Billy Ruffian

SEVEN Lord Cranstoun and Billy Blue 1794-7

The new captain of the Bellerophon was a Scottish aristocrat who had the most glittering background of all the men who would command the ship during her eventful life. The Right Honourable James, the eighth Baron Cranstoun, was a descendant of the Lord of Teviotdale, and was born at the family seat at Crailing on the Scottish Borders. He entered the navy at an early age, was a lieutenant by 1776, and was in command of a frigate on the West Indies station during the American War of Independence. He was present at the battle of St Kitts in 1782 and three months later he was Admiral Rodney's flag captain at the Battle of the Saints. He boarded the French flagship Ville de Paris after her surrender and received the sword of the Comte de Grass on behalf of Rodney.

Lord Cranstoun was now aged thirty-nine, and recently married. His previous ship was the 64-gun Raisonable. On learning of his new command, he arranged for the clerk, the master's mates, the midshipmen and thirty seamen from that ship to be transferred to the Bellerophon. As he explained in his letter to the Admiralty, 'I brought them into the Service and they would prefer sailing with me without any rating to going with any other.' This was a common practice and helps to account for the strong bond of loyalty which often existed between captains and their crews. However in this instance it did nothing to improve the morale of the rest of the ship's company which began to deteriorate following the departure of Admiral Pasley and Captain Hope. Whether this was the fault of Lord Cranstoun or was a symptom of the general discontent with pay and conditions which was to lead to the notorious fleet mutinies of 1797 is hard to determine from the surviving documents.

The gales which swept the anchorage during the winter of 1794-5 did not help matters. In February five men were flogged for various offences including gambling, drunkenness, and insolence to an officer, but this was nothing unusual. It was when the ship returned to Spithead after a cruise to Cape Finisterre that the rot set in. For three long months the Bellerophon lay at anchor in the Solent, off Portsmouth, and during that time there were floggings every three or four days. On 6 April four men were flogged with twelve lashes each for assisting a man to desert the ship; on 11 April two men were each given one dozen lashes for neglect of duty; on 14 April three men were punished with twenty-four lashes each for drunkenness and fighting and one man with twenty-one lashes for neglect of duty; on 17 April Tim O'Brian was given thirty-six lashes for theft; and on 22 April one man was given twelve lashes for leaving his post and another man twelve lashes for theft.

It is hard to tell from the brief entries in the ship's log exactly what caused the unrest. Many of the crew were pressed men who had good cause to resent being confined in a warship for months on end. Even the volunteers must have felt they deserved some shore leave after their heroic efforts in the previous summer's battles. According to the surviving letters of Lord Cranstoun the focus of the unrest was a group of marines. On 16 April they wrote a letter to General Wemyss who was in overall command of the marines at Portsmouth:

Since the departure of the late Admiral Pasley and Capt Hope from this ship our situation has been and now is very different. In their time we were looked upon and received such usage as we flatter ourselves we deserved, but since whose departure their case is quite altered but for what reason we cannot conceive as we always endeavoured to perform the duty imposed upon us to the best of our power.

The men requested to be removed from the ship and said, 'we are very willing to go on board any other of His Majestys ships'.

This was a serious challenge to the authority of Lord Cranstoun who immediately wrote to the Admiralty requesting that the marines should face a court martial to determine the truth or otherwise of their complaints. He maintained that the discipline on board the Bellerophon was milder than almost any other ship in the service, and went on to say, 'Had I known the situation of the Bellerophon latterly, I never would have accepted the command of her.' He blamed Sir Thomas Pasley for commanding a ship which was more like a privateer than a man of war and for allowing the ship's company to be drunk, quarrelsome 'and to do just as they pleased'.

Before a court martial could be arranged the Bellerophon was ordered to sea. On 26 May 1795 she weighed anchor and the men put aside their grievances for the time being and got on with the business of running the ship. They joined a squadron commanded by Vice-Admiral William Cornwallis, a battle-hardened officer who had acquired the nickname 'Billy Blue'. He was the younger brother of General Cornwallis who had surrendered to Washington at Yorktown. He had fought the French on numerous occasions, most notably at the Battle of the Saints, but his nerves were shortly to be tested to the limit in an action which became known as Cornwallis's Retreat. This was a retreat in the face of a vastly superior force which, like the retreat of Sir John Moore's troops at Corunna in 1809, or the retreat of the British army at Dunkirk in 1940, acquired a lustre similar to that of a victory. And, just as the retreat and death of Sir John Moore were immortalised in a poem ('Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, as his corpse to the ramparts we hurried . . .'), so the action of Cornwallis and his squadron inspired a lengthy and patriotic ballad which joined the repertoire of songs and shanties sung by sailors over the years. The first two verses set the scene:

It was just at break of day,

We were cruising in the Bay,

With Blue Billy in the Sov'ren in the van,

When the French fleet bound for Brest

From Belle isle came heading west—

'Twas so, my lads, the saucy game began.

Billy Blue—

Here's to you, Billy Blue, here's to you.

We'd the Triumph and the Mars,

And the Sov'ren - pride of tars,

Billy Ruff'n, and the Brunswick, known to fame;

With the Pallas, and the Phaeton,

Frigates that the flag did wait on—

Seven ships to uphold Old England's name.

Billy Blue, etc.

The bay mentioned in the ballad was the Bay of Biscay and the squadron consisted of the Royal Sovereign of 100 guns which was the flagship of Cornwallis; the 74-gun ships Triumph, Mars, Bellerophon and Brunswick, and the two frigates, Phaeton, 38 guns, and Pallas, 32 guns. They arrived off Ushant on 7 June and the following day they intercepted a French convoy some 5 miles east of Belle Isle. They chased off the escorting French warships and captured eight of the merchant ships. So far, so good. But a week later they were cruising in the same area when they encountered a more formidable force. This was the entire Brest fleet under the command of Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse, the man who had put up such a fierce resistance to Howe's fleet at the Glorious First of June.

The first person to sight the French sails was the masthead lookout on the Bellerophon. At 9 o'clock on the morning of 16 June he reported a strange fleet east-south-east of their position. The Phaeton, under the command of Captain Stopford, was sent to investigate and at 9.25 she made the signal that the fleet was 'an enemy and superior force'. Cornwallis could not yet see the hulls of the enemy, so he did not know just how superior the enemy was in terms of ships and guns. He subsequently noted, 'I stood upon the starboard tack, with all our sail, keeping the ships collected. Upon enquiring by signal of the enemy's force, Captain Stopford answered, 13 line of battle ships, 14 frigates, 2 brigs, and a cutter; in all 30 sail.' This represented a force roughly four times the size of the British squadron and there was clearly only one course of action possible, which was an orderly retreat. The wind dropped during the afternoon but not enough to hamper the French fleet which slowly gained on Cornwallis's ships, and divided into two divisions in order to attack them from both sides. Despite their reputation for being fast ships, the Bellerophon and the Brunswick began to lag behind the others, putting the entire squadron at risk. Cornwallis had no intention of abandoning them; he therefore slowed down the leading ships in order to maintain a tight formation.

As night fell the French were still some way astern but were continuing to close the gap. At 10 pm a boat from the frigate Phaeton came alongside the Bellerophon with orders from Cornwallis to lighten the ship by jettisoning the two bower anchors and cutting up the launch and throwing it overboard. These orders were promptly carried out but had little effect on the speed of the ship. The situation at dawn on 17 June was alarming and was recorded in graphic terms in the Bellerophon's log-book:

At daylight saw the French fleet coming up very fast in three divisions. The weather division, nearly abreast, three of the line and five frigates; the centre, six of the line and four frigates; the lee division, four of the line, five frigates, two brigs, and two cutters. Cleared ship for action. Started sixteen tons of water in the main hold to lighten the ship. At seven went to quarters. Served bread, cheese, and wine to the ship's company at quarters.

Cornwallis ordered the Bellerophon and the Brunswick to the front of his squadron to avoid them being slowed down any further by damage to their sails or rigging from the shots of the leading French ships. He also wanted to keep them as a reserve force. He was aware that both ships had fought heroically at the First of June and could be relied on to fight to the death if necessary. As he later explained in his despatch to the Admiralty:

The Bellerophon I was glad to keep in some measure as a reserve, having reason at first to suppose there would be full occasion for the utmost exertions of us all ... I considered that ship a treasure in store, having heard of her former achievements, and observing the spirit manifested by all on board when she passed me, joined to the zeal and activity shewed by Lord Cranstoun during the whole cruize.

At 9.12 am the French opened fire on the Mars which was bringing up the rear of the squadron. The Mars returned the fire with her stern chasers, and at the same time the Royal Sovereign and the rest of the squadron hoisted their colours. These were the battle ensigns which were kept flying on every ship during an action and were only lowered if the ship was forced to surrender. Considering the overwhelming odds against them, the morale in the British squadron was extraordinarily high. As the Bellerophon sailed past the Royal Sovereign to take up her position at the head of the squadron, the entire crew cheered the Admiral. 'Billy Blue' was standing on the quarterdeck regarding the oncoming French ships with an indifference bordering on contempt, but as the Bellerophon passed under the lee of his flag-ship he raised his hat in response to the men's cheers. The firing from both sides became more general and the high-spirited cheering of the British crews became a feature of the action, each ship cheering other ships in the squadron as they fired their guns to keep the enemy at bay.

Around 4 in the afternoon the leading French ships made a determined effort to cut off and surround the Mars which had been injured by the enemy fire and was lagging behind. When Cornwallis saw several French 74-gun ships changing course towards her he pulled his flagship out of the line, swung her between the Mars and the French and let loose a thunderous broadside. The French ships immediately fell back out of range. 'This was their last effort,' he later remarked, 'if any thing they did can deserve that appellation.' At the time Cornwallis presumed that they would return to the attack, and he had a last-ditch plan prepared which might or might not save his squadron. During the previous night he had arranged that Captain Stopford of the frigate Phaeton should resort to a classic ruse de guerre if no other British ships came to their aid the next day.

At 5 o'clock in the afternoon on 17 June the Phaeton was 2 or 3 miles ahead of the squadron, and from her position on the horizon she began sending signals. First she reported sighting one ship of the line. Then she hoisted the signal indicating that she had sighted three ships of the line, then five, and then nine. She followed this by letting go the topgallant sheets which was a signal the French would certainly have known and meant there was a strange fleet in sight. She then displayed a Dutch flag which indicated that the fleet was a friendly one. The French naturally presumed that this must be the British Channel fleet, especially when the Phaeton altered course and headed back towards Cornwallis. When the topsails of some ships were sighted in the far distance (they were a convoy of English merchantmen which happened to be in the area) the French commander gave the order for the Brest fleet to break off the action and head for home. There was of course no Channel fleet and the successful deception added a final twist to Cornwallis's Retreat. When he sent a despatch to the Admiralty two days later Cornwallis was generous in his praise of the conduct of the captains, officers, seamen, marines and soldiers of all the ships in the squadron.

'It was the greatest pleasure I ever received to see the spirit manifested in the men, who instead of being cast down at seeing thirty sail of the enemy's ships attacking our little squadron, were in the highest spirits imaginable.' Their conduct throughout had made an indelible impression on his mind, and he said that had he let them loose on the enemy, 'I hardly know what might not have been accomplished by such men.'

On 25 June the squadron returned to England and anchored in Cawsand Bay, the fleet anchorage at the entrance to Plymouth harbour. There they stayed for a few days to take in stores and victuals before returning to patrol the seas between Ushant and Belle Isle where they remained for the next three months. Mid-September saw them back at Spithead, giving Lord Cranstoun an opportunity to deal with the nine rebellious marines who had written the letter of complaint regarding their treatment on the Bellerophon. A court martial was arranged for 29 September. It was held on board the 80-gun ship Le Juste, which was one of the French ships captured at the battle of the Glorious First of June and was moored in Portsmouth harbour. The president of the court was none other than 'Billy Blue' or, to give him his formal title, the Honourable William Cornwallis, Vice-Admiral of the Red, and second officer in command of his Majesty's ships and vessels at Portsmouth and Spithead. Among the other officers present were four admirals and two captains. The nine marines were charged with 'attempting to make a mutiny amongst the whole party on board by complaining of harsh and improper treatment in the Bellerophon and being accessory to the writing a publick letter to the Commanding Officer of the Marines on shore.' This was a serious charge and if the court found the men guilty of mutiny they could face the death penalty.

Lord Cranstoun questioned Major Smith, captain of the marines on board the Bellerophon, about the regime on the ship and asked him whether it was too severe and whether any of the marines had ever complained to him about their duties. Major Smith replied that the regime was perfectly easy. Lord Cranstoun then asked:

'Is it my custom in carrying on the duty of the ship to swear or speak in such a manner to any of the men as likely to hinder their coming forward with their complaints?'

'Remarkable for the contrary.'

'Do I suffer the officers to speak harshly to the men?'

'I do not recollect that I ever heard Lord Cranstoun mention anything to the officers as to the mode of speaking to the men.'

Admiral Cornwallis then intervened and asked Major Smith, 'To the best of your knowledge then have the marines serving on board the Bellerophon been treated in a harsh and improper manner?'

'I certainly do not think they have,' answered Major Smith.

Robert Daniel, the first lieutenant of the Bellerophon, was questioned along similar lines. He thought that the regime of the marines on the ship was as easy as any in the navy. When asked whether Lord Cranstoun had ever spoken harshly to the men he replied, 'I have very seldom heard Lord Cranstoun swear and never saw him strike a man or behave in a manner to prevent the people coming forward with their complaints.' Some of the other officers of the Bellerophon were questioned by Lord Cranstoun and came up with similar answers.

All this put Lord Cranstoun in a favourable light and left the marines in a difficult position because there seemed to be no justification for their complaints. However, they were saved by Major Smith who put in a passionate plea on their behalf. He told the court, 'I have been nearly two years embarked with them on board the Bellerophon, and I never felt myself so pleased with any party I had the honour of commanding, as I have done with them till this unhappy letter. Their attention and civility to every officer in whatever station on board is not to be exceeded by any one set of men afloat.'

He went on to praise their recent performance in the face of the French fleet: 'I have also had the opportunity in being with them in action and their courage and loyalty was never disputed. Lately in a particular situation the prisoners in particular on the seventeenth of June last, when not obliged to go to their quarters as being prisoners, were amongst the first under arms as volunteers.' He concluded by declaring that the prisoners 'exerted themselves to the utmost in everything relative to themselves and the duty of the ship'.

The court adjourned to consider the evidence and then returned a verdict which honourably cleared both parties. The court could find no evidence of ill-treatment of the marines. It was felt that the writing of the letter to Major-General Wemyss was highly improper but, in consideration of the good character of the prisoners, and their having behaved in a most exemplary manner in the recent action with the enemy, they should receive no punishment and should return to their duties on board the Bellerophon.

Lord Cranstoun had been in command of the ship for less than ten months. He remained her captain for another year. As far as one can tell from the ship's log and his own correspondence he encountered no further problems with the crew, and the ship resumed her usual routine - which meant returning to blockade duty off the west coast of France. But first she needed a complete overhaul. Nine years had passed since her launch in October 1786 and, although she had been out of commission on the Medway for two of those years, much of the remaining time had been spent at sea in all weathers. Cranstoun had written to the Admiralty on 16 September with a list of defects needing urgent attention. The most serious of these was the copper on the ship's bottom which was in a very bad state, and no doubt explains why she was sailing so slowly during the cruise which culminated in Cornwallis's Retreat.

Repairing and, where necessary, replacing the copper plates on the bottom of a warship was a major operation because it usually meant taking the ship into dry dock. With a relatively large ship, such as a two-decker, this meant lifting out the masts, guns and most of the ballast in order to lighten her and reduce her draught. On Sunday 11 October the Bellerophon was moved from the anchorage at Spithead into Portsmouth harbour and was lashed alongside the Essex hulk. For the next six weeks her sailors, assisted by workmen from the dockyard, were engaged in a great deal of heavy lifting and hard manual labour. While autumn gales raged outside in the Solent and driving rain swept across the waters of the harbour they systematically cleared the ship of almost everything that could be moved. The guns were hoisted out and lowered into a barge alongside. The massive anchors and anchor cables were stored in the Essex hulk, together with several hundred barrels of stores; 150 tons of shingle ballast were removed, and most of the running rigging was taken to the rigging store in the dockyard. On 26 October the ship was moved alongside the sheer hulk and her three great masts were lifted out. The next day she was towed across to the dockhead at the northern end of the dockyard and at high tide she was floated into one of the dry docks and made secure. When the water had drained out at low tide the gates were closed, and the workmen from the dockyard got to work. The barnacles and the thick weed trailing from the bottom of the ship were scraped and burnt off. The copper plates were carefully inspected, and repairs were carried out where necessary. Meanwhile a team of caulkers started work on the lower deck. The smell of hot tar replaced the dank odours from the bilges as the men worked their way through the ship, hammering oakum into the seams and sealing them with tar. Carpenters and plumbers brought their tools on board to make good the defects on Cranstoun's list. They fitted new steps to the ship's sides, repaired ladders and gratings, and the lanterns on the poop, mended the fire hearth in the galley and replaced leaking lead pipes.

While the ship was in the dry dock most of her crew were given work in the dockyard or on other ships in the harbour. One party of men was despatched to the rigging loft to work on the standing rigging. Another work party was sent to Southsea beach and spent an exhausting three days loading shingle for ballast into a lighter. On one day alone they shifted 76 tons of shingle. The carpenters, joiners, caulkers and shipwrights finished most of their work on the hull in a little over two weeks; on 13 November the gates of the dry dock were opened and the Bellerophon was floated out. She was hauled back to the sheer hulk to have her masts lifted back in, and then moved alongside the Essex hulk for her guns, anchors, cables and stores to be hoisted aboard and manhandled back into their respective places. As soon as the rigging had been set up she was towed out of the harbour entrance to join the other warships swinging with the tide in the anchorage at Spithead.

January 1796 found her once again heading down the Channel to face the winter storms off Ushant and the grey Atlantic waves rolling across the Bay of Biscay. Two or three months at sea scanning the horizon for French ships, a few weeks respite in the Solent or at Cawsand Bay to take on water and provisions, and then back to sea for another two or three months: it was a pattern her crew, and the crews of the other British warships on blockade duty, had been living with for two years and would have to endure for years to come. The only change in the routine as far as the Bellerophon was concerned was that in September 1796 she got a new captain. Lord Cranstoun was evidently not happy with his command. He managed to pull some strings and was appointed Governor of Grenada, the West Indian island which lies between Trinidad and Barbados. A more welcome contrast to the Bay of Biscay in winter would be hard to imagine. Unfortunately he did not live to take up his new post. Soon after his appointment was announced he died at his home in Bishops Waltham, Hampshire, his death apparently caused by drinking cider which had been kept in a vessel lined with lead. His wife Elizabeth, who was only twenty-seven, died within months 'of a decline occasioned by her bereavement'.

The Bellerophon's fourth captain was Henry D'Esterre Darby, a 47-year-old Irishman. An engraved portrait of him shows a handsome man with a sardonic expression. He was not an aristocrat but came from the landed gentry. His father was a barrister whose family owned Leap Castle in King's County, some 50 miles west of Dublin. His uncle George was a vice-admiral. Henry joined the navy as a midshipman at the age of thirteen and spent several years serving in frigates. His progress through the ranks was slow compared to the meteoric careers of many of his contemporaries. He was twenty-seven when he became a lieutenant and, although he spent two years on the Britannia, the flagship of his uncle who was then in command of the Channel fleet, it was not until 1783 that he was appointed captain at the comparatively advanced age of thirty-four.

Captain Darby took over the command of the Bellerophon at a critical time. All the attempts of Prime Minister William Pitt to make peace with an increasingly aggressive France had come to nothing. The coalition of allies which he had established to counter the advancing French armies had fallen apart. Prussia, Holland and Spain had made peace with France during the course of 1795. In 1796 a French army commanded by Napoleon marched into northern Italy, crushed all opposition in the states ruled by Austria, and replaced the feudal regimes with republican governments modelled on the new French constitution. And in October 1796 Spain decided to throw in her lot with France and declared war on Britain. This was an extremely serious development. Britain's command of the seas, and in particular her control of the English Channel, had prevented the French from mounting an invasion. But Spain had a formidable navy and, while the British blockade had curtailed the movements of the French fleet up till now, it would be much more difficult to prevent the combined fleets of France and Spain from breaking out of their naval bases. They would then be able to sail up the Channel and provide cover for transport vessels which would ferry the French troops across and land them on the coasts of Sussex or Kent.

France's determination to take on Britain was demonstrated in December 1796. Encouraged by rebellious movements in Ireland, the French decided to mount an invasion of Ireland as a stepping stone to attacking England. On 15 December a fleet of forty-four ships, including seventeen ships of the line and thirteen frigates, set sail from Brest. The invasion force included 16,500 troops under the command of General Hoche and the plan was to land the troops in Bantry Bay on the south-west coast of Ireland, then march overland and capture Cork which was used as a naval base by the British. The whole venture was a disaster. One of the French 74-gun ships was wrecked off Brest on the day they sailed, and the remainder ran into fierce easterly gales off the coast of Ireland. Forced to beat back and forth for days on end, the ships began to run low on provisions, and abandoned all hope of landing the troops. Two ships were driven onto the Irish coast, two foundered in heavy seas, seven were captured, and the Droits de l'homme, another 74, was wrecked on the French coast - with great loss of life - after a running battle with two British frigates.

The French invasion plans had taken the British by surprise. The Channel fleet was anchored at Spithead 400 miles from the coast of Ireland. The Bellerophon was cruising with a squadron off Ushant but failed to sight the French fleet. When she returned to Plymouth, on 2 January 1797, she was ordered to join a squadron of three other ships of the line and to patrol the seas between Bantry Bay and Cork but it was a case of shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted. By the time they sighted the Old Head of Kinsale on 18 January the French were long gone. The squadron spent three weeks patrolling the south-west coast of Ireland in gales which were so strong that the Bellerophon's mainsail was ripped to pieces. However this was all in a day's work for her crew and a new sail was soon bent onto the yard. On 4 February they put into Cork to take on water and provisions. Anchored in the sheltered waters of the harbour they found the 64-gun ship Polyphemus flying the flag of Admiral Kingsmill and five frigates. This was the navy's Irish squadron which had the job of patrolling the Atlantic coast of Ireland and the western approaches. The frigates had captured several French ships the previous summer but had been in harbour when the French invasion fleet had arrived off Bantry Bay. After ten days at Cork the Bellerophon set sail and was back at Spithead by the beginning of March.

Captain Darby now received orders which were to change the familiar routine of the Bellerophon and her crew dramatically. Instead of blockading the French coast she was to join the Mediterranean fleet under Sir John Jervis. The new enemy was the Spanish fleet, based at Cadiz. On 17 March 1797 the Bellerophon left the grey skies and chill winds of the Solent and headed for the sun and the warm waters of southern Spain. It would be more than two years before her captain and crew saw the shores of England again.