Frigate Commander (45 page)

. . . striking against our small bower with her rudder so that we expected it to part every instant. Had we gone on shore, which I expected, I think most of us must have perished as the wind was right in, blowing most violently and a tremendous sea.

Happily, the gale moderated next morning and the two frigates limped into Hamoaze.

The
Indefatigable
was docked for a month, during which time she was repaired and re-coppered, and Moore took a month’s leave. He returned to the frigate much revived, writing breezily to his friend Creevey:

If they do not take my men, we shall soon be ready for sea again. New copper, my boy! We shall sail like the wind . . .
¹²⁷

However, he was less happy to receive orders to join the inshore squadron blockading Brest. The
Indefatigable
was a difficult ship to operate close to the shore and Moore knew that the station was going to be trying for both officers and crew. He was perhaps less optimistic because of the recent loss of the frigate
Hussar
, wrecked on the Saints:

This is the fifth capital frigate we have lost since the commencement of the war. One,
La Minerve
, which ran on shore on the Dique at Cherbourg was got off by the Enemy without much damage, the other four were totally lost.

He was also concerned about the health of his crew, who had been housed in very poor accommodation in one of the hulks while they worked hard refitting the ship. Many of them now had colds or fevers and, of course, there had been no chance of any of them getting the shore leave he liked to grant them. Moore was particularly sensitive to this latter issue:

I think there is too little attention to people’s feelings and propensities. They cannot help feeling by degrees a disgust to their business, which affords them no relaxation, no time to attend a little to their own family concerns.

Sent to join Admiral Graves’ blockading squadron, he soon decided he did not approve of the Admiral’s tactics. His concerns were justified on 22 March when the squadron sighted a 22-gun ship close to the shore in the Bay of Conquet. Captain Jervis of the 74-gun
Magnificent
was sent inshore to see if the ship could be cut out. Moore thought that, unless she could be taken by surprise, the cost in life and injury would be too great to justify the attack. The ship would be strongly defended as her crew probably numbered around 200 and the French could ferry as many soldiers as they wished on board during the night. Despite his misgivings, the following morning, Moore was ordered to join Jervis and Captain Robert Otway of the
Montague
(74) on the island of Beniquet, from where they could reconnoitre the ship in more detail. From the island they could see that she was supported by three gunboat brigs and other smaller vessels, all of which had been hauled close under the guns of a battery. Jervis, put in charge of the operation, was determined to launch an attack using between 500 and 600 seamen and marines who would be carried in twenty to twenty-five boats. At 8pm the following evening, the boats all rendezvoused alongside the
Magnificent
, with a view to attacking at 2am the following morning. After all these preparations, before the attack could be launched, the wind changed and the attack had to be abandoned. As the squadron began to weigh to fight their way off shore, the
Magnificent
hit an outcrop known as the Black Rock. Moore and his crew quickly realized what had happened, and put about to give assistance to the stricken ship, for they could see that she was already sinking.
Indefatigable
was soon joined by Wolfe in the
L’Aigle
, and both frigates sent their boats across to start rescuing the crew. These were soon joined by other boats from the squadron and the rescue operation continued until the
Magnificent
settled with her gunwale just out of the water. As if the attempted attack had not run into enough difficulties – another disaster now began to unfold. The wind changed direction and began to blow stronger and a number of the squadron’s boats, loaded with rescued seamen, were blown towards the shore. Moore got the
Indefatigable
underway, and began collecting both boats and men, until he had nearly 300 of the
Magnificent
’s crew on board. Despite his efforts, they could only watch helplessly as a number of boats were driven ashore into the arms of waiting French troops.
¹²⁸
Moore was quietly seething about the whole operation:

We sometimes make too free with this Enemy’s coast and on this occasion, there certainly was no more enterprise and hardihood than I am equal to when the object to be gained did not seem to me to be proportioned to the risk we ran. On the projected attack on the Vessels in Conquet, some of the Boats must have had to row near 12 miles before they could reach the point of Attack and the least distance that any of them could have had to row was 8 miles. Where the ships lay they were so much exposed with the wind any way from the westward that they could not ride, and the boats must have had the greatest difficulty in pulling back to their ships. There was no probability that the ship and brigs in Conquet could be taken by surprise, as they must have seen Officers reconnoitring them from Beniquet, and they had every reason to be on their guard . . .

As an officer, he could not help feeling sorry for Jervis, for the
Magnificent
had been in admirable order and

. . . his personal loss is I am convinced between two and three thousand pounds. He lost in the ship about £1,700 worth of plate.

On 16 April the
Colossus
arrived, delivering two bullocks and a large quantity of fresh vegetables for the
Indefatigable
and with her came the frigate
Acasta
, who had also been ordered to join the inshore squadron. Within days the wind turned raw and sharp. The
Indefatigable
was still suffering with thirty men on the sick list, most of whom had been stricken with an inflammatory fever of the chest, of which one man had already died. Fortunately, nine of the
Magnificent
’s seamen had applied to be taken on the frigate’s books and Moore had accepted them as they were
‘. . . in general, very fine fellows’
, although he knew that there was every likelihood that he would eventually be ordered to give them up. Still, he was disappointed when the order came because the men were

. . . all seamen except one who is a shipwright and therefore as valuable, and what made it the more grievous to me was the circumstance of their wishing exceedingly to stay in the ship, they were therefore more to be depended on than any we can get. We are considerably short of our number now, and the ship is on the whole ill manned.

There was just one possible consolation:

We are teased and worried by being kept constantly at sea, but the consequence must be rendering the crews more and more expert and the superiority of skill more decidedly with us.

Experience had long taught him that this was the case – it all depended on being fortunate enough to avoid disaster for long enough. At the same time, much depended on his own enthusiasm as commanding officer, and nothing that had happened recently seemed to prevent this from draining away. It was not just Moore;

. . . there is at present a degree of dullness and insipidity in our processional business which is heavily felt by all the navy officers of my acquaintance. There is a great difference in the way things are carried on now and during the greater part of the former war. Formerly when a ship came in from a long cruise there was a little relaxation allowed while the ship was refitting. The seamen had, to a certain extent, leave to go on shore, the Officers had sometimes leave of absence on their private affairs, in short, it was to a certain degree expected that the Officers and ship’s companies should have some amusement provided the duty of the ship was in no respect neglected. Now the system is for the ships to be, if possible, eternally at sea. When it becomes absolutely necessary for a ship to go into port, the men are worked and jaded off their legs to get her ready again and the instant what is indispensable is completed she is out again to remain as long as possible.... All this might be supportable if there was the spur of danger or the object of meeting and fighting the Enemy but it is to cruise eternally off their ports and never see them but within their harbours and out of our reach. This is wearing to officers and men and the most tiresome of all service. The question is, is this necessary? I believe not, and I do not think it can go on so.

When he returned to his station off Brest, Moore received orders to take the
Indefatigable
into Plymouth for provisions and to ‘refresh’ the crew. He was strictly warned to spend no more than seven days in port – which effectively ruled out any possibility of a visit to London. Nevertheless he must have been glad to give his crew a rest. Eight men, including his cook had now died from the inflammatory fever.

When she sailed again, the
Indefatigable
was heavily encumbered with stores for the Ferrol Squadron. Moore, like many other frigate commanders who had been in this position, surveyed the state of his ship with dismay. The stores were

. . . so numerous and so bulky that the ship is excessively lumbered with them and two guns on each side on the Main deck are blocked up completely, and several of the Quarter deck guns are very much embarrassed by them.

Having delivered the stores, Moore was ordered to escort the damaged
Spencer
(74) back to the Channel and then cruise off Cape Penas. When he finally reached his cruising ground, the only ships to be found were either American or Spanish neutrals. Now that they were in warmer weather, the health of the crew was generally improving and they were, with practice, welding together more as an efficient fighting team. On 3 July, for example, Moore put the gun crews through their paces, firing at an empty cask;

I was very well pleased with their accuracy, most of the guns were exceedingly well pointed. This ship well manned is a most formidable battery; our people are exceedingly improved but they are still but a very indifferent ship’s company; the weather has been so fine these five weeks that they have suffered nothing, and now that they know each other better there is much more joviality and fun about them. In short they are scarce the same men they were six months ago.

The quiet time again enabled Moore to ponder his future because he knew that he would not be allowed to remain in a frigate for much longer;

I expect soon to be appointed to a 74, not from any application of my own but because I am so high up on the list that I think it not likely that I shall be allowed to remain in a single decked ship much longer. If this war were like the last I would prefer this ship [the
Indefatigable
] to a ship of the line but as it is I will quit her without much regret. She is however, in an active war, a most desirable ship to a man in good health as she is a most powerful man of war and in general sails very well.
[Although]
Her accommodation for the captain are inferior to those of a small frigate.

And she was still a desirable ship because Moore was in generally good health, though he was finding that even walking on the quarterdeck for any length of time was exhausting him.

With little activity, Moore decided to shift his cruising ground northwards near the Gironde. Here though he could only watch with dismay as large numbers of neutral vessels came and went. How, he wondered, was a frigate commander to know what to search and what to ignore, and then how could he prove a contraband cargo when he saw it? It was, he concluded, an impossible task – maintaining a blockade under these circumstances. The lack of profitable activity was also leading to a growth in drunkenness among the crew, as they drank to relieve boredom and low morale. Moore loathed it, but all he could do was punish occasionally – which he hated more – and rail in his journal:

The great and prevailing vice among seamen is drunkenness, the absolute certainty of corporal punishment cannot altogether prevent it even in some of the finest fellows in other respects. It is a most irksome and disgusting circumstance to be under the necessity of ordering a shameful punishment to be inflicted on a gallant and, in other respects, most respectful seaman, for this baneful habit. Nothing but punishment can at all check it, for talking to them on the subject is mere prating, they are conscious that it is not a thing to be suffered at sea yet they cannot resist the temptation of getting drunk occasionally.

There were many Post Captains who shared this same weakness.

On 25 August, the
Indefatigable
was ordered to Plymouth again to reprovision. Moore was determined that this time he would reward his crew, believing that it would pay in the longer term;

While we were in the Sound I ventured to let one Division of the ship’s company go on shore on leave at two different times, by which I lost three men by desertion, which however will not deter me from giving the same indulgence to the seamen when next we return into Port to refit. I expect, by this means, to lose fewer men on the whole than if I gave no leave. Besides that I cannot bear that the ship should be considered by the men as a Prison. We should consult the comfort and happiness of the Seamen which is not to be effected by mere feeding and clothing them. They must have some relaxation, some amusement.

The
Indefatigable
was back on station off Brest by 10 September. Four nights later, while Moore was giving dinner to Captain Campbell of the
Doris
, the weather became misty and squally. Groping their way cautiously through the darkness to avoid the Parquette Rock, the
Indefatigable
ran onto a rock known as La Vandre. The hull of the frigate struck the rock twice and then passed over it, leaving several pieces of her false keel behind. Although the ship began taking on water, it was hardly serious enough to warrant returning to port. Then, on the evening of the 22nd, Moore received urgent orders from the Commander-in-Chief off Ushant, to proceed immediately to the west of the rocks known as The Saints, and open a packet of secret orders. When he opened these, he found that the order