HORNBLOWER S
HISTORICAL SHIPMATES
This book sets out the lives of seventeen young gentlemen who were midshipmen under the famous Captain Sir Edward Pellew. Together, aboard the frigate HMS Indefatigable , they fought a celebrated action in 1797 against the French ship of the line Les Droits de lHomme . C. S. Forester, the historical novelist, placed his famous hero, Horatio Hornblower, aboard Pellews ship as a midshipman, so this book tells, as it were, the actual stories of Hornblowers real-life shipmates. And what stories they were! From diverse backgrounds, aristocratic and humble, they bonded closely with Pellew, learned their naval leadership skills from him, and benefited from his patronage and his friendship in their subsequent, very varied careers. The group provides a fascinating snapshot of the later eighteenth-century sailing navy in microcosm. Besides tracing the mens naval lives, the book shows how they adapted to peace after 1815, presenting details of their civilian careers. The colourful lives recounted include those of the Honourable George Cadogan, son of an earl, who survived three courts martial and a duel to retire with honour as an admiral in 1813; Thomas Groube, of a Falmouth merchant family, who commanded a fleet of boats which destroyed the Dutch shipping at Batavia, capital of the Dutch East Indies, in 1806; and James Bray, of Irish Catholic descent, who was killed commanding a sloop during the American war of 1812.
Heather Noel-Smith is a genealogist and a retired Methodist minister. Lorna Campbell is a digital education manager at the University of Edinburgh and an education technology consultant. They are both independent researchers.
To Friends
there shall ever be friendship among the good
Plato, Phaedrus
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements
T HIS book has its origins in a wider research project that initially arose from the authors shared love of HMS Indefatigable s most famous fictional midshipman, Horatio Hornblower, and a mutual fascination with the career of his historical captain, Sir Edward Pellew. Despite the honours Pellew earned during his long and distinguished naval career, the Droits de LHomme engagement still stands as the apotheosis of his career as a fighting captain so it was perhaps unsurprising that we were drawn to this iconic frigate action as the starting point for our archival research. Our original intention was to explore the lives and careers of the commissioned officers of all three ships that fought through the night and the storm off the lee shore of Hodierne Bay on 13 January 1797; the Indefatigable , the Amazon and the Droits de LHomme . However it did not take us long to realise that any one of these officers warranted extensive biographical research in their own right and consequently we narrowed the scope of our research to concentrate on a single ship.
The first young gentleman we focused our attention on was the Honourable George Cadogan. Cadogan had already been the subject of an authoritative biography written in 1989; however, we were intrigued to discover that he had been subjected to three courts martial during the early years of his career, none of which were mentioned in the otherwise comprehensive biography. Cadogan became the subject of our first research paper, The Honourable George Cadogan: A Career in Courts Martial, which we presented at the New Researchers in Maritime History Conference in Glasgow in 2012. It was as a result of this paper that we were approached by Peter Sowden of Boydell & Brewer who invited us to submit the proposal for this book.
One theme that emerged early in our research was the high regard, mutual affection and lasting friendship that bound Pellew and the young gentlemen of the Indefatigable together throughout their careers and later civilian lives. The parallels with the fictional Pellews affection and concern for Hornblower were clear. This should not have been a surprise, of course Pellew was renowned for his patronage of junior officers; however he also had a reputation for avarice and nepotism that arose partially from C. Northcote Parkinsons influential but flawed biography. As the breadth of our research expanded, it became clear that the picture of Pellew that was emerging from the archives and the personal correspondence of his young officers was quite at odds with Parkinsons characterisation of a man who failed to gain the devotion of his officers and men and who was loved by few.
In the course of our archival research, we often found ourselves one step behind the author Stephen Taylor, who we learned was writing a new biography of Pellew. A year into our research, Taylor published his highly regarded biography Commander and we were extremely gratified to discover that he had addressed many of the inaccuracies in Parkinsons 1934 biography and presented a much more balanced picture of Pellew. We immediately contacted Stephen who was interested in and enthusiastic about our research and we would like to thank him for pointing us towards several important sources that we might otherwise have missed.
This work has been undertaken as an independent research project; however we have benefited enormously from the support and encouragement of a wide circle of naval and maritime historians and scholars. In particular we would like to acknowledge the support of Duncan Redford, formerly of the National Museum of the Royal Navy Portsmouth. The Museums research programmes, conferences and seminar series gave us an invaluable opportunity to meet other naval historians and seek input, comment and criticism on our research. We would also like to thank Brian Lavery for pointing us towards the OByrne papers at the British Library, Joanne Begiato for advice on parenting and friendship in the long eighteenth century, Peter Le Fevre, and the irrepressible Port Towns and Urban Cultures research group, for their interest and enthusiasm.
Clearly this research would not have been possible without the help of many librarians and archivists. We would like to thank Kira Charatan, Archivist and Assistant to Lord Chelsea; John Harnden, Herefordshire Archive and Records; Heather Home, Queens University, Ontario; Heather Johnson, National Museum of the Royal Navy Library; Anne-Marie Mazaud, DArchives du Bayonne et du Pays Basque; Anna Petrie, Oxford University Archives; Mary Robertson, The Huntington Library; Martin Salmon, Royal Museums Greenwich; Stuart Tyler, Devon Heritage Centre; and the staff of the British Library and the National Archives.
We would also like to thank all those individuals and institutions who have generously allowed us to use the images that appear in this book, including Muse des Beaux-arts de Brest Mtropole, the National Portrait Gallery, Royal Museums Greenwich, Herefordshire Archive and Records, and Sothebys. In particular we would like to thank Juliet and Phil Barker for the picture of William Wardens memorial, the family of the late George Nicolle for Thomas Groubes headstone, Adam and Giles Quinan for the portrait of John Thomson, and Lord Chelsea for the portrait of George, 3rd Earl Cadogan.
Although this work focuses on the historical officers of HMS Indefatigable , the starting point for this research was their fictional counterpart Horatio Hornblower. This book would not have come about without the inspiration provided by those who have brought Hornblower and his shipmates to life.
