting out less important items by means of sub-committees and executive officers.”14 Specific orders were written by the first lord or the first professional lord; however, the specificity was relative. Certainly the main decision, general sense of instruction, and any pertinent or supporting information (including intelligence) was enclosed to the relevant admiral (or detached captain). “The Admiralty,” Brian Lavery notes, “preferred to do its business by formal letter whenever possible, and these were laboriously copied out by its staff of sixteen clerks.”15 As a rule, very detailed direction was omitted; specific decisions were left to the commander “on the scene” because in this era of very slow communications there really was no viable nor practical alternative. Moreover, most commanders were sensitive to Admiralty “interference” in their spheres of influence and with their rights and prerogatives.
It might be worth developing this issue for a moment. Lord Nelson, for one, was certainly not hesitant to disagree with the Admiralty, particularly when he had reached the vice admiral rank and had won several dramatic victories. For example, in February 1804, as commander in chief, Mediterranean, he was very clear about his unhappiness with the Admiralty’s different view of how to manage convoys, writing, “If I form plans for the sending home our Convoys, and the clearing the different parts of the station from Privateers, and the . . . Admiralty in some respects makes [other] arrangements, we must clash.”16
He was even more upset over some of the circumstances involved in Commodore Moore’s action, which was described at the end of chapter 1. Nelson initially countermanded the orders given to Captain Gore, commander of one of the involved frigates, for he was offended that other flag officers and the Admiralty were giving orders to one of his subordinates; he felt this was no way to be treating the commander in chief of the Mediterranean Fleet. However, he had another reason as well. He felt that the decision to seize the Spanish treasure fleet was an overreaction of the government to Spanish breaches of neutrality—with which he was intimate as the on-scene commander. He felt it was wrong to “molest the lawful commerce of Spain.” The reader will recall that Dundas was uncomfortable, at the Cabinet level, about this issue as well. Nelson’s assessment was that the seizure of this treasure, on which the Spanish economy was hugely dependent, would without question provoke the Spanish into a declaration of active warfare. He did not believe that Spain’s reentry into the war was inevitable. Moreover, for Nelson, whose resources were already desperately strained, Spain’s active hostility right then would present a very unwelcome additional tasking vis-à-vis containing the five Spanish ships of the line in Cartagena. If those vessels should join with French Admiral Villeneuve’s fleet—Nelson’s current primary focus—they would form a force significantly superior to his own.17
Such things were probably inevitable in a world war. Nevertheless, and as a general rule, the Admiralty tried not to cross the convinced opinions of (capable) local commanders; usually such commanders were allowed considerable freedom in how they executed their Admiralty directives: “The Admiralty was very much like a board of directors of a large company who make the broad and important decisions but leave others to fill in the details. The ‘important decisions’ were limited to three main areas—which men were to be in command of fleets and ships; how these fleets and ships were allocated; and what tasks the fleets, and sometimes individual ships, were to carry out.”18
The way the Lords Commissioners passed formal directions to the fleet is interesting. This order to an admiral is a typical example of a format that was used for decades:
The Rt. Hon. Lord Hobart, one of H.M. Principal Secretaries of State, having acquainted us that information has been received that the Batavian Republic has been called upon by the French Government to furnish a considerable number of boats and vessels with a view to the execution of a plan of invasion against this country, and signified to us H.M. pleasure that instructions should forthwith be given for the purpose of bringing into port all hoys and fishing boats belonging to the French and Batavian Republics, or to the citizens of either, and to detain the crews of such vessels until further orders; you are hereby required and directed to give immediate orders to the Captains and Commanders of H.M. ships and vessels under your command to seize and bring into port all French and Batavian fishing boats, hoys and vessels of every description employed in the fisheries they may happen to fall in with.
Given 18 June 1803.
St. Vincent, P. Stephens, T. Troubridge19
The Admiralty was a primary recipient of intelligence information from national-level resources, and this information was then integrated into the navy’s own intelligence, communications, and command process. The further evaluation, transmission, and dissemination of this intelligence was at the discretion of the first lord or first secretary, both of whom corresponded directly and frequently with government ministers, diplomats posted abroad, fleet commanders in chief, squadron commanders, and, not infrequently, individual ship commanding officers.
The navy was always hugely interested in timely operational and tactical intelligence. Thus, even during times of peace “the Admiralty sent fast ships . . . to ‘look’ into French and Spanish ports, to count the ships, and to evaluate their likely ability to sortie.”20 As well as their own reconnaissance missions, the Admiralty focused on Spanish and French naval bases for early warning of mobilization through several other sources—including, of course, London-controlled agents, embassy and consular networks, and the debriefing of merchant-ship captains returning from overseas. Incidentally, “this British system for reporting selected foreign movements survived late into the Cold War.”21
But there was no real structure to naval intelligence—or to military intelligence, for that matter. In 1803, the British army’s quarter master general established the Depot of Military Knowledge to collect, mostly from overt sources, maps and information on the military resources and topography of foreign powers. But during the forty years of comparative European peace which followed the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815, the Depot, like much else in the British army, withered away.22
Indeed, an official army intelligence establishment did not reappear until 1873 with the founding of the War Office Intelligence Branch. Only then did the Admiralty follow their lead; they created a Foreign Intelligence Committee. The first British War Office and Admiralty Directors of Intelligence (DMI and DNI, respectively) were appointed in 1887,23 (several years after the establishment of the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence, by the way).
Regardless, at the end of the eighteenth century the Admiralty first lord and first secretary were, in fact, the main brokers for intelligence analysis and distribution to the operating forces. Indeed, Lord Sandwich (first lord during the earlier period, 1771–82) took deliberate pains to assure the king of this in a letter dated 13 September 1778, when he told him that “all intelligence that comes to the Admiralty is regularly sent to Admiral Keppell.”24
Lord Sandwich was, moreover, very active in passing intelligence wherever it was needed—including directly to the king—and he wanted the king to be confident of that as well: “Your Majesty may be assured that every express from Plymouth, or anything else that deserves your attention is sent the moment it comes to hand.”25 Another note, written a month later from Portsmouth, promised that “if your Majesty chuses [sic] to be troubled with [this] sort of detail while Ld S: remains at Portsmouth, he will continue to send every observation he makes, and all the intelligence he procures.”26
Lord Sandwich was not the best speller of the time period, even granting the lack of uniformity present in the mid-eighteenth century; however, he was keenly aware of, and a knowledgeable user of, intelligence information in the critical position of first lord. Cognizant that there were political and diplomatic aspects to foreign intelligence, he decided that “it did no harm for a First Lord of the Admiralty to develop his own private sources, independent of the Secretaries [of State and of the Post Office], and Sandwich did not hesitate to do so.”27
Without doubt, some first lords were not particularly interested in intelligence, nor did they take much initiative in collecting and relaying intelligence to subordinates. One who was very proactive and intelligence-oriented was Adm. (later Admiral of the Fleet) John Jervis, the Earl of St. Vincent, who was first lord from 1801 to 1804. St. Vincent (1735–1823) was arguably Britain’s greatest admiral, after Nelson, during this period. An extraordinary operator and administrator, he earned his earldom at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent in February 1797 (mostly due to then–Commodore Nelson’s combat initiative). He became first lord of the Admiralty under Prime Minister Addington, planning the 1801 Copenhagen campaign, working hard (and making many enemies) to accomplish administrative reform, and planning coastal defense against the French threat of a large-scale cross-Channel invasion. St. Vincent’s intelligence awareness and activity were considerable, both as a commander at sea as well as head of the Admiralty. His correspondence is packed with examples; a few from 1801, quoted below, are illustrative.
In regard to the French invasion mentioned above, one should pause for a moment to reflect that the Admiralty was not obsessed with the threat of invasion: “The main threat, as seen at Whitehall, was still what it had always been; the danger to British commerce. . . . What ministers feared was the capture of a whole East India or West India convoy. . . . It was Britain’s good fortune that Napoleon never fully understood the importance of commerce or its relation to sea-power. . . . The truth was that the military invasion, without sea-power, was more or less impossible. Given sea-power, on the other hand, it was not even necessary.”28
Nevertheless, Whitehall was faced with renewed large-scale public worry of a cross-Channel invasion in July 1801. St. Vincent wrote to his commanders in The Downs (the roadstead and anchorage formed by the shifting sands at the northern end of the Strait of Dover) that “the state of the enemy’s preparations, on different parts of the coast . . . [are] beginning to wear a very serious appearance, and all the intelligence [agrees] that a descent is actually intended.”29 He continued with a note the next day to Adm. Archibald Dixon in the North Sea: “Our intelligence touching the . . . number of French troops in Holland is very different [from yours], for we are told from various quarters that the French have not less than 40,000 men in the United Provinces: probably this is a little exaggerated.”30
Several days later, on 31 July 1801, addressing Nelson (who had just been appointed to take charge of all measures for “frustrating the enemy’s designs” regarding the invasion), St. Vincent wrote that “we are certainly very defective in local intelligence: the French newspapers inform us that Carnot has lately made the tour of the coast of Flanders, with a view to preparations for invasion, and, as he is the great adviser of all military measures of importance, I place some reliance upon the newspaper account, and will endeavor to obtain more precise information thereon.”31 It is interesting to note that this Général Lazare, Comte Carnot (1753–1823), had been imprisoned earlier in his career for the “unauthorized publication of a military document.”
Subsequently, on 10 August, St. Vincent wrote Nelson that “our advices from Paris say that the First Consul [Napoleon] has declared himself Generalissimo of the Army of Invasion, and that we are to look to Flanders for the grand effort.”32
Then, by 14 August, a letter from St. Vincent to Nelson announced, “Our intelligence received this day indicates that Ireland is the great object of descent, but that it will be accompanied by demonstrations from Boulogne and Dunkirk or Ostend.”33 This was followed on 17 August: “The intelligence lately received . . . gives reason to believe that Dunkirk is the rendezvous of the Dutch and Flemish flotilla, and the principal embarkation will probably be made from thence.”34 On 26 August 1801 he wrote Nelson again that “our intelligence from Holland and Hamburg states that the expedition preparing in Holland is destined for the north coast: Newcastle, Berwick and Leith are named as points of attack; and it is asserted that the squadrons from Cadiz and Rochefort are intended for Ireland.”35
On 5 September St. Vincent gave Nelson the benefit of his operational analysis of the enemy, writing, “I have observed during the last eighteen months that it has been the practice of the enemy to put to sea on the cessation of a gale of wind, and that our cruisers have been very tardy in leaving port after being driven in by the stress of weather, by which much mischief has happened.”36
St. Vincent had written earlier to Admiral Cornwallis, on 7 March 1801, showing his considered willingness to rely on French sources—at least for some information: “The French Papers state authentically that [French vice admiral] Ganteaume was off Cape de Gatte on the 13th February and has captured the Success, Incendiary, and Sprightly, cutter.”37 Adm. Sir William Cornwallis (1744–1819), “Billy Blue,” a longtime friend of Nelson, had been commander in chief in the East Indies in 1789, and then commanded the Channel Fleet in 1801, and again from 1803 to 1806.
Also in March, writing to the Duke of Northumberland, St. Vincent showed great concern for French false intelligence: “A thousand thanks for your obliging communication touching the Brazils. A prepossession in favour of that idea in narrow Lisbon politics has already done us irreparable injury, and [Napoleon’s brother] Lucien Bonaparte38 has shown much address in imposing false intelligence on the Government of Portugal.”39
Of course, while St. Vincent was unusually active, by no means was he the only first lord to be very intelligence-minded. In an internal Admiralty memorandum dated May 1804, for example, Lord Barham listed some of his requirements concerning the type of person needed to provide for secret services:
He should be a perfect master of arrangement. Without this, he must be in continual perplexity, misemploy and lose the force which is put under his direction. . . . I mention forethought and preparation as the pivot on which every kind of success must depend. . . . Both in the last and in the American war, the greatest part of our misfortunes proceeded from a want of these qualities in those who directed the war. No hurry nor activity can make up for the want of these essentials; and whoever possesses them must succeed.
In all business that requires secrecy, he must communicate with the comptroller of the navy, in that great line of the service.40
In June 1808, on a matter of great importance, Barham wrote Vice Adm. Lord Collingwood, “It is probable his Holiness the Pope may endeavor to effect his escape from the States of the Church recently usurped by Bonaparte. . . . Station such frigates as [you] may be able to spare at such points on the coast of Italy as, from intelligence [you] may receive of his Holiness’ movements, are most likely to facilitate the object in view; with directions to their captains to receive him and his followers on board, and convey him to such place of destination as he shall point out, paying every possible attention to him during his continuance on board.”41
Of course, Lord Barham was also in constant communication with the prime minister regarding intelligence issues. For example, in December 1805 Pitt wrote that he wished “Lord Barham to consider whether it might not be expedient to direct Sir J. Warren to proceed to the Cape Verd. . . . This suggestion arises out of the intelligence received from the Cape, of . . . the expectation that a body of French troops was expected there.”42
St. Vincent often corresponded with the prime minister as well, even if the intelligence was unconfirmed from unconventional sources. Addressing Addington on 27 July 1801, St. Vincent wrote that by the “accounts in the French newspapers, [our] ships under the orders of Sir James Saumarez have suffered to such a degree that I am very apprehensive we have not means at Gibraltar to put them into an efficient state.”43
Likewise intelligence minded, on 15 April 1806, First Lord Charles Grey, Viscount Howick, wrote to Adm. Lord Keith (commanding in the North Sea):
We have received indisputable evidence that . . . there is a constant communication kept up between Harwich [England] and the little fishing town of Katwijk;44 that the Dutch Government employ between 10 and 12 fishing smacks appropriate to this service; and that despatches received in this manner are constantly forwarded by express to the Hague.
It is thought necessary to stop this communication, and as the best means of doing this, as well as of discovering the sources of the enemy’s intelligence, I am to request your Lordship to select some intelligent and confidential officer, to whom you will give strict orders to stop these smacks as if by mistake; to observe carefully if any packets are thrown overboard, and to search very narrowly both vessels and crew, and to send any papers he may find to your Lordship, which you will forward immediately under a cover marked “secret.”45
Fig. 2-2 The Rt. Hon. William Pitt (the Younger), Prime minister of Great Britain from 1783 to 1801 and 1803 to 1806. Shown here by J. Hoppner (engraved by J. Thomson).
First Lord George, second Earl Spencer, cannot be discounted as an intelligence-oriented leader. In an April 1798 memorandum to the Cabinet, he concluded that
all the intelligence received from time to time has constantly been circulated for the information of the Cabinet, and it is all entered in books (now forming a pretty voluminous collection) kept on purpose.
A précis of the latest intelligence last received may easily be made out, and shall immediately be prepared if it is required;
but no very great stress can be laid upon the inspection of any such partial extract, because it cannot always be known what degree of reliance should be placed on any particular piece of information, and it is only from a general view and comparison of the whole that anything like a tolerable judgement of it can be formed.46
Incidentally, although not extensively quoted in this chapter, some further comment on Lord Spencer is warranted, for even with no particular naval background he “by his energy, zeal, and whole-hearted devotion to the business of the Navy, had become one of the ablest and most successful First Lords ever to preside over the Admiralty. . . . The debt owed to Spencer by his country during these years of peril is almost incalculable. It was he who successively chose for their high commands Jervis, Duncan, and Nelson.”47
Finally, Henry Dundas, mentioned in chapter 1, was of course very intelligence-oriented in whatever position he held. So was his son Robert, who succeeded him as Viscount Melville and also later held office as the first lord of the Admiralty. As a second coincidence, Henry had been joined at the Admiralty by his former assistant—in secret service as well as other things—Evan Nepean, who became his first secretary (“the aide of his old associate in the public service would add much to Lord Melville’s comfort and confidence in the arduous task [first lord] he has undertaken”).48
Even without Nepean’s support, Robert Dundas was himself an intelligence broker; note his letter to Lord Keith of 27 June 1815: “Reports . . . [indicate] that in the event of adverse fortune it was the intention of Bonaparte to escape to America. If there is any truth in these statements he will in all probability make the attempt now. . . . It is desirable that you should take every precaution in your power with a view to his seizure and detention should he endeavour to quit France by sea.” This was seconded three days later by J. W. Croker, Robert Dundas’s first secretary, who further wrote Lord Keith, “We have fresh reports every hour of Bonaparte’s intention to escape—he pretends for England, we think for America. It is of great consequence to intercept him and we reckon on your vigilance.”49
Fig. 2-3 George, Lord Spencer.
Under the leadership of the second Earl Spencer, the Royal Navy saw some of its greatest achievements during this era. This likeness was painted by J. S. Copley and engraved by B. Holl.
Several years earlier, in September 1803, First Secretary Nepean had passed similar intelligence to the same Lord Keith about the movements of Napoleon’s brother. He sent him an “extract of a letter from New York stating that Jerome Bonaparte had sailed from Baltimore on July 28 in the President, a Swedish ship under American colours bound for Amsterdam. . . . [Please] give orders to your cruisers in the event of their falling in with the said ship to detain her and bring her into port in case any person who answers to the description therein contained shall be found on board her.”50
Perhaps the key official in the Admiralty was this first, or principal, secretary to the Lords Commissioners. In fact, depending upon who the individual was and what year it was, this man was “the confidential servant of the Board in principle, but in practice an official of greater consequence in both the naval and political worlds than several of the Lords Commissioners.”51 Included among the enormous scope of his duties was the control of almost all correspondence between the Admiralty and commanders around the world—both outgoing and incoming. As a result, this individual was critical in the passing of information in and out of the “nerve center” of the Admiralty, on all subjects, which certainly included intelligence. The men who held this position during this period of study were Sir Philip Stephens, Sir Evan Nepean, William Marsden, William Pole, and John W. Croker.
Leaving this post in 1795, Stephens had held it for a little over thirty years, during which time he frequently handled secret intelligence and secret service money. Earlier in his career he had actively supported the earl of Sandwich—clearly a very intelligence-minded first lord. Indeed, one French scholar found Stephens (and his position) so much involved that he actually called him “the head of the intelligence service”:
In [a modest Admiralty room] on tables covered with a constant flow of papers and documents, is decided the actual fate of England. . . .
From there come the orders which move simple pawns on the chess-board of seas of the flotillas of the Antilles, of America, of the Indies, or of the North Sea. That is where are stored the hurried [writing] of the English admirals from all the seas, the reports of even the lowest commander of a [warship], the coded information transmitted by blockade runners. . . .
Inside these four walls is found the man who holds in his hands the responsibility of the Navy and, therefore, that of the kingdom. This man is not the minister responsible before the king and before Parliament. . . . This is not the First Lord of the Admiralty. . . . No, the man who gladly carries the crushing weight of the enormous Naval machinery of England is none other than Mr. Philippe Stephens, Secretary of the Admiralty. . . .
The secretary of the Admiralty is not . . . the machine that [merely records] the decisions of the lords of the Admiralty and transmits them for execution; it is not the passive role of secretary of a naval committee, controller of orders issued, simple organ of transmission or of signature or of receiving [copies of orders].
In fact, the activity of [this civil servant] is immense, covering all the domains of British naval power since the head of the naval administration is none other than he. He centralizes all correspondence (incoming and outgoing) and countersigns all the essential acts (laws) of the ministry. Nothing is hidden from him and nothing . . . escapes [his notice].52
Perhaps “head of the Secret Service” is an exaggeration in discussing the Admiralty secretary;53 however, more than one expert agrees that the Admiralty’s intelligence “network”—such as it was—specifically functioned as the secretary’s project.54
Regardless of exactly who controlled it, this might be a good point at which to discuss two remarkable incidents of supposed British naval intelligence activity. The first one involves an “agent” named John Barnett, who worked in the eastern Mediterranean area against Napoleon subsequent to the 1798 Battle of the Nile.
While based on board HMS Lion, cruising off the coast of Egypt, he is reported to have organized a network of spies—using considerable “English gold”—among the Egyptian servants and guides supporting the French army occupying Cairo. Moreover, he further learned that Napoleon had made an amorous conquest of the wife of one of his officers, a Madame Fourès. From French clerks, whom he had also bribed, Barnett also found out that Bonaparte had sent the officer back to Paris on an important “mission,” so as to get rid of him. The Lion intercepted the sloop in which Fourès was embarked and Barnett told him the situation. Fourès begged to be allowed to return to Egypt and “avenge his honor,” so the British smuggled him back to Cairo hoping he would confront Bonaparte and assassinate him. Caution may have superseded anger, or patriotism may have outweighed personal emotion, but as it turned out, Fourès made no known attempt to kill Napoleon.55
The second incident, in 1808, involves a patriotic Catholic priest named Rev. James Robertson. He had spent considerable time in the Scottish Benedictine abbey in Ratisbon (Regensburg) and was fluent in German. Posing as a German commercial traveler named Adam Rorauer, he made a number of trips among various Danish islands looking for some Spanish troops serving Napoleon—a force of around eighteen thousand men. Enlisting the help of a Catholic Spanish army chaplain, Robertson learned where all the troops were scattered, as well as the location of their commander, Gen. Pedro Caro y Sureda, Marquis de la Romana (who, interestingly enough, had previously been a naval officer—commanding a Spanish frigate—before transferring to the army). Staying in disguise, Robertson moved to Copenhagen and then to the island of Fyn, where Romana was effectively kept in isolation without recourse to letters. He was able to gain Romana’s trust by reminding him of a dinner the general had had with British ambassador Hookham Frere in Toledo, where they had admired a picture of Saints Peter and John by the neoclassic artist Anton Mengs. When Romana was apprised of the changed political situation in Spain (Napoleon’s elder brother Joseph had been installed as king of Spain against the Spanish national will), he decided his relationship with the French was over. Robertson was then able to make arrangements for around nine thousand men of the Spanish force to be taken on board British ships cruising in the Great Belt.
The importance of this operation was twofold. Romana’s forces were going to be used as a large part of a French effort to invade Sweden from Denmark; the invasion was forestalled by Robertson’s coup—as well as the arrival of a detachment of the British North Sea Fleet off Zealand. In addition, Romana’s troops were returned to Spain to throw their considerable weight toward the national uprising against Bonaparte. (Readers of Patrick O’Brian’s novels will recognize much of this scenario in The Surgeon’s Mate, in which Dr. Maturin looks like the Rev. Robertson, and Maturin’s godfather (Colonel Ramon d’Ullastret i Casademon) resembles the Marquis de la Romana.)56
Not all British naval intelligence operations ended well. The outstanding example remains the perhaps too–active agent Cdr. John Wesley Wright, who was caught, imprisoned, and almost certainly murdered in 1805 by Napoleon’s police.57 Wright was an officer whose name makes frequent appearances in the literature. He apparently was the chief British agent in the Royalist plot of 1803 led by Generals Cadoudal and Pichegru. According to what Bonaparte said later while imprisoned on St. Helena, “on different nights [between August 1803 and January 1804] Wright landed Cadoudal, Pichegru, Rivière etc. at Biville near Dieppe.” But Napoleon realized something was amiss, and in March 1804 he arrested and had shot the young Due D’Enghien for complicity in the plot. Of the genuine conspirators, Cadoudal and eight others were shot, while Pichegru committed suicide in his cell. On 8 May, Wright was captured when his brig ran aground on the coast of Brittany; his solitary confinement ended in November 1805 when (at least according to Napoleon) he committed suicide before he could be brought to trial.58
In March 1804, Lord St. Vincent may have had an idea that all was not well, writing to Adm. Lord Keith:
Secret [and] Private Captain Wright has [reportedly] made nine attempts to land on the opposite Coast, but found the surf so high he could not succeed—not a word of which I believe. . . . Should the Secret Service be continued, I will propose that Captain Wright shall be authorized to engage vessels for the purpose at Dover.
Lord Hawkesbury has desired that the Lively Revenue-Cutter may be placed under [Wright’s] Orders [but] I believe Your Lordship’s suspicions of the late Secret Operation having been disclosed to the Enemy, and all the correspondence intercepted and afterwards conveyed to the parties, are too well founded.59
In any event, Wright’s demise caught the British attention. It certainly worried C. S. Forester’s fictitious Capt. Horatio Hornblower, captured after the loss of HMS Sutherland. He speculated that he, too, would never return as he was transported toward Paris: “Wright . . . was said to have committed suicide in prison in Paris. Everyone in England believed that Bonaparte had had him murdered—they would believe the same in [Hornblower’s] case.”60
Whoever truly was in charge of the above operations, the first secretary frequently analyzed and passed on intelligence in lieu of the first lord. Flag officers in receipt of such information would in turn pass it along to subordinate commanders, as did Lord Keith in this letter to a junior rear admiral in August 1805: “Sir, I herewith transmit a copy of a note of intelligence which I have received from the Secretary of the Admiralty, and as it appears that the enemy may be contemplating movements to the eastward I desire that you will take particular care that the whole squadron, as well off Boulogne as in the Downs, is kept in constant readiness.”61
Similarly, many years later First Secretary Croker passed intelligence and orders to this same Lord Keith, on 13 August 1813: Per an account “of H.M.S. Alexandria and sloop Spitfire having . . . fallen in with the American frigate President off the North Cape, [you must] endeavour to keep two ships together always, as the force of the President is reported to be as follows: Main deck—30 24-pounders long guns. Quarter deck and forecastle—4 24-pounders long guns and 22 42-pounders carronades. Main and fore top—4 4-pounders in each. Mizen top—2 3-pounders.”
Furthermore, recaptured British prisoners of war reported that Commodore Rodgers, commanding the President, intended to attack the Archangel convoy, and that the American officers hoped to encounter a British seventy-four-gun ship of the line by itself as they felt sure they could beat one. Finally, “the President fights under two large white flags with black letters, one expressing ‘No impressment,’ and the other ‘This is the haughty President, how do you like her?’”62
On 21 December 1812 Croker also sent this interesting item to Lord Keith:
My dear Lord, It has been discovered at the Board of Trade that a very clever forgery of British licenses has been made in France or Holland under cover of which many ships have passed our cruisers unmolested and unsuspected. . . . The most prominent mark of detection is the Secretary of State’s seal, which the forgers have not accurately copied.
Your Lordship will see the great advantage of communicating this information with all possible celerity to all your cruisers . . . and your Lordship will also I think agree with me that the discovery should be kept a profound secret.63
Secretary Nepean sent this unusual intelligence to a flag officer on 19 June 1803: “The Admiralty having been informed that a plan has been concerted by Mr. Fulton, an American resident at Paris . . . for destroying the maritime forces of [Britain with a submarine vessel], I am commanded by their Lordships to send you herewith the substance of the information they have received relative thereto.”64
The communication of intelligence was a two-way path, of course. Flag officers and detached captains, around the world, passed intelligence to the Admiralty as well as received it. Note this letter, dated 1 August 1803, from Lord Nelson to Secretary Nepean:
Sir, You will please to acquaint the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, that by the last information of the Enemy’s force at Toulon, there are seven Sail of the Line, five or six Frigates, and six or seven Corvettes, in all eighteen Sail, apparently perfectly ready for sea: a Frigate and three Corvettes have been three times out of the harbour, but returned again. At Genoa there are three Genoese Vessels of War ready for sea, about forty sail of French Merchant Ships, and three Dutch Merchantmen; and at Marseilles, from reports of Vessels spoke, they are putting in requisition eighty or ninety Sail of Vessels, about forty tons each, to be fitted as Gun-boats, and to proceed by the Canal of Languedoc to Bordeaux; but I believe, if they are really fitting out, that they are destined to protect the movements of their Army in the Heel of Italy.65
Sometimes flag officers wrote directly to the first lord, bypassing the convention of addressing their letters to (or through) the first secretary. Here we find a younger Nelson who, as a junior flag officer in the middle of the Nile campaign, was at first timid to do this when writing to Earl Spencer in June 1798: “Not having received orders from my Commander-in-Chief to correspond with the . . . Admiralty, I do not feel myself at perfect liberty to do it, unless on extraordinary occasions.”66
His hesitation soon wore off, however; from this point on he started to feel much more at liberty and for the rest of his life maintained a frequent correspondence with the first secretary, the first lord, various ambassadors, various politicians, and a good number of highly placed ministers, including the secretaries of state and, indeed, the prime minister himself. In fact, his letter to Prime Minister Addington, on 28 June 1803, containing insightful military, naval, and political analyses of Gibraltar, Algiers, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, Rome, Tuscany, Genoa, and the Morea, was extremely valued in Whitehall. His analysis was found so useful that, as a result, he was requested in the future to direct any observations he might have on any political subject immediately to the secretary of state for the War Department.67
Nelson became so comfortable with this arrangement that he encouraged other officers to do the same under certain circumstances. Just before he was killed at Trafalgar, he ordered Rear Adm. John Knight to “inform Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Bickerton of your proceedings, from time to time, during my absence from the Mediterranean. . . . And you will also, when it may be necessary, communicate with the Admiralty direct, as it might very much retard your correspondence to send your letters through the Rear-Admiral; but you will, as early after as possible, transmit Sir Richard copies thereof.”68
WHETHER TRANSMITTING national-level intelligence down to the fleet or relaying intelligence garnered by the fleet up to the secretaries of state, it is clear that the Admiralty was significantly involved in collecting, processing, evaluating, and disseminating intelligence information. Paralleling the relatively small-scale, noncentralized intelligence apparatus of the overall government, there was neither a specific office of naval intelligence nor a naval intelligence bureau. Indeed, the extent that intelligence was emphasized—or left unexploited and uncommunicated—was directly proportional to the personal inclination and interests of the key navy officials in office from year to year. Those officials were the senior political minister (the first lord), the senior professional officer (just beginning to be called the first sea lord), and the senior civil servant (the first secretary).
How intelligence was gathered, utilized, communicated, received, and generally integrated into the operating naval forces are the subjects of the next several chapters—all leading to a focus upon the ultimate “intelligence officer”—the at-sea commander.
