Bengal and Ile de France, 25 April–9 August 1809  

Just as Hamelin’s squadron left Port Louis in search of prey, a Third Fleet of Indiamen was gathering where the Hooghly oozed a thick brown slick out into the north-western corner of the Bay of Bengal. Temperatures had started their rise towards the catharsis of monsoon when a pinnace from Calcutta, bearing Captain John Dale and his passengers, came twisting down that curry-coloured smear to where the Streatham lay in Saugor roads.  

Dale was one of the undisputed heroes of the Eastern Seas. Sixteen years earlier, as a callow third officer on the Winterton Indiaman, he had rescued a situation most others would have regarded as impossible, after the wreck of his ship off the west coast of Madagascar. Now aged thirty-nine, Dale looked every inch the commanding officer – strikingly tall and broad-shouldered, with a strong head of prematurely grey hair and level gaze. It was just as well that his adventures had put steel into him, for he had learnt from Pellew’s successor, Admiral Drury, that he would be sailing without a navy escort. The man who had almost single-handedly brought to safety a hundred survivors of an Indiaman wreck was to commodore one of the richest fleets of recent times through seas patrolled by Hamelin’s ships.  

Dale stooped to enter his cabin, a neat little compartment with a cot, a bureau covered by charts, pistols and a sword. Like the man, it was somewhat austere, with no visible indulgence, no sign, for example, of the silver jug presented in gratitude by the Winterton passengers to the officer ‘to whose indefatigable exertions we owe our lives’.  

Later that afternoon, 25 April, he went forward to join his passengers for dinner. His exploit was well known and it would have been strange had those assembled at the table – Alexander Wright Esq. and his wife, Elizabeth, and Captain Bean of HM 17th Regiment with his wife, Martha – not asked him for an account. It was a fine tale – good enough for his friend and fellow survivor George Buchan to have turned into a best-selling book – and Dale could have held his company spellbound, relating how he had found himself the senior officer among 230 castaways on a tropical island; of leaving his charges in the care of the king of Baba, a benign monarch who wore a scarlet cowl and sat beneath a tamarind tree; of setting off in a yawl for Africa,600 miles across the Mozambique Channel; and of how, four months later, after marching another 200 miles up the African coast, he raised the alarm at the Portuguese outpost of Quelimane before returning with help to the emaciated survivors, almost half of whom had died of malaria.1

Whatever Dale related in the cuddy about his adventures past, it is safe to say that he confided little about his concerns for the present. And concerns he undoubtedly had. The five Indiamen had finished loading – not just saltpetre but a fabulously rich cargo of silk, an investment on which London fortunes were riding. But their navy escort, the sloop Victor, would see the Indiamen only out of the bay. At that point Dale would assume command.

Given the value of the cargo, and the recent arrival of Hamelin’s frigates in the bay, this might seem curious. Since Pellew’s departure, however, the state of the Indies squadron had gone from bad to worse. Admiral Drury’s ships were as sickly as the men who sailed them and had yet to manage an encounter with the enemy. Just days ago Drury had written to the Governor-General, Lord Minto:

At the moment there are five ships in dock and except the Russel and the Modeste, scarcely an effective man of war is to be found in India. The only two frigates I have recently been able to collect were despatched in pursuit of two of the enemy’s cruizers in the eastern seas without reserving to myself a single ship for the execution of any emergent service.2

At the same time tensions between the Navy and the Company over impressment had reached a new high point, culminating a week earlier in the most disturbing incident yet.

*

The Indiaman Asia was at anchor off Madras on 18 April when a midshipman ‘ragged and dirty’ came on board and demanded: ‘Call your hands out. I have come to press your men.’ James Walker, the Asia’s chief officer, replied mildly enough that impressment was normally the job of a lieutenant rather than a midshipman, and refused to assemble the hands until the young man produced his warrant.3

That afternoon he returned, still unkempt – in a lieutenant’s uniform but with dirty trousers and no stockings – and still without a warrant. What he did have were three boats of armed men from the Dasher and Procris sloops, and when Walker still refused to turn out his hands a seaman with a pistol roared: ‘You bugger of a chief mate, I know you well and I only wait for orders to blow your brains out.’4

At this turn of events, walker sent a boat to summon the Asia’s captain, Henry Tremenhere, but it had barely put out before coming under musket and pistol fire from the navy boats. Shots were also fired at the Asia’s officers, standing on the poop. Walker, understandably alarmed, beat to quarters and ordered the other officers to arm themselves.

Ashore, Tremenhere had heard the commotion coming from his ship and ran down to the beach where he ‘distinctly saw a coxswain take a deliberate fire at the Asia’s boat’. Barely able to believe his eyes, he set out in a masoolah and came on board at the same time as Captain Mansell of the Procris, with whom he had shared the Captain’s House at Fort St George until that very morning. An icy exchange followed. As Tremenhere related it:

Captain Mansell told me he intended to press five men but after what had passed he should certainly take fifteen. He said the ship’s company were at quarters and the officers had armed against a King’s ship. I told him I was sorry for it but could not have supposed that he would have [taken men] as we were living in the same house together without giving me a hint of it.5

Tremenhere had already lost seventeen men in a press and was damned if he would give up more. He produced a letter of protection. Mansell ignored it, had the hands turned out and said he’d prefer volunteers but, one way or another, would have fifteen of them. No one volunteered. In the end Mansell took just ten. But a few hours later an officer from Dasher came and took five more.

It might be thought that Tremenhere was thus entirely justified in complaining to a board of inquiry about overweening navy officers grown intoxicated with ‘notions of honour and consequence attached to them from being in HM service’.6 However, these same officers took their lead from their commander – and in Drury they had a new admiral whose lip curled at the mention of ‘India captains, merchants and Parsees’.

If the Asia incident showed how dangerously frayed tempers had become, it also succeeded in reviving debate about the number of hands that could legitimately be pressed from arriving Indiamen. As things stood, ships of 800 tons were required to furnish fifteen men and those of 500 tons ten men. In practice, as the Asia and others that season showed, an 800-ton ship could lose more than thirty men and still have no legal redress. But when the Governor-General, Lord Minto, responded to the Asia incident by proposing a law that would ‘draw a line over which the Navy must not step’, Drury hit the roof. He wrote to the Admiralty:

The captain of an Indiaman is but a mongrel kind of gentleman or officer – turbulent, insolent and overbearing. Their conduct should be severely reprehended by the Court of Directors and the most rigid means adopted to punish them for their repeated outrages against His Majesty’s flag.7

Three weeks later, on 1 June, Tremenhere was guiding the Asia into the Bengal roads when a squall blew up and drove her on to a sandbar. She went to pieces in a few hours. Here at last was unequivocal evidence of an Indiaman wrecked for lack of men to handle her. The Asia affair would prove a watershed and lead to a new navy regime on pressing.

*

Dale’s fleet of five weighed on 29 April and worked down the Hooghly, emerging into the sea under clear skies with a southerly breeze. They were three large Indiamen of 800 tons, Streatham, Europe and Monarch, and two of the smaller Extra ships, Lord Keith and Earl Spencer. The good weather held for just a week before the logs started to signal an ominous pattern. On the Streatham, Dale noted:

The Streatham, like virtually every Indiaman that season, had suffered severely from the press. Before sailing, Dale, joining in a chorus of captains’ indignation, had written in protest to Lord Minto that he could not be sure of his ship’s safety. Now there were echoes of the Second Fleet. Beating into the wind – working a ship against the prevailing direction by a series of tacks – required strong hands, and the conditions were proving too much for Streatham’s Chinese and lascar crew. Although the logs show that on 16 May the fleet covered sixty-eight miles, it had been driven north rather than progressing south and was at Lat 15° 05'N, Long 87° 10'E, roughly where it had been a week earlier, and not yet south of Madras.

Three days later, they had moved south by a single degree (sixty nautical miles) when another alarm was raised. Captain Hawes in the Monarch signalled that his ship had sprung a leak and, making eighteen inches of water an hour, was too far gone to be repaired at sea. As commodore, Dale had to decide how best to proceed. He wrote: ‘Captain Hawes telegraphed me to say that Monarch’s leak was getting worse hourly, that he was desirous of making immediately for Penang but could not venture alone for the state of the ship.’9

There was nothing else for it but to detach another ship to escort her to safety. Dale sent a note across to the Earl Spencer and the following day these two ships set a new course for the sanctuary of Penang. In twenty-two days there had been drama quite sufficient for an entire voyage but this was merely the beginning.

The three remaining ships, Streatham, Europe and Lord Keith, continued to struggle against countervailing winds, tacking but still being pushed northwards, so that while the log-line recorded them covering 320 nautical miles in the next four days, they progressed only from 10° 42'N to 10° 27'N while moving fewer than 3° west to 89° 02'E, and therefore advancing by about 150 miles. On 30 May, Dale had to reduce the daily water allowance from five to four pints per man to preserve supplies.

At that point, still some 500 miles east of Ceylon, the Streatham’s log comes to an abrupt end. For events the following day it is necessary to turn to the record kept by Captain Peter Campbell on the Lord Keith:

Dale, earlier trials forgotten, watched grimly as the stranger came on. His worst fears had been realised – an undermanned Indiamen fleet, without a navy escort, had been ambushed by one of the new French frigates.

On the Indiamen, all became bustle. Cabin partitions were dismantled, cots and furniture stowed. Ports banged open, barefoot men ran out the guns. Anxious women hushed their children and were taken below to the orlop where they might suffer in heat of 120°F but could not be harmed by cannonballs or flying timber. On Streatham’s quarterdeck, gentlemen passengers hefted the unfamiliar weight of cutlasses and handled pistols while being given impromptu and somewhat belated instruction in their use by Captain Bean of the 17th.

*

In the weeks after departing from Port Louis, the French frigates had separated. Hamelin’s Venus and the Manche were also in the Bay of Bengal, but some degrees to the east. The frigate that had intercepted the Indiamen was the Caroline.

From her quarterdeck, Lieutenant Jean Feretier could see how he was gaining on the Indiamen and savoured the moment. He knew his strength, knew his enemy’s weakness and knew that a sumptuous prize was in the offing. A junior officer, he had inherited the Caroline when her previous commander died at sea, and now he had his opportunity.

The 40-gun Caroline was one of the two lighter French frigates. She handled beautifully, with a crew of 330 plus 50 soldiers, and in addition to her twenty-eight standard 18-pounders, mounted eight 36-pounder carronades and ten long 8-pounders. The Indiamen were poorly manned and totally outgunned: the Streatham had thirty 12-pounders, the Europe twenty-six, and the smaller Lord Keith only twelve long 6-pounders. Manning and firepower were not the full story, however. Such was the English ascendancy at sea that three Indiamen might have been capable of prevailing against a single enemy frigate. But Feretier was one of a new breed of French officers who had learnt a vital lesson from an uninterrupted sequence of English victories – that battles were won by gunnery as well as seamanship.

Feretier had another advantage. The Indiamen had sailed with an American ship, the Silenus, which requested protection before breaking off for the Carnicobar islands where she fell in with the Caroline. America was neutral and, notwithstanding that he had sought an English escort, her captain gave Feretier details of the Indiamen, their rich cargo, miserable manning and probable route.11 His calculation was accurate enough to have brought the Frenchman directly to them.

Feretier bore down first on the Europe, passing her with a well-directed broadside that destroyed her rigging, carried away her foremast topsail yardarm and left her crippled. It was skilled gunnery by a humane commander, aimed at inducing surrender rather than taking life. Feretier then passed on to Streatham and hit her equally hard.

Dale had formed his ships in line of battle as best he could and his British hands were ready to fight. But they accounted for no more than 44 of the Streatham’s 133-man crew (about 120 men were needed to fight each side of a 36-gun ship) and the others, mainly Chinese, showed an understandable reluctance to stand to the guns. Dale soon noticed that no fire was coming from the lower deck.

I sent the chief officer below to encourage the people at the guns. He returned shortly after to inform me that the Chinese & Portuguese who were stationed on the gun deck could not by any exertion of the officers be kept to their stations, deserting as soon as brought back.12

The Streatham’s fire was still effective enough for a ball to take the head off Caroline’s master – ‘a most excellent officer,’ lamented Feretier. ‘The same shot’, he added coolly, ‘carried off half my hat and wounded me slightly in the cheek.’13

In retaliation Feretier directed his fire right at Streatham. Holes were blown in her port side, sending splinters the size of table legs scything across the deck. The fight was wholly unequal and after half an hour Dale struck his colours. Feretier turned to the third ship, the Lord Keith.

Captain Campbell’s crew were assisted by the male passengers, Messrs Case and Adams, in bringing several guns to bear on the Caroline while she was engaged with the Streatham and they had managed to get off several shots before the frigate came up on them. Once again the French gunnery was immediately on the mark. The Lord Keith was raked at sail height and had the foremast and maintops shot away, her sails shredded.

Now Feretier returned to the crippled Europe. Captain William Gelston was not able to get off any fire at all. ‘The petty officers & Europeans did behave with great courage, but as for the Lascars, they were only in the way,’ he wrote.14 Faced with being blown to pieces, he quickly surrendered. In less than two hours it was all over.

The whiff of powder and eddy of smoke still hung heavy on the sea as two boats carrying officers and men rowed across to take possession of the Streatham and Europe. At this point Campbell perceived that he might make his escape as, although the Lord Keith was in a bad way, Feretier had his hands full. ‘It was thought most prudent to make such sail as the state of our rigging would admit,’ Campbell wrote.15 By knotting and splicing, the Lord Keith managed to slip away and by nightfall was out of sight. After a hasty consultation, at which it was decided that her present course might bring them again into contact with the enemy, she started east for Penang. There she arrived on 9 June.

Feretier proceeded to show that he was a gallant foe as well as a dangerous one. All courtesy was shown to Dale and Gelston, while the passengers received ‘particularly kind and attentive treatment’ from the prize crews. Although notionally prisoners, life for the civilians on the Indiamen stayed much the same while the ships bore south-west – smoothly now under following winds. Seven weeks later they approached the French islands, but instead of proceeding to Port Louis, where he might have run into the blockade, Feretier set a course for Bourbon. Caroline brought her prizes into St Paul on 22 July.

The prisoners were taken ashore where captains Dale and Gelston made a point of writing a letter, thanking Feretier for his gracious conduct. The gentry were put up with local families. In the meantime the Indiamen were unloaded, and gave up their silken treasure.

*

Matthew Flinders could not credit the first reports – ‘two prizes, said to be Company’s ships valued at 3 millions of dollars’. French intelligence of this kind, as he noted, was ‘always exaggerated’. A week later, however, a friend wrote confirming the value.

The news set off wild celebrations in Port Louis, as Flinders recorded:

From a French point of view, it was not just a financial lifeline but a terrific tonic for morale. In the eight years to 1801, just seven Indiamen had been taken – less than one a year. Now a lowly lieutenant had captured two in a day. Decaen promptly promoted Feretier to captain.

The news took weeks to reach Calcutta but when it did there was an outcry, and merchants dusted off a self-evident truth. As they put it in a petition to the Government: ‘As long as the islands of Mauritius and Bourbon remain in possession of the Enemy, effectual protection of our ships cannot be afforded.’17

Notes

1. For an account of this episode, see Hood

2. ADM 1/180, Drury to Minto, 25 April 1809

3. ADM 1/180. Evidence of James Walker, sworn 18 April 1809

4. Ibid.

5. ADM 1/180, Tremenhere to Alexander Falconer, undated, April 1809

6. Ibid.

7. ADM 1/180, Drury to Pole, 8 May 1809

8. L/MAR/B 185B, log of the Streatham

9. Ibid., 26 May 1809

10. L/MAR/B 187, log of the Lord Keith

11. James, p.282

12. L/MAR/1/23, folio 191, Dale’s report dated 4 September 1809

13. Hood, p.233

14. L/MAR/1/23, folio 192, Gelston’s report dated 5 September 1809

15. L/MAR/B 187, log of the Lord Keith

16. Flinders Electronic Archive, Private Journal, 9 August 1809

17. O/6/4, Merchants and Agents petition, 19 October 1809, British Library (APAC)