Frigate Commander (11 page)

Again we have an example of Moore endeavouring to provide a balanced regime, introducing a restriction whilst at the same time granting a concession. But it is also important to note that Moore was driven to punish the aforesaid men, not for drunkenness but for the offences that followed as a consequence i.e. mutinous and riotous behaviour. The other real problem associated with drunkenness, and the reason it brought forth punishments, was because at sea it was dangerous and led to accident and injury.

Within days the
Bonetta
sailed for Trinity, where Moore opened the Surrogate Court to hear and rule on civil suits and complaints. He sat despondently listening to a succession of cases, beginning with a merchant captain who complained that the drunken sailors on his ship had caused him a large financial loss, and proceeding to complaints from servants over non-payment of wages, disputes over fishing rights etc. Having dealt with the cases, he closed the court and collected over £100 in Greenwich Hospital money from local merchants. He noted that the Surrogate Court had been warmly welcomed by the poorer residents of the town because

... the poor people are so oppressed by the rich that they are happy to seek even the rough protection of a Sea despot. I however am strongly inclined to think that our law, or rather our courts of law in England are much better calculated for the convenience of the Rich than the protection of the Poor.

Moore responded to this by tearing up the table of fees which he was supposed to charge for hearing cases and which had been given to him by the Chief Justice at St John’s. The fees, he thought,

... fall very heavy on many of the poor people, who are in general destitute of cash, and will be a trifle to the people with whom they have to contend; it may deter the former from having recourse to the Surrogate and consequently encourage the other to cheat and oppress them.

He had already had some experience of the potential inequality and corruption that existed. Local merchants had inundated him with gifts of fresh vegetables and wild duck. He had no hesitation in recognizing this as attempted bribery and was determined to refuse any further offerings.

Moore’s next port of call was Harbour Grace. Here, as soon as the
Bonetta
had dropped anchor, she was besieged by boats carrying people seeking to influence him in cases they wished to bring to the Court. It was not a good sign
; ‘I shall have much trouble at this damned place’
, he noted in his journal. Two days later he opened the Surrogate Court and was deluged with complaints from merchants against debtors, and a smaller number of complaints about
‘oppression’
. For three days he sat hearing cases in the Court Room, by the end of which he was heartily sick of the whole business:
‘I wish the whole town were at the bottom of the sea; for they seem to be a knavish, lousy, pack.’
He also had difficulty collecting the Greenwich Hospital levy. Merchants tried offering him fish in lieu of the money and, although it had been recommended he accept this, he refused:
‘I am no merchant, and the Governor has no right to expect that I am to turn retailer of small wares for Greenwich Hospital.’

The
Bonetta
’s entry into the next port, Cataline, nearly resulted in disaster. Trusting to directions given to him, Moore entered the harbour, hugging the north side of the Channel. As he did so, people began waving frantically at the
Bonetta
from the shore. In alarm, the ship was sheered over to the opposite shore and began taking in her mainsails. As she did so the stern grounded and, for an agonizing period of time, she hung with the stern and rudder striking on rocks. Moore ordered the ship’s stream anchor lowered into a boat and laid out to the southern shore. Fortunately, she was hauled off with little difficulty. Although there seemed to be little damage, a few days later a lump of rock was discovered wedged into the keel and although attempts were made to free it by prodding it with an oar, it remained firmly in place. When the ship left Cataline for St John’s, Moore took the precaution of hiring a local pilot to guide her clear of the harbour.

Moore returned to St John’s hoping to find orders there directing him to escort a convoy back to England. He was disappointed. The
Circe
had been sent instead, and Moore found himself detained in a port he did not like. He attempted to create some form of social circle by inviting officers from the local garrison
³⁴
to dinner on board the
Bonetta
but to his disgust they got hopelessly drunk and he was depressed by the exhibition of the
‘... degradation of humanity, which, wherever the army are, is too prevalent’.
Moore himself stayed sober by passing the bottle. It was not that Moore disapproved of drinking in itself, it was just that he tended to suffer from an excess of it;

I am very fortunate in having a loathing at wine after swallowing about a bottle, as it generally prevents me from excesses which my easy disposition would otherwise expose me to ...
[and the]
certainty I have of sickness all the following day, has prevented me from making a beast of myself.

Moore was particularly depressed by the fact that he had received no mail from home. His father and brother were in France and he was getting anxious about their safety. He could not understand the lack of mail – for his friend Captain Riou had given his mother all the information she needed about getting letters to Newfoundland by way of the ships from Poole. He wanted to go home. Then, on 30 October, a ship arrived from Europe carrying newspapers nearly six weeks old. There was truly shocking news, for in France

‘The Terror’
had begun
. We hear of dreadful excesses having been committed in France. If what is universally said of the conduct of the Parisians is true, they are wretches unworthy to live, and deserve to be hunted down as murtherers and cailiffs. Altho I am certainly an enemy to tyranny and a friend to liberty, yet I do hold in horror and detestation, these sanguinary comedians who now play the principal parts in the horrible farce acting at Paris.

Fortunately, the squadron also received orders to sail for home. The Admiral wasted no time, setting sail within days. Four days out, however, they ran into a heavy gale. The
Bonetta
’s upper works began leaking badly and she soon fell behind the other ships. Moore found himself alone. At 4 o’clock on the morning of 11 November, a tremendous sea crashed over the
Bonetta
’s gangways, almost filling the waist of the ship;

I was in bed at the time, and awakened by hearing it roaring like thunder in upon us; when the sea passed us there was a very terrible silence, I never was happier than to hear the First Lieutenant, who had the watch bellow for the carpenters to knock the half ports out to deliver the water. I ran upon deck in my shirt, but the danger was over, and one good spell at the chain pumps cleared her of what had gone down the hatchways.

By next morning, the weather had moderated and Moore removed two of the deadlights which had been fitted to protect his cabin windows. He soon regretted it as a

... green sea stove in the cabin windows and filled my cabin, bed and every thing full of water.

Such were the perils of a following sea.

On 17 November, the battered
Bonetta
finally sailed past Spithead.

6

Commander at War (November 1792 – February 1794)

While the
Bonetta
was docked for repairs, Moore went to London. He was back at Portsmouth on 30 November, when he received urgent orders to make the
Bonetta
ready for sea with the utmost dispatch. Already the
Assistance
and the
Rattlesnake
, commanded by his friend Joseph Sidney Yorke, had been issued with secret sealed orders and had put to sea. Portsmouth was alive with rumours;

The reason of this bustle is an utter secret, but the general opinion is that we are about to support the Dutch in preventing the opening of the Schelde. Something serious is certainly going forward ...

In London, the militia had been called out and Parliament had been recalled. At Portsmouth, there was frantic activity fitting ships for service, and guardships were waiting for suitable winds to get out of harbour.

By the 4 December, the
Bonetta
had slipped out of harbour and moored at Spithead. Moore now received orders to sail for the Downs and, if there were no orders awaiting him there, to carry on round to the Nore, the naval anchorage off Sheerness. Within hours the
Bonetta
was off of Deal and in the worst gale that Moore had ever experienced, with the serious threat of the Goodwin Sands very close at hand;

Our situation was very dangerous, neither the Master being well acquainted nor myself, with this part of the Channel, the narrowest of any part of the English Channel, with a long winter night and dreadful shoals to leeward of us. I did not go to bed until four yesterday morning, when I took two or three hours rest, but not a wink of sleep. The sea ran very high, and not a man had a dry hammock to turn into, which together with the great exertions our people had made
[to fit the ship in 3 days]
, so completely knocked them up that yesterday at noon we had twenty working men in the sick list.

When the weather moderated they were able to pick up a pilot to see them to the Nore, though they nearly became entrapped by shoals in the Queen’s Channel. The weather had turned bitterly cold and Moore anxiously watched his crew who were
‘jaded off their legs’
. Angrily, he partly blamed this on the poor craftsmanship of the dockyard artificers, as the decks of the
Bonetta
leaked worse than she had before refitting. He felt like complaining but realized that this might further delay their being sent on any profitable active service. Nevertheless
‘... it is a shameful business, and would prove fatal to many of our people if they were not all of them young fellows.’
Equally badly, much of their stores had been left behind with, critically, the surgeon’s medical chest. Around them there were other ships in difficulty and Moore greatly admired the seamen from Margate who ventured out in rough seas carrying anchors and cables to those in need. He thought the Deal men the bravest, as they often put to sea in the worst weather and hardly ever lost a man:

They are accused of being very exorbitant in their demands for services performed [i.e. fees], but they run such risks and do so much good that they deserve to be well paid. I never saw men manage their boats so well.

For the remainder of December, the
Bonetta
was employed ferrying newly raised or impressed seamen from Sheerness to the Downs. Heavy weather set in and the crowded sloop was made additionally uncomfortable. Moore too was suffering:

My cabin is so cold and so constantly damp that I cannot sit in it to read or write with any comfort; the stove amongst other things was left behind at Portsmouth.

To crown it all the ship was woefully short of beer and other provisions.

As if there were not problems enough, Moore’s difficulties with Lieutenant Eaton suddenly resurfaced on Christmas Day, very shortly after he had provided his officers with Christmas dinner. Moore was on the quarterdeck as the ship prepared to sail, when there was a sudden scuffle at the capstan. The ship’s Master hurried to the First Lieutenant, to report that one of the seamen had spoken insolently to a Midshipman supervising at the capstan. Lieutenant Eaton summoned the seaman to the quarterdeck and then turned to Moore saying,

... in a most insolent manner, that as for himself, he had ceased making any complaints, as they were never attended to, and as he found that a foremast man’s word was always taken before his, but that the master had represented to him the insolence of this man and he acquainted me with it; that if he was not punished no duty could be carried on, he added, (with a great deal more stuff, which I have forgotten) that he might do his duty on the Forecastle, or the Top, but he could not carry on his duty as First Lieutenant finding himself unsupported. I was so shocked with this man’s folly and impertinence, that, I was on the point of confining him, but recollecting, that, we were all just risen from table, where we had rather exceeded the usual allowance, I thought he must be flustered with wine, and luckily I had the command of myself to say nothing, but to order the seaman who was half drunk to remain aft. All this harangue of the 1st Lieutenant was in the hearing of all the officers, and of the men who were heaving at the capstern; he had, the whole of the day before, been in perfectly good humour, and I had not the smallest reason to believe that he was dissatisfied with me, nor did I know to what he alluded when he said that his complaints were not attended to. After the ship had got into Margate Roads, I sent for the two lieutenants and the Master, into the Cabin and told the 1st Lieutenant before them that I did not wish to carry matters further than was absolutely necessary but that if ever he should take upon him to treat me in the manner he had thought proper to do that evening, I would undoubtedly take public notice of it. I asked him what part of my conduct he adverted to when he said that his complaints were disregarded, and that a Foremast man’s word was taken before his, he answered, that, when I first came into the ship, upon any complaint being made, I required a great deal of proof of a man’s guilt, before I would punish, and that he had sometimes confined men whom I had not punished, on his representation. I told him that I would pay, and always had, all due attention to any complaint which came from him, or any other officer, but that, I never would punish a man before I had informed myself thoroughly of the merits of the case; and whatever might be his opinion of my conduct, I insisted upon it that he did not inform me of it, in the manner he had done, as it was unlike an officer, disrespectful, and ruinous to the discipline.... This affair has given me much uneasiness, and a complete disgust at the character of the man. ... I now see, that this fellow has all along been sulky with me. Although, I attributed his manner to ill breeding, and a boorish disposition. God knows, if I have erred in my conduct towards him, and the rest of the officers, it has been on the side of indulgence . . . I will do him the justice to say that he is a remarkably good and active seaman, and his exertion in fitting the ship, after I told him it was necessary to be as brisk as possible, were such as did himself great credit, and gave very great satisfaction to me ... By the bye, the Seaman’s crime was merely on the Midshipman crying ‘heave round men’ enforcing what the Midshipman said by ‘you Bug—rs’.