Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/354

344[March 13, 1869] by no means a crack sailor. His ship was too slovenly for them, he did not flog enough. The story of the Barfleur is one of the old Plymouth traditions, and recals bitter days, when Tartar captains tortured their men to madness by small oppression. A new captain appointed to the Barfleur so tormented his men that they signed a round robin, and sent it to the Admiralty, who instantly forwarded it to the commander-in-chief at the port. The Tartar, holding the round robin in his hand, mustered the men.

"What have you get to say against me?" he said. "What complaint have you? Come, I command you to tell me."

Several of the men replied, "Nothing, sir;" but one honest fellow stood out and said, "If you want me to tell the truth, sir, I was once punished wrongfully under your orders—I was innocent of the charge."

The captain shouted at once, "Put that man in irons!" Four other sailors, indignant at ihis, stood out, and declared that they also had been unjustly punished. Two more were then put in irons, and a court-martial was appointed.

When the day came the irons were taken off the men, and officers and guards being appointed, proceeded the shortest way to the flag-ship. The sea was high and the boat upset at "the bridge," as it was called, a line of sunken rocks connecting Drake's Island with the mainland. A few men of the boat's crew were saved, and one prisoner. The president of the court-martial wished to postpone the trial, but the solitary prisoner claimed immediate justice, and was acquitted. The captain, savage as a wounded tiger, resolved to have his revenge. More brutal than ever, he now became thirsty for cruelty. He flogged a whole watch, because they did not secure the sails within an impossible time. At last, at Lisbon, a man more passionate than the rest, stabbed the wretch, but the point of the knife turned on a rib, the captain escaped, and the sailor was hung. With his dying breath the man declared, that he had willingly devoted himself to death, for the sake of his messmates. The captain died soon afterwards of apoplexy.

The Africaine was another unhappy ship. A mutinous spirit had broken out, and the men threatened to rise if Corbet, an arbitrary man they dreaded, was appointed. The port-admiral had determined, if a mutiny actually broke out, to lay a frigate on each side of the Africaine, and instantly sink her. This same Captain Corbet, who was afterwards killed off the Isle of France, once said at the admiral's table that the service would never be worth anything till captains could flog every one in the ship, even to the lieutenants.

"When that time comes," said good-natured Sir Edward Buller, "admirals will flog captains, and I'll give you your full share if ever you come under my hands."

Admiral Young, the port-admiral then, was a cold, formal, erect man, thin, grave, one hand always on the handle of his sword, the other hanging stiffly by his side. His costume was always the same—white kerseymere breeches, black top boots reaching to his knees, and squared hat. He was succeeded by Sir Robert Calder, a bluff, good humoured, stout man, who used to boast, that when nearly sixty years of age he had dived under a fifty-gun ship. His neglect in destroying the French after Trafalgar was attributed to his Scotch cautiousness. He had attacked twenty-seven Frenchmen with fifteen English vessels, and captured two, but he did not follow up the victory, because twelve or thirteen sail of the line were momentarily expected out of Corunna to join the enemy.

In 1809, the military hospital was full of the wreck of Sir John Moore's army, from Corunna. The soldiers, mere helpless skeletons, were to be seen supported to the hospital by the kind and hearty sailors. Most of the badly wounded had been left behind. When the French field pieces began to fire on our transports, they cut their cables and began to run, till our vessels reassured them by some sweeping broadsides on the French, who instantly fled.

The same year the survivors of the miserable Walcheren expedition arrived, to share the same hospital. Eleven thousand men had fallen ill out of a fine army of thirty thousand. Many fell sick after leaving the Scheldt. Gaunt spectres of men tottered between the rows of beds; others, still weaker, lounged on their beds, attenuated, pale, hovering between life and death. The medical staff had never heard of the local fever, and had not taken with them either bark or wine. Seven thousand brave men perished owing to this blunder.

There were at this time more than seven thousand miserable French prisoners in the depôts of Plymouth garrison. They were allowed to work (poor pining wretches) at Dartmoor, and sell the produce of their labour. Many who had no trade spent their time in gambling, and played away the very clothes off their backs. A set of these fellows, who were almost naked, were called "the Romans." They had gambled away even their bedding, and slept on the prison floor, huddled together for warmth. The story was that they used to turn sides at night, at the word of command—"Turn one, turn all." There is a tradition of the war time, how two poor Frenchmen, escaping from the San Rafael, swam to a lighter full of powder, overpowered the man on board, ran down through all the ships in Hamoaze, round Drake's Island, and so across the channel, and sold the powder in France for some hundreds of pounds. The old resident, remembers, too, how a prisoner on board the San Rafael imitated a two-pound note with Indian ink, and was sent to Exeter and tried for forgery. The defence was, that he was under the protection of no laws, and had therefore not broken any. He was acquitted.

The press-gangs were the great disgrace and terror of Plymouth in the war times. Our seamen were hunted down like wild beasts, without a chance of redress. Husbands, fathers, brothers, and lovers were torn suddenly from those