CHAPTER THREE

Dogger Bank, 1781

Into battle

With both Resolution and Discovery back in England, the crew of each ship was stood down. It had been an extraordinary coming of age for Bligh – he had witnessed the death of Cook and Clerke, and in December 1780, he was to lose his father. Francis Bligh, the man who had guided his son into a life with the Royal Navy, died and was buried at St Andrew’s Church in Plymouth.

As a youngster Bligh had been very close to his father, and now he felt the full impact of the loss of his remaining parent, as he was his father’s only son. A generation had passed. He found comfort in immersing himself in his charts from the recently completed voyage with Captain Cook, refining details so they could be included in the official account of what was a successful, yet tragic, expedition. But before long he realised he needed to escape: it was time for him to take a well-deserved and extensive holiday in the lush countryside of the west of England before visiting Douglas, on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. It was during the sojourn there that Bligh either reacquainted himself with or met for the first time Elizabeth Betham, an intelligent, well-educated woman. With much in common, the two developed an overwhelming romantic rapport, so much so that one month later, on 4 February 1781, they were married in the parish church in the nearby village of Onchan.

It was a marriage between a strong woman and a determined man who were, for much of their lives, separated by the sea. However, their devotion and love for each other were always evident in the tender and caring letters they exchanged over the long years apart. For Bligh, it would prove to be a fortuitous liaison for his already promising career: his new wife’s uncle was Duncan Campbell, one of England’s most prominent and successful commercial shipowners, a plantation owner and merchant in the West Indies, and the contractor in charge of convict hulks in the Thames. Campbell, who was also very well connected with the government of the day, was quickly impressed by the twenty-six-year-old Bligh, taking him under his wing and becoming a life-long mentor and confidant. Bligh’s wife, affectionately known as Betsy, was also a close friend of fifty-five-year-old Campbell’s second wife, Mary, a woman thirty years his junior.

Just ten days after the start of the post-nuptial celebrations, Betsy gained a rapid induction into the reality of being a naval wife, when her husband received some anxiously awaited news: he had been appointed master of HMS Belle Poule, under Captain Philip Patton, and he was expected aboard posthaste.

A ship in the French Navy, Belle Poule was captured by the English in 1780 off Ile-d’Yeu in the Bay of Biscay. Bligh’s appointment coincided with her being commissioned into the Royal Navy. When he boarded the refitted, Bordeaux-built thirty-gun frigate, she was already a veteran of hydrographic surveys to the Indian Ocean, campaigns in the West Indies and famous battles. Most notably, when sailing under the French flag in June 1778, she engaged HMS Arethusa in a fierce encounter which led to France’s involvement in the American War of Independence in support of the colony. And just eight years earlier, Jean-François de Galaup, Comte de La Pérouse, who greatly admired the achievements of Captain Cook, walked the decks of Belle Poule. Like Bligh, he was destined to achieve fame in the Pacific, but tragically disappeared there, probably in 1788.

By the time Bligh took up his posting as the master of Belle Poule, England was again at war with many of its neighbours, including the French, the Spanish and the Dutch. Across the Atlantic, battles were raging with the American colonists. For Bligh, to be engaged in a successful conflict meant a far greater chance of promotion, so he was eager to put to sea.

That was to be the case. In mid-April the tidy little Belle Poule and the seventy-four-gun HMS Berwick, under the command of Bligh’s first captain, Keith Stewart, engaged the heavily armed 400-ton French privateer Calonne, or La Calogne. This took place near the Firth of Forth on Scotland’s east coast, after La Calogne had captured the small and unarmed merchant brig Nancy, which had been en route to Newcastle from Aberdeen. Initially the crew of the French ship believed the then unidentified Belle Poule and Berwick were whaling ships from Greenland, but by the time they realised their mistake it was too late. Berwick then Belle Poule loomed up alongside the French ship and caught the crew unawares. They began pounding La Calogne with cannon fire for an hour, until the French struck their colours, surrendered and the British took their ship as a prize.

Bligh was now ‘blooded’ in battle but most importantly, as sailing master of Belle Poule, he had played a significant role in ensuring his ship remained as safe as possible by not exposing her unnecessarily to enemy fire, or by being outmanoeuvred.

In August Belle Poule was one of seven smaller naval vessels backing the same number of ships-of-the-line in a squadron escorting a large fleet of merchant vessels from the Baltic Sea to England. The squadron was under the command of Vice-Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, 5th Baronet, whose flagship, the seventy-four-gun HMS Fortitude, was the lead vessel. The vice-admiral’s second son, also Hyde Parker, was the captain of the thirty-eight-gun, fifth-rate HMS Latona, which was part of the squadron.

Parker Senior had been warned that a superior force of Dutch warships was in the area escorting a convoy, but he was unfazed. The ships’ lookouts were on high alert, and just after dawn on 5 August 1781, as the English fleet was crossing Dogger Bank in the middle of the North Sea, they were rewarded. Referred to as having come from ‘rotten row’ because of their age, the British ships were better armed than the eight Dutch ships-of-the-line, which were under the command of Rear-Admiral Johan Zoutman.

After the British sighted the Dutch merchant convoy, on the horizon to the south-east, an engagement ensued. Vice-Admiral Sir Hyde Parker explained how the battle unfolded:

I was happy to find I had the wind of them, as the great numbers of their large frigates might otherwise have endangered my convoy. Having separated the men of war from the merchant ships, and made a signal for the latter to keep their wind [and continue sailing towards England], I bore away with a general signal to chase.

The enemy formed their line, consisting of eight two-decked ships, on the starboard tack. Ours, including the Dolphin of 44 guns, consisted of seven. Not a gun was fired on either side until within the distance of half musket shot. The Fortitude being then abreast of the Dutch Admiral, the action began…

Suddenly the air reverberated with the booming sound of non-stop cannon fire as the adversaries tried to blast each other off the surface of the ocean. As each ship unleashed a fusillade of iron cannonballs, ranging from 18-pounders to 68-pounders, a massive shaft of flame shot from the muzzles of the cannons and the air thickened with pungent, gunpowder-laced smoke. Every cannonball that found its target during the broadsides delivered horrendous carnage: killing sailors, smashing the thick timber hulls and decks into splinters, shredding sails and bringing down rigs. Inevitably, some of the ships would have been using the recently introduced short-barrelled carronades, which could fire cannonballs capable of penetrating three feet into solid oak, causing the timber to explode.

Vice-Admiral Sir Hyde Parker described the rest of the battle:

[The action] continued with an unceasing fire for three hours and 40 minutes: by this time our ships were unmanageable. I made an effort to form the line to renew the action and found it impracticable.

The Bienfaisant had lost her main top-mast, and the Buffalo her fore yard; the rest of the [English] ships were not less shattered in their masts, rigging and sails; the enemy appeared to be in as bad a condition. Both squadrons lay to a considerable time near each other, when the Dutch, with their convoy, bore away for the Texel. We were not in a condition to follow them.

While the Dutch hightailed it towards the Texel – an island off Holland’s northwest – the English set about dealing with their dead and wounded, and repairing their ships so they could set sail for home. The English toll was estimated to be 108 dead and 399 wounded, and for the Dutch, 140 dead and 400 wounded. It was a strategic victory for the English but a tactically indecisive result that went against the odds: the Dutch had the better ships yet Vice-Admiral Parker took up the less favourable windward position for the encounter. More remarkable was the fact that, for some unexplained reason, Rear-Admiral Zoutman did not take advantage of this when the broadsides began. It was later claimed that had Vice-Admiral Parker not been in the windward position, he would have exposed the merchant convoy he was protecting to the Dutch cannons.

The ships-of-the-line, which were the only vessels from both sides to engage in this battle, were the true warships of the era, each one being rated according to the number of carriage-mounted cannons it carried. They were the largest ships in the force and designed specifically to take part in frontline battles during a major fleet action. For this reason the small frigate Belle Poule was ordered to take up a position on the flank of the fleet, but there is no doubt the encounter was keenly observed and assessed by all aboard, including the master, Bligh.

Belle Poule’s next task was to sail in the wake of the Dutch and confirm they really were on the run. It was soon after sun-up the following day when the ship’s lookout reported an incredible sight: three masts of a Dutch ship-of-the-line protruding above the surface of the ocean, and the ship’s pennant fluttering forlornly in the morning breeze from the main topgallant mast. It was the seventy-four-gun Hollandia, the second most important ship-of-the-line in the Dutch fleet, which was so badly damaged in the battle that it could not reach shore, instead sinking in twenty-two fathoms off the Dutch coast and settling on the bottom in an upright position. Belle Poule drew alongside the submerged ship and hove to. Captain Patton then had one of his ship’s launches take him to Hollandia so he could strike the pennant in the name of the Royal Navy and subsequently present it to Hyde Parker.

It was not until early September that Belle Poule completed its mission and reached port – this time Sheerness Docks on the Isle of Sheppey, near the entrance to the Thames, which, along with its protective fort, was established in 1672. It was here on 5 October 1781 that Bligh received the news of an appointment he had worked so assiduously to achieve: finally, he was a commissioned officer. He had been appointed fifth lieutenant of Berwick, a ship launched at Portsmouth Dockyard in 1775 then commissioned into the service three years later when France entered the American War of Independence. Berwick joined the Channel Fleet under the command of the Hon. Keith Stewart.

Bligh expected Berwick, then under the captaincy of John Fergusson, to be the ideal ship for his first posting as a lieutenant but it proved to be a frustrating experience. As part of the Channel Fleet, life aboard Berwick was boring and monotonous as she lay at anchor in the Downs, waiting for the call to intercept the Dutch fleet should it break from its cover in the Texel, but that didn’t happen. Following their losses at Dogger Bank the Dutch no longer wanted to engage the English.

At this time the two sides were engaged in the Fourth Anglo–Dutch War, a conflict that came about as a result of the Dutch failing to support England, a supposed ally, during its war with the American colonies. Fortunately for the newly appointed lieutenant, the posting aboard Berwick would last only a few months. During the posting Berwick’s captain granted him compassionate leave so he could join his beloved Betsy, then domiciled in Leith, Scotland, for the birth of their first child. On 15 November, Harriet Maria Bligh, the first of their six daughters, arrived.

After spending the following six weeks as a family man, Bligh’s next posting commenced on 1 January 1782, when he took up the same position, fifth lieutenant, aboard the eighty-gun third-rate ship-of-the-line Princess Amelia, another veteran of the Battle of Dogger Bank, in which it saw the loss of nineteen men including its captain, John Macartney, and had fifty-six wounded.

Yet again it was a brief tenure: after just eleven weeks with this ship, on 20 March he made an important advance in his career – to a first-class ship-of-the-line, the 80-gun HMS Cambridge, as a sixth lieutenant. Much of the complement of Princess Amelia was transferred with him. Cambridge, which was 166 feet in overall length on the gun deck and displaced more than 1600 tons, was then acting as a guard ship at Portsmouth. One of near twenty lieutenants among a crew that numbered more than 800, Bligh worked under the guidance of the first lieutenant, who was the ship’s second-in-command. Bligh’s primary responsibility was to ensure the crew completed their duties as expected.

With his momentum through the ranks now accelerating, Bligh decided to try to use the influence of his wife’s uncle, Duncan Campbell, to secure an even higher appointment as soon as possible. This came about because he had learned that Vice-Admiral John Campbell, a relative of Betsy’s uncle, was to be based in Newfoundland, where he would become governor and commander-in-chief of a wide stretch of ocean known as the Newfoundland Station. This region on the western side of the Atlantic was of great strategic importance to England due to its proximity to the extremely valuable fishing grounds of the Grand Banks, and its location relative to the navigation route between Europe and the New World.

For the aspiring young Lieutenant Bligh, this was the place to be: being elevated to the post of commander of a ship at this station would be of immense worth to his career.

At the suggestion of Duncan Campbell, Bligh wrote to Vice-Admiral Campbell seeking a commission with his fleet:

Sir,

It was the only satisfaction I had after a long and laborious voyage to be introduced to you through the means of my best friend Mr Campbell … and I am induced again to make myself known to you.

From Mr Keith Stewart’s partiality to me from my services I have since gained promotion as a Lieutenant, and now … have allowed myself to hope I may come under your cognizance.

Allow me, Sir, to wish to go in any manner under your command – I have experienced hard service; but shall never complain whilst sailing under your notice.

I am, Sir, with great respect,

Your most obedient humble Servant

Wm Bligh

Unfortunately for Bligh, the time was not right, so he remained as part of the crew aboard Cambridge. Royal Navy records state that on at least two occasions in May and July 1782 Cambridge moved from Spithead to the Downs, where she was stationed as part of a fleet under the command of Lord Viscount Howe, a notable naval officer recognised for exceptional service during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars and who would soon become a Vice-Admiral of the Blue. Howe’s ship was the now legendary 100-gunner HMS Victory. (Lord Howe Island, off Australia’s east coast, was named after him, as was Cape Howe on the New South Wales–Victorian border.)

Also around this time Cambridge underwent a refit, something that proved to be a costly exercise for the crew. Much to their frustration, the refit fell well behind schedule and as a result Cambridge was not part of Vice-Admiral Samuel Barrington’s coastal patrol fleet – to which it was then attached – when the fleet captured thirteen well-laden merchant ships in an enemy convoy crossing the Bay of Biscay. The prize for the victors was a large cash bounty, which was divided among the officers and crew of the participating ships. Bligh wrote of this with great displeasure: ‘It has been no small mortification for me not being out with Admiral Barrington as it was intended we should join him … I imagine officers will get 200 pounds.’ It was an amount that would have brought much-wanted financial security to Bligh and his family.

When the refit was finally completed, Cambridge joined a flotilla of 183 vessels, including thirty-four ships-of-the-line and twelve smaller naval vessels under the command of Howe. The flotilla had been assembled to relieve the English fortress at Gibraltar, which had been under siege since 1779.

Cambridge’s crew comprised 850 seamen and officers, and an eighteen-year-old ship’s boy named Fletcher Christian – the same Fletcher Christian who would later lead the mutiny against Lieutenant Bligh aboard Bounty. While aboard Cambridge, Christian became well aware of Bligh, who is said to have taught the youngster how to use a sextant. The two are also said to have dined together at times, and Christian would later acknowledge in his diary that Bligh had treated him ‘like a brother’.

On 11 September 1782 the relief fleet set sail from Spithead. It would prove to be fortuitous timing because a few days later the fortress, which was under the authority of Governor Lieutenant-General George Eliott, came under a relentless all-out attack by the Spanish and French, an assault so intense that for the first time the English were on the verge of capitulating. The odds were grossly in favour of the enemy: they had ninety warships, including forty-four ships-of-the-line, 300 transports and ten heavily armed purpose-built floating batteries. The French also had 12,000 infantry aboard the ships, while a further 40,000 soldiers surrounded the outpost on land. The English garrison numbered a mere 5,300 men.

Incredibly, though, even with this massive imbalance in numbers, adverse weather and a tactical blunder by the French and Spanish played into the hands of the English who had arrived off Cape St Vincent on 9 October. The British fleet was able to wedge its way into the port at St Vincent free from attack and take the dominant position because a storm suddenly broke over the scene, causing the enemy ships to run for shelter. At the same time the British managed to retain some semblance of formation while on approach to the fortress, and through superb seamanship and great determination they achieved their goal before the French and Spanish vessels could return to the desired position and engage in battle. Howe’s convoy was able to reach shore and deliver additional supplies to the garrison that would last more than a year, plus a fresh complement of infantrymen to ensure its security. With his mission fulfilled, Howe then directed his ships to return home to Spithead while the French and Spanish could only look on while trailing them. Days later, Howe decided it was time to confront the enemy still lurking in his fleet’s wake and dispose of them once and for all. This turned into an inconclusive long-range cannon fight with minimal loss of life and no loss of vessel on either side. When the hostilities ended, Cambridge reported the loss of just three men during the battle, and the ship was essentially undamaged. The success of this mission was such that ‘prize money’ was distributed among the officers. Lieutenant Bligh took home £22.

While the siege of Gibraltar produced an overwhelming victory for the British, the Royal Navy’s fleet on the opposite side of the Atlantic had fought a losing battle in the American War of Independence, one which came to an ignominious conclusion for them at the end of 1782. With that war lost and Gibraltar secure, the Royal Navy returned to a peacetime footing. Almost the entire fleet arrived back in home waters, and with no battles to be fought, the culling of officers, seamen and marines began immediately. Within weeks the number of full-time men in the force had been reduced from 100,000 to just 30,000. Lieutenant Bligh was one of those stood down on half-pay: two shillings a day.

This made for tough times for the Blighs, now resident in Douglas on the Isle of Man, but fortunately the period of virtual unemployment was shortlived. Aged twenty-eight and having been at sea for nearly thirteen years, Bligh was now a highly accomplished seafarer, well versed in all aspects of a ship’s operation as well as engagement in battle. Obviously the sea was his passion, but it represented his career path, and knowing little else he could only hope an opportunity would arise that would see him setting sail again soon.

Fortunately, Duncan Campbell, who employed many ship’s captains in his merchant marine operations, was all too aware of his nephew’s experience and exceptional seafaring talents, so was quick to offer him a job. Bligh was eager to accept the offer so immediately sought and received permission from the Admiralty to do so. He then wrote to Campbell:

Douglas, Isle of Man, July 18, 1783 – I am glad to hear you think it likely I may soon be wanted in Town [London] as I am anxious to show you that whatever my services may be, my endeavours in every respect will not be wanting either in exercise or care … I shall be ready at an hour’s notice and nothing can stop me now but a contrary wind, which at this season of the year is not likely to happen … Your very obliged and affectionate and humble Servant, Wm Bligh.

For Bligh, this exciting venture into merchant shipping would prove to be financially rewarding and advantageous for his career as, for the first time since going to sea, he had his own command – as captain of Lynx, the finest and fastest ship in Campbell’s fleet, which operated mainly on the trans-Atlantic route to the West Indies. The region was the world’s largest source of sugar so this product made up a considerable proportion of the cargo Lynx carried on return passages to England.

Bligh was not to walk the quarterdeck of a Royal Navy ship for more than four years. Instead he would stay in the employ of Duncan Campbell out of London, and as a result he moved his wife and two daughters – Mary had been born that year – to ‘Town’, where they settled in Lambeth. It would be home for the family for a quarter of a century.

Peace continued to prevail for England throughout 1784. In June of that year the first edition of the official, three-volume account of Cook’s voyage was published in London. With Cook’s death, Lieutenant James King – who had kept a detailed journal relating to the expedition – was entrusted with the responsibility to complete Cook’s work, A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, and commissioned to write the third volume. Bligh, who had penned his own equally detailed journal during the voyage, was infuriated by King’s account.

As Cook’s second lieutenant on Resolution, King had shared the responsibility for astronomical observations with him. Bligh, his junior, had worked alongside him in the preparation of charts and sketching views of coastlines but they shared little tolerance for each other and clashed frequently. Bligh was adamant that King, and other officers, had taken credit for more of the published information than was fair, in particular his charts and maps. Having received a copy of the third volume, Bligh set about making a myriad of margin notes, recording in no uncertain fashion his displeasure and disdain over King’s work. On the title page of the volume crediting the maps and charts ‘from the original drawings made by Lieut. Henry Roberts, under the direction of Captain Cook’, an indignant Bligh, wrote his own credit:

…none of the Maps and Charts in this publication are from the original drawings of Lieut. Henry Roberts; he did no more than copy the original ones from Captain Cook, who besides myself was the only person that surveyed and laid the Coast down, in the Resolution. Every plan & Chart from [the time of] C. Cook’s death are exact Copies of my Works.

Bligh’s barbs did not miss King when it came to the death of Captain Cook. King was quoted as describing Cook as a beloved and honoured friend. To this, Bligh countered: ‘A most hypocritical expression, for his death was no more attended to in the course of a few days than if he never existed.’

But tragically, less than six months after the publication of Cook’s official journal in June 1784, King himself died from consumption. He was only thirty-four. Bligh’s journal of his voyage with Cook has never been found. Ironically, his relationship with his young midshipman on Providence, Matthew Flinders, would be strained over a similar point of recognition on credit for the charts and maps that resulted from that voyage.

This same year, 1784, Bligh stepped down as captain of Lynx, having made numerous Atlantic crossings, and took up senior positions aboard two other vessels in the Campbell fleet, Cambrian and Britannia. Campbell also had him work for a period as the company’s agent in Port of Lucea in Jamaica.

While Bligh continued to ply the Atlantic in the shadow of the slave trade, fate was charting a new course for his life, one that would merge the West Indies, the breadfruit plant (which he first tasted in Tahiti when there with Captain Cook) and his well-established career as a naval officer of considerable repute. The catalyst in all this would be the two men who were unquestionably his guiding lights, Sir Joseph Banks and Duncan Campbell.

Two centuries earlier the existence of the breadfruit tree became known across Europe as a consequence of voyages into the South Pacific. However, it wasn’t until William Dampier returned to England in 1691 from his voyage to the region that the English took a genuine interest in the plant. Dampier praised its virtues as a food that could be prepared in many forms. Then, in 1769, when Cook and Banks arrived in Tahiti, they too were impressed by its value, even though Cook disliked its flavour, describing it as being ‘as disagreeable as that of a pickled olive generally is the first time it is eaten’. He also went on record as saying, ‘Its taste is insipid with the slight sweetness somewhat resembling that of a crumb of wheaten bread mixed with the Jerusalem artichoke.’

Dr Daniel Solander, a botanist with Captain Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific disagreed:

…the bread-fruit of the South Sea Islands within the tropics, which was by us during several months daily eaten as a substitute for bread and was universally esteemed as palatable and nourishing as bread itself. No one of the whole ship’s Company complained when served with bread-fruit in lieu of biscuit; and from the health and strength of whole nations, whose principal food it is, I do not scruple to call it one of the most useful vegetables in the world.

Before long, crews of all ships visiting the South Pacific during this era would prefer the starchy and dense breadfruit over their ships’ bland, hard tack bread, known then as biscuits, which had to be soaked in liquid to be edible.

Inevitably, word of the potential of breadfruit spread to the West Indies. In April 1772, the then captain-general of the British West Indies, Valentine Morris, wrote to his good friend Sir Joseph Banks suggesting that the introduction of breadfruit to those islands would be a great benefit to all the inhabitants, especially the slaves, and lessen ‘the dependence of the sugar islands on North America for food and necessaries’. However, no real consideration was given to this suggestion because England was in a protracted period of war; Britannia had to exert its authority on the high seas.

Twelve years later, in 1784, when Bligh was sailing the Atlantic for Duncan Campbell, Hinton East, another well-known plantation owner with holdings in Jamaica, took up the cause when he wrote to Sir Joseph and suggested breadfruit would be:

…of infinite importance to the West Indian Islands, in affording a wholesome and pleasant food to our negroes, which would have the great advantage of being raised with infinitely less labour than the plantain, and not be subject to danger from excessively strong winds. The time is not very distant when measures will be taken by proper authority for bringing about this desirable event.

Then, during a visit to England two years later, Hinton East met with Sir Joseph and reiterated the importance of an expedition to the South Pacific to obtain juvenile breadfruit plants for the West Indies. With other plantation owners reinforcing East’s suggestion, Sir Joseph took the proposal to King George III – to whom he was an adviser – who then gave orders for a breadfruit expedition to be formed and prepared to sail on what would be a major undertaking, spanning at least six months. Not surprisingly, it was decided that a navy ship would take up the challenge, and that it would be under the command of a naval officer. Accordingly, Sir Joseph then assumed the role of organiser for the project, which would depart around August 1787.

The Society for Promoting Arts and Commerce, of which Sir Joseph Banks was president, was already involved indirectly in the quest for breadfruit, having offered a ‘premium’ – a gold medal – to the first person who transported ‘from the islands of the South Sea to the islands of the West Indies, six plants of one or both species of the bread-fruit tree, in a growing state’.

Bligh was aboard Britannia on his final two passages as a merchant captain when it was confirmed by the king and the government that the proposed breadfruit voyage to Tahiti would go ahead. Here, once again, Fletcher Christian appears in Bligh’s life: he was second mate aboard Britannia for their final voyage back to London, a position Bligh awarded to him after he had impressed the captain as an all-round seafarer. Bligh now considered him a friend.

As Britannia closed in on the coast of England, another element in the next chapter in Bligh’s life was unfolding: a ship was purchased by the Admiralty for the breadfruit expedition into the Pacific. Only one more question remained: who would be captain? It was soon decided it would be one of the Royal Navy’s most promising young officers, Lieutenant William Bligh – but he wouldn’t know this for some weeks.