H. M. S. Cockerel (55 page)

A F T E R W O R D

Even more disheartening for the allies of the First Coalition, who had been forced to evacuate Toulon, was the attempted destruction of the French fleet and the naval port facilities on the night of 18 December 1793.

French troops were already in the town and on the hills to the west, overlooking the basin. Nearly 800 convict labourers were free of their chains, and acting like patriots. The log and chain boom across the harbour entrance had been closed. The Spanish, however, and contemporary accounts refer to their desultory performance as “treachery”—of course these are
British
accounts, and they had their noses far out of joint when they wrote them—didn't appear to have tried very hard. Their work at the arsenals and warehouses didn't go well, and damage to the facilities was not as extensive as the fires might have made people believe. And instead of scuttling the
Iris
frigate, crammed with those thousands of barrels of gunpowder, they set fire to her on their hasty way out, which caused the tremendous explosion Lewrie witnessed, which blew the
Union,
a British gunboat nearby, to atoms.

Sir William Sidney Smith tried to enter the basin after firing docked ships and do what the Spanish had shirked, but was driven away by the volume of gunfire. He did burn two more French 74's, but they were condemned hulks, full of French prisoners of war, whom he freed. At last, as his party retired, having done all they could, the
Montreal
frigate, the other powder hulk, blew up with a blast even greater than
Iris.
No one is quite sure how she took light—a French patriot, some mistake by Smith's party, or another pyromaniacal Spaniard who rather thought he'd like to hear something else go “Boom!” that night.

Capt. Sir William Sidney Smith selected himself for the venture, and Capt. Horatio Nelson wrote of his failure to do more damage, saying, “Lord Hood mistook the man: there is an old saying,
great talkers do the least we see.
”
Though Captain Smith later distinguished himself in the Middle East against French troops ashore.

The basin and port were not destroyed, and the French regained the use of many of their ships thought burned. There had been thirty-one ships of the line at Toulon, some in-ordinary, in docks, or being built. Four were sailed away, and only nine of them burned. Toulon held twenty-seven corvettes, brigs of war and frigates. Fifteen were carried off, including
Alceste,
which the Sardinians lost to the French a few years later, five were burned, and seven left to the Republicans. Some ships on stocks were not burned at all, and the shipyards were back in business soon after.

The worst part of the defeat at Toulon, though, was the loss of civilian lives after the Coalition cut and ran, breaking their solemn promises to safeguard the Royalist sympathisers. The fleet did carry off 14,877 of them, but could not find places aboard ships for more.

At the last, as the rear-guard troops, British, Spanish and Neapolitans, broke and ran when French troops pushed forward, the thousands of people left behind, soldiers and civilians, dashed to the quays and the shores. They waded out, imploring the last boats to save them. They were cut down, shot down, or ruthlessly bayoneted by victorious Republican troops. Some accounts say hundreds, others thousands, died in the last hours, or drowned trying to swim after the boats or out to a ship.

Général Dugommier protested, it is written (though Napoléone Buonaparte did not), as the Republican deputies set up their guillotines, ending up executing, by their enthusiastic accounts, a brisk 200 a day. Toulon paid for its sin; in the end, it is thought, over 6,000 civilian Toulonese lost their lives one way or another. Men, women
and
children.

Joseph Conrad wrote a novel,
The Rover,
which concerned the fate of the Royalists, featuring a young girl driven mad by the Terror, the slaughter, the permanent exile of those unfortunate
émigrés
driven overseas to any port that would have them, like storm petrels, of families and loved ones forever separated by sailing on different ships to disparate corners of the earth. If you can find it in the classics section, read the tale of poor, mad Arlette, victim of the Revolution. And of Toulon.

Lady Emma Hamilton, indeed, could never resist a sailor. After he first met her in 1793, Horatio Nelson was perhaps more besotted by Emma than most biographers suspect—or care to admit. Did he, or did he not, that early? After his stunning victory at the Battle of the Nile, Emma threw herself at his feet, and he gladly picked her up. They remained lovers, public or professional opinions be-damned, until his death in 1805 on
Victory
's
quarterdeck at the Battle of Trafalgar.

Emma Hamilton was a sad case; she really did think of all those men, who'd used her then cast her aside, as her true, long-time friends and mentors. And we believe the depiction herein of this deluded lady is correct, especially Emma Hamilton's desire to tag onto the coattails of powerful and influential men and bask in their reflected, shared glories.

By the way, what Charles Greville paid for, that Fetherstonehaugh would not, was a baby, left in foster-care at Neston, and never reclaimed—by either parent.

There was a
Sans Culottes
in the French Navy, but she didn't keep that name for long. Originally the
Dauphin-Royal,
she was a 120-gun 1st Rate. Cooler heads prevailed at last, the wily politicians who took over the French Revolution from the wild-eyed radicals and might have been a touch embarrassed by the earlier revolutionaries' fervour. She became the
Orient,
and served as the ill-fated Admiral de Brueys's flagship at the Battle of the Nile, where she burned and blew up in 1797, prompting that horridly sentimental poem, “The Boy Stood on The Burning Deck, whence all but he had fled” . . . or something like that. Imagine, if you will, a proud and noble forty-four-gun frigate of the fledgling United States Navy being christened USS
Tory Thumper,
and picture how quickly one might wish to thump the man who so named her up-side the head. Then get on to something more suitable, such as
Constitution.

Lastly, before anyone gets exceeding wroth with the author and wastes postage or toll charges upon irate phone calls or scathing diatribes, allow him to plead dramatic license. Capt. William Bligh was still at Jamaica, having just delivered his breadfruit, at long last, in the Indiaman
Providence.
There was no way he could have been in London, nor at the Admiralty, to meet our boy Lewrie in late January 1793. You know this. The author, more to the point, knows this. But since mutiny, revolution and all were indeed the spirit of the age, Bligh's appearance in the tale neatly foreshadows that which came later aboard
Cockerel,
and in France and at Toulon. There, satisfied, now? Besides, it was a slow morning for the author, too, when he wrote that, and he couldn't help himself.

So, there is Cdr. Alan Lewrie, master and commander into a proper King's Ship, husband, father, lover, scared so bad he would not trust his own arse with a fart . . . ! What will Sophie de Maubeuge say to Caroline in future? How will he juggle wife and family on one hand, and the stunning Phoebe Aretino on the other? Will it last? Will the kitten
ever
stop nuzzling his ear, or catch a mouse? Will Alan retain the good opinion people seem to have of him, at the moment, anyway?

Most importantly, what sort of adventures . . . and troubles . . . will he get into next? We think we know . . . but we're not telling. Yet.