Frigate Commander (2 page)

This cautious nature was equally present in Graham. However, whereas John appears to have been idolized by his father regardless of this characteristic, Graham received criticism for the same. In fact there is some evidence that Dr Moore regarded Graham as ‘too good’ i.e. ‘soft’ or ‘nice’, for a career in the navy. Certainly he may have looked upon Graham’s bookish interests, and romantic leanings, as contrary to the robust nature necessary for success in the Georgian navy.

During one particular bout of depression during 1798, while Graham was in the process of accumulating some success as a frigate commander, he pondered upon what would happen to his journal if he were killed, and what would be the response of his parents upon reading it. He realized firstly and pragmatically that it would reduce his mother to tears. But also,

My Father too, who sees me with so partial an eye, will see here more than perhaps he might wish, fondly thinking me worthier than he would find me; but my friend Currie of Liverpool
[see below]
, who loves me as ‘if I had given him stuff to make him love me’, what will he say of his departed friend? He will say and he will think, this fellow has not made the most of himself. But my dear Currie, who has? This fellow Graham Moore, was in many things as weak as water.
⁴

There is some evidence that Dr Moore’s attitude towards Graham may have damaged his son’s self-confidence and left him with an underlying feeling of unworthiness. It is certainly true that Graham always felt inferior to John. Among the surviving family correspondence, for example, there are very few letters from Graham to his father but there is a curious one written in December 1795, when Graham was Captain of the frigate
Syren
. It refers to his hope of meeting John at Portsmouth:

... It will be a joyfull meeting to me with a brother whom I esteem as much as I love him. I think him a better man for the country than myself and I am well pleased it should be so rather than that he should come down to my level, although that would not lower him much
⁵
.

One could quite reasonably have expected a degree of resentment to develop between the two brothers but, on the contrary, Graham idolized his elder brother and probably attempted to emulate John’s ‘style’. In turn, John seems to have been very protective towards his sibling.

By 1777, a place had been secured for Graham as Midshipman on board the fourth-rate 60-gun
Medway
commanded by Captain Phillip Affleck, and he was sent out to join her at Menorca. By January 1780, he had transferred to the third-rate 64-gun
Trident
in the West Indies; however, his new position was not a happy one. He wrote home to his mother, expressing some dissatisfaction at the treatment he was receiving from his new Captain, Captain Anthony James Pye Molloy.
⁶
It is possible that Dr Moore found in this another example of his younger son’s weakness, but John came to his defence:

Midshipmen are often raised from common seamen & Capt
[ains]
of Men of War who are not the mildest people, continue to treat Gentlemen in the same manner, which can’t help being disagreeable ...
⁷

Seemingly days later, Graham was present in his first fleet action when a British squadron under Admiral Byron engaged the French fleet under D’Estaing. There was no news of Graham after the action and John, serving in North America, appended a concerned note to his letter home, perhaps hoping to prick Dr Moore’s conscience:

as they have had few killed & wounded I hope he has escaped, he is so young that I think even a wound would be dangerous.
⁸

Graham had indeed survived the engagement, though his personal record of the event has not. His experience was not limited at this stage to combat. In October 1780, the
Trident,
together with the other ships of a squadron under Rear Admiral Rowley, was caught by a hurricane off St Domingo. Several ships, including the
Trident
, were dismasted, and the 74-gun
Thunderer
disappeared without trace. The year 1780 must have been a memorable one for the sixteen-year-old Midshipman. Later that year the
Trident
returned to England, and Graham found himself serving in the Channel Fleet, happily closer to home.

The Moore family had moved to London in 1778, and by this time the family had moved into an elegant town house in Clifford Street, just off New Bond Street. It was to this house that both Graham and John were to return whenever they were able, until a few years after Dr Moore’s death. Clifford Street was close to the centre of fashionable society, and it gave the Moores ample opportunity of meeting and mixing with the great and the good of Georgian London – as will become evident.

In March 1782, Graham sat and passed his Lieutenant’s examination, and he was appointed as Fourth Lieutenant of the
Crown
, a third-rate ship commanded by Captain Samuel Reeve. In September 1782, the
Crown
was part of Howe’s fleet, sent to escort a convoy of transports carrying stores to Gibraltar, which was under siege from a combined French and Spanish force. On 10 October, they encountered an enemy fleet in the Straits of Gibraltar and an inconclusive action followed after days of manoeuvring. Moore recorded the events of these few days in a journal which has not survived, although extracts are included in Gardiner’s
Memoir
. Unfortunately, the extant account is too impersonal to convey anything more than the official histories. However, shortly thereafter, Graham was promoted to Third Lieutenant of the
Crown
.

With the end of the war against America and her allies, Moore found himself as a junior Lieutenant in a shrinking navy. The number of officers receiving promotion fell to almost nil, and with it declined any reasonable prospect of career advancement. Only another war could improve this situation – and there seemed little chance of this occurring. The
Crown
appears to have been decommissioned and Moore returned to London. After consultation with his father, it was agreed that he should travel to France, to spend some time there completing his education and, in particular, acquiring a strong grasp of the French language. In a note at the beginning of his journal, Graham adds wryly that one of the other aims of the sojourn was
‘of making what other improvements I could’
.

Within the year he was back in London once again, eager for active service. It is at this point that the surviving journals begin.

Graham Moore’s Journal

‘... as to a companion, it is what I do not look for, it is so rare. A Captain is well off if he has those with him who are tolerably able and willing to do their duty, and who are not Blackguards. The void, the Besoin, I feel for something more, drives me to this journal, where I sometime amuse myself in tracing a thought. I find it difficult, however, to give to this irregular work the life and spirit of my familiar letters, from its being addressed to no body, and from its being intended to be kept almost exclusively to myself during my life. Perhaps I may draw amusement and some instruction from the perusal of this Hodge Podge, the former part of which I have not seen since it was written; indeed I never keep more of it than the book I am writing with me, sending them to a place of security as fast as the Books are filled up. This, with a man of genius, would be the true way to “catch the Manners living as they rise” ...’

Graham Moore, September 1796

Moore’s Journal is held in the collection of the Manuscripts Department in the Library at the University of Cambridge and it is shelf-marked under the reference Add. 9303. The journal consists of thirty-seven bound volumes, each written in Moore’s clear, reasonably neat handwriting. Chronologically the journal begins towards the end of 1784, some two years after he had been promoted to Lieutenant, and when he was twenty years old. From comments he makes in a later volume, it is clear that he attempted to keep a journal before this time, but never managed to maintain it. In fact, the first extant volume of the journal appears to consist of a reused volume from an earlier time in his life, as a large number of pages have been cut from the volume, and it has been reversed so that the current contents could be inserted. It is also evident that he purchased a number of blank volumes whenever he was due to go to sea, in theory sufficient to see him through any particular voyage. Although he clearly attempted to keep the volumes uniform, this was not always possible, and sometimes the dimensions of the volumes, quality of paper etc varies. On completion of a volume, he would dispatch or deliver it into his mother’s safekeeping, with instructions that it should not be read until after his death, whenever that might occur.

Certainly, after his death, the journal was read by Major General Robert Gardiner, because he quotes selectively from it in his
Memoir
. Tucked inside one of the volumes there is also a later letter from the Rev. William James, vicar of the parish of Cobham in Surrey, to Moore’s widow, Lady Moore, thanking her for allowing him access to the work. The journal was also read, prior to 1963, by someone, as extracts relating to Moore’s time at Cobham were published in the Surrey Archaeological Society Collections. One reader has inserted some page references inside the rear cover of many of the journals – fortunately in soft pencil. The problem with these references is that they reflect the subjective interest of that reader and are of very limited value to other researchers.

At some point in time, some significant excisions have been made from the journals. It is very clear that, at times, Moore allowed himself to express views on paper which, upon reflection, he did not wish to share with anyone. Paragraphs, and sometimes even pages, have been heavily scrawled through in what appears to be the same pen and ink used by the originator. However, a certain number of pages and part-pages have also been cut out of the volumes, suggesting censorship at a later time by a family member. These excisions are, of course, extremely regrettable, as they suggest that Moore was expressing views which were either very personal or which were controversial in some way. This is certainly the case in one example where he had clearly committed to paper strong views about his senior officer; the discovery of these views could have seriously blighted his career, and it is therefore understandable why Moore should, in the cooler light of another day, have decided to obliterate any dangerous statements. There are also occasions when the entries in the journal cease for a period. These gaps are always explained. For example, there are many gaps when Graham is in London, and an account of his activities is sometimes given in retrospect when he returns to his ship. This reinforces the idea that he used the journal as a substitute for society, whilst at sea. On other occasions his musings were simply banished by the impossibility of applying pen to paper in rough weather, as on 30 October 1793, when an exasperated Moore notes:

... The ship is rolling about so much that I can write no more.

In spite of Graham’s strictures about the privacy of his diary, he admits that he has given his father permission to read the journal – this being around the middle of 1797. Whether this permission was granted under pressure or not, we cannot be certain, but it is clear that Graham was unhappy about it being read, because

... it is written at all times, in all humours and in different situations, there are ignorances and weaknesses displayed which I would rather keep behind the curtains during my life, but which I do not wish should be concealed after my death.
⁹

Conventions

Given the extent of the original journals, selective editing has been unavoidable and has necessitated a degree of narrative intervention, the aim being to enable the reader to follow the events as they occurred – sometimes adding information or comments which explain or put into context what is being recorded. Nevertheless, this book follows the chronological progress of the journals, and the quoted extracts follow in the sequence as written by their author. Those used to working on contemporary source material will already be aware of the stylistic eccentricities of writers of this period. For the uninitiated I should explain that punctuation and capitalization were often random, and of course, spelling and names have often changed over the past 200 years. I have therefore changed what appear to be genuine spelling mistakes – though there are very few of these – simply to make the quotations easier to read, but I have usually retained what appear to be eighteenth-century forms of spelling, and period place names. On the other hand, where I have made an editorial insertion, said insertion appears in square brackets.

Following modern convention, the names of all ships are italicized. Occasionally throughout the text some ships, especially those larger than a frigate, appear with a number following either in parentheses; this relates to the number of cannon carried on board the vessel.

1

Smuggling Patrol – HMS Perseus (1784 – January 1786)

For the vast majority of naval officers – i.e. those who did not attend the Naval Academy at Portsmouth – there was no formal training in the skills, techniques and knowledge that were required to command a ship of war. Such training as there was took the form of observation of senior officers with whom one served. ‘Young Gentlemen’ were quickly broken into shipboard life, an experience which many officers later recorded as being a rather shattering experience. They were then put through the rigours of a basic training which involved hands-on experience of learning about the rigging and the practical activities of running a ship. By the time they were midshipmen, many of these potential officers were aware of the duties that were required of an officer and, in frigates in time of war, it was not unknown for midshipmen to undertake the watch-keeping duties normally required of a lieutenant. Moore received a grounding in these experiences, but it was really only when he was appointed as a commissioned Lieutenant that his development as an officer began.